March 2002

If you’ve ever wondered where your birthday places you in the scheme of world events, these little scripts will tell you. Check out world events, music, and movies in relation to your age. Pages like this were around when I first got on line, but I doubt that these are the same links I remember from five or six years ago!

[click to continue...]

If Blake was not simply stoned out of his mind, then what explanation can there be for this troubling work?

[click to continue...]

Me and My Arrow - Harry Nilsson

Good gravy! I’ve been suffering from a severe case of non-fiction addiction lately. I managed to grab three of the five Oscar movies over the weekend, but otherwise for the last month or so I’ve watched almost nothing that wasn’t on TLC, Discovery, or A&E. I’ve seen specials on mummies, temples, “the Iceman”, pyramids, tombs, the U.S. Mint … and Biographies on everyone from Ron Howard to Saddam Hussein. I just finished reading Cod, started that book on the coelacanth, and was enraptured this evening by an article in The Atlantic on the American Lobster. I need to get a job.

I saw a link to Singlefile sometime last week. I visited the site and poked for a minute, but I didn’t really look at it. Then I saw another link to Singlefile on a different site. I visited again for a second, but couldn’t really see why it was such a big deal. Tonight I saw another link to Singlefile. Finally I read the page and learned what Singlefile is. Singlefile is it. Singlefile is the best thing to happen on line since Blogger.
My flabber is gasted.

I don’t know if I’m ever going to get used to “hands-free” kits for mobile phones. I was inadvertantly fooled by a man speaking into his “hands-free” kit this afternoon. This was probably the thirtieth time this has happened o me.

I was strolling through the Century City Mall when I found myself walking towards a small, bald, jogging-suited man - probably 5′6″ or so. He looked me right in the eye and said, “Bulls***, MAN!” with a huge smile on his face, as if I had just told him something incredible. I stared at him for a second with what I’m sure was a terribly confused look on my face. Then I realized he was talking into a miniscule microphone dangling from a fishing-line-thin wire plugged into his ear.

This happened to me just a few days ago at the Coffee Bean, too. I was holding the door open for a guy walking into the store. Instead of giving me the universal “guy nod of thanks” or anything like that, he looked me right in the eye and said, “You gotta be SH***ING me!”.

from a review of “The Social Life of Paper”
On a busy day, a typical air-traffic controller might be in charge of as many as twenty-five airplanes at a time - some ascending, some descending, each at a different altitude and travelling at a different speed. He peers at a large, monochromatic radar console, tracking the movement of tiny tagged blips moving slowly across the screen. He talks to the sector where a plane is headed, and talks to the pilots passing through his sector, and talks to the other controllers about any new traffic on the horizon. And, as a controller juggles all those planes overhead, he scribbles notes on little pieces of paper, moving them around on his desk as he does. Air-traffic control depends on computers and radar. It also depends, heavily, on paper and ink.

If you have a few minutes to spare this morning, take a look at this mind-boggling Flash artwork. It’s hypnotizing and beautiful and entirely captivating. Move the mouse. Try not to fall into the monitor. (Flash required, obviously.)

[click to continue...]

You can’t eye can’t I can’t they can’t she can’t he can’t it can’t why can’t why can’t eye don’t no. Y’no? It’s im-poss-ib-al. If there’s one overwhelming iota that I’ve been shown by some auricle at some distant point in my youth, it’s that things that are written are written and things that aren’t aren’t. It’s not fair to me or anyone else (altho to b honest eye don ot really care about anybody else] to say that one thing in the world of written langu-age means anything. These words : certainly don’t mean anything.

[click to continue...]

The Sacramento Bee Story Toolbar
“With browser and internet technologies advancing, Web sites are becoming more like applications. Taking this into account, sacbee.com has developed the Story Toolbar. The idea was to combine several different functions into one compact area that is unobtrusive and easy for users to access.” (Comments: Take a look at this story to see the toolbar in action.)

Suspect: That Burglar Is My Evil Twin Brother!
William Earl Dykes, 40, says a convenience store’s surveillance video doesn’t show him breaking into the store — it’s his “evil twin brother” who’s carrying out the crime. Police aren’t buying the story, which has been debunked by the man’s sister. Dykes has a brother, she says, “but he’s not a twin, and he’s certainly not evil.” (New Orleans Times-Picayune)

link via Jim Romenesko’s Obscure Store and Reading Room

My girlfriend has been on a mission to see all of the Oscar movies before the Academy Awards tomorrow night. Several weeks ago we went to see A Beautiful Mind. When it was over we ducked into the adjacent theater and watched The Lord of the Rings I: The Fellowship of the Ring. (It was the first time I “stole” a movie since my mom and sister and I stayed in our seats to watch Rocky III twice in a row when it was in the theaters.) Last night we stole again and saw both In the Bedroom and Gosford Park. It’s really, really hard for me to feel guilty about “stealing” a movie when I pay SIX DOLLARS for one little bag of popcorn. I mean, I know it’s still stealing and I’m a rotten person and everything, but … c’mon. Six dollars?
So anyway … now she’s seen all five, but I still haven’t seen Moulin Rouge. We have it on DVD so maybe I’ll try to watch it tomorrow before the Awards …

I finished reading Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel this afternoon. It is a wonderful book.
[click to continue...]

Logical behaviorism tries to solve the problem of other minds by showing that behavior is the effect of mind states. By examining behavior closely enough, says the logical behaviorist, it is possible to know mental states of others … In his article “Brains and Behavior” Hilary Putnam attacks the school of thought known as logical behaviorism … Putnam believes that the basic premises of even a weakened form of logical behaviorism can be proven to be false …

[click to continue...]