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/_/_/ |_|__/|__/_/ |_/http://www.acronymchile.com/yawn.html
2003-11-10
###!!---###### GORETEX #############################(##)#################
"Gore insists on meddling in clothing design, barring makers from taping
seams"
http://outside.away.com/outsidestore/gearguy/9-3-96/karen.html
Tough question, Karen. As you may know, Patagonia's Pneumatic wear
is in fact Gore-Tex Activent, a thin version of Gore-Tex that is
more breathable than the heavy-duty stuff but less water-proof.
Activent is a fabric that hasn't quite found its niche yet. It is
perfectly suited for light rainwear that could keep you dry in all
but heavy, steady downpours. But Gore insists on meddling in
clothing design, barring makers from taping seams. With a taped
seam, I'd take an Activent jacket nearly anywhere. But no such luck.
###!!!--###### SOLDIERS ############################(RW)#################
Interesting account of life for US soldiers stationed in Iraq:
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0920-02.htm
Some nice detail:
Leaning back on a cot, he's [Sergeant Sellers] drawing a large,
intricate pattern on a female mannequin leg. The wall above him
displays a photo collage of pictures retrieved from a looted Iraqi
women's college. Smiling young ladies wearing the hijab sip sodas
and stroll past buses. They seem to be on some sort of field trip.
Nearby are photos clipped from Maxim, of coy young American girls
offering up their pert round bottoms. Dominating it all is a large
hand-drawn dragon and a photo of Jessica Lynch with a bubble caption
reading: "Hi, I am a war hero. And I think that weapons maintenance
is totally unimportant."
The boys don't like Lynch and find the story of her rescue
ridiculous. They'd been down the same road a day earlier and are
unsympathetic. "We just feel that it's unfair and kind of distorted
the way the whole Jessica, quote, 'rescue' thing got hyped,"
explains Staff Sgt. Kreed Howell.
Also interesting how the soldiers are provisioned:
Added to such injury is insult: The military treats these soldiers
like unwanted stepchildren. This unit's rifles are retooled
hand-me-downs from Vietnam. They have inadequate radio gear, so they
buy their own unencrypted Motorola walkie-talkies. The same goes for
flashlights, knives and some components for night-vision sights. The
low-performance Iraqi air-conditioners and fans, as well as the one
satellite phone and payment cards shared by the whole company for
calling home, were also purchased out of pocket from civilian
suppliers.
###!!!!-###### FLOSS ###############################(/.)#################
"The IDA Open Source Migration Guidelines provide practical and detailed
recommendations on how to migrate to Open Source Software (OSS)-based
office applications, calendaring, e-mail and other standard
applications. These guidelines have been designed to help public
administrators decide whether a migration to OSS should be undertaken
and describe, in broad technical terms, how such a migration could be
carried out. They are based on practical experience of a limited number
of publicly available case studies, and cover a wide range of management
and technical concerns."
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/10/21/2131251&mode=nested&tid=117&tid=126&tid=163&tid=99
http://europa.eu.int/ISPO/ida/jsps/index.jsp?fuseAction=showDocument&parent=news&documentID=1647
###!!!--###### LITERACY ############################(/.)#################
Nice:
In the west, at least, illiteracy is practically a thing of the
past. That's just as well, since it is difficult to survive, and
virtually impossible to prosper, in today's world without the
ability to read and write. There is another kind of illiteracy,
however, as widespread as the old kind used to be: computer
illiteracy. Even in the most advanced countries in the world, the
vast majority of people are still unable to read or write any kind
of computer language.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1078616,00.html
In 50 years, perhaps much less, the ability to read and write code
will be as essential for professionals of every stripe as the
ability to read and write a human language is today.
He may be very wide of the mark in writing this, but it gels with my own
opinions. Inability to write even a simple program means that workig
people are doomed to waste time on tasks that could very easily be
automated.
###!!---###### PIRACY ##############################(NK)#################
Talk like a pirate, Sept. 19th:
http://www.thomasscott.net/yarr/
"We be havin' a brand new poster in PDF format for ye to be printin'
out and stickin' up in yer local tavern, ship's galley, or school fer
little pirates!"
###!!!!-###### DOOM ################################(RW)#################
http://www.nypress.com/16/37/news&columns/zen.cfm
"Well, this is ‘need to know,’ so keep your mouth shut, but they are
designed to slide on over most of our conventional ordinance. They’re
made out of radioactive cobalt, and when the bomb they’re wrapped
around detonates, they contaminate everything in the blast zone and
quite a bit beyond."
"So they turn regular ordinance into nukes?"
"No, not exactly. The cobalt doesn’t detonate itself. It just scatters
everywhere."
"Well, what? Does the radiation kill people?"
"Not immediately. Cobalt jackets will not likely ever be used. They're
for a situation where the U.S. government is crumbling during a time of
war, and foreign takeover is imminent. We won’t capitulate. We
basically have a scorched earth policy. If we are going to lose, we arm
everything with cobalt–and I mean everything; we have jackets at nearly
every missile magazine in the world, on land or at sea–and contaminate
the world. If we can’t have it, nobody can.
###-----###### BIBLE ###############################(##)#################
Interesting analogy:
The King James Bible had such a strong influence on the
English-speaking world that I would suggest a reasonable (and hopefully
non-blasphemous analogy) is that it essentially acted as the Operating
System for much of the development of the modern world as we know it.
Author goes on to say that Linux could have a similarly defining role in
the future of society... over-reaches a bit, but finishes nicely:
Noted author, visionary and crazy person William S. Burroughs said,
"Digital technology is the new religion. Just this once let us keep our
gods in our hands."
Software programmers and Linux enthusiasts offer a heartfelt "Amen."
http://www.canada.com/technology/story.html?id=5F7655EF-B9CD-4D28-919C-51AF3C9CBDC3
###-----###### BBC #################################(RW)#################
BBC to make content freely available for non-commercial uses. Danny
O'Brien points to the development here:
http://www.oblomovka.com/entries/2003/08/24#1061788500
###-----###### BARBIE ##############################(##)#################
Thought this was good:
PIC (MicroChip)
While watching my 8 year old daughter play with her Barbie Dolls (she
has about 7 or so, including two that used to belong to Roz, my wife,
when she was a girl) I noticed an interesting difference between the
old dolls and the new dolls. The old Barbies could only move their
heads sideways, while the new Barbies not only can move their heads
sideways, but also up and down. AMAZING - the old Barbies were good
girls - they could only say no. The new Barbies however can also say
yes. Progress - isn't it wonderful! (Not to mention the gymnast
Barbie that Dave Perry's daughter got for Christmas - "wait'll you see
what *she* can do ;-)"
Which leads me to an amazing fact. Most everyone thinks of the PIC
microcontroller line as being a recent introduction. However, they've
been popular for over 20 years.
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/microcontroller-faq/primer/
###-----###### CALM ################################(RW)#################
http://www.commondreams.org/news2003/0822-09.htm
"The deadly bus bombing in Jerusalem on August 19 was foreshadowed by a
pair of suicide attacks a week earlier which killed two Israeli
civilians. While U.S. media tended to portray these attacks as a return
to violence after a relatively peaceful period, there were numerous
killings in the weeks leading up to the suicide bombings that
underscore the lack of evenhanded attention given to loss of life in
the Israeli/Palestinian conflict."
###-----###### CLIMATE #############################(RW)#################
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994072
While the heatwave claimed thousands of lives in France, started bush
fires in Portugal and toppled temperature records from London to
Baghdad, the European Commission (EC) issued a little-noticed bulletin.
It showed a prolonged drought was causing drastic changes in
agricultural output, especially in southern Europe. And the changes
almost perfectly match predictions of the effects of global warming
over the next century.
###-----###### SPAM ################################(/.)#################
Seven spam filters compared: includes Bayesian Mail Filter, Bogofilter,
dbacl, Quick Spam Filter, SpamAssassin, SpamProbe, and SPASTIC
http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/964/
###-----###### GNUMERIC ############################(/.)#################
"The latest beta release of Gnumeric has been released. ... This release
also marks the realization of a major milestone -- all of the worksheet
functions in the U.S. version of MS Excel are now supported."
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/23/2138251&mode=nested&tid=109&tid=131&tid=185&tid=187&tid=189
http://www.gnome.org/projects/gnumeric/
###-----###### LINUX ANSWERING MACHINE #############(##)#################
This page documents how to set up my home Linux box to work as an answering
machine:
http://frank.harvard.edu/~coldwell/answering_machine/
###-----###### SPARKS ##############################(/.)#################
Battery tips (in English, despite URL):
http://uuhome.de/william.darden/
###-----###### HIZBOLLAH ###########################(RW)#################
Ran HaCohen writes on relations between Hizbollah and Israel. Some
interesting points made.
http://www.antiwar.com/hacohen/h-col.html
"Since the Israeli withdrawal, Hizbollah has fired no missiles at
Israeli towns, though it undoubtedly possesses such weapons. The
Israeli boy killed this week was hit by an anti-aircraft bomb that
failed to detonate in mid-air and exploded on the ground. "Collateral
damage", if you like.
Hizbollah's anti-aircraft fire has a clear target: Israeli fighter jets
that regularly enter Lebanon's airspace, flying over the entire country
from south to north as if it were theirs."
###-----###### HUNTER ##############################(??)#################
Recent interview with Hunter S. Thompson
http://www.aint-it-cool.com/display.cgi?id=15824
MB: "You write in the new book that Bush is a bigger threat to
democracy than Nixon was," I say, trying to ignore the terrible drugs
coursing through my cerebellum and crippling any possibility of
presenting myself as a Professional Journalist as opposed to a
drooling, stoned post-adolescent fan-boy. "Those are big words coming
from you."
HST: Nixon looks like a liberal compared to this guy. I never thought I'd
say that. It's a horrible thought.
MB: [Legendary White House reporter] Helen Thomas called him the worst
president in American history a couple weeks ago. Would you agree with
that assessment?
HST: That's what I said to Charlie Rose today. Easily the worst.
Further down:
MB: The Bush family history is terrifying. They've been in business
with Hitler, Saddam, Osama… [George W. Bush's grandfather, Prescott
Bush, had his stocks in Nazi steel manufacturing removed by Congress in
1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act.]
HST: And they're Jesus freaks on top of it. Carter was one and I loved
Jimmy Carter—we're still good friends—but this is a stupid Jesus freak.
Carter deserved the Nobel Prize.
###-----###### WEAPONS #############################(RW)#################
BBC Transcript of "Israel's Secret Weapon". IIRC I saw this program on the
television when it was originally shown and found it to be very interesting
and informative. Others had problems with it:
"Israel declared over the weekend that it is cutting off ties with the
BBC to protest a repeat broadcast of a documentary about
non-conventional weapons said to be in Israel."
Transcript is online here:
http://www.electronicintifada.net/v2/article1665.shtml
Of particular interest, I thought, was the way the Israeli military managed
to conceal their nuclear weapons program from weapons inspectors sent into
the country by Kennedy. They had a multi-level underground bunker, and
when the Americans were coming to visit, they bricked up and concealed
every doorway to the lower and more sensitive levels. I don't think
that these particular facts are disputed.
###-----###### GRAPEAPE ############################(RW)#################
A potentially new species of large ape discovered last year in Africa:
"The people are very afraid of them. They call them the 'lion killers'
because they are huge creatures," Williams said. "The folklore is they
could kill lions."
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2003-08-14-mystery-apes-tested_x.htm
###-----###### RMS #################################(/.)##################
Interview with Richard Stallman:
http://www.ofb.biz/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=260
"A non-free program is a predatory social system that keeps people in a
state of domination and division, and uses the spoils to dominate more.
It may seem like a profitable option to become one of the emperor's
lieutenants, but ultimately the ethical thing to do is to resist the
system and put an end to it."
###-----###### ATLTUAE #############################(/.)##################
Now we know:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=answer+to+life+the+universe+and+everything
###-----###### CURRENCY ############################(OB)##################
Interesting interview with Bernard Lietaer (he co-designed and implemented
the convergence mechanism to the single European currency system) on the
problems with conventional currencies and the possibilities offered by
alternative currencies.
http://uazu.net/money/lietaer.html
"I’m saying that exclusive use of a competitive programmed currency in a
community tends to be destructive for the community fabric. This isn’t
theory. We've seen this happen at the tribe level, with the collapses
of traditional societies. I've seen one happen myself in Peru among the
Chipibo in the Amazon. That tribe had been in existence for thousands
of years. When they started using the national currency among
themselves, the whole community fabric collapsed in five years' time.
The same thing happened here during the 19th century in the
Northwestern United States and Canada, in the traditional indigenous
societies. The moment they started using white man's currency among
themselves, the community collapsed, the traditional fabric broke
down."
###-----###### WINDOWS #############################(/.)##################
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34978-2003Aug23.html
Between the Blaster worm and the Sobig virus, it's been a long two
weeks for Windows users. But nobody with a Mac or a Linux PC has had to
lose a moment of sleep over these outbreaks... In its default setup,
Windows XP on the Internet amounts to a car parked in a bad part of
town, with the doors unlocked, the key in the ignition and a Post-It
note on the dashboard saying, "Please don't steal this."
###-----###### FIN #################################(##)##################
Archived: http://www.acronymchile.com/yawn_archive/2003-11-10yawn.html
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