• Our 4th Amendment Rights At Work can this be true?
• Brett Jackson, Flash God
• How Much Surveillance Is Okay?
• Search IS Important
• Reflections on the 25th Anniversary of Spam
• Beware the giant creepy owl that wants you to get on the bus (via Kibo)
• JRuler is a great free screen ruler for Windows
• Kim Jong Il (the illmatic)’s Journal
• That Waxy fellow is interesting!
• Vandals target French Cleaners from march
• The topsites.us scam spam
• Convert DVD’s to DivX under MacOS X
• Messing with script kiddies
• Install Linux from Scratch
• What’s Michael Moore Hiding?
• Kynn digs my miscellany
• Jeff Bezos (of Amazon) in Space
• Bruce Springsteen supports the Dixie Chicks and free speech
• Doug Welch likes being cross-platform as much as me
• Security vulnerabilities in journalism
• I’d like to try AcquisitionX … file sharing for OS X
• ColdFusion Bug: ColdFusion MX (on multihomed servers) displays wrong page
• Mac Sound Program: SoundHack
• Amazing if true: 1-Hour Arrest: When does a snapshot of a mother breast-feeding her child become kiddie porn? Ask the Richardson police.
• Jakob! Will text ads continue to rule?
• Speaking of text ads… Google AdWords Best Practices
• Find WiFi hotspots

Check dictionary.com entry on dada.

• It’s amazing to me that Bill “Book of Virtues” Bennett is a chronic gambler
• According to Eternal Night, Bruce “Schism Matrix”Sterling is working on a book called The Zenith Angle, for Del Rey Books. He says it’s almost complete.
• Comic-Geeky: Blog of Galactus via Kynn
• Bob Edwards of NPR on Press Freedom
• Free Reference Books Online – xrefer via robotwisdom
• The amazing climber self-amputation story
• I want to be a blog mogul too!
• Hydra – neat idea, multi-user text editor (for MacOS X)
• Becoming a Patriot
• Concept Design looks like a very cool book
• Edgar F. Codd: 1923-2003 (via rudy)
• metacritic.com remind me to add this to my sidebar

So tonight I was the reflector-holder for Leah. She’s doing photography for the new magazine for North County – the northern part of San Diego, North. northcountymag.com was supposed to be the domain, that’s what’s published, but it looks like it got taken away from them. That’s a bummer, but things are looking up – I’ve perused it and it’s a quality product looks like. Not just because Leah did pictures for it. Ha!

She was photographing yummy food and I was literally the guy to hold a reflector. Look for it in an upcoming issue of North.

You can see the pix Leah did from the magazine in leah’s photo area. Very nifty.

Also, her new column is up at writer’s monthly – and it’s another funny one. Check the older one too.

And other Leah news? Monday we went and saw the documentary Rivers and Tides together, on the cheap (read: free), and visited Off The Record (we bought nothing!). We both really enjoyed the film. The artist portrayed, Andy Goldsworthy, is remarkable and really gifted. I’m normally very skeptical of artists who do installations or location-based art like a Christo, say, but this fellow I really found sympathetic. He really seems to care about his work, and did not strike me as snobbish in the least. The documentary is worth a look if you are a fan of art.

I suppose that’s it for now. Things are mellow and good for me. Not so much for many others I know.

And that’s all I have to say for now. Good night!

Jenny and I should file for dissolution tomorrow.

Tonight played racquetball. I’m real tired.

My roommate’s still in the hosipital.

Leftover chinese for dinner.

Chilling.

• Kynn’s OS X Book! (now I need to write a book, Kynn has TWO!)
• Operation Support Garner
• The Unofficial 802.11 Security Web Page (from john)
• How to Drive Fast on Drugs while getting your Wing-Wang Squeezed and not Spill Your Drink by P.J. O’Rourke (very very old, and very very naughty)
• The Psalms of David
• ColdFusion Module – FreeZip – Geographic Tools for ZipCodes
• Associated Press Puts Violent Words in Iraqi Protesters’ Mouths (Banner)
• Byrd blasts Bush for ‘flamboyant showmanship’ with carrier speech
• Tenants Tune Into Free Wi-Fi I work a block from there
• Tool to Greek-Text-ize a site
• The Influence Component of Counterterrorism: A Systems Approach
• Slashdot interview with Michael Robertson
• Where are they, Mr. President? Pat Buchanan is way skeptical of President Bush’s adventures in Iraq – I don’t care for Buchanan, in fact I find him odious, but he does ask valid questions the administration
• Touching a Nerve: State walks away from breast-feeding case

And that’s all I have to say about that. I want to try that WiFi in the American Plaza Building. And check out these cute renderings of San Diego Skyscrapers.

More lyrics transcription. Well, I did this one a little while ago. But I’m putting them up lately: Laugh and Be Happy by Randy Newman

Bacon burrito for breakfast.
Tiger’s Milk Bar and a Banana for lunch.
Filed for Divorce from Jennifer, with Jennifer.
Got a filling in my tooth.
Took ibuprofen.
Leah bought me a wallet!
I felt strange about it.
I’m cool now.
Shared a crêpe with Leah.
Veggies and Hummus from a farmer’s market for dinner.
Fascinating to observe my feelings and emotions about everything.
There’s always something to learn.
Watched Friends with Leah.
Tried the Apple Music Store. Bought a Zappa cover (Sofa No. 1) by Michael Hedges, then If I Had No Loot by Tony!Toni!Toné!
I am impressed by what they did with it. It was a good day.

So Eminem can dish it out, but can’t take it.

That makes me laugh.

Impossible to say precisely what the new news means.

It’s going to be a week of reflection.

Tomorrow, racquetball, and later a Mother’s Day thing for my Grandma.

Today, I installed Gallery for myself, but the first photos to be showcased are my best pal Vince’s photos as well as fellow RT Bobby Hedge. Check the photos area.

It’s pretty good open source software, in PHP.

Tom Bickle, one of my few faithful readers, now has a blog.

(Imagine me saying it like a 1970’s era Steve Martin doing a pseudo French accent): I blame myself.

Douglas Welch, columnist for ComputorEdge, has a blog.

You’re doing great.

and

Be gentle with yourself.

And I must remind myself to listen to them.

Thanks Steve!

Check this site out:
http://www.danielpipes.org/
http://www.danielpipes.org/biblio_ai.php
http://www.danielpipes.org/biblio_me.php

Try reading:
Bernard Lewis, The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years A survey of Middle Eastern history by the person who knows more about the region – and can explain it better – than anyone else.
I watched a 3-hour interview with Lewis on c-span a few weeks back. Illuminating.

Thanks again!

Fructis!

Did you know you can Take your bike on the San Diego Trolley? Also on many buses? Cool.

Pity I don’t have a bike.

If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world, and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.

– E.B. White

Who knew that Hydrox was the original, and Oreo was the copycat!

There has been some great discussion of ‘the spam problem’ on politech lately: 1 2 3 4 5

• Cute Giant Microbes! via bb
• Pynchon on Orwell, 2003 via rw
• The Best A Capella Singing About Gamma Ray Detectors Ever
• Conservative Neal Boortz says America is a police state
• Contemporary Culture, Postmodernism and Audio wacky!
• RIAA: Clueless
• Lightblub as WiFi Access Point
• Bezos: Not a Goofball
• Oakland Teacher Calls Secret Service On Students (and does not call Parents!)
• Ane more on that
• Email Hoax Gets Kids out of School
• PHP vs. ASP.NET
• Warren Buffett complains about overcompensated CEOs
• Incindiery Shuttle Testimony
• Accidental Entrepreneur
• PHP PEAR Tutorials via Sassy
• Why are photos being manipulated in Iraq?
• The Memory Blog a few interesting tidbits
• Rini Scubas

The Daniel Pipes link Steve recommended, Kynn decried it, MAS dug it. They both have fun web identities, and they’re both as opinionated as humans come.

I had a great weekend.

I got to hear David Brin speak at an author’s event Leah took me to. He was smart and relatively articulate. I think he was speaking off-the-cuff. Some great ideas, but a bit unfocused. I suspect when polished it would be a great talk.

I went to a Writer’s Monthly.us event, also very nice.

I played racquetball on Saturday, and did well. I’m stuck weight-loss wise — backslidin’ a bit dietarily. I’m reclaiming the eye-of-the-tiger as of day-before-yesterday.

Leah and I continue to have a great time together. Tonight we’re going to go see the sequel to the Matrix. Everyone seems to be saying it’s disappointing, but it’s de rigueur to see it. So that’s the plan.

Today I attempted to shop for sunglasses downtown while taking a long walk. I like to make excuses to take long walks downtown. Sometime’s it’s a haircut. Sometimes it’s to take a photo or two. Anything to keep moving, you know?

My roommate has had nothing but drama. She will have back surgery tomorrow. I’m hopeful that it will be a good and useful and health-promoting thing! Wish Erin well!

And that’s the news. In brief.

• What I Hate About Your Programming Language
• The Will Edwards Band is opening up for the San Diego Symphony’s Summer Pops on July 5, 2003
• My quick summary of Matrix 2 was that it was only half a movie. Far too many plot threads were left dangling. I’m thinking of The Matrix Trilogy as not a trilogy. It’s two movies. One short. One long. So we wait until November for the second half of movie 2. I felt pretty educated spotting Cornel West in the council meeting
• Mailman considered beneficial rebuttal to jwz
• A few weeks ago I went to Bandar with some colleagues. Awesome Persian food in downtown San Diego
• What is OPML? Outline Processor Markup Language
• New blog on social software: Many to Many
• I have always thought Norm Ornstein was cool.
• Bush Administration vs. Its Economists
• Environmentalists = Terrorists
• Letter from the French Ambassador
• Some great CSS @ Zen Garden
• ElekTex is a digital fabric. Awesome technology that will enable some really cool coats someday.
• “inside baseball” is an idiom I can’t seem to find a direct explanation for. Though it’s plentiful on the web, that’s because it’s such an obvious title for stories about Major League Baseball. I don’t have a good definition, but it seems closely related to “inside the beltway,” referring to the propensity of Washington insiders to talk about issues which only are of interest to those who live inside the confines of the Washington D.C. beltway, the highway that rings D.C.
• This is great: Testiomony from 1982 predicting that the VCR would kill the movie business. The best quote is from Jack Valenti, saying I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.
• There’s a new free weekly for San Diego, Fahrenheit / sdfahrenheit.com – it’s okay
• Another free magazine, which I picked up a few weeks ago, is Arthur – the issue I got has a great interview with Alan Moore

Steve E. (who pointed me at Daniel Pipes in the first place) replies to other feedback on Daniel Pipes:

Joe, your approach reminds me of someone I once knew in grade school. While she was drawing a picture on a piece of paper, she would stop and press her finger firmly on the center of her paper and then spin the paper around the axis of her finger. When I asked her why she did that, she simply said she needed to see the picture from every angle. 🙂

A good place to start is the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting, http://camera.org/

“Founded in 1982, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America is a media-monitoring, research and membership organization devoted to promoting accurate and balanced coverage of Israel and the Middle East. CAMERA fosters rigorous reporting, while educating news consumers about Middle East issues and the role of the media. Because public opinion ultimately shapes public policy, distorted news coverage that misleads the public can be detrimental to sound policymaking. A non-partisan organization, CAMERA takes no position with regard to American or Israeli political issues or with regard to ultimate solutions to the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

Then ask themselves a few questions:

“Whatever the root causes of the Palestinian-Israeli crisis, there are certain tragic cultural facts and differences that stand in the way of peace negotiations between the people of Israel and the Palestinians. No Israeli child has ever strapped a bomb to his back and gone off to kill civilian Palestinians, and yet the Palestinian leadership does too little to dispel the notion among its more extreme citizens that killing Israelis with a suicide bomb is the surest route to heaven. How can Israel deal with a population of parents that stand aside or even encourage their children to become martyrs?”

“How can Yassir Arafat, whom Forbes Magazine says is worth more than three hundred million dollars, claim to be a leader who understands and represents an impoverished people when he has become rich at their expense?”

“Is it too much to ask that the Palestinian leadership not sponsor terrorists? Is it unreasonable to insist that they stop killing innocent Israeli children before Israel jeopardizes her security and make concessions for peace?”

“Why do Palestinian schools have pictures of suicide bombers hanging up in the hallways of their schools or celebrate them as martyrs? Why do they name sports teams in the West Bank after suicide bombers? How can Israel make peace with the Palestinian people when their leaders instill a culture of terror against the Israeli people?”

“How can the Palestinian people end their impoverishment if their leaders continue to steal precious resources from them, which are then used to support terror?”

“Why has Yassir Arafat been in power for so long, and yet made so little progress towards a peaceful resolution? If he were truly committed to peace, would he not have made a sincere effort to achieve it by now?”

“When will the Palestinian people themselves have a voice at the peace table?”

Very good points. Thanks Steve!

And yes, I do like to draw on all points of view. I’ve been lucky to have great points of view to draw from.

Smorgasborg has been updated with comments and a sound file from Andreas Brantmo. Thanks Andreas!

Who else gets cool Swedish web developers sending them pronunciaton .wav files?

I’m blessed.

Latest project: SanDiegoBlog.

Beta. New. For San Diegans by San Diegans. Evolving daily.

Good momentum on SanDiegoBlog. With luck there will be regular input from people. I’m pleased with the results so far.

Dental appointment today. Very busy. New projects like crazy. A wiki. A journal for Stew. Nutty busy. Remind me to tell you all about them. Whee!

Onward

I have added a message board to the San Diego Spots page I, Erin, and Jenny maintain. San Diegans past and present should check it out!

This morning my roommate (still in hospital)’s cat will be going to the vet indefinitely. I’m rapidly running out of roommates!

But I did get to wrangle the famous, cantankerous Frida. This is Frida in 1997.