March 30, 2007

Friday Ark #132

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....?

Do link to the Ark every week!

You can find out how to board the Friday Ark at the Arkive page.

Cats

Birds

Other Vertebrates

Dogs

Invertebrates

In Memoriam

Didn't Make It

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

  • x

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings. Also, there are more doggies at Weekend Dog Blogging hosted this weekend by Sweetnicks.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday and the 157th edition , 3/25, is up at Scribblings . The 158th edition will be hosted on 4/1 by IMAO . There are more weekly cats at Weekend Cat Blogging #95 hosted on 3/31-4/1by The Hidden Paw . Do go shout out at The Catbloggers Frappr Map.

Bird folks: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks. The 45th edition is up and hosted by Journey Through Grace. The 46th edition will be hosted on 4/5 by lovely dark and deep.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The 18th edition is up and hosted by Pharyngula. The 19th edition will be hosted at the end of March by Burning Silo.

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

Note for Haloscan Users:

Over the past month or so Haloscan started (the end of July) handling of trackbacks has improved though it is still pretty broken for carnival type posts. Now, instead of rejecting every attempt to ping it accepts single pings for a while and then will start rejecting them. I will keep trying to track back to Haloscan boarders but can make no guarantees for any particular week.

Note for Typepad Users:

Typepad continues to behave similar to Haloscan for trackbacks. I been able to get trackbacks to most, if not all, Typepad based boarders. I have to do it one at a time and wait a while in between pings but Typepad does not go into semi-permanent rejection mode like Haloscan.

Posted by Steve on March 30, 2007 | Comments (5)

March 28, 2007

Is It Time For You to Move to a MAC?

I'm thinking of returning to the fold. How about your?

I was an Apple user from the days of the Apple II through the MAC SE era.

I loved them.

For a number of reasons we've been a Windows based family since about 1995 with varying degrees of happiness and unhappiness. I was thrilled when Apple announced their migration to Intel processors last year and, well, am about ready to make the change back/to a Mac along with a lot of other folks:

Because I made the switch recently, and did so publicly, I've gotten hundreds of messages from Computerworld readers (as well as readers of my personal newsletter, Scot's Newsletter) informing me that they, too, switched to the Mac recently. Many are IT people. Some confess that they manage Windows users by day, and run Macs at home. Others tell me that they've switched in the office, and it's no big deal. The all-but-universal experience is that the transition was much easier than expected, and that using the Mac has made switchers more productive.
I work in a large IT department (400 plus people) that supports both very traditional services and a lot of bleeding edge networking stuff. Centrally only Windows desktops are managed under contract. If you want a Mac you become self-supporting. When we had an all-staff meeting the other day Macs were mentioned several times and brought a spontaneous round of applause from about 20% of the audience.

I plan to join that 20% when the support contract runs out on my Dell laptop at the end of next month.

Yes, the MACs seem a bit expensive at first blush but certainly at the high end they are pretty competitive. Our home machines are do for an upgrade and assuming I'm happy with my experience at work we will likely again become an Apple family at home! It doesn't hurt at all that it is now trivially easy to run Windows and windows programs on a Mac.

NB: I almost forgot to mention that our kids have already rejoined the Apple family...they graduated from the Sony Discman (remember them?) to Ipods.

Posted by Steve on March 28, 2007 | Comments (4)

Tangled Up In Life

Inter alia you'll find fur seal sex, wolf breeding, lizards morphing into snakes, glutocorticoids, drught, the role of nitric oxide in aging and much more at Tangled Bank #76 which is up at balancing life.

Reminded by Pharyngula.

Posted by Steve on March 28, 2007

March 27, 2007

Repent Sinners

The rapture is coming:

Via Cult of Mac.

Posted by Steve on March 27, 2007

Whose Life Is It Anyway?

There should be no question but that it is yours!

There are, though, plenty out there who believe otherwise:

At the colloquium, food and drug lawyer Richard Cooper agreed that the issue is whether some rights are so fundamental that we do not entrust them to decisions made by elected officials. Until recently, establishing agencies to regulate the safety and efficacy of drugs was thought to be within the purview of Congress. "I doubt that most people thought that they had a constitutional right to buy investigational drugs," said Cooper. "It's a wholly new, unheard of right with no antecedents in Anglo-American law."
Dear mr cooper,

Free people have a right to make voluntary purchases from willing sellers. No federal, state or local legislation can change this fact. All they can do is use an illegitimate power to thwart our right to engage in voluntary exchanges.

People also have the right to toss out any government that abrogates their rights.

Sincerely,

Your Employers

Via.

Posted by Steve on March 27, 2007

Toss gonzalez Out Along With Some Other Detritus

In his exposition on how alberto gonzalez has made a mountain out of his own mole hill Charles Krauthammer explains why the executive branch might set enforcement priorities for its U.S. attorneys:

But the fact is that there are thousands of laws on the books and only finite resources for any prosecutor to deploy, which means that one must have priorities about which laws to emphasize and which crimes to preferentially pursue.

Those decisions are essentially political. And they are decided by elections in which both parties spell out very clearly their law enforcement priorities.

Herein lies one of the real problems of 21st century America. We do not live under the rule of law but of legislation pretending to be law. Laws to be meaningful must be knowable by and understandable to those who must follow them.

With thousands, hell-likely 10s of thousands of laws on the federal, state and local books we can hardly know them all. As to understanding them, pshaw...

Yes, gonzalez should step down.

Congress, though, would do better by us if it spent its time this session and in future sessions eliminating legislation and rewriting what must be kept until such time as the federal code is readable by and understandable to the average citizen.

When these and a few other conditions have been met* we may be able to say that we live under the rule of law. Yes, lawyers will still be needed but large numbers of them will be able to move on to productive work.

*See Randy Barnett, The Structure of Liberty, 84-107.

Posted by Steve on March 27, 2007

March 26, 2007

Spend Time With Your Kids...

...so Peyton Manning doesn't! (Turn up your audio a bit but it is Not Quite WS)

Via The Agitator.

Posted by Steve on March 26, 2007

w Continues Support for Transportation Status Quo

w's latest hyping of his energy plan appears to assume that cars are and should be our preferred mode of transportation:

President Bush, seeking to rev up support for his energy plan, praised domestic automakers Monday for building more “flexible fuel” vehicles capable of running on ethanol and biodiesel blends.

“That’s a major technological breakthrough for the country,” Bush said. “If you want to reduce gasoline usage like I believe we need to do so for national security reasons as well as for environmental concerns, the consumer has got to be in a position to make a rational choice.”

If you really want to reduce the use of oil, etc., a good place for w and the rest of us to start will be eliminating the ongoing federal and state subsidization of the automobile industry and, yes, any other transportation sector. Make sure the cost, including ongoing maintenance, of every new road, etc., is borne locally and most appropriately by the users.

One effect should be fewer roads built.

Another could be decisions to close roads.

For example, the latter is something that every city should be doing in its core right now. Even if it is as little as close one city block a year per city to automobile traffic the cumulative effect in terms of reduced miles driven can be huge. Over time the benefit in terms of increased human interaction and the possible development of profitable mass transit will be even greater than the ongoing reduction in noxious emissions.

Remember, too, that the ongoing subsidization of the automobile industry includes more than 40,000 deaths per year!

Posted by Steve on March 26, 2007

March 25, 2007

The Magic Man Done It

This speaks for itself:


Via Pharyngula.

Posted by Steve on March 25, 2007

March 23, 2007

Friday Ark #131

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....?

Do link to the Ark every week!

You can find out how to board the Friday Ark at the Arkive page.

Cats

Other Vertebrates

Birds

Dogs

Invertebrates

In Memoriam

  • x

Didn't Make It

  • x

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings. Also, there are more doggies at Weekend Dog Blogging hosted this weekend by Sweetnicks.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday and the 156th edition, 3/18, is up at Pet's Garden Blog. The 157th edition will be hosted on 3/25 by Scribblinngs . There are more weekly cats at Weekend Cat Blogging hosted on 3/24-25 by CatSynth . Do go shout out at The Catbloggers Frappr Map.

Bird folks: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks. The 45th edition is up and hosted by Journey Through Grace. The 46th edition will be hosted on 4/5 by lovely dark and deep.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The 18th edition is up and hosted by Pharyngula. The 19th edition will be hosted at the end of March by Burning Silo.

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

Note for Haloscan Users:

Over the past month or so Haloscan started (the end of July) handling of trackbacks has improved though it is still pretty broken for carnival type posts. Now, instead of rejecting every attempt to ping it accepts single pings for a while and then will start rejecting them. I will keep trying to track back to Haloscan boarders but can make no guarantees for any particular week.

Note for Typepad Users:

Typepad continues to behave similar to Haloscan for trackbacks. I been able to get trackbacks to most, if not all, Typepad based boarders. I have to do it one at a time and wait a while in between pings but Typepad does not go into semi-permanent rejection mode like Haloscan.

Posted by Steve on March 23, 2007 | Comments (3)

March 22, 2007

Bum Rush the Charts

Dear Musician Wannabees,

If you are going to sign with a major music label and don't retain rights to your creative work you get just what you deserve:

Musicians should be very careful of work for hire contracts. Under a work for hire contract, you have absolutely no right in the music you create.
The rest of us can help out a little bit, help disintermediate the legacy music industry and the RIAA by supporting the Bum Rush the Charts effort that is underway today.

Via Accordion Guy.

Posted by Steve on March 22, 2007

It's A Bird Party

The 45th edition of I and the Bird is up at Journey Through Grace.

Put on your party hat and fly in!

Posted by Steve on March 22, 2007

March 18, 2007

Happy 3rd Anniversary: Carnival of the Cats!

The 156th and 3rd Anniversary Edition of the Carnival of the Cats is up at Pet's Garden Blog!

Go skritch'm.

Posted by Steve on March 18, 2007

March 16, 2007

Friday Ark #130

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....?

Do link to the Ark every week!

You can find out how to board the Friday Ark at the Arkive page.

NB: Reader Rosemary suggested checking out Playful Pancakes: Cat Toys. Cassidy, a 2nd grader, makes these cat toys and uses the proceeds to buy goats for Sudan.

Cats

Dogs

Birds

Invertebrates

Other Vertebrates

In Memoriam

  • x

Didn't Make It

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings. Also, there are more doggies at Weekend Dog Blogging hosted this weekend by Sweetnicks.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday and the 155th edition, 3/11, is up at the Carnival of the Cats. The 155th edition, Third Anniversary, will be hosted on 3/18 by the Pets Garden Blog . There are more weekly cats at Weekend Cat Blogging hosted on 3/17-18 by I Got Two Shoes . Do go shout out at The Catbloggers Frappr Map.

Bird folks: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks. The 44th edition is up and hosted by The Greenbelt. The 45th edition will be hosted on 3/22 by Journey Through Grace.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The 18th edition is up and hosted by Pharyngula. The 19th edition will be hosted at the end of March by Burning Silo.

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

Note for Haloscan Users:

Over the past month or so Haloscan started (the end of July) handling of trackbacks has improved though it is still pretty broken for carnival type posts. Now, instead of rejecting every attempt to ping it accepts single pings for a while and then will start rejecting them. I will keep trying to track back to Haloscan boarders but can make no guarantees for any particular week.

Note for Typepad Users:

Typepad continues to behave similar to Haloscan for trackbacks. I been able to get trackbacks to most, if not all, Typepad based boarders. I have to do it one at a time and wait a while in between pings but Typepad does not go into semi-permanent rejection mode like Haloscan.

Posted by Steve on March 16, 2007 | Comments (6)

March 15, 2007

Did Your Local Paper Publish These Pictures of w's visit to Brazil?

bush's emphasis on local cuisine did not win the hearts of all South Americans.

For example, the folks in Brazil certainly know how to give a protest (some of the photos are not work safe though they are certainly fine examples of freedom of speech).

As they say in Brazil, Fora bush!

Via BoingBoing.

Posted by Steve on March 15, 2007

March 14, 2007

Only Seven Wonders?

Demonstrating democracy in action less than 1/10th of 1% of the worlds population have so far voted an average of 7 times each to select a new list of the Seven Wonders of the World. The Washington Post has pictures of the 21 nominees.

It might, though, be more appropriate to call it a list of the seven man-made wonders of the world. Certainly it is perfectly fine for us to identify some number of human artifacts that exemplify the height of human ingenuity, creativity or engineering skill. All the candidates are impressive and possibly deserving from this perspective.

However, none of them hold a candle to many other wonders of the world. A few examples:

  • The natural backdrops of Machu Picchu (Picture 3) or Sao Paulo (Picture 4)
  • Tubeworms and Spider Crabs or any other living or extinct life form
  • Pick your favorite mountain
  • Pick your favorite river
And so on.

NB: With respect to the 3rd picture are people voting for the statue, the water faucet or the remarkable natural setting?

Via The Volokh Conspiracy.

Posted by Steve on March 14, 2007

March 13, 2007

Brains

Understand'm, fix'm, improve'm, evolve'm.

Go do a little brain work at Encephalon #18, the carnival of neuroscience, which is up at Pharyngula.

Posted by Steve on March 13, 2007

Card Check Voting and Unions

There are plenty of words being spilt over the Empoyee Free Choice Act and the proposed card check voting system. For instance, yesterday's Washington Post guest editorial on this legislation. Eric Folley responds:

To be fair, the Post does say that the current system is tilted too far in favor of employers, and they suggest a number of tweaks to the system: shorter elections, greater union access to the workplace, and harsher penalties for intimidation by employers. But this seems to me to be just another way of skirting the main issue, which is: if a majority of workers want a union, they should get one. And since card check is the fairest way to determine the will of the majority, it should be allowed. QED.
He couldn't be more wrong with respect to his main issue.

If any number of workers, a minority or a majority, want to form a union they must be allowed to do so.

What they can not be allowed to do is force any other workers to join their union or pay dues to it.

Posted by Steve on March 13, 2007 | Comments (1)

March 12, 2007

In Lieu of Heroes

Immerse yourself in Zeroes:

Via ...You Are A Tree.

Posted by Steve on March 12, 2007

March 11, 2007

Meta-Modulator

A few changes:

1) Kip says: --Host-based trackbacking is out; Technorati Trackbacks are in. I have added a Technorati View blog reactions link to my templates. However, I still like host-based trackbacks and continue to support them.

2) If you look at individual posts on Modulator (click on the post title or the Permalink at the end of the post) you will see at the bottom a link to Social bookmark this page. This link utilizes the Socializer service. Please take advantage of this. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get this to work on the main page.

3) I've removed the Top Referrers Blogroll from the top of the right sidebar. When the stats got messed up on my host for 6-7 months last year I stopped updating this blogroll and have not started again since the stats were fixed. No one seems to have noticed and everyone that would have been there is still on a left side bar roll.

4) I'm doing some other blogroll tweaking and will report on this next weekend.

Posted by Steve on March 11, 2007 | Comments (4)

March 10, 2007

Been Reading Some Science Fiction/Fantasty?

Via Pharyngula comes another of those mark the ones you've read in bold memes.

As this one is based on someone's version of the The Most Significant SF & Fantasy Books of the Last 50 Years, 1953-2002 and as I read lots of SF I'll participate.

The list is below the fold and 40 of the 50 are bolded.

The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
Dune, Frank Herbert
Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein

A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
Neuromancer, William Gibson
Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
Cities in Flight, James Blish
The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany

Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
Gateway, Frederik Pohl
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin

Little, Big, John Crowley
Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
On the Beach, Nevil Shute
Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
Ringworld, Larry Niven
Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Timescape, Gregory Benford
To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

I do not plan to make the bolded list complete. However, if there are some of the unread that you really think are worth the read let me know.

How'd you do?

Posted by Steve on March 10, 2007 | Comments (1)

Learning new Technology

You've been there or know someone who has: not quite grasping how that new tech toy or software program works. Through the ages customer support has come to the rescue:

Via ...You Are A Tree.

Posted by Steve on March 10, 2007

March 9, 2007

A Birthday Poem for PZ's 50th?

Nah, I'm not waxing poetic after today's meetings.

Rather as an appropriate birthday piece I'm going to reprise part of a 2004 post that also spoke to PZ:

But, just to show that withdrawal was not complete, when I saw this guy:

I couldn't help but think of PZ Myers.

I suspect most of you have a bit more bandwidth than you had in 2004 so click on that fellow (176 KB) and get up close and personal just like you know PZ wants you to do!


Happy birthday, PZ!


Posted by Steve on March 9, 2007

Friday Ark #129

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....?

Do link to the Ark every week!

You can find out how to board the Friday Ark at the Arkive page.

Cats

Dogs

Other Vertebrates

Birds

Invertebrates

In Memoriam

  • x

Didn't Make It

  • x

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings. Also, there are more doggies at Weekend Dog Blogging hosted this weekend by Sweetnicks.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday and the 154th edition, 3/5, is up at Tacjammer. The 155th edition will be hosted at xxx on 3/11, well, the Carnival of the Cats . There are more weekly cats at Weekend Cat Blogging hosted on 3/10-11 by What Did You Eat . Do go shout out at The Catbloggers Frappr Map.

Bird folks: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks. The 44th edition is up and hosted by The Greenbelt. The 45th edition will be hosted on 3/22 by Journey Through Grace.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The 18th edition is up and hosted by Pharyngula. The 19th edition will be hosted at the end of March by Burning Silo.

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

Note for Haloscan Users:

Over the past month or so Haloscan started (the end of July) handling of trackbacks has improved though it is still pretty broken for carnival type posts. Now, instead of rejecting every attempt to ping it accepts single pings for a while and then will start rejecting them. I will keep trying to track back to Haloscan boarders but can make no guarantees for any particular week.

Note for Typepad Users:

Typepad continues to behave similar to Haloscan for trackbacks. I been able to get trackbacks to most, if not all, Typepad based boarders. I have to do it one at a time and wait a while in between pings but Typepad does not go into semi-permanent rejection mode like Haloscan.

Posted by Steve on March 9, 2007 | Comments (7)

March 8, 2007

The Shorter Microsoft Warranty

Bryan, Why Now, tells us why we should trust Bill Gates:

Any member of Congress who is tempted to vote for anything based on the testimony of Bill Gates should read a Microsoft warranty¹. After reading that piece of legal prose and having it parsed to explain exactly what it says, the member of Congress should be able to understand how trustworthy Bill Gates isn’t.
Here is Bryan's shorter Microsoft warranty:
Microsoft only guarantees the quality of the media [CD-ROM or DVD] that their products are shipped on. They don’t guarantee that anything will be on the media, and if there is something on the media, they don’t guarantee that it will do anything. If the media is defective, they’ll replace it.
Letting Microsoft hire a bunch on H1-Bs will not change their unwarranty.

Bryan's analysis of high tech unemployment and H1-Bs is correct. Nevertheless, here we do support open borders whether it be Mexican, Indian, Canadian, Cuban,.....

Governments should not be allowed to get in the way of people's voluntary movement or their voluntary exchange of goods.

Posted by Steve on March 8, 2007

Getting the Marriage Debate Right

It is not an answer that politicians will like but Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat gets it right:

I have long thought the solution to the marriage fight is to get government out of the marriage business. Let churches marry — or refuse to marry — whomever they choose. Have the state support families through civil contracts. For the most part, families are what they define themselves to be.

This is already happening, without government. For the first time in more than a century, married households now are the minority in America. In Seattle, a whopping 67 percent of households are headed by unmarried adults.

Politicians, be they republicans or democrats, and bureaucrats do not like giving up control. Indeed, it is one of their greatest failings.

This is one area where we can start removing the bonds imposed by our state and federal governments and work to make sure that current and future legislative bodies do nothing more to discriminate against whatever form of living arrangements consenting adults may choose.

Posted by Steve on March 8, 2007 | Comments (1)

The Birds

The birds of science, serendipity, words and pictures are ready for your enjoyment at I and the Bird #44 hosted by The Greenbelt.

Posted by Steve on March 8, 2007

March 7, 2007

Annoyances at the Gas Pump

There are only 3 gas stations within 5 miles of my house. One of them is a Shell station which is usually the 2nd highest priced of the three but is often the most convenient.

The transaction cost ($, time and mental) is a bit higher at the Shell station because for a number of years their pumps have had a little video screen typically showing some TV news broadcast. The audio comes on as soon as the pump is activated. I am always prepared to push the mute button to keep the pollution level down.

Apparently not enough folks have done the mute thing because Shell is expanding the concept:

Pumps at about a dozen Shell stations in the Bay Area have been equipped with video screens and speakers that feature three-minute blasts of promos from TV network NBC and ads for a variety of corporate sponsors.

By the end of the month, at least 75 Shell stations in the region will have this capability, according to FuelCast Media Network, the Los Angeles venture behind the trend. Over ensuing months, as many as 200 local Shell stations will feature at-the-pump programming.

And that's just the beginning. FuelCast says it's in talks with other leading oil companies to install screens and speakers at their stations as well.

According to the linked article the new installations in the Bay Area do not provide a mute opportunity:
There was no way I could turn down the volume of the broadcast, much less opt out from being exposed to come-ons from a major TV network and its advertisers.

When my tank was full, the broadcast ended and a voice thanked me for picking Shell. It was, all in all, a fairly intrusive experience.

The marketeers love the captive audience but they clearly do not have a high opinion of us or respect for our privacy:
"There's not much else to do while you're filling your tank," said Gary LePon, executive vice president of FuelCast. "This gives you something to do while you're waiting.
...
"Whether it's an ad at a urinal or on an elevator, you want to get people when they can't turn away," Porter said.
Not much else to do? How about, well, something as basic as thinking? Or, meditative breathing. Just a bit of time without external noise clamping down your brain!

Screens and ads at urinals and in elevators? Elevator music is bad enough. Expansion of this kind of crap may well warrant an ongoing monkey wrenching campaign.

The really bad news about all this is that 80% of the the market research subjects say they like this stuff....

Are they afraid of a bit of quiet?

Posted by Steve on March 7, 2007 | Comments (1)

Picture of the Day: Yeast Cell

This is an electron tomogram of a complete yeast cell:

yeastcell.jpg

Biology News Net has details about what you are looking at as well as a 2.68 MB high resolution version that is fascinating!

Posted by Steve on March 7, 2007

March 6, 2007

What The Well Dressed veep Will Be Wearing

Clearly he will be wearing compression stockings.

Dr. Charles has more on blood clots.

Posted by Steve on March 6, 2007

March 5, 2007

Tasty Morsels

PZ has the 18th Circus of the Spineless up:

another collection of gorgeous images of crunchy, squishy, slimy, tentacled, multi-legged, no-legged creatures

Wonderful stuff! As eye candy or, for those so inclined, real candy. Oh yea, if you read the posts you might learn a thing or two as well.

Posted by Steve on March 5, 2007

March 4, 2007

Best Buy

Best Buy apparently has a policy that they will match a price from their internet site in their stores. Unless, of course, they can show the customer on an in house website that the price isn't better.

That is the allegation and if true Best Buy is committing fraud. We will have to wait for Best Buy to admit guilt or for a court, civil, criminal or both, to declare guilt before we know for sure.

Whichever the case, this thought from Chaos Digest holds no water:

Conservatives who continuously spout 'less government oversight' please note: This is the type of thing that would happen much more often if an industry is left to 'self-regulate'.
First, see above. Until the alleged perp admits guilt or is convicted in a court of law they are, well, presumed innocent.

Second, this has nothing to do regulation and everything to do with a possible criminal act. It is the responsibility of the police, prosecuting attorneys or citizens acting in civil courts to bring this type of activity to an end.

We do not need regulatory agencies to determine whether someone or some thing corporation has committed fraud.

Posted by Steve on March 4, 2007

March 3, 2007

Pencils

A nifty pencil scultpure:

Pencilart.jpg

Via His Nibs who found out that the artist is Jennifer Maestre.

Posted by Steve on March 3, 2007

March 2, 2007

Friday Ark #128

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....?

Do link to the Ark every week!

You can find out how to board the Friday Ark at the Arkive page.

Cats

Dogs

Birds

Other Vertebrates

Invertebrates

In Memoriam

Didn't Make It

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings. Also, there are more doggies at Weekend Dog Blogging hosted this weekend by Sweetnicks.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday and the 153rd edition, 2/25, is up at Scribblings. The 154thedition will be hosted at Tacjammer on 3/5 (Monday not Sunday this week). There are more weekly cats at Weekend Cat Blogging hosted on 3/3-4 by Champaigne Taste . Do go shout out at The Catbloggers Frappr Map.

Bird folks: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks. The 43rd edition is up and hosted by Earth, Wind & Water. The 44th edition will be hosted on 3/8 by The Greenbelt.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The 17th edition is up at The Voltage Gate . The 18th edition will be hosted shortly by Pharyngula.

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

Note for Haloscan Users:

Over the past month or so Haloscan started (the end of July) handling of trackbacks has improved though it is still pretty broken for carnival type posts. Now, instead of rejecting every attempt to ping it accepts single pings for a while and then will start rejecting them. I will keep trying to track back to Haloscan boarders but can make no guarantees for any particular week.

Note for Typepad Users:

Typepad continues to behave similar to Haloscan for trackbacks. I been able to get trackbacks to most, if not all, Typepad based boarders. I have to do it one at a time and wait a while in between pings but Typepad does not go into semi-permanent rejection mode like Haloscan.

Posted by Steve on March 2, 2007 | Comments (3)

March 1, 2007

Repeat Ditto

Jim Henley and Jane Galt take offense at having to provide identification and signatures when buying Sudafed and similar decongestants that used to be over the counter:

Jane:

And can I just say that the ritual humiliation of obtaining Sudafed from a drugstore sets every liberty-loving fibre of my patriotic American soul quivering for Revolution? I mean, sure, that would mean even more if I weren’t already reflexively against our nation’s drug laws. But still.
Jim:
Oh God yes. I fairly tremble with rage, and at least once I’ve added a parenthetical “Under Protest” after my name. Reminding myself that the drug store employees themselves didn’t come up with the law barely serves to keep me from launching into a spittle-flecked tirade.
What they both say!

A commenter at Jim's place notes:

I asked the pharmacy techs about it 3 or 4 times, and they seem to be in total agreement of the need to keep Sudafed out of the hands of the meth chemists.
Why would we not expect a pharmacy tech to be in complete agreement?

First, their job is buttered on the side of government regulation and prescription laws. The more the merrier.

Second, they are no different than most other folks who have drank the drug war kool-aid. I'm sure that they sincerely believe that folks cook meth because they could buy pseudoephedrine in over the counter cold symptom remedies instead of the more realistic view that cooking meth is yet another consequence of the ill-conceived and disastrous ongoing war on drugs.

Posted by Steve on March 1, 2007 | Comments (1)

What Makes Her Hot?

Maya tells what makes her hot.

Posted by Steve on March 1, 2007