Sunday, April 13, 2003

If you have a broadband link it is possible to find out if you are popular (c. 1947). (warning - this is nearly 100MB) After WWII there was a flood of counseling films that lasted at least two decades. I remember seeing films like this in health class and, at the time, wondered why they were showing them to us. Another fine period piece is A is for Atom from our friends at General Electric. Rich in strange visual methaphors, it is only semi-accurate. I had never seen this one before, but it is similar to many pro-atomic energy shorts I saw in grade school as a proxy for a science class - a few of them staring that great scientist Ronald Reagan. And speaking of real weirdness ... this little Oldsmobile piece by the people who did Betty Boop (Max and Dave Fleischer). There is so much on the Internet Archive - thanks Brewster! 9:05:48 AM     It is astonishing that Chairman Powell of the FCC is pushing to revise media ownership rules without public hearings when the public has been flooding the FCC with commentary. Now several senators have sent a letter to Powell noting their displeasure. The diversity of the signers is remarkable. It is remarkable how much takes place in the Bush Administration behind closed doors .. executive decisions without the messy involvement of Congress or the public (the revision of environmental rules as an example) and hugely important policy being determined by very small groups with their own agendas. Powell has stated that the issue is too difficult for the public to comment on intelligently (so he should decide it?). Powell can't even keep the FCC on message - it seems preposterous that he should ignore public and Congressional hearings. This is something to bring up with your representatives. 8:41:24 AM     I have always been impressed by the Craigheads ... several decades ago they began to study the Grizzly Bear and managed to make a major impact on our knowledge of that species. Now we have Charlie Russell (not related to the cowboy artist from Montana) and Maureen Enns. Their studies are criticized as being wildly dangerous as they live with Grizzlies on the Kamchatka Peninsula. Visit their site. There are some amazing photos of people very close to the bears. Check out the photo page - here is my favorite. 6:28:02 AM     Yesterday I ran into a letterboxer. It appears to be a luddite version of geocaching and has a distinct artistic element. You find a weatherproof cache based on clues and leave directions to other caches. Everything should be handwritten and you sign your note with a stamp - preferably homemade (store bought stamps are considered tacky). He notes there is a support site with clues that point to a few thousand caches. It is fascinating to watch the digital and real worlds interpenetrate. Just the thing to celebrate the arrival of Spring. 6:27:44 AM     Omniweb was once my favorite browser, but its beautiful interface wasn't enough to counter the performance advantages of Camino and Safari. Now, with 4.5SP, Omnigroup is basing it on KHTML, just like Safari. You can give it a try if you have registered an earlier version, but note that this is a very early incarnation with many bugs and many missing features. There is quite a bit of choice in the OS X browser world these days and at least three of them are seriously better than IE. 6:25:55 AM

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