Wrap yourself in the flag
For the bride who is a little too proud to be an American: the American flag wedding dress that I sighted today. I apologize for the crappy picture.
War On Error
War On Error: Live Pictures Taken by U.S. Planes Were Freely Available
The war on terrorism in Europe is being undermined by a military communications system that makes it easier for terrorists to tune in to live video of U.S. intelligence operations than to watch Disney cartoons or new-release movies.
Now, I’m all in favor of openness in government, but I believe someone’s pants are down around his ankles here.
What do you suppose the odds are that this’ll get to be a big story, and that Ashcroft will then tell us something scary to distract us?
Spam & Viruses
So I’ve been thinking. Spam is evil. So are e-mail viruses like the klez worm. As are, of course, the people that perpetrate both. Now, one of a spammer’s main burdens is getting the spam out–running software to pump it out. It surprises me a little that no spammer has (yet) used e-mail viruses as a means of distribution. It would make them harder to track down, and alleviate their computing burden (putting it on everyone else, of course, which is the spammer’s stock in trade anyhow).
Of course, viruses are illegal and spam isn’t (yet), which might create a disincentive to use that method. But if it starts happening, well, you read about it here first.
San Francisco trip
Oh yeah. I’m home. It was a good trip. Good hanging out with Dave & Heidi for the last time before they have twins–good hanging out with them just in general, and likewise with Brian and Maureen. Good re-acquainting myself with San Francsisco–I love visiting that town, but it reminds me that I really like living in Austin too. Spent yesterday afternoon and this morning in San Jose, and then caught the Nerd Bird home.
Perhaps it’s just because I bought a new car myself, but I found myself attuned to the cars I was seeing out there. I continue to be amazed at what a car-oriented place California is. Not just the dependence on them, but the affection lavished on them. A lot of Porsches–everything from whaletail Turbos to bathtub 356s. But what struck me was the weird stuff–like an immaculately restored K-car of all things, with a show-car quality paint job and fancy racing wheels. Or a mint-condition 1984 Hurst Olds. Or a bizarre 3-wheeled podlet (evidently Brian knows the owner). And of course the aforementioned Hummer limo.
Wireless Internet stuff
2 Tinkerers Say They’ve Found a Cheap Way to Broadband: This is pretty exciting. Hacking the Wi-Fi protocol makes it possible to blanket a whole city with fast, wireless coverage. Well, that’s the theory.
“A French engineer would say this isn’ the most elegant solution” Mr. Furrier said, “but we didn’t care about that. We took advantage of these cheap commodity chips and we just wanted to make it work.”
Then again, wasn’t it a French engineer who invented the 2CV?
Posting from Alameda
Posting from Alameda
I’m staying at Dave & Heidi’s, across the bay from beautiful San Francisco. It’s been fun. I’ll be heading back down to San Jose tomorrow to spend another day with Brian & Maureen, and then back to Austin.
Saturday night, I saw the band Luna at Bimbo’s with a friend, Robin, and a couple of her friends. Good show–Luna has a sort of folk/rock style with quirky humor. Closed with covers of Bonnie and Clyde (originally by Serge Gainsbourg) and Season of the Witch (originally by Donovan). Thanks, Robin, for knowing who did those originally. That night I saw a Hummer limo–truly obscene.
Sunday, D&H and I went to an amazingly busy diner in bustling downtown Alameda. That night I was supposed to go to a fire practice in SF, but had left the exact address back in Austin (d’oh!), so I had to bag it. Today, I went in to San Francisco and just bopped around on foot for hours, which I love to do. Went to the Japantown mall. Consumed yukimi-daifuku (those of you have have been paying attention know how much I love these). Spotted Giant Pocky (remind me to tell you about Giant Pocky someday). Then I went to the Metreon to catch the digital projection of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. I don’t really like the Metreon, but I think it’s one of the only places with digital projection, and since Lucas made such a big deal out of how this movie was all-digital, it seemed like the aesthetically correct way to see it.
What do I think of the movie? Good special effects and good action sequences. Awful script, bad direction, and acting that generally failed to rise above these limitations (except for good old Ewan MacGregor, and perhaps Christopher Lee).
Newsflash: digital image quality still isn’t as good as film. The difference wasn’t so great that I was generally aware of it, but in some of the more statically shot scenes, if I looked, I could clearly see the jaggies.
Posting from San Jose
Posting from San Jose
I’m staying at Brian & Maureen’s, where spring seems to have come about two months after it came to Austin–star jasmine, wisteria, and such are in bloom, and the whole neighborhood smells incredible. Everyone here seems to have really nice gardens. Plus the weather is about 20 degrees cooler, which (early in the season though it is) already comes as a relief.
Tomorrow it’s up to San Francisco to visit Dave & Heidi.
hentai game
Something Awful reviews a “hentai game” from Japan called X-Change.
I’m really not sure who this game’s target audience is, although if it’s the average Japanese teenage male I need to start being a lot more afraid of Japan than I have been lately.
And I’ve got to say, there are some things I’ve never understood about Japan–this is a perfect example.
Highland Theater
Jenny points out that the aforementioned movie theater chain is one that specializes in rehabbing dead movie theaters. That’s a noble goal, even if the results are kind of, well, laughable.
So I went and did it–bought a new car. A silver 