Arabs? Israelis? Hey, they're all

Arabs? Israelis? Hey, they're all from the Middle East, so if they're here in the US, lock 'em up, says the FBI according to this Washington Post article. Somebody's going to get their butt kicked over this screwup.

Another signpost that nanotechnology --

Another signpost that nanotechnology -- in one form or another -- is coming: Researchers build tiny computer from DNA. I first heard this story on the BBC. The end of the report said something like "...experts agree that practical applications are still several decades away." Heh. Several decades? I don't believe that. With few exceptions (controlled fusion is the one that first comes to mind), technologies usually take less time to become viable than the so-called experts predict.

We like a particular station

We like a particular station on Live 365 called Triple A Radio, which plays a good mix of music for old farts like us. They like to throw in some unusual stuff from time to time. Right now, they're playing the U2 song "One" -- done by Johnny Cash! Followed by Warren Zevon. Coooool.

New link here: BitStream. Thanks!

New link here: BitStream. Thanks!

Inadvertent Marketing Mistakes: I got

Inadvertent Marketing Mistakes: I got email from Amazon today that said, "Dear Tom, As someone who has purchased films directed by Michael Bay..." and then went on to pitch a purchase of Pearl Harbor. Well, it's true, I did once purchase a Michael Bay movie; it was Armageddon, a movie so bad that I: a) apologized to Dori for asking her to watch it (though Sean thought it was cool), and b) gave the DVD away. So it's not very likely that I'll be buying another Bay DVD. I've learned my lesson.

The Economist published An election

The Economist published An election correction. Thanks for the apology, but I admit that I still feel inconvenienced.

From a mailing list I'm

From a mailing list I'm on:

Windows XP also supports a new feature called dual view that lets you use your LCD as one display and a monitor plugged into your monitor port as a second display.

Babies, babies, babies! In general,

Babies, babies, babies!

In general, babies are cute: Ian, born Oct. 21.

In our opinion, though, babies born to people who can hire us are cuter: Jamie, born Nov. 7.

But cutest of all are the babies we're related to: Lauren, born Nov. 18. Say hi to our new great-niece! (and yes, that phrase does make us feel really darned old)

OS X for Legacy Macs

OS X for Legacy Macs with Unsupported UtilityX. Yep, you folks with (some) pre-G3 Macs can now run OS X 10.1... very, v e r y   s l o w l y... (Via Tara)

A followup to last night's

A followup to last night's gripe about The Secret Santa Project and Amazon's wishlists: someone wrote to tell me that the Secret Santa folks have it set up so you specify a particular wishlist, so I wouldn't have a problem. Cool, says I, so I go to Amazon to add everything I still want from both wishlists into the one that I can access.

Before I complained yesterday, I checked to see if it was still the case that I had two wishlists, and I did. But today, when I went to get the items off my old wishlist, it was gone. Overall, that's a good thing, but the timing was rather interesting. Is someone from Amazon reading this blog? If so, I've got a few questions for you...

Anyhow, I've now joined up as a Secret Santa. And if you want to get me something, feel free to check it out (and if you buy me the TiBook, I promise I'll be your best friend!).

Just changing the colors isn't

Just changing the colors isn't enough to hide that you've "borrowed" your site design from someone else.

What he said.

What he said.

Someone nice invited me to

Someone nice invited me to join to be a Secret Santa, but I can't because that @#$%^ Amazon screwed up my wishlist. Or, more accurately, screwed up my wishlists--I now have two of them, one of which I can't access. And so, I can't join the Secret Santa program, because I don't know which of the two lists anyone would find. Grrr. But thanks for the thought!

I took the The Great

I took the The Great Gadget Quiz and pretended that I was Tom. Hey, honey, you're a Gadget Guru (shocked, aren't you?). How many PDAs do you have, anyway? (via DanSays)

I've received a bunch of

I've received a bunch of feedback, both on the web and via email, about my comments yesterday about Jake and his mom.

One of the most fascinating bits of the feedback is how it's broken down: if you're a parent, you agreed with me. If you're not, you agreed with Jake.

As I see it, we all agree that the teacher was an idiot. If you disagree with this, let me know; I'd be fascinated to know why. Anyhow, let's take that as a given.

Where I differ from the non-breeders is that I think that Jake's parents (in Dori-world, parents are the ones responsible for making sure their kids are educated) mishandled the situation. His mother could have done any number of things; what she chose to do was to verbally spank the teacher. While I'm sure that was tremendously satisfying at the time to both Jake and his mother, I don't see that it actually succeeded in teaching Jake anything of value.

When you're a parent, you understand (or at least you should) that everything is a learning experience when you're dealing with your kids. And so, this would have been an excellent chance to teach your child something, anything, about how the world works.

It could have been a lesson in make-work (as I talked about yesterday). It could have been a lesson in dealing with authority figures. It could have been a lesson in dealing with ignorant people who want you to jump through stupid hoops. Lord knows, there's enough of that going on in the world today; might as well start learning how to handle it early.

Jake's mom didn't make it a chance to learn, for whatever lesson she would have liked to make of it. And personally, I think that that made it a lost opportunity.

Dean Allen on How to

Dean Allen on How to Prepare Oatmeal.

Alton Brown on How to make Steel Cut Oatmeal.

Alton Brown on How to make Overnight Oatmeal.

Alton Brown on How to make Haggis.

Looking for a holiday present

Looking for a holiday present for that hard-to-shop-for math geek? Check out Au Chocolat's Hazelnut Math Truffles. I suppose that you might guess that they're not far from MIT, but they'll deliver.

Jim Garbern figured out how

Jim Garbern figured out how to make a Ericsson T28 World phone work with a IrDA equipped Mac. We've got both of these, so all we need to make it work is this modem.

BTW, the good news/bad news about this phone: it worked great in Italy and Turkey. It didn't work at all in Alaska. And of course, that is where we'd really get some use out of the connectivity.

I hate it when I

I hate it when I feel superior, only to discover I was wrong. I've sometimes seen people use the word "whinge," and I always thought that they were simply misspelling "whine." Annoyingly, from Virginia Postrel's blog, I discover that "whinge" is a real word after all. But it does mean the same thing. And it's a Britishism.

Unsurprisingly, Dave missed the point

Unsurprisingly, Dave missed the point of my rant, below. Does he think that Wes should drop out of college just because he had to do make-work? Sorry, but for those of us who live in the real world, it's a simple fact of life. Learn to live with it early on; learn to manage it; learn how to avoid it; learn its uses; you'll be a much happier person.

OTOH, I did do some thinking after reading what Dave wrote, and came to one easy conclusion: the minute I have to work for someone else, I'll stop blogging. Yeccch... the thought that I'd have to censor my words because I can't say certain things... I'd rather shut up entirely. (And if you think that there's never disagreements with your employees, cow-orkers, or bosses that can't be spoken about publicly, well, I'd like to live on your planet.) (Actually, no, I wouldn't, come to think about it; it'd be fairly dull.)

Several other people have blogged

Several other people have blogged about this today, and my take on this is so 180 degrees off from everyone else's that I feel a need to put my two cents in.

Jake told a story about how, when he was in 4th grade, his teacher assigned him a make-work assignment on outlines. He correctly identified it as make-work, and complained to his teacher and mother. His mother decided that her little boy was too wonderful to have to do make-work, and descended on the teacher to tell her so, in no uncertain terms.

Net result: according to Jake, he hated outlines for years. From what I read in his piece, he also still believes that, just because he's smarter than the other kids, he shouldn't have to do the same work other kids do.

IMO, this would have been a great chance for his mother to teach him about the importance of make-work in this society. It's a useful skill, and learning it earlier would, I'm sure, have helped him later in life. Wes makes the point that make-work described about half of his college experience. So, wouldn't it have been a help to have Jake learn how to handle this situation early?

Anyhow, this all ties in with the rant about home vs. public schooling I wrote several months ago. So long as you don't understand what you're in public school to learn, you're going to struggle to learn its lessons. And if you don't learn those lessons early on, you're going to keep getting them over and over in your life until you do learn them.

Via Metafilter, Symbol Making is

Via Metafilter, Symbol Making is an article from the NYT on the genesis of the biohazard symbol. I'd always wondered.

For some reason, we're getting

For some reason, we're getting more feedback about our "Good Eats" links than anything else in a while. So, I'm not sure how we missed this one: Macworld Q&A with Alton Brown.


Oh yeah, and Iron Chef USA really, truly sucked.