Way back last May I mentioned putting The Empty Ocean on my list of books to read, and I have just finished it. The tale, my friends, is bleak and depressing, but I hope that we can still do something about matters. I am a consumer of fish and other seafood products, and I hope to remain so, but the devastation to sea stocks perhaps means that our children will not have the same pleasure. Apparently we treat marine life the way we treat any other resource--which means that we apply all of our skill, energy and technology into harvesting it until it is gone. Catches everywhere are decreasing (even precipitously in places) despite techniques that can harvest fish from thousands of cubic miles of ocean at a time. Read The Empty Ocean to learn about this story that is not nearly well enough known.

11:19:42 AM      

The Electoral Vote Predictor 2004 is an excellent resource for watching what's happening with the electoral vote in this year's presidential election. As everyone knows, Al Gore won the popular vote, but George W. Bush won the electoral vote. The site has lots of useful information about the electoral college, polling and politics in general.

1:38:45 PM      

After a nearly year-long hiatus, I've returned to the blogging world.
12:42:32 PM      

Apparently, there's a whole industry around leveraging Amazon.com's name, starting from using Amazon's database and generating referral fees to working with Amazon's special features like recommendations and Wish Lists. I've ordered my copy of this book.

11:49:37 AM      

SnipURL is another service to turn long URLs into short URLs (that are easier to type and that don't wrap in email messages), but SnipURL is the coolest one so far. SnipURL has a bunch of extra features such as counting the number of hits to a snipped URL and easily importing data into Excel.
10:45:37 AM      

Robert Reich has two articles that contain some hope for those of us who fear the spectre of outsourcing. The first, "Nice Work If You Can Get It," suggests that most of the recent job losses are due to the recession and not to jobs moving abroad (I can believe that) and that "symbolic analysts" will long continue to thrive. The second, "High-Tech Jobs Are Going Abroad! But That's Okay," suggests that when high-tech jobs do move abroad, they only help the U.S. in the long run by increasing the market for innovation and innovators.
11:25:09 PM      

I've blogged about Rhapsody before. If you're connected to the Internet most of the time, as I am, then a program like Rhapsody is a great deal, because it lets you listen to as much music as you want for a low monthly cost. Sure, it costs more to buy tracks and save them to your computer, but most of the time, I don't bother with that. There's too much music in the world to buy all of it.

---

9:47:51 PM      

Today I joined the Amazon.com Associates Program, which threatens to make me rich. See, if I link to products on Amazon.com and convince my flock of readers to click on those links and buy the products, then I get a few cents now and then. Actually, the Associates Program is far more than that, but that's all I managed to glean in the few minutes before I hurriedly updated all the Amazon.com links in my existing blog entries.
9:26:00 PM      

Wow. I knew the day would come when we'd have a terabyte of storage, but I never imagined that it would be packaged so conveniently. I want one. I don't need one, but it'd be cool to say, "Yeah, there's my terabyte."

1:28:08 PM      

Tim Bray plugs DynDNS.org. Thought I'd do the same. I've been using it for just a few weeks. It seems to work well, and you can't beat free. I'm not hosting anything for public consumption from my home computers (yet), but DynDNS gives me access to my personal Scopeware Server.
9:19:38 AM      

Saw The Matrix Revolutions yesterday with Hanju. I knew it wasn't going to be very good, but I had to see how everything ends. Well, it's just plain awful, but if you go knowing that its only redeeming quality is its special effects, then it's tolerable. I loved the fight scene at the Merovingian's Club, which hearkens back to a similar scene in the original Matrix (the one where Trinity and Neo enter the heavily guarded building where the agents are holding Morpheus). Otherwise, I hated the incredibly drawn-out death scenes and other melodrama in Revolutions.

9:24:57 AM      

Today is the first day of the rest of my life. Meaning that I'm looking for work. My old company laid off several people to cut costs. Truthfully, I understand why they did it, and I'm not bitter or anything like that. I'm looking forward to doing something new. I'd just like to know what it is!
9:01:42 AM      

A small monospaced font for those of us who need or want to get as much text on to the screen as possible.
1:22:24 PM      

There's, like, a whole web site for this book with discussion boards and everything. I agree with one person who suggested that the book slammed Fresh Taco unjustly. Fresh Taco is not gourmet food, but it's inexpensive and tasty. It probably depends on what you get.

11:35:50 AM      

Spotted this in a local bookstore. We really do have some fine restaurants around here. That wasn't always the case--I remember when New Haven was the pits back in the 80s.

3:42:41 PM      

"Starting today, you can find books at Amazon.com based on every word inside them ..." (See How It Works for more information.)

11:14:31 AM      

There really is something notable about turning 30--namely, a book and a web site dedicated to the phenomenon. Can't wait 'til I turn 30 myself (hah!).
5:56:00 PM      

This is a fascinating book about our national debt and more. It covers the development of the entire fiscal structure of the U.S., discussing such topics as banking (and debts), taxation, and the separation of powers established by the Constitution. This is really a fun romp through U.S. history from the perspective of economics, business development, and fiscal policy.

10:45:12 AM      

Demo of fisheye menu: an alternative to scrolling for browsing a long list of items.
10:30:13 AM      

Deductus is disk catalog and personal full-text search engine with explorer-like interface.
9:30:23 AM      

A bit of a debate about "Local Hard Disk Google" vs. folders.
9:27:10 AM      

Longhorn technical evangelist Jeremy Mazner offers some interesting tidbits on why Microsoft is including a new storage platform in its "Yukon" version of SQL Server and "Longhorn" version of Windows.
9:26:22 AM      

I was visited by a bat this evening! Yes, a real live bat. I have no idea how it got into my apartment. I was watching TV, and then I saw something dark out of the corner of my eye. Every once in a while I see a fly or a spider or something like that, but this dark shape was clearly too big for that, so I think I must be mistaken, and I go back to watching my show. Suddenly, I see this giant shape swooping over my head, and I'm like, "Yikes! What's that?!" I'm thinking that it's got to be the biggest insect ever in the whole world, because "insect! gross, gross, gross!" is all I'm thinking. Then I get a good look at it, and once I recognize what it is, it turns from a "giant dark malevolent shape" to a reasonably small flying mammal that still looks bigger than ideal being inside my room and not outside where it belongs. I feel a little better that it's just a bat, but not great. I open a window and close all the doors to the room, and then I call maintenance. When they get back to me, they suggest opening all of the upper windows in the room (I had opened just one lower window before backing far, far away from the bat--I'm not worried that the bat is going to kill me or anything, but I don't want to deal with a panicked bat flying into my face or something like that). I watch it warily for about 30 minutes while it swoops around and occasionally knocks itself senseless against a wall before it finds one of the open windows.
12:08:14 AM      

Somebody at Lockergnome really likes our product. It's good to see that someone gets the concept. Don't wait for Longhorn.
8:19:02 AM      

This is a public email-to-RSS gateway. Looks useful for stuff like mailing lists.
11:38:00 AM      

Need to remember to update my Canon's firmware. I don't have a direct-connect printer, but maybe one day I'll visit someone who does.
9:46:58 AM      

Like TiVo for Internet radio. With the proliferation of multi-GB MP3 devices like the iPod, I've noticed an emerging interest in carrying around hours of pre-recorded radio shows, interviews, and lectures--not just music. For example, Dave talks about using RSS enclosures to distribute interviews.
7:35:30 PM      

A Python IDE to check out.
1:36:06 AM      

Just catching up. The six or so entries below describe some things that I did over the past few weeks.
10:49:09 PM      

Juliette Binoche is amazing.

10:42:38 PM      

Hanju wanted to see this movie. I've been looking forward to it for weeks. There are something like three stories going on at once, and somehow none of them disappoint. There's the con, of course. There's the story of a man coming apart under his neuroses. And there's the story of a single man suddenly confronted with raising a teenage daughter. It could have been a mess, but the combination of a brilliant screenplay and perfect casting keeps everything on track.

10:42:19 PM      

Quite a relief after Once Upon a Time in Mexico. Saw them the same night with PJ and Lawrence.

10:41:29 PM      

Wow. Intense. Very stylish. A bit too much to take with its incessant close-ups and slow-motion examination of guns, explosions, and gore. It was a bit of a relief for it to end. I loved Johnny Depp.

10:40:51 PM      

I liked this book a lot. I really did. It's very well-written with entertaining bits of humor and obscure zoological facts. It's a magical adventure. The main character, Pi, is imaginatively conceived. However, all in all, I do not understand why this book won the Booker Prize. I enjoyed it very much, but I have to believe that there were more worthy books published this year.

10:39:17 PM      

Hanju and I picked 4.61 pounds of raspberries. It didn't look like all that much sitting at the bottom of the buckets we were carrying. As soon as I started washing them at home, it became clear that it was an immense amount of raspberries. Good with vanilla ice cream.

10:37:46 PM      

Intel Corp. has built a prototype of a "personal server" that could become the personal multimedia diary of the future. [It'd be great to put Lifestreams on there.]
9:12:24 AM      

Rory reviews O'Reilly's Safari Bookshelf. Unfortunately, I find myself in a place where I get most of the information that I need for my job from the MSDN Library, but that can change overnight. I have also largely tamed myself of the habit of buying technical books that I really don't need, but there are lots of books from which I hanker to read one or two chapters.
11:22:27 AM      

Geenerats txet lkie tihs.
10:57:35 AM      

Aoccdrnig to rsereach at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteres are in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
10:55:59 AM      

Local weather forecasts as RSS feeds. Can't wait for it to be finished.
9:55:13 PM      

The Washington Post reports that Berkeley Breathed is creating a new Sunday-only comic strip starring Opus the penguin.
6:11:23 PM      

Way back in May, I posted a snippet about Zoe (and by the way, I had a hard time finding that snippet, because I called Zoë "Zoë" instead of "Zoe," which is what I tried to look for). Zoe has been getting lots of attention, for good reason. These people like or use Zoe for many of the same reasons that I like and use Scopeware Server. Scopeware Server is the archive and search interface for all of my email (plus some other content, but it's mostly email). Zoe's built-in FTP server is a marvelous trick. I prefer the Lifestreams interface that Scopeware presents to Zoe's interface—nothing beats Lifestreams for me yet. Zoe is also rather narrowly focused on Internet content (email and RSS). I have to admit though that it's fun to click on Zoe's many links. Zoe automatically pulls out, indexes, and exposes many properties and components in email. You can accomplish a lot just by clicking in Zoe.
2:36:14 AM      

I've added the RSS feeds for Rory and Kori's entertaining blogs to my news aggregator. I've dropped Robert's feed—too little value amid too many posts.
11:10:16 PM      

Back in August, I blogged a snippet about liquid nitrogen ice cream. Rory picked up on this and provided a darker tale of the possible dangers. Gosh, it's only been about a month since I noticed.
11:01:43 PM      

As John points out, X1 is a great way to search email in Outlook. Despite all of Outlook's problems and vulnerabilities, lots of people out there use it with many practically living in it. A free tool to search Outlook email will likely be very popular.
10:52:55 PM      

A Reuters article about infrasound experiments.
10:44:02 PM      

Some information about infrasound including the idea that infrasound may account for the sensation of haunting at haunted sites.
10:42:31 PM      

This is very funny. Yes, Macs are cool, but they're not perfect.
1:24:52 PM      

Rory Blyth has invented a new word.
1:17:47 PM      

Dave Winer has seen fit to mention X1 in his blog. X1 is a competitor to Scopeware Vision.
1:03:24 PM      

Skittles in beer. Coors Light is the first one evaluated. Heather's favorite drink is Coors Light. I'll have to remember to carry Skittles with me.
10:43:37 PM      

I have to remember to check this out. From a quick read of the description, clevercactus sounds vaguely like a Vision for email, PIM, and RSS feeds.
10:22:26 PM      

Cool extension for tabbed browsing in various Mozilla browsers.
10:20:35 PM      

Read this book last weekend. Beautifully written, lyrically so. Thoughtful and intimate. It feels like it takes place outside of the normal boundaries of time and space and yet remains very real in many details and in the experiences of the characters. The characters themselves are warm, full of color, and original. They are entrancing. The whole thing reminds me of To Kill a Mockingbird but not in a copycat way.

1:28:55 AM