massdestruction

6 Degrees of Google ads

UK citizen and eco terrorist (otherwise known as a "good guy") William Connolley has a most excellent post debunking myths on global warming. As I read it I happened to catch on the side a Google adsense ad for the North Carolina Conservation Network. I probably made him another couple cents by clicking on it - of course with George W. exchange rates thats something like £200 (warning: my math is bad).

So is Google smart enough to pick ads in my home state or is this just a coöincidence? Oh, and its too bad that The Day After Tomorrow scenario isn't accurate, I always thought of myself as a Dennis Quaid kind of character.

Macin' with my X(box)

9 Year old swaps granddad's gun for an Xbox. Suh-weeet - don't tell the other kid that he got screwed being stuck with the gun. Oh, and don't forget that Xboxes don't kill people, guns do.

Don't think your state doesn't have crap laws like this

After reading this article I am seriously considering some black-mail action on people I know who live together. I am sure if I look close enough I could end up black-mailing many friends for this and other stupid laws.

"Your occupation Mr. Mason?"

"North Carolina state law black-mailer"

Google versus the world

I have a good many friends in the computer software biz and daily I am surprised by the number of friends who are working on either a) search engines or b) web analysis tools. I can understand b more than a to a certain extent but both seem to me to be completely saturated. Today Google took a step that will blur the two a bit more and make me personally stay out of both technologies - they bought Urchin.

I've always thought of Urchin as the "Google of web analytics", now I guess they are.

I still don't understand why so many people feel these two technologies are ripe for the pickings since both are technologies that are not so much software features and up front engineering but simply server power (read: lots o' money). I have yet to hear of any of the now 5 friends doing this stuff mention server power. Nonetheless, I have been wrong every day.

Tony's show

I am fairly new to podcasting... that is, I am fairly new to actually being a regular listener of a couple of shows. When I first heard of podcasting I couldn't understand why anyone wanted to listen to people who can't DJ, be a DJ. Well, the answer to that is they don't but a good deal of podcasts have come a long, long way since it first happened. The phenomenon has obviously hit a new level as even really bad local news programming seems to want to cover it. Nonetheless, I write this because I have to give a big shout-out to a good friend who has a very good podcast.

Tony Steidler-Dennison is someone I met while working on the Clark Presidential campaign - he's a good man with a passion for Linux and a bigger passion for music. His podcast is called The Roadhouse and is a good weekly look at Blues artists you probably haven't heard. I am not a particularly large blues fan though I certainly appreciate the role it has played in rock and roll (Hooker and Heat is probably my favorite in-your-face example of that influence). Still, my personal tastes notwithstanding, Tony runs a really tight show! He has a great voice for radio and an obvious love for doing it.

So, good on you Tony - I'm listening.

Oh, I'm no doctor!

Barney Frank wins best line of the day with this gem regarding the Terri Schiavo case:

We're not doctors, we just play them on C-SPAN

Oh, and what are my thoughts on the case? Well, first I think everyone needs to go write a clear and concise living will. Second, I think we should beat one of Dr.Bill Frist's loved ones into a vegetative state and then splash their photo all over the news and call them before congress to "testify". Then we should get people with AIDS to sweat and cry on the good Doctor Frist. While we are at it, once Dr. Frist decides the world has seen too much of his loved one becoming a sideshow freak, lets get another doctor to watch a short video tape of his loved one and second guess decisions from the person who is actually giving the medical care. Oh, and then we can make sure that every person in the House and Senate who decided that this case somehow involved them are required to take care of someone in a vegatative state every day for at least one year. With no help.

That's how I feel about it.

PAW 12 - Protest portrait

This week's PAW image comes from a protest against the occupation of Iraq held in Chicago this weekend. Personally, I think protests are useless - they are overplayed and have little to no effect except to help solidify the opposite opinion. I went though to get some photos and it occured to me that I should to take portraits of some of the variety of people who are concerned about the direction their country has gone. To me the up-close and personal photo is way more powerful than a bunch of kids yelling stupid things at the police.
If you liked this week's shot I put together a set of some of the other similar shots I took.

Enjoy.

Greenspammed

I've paid far too little attention to Alan Greenspan over the years. He seemed to be the guy who made the Dow go up and down occasionally, but what was he to me? This past year NYTimes Columnist Paul Krugman (professor of economics at Princeton) has been paying more attention to him and thus, I have.

One problem I have with Greenspan is that his position is somehow seen as some non-partisan, above-politics kind of gig when the truth of the matter is that he is there to represent the best interests of U.S. Banks. That simple mission connects him to more politics than one human should have to deal with (and many would argue that his personal politics has made him fail this mission too).

Another problem I have with him is his obvious reversals in the past few years. When Clinton was President he said that the most important thing was to get rid of the defict and debt. Clinton did and when Bush came in office he said the most important thing was to quit paying down the debt so fast because we were in danger of having too much money (so tax cuts a-go-go), now he is saying the deficit and debt are the most important problems we face. What the hell?

I think Sen. Harry Reid was right when he compared him to J.Edgar Hoover in that his politics change with the sitting President and therefore he keeps his job and is often praised for it.

Those like Reid who voted against him retaking the post the last time around should be commended for having the balls. Most people in this country have bought into the PR and think he is some sort of financial god. Standing against someone with that kind of public opinion while in elected office has to be standing on some principles in my opinion.

Oooh, Ethics too

Its not quite as good as Aaron's recent ethics rant, but I do find it really interesting that Apple has nothing to say about Motorola's "rumor" that is essentially telling us what Apple's next product is. Where is the lawsuit? You have to think that at least in this case there was an NDA invoved.

Lovin' Lambert

Have I mentioned that I love Tim Lambert and how he continually defends fact? Well, if I haven't, then let me tell you that I love Tim Lambert and how he continually defends fact.

You can't make this stuff up

Words that have never been spoken to me before today turn out to be words that will probably never again be spoken to me:

I've got to go shoot a Lamisil event at a Manhattan spa... See ya

It needed to be documented.

Cameraleather

I have a small collection of cheap-o rangefinder film cameras. I ran across Cameraleather.com back around the end of last year and thought it was just what I needed for my cool little Yashica Electro 35 which had some bad gashes in the pleather.

I ordered a nice looking red leather kit for it and heard nothing for a month. I wrote an email to the owner, M. Sparks, to see where it was and was told that he had just finished the kit and I should see it within a week.

Another couple weeks passed with no kit in sight and I wrote back and this time was told that he had run out of that color and forgot to tell me, it would be in within the next week.

By February - nothing, by March - nothing. I have asked him for my money back but I feel entirely within my rights to pass on this story to warn others of this so-called service.

Tell your photo friends.

OS

Cate and I have our 10th anniversary next month. 10! holy crap! Despite all the old anniversary gift guides telling us that it is the "tin" anniversary we've decided to give each other the gift of a week+ trip to the U.K. Specifically to Cornwall. That photo... that's the cottage we have rented (for a surprisingly small amount of money). While thinking about going I realized I had not told one of my favorite people in the world whom I would be near:

Telsa, the sweet, smart, and funny woman who, along with husband Alan taught me the rules of Rugby. Yesterday I found Telsa online and she started filling my window with loads of great suggestions of places to visit (her sister lives in Cornwall... who knew!?!). However, the one thing she told me about that took up so much of my time since then was the Ordnance Survey website.

Most countries have a map survey bureau but damn, the U.K. has a great one! The "Explorer" map series has an amazing amount of detail that appears to be highly entertaining. Try out the "Get-a-Map" tool on the site, its excellent. Of course, I laughed out loud when I realized that my first thought after Telsa showed me the site was "wow, Telsa stopped using text-based web browsers!?!" - nonetheless, I did spend a great amount of time, and plan on spending a non-trivial amount of money(in terms of maps) on some very cool OS maps.

One of these days I will plan a trip to Wales with the point of visiting Telsa and Alan with the side advantage of seeing what is rumoured to be a very beautiful place (note the British spelling in that sentence please).

Thanks Telsa!

Note: For those who don't read the comments, William points out the "tin anniversary" connection I should have made! That, of course, being that Cornwall is rather famous for all the former tin mines that dot the region. Thanks William!

Instant Messaging

When I went to work for the Clark campaign I was really taken back by how many people I worked with used AOL's instant messenger. At Red Hat we *always* used IRC. Still, I had an old account from testing a client at Red Hat so I joined in. I still forget about it and have to sign in to say hello to my "Clark friends" from time to time. It is nice - they were right to be using it... however...

I read this weekend that AOL has announced that they own anything and everything one says on their protocol and can use one's words in any way they see fit. Well, I don't 'cotton' to that idea, so I am disabling AIM in my IM client. Right now I have a yahoo id (damason) but I am going to look more into jabber as well - I can't quite figure out why all jabber clients crash when I try to 'register', plus I dont really like the IRC approach to registering where my nick name might be used by someone else... more research needed.

So, if you miss seeing me on IM, you are using "the man's" protocol and I'm not.

Note: I think my jabber id is dcm (at sign thingy) jabber.org]

Quotable quotes from me

I just said something to my brother in an email that I am quite proud of and wish to record for posterity:

Everyone has principles until they interfere with being lazy

PAW 11

This week's PAW image comes from a walk through the back parking lot of our local British car mechanic's business. Its full of "parts cars" and is kind of cool - especially the double-decker bus. I have no clue what kind of car used to house this engine. I have a few other shots from the walk as does squishy.

Thank you for your concern

I've had a few people ask me about my last post - and the 'overhearing someone talking about me part'. I really appreciate the concern as that makes me feel good but it was actually low on the list of things that made Friday a bad day. Its really a simple case of an aquaintance whom I seem to have a clash of personalities with.

No, my 2 week illness was much more distressing plus all those small things one does in a day to make it a bad day... oh like blowing away a disk partition by accident... you know.

For what its worth, the illness must have been a bacteria-based one as my newly ingested antibiotics seem to be doing the trick. Much better days.

What Makes a Bad Day

1. Stuck with a cold/flu thing I've had for about two weeks
2. Cloudy/rainy day
3. Feeling cold all day because of outdoor temperature and moisture in the air
4. Catching someone talking crap about me
5. Not succeeding at shaking off the cold medicine from the night before
6. Inanimate objects mocking me

What Makes a Good Day

Its sometimes hard for me to express my happiness about my favorite team in my favorite sport since most of my friends follow neither. However, the lead-up to this final leg of this week's Champion's League match with Barcelona had gotten nasty... like UNC v Duke nasty and then some. The coaches were saying nasty things about each other and told to stop. One Barca player claimed that after today no English team would be left "in the Champions League" - always a bad idea.

The match was phenomenal and Chelsea pulled through with a 4 - 2 win (5 - 4 on aggregate between the two legs). Chelsea's coach was so happy he paraded around the field with one of my favorite players smiling and waving at the crowd... this from a reserved, laid-back, well groomed, European. Keep in mind, this was just to get into the quarter-finals of the Champions League.

Needless to say, I was ecstatic - if not giddy - for the rest of the day. It was beautiful.

Did he diddle the board or did the board diddle him?

President Bill Clinton has always been an enigma to me. I certainly gave him more support than President Bush but I wasn't one of those people that are so often seen looking at him as if a god had floated out of the clouds to grace them. This next opinion never wins me friends with my Democrat buddies but I truly believe that he did more harm to the party than any other person in the party, including our not-so-illustrious former DNC chairman. Another unpopular opinion I have is that his stupid affair with Monica is the reason he did so much harm. Do I care if he has extra-marital affairs? Not really but I have always looked at it this way: If he had been the CEO of a company and diddled a 21 year old intern would he still have his job? No.

This week I have some proof of this and the Boeing guy diddled a mature adult executive. So here's an executive of a company who had an affair with another executive and gets the can. Clinton has an affair with a 21 year old *girl* while supposedly championing women's rights and somehow he is praised by "the board" (in this case the company's board is... us, his bosses). The women's rights groups let the people down almost as much as Clinton did by taking a pass at that episode too. At the time the Democrats screamed and screamed about banning the "independent prosecutor" and I remember telling a friend that we would regret that... Delay anyone? I will never fully understand the reactions we all had to that time in history but I will never agree with the way my party handled it - or didn't as the case was. Probably, and rightly, that piece of history will be swept under the more important issues we have faced since then but that latest bit of news brought my head back to those days.

Note: To confuse everyone even more - I was not in favor of impeachment but I was indeed in favor of censure. He did not break his vow to uphold the constitution by his actions, he was just a complete and utter dumbass

Film strip story

I have a series of photos that told their own story. I played around in photoshop tonight to get them into a form that helps that story. I chose the film strip. The photos do their own work well though, I think.

PAW 10

This week's PAW comes from a photo shoot at Cate's practice. This baby was not quite sure she wanted Cate to start checking her out. For what its worth she warmed up very quickly afterwards.

Geeks only

OK Geeks, help me out here. I dig firewire external drives. With the amount of photos and music I want to store they are a necessity (not the firewire part, the external part). However, my cable situation is a growing nest of evil that resembles medusa's head. I am going to rackmount a couple of my drives to start cleaning up the computing state of my life and I thought of something I want but can't seem to find. Well, thats not true: this is what I want... just for a resonable price!

Its odd, even if looking for USB2 there don't seem to be any rackmount hubs. Does anyone else think that's odd besides me? Don't rackmount-working folks need hubs too? Don't rackmount folks want to mount everything they own, like I want to?

I feel like getting one of my super-geeky-hacker-builder-friends/friends to look into this.

Overheard in Iraq

My brothers, the release of our communiqué telling the infidels that we are still strong, and we will prevail against them in Iraq and around the world has been released! Once they hear us claim the recent triumphs against those who would help them they will crawl on their knees asking their President Bush to get out of Allah's land.

Why can't I connect to the wireless? what is... hold on, here we go...

Who is this Martha Stewart!!??!!

I'm a bikini inspector, you?

We had dinner last night with two very good people. There was some discussion of television writing/development (which they do) and I had one of those questions pop into my brain later in the evening. If I wrote for a telelvision show (btw, I don't want to, unless its the long-planned Great Onionhead Monster Variety Hour) what shows would I want to write for.

Just knowing my skills/limitations I would have to pick either the Daily Show or the Dave Chapelle show. I think I would do better in short comedy bits as opposed to long drama. Having said that, I imagine the other writers on those shows would go to the boss at some point and ask if that punk, Mason, was ever going to contribute anything.

Last night's conversation also brought up that ever present question in my life... "What do you do?" The real answer is "I don't know, I've never known". The current answer seems to be "odd jobs with very cool projects" but that's not much of an answer. I will be 36 in June, I really do need to figure this out at some point.

This happens everytime I talk to very productive and smart people.