DEDHAM -- Most here know Hill & Plakias as a family law firm that handles real estate and civil squabbles for the residents of this Boston suburb. [...] The Massachusetts connection hit a nerve with US Representative Edward D. Markey, a Malden Democrat who has been fighting in Congress to outlaw extraordinary renditions. "I am appalled and saddened to learn that a company linked to Massachusetts appears to be aiding and abetting the transport of prisoners to foreign nations where they are likely to face torture in violation of the Geneva Convention," said Markey.
—Farah Stockman, "Terror suspects' torture claims have Mass. link," Boston Globe, 29-Nov-2004
I'm using Jeremy Gillick's SwitchProxy extension for Mozilla Firefox to occasionally bypass Privoxy (with my Privoxy actions file). The control is always on screen, indicating whether or not Privoxy is in effect.
This is the first use of Figlet in spam that I recall. (Figlet)
Tcsh completion rules for Figlet:
complete figlet \ c/-/'(C D E I L N R S W X c d f k l m n o p r s t v w x)'/ \ n/-C/f/ \ n/-I/x:'<infocode: -1 through 4>'/ \ n/-d/d/ \ n/-f/'`figlist`'/ \ n/-m/x:'<layoutmode: 1 through 63>'/ \ n/-w/x:'<outputwidth: 1 or greater>'/ \ p/\*/x:'<message>'/
If you use Tcsh and Debian, see debian-tcsh.csh. I actually just moved from Tcsh to Bash.
The Dutch do this a lot. They appear to live in terror of being mistaken for Germans, and to compensate by finding a funny side to life where none exists.
—Michael Lewis, The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story (excerpt)
Game: Learned University. Our scientists focus on Democracy, goal is Amphibious Warfare.
—Freeciv 1.14.2 output
Formative family: Maureen Dowd, "Blood Is Thicker Than Gravy," New York Times, 27-Nov-2004
Perhaps we could send Scalia off to the Ukraine as an exchange student, to learn something from the former USSR about democracy and rule of law:
KIEV, Ukraine, Nov. 25 - Ukraine's Supreme Court on Thursday temporarily blocked the victory of Prime Minister Viktor F. Yanukovich in the disputed presidential election, barring publication of the Central Election Commission's results until the court reviews complaints of widespread fraud and abuse.
—C.J. Chivers, "Ukraine Court Delays Results in Vote Dispute," New York Times, 26-Nov-2004
Check out the BothSides Magazine advertorial insert that's linked from the following E&P article. BothSides is full of fallacious logic and shameful rhetoric, and appears to be more a promotion for 'Dr.' Derek Grier and his book than for the purported social-political agenda.
Joe Strupp, "Anti-Gay Marriage Advertorial Rankles 'Washington Post' Readers," Editor & Publisher, 23-Nov-2004
As the New York Times tries to raise the bar that it spent four years lowering, the Washington Post does the limbo.
I consider this to be sexual assault, and I'd not convict a woman who used violence to defend herself:
First you have to strip, unzipping your boots, unbuckling your belt and unbuttoning your suit jacket while any guys standing around watch. Then you have to walk around in some flimsy top and stocking or bare feet. Then you have to assume the spread-eagled position. Then a beefy female security agent runs her hands all the way around your breasts, in between, underneath - again with guys standing around staring. Flying on business, I've gone through this embarrassing tableau two dozen times in airports all over the country in the last couple of months.
—Maureen Dowd, "Hiding Breast Bombs," New York Times, 25-Nov-2004
I also consider it to be un-American.
Released sigbegone.el version 0.10.
"Many Women Say Airport Pat-Downs Are a Humiliation," http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/23/business/23grope.html
Police-state enough for you yet? (13-Jun-2003, 26-Aug-2002, 24-Oct-2001)
Deborah Krasner, The Flavors of Olive Oil: A Tasting Guide and Cookbook, 2002, ISBN 074321403X
Colavita is indeed one of my favorite olive oils. Sadly, none of the much more affordable first-cold-press-extra-virgins I've tried from Trader Joe's seems nearly as bold. TJ's unfiltered First Lady Reserve, for example, costs only a few dollars for a 17 fl. oz. bottle, and is probably a good option for when cooking would destroy much of the flavor of the oil anyway. (Colavita is welcome to mail me a can of their stuff for the plug, as is TJ's for the back-handed plug. And if that works, I am fully prepared to murmur favorably about the IBM ThinkPad X Series and the Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II.)
The Birchwood, Wisconsin, hunter shootings are a tragedy for the families of those killed and injured, but this quote struck me as suggesting something somehow unfair about the whole hunting dynamic:
When you're hunting, you don't expect somebody to try to shoot you and murder you.
—Bill Wagner, quoted in "Five hunters killed in Wisconsin," AP via CNN.com, 22-Nov-2004 12:36pm EST
Soya Kaas Mild Cheddar Style is tolerable. Someone should've made proper cheese grow on trees.
How to help your friend leave the industry: Slashdot comment #10883043
If I were Rolex, I'd be annoyed that spam is destroying the brand.
The surplus store in Central Square has inexplicably returned to the higher-rent space. Back in my day, we called these "carpet samples" for discontinued styles, and they were free.
I'd still like for a rogue element of the CIA to destabilize a certain government:
Porter J. Goss, the new intelligence chief, has told Central Intelligence Agency employees that their job is to "support the administration and its policies in our work," a copy of an internal memorandum shows. "As agency employees we do not identify with, support or champion opposition to the administration or its policies," Mr. Goss said in the memorandum, which was circulated late on Monday. He said in the document that he was seeking "to clarify beyond doubt the rules of the road."
—Douglas Jehl, "New C.I.A. Chief Tells Workers to Back Administration Policies," New York Times, 17-Nov-2004
Install Firefox and the BugMeNot extension.
On one recent day alone, my personal Web site received 9,564 hits, but unfortunately most of those were due to people linking to my photos on my server as their blog page backgrounds from Xanga.com and Myspace.com.
I did notice one legitimate (and flattering, and amusing) linking of one of my photos on a blogger site, although I still would've appreciated a link back to my own blog page:
i agree with jessie, HOLY SHIT that is a good picture. and that's ME saying it's a good picture. i like the glare that looks like a rainbow made of glass. except i think photoshop could make that picture better.
—
drysilhouettecomment on LiveJournalmmmmcheesy#41373, 4-Nov-2004 14:44:00
An acquaintance very knowledgeable about light and optics seemed to think at the time that the rainbow was the result of two light sources (one a street light, the other a strong spotlight) intersecting beams in the heavy snow. I don't recall the name of the theory he mentioned. Anyone know?
After talking with beloved domain-hoster (Pair.com) about what
Apache directives they enable and allow to be overridden in
.htaccess, here's what I'm using to try to keep my bandwidth from
being pounded:
SetEnvIfNoCase Referer "^http://www.neilvandyke.org/" localref
SetEnvIfNoCase Referer "^http://neilvandyke.org/" localref
SetEnvIfNoCase Referer "^$" localref
SetEnvIfNoCase Referer "^http://images.google.com/" localref
SetEnvIfNoCase Referer "^http://images.search.yahoo.com/" localref
<FilesMatch "\.(gif|jpe?g|png)$">
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Allow from env=localref
</FilesMatch>
This is a variation on a technique that I got from a tutorial by Ken Coar, "Preventing Image 'Theft'," dated 2000.
"What Happens At Yucca Mountain Stays At Yucca Mountain," The Onion, 17-Nov-2004
Due to massive amounts of spam, I've had to abandon my decade-old "email address for life," nwv@acm.org. For now, email to that address should bounce, with a message
telling people to see my Web page for the real address. Also, I'm not happy
about the ACM now feeding my email through Postini
(postini.com).
"The New York Times without Bill Safire is all but unimaginable," Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher of The Times, said in the statement. "Bill's provocative and insightful commentary has held our readers captive since he first graced our Op-Ed Page in 1973. Reaching for his column became a critical and enjoyable part of the day for our readers across the country and around the world."
—"Safire to End Column," New York Times, 15-Nov-2004
I want to like Safire, but I see him as first and foremost a propagandist who throws the full might of subtly persuasive language behind all his arguments, as if fact and logic might not suffice.
Now, if only they could ditch Safire's purported non-replacement, David Brooks, my op-ed week would be that much brighter.
Deleted all my news-related bookmarks til I catch up on work. Post-election news will take too much time to track.
Occasionally people try to reach me through
comp.lang.scheme or the plt-scheme list, but I've
suspended my activity in those communities until I've learned all the latest
clunky Java IT frameworks. So email me directly about Scheme-related things.
He sounds miffed: Bob Herbert, "Voting Without the Facts," New York Times, 8-Nov-2004
Often, when young people sit in a sanctuary or a lecture hall, listening to talk about faith and values — much less theology — a veil of skepticism descends over their brains, filtering out ideas and concepts that may be too complicated or troubling. By contrast, when seated in front of television and movie screens, watching animated entertainment, they may drop their guard and relax enough to suspend some of that disbelief. [...] This is not to argue that Disney's animated features — or any cartoons — are a viable substitute for worship or Sunday school. They aren't. But they can be useful, reliable tools in building general, moral sensibility among children, and in reinforcing parental and religious values.
—Mark I. Pinsky, "The gospel according to Disney," Boston Globe, 8-Nov-2004
Oh dear! Skepticism! Quick, fire up the cartoons!
Emily Horne and Joey Comeau, A Softer World, 4-Nov-2004
Does this apply to systems architects? Dilbert 7-Nov-2004
"The great divide," Boston Globe, 7-Nov-2004
Someone just brought to my attention an AnandTech thread, "Where is Lynndie? Where is Lynndie?" in which someone claimed that Google's image search is not
turning up photos from the Abu Ghraib prison abuse. I tried the queries lynndie england and lyndie england. A thread on Slashdot suggests that Google's image search index
has not been updated since before the scandal. Which is in itself
questionable.
Spammers with throw-away domain names are spoiling a significant
portion of the .com namespace (in addition to overwhelming the
already silly .biz and .info, and corrupted .us). My Privoxy actions file already lists approximately 1000 .com domains used by
spammers.
"Bush to Seek Gay-Marriage Ban in Second Term, Top Aide Says," Reuters via New York Times, 7-Nov-2004
For the past week, the www.neilvandyke.org Web site is averaging 3500 requests a day. The majority seems to be various bloggers and message boards embedding my JPEGs in their posts. For some unknown reason, many different Xanga.com users are using different of my photos as background images. I should probably brand my JPEGs, since I'm paying for bandwidth, and I do occasionally like to get photo credits and such. I also need to tweak my authoring software a bit, to create better permalinks for weblog entries and images.
Over the past four days, a total of approx. 2000 GETs
to my Web server were caused by multiple message boards in China having one of
my images embedded in their pages. Since I have no good way of asking them not
to do this, I replaced the image file contents with relatively progressive statements. I expect the image embedding to be removed shortly. Chinese
Internet providers might even block access to my server, which would be
terrible, since that would cut off reams of China-originated email spam. I
hope the Ziyi bit helps clue people in to the joke before anyone is jailed as a
dissident.
Terri Leo, a Republican board member from Spring, also asked publishers to include language in the books' teacher editions saying that gays and lesbians "are more prone to self-destructive behaviors like depression, illegal drug use and suicide." "Neutrality — the word 'partners' — when you use neutrality, the very purpose of using that language is to be inclusive of homosexuality," Leo said.
—Janet Elliott, "Wording flap holds up textbooks," Houston Chronicle, 5-Nov-2004
The Texas Board of Education approved new health textbooks for the state's high schools and middle schools on Friday after the publishers agreed to change wordings in the texts to depict marriage strictly as the union of a man and a woman. The decision involves two of the biggest textbook publishers and is another example of Texas' exerting its market influence as the nation's second-largest buyer of textbooks. Officials say the decision could affect hundreds of thousands of books in Texas alone.
—"Health Textbooks in Texas to Change Wording About Marriage," AP via New York Times, 6-Nov-2004
Canucks reach out to USAians fleeing right-wing tyranny: MarryAnAmerican.ca
We can always give the South what they wanted, and split the Union.
Yesterday, some US people I know were practically inconsolable, both with grief over what they foresee for the next four years, and with anger at (and disillusionment with) the half of the country who'd actually vote to keep the current administration in office. The low turnout of young voters was also disheartening.
One report from a local university yesterday said that all the 20-something male staff in an IT group there were panicing that they'd be drafted.
The Onion 3 November 2004 issue was updated online with additional election outcome references.
Exuberant Republican lawmakers, celebrating their expanded majorities in both chambers of Congress and their historic defeat of the Senate Democratic leader, geared up yesterday to pass parts of a conservative agenda they were unable to fulfill in President Bush's first term.
—Susan Milligan, "GOP eyes more clout in Congress," Boston Globe, 4-Nov-2004
NYT's Friedman was coming off like a Bush apologist for a while, but he seems to have seen the light in recent months: Thomas L. Friedman, "Two Nations Under God," New York Times, 4-Nov-2004
Didn't take him long:
A day after declaring victory in an especially divisive election, President Bush said at a news conference that "I'll reach out to everyone who shares our goals," adding that "I earned capital in this election, and I'm going to spend it."
—Maria Newman, "Overhauling Tax Code and Social Security Are Among Priorities," New York Times, 4-Nov-2004
Drunken CNN staffers let janitor PhotoShop graphic.
Now I remember where I heard about Ohio: 2-Sep-2003
The only good news today (see 7-Aug-2004), and only if street price is much lower: "Black-bodied Canon Digital Rebel (EOS 300D)," dpreview.com, 2-Nov-2004
And lost miserably everywhere else:
Wow! We won big last night in Massachusetts.
—MassEquality.org email, Wed, 3 Nov 2004 04:21:25 -0500
Before conceding, the Kerry campaign should ask for a recount of ballots in battleground states that have electronic voting without a voter-verified paper trail. Then demand a revote. It's an opportunity to raise awareness about the designed-for-fraud electronic voting machines that computer scientists have been warning against since before the 2000 election.
Just received HTML email spam that used a BGSOUND
element as a tracking bug, perhaps because some email viewers disable
IMG bugs.
In the US Presidential race, neilvandyke.org endorses John Kerry in the strongest possible terms.
Kerry wins Boston Globe Sox contextualization. Fandom and family trumps players.
Olive oil is not a commodity!
Voting was so easy for me that I feel a little guilty, but not so much as to keep me from gloating: my polling location was about 100 yards away, and there was zero wait when I sauntered over at 11am.
As an employee, I'd like the idea of free vegetarian food, but not the idea of disrupting organizational lunchtime interaction by making the cafeteria vegetarian-only:
A few disgruntled employees called a local television station to protest that they are not able to bring meat into the Vegeteria. But [Cat Communications CEO Norm] Mason said they can eat meat — they just have to take it into another company room, or go out for lunch.
—Chris Kahn, "Perks of a vegan boss are many, but not meaty," Boston Globe, 1-Nov-2004
John F. Kerry, "A fresh start for America," Boston Globe, 1-Nov-2004
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