May 2003

Many Excellent Braindump Links

• 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

Good Feedback on my Randy Newman Post

I just read your Randy Newman post. Two thoughts… First, you should check out Harry Nilsson’s brilliant “Nilsson Sings Newman” from 1970:

Second, you should take a listen to Loudon Wainwright III, another singer-songwriter who never seemed to break big like Randy Newman did, but who has the same wit and heart:

I recommend Loudon’s “BBC Sessions” to start.

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

Filled Chocolate Cookies Exxxposed!
Who knew that Hydrox was the original, and Oreo was the copycat!

Quote of the Day

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.

Transit Fun
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.

Word of the Day
Fructis!

From Steve E – Useful Middle East Links
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.

Phrases Of The Past Year

You’re doing great.

and

Be gentle with yourself.

And I must remind myself to listen to them.

Who’s Blog?
Douglas Welch, columnist for ComputorEdge, has a blog.