Dollar Sale
There are no recorded images of Sacagawea; the U.S. dollar coin was modelled after a 22-year-old Shoshone Indian college student.
But it looks like Sacagawea will probably get phased out to make room for Millard Fillmore.
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There are no recorded images of Sacagawea; the U.S. dollar coin was modelled after a 22-year-old Shoshone Indian college student.
But it looks like Sacagawea will probably get phased out to make room for Millard Fillmore.
The Archbishop of Canterbury gave a rousing environmental sermon.
Too often in recent decades, the two big “e” words — ecology and economy — have been used as though they represented opposing concerns. Yes, we should be glad to do more about the environment, if only this didn’t interfere with economic development and the liberty of people and nations to create wealth in whatever ways they can.
Or, we should be glad to address environmental issues if we could be sure that we had first resolved the challenge of economic injustice within and between societies. So from both left and right there has often been a persistent sense that it isn’t proper or possible to tackle both together, let alone to give a different sort of priority to ecological matters.
But this separation or opposition has come to look like a massive mistake. It has been said that ‘the economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the environment’. The earth itself is what ultimately controls economic activity because it is the source of the materials upon which economic activity works.
I got this via one of Bruce Sterling’s Viridian Design Notes, where he annotates the sermon and notes “I can’t possibly occupy any very edgy social position when I find myself in agreement with the Archbishop of Canterbury.”
=v= A recent New York Times story (or via bugmenot.com) looks at some political organizations that combine the religious right with crass racial politics -- politics claiming that all Americans who speak Spanish are conservative and support el Presidente Arbusto. These organizations are of course being funded by taxpayers, because they purport to be "faith-based."
Here's a lovely example of our tax dollars at work:
"President Bush is Christian," said Sade Melendez, 10, after a recent rehearsal. "He doesn't believe in abortion, and the other man does."
"John Kerry believes in lesbians," said Jorge Granados, 10.
Kerry presumably believes in Mary Cheney et al because they exist. Poor Jorge Granados, on the other hand, is being "educated" to live outside of the reality-based community, and we're paying for it.
At a press conference earlier today, Ken Mehlman, chairman of the The Republican National Committee, announced “Crisis on US’s Earth,” an ambitious, year-long initiative to address the multitude of continuity errors George Bush and the Republicans in Congress have introduced into the GOP Universe. […]
Industries insiders say that the overhaul was precipitated by Bush’s increasingly reliance on “parallel universes” (such as the one where voters gave him a mandate in 2004) and “imaginary stories” (such as Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction). The Iraq war has been particularly vexing for Republicans, with no less that three “origin stories” (WMDs, liberation, democracy promotion), each of which is considered canonical.
I should just give up and add a “Recent Defective Yeti Posts” sidebar.
(If you didn’t get this, all is explained.)
Monday night, I saw Josh Kornbluth at Black Oak Books here in Berkeley, on the occasion of the reprinting of his collection of monologues, Red Diaper Baby. He performed part of “Red Diaper Baby,” and discussed his monologue under development, working title “Citizen Josh,” about democracy.
He made this salient point: “I question the… business sense of exporting democracy to other countries about now. Because isn’t it when you have a surplus of something at home that you want to export it?”
This keyboard makes me:
(Via Gizmodo)
As part of her doctoral study, Croney hopes to quantify the cognitive level of pigs by encouraging them to do something that many parents wish their children wouldn’t do so often–play video games. However, the pigs won’t be playing arcade favorites like Mario World or Mortal Kombat, at least not at first. “We start with a very simple task,” Croney says. “The computer screen has a series of different icons, or shapes, on one side and a single shape on the other. First, we try to get the pig to move the single shape across the screen to touch the one that matches it. Once the pig accomplishes that, we move on to more complex tasks. Pigs are known to be smart animals, and we expect them to do more than recognize symbols. Our tests are similar to many used in child cognitive psychology. They’ll give us an idea of how advanced pigs are in mental development.” […]
The research team, which includes several undergraduates in animal bioscience, also had to design a special food delivery system. “Food is used as a reward to motivate the pigs to play the game,” says Croney. “When the pigs correctly move the object on the screen, a bell rings, telling the pig that it’s about to get a reward. Then a treat drops through a tube right into the pig’s cup.” The researchers also have installed a videotape system to record each experiment from four angles, which can be played back on screen simultaneously. “The videotapes help us carefully analyze the pigs’ behavior while they are using the joysticks,” Croney says.
Predictably enough, the Engadget thread on the subject had lots of comments to the effect of “Ha ha there are people who think about animals’ intelligence I shore loves eatin’ me some pigs!”
There are several lightweight Linux distributions specifically designed to breathe new life into old hardware.
With the end of support for Windows 2000 next month, Microsoft’s only supported desktop OS will be XP, which has heftier requirements than most machines older than about five years meet.1
Microsoft has noticed that not everyone’s going to want to replace their old hardware for the privilege of buying their current OS. So they’re making a lightweight version of Windows.
The Eiger product is meant not for home users or small businesses but for large organizations that currently use older PCs with older versions of Windows. […] Eiger is being designed to run server-based applications; it won’t run Office or line-of-business applications locally. […] Eiger will also include Internet Explorer for access to Web-based applications and Windows Media Player.
So they’re going to include the worst of the MS product line, IE and MP, throw in a firewall and antivirus (because IE and MP are security risks) and leave everything else to an application server.
That’s like Ford re-introduing the Pinto, but just a stripped-down version featuring only a rusty rear bumper and a gas tank.
You’ll have to tow it behind a Ford pickup truck fitted with a special firewall/blast shield.
In other news, Bill Gates predicts Microsoft will kill the iPod; Steve Ballmer predicts the end of Google as Microsoft enters the search market and Paul Allen predicts that Microsoft-worship will supplant all the world’s religions.
OK, I made that last one up.
1 I tried to look up when 600 MHz CPUs first became mainstream, without success. I did find this reference to the 500 MHz Pentium III being released in 1999.
A Sacramento family has wrapped their house in aluminum foil.
The D’Souza family lives in the home on Timberwood Court, and claims the aluminium pieces are necessary to protect them from unknown neighbors who have been bombarding them with radio waves and making them sick. “(It’s) a shield to protect against radiation, because microwave radiation is reflected off of aluminium, so it’s a protective measure,” resident Sarah D’Souza said. The D’Souzas said the bombardment began after the first anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and that the radio waves have caused them health problems ranging from headaches to lupus.
Sacramento Code Enforcement officials have gotten involved and ordered the family to remove the metal by Monday or face a misdemeanor citation.
See! The Man doesn’t want you to be able to protect yourself from radio waves! What conclusions can we draw from that? (c.f. Max Weber’s classic work of social criticism, “The Aluminum Cage”)
To be on the safe side, better wear EMF-shielded clothing. Pity they don’t offer an electric undergarment.
And, to be wholly serious, if my next U.S. passport has an RFID chip, its home will be a Faraday cage bag.
Also, it makes me happy that Tinfoil Hat Linux exists.
I just read Bruce Sterling’s The Artificial Kid, from way back in 1980, when cyberpunks were still writing manifestos. I was struck by this passage (our heroes are swapping life stories):
Anne said, “I believe in God, the catalyst of life, the core of the universe, the essence of good. I believe in good, and I believe in evil, and I have sworn to support the first and destroy the second. I believe in a soul, which is manifested in matter, but is different from matter and superior to it. God breathed life into matter, because God is pure soul, and the souls of all living things return to God when their stay in the realm of matter is dissolved by death. Evil comes when the pure and passionless soul is polluted by material lust and greed. The way of salvation is to purge the soul of evil and return to the good. All forms of life contain some good, because they all come from God; therefore all life is sacred, and not to be wantonly destroyed. Such in the creed of my Church; such is my creed; such is my faith.”
After this strange statement, she fell silent for so long that I thought she had finished. I was annoyed and amused. “That’s it, then?” I said mockingly. “That’s your life story?”
“That is the core of it,” she said. “The rest is only personal details.”
What’s your life story, stripped of the personal details?
Robert Sheckley fell ill during a trip to the Ukraine, and has been recovering in a private clinic. He’ll need to be hospitalized immediately on his return, and could use help. Read some of his stories:
and donate if you’re so moved.
Alan Moore seems pleased with his forthcoming graphic novel:
This is “The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Dark Dossier,” a hardcover graphic novel coming from Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill later this year from ABC/Wildstorm/DC Comics. Moore tells me this “will slip in between volumes two and three” of the “League.” Moore described it to me as “not my best comic ever, not the best comic ever, but the best thing ever. Better than the Roman civilisation, penicillin…” The human brain? “Yes and the human nervous system. Better than creation. Better than the big bang. It’s quite good.”