Year of the Tiger

Last night was S.F.'s Chinese New Year Parade. I found a killer spot on the 2nt floor fire excape of our building. The route changed, they swing from Kearny to Columbus and break down by the Trans-Am. That means I didn't get any pictures of the inner workings of the floats, I also wasn't kept up all night by people banging them apart and loading them for storage.

Newspaper Shenanigans
• Time's Stakeholder in the Doghouse
• Crowdfunding
• Objective Reporting

Political Shenanigans
• GOP / Populism
• Main Street Economics
• Health Care
• Aid

This and That
• Bowie and The Dead
• Cyberwar

As an aside: Sometimes, when the congressional zoo is loosed on the news, I worry. I suspect they were elected because it's a legal way to run them out of their hometown. Perhaps the American tradition of tar and feathers needs a second look.

Install Frippery

If anyone is doing an install, these wire tacks come with an 8mm throat and a 4mm constrictor. (phone line, Cat 6 and so on). Liven up that law office, put some personality in that corporate data link, or tack up some zip chord with flair.

Easy Come, Easy Go

Click Image to Enlarge

The Washington Post

SPCA

This is from my cousin Sue. I'm trying to reproduce it the same way I received it.

Hi, all you animal lovers!
This is pretty simple... Please ask ten friends to each ask a further ten today! The Animal Rescue Site is having trouble getting enough people to click on it daily so they can meet their quota of getting FREE FOOD donated every day to abused and neglected animals. It takes less than a minute (about 15 seconds) to go to their site and click on the purple box 'fund food for animals for free'. This doesn't cost you a thing. Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate food to abandoned/neglected animals in exchange for advertising. Here's the web site! Please pass it along to people you know.

http://theanimalrescuesite.com/

Black Side Down

Miss Celenia

When a space shuttle lands out there in the western US, this is how they get the spacecraft back to the Kennedy Space Center. There are two Boeing 747s modified to carry shuttles. Specifically, they have a big trailer hitch on the top of the plane. So far, no one has ignored the instructions.

Ya Think

This is why you're Fat

Bacon wrapped Pizza Rolls

Via: Neatorama

Furniture Dings

Lifehacker

Next time you inadvertently ding or bruise a piece of beloved wooden furniture, head to your pantry. According to all-things-home blog Apartment Therapy, all you need to cover up that ding is a single walnut.

I have not had the chance to try this, but professional kitchens have plenty of walnuts and no shortage of well-used chairs. (and Lord knows I'm a always up for good shop tricks)

You could make one

A nice looking accessory to keep your data disks from being scratched on the desk. Yes. An expensive tchotchke waiting for a home brew copy? At £11.50 (about $17.80) in the current climate, you betcha.

Via Book of Joe

Zeppelin City

Zeppelin City

This is just too good to save for a Sunday link-dump. Tor.com has published Michael Swanwick and Elieen Gunn's collaborative short story, Zeppelin City online.(link below picture) It's made the Locus recomended reading list, and for good reason. Mr. Swanwick's web site, Flogging Babel, below right under favorites, gives some of the background. (apparently there was a bet involved) Treat yourself.

Duct Tape Redux

Duct tape is the roadie's friend. At this link you can see it being used on the International Space Station. Since we have holidays for politician's birthdays and months celebrating this, that, and the other thing, how about duct tape day. On the other hand, every day is duct tape day around here.

The sun is making an effort

Spring is trying to make an appearance. I'm ready. This week a plane crashed into an IRS building. Oh my, Martha, the country is becoming ungovernable. Or, (you knew that was coming) perhaps government by the few, for the few is loosing its savor. Contrary to George's opinion, we are not a nation of laws, we are a nation of people. Left and right wing extremism is the albatross of any ruling class, but when a parasite looses access to the core, it starves. That's a lot of conclusion to draw from one incident, but the sun's out and I'm feeling froggy.

• Demosthenes on Texas
• Tea Party Politics
• Do It Yourself Genetic Engineering
• Bayh and Brown

Here are some bits about computing:

• Preserving the Data Harvest
• Limits of Computation

And, of course, the general interest goodies:

• Writing
• Free Range Food
• Annie Le Brun

North Beach is rather quiet. Sort of the calm before next weeks Chinese New Years parade.Everybody's busy repairing their costumes, scoring firecrackers (and the damn fool with the 3-in-the-morning cherry bombs has got to go) or scattering hel money over the streets. The broadcast people are already marking their sight-lines and prepping the uplinks, so I guess you can see some of it, even if you're not here.

They're Back

They're back, and with a brand new interactive color study, updates to their site and new product done in 'da corporate stylings. Devolution is no longer a theoretical construct, we be livin' it.

Old Japan

Adolfo Farasri

In the 1880s at a time when most Europeans were denied access to the Japanese interior an Italian photographer managed to capture many images of Old Japan. These were then beautifully and realistically hand painted and serve as a remarkable record of a world long since disappeared.

Suggested by Presurfer, the site has several pictures and and a bio. Here is a wiki, and here are more pictures.

Alice 1903

The movie needs a bit of restoration, but I believe this is the first film version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Link to Credits

Breakfast of Whatever

More Cereals

I must'a missed this one. But it was sold in stores and I guess someone, somewhere ate it. I admit, I still go for that old hippie stand-by granola. (non-artisan, please)

Nat King Cole Trio

CompuCarve

Compu-Carve

The CompuCarve is a compact, computer-controlled 3-dimensional woodworking machine with an easy-to-use interface. Complete projects without a shop full of tools. With a unique configuration, the CompuCarve performs ripping, cross cutting, mitering, contouring, jointing and routing, making it versatile and exceptionally convenient for any job.

It looks more like a milling machine rather than a 3D printer, i.e. subtractive, not additive, but when Sears starts selling the basic platform, can home fab be far behind?

Mentioned in Boing Boing

RIP Doug Fieger

Douglas Lars Fieger, 57, lead singer of the rock group The Knack and composer of the 1979 #1 hit My Sharona passed away at his home in Woodland Hills, California on February 14, 2010--Valentine's Day. Doug had battled lung cancer for six years. He outlived, for many, many years, his doctors' prognoses.
In person, Doug was brilliant, witty, with a wry and biting sense of humor. To those who loved him, his sometimes outspoken and argumentative nature (another Fieger Family trait) was recognized as a thin facade for a genuinely caring and gentle soul. Someone once remarked, tongue-in-cheek, that "Doug had more friends than he could shake a stick at, not that he didn't try."

Via: Boing Boing

Not Torrent Time

Above is a picture from the New Year street fair on Grant (Chinatown). It was packed to the gills; everyone was taking home pussywillows or orchids for their own celebration at home. At one end of the street was a pavilion for the local Chinese language radio station. It was cool for its lack of slick professionalism. Local station, local news, local advertisments: no polls, no martial typewriter music to announce the importance of the opinion break, and regular, relatively sane people on the air. But don't worry, big media will fix that when it gets done homogenizing the Spanish and Indian stations. A free country demands central control.

I've been experimenting with mu-torrent on my computer. It works well, but sucks time and most of my small bandwidth, so posts have suffered. I'll get the round-up out and try to bring things back up to speed with a batch of posts Tuesday.

• Speed of Thought
• Writers and Markets
• Taking Tea with the Lizards
• Political Reality
• Roasting Coffee at Home
• Elizabeth Hand Book Review
• How Christian is America
• Polaroid's Exhibit

Snow Days

Time lapse video of the Feruary 5-6 snowfall in DC. Nikon D200 set to make an exposure every 5 minutes. 328 frames at 12 fps.

Beyond a call from my Mom, it was pretty easy to tell how much snow fell on the northeast. Suddenly my in box was chock full of forwards, animal pictures, pictures of 6 month old family events, and the like from Eastern family and friends stuck indoors and having to choose between shoveling or computing.

It's Snowing

Link

Nick and Anna Berte of Bel Air, Maryland built a giant snowman and rigged it with a flamethrower inside.

Via: Neatorama

Kaleidoscope

One of my favorite band from days gone by. (Wiki ... Site) Heaven knows where the You Tube poster found this clip.

Stoolbus

Via: Susan

12 Sites

A Link to a list and review of 12 streaming video sites. Some look to be You-Tube clones and others take an editorial stance. 112 channels and ....

Jackson Pollack-mobile

A Thing For Cars

Week's Links

This week I have a site my Mom turned me on to. If you like your technobabble thick and juicy, swimming in Bogosity sauce, this one is for you.

• Anderson Institute

Other than that, it's been a work-a-day week. A little street fair is going up on Grant street (one block away). I'll see if I can get some stories or pictures. This weeks reading has included...

• Jim Flora
• Perry vs Scharzenegger Prop 8
• Calvin and Hobbes: Interview with creator
• Chapman / Salinger
• Microsoft's Creative Destruction
• Celebrities Stay Home

And finally a short story:

• Villain with the Heart of Flamboyant Evil

Soon

Via Dianne

It's not quite this bad, yet.

Connector Clip

OXO Chord Catch

Or you could use zip strips, wire weave, rubber bands, duct tape, and bubble gum like I do.

Mando-Banjo

I don't usually pay that much attention to glossy pop. This one , however, is the first time I've seen a mando-banjo used in this context.

The Legal Industry

Boing Boing

"The world's largest Internet search company and the world's most powerful electronic surveillance organization are teaming up in the name of cybersecurity," reads the opening line from this Washington Post report. The National Security Agency is reported to be finalizing an agreement with Google to analyze the recent and much-publicized hack attack Google says originated in China, targeting its networks."

I'm sure glad that both partners have promised not to leave any backdoors, trojans, or dangling participles behind the other's firewall. Remember, there's a guilty until proven innocent provision in the Patriot Act and the upcoming copyright treaty. The current SCOTUS is probably very comfortable with that. NSFW may become Not Safe At All before you can say "Industrial Law".

Kage Baker

Kage Baker 1953 - 2010

P.T. would love this

Rambler Link

Rambler are a pair of sneakers that use the Twitter platform to literally microblog every step you take. A sensor embedded under the sole detects when the wearer is walking. This information is sent via bluetooth to a mobile phone that makes the postings on Twitter.

On the other hand, maybe the probation department has some spare ankle-bracelet trackers they aren't using at the moment.

Via: The Presurfer