I've just found out something terrible! Iraq may soon aquire nuclear weapons. US senators have called this both terrible, hideous, and monstrous, and 78 countries have asked the UN to judge nuclear weaponry inhumane. (more)
Remember the Indonesian bombing? Well, first they said al Qaeda did it. Then they said the Indonesian army did it. Now they're saying it was a CIA bombing. Given the fact that the Australian government is playing buddy-buddy with the US spectres right now, it's no surprise that the Australian government is making political protest illegal. Protecting freedom, that's what we're doing. After all, isn't our freedom why the terrorists hate us?
"Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a colossus; and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves."
- (more)
Well, no matter what you do I guess you support the war effort. On the right you can see a new amazon.com ad. I just sent them to following letter regarding it to find out more (this is an excerpt):
While reading the news this morning, I came across a banner ad for Amazon that said "BUY amazon.com & SUPPORT ISRAEL". When I clicked on it, it did not appear to be a referral collecting link. As someone who has spent thousands of dollars at amazon.com, I am very concerned to find out that my spending there may be contributing to war in the Middle East. Can you please confirm (a) whether my spending at amazon.com causes political or nationalist donations to occur, and (b) the specifics of those contributions.
In other news, nearly a quarter million jobs are expected to be lost in the UK if the Iraq war keeps rolling ahead. In other news, our good Pakistani allies have democratically elected a Taliban leadership, so neither Musharraf nor the US are very thrilled about it. Remember, just like freedom of religion only applies to good Christians, democracy doesn't count if you elect people we don't like.
And finally, let me just say: Yay! My favorite online comic has been updated. Click the comic below to go to it now (just don't be too disappointed, only four new strips have been added; given the material he's got to work with, I wish they came out faster):
Thursday, November 7, 2002
I've been fiddling with a user search function that works using only DTMFs (touch tones). This is a transcript of a conversation with the current incarnation of that routine. I'll work on it more next week when I'll start building the voice server. I'm going to try and build it with a swarm of old computers so it can be done at basically zero cost.
Enter the user number you'd like to send a message to, or press 0 to search.
0#
Please type in as much of the user's name as possible, ignoring all special characters.
454#
Sixteen matches. Press one for glider, press two for glittarave, press three for glitter*girl, Press...
*
Please type...
4546#
For future reference, hkim's usernumber is 4784.
Please record your message at the tone. BEEP
"Hey, I'm in Dublin right now. I'm staying at the Hotel Ireland, room 666. Call me when you get home from work."
PS. I don't know hkim, but their first three DTMFs match mine, that's why they're in the little script above. Anyway, the whole system is pretty easy to use, and once you get the hang of it, it's really fast to navigate through.
Thursday, November 7, 2002
I've whipped up an idea for the New Years BBQ shirt…
Thursday, November 7, 2002
Put simply, given the technology we have now, building a voting system that would easily allow every single eligible person to vote from their home using a touchtone phone would not be at all difficult. Do you want to know why? Because big business and special interests don't want you to vote.
Voter turnout in this election was about 39% (yes, that's up from 1998, but 1998 was the lowest turnout since 1942). The smaller that number is, the more a dedicated group of people who all vote can swing the election their way, even though it's contrary to the will of the people. The Christian Coalition is one of the most obvious examples.
Other than that I just got back from Belleville from dropping off Jon and Rachel. I picked up some CDs on my way home; mostly punk stuff that I've had for a while (downloaded) that I wanted to buy the full album (that's right — if there are any RIAA goons monitoring this, I use file sharing to preview albums and I legitimately buy them if I think they're worth it).
I also picked up the Hedwig soundtrack. You'd think I've have gotten it earlier considering I've been promoting Hedwig since 1998 (and more in 1999), but better late than never. Origin of Love still blows me away every time I hear it, but then I do have a weakness for musicals in general. Sorry.
Thursday, November 7, 2002
I'm probably pushing my luck asking here, but there are a fair chunk of “car people”, so you never know. I am seeking information on the Probe series of vehicles designed by the Adams brothers (as well as information on the one-off Marcos Mantis sportsracer, which was loosely based on them). I've only ever seen one picture of the Probe 15, which is the “plastic fantastic” that I'm most interested in (the picture below is from my old car site) — that car was only 29″ tall, probably the smallest closed-canopy car ever made. It was also the “Durango 95″ in A Clockwork Orange as far as I can tell.
The Probe eventually spawned many models, and even some kit cars, and to the best of my knowledge, the original Probe 15 has basically been scrapped, with a Centaur GT roof and door section added, making the car 37″ tall instead of 29″, and losing the “bubbliness” of the original design.
I've read the
article reproduced on the Imp specials site, but while it claims to be an article on the Probe 15, it's quite apparent that it's actually a Probe 16 (note the windshield and doors most obviously) or at a minimum a very modified Probe 15. Well, if anyone has any info on the original design of the Probe 15 I'd like to see it.
Other than that, I talked to the printers today and they've done proofs of the scrapbook and everything is looking good. I'd forgotten to send them one of the fonts for the cover (below), but they have that now. I'm told that it'll be printed tomorrow or the weekend at the latest, and then it's off to the bindery at the start of the week (so everything is on schedule).
