Eye Candy for the Day: 2007-03-24

Have a look around the site called dhteumeuleu. The current default that loads on the home page doesn't do much for me, but there's plenty else to see. Try clicking the"random" or "gallery" or "demos" links. Some amazing stuff awaits you. Most of the images react to your mouse movements. You may need to let the pages fully load before they respond properly, but they're not hugely bandwidth-intensive.

Tip: make sure the volume on your computer isn't cranked before visiting. The pages serve up music to accompany the images.

Thanks to Jinnet for for the link.

Retronym and Neologism of the Day -- 2007-03-24

In the same article, no less!

The retronym: artificial artificial intelligence

The neologism: crowdsourcing

I like 'em both, although I'm a bit mystified about why the NYT is treating Amazon's Mechanical Turk as a new thing. It's so 2005.

Upgrade!

It seems that I am close to being able to tell the world that I now drive a Porsche.

Wonder if I can get a new key fob for ostentatious display in the singles bars?

Hand Wringing?

The lede:

A sharp debate within the Bush administration over the future of the Central Intelligence Agency's detention and interrogation program has left the agency without the authority to use harsh interrogation techniques that the White House said last fall were necessary in questioning terrorism suspects, according to administration and Congressional officials.

[...]

Until the debate is resolved, C.I.A. interrogators are authorized to use only interrogation procedures approved by the Pentagon.

My reaction:

You say that like that's a bad thing.

Is it just me, or does the story following the above lede have a tone worrying that we don't have enough legal ways to torture people?

Line of the Day -- 2007-03-22

Despite my personal regret at having to set aside yet another attempt to protect our children from harmful material, perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if First Amendment protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection.

-- Lowell A. Reed Jr., Senior Judge of Federal District Court, in his ruling striking down a 1998 Internet pornography law (source)

Mac Software Updates -- 2007-03-21

Apple has released two recent upgrades. OS X Tiger v 10.4.9 is now available (74.4 MB) and iTunes 7.1 (27.5 MB). Get them through Software Update under the Apple menu, as usual.

If you launch iTunes before doing Software Update, you might also get notified of its new version that way. Also, launching iTunes on the PC will likely provoke the same message -- it did for me, anyway. But you'll need to run Software Update for the OS upgrade.

The OS upgrade adds a bunch of stuff, including some security fixes. (Details here.) The update worked without a hitch for me. One minor note: the required post-upgrade reboot seemed to take a bit longer than usual. This seems to have been a one-time thing, probably having to do with completing the installation; the next restart did not take as long. Just so you know.

The Firefox update that I mentioned earlier is also available for the Mac. The patch in this case is considerably larger than the one for the PC, for reasons beyond my understanding -- it's about 16 MB.

I'll not rant further about the bloatiness of Mac software updates. You're probably still reeling from the last time.

Understatement of the Day: 2007-03-21

The Bush administration has few equals in its commitment to a broad conception of executive authority …

-- Adam Liptak

On a related note, I have only two words in response to the President's accusation of "partisan fishing expeditions:" Ken Starr.

John Backus

John Backus died this past Saturday. He was the inventor of Fortran, the first higher level programming language. For as much as programmers these days like to make fun of it, Fortran contributed as much as to the fact that you're now reading this post as Gutenberg's invention did to bring books to the masses. I cut my teeth on that language, as did many of my friends and colleagues, not to mention the gurus who moved the state of the art on from there.

There's a good remembrance of Backus in yesterday's NYT. Thanks for the link, Dan.

Firefox 2.0.0.3

Mozilla has released a set of security patches for Firefox (details), bringing the latest version to 2.0.0.3.

If you don't have automatic updating or notification enabled, do the usual:

Help -> Check for Updates

Seemed like a quick one to me, and it occurred without a hitch.

---

Update

2007-03-21 12:31 EDT

BTW, if you're still running Firefox 1.5, there's an update for that, too. This one brings you to v. 1.5.0.11.

O, Brother

What could be worse than losing a brother?

How about losing a brother and then having to deal with wing nuts at the funeral?

TUA has put up a couple of great posts, the first describing finding out about his brother's untimely death, and the second describing the funeral.

Tough to read, but well worth it.

Neologism of the Month -- 2007-03

You've probably heard this one, but I wanted to set it down for the record once I came across the original source.

Inspired by Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales's recent heavy use of the passive voice -- "mistakes were made" -- CNN senior political analyst William Schneider said that Washington had developed a whole new grammatical tense: the past exonerative.

Nice.

Sign of the (Slightly Improving) Times

Have you driven through Connecticut lately?

Check out the new road sign!

Thanks, KK.

A Small Political Solution

You know those wing nuts that want to plaster Ronald Reagan's image everywhere, including on our money?

Here's my proposal: put him on the next dollar coin.

That should either gain acceptance for a dollar coin (which I would like to see) or shut the Gipperphiles up once and for all (which I would like even more).

(Brief pause while everyone chimes in with the counter-proposal to put W on the three dollar bill.)

A Small Silver Lining

I was watching Ryan Lizza and Joshua Green on BloggingHeads.tv this morning -- one of the best "diavlogs" that site has posted -- and I had a minor thought: One of the few good things about the endless presidential campaign is that it gives Barack Obama (just to pick a favorite candidate at random ;^) ) an opportunity to weather any scandals from his past long before it matters. I've already mostly forgotten the details about that stock deal thing, and I can't imagine anyone being able to use it against him when it matters.

You know, like 20 months from now.

Reading Recommendations: 2007-03-17

Nothing Irish about this list. I am occasionally as irritated with St. Patrick's Day* as many African-Americans are about "Black History Month." That said, all but the first entry on this list are screamingly funny with a large nugget of truth, which, your host possibly excluded, is what the Irish do best.

• One Number That Will Ring All Your Phones

David Pogue's review of a new service called GrandCentral, which offers you one phone number for life. This to me is both intriguing and tempting. Arthur Clarke (or as Clare would correct me, Arthur C. Clarke) predicted this scenario a couple of decades ago. What GrandCentral offers appears to be the realization of Clarke's idea, with an additional bunch of cool features.



• Horseshoes and Hand Grenades: Joel Johnson Returns...to Spank Us All for Supporting Crap

An excellent rant, featuring the characteristic blend of this genre: incoherence, thrashing about for targets of blame, and several telling points, all of which make for a funny read.



• Us to George -- sure, whatever

Bill Maher, in an op-ed for the LA Times. No need to sell Maher, right? He's the man. Thanks to TC for the referral.



• The Pain -- When Will It End?

The web site for a weekly cartoon from Tim Kreider, which/who I had not known about until following a link from a post on "The Blog that is not Dan's Data," which is worth a read in itself.

My bulleted link points to the home page, which gives you the latest of Kreider's cartoons. Visit his archives for more. Most of the archived pages have links pointing to the next and previous cartoons, so if your sense of humor overlaps mine, you can easily spend a happy hour or two here. (If your sense of humor doesn't overlap mine, you might find some of the cartoons a bit offensive -- Kreider is refreshingly frank about sex and religion.)

Here are five that I particularly liked:



• Jesus vs. Jeezus -- says it all about the brand of Christianity that those in power in the US would have the rest of us adopt.
  
  
• What You Can Do To Fight Against The War on Sex -- one of the ones that Dan pointed to.
  
  
• V-I Day -- Posted right after W's "Mission Accomplished" photo op on that aircraft carrier.
  
  
• Scientists Riot! -- a fantasy for those of us in the reality-based community.
  
  
• Winning of Hearts & Minds -- posted about a month after 9/11. Here, it's less the cartoon than the Artist's Statement that appealed to me.
  
  

---

* For example …

Triangulate This

Need another reason to dislike Hillary Clinton?

No?

Oh, just play along.

According to the NYT blog The Caucus, Sen. Clinton was asked on ABC News today whether she thought homosexuality was "immoral." The Caucus reports that she declined to answer, giving a classic weasel in response, leaving it for "others to conclude."

I have no doubt that Sen. Clinton is not a homophobe, and I understand the political calculus that underlies her every breath. It may even be that she was misunderstood, as later spin from her camp seems to suggest. Nonetheless, this is yet another case of her being so eager to unoffend that those of us with any moral fiber at all can do nothing but cringe.

To recall the famous words of another infamous First Lady, here's some succinct advice, should the question ever get asked again: "Just Say No."

The Miers Nomination, Take 2

Reflections after reading the lead story in today's NYTimes

One of the memes that we used to hear ad nauseum was that loyalty counted for everything in the Bush Administration. George Bush's loyalty, it was often said, was the reason why guys like Brownie and Bremer and Rummy got or kept their jobs, despite clear demonstrations of incompetence. Bush's loyalty was also trotted out to explain why a certain thoroughly unqualified White House counsel was once nominated for a seat on the Supreme Court.

As with most politicians on the defensive, though, it turns out that loyalty for George Bush is an ice cube: Turn up the heat, and watch it vanish.

With the Occupant-in-Chief safely out of the country, guess who's being groomed as scapegoat -- back in Washington -- for the burgeoning scandal concerning all those fired U.S. Attorneys.

Hint:

With Mr. Bush traveling in Mexico, the White House insisted that the president's role had been minimal and laid the blame primarily on Harriet E. Miers, who was White House counsel when the prosecutors lost their jobs …

[…]

… the White House scrambled to explain the matter by releasing a stream of e-mail messages detailing how Ms. Miers had corresponded with D. Kyle Sampson, the top aide to [Attorney-General Alberto] Gonzales who drafted the list of those to be dismissed.

Mr. Sampson resigned Monday. On Tuesday afternoon, at a news conference in an ornate chamber adjacent to his office, Mr. Gonzales promised to "find out what went wrong here," even as he insisted he had had no direct knowledge of how his staff had decided on the dismissals.

He said he had rejected an earlier idea, which the White House attributed to Ms. Miers, to replace all 93 United States attorneys, the top federal prosecutors in their regions.

Nice. Blame it all on Harriet Miers, who has been gone since 31 January of this year. Bonus points for floating the unsubstantiated idea that it could have been far worse ("we only fired seven out of the 93!"), a tactic familiar from this Administration. Think about the way they spin the budget deficits, for example.

In case Miers's shoulders are too narrow to bear all the blame, it's clear who's the fall guy on deck:

The White House took the unusual step of having [new White House counsel Dan] Bartlett conduct a hurried briefing with reporters in Mérida, Mexico. He said the president had "all the confidence in the world" in Mr. Gonzales …

Being assigned to the spotlight of a press conference to push a weak stopgap position while a spokesperson in another location simultaneously says that your boss has "all the confidence in the world" in you is usually the kiss of death in politics. Call him Gone-zales.

The wholesale firing of the U.S. Attorneys is a serious matter and deserves thorough Congressional investigation. In the meantime, though, I can't help but cackle. It's fun to watch the rats turn on each other.

+ + + + +

Update

Just noticed this other article in the Times. More on the loyalty meme.

That Proves It!

In the 9 March edition of the download.com newsletter, one of the featured downloads is:

Internet Explorer Add-ons: Fox News Toolbar 4.6

It's not such a complex world after all, is it?

(Two, count 'em, two, Rudy Cheeks references in one post!)

DST Update

As I mentioned a few days ago, Daylight Saving Time in the U.S. starts earlier this year -- today, 11 March. Here's how my various computers/OSes handled the change in date:

• Windows 2000 SP4: system clock remained on Standard Time (as expected; see earlier post). Followed the somewhat clunky update procedure described on Microsoft's site a few minutes ago (i.e., several hours after the change point), and then things seemed okay.
• Windows XP SP2: system clock moved ahead two hours. Sync'ed with network time server, corrected time.
• Ubuntu 6.06: remained on Standard Time. Sync'ed with network time server, corrected time.
• Mac OS X Tiger (10.4): correctly adjusted clock.

Kudos to Apple. Boos and hisses to Ubuntu. This should have been fixed as part of the usual updating. As I recall, there was a kernel upgrade provided within the past few weeks. Even if time isn't maintained through the kernel, this would have been a good point to add a patch. Boos and hisses to Microsoft, also, and for two reasons: First, the Win2000 procedure should have been implemented as a standard patch accessible via Windows Update. Second, it is unbelievable that the "correction" on XP didn't work properly. Evidently, it was applied twice.

Your war stories?

Free Bumper Sticker

Want a bumper sticker like this?

Visit this page on MoveOn.org.

My Verdict

Scooter Libby: lies about Iraq :: Lynndie England: Abu Ghraib

The analogy breaks down slightly: I expect Libby to be pardoned.

Reading Recommendation: 2007-03-05

Man. Brando just keeps getting better. Here's one from a few days ago that I just caught: "Bush to the Future."

Don't walk. Run. It's that good.

Language Non-Rant

When I was a kid, my mother (who is the nuture and the nature behind my usual language fussiness) frequently challenged my use of "hate" and "love." She insisted that these words meant a rarely-approached extreme, and that they should be reserved for use in connection with people, and only a very few people at that.

I dunno. I never took to that, whether for reasons of offspring-obnoxiousness or anything higher minded. As evidence of my continuing immaturity, or weak vocabulary, or whatever, I just got through ranting on Brando's blog about how I hated "Lola," "Behind Blue Eyes," and anything by Cat Stevens. (Fortunately, it was one of his always entertaining what's-on-my-random-iPod posts, so I was somewhat within context.)

It just occurred to me that Heather Havrilesky once defended her overuse of the word "fuck." Since she was first, and better, I'll not go on at length about "love" and "hate."

I'm just sayin', for those of you who think I'm a stick in the mud about all things usage.

Oh, the Machinery! (2007-03-05)

First, DST:

You probably already know this, but we're springing ahead (ahem) a few weeks early this year in the U.S. -- this Saturday night/Sunday morning (and falling back later, but that's not for a few months yet). Here's a pretty good NYT story on the "mini-Y2K" aspects of the new definition for Daylight Saving Time.

Extra points for word-nerdliness if you looked at the spelled-out DST above, noticed the lack of a trailing s, and knew it to be correct. I'll not go on further about this. [Added: Or will I???]

… pause for obnoxiously loud sighs of relief from the grammar wonk haters in the peanut gallery …

Here's a handy MS link (here's another, which should point to the same place, ultimately) that gives you the details concerning the Windows version of the mini-Y2K drama that may or may not be looming. Basically, if you have Vista, you're okay. If you have XP SP2, and you've been regularly updating Windows lately, you're okay. All others (like me on my main blogging machine): follow the link and optionally run diagnoses, download patches, etc. Probably you need to do this with IE, and not any other browser, for full functionality.

I've looked at, but not run, the fix for my Win2k machine. I'm going to let it go and see what happens. (Fortunately, my machine is not hooked to any power plants, airline reservation systems, automated drug dispensers, or dam controls.) I'll let you know if anything exciting happens. I expect my ancient VCR will be befuddled. It remains to be seen whether the cordless phone, cell phone, and other computers are up to snuff. I'm pretty sure the cats are DST-compliant -- they've been yowling for food ever earlier lately. Photophiles.

Quicktime security update:

Latest Mac OS X updates: a security patch and bug fix update for Quicktime, which brings you to v7.1.5, and a feature enhancement for iTunes, which brings you to v7.1. "Better sorting options" is one of the advertised iTunes features, so that made it worth it for me. I'll suffer through the Quicktime download, for security's sake.

Warning for you last-minuters: The iTunes update is an irritating 27 MB download, and Quicktime's patch weighs in at its usual svelteness: 44 MB! (Never think MS is the only company suffering from bloatware.) So, budget a little time if you're not on a very high speed connection. (70 MB takes about half an hour on my cheap DSL line (256k), probably 10 minutes on mid-range 768k DSL lines, a few minutes over most cable modems, and until the Rapture if you're on dial-up. (TC, I feel your pain.))

Get them both through Mac's Software Update, off the Apple menu.

On my PC's version of iTunes, I showed v7.0.2.16, and "check for updates" said that was the latest for the PC. Checking for updates through Quicktime's Help menu seemed to hang, which felt vaguely familiar. Acting on this memory, I downloaded and installed the new version of Quicktime, which … surprise! … turns out to be the iTunes installer file! Well, you can't have iTunes without having Quicktime, even on the PC, and hey, what's another 40 MB between computers?

After the download, versions show as 7.1.0.59 for iTunes and 7.1.5 for Quicktime. iTunes's "check for updates" again says it's completely up to date, and Quicktime's again seems to hang.

… pause for a long, long moment of wondering why I maintain this broken software on my PC in the first place …

Who can tell me about playing .MOV files on Linux? I'd like to know.

Firefox on Ubuntu Linux - "Personal Security Manager" problem

If you're running Firefox (v1.5) on Ubuntu Linux, and you suddenly find a problem with connecting to secure sites, there are some notes on my Ubuntu blog. Let me know if you want details -- the notes are a little terse.

Bottom line: upgrade to v2.0.0.2 fixed the immediate problem, although upgrade not done through Upgrade Manager, so I'm unsure what happens next time v1.5 or v2 updates are released.

Molly Cartoons

Daryl Cagle has posted a collection of political cartoons that remark on the passing of late great Molly Ivins. Some good ones.

Thunderbird v1.5.0.10

Mozilla released an update for Thunderbird yesterday. Several security fixes and stability patches, it says in the release notes.

The usual Help -> Check for Updates drill should handle things in Mozilla's usual smooth way.

On a related note, I just heard from Lou, who has a new machine that runs MS Vista. He says Vista can't run Outlook, his preferred email client (for reasons passing understanding), not to mention most of his old Office suite.

Imagine that.

Five years in development, a steep price tag, heinous hardware requirements -- a GIG of RAM just to run an operating system? -- and the new Windows can't even run Microsoft's own existing software.

Costs lots to get moving? And the result of the investment is a garish appearance that doesn't perform that well? Vista is the Paris Hilton of operating systems.

---

Update 2007-03-03 12:41:41

Just a little more snark: This from a couple of weeks ago, via PC Advisor:

Popular Windows software that is conspicuously missing from Microsoft's list [of applications guaranteed to run under Vista] includes Adobe's entire line of graphics and multimedia software, Symantec's security products, as well as Mozilla’s Firefox web browser, Skype's voice-over-IP software and the OpenOffice.org alternative to Microsoft Office.

Monopolistic behavior? What monopolistic behavior?

A. O. Scott on "Wild Hogs"

Do not miss A. O. Scott's review of "Wild Hogs" in today's NY Times. Scott masterfully takes down what sounds like the movie to miss of the year.

To give you a sense, here's the headline for the review: "Hitting the Road for Some Hot Man-on-Bike Action."

Clarify the Emotion

While walking through the grocery story parking lot today, I saw a car pulling into a space, and thought, "Wow. Pretty nice looking Camry."

Getting closer, I could see the logos and nameplates on the rear end. Turns out it was what we used to call an "entry-level" Mercedes-Benz.

The question (assuming that I'm the focus group): Should Toyota designers be happy? Should MB designers be sad? Or is it probably just a good thing that I can no longer identify make and model like I could when I was sixteen?

On the other hand, one of the early warning signs of impending geezerhood is making statements like "all cars look alike nowadays."

Let Me Finish, by Roger Angell

The image I have of Roger Angell, I realized yesterday, is thirty-five years old -- the one that appears above, taken from the dust jacket of The Summer Game.

I think The Summer Game was every other book that I read in 1972 and the next few years, devouring it cover to cover every time we visited the grandparents who had it on the shelf. Summers passed, Grandpa died, Grandma moved to an assisted-living apartment, and one of the few compensations for all this sadness was being bequeathed the treasured volume. I still reread it every year or so. Although I can no longer detect the aroma of Grandpa and Grandma's living room, it remains a treat to open. It is on a very short list of the best books about baseball ever written. Several other contenders on anybody's Top 10 list are also by Angell.

I had not read any of his non-baseball work before finding his latest, Let Me Finish, on the "New Nonfiction" shelf a couple of days ago at the library.

Angell says that Let Me Finish is not the result of planning to write a memoir, nor was he ever one for keeping a diary, but that he found himself with a collection of memories that he'd written down over the past three years.

Protestations of modesty or intent aside, there is the feel of a theme running through the essays. Maybe it's just a tone of voice. Whatever the case, it's consistent and it's wonderful. Angell's prose continues to flow as smoothly as a big cabernet sauvignon, especially if you have some chocolate to go with it.

There is nothing mawkish or maudlin about this book. Angell has a rare ability to make reasonable an unapologetic view of the innocence and optimism of decades past. These are not the mutterings of a codger, wishing you'd stay the hell off his lawn. He makes clear that some things have gotten better, does not pretend that everything about the past was perfect, and even, sort of, acknowledges that today's more ironic point of view is occasionally not without merit. I wish that no one had previously used the phrase "grow old gracefully," because I can think of nothing more appropriate to characterize Angell in Let Me Finish.

Something I didn't know is that Angell is the stepson of E.B. White. He grew up in two households, living with his father during the week, and his mother and White on the weekends. One of the essays is about White, and another about his father, Ernest, and my feeling after reading both is that Angell gained far more than he lost from being raised this way.

There is one baseball essay in the book, and his favorite sport appears throughout, like a radio on in the background, getting turned up when a rally starts. Baseball is probably the one area that he covers where I am old enough to share his sense of before and after. Though I'm little more than half Angell's age, and don't remember baseball not being on television, we're of one mind about a sense of loss and a distaste for the current state of affairs. I know how much it irritates me to contemplate Barry Bonds breaking Hank Aaron's home run record; Angell, who saw Babe Ruth play, must be doubly queasy. Neither of us care for the current assault on the senses at the ballpark, and both of us shudder at the game's devolution into sports-industrial complex, not to mention the gossip column coverage of the players. But here again, he does not harp. I was left feeling that he has, like I try to, merely demoted paying attention to baseball on his list of priorities, occasionally indulging only in a wistful twinge.

Here's the way he looks on the dust jacket of Let Me Finish:

Highly recommended.

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Photo credits:
From The Summer Game: Judy Tomkins
From Let Me Finish: John Henry Angell