Wednesday, January 29, 2003 Hmmm testing a new app for posting.... http://archipelago.phrasewise.com/gettingstarted [ 1/29/2003 06:41:12 PM ] [  ]

      

Utterly good stuff: Chicken Gyros with honey mustard "jaOOCe" [Jones Soda Green Apple Soda] [White Cheddar Goldfish] White Cheddar Kraft EasyMac (yes, I seem to be on a white cheddar trip lately... how I hunger for SmartFood too!) [ 1/29/2003 06:23:53 PM ] [  ]

      

Tuesday, January 28, 2003 Ugggg the code for this blog has gotten bloated. I'm thinking it's time to start from scratch. [ 1/28/2003 03:59:44 PM ] [  ]

      

Monday, January 27, 2003 Now [Watson] is probably one of my favorite MacOS X applications, and one I definitely do not take advantage of enough. Even though Apple cloned it with [Sherlock 3], it still does many cool things that Sherlock doesn't do, or doesn't do well (my only gripe with Watson is that it doesn't give me my full TV listing, just the first 100 channels or so, and my cable's channel guide sucks). Now one of the things I'm considering for my mail application (EvilToaster and it's daemon) is bringing in RSS feeds and having plug-ins for other network information (like being able to do XML-RPC currency conversions and such). The little networked services like that which have popped up in the last few years are a real strength of the networked world, using standards like RSS and SOAP to access real time information (ie looking something up automagically on the internet!). While looking for something completely different, I ran into [WebDesktop], a hack from one of the [Panic] guys that sets a webpage as your desktop, ala ActiveDesktop, while minutes before I was thinking that Microsoft ruined what could have been a good idea, by doing the usual Microsoft things. Having real time information on your desktop, or otherwise closely integrated with your work environment, can be a good thing. And tickertape type things like what AIM does just suck. Now MIT has taken RSS, SOAP, email, and all of that, and built [Haystack][screenshot 1][screenshot 2], a sort of meta-application that's only the sum of the networked information sources you view through it. It seems a lot prettier and more functional than the average RSS reader, and it's much like the direction I'm leaning towards with some aspects of my mail app. Of course, this is bringing me back to component software and networked information sources yet again, with component views fed from RSS feeds, etc. [ 1/27/2003 08:54:59 PM ] [  ]

      

While reading [this transcript] of an interview with Janeane Garofalo on CNN (regarding her anti-war stance), I ran into this bit concerning the lack of media coverage on former UNSCOM inspector Scott Ritter's two-year-old arrest in NY state as part of an internet sex sting operation. Here's Howard Kurtz of CNN's "Reliable Sources" program talking with Daniel Klaidman, the Washington Bureau Chief for Newsweek KLAIDMAN: ... every week, we make tough judgments about what stories to do or not to do. KURTZ: You did a page this week on the sweet potato queen. No room for Scott Ritter? KLAIDMAN: Look, the issue here is we do stories that we think are important, we do stories that we think are compelling. We do stories that we think serve our readers, and we do stories that we think are entertaining. And not every story gets in. If the reporters in my bureau could get all their stories in, they would be very happy. That just can't happen. Apparently, the mainstream media thinks that the sweet potatoe queen is far more important than stories that relate to the integrity of their sources. Ritter has often been quoted in the past two years regarding Iraq and US policy towards proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. His stance on any given issue changes with popular opinion - in 1998, for instance, he was very much for military action in Iraq, while today he is dead set against it. In the intelligence business, the integrity of your sources is paramount. Apparently in the world of journalism it is not. As far as Janeane Garofalo's interview, it was humorous at best. Her line "You have anchors saying all the time, well, we know Saddam has weapons of mass destruction. No, we don't. We do not. We do not know that. So..." only serves to make her come off like a kook. Perhaps she is equating WMD with only atomic and nuclear weapons, not the chemical weapons that Iraq used during the 1980s and 1990s against it's own people, Iran, and Syria. Maybe she missed Iraq's previous weapons declarations of stocks of Anthrax, Botulinum toxin, ricin, and alfatoxin. Of course, another entertainer that is against the war, Barbara Streisand, [thinks] that the logging industry is pushing for war with Iraq. Really. I should hire myself out as a foreign policy tutor in Brentwood, I'd make bank. [ 1/27/2003 02:29:56 PM ] [  ]