Ringing in the New Year with "The Thin Man" movies

They're not really screwball comedy. They're more...screwball comedic mysteries. Anyways, everyone in the family knows I love screwball comedy and strive someday to write like Connie Willis (Willis fans should understand the connection), so, the Thin Man Collection (all 5 or 6 films) was a very logical gift.

Happy New Year to them as observes it

Let this new year be a better one than the last.

Ooooo, dinosaurs!

China finds major dinosaur site.

Zhucheng in Shandong province is known locally as "dinosaur city" and has been the scene of several important finds since the 1960s.

Cool!

Snow! Snow! Snow!

I always love the first snow of the season, and here it is! Yaaaaaay!

The flakes are huge now, and falling softly. I am reminded of many moments in various Japanese anime where cherry blossoms, etc., are obeying gravity, and then don't, falling upwards instead.[*] These flakes look so light I could see them do the same if I just looked away at the right moment and then sneaked a glance back out of the corner of my eye.

[*] As an art form, I love many of the liberties anime takes with, oh, everything.

From the puff pastry department

The slogan of this blog goes back and from between "from politics to programming, paramecia to puff pastries" and "things that keep you, things that kill you," when I've got the skeletons up in the fall.

Time for an alert from the puff pastries department: There is a new mexican restaurant in Boston, near the corner of Tremont and Stuart, just a block downhill from Boylston station. Don't cross Stuart as if you're walking to the Wang Theatre, that's too far.

Maria's Taqueira: It's a hole in the wall, with walls painted orange and blue, a small coat of armor (yep! you read that right), over by the tables, and half the people in there when I stopped by to check it out were speaking spanish. Always a good sign.

The menu is straightforward - tacos, burritos, tortas. The carnitas (that's pork) tacos were excellent. I wanted to go right back after work and try something else off the menu.

Huzzah!

Thought for the Day

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better. -- Samuel Beckett.

Make Pomegranate Juice, Not Drug War

(with the sudden rush of posts today, all five of you reading my blog can tell that I'm playing catchup, right? And I'm playing to win.)

Want to Win the War in Afghanistan? Forget Guns - Think Pomegranates

In 2007, [James] Brett was invited to Kabul to talk to farmers from various regions of Afghanistan about growing pomegranates. He flew to Peshawar and drove through the Khyber Pass heading to Kabul While driving through the Nangarhar Province, he noticed a farmer in a field of opium poppies. After the seminar in Kabul, Brett bought a large piece of card and a blue marker pen, and wrote 'Pomegranate is the Answer'. On his return drive back to Peshawar, he saw the same farmer again in the field, jumped out of the car and ran toward the farmer with his makeshift sign. His horrified translator chased after this mad ginger-haired Brit, yelling, 'Don't go in there, you could be shot!' Undetered, Brett talked to the bewildered farmer through his translator, about the farmer's life, his family, his children, how he lived and why he grew opium, about Brett's own addiction to drugs. Brett explained that pomegranate was not only the best option as an alternative crop to opium poppies, but was the only feasible one for the Afghan climate and growing conditions, and promised to return to the farmer's land a couple months later with pomegranate saplings. He went home and set up a charity called Pom354.

Brett followed through on his promise, returning a few months later to find the farmer had discussed this idea with sixteen other families with land around his own; all of them wanted to become involved. From there, the plan snowballed – in January, 2008, Afghanistan Television interviewed him, and other farmers asked him for help in changing their fields from poppies to pomegranates. The local member of Parliament and a respected Elder in the Tribal system wanted to know more. A tribal meeting covering the entire Nangarhar Province was called, and 200 Tribal elders invited.

Passion. Persistence. Pomegranates. I'm all for it. Put Afghanistan pomegranates and pom juice on the market, and I'll buy them, happily.

"Man in the Middle" Attacks - in WWII

This is just fascinating, a man-in-the-middle attack performed in World War II.

Aspidistra is described over at Schneier on Security, a blog everyone should keep an eye on.

Aspidistra was a World War II man-in-the-middle attack. The vulnerability that made it possible was that German broadcast stations were mostly broadcasting the same content from a central source; but during air raids, transmitters in the target area were switched off to prevent them being used for radio direction-finding of the target.

The exploit involved the very powerful (500KW) Aspidistra transmitter, coupled to a directional antenna farm. With that power, they could make it sound like a local station in the target area.

With a staff of fake announcers, a fake German band, and recordings of recent speeches from high-ranking Nazis, they would smoothly switch from merely relaying the German network to emulating it with their own staff. They could then make modifications to news broadcasts, occasionally creating panic and confusion.

Honestly, some days I think there really is nothing new under the sun.

In other news...

I've been awash in work this week but am feeling pretty good about it.

Planets outside our solar system!

Hubble Directly Observes a Planet Orbiting Another Star

Woot!!

Using MMOGs to Test 'Costs' of Environmental Laws

How nifty!

MMOGs as Social Experiments: the Case of Environmental Laws
Authors: Joost Broekens
(Submitted on 5 Nov 2008)

Abstract: In this paper we argue that Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs), also known as Large Games are an interesting research tool for policy experimentation. One of the major problems with lawmaking is that testing the laws is a difficult enterprise. Here we show that the concept of an MMOG can be used to experiment with environmental laws on a large scale, provided that the MMOG is a real game, i.e., it is fun, addictive, presents challenges that last, etc.. We present a detailed game concept as an initial step.

Subjects: Computers and Society (cs.CY)
Cite as: arXiv:0811.0709v1 [cs.CY]

Full paper: http://arxiv.org/pdf/0811.0709v1

I voted and hope you did, too.

I've been so thrilled to see so many people coming out to exercise their sacred duty and their true power. This has been an amazing election. Let us all promise ourselves, and those who come after us, that it is not a fluke, and let us promise ourselves and the world, that we will relight the torch of the true American dream: equality, opportunity, and justice. We are Americans, together.

Awesome title of this legal reference

Nomothetes, the Interpreter, Containing the Genuine Signification of Such Obscure Words and Terms Used Either in the Common or Statute Lawes of This Realm, First Compiled by the Learned Dr. Cowel, and Now Enlarged from the Collections of All Others Who Have Written in This Kind with an Addition of Many Words Omitted by All Former Writers, and Pertinent to This Matter, with Their Etymologies as Often as They Occur, as also Tenures Whether Jocular, or Others Statues and Records, Wherein the Alterations Are Expressed, and Their Agreement or Dissonancy, with the Law at Present Declared: Whereto Is Subjoyned an Appendix, Containing the Ancient Names of Places Here in England, Very Necessary for the Use of All Young Students, Who Intend to Converse with Old Records, Deeds or Charters

1 v. London: Printed by the assigns of Richard Atkins and Sir Edward Atkins for H. Twyford, Tho. Basset, J. Place, and H. Sawbridge, 1684.
Cowel, John
Manley, Thomas (Editor)


Dang. The things you find when looking for something on HeinOnline.

Am in a state of crogglement

They actually convicted Senator Ted Stevens.

Holy fucking cow*.


Ted Stevens' conviction the crowning blow in bad year for GOP senators

Dang. I mean, I never, NEVER, thought he'd be convicted. Hell, I was surprised there was a trial. There's this dichotomy in Alaska, see? Two belief systems, two mythos, chafing at one another. Pro-development and pure-frontier are probably the most straightforward labels. Palin is pro-development with an evangelical twist, for the record. Stevens, like most in politics in Alaska, just made sure everyone knew the state was open for business.

[*] Bear in mind, I try to restrict dropping the f-bomb these days, as its considered unlawyerly and all that. I shrieked out loud when I saw the headline.

Don't think of it as voting, think of it as hiring if you must

So, here's the deal:

The company's down the shitter. People have lost jobs, and we've become seen as the assholes of the industry.

You've been interviewing these guys for the CEO slot for a while, now it's time to make a hiring decision.

Now, last time, we hired a schlub - or maybe the board of directors made us - who, sure, is fun at a barbecue, but has a mean sense of humor and is not really qualified for the job. Super-nice wife, though. I mean, dang, she is just *nice*. Real sweetheart.

Anyway, this time, there's this really bright guy applying, who has a good track record. Might even be overqualified. Plus? Genuinely nice guy. Helps people out wherever he can. Walks the talk, when you get down to it. Family man.

And then there's this guy who had a rep about 20 years ago, but has been sitting on his laurels in a lot of ways ever since. Plus, he's been sick, and during an interview you really wonder did he just have a transient ischemic attack right in front of you, and you think to yourself that this job could kill him --

He's got a bad temper. And, he's been saying some really nasty shit. Really nasty.

And so has his hanger-on, who seems to think if you're smart you can't be trusted with things that require brains. Who made that rule up? It makes no sense, really.

Now, the bright guy is at the top of his game. Seriously. This might be a once-in-a-lifetime moment when the right man for the job shows up, at the right time. And you actually know it. When's the last time that happened? Never?

Yeah, probably never.

So which guy do you hire?

I know which one I want to hire.