Sex & Hypocrisy, Chocolate & Peanut Butter (Reblog)

I'm clearly not a nice person, because it warmed my heart to read of the resignation of Randall Tobias. Seems he was canoodling a bit too much with call-girls. The married Tobias, of course, was responsible as the Bush-appointed Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance for telling undeveloped countries that abstinence is how they should be fighting AIDS.

My DVM

My live-in exotics veterinarian hates when I photograph her, but that's what she gets for constantly harassing me about how I won't take pictures.

Lazy Food (Chow)

Evidence that despite how hoighty-toighty I try to sound on the Kitchenarium, we're often sleazy eaters. Some leftover Basque bread, some Muenster and dill Havarti, some brunch leftovers (one of the wife's excellent home-made cinnamon rolls, strawberries, and grapes), and a salad of what was on hand. We had a slight microwave softening accident with the butter.

I only infrequently make snowman faces on top of my salads.

Molpe 2007 Kill #1 (Pets)

It begins again. Molpe has started out slowly this year, not getting her first kill until her third full day out in the yard -- although surely the weather is partly to blame, which has slowed the small fuzzy prey habitat growth.
It is too bad that she is so indiscriminate, because shrews are nice to have in our garden areas. At least we have a good prey item disposal unit to hand.

Kitchenarium Updates (Chow)

Put two of my favorite bread recipes up. These are both real breads, and do require a bit of kneading, but are still easily made by the bread novice.

• artisan bread
• Basque bread
  

City Of Cold Shoulders (Reblog)

Our very own Chicago ranks last out of 25 major United States metropolitan areas in the Humane Society's Humane Index (Flash warning). Even with our mostly unenforced foie gras ban, Pittsburgh and Detroit are slammin' on us...and we're just middle-of-the-pack with vegetarian restaurants! Oh, the inhumanity...

RIAA Represents All Musicians -- Don't Even Need To Sign Up (Reblog)

This is why it is good to be in bed with the Federal government. The RIAA's puppet SoundExchange gets to connect royalties on any music broadcast over Internet radio, regardless of whether or not its artist is enslaved by the RIAA. So:

1. Go write and perform some music.
2. Broadcast it over the Internet.
3. Watch as the RIAA collects money for your performance from you, the broadcaster.
   

Batfetishes

To help Myra figure out what her favorite fish is, here are some batfish.
The above batfish I was talking about (which I saw, unusually, swimming on the surface from a boat's deck in the Galapagos) is a member of the anglerfish family, Dibranchus atlanticus. It is normally a deep water bottom-dwelling fish, and nobody I was with had an explanation for what the thing was doing flopping around that night in the boat's running lights. They are so distinctive, however, that our identification was pretty certain.
The Flying Gurnard is another very distinctive batfish. It does, in fact, fly -- as much as any fish.

There is also a common aquarium fish called a batfish (a type of spadefish), as well as a Pacific stingray. Which is cheating, since stingrays are elasmobranchs like sharks, and we all know people really mean teleosts when they say fish. And probably other fish as well that I've never heard of.
This is the 1992 outfit Batman might wear to go collect some Dibranchus atlanticus -- Deep Dive Batman! Hand me down the shark repellent bat spray...

Coolest Workspace Contest (Reblog)

Lifehacker published my little office submission. Alas, they excised all of my verbal diarrhea!

Farewell Nicole

We're thinking of you. (Local newspaper.)

Lazy Day (Pets)

This weekend's balmy weather came as a welcome release to the most important members of our household -- the ass-lickers.
Here we have Molpe indulging in a dirt wallow in our currently dormant vegetable garden.
After a few hours of that it was time for her to curl up under her favorite spider plant in my office.
With Molpe occupying the best dirt, Scylla felt the only place left for her to roll around was the dirt-colored ottoman blanket.
Eventually 'Dolon managed to dislodge her and a type of détente was reached.

My Cool Workplace

Since I love my hole in the floor, I decided to submit some office photos to Lifehacker's Coolest Workplace Contest. My submission follows...

---

I had to move to Chicago from a house I really loved because of my partner's insistence that, as a zoo vet, it was appropriate that she work in a zoo. As consolation, I was allowed to cut a two inch square out of our brand-new hardwood* floor. This office is the result of that indulgence.
I work from home, and sit in what was intended as a solarium at a barrister's desk that used to belong to my aunt. I like a really broad expanse of desk to cover with illegibly scribbled notes, and this thing really fits the bill. I drilled a two inch hole through the top to pass cords through to the hole in my floor to the computers and KVM switch in my basement. The desk's credenza and a pack of barrister's bookcases complete my furnishings; we tiled a new top that rests on top of the credenza and gives me space for my cactus and succulents.
Although having my three computers (a Linux server, a work box, and a personal box) located under my feet keeps my office neat and quiet, there are some disadvantages. To mitigate them I've got a USB drive on my desktop and I've run remote power and reset switches for the two computers that matter most to me, attaching them to the underside of my desk. This was a fantastic arrangement with our last dog, but our new beast is just big enough that he can turn off my computers with his nose if he feels like it -- another good reason to train your dogs I suppose. The switch wires eventually terminate in molex connectors, and I've wired their mates into all three of my computers, so it is easy for me to swap a pair of remote switches from one computer to another.

What this setup is missing, unfortunately, is a USB switch. I've been underwhelmed by the price-performance of USB 2.0 switches so far, but I'm hopeful that my cheap shriveled heart will swell with joy at a bargain later this year. Until then I'm making due with desk-accessible USB from the one computer of my choice.
I've got a very nice view of my patio and yard from my desk, which has eight windows surrounding it on three sides. The desk itself faces into our family room, where if I'm feeling unproductive I can see whatever the Tivo happens to be doing without technically taking my eyes off my monitors -- although usually I just use the Tivo to play music from my Linux server. (Right now there is a trestle table set up by the TV for some frenzied scrap-booking of our honeymoon in beautiful Matsuyama, but that is a temporary feature.)
A small unfinished portion of our basement happens to reside directly under my office, and while technically it is another room this is where any computation too difficult for my HP-15C actually takes place. I've got a nice sexy rackmount on the wall for my networking gear courtesy of a previous employer. The computers themselves sit on a less elegant piece of MDF ugliness in the elevated portion of the unfinished space. The KVM switch is on a shelf in the rafters so that I can use manageable cable lengths.
In general, I am really happy with this setup. It is open yet fairly private, and by walking no more than 20 paces and opening no more than one door I can visit the refrigerator, bathroom, or great outdoors. Because my desk faces west, I do occasionally have to adjust my blinds to prevent early-morning monitor whiteout. On those rare occasions when I need privacy from what's going on in the family room I can walk a phone or laptop into another room or out onto the porch (or take my preferred tactic of bitching other people out of the family room).

Some additional notes about the pictures:

• I'm using an ancient Lexmark keyboard. I have a supply of them in the basement to use as donors for mechanical and cat-related issues. I'm addicted to the mechanical throw, even though it may sometimes irritate the family room.
  
• I do have a chimnea stuffed with blankets in my office. It is a cat den.
• The cable control system under my desk is in a temporary state of dishabille because of recent canine deconstruction operations.
• The red ethernet run lolling off of the desk is a 100' emergency cable for when our wireless network's throughput just won't cut it; usually it is rolled up under the desk, but it is currently deployed as a scrap-booking aid.
  

In closing, in case you publish this, I have an office-related quandry that your readership may be able to help with. As detailed on my fairly pointless blog, I'm looking for some kind of machine-for-sitting which will allow our dog to maintain contact with me while I sit at my desk. Sitting at my feet doesn't cut it because the cats take that as intense provocation and retaliate. I'm out of ideas.

* According to the general contractor, "Tasmanian oak", which is actually Eucalyptus but a genuine hardwood. Our pets, who have been steadily scrimshawing their way through it since we took possession, lead me to suspect we may have a different wood. Next time I'm going with slate.

Compress Your MP3s (Reblog)

First, a confession. Not only am I not an audiophile, but I really dislike audiophiles. I am willing to make slight exceptions for the slightly audiophilic personalities of both GCE and my father.

Don't get me wrong -- I like music. But even setting aside the borderline retarded folk who think that a magic wood knob on their stereo uses quantum purification to modify how electrons flow to their speakers, I think that most people who talk about their concern for sound quality are fooling themselves.

There is a recent article on Maximum PC that shows, with a relatively small double-blind sample size of 4 listeners and 4 varied tracks, that people really can't distinguish between uncompressed audio and 160 kbit/sec variable bit rate encoded audio. It is a cute read, but is actually far too kind to audiophiles in its conclusions, since it neglects the all-important statistical analysis which would have demonstrated that the results are entirely random. And this was under ideal (i.e. headphone) conditions.

Usually, when we're listening to music, our environment contributes a lot more to the sound than the actual audio. The shape of the room, our relative position in it, the furniture, drapes, etc. all have a dramatic (and typically ungoverned) effect on our listening experience.

Me? I'm happy if the volume is right. This is one of perhaps three or four parts of life where I'm actually easy to please.

Télévision Sans Accent Grave (Reblog)

While our national representatives have been talking about this for years, the Chairman of the FCC is now endorsing the idea of à la carte cable channels. For those who didn't discuss this incessantly during countless Champaign-Urbana Joint Cable & Telecommunications Commission meetings, this is basically forcing cable companies to sell you individual channels instead of large packages. The idea behind this is that this would result in cheaper television for consumers.

That idea is, of course, totally without basis. The fact is that these big honking packages which consumers are forced to buy contain many channels that nobody would purchase if left to their own devices -- channels that are, in reality, partially subsidizing the costs of delivering the channels people actually do want to watch. I hate to agree with Brian Dietz (NCTA vice president and general all-around sleaze-ball), but when you're right, you're right, even if the lies you tell to justify your correctness are in fact lies.

Not that actual costs have anything to do with how much cable monopolies decide to screw you for.

Some generally very informative and consumer-oriented websites are mistakenly encouraging people to write their representatives about this issue. I wouldn't recommend it.

Sexy Swiss Cheese Condos (Reblog)

I really like the design of this Miami condominium designed by Chad Oppenheim. COR is a dramatic green building that cleverly integrates wind power (a technique becoming more and more popular these days).

Handguns (Reblog)

The tragic shootings at Virginia Tech are kicking up the predictable debate in venues like Slashdot -- which one would hope represents an unusually enlightened segment of the world's English-speaking population due to the affluence and leisure required to indulge in it, but of course turns out to be mostly occupied by unthinking adolescents.

There have been many, many, many assertions that permitting handguns on campus would have prevented the full escalation of this event. Handguns are the great equalizer. When handguns are outlawed, only outlaws will have handguns. Ad nauseam.

Particularly irritating to me are the following specious notions:

1. This disturbed guy, and pretty much everyone who has committed handgun violence, would have found some way to kill even without easy access to a handgun. This completely fails to realize the "barrier to entry" for murder. The easier it is to do something, the less it takes for someone to be provoked into doing it.
2. Outlaws will always have handguns whether they are illegal or not; only law-abiding citizens are denied handguns by handgun laws. I refer one to the aforementioned barrier to entry. As the commitment, effort, and expense involved in acquiring a handgun increases, fewer and fewer people -- yes, even "outlaws" -- will have one. Legislation of all sorts is a mechanism of statistics; just because an inveterate murderer and liar like Dick Cheney will find a way to acquire an illegal handgun doesn't mean well-crafted legislation that is effectively enforced wouldn't reduce handgun violence.
   
3. Handguns let weaker people stand up to stronger people. This seems to presuppose that we should govern our lives by assuming inevitable physical conflict with our fellow citizenry, and moreover conflict that must necessarily escalate to mortal violence. It seems to me that our goal as a society should be to minimize these conflicts, not to make sure we're all well-armed for them.

Now, from the limited information available about this particular shooting, I'd be willing to believe that if one of these students had been carrying a concealed handgun the killing might have ended sooner. Or it might have been the same, or worse. Regardless, such speculation doesn't really address the astounding amount of handgun-related violence in our country on a daily basis.

According to the CDC: 11,250 firearm homicides in 2004, almost 68% of all homicides. That's 0.0038% of our total population. It's not Iraq, but surely better control of handguns wouldn't make it worse.

Norway's Liberal Party Congress For President (Reblog)

When I move to Norway, I know what my political party will be. The Liberal Party Congress understands the way intellectual property should work. Out with DRM, in with drastically truncated copyright lifetimes.

Gojira-no-BIIRU

Damn, I wish I knew where to get these, both JTC & EJB need one.

Samorost (Recommendation)

Remember back when the world was really excited by HyperCard games? Well, thanks to the wonders of Flash we're now able to play games like that for free. One such is Samorost, which is a pretty and diverting minor clickfest. I confess I really love its art.

SF Quiz

This little SF quiz of a cartoon is from My Elves Are Different by Steve Wilson. Help me fill in the gaps?

Hey! But first, stop reading and do it yourself from scratch! No Internet!

1. I'm betting on the last son of Krypton.
   
2. ? Perhaps there's some bit of HGTG I'm forgetting...
   
3. This is Ms. Multipass from the The Fifth Element. Which I love. Shut up.
   
4. ? Perhaps I'm forgetting some bit from Dune?
   
5. Red Dwarf's Rimmer! I need to Netflix that series, I've only seen bits and pieces.
   
6. DS9's commanding officer. Too easy with a holosuite reference!
   
7. This is Mr. Groening's Mr. Rodríguez. I was lucky to have caught this particular episode.
8. Proto-Darth of course. Damn Lucas!
   
9. ? Thank God I don't know this.
   
10. ? On the tip of my tongue...

I think that's a solid 6/10, and I'm not sure I'm ashamed of any of those points.

Impeachment Is For Democrats (Reblog)

Sometimes I wonder why there isn't a criminal investigation into the administration's mid-term dismissal of U.S. attorneys, and even more, why more media voices aren't asking why there isn't a criminal investigation. As I understand it:

1. There is copious historical precedent for the President firing U.S. attorneys upon taking the oath of office. There is typically a complete transition in the first two years in office, with most of the turnover front-loaded. The Los Angeles Times and Media Matters both have salient pieces on this practice.
2. Other than this expected house-cleaning, prior to the Bush administration U.S. attorneys have only been removed for malfeasance.
3. The Hatch Act prohibits political interference with the Justice Department and U.S. judiciary.
4. At the same time, it requires complete record keeping for any decisions made regarding the service of U.S. attorneys.
5. There is no intimation by any party (outside of right-wing radio personalities) that the U.S. attorneys discharged by the Bush administration late last year were let go for malfeasance.
6. The administration has stated that the U.S. attorneys were in fact fired for political reasons, as reported in the New York Post.
7. The Bush administration has also destroyed or, to be charitable, lost mandated documentation on these firings, as reported in the Washington Post. Leaving aside the felonious use of Republican National Committee resources for sensitive Federal record-keeping...

This seems to be yet another example of how we are living under an illegal perversion of our actual intended government.

Beer And Boobs Don't Mix? (NSFW Reblog)

Generally, boobs are one of the best marketing tools out there. Unfortunately sometimes the boobs backfire -- Rubbel Sexy Lager has been censored out of UK markets. No great loss for the beer drinker, since it doesn't appear to be a particularly appealing brew. But alas for the beer watcher (NSFW)!

I apologize to people who followed the first link to its video, "a cautionary fable about drugs and involuntary mammary growth" that is, perhaps, technically NSFW as well.

S4ndr4 Bu1l0ck R0xx0r5

The Net has to be one of the stupidest software-related movies of all time. A defining scene happens before the credits. The protagonist is playing Wolfenstein 3D, and the game's (presumed) creator wants her to tell him what keeps crashing it. She tells him he has a virus, which she can apparently see in the game's graphics. Using System Debugger 6.4 on a Quadra 650 (a 2 year old machine at the time of production), she types in 8 hexadecimal digits and sucks the virus out onto a floppy where it is harmless. This virus, of course, erases all of your data if you ever hit Esc, and will later be used to save the world.

Though my favorite scene is later in the film when killer viruses devour graphics cards. Or the IP address with a 345 octet.

What always amazes me about software in films is that quite often it isn't necessary to make it all the equivalent of voodoo, yet that is invariable the choice of the filmmaker.

I wonder how much Id made off of this film?

Don't ask why I was watching this. Shut up.

CFL Ratings (Reblog)

Popular Mechanics has reviewed a cross-section of CFLs. I find the most interesting information in the review to be that light bulb packaging, both incandescent and fluorescent, overstates brightness and understates wattage.

Global Warming

Ah, a wonderful April 11 snow day in Chicago!

Super Fuzzy Cat Extravaganza (Pets)

Thought I'd put up a few days of pet-related snapshots; it's no Cute Overload, but it's what I've got. This is the feline post. Molpe doesn't appear here because she's so pretty we can't afford her rates; Scylla only charges scale.
Scylla was outside with 'Dolon for a while; of course it only took 'Dolon about 2 minutes to decide that if chasing her inside was fun, chasing her outside would be even better. Hence the tree. Once the dog abated, Scylla made her own cautious descent.
Scylla doesn't realize that the wife is armed with camera lenses that can take closeups from any distance.
We got the kitties some nice little sleeping balls for New Year's, and threw them in the purple-upholstered armchairs that came with my Aunt's barrister's desk. Molpe took to them immediately, and has spent many blissful days rolled up in a kitty-tortellini in them. It took about three months for Scylla to realize that Molpe was on to something good and usurp it.
At night when the wife creates flame, Scylla becomes the guardian of the fireplace.

Super Fuzzy Dog Extravaganza (Pets)

Thought I'd put up a few days of pet-related snapshots; it's no Cute Overload, but it's what I've got. This is the canine post.
Above we have 'Dolon posing with a little fuzzy pull toy. He learned on his own how to pull the string and make the toy vibrate around, and was of course so fascinated by it that he pulled on it until the mechanism broke.
'Dolon is very permissive about being picked up, arranged, slept on as a pillow... I can hold him like that until he falls asleep.
Other than socks and eating mulch, 'Dolon's favorite pursuit is tugging on things. Here we're growling at each other over one of our few remaining intact ropes.
At the end of his day, 'Dolon has curled up on the couch with his favorite little cat stuffed animal. I don't know why, but in our household these much-toothed objects are referred to as woobies.

Ultimate Vegetarian Soup (Chow)

Tonight I tried a slightly modified version of the Domestic Goddess's Ultimate Vegetarian Soup for dinner. The wife and I both liked it a lot; the sweet potato gave it a really nice succulence.

I went a bit heavy on the oregano and also used a bit of thyme and an extra-healthy dose of freshly ground black pepper. I omitted the diced tomatoes. Finally, I used an amazingly huge sweet potato that was perhaps three times the size of the not-insubstantial Idaho potato.

We'll make this again -- although right now we have 8 frozen leftover servings to work through.

Nippon Albumization

The formalization of our 2005 trip to Japan has begun! We'll see how many ad hoc trestle tables I'll have to set up before all is said and done... Although I'm beginning to think the wife may stretch out this process indefinitely, since her work station is set up in front of the fireplace.

The Feds Giveth, The Feds Taketh Away (Reblog)

Ah, it was too good to last forever. I pay for basic lifeline analog cable along with my HSI, and because Comcast barely knows that they actually have a (Federally mandated) lifeline service, I actually receive all their non-premium analog stations. But now they are supposedly going digital-only, and requiring one of their stupid boxes to soak up my valuable electricity. I'm not sure exactly what this will mean for me, but presumably nothing good. It never does. Sounds like I have until 2008 before this horror stretches all the way to my 'burb.

It is wonderful that a Federally mandated switch to digital programming is going to destroy Federally mandated access to cheap network television over cable.

Bite Me Fiction

There's a newish fiction genre in town, and thanks to EJB my wife is addicted to it. Amazon reviewers have apparently dubbed it "sexy supernaturalism", and from what I can tell from skimming an Anita Blake book, these books are basically romance novels with pointy teeth, and are perhaps inappropriately grouped with SF genre fiction. They are instantly identifiable from their cover art.

These things are really exploding right now... The list below is included for the benefit of the wife.

• Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter (15 books by Laurell K. Hamilton)
• Sookie Stackhouse (7 books by Charlaine Harris, originally a mystery writer)
• Betsy Taylor (6 books by MaryJanice Davidson)
  
• Rachel Morgan (5 books by Kim Harrison)
• Victory Nelson (3 books by Tanya Huff, now the Lifetime TV series Blood Ties)
  
• Berkley Sensation (3 books by Eileen Wilks, originally a romance writer)
  
• Kitty Norville (3 books by Carrie Vaughn)
  
• Mercy Thompson (2 books by Patricia Briggs)
• Cassandra Palmer (2 books by Karen Chance)
  

My Industry Languishes Without Me (Reblog)

The U.S. Department of Education has released a study which concludes that spending on education technology does not help student achievement. No surprise there! A successful implementation plan is what results in student achievement, and technology may or may not be one of the tools used by that plan. That's why it is a shame that nobody still in the industry seems to understand or care about managed learning systems.

I wasn't able to find any information about the study on the DoE's website, other than their intent to fund such a study in 2004. I'm sure that they've never looked at NovaNET, which is really a product of too much complexity for them to understand -- the DoE has always thought of educational software as a flashcard drill or Where In The World is Carmen Sandiego.

Kitchenarium Updates (Chow)

Updated the Kitchenarium with a few new recipes.

• dill salad
• sunshine fish
  

トトロの弁当

This is a really cute Totoro bento my wife stumbled on while working on our Japan album.

She wanted to know what the smaller Totoros were called, so of course I told her they were all called totoro -- large totoro, medium totoro, and small totoro. In a matter of minutes she's upbraiding me for being an idiot, because the web has told her they are called O-Totoro, Chu-Totoro, and Chibi-Totoro. Ah, beautiful Internet, so full of glorious information, so empty of proper context.

"Enchanté"

For those who have not yet seen a picture, this is the brand-new Nora Elizabeth. I'll smack a link in here should GCE put some additional photos up somewhere. Congratulations to the parents & grandparents!

Meat Alphabet (Reblog)

If we weren't a mostly vegetarian household, I think I'd use this as my blog logo. Letters courtesy of Robert Bolesta, highlighted on CMD's feed. CMD is also experimenting with tumblr now.

Dog-Pacifying Chair (Help!)

In my country there is a problem, and that problem is transport the dog (Borat video). 'Dolon is a great sleeping dog, a wonderful sitting dog, an excellent cuddling dog. But if I'm sitting in my chair at my desk trying to get something done, he's a hellion.

I suspect that if I had some kind of chair-like device that allowed me to sit at my barrister's desk but had room for my 45 pound troublemaker to squeeze next to me, my work and writing environment would be several orders of magnitude more pleasant. The important thing is giving him a space to settle where he is in direct contact with me... Unlike Maya, my feet do not make 'Dolon happy.

I also suspect such a piece of furniture doesn't exist. I'm not even really sure what it would look like -- maybe some sort of L-shaped benchy thing? A bariatric chair of some kind? I've come up empty rooting through the Interweb's tubes.

I wondered if anyone had any great ideas.

あんパン (Recommendation)

The wife has recently been working on putting together an album of our trip to Shikoku, so we've both been yearning for anpan. A baked good of infinite variety, at its simplest anpan is azuki paste stuffed in a bun. It is championed in Japan by the redoubtable Anpan Man. If you are ever in Hokkaido, there is a store dedicated to him, the wife's second-favorite superhero.
We've been talking about putting a statue in our backyard. While I'm partial to Durga killing the bufffalo demon...
...the wife is currently torn between Anpan Man...
...and Totoro.
I think we'll have some steamed azuki-filled bao for dinner.