A Self-Satisfied Spaz -- and the First MoBlog Entry

What we have here is the Spaz-man looking quite smug and quite pleased with himself.

What else we have here is our first mobile blogging (MoBlog) entry.

As with most things tech, I'm a bit of a late adopter. I've seen this before, but never tried it.

Having a Palm Treo 700w makes this less painful, what with the camera and thumb keyboard all together.

So, what do you think?

(posted from a Palm Treo 700w)

Checking up on Diablo

I don't get over to Diablo Cody's blog [not "family friendly," as CNN says] as often as I should, but when I do, there's usually something interesting going on.

A couple of months ago, she published a book, then she was on Letterman plugging it. She's sold a screen play that's currently in casting.

And now she's hit the "Big Time." CNN Entertainment has interviewed her.

The part I liked best about the interview is the part that echoes what I've been saying about Diablo for a couple of years now. This quotation is from the publisher of her book, Lauren Marino, executive editor at Gotham Books:

"It wasn't so much the subject matter that attracted me as it was her voice. She can write about anything and make me want to read it. She's so intelligent and witty. She's funny, she's edgy and she's got a great sensibility."

Exactly.

See? I told you she's funny.

P.S.: If you haven't seen her Letterman interview, check it out. She gets off some pretty decent one-liners. Even Dave seems to enjoy the interview.

Who says being green can't be fun?

Tesla Motors is introducing a new, all-electric roadster. They claim a 250 mile-per-charge range, 0-60 in about 4 seconds, a top speed over 130 MPH and a recharge time of about 3.5 hours.

Is Tesla Motors a subsidiary of GM, Ford, Toyota or Honda? Oh, no. It's the brain child of Martin Eberhard (who, not surprisingly has a blog), a Silicon Valley electronics engineering entrepreneur and start-up veteran. He figured that Detroit didn't know jack about how to efficiently harness a battery. File this under "If you want something done right..." You know the rest.

Here's a search at AutoBlog.com for Telsa-related articles.

Wired.com has written an article.

If I had $80K floating around that I didn't need, I'd be all over this little baby.... except... it looks a bit cramped for the 6-foot-plus crowd...

Fwiw, a sedan is in the works for release in 2008. (yawn)

There are photo layouts at both Tesla Motors and at Wired. Check this out. Very cool.

Mum's Website is Up!

July 14th was the big day. Mum went live with her website. Whoopie!!!

Mom's Going On-Line

Holy Cow! Stop the presses!

Me Mum is writing web pages!

Mom (AKA Nora) is a member of a group of women called Women Sharing Christ (WSC). Once a year the group hosts a one-day Christian conference for ladies. There's a well-known Christian speaker (so far, all have been women), a continental breakfast and lunch.

WSC decided they need a web site for this year (which she's gotten almost zero help on). Mom spent most of her professional life in technology: mainframe Cobol programmer, project management, special projects research and after semi-retiring, contract work writing bids for CSC for multi-billion dollar contracts. Because of her background, she's been honored (saddled?) with implementing this web site.

Back in the day, Mom used to sling Cobol untold years ago, she's never really gotten into the 'Net or any of its related technologies. She doesn't even like to surf (how can THAT be???). She just got broadband last month when she replaced her aging Windows 98 desktop box.

So, now Mom's learning HTML and CSS. She's bought some books and CoffeeCup for her HTML editor, and is charging forward with this web site thing.

Mom's doing web pages.

My Pop is probably spinning in his grave (why that is will be left for a future post).

"Disrupt The Comfort Zone"

See? More word gushing....

So, on the way home from Baltimore this afternoon, I was listening to NPR and heard a "This I Believe" segment from Brian Grazer, a very successful Hollywood producer.

Despite considerable success, such that he "could retire to the golf course tomorrow where the worst that could happen is that [his] Bloody Mary is watered-down," he still chooses every day to "disrupt his comfort zone."

He says, "Disrupting my comfort zone, bombarding myself with challenging people and situations -- this is the best way I know to keep growing" -- which is why he's a huge success, and I'm not.... ;-)

It was a great essay that gave me chill bumps in a couple of places. It's worthy of both sharing and emulating.

Check it out at NPR.org.

This is what happens when you don't post for a long time

The words get all bottled up and then come out in a rush.

So, the President, with whom I, like millions of others, am disenchanted, announced yesterday that he's accepted from General Casey a plan for troop withdrawal. General Casey is commander of the Iraq operation (CINC South-Com?). The plan is a studied and phased withdrawal, based on the experience and recommendations of the commanders on the ground in Iraq.

Today, the Dems are calling the President and Republicans hypocritical for not accepting their ill-thought and non-planned "plan" for withdrawal, while crafting a "Replublian" withdrawal plan of their own. Note I say "Republican." It's not a Republican plan at all, but rather a military plan create by the people who know the situation best.

Let's think about this.

The Democratic plan was arbitrary, not based on input from the DOD or from commanders in the field. It said, bascially, that troop levels should be reduced in 2007 and beyond.

Casey's plan is (I assunme) based on careful study and consideration, created with the input of his field commanders and his command staff. It will consider the consequences and requirements for withdrawal, likely specifying acceptable levels of Iraqi security forces needed to replace US units. The plan likely won't leave American units exposed or Iraqi civilians at risk since it won't withdraw a US unit if an equivalent Iraqi secuity presence isn't there to take up the slack (at least this is my hope).

So, while the Democrats were bandstanding and hand-waving, the President and his military commanders were creating a careful PLAN for the safe withdrawal of our troops that will (hopefully) leave behind some modicum of security for the Iraqi people.

Hypocritical? Hardly.

Practical? Certainly.

Good on you, Mr. President.

"Why Bother?"

Uh-oh! I feel a rant coming on! Stand back everyone, he's gonna blow!!!

Borders Books Stores: love 'em.

Borders Books Stores Coffee Shops: I officially hate 'em.

The places are staffed by condescending coffee makers who pass pompous judgment on our purchases and haughtily correct us when we use "Starbuck's Speak" in their arrogant company.

I shall explain, gentle reader.

I stopped by my neighborhood Borders to pick up a couple of books (Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore and The One Percent Doctrine by Ron Suskind). I grabbed my books, a couple of photo mags, paid and headed for the coffee shop to read a bit and work a bit.

I LOVE coffee and espresso. L-O-V-E them. When I order my drink of choice, a Venti Latte at Starbucks (aka a Large Latte at Borders), I get it with four espresso shots so I get that full coffee flavor. I always order it with skim (aka non-fat) milk and four shots. That's my drink. When I order at Starbucks the words "Quad Venti Skim Latte" (which is Starbucks Speak for my drink) leap forth with nary a thought.

In the mornings, I relish the high caffeine content, so I get it with "leaded" shots. However, in the afternoons (anytime after about 3:00 pm), I switch to decaf. I've found that drinking too much caffeine late in the afternoon can keep me up late (and recently I'm up at the butt-crack of dawn so I can be in Baltimore every day at 7:30 am to give training, requiring that I leave my place by 6:15-6:20 am -- and if you know me, you know this is Hell on Earth. But I digress)

So, back at Borders, I pile my stuff on a table to stake my claim to a comfy chair and head for the register to get a Large Four-Shot Decaf Non-Fat Latte (Borders Speak for my drink). On placing my order, the under-twenty-something order taker remarks "Four shots, why bother?"

Which by itself seems innocent enough, I guess. In response, I defend my choice of shot-count with "I like the taste of coffee," at the same time wondering why I'm defending my coffee selection to this impudent child.

She laughs, which doesn't help my suddenly foul mood, and remarks: "No, no. That's what it's called. Non-fat and decaf is called a 'Why bother'" guffaw-guffaw.

I look at her dead-panned and comment, flatly, "Oh. I see."

As she's handing me my change, she giggles again, "That made my day. That was pretty funny."

At least five spiteful comments blew through my brain, all of which, if given voice, would have been deadly hurtful. I bit my tongue. Literally. As I was walking away, I discovered my tongue was firmly clamped between my teeth. This made me smile. For a brief instant, anyway.

So, why did this impudent brat anger me so? Because she was the fourth Encounter of the Arrogant kind I've had with coffee makers at a Borders Coffee Shop. The first three were haughty rejoinders admonishing me for using Starbucks Speak at their little shops. Funny thing is, all three occurrences happened at different Borders stores, with different arrogant coffee makers, in two different cities -- all within about three months of each other. I now assiduously avoid using Starbucks Speak anywhere but in Starbucks -- to the point that I rehearse my coffee order before I speak it so as not to raise the ire of the Arrogant Borders Coffee Maker.

As to the "Why bother?" question, I answer: "To keep some of the fat out my diet and to not stay awake late tonight so I can get up early tomorrow" -- not that she deserves a reason for my particular choices in coffee beverages.

On the other hand (and here come some of the things I thought about saying, but withheld from her tender ears), I'm pretty sure this "little" girl has never said "No" to whole milk, or even a whole meal, in her short, petty, over-eating life. "Why bother" is funny to her because she obviously never bothers to consider the consequences of any of the ample quantities of food that pass between her lips. And where does she get off thinking that she has any right to question what I buy in her stupid little shop, anyway....?

So, I have a theory. The Borders Coffee Shops have Little Man syndrome; they're insecure. They know they aren't Starbucks, that they're a mere shadow of the powerhouse of coffee houses and are offended when anyone refers to Starbucks in their presence. And as part of their corporate training program, this insecurity is promulgated in the form of a Holier-than-Starbucks-And-The-Coffee-Drinking-Public-Because-They-Would-Rather-Be-At-Starbucks-Than-Here attitude.

This leads to a culture where it's acceptable to correct, in the most arrogant way, a person using terminology from the Other Coffee Shop, and to ridicule a customer's choice of coffee beverages. They're trained that they're better and smarter than Starbucks, as well as all the people who buy Starbucks coffee. The logic goes like this: everyone who drinks Starbucks coffee must be stupid, and since everyone drinks Starbucks, everyone must be stupid. And you don't have to be polite to stupid people, right?

So, a Non-Fat Decaf Latte is snidely referred to as a "Why bother?" and when someone absent mindedly orders a coffee using Italian, they get an arrogant lecture delivered through a haughty sneer.

Borders Books Stores: love 'em

Borders Books Store Coffee Shops: hate 'em.

Thanks for listening. I feel better now...

Diablo Cody gets her 15 minutes

[Warning: adult content alert! Some readers may find Diablo Cody's blog, humor and lifestyle offensive. Also, some of the language in this post might be offensive, too. Consider yourself warned.]  This means you, Mom. ;-)

So, my girl Diablo Cody, written about here in the past, is making the rounds on a book tour for her new book Candy Girl -- A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper. I've written here twice before about her. If you want background on Diablo, you can read the previous posts here and here or you can go to the source and read her blog for yourself. She's got a great wit.

Back in August of '04, Diablo's shutdown her old Pussy Ranch blog. She later re-opened it at CityPages.com, a Twin Cities newspaper. Diablo writes for CityPages, covering the television beat for them.

Between writing for the paper and writing on her blog, she's also found time to publish this book. Now she's making the rounds publicizing it.

Here's a link to an interview at YouTube.com from an appearance on David Letterman's The Late Show. Apparently, Dave likes her and the book; he put the book on Dave's Book List. Actually, it's the only book on the list.

She was also apparently on Fox and Friends the morning of April 19, 2006, but I couldn't find any trace of that appearance. And I can't ask her about it because the current Pussy Ranch doesn't support comments... :-(

As of this writing, on Amazon.com her book is #3,207, having fallen from #2,858 yesterday. So, let's all rush to buy buy Diablo's book and push that number back up.

Btw, Diablo also has a presence at MySpace.com

Update: I wandered over to check Diablo's MySpace site/blog and discovered that this busy girl has also written a screenplay. The title of the film is Juno, and according to Diablo, it should start filming in May. The director, Brad Silberling, also directed the films Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, City of Angels and Casper. So, he's no slouch. Not bad for a freshman screenplay.

The Internet is David's 21st Century Sling

Know the story of David and Goliath?

It's an Old Testament story about a man named David (who later become Kind David) who faces and defeats Goliath, an enemy many times more deadly than David due to superior size, strength and armament. David defeated Goliath with a sling and a well-aimed stone. David's victory averted a war that threatened his nation.

The term "Goliath" refers to anything we consider to be gigantic, a behemoth, especially one that's in some way menacing. The story of David and Goliath has become a well-worn metaphor for the struggle between the common man and any number of large, menacing institutions, including corporations and the government.

Now, in the 21st century, the Internet has become David's sling.

Witness the Maine Web Report a blog from which David, in the guise of Lance Dutson, is hurling stones at the Maine Office of Tourism (at http://www.maine.gov/portal/visiting/ and http://www.visitmaine.com), and scoring resounding hits.

Sadly, rather than facing this David on a level field of battle (the Internet), this Goliath is allowing contractors to wage a campaign of intimidation against Lance and his family. Lance has received intimidating email, snail mail and phone calls. His wife and his wife's employer have been contacted in an effort to discredit him. Even some of his own clients have received phone calls bemoaning his blog as defamatory.

Rather than facing this David in open discussion on the Internet, this Goliath is sneaking behind enemy lines to wage a war of disinformation and terrorism against non-combatants -- namely Lance's family and his clientele.

And if you think I'm sensationalizing this, I dare you to read his blog.

It makes for fascinating, and frightening, reading. Frightening in that a government agency will allow a citizen's First Amendment rights, and the security of his family, to be so threatened over what is essentially a difference of opinion.

Highly recommended.

No, Ping, I'm not a slacker...

...I've been busy.

A friend of mine from Florida recently paid a visit to this Blog.

She noted in a subsequent email that I'd not updated it since January, accusing me of being a slacker. Well, here you have the non-slacker me. Two posts in one day. Plus, I'll have you know, I tried to make a post last night about Tony Snow being appointed as the White House Press Secretary. Somehow that didn' t make it onto the site. Very odd. I'll have to repost that bit later.

However, here's the reason for this post. Mom sent me an email. It talks about a new element. Now I'm trying to figure out where it goes on the Periodic Table.

Dangerous New Element

The recent hurricanes and gasoline issues are proof of the existence of a new chemical element. A major research institution has recently announced the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science.

The new element has been named Governmentium. Governmentium (GV) has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second to take over four days to complete.

Governmentium does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, Governmentium’s mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes.

This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration! This hypothetical quantity is referred to as Critical Morass.

When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium- an element which radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.

Don't you just love Science?

I HATE Country Music...

...but now for new reasons.

In the past few weeks, for some frightening reason I'm diggin' on Country music. COUNTRY music. C-O-U-N-T-R-Y music. You know... that stuff sung by guys in cowboy hats and cowboy boots and by gals who wear sequined cowboy hats and sequined cowboy boots.

Maybe I'm trying to subconciously reconnect with those Southern Roots I left behind when I came here from Tallahassee three years ago....

So. Did I mention the part where I'm liking COUNTRY music....?

OK. To appreciate why this frightening turn of taste is, well, frightenting, you need a bit of backround on me. Not much. Just a touch. A tiny bit. I promise it won't be much. Here it is:

I grew up in white-toast, suburban San Diego, CA.

'Nuff said, right?

Usually, that would pretty much cover it. Sure, country music exists in San Diego. However, it didn't hang out much where I lived.

Well, except for my brother, Mark. He dabbled in the Urban Country-Boy fad, doing dip, cowboy hats and boots, big belt buckles and Charlie Daniels music. Actually, now that I think about it, he wasn't "dabbling" in country. At that time Mark was a Fire Fighter with the US Forest Service. In my book, when a man earns a living facing down hundreds of acres of uncontrolled natural combustion, he can do whatever the hell he wants in his off-time -- and it's by-God NOT a fad! Sorry, Mark. I love you maaaaann.

So... back to my current obsession with this thing called Country Music...

In my youth, I left SD to serve in our Armed Forces. One thing led to another, which led to another and that to another thing. Because of all these things, I spent the bulk of my adult live in the South (Alabama, Texas and Florida).

Despite this, I successfully avoided a personal interest in Country Music. Sure, I was exposed. I lived in the South fercryinoutloud. And I tolerated it in my friends' cars (or trucks) just to be polite, though I grumbed about it and they often changed the station for me. I have nice friends.

I spurned CM as being vapid, emotionalistic and overly-dramatic. YAWN.... In the 70's and 80's Country put me to sleep. In the 90's, we had Shania, Faith and Martina. However, these gals were more Pop-ish than Country-ish -- at least the cross-over stuff I heard (and bought). Everything else seemed twangy -- the music and the voices.

Well, now we're in the New Millenium and Country Music has apparently evolved. Or perhaps my ears have evolved. No. It's not my ears. It's the music.

I was flipping stations on the radio in my car and landed on a Country station playing Shania. Now, I've always been a bit of Shania fan (I think Mutt Lang is the luckiest sot on the planet), so I stopped to give her a listen. The music became background noise and an hour later, I was still listening to that same Country station.

Scandalous!

I was surprised that it was still on. But I was even more surprized that I was actually enjoying it.

Very, very strange thing, that.

So, for the next few days, the car stayed on that station. And I like what I heard.

Then one night, there as an 80's retrospective. I hated it. I changed the station about 14.3 seconds into the first song. Ick. So, I'm thinking that country has evolved. I don't like 80's country. I do like 00's (how do we refer to this decade in short hand, anyway??) Country. Hmm.

Since that first night, I've returned to that station a couple of times and the radio stays there for a couple of days at a time. Then I go back to NPR or one of the local dance or pop stations, or whatever.

So, now I think I like Country Music.

But why is is that I also hate it?

Well, I have only a handful of Country Music CDs and I don't know the names of any of the current artists. So now I have to learn about a new genre of music, buy new CDs and rip them to my iPod. And I still haven't finished that for the 300 or so CDs I have that aren't Country Music.

Such is life....

Why CERT should be decertified

Paul Murphy at ZDNet claims "this looks like systematic anti-Unix, pro-Microsoft, bias at work in a U.S. federal government agency". Your US tax dollars at work...

read more | digg story

Nature says Wikipedia "ain't as bad as all that."

Back on December 15, of two-aught-aught-five, Nature Magazine wrote an article discussing their comparison of Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia Britannica. They selected 50 science articles from both resources to review, looking for "actual errors, omissions or misleading statements." 42 articles were actually reviewed (8 of the 50 were not reviewed).

Guess what? For the 42 articles reviewed, Wikipedia faired pretty well: just under 4 errors per article (162 total errors) for Wikipedia where EB chalked up just under 3 errors per article (123 total errors) . It should be noted that these were strictly science articles, not history, music, art, literature or other disciplines.

Personally, I'm not surprised that Wikipedia did so well when stacked up against EB. What does surprise me is that both publications had this high an error rate.

42 articles were reviewed. Wikipedia currently has 900,720 articles (as of this writing, 1/4/2006 at 23:15 EST). At Nature's published error rate of 3.86 errors per article, there are about 2,316,669 errors on Wikipedia. EB, at their rate of 2.93 errors per article and with 120,000 articles, has 351,428 errors.

But, as with most statistics, what does this tell us? Not so much, really. Per article, Wikipedia has 1/3 more errors than EB. At the same time, Wikipedia has 19 times as many articles. What we don't see is length and depth of articles, structure and clarity, ease of cross-referencing, cycle time to fix "bad" articles, shear numbers of articles, etc.

To me, there are three things Wikipedia has going for it that EB doesn't have: fleetness in responding to errors, lot's of cross-referencing in the form of links to on-site and off-site references and just plain more articles. EB seems to still be paper-based, or at least paper-focused, and has many fewer articles and a much smaller "staff." It just doesn't seem to be as quick-of-foot in responding to problems as does Wikipedia. This assessment may just be personal bias on my part.

There's clearly one thing that EB has going for it that Wikipedia still can't hope to touch and probably never will: all of EB's articles are created and maintained by professional writers and subjected to professional review by boards of experts. Though this leads to only a slight improvement in accuracy, the overall quality of language use, structure, style and clarity is more consistent; EB is better written and is only slightly less error prone.

I've looked at some Wikipedia articles and their EB counterparts. Generally, the Wikipedia articles seemed better linked. This wasn't a scientific study; it was just me perusing some articles and subjectively seeing more links on the Wikipedia pages. The EB articles read better, were more concise and "denser," something that I like.

As I've said before: Wikipedia is a good jumping off point for your research. Its highly linked nature will allow you to get to additional materials pretty quickly. More so than at EB, I think. However, as I've also said before, whether you use Wikipedia, the venerable Encyclopedia Britannica, or any other reference, cross-check your references for accuracy. Never rely on a single source. It will come back to haunt you.

There are a number of links available for the Nature article. BBC.com published an article, as did C|Net's News.com (here) and O'Reilly.com's O'Reilly Radar (here)

Last, here's a link to an article where Wikipedia responds to outside reviews. They get much deeper into the statistics of the review process.