Dean Was Right

I'd been meaning to write a note for awhile saying that despite the crap he took for it last December, it's turned out that Howard Dean was exactly correct when he said that nothing in Bush's Iraq adventure, and especially not the capture of Saddam, has made America any safer. Tom Schaller in The Gadflyer (which you should be reading, if you're not) makes the point well: Dean Was Right.

John Varley's Website

I was reading Year's Best SF 9 and ran into a reference to The Official Website of John Varley. I've always been a big fan of Varley's work; I said in Amazon's reviews that his collection The Persistence of Vision was "Perhaps the best SF short-story collection of all time." It's that good. Anyway, you should check out Varley's site, especially the VarleyYarns portion. He has a terrific piece on Fahrenheit 9/11, the story of his visit to Michael Jackson's Neverland, and much more.

Sharpen Your Knife

Having a sharp knife is important, as dull knives lead to more slipping and more injuries. If you need to know how to sharpen knives properly, check out this Sharpening FAQ from BladeForums.com. Make sure to read Part 1, "The Fundamentals of Sharpening."

On the road

Thursday's plan: get up at an ungodly early hour of the morning and drive to SFO. From there, fly to Detroit, join up with a couple of friends, and head south until we're outta the USA. I'll be back on Sunday, so if you want blogging between now and then, bug Tom.

Post-Edwards bounce

Did Kerry get a post-Edwards bounce? Sure looks like it.

Next up, on In Search Of...

Another data point in the ongoing mystery that is Google AdSense Ads (as seen at the bottom of the nav bar on the right):

Right now, there are two ads for Monty Python DVDs, clearly due to last Wednesday's anticipation of the upcoming Broadway hit, Monty Python's Spamalot, "the musical lovingly ripped off from the motion picture, 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail'." Okay, that one was easy.

But why oh why we were also getting two ads for things (one religion site, one European tour) based on The Da Vinci Code? I couldn't understand those... until Wil Wheaton pointed me towards what he described as a hilarious explanation of The DaVinci Code, and all became clear:

Monty Python and the Holy Grail → Holy Blood, Holy Grail → The Da Vinci Code

Of course! Damn. Now all I have to do is throw in the obligatory reference to Illuminatus!, and I may have found the Unified Theory of Everything.

Chip off the old...

Go to this page and scroll all the way down. Now, tell me: in the phrase "the _{——————} doesn't fall far from the tree," is the missing word "Apple" or "Nut"?

Free books!

I learned the damndest things sometimes online, and in this case (as has happened many times before), it was from Making Light: here's a list of US Army Corps of Engineers History Publications that you can get, free for the asking. Because you never know.

Why Mac OS X is Better

Worth reading: Duncan on Why Mac OS X is Better. It really is the case that most of the people I know/see who are doing cool, innovative stuff are using Macs these days.

And just a side note, because I am so tired of hearing about this: yes, Macs can initially cost more out of pocket. But I've spent no time and no money this year worrying abut adware, spybots, and/or virii. What's your time worth?

Pair.com PHP changes

In the hopes of saving others a few gray hairs that I wasn't able to avoid, if you (1) use PHP on your site, (2) host your site at pair.com, and (3) noticed that you're having some PHP-related problems in the last week, you might want to check out this page: pair Networks - Support Resources - System Notices - PHP Configuration Change. It's a simple fix... once you know that this is the problem.

AP World History exam score

We here at Backup Brain would like to give a big "Congratulations!!" to Sean Smith, for getting a score of 4 on his recent AP World History Exam. Yay you!

Mac OS X Unwired Reviewed

Big thanks from us both to Dr. Neale Monks for his great review of our book Mac OS X Unwired at Applelust.com. The pullquote:

Mac OS X Unwired is a surprising book. It's much more than just a manual or how to use an AirPort network. There's as much stuff to read for its sheer interest as there is of practical value, it is thoughtful and well researched, and few Mac users will find nothing of use in its pages.