Electric Josh

Scoot
Building a balancing scooter. How to have your own gay little scooter for less than five grand. Via /..
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SD
More baby pictures.
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Bennett
Yet another reason it's good to have taken a pile of philosophy classes and to live in a town with a good Sunday paper:

In his Washington office, I asked Bennett which he thought was a bigger factor in determining where people end up: luck (by which I meant the pre-birth lottery), or personal initiative and character.

The normally voluble Bennett fell quiet.

"Genes are part of the first?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Parents are part of the first?"

"Yes."

"The first," he said. That is, luck.

Recalling his years as Secretary of Education under Ronald Reagan, he explained, "Having visited the schools, I'm convinced that you can change people's lives and people can change their own lives. But it's hard. Those things [genes, parents] matter hugely. They don't matter completely. But they matter hugely."

What should that imply for public policy? I asked.

Bennett cited the Marine Corps as proof of the "plasticity" of human nature, and of the potential for institutions to alter luckless lives for the better. Kids from the inner city come back from boot camp after 11 weeks and they're transformed, Bennett said, with new values, a new spirit, a new future. Mediating institutions -- family, churches, schools -- can create opportunities for people to "exercise autonomy and make a difference in their own lives. A lot of people aren't there because they're in crappy families, crappy schools, crappy neighborhoods."

Bill Bennett, I thought, meet John Rawls...

Photo
More pictures soon. Patience.
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hd
Go give Howard Dean some money. [Update: It took me less than 45 seconds to stumble across documentation of another reason why: W lying about global warming.
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SCOTS
The demands of parenthood obviously have this space missing the Southern Culture on the Skids show tonight. Unsurprising, but a drag anyway. The baby will soon grow to love hillbilly punk. Maybe she'll be able to tell me if it's ironic or not; I can't tell. I'll play her some Reverend Horton Heat tonight instead.
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Apple
Back in the day, I used to be an Apple rumor junkie. We were a subspecies of computer user that used a better operating system than Windows, with better apps, and we used all the time we saved arguing about operating systems, playing with fonts, and trawling for rumors about the next big thing coming from the Cupertino mothership. It was kind of sad, really. At any rate, now there's a whole site full of "now it can be told"-type stories about the slow near-suicide of Apple Computer. There is also whining. Fun, light bedtime reading.
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Lib
The ever narcissistic Lib has decided that the Blind Faith album is a suitable soundtrack to her life, which suggests that soon maybe somebody other than my dad and me might enjoy John Barleycorn Must Die. I should probably just be thankful that Adam and Paul have better musical tastes than I do (adjusted for age), but Lib's sense of what is good music has been particularly awful in the past, so this space is especially encouraged by this news.
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0wnz0red
Well, the one data point we have so far suggests that every time this space links to nerdy science fiction the central technology of said story turns out to be under actual development by the same U.S. Government outfit that was fictionally purported to be doing same in the story. From The Atlantic's Primary Sources (scroll down to the bottom):

The conspiracy geeks and Area 51 obsessives are right-the U.S. government is heavily invested in research projects that brush the borders of science fiction. But many of those ventures aren't top secret, so long as you're willing to wade through the latest budget statement for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, which contains funding estimates for various projects, including some distinctly sinister-sounding ones. The spookiest of these is probably the "Brain Machine Interface Program," which promises to "create new technologies for augmenting human performance through the ability to access neural codes in the brain in real time and integrate them into peripheral device or system operations." In other words, if the project pans out (a rather large "if," to be sure), the soldier of the future will be a functional telepath, controlling equipment from a distance and perhaps even communicating "brain-to-brain" with his fellow soldiers.

Pox
Apparently we're safe from smallpox. I'm genuinely relieved at that one.
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Brooks
David Brooks in The Atlantic: The central problem plaguing politics is mindless team spirit. Yeah.
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Parody?
Quick, see if you can tell whether or not this is a parody:

Revised Patriot Act Will Make It Illegal To Read Patriot Act
WASHINGTON, DC-President Bush spoke out Monday in support of a revised version of the 2001 USA Patriot Act that would make it illegal to read the USA Patriot Act. "Under current federal law, there are unreasonable obstacles to investigating and prosecuting acts of terrorism, including the public's access to information about how the federal police will investigate and prosecute acts of terrorism," Bush said at a press conference Monday. "For the sake of the American people, I call on Congress to pass this important law prohibiting access to itself." Bush also proposed extending the rights of states to impose the death penalty "in the wake of Sept. 11 and stuff."

Hurricane
More cool hurricane pictures, these from the ISS.
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Campaign
So glad that I'll never have to run for President. It's amazing that reporters aren't ashamed of the stuff described here, at Dean-a-Palooza.

"But how do Sallie Mae loans help small businesses fight off the Cargills and the Wal-Marts of the world? Isn't the problem of small businesses rooted in their inability to compete economically with massive companies? Isn't this more of a fundamental problem in our economy that will take more than a few loan programs to fix?"

Dean paused, then nodded. "Well," he said, "there's not a whole lot the federal government can do about that."

What the hell kind of answer is that? I thought. I was about to press the matter, when suddenly Miami Herald reporter Peter Wallsten pushed me aside and lunged at the candidate.

"Governor, getting back to substance," he said. "Is it true that you paint your own house?"

I turned to Wallsten in shock. Getting back to substance? Fuck you! I thought.

Dean laughed. "Um, yes, it is," he said.

"Why do you paint your own house?" Wallsten asked.

SSJ
Al Franken gives us Supply Side Jesus in eleven parts.
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zzz
A new, super short issue of ZZZ is out, and how can you resist reading an article about robots that starts this way:

ever been shot in the arms with a local anasthetic? if you tie a belt or strong bandage around your arms first then it will stop the anathetic from traveling out of your arms, so your arms will be numb and paralysed but you will still be able to move the rest of your body.

WC
Sounds like Gen. Clark is going to run. Hmmm. He and Howard would make a really powerful ticket...
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Job
So it suddenly seems that the decision to leave science for the shady world of commercial software was a good one. This in light of Popular Science's article describing the worst jobs in science. The jobs are rated with regard to futility, risk of disease, and whether they inspire reflexive ridicule. Consider the job description for "Brazilian mosquito researcher":

He need focus only on his legs to keep him busy: Whenever a mosquito chooses a drumstick dinner, the researcher draws it into a mouth tube (!) and then expels it into a container. Veteran researcher Helge Zieler used to put himself on the menu twice a week. On his best evening, he caught 500 Anopheles in 3 hours. Meanwhile, of course, the skeeters feasted on his entire corpus-a grand total of about 3,000 bites, or an average of 17 per minute for 180 minutes on end. "It's not so bad," he says, explaining that his personal response to mosquito bites is an immediate itch that goes away naturally in a few minutes. Except when his response is to contract malaria. Despite taking prophylactic chloroquine, Zieler developed a case that took him two years to shake.

Grrrl
Tammy called SD a grrrl. Sweet! (Of course, it's been more waaah than grrr around here of late, but I'm sure things will improve.) Immunizations, a Social Security card, and now an actual pop culture reference aimed at her. She's already about as American as they get at three weeks. Nice job, kid.
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More TV
Not only is there a cute new baby to dote upon around here, but football season has started. It's great mindless entertainment, but I've been a little bit worried about its effect on SD's not at all fully developed mind. Most disturbing is the blinking. It's the thing, in fact, that has convinced me that I don't need to watch the Sunday night game as I type this, given that the baby's in here. The blinking is incredibly annoying to me, too, but the kid's presence causes me to look at her a lot (how cute, look at the baby, that sort of thing). I was doing so during a replay or an ad or something when I noticed that she was sitting in front of a 32" strobe light. So basically I'm pissed because we have before us this clean brain, a fantastic, blank slate that's full of nothing but possibility, and we're stroboscopically pumping it full of Coors Lite and Hummer ads. Poor girl.
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The large storm in the Atlantic is nice and visible in NOAA satellite shots like this one. Now you have a convenient place to look if you want to see how well rooting for the thing to turn back out to sea is going. Should be fun.
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Nose
Random, baffling article that's funny, but not for the reason that the headline would probably cause you to suspect: British monkey nut nudger reaches end of a hard road.

A British man who has been nudging a monkey nut along the streets of London with his nose for 11 days finally reached the seat of power Friday.

Fear
I'm indescribably glad at discovering lately that people other than me are starting to notice this:

If Americans are fearful, says Harper's magazine editor Lewis Lapham, a leading American commentator, it's because they are being sold fear by the government of George W. Bush.

"Pretty well all the Bush administration has got going for it now is this foreign war," Lapham said. "Fear is something this administration has been selling for two years. You sedate the populace with the drug of fear and maybe the electorate won't notice what a mess you have made, not only of domestic politics, but also our international relations.

"In order to conceal, disguise, dress up their own incompetence, they beat the constant threat of war and fear."

Dead
How weird that Johnny Cash and John Ritter are getting mentioned in the same breath. One thing to be thankful for: it's not nearly as bad as when nobody noticed that E. B. White's death because Rock Hudson had just died of AIDS. The greatest American essayist ever died totally anonymously (well, Andy Rooney did his piece on White on 60 Minutes) because a weirdo movie star died of AIDS and was (therefore!) gay. Man.

For what it's worth, now I have Ring of Fire running incessantly through my head.
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CPR
Looking around at the Boston Red Cross's site in search of a CPR class when what should I stumble across at the very top but this:

URGE! PREPARE! UNEXPECTED! TERROR! THREAT!

NYT
My little company in the Times the other day.
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Strings
A physicist buddy from work sends news of string theory on TV. You read that right. The television is going to try to tell us about cutting edge, extensively mathematical, tiny, tiny physics. Excellent.
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War
Get Your War On has the only reasonable tribute to the big terrorism anniversary that I've seen yet:

To avoid a quarrel is a setback for sin, for it is a hot temper that kindles quarrels.
A sinner sows trouble between friends and spreads scandal where before there was peace.
A fire is kept hot by stoking and a quarrel by persistence.
A man's rage is in proportion to his strength, and his anger in proportion to his wealth.
A hasty argument kindles a fire, and a hasty quarrel leads to bloodshed.

Blow on a spark to make it glow, or spit on it to put it out.
Both results come from the one mouth.

--Ecclesiasticus 28:8-12

CD
This being "steal links from boingboing day," we might as well all go read super nerdy scifi. It's nerdy even as science fiction goes. But entertaining.
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Pixies
Despite my semiregular ranting about music, I've never listened much to the Pixies. What is wrong with me that I've never listened much to the Pixies? Apparently they were seminal; apparently I'm supposed to be a big Pixies fan. I think there's a car ad with a Pixies song in it. Big UMass band. Dr. Larry and I used to listen to Frank Black in the lab, which, I guess, is close.

They're reforming and going out on tour. Old interview here. Nice.
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WZ
So go read a bunch of tributes to (and other stuff about) Warren Zevon. Even haters of his music must admit he died in a pretty interesting way. A-and he wrote Lawyers, Guns, and Money, which alone would be enough for me.
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Theater
Off to see The Producers. It's good to have inlaws in town.
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SD Pix
Dad posts baby pictures.
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MP
Wily Brit gets even crankier about the War on Terrorism(tm) and its alleged blueprint (HTML version here) than me. Geez. (Via cursor again.)
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Whoa
11-0 Red Sox, but check this out:

The Red Sox eclipsed their previous most-lopsided shutout win in New York, a 10-0 victory on April 23, 1919, in the season opener. That was the same season Ruth led the Red Sox in homers and RBIs, and before the Yankees were known as the Bronx Bombers -- that loss came at the old Polo Grounds, across the Harlem River in Manhattan.

TV
Even after reading about it in the Post, I have trouble believing that this event actually took place, and that the friggin president took part. Geez.
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Spam?
Someone called "lady2004@hotmail.com" just posted a comment to an entry on this site that's over six months old. The comment's text was meaningless, but the way it was posted creates a link (using common words) to a spamming service's web site. This is some pretty sneaky spam. (It was posted from a Malaysian ISP! I don't know anyone in Malaysia.) I've removed it.

I'm guessing that folks who run sites with lots of comments (and links) don't have the comments automatically emailed to them, which means that lady2004 and her ilk are free to use this trick to try to fool Google into ranking their spam site highly. Hopefully the Google folks are cleverer than that...
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Kid
There's nothing more heartbreaking than a crying baby, except when it's your own baby and there's nothing you can do but wait it out until she calms down enough to eat something, feel better and pass out. Holy crap. To calm your shaken host, we (shallowly) read from Chapter 16 of White Noise:

This was the day Wilder started crying at two in the afternoon. At six he was still crying, sitting on the kitchen floor and looking through the oven window, and we ate dinner quickly, moving around him or stepping over him to reach the stove and refrigerator. Babette watched him as she ate. She had a class to teach in sitting, standing and walking. It would start in an hour and a half. She looked at me in a drained and supplicating way. She'd spoken soothingly to him, hefted and caressed him, checked his teeth, given him a bath, examined him, tickled him, fed him, tried to get him to crawl into his vinyl play tunnel. Her old people would be waiting in the church basement.

It was rhythmic crying, a measured statement of short urgent pulses. At times it seemed he would break off into a whimper, an animal complaint, irregular and exhausted, but the rhythm held, the heightened beat, the washed pink sorrow in his face.

"We'll take him to the doctor," I said. "Then I'll drop you at the church."

"Would the doctor see a crying child? Besides, his doctor doesn't have hours now."

"What about your doctor?"

"I think he does. But a crying child, Jack. What can I say to the man? 'My child is crying.' "

"Is there a condition more basic?"

...

As I started the car I realized his crying had changed in pitch and quality. The rhythmic urgency had given way to a sustained, inarticulate and mournful sound. He was keening now. These were expressions of Mideastern lament, of an anguish so accessible that it rushes to overwhelm whatever immediately caused it. There was something permanent and soul-struck in this crying. It was a sound of inbred desolation.

...

I picked him up and set him against the steering wheel, facing me, his feet on my thighs. The huge lament continued, wave on wave. It was a sound so large and pure I could almost listen to it, try consciously to apprehend it, as one sets up a mental register in a concert hall or theater. He was not sniveling or blubbering. He was crying out, saying nameless things in a way that touched me with its depth and richness. This was an ancient dirge all the more impressive for its resolute monotony. Ululation. I held him upright with a hand under each arm. ... We looked at each other. Behind that dopey countenance, a complex intelligence operated. I held him with one hand, using the other to count his fingers inside the mittens, alound, in German. The inconsolable crying went on. I let it wash over me, like rain in sheets.

Traffic
Wild speculation about traffic forming into Aggregate Traffic Animals. All we need now are some real live data, simulations, and maybe a touch of the quantitative to have some pretty cool papers on our hands. Fun reading. Bullshit alert, though: the abstract talks about emergence.
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Photos
Getting baby pictures online quickly is proving to be kind of challenging, mostly because having a digital camera makes it easy to take tons of pictures, and because having a digital picture means that it's just oh so easy to go into the Gimp or Photoshop or whatever and remove redeye, crop and rotate, what have you. For large numbers of pictures, this ends up being slow. Furthermore, the previous batch of pictures mostly caused people to ask, "Why are the pictures so big?"

(Answer as parenthetical aside: because digital cameras take pictures consisting of many, many dots; way more dots than your computer screen has. My camera takes pictures with 3,145,728 pixels but my computer screen has only 480,000 pixels, so you can imagine that I'd end up doing a lot of scrolling if my web browser didn't scale the picture down to a number of dots that fit on screen.)

One batch is ready. Have fun.
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FCC
This is good. [Details]
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Type
The baby's favorite sleeping position is flat across my reclined chest, protected from falling during a sudden head jerk by my arms. It's cute, but makes it very difficult to type, so instead of doing this computer stuff I sit immobile and watch TV while she sleeps. The TV blinks a lot, and is too close. It's destroying my mind. Quickly.

(I should probably just replace the current television with an aquarium and get a TV with a five inch, black and white screen for when I really need to see sports or The Daily Show.)
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SD
More baby pictures coming. Be patient.
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Sprawl
Scientific research now proves that simply living in a sprawling suburb is bad for you; just as bad for you, in fact, as having a crappy diet.

In Europe, people make 33 percent of their trips by foot or bicycle, compared with just 9.4 percent of Americans' trips. Pucher said the extra activity had to be healthy, as life expectancy in the Netherlands and Germany was about two years longer than in the United States, and obesity rates were lower.

Why can these Europeans walk and bike more, and more safely, than Americans? It's not just travel distance - 41 percent of U.S. trips are shorter than 2 miles, yet most are by car.

Instead, Pucher cited Dutch and German policies that encourage more sidewalks and bike paths, traffic calming, auto-free zones in cities, extensive road-sharing education for drivers and cyclists, and pedestrian-friendly urban design.