Disorderly Content

A posting to the forum at one of my stock photography sites tells of one of the stranger iTunes cross-promotions I've heard about yet: free music and the chance to visit exotic locales. How can you refuse?

To misquote Forrest Gump, "Geeky is as geeky does." Guess that means I qualify, as I head up to Sacramento today to join some Scaper friends (some of whom I've actually met) for a showing of Serenity. But let's make it clear that I'm not driving three hours to see a movie; I'm driving three hours (each way) to hang out with friends and like-minded individuals.

By the way, if you're a Firefly fan or just want to look like one, you'll likely get a kick out of today's installment of The Joy of Tech. I know I did.

Update 10/01: Finally back from Sacramento. Serenity is an amazing flick, both more poignant and more exciting than anything I've seen in ages. I hope people who haven't been hooked by the Firefly DVDs will give it a chance; I think they'll pick up on the situation and the characters without much trouble. And then they can get those DVDs and see what came before.

And no, it didn't take this long to drive back after the movie. I stayed in town to spend the day visiting with a couple of very good Scaper friends. Which reminds me that my Farscape fixation is about more than the show; it's also about the people who are also fixated on the show. Scapers are like family, except without the baggage.

It's nice to know that I'm not the only obsessive/compulsive with way too much time on his hands. How else to explain Doug Gilford, who scanned in every cover of Mad Magazine since 1952 and put them on the Web. It's also why I love Drawn!, which thought this was so cool they had to share the news.

As loath as I am to link to yet another Boing Boing story, I couldn't resist using this title. The story concerns the Falkland Islands, where penguins and other lightweight animals have taken over minefields to use as breeding grounds. It seems that the mines keep people and sheep away, but are just right for increasing the numbers of creatures that are too light to set off any explosions. And to think all those bleeding hearts at the U.N. are always trying to ban the use of land mines!

I can beat most people in the "my job was worse than your job" contest. For two weeks in high school, I worked as a piss pourer in a urinalysis lab. Which is every bit as disgusting as it sounds. Dangerous too; to balance the pH level in the samples, I had to add measured amounts of hydrochloric acid. Fortunately, I emerged from my ordeal both uninjured and with my sense of smell intact.

What brought this particular stroll down memory lane to mind? Two things. First, yesterday I had to wee in a jar for a preemployment drug test. (One of the few times in my life when I suffered from performance anxiety, but that's another matter.) The second is a blog posting at Boing Boing about a pair of animatronic statues in Prague that write out famous quotes with their pee. There are even some Flash videos (apologies for the pun; it wasn't mine) showing the statues in action.

I promise; no more bodily fluid posts for at least a week.

You have to love anybody who'd wear one of these. Even better, they claim (and I quote): "Instant affirmation can be as close as your closet".

Sometimes these postings just write themselves...

Thanks to my stock photography obsession fixation hobby, I'm constantly on the lookout for new subjects to capture. Every Sunday morning I'm at the local farmer's market, checking out the produce for both its gustatory and its visual characteristics. Sometimes I buy fruits and vegetables with neither the knowledge nor the inclination to do anything more than place them in my light tent for a few pictures. And sometimes I have no idea what it is I'm buying; it just looks cool.

Which is what happened today at my local supermarket, where I found the spiky creature at right in the organic produce section. It's called a Kiwano Melon, also known as an African Horned Melon, presumably because it's a melon from Africa that happens to have horns. It's also orange and spotted, although they decided not to acknowledge that part. Anyway, I had to make a voice memo on my phone to record the name, knowing there's no way I'd remember it by the time I got home. Which turned out to be fortunate; the guy at the register had no idea what it was either. And since they hadn't figured out how to breed them with bar codes, he needed some way to look it up. Then again, maybe I could have convinced him it was some kind of pepper. A cheap kind of pepper.

And yes, if you were wondering, I did try to eat it after I took its picture. Not bad, although dealing with all the seeds was more trouble than it was worth.

I just read on TV Squad that Don Adams has died. I was a huge fan of Get Smart, even sitting through the execrable movie version that didn't even have Barbara Feldon. Gonna miss you, Max.

Typeface, that is. A posting to the forums at iStockphoto asked for help in identifying a typeface. It seems the customer had provided their logo for use in a design but no help in making a higher resolution version. One of the replies suggested a website called WhatTheFont?!, which takes an image with a font and tries to match it against samples in their database. It's face recognition software for type-type faces, as opposed to people-type faces. Which I think is pretty cool.

I think it was in an Irving Wallace novel that I first encountered the idea that a boy doesn't really become a man until his father dies. I can't confirm or deny that one; my father's still hanging on. But I'd like to offer an alternative: that you're fully an adult when you realize that "...and they lived happily ever after" is a damn lie.

Ray Bradbury wrote a short story called "I Sing The Body Electric" about a robotic grandmother who's hired (purchased?) to take on a widower's three children. It's been filmed twice that I know of. The first version was on the original Twilight Zone; it covered the grandmother's arrival, the children's struggle to accept her and then her retirement as they went off into the world. The second version was a TV movie called "The Electric Grandmother". But this time the children growing up wasn't the end of the story. No, this version traced the rest of their lives until they became old and helpless and needed someone to take care of them again. And that's the reality of life: that, assuming accident or disease doesn't take you too soon, you reach a point where you become steadily less able, where you fight infirmity and death or you wait for it to come. But it's coming, no matter what you do. And every day you lose a little bit of yourself.

All this came home to me last weekend, during a long overdue visit to my parents at their retirement digs in Florida. They're nearing the end of their story, whether it takes months or a few last years. And no matter how many years of happily ever after they may have had along the way, it's hard to know that's all behind them. As my father says, getting old isn't for the weak. And that's one hell of a life lesson.

(With apologies to George Carlin for appropriating and adapting his joke)

Over at The Movie Blog is a most entertaining rant about why Corn Nuts is not an appropriate snack for the shared moviegoing experience. Or even for a solo experience, if you care to actually hear the dialogue. Then again, there's always the subtitle option at home. But I digress.

Two articles demonstrate why I'm so proud to be an Apple partisan. Both relate to the iPod and attempts by others to take the reigning music player down a peg or twelve. But what makes them so interesting is that they demonstrate that Apple fans are better than nonbelievers. Smarter, more incisive, wittier; just better.

First we have John Gruber of Daring Fireball, who writes in Rhymes With Ditty that a simple investigation of Dell's new DJ Ditty music player reveals that it's unlikely to have the iPod nano product manager quaking in his or her boots. Heck, as Mr. Gruber points out, Dell clearly believes the Ditty is toast.

Next is an article from Charles Arthur of Charles on... anything that comes along. His piece in The Independent expresses the view that consumer electronic firms trying to market an iPod killer is like trying to make Nicole Kidman not famous. You have to make your product great and successful; damaging your competition is a side effect of your success. Although I wish Charles were wrong; I have nothing against Ms. Kidman (would that I did) but would gladly apply whatever not-famous technique one could find against a whole bunch of people. Paris Hilton comes immediately to mind...

The Huffington Post reported yesterday that Ice-T is going to produce a hip-hop album for the one and only (and aren't we all grateful for that) David Hasselhoff. Ananova is the source of the story. I hope it's true just for the horror value. And why not? After all, Pat Boone did Heavy Metal...

There was an article in Sunday's paper (the Miami Herald?) that got me thinking, which is always a dubious proposition. The subject was casinos in Mississippi and Florida and the way politicians try to balance their desire to enrich state coffers against the appearance of encouraging sin, how they try to have it both ways, and how they sometimes end up with nothing at all.

Mississippi had floating casinos, which I guess they saw as a way to permit gambling without actually having to admit that's what they were doing. A riverboat casino sounds so romantic and retro, with mint julips and high stakes card games by shady characters with immaculate white suits and syrupy accents. But the reality was that the riverboats were only technically boats; they were really just buildings mounted on barges in the river. At least until Katrina came along and turned them into (wet) kindling. But the point is that by giving cover to the politicians, by letting them tax the casinos while claiming they'd kept the sinful enterprise (just barely) out of the state, they put all that revenue and all those jobs at risk when the big wind arrived.

What's funny is the contrast with Florida. There, the politicians won't sully themselves with the sin of gambling or the embarrassment of hypocracy. So while they can't prevent Native American tribes from operating casinos, they don't have to be in the uncomfortable position of benefiting from their presence. Florida collects not a dime of the billion or so dollars that flow through the casinos.

So which is worse? Is it better to accept the existence of such enterprises and make them pay their way? Is a high moral stance worth missing out on some badly needed funds? Does pretending to a morality you don't actually practice lead to anything but tears?

No answers here. Just questions.

Last week at this time I was on my way to the airport. My destination: southwestern Florida. My mission: job interview, followed by a visit with my parents.

Arriving at Fort Myers' brand new terminal and after waiting interminably for my bag to show up, I made my way to my rental car and out into the Florida twilight. There's a fair amount of nuthin' between the airport and the Interstate, aside from a series of highway signs I'd never seen before. I mean, we don't have Panther Crossings in California...

Today at lunch I made a stop at Valley Fair, our local shopping mall. I hadn't been there in a couple of months, which is unusual for me. And somehow I don't think I'll be going back any time soon.

Granted, it's a weekday. But the place was pretty empty. And the salespeople working the kiosks were particularly aggressive. Not that it helped; I think this woman was going to try to sell me on a manacure until she took one look at my nails and ran away screaming. First time in my life I was happy to be a nail biter.

Stopped at the Apple Store to see and play with the iPod nano. It's really amazing; so much smaller and thinner and lighter than you expect. Heck, I bet the little security thing they had sticking to the back weighs as much as the iPod itself! And it sounds great too. The only problem is the lack of a remote connector. That means my iTrip wouldn't work with it, which makes it a problem to use in the car. Still, I might have bought one on the spot if they'd had any to sell. But all they had were 2GB models in white. Which was wrong on two counts.

Next stop was something to eat, followed by a visit to Brentano's for reading material for an upcoming trip. That desperation vibe hit me the moment I got in the door. The place had been redecorated, but that wasn't it. But somehow the place seemed smaller and not overly loaded with reading material, like a literary version of Python's cheese shop. Half the books were turned to show their covers, which takes a lot more room with a lot less stock. It wasn't 'til I got to the register with my purchases (and believe me, finding two books I wanted to read wasn't easy) that I realized that Brentano's had been transmogrified into Borders Lite - urp, excuse me, that should be Borders Express. Which is sort of like a real Borders, only not so much on the books.

All of which left me wondering if it's all malls that are this depressing, or just this one. Good thing there's the internets, that's all I have to say.

A few days ago (on my birthday of all days) I got a call from my bank that one of my credit card numbers had escaped into the wild. Which is a minor hassle but, thankfully, nothing more than that. But that's why it took me more than a second to recognize tonight's email invasion attempt for what it was.

The email isn't remotely subtle. The subject is simply Error, the return address linda@support.com and the text of the message: Your credit card was charged for $500 USD. For additional information see the attachment. Oh, and that attachment: a 15KB file with the unsubtle name of archive.exe. Not running Windows, an EXE file poses no threat. But really; just how stupid would someone have to be to double click on an attachment in a message this obvious? I mean, all that's missing is a big claxon and a flashing warning:

THIS IS A REALLY, REALLY BAD IDEA!.

I've been getting a lot of spam lately from pump & dump operations telling about the wonderfulness of the latest penny stock. Today's example is a little more egregious, in part because it looks so much more professional and pretends to play by the rules. Like the claim that I signed up with them (as if I would!), that they're in compliance with the CAN-SPAM Act (uh huh) and that all I have to do is click on the link below to remove myself from their list. Except that they seem to have neglected to include the link, which I'm sure is an innocent oversight.

Or maybe not. The name of this paragon of virtue? Bull Ventures. Which I guess is what's known as truth in advertising...

Definitely not safe for work, at least in any place I've ever worked, but a website called Captain Toy has a review, with pictures, of a Family Guy S&M toy set. Funny and disturbing at the same time, as all good toys should be.

Up to now, my only encounters with Fark.com was having to deal with bandwidth thieves who use my pictures on their forums. That changed this morning when TV Squad linked to a Fark thread full of fake movie posters. Good for a few laughs. Actually, more than a few. I'd pay money to see these in a theater.

This morning's Groklaw has an article about a SCO customer who's made the move to Linux. But what's interesting isn't that yet another rat deserts that particular sinking ship. (And if the ship itself is piloted by rats, does that make one less of a rat by jumping ship? But I digress.)

No, what's interesting is the hoops PJ, Groklaw's author, had to go through to bring us the story. You see, she spotted the news on a publication called Investor's Business News. And then she realized that it was actually a Unisys press release that IBN had republished as an article. But despite the fact they didn't write it, IBN claimed copyright ownership.

So PJ went looking for a copy of the release on the Unisys site. And failing that, she went to the PR contact and got a copy of the release so she could include it with her blog. But she (and I) marvel at the chutzpah of anybody who claims ownership of something just because they republish it. And I have to wonder how many people will take such a claim seriously, just because it's in writing. I also wonder whether IBN knows they're full of crap and thought they'd assert their claim anyway.

I've always lived by the maxim, "Never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity." Then I met the Bush Administration. And I realized it's perfectly possible to be both.

WAR IS PEACE
IGNORANCE IS KNOWLEDGE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

So went the slogans of Big Brother's government in the classic 1984. And how he might have recognized the hand of Big Brother in Trusted Computing, the benign sounding attempt by the biz to build in technology to control what is and isn't allowed access to your computer, phone, DVD player, game system. What's not nearly so benign is that, while the computing may be trusted, the computing user isn't. Control moves from the owner of the device to the maker, in yet another enormous land grab by the owners of content.

Scary stuff. And presented very well by Benjamin Stephan and Lutz Vogel in a little Quicktime movie. As they put it, how can we trust them when they don't trust us?

One of the blogs in my RSS reader (NetNewsWire, in case you haven't been paying attention) is called Charles on... anything that comes along. Charles is a Brit and a Mac fan, although neither is relevant to this particular post. What is relevant is a link he included on his blog. The link is to a story I'd heard years ago, about a guy who figured out the pattern in a game show called Press Your Luck, got on the show and took the producers for a bundle. But this version of the story tells about what happened after the show. And it isn't pretty. Rod Serling would have enjoyed this one, I think.

Boing Boing points to yet another example of our litigious society gone mad. Point your browser at www.legos.com (you know, those wonderful plastic toys that used to require imagination to use, but now come in kits with specialized parts so you now know exactly what it'll look like even before you begin) and you get a lecture from the firm's lawyers about how you really ought not to call them Legos; they're LEGO bricks, thank you very much.

At least Coca Cola eventually got the message; after years of fighting it, they finally decided that being called Coke wasn't so bad. D'ya think somebody smacked their lawyers with a cluestick?

Thanks to TV Squad for a pointer to an article at US News & World Report on the passing of Bob Denver. Yeah, I know Denver's passing is already old news. But the article includes some bits from an interview they did a few years ago (how few, they don't say) that answers the age old question: Mary Ann? Or Ginger? Like the rest of us (well, me anyway), Denver thought there was no contest: Mary Ann all the way.

Another conundrum for the ages put to rest.

Yeah, I know he never said it. And Rick didn't say "Play it again, Sam" either. But that's beside the point. What follows is a bit of deduction that would have Holmes sneering into his meerschaum. But I'm pretty proud; it isn't often I get the chance to show off my reasoning ability, elementary or otherwise.

As I've mentioned before, I'm totally obsessed with my participation in various microstock photography sites, checking my customer download counts the way I used to monitor accesses to my website. Anyway, things are slow at the moment, what with it being Sunday, and a long holiday weekend at that. So I was more than a little surprised to note that one site was showing three more downloads than the last time I'd checked. That may not sound like much (okay, it really isn't much), but it's pretty exciting stuff under the circumstances.

Now we get to the detective part. Who could be downloading images on a Sunday evening? Can't be Europe; it's the middle of the night over there. And things have been quiet in the US of A, download-wise. Then I noticed that the images in question have something in common; they're all of scenes around Coober Pedy, in the South Australian outback. That fits with the timing; when it's Sunday night in California it's noonish Monday in the outback. I guess one of the locals needed some photos for a project he or she is working on. Glad I could help, although I sure wish I could see the results.

Oh, and if you're curious, you can find the pictures in question here, here and here.

Update 09/13: It happened again! A week after those Oz downloads, I suddenly saw a bunch of downloads on another microstock site. This time all the shots were from my 2003 trip to New Zealand. And this time it kept going for a while; by the time the numbers stopped changing I had fourteen more downloads, including a couple of pictures no one had picked before. Gee, another ten thousand or so and I'll have that trip paid for!

One of the podcasts I've been listening to is called Cinecast, which consists of two guys talking about movies. They recently trashed Terry Gilliam's Brothers Grimm, going so far as to say that most of Mr. Gilliam's directorial efforts have been disasters. As big a Python fan as I am, I was never a big fan of his animations; mostly I'd just wait for the funny live action stuff to come back on.

None of which is the point of this post, which is really about an early effort of two other Python alums, Michael Palin and Terry Jones. in the late 70s Palin and Jones collaborated on Ripping Yarns, a series of 1920s era boy's own adventure stories that I remember discovering and loving during my time in the UK. Now they're out on DVD and well worth a viewing. They do a surprisingly good job of creating an early 20th century sense of heroism amid a world of possibility, while at the same time pointing out the absurdity of the whole thing.

Sadly, there are only nine Ripping Yarns. According to Mr. Palin, the BBC weren't entirely comfortable with the concept. Sitcoms they got; standalone comedy stories in an anthology format made them nervous. Pity, that.

I think I set a new record for the fastest buying decision I've ever made, at least for a situation where a quick decision wasn't called for. If you're a Pod person, you've probably heard of Griffin's iTrip, the little radio transmitter you plug into your iPod so you can listen in your car. I bought the original iTrip for my first generation iPod, as well as the current model for my iPods Mini and Photo. It's a great idea, if not the greatest implementation.

There are two problems. The first is inherent in any such device: its signal strength is limited by the FCC which, combined with the location and behavior of a particular car's radio and antenna, means erratic performance. Especially in places like the Bay Area, where a free bit of spectrum is hard to come by. And then there's the no-controls design of the iTrip; instead of tuning the station with a dial or buttons, you play a special file on the iPod. That doesn't seem like a big deal, until you're forced to find a new frequency when you're driving. Then it's a royal pain.

Anyway, that's all background. At 6:20 this morning, the Engadget blog reported that Griffin has a new and improved iTrip, one with a tuning dial and display, as well as a second broadcast mode for clogged airwaves. I read the posting around 7 this morning, and by 7:15 I had my order in. Can't wait to see if it works as well as they claim.

Update 09/13: I'm sure you've been waiting anxiously for my report on the new iTrip. It arrived yesterday and got its first workout this morning. And I'm happy to say it's as good as it sounded. Or it sounds as good as the description suggested. Or something. The DX mode trades mono sound for a stronger signal, which is perfect for podcasts. The tuning dial is a whole lot more convenient than the sound file approach. And for whatever reason, it seems to kick in and start broadcasting a lot faster than the old one, which is nice. It's a shame Griffin didn't get it all right the first time around. And it's also a pity that it won't work with the iPod nano (no remote socket). But otherwise I have to say the new iTrip's about as good as I could hope for.

Short version: check this out.

Long version: A few days ago I received an email from a company called RawSugar. They're based around here (here = Silicon Valley) and were looking for influential bloggers whose brains they could pick regarding a new web-based tagging system they're developing. Being one of a select group of Santa Clara County Bloggers (self-selected, it's true; but still...) got me their attention. And a scan of this very blog (this very what blog?) and the surrounding website convinced them that I had the kind of broad and deep industry background they were looking for. Which put me in some pretty good company: people like Dan Gillmor, Doc Searls and David Weinberger, who already wrote about his encounter with them. Anyway, I spent an interesting hour with some of the RawSugar gang, getting a demo and talking about how I as a blogger and blogreader might benefit from their system.

That was yesterday. Today I sat down with RawSugar to see where it took me. Scanning down a list of Just Added Pages, many of which relate to the disaster in New Orleans, I came across a blog with the rather provocative title of Libelous Claims About Large Corporations. And whatever I expected to see when I clicked through, I wasn't ready for what I found. Nor, I suspect, will you be.

While scanning the blog posts in my RSS feed this morning I came upon a link to the American Red Cross donation site, which is being hosted by Yahoo! Stores. I clicked on an amount, went to check out and got an error. It seems that I couldn't get a secure connection to Yahoo's payment system. Tried again a little while later and was able to complete the transaction and get my donation on the way.

Which suggests that the server was just too overloaded the first time to take my pledge. Which is sort of a bright spot in its way, if there really are so many people showing their support that Yahoo! is having trouble keeping up. If you can't get in, please keep trying. It's the least we can do.