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Wednesday, May 29, 2002 |
In That Weird Space
Nice profile of Lauren Ambrose who so ably plays Claire on Six Feet Under. Surprises me that she's 23, she plays 17/18 on the show so well. I've stopped watching SFU (and turned off HBO all together until, maybe, The Sopranos starts its new season). I liked the characters, but in the last few weeks I was watching, they all just seemed to me to be on too inexorable a downward spiral. Claire and maybe the mom didn't seem to be totall screwed up. It just got to be too intense for me, which may say more about me than it does about the show. [Obscure Store]
10:18:44 PM Permalink
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We Won't See This on Channel 3!
"It's the kind of light, humorous story that news anchors love to have to spice up their telecast: Local celebrity lands in hot water for chucking produce at workers making a ruckus outside her bed room window. "
Only this time, it's Terilyn Jo, news anchor on San Jose's KNTV Channel 3 doing the egg-throwing. A great image.
NBC and KNTV made a lot of enemies, at least in the North Bay, when NBC terminated its connection with the old NBC affiliate and bought up this San Jose station. Alas, the San Jose station can't be seen from the North Bay unless you have a line of site to Loma Prieta mountain down between San Jose and Santa Cruz. Of course, they did this just in time for the Olympics. They generated a lot of ill will, and ended up selling a lot of cable and DirecTV subscriptions, which may have been part of the plan.
9:58:15 PM Permalink
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System 6 Heaven
Whoa, this really brings back some memories. I wrote a lot of articles and several books using System 6. I don't know if I agree with them that "Macintosh Operating System 6 is probably the nicest operating system ever made," but that's not as outlandish as it might seem. With some exceptions -- was it 6.06 that was so buggy? -- it was really stable and fast. I remember an early version of UserLand Frontier could run on it, with a special InterApplication Communication extension. HyperCard was on it, and made for a real powerful development platform. The Wired story where I heard about this pointed out one web page -- http://www.lowercasesound.com/ -- that uses a System 6 appearance. It's plain but elegant, and I think the black and white icons really do have something over the too elaborate icons of OSX.
9:39:39 PM Permalink
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Emails of the Dead
Death is never easy on loved ones. But now your E-mail can lend some comfort...
Buzz sent me a link to this site, which is called Timeless. The idea is that you can create E-mails that go out to people that you designate upon your death. For $12 per year you get a basic account which lets you send emails to up to 25 recipients and you can have a half a Meg of storage to attach video clips or whatever. The $18 annual account gives you more storage and more E-mail options. Their FAQ page explains that this is not intended to have a legal effect and that if you want to make a will or designate how your property should be distributed upon your death that you should contact a lawyer.
Well, that's obvious. What is not so obvious is that this sort of thing (which I think is a good idea, and may catch on) can complicate probate proceedings because it will create a written record of the deceased's state of mind at a certain point in time. In cases where the testator's state of mind is challenged as being subject to "undue influence" (see e.g. movie "Changing Lanes") this sort of information will provide additional evidence, which may or may not be a good thing depending on which side you are on in the dispute [Ernie the Attorney]
This shows how technology is changng our lives in ways that we can't forsee. I'm not so sure that this will catch on. Though I haven't looked at the site, I wonder how easy it would be to spoof it, and send fake emails from other dead people.
9:13:16 PM Permalink
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Intelligent Design
Ohio Schools to Teach the Theory of Intelligent Design?. According to the Washington Post, Two of Ohio's representatives in Congress are asking the Ohio Board of Education to add the theory of Intelligent Design to its science curriculum as an alternative to the theory of evolution. Intelligent design theory claims that God deliberately designed life on Earth. [kuro5hin.org]
Proponents of Intelligent Design are generally counter proofs of the argument. No intelligent creator would have have created such clueless. The thing about ID is that it's a dead end. What's science to do? When it sees a mystery, say, oh, that's a sign of intelligent design, we better look no further? If we'd done that, we'd still be in the dark ages. No, you've got to keep looking for answers and not do mystic handwaving if you want to get anywhere.
9:10:38 PM Permalink
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The True Purpose of Welfare Reform. The repoliticized welfare debate, put in play by the White House, ignores the purpose of welfare policy, which should be to help the poorest families earn enough to lift more children above the poverty line. By Peter Edelman. [New York Times: Opinion]
Well, that's the stated purpose of this "reform."
5:37:24 PM Permalink
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posted by jonpollard » May 29 11:43 AM | 16 comments. A blasphemy trial out of the 17th century "Let's be clear. Criticising the precepts of modern Islam and the resultant actions of its adherents is not racist. Philosophically, it is the precise opposite of racism. It is an intellectual position arrived at through a consideration of ideas, rather than a cruel and irrational prejudice based upon the colour of someone's skin." Rod Liddle discusses the upcoming prosecution of French writer Michel Houellebecq for a comment he made about Islam in an interview. Some interesting points here about the wider context, in which Houellebecq has been attacked for the beliefs of the fictional characters he creates. [MetaFilter]
5:22:17 PM Permalink
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© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.
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