March 2004 Archives
The Bush-Cheney website had this do-it-yourself campaign poster generator. Sure enough, it was abused, and taken down. Check out this flash animation (warning: music!) with the "best of" the abused slogans.
Occasionally, I search Google for my last name just to see what turns up. This time, I found Hotel Dribin. I can only assume my family came from Dribin, Belarus. I do know my ancestors were from Poland and Russia, so this fits with that. One day, I'll have to head over to Belarus just to check it out!
I just finished the Shamrock Shuffle 8k, and it was a blast! My official time was 52:25. I was aiming for 60 minutes or less, so I did much better than I was hoping for! That's just under a 10.5 minute mile. I was practicing at about a 12 minute mile, so that's a big improvement. w00t! Time to shower and relax....
This is a great history of the changing reasons for the Iraq war. It's done like software versions, 1.0, 1.01, 1.02, 1.1, etc. Very funny!
This album is fantastic, plain and simple. I've been listening to it all day, and I'm still amazed. The emotion tucked away in these songs is so powerful, it just goes to show that electronic and "laptop" music need not be harsh and mechanical. The opening track, "Hands", starts out a little erratic with a nice piano riff and some random drums and symbols. But once the main beat kicks in, I'm hooked and can't stop listening. Even though there are some glitchy sounds in the back, it's done in such a way that just makes the piano and beat even more beautiful and hypnotic. "She Moves She" has a bit more groove with a weird Asian or country mandolin or guitar twang. I think my favorite on the disc is "My Angel Rocks Back And Forth". The harp and sliding static beats pull you in. But again, once the beat starts up about half way through, the song is unbelievable. While very dreamy and sensual, I can't help but feel a little melancholy. "Unspoken" is a 9 minute funky journey with a nice, meaty mid-section. "As Serious As Your Life" is a bit more upbeat. It's a little experimental but not overdone at all and still very catchy. Finally, the closer, "Slow Jam", is a very playful song that makes you feel a bit like a child again and want to smile.
I give Rounds a 9.6 on the Pitchfork rating scale. Here's the Amazon album page
I can't add much to this article. It's too funny on its own.
The cd command is probably one of the most used Unix commands. It's intent is very straight forward: change to the directory given, or $HOME, if none is given. So what's wrong with it? Well, if you pass it a non-directory file, it just complains:
% cd org/wxwindows/wxValidator.java cd: not a directory: org/wxwindows/wxValidator.java
That seems pretty straight forward, since it cannot possibly change directories to a file. I've thought it would be better if cd would change to the directory of the file, in this case org/wxwindows, rather than error.
Maybe I find this so useful because I've been doing so much Java lately. This modified cd makes it easy to grep and change directories, without having to manually delete the filename. I've also found this handy when using output from the locate or rpm -ql commands.
Anyhow, here's the zsh code:
cd_improved ()
{
if (( ${#argv} == 0 )); then
cd
return
fi
local dir=$1
if [[ -f $dir ]]; then
file=$dir:t
echo "Ignoring: $file"
dir=$dir:h
fi
cd "$dir"
}
alias cd='cd_improved'
How the hell did the word "liberal" get messed up with connotation of being anti-American, unpatriotic, and fascist. Let's look up the word "liberal" in the dictionary, shall we:
Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.
Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.
Wow.... that's horrible stuff now, isn't it? Man, I can just see the American founding fathers turning in their grave. You know those same ones who rebelled against the established, traditional, authoritarin attitudes of the British? Yup, those same ones who wanted to reform the government and had this new idea to create a democracy for the progress of civilization.
Oh wait... say it isn't so! Our founding fathers were *gasp* LIBERALS! Man, sometimes I wonder how the political right can even sleep at night.
I just ran across this article from a few years back about CSPI, and their book, Restaurant Confidential. The author, Steven Milloy, claims that "CSPI again is scaring the public with selected bits and pieces of truth laced together with innuendo." Hmm... ok. How so? Well, according to Steven, "CSPI runs with the fat and salt myths as if they were laws of nature." And why would CSPI do such a thing? A "scam" to sell more copies of their book, of course. Mr. Milloy, however, ignores the fact that CSPI isn't making up these myths for their own sales. CSPI uses the American Heart Association's own dietary guidelines, practically verbatim, and maps them onto restaurant food. That's right: the AHA. The agency who's sole mission "is to reduce disability and death from cardiovascular diseases and stroke." What better way to reduce CVD and stroke than by creating myths and half truths. And let's not forget the FDA and their pesky recommended daily intake values. They're in on the scam, too. Apparantly these government agencies are all incorrect, part of some big scam. You see the government apparantly wants us fat, and wants us to have heart disease. At least I can't think up any other reason why these agencies would lie. Exactly why do they want this? I don't know, but it turns out Steven Milloy sells his own book called Junk Science (I'm not gonna even bother with a link). Perhaps Mr. Milloy answers these questions in his book, because I'm at a loss. So now we've come to the real pont of this article: a "scam" to sell more copies of his book. I guess it's not surprising this article is from that fair and balanced news source called Fox. While I agree that there is a lot about heart disease and obesity that we do not know, I'm gonna put my money (and my life) with the AHA, the FDA, cardiologists, and hence CSPI, over Mr. Milloy. Sorry, I just can't see how someone defending Pizza Hut's Stuffed Crust Pepperoni pizza as healty is trustworthy.
