Interesting links and notes on updates to my main website.



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No more blogging until next week. posted by Richard at 13:52 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

• Astronomy Picture of the Day
  
• Earth Observatory (EO) Newsroom: New Images
  
• EO: Earth's City Lights
  
• Visible Earth: Canada's Maritime Provinces
  
• Hubble Captures Best View of Mars Ever Obtained From Earth
  

added to Space Exploration page. posted by Richard at 10:42 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Your electronic friends [dead link] and The Extent of Systematic Monitoring of Employee E-mail and Internet Use added to Articles: Privacy.

Yes, I know I seem to spend a lot of time worrying about doom from all directions. posted by Richard at 15:55 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

With typical Canadian smugness, I have been comforted by the fact that we don't have a copyright law like the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) in the United States, which skews the balance between the public's right of fair use and the copyright holder's right to protect their content strongly in favor of the holders. Currently there's a big fuss because they've used the anti-circumvention part of the law, which makes it illegal to break digital copyright protections, against some Russian graduate student.

However it turns out we're not out of the woods in Canada. There is a Canadian Copyright Reform Process underway, and they are considering whether or not to add such anti-circumvention provisions into Canadian law. You must submit your comments to them by September 15, 2001. posted by Richard at 13:47 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

I'm having a Jane Siberry marathon. I have copied my 5 CDs to a single MP3 CD, so it plays the whole sheebang. I like the first album, her eponymous work from 1980. I guess because I find earlier works to be better usually, and also because I like obscure difficult-to-find things. posted by Richard at 12:59 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

I got my new glasses today. Now I will be c001. I have one ear higher than the other, and one ear farther back than the other. I'm such a mutant. I went to the Hip Hop Candy Shop, it had a rather disappointing selection of licorice. I like double salted licorice. All they had was licorice wheels. I saw something called the Rose Bowl Candy Shop, maybe I will try them next time. I used to go to the shop in Park Lane, but one day their candy was um, sticky, and it grossed me out.

There's like a whole city shining in the sun outside my apartment. I never go anywhere. I should get out and walk around more. I never go to the harbourfront or downtown or anything. I just sit here in front of my 17" monitor surfing the boring web all day, while the whole interesting world goes by outside. posted by Richard at 10:58 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

I finally saw The Daily Show with Jon Stewart last night. It's on at midnight. It reminds me of when I was a kid staying up to watch Letterman, which was on at like 12:30 AM or something. Anyway the show was fairly good, I liked the Bush energy plan segment and the end of the G8 segment where they talked about the safety of holding the next summit in the Canadian Rockies ("what about the Sasquatch?"). posted by Richard at 08:57 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

A warning - the worst worm I've seen yet - W32/SirCam@MM. I have gotten about 6 of these in the past couple days. It gets sent not only to people on your address list, but also to email addresses found in temporary Internet cached files (web browser cache). That means if you have your email address on your web page, you will get email from people who have recently visited your site. If you get anything that says:

I send you this file in order to have your advice
or I hope you can help me with this file that I send
or I hope you like the file that I sendo you
or This is the file with the information that you ask for

do not run the attached executable. posted by Richard at 07:58 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

A friend emailed me with the good news that the Space channel will be running Farscape finally starting this fall. Stay tuned for FARSCAPE on SPACE. Coming up Fall 2001 – Saturdays @ 2pm ET with a repeat Sundays @ 1pm ET. posted by Richard at 23:21 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

I saw this thing as I flicking past on television - in Alaska they had a bounty on eagles until 1953. They killed 128,000 of them. They thought they were eating too many salmon.

Protection for the bald eagle came slowly. Not until 1940, when the Bald Eagle Act was signed, was the killing of bald eagles in the lower 48 states prohibited. In Alaska, a bounty was in effect from 1917 to 1945 and again from 1949 to 1953. More than 100,000 eagles were killed, each pair of feet bringing from 50 cents to $2. Finally, in 1953, the Territorial Bald Eagle Bounty Law was repealed in Alaska, making the indiscriminate killing of bald eagles illegal.

from Nebraska Wildlife - The Bald Eagle. posted by Richard at 19:42 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Hmm, perhaps I shouldn't have stuck this electrothermometer right into my mouth without washing it first (the thermometer).
Oh well, maybe any germs it introduces will vanquish the ones I already have and make me well. posted by Richard at 12:10 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

so I went to get a thermometer
I guess they don't have mercury ones anymore, what with it being neurotoxic

I'm unclear what the big mercury panic is about.
When I was a kid, I got as a gift a bottle of like 2 cubic cm of mercury from old/broken thermometers
which I of course entertained myself like any normal kid by pouring all over my desk and my hands in my room

maybe that's what happened to my beautiful brain

it was really cool to play with anyway posted by Richard at 12:08 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Also good by Aimee Mann on the Magnolia album are One

One is the loneliest number - That you'll ever do

and Momentum

Oh, for the sake of momentum
I've allowed my fears to get larger than life
And it's brought me to my current agendum
Whereupon I deny fulfillment has yet to arrive

And I know life is getting shorter
I can't bring myself to set the scene
Even when it's approaching torture
I've got my routine

Oh, for the sake of momentum
Even though I agree with that stuff about seizing the day
But I hate to think of effort expended
All those minutes and days and hours I have frittered away

But I can't confront the doubts I have
I can't admit that maybe the past was bad
And so, for the sake of momentum
I'm condemning the future to death so it can match the past posted by Richard at 09:26 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Aimee Mann's Wise Up was one of those free time-limited Liquid Audio download things. It worked, because when it expired I bought the Magnolia soundtrack CD.

It's not - What you thought - When you first began it
You got - What you want - Now you can hardly stand it,
though - By now you know - It's not going to stop -
It's not going to stop - It's not going to stop - 'Til you wise up posted by Richard at 09:16 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Northern Exposure is my favorite television show. I liked 3.17 Lost and Found

Life here is so elemental. So real. Without the interference of
civilization you can really experience things like,...silence. Silence
and darkness in its purity. Right now, right outside my window all I can
see is a black void. Endless darkness. It's totally exhilarating, and I
feel very lucky to be here. Very, very lucky.
(Joel writes a letter to a NY friend)

You live alone, he lived alone. You're anti-social, he was anti-social.
He had no friends, you...
(Maggie about Joel and Jack) posted by Richard at 09:11 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

I watched bits and pieces of the African Queen last night. There's one scene where Humphrey Bogart is shaving, followed by a soliloquy on the civilizing merits of female companionship. He observes how Katherine Hepburn's character does all her chores first, and only then settles back to read. Whereas his philosophy has been Never do today what you can put off to tomorrow. I rubbed my week's growth of whiskers as I pondered this. Yesterday I ran out of:

• time
  
• money
  
• clean underwear
  
• food
  
• toilet paper
  
• clean socks
  
• sleep
  
• health
  
• sanity (probably none of this to start with)
  

posted by Richard at 09:05 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)