Madonna con bambino ii

(h/t: TC, via email)

(previously)

Deep thought

What is it, 2012? And Gmail still doesn't know how to display a forwarded .eml attachment? Perhaps they have been spending their energies in the wrong places, hmmm?

False Alarm

Thought they had released a new album, but it turns out it's just another stupid Facebook game.

Probably the first time I've felt like that sort of geezer who misses cultural references when my first reaction was thinking of a death metal band.

Early Camping Sights

Happened across something by Martin Gardner from his days of writing the Notes of a Fringe Watcher column for Skeptical Inquirer. It ran in Volume 24.1, Jan/Feb 2000, under the title, "The Second Coming of Jesus." You can guess from those data what the piece is mostly about, but skimming down, there's this delightful little nugget:

In 1992 Harold Camping published, through a vanity press, his book 1994? It predicted that the Second Coming would occur in September of that year. This was followed in 1993 by a sequel titled Are You Ready? Together, the two books totaled 955 pages. Trained as a civil engineer, Camping made enough money running a construction company to found, in 1959, Family Stations, Inc. It soon came to control thirty-nine radio stations. A non-ordained Bible scholar, Camping conducted a nightly radio talk show from his headquarters in Oakland, California. After September passed with no sign of the Lord, Camping changed his date to October 2. When that passed uneventfully, he ran out of excuses and decided against any more date setting.

Did he now.

Maybe he was just waiting until Gardner died.

(pic. sources, top to bottom: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 )

That Dylan album ...

... I mentioned a while back is now available for your listening pleasure on Spotify (and probably elsewhere, but hey, that's what just popped up on MY screen).

Anybody here shocked that Lenny Kravitz chose to do "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35?" Me neither. Still, it was a nice surprise.

Seal and Jeff Beck's toke take on "Like A Rolling Stone" is not as good a cover as the one Jimi gave us, but it's not turrible.

Wish I'd been in the control room when Michael Franti recorded "Subterranean Homesick Blues." I would have 86ed that clap track so hard. Ruined an otherwise interesting effort.

Kesha's version -- eh, whaddya gonna do? They also let Kris Kristofferson and Miley Cyrus in -- of "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" is about as histrionic and self-indulgent as you might expect, if you feel the same as I do about Whitney Houston clones. (Annnnn diiiiiiiiiiiiiiieee will always love yooooooo-oooo-ooo-oooooo) (But! if you like that style, hey, no problem! Like the man said.) The instrumental version by the Kronos Quartet is much more recommended, if practically not at all recognizable.

Shoutout to the geezers: Pete Seeger does "Forever Young," sounding strong if more monotonic than he did when I first saw him a few about 50 years ago. Eric Burdon (ERIC BURDON IS STILL ALIVE??? WOOHOO!) is in fine form on "Gotta Serve Somebody." And Marianne Faithful, doing "Baby Let Me Follow You Down," accompanied only by a mandolin, gets the award for sounding most like the original artist. (Okay, a cheap and easy joke, which is unusual for me, I know, but it wasn't actually a diss.) Good to see her alive and kicking, too.

(pic. source: High Times National Geographic)

Okay, so THAT's not so evil

And from the beginning of that "Learn more" link:

We’re getting rid of over 60 different privacy policies across Google and replacing them with one that’s a lot shorter and easier to read.

Yes, yes. Internet lawyers will no doubt find stuff to quibble with farther down that page than I cared to read. But at least now they only have to scrutinize one. And Google deserves an attaboy for that.

[Added] Apparently K. Drum does not feel the same. I will point out, however, that he appears to have formed his opinions on this not from reading the primary sources, but from reading the Washington Post. And you know what friends don't let friends do …

Add your voice!

[Update] If you use Firefox, check out the add-on RightToClick. Details in Comments below.

__________

No, this time, it's not an issue of global importance, like some others I've asked for your help on. This time it's personal.

Below is a copy of an email I sent this morning. If you're bugged by the same thing, why not let them know? Thanks.

Sent: 1/24/2012 08:45:10 AM
To: "Feedback, NYT" <feedback at nytimes.com>
URL: (pretty much every page on the site)
Comments:

Hello,

Do you think that now that you're charging for access to the site, you could eliminate the hugely annoying Javascript that breaks the context (right-click) menu? Please?

[Added to this CC: Screenshot here, in case you don't know what I'm talking about. [-- ed.]]

I mean, let's face it. It doesn't work to stop copying, if that's why it's there, because both the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-c and the Copy choice under the Edit menu still work. And if the reason you're doing it is to get people to use that pop-up search thing, that's really a bad decision. That thing almost never works. It didn't work when it was "powered by Ask," and it doesn't work now that it's "powered by Wordnik." It is mystified, just to take one example, by people's names, which is the thing I'm most likely to want to look up while reading an article.

What I'd really like to do when I highlight some text and right-click on it is what I get to do on practically every other site on the Web: search for that highlighted text using what I have specified as my browser's default search engine. (The results of such searches, by the way, open in a new tab, so it's not as though even this is going to lose you visitors who don't know what the back button is.)

Please fix this. It is a glaring annoyance on an otherwise very fine site -- the only one I pay to access. Worse, it is an amateurish and failed attempt at something that seems motivated by nothing so much as Web-phobic newspaper bosses from the last century.

Thank you.

Brendan Keefe

P.S. Please don't hesitate to get in touch if you'd like to discuss further.

How long?

Long enough to blink at for a while, and then find the Alt and PrtScr keys with barely a quarter-cup of coffee inside me, at least.

In Microsoft's defense, I understand they patented the zero late last century, so I suppose they can redefine it to mean anything they want.

Let's get scared!

One afternoon this month, a hacker took a tour of a dozen conference rooms around the globe via equipment that most every company has in those rooms; videoconferencing equipment.

With the move of a mouse, he steered a camera around each room, occasionally zooming in with such precision that he could discern grooves in the wood and paint flecks on the wall. In one room, he zoomed out through a window, across a parking lot and into shrubbery some 50 yards away where a small animal could be seen burrowing underneath a bush. With such equipment, the hacker could have easily eavesdropped on privileged attorney-client conversations or read trade secrets on a report lying on the conference room table.

Worth reading the whole thing, whether to give your spine some chills, or if you're like me, for entertainment.

Can't resist quoting this, too:

In this case, the hacker was HD Moore, a chief security officer at Rapid7, a Boston based company that looks for security holes in computer systems that are used in devices like toaster ovens …

Remember when we all laughed at the $8000 Internet-connected refrigerator? Just sayin.

(pic. sources: The Flying Toasters, natch, and SMC)

Screenshot of the week

Swiped from Roy's latest wingnut wrap-up, "Rightbloggers Explain How Newt Gingrich's Big Win Can Help Someone Other Than Newt Gingrich Become President."

Attention: All Members of the VLWC

Henceforth, we will be referring to Newt Gingrich as the "mayonnaise-based life form."

(h/t: @EdgeofSports, via RT)

Thought I recognized that voice

If you've seen a certain Subaru commercial lately, maybe you also wondered.

Gets my DNA bopping, anyway.

(alt. video link)

(h/t: The Google and AOL Radio)

Web page layout of the day

(embiggen)

Swiped from a CBS local site.

And okay, with a little redaction by me. But Republicans like that sort of thing, don't they?

Next time you're ready to sneer at a call for collective action ...

... watch this:

(alt. video link)

Thanks for all of your help.

(h/t: Progressive Change Campaign Committee)

I guess it all depends on what your definition of "like" is

Hello, remote readers!

To those of you who are kind enough to follow this blog by RSS, Facebook, G+, FriendFeed, and so on, how about dropping on over to the site itself today, 18 January 2012?

Something to think about. Something to act on.

[Update 19 January 2012] Thank you if you dropped by, and thank very much if you participated in any way.

Language, NYTimes, the language

From the buried lede department, here's the second to last paragraph in a NYT article about some websites in Israel being broken into and defaced:

"Right now, we're not seeing anything that's especially interesting or especially dangerous," said Gadi Evron, former head of Internet security for the Israeli government.

What the NYT chose to run (via the AP) as their actual lede:

A hacker network that claims to be based in Saudi Arabia paralyzed the websites of Israel's stock exchange and national airline on Monday, escalating an international cyber war that has jolted this security-obsessed country.

[...] But the ongoing salvos by hackers who use anti-Israel language in their posts has revealed how vulnerable Israel is to cyber warfare, despite its sophisticated computer security units in the military and advanced high-tech sector.

Emph. added.

Point one: The authors of the article show little evidence of knowing anything about those who broke in, apart from what the supposed group supposedly claimed. Point two: much of the space in the article, right after the above lede, is taken up by describing not this incident, but another one that happened in the past. Point three: I doubt the AP or the NYT would say graffiti on a church counted as "escalating religious warfare" or bricks through a window should be described as "showing vulnerability to kinetic warfare."

For all we know, Mr. Ian Leitch et al, this "hacker network" is a bunch of bright, bored kids. You've presented no evidence, in other words, that these website intrusions were carried out by a military, government intelligence, or even quasi-military group. And by your own (grudging) admission, no sensitive sites were compromised. So calm down.

__________

[Added] This is not to say that locking down insecure websites isn't important. It is. But we ought to keep things in perspective.

Quiet revolutionaries

While checking spelling on a word (and how the kids at Mozilla forgot to add this one to their dictionary, I'll never stop wondering about), I happened across a delightful little Flickr group, The Ministry of Reshelving.

Sure, some of the efforts have been done before, and there seems to be a little too much emphasis on 1984, at least recently, but you gotta love the concept.

Want some eye candy?

Mozy has a collection of infographics on their site. The photos of CD collections are pretty funny, in how quaint they already look.

And since you ask, why, yes, I was on that site due to a desire to restore some data. 1.609 of 1.628 GB have already downloaded. Thanks, Mozy!

Two free gigabytes of storage isn't much in this day and age, but I do like the overall service. I encourage you to try it. BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE.

Wow. I agree with the GHEMRotRSTF on something!

Looks like even Erick Erickson gets why SOPA and PIPA are bad. Good for him.

Also, Paul Ryan completely changed his tune, thanks to grassroots political pressure. Keep up the good work, everybody.

Want more details? See the EFF's recent article, "Blacklist Bills Becoming Hot Button Issue in 2012 Election."

Also.

[Added] Useful links in Comments.

Eye-opener

It's not all fast cars and supermodels in the life of a pro athlete:

Emlen Tunnell, a star defender for the glittering, magnetic Giants, had been summoned to Green Bay. It was 1959, and the new Packers coach, Vince Lombardi, traded for Tunnell, ending his run of 11 record-setting seasons in New York.

A longtime Giants assistant, Lombardi was plotting a thorny overhaul of the bumbling Packers and needed allies from his roots. Tunnell, a dynamic safety and a Manhattan fixture in the golden era of New York sports, gamely made the trip halfway across the country to northeastern Wisconsin.

On arrival in his new home, Tunnell was told he had just doubled the black population in Green Bay. The city’s other African-American, Tunnell heard, was the shoeshine man at the Hotel Northland.

The word inspirational has been overused beyond the point of banality, so let me just say that, even if you don't give a hoot about football, the whole article is truly worth your time. Some things to applaud about Lombardi that I didn't know, too.

(h/t: KK, via email)

Line of the Day (2): 2012-01-14

It is said that anything invented before you are three years old is a normal part of life; anything invented before you are thirty-three is new and exciting, and you can probably make a career in it. Subsequent inventions are just new-fangled fripperies that you can well do without.
    -- Philip Hazel

The above is from the Preface of From Punched Cards To Flat Screens: A Technical Autobiography (PDF), which I look forward to reading in full.

(via, via, via)

These links presented as a public service

See Vali Chandrasekaran's one-pager titled "Correlation or Causation?"

Of course, that won't settle every argument in forums on the Internet (that's why we call them wingnuts, after all), but you'll immediately have every sane reader on your side.

Hat tip: Tedra Osell. And via Cosma Shalizi in Comments under that post, see this. But be careful! You could waste all day playing with it!

Enhance your privacy while surfing the Web

I haven't had a chance to look at it closely yet, but Privoxy looks like a Good Thing.

(h/t: Sean, in Comments (#49) at Crooked Timber)

Line of the Day: 2012-01-14

If we define life as beginning at the moment a man first sets eyes on a woman, then not putting out for every dude on the street is an abortifacient.
    -- Tedra Osell

A new Crooked Timber contributor! She seems like someone worth reading regularly. As is all of CT, of course.

Grace

Your prayers are answered.

MORE »

Line of the Day: 2012-01-13

99% of the police make the rest of them look bad.
    -- Jacob Applebaum

That line was delivered at 55:47* of his joint talk with Roger Dingledine, "How governments have tried to block Tor."

P.S. If you're wondering, "Should I watch this whole talk?", a hint may be gleaned by jumping to the 1:18:05** mark.

__________

* The link should bring you to that point, but for some reason, it's not getting there exactly. Sorry.

** (Same link problem, sorry.)

I always knew Henry Farrell was a man of exquisite taste

But now that I find him agreeing with me, well!

"The New Gmail Sucks," says he.

See also Henry's comment #22. Know hope! And let's get this Googlebomb rolling!

(h/t: Substance McGravitas)

I've never seen "CSI: Miami," but ...

... I still enjoyed this dish about David Caruso quite a bit. Jump ahead to about 3:45 if you, like me, find everyone on that set not named Rob Zombie to be as annoying as, well, David Caruso.

(alt. video link)

(h/t: Substance McGravitas. (Yes, that's the right link. The conversation about Glennzilla takes a turn after a while.))

As she is about so many things, ...

... digby is right about that.

Sadly, Arkansas is not alone in this. Alabama and Mississippi appear to suffer from the same problem.

TimeAndDate.com says Georgia does, too, but perhaps they have recently gotten better?

[Update 2012-01-16 10:10] Just received the following via email:

Hi Brendan

Thanks for your email. We've checked with the official governement site for Georgia and the state will observe the holiday on Friday, November 25 this year. Our calendar has just been updated to reflect this, and we'll keep an eye on what happens for the following years.

Best Regards

Estelle Pettersen
Web editor - www.timeanddate.com