January 26, 2007
Vision #72
All women work in offices, retail, or service. All men work as freelance consultants, in the military, or are in prison
Posted by mslaybau at 02:54 AM | Comments (0)
September 11, 2006
red and blue states
New theory:
Blue states are all about legs and ass
Red States are about tits
Posted by mslaybau at 12:08 PM | Comments (0)
July 10, 2006
Postcard from Auschwitz
While my brother was living in Poland he traveled around Europe, visiting castles and WWII landmarks.
One day I got a postcard from him that he sent from Auschwitz, with a picture of a gas chamber on the front.
What was comforting to me was that he did not write 'Wish you were here'.
What was discomforting was realizing that Auschwitz has a gift shop.
Posted by mslaybau at 01:02 AM | Comments (0)
June 13, 2006
The Selfish Green
The Selfish Green [throwawayyourtv.com]: The Selfish Green was the opening event of Wildscreen 2004, a landmark debate on the future of conservation led by Jonathan Dimbleby with Sir David Attenborough, Professor Richard Dawkins, Dr Jane Goodall and Dr Richard Leakey. One hour, Flash streaming video
Posted by mslaybau at 11:33 PM | Comments (0)
April 27, 2006
Sports Teams
We will know that we've won the War on Terror once we've begun naming sports teams after terrorists groups.
- The Columbus Hamas
- The Knoxville Al Qaida
- The Cody Hezbollah
- The Sacramento Mujahedin
- The Birmingham Shining Path
- The Portland Al Fatah
etc.
Posted by mslaybau at 01:31 AM | Comments (0)
March 24, 2006
P.T. Barnum on How to Get Rich
Project Gutenberg, which has published online many many texts the copyrights of which have expired, has a copy of P. T. (Phineas Taylor) Barnum's
"The Art of Money Getting (or Golden Rules for Making Money)"
which seems to include most of the same advice found in modern self-help seminars. Each chapter begins with an aphorism, which is then expounded upon.
1. DON'T MISTAKE YOUR VOCATION
2. SELECT THE RIGHT LOCATION
3. AVOID DEBT
4. PERSEVERE
5. WHATEVER YOU DO, DO IT WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT
6. DEPEND UPON YOUR OWN PERSONAL EXERTIONS
7. USE THE BEST TOOLS
8. DON'T GET ABOVE YOUR BUSINESS
9. LEARN SOMETHING USEFUL
10. LET HOPE PREDOMINATE BUT BE NOT TOO VISIONARY
11. DO NOT SCATTER YOUR POWERS
12. BE SYSTEMATIC
13. READ THE NEWSPAPERS
14. BEWARE OF "OUTSIDE OPERATIONS"
15. DON'T INDORSE WITHOUT SECURITY
16. ADVERTISE YOUR BUSINESS
17. BE POLITE AND KIND TO YOUR CUSTOMERS
18. BE CHARITABLE
19. DON'T BLAB
20. PRESERVE YOUR INTEGRITY
The University of Michigan has the text of another of Barnum's books,
The humbugs of the world.: An account of humbugs, delusions,impositions, quackeries, deceits and deceivers generally, in all ages.
I've only recently come to respect and appreciate the man known mostly for his quote, "There's a sucker born every minute" (though it appears that quote is apocryphal). It seems in this age of reality television and copious, unwanted advertising in every medium we know, that we can gain a lot from the lessons learned by the man who helped pioneer the traveling medicine show.
Posted by mslaybau at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
March 05, 2006
Conversations with my Cabbie I
Walking home a little drunk at 3am, stop in at Kennedy Fried Chicken.
At this hour in this neighborhood, guys behind counters always seem happy to see a whitey stop in.
"What's hot?"
"Hunh?"
"What's ready?"
"Wings!"
"Wings it is then. 6 pieces, please."
Munching wings at 3:05am on 1st Ave, I see a guy sprawled out in the street near a cab, and the cabbie with his arms out, palms forward standing over him, who looks at me and asks if I can help drag the passed-out guy to the curb. I finish the wing I'm eating and put the rest in the pocket of my coat and take the drunk guy's left armpit while the cabbie takes the right.
Drunkie starts to wake up a bit so I say stuff like "Hey man, just moving you to a more comfortable spot, just getting you a little more comfortable, alright then."
The cabbie explains how drunkie was fine when he got in, but passed out before he could pay. So I suggest we rummage through the guy's pockets, but cabbie says no, he never does that. Cabbie says he'll give me a ride home, and what the hell, so I get in.
We chat about drunks and being a cabbie, and he says he used to work at Langley, and I ask whether he did cryptography, and he says no, Secret Service.
So I ask, why the hell are you driving a cab in Harlem, you must get some good retirement benefits, and he says his wife bought a medallion for $7,000 many years ago, and now that those things are worth $300,000 he wants to keep it so his grandkids can have a way to make money.
I say I'm tired of living in a neighborhood where cabbies drag drunks to the curb, and ask him where he thinks is a good neighborhood and he says Prospect Heights. He mentions a few streets and after he stops at my street we trade names and shake hands.
When I get home I look at a map and find Prospect Heights. None of the streets the cabbie mentioned even exist.
Posted by mslaybau at 03:33 AM | Comments (0)
February 21, 2006
Conversations with my Mailman I
I first met my mailman when I happened to go out at the same time that he was putting in the mail, and I wasn't sure whether I should just ask him to hand it to me or leave it for later.
But he saw me and asked, "you wanna take it?"
So I did, and we exchanged pleasantries before I left, carrying my mail with me around town for the next 9 hours or so.
(4 credit card offers, 1 bill, 1 other thing)
The next time I met my mailman was at the liquor store around the corner. The store probably has a name, but the sign outside just says, "Liquor" so I don't know what else to call it.
I always see a mail cart outside there, sometimes two (one time three), and inside they're just shooting the breeze with the guy behind the bullet-proof glass.
I walk in to get some gin or something, and my mailman actually recognizes me and says, "hey man".
I say, "hey", and I turn on my recorder. There's a lot of meaningless nonsense at the beginning of the tape, but then someone says something about satisfaction.
Me: What have you done lately that you've found satisfying?
MM: You know, I was at home, eating raisin bran and smoking a cigarette. We've got, well, what am I saying, I've got... there's a bit of a roach problem where I live, and one guy got up on the table, and I'm looking at him with milk dribbling down my chin, and I try to stab him with my cigarette.
He runs off the first time, but I see how they operate, so I feint, and I know just where he's going to run, and I get him right between the wings - or whatever those are, pseudo-wings that those guys have.
Me: You get him?
MM: Yeah, right between the wings. I wasn't pushing hard enough at first, but I just dug in there and twisted the cigarette and got him good. I was never too good at sports or video games, but I was just in the zone there, I knew where he was going to go and I got there first.
Me: Do you think he was in pain?
MM: Oh yeah, I think so, I mean, I hope so.
Posted by mslaybau at 04:10 AM | Comments (1)
November 20, 2005
Digg.com
Digg.com is a relatively new 'group blogging' site where readers both submit stories and vote one which submissions make it to the home page. It's like slashdot or boingboing, but much more user-driven. If it weren't for spam submissions and other abuses of the system, it wouldn't need any editorial oversight at all.
I'm usually skeptical of any new project that someone claims to have answered the question of how to have a truly democratic, bottom-up content aggregator (like del.icio.us or any of the 'social software' sites), but digg.com seems to really work.
Posted by mslaybau at 01:01 PM
November 17, 2005
Electrical Engineering vs. Computer Science
An uncited fable helps illuminate some thoughts I've had about the tendency to over-rely on computers. People who embrace 'ubiquitous computing' and 'wearables' seem to believe that A) just about anything can be improved by stuffing a fast cpu in it and B) combining two related tools into one super-tool is a good idea.
Posted by mslaybau at 09:27 AM
November 10, 2005
TV Programming Will Become More Intelligent
The theater used to be people's source of low-brow entertainment. The traveling shows of the 1890s, for example, would have some cornball songs, slapstick comedy, and burlesque.
When film became a popular medium, it initially relied on immitating the successful aspects of theater, and became the principal source of this kind of music, comedic, and otherwise titilating content. (The Three Stooges and others of that era had all been Vaudeville acts)
Theater was more expensive in terms of reaching a wide audience, and responded to this competition by becoming more high-brow and abandoning the corny songs and slapstick in favor of more erudite entertainment.
Film grew in popularity and began adding other kinds of content, such as newsreels and cartoons, which theater had never been able to do (although going to a theater to hear the news is perhaps the equivalent of going to church or a town meting during the age before recorded media).
But then television arrived and competed with film the way that film had competed with theater. TV became the main source of corny songs and slapstick comedy (think of how many TV shows from the 1950s were musical variety shows compared to today).
And, TV also appropriated other types of content from film, such as news and cartoons. It took a couple of weeks to get a newsreel distributed to theaters around the country, while TV had a lead time of perhaps a day, and could even be broadcast live.
Film then responded the way that theater had, by becoming more high-brow. The Stooges were gone and were replaced with the kind of feature-length film that we know today, which is generally better than most content on television.
And now we have the Web, which has - with MP3 downloads, stupid Flash cartoons, and pornography - taken up the torch originally carried by the traveling theater as a primary source for popular entertainment.
The transfer is incomplete, so we are still in a position to see how it all plays out, but my interest is in how TV will respond to competition from the Web.
My prediction is that TV will become more high-brow as the Web surges to dominate popular culture. The fact that shows like "The Office" are now distributed suggests to me that the trend may be starting. Of course, the existence of insipid "reality" shows suggests the opposite.
Still, I will stand by my prediction. Within ten years the majority of people who are seeking simple entertainment will go to their computers first, and will turn on their TV when they want something more intelligent.
Part of the reason for each new medium to supplant the previously new one is that each new medium is cheaper and easier to use and distribute. Each transfer is from that of a production-intensive medium that reaches a smaller number of people to one where a guy with an idea and a little technology can reach a larger number.
The early auteur films could be made with a crew of just a handful, compared to the dozen or scores of people needed to put on a theatrical show. Early television didn't save much in terms of human resources but expense was less and reach was more than film. And with the Web, an individual can produce a song or cartoon by himself.
The bar for expense, and thus quality is lowered each time there is a transfer, which is why the low-brow content is attracted to the newer media.
Posted by mslaybau at 06:49 AM | Comments (0)
September 08, 2005
When the Levee Breaks
Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie, 1929
If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break. If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break.
When The Levee Breaks I'll have no place to stay.
Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan. Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan.
Got what it takes to make a mountain man leave his home,
Oh, well, oh, well, oh, well.
Don't it make you feel bad when you're tryin' to find your way home, you don't know which way to go?
If you're goin' down South they got no work to do, if you don't know about Chicago.
Cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good.
Now, cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good.
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move.
All last night sat on the levee and moaned. All last night sat on the levee and moaned.
Thinkin' about my baby and my happy home.
Going, going to Chicago... Going to Chicago... Sorry but I can't take you...
Going down... going down now... going down....
Posted by mslaybau at 09:16 AM | Comments (0)
July 27, 2005
Timeline of Knowledge-Representation
imhoFAQ is a rather rad collection from robotwisdom.com of just about every significant event in Earth's history, including:
2,700,000 BC: australopithecus keeps pebble that resembles a face
and
2500 BC: 1st court jester
Posted by mslaybau at 01:20 AM | Comments (0)
October 26, 2004
Christian Warfare
"In 1139 the Pope decreed crossbows to be too murderous for "Christian warfare" and directed an interdict against them.
Naturally, he still encouraged their use against infidels.
Richard the Lionhearted disobeyed the edict and continued to employ crossbowmen in his armies.
To the amused sense of irony for many of the period (and us), he was later killed by a crossbow bolt."
from The Forge
Posted by mslaybau at 12:09 AM | Comments (0)
March 02, 2004
Site Defaced by Badboy
This is kind of neat. This site got hacked by someone named 'Badboy'. If this were a commercial site, I might be more concerned, but as it is it turned into an interesting exercise.
The site wasn't really comprimised, just the front page was altered. I suppose a good hacker could have done much worse, so it looks like Badboy is more of a 'white hat' than a 'black hat' - which is to say I imagine that he's just pointing out a lack of security in order to encourage me to hire him to tighten it up.
I would have contacted him but he didn't leave his email address. I followed the link to his web site, but it was all in Portuguese (I think) and I didn't bother with a babelfish translation.
When using a popular platform such as PHP-Nuke, there are always more security risks than when using an obscure one or writing it yourself. The publishing content delivery mechanisms that I've written myself have yet to be compromised.
The message below is what was deposited on the home page:
Site defaced by:
»._.«´¯))((¯`»._.«¦¤¦ bâdbóÿ¦¤¦»._.«´¯))((¯`»._.«¦¤¦ bâdbóÿ¦¤¦»._.«´¯))
((¯`»._.«¦¤¦ http://www.badboyinc.vze.com ¦¤¦»._.«´¯))
You have an insecure system, if you want to learn how to avoid this actions, contact me.
--------Posted by mslaybau at 06:05 AM | Comments (0)
February 24, 2004
Referrer (not Referer) Report
In looking at stats for this site, I can see where visitors came from, and if they came from a search engine, what search terms they used. Here's the batch from today:
Note the 13th entry. I can't tell if they were researching this in a 'dyi' kind of way, or just idle curiosity (The most dangerous kind!).
3: matt slaybaugh
2: circuit diagram for led night rider affect
2: cattlecar
1: mechanical automata
1: rhinos crows poster collective nouns
1: centipede physical and behavioral adaptations
1: 56j co brown
1: flash animation ant
1: bx 24 kit sale
1: capacitor 56j co
1: football metaphors
1: dumping bodies off of brooklyn bridge
1: virtual ant farm
1: nitinol project
1: dimitri negroponte and itp
1: steppers motors midi
1: nitinol circuit
1: creating a hexapod robot
1: dc motor tip120
1: alexander safir
1: xbotx
1: 2n2222 interface
1: nitinol melting point
1: searching within audio
1: meat resistor
1: ascii kick
1: boris nitinol
1: nitinol power requirements
1: acetone napalm
Either way, why does Google consider this site a source of information on that topic? I've only done it a few times, it's not like I'm an expert.
--------
Posted by mslaybau at 03:18 AM | Comments (0)
December 30, 2003
Finding your Ditch Digger Name
"Boogie Nights" included dialog that gave instruction on how to find your 'porn star name': "It's common knowledge that to get your porn star name you combine the name of your first pet with your mother's maiden name..."
The 'soap opera name' formula is: "pornstar names are supposedly your middle name, and the street you grew up on..."
The 'barfly name' is: the last snack food you ate and your favorite drink (Pirate Booty Ovaltine)
The 'drag queen name' is some combination of the above, say your favorite pet's name with your mother's middle name, or something. Who knows. These are probably all wrong.
This is all old. About as old as the concept of 'Internet Time' (remember that? man, that never took off). But the amazing thing is that each formula above generates the exact same name for me: Crackers Franklin
Posted by mslaybau at 11:09 AM | Comments (0)
December 27, 2003
Poker vs Football
There are two basic metaphors for attempts at acheivement: the football metaphor and the poker metaphor.
The football metaphor requires one to give one's all: 100% + whatever additional percentage the coach feels is appropriately motivating. The idea is to never quit.
The poker metaphor was best enumerated by The Gambler himself, Kenny Rogers:
- You gotta know when to hold 'em
- Know when to fold 'em
- Know when to walk away
- Know when to run.
- You don't count your money when you're sittin' at the table; There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin's done.
Whereas, if you come in with the poker metaphor, you will know, as stated in premise #2, that you should turn your cards face down and wait for the next hand, which may include something like pneumatic pistons. --------
Posted by mslaybau at 06:49 AM | Comments (0)
December 14, 2003
Sea Monkey Diary
Ah.
Sea Monkeys
I bought the kit for $8 or so at one of those gag shops that sell wigs and x-ray specs and other stuff that I remember being sold on the back page of the comic books I read as a kid.
The instruction booklet is copyright 1966, 1968, 1970, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1981, 1985, and 1987. There was clearly an early, biannual rush in perfecting the methodology of raising sea monkeys up until the fall of of the Soviet Union. The book contains lots of phrases that are intended to sell related products.
However, in their defense, they usually explain how to make due with objects found around the home - in a quaint way not often seen anymore.
A testament to the New York entrpeneurial spirit, with several patents, including the Sea Monkey Baseball Game
But if they're shrimp, can I eat them? I like shrimp. Do I have my hands on a popcorn shrimp factory?
Quotes from the instructions:
- Parthenogenesis: self-conception - The production of new individuals from virgin females by means of ova which have the power of developing without the intervention of the male element
- If for any reason your pets do not mate, first make sure that there are MALES present.
- If not, you'll have to wait until you grow some.
- If the temperature is O.K. and both mature sexes are present but are not "interested" in one another, you can induce them to breed by adding a something that seems to have an almost immediate stimulating effect on them.
- It's called "Cupid's Arrow™ Sea Monkey Mating Power (Item 84).
The kit came with a pack of "Growth Food" (pack #3), for sale only from the parent company. I didn't want to fall into that trap so I started experimenting with other foods. The first experiment was brewers' yeast. The sea monkeys all died and the experiment ended.
Overall it could be a fun kit for kids to learn about biology and stuff.
Posted by mslaybau at 05:34 AM | Comments (0)