Tuesday     April 5, 2005   11:03 am

From: http://www.ipodhacks.com/article.php?sid=574 and originally quoted from Slashdot

On the agreement between HP and Apple regarding the iPod:

"The general manager of Microsoft's Windows digital media division David Fester has suggested that iTunes' emerging dominance would be bad for consumers, because it would limit them to the iPod, as opposed to limiting them to Microsoft based products. In a moment of what must have been an attempt at ironic humor he said, 'Windows is about choice - you can mix and match software and music player stuff. We believe you should have the same choice when it comes to music services.'"

Although it's old news by now, just hearing someone from M$ describe Windows as being about choice is funny given that Windows has been the subject of the most publicized anti-trust law suits in modern history brought against the company for limiting consumer choice.

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Tuesday     October 25, 2005   6:49 pm             humblefool.net      

Just wanted to drop you a line and tell you that I love your little corner of the internet. It's nice to see a site where form follows function. that, and the bad poetry generator is always good for a laugh.

Monday     February 21, 2005   12:04 pm

Yesterday felt like the end of winter, or at least the end of snow and ice this season. I took my plastic superdome articial greenhouse tent off the fish pond on the porch and switched out ten gallons of water. The fish seem very happy to be exposed to the world again. They survived the winter without ice, despite the freezing temperatures around them.

A few weeks ago Kimela bought a baskebtall hoop, but it's been raining or snowing every weekend since she got it so it's been sitting in parts on the living room floor. We went outside and put it together. I was amazed at how high it is. It's difficult to find a place in the backyard where one can make a free throw without hitting powerline or worrying that a window will break from the rebound. I was also delighted at how easy it was to fill the base with sand. I made a funnel out of a plastic 7-up bottle and 160 pounds of sand flowed like water into the base without clogging once.

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Thursday     February 3, 2005   10:34 am

It was the morning of the next day. I had arrived in my office, and after reading my mail I was just about to get up and make some coffee. Just then, my favorite person at work leaned through the doorway and asked in a bright voice with raised eyebrows, "Who are you?" And he let out a gentle laugh. It was the face of UCFU. Or so I thought.

I had a suspicion it might be him. I knew he liked good strong coffee, and that he used the filter occasionally. I laughed and began to explain how the combination of my coffee disappearing, and the filter being left in the sink had led to my leaving of the note. But he seemed perplexed. He hadn't been using the filter. He'd been using my coffee in the espresso maker and thought it was common lab coffee, unaware that it was my personal stash. He was happy to chip in to buy more.

He then went off to his office cave and I was left to ponder that UCFU was actually two different people!

This is something that haunts me in science. A simple observation of two highly related events. And the simplest assumption to explain them turns out to be wrong. Then again, if I had paid more attention I could have inferred that there were two people involved, because the coffee grounds that UCFU leaves in the filter when they leave it in the sink are usually bigger than the espresso grind that I use to make my own coffee.

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Wednesday     February 2, 2005   6:38 pm

I don't like the coffee we have at work so I bring my own. I order it from Peets in California and I store it in an Illy espresso can in a fridge under the sink in the break area. In Kansas City you don't have to put your name on things that go into a common fridge because people are too nice to steal from each other.

I make my coffee using paper filters and a simple plastic filter apparatus that looks like a funnel with a handle on it. After a brew, I toss the filter in the trash, rinse the holder, and place it in the cupboard above the sink on a little folded paper towel. It's all very simple and efficient.

Over the last few weeks I've noticed that someone has been copying my routine. I arrive to find the coffee filter sitting in the middle of the sink, directly over the drain hole. It happens twice a day that I use the coffee filter and put it away, but arrive to find it used and sitting dirty in the sink.

One of the things I like about the coffee filter is that I rarely feel the urge to wash it, when all it does is filter coffee. I'm content to rinse it and place it back on it's perch. However if it sits in the sink and a non-coffee drinker comes along and washes out their oily ratatouille tupperware from lunch, my coffee filter becomes oily too, which is why I don't leave it in the sink. Of course, no one in Kansas City eats ratatouille, but it's the principle that counts.

Until yesterday, I didn't really mind cleaning up after the unknown coffee filter user (UCFU, pronounced UCK-foo). UCFU was a slightly annoying curiosity. But yesterday was different. The Illy espresso can is metal. It has a threaded lid that seals with a quarter turn. I like the feel of the cold metal in my hands when I take it from the fridge and rotate the lid. However yesteday my hands were met with something different. Instead of meeting with the union of Italian style and metallic industrial efficiency that results in a perfectly sealed can I noticed that the lid was crooked and loose. I realized that someone had been going into my coffee, and they didn't even have the wherewithal to put the lid back on right. I suppose it wouldn't really matter except that the fridge can be exceptionally smelly, and I don't like using my coffee as an odor absorbant when boxes of baking soda are so much better at that task. Could it be UCFU? I wasn't sure, but I decided to take action.

Perhaps if I took my coffee filter back to my office instead of leaving it in a pubic place, UCFU would give up on brewing individual cups and drink the coffee from the coffee maker like everyone else. I only make coffee twice a day, I don't really save anything by storing the filter by the sink, so I decided to store it in my desk drawer.

Yesterday when I came into work, I grabbed my cup and the plastic filter holder and headed to the sink to make coffee. I was greeted by a strange sight. Sitting in the drain hole of the sink was a paper coffee filter with coffee grounds in it. UCFU had tried to make coffee without a filter holder - which can actually be very difficult. And then they left the resulting garbage, paper with coffee grounds in it, in the sink.

I threw away UCFU's mess and proceeded to make my coffee. And once again I noticed that someone had gone into my coffee because they can't seem to figure out how to seal the can correctly. I also noticed that they seem to be using quite a bit of coffee because the volume is decreasing pretty fast.

So I decided to put my name on the can. The fridge has an ample supply of lab coffee, and maybe the person didn't realize that my coffee was different than the general use communal coffee. I printed out a label with my name on it, and placed it prominently on the top of the can.

The afternoon came. I got up to make my coffee. I opened the fridge and looked inside. UCFU had struck again! The lid was half cocked, the can was more empty than it had been before.

Couldn't I simply dismiss all this silliness? So what if someone is drinking my coffee and leaving the mess in the sink for me to clean up afterwards? Was there some creative solution to this situation?

I couldn't think of anything so I decided to communicate with UCFU directly. I cut out a piece of paper and folded it in half, so it would just fit inside the coffee can. I wrote, "Who Are You?" on the front, and on the inside I wrote a little note that someone had been leaving my coffee filter in the sink, and drinking my coffee without sealing the lid and how that wasn't very nice :(

I placed the note gently on the top of the lovely brown grounds of coffee sitting in the can to meet the next person who happens to crack it open. I'm not sure what to expect. Hopefully UCFU isn't a maladjusted miscontent waiting for a target to lash out at when indrectly confronted. There's only one person who works in my area who appears that way, but I don't think she has a hostile bone in her body. Rather, I'm sure it's someone I know and like, and these are simply the onion peels covering a beautiful soul.

I think I'll go make some coffee now.

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Friday     January 28, 2005   11:27 pm

Two parents are better than one, but one mommy is better than two.

Does Margaret Spellings want to blind your children with good Bush republican values? The same "values" quoted all over by the press that conservative voters used to put the GOP in the Whitehouse for another four years?

On her second day as the newly appointed Education secretary, Margaret Spellings publicly denounced PBS for an episode of a kids cartoon that mentions a character that has two moms. And since PBS gets public money, some of which may have been used to produce the episode, she wants that money refunded. You know, it's really fortunate that there are no gays or lesbians who pay taxes or who raise children, because otherwise her request might seem unfair.

Buster is an animated bunny with a video camera. He travels around meeting people from all walks of life. The show is called "Postcards from Buster", and in the offending episode Buster visits a maple sugar farm in Vermont where one of the characters they're going to meet is described by the narrator as having two mommies. According to Spellings, thats half a sentence too much description for decent folks.

It's too bad she can't seem to remember her own experience being criticised by conservatives. The following snippet was taken from the Washingtonpost.com (dated 11/18/2004)

Spellings became the subject of conservative sniping soon after moving to Washington after she was asked on C-SPAN to react to census data showing a decline in the traditional family. "So what?" she replied, noting that there were "lots of different types of family" and that she herself was "a single mom."

So she appears willing to defend family types that may not perfectly fit the conservative mold when the aspersion is cast in her direction, she just doesn't want you to know what they are. What causes here not to say, "So what?" to a description of a characcter with two mommies?

PBS is the best television available to the public, hands down. It sets the standard for thoroughness and educational value. It has a long history and laurels to stand on. If there were any place for the mention of two mommies, PBS is that place. How can she not realize this?

Last night I watched an episode of ER, and saw a man stick a gun in his mouth and blow his brains all over a wall and then the show cut immediately to a loud happy commercial for gas guzzling Chevy trucks - while our administration has young people dying in Iraq because it is a nation in an oil rich region of the world. And Margaret Spellings thinks half a sentence about a character with two mommies is a moral abomination for which an educational non-profit network should be punished? Granted ER and the network it aired on is not publicly funded, but it falls under government supported and restricted airwaves. There is an incredible double standard when it comes to "protecting our kids" from television when it comes to PBS and the other networks.

Are these the conservative values you want?

"Rather than lose the episode completely, a Boston affiliate has decided to re-edit the piece, removing any references to the lesbian pairing."

Don't we routinely criticize China for this kind of editing? Is the conservative solution to ignore the parts they don't understand? Cut out the parts they don't like? To simply pretend that gay people don't exist and will simply go away someday?

PBS should be commended for preparing kids for the reality that some kids do in fact have two moms. They should be complimented for doing it in a gentle, smart, and subtle fashion. I find it very disheartening that Margaret Spellings' actions will now cause the Boston affiliate mentioned above to edit reality to be more amenable to conservatives, and in so doing, leave all those little minds ever so slightly less prepared to deal with it.

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