I finally gave up on doing the comment filtering myself. I apologize, but I am pushing a little of the cognitive load on you guys. There is now a little “are you a human” test required to post a comment. If you don’t like it, you can give yourself a log in and log in (which won’t ever log you out) and then it doesn’t ask you.
Sorry for the inconvenience, but 500 spams in one day is just too much.
I earlier mentioned that when we run out of oil, we run out of food, and the only way to stave off that ill day is to farm in a more sustainable manner. I also mentioned that there have been many improvements in sustainable farming techniques like crop rotation, cover crops, predator reintroduction, etc. Well here are more signs of life that these techniques are starting to take off. The more of these (USDA) government sponsored programs I see popping up the safer I feel about our future.
This is the sort of thing that I like to see my tax money spent on. Easing the transition into a time without abundant oil. Luckily this isn’t a direct energy issue and was able to slip under the table unlike other projects that could have helped more if they hadn’t been cut immediately upon entering office. (This stance has since changed, however not before the damage had been done.)
Feeling like positive middle east news today.
There are some professors in Israel and Palestine who are working together to build a new history curriculum. This is a really really really good idea. It is for high school students 14-16 in Palestine and Israel. Looking at how history is currently taught gives insight into the foundation of the conflict and, in my opinion, is a sure fire way to propagate the conflict interminably. By combining the conflicting views of history, and presenting them together I hope that these teenagers will be able to see alternate views and understand that their history truly is shared.
You can’t have revolution without disaffected youth. This is a huge step for aiming the youth in the right direction. Right now it is only at 14 high schools, hopefully this program will take off and be a sign of things to come.
Not quite sure how I missed this. It appears that Elon Musk’s Falcon 1 rocket, which I have been waiting for with bated breath for years, exploded on its maiden test flight. Given that the rocket is supposed to be reusable for super fast turn around time and cheap launch costs, this is pretty grim. They have another rocket on tap, but still, this is an inauspicious beginning.
OK, I am really annoyed that I didn’t figure this out earlier. Mike pointed out that the gibberish that Hayley was saying was an actual cipher. In particular he pointed out that in comic 284 you can use the following transformation to go from cipher text to plain text (top is cipher, bottom is plain)
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
v i g y c n ? b f p h u q m k r d j s a e t l o ? w
But lets reverse that… how about going the other way?
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
t h e q u i c k b r o w n f x j m p s v l a z ? d ?
Allowing us to easily fill in the blanks. This encouraged me to decrypt 309 giving:
Elan, I’m in love with you.
Yrhw, N’u nw rdjy mnck vdg.
Elan, I’m in love with you. Completely in love.
Yrhw, N’u nw rdjy mnck vdg. Lduzrycyrv nw rdjy.
My dad is being held ransom by an evil dictator.
Uv ehe nb aynwp kyre fhwbdu av hw yjnr enlchcdf.
I’m not really in the Thieves Guild anymore.
N’u wdc fyhrrv nw cky Cknyjtb’ Pgnre hwvudfy.
I cheat at solitaire.
N lkyhc hc bdrnchnfy.
I have a tattoo you’ve never seen
N khjy h chccdd vdg’jy wyjyf byyw.
I kissed a girl once.
N tnbbye h pnfr dwly.
OK OK more than once!
DT DT udfy ckhw dwly!
Elan, it turns out I may not be exactly what you would call–
Yrhw, nc cgfwb dgc N uhv wdc ay yqhlcrv mkhc vdg mdgre lhrr–
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
b s t o d r u a ? v h c w i ? g x l ? k m y n ? e p
or…
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
h a l e y ? p k n ? t r u w d z ? f b c g j m q v ?
Haley spoken a true word? What do you think? Does this give us enough to go and break the rest? Some words that translate to early letters in the alphabet should be good enough…
Ever wonder how a hard drive works? Someone built one with a transparent case and filmed it working.
Very cool IMO.
Everyone loves the high def tv. Problem is there are two formats of high def DVDs, Blu Ray and HD-DVD. So the question is which to get. Try neither. The problem is that the two consortiums that developed the standards couldn’t come to an agreement so they made two incompatible standards. Remember Betamax vs. VHS? It is the same thing all over again. Eventually one of the two standards will probably win, but do you want to have a lot invested in the possible loser?
Worse though is the fact that current HD tv owners might be SOL in the future. Some early adopters are going to get totally screwed. The studios recently got the ability to downsample the output of their DVDs depending on what type of HDTV you have. Bought that HDTV for the best picture? Well sorry bud, you only get and ok picture.
Personally I’m going to wait until they get this whole mess figured out, since all I really use my TV for is to watch DVDs.
Ugh. One of the reports that most had me convinced about WMD in Iraq was the one about the mobile bioweapons labs. Not only possible, but Saddam had done similar things before. Well, it turns out not only did the army already know that they weren’t weapons production units, they informed the presidential office prior to the speech in which that evidence was used as proof.
Looking back at my old posts, I looked rather foolish believing the stuff that I did. *sigh*
Joel just made a post that discusses the business issues involved in runing a software business. The basic idea is that you need a development abstraction layer. That is to say, the entire company’s purpose is to make it appear to the programmer that they build code directly for the end user. Of course this is not true, and there are many many other things that need to go on as well. I find this notion entirely depressing. It means that the dream of the lone wolf programmer (or programmer team) who makes a great product and sells it is nearly impossible.
He talks about a lot of different kinds of companies and why they fail to meet this model and thus have problems. The one encouraging thing is that he actually does provide a positive model for making this succeed.
But still, being an independent developer I find the whole thing quite depressing.
(n.b. this works for engineers as well. Some people might recognize their own company described in the “failure to make the development abstraction layer” hall of shame. John I’m talking to you.)
Anyone that has spent a while chatting with me has probably heard me talk about the problems with electronics recycling. It is expensive and causes serious health problems in the countries that they are exported to. China (the country worst hit) has since banned the import of electronics waste, but many of the villages where the recycling has been done are so polluted now that the ground no longer sustains the farming that they once did as their main industries.
I’ve always thought that the only way to really solve this problem is to put the cost of disposal back on the producer. I actually think that this would solve many many waste problems. It would certainly reduce some of the egregious packaging we see nowadays. In any case, computer companies in general don’t seem to be doing all that great a job of making recycling easier. There are groups that pressure companies into taking back old electronics, but looking at that report card, only HP, Dell and Apple make sure that they get recycled properly. At least the cell phone market seems to have picked up on the value of the old electronics. Most cell companies will pay you to bring your old phones in while computer companies generally charge consumers. Hopefully this consumer oriented action approach will help producers of toxics realize they have an obligation.
It is also not just electronics, recycling ships is a problem as well, the Basel conference covers many different forms of societally damaging exported pollution.
I just upgraded my blog in an attempt to cut down on the spam. We will see how that works. I’m thinking about just blacklisting the word “poker”, that alone should get rid of 80% of the spam. In any case, if anyone is having trouble seeing the site, or if I mis-configured something during the upgrade, please let me know.
I just got 5,000 spam messages in two days. You will have to forgive me if I deleted a unverified post of yours in bulk.
Apple just released a public beta of Boot Camp, an application to help users install windows on their intel based macs. This was supposed to be a feature of the next OS, but they released it early as a public beta.
This kind of makes me chuckle, I can already see the management thinking at apple: “Oh man, look at all those hackers out there trying to get windows running on a mac. Oh man, look at all those end users jumping through all those hoops to do what our new os will help you do easily. Free beta!”
Or perhaps simply: “Oooh they are giving away for free what we were going to sell. Time limited beta should nip that in the bud.”
I found myself on the Smith college campus last week. I learned a couple things about smith. First, women like chocolate. There were five chocolate stores within two blocks in Northampton. (Note, I also happen to like chocolate so was quite pleased to discover this aspect of Northampton.) Second, men don’t jog on the Smith campus, they run.
We also made a side trip to Provincetown (P-town or the hot gay vacation spot depending) and I saw “The Four Winds Leather Shop”. I only with I hadn’t been laughing so hard that I forgot to take a picture. Oh well, next time.
In Chicago we have government posts that are filled with extra people. There are a lot of Daley friends and family that need jobs. I just sort of assumed that is how the Bush administration worked as well (FEMA anyone?). There is at least one instance where this was not the case.
The Presidential Intelligence Oversight Board was set up by Ford to provide additional oversight on the intelligence community to help stop domestic spying from happening. In addition it is supposed to monitor the effectiveness of the intelligence gathered. Every president since him has used it as a useful tool for keeping tabs on the intelligence community. Well, except for the current one. The record so far? No one was appointed to the board until 2003, and there have been no notices from it of possible intelligence law violations. What he couldn’t find a friend to fill the position for three years?
On the up side it looks like Bush just named a completely new board, hopefully this one will prove more effective.
I had no idea, but apparently using unprotected wireless internet systems is illegal in Illinois. Dude, that is just downright odd. What if you are accidentally using it because your wireless card picks up the wrong access point? Like when you go to a coffee shop to surf, but the neighbor’s unprotected WAP has a better signal? Youch, $250 fine and a year probation.
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