Mis-targeted spam

One of the things that I just don't understand is niche spam that's sent out to people who clearly aren't in that niche. For example, I've somehow gotten on both the "African-American Singles" and the "Christians in debt" spam lists. I'm not sure which of the two that I'm less qualified for, but the spam keeps coming.

And as I just used the word "debt," given that when Tom mentioned stem cell research the other day we started getting all kinds of bizarre semi-related Google AdSense ads, I figured that I'd just add my own plug here for Real-Life-Debt.com, run by the multi-talented Dave Taylor.

Angel's end

Well, drat it. The minute I start to like a TV show, it goes and get cancelled: It's Over in Five for Angel. It's hard to believe that a man as talented as Joss Whedon went from three shows active at the beginning of the '02 season to nothing for '04. Maybe he'll just have to put his full effort into getting a movie into production or something...

Classic Arts Showcase

I think that I've mentioned before that I'm involved with Access Healdsburg, the local community cable access station. This week, we started broadcasting a variety of programming from different satellite feeds (we've got Dish Network and a Big Ugly Dish for C-Band and Ku-Band), such as NASA TV, the Annenburg Channel for educational shows, and Classic Arts Showcase, which is best described as MTV for classical music, dance, and film. Some of it is really out there. I saw one modern dance piece today that I described to Dori as "The Dance of the Queer Postmodern German Letter Carrier." Imagine Mike Meyer's Dieter character prancing about the stage carrying an envelope while four other identically-dressed guys (the Dieter-ettes?) dance backup. It was classically weird.

Lucy Alert

A note for our Portland, OR friends: one of our favorite singers, Lucy Kaplansky, will be playing in your town on March 19. I just got her new release, The Red Thread; it's very good.

Human cloning arrives

This story, Scientists Claim Cloning Success, shows how foolish and ineffective the Bush administration's attempted slowdown of cloning research has been. South Korean researchers have sucessfully cloned human embryos and extracted a new line of stem cells for research into disease. This demonstrates that the moralists who are running the US government's efforts to stop cloning are, and always have been, doomed to failure. Trying to stop scientific progress by political means is like trying to bail water with a fork. Perhaps they can slow or even stop research in the US, but they can't stop it everywhere. And let's speculate for a moment. If a cure for diabetes or Parkinson's is developed from this, do these same moralists expect to ban it from US patients? Even if they were to make it illegal to provide these cures in the US, do they expect to stop people from going abroad?

Interactive Tele-Journalism

While it was only one part of a larger session today, the talk about Interactive Tele-Journalism was the one place where I was wishing that Tom was here. Tom, check this out—it sounds like something that might intrigue you.

ex-VA Tech G5's for sale

Remember when Virginia Tech made a waaay fast super-computer out of stock Mac G5's? When VA Tech recently announced that they were going to move to Xserve's, I said that there were going to be a whole lot of lightly-used towers for sale for some lucky folks. It appears that VA Tech cut a deal with MacMall, and "those lucky folks" could be you: Apple Refurbished Power Mac G5 Dual Processor 2.0GHz G5 SuperDrive System Only *No Modem*. MacMall's selling them for $2799. If the Macs were new, they'd go for $3220.

Still in the fight

Joe Trippi is still blogging, but now over at Change for America. Check it out.

Dori's been a bad, bad girl...

David Weinberger reports on Liz Lawley's eTech talk, Breaking out of the boy's club: How diversifying your team can expand your market. Three guesses who was the bitch who said "When women ask me if they should go into technical fields, I say absolutely not. Once you're 35, it's almost impossible to be employed any more. It has more to do with being old than being female."

If you're hiring, here's a tip: if your group is part white, part black, part asian, part indian, 1/2 female, and entirely 22 years old, your group is not diverse.

I'm so tired of this crap, but it always makes me the bad guy to bring it up.

Later note: this isn't just about me; this is about role models. There aren't enough women in the tech biz to be role models for the youngsters now. The solution isn't to throw girls into the pit hoping that the pit will someday fill up; the solution is to work on increasing the numbers of older women (i.e., over 35) in the field, and then the role model problem solves itself. Any cry of "we need to get more girls into the schools/entry level jobs" doesn't answer the question. Imo, it just shows that you don't even understand the question.

Clark's out

AP says that Clark Exits Presidential Bid After Losses. While this can't help but be good for Dean, I'm thinking about Cam, who's about to be out of a job. Hey Cam, do any of these sound like something that'd suit?

QOTD

Quote of the day, from Talking Points Memo:

Given the president's record as a businessman, and since he's now run the country hopelessly into debt, isn't it about time he sells the country off to some rich friends who will swallow the loss so he can move on to greener pastures?

Willow designs closing

My name is Dori, and I'm a laptop bag addict...

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I can mention that (bad news) Willow Design (makers of cool laptop bags) is closing their doors, and (good news) they're having a final closeout sale.

Unsurprisingly, all sales are final. The prices aren't bad, so if you haven't been told by your SO not to buy any more laptop bags, check 'em out.

Roomba! Roomba! Roomba!

I can't believe I'm sitting in a technology conference and watching a presentation about a vacuum cleaner. And even worse, it's making me want one.

Top three reasons for me to get a Roomba:

1. It has a remote control, so Tom might actually use it.
2. It'd be a hoot to watch the cat react to it.
3. Oh yeah, it does a pretty good job of cleaning both hardwood and carpeted floors.

Wi-Fi galore!

When I picked out a hotel in San Diego, I went for price over features. In particular, I didn't bother trying to find a place with broadband or Wi-Fi, as I figured I'd have plenty of access at the conference.

So it was a surprise tonight when I got back to the hotel room, opened my laptop, and found that it was able to easily latch onto a network. A quick walk around the room (and it's not that big a room) turned up twelve access points, only three of which had WEP turned on.

So it's a relief to read this article and find out that the NY Times' Ethicist says that it's okay to freeload on a local hot spot, so long as you don't abuse it. I'll be sleeping well tonight... or at least I will after a little bit of surfing.

Blogging eTech

If you want to know what's going on at eTech, don't depend just on me. There's some other blogging going on here, some session notes here, and I have to mention the obligatory Joy of Tech comic.

I Feel Great

Every great day begins with a great breakfast. After you watch that one, be sure to click the Previous button and see some of the other spots.

The cracks in the armor widen

I didn't watch Bush's appearance on Meet the Press because, to be honest, I just can't stand to watch the guy. He makes my blood boil. But there's plenty of comment about it on the Web, and most of it isn't good. I expected the right-wingers to prop Bush up though, and surprisingly that doesn't seem to be happening. The usual Bush apologists gave it a thumbs-down, even the fawningly-craven Peggy Noonan. Of course, she's kind of a dolt, so I when I read this piece by Andrew Sullivan (who is emphatically not a dolt), Attention Deficit, I took notice:

But it was in the second part of the interview that things, to my mind, unraveled. Bush offered no compelling rationale for reelecting him. He offered excuses on the economy; and, on the critical matter of the country's fiscal health, he seemed scarily out of touch.

...

...in one response [from Bush], we have a one-word answer that means the opposite of what it should; we have an irrelevance; and we have a pipe dream. And the president expects the people to trust him with their money? If your financial adviser came up with such an answer, after a huge drop in your personal savings and massive loans coming due in a few years, you'd fire him.

...

...if this is the level of coherence, grasp of reality, and honesty that is really at work in his understanding of domestic fiscal policy, then we are in even worse trouble than we thought. We have a captain on the fiscal Titanic who thinks he's in the Caribbean.

It's worth your time to read the whole thing.

I pity Wintel users

I'm here at the O'Reilly Digital Democracy Teach-In, and among many other thoughts (some of which I'll comment on here later), I have this overriding sympathy for Windows laptop users. Us Mac folks have SubEthaEdit and iChat via Rendezvous, and that makes the conference that we're attending vastly different from the one they're attending.

Maybe you don't miss what you've never had, but it's a whole different ball game this way.