10:59: Escalation...
Hackers' posts on epilepsy forum cause migraines, seizures


In one of the first computing hacks seemingly intended to physically harm victims, attackers saturated the web forums of the Epilepsy Foundation with strobing images allegedly calculated to trigger seizures in visitors to the site. In addition to reminding everyone of Snow Crash, this seems like a disturbing escalation in the hacker culture. Obviously this attack is only applicable to those with certain types of epilepsy. Hopefully no more general-purpose attack can be devised. Any brain-meat specialists in the house who can comment on this possibility?

10:37: For my birthday this past Wednesday, Mel got me a Nintendo DS to keep me entertained during my commute. I know that many of you have more background with this platform than I do, so I'm looking for recommendations. What are the great games for this system? I have no particular love for anime or the Pokemon franchise, but outside of this I'm pretty open. In particular, I'd like to find a decent strategy game.

15:23: The last power of two, for a while...
This morning, I turned 32.

It is a good thing to celebrate birthdays. They provide an unavoidable reminder that time is, indeed, passing. I find it easy to get tied up in the little details of living and let the years go by, unmarked. I want to get certain things done in this life, and it helps to remember that there are only so many years to do them.

In this brief moment of altered perspective, please join me in a blog toast to some of the things I feel like celebrating on my birthday:

To youth (while it remains available)!

To responsibility!

To risk!

To food, wine, friendship, and nature!

To family!

To knowledge!

To art!

To saving the world!

And, of course, to Mel, who makes all of my birthdays fun these days, and much less soul-crushing than they would otherwise likely be! Thanks, babe!

13:18: From latterday:

Below is a list of the top 106 books tagged “unread” on LibraryThing. The rules:
bold = what you’ve read,
italics = books you started but couldn’t finish
crossed out = books you hated
* = you’ve read more than once
underline = books you own but haven’t read yourself
( Read more... )

16:11: A storm on the horizon
In One Flaw, Questions on Validity of 46 Judges

Apparently, since early 2000, all Patent Court justices have been appointed by an official who lacks the constitutional authority to make such appointments. Now all of the cases that have been ruled on by such justices are, to some degree, up for grabs. Many of these could be retried, with the possibility of rulings coming out differently this time. This could cause some serious chaos in the tech world.

The original article that uncovered this issue is here.

10:47:

11:26: Some actual good news
U.S. Shifting Prison Focus to Re-entry Into Society

It is a big relief to see that you can get a bipartisan coalition around one of the U.S.'s "worst in the world" issues.

15:16: Spitzer and Springer

The current saga of Eliot Spitzer's fall from grace has been reminding me of another politician who found himself is a very similar situation: Jerry Springer. This is one of the more memorable episodes of This American Life that I've heard:

Episode 258 - Leaving the Fold

The first act tells the unlikely story of Jerry Springer's career as a much-beloved politician in Cincinnati, many years before he achieved his current infamy as a talk-show host.

10:50: Lame...
LiveJournal is discontinuing the "basic" account type. While annoying, this is not a deal-breaker, but it makes me apprehensive about what other changes the new owners will be making in an attempt to make money.

11:48: Linkin'
My favorite LJ community for the moment would have to be so_very_doomed, although I am not at all sure how much of this is just the name. It is a collection of news foreshadowing the collapse of human civilization. Depressing stuff, but I'm often thinking about it anyway. Oh, for the days of my youth, when there were not a half-dozen or so impending crises threatening human civilization. OK, yeah, they were there, but I probably felt better not knowing about them.

My fun Wikipedia entry for the day is the Fermi paradox.

10:42: Last night, I finally saw There Will Be Blood. My main feeling, coming away from the film, is to be thankful for OSHA.

Also: WTF, Brian K. Vaughan is producing Lost?

18:28: That was the best day of skiing I've ever had.

11:42: Happy birthday, mkwhite!

21:45:

14:02:

13:14:

18:40: Sure, we'll have a primary... heh heh
I should probably be careful what I wish for. It looks like I will be caucusing this year.

The Democratic Party does have a primary in Washington, as is actually mandated by state law. State law does not, however, require the parties to actually do anything with the primary results like, say, select delegates to the national convention. So the Democrats choose not to. They use the caucuses, which start ten days earlier, to choose all the delegates. The primary serves no purpose except possibly to convince the unwary that they actually participated in the nominating process.

Thanks to darthparadox for tipping me off to this.

14:27: Oh, Iowa...
Today, I envy the Iowans. And not just because Washington's primary is well on the other side of Super Tuesday, where the odds of it affecting anything are pretty damn slim. No, I just want to take part in those crazy Iowa caucuses. They may be time-consuming, arcane, and somewhat disenfranchising to many Iowans, but I think they sound like a hell of a lot of fun. The whole idea of building persuasion and consensus-building into the candidate selection process is just charming, even if it doesn't scale up enough for everyone to do it.

14:15: Important information about new travel rules
Please read through this if you will be traveling by air in the next few days.

In a nice bit of timing, the federal government is making new rules governing luggage for air travel effective as of tomorrow, specifically addressing the transport of lithium-based batteries. Doing this in the middle of the holiday travel season, when many travelers are mid-trip and not fully able to plan what they take, seems guaranteed to cause some difficulties. Added to this, the news accounts and government website descriptions of the new regulations are often incomplete or just plain wrong.

After some digging, I located the actual policy. The relevant bit is here:

Sec. 175.10 Exceptions.

(a) * * *
(17) Except as provided in Sec. 173.21 of this subchapter,
consumer electronic and medical devices (watches, calculating machines,
cameras, cellular phones, lap-top and notebook computers, camcorders,
etc.) containing lithium cells or batteries and spare lithium batteries
and cells for these devices, when carried by passengers or crew members
for personal use. Each spare battery must be individually protected so
as to prevent short circuits (by placement in original retail packaging
or by otherwise insulating terminals, e.g., by taping over exposed
terminals or placing each battery in a separate plastic bag or
protective pouch) and carried in carry-on baggage only. In addition,
each installed or spare battery must not exceed the following:
(i) For a lithium metal battery, a lithium content of not more than
2 grams per battery; or
(ii) For a lithium-ion battery, an aggregate equivalent lithium
content of not more than 8 grams per battery, except that up to two
batteries with an aggregate equivalent lithium content of more than 8
grams but not more than 25 grams may be carried.

Normally, I rely on the TSA web page for the last word on issues like this, but this time they got it wrong by quite a bit, probably because it is not their policy.
They state:

Under the new DOT rule, lithium batteries are allowed in checked baggage under one of the following conditions:

* The batteries must be in their original containers.
* The battery terminals must not exposed (for example placing tape over the ends of the batteries).
* The batteries are installed in a device.
* The batteries are enclosed by themselves in a plastic bag.

Given this misinformation and the normal chaos associated with a new checking regime, expect additional delays at security checkpoints. Also, given the extra scrutiny of checked bags, I suspect that there will be more late or lost luggage than usual.

Update 1/2/08, 15:35PST -- Fortunately, the security apparatus at the airports I traveled through yesterday seemed to be ignoring this new rule, which is fine by me. Let them get serious about it when it will cripple the system a bit less.

16:02: Weekend news
I had a good, long weekend. My überboss gave the department the day off, partly because half of us were changing offices, partly so we would have time to get ready for the departmental holiday party. This was held at Parlor Billiards over in Bellevue. It was the best of the Microsoft holiday parties I've been to. The food was tasty, including what seemed to my untrained palate to be some pretty nice oysters. The drinks were abundant and top-shelf, although for the life of me I could not get across the idea of a Dark and Stormy. The pool tables were good, providing a nice refuge for those, like me, who can only take so much small-talk.

Saturday we got to a slow start. Eventually, we got out the door and took the bus down to Pioneer Square to get some Christmas shopping done. Oh, Elliot Bay Book Company, how I do love thee! Afterward we caught a showing of Juno, which pretty well rocked. Go see it. The dialog was fresh, unrestrained, and so funny that many lines were drowned out by audience laughter. I look forward to the video release so that I can hear what I missed. Ellen Page was fantastic. Two of my favorite bit players, J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney, also put in excellent performances.

Sunday, we got up far too early to catch the second day of the ski season up at Snoqualmie Summit with lizzelda. Sadly, when we arrived the lifts were motionless. A power outage at the resort pretty much wiped out the whole day of skiing. We stuck around for about an hour and then sought solace in a pub lunch, a couple of beers, and televised football. The power outage apparently lasted until 2pm, two hours before the slopes were to close.

Mel and I spent the rest of the day around the house, watching old West Wing episodes, making gingerbread cookies, and finalizing some holiday plans.

15:39: New office


I think it needs a little charm. Any ideas? Sadly, Christmas lights are verboten.

18:37:

15:45:

I love it when the Christmas robots go wrong. This guy depicted above was making a loud berserk-droid whirring and making senseless twitchy motions with his outstretched arms. Passing parents were clearly unsure if this menacing behavior was something to bring to their children's attention. "Look honey! It's... moving?" All that was needed to round out the scene was a cute cartoon-animal voice repeating "DESTROY!"




The racoon's chipmunk friend clearly grasped the situation better than Father Christmas, who just looked on benignly, perhaps thinking "Naughty animal == someone else's problem."

15:44: The Internet Law Treatise
I have recently been considering teaching myself some Spanish, if only to make my trip to Mexico in February a little more entertaining. It occurred to me that I have some pretty useful resources on hand for this undertaking: hundreds of DVDs featuring Spanish-language audio tracks. The ideal thing for me would be to select some films that I know well in English and place their Spanish-language audio tracks on my MP3 player. This would allow me to listen to this audio throughout the day to "train my ear" for the language. This idea set me off searching the web, trying to determine what the current legal status of DVD audio extraction is. What I propose seems like fair use, but that does nothing for Digital Millennium Copyright Act issues.

Unfortunately, most of what I found on the net was incomplete and outdated. I did come across one surprisingly helpful resource that I would like to share:

The Internet Law Treatise at the Electronic Frontier Foundation

This site provides what appears to be fairly up-to-date and coherent analysis of a variety of internet and intellectual property legal issues. Even better, the Treatise provides references to the key decisions in each area, allowing the reader to come to his own conclusions.

17:19: Today's learning experience:

Adobe RGB != sRGB (for web publishing)

I knew this abstractly before, but encoding in Adobe RGB did a really bad job on some shots I took at the Garden of the Gods in Colorado. I am finally convinced. I will pay attention to color spaces from now on.