The sun will rise briefly over the [South] pole on Tuesday, the spring equinox, for the first time in months.
Crew on Way to Rescue South Pole Worker (washingtonpost.com)
N.Va.’s Land Of Plenty Learns To Do Without (washingtonpost.com)
"It amounts to a petri dish that is incubated at an ideal temperature," said James Warfield, the Water Authority's executive officer. "We create an environment that bacteria like. If it's there, we want to know about it."
Tangier is on the temperate northwest coast of Africa, just 10 miles from Spain, across the Strait of Gibraltar, and washed in the breezes coming off both the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. But to the average Tanjawi, Europe is a distant dream. Tangier, population 600,000, is extremely poor, almost entirely Muslim, and, like many African cities, growing rapidly. Tangier is a place where you see an amputee child hunched on the sidewalk with a begging cup beside the dusty stub of his truncated leg. Much of Morocco's homegrown hashish travels through the port here, and the quieter beaches outside of town are a prime launch point for destitute Africans who risk their lives, and pathetically seek First World fortune, by sneaking makeshift boats across the strait, toward Spain. Old movies don't tell the whole story.
Under the Sheltering Sky (washingtonpost.com)
This week, I met the Sharif from the Clash song.
‘Homeless Hacker’ speaks out by Declan McCullagh.
Re: Taping of Windows During Storm
As for tape, I have heard more people than not say it is not worth it. It may help with glass cleanup a little bit, but my personal experience in Florida says you could use your preparation time much better by boarding up (this takes a lot of time.... be organized before the storm); bagging your computers, electronics, and important papers/photographs/heirlooms and getting your post-storm cleanup and repair supplies in order.
National Hurricane Center / Tropical Prediction Center is the mother of Isabel news.
Hurricane Hunters: Cyberflight
As your eyes adjust to the glare of sunlight, you gaze out at one of the most awesome scenes in nature: the “stadium effect” inside the eye. A solid wall of clouds circles around the WC-130, as though you are floating in a giant football stadium made of clouds. You are inside a giant well that opens up miles above your head into a bright, blue sky. Congratulations…you’ve just joined an exclusive group: those few people who have entered the eye of a hurricane.These photos from a NOAA flight over Hurricane Isabel’s eye are rather astounding. The Goddard Space Flight Center has some great Hurricane Isabel satellite images, NASA’s Multimedia gallery has a boggling picture of the eye taken from the International Space Station, and, in the Washington Post’s Camera Works, Preparing for Hurricane Isabel.
One in ten people like to cover themselves entirely with the duvet.BBC News: Sleep position gives personality clue. As Tom Petty sang, I'm freefallin'.
Jeffrey Zeldman Presents: IE, Flash, and patents: here comes trouble
Besides paying over half a billion dollars to the patent holder, Microsoft is supposed to cripple its market-leading browser so that IE/Windows will no longer seamlessly play Flash, Quicktime, RealVideo, or Adobe Acrobat files, Java applets, and other rich media formats. Once the company does this, any site that uses these technologies will no longer work in the browser most people use.Zeldman explains why this is a nightmare for usability and interface design -- imagine having to read a web page as though it were a scientific manuscript with related figures labeled and referenced and attached, rather than allowing your browser to present it laid out like a magazine. This patent seems to lay claim to the very concept of multimedia — is this something that can be 0wnd?
"Three's Company" looks goofy enough in memory, basing almost every plot on Roper or Furley overhearing something and completely taking it out of context, but the writers get credit for making their slapsticky situations feel real. And Ritter gets the most credit, for carrying the whole goofy enterprise on his broad shoulders. His Jack was never cruel, never a jerk. You could write a book about the show's attitudes towards gays and women, but you never got a sense that any of that came from Ritter.Gael Fashingbauer Cooper: Test Pattern — Raise a glass at the Regal Beagle
Macintosh: How to Create a Small Ethernet Network - “This document explains three simple types of Ethernet network that you can create in your home or office.”
I like the klockwerks.
Where have I seen this guide to turbans before? Oh, yeah.
“Every year we gaze enviously at the lists of the richest people in world. Wondering what it would be like to have that sort of cash. But where would you sit on one of those lists? Here’s your chance to find out.” [via Pop Culture Junk Mail]
28MM.ORG | Issue 010 | “Organic Matter” by Elena Kachuro-Rosenberg, Click!
Results Retracted On Ecstasy Study (washingtonpost.com)
Scientists at Johns Hopkins University who last year published a frightening and controversial report suggesting that a single evening's use of the illicit drug ecstasy could cause permanent brain damage and Parkinson's disease are retracting their research in its entirety, saying the drug they used in their experiments was not ecstasy after all.
Not believing in lawns is not the same thing as not having to mow them. Lawns to Gardens CONVERT!
commons-blog: Losing the Washington Commons
From one end of the Mall to the other, billboards and huge television monitors stream across the green lawn, promoting Vanilla Pepsi all in celebration of the first NFL game of the season. It seems particularly disgusting to me that the Mall, our nation's commons, is stripped of its value even for one day.America, Brought To You by . . . (washingtonpost.com)
The event was deemed so auspicious that George W. Bush took yet more time off from fighting the war on terrorism to appear, via videotape, at the end of the concert and just before the game, in the manner of a TV huckster. He tried to make some connection between football and "the spirit that guides the brave men and women" of the military, much as the concert had done. He also said pro football "celebrates the values that make our country so strong." Like what, violence and greed? Then, in intense close-up, the leader of the Free World asked the trademarked rhetorical question, "Are you ready for some football?"
commons-blog: Coca-Cola Lobbyist Joins National PTA Board “A prominent lobbyist and pr flak employed by the Coca-Cola company has been tapped by the PTA to join its National Board of Directors, giving the company significant influence over an organization with a long history of participating in public school policy. The New York Times reported that John H. Downs, Jr., the company’s chief lobbyist and senior vp for public affairs, joined the PTA board on June 23.” Commercial Alert has an overview of the issue.
We urge you to give back Coca-Cola’s money. Then the National PTA will be able to speak with an uncompromised voice about health effects of junk food, and carry out its worthy mission.
The Real Map of Europe names each country in its own (primary?) language—a simple democratic idea that delivers a blow to the anglocentric tradition.
As of this writing, an unplayable iTunes Music Store-encoded AAC file of Double Dutch Bus by Devin Vasquez is at auction for $15,099. I don’t think I’ve ever heard this song; have you?
