Interesting links and notes on updates to my main website.



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Super Markets.
Vijay Vaitheeswaran's Power to the People makes the free-market case for clean energy.
Via SE. posted by Richard at 09:27 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

In the news: It is cold.

It is not clear to me why this is news in Canada, but apparently it is. posted by Richard at 08:48 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Chomsky

the doctrine of change of course. It's a doctrine that's invoked every two or three years in the United States. The content of the doctrine is yes, in the past, we did some wrong things because of our innocence or out of inadvertence, but now that's all over, so we can't not waste any more time on this boring, stale stuff

from After the War. Via SE. posted by Richard at 08:22 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

So I watched the MacWorld keynote (on my 20" LCD, blah blah).
So the web confirms what I thought I saw in GarageBand.

The window is dark grey/black with ORANGE bars along the left and right sides.

For the love of god, would someone keep Steve and his team away from GUI design?

GUI is about same look, consistent behaviour.
OS Classic understands this very deeply.
OS X is done by people who don't seem to understand this at all.
OS Classic is about "make this work well".
OS X is about "make this look cool". posted by Richard at 07:55 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Tomorrow's Quirks will, not surprisingly, include info about the latest Mars developments. posted by Richard at 12:01 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Iraq's hidden weapons did not exist, say reports. Via SE.

UPDATE: Darren Broadfoot links to a Washington Post article Iraq's Arsenal Was Only on Paper

and mentions the two main possibilities
1. They were lying
2. Their intelligence was terrible

Either possibility should be sparking a massive investigation and discrediting a lot of people, but so far that doesn't seem to be happening.

This is faith-based politics in action (that's "politics driven by belief, not by rational analysis").
"We must attack Iraq. It doesn't matter why." posted by Richard at 11:58 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

musicplasma
the music visual search engine
I don't know how accurate it is, but it certainly looks pretty.
Via SE. posted by Richard at 11:55 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Toyota unveils world's first luxury hybrid. Via SE. posted by Richard at 09:39 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Richer, stouter, and no happier. Via GS. posted by Richard at 09:33 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Babel's children. Languages may be more different from each other than is currently supposed. That may affect the way people think.
Via GS. posted by Richard at 09:31 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

I'm reading God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible.
Shakespeare was writing his plays at the same time as the creation of the KJB, it's incredible to think that these two foundational components of our language happened in the same, brief historical moment.

Online NewsHour: God's Secretaries. Transcript and video (Real or Windows). posted by Richard at 09:08 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Farmed salmon more toxic than wild variety

Intensive farming sucks.

Farmed salmon not safe, warns study. Via SE. posted by Richard at 09:06 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Bush urges space station on moon

Yeah, and I'm sure he would offer to colonize Atlantis too if he thought it would get him votes.
With what money is he going to do this?
Didn't his father promise exactly the same stuff?

Anyway, it would be cool if it did happen, although I think the Near-Earth Asteroids would be more interesting to base on than the Moon. posted by Richard at 09:03 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Ok, so here's the deal:
I bought a Dell Dimension 8200.
I didn't extend the warranty beyond 1 year.
It died. It appears to be the motherboard.

There are two versions of the 8200 motherboard.
One uses the 850 chipset, with 400 MHz front-side bus (FSB) and takes RAMBUS 800MHz 45ns RAM.
The other uses the 850e chipset, 533MHz FSB, 800-40ns RAMBUS.

So I have the 850 chipset one and 800-45ns RAM.
I need to get a replacement motherboard.
I looked on eBay but it looks like they are only selling the 850e motherboard.

Any suggestions? posted by Richard at 08:27 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

The spam seems to have shifted from Hilton/Simpson to PayPal phishing.
Today's subject winner: "Expect this universal vital implausible galleries are superlative in the present day!" posted by Richard at 07:32 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Verisign are a bunch of wankers.

Verisign Certificate Expiration Causes Multiple Problems

What have they got like 1 technical person and 500 marketdroids there?

If every time a certificate expires, computers all over the Internet go haywire, it doesn't bode very well for the wonders of PKI. posted by Richard at 18:59 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

The Effective Incident Response Team free chapters 2 and 8 (PDF). Via Slashdot and Help Net Security Review. posted by Richard at 13:24 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

The studious grad student. posted by Richard at 13:19 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

In case you're wondering

The National Capital Commission (NCC) wishes to advise the public that the Rideau Canal remains closed and that it is currently dangerous to venture onto the Rideau Canal ice surface.

from http://www.canadascapital.gc.ca/skateway/conditions/index_e.asp

I would think a few more days of this -20 stuff and maybe it will open.

Note: I don't know of anyone other than the NCC who calls it the Skateway. posted by Richard at 13:04 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

JAGL has been running something called the Carnival of the Canucks. Apparently the baton will now be passed to DiscountBlogger. posted by Richard at 07:01 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

-21.8°C outside. Gahhhh.
But fortunately the wind chill makes it feel like only -40.
Same tomorrow, the radio says. posted by Richard at 06:50 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

The revolution should not be eulogised features a great Gaping Void (um, a comical cartoon thing, that is). posted by Richard at 19:18 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

The McWetlog locates yet another interesting blog, about building an off-grid house:

Straw House Blog posted by Richard at 12:47 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Real does their best to bury the link, but you can get their free player from... http://www.real.com/freeplayer/
The Windows download is about 9.5 MB.

With RealPlayer 10, they have announced an integrated music store. Wonder where they got that idea from...

Today's Macintouch reports

The free version of RealPlayer 10 can play all of the major formats used on the Web, including Real, Windows Media, QuickTime MPEG-4, MP3, as well as the secure versions of these formats used by online music stores. For the first time ever, RealPlayer 10 makes it possible for consumers to use a single media player to play music on their PC purchased from all of the major online music stores.
[...] Powered by the extensive and easy-to-use music directory of the award-winning Rhapsody digital music service, the RealPlayer Music Store is expected to include 400,000 by the end of January 2004 in the highest quality of any download store: 192 Kb/s RealAudio 10 with AAC. Music tracks are priced at $0.99 with most albums at $9.99. For the next 10 days, U.S. consumers who download RealPlayer 10 will be able to purchase their first track for only $0.10.

And before you ask...

We're sorry, [RealNetworks] Music Store downloads are only available to residents of the U.S. and its territories at this time. We hope to have service available in other parts of the world soon. Thanks for your patience.

posted by Richard at 12:32 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

I don't think I'm paying for extra anti-spam, but Bigfoot seems to have really tightened their spam filtering since the start of 2004. I'm getting basically none via bigfoot now. They're not forwarding the spam at all.

Bigfoot Communications Fights Spam With An Enhanced Anti-Spam Solution

This is not something I would use for critical email (I prefer the "tag as spam but forward everything" approach), but it's useful for an email to use for e.g. signing up on websites. posted by Richard at 07:29 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

So I got the component video cable at Radio Shack and to my surprise, you can actually tell the difference.
The colours are richer and the colour areas more sharply defined than with s-video.
I used the Crouching Tiger DVD and it was easy to find scenes where the comparison was visible.
Using a 27" Sony CRT TV.

For something very colour-intense like Finding Nemo I think it would be even more obvious.

The basic summary on these cables is composite carries everything, brightness (luma or "Y"), colour, sync on one cable.
S-video splits the brightness and colour into two pairs of wires (one pair for bright, one pair for colour).
Component splits it even further into a Y cable, and two colour difference cables (Pb and Pr).

Here are some more video cabling/format info links:
Video Basics
Basics of Video
DVD: cable connections
Video Display Resolutions, Formats, and Interfacing posted by Richard at 22:34 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Bush In 30 Seconds

I admire the simplicity of Desktop. posted by Richard at 19:12 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Beware Of Telephone Credit Card Scammers: Never Give Credit Card Information On Phone

I got an email reporting this scam is active in Canada.

In Canada if someone tries a phone scam on you, contact PhoneBusters. posted by Richard at 16:14 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Wired's front page also turns up

2004: Year of the Green Machine

The hybrid car may finally reach its destination on the long road to respectability in 2004, thanks in part to strong demand for the new Toyota Prius.

The sales of fuel-efficient, gas-electric vehicles are expected to more than double next year, surpassing 100,000 worldwide, as Detroit finally hops on board.

posted by Richard at 13:04 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Lessig's blog pointed to (but didn't have a link for) his January 2004 Wired article

A Taste of Our Own Poison - A modest proposal: Hold Hollywood hostage till we kill farm subsidies

The dirty little secret, however, is that we don't respect the free trade rules that we impose on others. While the US sings the virtues of free trade to defend maximalist intellectual property regulation, we poison the free trade that developing nations care about most - agriculture - by subsidizing farming in the industrialized world to the tune of $300 billion annually. Rhetoric about family farmers aside, most of that money passes quickly to agribusiness. This is not Adam Smith; it is corporate welfare par excellence.

I have a couple more links on subsidies on my page o' envirodoom. posted by Richard at 13:02 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Things thou mayest wish to read:

Digital SLR .org (via McWetlog)

Lessig Blog

SANS Internet [Security] Storm Center posted by Richard at 12:55 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Watched State and Main. It was good. I like Mamet's stuff.
Rebecca Pidgeon is often in his stuff, she's cool. posted by Richard at 00:43 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Ginn Photo on Bank has added an uploader they call FotoDesk, which is just Kodak Image Check / FotoWire.

They appear to be offering 25 free prints if you bring in an ad I saw on page A3 of the Saturday January 3, 2004 Ottawa Citizen. posted by Richard at 16:15 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

What are the spammers up to?

They honestly think I'm going to read a message entitled "anglerack tool ciphertexts" from "Mutating R. Plasterer"? posted by Richard at 10:20 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

Pat Robertson: God told him it's Bush in a 'blowout' in November

but wait, it gets better

"The Lord has just blessed him," Robertson said of Bush. "I mean, he could make terrible mistakes and comes out of it. It doesn't make any difference what he does, good or bad, God picks him up because he's a man of prayer and God's blessing him."

posted by Richard at 07:38 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

FoxTrot. Via SE. posted by Richard at 07:37 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

NASA's site is a bit over-elaborate, but the place for rover updates appears to be

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/ posted by Richard at 06:34 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

The email count after two weeks.

correctly classified as junk: 367
false positive: 1
false negative, group one: 23
false negative, group two: 6
spam to my dom: 2
virus: 2 (both Swen.A) posted by Richard at 06:08 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)