I just thought of a truly evil, twisted thing to program.
I may be evil and weird for thinking of this, but if you
implement it, my hat is off to you...

Your task:
Use Jakarta's custom tag libraries to interpret TeX documents
into valid XHTML (CSS is kosher) that look like the documents
would as postscript. Bonus points if you can do it without CSS
while still having it look decently close. It's kosher to
use java graphics packages to do the equations you'd have
trouble doing in HTML, although if you can fake that out in CSS
too, even more bonus points. If request to render time is under 20
seconds for a typical scientific paper, my hat is entirely off to you.
If this takes you less than 2 months, I'll be stunned. Note that no
use of JNI or other tools to talk to a real TeX interpreter is permitted.
Start when ready..

I absolutely loathe popcorn. The smell of it is deeply unpleasant.

A nod, and the would-be hero stopped, stood still. The normal chaos,
hierarchy, patterns in the mind all slowed.. memory present, but
no decision-making, no interesting processes.. what little thought there
was... a memory or impression, of the top of his hand over a pyramid
shape, soft plastic, a gentle slope. Cradling that odd angle with his
hand.

Perhaps a focus on the motion of fluids while stirring a bowl of soup,
the intricate folds and flow near the wooden spoon.. 

I'm presently listening to Daler Mehndi's "Dil Te Churiyan".. it's
very addictive, and there's an amusing music video that comes with it.
It seems that one of the consistant themes in Daler Mehndi's videos
is that he's convincing an initially reluctant woman that he's cool.
I do wonder if I would like his music more or less if I understood the
words... I also wonder if there are any people like him in American
popular music -- could his videos fly with a western audience? Could
his style of music appeal to people here?

Someone I used to know, but now lives far away, recently wrote something that
really grabbed me... he's someone who I really feel has lived a parallel
life to mine, the similarities are really kind of funny. Oddly, I never really
seemed to get close to him -- perhaps too much similarity, people who normally
play the same role in social groups, these things make for parallel threads in
the fabric of society..

At work, I finally have a breakthrough in the R to Auton bridge -- I now have
the C side keeping things on its own, and can pass data from R to C. I was
thrown off by the way .C() appeared to work on a function I grabbed from a
sample C function called showArgs(), but it actually wasn't, the objects
were just being passed back and the R side of the code was displaying them.
Nothing like printf() debugging.. Heh. The way I'm cooking these things up,
I want to be using .External() ... and the sample function was actually slightly
wrong, at least for the version of R I'm using. Anyhow, once I get some simple
data passed back from C into R, all the tricky, experimental work in the
project will be done, and the actual (relatively dull) implementation will be
ready to be cooked. 

Yeah, they got Saddam. So what? It doesn't change anything -- it was a stupid
'adventure' for BushJr (pbuh), who should've listened to his dad. BushSr at
least had the brains to understand that occupying the country was a dumb idea,
although his adventure wasn't too bright either. I doubt there were any
of the specially nasty weapons (but hey, a weapon's a weapon) in Iraq, I think
BushJr knew this and lied (his instructions to be dishonest to his ppl don't
help things), and in any case I don't think Iraq ever posed a threat to the
United States in either gulf war. Saddam's abuses of power arn't anything
special for nonwestern states, and such abuses certainly don't stop the U.S.
from continuing to deal with and support other such countries, especially
when oil money is involved.

I think, for the first time in a long time, I'm going to have a decent amount
of this month's paycheck, beyond the amount I automagically have doing so,
to deposit for saving. That's pretty amazing, considering all the car mess
I've had to deal with, but yeah, I'm happy. All the long-term ugliness left
over from the O'Reilly trip, the aborted vacation, car problems, and other stuff
is gone. I have a small cash buffer against emergency now... mmm safe..

Came across this news-ish blog. Amusing.

This article, by Berners-Lee, one of the pioneers of the web,
suggests that websites be designed so that documents never disappear. I really
am at two minds on the issue -- on the anti-side, I'm reminded by the advice
of the extreme programming camp (and some other camps too) that
to think too far ahead is too limiting and time-consuming for software
(let's extend it to webpages), where having flexible, simple, easily implemented
ideas is more important. On the other hand, I do think it's awfully inconvenient
that so much of the web is continually disappearing, or worse, becoming
obsolete or incorrect without being marked as such. Is Archive.org
a solution, or a red herring? I really don't know.

A friend sent me a sad story. I sent her here for something else.

This is an interesting political-regional framework. A fun quote:
Democratic consultant James Carville once described Pennsylvania as
consisting of Philadelphia in the east, Pittsburgh in the west, and
"Alabama in the middle."

Reality TV for you..
A few of the other victims of the holocaust get mention..

Some farming politics..

And something I've always suspected: Powerpoint makes you dumb.
That's not my title -- it's the actual NYT article title :)

When I visit Israel/Palestine, I'll probably try to stop by here.

I grabbed the rest of my music from my home system onto my laptop last
night.. I suspect torgo's going to die soon, so it's time to start doing
more backups... I can't quite put my finger on why it's going to die, it's
just an intuition.. but my computer intuition is damned good..

I finished converting my BLOG to XHTML.. thanks to the kind
help of a friend, some good references,
and a hell of an inspiring demonstration of what's possible. I know I'm nowhere
near that yet, but my site comes about as close to passing the validator
as I'm going to care, for awhile. The only thing it doesn't like, from the
pages I tested it on so far, is that I have a HR tag (looks like this)

inside of the tables that my entries are in. Well, it's either the TABLE
or the PRE that makes it unhappy. According to the friend, I can either
convert the HR into some other CSS element, or switch from tables. Eventually
I'd like to use DIVs instead..

And while I'm working on this stuff, I'm listening to some music that Gaelynn
exposed me to when I was in Columbus some time ago...
Moulin Rouge.. Come What May
And it's one of those pieces of music, like Memory (from Cats), that has
the ability to reach into my emotional areas and deeply grab me. I'm confused..
I don't know what I feel, I'm overwhelmed.. Music.... does that to people who've
played it.. or is it the other way around? If you've never made music, and never
done art, you're probably missing out on a big part of life..

I went to Barnes and Noble today, to see their selection on books on
CSS... it's pretty poor, but the local bookstore does have a somewhat smaller
selection than most stores of the same name.. I did see one I liked, and
was going to buy it, but Amazon had it for $30 (they wanted $50). 
Title: Core CSS (2nd ed) by Keith Shengili-Roberts. There was another book
that looked both amusing and possibly useful, called Death March (Edward
Yourdon), but it was similarly much cheaper on Amazon. So, I contributed to
B&N's existance by getting some Tea, and then came here, to Coffee Tree
(added the books to my Amazon wishlist -- I might buy them eventually).

One thing that a friend suggests is that before I switch to using CSS, I
should switch to using XHTML first. So, I plug my site into the W3 Validator,
and come to see that it's not even HTML 4.01 compliant... some of the changes
look easy, so I pop open the sources, and, GAH! What the hell?!?
The formatting is gone. All the tabs have been removed from the file. I am
furious. I know *I* didn't do this, at least not intentionally, and I can't
think of how it could've happened. I have been tweaking the sources over the
last few days, and have some half-finished changes, so I can't simply revert
to the last CVS copy... I just don't understand how this happened.. so I'm
digging through my code again, hand-reformatting. Grumble grumble.

Yeah, there's non-tech stuff to talk about... but I'll save that for later.

I'm sitting at my window.. watching the snow come down, at 02:30.. the
deep night, me, and the glass. Wally occasionally looks up, and wonders
why I'm not resting with him on my beanbag.. I've recently taken to sleeping
with the shades open, in my front room.. I like waking to the sun.. and 

-PRIVATE_SECTION NOT SHOWN-


Some kinds of music are really bad to play late at night... They easily put
me in a sorrowful or reflective mood, and those really are things that arn't
so good for when noone is around and the sun is down. It's hard to remember
that I've given up on some things when parts of me keep being ambivalent on
if they wish to integrate into the whole or not. Hard to paint a coherent
story when the corpus colossum is severed.. and the nightmares.. or
disturbing dreams.. they've been at me recently. I wish I could forget them,
but they return, and sometimes touch my waking hours. An hour over a
bathtub, an hour in the park, an hour in the tall, open place. I turn my
head, stepping outside myself for a moment, and watch you walk by the long
window. Is this the soft place? Was there ever such a place? The faint taste
of lemon on upholstry.. tongue runs over plastic, rubbery, leathery furniture.
Here, the rules are softer, judgement is harder, but suspended.

I summon your spectre, no, not a meaningless embrace... Keep me company
this night.

I took more of a look at XML stylesheets today, mainly with the intent of
reworking the HTML my BLOG software spits out, improving the looks while
simplifying the code. After a bit of poking around the sites of a
few people who I know are technically in the know on how to do it
right, I decided that Mike Shaver, formerly of Mozilla/Netscape,
had the blog that most resembles what I want mine to look like. I poked at the
HTML, and it looks nice and clean, although it has some elements that I've
never used before. So, I saved it to local disk, and edited it, adding
comments as to what DIV tag closing matches what DIV. I then started inserting
similar tags into a saved copy of the output of my blog, and got something
sort of similar (with the colors overwritten). Not bad. I did need to insert
calls to use shaver's css files though. Now that I'm convinced that redoing my
HTML to use DIVs and CSS is feasable, and I have a vague idea how to do so,
it's time to start reading about them...
The tricky thing is that although it doesn't look too hard to have predefined
styles for my website, I'd ideally like to be able to have arbitrary colours
and stuff for things (as is presently possible and implemented). Maybe it
won't be a problem -- I don't really know enough about what's possible yet.
This is another steep learning curve for me to climb, although I get the
feeling the view will be spectacular from the top (like Unix). I've already
learned enough that I can do some small cool tricks..

Completely unrelated, I did some minor updates to my website. There's still
a lot to do, but I don't feel very motivated..

It's kind of a bummer not having my bike. It's going to be a long cold walk to
India Garden tonight..

While walking today, I had one of my hands in my pocket, where I had
a cold thing of grape juice (Mmmm... grape juice.. my favourite drink)..
The cold of my left hand felt different than the cold of my other hand
out in the air.. the right felt somehow more harsh, although it was just
as cold. Perhaps, in retrospect, it was the wind, although at the time it
reminded me of something I heard about exposure to cold, dry air creating
a visual effect of aging, over time. The thought, in sum, was that people
living in cold climes tend to age faster, skinwise, than in warmer places..
Whether this is true, I'm not sure -- the memory is too faint.

I dropped my bike off at the bike place again, and asked them to give it as
much fixing as they could. It'll apparently be close to $100 to get
everything fixed.. but it's a good bike, I'm used to it, and according to
them, replacing it with an equivalent bike would be about $250. It'll be done
on Wednesday..

So, I'm now registered as a Democrat, or at least will be when the snails
finish their duty. When I was younger, I once had a conversation with a
friend. At that age, I knew nothing of politics, and didn't even know what
party my parents associated with... and at school, we were holding mock
elections. So, a young Pat and a young Melissa, in elementary school, were
having a very cute discussion.. she knew her parents were Democrats, and I
guessed, based on zero knowledge, that I might be one too. "Who wants a
Vice President with the name of Bush?", we quipped. I was disappointed when
I got home and asked what party we were (my parents, at the time, said
that they were Republicans, although I was too young to take a position), and
the next day, when talking with her, I said "I found out that my family's
Republicans.. but hopefully we can still be friends?". I still am amused
at that memory...

So, the appeal of Dean...
Why does the idea of him being president give me warm fuzzies? Is it simply
by contrast to the idiot at the helm now (pbuh)? No, I don't think so -- the
idea of an intelligent Republican at the helm, like Dole, would certainly be
a step forward, but I don't think Dole could excite me (stop snickering) as
much as Dean.. neither of them are religious freaks (unlike Lieberman, whom
I loathe almost as much as BushJr), but Dean's not likely to bow to them in
any fashion. We know Dean's appreciative of gays, and we also know that Dean
has made a life for himself outside of politics. The guy's gone through med
school, something really worthy of respect -- doctors and academes, like
lawyers, are people who've proven themselves intellectually, and unlike the
latter, in a way that's considerably more noble. I know there are plenty of
other ways to prove oneself, but the fact remains that most of our politicians
are people who are after the money and have the integrity of a businessman.
Dean also has passion.. he gets angry, and there's something honest in that.
He has his sights on BushJr, and I hope he manages to undo all the damage
the bastard has done if he wins the presidency. Yes, I know he very likely
won't, but one can hope, eh? If I had a choice to have a 100% guarantee that
Dean would win the presidency if I were to voluntarily reduce my salary by
$10k, I'd do it. I realize that this very likely will be the most I ever
care about a particular election, or a particular candidate..

After getting the registration form from the lady in Shadyside, I went
into the other, new Coffee Tree down there. Impressions? It's very big,
and has a slightly bigger variety in food, and the plugs are much more
plentiful.. unfortunately, it's hard to find a place to sit -- despite it
being at least as three times the size of the Squirrel Hill one, there are
not nearly enough tables. In a way, I guess it's analogous to the communities
in which they reside -- Squirrel Hill is cozy, small, and not as commercial.
Shadyside is very commercial, and does its best to give an air of luxury, but
somehow it doesn't seem to be human-sized, and so it's not very natural feeling.
Following the metaphor, a theoretical Oakland Coffee Tree would be dumpy, 
crowded, and smoky, close to the street, letting in the cold and noise.

Here's an article about complaints over the
display of the Enola Gay in a museum without any of the negative context.
Personally, I'm of the opinion that it should not be displayed at all -- its
dropping was an unparalleled atrocity, it's development a bloody shame, its
use a mark of shame for the United States. 

Here's an interesting take on zoning laws, suggesting that in
practice, they end up creating sprawl. In fact, looking at the place where I
did much of my growing up, Brecksville, I can see a lot to complain about.
It was practically impossible to get anything by going on foot -- cars were
made absolutely necessary by the design of the town. The housing area I lived
in certainly was quiet, but it was also sterile.. people didn't walk to
get anywhere. One of the great things about Pittsburgh, at least where I am in
it, is that I really can (and do) bike or walk almost everywhere. I didn't use
my car today. I didn't use it yesterday. I'm actually not sure when I last
used it -- it might've been last wednesday, so I could quickly get from the
Zets Pizza night place to the movies afterwards. If I had wanted to, I could've
eliminated that usage too. That's the mark of good community design. Was it
possible in Columbus? Sort of, but not as easy. If zoning laws are, in fact,
aiming to seperate areas of function from each other, aiming to produce
a Brecksville, then I agree with the author that they're a bad thing.

I happened upon a really really cool site while looking at that --
it pokes fun at really ugly architecture, once a month. I'm adding it to my
"Often Visited" section of my bookmarks.. 

Freed from strong church control, religion evolves rapidly.
That's pretty entertaining.

Businesses worry about China versus Taiwan... but
"believe that in the end, money, not missiles, will rule". MONEY versus MISSLES.
Yeah, it's good we have our priorities straight. Hey, asshole money-fetish
greedy bastards, why don't you come speak to a few Taiwanese and Chinese people
I can gather, and then let them talk to you about their families and friends
over there who might be killed, as soldiers or as civilians, in a war. You need
a lesson in priorities.

I may fade into the background...
My entry in life a detail
the Cliffs notes find too unimportant to mention..
But I am not a prisoner of the lamb

The wind flows over my head
It has forgotten.. everything..
I want to join it
But I am too attached to things..
But I am not a prisoner of the lamb

I see happy people, laughing, hugging
They are with friends,
singing to each other, song of slaves..
But I am not a prisoner of the lamb

I recently had a conversation.. and yes, Gaelynn, you're
right.
Gaelynn: it is that you have people you
connect with, but they can no longer be there for you
and you can't find others to fill those roles

And I'm giving everything I can, when asked, and taking nothing.
It's even more frustrating, because I think (hope) I've learned
to take when I need, and not to hold my breath, but I'm now
beyond that. Learning to be honest is a lesson that is more about
something else, later on the path. The surface lesson is honesty, and
it's one you never learned, but the deeper lesson is, well, I'll
let you come to understand it on your own. There's am abstraction
of honesty that has nothing to do with communication, I don't know
if it has a good word in English.

The ACLU called me about a week ago about an event they wanted me
to attend this past wednesday... and they said they were going to
email me the info. They never sent the mail, so I didn't go..
I have no idea what it was for, but oh well.
Tomorrow, on Walnut Street in Shadyside, the Dean folk are
holding a registration event. I'll probably show up -- it's at 15:00.

Today, on the way back from work, I noticed a Libertarian Poster..
They were bragging that they're the only party that said they were for
people keeping 100% of their paycheck. I guess it really acted as a
kind of measure of how far I've moved from their position -- I was
just pissed at it. To be fair, I'm not sure if the official party position
was ever this, and most libertarians I've known didn't believe in this..
But yes, I've turned the libertarian skepticism of big government to also
worry about big business, and I think I worry more about business than
government nowadays, and my green concerns became a wedge that very neatly
jammed the door open in understanding that economic interests cannot
express other interests. Of course, the vanilla liberals are wrong on two
counts... people are still stupid, and 'rationality' won't result in all
the disagreement in the world going away. In the eyes of some Liberals,
Rationality has become their mantra in the same way that Liberty is the
mantra of Libertarians -- a magic way to hide disagreements in a terminology
that makes it bloody hard to actually talk about them. I remember, when a
Libertarian, talking with another on an issue where we disagreed -- privacy.

A: "I believe that one should be (free/at liberty) to keep information about
anything I see, and pass that information around as I see fit"
B: "I believe that part of Liberty is to be free from intrusive eyes, and
what you're talking about isn't a true part of liberty"

If you know me well enough, you can guess which one of the above I was. The
point is, we were using really stupid terms for what's much more naturally
thought of and talked about as two seperate values instead of aspects of a
single, complex-as-hell term. Anyhow, I'm different than I was..
Hell, maybe someday I'll end up being a socialist -- stranger things have
happened, but for now, I've come half-circle, from something resembling
objectivist-republicanism (when I was young) to libertarian (high school through
college), to liberal. I do, as mentioned previously, think a time will come
when scarcity of labour will be eliminated, and at that time, a socialist
state of some kind will need to be established, or technology will be the
end of our economic system. At that time, perhaps a Leninist or Trotskyist
socialism, in any case, a liberal one, might be a good option, although
other social/economic arrangements might be worth experimenting with. Does
this make me already a socialist? Ahh, definitions are best at capturing
simple cases.

Now, on to current events..
All talk about theoretical communism aside, this has me
really pissed off. I imagine the Chinese government feels emboldened by
recent statements by BushJr that they won't support Taiwanese independance..
If China were to invade, what would happen now? Hell, BushJr, is the Taiwanese
government eventually going to, because of your business interests in dealing
with China, be declared a terrorist organization?

Here's a novel tactic to fight for the green cause...
I don't really approve though -- this is the side of the greens that's
repugnant to me, the thought that many entire ways of life and culture should
be legally protected... although, I have recently come to understand the
full implications of what I'm saying, and I do understand how people could
go the other way on this. It is kind of a painful thing to decide that that
much culture is out of bounds for strong protection, but on this issue, I
think it's worth it. Ahh, who are you to judge, shouts a little part of me..
and to you, little part, I spit in your eye. I sympathize with the pain, but
not with you -- every decision or position we take has consequences. It's
unavoidable, and the most purile, stupid thing we could do to say things like
"who are you to judge?" and pretend that that should lead us to a fast
victory in an argument. Sure, you might make someone stutter, confuse them
perhaps, but all you're really doing is providing confusion -- it's not an
argument.

Perhaps on-topic, France, always the country to agressively get involved in
law to protect their way of life, is working to ban overt religious symbols
from schools. It's interesting though -- I feel a new sympathy for France.
I am undecided if my aims of providing what Stanley Fish calls boutique
multiculteralism is itself a kultur. It's at least an element, so getting
stuck on the terminology would be a distraction. I dream of a lot of
seperate cultures existing, in weakened forms if necessary, inside of a
large modern liberal kultur, with no ability to influence the laws, which
would be designed and managed by some liberal folk at no obligation to listen
to folk from the individual cultures, who would otherwise attempt to sway them
to give them strong advantage or introduce their customs into law. The
subcultures could enforce their whims on their participants, who would always
have the ability to leave said cultures, and no contracts that would bind
them too strongly into said cultures would be valid. Religions and such
could continue to play the people, but not through them the state.

Some dark humour for ya.

Here's an interesting insight into the evolution of humans -- 
it suggests that the development of some of the mechanisms of hearing may
have been a watershed event, acting itself as a very slippery slope to
rapid advances in other areas of brain development..

Is this a balanced report on issues in
Israel? The idea of watchdog groups sounds like a good idea -- much like
copwatch in several cities here. Better monitoring of what actually
happens at check points should be, in theory, in everyone's interest.
Having publically accessible (webcams maybe?) randomly visible coverage of
all checkpoints would provide, in many cases, good ways to know when abuse
happens, and when people are abusing the system.

Here's the latest BLOG I've started reading: Ali Mohammad Abtahi.
Apparently, he's one of the vice presidents of Iran.. It's interesting that
it puts a face on Iran, helps us understand things in a very different society,
and that it's from someone so high up.. It's available in 3 languages too..
I wonder if he's trilingual, or if someone translates it for him.

Oh, incidentally, some language nazis apparently are delighted to flex their
chicken little urges again. Of course, it's always pathetic to go after
the dictionary as if it's responsible for new words and phrases coming into
being. It's still funny ;)

Here's some pretty worthless technology.
I honestly don't understand the big deal about gas-based fuel cells for
laptop computers -- it really seems to me to be a big step backwards.
Laptops and cellphones, the two targets mentioned for the technology,
whereby people get gas cannisters and plug them in, and by consecutive
use of the fuel, can keep their stuff going for ~20 hours, are the absolute
last devices I'd ever want to require a nonrenewable power source for. Why?
I USE THE FRICKING THINGS EVERY DAY. WHY THE HELL WOULD I WANT TO NEED TO
KEEP HEADING TO A STORE TO GET MORE FUEL FOR THEM? It's a wonderful thing that
right now they're both rechargable, and it was a really stupid thing that my
first digital camera was not (until I got the optional rechargable battery
for it). So, someone explain to me why methanol fuel is a good thing, because
I'm stumped.

Apparently the Communist party in russia is having problems holding
together, with an interesting divide between theories of communism
tugging at it from a few sides.

So, another weekend. Apart from the Dean thing tomorrow, what to do?
Hmm. I think I might head out to a more distant park, putting my car
to use, and spend some quiet time just sitting. I used to do that in
Columbus... walk to somewhere remote, and just sit for a few hours,
sometimes with a pen and pad, sometimes without. I hope it's not too
cold for that. On the other hand, if it rains, that's pretty too.

I've recently come to understand a few things with people I've known..
My worst enemy, from middle to high school, the cruel clown...
Also, some more insight into what went wrong recently. My thoughts
have wandered around the map, once freed from the desire to absorb
everything sent my way. Yeah, Pat, you messed up a bit, and she
continually messed up, but she warned you too, during moments of
clarity. It was always your choice.. maybe it wasn't the wrong gamble
to make, but it was complex. You've already established a new foothold
here, now all there's left, for her, for him, and for everyone else,
is to understand those you've judged, and make sure you're not just seeing
what you need or want to see.

The dead month continues.. places close, people leave town, campus is bare.
Days get shorter, colder... it's hard to wake up. There was an old science
fiction story, scientifically silly, but good reading, about entropy
increasing, spread over all of space... people, nature, everything grew
tired, it was hard to stay awake. The world was coming to an end, and they
were doing desperate research to try to pull things together... was it
an asimov story? I think the story must've been written in winter...
on the topic, someone stopped by, and I gave them some spare books I have
that I had been trying to ditch on half.com for awhile. We ended up talking
philosophy for about 2 hours, over tea. Enjoyable..

Some music for you...
The punk version of "God Save the Czar" is particularly nice.

For those of us who have a hard time thinking that people who like
Solaris/Intel exist, there's this guy. Wow.
To fill in some more detail, he got a MIS degree, and he takes care to
accent the 'e's in his spelling of the word resume.. ;)

ICANN, everyone's favourite and oh-so-open group, is apparently playing
victim, being shut out from some U.N. committees
that want to internationalize some core net services that currently are
*sigh* privately mangled .. er.. managed .. by companies in the U.S. I'm no
fan of those companies, but I do wonder if the U.N. could do better -- one of
the things that makes me think it might be a bad thing is that WIPO
might be on one of the controlling committees. Of course, I have wondered if
the U.N. is more about making the world safe for business than to provide a
safer world with liberal notions of freedom more widespread.. 

I recently stumbled on a webcomic I might start regularly
visiting.

On the topic of China-Taiwan, China eventually rattled its sabre enough that
Taiwan blinked, and then on a visit to washington, got some lukewarm
support for their moves. Taiwan isn't too pleased.

Here's an analysis on how Putin is managing the economy.. it's portraying
it as a mixed market similar to that of Japan, and of course, being the
Washington Post, tosses in a snide dismissal at the end. What are we to think
of mixed markets? We live in one, China lives with one, and there are endless
shades of 'how managed' and 'to what end' things can be arranged. Should there
be guiding principles for how to lay the foundation?

Go Dean!
It's interesting how large that figure we first saw on TV a year ago has
grown...

Redhat recently had a change in direction for how their linux distro is
to be branded and maintained. While in all I think it was a bad move, both
for them and the community, I do wonder what the end results of Progeny's
intent to sell support for their old releases will be.
As customers, we don't need to think about the health of the businesses --
they extract enough wealth from imprisoning their users through their desires
that they'll survive, or something similar may come about. On the borders of
capitalism, I worry that there's more fragility, as they attempt to exploit
less.

In Zimbabwe, no doubt you've heard that when the Commonwealth suspended
the country, Mugabe had it quit the organization. Blair warned that Mugabe
might lose his knighthood. Nice one there Blair, I'm sure the loss of that
title will do what expelling the nation from a political/trade body didn't.
It is interesting though, that parliament, by the warning, might be able to
strip people of knighthood -- how does that work exactly? Traditionally, the
royal family has been the one to grant it...

Ok, just got a phone call, and apparently the chess game is over, and I've
won. Now I can let you in on what's been going on. When I moved from
Columbus, I was living in a large, dumpy, cheap blue house (that was, nontheless,
very cool). After falling in love with Debb, and deciding to move to
Pittsburgh, I quickly made arrangements to transfer the (2-year) lease to
some other folk.. I returned my cablemodem, cancelled the utilities, and
high-tailed it outta there, settling down in Pittsburgh::Shadyside (and
have since moved to Pittsburgh::Squirrel_Hill). Eventually my parents got a
letter.. from Columbia Gas. They apparently didn't record that I called them,
and had a bill to my name for $1400, for about 8 months of gas service.
Since then, I've been talking to lawyers and a few other people who've been
helpful. I've been hoping they would just disappear -- the communications
have been pretty sparse (partly due to them not having my current address).
The thing that finally put an end to it was my contacting the Public Utilities
Commission, issuing a formal complaint. That got an entirely new person on the
phone, someone at ColumbiaGas who seemed interested in working with me to
resolve the issue. After a lot of information exchange between me, her, and
my old landlord, it was found that not only do I not owe them any money (yay!),
they owe me a (much smaller but still significant) bit because I overpaid (yay).
Thanks to everyone who helped me out through this (especially Jason). 

Radiation is a major concern for manned missions to Mars...
It'll be much more of a concern if, as some futurist-minded folk suggest,
we're to eventually inhabit the moons of Jupiter and Saturn...

Ahh, BushJr is out to win more friends. Yes, this is the
same dolt who wonders why few other countries are willing to help with the
peacekeeping.. And, na klar, if these contracts wern't ways to reap fat,
inflated profits as a nod to businesses BushJr (pbuh) likes, companies wouldn't
be so keen to get their hands on them.