Link Farm #1 With Meta

ampersand of amptoons regularly posts what he calls link farms where he lists links to good posts from other blogs. like skippy's reciprocal linking policy, link farming is an effective way to focus attention on lesser known bloggers who produce quality writing. another side benefit is that a blogger can use link farming as an opportunity to explore blogs outside the A-list sacred circle and their own personal daily reads list.

time permitting, i will post a weekly link farm with five to ten links to posts from blogs on the WFD blogroll. at the end of my last comment on this thread, i demonstrated a profound and astonishing ability to state the obvious: atrios and markos attained their A list status because _everyone_ links to them. A list blogs have a strong tendency to link only to each other. however, the A list pioneers did not make themselves into A listers. they got where they are because lesser known bloggers linked to them in increasing numbers.

while A listers individually have the power to be kingmakers, the multitude of lesser known blogs hasn't lost its ability to do the same. standing outside the warm glow of the A list circle jerk and crying because the kool kidz won't invite you to their parties is the fastest way to get labeled a whiny loser whether it's true or not. it only increases the A list aura because kool kidz get to be kool kidz only because of all the people pining away for their approval and attention. if no one gave a crap, or if most people managed to pretend that they didn't, the kool kidz would magically transform into dorks with unjustifiably large egos.

the crowd outside the A list circle is bigger and more diverse than the A list. if you're complaining that the A listers slammed the door shut behind them, stop. just stop it. haul your butt over to your computer and start exploring the vast territory of liberal blogs with fewer than three thousand visitors a day and LINK to them on your OWN blog and encourage others to do the same instead of wondering why atrios and markos aren't doing all of this work for the good of the liberal blogosphere.

skippy, maryscott, and others such as the independent blogger's alliance have been diligent in doing some of the heavy lifting. even so, many of the beneficiaries of these efforts haven't followed their example. i've linked the vast majority of blogs from skippy's say hello posts. some of them haven't been added yet because they were added after i expanded our blogroll this weekend.

i don't care deeply about how many people link WFD because this blog is a hobby for me and my co-bloggers, and i personally rarely write anything serious anymore. i don't have time to put a ton of thought and care into long meaty posts with a full-time job and two upper level computer science courses to juggle. i remark on it because it makes me question how much solidarity really exists in the liberal blogosphere or blogtopia* as skippy calls it. it doesn't seem terribly productive or fair to rail against atrios and markos for being stingy with links in the name of solidarity if lesser known bloggers don't foster a little solidarity of their own.

for example, the semi-annual "Where Are All the Women Bloggers" flap used to raise feminist blogger hackles. instead of uselessly sniping at the largely male A listers, some women bloggers took matters into their own hands. i went to the first BlogHer conference and had a blast (Photos: Part one, Part two). hopefully, they'll hold it on the east coast this year, and i'll be able to attend again. when i get time, i'll be adding the BlogHer blogroll to WFD. i should have done it much sooner.

now, on to the link farm:

God bless the child by belledame222 from Fetch me my axe

Summary:

belledame222 explores the intersection between racism, fundamentalism and authoritarianism in response to a recent case in texas in which Shaquanda Cotton, a 14 year old african american girl, was sentenced to 7 years in prison for pushing a hall monitor at her school.

On Evil and Good by Sage from Persephone's Box

Summary:

Sage explores the difficulty and complexity of fostering good moral development. her post is a good followup to belledame222's God bless the child.

People banned from SNL by Seth Anderson from B12 Solipsism

Summary:

this is a good read for those who are interested in rock and roll badassery.

On Current Weather Patterns in Blogtopia* by AltHippo from Alternative Hippopotamus

Summary:

AltHippo suggests that bloggers use rss readers and bookmark managers such as del.icio.us to collect links for monthly link farm posts. what a brilliant idea!

Untitled by Shark-fu from AngryBlackBitch

Summary:

Shark-fu reminds us that we need to focus on the basics of civic duty. blogging furiously is not enough.

*skippy coined this term

showtime's "weeds" isn't so far-fetched after all.

grow houses start popping up in affluent suburbs.

dalek opening in nyc this weekend.

dalek (and MARS-1 - and a hodgepodge of other artists) opening at the jonathan levine gallery this saturday at 7pm.

it's funny. they were spamming me for months before i looked at the content of their e-mails. a friend must have put me on their list, because the artists that regularly show at the gallery are the same ones who appear in the sites i read, and many of them design the wacky vinyl toys i've been posting as of late. either that or they read my mind.

in any event, dalek started out as a graffiti artist, and now he paints and designs toys too. he paints space monkeys. sometimes over found pieces of cardboard, album covers, and other found media. his stuff is cool. that is all.

plus, i heard they always have free booze at art openings.

Why?

since i'm still at work and it's almost ten o'clock, i feel like bitching. today, i am running a test case that i've been trying to run for about two months now. i couldn't run the test case for two months because the six instruments capable of running in real-use mode (as opposed to Software Testing mode) were always in use for some other, more important testing. now that i finally get my turn at those instruments, the test case is going to take at least 30% longer than i originally estimated.

why, you ask? ok. ok. you're not actually asking, but i'm going to tell you anyway. i only have two copies of the software installation media. i have to do four installations of the software on five instruments over the course of this test case. another annoying problem is the fact that i only have four working keyboards in the lab where i'm running the test case, so i have to switch one between two instruments every time i need to take a screenshot.

$64,000 question.

if you had a gun to your head and you had to pick the winner of american idol between the following two, who would you pick?

1) sunjaya malakar

2) karl rove (see previous post)

discuss.

in the "WTF" file.

yes, that is karl rove. can someone explain WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?! is this for real?

[via jossip]

Rove: I'm M.C. Rove.

Rapper: He can't be beat because he's so white from his head to his feet but he will rap it when you give him a chance.

Look at him move, doing the rapping dance. That's true, he's a dancing resident. He is a sidekick to the president.

At this point, Rove points to President Bush, who is sitting a few feet away.

Rapper: ...tell me: what is your name?

Rove: M.C. Rove.

wow. i don't know what to say...

ah, yes indeed...

out of the ashes of jdjive comes jdunderground

here.

(googlebombing: jdjive jdunderground)

Civil Unions Vote In New Hampshire Tomorrow

at work. can't comment. can only link. times are a changin'!

the story of gloomy bear.

yipes.

i had to look again.

Blogroll Amnesty Day, Meta & Flamewars

the decision of some high traffic blogs to redo their blogrolls caused so small amount of pain. of course, anyone who thought that a wholesale culling of blogrolls _wasn't_ going to result in hurt feelings and resentment was really naive. links are _the_ currency of the blogosphere. i don't think it's farfetched to say that a large number of bloggers feel that delinking their blog is tantamount to a personal rejection.

nevertheless, some perspective is necessary here. losing a place on the blogrolls at eschaton or daily kos is not the end of the world. i don't believe atrios is trying to define the parameters of what is an acceptable liberal voice. he wants his blogroll to contain links to blogs that he himself reads. this is a perfectly acceptable policy to have for one's blogroll. atrios doesn't owe anyone a place on his blogroll. it would be nice of him to reciprocate links, but he's under no obligation to do so. it's even unrealistic to expect him to reciprocate every link.

there may be more validity to the accusation that markos wants to define the parameters of the 'sensible' left because he focuses so much on branding dKos as the online hub for people-powered politics. he also has a history of ham-fisted censorship and an army of 'trusted users' who carry this censorship out. nevertheless, markos rightfully has editorial authority over dKos. he pays the bills to keep it up and running. his efforts have provided, in an unprecedented fashion, a platform for the average joe to access an audience of hundreds of thousands without coughing up a substantial wad of cash. good diarists attract more users, thus raising the value of advertising space on the site. both markos and the diarist get something out of their relationship with one another. dKos can even be a platform for building a readership that one can lure to one's own blog. the variety of dKos spinoffs attests to that.

markos does have a specific vision he wants to implement, and if one is dissatisfied or unhappy with it, there is a whole wide world of blogs out there to explore. i often find an intimate discussion of fewer than 50 comments more satisfying than the megathreads attached to recommended diaries at dKos. fantastic free content management software is available to anyone who wants to forge their own online community.

while sites like dKos and the eschaton get the lion's share of traffic to political blogs, the medium itself is still in its infancy. there's a lot of room to grow the overall audience for blogs. most americans don't even read blogs yet. the majority of human beings in the world haven't even been online yet. growth for american political blogs is at an ebb right now, but that's because most people don't care about politics until it gets close to election season. i personally believe that the base of readers for political blogs hasn't even neared its peak yet.

so, that's my 2 cents. it's probably not even worth 2 cents.

other people have offered quite a bit more than 2 cents:

jon swift
skippy
maryscott o'conner and others
CE Petro
susie madrak
upyernoz

there are other posts out there, but these should get you started. if you care, that is. with all that said, i'm more than willing to share linky love with other bloggers. atrios and markos don't have a monopoly on that.

finally, a use for these little figurines!

meat and cheese dunny!

use: designate dairy and meat drawers in a kosher kitchen.

(well, i suppose you can also stick them up your butt.)

WFD Newsletter

greetings, my little munchkins. due to the recent uproar over the linking policies of high traffic blogs, i have decided to expand our blogroll and recategorize some of our existing links. some links were culled because the sites had not been updated in a long while or the owner of the blog had taken the site down.

i gathered some of the links from discussions about blogroll amnesty day at booman tribune and my left wing. the owners of these blogs indicated they wanted to do some link-swapping. the other links were taken from skippy's say hello posts. i am still working through that list.

i had some things to say about the whole flap, but i don't have time or energy to actually wade into the debacle. instead, i decided to do something constructive and expand the blogroll here. links between smaller blogs are at least as important as links from big blogs to smaller blogs. it's a great way to expand buzz for good posts that would ordinarily sink into oblivion.

Politics Again

emily2, you sparked quite the discussion out there. go say hi.

i am, like, so meta.

this comment thread is what happens when i have a slow couple of days. (and yes, i used language from first year torts. i know. i should be shot.)

the MOOFIA!

is it just me, or are toy makers stranger than when i was a kid? my little pony wasn't as bizarre.

well, i guess there were the garbage pail kids.

Cat-Blogging: The Waiting For Dorothy Edition, 2007

wAitiNG foR doROthY: Cat-Blogging
Mean Mommy Won't Feed Me
Cambridge, Massachusetts
March 20, 2007


wAitiNG foR doROthY: Cat-Blogging
Sulky Baby
Cambridge, Massachusetts
March 20, 2007


wAitiNG foR doROthY: Cat-Blogging
Woe Is Me, I Shall Starve
Cambridge, Massachusetts
March 20, 2007

re: u.s. attorney firings.

the debate is getting ugly.

uh... let's get some shoes?

who lit a fire under its ass?

update: oh. and WTF, it just closed at 2.18. okay, i can't watch this anymore.

A Nerd's Life

Reading Material
Cambridge, Massachusetts
March 20, 2007


I Blame CS 451: Compilers
Cambridge, Massachusetts
March 20, 2007

Cat-Blogging: The Waiting For Dorothy Edition, 2007

wAitiNG foR doROthY: Cat-Blogging
Tobino, Cutely At Rest
Cambridge, Massachusetts
March 20, 2007

more hilarity in federal criminal statutes.

i mentioned this yesterday, but i should have posted the "woodsy owl" law in its entirety. here is the "woodsy owl" law in all its glory.

18 U.S.C. § 711a. "Woodsy Owl" character, name, or slogan

Whoever, except as authorized under rules and regulations issued by the Secretary, knowingly and for profit manufactures, reproduces, or uses the character "Woodsy Owl", the name "Woodsy Owl", or the associated slogan, "Give a Hoot, Don't Pollute" shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.

so, if you say "give a hoot, don't pollute" in any commercial setting, you can get thrown in the slammer.

best product ever!

WinePod! Make wine in your own kitchen.

sometimes, you just need a crotchety old man to tell it like it is.

the guy from ACT UP is fed up.

smoking bunnies and now smokey bear.

this is an actual federal statute i just stumbled upon - i kid you not:

18 U.S.C. § 711. "Smokey Bear" character or name

Whoever, except as authorized under rules and regulations issued by the Secretary of Agriculture after consultation with the Association of State Foresters and the Advertising Council, knowingly and for profit manufactures, reproduces, or uses the character "Smokey Bear", originated by the Forest Service, United States Department of Agriculture, in cooperation with the Association of State Foresters and the Advertising Council for use in public information concerning the prevention of forest fires, or any facsimile thereof, or the name "Smokey Bear" shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.

there's one for "woodsy owl" too.

use "smokey bear" and get thrown in jail!

more fun toys.

bunny wabbits that get into bar fights, wear leather harnesses, have 5 o'clock shadows and chain smoke!

look! gimp bunny has a zipper where its bunghole is!

also at kidrobot.

"high" court, indeed.

"bong hits 4 jesus" case goes to supreme court.

Several on the bench tried to test the limits of what kinds of speech the schools could control. Many were clearly grasping at a proper balance.

Justice John Roberts wondered whether a button that said "Legalize Marijuana" would be political speech.

Souter asked about whether a "substantial disruption" would exist if a student flashed a small sign in class saying "Bong Hits 4 Jesus."

What about a button that advocated rape, asked Kennedy.

Or a button that read "Extortion is profitable" said Justice Antonin Scalia.

"Suppose that this particular person had whispered to his next door neighbor, 'Bong Hits 4 Jesus, heh heh heh,' " speculated Justice Stephen Breyer.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested Frederick's banner was ambiguous enough not to support claims he was promoting illegal drug use. "One can look at these words and say it's just nonsense," she said. "It isn't clear that this is 'Smoke Pot.' "

Souter called it "just a kid's provocative statement."

that justice breyer did a beavis impression is, like, so cool. "heh heh heh." toke 4 breyer!

toys with a realistic message.

bears grow up and become not so cuddly.

anyone seeing a darwin award in all of this?

okay, if some wackos want to willingly submit to a back alley castration for fun, then perhaps it is a blessing in disguise. then it becomes impossible for them to contribute to the gene pool! =P

if you haven't already...

...get your ass to itunes and download the amy winehouse album. this has been a public service announcement.

psst. judging from the "post something about people we know!" whines on perezhilton.com, it appears that many folks in the u.s. still haven't been introduced to ms. winehouse's new-meets-old soul fusion. i suspect that will change in the next year when she is nominated for a grammy. oh yes she will.

another reason why this is going to be a fun election.

in 2008, there was youtube.



my inner geek just got wet. i can't wait to see what other unauthorized ads individuals create from now until the election. (although i think the dems, even if they're dissing each other, will come up with better spots. i can't see a brownback supporter coming up with anything remotely creative.)

oh, and one more thing.

dear law school in nyc:

i know the law school "give me your money" phonathon is going on, because my caller ID keeps registering your main number every day for the past two weeks. i don't answer, and you don't leave a message. my roommate says the phonathon is going on, and you are giving people free food to call alumni.

here's my answer: i'm not giving you any money until you are open and honest about employment statistics. i'm not one of your bitter alumni. in fact, i landed the job that i've wanted since entering. although i am doing well, i was very very lucky. a prospective 1L looking at that pie chart you publish every year would reasonably believe that a permanent $90,000 position is within reach of most people upon graduation. sadly, this is not the case, and you are aware of it. it is unconscionable.

until you stop extrapolating temp attorney rates to cover an entire year, you will not get a cent from me. in fact, i am actively warning people about temp document review, which can pay up to $60 an hour overtime, but is a career-killer, and once short term projects end, one can be unemployed for several months until the next project. half of the people in my 1L section did doc review their first year out. some are still doing it. and you multiply their hourly rates and add in overtime to create "salaries" that are utterly made up.

please stop doing this. it hurts your students. it hurts your alumni. it hurts your reputation in the legal community.

so, until then, buying shoes on ebay is a better use of my money.

warmly,

emily2

"these shoes are $300..."

inspired by kelly.

"these shoes are $300..."*

"these shoes are $300 fucking dollars..."

"let's get 'em!"

* no, really, click on that link... they really ARE $300. completely mad! yes, they're designed by the former shoe designer for prada, but they're $300 FUCKING dollars. anyway, i love ebay. i actually got them for less than $50.

more drama!

the L word has been renewed for a fifth season.

up it screams.

okay, okay, i'll admit it. i got in a few months ago just for kicks. i looked up "cmgi" in a curious "where are they now?" whim. after i discovered this former "sailing on hot air" of a company had actually become profitable, i figured, what the hell. i didn't put very much money in (because i'm risk averse), but it's still fun to see it scream upwards. but since i didn't put very much in, even if it tanks, i won't cry.

update: each day, some blogger or financial analyst ups the target price. wasn't it just a few days ago when the target was $2.50? now people are saying $4.00? come on... no one really knows at this point. but i suppose all the rumbling helps. after all, this is a cult stock, and sometimes, psychological factors and excitement will drive the price up. after all, it already did happen with this stock.

politics embargo is over.

just in time for a hillary gaffe. clinton ducks question on whether she believes homosexuality is immoral. her answer:

i'm going to leave that to others to conclude.

now, i've said before that democrats have been taking our votes for granted. after all, it's easy when the other side is calling for things like the federal marriage amendment and kissing the butt of the religious right. when the options are (1) a big stinking pile of shit on the ground or (2) nothing, "nothing" is the better choice.

but now it's 2007, and she's still living in 2004. a lot of things have happened since 2004. myspace and facebook have replaced friendster as the hot social networking site. youtube appeared, google bought youtube, and now google is being sued for one beeeeeelleeon dollars by viacom. but more on point, george w. bush is persona non grata. santorum got a thumping and was voted out of office. and saying the word "f*ggot" will get you sent to rehab or cause michelle malkin to disassociate herself from you.

and, listen carefully, even the REPUBLICAN senator from VIRGINIA, in response to general pace's statement that homosexuality is "immoral", issued a statement that he "strongly disagreed" with pace's remark. he said this before clinton ducked the question.

what does clinton have to lose?

weak. deplorable. sad. pathetic.

i'm getting more and more disappointed in hillary each day.

another sampling of headlines from today's new york lawyer newsletter

Lawyer Wants Anna Nicole Smith's Partner's DNA

Judge Says O.J. Simpson Can't Have Cash From Book, TV Deal

Lindsay Lohan's Dad Released From Prison

Man Tells Cops Unicorn's Bad Driving Caused Crash

Woman Sues After Reality Show Raid by Celebrities LaToya Jackson and Jack Osbourne

love this guy.

music critics are stupid and pointless.

----

i'll drink starbucks if i want, you stupid hippies!

----

you're probably not an artist.

----

omg. snarkalicious!

another 90s staple bites the dust.

before there were blogs, there were zines. in the early to mid 90s, zines seemed to pop up like cold sores during winter exam season. anyone with access to paper, glue, and a xerox machine could start a zine, and many high school students, college students and the first 20-something gen-x slackers decided to postpone adulthood by putting out zines and playing in post-grunge bands that sucked. it was a great time in history.

stay free!, one of the most well-known zines and one which has (or had, at some point) a worldwide circulation is soon to be no more.

stay free was not originally a nyc magazine. it actually started out in my little hometown, chapel hill, north carolina during the time i was in high school. i know this to be a fact, because i saw issues lying around in carrboro when i would go to the cat's cradle, and back then, the zine was mostly about the local music scene in north carolina. (back then, people were buzzing about chapel hill being "the new seattle" or something, although, in retrospect, i don't get what was so great about it. 99% of chapel hill bands were lo-fi doo doo. in my present state of mind, i would totally find those bands annoying and their fans annoying too. but i digress.) i also remember it for another reason: "stay free" is also a brand of feminine hygiene products, and i'm immature, so it stuck with me. (update: apparently, that's where the editor got the name...)

anyway, in law school, one of my law professors distributed stay free! issue 20 - the copyright issue in class, and much to my surprise, i learned that the magazine had moved to brooklyn, and people considered it a nyc magazine.

well, that's that. zines are dead. but from the stumps of past trends come new ideas, new media channels, new art forms. from the grave of zines, blogs have risen.

what's next?

sign o' the times.

rock and roll hall of fame inducts first hip-hop artist the same year hip-hop is declared dead.

unintentional hilarity?

a current headline on CNN.com: "Danny Bonaduce mocks O'Donnell's harness"

i can't view the content, because our work computers don't stream certain types of internet video properly, so i'll just giggle at the headline and imagine danny bonaduce thrown over a desk with rosie o'donnell standing behind him, um, wearing a harness. and danny bonaduce scoffing, "wow, that's tiny!"

YES, I WENT THERE. HAVE A NICE EVENING.

Freud Would Have A Field Day

last night, i dreamed that i stuck a barbie doll's head up my butt.

metro.pop

most fashion magazines suck. magazines like vogue serve no purpose other than to pad anna wintour's pockets and make my eyes glaze over. i don't quite understand why vogue has such a wide circulation. besides the partners in my law firm, i know maybe two or three people who can consistently buy clothes at barney's new york or neiman marcus, and their families either own a hedge fund or have mafia connections um, own a bunch of trucking lots in brooklyn. gucci, prada, blah blah blah. sure, if someone wants to give me prada shoes, i won't object, but pretty much everything in mainstream fashion magazines is out of my price range, and besides, i'm more of a comfy clothes sort of gal. i'm not one to suffer for fashion. no heels for me.

last month i discovered metro.pop. it was an unintended discovery. i was waiting for a friend and barnes and noble. this is nothing new. everyone in the tri-state area seems to run on "fuck it" time, as in "fuck it, it'll be 3 o'clock when i say it's 3 o'clock" time. so i started flipping through magazines, and i picked up metro.pop. the first page i landed on was an ad for the miharayasuhiro for puma line. i've run across that line before surfing the puma site, and although it was a little expensive for my tastes, i appreciated that a sneaker line would collaborate with a designer for upscale sneakers. fabulous and comfortable! my kind of thing.

people in nyc should get into comfy clothes. after all, we don't drive. we walk everywhere. i don't understand the girls who run around in ice and 20 degree weather with exposed knees and three inch heels.

anyway, i kept flipping the magazine and saw spreads featuring clothes everywhere from h&m (cheap!) to ben sherman (okay to purchase on payday!) to new upcoming designers (runs the gamut) to rogan (ridiculously expensive, but totally affordable when they have sample sales). some might be a little expensive but not completely out of reach. (it was where i discovered wrath arcane.i ordered some of their clothes over the phone, and it was amusing to hear the designer seem almost apologetic for selling a shirt for $28. 28 BUCKS?! why the hell are you being sheepish?! in nyc that's a STEAL.) plus, although appears to be a snotty hipster magazine, the articles were really down to earth and matter of fact. even the reviews of restaurants and indie bands were devoid of attitude.

i'm sad i missed the denim issue. if there is one thing i'm willing to drop money on, it's denim. (don't laugh!) my fiancee thinks i'm nuts as well. but we've agreed that each of us can have her respective vices. she's willing to drop $150 on dinner every few months, and i'm willing to drop $150 on a pair jeans every few months. (the fact that you shit out your dinner the next day but you can wear jeans for years and years is lost on her, but i digress!) after slogging around in boring office clothes all week, jeans are my staple on the weekends. my jeans and my casual blazers and hoodies are my "good" clothes. (plus, it's the staple for the lez bars. i've seen lezzies out with $200 mike and chris hoodies, which i also love, but if i get another vice, (1) my otherwise extremely frugal fiancee will kill me and (2) my cheap asian guilt will kick in.)

my take on metro.pop: four out of five stars. their tagline is, appropriately, "the fashion magazine for the rest of us."

p.s. if you're into designer streetwear, check out oki-ni. they're having a sale.

"get a clue, i'll go alanis morrisette on you!"

from the guy who did the "shoes" video:



you can't text message break-up!

(p.s. is that margaret cho?!)

(p.p.s. why, yes it is!)

Holy Crap

this is deeply disturbing.

shoes!

just saw this video on logo. absolutely hysterical.



(ooh, and the christina aguilera video, "candyman," that's on right now is surprisingly good. yes, i've been out of the loop. been working way too many hours.)

R.I.P. JdJive

The administrators of JdJive, have shut down the site and are selling the JdJive.com domain name on eBay. Although it contained countless trolls, the only forum for "the rest of us" has now gone the way of the dodo. Often offensive, often revolting, it was the only place where, hidden in the trolling, attorneys who did not graduate from top schools could get realistic advice.

My law school published statistics that said that 97% of us would be employed six months after graduation and that attorneys in the private sector would be making over $90,000. This turned out to be a fabrication. Well, it was a huge stretch from the truth. Around 50% of us were temping six months after graduation, often in short term projects, some as short as two weeks. JdJive was the only place with realistic statistics.

I don't know how I feel about JdJive's demise. Although I found a lot of the posts distasteful, it was the only place where a person could get the cold hard truth about employment prospects and insiders' views on law schools and law firms.

Now I don't know how I feel about xoxohth.

Tough call. I guess those framers of the Constitution were rock stars when they wrote the First Amendment.

I guess you don't know what you got 'til it's gone...

(Psst... A secret. I wrote the definition for JdJive on UrbanDictionary.)

bug?

daylight savings will arrive three weeks early. change your clocks forward this weekend. but will computers, which were programmed to set their clocks automatically, get the memo? a law passed in 2005 changed the date of daylight savings, which goes into effect this weekend, and computers had originally been programmed to switch on the old date.

if you run windows xp or lower, go here to make sure the transition is smooth.

if you have an ipod, sync it to your computer after the changes have taken effect and it will automatically reset.

if you have windows mobile, a patch is available online.

rumblings from a cult stock.

CMGI, the leper of the tech stocks, is set to "BUY."

CMGI rode the crest of the wave of the tech boom until it crashed.

once trading near $200 a share in 2000, CMGI screamed downwards to less than a dollar a share. as recently as august, 2006 it hovered below a dollar.

no one would touch it. analysts, who used to wet themselves just to talk about it, wouldn't cover it. it was a nonentity.

but now people are taking notice again. CMGI has been profitable in the last two quarters, and has a viable business plan other than "let's throw lots of darts with a blindfold on and see if we hit a bullseye!" then a leading hedge fund started snapping up shares. analysts started chattering about it again.

will CMGI get a second chance?

update: the rumble gets louder.

artery clogging goodness.

sometimes you just want to chow down on something bad for you. something that you would normally feel nauseated just thinking about.

now is one of those times.

i just whipped together something i shall dub "jerky scrapple."

i discovered scrapple in the last year when traveling to my fiancee's mother's house in south jersey. i saw it on a menu and, because i'm an adventurous eater, ordered it without knowing what it was. scrapple is basically a block of greasy leftover meat products. it's commonly served in philadelphia as a breakfast food. strangely enough, it has less fat than a regular hot dog. and even stranger, when fried to a crisp, it is damn good.

here's the recipe:

slice of scrapple.
egg.
west indian hot sauce (anything containing mango, habanero or scotch bonnet peppers, and ginger)

fry the scrapple to a crisp in a cast iron skillet. fry egg - keep the yolk runny. toss over scrapple. and then spoon hot sauce over the pile.

mmm mmm good.

if you eat this for the rest of your life, you will probably die sooner rather than later. but for tonight, it was good. i will probably wake up in the middle of the night with heartburn, but i'm quite satisfied at the moment. :D

break from politics.

lately, political discourse has been especially mean. and i'm being mean. and that's not nice.

so, like the APs "paris hilton embargo," the next week will be politics-free for me!

o.k.

another ill-conceived marketing ploy a la o.k. cola?

um, what's the point?

i have no problem with outing closet cases if they directly harm gay rights by spewing anti-gay rhetoric. for example, ted haggard. those people deserve to be outed. but why the glee in outing a guy whose aim is simply to get more respect for the military? sure, he's kissing up to pinheads like hannity, o'reilly, and even she-who-must-not-be-named, but on a matter that might be incidental to gay rights, but does not go to the heart of gay rights.

outing people like sanchez and posting uncensored photos of him in his porn days and calling him "dirty sanchez" is just unnecessary and juvenile. and it shows a lack of focus. what i've seen so far are conservatives rallying to his side, praising him on being a changed man, and disparaging the left as hate-filled. is that what you wanted? ugh. and on the heels of coultergeist too... any legitimacy the left gained from coulter opening her mouth and being herself may have been put into question.

tell me... how is posting his contact information, his hardcore gay porn shoots that he did FIFTEEN YEARS AGO when he was college-aged, any different from the crazy bastards who posted the contact information and photographs of the law school women on xoxohth? the guy has been getting threats for crying out loud, and since he is poised and unapologetic, he looks like a martyr for the right.

i'm not even going to name the source. i read you every day, but you're on link embargo today! :-P

a bigger victory.

major online ad agency cuts anncoulter.com off it's network. yes, this might seem like any other update, but this development is much more newsworthy (and painful to ann coulter) than individual advertisers pulling their ads.

the kos blogger who started the campaign posted the individual advertisers first, then the ad agencies buried in the end of his post. i thought this wasn't the most effective format, but hey, i'm not going to push.

although it might seem exciting to hear advertisers like verizon and mitsubishi pulling out, when individual advertisers pull out, it's like pulling leaves off a tree one by one. as long as the ad agency is serving ads, other people's ads will continue to appear.

but if the ad agency itself pulls out, ALL advertisers using their service have effectively been pulled. instead of lopping off leaves, you've lopped off a large branch.

want to unroot the tree? contact the william morris agency and/or the hosting service of the website.

i'm just sayin'...

Reason #405572633228356236 I'm A Feminist

whiny, assholes with an over-developed sense of entitlement: you aren't hot or sexy or even likeable because you treat women like shit and brag about your failure to respect their personal boundaries. you're emotionally 2 years old and are still obsessed with how good it feels when mommy wipes your ass.

how depressing.

Cost of living calculator.

Salary in New York (Manhattan) NY: $75,000
Comparable salary in Omaha NE: $31,822.5

If you move from New York (Manhattan) NY to Omaha NE...

Groceries will cost: 39.903% less
Housing will cost: 79.679% less
Utilities will cost: 43.794% less
Transportation will cost: 19.584% less
Healthcare will cost: 26.667% less

Salary in Omaha NE: $225,000
Comparable salary in New York (Manhattan) NY: $530,285.23

If you move from Omaha NE to New York (Manhattan) NY...

Groceries will cost: 66.397% more
Housing will cost: 392.105% more
Utilities will cost: 77.918% more
Transportation will cost: 24.354% more
Healthcare will cost: 36.364% more

eh, declining med school was still worth it. i think.

Bankruptcy Reform

kos has a good post up about why the credit card companies wanted bankruptcy reform. it wasn't because they were being defrauded by people abusing bankruptcy protection. it was because they wanted to be protected from their irresponsible extension of credit to bad credit risks. the democrats who voted for that bill were handsomely rewarded with contributions from the credit industry.

they're coming!

evangelicals - namely the southern baptists - find new target to destroy: giuliani, the republican frontrunner.

why? he had a messy divorce.

this is yet another example of the disconnect with reality from which fundamentalists and social conservatives are suffering. instead of bringing far-reaching social or economic concerns to light, they concentrate of stupid things like family squabbles and sexual infidelity, things that should only matter to those persons involved. the general public does not need to get involved, or care.

if you want to attack giuliani, attack his policies, such as his "yawn!" and "PFFTTTPPTHH!!!" attitude towards the new york city public school system and his indifference to the collateral damage of his (albeit successful) crusade to rid new york city of crime (google "louima and diallo").

the fact that socio-cons continue to obsess over a candidate's sex life, to the exclusion of matters of public concern, shows that they have divorced themselves from public debate.

Best Bug Ever

every now and then, i indulge my fantasy of building a bleeding edge test-based VR engine, or more colloquially, a MUD engine. development of open source text-based VR engines pretty much came to a grinding halt about 5-6 years ago. i'd love to be the person who revives the genre. sometimes, i allow myself to putter around the internet, poking my nose into old MUD development mailing list archives and skimming through source code for applications that haven't been touched in years because it allows me to entertain the silly notion that i might actually have enough time on my hands to develop something like that.

today, i trawled through a collection of articles about MUD design written by a pioneer of MUD development. the ever-present challenge of building a text-based world is to make the virtual world interesting and somewhat realistic. it was in an article about dealing with this challenge that i found this:

Closing Thoughts... On Food

I'm sure I've run way over my intended length this week, but there's one more topic that I can't let lie: food. I said at the start that a lot of gamedev and programming work this week has gone into objects. The gamedev work has been about creating all the objects needed for plots in the game. Someday we're going to have a large library of objects, and it's going to be easier for developers to make their games, but today we're still forming the basis of that library – so there's a lot of work to be done.

The programming work has gone into – food. If you ate food in the castle in the first few weeks, you probably noticed that you typed "eat croissant" (substitute your favorite Marrach delicacy), a pleasing message appeared ("You eat the croissant.") and then the food was gone. Nice and simple, but a bit hard on the cooks trying to keep up with the players.

So wconnell, one of our engineers, started working on an advanced food system, so that when you took a bite, you just ate part of the food. The first draft of the system involved the mass of a piece of food decreasing by about 10% when a bite was taken.

Or at least that was the theory...

There was a minor mistake in the coding somewhere and as a result whenever someone took a bite of food, their food got bigger... by about 10x. We had one character trapped in the dining hall after she'd eaten a bit too much of her roll. We had a slice of white cheese that grew to be larger than the entire castle. It was chaos.

We giggled about it for hours.

Sometimes this job is kind of weird.

...more...

still beating the horse.

great piece by andrew sullivan on foul-mouthed goldilocks.

easiest drug bust ever.

cop to second cop: well, gee... aren't we glad we have donuts on us already. we have munchie food already, and the pot just came to us!

this got lost in coultergate.

conservative radio show host michael savage gets the boot from mega-agency CAA after his homophobic rants against melissa etheridge, saying among other things that two women together makes him want to "puke" (um, are you sure you're straight, mikey?!) and that a gay couple raising children is "child abuse." he is was the number three conservative host behind rush limbaugh and sean hannity.

one thing of note: melissa etheridge is also repped by CAA.

if you are CAA, are you going to choose between a glamorous multiplatinum record selling artist with a twenty-years-and-counting recording career, spokeswoman for cancer survivors, not to mention a two-time grammy winner, and now an oscar winner -- or a dumpy b-list conservative radio host?

no contest.

yes, it helps to be successful. and fabulous. (hey, public service: gay and minority kids... stay in school and make lots of money!) you can't touch ellen. you can't touch oprah. and you can't touch melissa. you go girl!

update: fox stands behind coulter. coulter's agency, the other mega-agency william morris, is silent.

Coultergeist Again

pam has a great post at pandagon about ms. coulter and her claim that 'faggot' isn't offensive to gays.

frigid.

from weather.com:

18 degrees. with wind chill, feels like 0 degrees.

there is coffee just around the corner. but is it worth it? should i just sit here in a stupor instead?

discuss.

trivia!

one more thing before i go to bed. i just learned something ten seconds ago.

"of the 43 men who have held the reins of the american presidency, only one, ronald reagan, had ever been divorced."

the conservatives' idol.

take from it what you will. :)

addendum.

emily1 pointed out that some of ann coulter's advertisers have pulled their ads. now i'd like to take a few seconds to point out how ms. coulter is all about the free market. (read the entire thing. just divorce yourself from the fact that it is ann coulter'a column, and you'd swear it was satire.) what are you gonna do when market forces work against you?

omg dilemma!

(for the record, although i generally think ann coulter is vile, her last column about global warming wasn't all that terrible... for ann coulter. i'll admit i agree the glitterati are divorced from the realities of regular folks, and a person who can afford a mansion lecturing someone with limited means to use their money for socially conscious endeavors when they can't afford it is rude and hypocritical. and i did catch her vague articulation of the undercurrent of disdain and snobbery rich liberals have about people who live in suburbia, branding them as "tacky" and gauche, which is something i ranted about before. but the implication that one only has a choice between "hybrid cars" v. "SUV"s shows that she is part of the glitterati she pretends to despise. what? she's never heard of cars like the honda civic, a non-hybrid economy car that gets 44 miles per gallon on the highway, and costs as low as $15k? please. and of course, there's the usual hyperbolic nonsense.)

i'm going to stop. bah, it's too easy.

Gentrification Hurts Sometimes

although it has been a long while since i came home to find someone smoking crack in the entryway to my apartment building, there are a lot of things i miss about the 'old' central square. actually, i miss most of it. i don't miss the trash on the streets, the drunken street brawls that used to wake me up at 5:00 am, or the packs of college kids/local youths who used to throw up everywhere and pee on lots of stuff while drunk and/or high. those things were tolerable annoyances i gladly endured.

i'm happy that the longtime residents of the area enjoyed an economic boost because of central square's status as a hot neighborhood. my landlord's family has owned their property since the 1920s or 1930s. rent control made it difficult to generate a profit renting apartments, but they stuck it out. now, they earn a steady profit by renting their apartments at below market rates.

i know i'm part of the wave of gentrification that has transformed the neighborhood and that makes me sad too. it's a predictable cycle -- a wave of young people in their twenties gravitate towards a neighborhood because of the low rents. some are in college, but many are not. as a whole, they're whiter than the current residents. then the yuppies move in. trendiness sets in. rents rise.

i can only claim casual nostalgia for what i remember of a gentrified neighborhood. i'm part of the gentrification. it's a lot more painful for some with a long history in a community undergoing gentrification.

HRC speaks to the HRC.

weak.

"I am proud to stand by your side," Clinton said in a keynote speech Friday to the Human Rights Campaign. Neither Clinton's campaign nor her Senate office made any announcement that she would be making the Friday address.

Asked twice at a Monday campaign stop in Iowa why she did not publicize her speech to the group, Clinton said: "You'll have to ask my campaign."

well, i'll give a tepid response of "think of it as a glass half full rather than a glass half empty i guess."

green is the new trend in fashion.

a new clothing line from... cleveland? ready to launch in nyc in a couple of months, but for now, check out wrath arcane's fall 2006 line (no, you're not supposed to wear the cloth over your face - that's a political statement that i won't get into right now), which is only available if you go to cleveland, or beg online. ;) i can't help but notice that the line is slightly reminiscent of DDC Lab, with its color scheme (and even the little red square). but DDC Lab can get a little too bizarre and eurotrash for my tastes. i'd actually wear most of wrath arcane's stuff.

anyway, the trend in fashion - from new underground labels - to established labels like levi's has been heading towards eco-friendliness, anti-sweatshop and/or general sustainability. wrath arcane, like american apparel did in L.A., intends to open its own factory in the U.S. i meant to write about the trend towards making social consciousness sexy at some point, but i could never get my act together. anywhere, i'll just link to this CNN article, because i'm too lazy.

sure, you're going to pay a premium, because it's more expensive to pay people an honest wage to make your clothes, and it's more expensive to use organic cotton, but if you make socially conscious clothing hip, fashionable, and place them in the luxury goods category, vanity will take over, and people will buy them. people buy them because they're fabulous, and they also get to brag that they're being socially conscious as well.

also, a friend of mine is involved in this charity, which he said stands out because the focus is to make charity sexy. (his words, not mine.) they revamped the website, hired a designer for the labels, and are courting various hip channels. and look at the "red" campaign for AIDS in africa. sleek clothes and gadgets in red marketed by the gap, motorola, etc. (note: this campaign, although ubiquitous, wasn't that successful. i think it's because red is too bright a color to wear most of the time...)

marrying social consciousness with vanity and sex appeal is the way to go. it may not seem pure, but who cares if the result is achieved. gone is the day of the image of the "smelly crunchy anti-capitalist hippie." now if you want to be socially conscious, you go to barney's and buy a $150 pair of loomstate jeans created by rogan gregory.

fetus in fetu.

here's something to explain what i wrote in the tags of the last post. for those who didn't take embryology: fetus in fetu.

the gift that is ann coulter.

the more she talks, the more ridiculous the right wing looks. the top three republican contenders scramble and sweat, denouncing her remarks. a townhall (conservative portal) blogger calls it "idiotic. disgusting. stupid. moronic." even some right wing christians have vocally denounced her verbal flatulence.

the great thing is that the ann coulter brand is, in the eyes of the public, so intertwined with right wing politics that no amount of denouncing her will completely erase the connection. and knowing ann coulter, she won't back down. she won't tone down her moonbat psychotic ranting. it is a GOOD thing that the public associates her with mainstream republican thought. because as she gets increasingly more loony, people will be turned off by what they perceive to be mainstream republican politics. in fact, the majority, or at least the plurality of republicans and independents seem to be gravitating towards giuliani and away from the "god, guns and gays" crowd. and we know what coulter thinks of giuliani... oh yes! she actually DISSED him publicly, the republican frontrunner, the one who appeals to a broad base, at CPAC! if she is perceived to be the barometer of right wing thought, most right wingers will be viewed as lunatics. please, ann! keep talking! the more you talk, the more you energize all but the most theocratic fascists to vote against anyone associated with your platform.

look, edwards is going to raise $100,000 because ann coulter opened her mouth! ann coulter's big mouth is the best gift for anyone who doesn't fall into the category of the "christian right".

update: this kos diarist agrees. however, one of the commenters is under the impression that ann coulter's act is... well... merely an act and compares her to andy kaufman (thereby insulting andy kaufman).

another update: a small but growing contingent of moderate freepers, who had been systematically dismissed as "trolls" or even worse, are becoming increasingly vocal about socio-cons and useless windbags like coulter.

Speaking Of Edgy Humor

david neiwert has some thoughtful things to say about coulter dropping the epithet 'faggot' at the most recent CPAC conference.

Incomprehensible Behavior Of Software

i am at work trying to finish a test case that i've been writing for three days. after i finished a series of extensive and time-consuming improvements to the test case, i noticed that the outline table for the test case repeats the first page of rows about sixty times. normally, this would be easy to fix: select repeated rows and delete. however, microsoft words feels like being ornery today. i cannot select the rows. clicking all over the sixty extra pages appears to be useless because i can't place the cursor in any of the repeated rows. selecting only the first page and deleting those rows also deletes all the repeated rows.

i deleted the entire outline and replaced it with a copy of the outline from an earlier version of the test case. i continued making changes to the test case and noticed that the problem had returned. i used the Undo function until the i found the action that caused the first page of the outline to repeat sixty times: deleting rows from the outline. not that it makes any sense, but that's what happens. instead of screaming, i decided to bitch about it on this blog. now, i have to open an empty test case template and recreate the test case by hand. this blows.

happy friday.

good luck to those who took the bar this week. i leave you with a post about sharting during the bar exam.

The state of "newsworthiness."

An internal memo circulated at the Associated Press to ban all reporting on Paris Hilton is leaked to the public. A collective "Aw nah they di'int!" reverberates through the media world.

After a couple of weeks of the Paris Hilton news embargo, AP issues an explanation.

News media all over the country take note that even ignoring Paris Hilton makes news.