Live from Austin!

If you’ve ever wondered who the unluckiest person in the world is, I think I’ve found him. His name is Abdul Rahim.

In January 2000, he was arrested in Afghanistan by the Taliban. They tortured him. They burned him with cigarettes, smashed his hand, deprived him of sleep, submitted him to water torture, and hanged him from the ceiling. Eventually he “confessed” to being a spy for the United States.

The prison Rahim was being tortured in was captured by US forces in January 2002. Given the circumstances, he probably thought it was his lucky day. He was wrong. The US promptly accused him of being an al-Qaida terrorist—and tortured him. Again.

He’s currently in Guantanamo Bay, one of the many people kept imprisoned without any actual criminal charges being filed against them.

Since Dick Cheney and friends are happy with holding people’s heads under water in order to extract information—they just argue that it shouldn’t be called torture—I imagine Abdul Rahim is pretty used to water torture by now.

A recent Slashdot thread about the death of the CD lead to the usual postings from various people over the age of 30:

“Well of course music nowadays is rubbish, not like it was when I was in college, those were real songs, now it’s all boy bands and disposable pop, bring back prog rock, I miss vinyl…”

I happen to believe that’s a load of cobblers. There’s interesting music to be found in any year, it’s just that most people stop seeking out anything new and interesting, and allow their tastes to ossify.

It occurred to me that I had a source of data to test my belief. I’ve got my CD collection ripped and tagged on our MP3 server. So, I wrote a quick Ruby program to run through every MP3 file and total up the number of tracks released in each year.

The result is quite interesting, and the first few decades fit my expectations:

• Nothing much of interest happened until the late 1950s.
• There was an explosion of good music in the mid 1960s.
• Taste died a rapid death around 1970, and the 70s basically sucked until punk arrived and kicked things up in 1977.
• Music got progressively more interesting during the 1980s as the technology became more affordable.

I applied some simple averaging, and got a second graph. This one allows me to draw some tentative conclusions about more recent years.

It appears that interestingness peaked in 1994, and there has been a reasonably steady descent since then. The rapid drop after 2004 is most likely due to two major factors:

1. It takes me a while to hear about good new music, as I don’t listen to much that might ever be played on the radio.
2. I’m a cheap bastard, and don’t buy CDs until I can get them for less than $12.

Some of the outlying data points deserve closer attention. It seems 1982 was an incredibly bad year by 80s standards, and 1998 and 2000 were both unexpectedly bad also. No obvious explanation springs to mind.

Number of Starbucks stores today: 12,440.

Number the company is aiming to have: 40,000.

Relevant quote:

“Going to the other side of the street can be a barrier,” said Launi Skinner, senior vice president in charge of Starbucks’ store development.

Annual GDP of the United Arab Emirates: $98.1 billion.

Annual GDP of Kuwait: $52.76 billion.

Exxon Mobile revenue, 3Q2006: $99.59 billion.

Costs per gallon:

Crude oil: $1.32.¹

Starbucks coffee: $40.²

Inkjet printer ink: $3,800–8,000.^3,4.

Apparently MySpace has jumped the shark, with the number of page hits dropping 4% in September. News Corp say it’s a normal seasonal variation. I’m skeptical of that explanation, as us old-timers know that September is when all the students go to college, jump on their fast college-provided Internet connections, and post tons of crap on the net. Of course, now we have Eternal September, but many sites still see a noticeable uptick in traffic that month.

Anyway, if MySpace is dying, it’s not a moment too soon. Why do I hate MySpace? Well, let’s see…

For starters, it’s owned by News International, Rupert Murdoch’s company, the same corporation that gives us FOX News. If there’s a corporation I’d less like to trust with my personal data, I can’t think of it.

Then there’s the design. Ye ghods, it’s like Geocities rose from the dead and shambled onto my browser window.

Then there’s the functionality. In a way, it’s genius marketing. Someone obviously sat down and put together a list of exactly the functions that would encourage self-obsessed teenage drama queens to adopt the site as quickly as possible:

• Picture of person, interests, personal data at the top, as that’s the most important thing in the world. After all, we’re marketing to the people who start chat conversations with “A/S/L?”

• A lie at the top of the page saying “<insert name here> is in your extended network” no matter who it is, to try and sucker people in.

• Under that, a section boasting how many friends the person has.

• A “top 8 friends” feature, to guarantee lots of drama.

• Lock down all the content not on the front page, so you have to sign up even to read it.

Unsurprisingly, I’ve yet to see anyone link to anything worthwhile on MySpace. It makes LiveJournal look like Granta, it’s the toilet stall wall of the Internet. “JUDY UR THE BESTEST LUV U LOL!!” “<insert band name> ROCKS!” “FRIEND ME!”

So no, I don’t have a MySpace page. I will never have a MySpace page.

Can you get Cyrillic alphabetti spaghetti?

I’ve been laughing at some online galleries of photos by home inspectors. (Volume 1, Volume 2.)

The wrench foundation is basically what was under our house, but with wooden shims instead of a wrench, and concrete instead of metal for the pillar.

The one that made me laugh hardest was the air circulation masterpiece.

Anyhow…there’s a saying that hard work pays off tomorrow, but laziness pays off immediately. Well, sometimes laziness pays off tomorrow as well, especially when it comes to gardening.

Last summer I noticed that the grass out back wasn’t doing too well. I have to assume it was planted by whoever built the house, and that they just picked the cheapest grass seed. In winter and spring it would grow like crazy, and then in summer it mostly turned brown and died. It clearly wasn’t suited to a Texas climate.

Then this summer, I noticed that some kind of plant was gradually taking over. It was a bit like clover, but bigger. It started as a couple of patches, but by mid summer it had pretty much replaced all the grass on the right side of the path, and had somehow made the leap to a patch on the left side. I pondered whether this was the kind of thing that ought to be treated with weedkiller.

In the end, though, I wasn’t too concerned about doing anything, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it was too damn hot to do anything; and secondly, we wanted to get rid of the unsuitable grass anyway and replace it with something more suited to local conditions. The plan was to get some buffalo grass sod put down, or perhaps a hybrid like Turffalo planted via plugs.

Then last week we paid an arborist to inspect our trees and offer advice on how to best take care of them. I asked him about the stuff that had eaten the lawn, and he told me it was Horse Herb. It’s a native ground covering of the Texas hill country. It thrives in the shady areas under live oak trees, forming a thick, lush, lawn-like surface that you can mow just like a regular lawn.

So by being lazy, we got a free native plant lawn replacement. It doesn’t need watering in summer, and you only have to mow it every 2-4 months. It produces tiny yellow flowers at the end of summer, and is apparently robust enough to crowd out weeds. Sure, you can’t play golf on it, but you can walk on it, sit on it, and watch squirrels dig in it.

So instead of expensive lawncare, our best bet is to roto-till the bald patches in the back yard with some organic fertilizer, get some Horse Herb seed from the Lady Bird Johnson wildflower center, and sow. Then simply leave it alone. Awesome.

The other secret to Texas lawn care I have discovered is mulching. Get a mower which mulches. Sure, it’s good for the lawn, but what’s even better is you don’t have to rake, bag up clippings, or drag sacks of yard waste around.

It’s not surprising to find that while Jason Fortuny can dish out people’s private information, he isn’t as happy when his public information is publicized.

While he continues to bluster about not being scared of the people he lied to and embarrassed, I note that he has removed his address and phone number from his whois entry.

When someone posted a summary of his criminal record on his journal, he deleted the posting. When they re-posted it elsewhere, someone got their account yanked. (Hmm, I wonder who?)

Of course, it’s all public information these days, so LiveJournal are just being stupid as usual. You can go to the Washington State courts web site, enter his name in their name search, and up comes his case history.

I’m not sure what you have to do to end up in court in a criminal traffic case, but he’s been there 5 times. More interesting is the civil commercial case which resulted in a judgement against him. Perhaps someone with nothing better to do will request a copy of the document and post the details on their web site. Me, I’m hoping he fades into obscurity.

Number of black soldiers who fought at Iwo Jima: 900.

Number of black soldiers in Clint Eastwood’s film version: 0.

(Guardian)

Number of racist murders in Britain, 1995-2004: 58.

Number where the victim was white: 24.

(Guardian)

Pay increase limit imposed on UK nurses: 1.5%.

This year’s pay rise for Cabinet Ministers: 2.8%.

(Guardian, UK parliament)

I was very skeptical of the Nintendo DS when it came out. A touch screen seemed like a reasonable idea, but putting two separate screens in a handheld seemed like a gimmick.

My skepticism was also likely due to my disappointment with the Game Boy Advance. There are some truly great games for it—Advance Wars, Golden Sun, Wario Ware—but they are far outnumbered by the endless Pokemon games and lame movie and TV tie-ins. The majority of titles seem to be aimed at those teenage or younger.

When Sony launched the PSP, I hoped that things might change. I guessed that just as the PlayStation targeted a more adult gamer than Nintendo, so the PSP would go after those who didn’t want to play with Pokemon, Bratz, Jimmy Neutron or Spongebob Squarepants.

And it did. But unfortunately, when I finally got a chance to try a PSP, I discovered that the load times were just cripplingly awful. In addition, most of the games seem to be sequels or ports of PS2 games; and unfortunately, things which work well on a full size console don’t make for a good experience on a handheld.

Meanwhile, Nintendo had taken things in a strange new direction, releasing titles like Electroplankton, Brain Age and Nintendogs. It wasn’t exactly the blood and guts approach to mature gaming that Sony favor, but it wasn’t kiddy gaming either.

I’ve a real soft spot for experimental games. I love Katamari Damacy, I bought Nobody Can Stop Mr Domino!, I have Sentinel Returns and Stretch Panic. Even if the game is flawed, I’d rather play something artistically interesting and new, than yet another First Person Shooter.

So before heading off to Hamburg I bought a DS Lite and a copy of Animal Crossing: Wild World. Sure, it’s cute animals, but cute seems to be almost obligatory with Nintendo. Behind the cuteness, though, is an interesting Sim-like open ended gameplay focused on exploration.

The game world exists in real time, with different events happening throughout the year and at different times of day. This encourages you to drop in for a few minutes on a regular basis to see what’s going on, rather than spending hours playing like a conventional console game. In other words, it’s a good game for a portable. Walk into a cafe, buy coffee, sit down, and go see what’s happening in the game world. Since it’s Internet enabled, you can go online via WiFi and see what’s happening in a friend’s game world too, or see if there are any new extras from Nintendo.

Brain Age has a similar design philosophy. It’s something you can play for 10 minutes a day for a quick break. And unlike the PSP, the DS has practically no boot time, so you won’t find that your bus arrives just as you get past the loading screen.

In fact, the DS Lite shows an attention to design that’s typical of Nintendo. Just as the GameCube was a much better piece of hardware than the original PS2, so the DS Lite seems to fit its niche much better than the PSP. It’s iPod-like, white and smooth. The rechargeable battery is easily replaceable. It flips shut, automatically putting the game into pause/sleep mode and protecting both screens. It’s small enough to fit in a pocket. All of this means you can put the game away and return to the real world in a second or two.

The DS memory cards are like slightly enlarged (and much more robust) SD cards, and will stand up to more abuse than a Memory Stick, let alone a UMD disc. The extra slot for GameBoy back-compatibility doubles as an accessory slot for rumble packs and other add-ons. There’s an iPod-like headphone socket that will take regular headphones, or a special DS headset with microphone.

As with the GameBoy, the game cards are both ROM game and flash memory for game saves. This is neat as, unlike with a full size console, you never have to worry about swapping memory cards or finding space for your game saves.

Overall, it’s a really nice piece of design. If Apple made video games, it’s the kind of thing they’d release.

There’s a new service out there called PayPerPost. Basically, you get paid for posting ads in your online journal.

So far, so ho-hum. One thing that makes this one a bit different is that the ads aren’t separated into their own section alongside your postings, like Google AdWords; rather, the postings themselves are the ads. Furthermore, buyers get to dictate the wording of the links.

In addition, the question of disclosure is left entirely open. Maybe all your postings are ads; maybe some of them are. Maybe you tell people, maybe you don’t. It’s up to you.

I decided to take a look at what the result was like. In the forums I found some people who were pimping their web sites; here are some URLs.

• http://www.juliesjournal.com/
• http://anaisamy.vox.com/
• http://www.whateverifeellike.com/
• http://www.simplekindoflife.com/

Reading the above is an interesting experience. Sometimes it’s blatantly apparent where the ad is. (In these quotes, underlining shows where the links were in the originals.)

I really need a Caribbean vacation. It’s time to stop dreaming of going somewhere like this and just start to plan and save for it. [...] Warm Islands.com is a perfect place to read about all the things I can do when I get there.

I just know a friend of mine needs to reduce cholesterol in his diet. I think this is the reason he gets sick so often, and feels winded so easily. I’m going to have him try Vasacor an all natural cholesterol supplement.

Another thing that I used to be big into a couple of years ago, but kind of let go by the wayside is taking women’s vitamins. [...] Osteo Essentials is clinically shown to support bone protection - which to me means will help strengthen them. I want to promote and develop strong bones now before it’s too late.

I don’t think any human being ever uses the phrase “…is clinically shown to…” in conversation. Sometimes it’s not so clear, though:

After lugging my laptop bag around all day for three days and seeing other people with their wheeled laptop cases, I’m starting to think I need one. My new laptop is lighter than my previous one, but it’s still damn heavy, especially when walking through the enormous hotel here from my room to the business areas.

Check out Tumi at Luggage Online. Isn’t that bag sweet? It’s got room for everything: laptop plus all my paperwork in really nice organized compartments. I want it!

On the one hand, the author had already said she was attending a show in Las Vegas. On the other hand…

Here’s a quote from a posting which, to me, demonstrates the problem with the whole thing:

This time last year…we were caribbean bound! I had already been on one cruise, and was about to embark on another. In September 2005, we went on an adults online cruise with a few other couples, my sisters, a brother-in-law, and an adult nephew. [...]

During our day in Jamaica, we visited a beatiful garden at the top of a hill overlooking the city of Ocho Rios. After that, we headed to Dunn’s River Falls - a must see! You can literally climb up the side of the mountain by walking up the falls. [...]

I think the best way to visit the Caribbean is by cruise ship - and if you need help choosing the right cruise for you, look no further than these cruise ship reviews. Our 7 night cruise was with Carnival, on one of their newest ships, the Carnival Victory.

I started out reading it as reminiscence, triggered by her noticing that it was a year since her last cruise vacation. It starts to sound kinda interesting, approaching a travelogue. But then suddenly, you hit what looks like blatant paid linkage. Does she really think cruise ships are the best way to visit the Carribean, or is she just being paid to say so? Maybe the whole September 2005 cruise is fictitious, planted at the request of the advertiser in order to seed the idea of taking larger family groups on cruises. Are the sisters, brother-in-law and nephew real? If so, why don’t they have names?

The thing about trust is that once you lose it, it’s hard to get back. Once you realize someone has lied to you, you tend to view everything else they say with suspicion. I have a hard time understanding why anyone would want to read a personal web site where you had good reason to believe the author was lying a large proportion of the time. Then again, even Jason Fortuny has fans.