April, 2002 full listing

• I'm posting pictures from my trip to California for WWDC 1998 lately. It's partly because I haven't taken a lot of pictures recently (my knee's getting better, but I'm not walking around a lot yet), and partly because I won't be out at WWDC this year for the first time since 1993 (I think). It's kind of sad, but between being busy on a project and the lack of change from Apple, I just can't see spending the thousands of dollars it costs.
• CIA Warns of Chinese Plans for Cyber-Attacks on U.S.. Does this mean there will be twice as many spams coming from insecure Chinese mailservers telling me how to get a bigger penis? [strib]
• Online Ads Become Active and Intrusive, demanding your attention before you can move on to see the content. And guess what, this news story pops up an ad. [fark!]
• TIME.com: The Browser That Roared. Time reviews Mozilla. Sadly, I can't get it to work reliably for me, since it has problems loading complete pages. [evhead]
• Kevin Werbach tells of how networking policy makers were shocked to discover that 1.5 million WiFi cards are flying off the store shelves every month. [boing boing]
• Renewals Plunge a 'Veri' Bad Sign - yeah, Verisign's renewals are down, and so are those of a lot of registrars. But Verisign's service blows goats, and it's only right that they get hit the hardest. [boing boing]
• Dan Gillmor: Want privacy? Take action. Dan's take on the recent CFP conference. [cam]
• IP: Bruce Sterling closing CFP Speech
• The Right to Remain Silent covers the case of Vanessa Leggett, who was jailed last year for refusing to turn over the notes she'd made for her book about the murder of a Houston socialite. [instapundit]
• Hotmail at Risk to Cookie Thieves. If you've got a hotmail account, someone else can get at your computer, and you've ever clicked the "keep me signed in" option, they can probably read your mail. Changing your password won't help. Never clicking the "keep me signed in" and always clicking the "sign out" when you're done reading mail are probably the best you can do. [daypop]
• Hill Back to Biz of Biz Privacy as Hollings tries to pass another bad law. Why is it bad? Because it's a Law to Protect Spyware. Perhaps you don't care if the credit card company knows what ills you suffer from, or if Amazon has twigged to the kinks you practice in the bedroom. Yeah, it's been A Bad Year for Privacy. [daypop]

Weather in Minneapolis for April 30, 2002     April 30 in History

• Nanotubes go flash bang wallop: Take a picture of single-walled carbon nanotubes with an ordinary camera flash and they explode. [fark!]
• DonorsChoose (NYC) lets New York City public schools propose projects and list the cost. Donors can choose which program to fund. No money goes to overhead unless the donor chooses to throw in an added 10%. [librarian]
• GeekTels - geek-equipped hotel directory. If you want to be online when you travel, check the list and find the hotel with the bandwidth. [librarian]
• Speaking of travel, a British court ruled that Air travellers 'need 34-inch legroom' on long-haul flights. If I remember right, most US airlines use 31-inch pitch (the distance from seat to seat). So if they're flying to the UK, will they have to change their planes? I'd sure appreciate it. [boing boing]
• Hop over to the Total Fucking Armageddon Supply Store and buy some cool stickers. They're in support of an art-car for Burning Man 2002. [boing boing]
• The Workaround: 32 Steps to Frustration. Most software just sucks. [scripting]
• Faking It - Sex, Lies and Women's Magazines. Apparently the sex articles in fashioin magazines often have fabricated quotes and facts. The horror!
• David Steinberg reviews Fast Girls: Teenage Tribes and the Myth of the Slut by Emily White, Scribner, 2002, 219 pp., $22.00 ISBN:0684867400. Sounds like a good book. The basic message is that there's going to be some girl in high-school who gets branded a slut, whether she is or not. [flutterby]

Weather in Minneapolis for April 29, 2002     April 29 in History

• Update - 1130CDT - Welcome to the folks coming from Scripting News. You should note that the movie reviews below are MY takes on the movies. I've already had someone ask if I was drugged when I gave Red Dawn a 9 of 10. Well, I like the movie, but that's one that a lot of people won't agree with. Be aware that your mileage may vary.
• There's snow on the ground again. Sheesh. We've had one nice weekend all April this year. Blegh. It looked like we were going to have an early spring back in March, and when it hit 90 in April, I was thinking we were in for a long, hot summer. Now I remember it's just Minnesota, and we have weather here, not climate.
• You've heard a lot about the Critical Mass ride in Minneapolis and want to find one near you? Check out www.critical-mass.org. Nearly 300 CM rides are listed worldwide. [Jim]
• Critical Mass in Chicago tied their April ride in with May Day and toured major labor history sites on their 8 mile ride. Read about it in the Chicago Tribune (registration required, cypherpunk/cypherpunk works, natch).
• Mosquitoes may carry deadly viruses this spring. Just a warning message. Stock up on bug-juice. [strib]
• Gov. Ventura plans to campaign via video games. That's if he runs, of course. He still hasn't announced whether he's actually running again or not. [google news]
• Regrets only as Staff packs up governor's mansion. It'll close on Tuesday, April 30. To me, this is one of the worst things Jesse's done as Governor. [strib]
• Since my knee hasn't been too happy the past few days, I've been laying on the couch (keeping it elevated, you know) watching a lot of movies. I decided it was time to do a rundown of the last dozen movies I watched at home (which basically covers April), with quickie reviews of each. Let's see how it goes, eh?
  • Swordfish: It's another hacker-adventure movie. The most notable thing about it is Halle Berry's tits. They're nice tits. John Travolta plays the bad-guy he's discovered he's good at. Hugh Jackman plays the quirky hacker. No great performances, not terribly technically accurate, but it's good mind-candy. 7 of 10.
  • Rock Star: Marky-Mark plays a singer from a tribute band who ends up singing for the band they're covering. Up, down, good times, bad times. He finds himself in the end. It surprised me by being better than I expected, but my expectations were pretty low. I'd have probably rated it higher right after I saw it, but it left no real lasting impression. 5 of 10.
  • Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure: Party on, dudes! 10 of 10.
  • Jackie Chan is the Prisoner: It's nice to see a movie that gives Sammo Hung and Tony Leung prominent parts. But it ain't your typical Jackie Chan movie, and Jackie appears in less than a quarter of the movie. It's basically a Hong Kong version of Cool Hand Luke, and may appeal to some, but only if you're not expecting a Jackie Chan movie. I was. 2 of 10.
  • Heat: With DeNiro and Pacino starring, I expected a decent movie. I got one. It's an crime/action flick. Heavy on the bullets. One of the few movies I didn't pause in the middle to get up and go check email or something. 9 of 10.
  • Red Dawn: Wolverines! I liked it back in the 80s. I still like it. Kids fighting Russians (and Cubans and Nicaraguans) and winning. 9 of 10.
  • Unbreakable: Huh! Bruce Willis almost plays his typecast confused (or slightly dim) hero. It's a superhero movie of sorts. If you think Dark Knight Batman, you won't be too far off. Dark, moody, atmospheric. If you like that sort of thing, it's a good movie. The other thing that writer/director (M. Night Shyamalan) did that I'd heard of was Sixth Sense. 7 of 10.
  • Gladiator: Swords. Blood. Fights. The only thing that disappointed me about this was that there were some longer scenes that were setting the mood which seemed to me to just slow the movie down. With a running time of 2 hours 35 minutes, I think it would have been a better movie at closer to 2 hours long. I still liked the movie, but there were a few times I wanted to tell Ridley Scott to just get on with it. 8 of 10.
  • Lost Souls: Winona Ryder plays warrior (well, spriritual warrior) for God, saving a man from being inhabited by Satan. It's the first movie directed by Janusz Kaminski, and he still hasn't figured out pacing. It's a fairly predictable story, which doesn't help. 4 of 10.
  • Sleepy Hollow: Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, and Tim Burton directing. What's not to like? It's a horror/suspense/mystery/comedy. Oh, and Christopher Walken plays the headless horseman. 8 of 10.
  • Slap Shot 2: If you liked the original, you'll probably like this one. Old-time Hockey! Like Eddie Shore! Dit Clapper! And Toe Blake! And Gordie Howe! There were enough homages to the original to keep me happy, even though it's not as good of a movie as the first one. Stephen Baldwin turns in a decent performance, but he's no Paul Newman. The woman coach didn't really seem to fit, other than as a romantic interest for Stephen Baldwin. Gary Busey's a bad guy (go figure). And it's got the Hansons. 7 of 10. It would make an 8 or 9 if you're a guy drinkin' beer. The guys at the Slap Shot Tribute don't agree.
  • Frantic: A Polanski thriller. It takes a while to get going, but turns into a pretty good movie. I end up madly in lust with Emmanuelle Seigner when I watch it. Harrison Ford plays the somewhat confused hero searching for his kidnapped wife. Arabs, Israelis, Americans and the French are all bad-guys, so there's something for everyone to hate. 6 of 10.
  Well, there it is. Looking back on my ratings, I think anything I rated 6 or better left me feeling I'd gotten my money's worth. Rock Star, Jackie Chan is The Prisoner and Lost Souls didn't make the cut. The movies that got a 9 or a 10 are personal favorites, and I'll watch them more than a couple times. The 8s will probably merit a second viewing sometime down the road.

Weather in Minneapolis for April 28, 2002     April 28 in History

• Yesterday's Critical Mass ride seemed to go pretty well. I didn't get to ride, since I'd screwed up a knee on Thursday (my right knee is now about an inch wider than the left), but Keith Prussing, Jim and Phyllis Kahn sent emails about the ride. Apparently Rep. Kahn believes that not wearing a helmet is a sign of low self-esteem (personally, I don't think helmets are much help, and the Bicycle Helmet FAQ seems to bear that out). Jim's comments: I'm just writing to share the experience I had today.
  
  I joined the Critical Mass bike ride (last Friday of every month. 5:00. Loring Park).
  
  Last month they had 60 riders and were attacked by the police. A 16 year old woman was pepper sprayed, beaten, and thrown in a squad car. You get the idea.
  
  This month, the cops clearly had been told to lay off. There were (I believe this is an actual count - that is someone stopped and tried to count every bike) 244 bicyclists.
  
  I can only say that it was exhilarating. Right up there with the experience I had during the Honduras demonstration on Lake and Hennepin in '98.
  
  With that many bicyclists it's not hard to take over whatever street you choose. On top of that, most of the public (cars and pedestrians) were overwhelmingly in favor of the ride. Probably the most fun, for me, was when the group decided to ride on the lower portion of the Washington Ave Bridge. The ride was rather spread out at that point and I was near the tail end. A group of us decided to catch up and I have to say there's something euphoric about doing 27 MPH (I have a speedometer) in a place you're normally not allowed to ride.
  
  Obviously, it was a lot of fun.
  
  The word I got from people familiar with these rides is that, as far as the police reaction, next month will probably be ok - but usually two months after any publicity they crack down again.
  
  Maybe I'll see some of you at 5:00 on 5/31?
  
  Trust me, it's worth it.
  
  Oh, and all told we did about 20 miles. Loring Park - Dinkytown - The West Bank - Up Franklin - Over to Lyn Lake - to Uptown - back to Franklin - ending at the Seward Co-Op.
  
  Oh, and per Indymedia there were over 300 riders today. I don't doubt that, but it's not what I heard from the person who stopped and tried to count all the bikes. There weren't any other stories about the ride, since things went pretty smoothly.
• Happy Fun Pundit: French Protest Selves - an exclusive report on the protests that followed Le Pen's victory in the primary. [instapundit] There's also The Eurosnots learn nothing. You'd have to have a heart of stone not to be weeping with laughter at the scenes of France's snot-nosed political elite huffily denouncing Sunday's result as an insult to the honour of the Republic. The fact that Le Pen did second best in the presidential primary has led to the French going out and protesting themselves. Are they going to surrender to themselves next? There's a word for what the French are going through: conniption. There's also a word for what I'm feeling: schadenfreude. As for Le Pen, he's in favor of protectionism, the minimum wage, and subsidies for French agriculture and industry (Le Car!). For a supposed right winger, he looks pretty socialist to me (but then so does George W. Bush).
• Warning: Evil Cheez!
  Look at the package on the left. Okay, it says imitation fairly clearly, but this stuff is nothing like cheese. The ingredient list: water, modified food starch, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, maltodextrin, whey, sodium caseinate, salt, enzyme-modified cheese, guar gum, sodium hexametaphosphate, sorbic acid, lactic acid, artificial color. You're to the fifth ingredient before you hit anything dairy. And the worst part is that it doesn't taste right, feel right, or even melt right. When it finally started to melt, I found myself wondering if I'd left the plastic-wrap on. Eww. I threw the remaining 15 slices away. It definitely wasn't a Near The Cheese kind of experience.
• How To Stuff a Wild Enron. Over-regulation killed Enron by making the accounting shenanigans they were pulling worthwhile. Our regulatory bodies strive to create honest dealings, fair trades, and a situation in which no one has an advantage over anyone else. But human beings aren't honest. It's a pretty good argument against regulation. I like it.
• I got a renewal notice for one of my domains from Verisign the other day. Thing is, it doesn't expire until 2006, and isn't registered with them in the first place. Here are some more Network Solutions Horror Stories. I'm not alone in thinking they're sleazy bastards, it would appear. [doc]
• TiVo Begins 3.0 Software Rollout. I don't have a list of the new features, but if it'll bring my old TiVo closer to the 2.0 boxes, that's probably a good thing. [librarian]
• Oral History Techniques: How to Organize and Conduct Oral History Interviews. Sounds useful for talking to the old folks in the family while researching some genealogy.

Weather in Minneapolis for April 27, 2002     April 27 in History

• Today at 5pm is the monthly Critical Mass ride. 5pm. Loring Park.
• Minnesota and Minneapolis Bike Laws
• The STI Bike Maps don't show bike trails in Minnesota, per se, but it does show the suitability of various roads for biking - ie, low medium and high volume and whether or not there's a paved shoulder. Useful for longer trips where there are no bike lanes.
• Minnesota Daily journalists file complaint against police for excessive violence by the police during the hockey riot. [strib]
• More info on the Minneapolis police - Shielded from Justice: Minneapolis: Incidents is a few years old, but it's the Human Rights watch report on the Minneapolis Police.
• On a lighter note, the Recording Artists Safety Guide to the Beach. Heh. [cam]
• Just in time for the Queen's Jubilee! Take down the Union Jack - Billy Bragg's promoting sales of the CD single with and aim to make the song #1 while the UK is celebrating. All profits go to The living wage campaign [Jim]
• The Accidental Go-Go Dancer is one of the many Adventures of AccordionGuy in the 21st Century. [boing boing]
• Looking for work? Knife thrower seeks helper for sharp end of showbusiness. The nervous need not apply. [fark!]

Weather in Minneapolis for April 26, 2002     April 26 in History

• If you know what the building pictured to the right is, I'd appreciate a note. It's in St. Paul, right on the river. The old NSP plant in St. Paul. Thanks for the id, Joe.
• Feds might use Microsoft Passport for online ID . Yeah, that'll be secure. [boing boing]
• Apache Week's Apache httpd 1.3 vulnerabilities. All vulnerabilities in Apache 1.3.x. You don't see Microsoft publishing that sort of information about IIS, do you?
• blagg is an RSS feed aggregator written in 46 lines of perl. Spiffy. [boing boing]
• Google Answers looks like it might be an interesting way to make some money. If only the value on the questions wasn't so darned low.
• Why Do New iMacs Surf So Slowly? The article blames it on Mac OS X, but the speed of text-rendering isn't that good on Mac OS 9, either. And that's the killer for reading things on slashdot. Most of the time is spent waiting for the browser to figure out how wide the text is so it can wrap the lines properly. [daypop]
• howto make Aqua style buttons in PhotoShop [boing boing]
• Japan: Where Old Macs Go Off to Thrive.
• There's now a French version of Magical Macintosh Key Sequences online. And a Japanese version coming. Over 23,000 hits on the original so far. Who knew so many people would be interested? It's more than doubled the traffic I see. Plus my comments about the stories of sexual abuse from St. Johns Abbey brought in a couple folks I went to high-school with. That's just kinda cool.

Weather in Minneapolis for April 25, 2002     April 25 in History

• Hawaii bans photo radar vans. Woo!
• Free Speech Online and Offline
• Growing digital rights movement needs to put some political heads on stakes -- fast - how GeekPAC should work. Hand Hollings a crushing defeat next time he's up for election. Send a message that nonsense like the CBDTPA isn't acceptable. [scripting]
• Nearly 100 Arrested in Airport Raids in D.C. At least one of them had already been deported from the U.S. but had returned illegally and was given a job in a secure area at either Reagan or Dulles (the story's not clear). [google news]
• Keeping e-mail encryption alive, in spite of Network Associates' attempts to kill it. It's an uphill battle, since a lot of people still don't see the need for it.
• Stopping Spambots: A Spambot Trap: Using Linux, Apache, mod_perl, Perl, MySQL, ipchains and Embperl. Looks like a pretty cool solution to spambots scraping a site. [some guy]
• Comedian Calls Telemarketers at Dawn. Heh! A fitting revenge? [flutterby]
• Spam Laws: Summary. Lists the states that have enacted laws against spam. Minnesota's not one of them. [fark!]

Weather in Minneapolis for April 24, 2002     April 24 in History

• There's an article on Kissing Print Versions of Pages Goodbye over on evolt.org. As I said in my comment, I spent two hours trying to get things to work on the Mac browsers I have available to me, with partial success at best. Pretty depressing, and I think the solution is going to be just writing some PHP scripts to add a "print this page" button to every page on the site. It sure seems a lot more workable in the current Mac browsers.
• The Chinese version of Magical Mac Keys is online in HTML format now. - You can download the magazine (in PDF format). You'll want issue #5. The PDF has both Simplified and Traditional Chinese encodings.
• When I look at the results of the Google Search: related:davespicks.com, I'm struck by what a small community seems to be related to me. [librarian]
• The Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act -- a closer look, by Cathy Raymond (Eric's wife), who's a real live lawyer. [doc]
• Dave's Picks, proud home of The Internet Auteur?

Weather in Minneapolis for April 23, 2002     April 23 in History

• Happy Earth Day. [daypop]
• Protecting the planet, pedal by pedal. Gary Hoover's an example of how you can live without a car. [strib]
• The man who would feed the world. It takes about 15,000 to 30,000 square feet of land to feed one person the average U.S. diet. I've figured out how to get it down to 4,000 square feet. How? I focus on growing soil, not crops. [boing boing]
• Secret compound may curb smog and acid rain. A Minnesota company has a product that looks like it can reduce sulfur and nitrogen oxides in coal powerplant exhaust by more than 99%. [strib]
• On a more personal note, once again, nobody in the house I live in was together enough yesterday to haul the garbage to the curb. The trash guys went by about a half hour ago. The recycling hasn't gone out either, but there's a couple hours left before the recycling truck comes by. I'm as guilty as the rest of not getting the job done yesterday, but it sometimes seems that if I don't take care of that sort of thing, it just doesn't happen. Oh well. Full dumpsters next week.
• There were some elections in France. They seem to have surprised people.
  • CNN.com - Le Pen: From also-ran to contender - April 21, 2002 - It's further evidence of the rise of anti-immigrant feelings amongst Europeans. Presumably, Le Pen will lose in the second round, but... [Jim]
  • BBC News
  • Irish Times
  • Times of London
  • The Glasgow Herald says Fascist stuns France in poll - I had to add it for using the proper term for Le Pen. Fascist. [Jim]
  • Far-right candidate in runoff for French presidency. [strib]
  • Finally, the InstaPundit comments on the French elections, mentioning another blogger who comments on the ease with which the French seem to swing from near-communism to near-fascism. [instapundit]
  My take is that the French seem to be awfully fond of a government that takes care of them (a nanny state). And while I don't have problems with a government that tries to protect me from foreign enemies, one that tries to protect me from myself rankles. I'm not really surprised that the French picked a right-leaning control-freak over a number of left-leaning control-freaks this time around. There's really not all that much difference between them.
  
  Just don't expect the EU to ostracize France the way they did with Austria when Haider was elected there. Expect to see a lot of political weight thrown behind Chirac in a sort of Anybody but Le Pen effort.

Weather in Minneapolis for April 22, 2002     April 22 in History

• We did some tailgating yesterday for the single-game ticket sales for the St. Paul Saints. Here are a few pictures:
• Tune into Timmy Ramone's SHOUTcast station - All Ramones all the time! (max five simultaneous listeners). [Jim]
• Rush to resurrect older songs for tour. Rush on tour. The mind boggles. [fark!]
• Nebraska Researchers Measure the Extent of 'Link Rot' in Distance Education. Apparently the half-life of a link in their study is about 55 months. It would be interesting to run that kind of analysis on the stuff I've linked to over the years. I'd guess that I tend to link to stuff with a shorter half-life, if only because so many of the newspapers I've linked to over the years have wrecked their archives. [librarian]
• Deep Linking Returns to Surface. I don't really care what Bruce Sunstein intended my user experience on the web to be, but companies trying to prevent deep-linking are a part of the link-rot problem. [daypop]
• • Abbey confines suspect priests
  • Abbot investigates what really went on at the abbey's lake cabin
  • Klassen: Openness might be broadened
  • Payment amounts, number unknown
  • '85 meeting shelved abuse report
  • Abbey, diocese differ on sex abuse policies
  are stories about sexual abuse by monks at St. John's Abbey. The first of the articles names three monks who taught at St. John's Prep when I was there, and there were rumors about the various boys in the school who were special friends with those monks. In the Saint John's Abbey Policy When a Monk has been Accused of Sexual Abuse or Sexual Exploitation they mention a public statement, but I haven't heard any previous statements about the monks who were teaching while I was at SJP. That made it surprising to me that the Abbey is finally talking about it. It'll be interesting to see whether the topic comes up at our 20th reunion this June. The good thing that the Abbey does is keep the monks on, and continue to work with them. I think that's a lot better policy than the usual Church policy of firing or transferring the offender and paying the victim to be quiet.

Weather in Minneapolis for April 21, 2002     April 21 in History

• Seeing Around Corners. An article about modelling as a tool. It happens to work pretty well for human societies in a number of cases. [some guy]
• Wine experts fooled into thinking white wine is red. Good thing I don't listen to experts, but just drink what tastes good to me. [flutterby]
• We have a right to (declining) courtesy. Actually, I've found that if I have a rude waitron in a bar, ordering from the bartender and tipping heavily for even decent service usually gets the message across pretty effectively in that one case. [strib]
• Would you take a pill to stretch your day? Forty hours of wakey-wake? Get a whole week's work done before Wednesday? Hmm. Sounds like a bad plan to me. [fark!]
• Sexy Specs Glasses, like small breasts, seem to be one of those things that women automatically assume men find unattractive.
• Scientists say: Women need to reach out and touch themselves [fark!]

Weather in Minneapolis for April 20, 2002     April 20 in History

• The picture on the right is of a spot where water runs from the cliffs in Father Hennepin Bluffs Park. Is this the remnants of the Chalybeate Mineral Springs? I'm not sure, but it seems likely.
• Meat is meat and man's gotta eat! [Some gal]
• net art : adwords happening - buying adwords on google as art. [boing boing]
• learn.co.uk's Encyclopaedia of USA History is a handy online reference. [lileks]
• VW unveils 1 litre/100 km car. That's 235 mpg or so. [daypop]
• Jeff Kay is a sick bastard, and Beef confirms it. (It's a classic Usenet post, not a true story from Jeff, but still...
• 75 Years of Band-Aid went up in 1996 and I finally found it now. [davezilla]
• http://3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097.org/ is a very nerdy site. [Boing Boing]
• Minneapolis council member, others indicted and Minneapolis City Council member Joe Biernat indicted. A breaking news story about the City Council member who would have started representing me this coming September. It'll be interesting to see what happens to fill the possible vacancy in Ward 3, and whether it'll happen before or after the ward boundaries change. [strib]
• Minneapolis councilman Biernat, union official indicted is the take from St. Paul.
• Minneapolis councilman Joe Biernat indicted is today's story. [strib]

Weather in Minneapolis for April 19, 2002     April 19 in History

• Rybak asks police chief to step down, but Is Rybak aiming at wrong target? It's not just Olson's fault that the Minneapolis Police Department have been accused of excessive violence. But he is the head guy in the MPD, and that makes him an easy target. Will firing him solve the problems? No. Will it help? Maybe. [strib]
• Supreme Court refuses to order book store to turn over records of which customers bought books about making drugs. Seems that doesn't qualify as "terrorism". There's maybe a little hope for the first amendment. [librarian]
• Professor says Disney, other firms typify what's wrong with copyrights. We came from a free speech tradition, Lessig said. What happened? It's been bought off.
• Authors rally against Amazon's online selling of used books. I can see where authors would be upset with getting no additional royalties for the sale of a book, but this is just the same old used bookstore problem that's upset some authors for years. Personally, I'd recommend half.com [warning: popups] over amazon for used books, but that's just me, and I comparison-shop using either bestbookbuys or isbn.nu. And since the initial story I linked to is gone, take a look at InformantBitz Book Publishing News [warning: popups] for a list of other, similar stories.
• The battle over Web radio continues with dueling articles about where the money's going.
• The AMERICAN OPEN TECHNOLOGY CONSORTIUM and GeekPAC. Do you think having a PAC of geeks would be a good thing? I wonder.... [doc]

Weather in Minneapolis for April 18, 2002     April 18 in History

• 
• Critical flaw found in MS Office for Mac. A critical problem, in all their apps on the Mac, which took since early January to fix. Yeah, security is still job #1 at Microsoft. [google news]
• Apache 2.0 Beats IIS at Its Own Game and is improved on Unix, too. But the biggest improvements are when running on Windows. [daypop]
• In the duel of the search engines, More Teoma vs Google and more. Funny thing is, I haven't heard much about Teoma since these initial announcements.
• Google's Toughest Search Is for a Business Model. But they have concentrated on building one hell of a product. It'll be interesting to see how they pay for it in the long run. [scripting]
• Overture sues Google over patent infringement. Hmm. Software patent. Guess we'll see what happens.
• Google protects its search results by locking out some IP addresses and trying to prevent people from skewing the rankings. [daypop]
• PHP Beginner.com. It's got some good stuff. Hopefully more to come. [daypop]
• IPod: Music to Hackers' Ears. Folks are not only hacking iPods, they're writing cool software for 'em now. [librarian]

Weather in Minneapolis for April 17, 2002     April 17 in History

• Yesterday was unseasonably warm. 91 degrees. But I live near the University of Minnesota. When the weather gets warm, it's nice to watch the gals walking around or sunning themselves. The major problem is that now that it's windows-open-sleeping-weather, the drunks quit yelling Woo! just a few minutes before the birds start chirping.
• It's 82 in Dallas, and a reader from there would like to submit a fun time consuming shockwave snow sledding game: Snow Sledding in April. Did I mention it was 91 in Minneapolis yesterday? Oof. [Lance in Dallas]
• Commission adopts new boundaries for Minneapolis wards. There's a lot of people unhappy with the new ward boundaries. I think I'm one of 'em.
• Renegade View on Child Sex Causes a Storm. And removes Tim Pawlenty from consideration as someone I could vote for in the November election for governor of MN.
• Google Boxes are BAD BAD BAD because they artificially inflate the rankings of the search results. [librarian]
• There's a relatively new posting to the IMC with some Media Criticism of scant Critical Mass Coverage. I don't have much to add, since it's damning enough as is. [some guy]
• Down in Costa Rica, Movimiento Libertario has gained a half-dozen seats in parliament. It's nice to see a libertarian party making progress somewhere.
• The Badger's Radio Weblog talks about Irish politics, from a Republican point of view. [librarian]
• More news from Ireland: The IRA reported a substantial disposal of weapons - The Nationalist SDLP called for Loyalists to make a move as well. The Progressive Unionist Party says Loyalists aren't ready to disarm. [Jim]
• International court established: Nations ratify treaty despite U.S. opposition. [google news]

Weather in Minneapolis for April 16, 2002     April 16 in History

• Hennepin County Bike Map (in PDF format)
• 
• Full Suspension SWB OSS Homebuilt Recumbent, with pictures taken as construction was happening. If you're thinking of building your own 'bent, reading this will be worth your time.
• This was a beautiful weekend. Saturday, Jim & I went down to Calhoun Cycle to pick up our 'bents. His new bike, and my trike, fresh from a spring tuneup. We rode about 10 miles coming home. Then Sunday we did about 15 miles. My legs can tell they've been called on to do work they normally aren't, but they don't hurt. I'd expected a slower start after about five months of not riding.
• So it looks like my Magical Mac Key Sequences isn't quite going to pass the main page in number of hits (only tracked since last August), but it was a close thing. And y'know, not a single one of those people clicked on the Buy me a beer? link. Popularity's nice, but it doesn't pay the bills. Sigh.
• Ernie (of Little Yellow Different) has started Codename: BlindDateBlog. Almost as if by coincidence, Davezilla comes out with How to tell if she's interested in you. The mind boggles? [evhead]
• Group hugs increase profits. Well, I have to agree with Dan's comment that it would depend on the co-worker. [flutterby]
• Leonard's Pictures from a Folk Village. More from Korea.

Weather in Minneapolis for April 15, 2002     April 15 in History

• If you look at the picture of the Minneapolis main Post Office on the right, you can see it's got a balcony that runs the length of the building. But because it completely turns its back on the river, that balcony is fenced off, so nobody can use it. A lot of Minneapolis used to turn its back on the river like this.
• Why one spam could cost 50 dollars. The SF law firm MoFo have had bouts of cluelessness in the past. This one seems like a pretty good fight. [daypop]
• Using the net to catch spam. It's a napster-like service that distributes the signatures of spams. As long as the signature generation is done right, it should be pretty effective. [daypop]
• Web surfers brace for pop-up downloads. Oh, that's just such a bad idea. [daypop]
• Seattle man has telemarketer's number: he gets apology and 500 dollars. I have some vague memory of having linked to either this story or one very similar, but it's cool enough that it's worth repeating even if I did. His website is smallclaim.info.
• No Subscription for Spam Relief. But it also appears that asking to unsubscribe won't make things any worse, since most unsubscribe addresses don't go anywhere anyhow.
• Nothing to Yahoo Over New E-Rules. Blegh. Businesses are making a mess of the 'net. No surprise, but it's looking like a tragedy of the commons
• Let's put Verisign to death . No real suggestions from me, but I can point at it. [weblogs]
• CompUSA: How not to handle a turboing customer. This pretty well matches my experience with CompUseless. I still shop there, but if I can't walk into the store, and walk out with what I want in my grubby hands, I'll buy it elsewhere. No, I won't go to another store. No, I won't come back in two days to pick it up after you order it. I walked into a bricks & mortar store because I wanted it now.
• Google Begins Making DMCA Takedowns Public. Cool. And the takedown links to how to get the pages back in google (if you're the owner of the pages). Convenient. [doc]

Weather in Minneapolis for April 14, 2002     April 14 in History

• Is this funny or just a good idea? [Jim]
• Leonard has posted his Pictures of Seoul. Cool.
• Things Other People Accomplished When They Were Your Age. That's only a lot depressing. [daypop]
• Hick-Hop Blends Bluegrass and Rap. Danja Mowf said the banjo and fiddle were simply not instruments he would have considered appropriate for hip-hop. Really? [fark!]
• When games stop being fun. Are you living with the agony that is EverCrack addiction? [fark!]
• No matter what it costs -- Keep it neat, keep it clean, keep it real. The author is talking about body hair. Apparently men are allowed to remove it, as long as they don't talk about it. Well. There it is then. [instapundit]
• Photodude's QuoteLog Archives are kinda cool. I've seen a lot of the quotes before, but I think I like the interface, too. [doc]

Weather in Minneapolis for April 13, 2002     April 13 in History

• First, some links from my friend Jim, who just bought a new bike:
  • What can I say? I bought a bike and I'm looking for where and when to use it. The bike trails calendarpage.htm has a lot of organized rides.
  • I doubt I'll ever bike to Mexico, but it's nice to know that customs has added a bike lane if I choose to do so.
  • Looking for bike trails? Need one that's wheelchair accessible? Horse trails? Walking? Try TrailLink.com.
  • Critical Mass meets with Minneapolis Mayor, Chief of Police, Council Members - the report of the meeting with the officials. It sounds like the Mayor and the precinct captain are going to be on the April CM ride.
• And then a bunch of links I've collected over time
  • Adventure Cycling Association America's Resource for Bicycle Travel, Bike Routes, Bicycle Tours, Bike Maps, Bicycle Maintenance, Cycling Tours and Bike Trips.
  • National Bicycle Greenway Routes
  • Urban Cycling/Triking Tips
  • Habitat 500
  • National Millennium Trails
  • Mississippi NRRA Trail Users Guide. I especially like these maps for bits of the Mississippi within the metro area.
  • Trails.com - Your Source for Quality Trail Information
  • Minnesota State Patrol Form to Report Unsafe Driving Incidents
  • I've added a collection of Minnesota and Minneapolis Bike Laws. Even if you don't find them useful, I wanted a place I could reference quickly.

Weather in Minneapolis for April 12, 2002     April 12 in History

If you’re looking for information about the riot in 2003, try Hockey Riot 2003.

• Here's the collection of stories about the aftermath of the hockey riots:
  • Minneapolis police continue riot investigation
  • Minneapolis to review policy on force by police, as a direct result of the shooting of an insane Somali, the attack on Critical Mass and the handling of the Hockey Riots. [strib]
  • Police chief, mayor meet editor of Daily [strib]
  • Police, Daily discuss media treatment is the Daily's side of the story.
  • Dinkytown store owners repair buildings in riots' aftermath
  • Photographer gives first-hand account of Dinkytown riots
• This photo is of driving to work on Tuesday, April 2. Rather than pass the salt truck, the person in front of me backed up traffic for miles, getting pelted with salt coming out of the truck.
• More from the Bad Cop! No Donut! division: Inside the District's Red Lights explores red-light cameras and photo-radar, The Yellow Menace explains why cities set yellow lights intentionally shorter than is safe, The Safety Myth talks about speed limits being set lower than is safe, in the name of safety, Getting Rear-Ended by the Law talks about how red-light cameras may be more dangerous, and the flawed study that their proponents use, and finally Fighting the Good Fight are the parts of a five-part series talking about traffic laws and their enforcement in DC.
• Leonard's Pictures from the DMZ between North and South Korea.
• Home Insurers Frown on Many Dogs. Of course there are other companies who will insure you even if you have a "bad" breed of dog.
• Smart glass can order its own refills Like most new technologies, a beer glass that detects its own level is a solution in search of a problem. However, it may yet find application beyond its inventor's imagination if someone is clever enough to think of one. [Reed]
• Illegal Moonshine Is Still Flowing. There's folks still making moonshine out there. And some of it's still poisonous. But hey, it's cheap! [fark!]
• Can we just be friends? asks whether men and women can be friends.

Weather in Minneapolis for April 11, 2002     April 11 in History

If you’re looking for information about the riot in 2003, try Hockey Riot 2003.

• This has been a goofy morning. Wide awake at 3AM. Four hours of answering email and starting to search the web for things for today's picks. Then back to sleep until 11 AM. My schedule is completely FUBAR.
• The Pioneer Press had the story U investigating weekend melee on Tuesday.
• U of M Statement on Weekend Disturbances
• I also sent my take on this weekend's events to the Minneapolis issues list.
• Bicyclists allege police used excessive force to break up Downtown group ride. More on last month's Critical Mass ride.
• Time for some lighter stuff. If you look closely at this picture of the Pillsbury A Mill, you'll see it's not just humans who get pear-shaped as they get older.
• I wrote up a description of How I display the Last 10 Referrers list. More content for the geeks. I also continue to update my Magical Macintosh Keys page. Thirteen thousand page-reads and counting.
• Crashed computer boots local man into jail (Local in Wisconsin, that is). This one's not a Compaq, it's a Gateway. [some guy]
• Bill Gates is dead. How very strange.

Weather in Minneapolis for April 10, 2002     April 10 in History

If you’re looking for information about the riot in 2003, try Hockey Riot 2003.

• Chief ordered police to disperse hockey crowd, but not until 3am.
• Pucks and bricks / U beats Maine; cops topple fans is the Strib's editorial.
• Hockey fans, police clash in U area post-game riots is the Daily's take on the story. Having read the various stories and talked a number of folks who were there, I think this is probably the closest to the truth of the lot.
• U considers penalties for riot participants, which makes sense. There were a core of people who wanted a riot. And they should have the book thrown at 'em. But there may also have been some excessive force used by the MPD, and that should be dealt with too.
• Outstate MN slow to sign up for DSL, even though it's not much more expensive than it is in Minneapolis. But it would be a more signifcant part of an outstate family's income. [strib]
• Rick Bradley has been Sticking it to SBC since last September. He's even made some progress. [cam]
• Quiz Blog collects links to all the Which ____ Are You? quizzes out there. Many are pretty stupid. A few are pretty funny. Finding the funny ones is the challenge. [weblogs]

Weather in Minneapolis for April 9, 2002     April 9 in History

• Last Tuesday, my car was buried in snow. Yesterday, it nearly hit 60. I sure hope the picture is the last one I take of snow for at least six months.
• I've updated my Magical Macintosh Keys page with all the comments that came in over the weekend. I've also been updating the Blogs by Daves list recently.
• Street revelry gets out of hand is another article about the post Frozen Four celebrations in Dinkytown. Apparently it was more than one person who was arrested. More like 35-40. There's more information at IndyMedia, too. [strib]
• Clinton 'regrets' Rich pardon, not because it was wrong, but because of the political damage it did to his reputation. [google news]
• Wellstone's Folly - The dead rat on campaign finance reform's kitchen floor.. Seems the Wellstone Amendment to McCain-Feingold is the most unconstitutional part of the whole thing. And he's up for reëlection real soon. Hmmm... [instapundit]
• U.S. envoy meets with Arafat in besieged headquarters. What the hell? Did Arafat somehow become something other than a terrorist? Or did we call off the war on terrorism? [strib]
• An Oil Company Proves Bush Wrong On Climate Change. [daypop]
• Boy Becomes Ill After Airport Security Check because security regulations require passengers to take a drink from any beverages they're carrying onto a plane. He had a gallon of water from a Colorado stream he was taking back to PA for extra credit in his bio class. They think he got giardia from it. There are so many things wrong with this picture I just don't know where to start. [fark!]
• Pilots unions' plea to Bush: Allow guns in cockpit. Most Americans favor it. And Front Sight has offered to give free firearms training to any pilots who think they need it. [instapundit]
• Amtrak backs away from threatened cuts. Maybe it will be possible to take the train next year.

Weather in Minneapolis for April 8, 2002     April 8 in History

• Gophers beat Maine 4-3 in OT to win national title! Woo!
  
  There was a bit of an uproar in Dinkytown after the U of M Hockey team won the national Championship - Crowds revel around U campus; one arrested. Many people felt the need to say Woo!
  
  Here's IndyMedia's take on the post-hockey happenings in Dinkytown. Oddly enough they question the behavior of the local police. I guess it's pretty handy that the Minneapolis Police Civilian Review Authority has been defunded.
  
  Dinkytown hasn't seen such fun since the anti-war protests in 1970s. May 1972: antiwar protests become part of U history.
  
  [Thanks to Jim for the extra-timely linkage]
• Cringely tells us Why Your Phone Company Hates DSL. Except that USWest actually did a pretty good job of getting DSL set up in our area. They never were a very good ISP, but it was easy enough to move to another ISP (at least for me). [cam]
• Duct season. Everyman comedian Red Green shoots for the big time with new feature film. If women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy. And fark says to blame the huge fan base. I don't know whether they're talking numbers or size of the individual fans. In either case, I bet I end up seeing the movie. [fark!]
• MN House approves telemarketing do-not-call list. Personally, I'd prefer a "okay, you can call" list, but I guess it's better than nothing. Opt-out is a half-step at best. We should have opt-in lists. [strib]
• Yesterday, I took a walk down by the Mississippi. It was a nice day, and I'd spent all morning working on email regarding a local development project (which I mentioned yesterday). So a walk before getting some lunch seemed like a good plan.
  
  Lunch ended up being at Keegan's Pub, which opened the week of St. Patrick's Day. A hot sandwich (with chips, not crisps), a pint of Guinness, and a shot of Power's set me back about $20. The food's good. They serve a good portion of chips on the side with the sandwiches. The beer's a little more expensive than I'd like, but it's not out of line with the other "nice" bars in the neighborhood. And the bar looks like after twenty or thirty years to darken up all the wood, it'll be a very cozy place.
  
  One of these days I'll get the rest of the pictures on the site. But putting pictures on the front page like this gives me ideas about more software I could write to make it easier to do that. I'm torn between spending the time to put the pictures up and working on software to make putting pictures up quicker (once the software is done).

Weather in Minneapolis for April 7, 2002     April 7 in History

• I had no idea my Magical Macintosh Keys page was going to be so popular. Around seven thousand reads in the first day I had it posted. Yegads. In the first five days of April, I've already had more traffic than I did in any month in 2001. If you're one of the folks who got here after looking at that page, welcome!
• Minnesota Critical mass has issued a Call to Action - They're asking anyone who was harrassed by the Minneapolis Police Department to file a report and claim against the city.
• In other local politics, I've gotten myself involved in a discussion about the Stone Arch Apartments that are proposed for my neighborhood. Sometimes I just don't know when to keep my mouth (or fingers) shut.
• Gophers' hockey championship opportunity has arrived. They've made it to the championship. Just one more win.... [strib]
• Judge rules Tom Cruise not gay. The world breathes a sigh of relief? [fark!]

Weather in Minneapolis for April 6, 2002     April 6 in History

• Some friends and I put together a list of Magical Macintosh Key Sequences that you might find useful.
• 18 Tales of Media Censorship talks about a new book that sounds pretty good. It examines censorship, but also things like why there hasn't been more investigation of companies with shady finances after the Enron deal. Reporters who do their job too well often get fired. [daypop]
• Man uses sword hidden in cane to rid home of intruder . Remember when folks said that a man's home is his castle? Some folks still believe that. [fark!]
• The NRA is to the 2nd Amendment as H & R Block is to the 16th. Without gun control, there would be little reason for folks to send the NRA as much money as they currently get. Which means the NRA has a vested interest in seeing that there's always some amount of gun control around. I thought about something much like this when I was reading the most recent issue of America's First Freedom and seeing yet another editorial telling me that this year's elections could be the most important in recent history. Even more important than those in 2000, which were the most important.... [endwar]
• [Mpls] Minnesota Critical Mass Dot OH ARE GEE is a message explaining Minneapolis Critical Mass to people who aren't involved in it.
• Observing Surveillance Cameras around Washington D.C. Pictures of surveillance cameras. [Macintouch]
• Tim May's Cyphernomicon explains a lot about what Cypherpunks consider important.
• Virtual kingdom richer than Bulgaria. Norrath, the setting for the online game Everquest, has been found to be the 77th richest country in the world, sandwiched between Russia and Bulgaria. [daypop]

Weather in Minneapolis for April 5, 2002     April 5 in History

• Baseball season is underway! MapQuest: has aerial photos of 26 of MLB's parks (Four are missing - I didn't bother figuring out which).
• Hokey Spokes are Bicycle Safety Lights with LED spoke lights for your bike. You can program them to show cool things, including text, on your moving spokes. But not for the smaller-than-usual wheels on my trike (or most recumbents) until this fall. [librarian]
• Spector and eBlaster Spy Software and Internet Monitoring. It's designed to monitor web-based email. So just because you're emailing through yahoo, hotmail or whatever doesn't mean your employer can't snoop. [some guy]
• Thinking of buying a Compaq? Perhaps you should read the The Happy Fun Don't Buy Compaq Page first. Perhaps you should link to it so more people don't buy Compaqs. [doc]
• Click & Clack's Worst Car of the Millennium Results [daypop]
• For Wealthy, a New Way to Fly on Business. There's a solution to the long lines and extra time wasted at the airport. A mite pricey, but....
• Survey finds rudeness is getting worse. But only 40% of the people surveyed are ever rude. Hmm. [daypop]

Weather in Minneapolis for April 4, 2002     April 4 in History

• Critical mass and the Mayor also talks about bicycle registration in Minneapolis.
• The results of Critical Mass Meeting with Mayor Rybak. We'll see how Sgt. Arradondo does in getting folks their bikes back. Maybe he gets a donut. [Jim]
• Minnesota Statutes 2001, 169.222. Operation of a bicycle. [Jim]
• MN law regarding bicycling, as commented on by one masser, which also includes notes on the city of Minneapolis' registration law. [Jim]
• I know it's been a heavy concentration of stuff about Critical Mass so far this week. Sorry if that bothers you, but I get grumpy when I see the Minneapolis Police Department being clueless about bike laws (I've been told I'm required to ride on the sidewalk, as one example), and when they moved from clueless to outright hostile last Friday (it's not the first time), it got my goat. I think that bicyclists should follow the law, but some of the laws make biking more dangerous, and we need to work on fixing those.
  
  In an email, my friend Jim said that Somehow creating a disturbance is, to me, part of the point. I'm thinking that it's quite possible to create a disturbance and still be legal. And I think that might be a solution. It'll piss off some of the cops even more if everything's kept legal (just barely) while still being as disturbing as possible, too.
  
  
• A bit of good reading about biking is Effective Cycling ISBN:0262560704 by John Forester. I don't agree with all of his ideas, but there are things about how to ride in traffic that parallel what Critical Mass is trying to achieve, and have been helpful in my day-to-day riding around town.

Weather in Minneapolis for April 3, 2002     April 3 in History

• Minnesota's first April shower arrives in piles. 4-6 inches of snow. Messy. [strib]
• As a followup to yesterday's post about Critical Mass and the harassment by the MPD, there's a meeting with R.T. Rybak today at 1:30PM. There's a lot more information at the Minnesota Critical Mass page, including four ride reports. There's also another fine message in the bicyclelane mailing list.
  
  I've pondered riding in these rides in the past. I'm really torn at this point. I don't want to get arrested and have a bike confiscated, which is just the kind of intimidation the MPD meant to achieve. But I don't think I can sit idly by and watch this kind of crap, either. In any case, I expect it will be a few months before the next crackdown. That's been the MPD's pattern -- intimidate the hell out of people, and then be mellow for the next few rides until the staffers and Council-Members aren't at a ride, and then back to the intimidation. I expect it'll be June or July when things turn ugly again.
  
  At the risk of repeating myself, Bad Cop! No Donut!
  
  
• Columbia Newsblaster reads news articles from a number of sources and summarizes them. It's far from perfect at the moment, but it's an interesting test. The NY Times doesn't seem too impressed.
• Search engine upstart Teoma takes aim at Google. Teoma will unveil their new search engine later on April Fool's Day. My initial impression is that they still have a way to go to beat google. It takes longer to get a response and things aren't sorted quite as well. [google news]
• PHP: URL Howto explains how php.net does the auto-search thingie they do. If you ask for http://php.net/search_term (and there isn't already a page with that name) it'll automagically search for the term and give you the most likely pages. [cam]
• There's a handy Database of Web Robots out there if such things interest you. [cam]

Weather in Minneapolis for April 2, 2002     April 2 in History

• The Top Ten April Fool's Day Hoaxes of All Time. Enjoy. [fark!]
• Cops break up Critical Mass last Friday. Bad cop! No donut! There's been quite a bit of discussion about it on the Minneapolis Issues mailing list.
• March wasn't quite lion enough to add to weather records. March was 0.4 degree F too warm to make the coldest month of the winter. [strib]
• Local 'zine The Rake has an article on Dinkytown and Bob Dylan this month. They interviewed Snaker Dave Ray and other about what the music scene was like when Bobby Zimmerman blew threw town. [Jim]
• Selig's arm-twisting act opens in Missouri, since apparently both the Royals and the Cardinals need new stadia. Apparently the willingness of Minnesota legislators to build a new stadium here has given him more confidence. [strib]
• Want to know where those Work from Home signs come from? [daypop]
• Odd Todd: The Corporate Mofo Interview. A Man Without a Mission. [fark!]
• Underground History - Disused Stations on London's Underground. Cool bits about the tube.
• Here's some foolishness from previous years. 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998. The links aren't freshness dated, so some might not be good anymore. Sorry about that.
• Walking to and from the store last night, I noticed again that I pay a lot more attention to my neighbors' dogs than I do to the neighbors themselves. There's Sasha, a golden retriever. She's a real sweetie, if perhaps a bit long in the tooth. She almost never barks, except a quick Hello. Her owner's a pretty blonde, too. There's the chocolate dog who's like the kid who always got busted for talking in the library. She's happy to see friends, and doesn't realize how loud she is. She'll run a full block to come and say hello in person, hollering the whole way. Her owner and the owner's daughter seem nice enough. There's the pair of dalmatians who never say a word when their owner's got 'em out walking. They seem shy or reserved. I don't really know the guy who walks 'em. He doesn't say much, either. But in all these cases, I'm a lot more interested in the dog than the owner. I'm pretty sure I get along better with the dogs, too. It's not that I don't like people, but you can't exactly get away with crouching down and sniffing a strange human's butt. With dogs, it's de rigueur.

Weather in Minneapolis for April 1, 2002     April 1 in History