Thursday, November 27, 2008
Broiled tomatoes provencal, baked potato, broccoli, apple crisp, coffee. Drove 700 miles, must sleep.
tomorrow Darkover con, saturday high school reunion.
tomorrow Darkover con, saturday high school reunion.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
http://www.urlesque.com/2008/11/07/broke-man-tries-paying-bill-with-a-picture-of-a-spider/ amusing. cute pic of spider not shown just in case my spider-phobic ex ever checks this page.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Healthier mice on reversatrol at wired.
Word for the day: emolument
I happened to see a bit of episode 1 last night and thought of this.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
http://taskfreak.com/ mentioned at a slashdot post on memory loss due to aging. Supposed to be some kind of to do list manager. Not sure I want it. I'm just blogging it so I could come back to it later if I wanted to.
Some tree houses.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
I don't know why so many of the great webcartoons come from canada. http://www.wastedtalent.ca/ On the other hand, it's 25 degrees out and I'm sitting home reading webcomics instead of going to the law library. The lack of a useful "outside" might tend to promote webcomicing. Not that i'm getting muuch done myself.
Friday, November 21, 2008
deathcasting: another kid kills self while online. cops take an hour to show up.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Starfish and coffee soup:
Start with your basic miso-matzoh soup recipe.
Instead of making matzoh balls, roll out the dough like a thick piecrust and use a star cookie-cutter to make starfish shaped dumplings. Add half-cup or more coffee to the broth.
Miso matzo soup:
1 package matzo soup box, one without chicken.
2 T miso.
Quart of water or veggie broth.
Carrots onions parsley, spices to taste. Optional other root vegetables like parsnips or rutabaga, not more than one turnip. Follow directions on box. Potato starch can be substituted for an egg. teaspoon of veggie smaltz (flavored palm oil usually) if you have it. Maybe some toasted sesame oil. Don't oversalt. dilute with water if too salty.
Add sea vegeatbles if not salty enough.
Start with your basic miso-matzoh soup recipe.
Instead of making matzoh balls, roll out the dough like a thick piecrust and use a star cookie-cutter to make starfish shaped dumplings. Add half-cup or more coffee to the broth.
Miso matzo soup:
1 package matzo soup box, one without chicken.
2 T miso.
Quart of water or veggie broth.
Carrots onions parsley, spices to taste. Optional other root vegetables like parsnips or rutabaga, not more than one turnip. Follow directions on box. Potato starch can be substituted for an egg. teaspoon of veggie smaltz (flavored palm oil usually) if you have it. Maybe some toasted sesame oil. Don't oversalt. dilute with water if too salty.
Add sea vegeatbles if not salty enough.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
"If you don't die of anything else, sooner or later you will die of cancer."
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
word for today: spime
Spimes move beyond gizmos like today's smartphones and laptops because they primarily exist as a software representation; when you want one, you request (or buy) a physical instantiation of the design. Spimes rely on improvements in distribution chain management technology (such as computationally active — not passive — RFID chips with GPS positioning and time-binding capability) to monitor their own progress, order supplies and maintenance work, notify their owner when action is required, and, at the end of their life, arrange for their own collection and despatch to a suitable recycling point. Spimes are the logical ouput of a logistics infrastructure based on fabbers (primitive versions of which are just now dropping through the price threshold defined by the first primitive consumer laser printers in the mid-1980s). They can be anything from a passive object like a chair (but a chair that knows who it belongs to and where it is and how to disassemble and recycle its parts) to a jumbo jet, by way of an iphone — the iphone is dangerously close to spime-hood already — but the key insight is that they represent a whole new way of thinking about the not-entirely-post-industrial society we live in. that's charlie stross talking about bruce sterling. I've met sterling 3 times now, back in the day. Twice at EFFcons, once at a bookstore in Austin.
Spimes move beyond gizmos like today's smartphones and laptops because they primarily exist as a software representation; when you want one, you request (or buy) a physical instantiation of the design. Spimes rely on improvements in distribution chain management technology (such as computationally active — not passive — RFID chips with GPS positioning and time-binding capability) to monitor their own progress, order supplies and maintenance work, notify their owner when action is required, and, at the end of their life, arrange for their own collection and despatch to a suitable recycling point. Spimes are the logical ouput of a logistics infrastructure based on fabbers (primitive versions of which are just now dropping through the price threshold defined by the first primitive consumer laser printers in the mid-1980s). They can be anything from a passive object like a chair (but a chair that knows who it belongs to and where it is and how to disassemble and recycle its parts) to a jumbo jet, by way of an iphone — the iphone is dangerously close to spime-hood already — but the key insight is that they represent a whole new way of thinking about the not-entirely-post-industrial society we live in. that's charlie stross talking about bruce sterling. I've met sterling 3 times now, back in the day. Twice at EFFcons, once at a bookstore in Austin.
wordz for the day: Romanette. one of these i, ii, iii.
Sagan: unit of measurement, a large quantiny, a brazillion
Soft yellow wand: a cavendish.
Sagan: unit of measurement, a large quantiny, a brazillion
Soft yellow wand: a cavendish.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
World leaders are meeting at the White House to discuss the economic crisis.
According to the White House, tonight's dinner to kick off the G-20 summit includes such dishes as "Fruitwood-smoked Quail," "Thyme-roasted Rack of Lamb," and "Tomato, Fennel and Eggplant Fondue Chanterelle Jus."
To wash it all down, world leaders will be served Shafer Cabernet “Hillside Select” 2003, a wine that sells at $499 on Wine.com
According to the White House, tonight's dinner to kick off the G-20 summit includes such dishes as "Fruitwood-smoked Quail," "Thyme-roasted Rack of Lamb," and "Tomato, Fennel and Eggplant Fondue Chanterelle Jus."
To wash it all down, world leaders will be served Shafer Cabernet “Hillside Select” 2003, a wine that sells at $499 on Wine.com
More spam than ever reports NYT. (NSFV:Not safe for vegetarians.)
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Wellpoint, a major indianapolis-based insurer, is experimenting with medical tourism, sending non-emergency patients to India to get operations done at far less cost.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Lost in translation:
"Japan scientists say pot plants may one day absorb toxic gas"
I think the word they wanted was "potted."
"Japan scientists say pot plants may one day absorb toxic gas"
I think the word they wanted was "potted."
The Real Cost of Chewing Tobacco story about a clever bank heist gone wrong.
Monday, November 10, 2008
a partial list of what i've been reading this year
Booklist 2008
1 Playing for Pizza. Grisham (didn’t finish)
4 Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle oops double counted so that’s 3 less
5 The Third Girl, Agatha Cristie.
6 Double or Nothing
Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions
link
7 Marooned in space, a math geek's true story.
10: On the Make: Bill Clinton in Arkansas. Good of kind.
9 The History of the Irish Race. Seumas MacManus. 1921, so is it public domain?
I guess so, Google has it scanned online. Wonderful so far. It's already April, so I might not get to 50 books this year.
Boy Clinton: I'd misplaced this last year and hadn't finished it, so I have it open now while reading other things.
8. Hannibal Rising. Hannibal Lecter comes of age. Excellent book. I've seen silence of the lambs - saw it in Tom Jennings' hotel room at Computer Priviacy and Freedom 2, in 1992 - in which Hannibal is the bad guy, but in this book you learn how he became who he is and why. I'm not sure if he's the protagonist or antogonist, hero or anti-hero, but one tends to root for him.
7. The Enormous Egg. 1954. Kid's book about a boy and his dinosaur, set in Freedom New Hampshire, which is a crossroads with a gas a station and an inn, where I stayed when my sister got married. Good book. Rescued from a dumpster.
6. A Boy's Fortune Horatio Alger Jr. Good triumphs over evil.
5. They Call her Lady Bird. 1964. Bio of Mrs. LBJ. Shallow, but good.
2,3,4. Neal Stephenson, the Baroque Cycle. Liked it. About 2500 pages.
1. A history of the English Language. Slow going, but informative.
So that’s 14, not 17
18 Doctorow's Little Brother
19 Which Lie Did I Tell? William Goldman.
20 Game of Kings
21 Jarod Diamond's Guns Germs and Steel
22 Wodehouse On Crime
23 Barbara Bush, a Memoir
24 Symptoms of Withdrawal, Christopher Kennedy Lawford
25 Anathem, Stephenson
26 Deviance textbook
27 4 ways to forgiveness, Ursula Le Guin
28 Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit
29 Tom's Town: the Pendergast machine
30 A margaret atwood, should be here somewhere...
31 My uncle Bob Stewart's memories of growing up on a ranch, with illustrations.
32 100 Decisive Battles
33 The Labours of Hercules, Agatha Cristie
34 The Voltairine DeCleyre Reader
I picked up Hannibal by Thomas Harris, but I've already read it. Maybe it was on last years list?
35 black coffee, novel based on agatha cristie play. the novel adaptation is by a guy who played the apparentvillain bad guy in the stage play years ago.
36 bridget jones diary
37 the return of jeeves
38 jeeves in the morning
Seize the Day- Saul Bellow - didn't get past the introduction so won't count this one.
39. Openly Bob.
40. Confessions of a Muckraker. Jack Anderson, about Drew Pearson, very good.
41. All too Human, George Stephanopoulos, about Clinton, not bad
42. Masters of Deceit, J Edgar Hoover, about communism, just started so far.
so 15 days to read 8 books.
so this is a partial list, but even so it’s less than 50.
Booklist 2008
1 Playing for Pizza. Grisham (didn’t finish)
4 Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle oops double counted so that’s 3 less
5 The Third Girl, Agatha Cristie.
6 Double or Nothing
Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions
link
7 Marooned in space, a math geek's true story.
10: On the Make: Bill Clinton in Arkansas. Good of kind.
9 The History of the Irish Race. Seumas MacManus. 1921, so is it public domain?
I guess so, Google has it scanned online. Wonderful so far. It's already April, so I might not get to 50 books this year.
Boy Clinton: I'd misplaced this last year and hadn't finished it, so I have it open now while reading other things.
8. Hannibal Rising. Hannibal Lecter comes of age. Excellent book. I've seen silence of the lambs - saw it in Tom Jennings' hotel room at Computer Priviacy and Freedom 2, in 1992 - in which Hannibal is the bad guy, but in this book you learn how he became who he is and why. I'm not sure if he's the protagonist or antogonist, hero or anti-hero, but one tends to root for him.
7. The Enormous Egg. 1954. Kid's book about a boy and his dinosaur, set in Freedom New Hampshire, which is a crossroads with a gas a station and an inn, where I stayed when my sister got married. Good book. Rescued from a dumpster.
6. A Boy's Fortune Horatio Alger Jr. Good triumphs over evil.
5. They Call her Lady Bird. 1964. Bio of Mrs. LBJ. Shallow, but good.
2,3,4. Neal Stephenson, the Baroque Cycle. Liked it. About 2500 pages.
1. A history of the English Language. Slow going, but informative.
So that’s 14, not 17
18 Doctorow's Little Brother
19 Which Lie Did I Tell? William Goldman.
20 Game of Kings
21 Jarod Diamond's Guns Germs and Steel
22 Wodehouse On Crime
23 Barbara Bush, a Memoir
24 Symptoms of Withdrawal, Christopher Kennedy Lawford
25 Anathem, Stephenson
26 Deviance textbook
27 4 ways to forgiveness, Ursula Le Guin
28 Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit
29 Tom's Town: the Pendergast machine
30 A margaret atwood, should be here somewhere...
31 My uncle Bob Stewart's memories of growing up on a ranch, with illustrations.
32 100 Decisive Battles
33 The Labours of Hercules, Agatha Cristie
34 The Voltairine DeCleyre Reader
I picked up Hannibal by Thomas Harris, but I've already read it. Maybe it was on last years list?
35 black coffee, novel based on agatha cristie play. the novel adaptation is by a guy who played the apparent
36 bridget jones diary
37 the return of jeeves
38 jeeves in the morning
Seize the Day- Saul Bellow - didn't get past the introduction so won't count this one.
39. Openly Bob.
40. Confessions of a Muckraker. Jack Anderson, about Drew Pearson, very good.
41. All too Human, George Stephanopoulos, about Clinton, not bad
42. Masters of Deceit, J Edgar Hoover, about communism, just started so far.
so 15 days to read 8 books.
so this is a partial list, but even so it’s less than 50.
"mama baby!" Parrot saves life of choking toddler by calling out a warning.
The "Bong hits for Jesus" case has been settled, finally, for $45,000.
Probably a lot of that goes to the lawyer. After the case lost at the Supreme Court, there was still a state constitutional claim to argue, so the school's insurance company settled before that opinion came down. I think this is the right result, I just didn't expect it to take this long.
Probably a lot of that goes to the lawyer. After the case lost at the Supreme Court, there was still a state constitutional claim to argue, so the school's insurance company settled before that opinion came down. I think this is the right result, I just didn't expect it to take this long.
Sunday, November 09, 2008
I used to read ebert's reviews of movies I knew I would never see, because he writes so well. Now that he has a blog, he can skip the movies part. I thought he might have something to say about the election. He does, in a piece that starts with Lee Greenwood and ends up with Steve Goodman.
Then he teaches you to cook, a lot like my cooking, in "The pot and how to use it."
Then he teaches you to cook, a lot like my cooking, in "The pot and how to use it."
Election notes:
Obama won.
They didn't let me vote.
My housemate Joell Palmer only got to vote a provisional ballot which won't be counted, so he will probably join my lawsuit.
I assume my neighbor John Day won reelection against his Libertarian opponnent, but I can't find the results anywhere.
I've asked the 7th circuit to enjoin the non-counting of the provisional ballots
Obama won.
They didn't let me vote.
My housemate Joell Palmer only got to vote a provisional ballot which won't be counted, so he will probably join my lawsuit.
I assume my neighbor John Day won reelection against his Libertarian opponnent, but I can't find the results anywhere.
I've asked the 7th circuit to enjoin the non-counting of the provisional ballots
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
freakonomics:
eohippus video
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
I was in Chicago today, filing some stuff at the 7th Circuit. A big chunk of downtown was blocked off for the Obama rally.
Speaking of Chicago, I just enjoyed Ebert's review of Zack and Miri.
In Kevin Smith's fantasy diner, the waitresses at this joint strip naked and have noisy lesbian sex, and then Jose the busboy joins in the fun. They all scream loudly: "Bleep, you bleeping bleep! I bleep your bleep! Bleep! Bleep! I'm bleeping bleeping!"
A funny thing happened on the way to Chicago. I stopped by my precinct to vote,and when I wouldn't show ID they didn't let me vote at all. I expected they would have me cast a provisional ballot. When my roommate got there a few hours later they gave him a provisional ballot.
There was no line. The line at starbucks for my free coffee was longer.
If I'd gotten these motions done a few days earlier, I might not have had to drive them up, but I had pretty bad writer's block for a week. If only I'd this post of writing tips from my blogfather wil wheaton.
Speaking of Chicago, I just enjoyed Ebert's review of Zack and Miri.
In Kevin Smith's fantasy diner, the waitresses at this joint strip naked and have noisy lesbian sex, and then Jose the busboy joins in the fun. They all scream loudly: "Bleep, you bleeping bleep! I bleep your bleep! Bleep! Bleep! I'm bleeping bleeping!"
A funny thing happened on the way to Chicago. I stopped by my precinct to vote,and when I wouldn't show ID they didn't let me vote at all. I expected they would have me cast a provisional ballot. When my roommate got there a few hours later they gave him a provisional ballot.
There was no line. The line at starbucks for my free coffee was longer.
If I'd gotten these motions done a few days earlier, I might not have had to drive them up, but I had pretty bad writer's block for a week. If only I'd this post of writing tips from my blogfather wil wheaton.
Monday, November 03, 2008
This just in: Traci Lords has a bit part on the Tucker Max movie. I'm a fan of her work, both the early and later stuff. She's in Zack and Miri which I haven't seen but hope to. Tracy Lord, of course, is Katherine Hepburn's character in the Philadelphia Story.
Howard reports that Westboro Baptist (the god hates fags weirdos) have won over Missouri at the 8th Circuit, as well they should have. Picketing soldiers funerals about the war is basic First Amendment stuff. I've been to events where they were picketing, and used to talk to one of them online.
from metafilter, 25 places to read free books online, 20 colleges with free online courses, free linux lessons.
Meanwhile, today I finished a brief (see story below), but not in time to truck it up to Chicago yet, so I'll do that tomorrow after I try to vote.
Meanwhile, today I finished a brief (see story below), but not in time to truck it up to Chicago yet, so I'll do that tomorrow after I try to vote.
