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7.30.2002 |
In a minor stroke of luck, I managed to avoid having to
go pick up a friend from the mechanic's, as my slightly less fortunate friend
incurred a large enough maintainance bill to be allowed to drive the "loaner"
for the day. I insisted they take me for a ride, though, when I saw they were
driving a behemoth "family truckster" style station wagon, complete with
stained bench seats, clunking gear shift, and that boat-like ride. I'd forgotten
how different they were from an SUV - they're as big, but they ride much
closer to the ground. It was a major nostalgia trip. I kept feeling like I ought
to be sitting in the back with a bevy of siblings or schoolmates.
After a series of internet radio stations I enjoyed
went off the air, I'd given up on internet radio, but I saw someone
mention Radio VH1 and decided to
give it a try. I'm loving it. They have a ton of different stations, in
different genres, including some really fun ones like a compilation of
their top 100 one-hit wonders or the "Summer Fun" mix station (currently
playing). You have
to register to listen (and the site doesn't make that entirely clear),
but I'm really enjoying it.
Sometimes, a banner ad manages to catch my eye.
This time, it was one from
EnergyStar, the energy-efficient appliance certification people. Their ad features
a "summer energy saving tip", specifically to wash your clothes in cold water.
I've seen this advice before and it always irks the hell out of me, because it's
an example of trying to reduce energy by not actually accomplishing the task
you set out to do. Cold water simply does not dissolve soap as well as hot, or
at least warm, water. Go grab a bar of soap and check out the difference in
washing your hands with cold water as compared to warm water. And that's
just on the surface of your skin - not absorbed into cloth. Many clothes don't
need to be washed with truly hot water, of course, but a cold water wash
and rinse just does not get the same amount of soap out, and if you reduce
your soap usage too much, you sort of miss the point of, you know,
washing your clothes.
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7.22.2002 |
Catching up for lost time I've got another book review
posted, this one for the very good
Beggars
in Spain by Nancy Kress.
More Cornell grad student unionization news:, Cornell has signed an agreement recognizing the rights of grad students to unionize, and that they will recognize any union the students vote into place. I'm not surprised - too many other peer institutions have been forced to ultimately capitulate. Of course, the announcement of the agreement, despite admiting that Cornell was the first school to act so openly towards a unionization effort, makes sure to shade Cornell as the hostile oppressor against which a union is the only solution for meeting grad student needs. On the plus side, the agreement makes it very clear that the union will only bargain on "wages, hours, and conditions of student employment" and spells out clearly the academic issues on which the union will not bargain.
The election is scheduled for October 23/24. I've yet to see a wide, public
debate on the issues surrounding unionization. I've certainly see no
information from the unionization effort about how our particular union would
be organized, what precisely it would be focusing on, what distribution
of representation across the university there might be. I don't understand how
anyone could vote for a union without knowing how that union would be run
and how they would be represented.
Forget the privacy concerns, grocery store "club" cards
cost most consumers
money. This article lays out very clearly why ultimately most shopper's
bills will actually increase with these programs, and evidence that this
is the case and will only get worse. Unfortunately, even the local store which
recently made a big production (literally! we got videotapes in the mail!) about
getting rid of sales and lowering prices a little across the board still offers
club card discounts. The rest of the site also has some interesting essays
about privacy issues with these cards.
[via RRE]
I always think that cooking at home will get me
better food than if I go out to eat, but I'm fascinated, in a sort of
apalled way, by this free preview of a cookbook full of recipes from chain
restaurants (sorry, only available as a
zipped PDF
file). Not only can you learn to make your own McDonald's Big Mac
or Hooter's Buffalo Wings, they also have recipes to make your own
Girl Scout Samoa Cookies, Clark Bars, and York Peppermint Patties.
[via BookPeople]
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7.20.2002 |
I've been doing more off-line than on-line reading
recently, which gets you little weblog content, but I do have a couple
of new book reviews posted for
The
Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark and
Miss
Wyoming by Douglas Coupland, both of which I rated '+', though
Miss Jean Brodie is the better book by far. I haven't gotten
reviews up for them yet, but I've also recently read Nancy Kress's
Beggers in Spain which I thought was very good, Michael
Cunningham's The Hours which is interesting if you've read
Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway (and remember it) but I imagine is
somewhat shallow otherwise, and a bunch of mystery novels by Laurie
King and Sue Grafton, which were fun hot-summer-weekend recreation.
The book-in-progress on the history of tort law is very interesting
and I'll hopefully finish it up this weekend and write up a review.
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7.11.2002 |
In contrast to the moanings and wailings of
RIAA and a handful of millionaire artists, here's a very good article
from
recording
artist Janis Ian in support of free music downloads. The
whole thing is worth a read, and she makes a nice, clear
argument that free downloads give musicians the exposure they
need to actually get their albums purchased. She draws nice
parallels to what's happening in book publishing with on-line
books. Particularly interesting, though, is:
And for those of us with major label contracts who want some of our music available for free downloading… well, the record companies own our masters, our outtakes, even our demos, and they won't allow it. Furthermore, they own our voices for the duration of the contract, so we can't even post a live track for downloading!Sure, the record company has invested money in producing the albums and wants to make sure they get a financial return. But as the article as a whole makes very clear, RIAA isn't fighting this battle for the interests of the poor, powerless musicians, no matter what they claim. [via Eatonweb]
More than just a flat collection of song lyrics,
Jonathan
Harel's Lyrics site lists 1673 only lyrics indexed by all of
the usual metrics but you can also click on (most) words in
a given song's lyrics and get a listing of all other lines containing
that word. Think of the theme-linked mix-making fun potential.
And, hey, he's got the lyrics for six different
Debbie Gibson and Tiffany songs, so your guilty-pleasure
stuck-in-head songs just might be in there!
On the other side of the musical spectrum,
the internet buzz has kicked in that a
Tolkien based
ballet, The Silmaril is in the works at the Butler Ballet
and Symphony Orchestra, "based on the timeless love story of
Beren and Luthien". I could really see this working - it's a story
with modern interest (being Tolkien and all) but with very classic
feel. And the write-up of the project suggests that it's being done
by people who "get" Tolkien. I'm intruiged.
[via Ghost in the Machine]
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reading: Beggers in Spain; Nancy Kress Liability: The Legal Revolution and its Consequences; Peter Huber
"Well I don't know but I've been told, |
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7.10.2002 |
Last week became "vacation" week,
starting off with work-related travel, and closing with the long
weekend, during which I did some reading, and a lot of
quilting, resulting in the items to the right, of which I am
prodigiously proud (this is only my second quilting project).
The one on the right directly followed a pattern, but the one
on the left is my own adaption - I thought the coordinated
pair would look more interesting than an identical set.
I also rewatched Big Trouble in Little China
with some friends over the weekend, and it remains one of
the funniest bad movies I've ever seen. It's got some great
dialogue, and beautifully cheesy effects. If you're already
a fan of this movie, check out the fan site
The Wing Kong
Exchange, particularly the huge sound files area.
We also watched The Buckaroo Banzai Across the
8th Dimension, which is supposed to be funny in
a similiarly bad way, and also has a strong cult
following (see the
Banzai Institute),
but which I didn't enjoy nearly as much. Sure, it's got a
great 80's vibe, and it's hard to resist a sci fi movie with
John Lithgow, Christopher Lloyd, and Jeff Goldblum,
but it was too much bad and not enough funny.
If you only visit one LEGO site I link
to, it should be
Eric Harshbarger's
LEGO website - his projects are linked in his right-hand
sidebar and they're all to good to pick one to highlight here. He
does both sculptures (including these immense
Simpson's
figures) and mosaics (like this
6' x 8'
Mona Lisa). He's so good, he makes his living building
these sculptures. If you're willing to go to more than one LEGO
site, though, check out
Andrew
Lipson's Lego Page
[via which I found Eric's page, and which I found
via #!/usr/bin/girl],
particularly his section of beautiful
mathematical
sculptures. He's also got some cool mechanical structures
and a very nice Rodin's "Thinker".
I had an electronic talking Battleship game
when I was a kid that I loved, so I'm just tickled by this
Flash
Battleship.
[via The BradLands]
In a similar vein to the "Ryan and Jacob are fakes" spam I mentioned last week, I got this fascinating message the other day: Subject: Time Travelers PLEASE HELP!!!I have even less of a clue what the point of this spam is.... Are they trolling for valid e-mail addresses? Is this just some poor individual with too loose a grip on reality? Unfortunately, all of my replical model #50's are from the 2100 series.
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