November 28, 2003
November 26, 2003
Putnam update (again)
Yahoo! has the story
NEW YORK - Corporate money continues to flee from embattled Putnam Investments, the Marsh & McLennan Cos. subsidiary caught up in regulators' mutual-fund probe.Thomson Corp., an electronic-publishing company with $7.5 billion in 2002 revenue from continuing operations, is the latest to announce that it is withdrawing money from Putnam's funds.
Thomson joins a slew of other companies, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Revlon Inc. and Interpublic Group of Cos., which have severed some or all investment ties with Putnam, the nation's fifth-largest mutual-fund company. State pension funds and individual investors have also pulled out money.
The defections have brought Putnam's assets as of last Friday to $247 billion, down 11 percent, or $30 billion, from three weeks earlier.
n an e-mail dated Nov. 24, but sent out to Thomson employees Tuesday, Thomson said it would remove the Putnam International Equity Fund from its 401(k) plan in December. The fund has been implicated in the ongoing scandal over rapid-fire trading, or market timing, which can hurt long-term investors.
I present to you...drum roll....The Spam Counter!
OK, that wasn't as hard as I was expecting it to be....you'll notice over there on the right is a new little counter! it's a modified version of a cgi script I found at htmlgoodies.com.
Basically, it's copied verbatim, but the part of the script that opens the count file, increments the value stored there, and closes the file is commented out.
I run Communigate Pro on a SuSe 7.3 Linux system. Expensive? yes, for a home user ($500 for Communigate). Worth it? ABSO-FRICKIN-LUTELY!
My new hosting provider (Total Choice Hosting) runs SpamAssassin.
SpamAssassin(tm) is a mail filter to identify spam.Using its rule base, it uses a wide range of heuristic tests on mail headers and body text to identify "spam", also known as unsolicited commercial email.
SpamAssassin can optionally rewrite the headers of the emails it identifies as spam.
Once my Communigate Pro server RPOPs my email, an installed rule on the server moves all marked spam to a special "spamfolder." Any email that gets through the spam filters I'll move manually over the spamfolder (after reporting the abuse through SpamCop, of course).
I wrote a very small shell script that's kicked off by cron every 6 hours that counts the number of occurences of "Return-Path" in the plain-text spamfolder.mbox file where my email is stored on my server.
The script then ftp's that file to my weblog's counter, and viola, the spam counter!
I don't like the digits that are displayed on the counter (I think they're too small and blend in with the background too much), so I'll probably work on that later.
Spam counter to be added
This is gonna be fun! Congress is passing an anti-spam bill, but I'm betting that spam will continue to increase. So, as an exercise in my programming skills, and for shear amusement value, I'm going to be tracking the number of spam/UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Emails) I receive.
I'm going to begin working on the counter in the coming weeks and will reset it to zero beginning January 01, 2004. Let's see if the "CAN-SPAM" bill works. Anyone wanna place a little wager on it?
BTW, I'm copying an idea I saw over at The BradLands.
I don't know how he's doing it, but I've got some ideas of my own for tying this into my mail system at the house.
November 25, 2003
Dell stops using India call centers for corporate customers
metafilter's got two links about a story running on Fox News and The Miami Herald where Dell has made the (IMHO) wise decision to re-route support calls from their corporate customers back to American call centers.
Notable quotes:
Some U.S. customers have complained that the Indian technical-support representatives are difficult to communicate with because of thick accents and scripted responses."Customers weren't satisfied with the level of support they were receiving, so we're moving some calls around to make sure they don't feel that way anymore," Weisblatt said. He would not discuss the nature of the dissatisfaction with the call center in Bangalore.
Among Dell customers dissatisfied with the company's use of overseas labor is Ronald Kronk, a Presbyterian minister in Rochester, Pa., who has spent the last four months trying to solve a problem that resulted in his being billed for two computers. The problem, he said, is that the Dell call center is in India.
"They're extremely polite, but I call it sponge listening — they just soak it in and say, `I can understand why you're angry,' but nothing happens," Kronk said.
November 24, 2003
Time Magazine's cover history
The Slacktivist has a link to Time Magazine's coversearch. See what the cover was during the week you were born!
Here's mine:
August 26, 1966
Congress passes anti-spam bill that will do nothing
Yahoo! is running a story about the new anti-spam legislation.
Here's the gist of it:
1) no misleading subject lines
2) no false return addresses (ie, no spoofing)
3) no harvesting addresses off web sites
4) must provide working opt-out
5) FTC will establish a "do not spam" registry similar to the do not call registry already in place
6) up to 5 years in prison and fines of 2 million dollars
Jeff's rant:
this won't do squat to stem the tide of spam into my email box. Since this is opt-out legislation, the spammers are still free to add my email address to all their lists, over and over and over, and I'm required to opt-out of every freakin' one of them. Every time they set up a new list, I get added. They're within the letter of the law, technically, assuming they don't violate any of the other provisions.
I voiced my opinion to my congress people that the better solution was an "opt-in" requirement. An opt-in list works this way:
1) the spammer adds your email address to their list
2) their list software sends you a "confirmation" email
3) if you WANT to listen to their endless pitches about Viagra, illegal cable descramblers, kiddie pr0n, anti-depressants, and (ironically) anti-spam software, you click the link in the email confirming you want their "marketing newsletters."
4) if you don't confirm (opt-in), they can't send you more spam
Of course, there are problems with the opt-in approach too. The spammer can include his spam inside the opt-in confirmation email, but deleting these spamming opt-ins makes much more sense than me having to opt-out of every stupid list they put me on.
When is our congress going to start listening to US, the people that put them there, instead of the big contributors to their pocket linings such as the "Direct Marketing Association"?
Prison sentences and fines are great, but first, you have to catch them. Successful litigation of spammers has been sketchy at best. Earlier in the year Earthlink won a judgement against one of the most notorious spammers, the "Buffalo Spammer," but, to my knowledge, has yet to collect a dime of the 16.4 million judgement.
another round of bad news for Putnam Investments
The company I work for uses Putnam Investments for our 401(k)s. Since the accusations earlier in the year of misconduct and unethical (some fund managers engaged in "market timing," basically, buying and selling fund shares very quickly to take advantage of stale market prices; market timing is not illegal, but is considered "on the fringe" of unethical) trading, everybody has been putting the "marketing" spin on it, assuring everybody involved, that everything will be OK.
I received a letter from my employer that, if you boiled all of the marketing-speak and smoke-blowing out of it, came out to "we're monitoring the situation."
I received a letter from Putnam last week, again boiling all the marketing-speak out of it, that amounted to "we're sorry. We've let those fund managers go, it'll never happen again, blah, blah, blah."
Thursday, Merck & Co, said it would no longer offer Putnam funds to its employees who have 401(k) retirement plans.
California Public Employee's Retirement System and the Oregon Investment Council fired Putnam as the manager of their funds jointly totalling about $1.7 billion in assets.
Putnam announced last week that it would "reimburse clients to settle federal charges of improper trading." That's all well and good, and I appreciate the company that takes responsibility for the actions of it's employees, but what assurances do I have that it'll never happen again?
November 23, 2003
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
the new trailer for the movie is here.
It's not scheduled for release until June 4, 2004, though, and this is just the theatrical teaser.
November 21, 2003
Cyber Sweep Nets 125 Arrests
from Wired News:
WASHINGTON -- Attorney General John Ashcroft said Thursday that law-enforcement agents had arrested 125 suspects in a crackdown on Internet crimes ranging from hacking and software piracy to credit card fraud and selling stolen goods over the Internet.The investigation, begun Oct. 1 and dubbed Operation Cyber Sweep, involved police from Ghana to Southern California and uncovered 125,000 victims who had lost more than $100 million, he told a news conference. Seventy indictments to date have led to arrests or convictions of 125 people, with more expected as the probe continues.
"The information superhighway should be a conduit for communication, information and commerce, not an expressway for crime," Ashcroft said.
Those arrested stand charged with a variety of crimes that highlight the innumerable scams and criminal acts that now take place online.
‘‘Online criminals assume that they can conduct their schemes with impunity," Ashcroft said. ‘‘Operation Cyber Sweep is proving them wrong, by piercing the criminals' cloak of anonymity and prosecuting them to the fullest extent of the law."
The cases range from a Virginia woman who sent fake e-mails to America Online customers asking them to update their credit card numbers to a disgruntled Philadelphia Phillies fan who hacked into computers nationwide and launched spam e-mails criticizing the baseball team.
Many are accused of selling stolen or nonexistent goods online, a leading cybercrime category. Suspects fenced stolen goods through online auction sites like eBay, set up phony escrow services to handle payments, and touted fraudulent investment clubs through slick websites, according to a summary of cases provided by the Department of Justice.
Suspects also stole classified files from government computers, hacked into business computers to steal customers' credit card numbers, disabled computers running child-abuse hotlines, and sold counterfeit software or computer-memory chips, the Justice Department said.
It said one California man continued to send online death threats to a Canadian who he thought was sending him spam e-mail even after authorities asked him to stop.
U.S. Secret Service agents worked with foreign law enforcers to track down suspects who operated across international borders, leading to the arrest of a Romanian man who they said bilked some $500,000 from online auction participants.
Authorities in Ghana and Nigeria also helped track down suspects and recover millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains.
The crackdown stemmed from indications that Internet fraud continues to rise. The Internet Fraud Complaint Center, run in part by the FBI, referred some 58,000 complaints to law enforcement in the first nine months of 2003 -- compared with 48,000 for all of 2002.
Chief Postal Inspector Lee Heath said many suspects were simply transferring time-honored scams to the Internet.
"We'd like to say it's just old wine in a new bottle," he said.
Federal agents said they had not yet found the perpetrators of the Blaster worm and SoBig e-mail virus that disabled millions of computers this summer, but had gained some valuable leads, thanks to a reward program set up by Microsoft.
A similar cybercrime sweep in the first half of the year led to 135 arrests.
Reuters and AP contributed to this report.
Clay Aiken - Neutered?
Metafilter's got a link to one of the new PETA ads featuring Triumph The Insult Dog.
“Get Neutered—It Didn’t Hurt Clay Aiken,” snips Triumph the Insult Comic Dog in a new PETA ad aimed at the widespread problem of dog and cat overpopulation. The foulmouthed-but lovable-dog puppet is best known as a regular guest on Late Night With Conan O'Brien. In his PETA ad, Triumph wears a “post-surgery” Elizabethan collar and chomps on his trademark cigar as he takes aim at the high-ranging American Idol contestant.
You can buy Triumph's new CD and DVD Come Poop With Me
Or, you can poop on your favorite (or not so favorite) webites with Triumph here
UPDATE: looks like PETA pulled the ad from their website, but here's a copy of the press release:
TRIUMPH THE INSULT COMIC DOG DUMPS ON CLAY AIKEN IN PETA’S NEW PRO-NEUTER ADFor Immediate Release:
November 12, 2003Contact:
Michael McGraw 757-622-7382New York — "Get Neutered—It Didn’t Hurt Clay Aiken," snips Triumph the Insult Comic Dog in a new PETA ad aimed at the widespread problem of dog and cat overpopulation. The foulmouthed—but lovable—dog puppet is best known as a regular guest on Late Night With Conan O’Brien. In his PETA ad, Triumph wears a "post-surgery" Elizabethan collar and chomps on his trademark cigar as he takes aim at the high-ranging American Idol contestant.
Triumph—whose new CD/DVD Come Poop With Me has just been released—might crack a lot of jokes about parting with his private parts, but there’s nothing funny about the consequences of not having cats and dogs spayed or neutered. Animal shelters are bursting at the seams with homeless dogs and cats, many of whom must be put to death because suitable homes cannot be found. Spaying and neutering saves lives and is the most important thing that companion-animal guardians can do to help dogs and cats. By preventing animals from being born and subsequently abandoned or given away to irresponsible people, spaying and neutering prevents needless suffering and death.
Furthermore, sterilized dogs and cats are healthier. Neutered males often make for more compatible companions and cannot develop testicular cancer, and spayed females have a significantly lower risk of mammary cancer and no possibility of developing ovarian cancer.
"Triumph’s big mouth may rub some people the wrong way, but his message in our new spay/neuter ad is right on the money," says PETA Director Daphna Nachminovitch. "It’s a case where a ‘stitch in time saves nine’—or 90—unwanted animals from a life of misery."
PETA chose to target Clay Aiken because he recently told Rolling Stone, "I think cats are Satan. There’s nothing worse to me than a house cat. When I was about 16, I had a kitten and ran over it." PETA deals with dozens of cases of cruelty to cats every week and knows firsthand how damaging statements like this can be—impressionable kids often mimic what their "idols" do. Aiken never responded when PETA wrote to him.
For more information, please visit PETA’s Web site HelpingAnimals.com.
And, I found a picture of the ad!
Conference Calls: excuse for nudity and websurfing
Boing Boing has a link to a an article about an international survey that
reveals that nudity and inattention are astonishingly common among particpants in conference callls.
from the article itself:
CHICAGO (Wireless Flash) -- What are workers really doing during conference calls? A new survey shows most of the time, they're not paying attention to their colleagues.The RoperASW/Tandberg poll looked at workers in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, Norway and Hong Kong, and found in all countries except America and Norway, less than half of workers pay full attention during audio conferences.
So what are they doing instead? Twenty-nine percent of British workers say they doodle, while 22 percent of Germans surf the web. Twenty percent of Americans say they have side conversations with someone else during conference calls.
It gets weirder: 22 percent of Hong Kong workers admit they weren't fully dressed during their last teleconference, while 14 percent of them were doing their makeup or hair.
Finally, seven percent of Americans admit they've left a call early -- the highest percentage out of all the countries surveyed.
What does the "YKK" on zippers stand for?
from Ask Yahoo!
Dear Donna:
Those mysterious marking etched on the zippers of many of the clothing items you own are little more than the name of the top manufacturer of zippers.
arrests made
At New York's Kennedy Airport today, an individual later discovered to
be a public school teacher was arrested trying to board a flight while
in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square and a calculator.
Authorities believe he is a member of the notorious al-Gebra movement.
He is being charged with carrying weapons of math instruction
November 20, 2003
IronPort to acquire SpamCop
from InfoWorld:
E-mail security hardware maker IronPort Systems Inc. will announce next week that it is buying anti-spam company SpamCop for an undisclosed sum, according to information obtained by the IDG News Service.The deal, which is scheduled to be announced on Nov. 25, will call for IronPort to invest more than $1 million in SpamCop, helping to keep that service running, according to sources close to the company. Company officials declined to discuss the matter Wednesday.
...
November 19, 2003
New Blogroll on Clack
I've added a blogroll just so you can know what crap I'm reading on a (n almost) daily basis.
I got tired of futzing around with the blogroll MT plugin and never having any luck getting it to work, so I went googleing.
I started with King of Fool's instructions on how to do it within Moveable Type:
Step 1: Create a New Weblog Movable Type allows multiple weblogs. From the Main Menu, select Create New Weblog and name it Blogroll.Step 2: Remove Unneeded Templates
Select the Templates button and remove all defined templates except for Main Index.Step 3: Modify the Index Template
Edit Main Index template and set the Output file to 'blogroll.html'. Replace the Template Body with the template shown below: [remove the spaces after each < below!]< MTCategories>
< !-- CATEGORY TITLE -->
< h3 class="blogroll_title">
< $MTCategoryDescription$>
< /h3>
< div class="blogroll_section">< !-- ENTRIES -->
< MTEntries sort_by="title" sort_order="ascend">
< div class="blogroll_entry">< !-- LINK -->
< A HREF="< $MTEntryBody$>" alt="< $MTEntryTitle$>" target="_blank">
< $MTEntryTitle$>
< /a>
< /div>< /MTEntries>
< /div>
< /MTCategories>
*You will want to either add the new classed (blogroll_title, blogroll_section & blogroll_entry) to the stylesheet for your blog or modify this template to use styles you have already defined.
Step 4: Define Template Categories
This is required, even if you just want your blogroll in one category. Create each category and be sure to add a category description. The blogroll sorts the categories by name but displays the description instead. The reason for this is to allow the categories to be displayed in an order other than alphabetical.Step 5: Add Blogroll Entries
This is as simple as adding New Entries to the Blogroll Weblog. The title should be the name of the site you are linking through. The content should contain the URL (site address) including the leading http://. Here is a very useful sample which you will probably want to add anyways:Title: King of Fools
Entry Body:http://king-of-fools.comStep 6: Add the Blogroll to Your Blog Template
Determine which page types should include the blogroll. For each of those templates, add the following line at the place where the blogroll should appear:< $MTInclude file="blogroll.html"$>
That is all that is required. Maintaining the blogroll is as simple as adding, editing and deleting entries in the Blogroll Weblog. It must be noted that whenever the blogroll is changed, it is necessary to rebuild the primary blog so the modified blogroll.html is incorporated into your site.
If you have questions or issues with this, feel free to contact me. My next technical article will show how to use the same method to manage an Amazon Associates reading list (like the one located in the bar to the right). UPDATE: I failed to mention that it is important to set the Default Text Formatting for the blogroll weblog to None.
Now, not being completely satisfied with the results (I wanted to include the RSS feed too, if there was one), I surfed over to dylan.tweney.com's site and found out that by including the RSS feed URL in the Extended Entry field, and adding a line to the Main Index template from King Of Fools, I could get what I wanted!
My main index template for my blogroll blog looks like this (remove the spaces after the <'s!):
< MTCategories>
< !-- CATEGORY TITLE -->
< h3 class="blogroll_title">
< $MTCategoryDescription$>
< /h3>
< div class="blogroll_section">
< !-- ENTRIES -->
< MTEntries sort_by="title" sort_order="ascend">
< div class="blogroll_entry">
< !-- LINK -->
< A HREF="< $MTEntryBody$>" alt="< $MTEntryTitle$>" target="_blank">
< $MTEntryTitle$>
< /a>
< MTEntryIfExtended> : < a title="XML-RSS feed" href="< $MTEntryMore convert_breaks="0"$>">RSS< /a>< /MTEntryIfExtended>
< /div>
< /MTEntries>
< /div>
< /MTCategories>
NOTE! If you try this on your own blog, be sure to set the Default Text Formatting for the blogroll weblog to NONE! and be sure, when you post to the blogroll blog, to set the Text Formatting to NONE!
Credit Card Pranks
Before anybody gets excited, no, there is no credit card hacking information here!
from RandomThoughts: Credit Card Pranks
In my lifetime, I have made nearly 15,000 credit card transactions. I purchase almost everything on plastic. What bugs me about credit card transactions is the signing. Who checks the signature? Nobody checks the signature.Credit card signatures are a useless mechanism designed to make you feel safe, like airport security checks. So my question was, how crazy would I have to make my signature before someone would actually notice? Here is the actual signature on my credit card:
..
You can see that I already have the signature of a monkey on crack. Here is the way it looks when I don't have to sign in a space one-quarter of an inch high:
..
I am an arteest, and my signature must reflect that. But how arteestic could I get before someone will notice?
What a blippin' pain in the butt
Those that know anything about my computer setup at home know I'm seriously proud of it.
The cornerstone of my setup is a dedicated machine running an AMD 1.2GHZ Athlon with 392MB of RAM and almost a terabyte (yes, that's correct) of disk space. It's running Suse Linux 8.1 and is almost embarrassingly stable.
The reason for this machine is to pull shows that my ReplayTV 5040 (upgraded to 160GB disk) off nightly and archive them using DVArchive.
My RAID on this machine is a software RAID 5, built from 160GB Western Digital drives.
A couple of weeks ago, I was poking around in the kernel log messages and noticed that a drive had failed and the RAID was running in a degraded mode. Not a problem since streaming NTSC video isn't nearly as intensive as you'd think, especially when it's MPEG compressed.
I popped another drive in the box, and let the RAID start rebuilding. About half-way through the rebuild, though, the alarms start going off. ANOTHER drive had failed. RAID 5 can sustain a single drive failure, but two drives...nuh uh..no way...no how...ain't gonna happen.
I've had this happen before...same circumstances. So, I'm fed up. I bought an LSI MegaRAID i4 controller from amazon and resigned myself to having a smaller raid. This RAID controller is sweet! Four integrated controllers, each supporting up to two drives. The RAID is handled in the BIOS of the controller, so all the OS sees is one great big drive.
Had to get a haircut this morning, so while I was out, I swung by Best Buy. Picked up a couple of Maxtor 160GB drives to replaced the failed WD drives ($159.00/ea). I'm done with Western Digital. These two drives are the third and fourth 160GB drives I've had go bad.
November 18, 2003
Bad Marketer! Bad!
Best Buy just sent me an email full of advertisements for the newest music and movies at their store. In doing so they’ve made a variety of marketing mistakes.First of all, they didn’t do a good job of segmenting their marketing efforts. I’ve never bought a media item from Best Buy. I’ve never bought a CD player or DVD player from them. I’ve never even looked at music or movies on their Web site. So why would they lead their email with media? I can understand that they might be trying to push me toward shopping for new product lines, but it would be far better to advertise items that I’ve shown interest in. Then they could add media items into the advertisement. I’m much more likely to read the ad it if it contains things I like.
I was a bit surprised to see the email because I don’t recall giving them my email address. I certainly didn’t ask for marketing offers from them. Then I see at the bottom of the email "You received this e-mail because you have provided information to us in the past." That’s right, I remember now. I bought something from their Web site four years ago.
Welcome to Sushi Finder
Cool! Find sushi places in your city!
SushiFinder.com
Cities currently listed are:
Atlanta
Boston
Chicago
Denver
Honolulu
Las Vegas
Los Angeles
Miami
NYC (Manhattan)
Portland
San Francisco
Seattle
Washington D.C.
Mass. Supreme Court rules ban on gay marriage unconstitutional
Pay attention people. This is history in the making! In June, the Supreme Court ruled that anti-sodomy laws are unconstitutional meaning what I do and who I do it with is nobody's business but my own. Now, the Massachusetts Supreme Court rules that an outright ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional.
Of course, this opens up all kinds of ugly debates between those of us who are homosexual and the religious right, the conservatives, the bible thumpers, and the president of the United States.
Conservatives in this country are hell-bent on passing a constitutional amendment in order to codify their discrimination toward gay people. When that happens, and it will, we will have a constitution that denies equality and continues to support the idea that myself and other homosexuals are second-class citizens and don't deserve the same rights and privileges afforded to others.
Frankly, and my partner Scott and I have discussed this at length, I don't want to get married. Conservatives continue to tout that "allowing gays to marry will destroy the sacred institution of marriage." What? It appears to me that "the straights" (no offense intended to my straight friends) have done a damned fine job of destroying the sacred institution.
Let's see:
from DivorceReform.org:
"Marriages are most susceptible to divorce in the early years of marriage. After 5 years, approximately10 % of marriages are expected to end in divorce - another 10 % (or 20 % cumulatively) are divorced by about the tenth year after marriage. However, the 30% level is not reached until about the 18th year after marriage while the 40% level is only approached by the 50th year after marriage."65% of new marriages fail.
Teresa Castro Martin and Larry L. Bumpass, "Recent Trends in Marital Disruption", Demography 26 (1989): 37-51
I don't want the church wedding, nor do I want to be considered "married." Let the straights get "married." What I do want, is recognition of my partnership and all the good and bad things that go along with that recognition. If you want to call that a "civil union" or "domestic partnership" or even a "gay marriage that isn't really marriage" fine. But afford me the same privileges as everybody else.
From CNN
(CNN) -- The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has cleared the way for lesbian and gay couples in the state to marry, ruling Tuesday that government attorneys "failed to identify any constitutionally adequate reason" to deny them the right.In a 4-3 ruling, the court gave the Massachusetts state Legislature six months to rewrite the state's marriage laws for the benefit of gay couples.
The ruling could set new legal ground, and drew quick reaction from advocates on both sides of the issue. Massachusetts' governor immediately denounced Tuesday's decision and said he would work for a constitutional amendment to overturn it. But an openly gay U.S. congressman from the state said the amendment couldn't come before the voters before 2006, and by that time same-sex marriages will be law.
President Bush waded into the debate with a statement criticizing the ruling.
"Marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman," he said. "Today's decision ... violates this important principle. I will work with congressional leaders and others to do what is legally necessary to defend the sanctity of marriage."
Bush stopped short of saying he would support an effort by some Republicans in Congress to pass a federal constitutional amendment outlawing same-sex marriage, which would trump the Massachusetts court.
Analysts said the state Legislature could write laws legalizing same-sex marriages, or it could do nothing and let Tuesday's ruling go forward. Same-sex marriage opponents could also appeal Tuesday's decision to the U.S. Supreme Court during the next six months.
Vermont is the only state in the United States that allows same-sex couples the rights and benefits of marriage. Vermont calls them civil unions, rather than marriage. California's State Assembly recently passed a domestic partnership law to provide similar benefits, but it stops short of allowing gays to marry. (States determine marriage laws)
Governor suggests amendment driveLegal observers said the Massachusetts case took a significant step beyond the 1999 Vermont state Supreme Court decision that led to civil unions in that state. (The ruling)
The Associated Press reported that many lawyers believe Tuesday's ruling applies strictly to marriage and that creating a separate class of domestic union -- such as civil unions -- would not be acceptable.
Attorney Mary Bonauto, who represented the seven gay couples who sued the state, said the only task assigned to the Legislature is to come up with changes in the law that will allow gay couples to marry at the end of the 180-day period, the AP reported.
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said the state Legislature would comply with the court's ruling "even if we don't agree with it." The governor said he would ask lawmakers to initiate a constitutional amendment process "that will be consistent with what I think the feelings are of the commonwealth" about marriage.
Rep. Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts, an openly gay congressman, said the process for doing so would delay a vote until 2006.
"My prediction is that when we in Massachusetts vote on this -- and we almost certainly will in 2006 -- the reality will have overtaken the fears," he said.
In a paper statement he released immediately after the ruling was released, Romney left the door open for some other way of recognizing same-sex couples.
"Of course," he said, "we must provide basic civil rights and appropriate benefits to nontraditional couples, but marriage is a special institution that should be reserved for a man and a woman."
'Happiest day in our lives'At a news conference after the ruling's release, the seven couples were elated with Tuesday's ruling.
"We have been together 32 years," said Gloria Bailey, whose partner, Linda Davies, proposed on the way to the conference. "Without a doubt this is the happiest day in our lives. The most important thing for us is knowing whatever comes ahead in the rest of our lives, we now know we can be at each others' sides."
Connie Mackey of the Family Research Council criticized the ruling, saying it was "a clear case of the courts overruling the majority opinion of the people."
"If the will of the people has anything to do with it ... the people will throw out any legislator that upholds this ruling," she told CNN. "The culture has seen the family unit for thousands of years as one man and one woman for the purpose of raising children."
Mackey also urged passage of a federal constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriages.
Elizabeth Birch, director of the gay rights organization Human Rights Campaign, said that the courts are not obliged to support a majority of the people.
"If not for courts, African-Americans would not have had the right to vote, women would not have the right to vote," she said. "The purpose of a constitution is to protect a minority group from the wrath of the majority."
Both supporters and opponents of the right of same-sex couples to marry had waited months for the decision. The court heard the case on March 4 and usually rules within 130 days of the hearing the case, but that deadline passed in July.
Survey shows opposition to same-sex marriageGay activists say the American judicial system is beginning to catch up with modern society.
In June the Supreme Court ruled that anti-sodomy laws are unconstitutional. (Full story) On June 10, an appeals court in the Canadian province of Ontario struck down a ban on same-sex marriage.
But a majority of people surveyed in late October said gay marriages should not be legally recognized, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll. According to the survey, 61 percent said no when asked whether gay marriages should be recognized as valid by law. Thirty-five percent said yes.
The poll, taken October 24-26, surveyed 1,006 people and had an error margin of plus or minus three percentage points.
The same poll showed sharp difference on the issue based on gender. According to the survey, 70 percent of men said no to legalizing gay marriage while 26 percent supported such unions. The survey showed that 53 percent of women opposed gay marriages, while 43 percent supported legalizing them. The question posed by gender had a sampling error of plus or minus five percentage points.
November 17, 2003
Fetish of Woman's Fart
OK, so this site just goes to show you that there is literally a fetish for everything! And, as an added bonus, it's in Engrish too!
Most of all women hardly farts in public usually. So do you want to watch, to listen woman's farts don't you?? This site is for who feel beautifully and love women's farts. Please enjoy this site slowly.. of course, welcome women,please enter here.
November 16, 2003
New turn signals are on!
well, they're on at least in the front. Jack misunderstood me last week when I ordered them. He thought I only wanted front turn signals when in reality, I need right and left, front and back. Well, anyhoo, got the front ones on and the back ones are on the way.
Here's a pic...
You can see more pictures on my home page.
Another ride today
Scott and went riding again this morning...same route as last weekend (see it here). Uneventful (thank goodness). Ran over a set of needle-nosed pliers when making the turn off Rockbridge back onto E. Ponce with my back wheel, but other than a little wiggly, nothing to speak of.
November 14, 2003
Blogging in real-time
Now this is some cool stuff!
By using the RSS feeds from Weblogs.com and grabbing the GeoURL information, the Flash-based world map displays (within 3 minutes) blogs that are updated around the world.
Hi, my name is Toyota!
via die puny humans:
Psychology professor Cleveland Evans discovered the trend after surveying US social security records for 2000. He has found that car models are a popular source of inspiration; 22 girls are registered as having the name Infiniti while 55 boys answer to Chevy and five girls to Celica.Seven boys were found to have the name Del Monte - after the food company - and no less than 49 boys were called Canon, after the camera. Designer firms and types of clothing were also well represented, with almost 300 girls recorded with the name Armani, six boys called Timberland and seven boys called Denim. In some cases it seems something else was on some parents' minds - six boys were named after Courvoisier cognac.
November 13, 2003
Don't touch my computer!
Flash required, contains male nudity!
Just remember, when walking through your house with no clothes on and somebody yells "Don't touch my computer" at you, then for Jiminy's sake, DON'T TOUCH THEIR COMPUTER
Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore removed from office
from MSNBC:
Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, whose refusal to obey a federal order to move a Ten Commandments monument from a state building fueled a national debate over the place of God in public life, was stripped of his office Thursday.THE STATE Court of the Judiciary unanimously imposed the harshest penalty possible after a one-day trial in which Moore said his refusal was a moral and lawful acknowledgment of God. Prosecutors said Moore’s defiance, left unchecked, would harm the judicial system.
Moore, who was halfway through his six-year term, had been suspended since August but was allowed to collect his $170,000 annual salary. Under Thursday’s decision, the governor will appoint someone to serve the rest of his term.
$170,000 annual salary? You've got to be kidding me! In a state whose per capita personal income (PCPI) reached $23,471 in Alabama for 2000 this goon makes $170K?
back to the story:
Many judicial officials and observers had predicted that Moore would survive in office, perhaps being handed a suspension or a fine, because some members of the ethics courts are elected to their positions and might prefer not to be remembered for voting against the 10 Commandments.But presiding Judge William Thompson said in a statement read from the bench that the court could “find no other viable alternatives” to removing Moore from office.
By “willfully and publicly” ignoring the federal court order, “the chief justice placed himself above the law,” Thompson said, noting that Moore “showed no signs of contrition.”
Helping to protect our children...and, oh yeah, we're gonna sell your information to spammers
MSNBC is running a story about the website AmberAlertsOnline.com. Signing up for their missing children email gives them permission to sell your information to third parties:
When concerned citizens sign up to receive Amber Alerts at the Web site, they’re asked for more than just an e-mail address. A form requests users fill in their name, address, city, state, zip code, date of birth, gender, and telephone number. And according to the site’s privacy policy, all that information can be shared or sold to third-party companies, who may use it to send offline marketing materials such as junk mail.“AmberAlertsOnline.com does ... provide information such as name, postal address, zip code, age, gender, etc. to third parties,” the policy says. It also indicates subscribers to the list should expect to receive e-mail marketing. “AmberAlertsOnline.com will send you our sponsors’ offers for goods and services relevant to the categories of interest you have chosen.”
But despite the language in the AmberAlertsOnline privacy page, Friesner says the list hasn’t been used to send out spam, and the sign-up data won’t be shared with third parties.
“We are not planning on reselling the information,” he said. And as of yet, the company hasn’t sent a single e-mail pitch, he said. “We might have to at some point look for funding and sponsors. But we wouldn’t be mailing very hard. Maybe once a week.”
November 12, 2003
Ever wonder where Legos come from?
This cool flash-based animation will take you on a tour of a Lego brick factory.
Pfizer speaks about spam and Viagra
Pfizer replied to a user's complaint about recieving spam hawking viagra:
spamcop
Merriam-Webster to McDonalds: "McJob is staying"
CNN.com has the McStory...
McDonald's may not like it, but the editors of the Merriam-Webster dictionary say "McJob" is a word that's here to stay.The 11th edition of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, published in June, defines a "McJob" as "a low-paying job that requires little skill and provides little opportunity for advancement."
The fast-food giant's chief executive, Jim Cantalupo, called the definition a "slap in the face" to the 12 million people who work in the restaurant industry, and demanded that Merriam-Webster dish up something more flattering.
But the dictionary publisher said Tuesday that it "stands by the accuracy and appropriateness" of its definition.
"For more that 17 years 'McJob' has been used as we are defining it in a broad range of publications," the company said, citing everything from The New York Times and Rolling Stone to newspapers in South Africa and Australia.
When gays were 'cured'
The BBC News (UK Edition) is running a story about the history of the world attempting to "cure" people that are gay.
The Bishop of Chester remarks
Some people who are primarily homosexual can reorientate themselves. I would encourage them to consider that as an option, but I would not set myself up as a medical specialist on the subject, that's in the area of psychiatric health.
The Bishop of Chester implies that I, as a homosexual, am mentally unhealthy. I find that implication appalling and infuriating.
The story continues with examples from history such as
In the 1920s, mainstream medical researchers in Germany implanted testicles from corpses into the bodies of homosexual men, usually without their knowledge. The idea was to boost testosterone levels.
A couple of people are quoted in the article, telling their own stories:
DJ and stand-up comic Peter Price volunteered to undergo aversion therapy on the NHS when he was 18, after his mother found out he was gay.'Scared'
He remembers being put into a windowless room in a psychiatric ward, where he had to listen to an audio tape disparaging his homosexuality "in the foulest language imaginable".
The psychiatrist who made the tape then gave him a pile of 'dirty' books containing images of nude men and a crate of Guinness to drink.
"They then injected me with something that made me violently sick for about an hour and they left me there", he says. The doctors refused to give him a basin and insisted he vomit over himself.
"For 72 hours I lay in my own excrement and dirt, scared out of my wits," he says. He begged to be let out of the hospital after the psychiatrist told him the next stage of the treatment involved attaching electrodes to his penis.
Remarkable coincidence
He went home feeling "dirty, filthy and vile" and bathed for "about eight hours". "About two months later I accepted that I was gay," he says.
Then, by a remarkable coincidence, he says he bumped into the psychiatrist who had treated him a few weeks later - in a Liverpool gay club. "I was furious. I tried to attack him with a broken bottle," he says.
Mr Price says he did not speak about his experiences for more than 20 years, but now has a phone-in show on Liverpool's Radio City, where he tries to help young people come to terms with their sexuality.
November 11, 2003
Gay Games 2006 looks for new host city
As reported on Yahoo! News
The Gay Games are looking to move in 2006, after Montreal officials indicated on Tuesday they would reject the Federation of Gay Games' (FGG) deadline to accept its "final offer" for a licensing agreement....
In October 2001, The FGG chose Montreal over Atlanta, Chicago and Los Angeles to host the 2006 Gay Games. But the FGG and Montreal 2006 could not agree on key financial and logistical details, despite negotiating up to the last minute ahead of the FGG's annual meeting, which is going on this week in Chicago.
....
The Gay.com/PlanetOut.com Network has learned that the FGG is already moving ahead with plans for an abbreviated bidding process to find a new host city. It is expected to take two to three months to select a city.
This kid is a musical genius!
WARNING!
Not kid safe! Possibily offensive!
Oh goody! An increase in spam for the Christmas season!
The BBC news (UK edition) is reporting that
Christmas is coming and spammers want to fill your inbox with more messages than ever.Net filtering firms report that senders of spam are already starting to change the messages they send in an attempt to cash in on the festive season.
The firms have noticed an increase in e-mails offering single products and hi-tech gadgets as potential presents.
Also increasing are messages offering cheap loans to help people pay for all the gifts they are planning to buy.
Gore to Bush: Rescind Patriot Act
from Wired News
They have taken us much farther down the road toward an intrusive, 'big brother'-style government -- toward the dangers prophesied by George Orwell in his book 1984 -- than anyone ever thought would be possible in the United States of America," Gore charged in a speech
The Grinch Who Stone Linux
from Groklaw:
The Grinch Who Stole Linux -- by Scott LazarEvery GNU
Down in GNU-ville
Liked Linux a lot...But SCO,
who lived just North of GNU-ville,
Did NOT!SCO hated Linux! The GNU Linux season!
Now, please don't ask why. No one quite knows the reason.
It could be that their heads weren't screwed on quite right.
It could be, perhaps, that their shoes were too tight.
But I think that the most likely reason of all
May have been that their bank account was two sizes too small.
But,
Whatever the reason,
Their wallet or their shoes,
They stood there looking at Linux, hating the GNUs,
Staring down from their cave with a sour, SCOy frown
At the warm lighted windows below in their town.
For they knew every GNU down in GNU-ville beneath
Was busy now, hanging a free wreath."And they're hanging their copyrights!" they snarled with a sneer.
"It's free software! It's practically here!"
Then they growled, with their SCO fingers nervously drumming,
"We MUST find a way to keep Linux from coming!"
For, tomorrow, they knew......All the GNU girls and boys
Would wake up bright and early. They'd rush for their GNU toys!
And then! Oh, the noise! Oh, the noise! Noise! Noise! Noise!
That's one thing they hated! The NOISE! NOISE! NOISE! NOISE!Then the GNUs, young and old, would sit down to a feast.
And they'd feast! And they'd feast!
And they'd FEAST! FEAST! FEAST! FEAST!
They would start on GNU-pudding, and rare GNU-roast-beast
Which was something SCO couldn't stand in the least!And THEN
They'd do something he liked least of all!
Every GNU down in GNU-ville, the tall and the small,
Would stand close together, with Linux bells ringing.
They'd stand hand-in-hand. And the GNUs would start coding and singing!They'd code! And they'd sing!
AND they'd CODE! SING! CODE! SING!
And the more SCO thought of the GNU/Linux Sing
The more SCO thought, "We must stop this GNU/Linux thing!
"Why for twelve years we've put up with it now!
We MUST stop Linux from coming!
...But HOW?"Then they got an idea!
An awful idea!
SCO GOT A WONDERFUL, AWFUL IDEA!"We know just what to do!" SCO laughed in their throats.
And they made a quick license out of vapors and quotes.
And they chuckled, and clucked, "What a great SCO trick!
"With this license, We'll look just so smart and quick!""All we need is a reason..."
SCO looked around.
But since reasons were scarce, there was none to be found.
Did that stop SCO...?
No! SCO simply said,
"If we can't find a reason, we'll make one instead!"
So they called their dog Micro. Then they took some red thread
And they tied a big SUN on top of his head.THEN
They loaded some bags
And some old empty code
On a ramshakle sleigh
And they hitched up old Micro.Then SCO said, "Giddyap!"
And the sleigh started down
Toward the homes where the GNUs
Lay a-snooze in their town.All their windows were dark. Quiet snow filled the air.
All the GNUs were all dreaming sweet dreams without care
When they came to the first house in the square.
"This is stop number one," SCO hissed
And they climbed to the roof, empty bags in their fist.Then they slid down the chimney. A rather tight hole.
But if Santa could do it, then so could SCO.
They got stuck only once, for a moment or two.
Then they stuck their heads out of the fireplace flue
Where the little GNU copyrights all hung in a row.
"These copyrights," they grinned, "are the first things to go!"Then they slithered and slunk, with smiles most unpleasant,
Around the GNU's room, and they took every present!
NUMAs! And JFS's! Sambas! Drums!
Checkerboards! Tricycles! Popcorn! And plums!
And they stuffed them in bags. Then SCO, very nimbly,
Stuffed all the bags, one by one, up the chimney!Then they slunk to the icebox. They took the GNUs' feast!
They took the GNU-pudding! They took the roast beast!
They cleaned out that icebox as quick as a flash.
Why, that SCO even took their last can of GNU-hash!Then they stuffed all the food up the chimney with glee.
"And NOW!" grinned SCO, "I will take what is free!"And SCO grabbed the free software, and they started to shove
When they heard a small sound like the coo of a dove.
They turned around fast, and they saw a small GNU!
Little Cindy-Lou GNU, who was not more than two.SCO had been caught by this little GNU daughter
who'd got out of bed for a cup of cold water.
She stared at SCO and said, "SCO, why,
"Why are you taking our free Linux? WHY?"But, you know, that SCO was so smart and so slick
They thought up a lie, and they thought it up quick!
"Why, my sweet little tot," the two-faced leader lied,
"There's code on this tree that won't work on my side.
"So we're taking it home to our workshop, my dear.
"We'll fix it up there. Then we'll bring it back here."And their fib fooled the child. Then they patted her head
And they got her a drink and they sent her to bed.
And when Cindy-Lou GNU went to bed with her cup,
They went to the chimney and stuffed the code up!Then the last thing they took
Was the log for their fire.
Then they went up the chimney themselves, the liars.
On their walls they left nothing but hooks, and some wires.And the one speck of food
They left in the house
Was a crumb that was even too small for a mouse.
Then
They did the same thing
To the other GNUs' housesLeaving crumbs
Much too small
For the other GNUs' mouses!It was quarter past dawn...
All the GNUs, still a-bed
All the GNUs, still a-snooze
When they packed up their sled,
Packed it up with their code! The copyrights! The patents!
The free licenses! Wrapped them up in their lies and pronouncements !Three thousand feet up! Up the side of Mount Crumpit,
They rode to the tiptop to dump it!
"Pooh-pooh to the GNUs!" they were SCO-ish-ly humming.
"They're finding out now that no Linux is coming!
"They're just waking up! We know just what they'll do!
"Their mouths will hang open a minute or two
"Then all the GNUs down in GNU-ville will all cry Boo Hoo!""That's a noise," grinned SCO,
"That we simply must hear!"
So they paused. And SCO put a hand to their ears.
And they did hear a sound rising over the snow.
It started in low. Then it started to grow...But the sound wasn't sad!
Why, this sound sounded merry!
It couldn't be so!
But it WAS merry! VERY!They stared down at GNU-ville!
SCO popped their eyes!
Then they shook!
What they saw was a shocking surprise!Every GNU down in GNU-ville, the tall and the small,
Was singing and coding! Without any worries at all!
They HADN'T stopped Linux from coming!
IT CAME!
Somehow or other, it came just the same!And SCO, with their SCO-feet ice-cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling: "How could it be so?
It came without charges! It came without price!
"It came without warranties, indemnification or gripes!"
And they puzzled three hours, `till their puzzler was sore.
Then SCO thought of something they hadn't before!
"Maybe Linux," they thought, "doesn't come from a store.
"Maybe Linux...perhaps...is worth little bit more!"And what happened then...?
Well...in GNU-ville they say
That SCO's small heart
Shrank three sizes that day!
At that minute the feeling in their wallets didn't feel quite so fun,
as they whizzed home with their ill-gotten load through the bright Utah sun.
For IBM had arrived, and there was no place to run!
Later that day,
the hero of the GNU's sat at the head of the table,
Sharpening their knives, all willing and able.And they smiled at the GNU's and said with a grin,
"Who wants the first slice?"
Then the carving would begin....And all through the night the GNU's enjoyed their free feast,
SCO stew, SCO pie and of course, roast SCO beast.
Copyright © 2003 Scott LazarIn appreciation and thanks to Dr. Seuss.
http://www.seussville.com/seussville/
FYI (or maybe it should be FWIW)
I've been looking for an RSS news feed aggregator to run on my server at home. I've tried Amphetadesk, and while it runs fine, it's presentation leaves a lot to be desired. I've even tried the stylesheets for it that you can get at amphetaframes. Still no joy.
I stumbled across Feed on Feeds a week or so ago, but it didn't really look like it would fit what I was looking for. But, last night, I broke down and installed it.
After futzing with it for a couple of hours and never getting it to work right, I checked the version of PHP running on my server. 4.0.6. Well, that's just a few revs behind!
Installed the new PHP (4.3.4) and low and behold, FoF works now!
FoF is the closest thing I've found to what I'm looking for. It uses a MySQL backend to keep up with read/unread/new status of all the items it aggregates and is accessible through a web browser from anywhere on the internet.
It still has some problems and is lacking in several areas, though. For example, there is no multi-user/login functionality. It's all out there for the world to see (and change/delete/muck with). Even the FoF home page suggests you use .htaccess files to control access to it.
It chokes on some RSS/XML/RDF feeds for unknown reasons and you can't add that feed to your aggregation.
It requires you to set up a periodic cron job to update the pages if you don't want to update them manually by loading the update script.
it's presentation isn't beautiful, but functional.
It can't handle https feeds out of the box (it automatically prepends http:// to the URL). should be easy enough to fix, though
November 10, 2003
Wow! I'm being threatened
After reporting a spam that was sent by an affiliate of netcarepharmacy hawking Viagra, its generic equivelant, and Propecia, I got the following email from "legal" at netcarepharmacy:
Dear Subscriber:Fist of all this mail was not unsolicited, you opted to receive promotional material from one of our affiliates and or partners, sometime in the past.
We will remove you from the database immediately if you can not do it your self!Please be careful about your complaints because if they are wrong you can be held liable!
Thank you,
Postmaster/Legal
NetCare Pharmacy
Of course, for those that know me, I don't take very well to threats. So, I wrote back:
No, I did NOT opt in to receive promotional material (spam) from you, or any of your affiliates or your partners. Maybe you should check the validity of your affiliates and/or partners' databases to find out which spammer they bought them from?Considering this email address was used on a website over three years ago (webmillion.com) just to track their privacy policy and selling of the email address to other spammers, and hasn't been used since, I hardly think I would have opted-in to your newsletter.
Let's see, if I didn't opt in, then somebody opted me in, effectively impersonating me. I will not accept your thinly veiled threat of liability for reporting this as spam. It is spam. I did not ask for it, nor did I "opt-in" to receive it. Therefore, it fits the description of Unsolicited Commercial Email (more commonly known as SPAM).
I will continue to report any email recieved from you/your partners/your affiliates as spam, as it is unsolicited, commercial email.
Jeff
Stay tuned, I'm sure there's more to come.
Update: guess what?! legal AT netcarepharmacy DOT com bounces! wow! what a shock!
November 09, 2003
Pubic hair transplants?
Margaret Cho reports in the See Me entry of her blog that the latest trend in South Korea is getting pubic hair transplants.
... I once chose the 'Barely Legal,' not to placate the pedophiles in my life, but because I am rather on the indecisive side, and so if presented with a chart of options of pubic hair formation, I may lose many valuable hours better spent writing or fucking someone with my brand new bag. I had it done in Provincetown, MA, in the summer, where I make my makeshift seaside home, near a cabin in the woods of Truro, where my Swiss Family Robinson drag queen relatives reside, the Trappin' Trannies.The only salon offering the service at that time had only male aestheticians, which didn't bother me, but may have been traumatic for him, as he was a young, gay man - and not only that, a huge fan of my work. His hands were shaking as he applied the strips of waxy muslin, digging himself practically all the way to China, because for some reason, I am fur lined. He sweat and apologized profusely as he ripped them off, and nervously babbled on and on about the time he had seen me on "Sex and the City." I am altogether a fan of the discomfort of waxing the underworld, and the pain, excruciating and unbelievable, makes me very happy and brings me to a place where spontaneous songs from the film soundtrack of "Chicago", such as "Roxie's Suite" could spring forth without notice.
...
The ladies in South Korea ain't havin' it. They want the forest, and for the trees. Perhaps they are just tired of combing it over. The Phyto Volumizer just doesn't give it enough - body. Who has the patience to get a weave? Besides, it looks too fake. The pussy toupee, the merkin, will have your man smirkin', because it is held in by a comb, which is impossible to comfortably explain when caught up in the rapture of lovemaking.
"Oh, I just, uh, I got it cut and I didn't like it, so I am wearing a fall until it grows out. Perhaps I should have mentioned it, but in our earlier conversation, there never seemed to be the appropriate context within which I could bring it up - uh - the opportunity had not presented itself until now. So there you go. I am wearing a piece. Is that a deal breaker?"
Rogaine isn't really effective down there, the vitamin supplements and the Knox gelatin just aren't rendering a crop worth waiting another growing season for, and so it is time for plugs. That's right. The Hair Club. Sy Sperling eat your hair out. The surgical procedure doesn't require a hospital stay, just a local anesthetic for your head and your hearth, and like Robin Hood, the surgeons steal from the rich and give to the poor.
...
Margaret Cho very funny lady!
Shrek 2 movie trailer released
from comingsoon.net (the movie trailer links are at the bottom of the page):
After returning from their honeymoon and showing "home movies" to their friends, Shrek and Fiona learn Fiona's parents have heard their daughter has married her true love and wish to meet the husband and invite him to their kingdom, called Far Far Away. The catch? Fiona's parents are unaware of the curse that struck their daughter and assumed she married Prince Charming so are a bit shocked to learn their son-in-law is a 700-pound ogre with horrible hygeine and friends with a talking donkey.
McDonalds claiming trademark infringement on Merriam-Webster
from Boing Boing Blog.
It seems that McDonalds is upset over Merriam-Webster's inclusion of "McJob" in its current edition. Give me a break!
Here's the cnn.com link
Today's motorcycle ride(s)
It's really beginning to get chilly out in Atlanta. Well, it is the middle of November, after all!
After dressing warmly (jeans, chaps, long sleeve shirt, denim shirt, leather jacket, gloves, leather boots and full-face helmet with visor), Scott and I took off on the new "circle" route we discovered last week. Here's a map of the trip:
we made the loop, then came back to my house for a break, then decided to make the loop again. This time, just for fun, we did the circle in the opposite direction. You'd be surprised at how different "the other side" of the road is! Of course, all the turns you make have to be done in reverse, so changing up the route when you're a newbie like us keeps you from falling into a rut of only being able to turn in one direction :-)
I'd checked the fuel level in my tank before we left the house, but obviously had overestimated what was in there. Coming up one of the longest hills of the ride, my Rebel began to stumble! First thought? Fuck! I may get to use that Honda Roadside Assistance I paid for with my Honda Riders Club of America membership! I basically sputtered up to the next street and turned off. By the time I made the turn, I was coasting. Flipped the petcock over to Reserve, ground on the starter for about 5 seconds, and up she started! Woohoo! Next gas station, here I come!
We rode on up to Starbucks (eggnog latte, yumm!) then back to the house. All told, around 40 miles in about 2 hours. Great riding this morning!
I've got new turn signals on the way from Jack's Rebel Warehouse. Margie had put these dinky little flush mount things on, and, frankly, I hate them. They're too small, too hard to see, and just look stupid IMHO.
I'll probably keep 'em on the bike as running lights (which is what they're supposed to be anyway), but I'm going back with stock turn signals. I like it when people around me can actually see what me and what my intentions are.
No update on the rust removal from the exhaust pipes. Haven't really had a chance to work on it, but I will take pictures before and after when I do!
Book listed added to Clack
over on the right side, down at the bottom, just between the Creative Commons license and the Powered By Moveable Type banners, you'll see my booklist.
I dug through the mt-plugins.org site and found the two plugins that were required to make it work. They are:
1) MTAmazon
2) BookQueue
NOTE! if you want to install these in your MT blog, follow the instructions very carefully! You may need to install XML::Simple if your hosting provider doesn't provide it (you did install MT with libraries, didn't you?). You'll also need an Amazon Developer ID.
After getting everything installed and working, you'll need to make modifications to your Main Index template. Sample modifications are included with the README for BookQueue.
November 08, 2003
WELCOME
Welcome to the new Clack! I'll be continuing to make modifications to this site over the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned!
November 07, 2003
Successful move!
Well, I got all the stuff from clack.blogs.com over to my new hosting provider and installation of Moveable Type.
I've installed the mt-blacklist.cgi plugin and configured it in hopes of keeping comment spam to a minimum.
Next up, put a robots.txt file in my home directory to keep search engines away. The whole idea of comment spammers is getting their website listed as many times as possible in the search engines. By keeping the spidering to a minimum, it in effect, defeats the comment spammers. Man, will these low-lifes stoop to just about any level!?
There's a partial and full feed rdf available of Clack, and I've licensed Clack under a Creative Commons license.
Next up? wait for dotster to take my domain out of their DNS zone files so the changes I made to the nameserver records at Network Solutions will take effect.
November 05, 2003
Final Decision made...
OK, I've found a hosting provider I like and will be moving Clack within the next week. URL to be posted soon...stay tuned!
Total Choice Hosting offers incredible deals on web hosting packages. Their support seems to be top-notch, and they're blog friendly! Install your Moveable Type software, set up your MySQL database, and point your DNS to the right place.
You're good to go. Right now, we're waiting for the DNS changes to propagate through the servers, so I don't want to post the URL now :-)
Sony and Wal-Mart move ahead with music download plans
from CBS MarketWatch:
Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, is finalizing deals with the five major music companies and has told the industry it could launch a service within two weeks, according to the New York Post. A Walmart.com spokesperson declined to comment.
Sony's chairman, Sir Howard Stringer, told investment analysts in New York on Tuesday that he intends to pursue online music sales. "The demand for legitimate downloading services will do for the digital music industry what we did with the original Walkman in 1979," Stringer said, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
What's for dinner?
An elderly gentleman of 85 feared his wife was getting hard of hearing.
So one day he called her doctor to make an appointment to have her hearing checked. The Doctor made an appointment for a hearing test in two weeks, and meanwhile there's a simple informal test the husband could do to give the doctor some idea of the state of her problem.
"Here's what you do," said the doctor, "start out about 40 feet away from her, and in a normal conversational speaking tone see if she hears you. If not, go to 30 feet, then 20 feet, and so on until you get a response.
That evening, the wife is in the kitchen cooking dinner, and he's in the living room. He says to himself, "I'm about 40 feet away, let's see what happens."
Then in a normal tone he asks, 'Honey, what's for supper?" No response.
So the husband moved to the other end of the room, about 30 feet from his wife and repeats, "Honey, what's for supper?"
Still no response.
Next he moves into the dining room where he is about 20 feet from his wife and asks, "Honey, what's for supper?" Again he gets no response.
So he walks up to the kitchen door, only 10 feet away. "Honey, what's for supper?" Again there is no response.
So he walks right up behind her. "Honey, what's for supper?"
"Damn it Earl, for the fifth time, CHICKEN!"
November 04, 2003
FCC Adopts Hollywood Tech Mandate
from PVRblog
:Crud. Despite the plea from thousands of home theater enthusiasts (like me), today the FCC approved the "Broadcast Flag" mandate. The worst provision of the mandate (summary pdf is here) is that any new technology set to record over-the-air digital TV will need FCC approval before coming out. One of the EFF's responses sums it up well:
"The broadcast flag rule forces manufacturers to remove useful recording features from television products you can buy today," said EFF Staff Technologist Seth Schoen. "The FCC has decided that the way to get Americans to adopt digital DTV is to make it cost more and do less."
What this will mean for HDTV recorders like upcoming TiVo products and other software/hardware products is unknown, but it will definitely delay products going to market and might prevent products from ever hitting the market if they don't obtain FCC approval.
Harley vs. God
It's just a joke folks, please, no hate mail....
The inventor of the Harley-Davidson motorcycle, Arthur Davidson, died and went to heaven.
At the gates, St. Peter told Arthur, "Since your motorcycles have changed the world, your reward is, you can hang out with anyone you want in Heaven."
Arthur thought about it for a minute and then said, I want to hang out with God."
St. Peter took Arthur to the Throne Room, and introduced him to God. God recognized Arthur and commented, "Okay, so you were the one who invented the Harley-Davidson motorcycles, eh?!"
Arthur said, "Yeah, that's me..."
God commented: "Well, what's the big deal in inventing something that's makes noise and pollution, and can't run without a road?!"
Arthur was apparently embarrassed, but finally spoke, "Excuse me, but aren't you the inventor of woman???"
God said, "Ah, yes."
"Well," said Arthur, "professional to professional, you have some major design flaws in your invention:
1. There's too much inconsistency in the front-end protrusion;
2. It chatters constantly at high speeds;
3. Most of the rear ends are too soft and wobble too much;
4. The intake is placed way too close to the exhaust;
5. And the maintenance costs are outrageous!!""Hmmmm, you may have some good points there," replied God, "hold on." God went to his celestial super-computer, typed in a few words and waited for the results. The computer then printed out a slip of paper.
"Well, it may be true that my invention is flawed," God said to Arthur, "but according to these numbers, more men are riding my invention than yours".
Metzler recalling motorcycle tires
Metzeler is recalling some motorcycle tires:
from SafetyAlerts.com
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced.Make : METZELER Model : SPORTEC M-1 P Build Dates : JAN 26, 2003 - FEB 08, 2003
NHTSA CAMPAIGN ID Number : 03T003000
Component: TIRES:TREAD/BELT
Potential Number Of Units Affected : 53
Summary:
METZELER SPORTEC 120/17 ZR17 M-1 P MOTORCYCLE TIRE. DURING PRODUCTION, AN EXCESSIVE BELT TENSION WAS USED CAUSING HIGH COMPRESSION BETWEEN THE BELT AND CARCASS.Consequence:
AS A RESULT, THE TIRE MAY CHANGE SHAPE AND A BUBBLE MAY APPEAR IN THE TREAD AREA CAUSING THE FRONT TIRE OF THE MOTORCYCLE TO VIBRATE. SUDDEN VIBRATION OF THE FRONT END COULD CAUSE THE DRIVER TO LOSE CONTROL, POSSIBLE RESULTING IN A VEHICLE CRASH.Remedy:
METZELER WILL NOTIFY ITS CUSTOMERS AND REPLACE THE TIRES FREE OF CHARGE. OWNER NOTIFICATION IS EXPECTED TO BEGIN DURING NOVEMBER 2003. OWNERS WHO TAKE THEIR MOTORCYCLES TO AN AUTHORIZED DEALER ON AN AGREED UPON SERVICE DATE AND DO NOT RECEIVE THE FREE REMEDY WITHIN A REASONABLE TIME SHOULD CONTACT METZELER AT 706-368-5426.
Well, it's officially Winter/Christmas now
OK, so Sam's Club put out their Christmas stuff back in July, followed closely by Wal-Mart in August, and K-Mart at about the same time. Publix started with the candy sometime around the beginning of October, and the local Honda Motorcycle dealership has had a sign up for several months proclaiming "Layaway NOW for Christmas!"
But, I've refused to budge. The commercialization of this Christian holiday has completely gotten out of hand. This weekend, at Sam's, I witnessed one woman pushing her flat-bed cart out the door with TWO brand-new Christmas trees on it. Come on people, Halloween was just a few days ago! You're not going to put that tree up until Thanksgiving, are you?
Today, however, I gave in. Today marked the beginning of the Winter/Christmas season at Starbucks. Today, Starbucks brought back their Peppermint Mocha (yech), their Gingerbread Latte (double yech), and their Eggnog Latte (YUMMY!).
So, today, I give in to Winter and the complete and total commercialization of the Christmas season once again.
November 03, 2003
Dumb and Dumber
First Chuq pointed to a story about some young men who decided to drive around a geyser in Yellowstone National Park.
Then, down in the comments we find a pointer to story about a Japanese tourist that decided to carve his name into a statue on Easter Island.
Finally, Ross Karcher picks up a thread that's wandering around in Fox Sues Self which ultimately