January 31, 2006

Smoking Outdoors

In the midst of a fine hammering of the use of false information  to support efforts to ban all outdoor smoking Michael Siegel says the following:

There is, in my opinion, simply no justification for invoking the state's police powers to regulate smoking on streets and sidewalks, places where people are free to move about and where, in most situations, people can simply avoid substantial exposure to secondhand smoke. And I am aware of no scientific evidence that secondhand smoke exposure on streets and sidewalks is a significant public health problem.
Well, yes, it is not a public health problem but it can be damned obnoxious and offensive to a nonsmoker. I can choose whether or not to enter a smoking establishment but why should I have to delay or hasten my walk down a sidewalk because some jerk (being polite) decides to light up right in front of me (other examples are myriad).

Outdoor smoking should be allowed but the smoker should be subject to charges of simple assault and/or battery if the smoke touches another person or forces them to change their position or path in order to avoid the smoke.

Via Hit & Run via To the People

Posted by Steve on January 31, 2006 | Comments (2)

January 30, 2006

Brewin' A Pot

I've lost track of the times i've given up coffee (and just switching to decaf does not count). Sometimes it has lasted just a few weeks and other times a year or more.

Currently I'm drinking coffee and am headed to the kitchen to brew a pot of Tully's Dutchman's Blend...I haven't been all that happy with the flavor or punch of the Peet's Major Dickason's Blend that also sits in the freezer.

Once I have a cup ready I'll slide over and spend a few minutes checking out Smelling the Coffee which is a new blog About coffee, coffee shops, wireless & atmosphere, and blogging. Oh, and dogs.

Dave, do let me know when you post pics of the dogs so they can board the Friday Ark.

Posted by Steve on January 30, 2006 | Comments (2)

bush: Bribery and Obstruction of Justice?

Has Garbus been asleep for the lest five years?

At some point, it all becomes unbelievable. President George W. Bush has not made many moves more unethical than offering Noel L. Hillman, the Abramoff prosecutor, a federal judgeship. Hillman has apparently been talking with Bush's representatives since last year, and on last Thursday, he publicly announced he was accepting the appointment. Let me make this perfectly clear. At the same time that Mr. Hillman was conducting a grand jury and submitting evidence aimed at Bush's allies and perhaps Bush himself, he was meeting with Bush, who was, in effect, offering him a bribe.
Hey, you've got three more years of this crap.

Even if he gets impeached.

Posted by Steve on January 30, 2006

It Could Be Worse

I've done my share of griping about king george and the erosion of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness driven by the bushies, congress, state legislatures, your nearest city council and, yes, your fellow voters.

It could be worse!

In the US, even though you don't get to see the caskets coming home, you can still see these images.

As Clara points out: if you live in China you will see these pictures instead of these.

Via Jonathon Wilde.

Update (1/30): Via Brad DeLong is this post which finds that spelling can make a big difference at google.cn. So, anyone care to speculate as to how long it will take the chinese masters to get this fixed?

Posted by Steve on January 30, 2006

January 29, 2006

Make'm Purr

The 97th Carnival of the Cats is up at Laurence's place. Go make'm purr!

Oh yea, I woder what his top secret cat blogging projecy is....

Posted by Steve on January 29, 2006 | Comments (1)

Policy Soup

Steve at Begging to Differ rolls out a pretty important idea:

He's right, but then, sometimes regulatory chaos is a good thing. State-level law is a primordial policy soup, subject to the Darwinian pressures of elections and lawsuits. Good ideas adapt and propagate. Bad ones wither and die. It's messy. It's chaotic. It's perplexing and unwieldy, but it's a glorious disaster. It's democracy. And it works.
I'm not going to bite on the It's democracy bit but it can work and is a good reason to subject most, if not all federal law, to some slash and burn activity.

For that matter the largest geopolitical level this chaos should operate at is probably a city or county level.

Posted by Steve on January 29, 2006

Viewing the Spineless

PZ has the wordless edition of Circus of the Spineless #5 up for your viewing enjoyment!

Posted by Steve on January 29, 2006

January 28, 2006

Henly's QOTD Reprised

Jim Henly offers up   this QOTD post:

On Ford vs. Toyota:
Maybe the job we need to be outsourcing the most urgently is “CEO.”
The Infamous Brad.

Remember, kids, being a libertarian does NOT mean mindless worship of actual existing corporate executives.

To which I add: being a libertarian also does Not mean mindless worship of actual existing corporate structures.

Posted by Steve on January 28, 2006 | Comments (2)

Today's Music: KPFA GD Marathon

David Gans is serving up the 20th Anniversary KPFA Grateful Dead Marathon today. It'll run until 1:00 AM PST. Listen at KPFA or nugs.net.

David is providing an updated playlist and at the moment he is early in the first set of 1/30/78, Uptown Theater, Chicago IL. and will be playing the complete show.

Go listen, enjoy the music and support KPFA.

Update: Quote of the day: Bob Weir, 1-30-78, - "We'd all appreciate it if the security folks would do their job with a little less zeal!"

Posted by Steve on January 28, 2006

January 27, 2006

Friday Ark #71

We'll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and....?

We will add your post to the list if you do one of the following:

  • Leave a comment or trackback to this post,

  • Use the Carnival Submission Form,

  • Email Modulator or

  • Our extensive staff finds it during our weekly search of the web

Of course, if our staff goes on strike then we will link only those posts someone tells us about. Time permitting we will continue boardings until the Carnival of the Cats goes up on Sunday.

Do link to the Friday Ark whether you use trackbacks or not.

Visit each border and come back regularly Friday-Sunday to visit new boarders.

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map. (46 shouts as of 01/26)

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday and the 97th edition is hosted this week by This Blog is Full of Crap. There are more weekly cats at eatstuff's Weekend Cat Blogging which has many participants who may not be familiar to Ark or Carnival participants.

Bird folks: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks. The 15th edition edition is up and hosted by Snail’s Tales.

New for the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The fourth edition is up at bootstrap analysis. The 5th edition is scheduled for January 31 and will be hosted by Pharyngula.

CatsInvertebratesDogsBirdsOther VertebratesIn MemoriamDidn't Make ItExceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

For other current carnivals check out The Conservative Cat's Carnival Page and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Note for Haloscan Users: Haloscan started (the end of July) rejecting trackbacks if they were submitted "too rapidly" by the same host. I don't know what the timer is but it is long enough so that it was very difficult to ping everyone that is using Haloscan for trackbacks. I'm sure that they are doing this to try to hold back the tide of trackback spam but it makes the service pretty useless for carnival type posts. Perhaps you can contact them and urge some different solution. Update: Typepad appears to be doing the same thing. Everytime I update the Ark it appears the timers are reset and the long list of MT autogenerated pings fail. Yecchhhh....

Posted by Steve on January 27, 2006 | Comments (21)

January 26, 2006

So Much for Keeping Eye Contact

I'm not sure that this would be a good technique to use in a job interview:

The researchers said “Given that five-year-old children could readily be trained to increase their use of gaze aversion, coupled with the finding that this training could significantly benefit performance, encouragement of gaze aversion while the child is thinking appears to be a simple, yet effective way in which to significantly improve a five-year-old child’s cognitive performance”.
Of course, to the knowlegeable interviewer it could demontrate respect for the question.

Oh, the next time you catch your significant other, co-worker or good friend in the midst of gaze aversion let them be for a bit! You just might want them to solve the problem they are thinking about.

Via Marginal Revolution.

Posted by Steve on January 26, 2006

January 25, 2006

king dubya...

...is watching.

Posted by Steve on January 25, 2006

January 24, 2006

The Dancer and the Dance

Arthur Silber is back again. Both at Once Upon a Time...

I offer these stories not to condemn the genuinely great and revolutionary achievements of the West, or to challenge the profound, inestimable worth of what we generally refer to as "Enlightenment values." I offer them to make a more modest suggestion: that the fundamental approach inculcated in all of us by our cultural traditions of thousands of years does not represent the only way of viewing the universe and our place in it.

And at a new site called The Sacred Moment where he has aleady reposted his important series On Torture.

Make Arthur a regular read!

Posted by Steve on January 24, 2006

January 21, 2006

pain management

since the extensive right shoulder surgery yesterday i'm having to take double the originally prescribed meds and am just sleepin' and tubin'...

Posted by Steve on January 21, 2006 | Comments (9)

January 20, 2006

Friday Ark #70

We'll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and....?

ALERT: Apologies in advance. Our key staff member well be taking in general anaesthesia at about 15:15 GMT and will most likely not be able to make any updates to the ARK from about 13:30 GMT (5:30 PST) until sometime Saturday. If you normally use the Carnival Submission Form or email please consider also leaving a comment. Until you see an update here saying that we’ve caught up with postings click through the comments and trackbacks for furry, scaly and slimy surprises!

We will add your post to the list if you do one of the following:

  • Leave a comment or trackback to this post,

  • Use the Carnival Submission Form,

  • Email Modulator or

  • Our extensive staff finds it during our weekly search of the web

Of course, if our staff goes on strike then we will link only those posts someone tells us about. Time permitting we will continue boardings until the Carnival of the Cats goes up on Sunday.

Do link to the Friday Ark whether you use trackbacks or not.

Visit each border and come back regularly Friday-Sunday to visit new boarders.

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map. (46 shouts as of 01/19)

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday and the 96th edition will be hosted this week by Meryl Yourish. There are more weekly cats at eatstuff's Weekend Cat Blogging which has many participants who may not be familiar to Ark or Carnival participants.

Bird folks: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks. The 15th edition edition is up and hosted by Snail’s Tales.

New for the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The fourth edition is up at bootstrap analysis. The 5th edition is scheduled for January 31 and will be hosted by Pharyngula.

CatsInvertebratesDogsBirdsOther VertebratesIn MemoriamDidn't Make It
Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

For other current carnivals check out The Conservative Cat's Carnival Page and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Note for Haloscan Users: Haloscan started (the end of July) rejecting trackbacks if they were submitted "too rapidly" by the same host. I don't know what the timer is but it is long enough so that it was very difficult to ping everyone that is using Haloscan for trackbacks. I'm sure that they are doing this to try to hold back the tide of trackback spam but it makes the service pretty useless for carnival type posts. Perhaps you can contact them and urge some different solution. Update: Typepad appears to be doing the same thing. Everytime I update the Ark it appears the timers are reset and the long list of MT autogenerated pings fail. Yecchhhh....

Posted by Steve on January 20, 2006 | Comments (21)

January 19, 2006

Birds on Birds

I and the Bird #15 is up at Snails Tales.

Posted by Steve on January 19, 2006

Good For Google

Is there any reason to believe the bush administration could be trusted with this data?

The Bush administration on Wednesday asked a federal judge to order Google to turn over a broad range of material from its closely guarded databases.

The move is part of a government effort to revive an Internet child protection law struck down two years ago by the U.S. Supreme Court. The law was meant to punish online pornography sites that make their content accessible to minors. The government contends it needs the Google data to determine how often pornography shows up in online searches.

In court papers filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Justice Department lawyers revealed that Google has refused to comply with a subpoena issued last year for the records, which include a request for one million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period.

The Mountain View-based search engine opposes releasing the information on a variety of grounds, saying it would violate the privacy rights of its users and reveal company trade secrets, according to court documents.

No, I don't think they are trustworthy at all and they shouldn't be in the censorship business anyway.

Some other search companies aren't quite so sensitive:

The government indicated that other, unspecified search engines have agreed to release the information, but not Google.
If we can find out jwho they are we can make sure not to use their services.

In the meantime let's help out the bushies:

...government lawyers said in court papers they are developing a defense of the 1998 law based on the argument that it is far more effective than software filters in protecting children from porn. To back that claim, the government has subpoenaed search engines to develop a factual record of how often Web users encounter online porn and how Web searches turn up material they say is ``harmful to minors.''
Here is a data point for them: in the last two years of daily performing multiple searches on a wide variety of subjects I have never accidently encountered a porn site. I have, though, on several occasions been in schools or libraries that had filtering systems and found them so effective that I couldn't even get to this blog.

Update 1/20: I've never liked the fact that the search companies retain history and identifying information but they all do it. So, here is a good reason to not use any of them except Google:
Federal investigators already have obtained potentially billions of Internet search requests made by users of major Web sites run by Microsoft, Yahoo! and America Online, which all complied with the government request, issued in August, a Justice Department official said Thursday.

Posted by Steve on January 19, 2006 | Comments (1)

January 18, 2006

bush Supports End to Prohibition

Comparing immigration to prohibition is not that farfetched:

It also makes sense to take pressure off the border by giving people a legal means on a temporary basis to come here, so they don't have to sneak across. Now, some of you all may be old enough to remember the days of Prohibition. I'm not. (Laughter.) But remember, we illegalized whisky, and guess what? People found all kinds of ways to make it, and to run it. NASCAR got started -- positive thing that came out of all that. (Laughter.)
The result bush describes is what happens anytime government gets in the way of people freely exchanging goods and services. Now if bush would just open his mind a little bit more and see that the war on drugs also needs to be dismantled.

I leave it as an exercise for the reader to evaluate the NASCAR reference.

Via a new Nevada focused marijuana legalization site.

Posted by Steve on January 18, 2006

Laughter is Still A Great Medicine

Apparently we should go to more funny movies:

Viewer responses to movies in a humorous vein (such as the 1998 comedy There's Something About Mary) appear to have a beneficial effect on arterial endothelial function, reported researchers from the University of Maryland Medical Center here.

In contrast, responses to serious films, such as the heart-wrenching opening D-Day sequence in the 1998 drama Saving Private Ryan appear to constrict arterial blood flow, wrote Michael Miller, M.D., and colleagues in a scientific letter published in the February 2006 issue of the journal Heart.

I suppose some will extend this to TV sitcoms but my stress level seems to go up when a typical sitcom is running on our tube...the quality and humor is just so bad.

Posted by Steve on January 18, 2006 | Comments (1)

January 17, 2006

Ecological Oxymoron

This house was built using the latest 'green' construction techniques and I laud the owner, designer and contractor for that effort:

klein_house.jpg

This is also, in case you can't tell from the picture, a large house:

This hilltop site in Corte Madera was once home to the late rock impresario Bill Graham.

Today it holds what its designer says is probably the largest "green" - ecologically correct - house in America.

Designed by Inverness architect Sim Van der Ryn and under construction for more than five years, the 15,000-square-foot house was built for owner Michael Klein, a passionate environmentalist and board member of the Rain Forest Action Network. It replaces the Graham house, which has been razed.

Exactly why is a passionate environmentalist building a 15,000 square foot house? Yes, he can afford it but surely a wealthy passionate environmentalist would set an example for both commoners and his wealthy peers. He would use green building techniques and also build a home appropriate to a human family in the 21st century. I do not believe a case can be made that all 6,492,046,339 of us (as of 01/18/06 at 00:09 GMT) should be living in homes this size as nuclear familys.

It may be a great show place for green building techniques but unless it is to be the home of 30-40 people there is little about it that is ecologically correct.

Via Knockin' On The Golden Door via Grateful Dead News.

Posted by Steve on January 17, 2006 | Comments (2)

January 16, 2006

Cats on Parade

The 94th Carnival of the Cats is up at Niobium's new home.

Posted by Steve on January 16, 2006

January 15, 2006

Ridin' the Railroad

Whew!

Three sweet nights with Railroad Earth. Yes, three.

There are some really good reasons to spend more than one evening with a good band.

First, you will hear more of their material and sometimes the same tunes done differently. Unlike typical pop bands who play the same sets night af night a good band gives you something new each night.

Second, a good band draws good fans.

Third, and most important: you can think you just went to a fine show, an excellent show and the next night think the same. Then, on the third night just get blown away when the previous two shows are simply dwarfed. Yep, RRE's Eugene show (1/14) was one of those shows.

Whew! Perhaps more in a later post.

Posted by Steve on January 15, 2006 | Comments (1)

January 13, 2006

Friday Ark #69

We'll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and....?

We will add your post to the list if you do one of the following:

  • Leave a comment or trackback to this post,

  • Use the Carnival Submission Form,

  • Email Modulator or

  • Our extensive staff finds it during our weekly search of the web

Of course, if our staff goes on strike then we will link only those posts someone tells us about. Time permitting we will continue boardings until the Carnival of the Cats goes up on Sunday.

Do link to the Friday Ark whether you use trackbacks or not.

Visit each border and come back regularly Friday-Sunday to visit new boarders.

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map. (46 shouts as of 01/12)

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday and the 95th edition will be hosted this week by Niobium. There are more weekly cats at eatstuff's Weekend Cat Blogging which has many participants who may not be familiar to Ark or Carnival participants.

Bird folks: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks. The 14th edition edition is up and hosted by Bird Brained Stories.

New for the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The fourth edition is up at bootstrap analysis. The 5th edition is scheduled for January 31 and will be hosted by Pharyngula.

NB: Tiny is in trouble. All our best to Sissy and Family! Update: Tiny is coming home.

Update 6:31 PM CST: Traveling - no more updates until sometime Saturday.

Cats

InvertebratesDogsBirdsOther VertebratesIn MemoriamDidn't Make It
Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

For other current carnivals check out The Conservative Cat's Carnival Page and The TTLB Uber Carnival






Note for Haloscan Users: Haloscan started (the end of July) rejecting trackbacks if they were submitted "too rapidly" by the same host. I don't know what the timer is but it is long enough so that it was very difficult to ping everyone that is using Haloscan for trackbacks. I'm sure that they are doing this to try to hold back the tide of trackback spam but it makes the service pretty useless for carnival type posts. Perhaps you can contact them and urge some different solution. Update: Typepad appears to be doing the same thing. Everytime I update the Ark it appears the timers are reset and the long list of MT autogenerated pings fail. Yecchhhh....


Posted by Steve on January 13, 2006 | Comments (19)

January 12, 2006

Pharyngula Has A New Home

PZ has moved to new real estate. Update your bookmarks and the newsfeed now.

Posted by Steve on January 12, 2006 | Comments (1)

January 11, 2006

Buy the DVD!

Yes, buy the Serenity DVD now...it looks like hot DVD sales may lead to a sequel!

Via Heretical Ideas.

Posted by Steve on January 11, 2006

Unexpected Travel

Until return this post will be kept on top.

January 10: The Modulator staff will be away from its normal environs for at least two days. I do not know what connectivity will be available or whether there will be any time to post.

January 11: Still away. Better connectivity today but not much sleep and a lot of activity so posting, well, maybe....

Posted by Steve on January 11, 2006

Perhaps The Perfect Meme!

Zero

Posted by Steve on January 11, 2006

January 9, 2006

How Soon In The States?

Are these guys practicing for their return home?

American troops in Baghdad yesterday blasted their way into the home of an Iraqi journalist working for the Guardian and Channel 4, firing bullets into the bedroom where he was sleeping with his wife and children.

Ali Fadhil, who two months ago won the Foreign Press Association young journalist of the year award, was hooded and taken for questioning. He was released hours later.

Dr Fadhil is working with Guardian Films on an investigation for Channel 4's Dispatches programme into claims that tens of millions of dollars worth of Iraqi funds held by the Americans and British have been misused or misappropriated.

Jeanne says:

If that isn't an attempt to intimidate a journalist asking dangerous questions, I can't imagine what it is. But American journalists ought to demand some answers.

Yes, definitely intimidation.  And,yes, American journalists ought to demand some answers but will they be intimidated? Will they, especially if based in Iraq, be willing to ask dangerous questions?

Posted by Steve on January 9, 2006

Planning to Buy A New PC?

If you are planning to buy a new PC this year give the Langa Letter: 10 Critical Factors When Buying A New PC a read:

But buying a PC today is complicated somewhat by two major factors -- hardware standards that are changing; and the scheduled release of Microsoft's Vista operating system. Make the wrong choice, and you may find your new PC dead-ended and obsolete much sooner than it should have been.

The article is targeted at Langa's corporate audience but applies equally well to the home user. BTW, there is no way I'd buy a new system with less than a GB of system RAM.

Posted by Steve on January 9, 2006

Best Blonde Joke Ever

Just in case you haven't heard this one yet click on through....

Posted by Steve on January 9, 2006 | Comments (1)

January 8, 2006

Festive Felines


The 94th Carnival of the Cats is up at Pages Turned:

Claudius says welcome to the 94th edition of the Carnival of the Cats. He and his co-hosts, Nicholson and Ellie (who'll be around shortly), hope you'll enjoy this week's particpants.

Posted by Steve on January 8, 2006

Dogs Sniffing Cancer

Many of you may remember the 60 Minutes segment from last January in which they showed dogs detecting cancer by smelling urine samples:

One dog failed completely, but two picked out the cancerous sample 60 percent of the time. The overall average was 41 percent success. That percentage may seem small, but Willis says it amounts to a major success for the dogs.

"The 41 percent, as far as I'm concerned, was a remarkable result," says Willis. "And it was highly statistically significant."
Well if that was remarkable then a new class of adjective is needed to talk about the results of this study:
In this study, five household dogs were trained within a short 3-week period to detect lung or breast cancer by sniffing the breath of cancer participants.
...
The results of the study showed that dogs can detect breast and lung cancer with sensitivity and specificity between 88% and 97%. The high accuracy persisted even after results were adjusted to take into account whether the lung cancer patients were currently smokers. Moreover, the study also confirmed that the trained dogs could even detect the early stages of lung cancer, as well as early breast cancer. The researchers concluded that breath analysis has the potential to provide a substantial reduction in the uncertainty currently seen in cancer diagnosis, once further work has been carried out to standardize and expand this methodology.
How soon will every household have a dog trained to do this?

Posted by Steve on January 8, 2006

irs Respectable?

Just why was the irs tracking taxpayer's political affiliation:

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a member of an appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over the IRS, said the practice was an “outrageous violation of the public trust” that could undermine the agency’s credibility.
I'm just a bit puzzled as to why murray thinks that this bunch of goons had any credibility.
...Deputy IRS Commissioner John Dalrymple said the party identification information was automatically collected through a “database platform” supplied by an outside contractor that targeted voter registration rolls among other things as it searched for people who aren’t paying their taxes.
And, why is it that someone outside the irs is being provided information about citizen's tax payment status? Shouldn't this information be confidential...at least until the irs initiates collection actions?

Via Talkleft.

Posted by Steve on January 8, 2006 | Comments (1)

January 7, 2006

Test Post Using Performancing

This is a test post written using Performancing for Firefox:

Performancing for Firefox is a full featured blog editor that sits right within Firefox. Just hit F8 or click the little pencil icon at the bottom right to bring up the blog editor and easily post to your Wordpress, MovableType or Blogger blogs.
Most of my recent posts have been written using a demo version of Anconia's Rocketpost:
RocketPost blog software is the first productivity app for blogging, designed for serious bloggers and business users. Unlike low-end clients, RocketPost is a complete, standalone editor which puts you in control. It’s the only blog editor with WYSIWYG editing, full local editing and full blog import.
Rocketpost is definitely more polished and a more functional editor at this point in time but it was much easier to set up the interface to Modulator using Performancing.  There is a substantive price difference between the two with the latter being a free Firefox extension at the moment. 

I'm going to use them both for a few weeks and may provide more comparison information at a later time.

Hat tip to Tommy for the pointer to Performancing.

Posted by Steve on January 7, 2006 | Comments (3)

A Question For pat

Laurence Simon asks:

Gene Scott was, by all appearances, a deeply religious and faithful man, preaching the Gospel to millions, if not billions. I've been told he never had a harsh or bad words for anyone, and he was deeply respected for his scholarship and his faith by many of his peers.

What was Gene Scott's stroke punishment for, Pat?

Yep. People, including robertson, will die and hurricanes will happen with no discernible evidence of devine intervention.

Update: Perhaps a case for evidence of devine interest can be made if said devinity is a figment of a lunatics imagination.

Posted by Steve on January 7, 2006

Ahhh, More For the Reading List

Hot Damn! I’ve read only 2 of the 15 Nebula nominees for best novel. That leaves 13 to add to this years reading list. Great fodder for bday, xmas and wish lists!

Via Scalzi whose Old Man’s War was one of my favorite reads of 2005 and deserved to be on the short list.

Posted by Steve on January 7, 2006

January 6, 2006

Things to Practice to Pass the Test

The sobriety test, that is. This is hilarious...and, just when you think he’s got it made...he blows it.

Via Talkleft.

1/7 Update Walter informed us that this is was taken from a Comedy Central show called Reno 911.

Posted by Steve on January 6, 2006 | Comments (4)

Friday Ark #68

We'll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and....?

We will add your post to the list if you do one of the following:

  • Leave a comment or trackback to this post,
  • Use the Carnival Submission Form,

  • Email Modulator or

  • Our extensive staff finds it during our weekly search of the web

Of course, if our staff goes on strike then we will link only those posts someone tells us about. Time permitting we will continue boardings until the Carnival of the Cats goes up on Sunday.

Do link to the Friday Ark whether you use trackbacks or not.

Visit each border and come back regularly Friday-Sunday to visit new boarders.

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map. (43 shouts as of 01/05)

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday and the 94th edition will be hosted this week by Pages Turned. There are more weekly cats at eatstuff's Weekend Cat Blogging which has many participants who may not be familiar to Ark or Carnival participants.

Bird folks: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks. The 14th edition edition is up and hosted by Bird Brained Stories.

New for the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The fourth edition is up at bootstrap analysis. The 4th edition is scheduled for January 31 and will be hosted by Pharyngula.

NB: Colin is in trouble. All our best to Jazz and Family! May the miracle happen!

Cats

InvertebratesDogsBirdsOther VertebratesIn Memoriam
Didn't Make ItExceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)For other current carnivals check out The Conservative Cat's Carnival Page and The TTLB Uber Carnival



Note for Haloscan Users: Haloscan started (the end of July) rejecting trackbacks if they were submitted "too rapidly" by the same host. I don't know what the timer is but it is long enough so that it was very difficult to ping everyone that is using Haloscan for trackbacks. I'm sure that they are doing this to try to hold back the tide of trackback spam but it makes the service pretty useless for carnival type posts. Perhaps you can contact them and urge some different solution. Update: Typepad appears to be doing the same thing. Everytime I update the Ark it appears the timers are reset and the long list of MT autogenerated pings fail. Yecchhhh....

Posted by Steve on January 6, 2006 | Comments (9)

January 5, 2006

Lake Birdbegon Days

Well, since it has been a quiet week in Lake Birdbegon you will have some relaxed time to visit and read I and the Bird #14 presented this week by Gwyn the proprietor of Bird Brained Stories!

Posted by Steve on January 5, 2006

Tax Help

If you are among the many* who will file a 2005 US federal income tax return the Tax Prof Blog has a handy list of newly released IRS information.

*There were 128,609,786 of you in 2003.

Posted by Steve on January 5, 2006 | Comments (1)

Finding Subversives

If this guy can mine Amazon Wishlists to identify your subversive tendencies just imagine what someone with resources like, say, the nsa or the fbi, might be able to do on behalf of their master. Think about what a mccarthy or a young jackboots for w group would do with this.

That someone can do this is probably an unintended consequence of a pretty cool Amazon feature. It does, though, point out that businesses like Amazon and Google have gathered large amounts of data on individuals and that this data can be misused if it is not well protected.

How much more data do you want to give them?

Via fergie’s tech blog which picked it up from Boing Boing.

Posted by Steve on January 5, 2006 | Comments (2)

Turning Off the Cross

PZ has discovered that the Skinner’s Butte cross has been off the Eugene, OR butte since 1997:

I learn that another Eugene landmark, the Skinner's Butte cross, has been gone since 1997. I remember that obnoxious thing glowing up at the top of the butte during my entire stay there (we lived just west of the butte, and could look down the street to watch rock-climbers scale it), and I'm glad to hear it's gone.

Neither PZ or his commenters note the time honored tradition of visiting high schoolers turning off the cross - reportedly a common occurrence when state basketball championships were held in Eugene.

Gosh, I’m surprised that PZ did not turn it off once or twice when he lived there.

Posted by Steve on January 5, 2006 | Comments (2)

Is She Milking A Super....

...ass for traffic?

Ali posts a self ass-trait.

Posted by Steve on January 5, 2006 | Comments (1)

January 4, 2006

I Had A Nice Winter Solstice

In case you missed it here is the clip of O’Reilly and Letterman discussing the war on christmas and Iraq.

Via the raw story.

Posted by Steve on January 4, 2006 | Comments (1)

Futbol Interlude

And I mean real futbol.

Thanks to the wonders of RSS retention and overload I ran across this six week old post by Todd Zywicki depicting Ronahldinho performing some marvelous juggling and...well, just go see for yourself. Here’s a discussion of the shots off the top post.

Here is some more magical juggling from Ronaldinho.

Share this stuff with your kids. Seeing what is possible can help them achieve large improvements in their own skills.

NB: The additional links above are from the original posts comment thread.

Posted by Steve on January 4, 2006 | Comments (1)

Open(ing) Content

I have way too much in my reading queue. Still, it's great news that several magazines including one of my old favorites, Fortune, are opening up access to their content:

Folks, here is the good news…. all Business 2.0 archives and new articles are wide open, no subscription necessary! You said…. “bring down those walls….” and we did. Not just Business 2.0, but also Fortune and Money.
Via beSpacific.

Posted by Steve on January 4, 2006

Science Time

Tangled Bank #44 is up at Afarensis:

Welcome to Tangled Bank # 44! When I volunteered to host this edition of the Tangled Bank I was expecting to read a lot of good science writing on a lot of interesting subjects. Even so, I fear I have underestimated how good and interesting science bloggers really are!
Take a well deserved break from political scandals, supreme court nominations, and aspiring kings presidents...well, almost,...but go read for yourself!

Posted by Steve on January 4, 2006

January 3, 2006

Atlanta Flies Past Chicago

Atlanta had more takeoffs and landings than Chicago in 2005:

The FAA said Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport finished 2005 with 980,197 takeoffs and landings, while Chicago O'Hare International Airport ended the year second with 972,246.

The Atlanta airport for the last several years has been the busiest airport in terms of passengers. FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said today that full-year numbers in that category are not yet available for 2005.

Well, I hadn’t realized that Atlanta was even close to Chicago. Little places like Los Angeles International and Dallas-Fortworth International are far behind.

NB: As usual the linked article has no links to the supporting FAA data and 5 minutes fingering through the FAA site did not yield any meaningful info either...but, then, it might just be the researcher....

Posted by Steve on January 3, 2006

Into and From Space

Here is a photo essay that is both worksafe and inspiring!

Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Year in Images 2005

When you are done watching the photo essay hop over to their links page and spend some large amount of time exploring the imagery and results from the JPL’s various projects.

Via The Presurfer.

Posted by Steve on January 3, 2006

January 2, 2006

A Broken Resolution

Yes, already! PZ Myers took only a day to break one. On the positive side, though, he is writing about a near invertebrate:

the slimy little bastard and his whole sleazy administration

Posted by Steve on January 2, 2006

A Reporter's Best Friend?

Well, of course:

Good bloggers can be a reporter's best friends if he learns how to use them.
Digby has much more to say on this as he riffs off firedoglake

Posted by Steve on January 2, 2006

January 1, 2006

Cats Ring in the New Year

Her Ladyship and Missy present Carnival of the Cats #93: Happy New Years Edition!

Posted by Steve on January 1, 2006