Month: December 2006

  • Why Governments Falter..and Prevaricate

    Carne Ross analyzes why governments fail to understand problems and respond properly (in the context of Iraq War): (this is not an easy article to excerpt from; bear with me). There is a tendency in government to see intelligence material as being at the pinnacle of the hierarchy of information. Awash with information, government reifies…

  • Wiki Advice

    Wikihow, a great wiki of how-to tips about just about everything. Here’s how to avoid buying too much. Oops, I forgot my favorite article: How to Figure out what your parents got you for Christmas.

  • Causes of Sexism in the IT World?

    It’s not 100% certain, but it’s 99% certain I’ll be attending a one week boot camp for python programmers between January 8 and January 12. It’s called Pycamp Houston. Here’s the upcoming.org event announcement. I found a good python blogger. Phillip J. Eby. Here’s his python blog and his lifehacks/self-improvement blog. Looks like he’s compiled…

  • Lentils and Vegetarian Recipes

    Lovely vegetarian recipe page. The good thing about lentil recipes is that the ingredients are fairly simple and cheap.

  • Google Groups is Down!

    I’m guessing this won’t last for long, but imagine my shock to learn that google groups is not working as of 9:44 AM Central Time today.

  • Andy Rooney as a podcast.

    It’s one of those things that doesn’t surprise you, but it still is thrilling to hear that Andy Rooney’s shows are available as a podcast. I try to listen to cerebral podcasts (IT Conversations, Writing Show, KCRW Bookworm, Python 411, but occasionally I enjoy the relaxing travelogues of From Our Own Correspondent or Andy Rooney…

  • Google Calendar: A Test Drive

    Recently I’ve been starting to use Google Calendar for events. Here’s a quick review. First, some background. I really need a PDA synchronized calendar/contacts solution, and unfortunately the Nokia 770 PIM (GPE) doesn’t offer much in the way of synchronization. GPE lets you import vcards from Evolution, but apparently the import from Outlook into Evolution…

  • PS 2 Game Recommendations for Children Under 8? (As of 12/2006)

    Here’s a list of game recommendations for my nephew. Surprisingly, it took a long time to compile a kid-friendly game list. (Or I could have asked someone at a used game store–nah, that would have been too easy). He already owns Harry Potter (so so), Lego Star Wars (super great!), NBA Basketball (great!), Jak &…

  • Balzac and Evelina in Love (and in Lviv)

    Here’s a biographical sketch of the love affair between Balzac and his Polish lover Evelina. Ironically I stayed at a hotel in Lviv, Ukraine where he and his lover spent their honeymoon (see a photo). I had fond memories about my stay there. It is right across from the scenic downtown square of Lviv. What…

  • The Bush/Clinton Tryst?

    Brendan Farrington on the friendship between George Bush (the father) and Bill Clinton: He also talked about his recent closeness to former President Clinton and some of the work they’ve done to help Hurricane Katrina and tsunami victims. “I apologized to him in Philadelphia the other day. I said, ‘Bill, I take it back. My…

  • Forget About the Boy! Youtube Favorites

    Sutton Foster performs an incredible number at the Tony Awards from her award performance in Thoroughly Modern Millie. This song like the other one below have a certain anachronistic charm to it; the 1920s were a remarkable decade! Megan sings a cover song, Say it’s Possible. What an incredible voice! And she sings this song…

  • My Plan: Write a Nanowrimo in 2007

    Although I’ve laughed about the nanowrimo project here and there, I really have no beef with it, especially when viewed in the right way. All in all, it’s a bit silly, though the forums are fun . Last year I came up with a great idea for Nanowimo in a gee-wouldn’t-it-be-great-to-write-this-if-I-ever-decided-to-do-nanowrimo kind of way. Well,…

  • Reading Dissertations Online & Academics Riding the Interactive/Hypertext Wave

    Yesterday I spent all day reading a brilliant dissertation Fiction and Interaction: How Clicking a Mouse Can Make You a Part of a Fictional World (PDF) by Jill Walker at University of Bergen in Norway. Here’s her weblog/main page and her publication page. I’m reading it as background material for part 2 of my networked…

  • Where do you find funny?

    Here’s a hilarious mp3 rant by Harlan Ellison. Contains several strange/offensive rants, a story about sending a dead gopher to his publisher and some bizzare jokes. Lots of profanity/offcolor humor. From the Agony Column podcast. Funny Southpark song. Definitely Not safe for work! The Dildo Song (parody music video, NSFW lyrics although the visuals are…

  • Preserving Old Movies

    David Pogue weblog thread on preserving old movies. Interesting: New Gold DVDs for archival storage. Entertaining videos: babies (this won $250,000 on America’s Funniest Home Video). funny clips for children (a grabbag). Vintage David Letterman clips. My fave: David answers viewer mail personally (Warning: 13 MB file!). Some of the classic clips are on YouTube.…

  • Things to Swear by

    From Matt Yglesias’s thread about whether Congression should (or need to) swear on the Bible: One commenter adds some choice of books people could swear by: 1. The Communist Manifesto 2. 1984 3. Congress For Dummies 4. How To Make Love Like a Porn Star 5. The Turner Diaries 6. The Bale of Ashthoth 7.…