Two Things
2 unrelated things that make me happy: we just got free soda at work, and barbelith.
2 unrelated things that make me happy: we just got free soda at work, and barbelith.
The Alternative Polish Dictionary: thanks, riothero. My grandparents used to speak Polish a lot when I was younger. They don’t really use it anymore, at least not when I’m around. I wonder if I ever understood it on some unconscious level. This is a great dictionary of Polish slang, i.e. curse words and such. I wish I’d had something like this at Christmas dinner all those years.
The Greatest Thing Since… oh, nevermind: thanks, camworld. “Actually, a lot of people who hear about the product usually half- joke about sliced jelly. No kidding. That’s down the road a ways.”
NYC Nuclear Plant Leaks Radiation: “I look at my friends, and I hope we won’t die” - Moby. I know officials say that the amount of radiation that escaped was not dangerous, and this is very possibly true. I also know that the public is never told the whole story, at least not at first – especially in nuclear and other sensitive situations.
intimacy: thanks, memepool. A thoughtful reflection on this new medium.
Bill Introduced to End Privatization of Federal Prisons: “Among the very few functions that we should insist is done by the state, it should be imprisoning other human beings. . . . It is the ultimate exercise of authority by the state to say you have violated our laws and we are now going to punish you by imprisoning you, and it should be the state that in fact, then, imprisons people.” I hope the ACLU offers an action alert on this issue. The Prison Activist Resource Center has more information.
History-Enriched Digital Objects: thanks, peterme. “Consider some serendipitous uses of wear that everyday life presents. The bindings of cheap paperbacks bend and crack in a manner that allows one to find the last page read. The most often consulted pages of an auto parts store catalog are identifiable by smudges, familiar tears, and loose pages. The polished area of an otherwise painted brass door handle shows where others succeeded in grasping it.” Will Hill and Jim Hollan are studying ways we can record, protect, and decipher meaningful patterns of software use.
Rapster: Another napster client for Macintosh. Rapster apparently supports a “download type” that Macster doesn’t. Everyone is going gaga over napster, even friends of mine with 56k modems, but I still don’t get it – I’ve had no luck at all downloading songs with napster; when I do a search, I find what I’m looking for, but inevitably the download stalls or fails. Does it really work for Wintel users?
The Adventures of Action Item: thanks, peterme. Friends don’t let friends say “take it offline.”
Got Soy-Based Beverage?: thanks, robotwisdom. “The soybean beverage makers don’t got milk – never had, never will – and shouldn’t be allowed to claim otherwise.” - Dr. Rob Byrne, vice president of National Milk Producers Federation
Is Black History Month Still Necessary?: “If a Black History Month story is a story only because the source is black, then somebody needs to redefine the story. There are countless stories in our communities that don’t get told because journalists don’t go to those neighborhoods, or those schools, or those parks, or those churches, and never have. But the stories are there just the same, and many of them are about black people.”
McCain Eschews SC University Anti-Miscegenation Policy: George W. Bush made a visit to Bob Jones University during his campaign for the South Carolina primary, but John McCain will not. “The college lost its tax-exempt status in the 1970s for refusing to admit blacks. It subsequently ended its segregationist admissions policy but continues to ban interracial dating. … ‘How could I go into a university like that … when my little brother [Jeb], the great governor of Florida, married a girl from Mexico?’ Bush said.” How, indeed.
Homophobic Frasier Episode: Mired has a good essay tearing apart last week’s Frasier, though to my mind the worst thing about the episode wasn’t the stereotypes it showcased, but the way it played to straight mens' fear of being hit on by gay men. The Onion has another take on machismo.
Apple-branded Palm, no really: thanks, bump. MacUser UK citing “numerous sources” promises that an Apple branded Palm is in the works. They support this claim with such juicy tidbits as “Jobs has his hands all over this” and “Steve has been obsessed with keeping this thing under wraps.” This marvel is supposed to support Airport wireless networking through a springboard-style expansion slot. All I can say is, given Jobs' track record at Apple recently, if we haven’t heard anything official about it, it must be true. One wonders how they’ll top the sexy Visor, but one doesn’t doubt that they will.
Metabrowsing: thanks, robotwisdom. I don’t know if metabrowsing is really the right term for it, but this crop of tools (including the previously mentioned site QuickBrowse) is the first generation of an interesting development.
Don’t forget you can find older entries in the archives. Also, check out the new blue period. We didn’t have any hot water this morning, I had to take a cold shower. It was ok (well, it sucked but I could bear it) until I washed my hair. Have you ever drank a slurpee too fast and had that brain freeze they talk about? My brain froze from the outside… it was a terrible experience I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
Vanity Plates: 
I’m not in California anymore but this plate reminds me of when I was young. Go ahead, you know you want one.
Lemonade Stand: thanks, Arjuna. I have some friends who were addicted to DopeWars for a time, (one would play it on his Palm,) but I used to play Lemonade Stand on our Apple II+, and selling sugar water beats pushing candy any day.
Matchstick Rockets: thanks, abuddha. I’m going to go make one right now. Update: My first launch was a success! Using the paper match method (recommended for newbies) I set up the rocket on our bathroom sink, aimed it into the shower, and set it off – with a satisfying THWIPT it shot into the tub. I can’t wait till our housemate gets home so I have an excuse to try it again.
Design Bibliography: thanks, eatonweb. Patrick Lynch has put together the annotated bibliography of design (visual, web, information, user interface) books I’ve been searching for.
Weblog Madness: Larkfarm has the only page of weblog resources I may ever need. Thinking of starting your own? Don’t think, do.
www.randomwalks.com: A couple of changes around here: 1) you can now access randomWalks at our new domain name, and 2) we’re using Atomz.com to make the archives searchable. If you’ve got links to randomWalks please point them to www.randomwalks.com, and of course, thanks!
PliNkIT!: “PliNkit! is a collection of useful links that work very well, or are designed for viewing on a palmtop computer. It is designed to be a no frills easy to navigate listing of these sites.” I’ve been looking for a list like this for a long time. Every day since I got VirtualPC up and running on my Mac, I’ve been using AvantGo each morning to load Today’s Papers, Wired News, Salon, and the top New York Times stories onto my Palm for subway commute reading. The dream, of course, is a wireless modem. Forget the Palm VII, I want unlimited transfers and full TCP/IP baby. I wonder if I could get a job developing PDA-friendly sites?
Palm Pilot FAQ: thanks, rasterweb. I love my Palm, but this FAQ is right on.
