October 30, 2005

Big Smacker

ozziekissMy favorite thing about this pic is, if you look close at White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen's eyes, he's looking right at the camera, and probably thinking, "Oh shit, someone is taking a picture of this."

Posted by jackhodgson at 11:10 AM

October 28, 2005

Survivor: Guatemala Episode #7

s11logoIcky bruises and a big puzzle.

Warning: Spoilers in the continued...

Judd is a big jerk, and not very smart. He'll be one of the first to go after the merge.

Cindy is a babe.

I want to set up one of those zipline things to go from the top of Mt Pawtuckaway down to the State Park. Cool!

What's with Yaxha going to visit Nakum's camp? I seem to remember reading somewhere that one of the behind the scenes Survivor rules is that you can't leave your camp area to visit the other camp.

Amy voted out. Not really a surprise, though the editors tried to fake us out. At the end of TC Jeff says to go back to Nakum's camp cause they are now merged.

The Tribe
name, age (times to TC), (times indi-immune) notes
New Tribe (4 women, 6 men)
Gary, 46 (5) (1) not a former QB, was Yaxha
Lydia, 42 (4), was Yaxha, then Nakum
Judd, 34 (3), was Nakum
Cindy, 31 (3), was Nakum
Danni, 30 (4), was Nakum, Sports talker, was Yaxha
Bobbyjon, 27 (4), was Nakum, then Yaxha
Stephanie, 25 (4), was Yaxha, then Nakum
Jamie, 24 (4), was Yaxha, then Nakum
Rafe, 22 (4), (1) was Yaxha, then Nakum
Brandon, 22 (4), was Nakum, then Yaxha

Voted Out
1. Jim, 63, (1) Nakum
2. Morgan, 21, (1) Yaxha
3. Briana, 21, (2) Yaxha
4. Brooke, 26, (2) Nakum
5. Blake, 24 (2), Yaxha, was Nakum
6. Margaret, 43 (3) was Nakum
7. Brian, 22 (4), was Yaxha
8. Amy, 39 (5) Revere cop, was Yaxha

Posted by jackhodgson at 12:43 PM

U.S. Patent System a mess

Here's another example of how screwed up the U.S. Patent System is, and how the U.S. Gov't is crippling innovation by (perhaps unwittingly) aiding in the extortion of unreasonable license fees from developers.

The latest example is a company which claims it owns an important aspect of XML.

Developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) between 1996 and 1998, XML has become the dominant way of describing and structuring data so that it can be shared across the Internet and displayed in any browser.

But now executives at Scientigo, a small software maker based in Charlotte, NC, say the company owns two U.S. patents (No. 5,842,213 and No. 6,393,426), that cover one of the fundamental concepts behind XML: the idea of packaging data in a self-defining format that allows it to be correctly displayed wherever it travels.

Posted by jackhodgson at 12:28 PM

Mac OS Timeline

I got to thinking this morning, what is Apple gonna do when they feel it's time to "end of life" OS X? What will they call the next thing? OS XI? OS 11? OSEleven?

Anyway, that got me to thinking, that OS X has been around for a long time, but I wondered how its age compares to other "whole number" releases. So...

Just for the record, I collected the initial release dates for each "whole-number" release of the Mac Operating System.

versionfirst releaseage when superceded
1.0January 1984 (1yr 3mo)
2.0 April 1985 (9 mo)
3.0 January 1986 (1yr)
4.0 January 1987 (9mo)
5.0 October 1987 (11mo) src
6.0 September 1988 (2yrs 8mo)
7.0 May 1991 (6yrs 2mo)
8.0 July 1997 (2yrs 3mo)
9.0 October 1999 (1yr 5mo)
OS X "Cheetah" March 2001 (4yrs 7mo) (6mo)
-- "Puma" September 2001 (11mo)
-- Jaguar August 2002 (1yr 2mo)
-- Panther October 2003 (1yr 6mo)
-- Tiger April 2005 (6mo, so far)
-- Leopard due Late 2006
src: wikipedia, except where noted.
Posted by jackhodgson at 11:09 AM

October 27, 2005

Disturbing WestWing TV Show

This past Sunday's The West Wing has been troubling me since I watched it.

Spoilers ahead, run away, run away.

I can't see how the writers are going to rescue Toby in this storyline. He's in big trouble. I have a theory about daytime soaps, that there is nothing you can do that is unforgivable. But that's a different genre, TWW needs to be more real.

How can Toby survive this?

I went back and watched the beginning of the season premiere. Where we saw a flash-forward of the opening of the Bartlett Presidential Library, three years in the future, and the old staffers gather for the festivities. Toby is there. He is greeted cordially, without reserve, by the former President. Reference is made to him now being established at Columbia University.

How does he get from here to there?

One thought I've had is that Toby didn't really reveal "classified" info, cause he didn't hear about the military space shuttle from any official source. He was teased about it by his brother, and CJ basically confirmed it to him in a conversation we saw a few eps ago.

So CJ is in some trouble for revealing it to Toby, even if he had never passed it on to the NYT.

But if Toby didn't really know about the shuttle, then why did the NYT use him as a source? Is it possible that Toby wasn't really the source? That Toby only thinks he was the source? And that Brock actually wrote the story based on info from someone else? Will Brock now publicly say that it wasn't Toby?

That would mean that Toby has trashed himself for nothing. Even if Brock had another source, Toby did reveal info which he believed to be classified. So there will be consequences anyway.

I think it's not a coincidence that Toby's "debriefing" by the White House Council was interrupted by Toby's lawyer just as Toby was being asked how he knew about the Shuttle. Is the Council assuming that Toby knew this officially? But he only knew it from other sources? Is that the loophole that will save Toby from jail?

My guess is that, when all is said and done, Toby gets off on the technicality that he didn't actually possess classified info. But in any event, how can Toby continue to be a part of the Show's storylines?

Sad.

Posted by jackhodgson at 10:53 AM

Miers out

CNN is reporting that President Bush has withdrawn Harriet Miers' nomination to be a Supreme.

Posted by jackhodgson at 10:09 AM

Inside the Bush White House?

Over at Josh Marshall's TPM Cafe, former Clinton Administration member Paul Begala has written about what it must be like inside the besieged Bush White House. The piece is interesting and level-headed, but this colorful quote was too good to resist. Read the whole thing.

Mr. Bush would do well to augment his current staff, a C-Team if ever there was one, with some stronger characters. But to read the Bush-Miers correspondence is to gain a disturbing insight into Mr. Bush's personality: he likes having his ass kissed. Ms. Miers' cards and letters to the then-Governor of Texas belong in the Brown-Nosers Hall of Fame. You can be sure the younger and less experienced Bush White House aides are even more obsequious. The last thing this President wants is the first thing he needs: someone to slap his spoiled, pampered, trust-funded, plutocratic, never-worked-a-day-in-his-life cheek and make him face the reality of his foul-ups.
Posted by jackhodgson at 09:57 AM

4 months, 2 days

wswinThe baseball season just ended.

Congrats to the Whitesox. As many have said, there is some consolation that the Redsox were eliminated by the eventual World Champions. That means we can claim to be the second best team in the playoffs.

Anyway, Spring Training begins in a little over 4 months.

Posted by jackhodgson at 12:13 AM

October 26, 2005

World Series results

I'm starting the think that Houston may not win this thing after all.

My sister says that Shoeless Joe is influencing things from heaven, or the cornfields, or wherever he is.

Posted by jackhodgson at 09:27 AM

October 21, 2005

Friedrich Nietzsche

Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.


— Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher

I just added a bunch of new quotes to the ones that are displayed at the top of this page. There are 324 in the database now.

Posted by jackhodgson at 05:54 AM

Survivor: Guatemala Episode #6

s11logoBig balls and burgers.

Warning: Spoilers in the continued...

What's with the short-shorts on the sportscaster during the challenge?

Did you notice that there were 7 hot dogs and burgers and only 6 people? But it was the beers that caused the problem. Demon Rum! Did Judd steal the extra beer?

Both tribes go to TC... and Rafe win's first individual immunity.

Nakum at TC: Judd goes postal. Margaret voted out.

Yaxha at TC:

"He's gonna bust a wedge. He's just a good old boy." Bobbyjohn about Brian.

Rafe gets to give immunity someone. But that person isn't revealed till after the vote! Bobbyjohn praises Brian, then votes for him to leave.

Brian is voted out, and Gary got the immunity. What would have happened if Brian had gotten immune? Would no one have gone home? or would the second vote-getter gone? or would there have been another vote? Weird.

The Tribes
name, age (i times to TC), (x times indi-immune) notes
Nakum (3 women, 3 men)
Lydia, 42 (iiii), was Yaxha
Judd, 34 (iii)
Cindy, 31 (iii)
Stephanie, 25 (iiii), was Yaxha
Jamie, 24 (iiii), was Yaxha
Rafe, 22 (iiii), (x) was Yaxha

Yaxha (2 women, 3 men)
Gary, 46 (iiii) (x) not a former QB
Amy, 39 (iiii) Revere cop
Danni, 30 (iii), was Nakum, Sports talker
Bobbyjon, 27 (iii), was Nakum
Brandon, 22 (iii), was Nakum

Voted Out
1. Jim, 63, (i) Nakum
2. Morgan, 21, (i) Yaxha
3. Briana, 21, (ii) Yaxha
4. Brooke, 26, (ii) Nakum
5. Blake, 24 (ii), Yaxha, was Nakum
6. Margaret, 43 (iii) was Nakum
7. Brian, 22 (iiii), was Yaxha

Posted by jackhodgson at 05:51 AM

October 20, 2005

No Justice

NH Senator Judd Gregg wonn almostt a millionn dollars in last night's mega-powerball drawing!

Boston.com:

On a whim, U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg (R) pulled into a gas station in Washington this week and bought $20 worth of Powerball tickets. As he was leaving, a clerk ran after him because he had left one of the tickets behind.

Personally I think it's just another of those wickedly-clever Republican campaign money-laundering scams.

Posted by jackhodgson at 09:11 PM

Pop!Tech 2005

Today, and for the next few days, I'm listening to the live audio stream from the Pop!Tech conference up in Camden Maine.

Ethan Zuckerman is doing some good blogging of the sessions.

The audio stream is from ITConversations.

There's also a chatroom with people who are in the hall and around the world.

Posted by jackhodgson at 02:49 PM

Freaky optical illusion

Stare at the dots.

www.patmedia.net/marklevinson/cool/cool_illusion.html

Posted by jackhodgson at 10:26 AM

October 18, 2005

Wide area wifi access in Oregon

HERMISTON, Ore. -- Parked alongside his onion fields, Bob Hale can prop open a laptop and read his e-mail or, with just a keystroke, check the moisture of his crops.

As the jack rabbits run by, he can watch CNN online, play a video game or turn his irrigation sprinklers on and off, all from the air conditioned comfort of his truck.

While cities around the country are battling over plans to offer free or cheap Internet access, this lonely terrain is served by what is billed as the world's largest hotspot, a wireless cloud that stretches over 700 square miles of landscape so dry and desolate it could have been lifted from a cowboy tune.

More...

We should do this here in the Seacoast. We used to proudly call ourselves the E-Coast.

Posted by jackhodgson at 01:58 PM

Computer printers if they were designed for the Bush Government... oh, they were.

EFF has published info about how Xerox computer printers place hidden info on every sheet, that you print with their printers, which can help authorities track the page back to you.

So much for anonymous speech.

Posted by jackhodgson at 12:21 PM

Better Blogging

Jakob Nielsen, Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes.

Posted by jackhodgson at 12:17 PM

Confession: I like Dvorak

From the earliest days of the PC era I disliked John Dvorak. He struck me as arrogant, narrow-minded, and not truly tuned-into the tech revolution.

I maintained this view for years.

Today I'm a big fan of TWIT, the This Week in Tech weekly podcast. Dvorak is one of the crew of mostly former Tech TV folks who have reunited to record this really fascinating show. And I almost hate to admit that I've grown to like Dvorak.

He's still a tad opinionated, but good-natured, and has some interesting perspective on tech.

Go figure.

Posted by jackhodgson at 11:20 AM

Pre Katrina

Over the past couple of days, gas prices around Seacoast NH have mostly fallen back down to at-or-below their pre-Katrina levels. In the $2.50s. The bad part is that now we've all been de-sensitized to $2.80+ priced gas. We now tend to feel that $2.65 is a good price.

Maybe it WAS an oil company conspiracy.

Posted by jackhodgson at 07:53 AM

October 17, 2005

New Sorkin/Schlamme series to bow in late 2006

Aaron Sorkin, creator of The West Wing and the cult fave Sports Night, apparently has a deal with NBC for a new series to start in Fall 2006.

Hollywood Reporter via Yahoo!News:

A draft of Sorkin's spec script making the rounds in Hollywood last week depicts the behind-the-scenes tumult of a fictional sketch-comedy show in the mold of "Saturday Night Live," as well as the corporate culture of a TV network not unlike NBC.
Posted by jackhodgson at 08:56 AM

October 16, 2005

Ain't technology great!

techgood

I'm probably the only one who sees any irony in this.

Posted by jackhodgson at 03:03 PM

Pawtuckaway Lake level high due to rains.

Roaring through the gateAlthough the drawdown has started for the season, and the lake had gone down by about a foot, it's now back up to about 6 inches above normal, due to the rains.

I just posted on Flickr a few pics of the water flowing out of Dolloff Dam.

Posted by jackhodgson at 02:33 PM

October 15, 2005

Clash of the Titans

It's not exactly a Pac-10 matchup, but it merits noting that the UNH Wildcats beat the Rhode Island Rams today, 53 to 9. Fifty-Three to Nine!

Posted by jackhodgson at 05:55 PM

October 13, 2005

Survivor: Guatemala Episode #5

s11logoSwimming pools, and "no more kidding around".

Warning: Spoilers in the continued...

Did you notice that when Judd said "rat's ass" the audio of "ass" was heard, but the subtitle said "a--".

Jamie must be a target for not being able to cute the rope.

The swimming pool is kinda cool. I wonder how long they are gonna be allowed to keep it?

Poor Stephanie! But they finally won one.

Yaxha goes to TC.

The Tribes
name, age (times to TC), notes
Nakum (4 women, 3 men)
Margaret, 43 (ii)
Lydia, 42 (iii), was Yaxha
Judd, 34 (ii)
Cindy, 31 (ii)
Stephanie, 25 (iii), was Yaxha
Jamie, 24 (iii), was Yaxha
Rafe, 22 (iii), was Yaxha

Yaxha (2 women, 4 men)
Gary, 46 (iii) not a former QB
Amy, 39 (iii) Revere cop
Danni, 30 (ii), was Nakum, Sports talker
Bobbyjon, 27 (ii), was Nakum
Brandon, 22 (ii), was Nakum
Brian, 22 (iii)

Voted Out
1. Jim, 63, (i) Nakum
2. Morgan, 21, (i) Yaxha
3. Briana, 21, (ii) Yaxha
4. Brooke, 26, (ii) Nakum
5. Blake, 24 (ii), Yaxha, was Nakum

Posted by jackhodgson at 09:40 PM

October 08, 2005

Karl Rove lied to the President?

AP via Yahoo!News: "Senior aide Karl Rove denied to President Bush that he engaged in an effort to disclose the identity of a covert CIA operative to discredit her husband's criticism of Iraq policy, say people familiar with Rove's statements in a criminal investigation."

Posted by jackhodgson at 11:59 AM

October 07, 2005

Wait till next year

The Redsox were eliminated tonight by the Whitesox. It was a disappointing series. I thought we'd win one or two games. But all-in-all the season was probably as much as we could have expected.

Our pitching staff was diminished by injury all season long. Manny didn't come alive till way into the season. Millar never really perform like he did last year, even though Tito stuck with him for a long time. Renteria had a poor season.

So all things considered, we did pretty good to be at the head of the pack for so long. Even though the fade at the end of the season was frustrating.

So congrats to the Redsox, who are still World Champions.

And wait till next year!

Posted by jackhodgson at 09:03 PM

Survivor: Guatemala Episode #4

s11logoCaught up on watching after missing a week.

Warning: Spoilers in the continued...

As usual, for me anyway, it's taken this long for the players to start to "come into focus" for me. Judd is standing out, but may have made some enemies this week.

I believe that the tribe shuffle was to get the sportscaster and QB on the same tribe.

The Tribes
name, age (times to TC), notes
Nakum (4 women, 3 men)
Margaret, 43 (ii)
Lydia, 42 (iii), was Yaxha
Judd, 34 (ii)
Cindy, 31 (ii)
Stephanie, 25 (iii), was Yaxha
Jamie, 24 (iii), was Yaxha
Rafe, 22 (iii), was Yaxha

Yaxha (2 women, 5 men)
Gary, 46 (ii) not a former QB
Amy, 39 (ii) Revere cop
Danni, 30 (i), was Nakum, Sports talker
Bobbyjon, 27 (i), was Nakum
Blake, 24 (i), was Nakum
Brandon, 22 (i), was Nakum
Brian, 22 (ii)

Voted Out
1. Jim, 63, (i) Nakum
2. Morgan, 21, (i) Yaxha
3. Briana, 21, (ii) Yaxha
4. Brooke, 26, (ii) Nakum

Posted by jackhodgson at 07:43 AM

October 06, 2005

More on Probst leaving Survivor

s11logoI'd take the job if it was offered.

Inside TV reports that the 43-year-old Probst is going to quit once his contract is up at the end of the current installment, Survivor: Guatemala, which the Eye network debuted on Sept. 15.

More...

Posted by jackhodgson at 05:38 PM

Jon Stewart interviewed in The Guardian Unlimited

The thing that surprises him about the election last year is not that the Democrats lost, but that they came so close to winning. "Americans are loth to abandon the captain in a time of war. It's almost remarkable that Bush had to fight so hard to get re-elected, given the fact that the worst attack on American soil happened three years earlier; 100,000 votes in Ohio and the Democrats would have won it. They absolutely could have won it. It is shocking."

More...

Posted by jackhodgson at 01:21 AM

October 05, 2005

Baseball playoffs

One post about baseball before I head off for the evening.

The Redsox' loss last night was not all that surprising. The margin was shocking, but the loss was kinda expected. Clement has a history of fading in the second half, and he's also not been the same since getting hit in the head a few months ago.

Tonight we have David Wells pitching for us. If there's anyone in the rotation from whom we can expect a Win, it's Boomer. So I'm optimistic. And it is truly a "must win" game. I expect I'll be watching from the restaurant where my meeting is being held.

As I said to my brother last night, we let the Whitesox get all their runs for the series in the first game. They're done now.

Posted by jackhodgson at 01:33 PM

Weird user-group meeting

I'm heading out soon to attend the Rumspringa meeting down in Boston. I'll stop on the way to visit my parents, then off for pre-meeting dinner with the famous Steve Garfield.

I'm hoping that the blogging will resume tomorrow.

Posted by jackhodgson at 01:28 PM

October 03, 2005

Excellent application of tech

Dvorak reports on this student project where your beer mug's place-mat notices when your beer is low, and alerts the bar for a refill.

Posted by jackhodgson at 12:11 PM

Miers to be Supreme nominee

Here's an article from the Washington Post last June about nominee Harriet Miers.

Posted by jackhodgson at 12:11 PM

Why Caroline?

Here's a fun story from NPR on why they sing Sweet Caroline during the eighth innning break at Fenway Park.

Posted by jackhodgson at 09:58 AM

October 01, 2005

Fox Sports TV sucks!

It's not bad enough that they preempt the excellent hometown TV coverage by Jerry Remy and Don Orsillo on NESN. But now Fox has decided that the 4th inning 6-2 score of the the Redsox game is not worthy, and they've relegated it to a box in the lower right, as they show the video and audio of the Whitesox/Cleveland game in a featured box.

These people are awful. MLB ought to be ashamed to let them televise any games.

Posted by jackhodgson at 02:50 PM

She's a tall drink of water

"I'm not easy,
but I'm worth the trouble."

-- Kenny Traylor lyric, on the Roadhouse podcast

Posted by jackhodgson at 11:00 AM