February 2005 Archives

Via memepool.

That's the Bibliothèque nationale de France. And if you're standing in front of it, and you've got a cell phone, you too can play Tetris using the building lights, thanks to Project Blinkenlights. How cool is that? Found on Josh Rubin.

Found on robotfilter, Pitchfork's Top 100 Albums of the Decade's First Half.

Bands I've never heard of: 72%
Albums I don't own: 98%

Man, I am so old. And don't even get me started on Pazz & Jop.

*(May not be an actual lesbian, but only plays one on TV).

In a truly important article, the New York Times reports that (shock!) television programs play the lesbian card to up ratings during sweeps. Exhibit A, the picture above with the following caption:

On "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," Willow (Alyson Hannigan, left) and Tara (Amber Benson) kissed for the first time on the episode "The Body."

That sure looks like Willow on the left. That sure ain't Tara on the right. I don't even think it's Kennedy. Who the heck is that?

Our browsers are all grown-up! Finally, Firefox and Safari have their very own, non-IE compatible, security issue. Luckily, there is some discussion of how to fix it here.

From engadget by way of eyebeam.

Update on the Jeff Gannon, or should we say "Jeff Gannon" story. Rep. Slaughter (D-NY) writes the president with some questions on the White House Briefing Room Scandal:

Dear Mr. President:

In light of the mounting evidence that your Administration has, on several occasions, paid members of the media to advocate in favor of Administration policies, I feel compelled to ask you to address a matter brought to my attention by the Niagara Falls Reporter (article attached), a local newspaper in my district, regarding James "JD" Guckert (AKA Jeff Gannon) of Talon News.

According to several credible reports, "Mr. Gannon" has been repeatedly credentialed as a member of the White House press corps by your office and has been regularly called upon in White House press briefings by your Press Secretary Scott McClellan, despite the fact evidence shows that "Mr. Gannon" is a Republican political operative, uses a false name, has phony or questionable journalistic credentials, is known for plagiarizing much of the "news" he reports, and according to several web reports, may have ties to the promotion of the prostitution of military personnel.

Story via Atrios.

The "prostitution of military personnel" reference is because "Gannon" had registered the domain names Hotmilitarystud.com, Militaryescorts.com, and Militaryescortsm4m.com, according to Daily Kos.

And, just to give the story some longer legs, there's the Valerie Plame connection...

Tom told me I had to read this, "a short weird book which seems to be about everything in the world." I was reminded both of 0156106809:The Baron In The Trees and 00965011:Silent Running. Stanley Crawford is now a farmer in New Mexico and writes about that, too.

A pair of Colorado girls decided to stay home from a dance (ahem, haven't been there before) and bake cookies for their neighbors. They wrote cute little notes on construction paper hearts saying, "Have a great night. HEART, the T and L Club," and left them on the doorsteps of their neighbors, knocking and then leaving before the door could be answered. Aww.

Apparently the surprise was so much for one neighbor that she decided to sue the teens for $900 for a subsequent emergency room visit, because she had been so startled at the knocking. She thought an intruder had come to her door when no one answered her calls. Though the teens offered to pay her bills, she insisted on taking them to court. [Original Denver Post article here.]

"The victory wasn't sweet," Young said. "I'm not gloating about it. I just hope the girls learned a lesson." [link]

Wait, there's more!

Viewmaster reels of Kafka,, Italo Calvino, and more.

Social Security. Generally Googlebombs are silly, but maybe people are searching for "Social Security" these days. Via Political Strategy.

Pat is there.

So there's this ad campaign for Doritos™ now. It starts with people all over Unspecified City, all getting text messages on their cell phones reading "INNW?". Then they run around. Then a whole bunch of them end up in Unspecified City Square. A giant bag of Doritos™ is on a billboard. They all look up at it. They look like extras in the video for "We Built This City (On Rock and Roll)". Then they all jump at the same time, causing the giant bag of Doritos™ to fall to the ground, like manna, where presumably it will be consumed by the cell-phone wielding masses.

So what's up with that INNW acronym? And why does the whole thing look like an ad for, well, cell phones? Apparently they're trying to create a new txt msg slang, and cash in on this "new" lingo. The INNW site is written in badly done txt msg speak. And INNW stands for "If Not Now, When?"

I suppose the merry marketeers over at Frito-Lay are trying to create a "Just Do It" style phrase. However, my first thought was, why are they quoting Hillel? You know, the first-century BCE scholar who most famously asked, "If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?" I've always thought that the phrase summarized Judaism's call to action: one must look out for oneself, because if you don't, who else will? But at the same time, one must always help others, because if you don't, then who else will? And finally, you have to act today.

So it's a odd, really, to see Hillel quoted in an ad campaign. Is anyone at Frito-Lay, or their advertising firm, Jewish? This is a bit like trying to use "WWJD" to sell soda. It's not really offensive, it's just sort of -- weird. Perhaps you'll see this on a future bag of Doritos™:

I suppose things could be worse. I mean, the last time a food company tried to get hip with the slang, it was pretty embarrassing.

Tufte Alert!

Comic Book Medicine

In case you weren't aware, Greg Pak is on to his second Marvel title -- "X-Men: Phoenix - Endsong". That's right, an X-Men title! From Greg! The first issue got rave reviews; the second one is out this week. If you need some background on Jean Grey, the Phoenix Force, and Dark Phoenix, well, click those links. But first: run, don't walk, to your comic book store, etc.

I like big Bibles I can not lie!

More pictures here. Found at Glubibulga.

Via Waxy.

I can't remember what blog recommended this book, which Sinclair Lewis wrote in 1935. Consider the elements: A presidential candidate who portrays himself as a man of the people, complete with down-home language, piety and jingoism. His sinister right-hand man who makes all the real decisions. The religious broadcaster who helps propel him to office. The rally at Madison Square Garden! Lewis' American president-becomes-dictator, Buzz Windrip, is a Democrat, but you can't help but draw parallels. Of course America isn't a fascist state, and Bush hasn't organized uniformed "marching clubs" or sent his political opponents off to camps.

The New York Times is putting more and more of its non-text content online, and this means I have a new hobby. I realize that critically dissecting the daily op-ed illustration has all the broad popular appeal of summarizing Proust. But if I weren't in thrall to my own arbitrary obsessions, well, I wouldn't be a blogger.

Why bother to buy a columnist when you can just plant one of your own?

There was some breathing space, for a while, after we took some simple anti-spam measures. But now we've been hit again in the last few days. Which is silly, actually, because we have "nofollow" installed, so the comment spam isn't even indexed by Google or other search engines, which is the whole reason they spam Ish to begin with.

So I've changed the script name yet again, which means a complete rebuild. I have the feeling I'll need to do this periodically. Also, I've taken out the excerpt of the comment from the sidebar so we don't have to look at all that nastiness. I'd like to regex the commenter's name to just their initials, but I haven't figured out the code for that yet.

As we all know, today is the 46th anniversary of the day that the plane carrying Richie Valens, Buddy Holly, and the Big Bopper crashed, killing them all. For your edification, you may read one fairly thorough interpretation of the song's lyrics, even peeped on Don McLean's official site. Links to other interpretations welcome in the comments.

You're against installing Open Source software? What, do you hate cops or something?

If you're an Apple acolyte and enjoy seeing a certain Redmond, Wash. company squirm as much as I do, you've gotta read this Wired article about the dominance of the iPod among Bill Gates's employees: "Hide Your iPod, Here Comes Bill."

Some choice quotes that positively fill me with glee:

"About 80 percent of Microsoft employees who have a portable music player have an iPod," said one ... high-level manager.... "This irks the management team no end," said the source.

"These guys are really quite scared," said the source.... "Even though it's Microsoft, no one is interested in what we have to offer, even our own employees."

As for hiding his own iPod use, the manager said he flaunts his iPod.... "I don't really care if it pisses them off," he said....If you want me to stop using it, give me a product that works and is as easy to use."

Iraqi Militants Take G.I. Joe Doll Hostage. Cobra Commander wanted for questioning.

Found on robotfilter.

From a guide intended to help foreigners understand the idiosyncrasies of British English, found by a journalist for The Economist in 2004 on an office wall in the European Court of Justice.

What they say: I was a bit disappointed that . . .
What is understood: It doesn’t really matter.
What they mean: I am most upset and cross.

What they say: By the way/Incidentally . . .
What is understood: This is not very important.
What they mean: The primary purpose of our discussion is ...

What they say: I hear what you say.
What is understood: He accepts my point of view.
What they mean: I disagree and do not want to discuss it any further.

More at Harper's.