What's Your World View?

For entertainment purposes only, although I think I would agree with their interpretation of my world view....

I scored as Postmodernist.
Postmodernism is the belief in complete open interpretation. You see the universe as a collection of information with varying ways of putting it together. There is no absolute truth for you; even the most hardened facts are open to interpretation. Meaning relies on context and even the language you use to describe things should be subject to analysis.

I'm Not Dead Yet, or Forever = 69 Years

As many of you may already know, Deep Throat has revealed himself. And Bob Woodward et al. from the Washington Post have confirmed that W. Mark Felt was indeed played by Hal Holbrook.

While this revelation seems to be largely considered a big deal, I have to admit that I am a bit disappointed. I am not old enough to have been too emotionally involved in the whole Watergate scandal — perhaps this is part of the reason for my feeling a bit underwhelmed at the news.

However, I am old enough to realize the affects of this event on politics, journalism, and the government. Because of that (and potentially because of All the President's Men), I thought the identity of Deep Throat was a terribly intersesting mystery. Right up there with "who shot JFK" and "are there UFOs."

Perhaps my expectations were shaped too much by the movie. Was I expecting some dramatic reveal, like they have at the end of all those decorating shows on T.V.? Possibly. That would have been interesting, for sure. But Woodward had said that he wouldn't reveal the identity of Deep Throat until that persons death, so this whole thing just feels a little premature. Or even anti-climatic. He's not dead yet. Maybe I'm just disappointed that there isn't a mystery to be solved.

Although it now seems (I could have sworn I heard this on NPR this morning, but I cannot find the link to the story) that some people in the know aren't sure how someone of Felt's position could even have had the information he fed to Woodward (Felt, at one point, supposedly said that he had information that even the FBI didn't have, which is odd considering that Felt was second in command at the FBI). I guess we'll have to open an investigation into just what the FBI does and does not know, even if people in the FBI know it. I smell a conspiracy!

Oh, well. I guess this isn't the first time that I've been disappointed by knowing a secret. Or, as one might say, as soon as a secret is revealed, it becomes little.

In other news, John Lennon wrote Strawberry Fields Forever as an homage to a Salvation Army home for disadvantaged children. As it turns out, they are closing their doors after 69 years. I'm not sure why I'm mentioning this story, other than it just struck me as oddly sad.

Store Wars

Okay. I have tons of other more important things to post about that I just haven't had time to get to.

However, this was just too funny: Store Wars.

Warning: contains lots of puns and possible copyright infringement.

Drilling (A Hole in My Head)

The U.S. Senate has narrowly approved drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). If the House of Representatives approves, the first oil leases could be developed in about seven to twelve years.

If this does get approved, don't expect lower prices at the pump. According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, the U.S. consumes about 20 million barrels per day (bpd).

ANWR peak production rates could range from 1.0 to 1.35 million bpd, with initial ANWR production possibly beginning around 2013, and peak production 20-30 years after that.

If drilling ANWR goes ahead, available oil will be increased by the smallest of margins. Projected yearly development rates for the first year of production is about 25,000 bpd; the second year is about 50,000 bpd; following years are incremented similarly to a crecendo of approximately 1 million bpd at about the 25-year mark (low projection) or about the 18-year mark (high projection).

As I said, this isn't going to affect the prices at the pump. And it isn't likely to make us energy independent either....

From my admittedly limited point of view, I really don't see what the benefit is to drilling this area. I think this is a very, very bad idea (in other words, not worth the risk and destruction to the region).

The Future is Almost Here

When this (or the idea of it) is eventually combined with this, the future will finally be here, despite the fact that we still don't have flying cars.

Rethinking the Meaning of Words

As someone who likes to write (which is one reason why I keep this journal), I fancy myself to have at least one quality that other writers have: I like to find the right word for the right situation. And, as many of my friends can attest, I can deconstruct any sentence in a conversation into a double-entendre or intentionally mis-interpret the actual meaning ... mostly because I like to play with words.

To that end, I heard an interesting segment on NPR the other night on the way home. If you are interested in listening to it, follow the link; here's the introductory paragraph:

"Jihad" is one of the few Arabic words used in English. It means "spiritual struggle," but many Muslims have pointed out that "jihad" is almost always used in English in the context of terrorism, even though the actual meaning is broader. Commentator Anisa Mehdi would like to propose a word that could be used instead of "jihad."

Electioneering

I managed to get out and vote today at lunch time. My polling station is at an elementary school. I signed in with the appropriate people and got in line to wait my turn to vote.

While in line, children and their teachers walked by on their way to and from the cafeteria. During their travels, some kids would make a peace sign with their hands, while another skipped by us adults chanting "vote for Kerry." Another child subtly said "Bush, Bush, Bush."

But perhaps the most poignant political statement that I saw while waiting to vote was made by a third-grade boy and it was most likely completely unintentional: As he walked by, he repeatedly hit himself in the forehead with his lunchbox.

And so it goes as Election 2004 goes into the books. Many pundits are saying that this Presidential race is going to be closer and more crazy than four years ago.

However, if you can't wait to find out who will win, check out the NPR Web site, as they took a "look at some off-beat attempts to predict presidential elections — many of which have surprisingly good track records."

Voting in America

A while back, a friend of mine told me that he has no plans to vote this year. He hasn't in the past and he probably won't in the future. The crux of his reasoning, as I understand it, is that he doesn't really like either Presidential candidate (although I think he does prefer one over the other). Additionally, and more fundamental to his decision, he doesn't like the system. In his mind, the system itself is corrupt and essentially broken. So why should he participate if he doesn't like the rules?

After everything that happened in the 2000 Presidential election, there is plenty of evidence to support the idea of a broken, possibly even corrupt system (there are still votes from Florida that have never and will never be counted; Bush only won that state — and the Presidency — by 536 votes).

But here's where I disagree with my friend. I think that we need to get as many people as possible to participate. People need to be encouraged. As fewer people vote, the more elitist the process becomes. And that necessarily means that the people elected will also be more elitist. And that, in my opinion, is just as bas as a broken system.

So, think about it. You may not want either candidate. But one candidate or the other (or even a third party candidate) is probably more palitable than someone else. Think about the things that are important to you. Maybe you are only a single-issue voter. Maybe only social security or the war on terrorism is important to you. That's enough of a reason to go and vote for one of the main Presidential candidates right there.

Go to the polls and let your voice be heard. And more importantly, vote on the local issues. Get a local voting guide and educate yourself on the issues (if you're in Austin, Texas, check out our local voting guide here).

If you are looking for more information about the Presidential Candidates in (I think) a fair and balanced manner (but it never really covers the issues, just looks at their personal histories to this point), I would highly recommend checking out PBS's Frontline. There are video clips you can view online as well as a radio version to listen to, so you should be able to get the information you want in any number of ways. Of course, you can also check your local TV listings and try to catch this on TV as well....

Probability Waves & Baseball

I've been listening to Fabric of the Cosmos on my daily commute and the section that I'm on currently is discussing the nature of time and probability waves. I find this all very fascinating and thought I'd share a little bit here.

Waves of all types are very similar. Seen one wave, you've seen them all. The easiest wave to describe is a wave in water, since we can actually see the waves in motion. (I've simplified my example a bit in order to help keep the main point in focus.)

Let's say that you have two rocks that you throw into a calm pond. You throw one rock to your right and one to your left. What will happen is that the waves generated from each rock will eventually meet. The resulting pattern of waves, also known as the interference pattern, depends on how the waves interact. For example, if the waves from both sides meet at their crest, the resultant wave will be twice as high as it was originally. If the waves meet at their troughs, the resultant trough will be twice as deep. If one wave is at its crest while meeting a wave at its trough, then the waves cancel each other out and the result is flat water.

Light waves would interact in a similar way, except that the trough would be dark and the crest would be bright. Commingling two beams of light with different waves would produce an interference pattern with regions that would be considered a base-line brightness (the strength of just one beam of light) with bright and dark regions.

Scientists have conducted studies in which they split a laser beam from its original source into two beams. These two beams are then converged at a single point, and the result is an interference pattern. This is interesting considering that pointing a laser beam directly at one point doesn't result in an interference pattern. Thus, when a single beam is split in two, each beam takes on properties of their own and do not necessarily have the properties of the "original" beam.

The next experiment was the same as the previous one, except to slow down the rate of the laser beam so that only one photon would be released at a time. Statistically, it would seem, each photon would have a 50/50 chance of going to the left or right at the splitter. At the final end-point, one could expect to find the photon and discover if it was coming from the left or the right when it was measured.

However, what actually happens is that there's no way to determine if the photon came from the right or left. What results from this experiment is an interference pattern. Meaning the photon came from both the left and the right. Pretty crazy, eh?

Scientists use quantam mechanics to help explain this (and the clever thing about quantam mechanics is that it doesn't allow for you to go back and verify the experiement — by interacting with the test subject (for example, measuring it), you will alter the end result, thus making the whole process self-defeating).

What quantam mechanics has to say about about a single photon producing an interference pattern is this: it travels in a probability wave. That is, a photon doesn't occupy a single point in space, but travels instead as a probabilty wave.

Basically, and as I grasp the answer, what we are seeing is the whole history of time. The probability cloud produced by the photon is, as Richard Feynman stated a "sum of histories" that particals might travel over any given point in time, going back to the beginning of time. This means that a probability cloud is taking into account all of time all at one moment.

But why doesn't something like a baseball show properties of a probability cloud? Why does a baseball, when hit to the outfield, travel in one definite path with one definite end-point? Well, first of all, we are actually observing a baseball. If we were to observe a photon, it would stop travelling as a probability wave and travel like a particle. This is part of the frustration of proving such a theory. And the cleverness of quantam mechanics.

Still, we can also answer the baseball question in terms of quantum theroy: The answer here is that it does travel with a probability cloud. However, a baseball is relatively large (enourmous, really), and its average trajectory — or sum of histories — is pretty much what we see; there really isn't all that much deviation for something as large as a baseball.

Yet on a quantam scale, on the scale of something the size of a photon for example, there is a discrepency in trajectory.

Still, considering the state of Red Sox baseball, if there are any dropped balls or if any infielder has problems fielding a ball during the course of the next couple weeks ... well, it might not have been the outfielder's fault entirely. I'm not saying it's a curse, exactly, but maybe a probability wave run amuck.

Stem Cell Research & Iraq

This has been gnawing at me since I heard it and I just have to get this out of my system ...

I wasn't able to watch much of the Presidential Debate on Friday, but I did see some of it. The one full section that I was able to see was about stem cell research. And during the President's turn to speak I discovered that Bush can be deep and insightful. Sort of.

What happend is that I became very confused about Bush's stance on stem cell research and mapping that to the Iraq war. For example in the debate President Bush said, regarding stem cell research:

"To destroy life to save life is - it's one of the real ethical dilemmas that we face."

And he goes on to say:

"I had to make the decision do we destroy more life, do we continue to destroy life."

And, ultimately, his stance is against stem cell research — or at least there he will not endorse further destruction of embryos past what has already been done.

It seems as though he put a lot of thought into stem cell research, understanding the benefits and consequences and where that all fits into his beliefe system. When it's all tallied up, it seems as though he is not fully supporting stem cell research, despite the benefits, since it "destroys life."

Mapping this over to the Iraq war ....

It is fairly common military-speak for people to say that it is necessary (and good) to sacrifice life for the betterment of a particular situation, especially once a war has started. Ideally, we're talking about soldiers here and not civilians, but the reality of it is that civilians do get hurt and killed.

So, I'm confued. Sacrificing the lives of grown adults (and civilian children) is okay, especially if we can depose a hated leader (and despite any other consequences, such as civil unrest/war, etc.), but destoying embryos isn't okay, even if in doing so, we find the cure for terrible diseases.

Am I missing something here? Wouldn't the more consistent view be to oppose or be in favor of both (i.e., be for the war and for stem cell research, or against the war and against stem cell research)? Or is that just too simplistic?

The Fear Factor

Let me first start by saying that I do not consider myself to be a Democrat nor a Republican. I do vote and have voted in every presidential election that I've been eligable (I turned 18 in March of 1989), and I try to get out and vote on local issues. And, when I do vote, I generally vote all over the map: I'll vote for Democratic candidates, Republicans, independents, anyone who I think would do a good job.

Additionally, I am not much of a political activist, or an activist in any sense, really. While I do usually form some pretty strong opinions, sometimes about political things, I don't spend too much time "pounding the pavement" for one side or another, especially on national issues and especially on national candidates.

But this year is a little bit different. I think we may well be in a time of moral crisis. If we aren't now, then I feel we will be soon if George W. Bush is re-elected. Dante envisioned those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis would be stuck at the gates of Hell, tormented by hornets and wasps as worms devoured their blood as it falls to the ground.

I cannot and will not support Bush. I am under no illusion that my vote will "mean something," as I live in Texas; Bush will almostly certainly receive the vast majority of the vote. However, I won't stay silent or remain neutral (just in case Dante was right) and I will choose to cast my vote in a different way — not at the poll, but as a statement.

Why Bush is getting any support at all is completely mind-boggling to me. I suppose there are Republican die-hards and people who only care about one particular issue that Bush seemingly supports. There must be more of those types of people than I had imagined, because I cannot fathom why Bush has so many supporters.

My opposition to Bush is very specific. It's not about a particular platform. I don't know if there are many differences between Bush and John Kerry on many of the issues. And I'm not convinced that either will have much impact over certain things. For example, I don't think that Bush is to blame for the bad economy, just as I don't think he's much to credit for fixing it, not that it's really considered "fixed" by many. The economy is bigger than just one person (and it would be a scary thought if it wasn't). Ultimately, if Bush does (or did) have much affect on the economy, it is because he happens to be president while his party is also in control of Congress.

President Bush broke a lot of promises from the first campaign. But I'm not so upset about that either, as lots of politicians have done this; Bush is not unique in this and if John Kerry is elected, I am certain that he will do the same. Although some of the promises that Bush did break do irritate me, probably more than any other president's broken promises. But I don't have high expectations here, so I'm not subtracting (many) points from the Republicans on this issue.

To this extent, campaign promises are virtually meaningless. And I think Bush understands this. What his campaign is doing is a little bit different from past campaigns and a little bit clever (and a whole-lot disturbing). He's running on a campaign of fear.

President Bush has created an enemy where there wasn't one. He pushed and insinuated that Iraq was part of the September 11 attacks. Mind you, they haven't overtly said this. Their basic claim is that Iraq has strong ties with al Qaeda. And al Qaeda is strongly and widely believed to be behind the attacks. For example, Vice President Cheney stated on NBC's "Meet the Press" that "it was 'pretty well confirmed' that attack mastermind Mohamed Atta met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official." Not an overt claim that Iraq and al Qaeda are connected, but it does plant the seed.

And the connection has been made by the American public. According to an August 2003 Washington Post poll, 69% of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was involved in the attacks. Yet a Congressional investigation has not been able to turn up an actual link between al Qaeda and Iraq.

The White House presented the United Nations with some seemingly detailed intelligence as to the state of Iraq and its disarmament obilgations and the general menace that it was to the world. Most of this presentation has now been revealed to be inaccurate at best and in some cases outright fabricated.

The main impetuous for starting the war with Iraq, the idea that was cited time and again, was that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and were able and willing to use them at a moments notice. This has now been proven to be specious reasoning.

All of this leading to the idea that we, the United States of America, would be in serious trouble without President Bush protecting us. He has, in effect, set himself up to be the Great Protector.

Vice President Cheney said as much at a town-hall meeting. "It’s absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we’ll get hit again and we’ll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States."

A statement like this is completely unprovable and uncalled for. In fact, I personally feel less secure with Bush in the White House than at any other time in my life. Bush, in my opinion, has undermined our nation's credibility with misleading intelligence, unilateral, arrogant action against sovereign countries, and because of this has put us in a position for further attacks and weakened alliances. This has been one of the more egregious broken promises that he's made, since it seemed that he "got it." During a Presidential Debate between Bush and Al Gore, Bush stated:

[Other countries] ought to look at us as a country that understands freedom where it doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from that you can succeed. I don’t think they ought to look at us with envy. It really depends upon how [our] nation conducts itself in foreign policy. If we’re an arrogant nation, they’ll resent us. If we’re a humble nation, but strong, they’ll welcome us. Our nation stands alone right now in the world in terms of power. And that’s why we’ve got to be humble and yet project strength in a way that promotes freedom. We’re a freedom-loving nation. If we’re an arrogant nation, they’ll view us that way, but if we’re humble nation, they’ll respect us.

Basically, for me, it boils down to this: Bush has lead the nation through some very perilous times and he's taken advantage of this fact in order to make us (as a nation) more fearful about how things will turn out if we don't re-elect him. I think that is gutless and insults our intelligence.

Bush has had every opportunity to prove that he's a worthy leader. As it turns out, he isn't. And while I do believe he is a man of his convictions, I also believe that his convictions are not in the best interest of the United States on its own or as part of a global neighborhood.

He has failed as a leader — politically but mostly morally in my book — and he doesn't deserve another chance to prove he can do better, because his track record speaks volumes. He has brought us to war based on very flimsy evidence and business-serving reasons (well, I guess corporate folk have plenty of reason to support Bush). And despite his protestations, Bush has not made us safer from terrorism.

Dante envisioned warmongers soaking for eternity in a river of boiling blood. Perhaps the Bush administration isn't as worried about Dante being right as I am.

Fact Check.org

Hud's Blog-O-Rama

resurrectionsong.com

iamvoting

Sixth Extinction

I found an interesting article on species extinction that proposes a unique way to remind us about the different species that are gone, or soon will be. I think the author states this well:

To consider the extinction crisis is [to] visit with death and guilt and horror. It's like living in a W.S. Merwin poem. It overwhelms you. It pulls you down like dark cold water. We are not culturally equipped to handle this stuff.

But that's no excuse for ignoring the problem, hoping that it will go away. But we are rarely confronted with the vanishing of species in our everyday lives. And even if species are vanishing, it generally doesn't affect us in the present moment. Sometimes it's just hard to picture what an extinction really means.

To that end, the author's proposal is interesting, but not terribly pragmatic. The author proposes that people volunteer to have extinct species tattooed on their bodies, as a constant reminder and memorial to species that are gone. Unfortunately, tattoos are far from universal, as some cultures (sub- and otherwise) find them attractive and other don't. Some religions don't allow their members to tattoo themselves at all. So, while the notion is somewhat clever, the execution of the idea can only fall short.

According to some, we are living in the Sixth Extinction. It might really be too much to think about. It might be too easy to forget about and just hope that the problem just goes away or someone else solves it. And having some sort of daily reminder about dying species may weigh very heavily on our collective minds, for good or ill. If what the author stated is true, do we really want to wallow in death and guilt and horror on a daily basis? Will this wake us up and help solve a problem, or will we become increasing callous and disinterested in this particular horror?

This ultimately comes down to how one views the human race: Are we the inheriters of the Earth, free to do with it as we will? Or, are we the stewards of the Earth, responsible for looking out for others species? Or, are we just a cog in the wheel, our actions no more or less unplanned or unintented by Mother Nature?

Out of Gas

According to a story from MSNBC.com, the world's oil reserves are probably not going to be able to keep up with demand.

In 1956, a Shell Oil geologist accurately predicted that U.S. oil production would peak in 1970. A Princeton University geologist, Kenneth Deffeyes, has applied this same formula to global oil production and predicts "world production to peak around Thanksgiving of 2005, give or take a few weeks."

The problem isn't so much based on the idea that there isn't enough oil in the ground to satisfy demand. The problem is production capacity.

"Production is a pretty firm number," he said. "Oil gets counted twice: once when it gets produced and once when it goes into the refinery. So we pretty much know how much is produced, and my Thanksgiving Day prediction is entirely based on production."

According to the MSNBC article, the global demand for oil is at about 80 million barrels per day. The Oil & Gas Journal indicates that productions levels are maximized at 74 million barrels per day, meaning we are dipping into reserves "at an unprecedented rate." In the not-to-distant future, we may not be able to keep up with demand, even with the aid of reserves.

... the International Energy Agency recently forecast that world oil demand would reach 119 million b/d by 2020.

Clearly a major supply and demand imbalance is in prospect," the report said. "In short, it seems likely that during the first 25 years of this century, we will witness the beginnings of the end of the age of oil. The discussion is not if it will happen, but when."

I would like to know where this topic fits into the Presidential debates ....

Proportional Electoral Votes

Looks like Colorado is looking into some election reforms. There is a measure that will be on the ballot this November that will remove the current "winner-take-all" paradigm for presidential electoral votes and instead award them proportionally, based on the percentage of votes won during the election.

Personally, I think this is a great idea. It's the only way for the minority to have its view point heard. If you voted for George W. Bush in California, your voice wasn't heard. All 54 electoral votes went to Al Gore, despite his winning only 53% of the vote. If you voted for Al Gore in Ohio, your vote essentially was rendered moot, as Bush won all 21 electoral votes by getting 50% of the vote (Gore had 46% and lost by 169,000 votes).

If you know you live in a state that overwhelmingly supports someone that you don't, what's the incentive to vote? Hope that maybe your vote will count in the event that all the pundits were wrong? And what if your canditate comes close, as in Ohio? If a small city had voted the other way, Gore would have had 21 electoral votes and Bush would have had zero. It just doesn't seem very equitable.

While I do like the idea, I am pragmatic enough to know that this will never be implemented. The two major parties won't go for it and they're the ones that are in control. They won't go for it because it would undermine their control. This proposal, while giving the "losing" party some electoral votes, also opens up the possibility for third-party candidates to makes some in-roads into the system, which would obviously erode the monopoly that the two major parties currently enjoy.

Internet or internet?

Those that know me might not blink twice at the fact that I'm even posting this. Those that don't know me, well ... I guess you are getting to know me.

Effective with this sentence, Wired News will no longer capitalize the "I" in internet. At the same time, Web becomes web and Net becomes net.

NPR covered this as well.

I used to do some editing at a large, large company, and during my time there learned that there are two different kinds of internets. There is the Internet, also known as the Web or the Net, and then there is an internet, which is just a configuration of local computers networked together. Thus, there really does need to be some way to distinguish them. Capitalizing one seems like a decent way of doing this.

But this point was completely missed by Wired News. Their arguement was founded on the idea "If It's Capitalized, It Must Be Important." But that really isn't the case here. There's the bigger, wider Internet, which involves virtually everyone (or in any case can include virtually everyone) and another internet, which is personal, private.

In my opinion (humble or otherwise), Wired really missed the point.

The Art of Photography

Some people are so good at what they do they make hard things look deceptively simple. Henri Cartier-Bresson, who died last week, was such a person.

Cartier-Bresson is largely considered to be the father of photojournalism. Personally, I've always prefered the "photojournalism" perspective more so than studio photography or creating scenes. I guess there's lots of reasons for this, but I think it's partially because I'm lazy: logistically, it doesn't get much easier than walking around with a camera, never posing subjects and not worrying (too much) about how to use artifical light. Just click the shutter on the camera. Granted there's more walking involved and it's not always easy to find something worth photographing.

Yet, that's sort of the point. Taking photos in this particular manner is about interacting with your environment until you can anticipate what everything and everyone is going to do. This was how Cartier-Bresson worked. It seems somewhat chaotic, if only to glance at how the process works, yet somehow he was able to create some of the most memorable photographs in human history.

His theory on taking photographs was based on the idea of the "decisive moment." This moment, as described by Cartier-Bresson, is ‘the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organization of forms which gives that event its proper expression."

And this is where the true art of photography exists. This is even true for studio photographers. The art is in the unique perspective of the photographer. Sure, there are wonderfully proficient, technically sound photographers who can make great images. And that is worth something. But the real art, in my opinion, is having a unique vision. To that end, Cartier-Bresson was probably more psychologist — or even sociologist — then a technician. He had to understand his environment, he had to anticipate what was going to happen.

Taking a good picture — one with composition, one that has visual interest, but without manipulation — requires thought and foresight. It requires the photographer to not just see some shop windows, but to see a more powerful image. A good photographer can take a picture of a commonplace object and turn it into something interesting, all from how the object is framed and portrayed.

Cartier-Bresson refused to crop his images (although this may be more attributed to legend than to actuallity). This means that the image that he saw through the camera is the image that gets shown. In other words, he didn't make his images in the dark room, he made them as he took them.

Virtually everyone crops their images. The very idea that he didn't do this is complete genius. He was somehow able to make incredibly wonderful images guessing what people were going to do, by seeing things before they happened. He didn't have to rework the image after it was taken. He didn't have to set up a scene. He didn't need to work the lighting or arrange items. He just walked the streets and took pictures.

How wonderfully simple.

For Whom the Tolls Ring

Last Monday night, a relatively obscure local government agency, Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO) voted to create toll roads in Austin.

The plan in general seems like it was put together in haste and really doesn't address any real issues, with the possible exception that it would potentially generate some income for the government. But that's if people actually use the toll roads.

I believe there are going to be seven toll road sections scattered around the Austin area. However, I can only really speak about the section near where I live as it's the only place that I have practical knowledge.

Here's the deal: There is currently construction on the intersection of MoPac (Loop 1) and William Cannon to extend MoPac over William Cannon, thus giving drivers the ability to avoid the light at the intersection. This will be the new toll area; basically, you are paying a toll to avoid one traffic light.

The toll is easily avoided by simply staying on the access road and going through the light — much as everyone has to navigate the area now.

However, this fly-over probably won't save much time if you are travelling north-bound on MoPac in the morning. The bottleneck isn't at the William Cannon/MoPac intersection with the traffic light. It's about seven miles further north where MoPac crosses the river and goes from three lanes to two in the process.

On the worst days, traffic is backed up from this point back through the intersection at William Cannon. Having a toll bridge (or even free access) at this point is irrelevant in terms of saving time.

On the best days, usually in the middle of summer when there aren't many people on the roads, the light cycles through quickly enough that I don't even really consider it an issue.

Therefore, in terms of the north-bound morning commute, there is very little to no incentive to use the new toll bridge.

On the trip home, when most people are travelling south-bound on MoPac, the fly-over has the most potential benefit, as the traffic light at the intersection with William Cannon does cause a significant bottleneck.

Yet the benefit here is only to get past this one intersection. Two miles further south is another traffic light, at the intersection of Slaughter Lane and MoPac. There is only one exit between the light at William Cannon and Slaughter, and not a terribly popular exit either, so I would guess that probably 20% or so of the traffic would take that exit.

Thus, with a still large amount of traffic bypassing one light and heading straight on to the next, there could be the very real possibility of a bottleneck at Slaughter and MoPac. And you paid a toll for the privilege of passing one light to get held up at the next.

Thus, the evening south-bound commute doesn't take advantage of the new toll bridge either.

Did CAMPO conduct any studies for traffic flow in these areas? I haven't seen anything indicating that they have. Additionally, as this is really the only way in and out of the Southwest Austin area, did CAMPO figure in the risk to side roads as traffic avoiding the toll road is inevitable and could be detrimental to these smaller roads? Again, I haven't seen any indications of such a study.

Either CAMPO did a bad job in getting information out to everybody, or CAMP doesn't really know the answers to these questions either. If the latter is the case, then this is indeed a half-baked plan. I am very curious if there will be any revenue generated from the new toll roads in this area.

Big Fish

A story in the science journal Nature suggests that 75% of the fish marketed in the United States as red snapper are actually of a different species.

Red snapper came under strict management in 1996 after its populations had been grossly over fished. Since 1996, efforts have been made to strike a balance with more sustainable fishing practices. However, the popularity of red snapper with consumers could have provided motivation to intentionally mislabel the fish.

"If you're buying one of these fish, you're very likely not to be getting what you're paying for," said Peter Marko, one of the researchers. "I worry that it means we're really scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to fishing these reef species."

Mislabeling fish and indeed other species as well (the Chesapeake Bay-style blue crab is actually imported from the Philippines), distorts the perception of a fish population, which in turn can contribute to the false impression that the supply of fish is keeping up with demand. Thus, efforts to ensure a sustainable fishing practice becomes useless and can even encourge overfishing. Additionally, the numbers of the fish in markets could mislead scientists when they conduct a species census.

Overfishing of red snapper may have played part of the role in diminishing their numbers. Other strong marketable species, such as shrimp, can interfer with stabalizing fish populations. Here's an example from the SeaWeb Briefing Book:

Until regulations went into effect in May 1998, for every pound of shrimp caught, more than 4 pounds of other fish species were caught as bycatch and discarded dead. Approximately 30 million juvenile red snapper were dying in shrimp trawls each year, ultimately sending the species into a severe decline. The population was unable to maintain itself because so many juveniles were lost before reaching reproductive age.

Time to Change Your Browser

If you are using Internet Explorer, you should stop, as it is no longer considered safe to use because there are many security flaws with IE (in addition to sundry other issues, Microsoft allowed an older securty flaw back into the program after updating IE with a seperate fix).

The U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team recommends that Internet Explorer users consider other browsers that are not affected by these flaws, such as Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox, Netscape and Opera.

In case you are not familiar with Web design, supposedly there's such a thing as a "Web standard" and most browsers should render the same Web site the same way.

But that's in theory. Internet Explorer is (maybe was) the most dominate browser out there (about 90% of the readers of this site use IE). So I made sure that everything looked nice and pretty for IE users, and did my best to accomodate other users, but if it didn't display properly in other browsers, I wasn't too worried.

Now, it is just not reasonable to use IE. The latest problem with Internet Explorer is a big one, although it seems to be more or less under control. (The issue, in case you aren't aware, allows hackers to steal passwords, credit card numbers and other personal information when someone merely visits an infected Web site.) But despite the fact that this issue is being fixed, it does shed some light on just how vulnerable one can be using Internet Explorer.

Thus, I am going to have to put a little time into fixing up the site for Mozilla in particular (as Mozilla Firefox is what I'll be using)....

Getting the Lead Out

I've recently been trying to make my commute to and from work a little more productive by listening to audible books. Currently, I'm listening to A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson. It's a pretty good book, although I'm not sure that I'll start reviewing them in the same manner in which I've been reviewing "real" books; by not seeing the words on a printed page, I somehow feel the experience is lessened, and I don't think I would be able to adequately review the writing, the context, and the overall feel of the book from a reader's perspective.

Still, this book has been interesting and has given me a little bit of enlightenment towards certain subjects.

Case in point: Clair Patterson. I have never heard the name before and now, based on what I've learned from this audible book, feel as though I should find out more about Clair Patterson.

Clair Patterson was the first person to make a fairly accurate guess as to the age of the Earth. He did this through a new method of lead isotope measurement. In 1948, as a graduate student, Patterson started his experiments. However, during his experiments, he found out that his samples were contaminated when they were exposed to the air; contaminated with as much as 200 times too much lead.

After about seven years, in 1953, Patterson eventually claimed Earth was about 4.5 billion years old, a number that is still currently accepted. But he was still perplexed to why his samples were so wildly contaminated. It turns out there's a lot of lead in the atmosphere. Patterson believed, but he couldn't yet prove it, that perhaps as much as 90% of the lead was coming from automobile exhaust.

In 1921, it was discovered (by Thomas Midgley, Jr, who also invented CFCs) that tetraethyl lead alleviated engine knock. General Motors, Du Pont, and Standard Oil of New Jersey (now known as Exxon), formed a joint enterprise called the Ethyl Gasoline Corporation (later shortened to simply Ethyl Corporation). And, in 1923, Ethyl Corporation introduced leaded gasoline to the public.

Lead, as it turns out, isn't very good for humans. It's a neurotoxin and symptoms include, but are not limited to lower IQs, hearing loss, vomiting, slow reflexes, seizures, coma, hallucinations and death.

According to The Nation, "for more than four decades, all scientific research regarding the health implications of leaded gasoline was underwritten and controlled by the original lead cabal — DuPont, GM and Standard Oil." So, despite having early warnings about the hazards of lead (it has been hypothesized that lead poisoning was much to blame for the fall of the Roman Empire and before that the Greeks cited it as a scourge of society), all the information about lead was being spun in a different direction.

According to Bryson, a doctor who didn't have any expertise in chemical pathology, conducted a study where the volunteers were to ingest lead. The doctor then inspected their urine and excrement for traces of lead and found none. Obviously, the doctor concluded, lead isn't a problem since it seems to be metabolized just like everything else. Except that it isn't. Lead accumulates in the bones and blood and is not excreted, which is why lead is so dangerous. And neither bone nor blood was tested in this particular study.

But it was becoming evident that these studies weren't sound. At least 15 workers died in the first year of leaded gasoline production. In 1924, five workers died within days of each other. Clearly something was wrong. Ethyl Corporation kept silent. Patterson thought that if he could find a way to find out what the lead levels were in the atmosphere before 1923, before the production of leaded gasoline, he would have some evidence to indicate his initial claim.

His big idea was to look in the ice. Patterson traveled to Greenland, where it was known that the layers of ice are stratified as they are put down and can be traced back through the years. He counted back in the layers of ice, (his techniques became the foundation for ice core sampling and is how much climate history is studied) and discovered that before 1923 there was almost no lead in the atmosphere.

Clair Patterson became a vocal opponent to the lead industry. But it wasn't easy. Patterson found getting research grants difficult to say the least, as he was taking on one of the largest corporations in the world, with directors such as Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell and Gilbert Grosvenor of the National Geographic Society.

The American Petroleum Institute cancelled a research contract as did the United States Public Health Service. School trustees at the California Institute of Technology, where Patterson was a professor, were repeatedly pressured to keep him quiet or let him go.

But Patterson stood his ground. His efforts eventually cleared the way for the Clean Air Act of 1970 and the removal of all leaded gasoline in the United States in 1986; almost immediately, lead levels in the blood of Americans fell by almost 80%.

But because lead is forever, people alive today have over 600% more lead in our blood than people who lived a century ago. The lead in the atmosphere continues to grow by about 200 metric tons a year, mostly from mining, melting and industrial activities.

Yet, now that leaded gasoline is banned in the U.S., there is no reason to revist the 75-year-old controversy. Not so fast. "There is a lot to learn from this episode of our history. It was the "Chernobyl" of the 1920s and one of the great environmental disasters of the 20th century. Only in recent years have European nations banned leaded gasoline. It is still marketed in Latin America, Asia and Africa, although a global lead-phase-out is finding more success than not."

Mars and the Red Rectangle

I know, I know... you've all seen Mars before.

But check out the details in this picture.

And then there's the Red Rectangle. It is "one of the most unusual celestial bodies in the galaxy ... Astronomers know of no other nebula like it in the universe."

Yet Another Reason

Not that there aren't already a zillion good reasons to support breast-feeding, here's one more:

Breast-fed children in the United States are 20 percent less likely to die during the first year of life than whose who are not nursed.

Radio Waves

Well, it looks like the good folks over at NPR saw fit to dismiss the only host that Morning Edition has ever had: Bob Edwards.

I'm not sure what their strategy is, but I have to say that I'm terribly disappointed and I will definitely miss Edwards as the host.

Perhaps in an effort to appease some of their listeners, NPR has put up a page that reflects on Edwards's 30-year career and lists some of his more memorable interviews and stories including his very first and last interviews as host of Morning Edition ...

Fun With Drums

This morning on my way to work, I heard this fun story on NPR.

NPR commentator Miles Hoffman went to Carroll Musical Instrument Rentals in New York City in search of ... a cow bell. With a clapper. The set up to the story is kind of fun and strange, but as they were giving the audience a sort of audio tour of the warehouse, it just struck me as how incredibly fun and powerful music can be. Here I am, sitting in my car, listening to a whole lot of instruments that are being played "out of context" (once you hear the story, that will make more sense, I think) and I was getting happy and excited.

Listening to stories like this make me want to unpack my drums and start playing them again.... (in a related note, the site redesign is coming along and is pretty much taking up all of my evenings; I've been working on it pretty much as soon as I get home to about 10 or 10:30 at night; hopefully it will be up and activated over the weekend).

Garmont Vegan is Here!!

To follow up on a previous entry (about the lack of vegetarian hiking boots), the Garmont Vegan is now being sold by REI. I am putting in my order as we speak. I'm quite excited, as we have a planned camping trip at the end of this month, so hopefully my new hiking boots will get here soon...

Rewrite the Textbooks

What are the statute of limitations on a "fact"? Do they have expiration dates? At one point in my life, I felt relatively secure that if I learned it in school, it was a "fact." Oh, how times change:

Apparently, and of course this makes sense now, the Great Wall of China is not visible from space.

And there aren't 9 planets in our solar system. There's 10. But if you don't like that answer, then the only other acceptable answer is 8.

And the kicker? Not all bubbles float.

The Wild Divine Project

Wow. This is really, really cool. If I still played games on the PC, I might consider this... Heck, I may still consider this...

Basically, The Wild Divine Project is a video game, but with a different set of controllers than the typical video game. It has biofeedback controls. This means that you control events on the screen based on how the sensors read your respiration, heart rate, etc.

Check it out.

The Sentimental Web

Webmonkey, the goofy and oddly useable reference that many, many beginning HTML junkies used as a reference and guide is no more.

This, oddly enough, actually affects me in some sentimental way....

A Ghost Story

I first heard about this story from my friend Tom's site, but this has apparently been going around the Web for quite some time (the first mention of it that I can find is in June 2003).

Here's some back story: It looks like someone sold an antique wine cabinet on eBay back in June 2003. Maybe the wine cabinet was in really bad shape and there was no other way to sell it without creating some incredible story to go with it, thus increasing the intrigue of the item and additionally increasing the value of the item. Later in this post, you'll see the best image of the item that I could find....

Seemingly, the person was able to sell it. But now the "new" owner doesn't want it anymore — I know this because it's up for sale again on eBay. It seems that the new owner is just as freaked out about the item as the first owner.

And now, the newest owner, the one that won the most recent eBay bidding, will be receiving the item (assuming all financials and inspections are accepted). The winner of the bid (agetron is the screen name) seems to be the curator of a museum.

Anyway, here's the story, as was told to eBay (and retrieved from Ghostbusters.net)....

The first part is from the First Owner....

Dibbuk Box / Antique Wine Cabinet
All of the events that I am about to set forth in this listing are accurate and may be verified by the winning bidder with the copies of hospital records and sworn affidavits that I am including as part of the sale of the cabinet. The winning bidder will also be able to contact most of the persons mentioned herein for the purposes of verification, corroboration, and to gain insight into the full scope of… whatever it is.

During September of 2001, I attended an estate sale in Portland Oregon. The items liquidated at this sale were from the estate of a woman who had passed away at the age of 103. A grand-daughter of the woman told me that her grandmother had been born in Poland where she grew up, married, raised a family, and lived until she was sent to a nazi concentration camp during World War II. She was the only member of her family who survived the camp. Her parents, brothers, a sister, husband, and two sons and a daughter were all killed. She survived the camp by escaping with some other prisoners and somehow making her way to Spain where she lived until the end of the war. I was told that she acquired the small wine cabinet listed here in Spain and it was one of only three items that she brought with her when she immigrated to the United States. The other two items were a steamer trunk, and a sewing box.

I purchased the wine cabinet, along with the sewing box and some other furniture at the estate sale. After the sale, I was approached by the woman’s granddaughter who said, “I see you got the dibbuk box.” She was referring to the wine cabinet. I asked her what a dibbuk box was, and she told me that when she was growing up, her grandmother always kept the wine cabinet in her sewing room. It was always locked, and set in a place that was out of reach. The grandmother always called it the dibbuk box. When the girl asked her grandmother what was inside, her grandmother spit three times through her fingers said, “A dibbuk, and keselim.” The grandmother went on to tell the girl that the wine cabinet was never, ever, to be opened. The granddaughter told me that her grandmother had asked that the box be buried with her. However, as such a request was contrary to the rules of an orthodox Jewish burial, the grandmother’s request had not been honored. I asked the granddaughter what a dibbuk, and keselim were, but she did not know. I asked if she had the key and if she would like to open it with me. She said that the family had never been able to find a key among her grandmother’s belongings. She did not want to open it, as her grandmother had been very emphatic and serious when she instructed her not to do so, and, regardless of the reason, she wanted to honor her grandmother’s request.

I finally ended up offering to let her keep what seemed to me to be a sentimental keepsake. At that point, she was very insistent and said, “No, no you bought it!”

I explained that I didn’t want my money back, and that it would make me feel better to do what I thought was an act of kindness. She then became somewhat upset. Looking back now, the way she became upset was just plain odd. She raised her voice to me and said, “You bought it! You made a deal!”

When I tried to speak, she yelled, “We don’t want it!”

She began to cry, asked me to leave, and quickly walked away. I wrote the whole episode off to the stress and grief she must have been experiencing. I took my purchases and politely left.

At the time when I bought the cabinet, I owned a small furniture refinishing business. I took the cabinet to my store, and put it in my basement workshop where I intended to refinish it and give it as a gift to my Mother. I didn’t think anything more about it. I opened my shop for the day and went to run some errands leaving the young woman who did sales for me in charge. After about a half-hour, I got a call on my cell phone. The call was from my salesperson. She was absolutely hysterical and screaming that someone was in my workshop breaking glass and swearing. Furthermore, the intruder had locked the iron security gates and the emergency exit and she couldn’t get out. As I told her to call the police, my cell phone battery went dead.

I hit speeds of 100 mph getting back to the shop. When I arrived, I found the gates locked. I went inside and found my employee on the floor in a corner of my office sobbing hysterically. I ran to the basement and went downstairs. At the bottom of the stairs, I was hit by an overpowering unmistakable odor of cat urine (there had never been any animals kept or found in my shop). The lights didn’t work. As I investigated, I found that the reason the lights didn’t work also explained the sounds of glass breaking. All of the light bulbs in the basement were broken. All nine incandescent bulbs had been broken in their sockets, and 10 four-foot fluorescent tubes were lying shattered on the floor. I did not find an intruder, however. I should also add that there was only one entrance to the basement. It would have been impossible for anyone to leave without meeting me head-on. I went back up to speak with my salesperson, but she had left. She never returned to work (after having been with me for two years). She refuses to discuss the incident to this day. I never thought of relating the events of that day to anything having to do with the cabinet.

Then, things got worse.

As I already indicated, I had decided to give the cabinet to my Mother as a birthday gift. About two weeks after I made the purchase, I decided to get started refinishing it. I cut off the little padlock and opened it. I was surprised to find that the cabinet has a unique little mechanism. When you open one of the doors, the mechanism causes the opposite door, and the little drawer below, to open at the same time. It is very well made. Inside the cabinet, I found the following items:

1 1928 U.S. Wheat Penny;
1 1925 U.S. Wheat Penny;
One small lock of blonde hair (bound with string);
One small lock of black/brown hair (bound with string);
One small granite statue engraved and gilded with Hebrew letters (I have been told that the letters spell out the word SHALOM);
One dried rosebud;
One very strange black cast iron candlestick holder with octopus legs.
I saved all of the items in a box intending to return them to the estate. The family has refused the items, so they will be included in this sale of the cabinet.

After opening the cabinet, I decided not to refinish it. I cleaned it, and rubbed in some lemon oil. It was at this time that I noticed that there was an inscription in Hebrew carved into the back of the cabinet. I have no idea what it says or if it is significant. I have included a picture of that inscription below. On my mother’s birthday, October 28, 2001, my mother called to tell me that she was going out of town with my sister for three days, and we postponed celebrating her birthday together until she returned. On October 31, 2001, my mother came to my shop. We were going to have lunch together, but before we were going to leave, I gave her the wine cabinet. She seemed to like it. While she examined it, I went to make a phone call. I hadn’t been out of sight more than 5 minutes when one of my employees came running into my office saying that something was wrong with my mom. When I went back to see what the matter was, I found my mom sitting in a chair beside the cabinet. Her face had no expression, but tears were streaming down her cheeks. No matter how I tried to get her to respond, she would not. She could not. It turns out that my mother had suffered a stroke. She was taken to the hospital by ambulance. She ended up suffering partial paralysis, and losing her ability to speak and form words (she has since regained the ability to speak). She could understand things being said to her, and could respond by pointing to letters of the alphabet to spell out words she wanted to say. When I asked her the following day how she was doing, she teared up and spelled out the words: N-O G-I-F-T. I assured her that I had given her a gift for her birthday, thinking that she didn’t remember, but she became even more upset and spelled out the words: H-A-T-E G-I-F-T. I laughed and told her not to worry. I told her I was sorry she didn’t like the cabinet, and that I would get her anything she wanted if she would promise to get well soon.

Still, I didn’t associate anything that had happened with the cabinet itself or anything paranormal. Frankly, I don’t think I ever even used the term “paranormal” until this last month.

I’ll try to make this short now. I gave the cabinet to my sister. She kept it for a week, then gave it back. She complained that she couldn’t get the doors to stay closed and that they kept coming open. There are no springs in the door mechanism and I have never found that the doors come open. I gave it to my brother and his wife who kept it for three days and then gave it back. My brother said it smelled like Jasmine flowers, while his wife insisted that it put out an odor of cat urine. I gave it to my girlfriend who asked me to sell it for her after only two days. I sold it the same day to a nice middle aged couple. Three days later, when I came to open the shop for the day, I found the cabinet sitting at the front doors with a note that read, “This has a bad darkness.” I had no idea what that meant. Anyway, I ended up taking it home.

Then, things got even worse.

Since the day I brought it home, I began having a strange recurring nightmare. Every time I have the horrible dream it goes something like this: I find myself walking with a friend – usually someone I know well and trust – at some point in the dream, I find myself looking into the eyes of the person that I am with. It is then that I realize that there is something different, something evil looking back at me. At that point in my dream, the person I am with changes into what can only be described as the most gruesome, demonic looking Hag that I have ever seen. This Hag proceeds then, to beat the living tar out of me. I have awakened numerous times to find bruises and marks on myself where I had been hit by the old woman during the previous night. Still, I never related the nightmares to the cabinet, nor do I think that I ever would have.

About a month ago, however, my sister, and my brother and his wife came over to my house and spent the night. The following morning, during breakfast, my sister complained that she had had a horrible nightmare. She said that she recalled having had it a couple of times before, and went on to describe my nightmare exactly to the last detail. My brother and his wife froze as they listened, and then chimed in that they had both had had the exact same dreams during the night as well. The hair was standing up on the back of my neck and still is. As we talked, it became clear that the common denominator was that each of us had had the nightmare during the times that the cabinet was in our respective homes. I called my girlfriend and asked if she could recall having any nightmares recently. She described the same nightmare, same Hag, everything. When I asked her if she remembered the date when she had the nightmare, she said she did not. Then I asked if it happened to be the night before she gave me the cabinet back to sell for her. She said, “Yeah! Hey, how did you know that?!!!”

Now then, since my family discussion, it seems like all hell is breaking loose. For a week afterward I started seeing what I can only describe as shadow things in my peripheral vision. In fact, numerous visitors to my house have claimed that they have seen these shadow things. I put the cabinet in an outside storage unit and was awakened when the smoke alarm in the unit went off in the middle of the night. When I went to see what was burning, I opened the door and didn’t see any smoke. However, I did get hit with the smell of cat urine. When I went back inside, the smell was there in my house. I DO NOT OWN A CAT AND I NEVER HAVE. I went back outside and grabbed the cabinet. I brought it back inside and tried to research it on the Internet. While I was surfing the net, I fell asleep and once again had the same freakin’ nightmare. I woke up at around 4:30am (when it felt and smelled like someone was breathing on my neck) to find that my house now smelled like Jasmine flowers, and just in time to see a HUGE shadow thing go loping down the hall away from me.

I would destroy this thing in a second, except I really don’t have any understanding of what I may or may not be dealing with. I am afraid (and I do mean afraid) that if I destroy the cabinet, whatever it is that seems to have come with the cabinet may just stay here with me. I have been told that there are people who shop on EBAY that understand these kinds of things and specifically look for these kinds of items. If you are one of these people, please, please buy this cabinet and do whatever you do with a thing like this. Help me.

You can see that I have no reserve price or minimum bid. If I can make things any easier let me know and I will do everything within my abilities.

One more note. On the same day my Mom had her stroke, the lease to my store was summarily terminated without cause.

The measurements are 12.5" x 7.5" x 16.25"

ALL OF THE ITEMS THAT I ORIGINALLY FOUND INSIDE THE CABINET ARE INCLUDED IN THE SALE AND WILL BE DELIVERED WITH THE CABINET.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Jun-12-03 at 02:15:30 PDT, seller added the following information:

There is no way that I can respond to all of the e-mails I've received since I put this thing on-line. I'll try now to update and answer the most common questions I've been receiving.

1. No, I am not religious.

2. No, I do not wish to have or participate in any sort of exorcism, or case study, or photo sessions at my home.

3. No, I will not sell any of the individual pieces which were originally found seperate from the other pieces and the cabinet.

4. No, I do not speak Hebrew nor do I know what the word "keselim" means. I don't know that the word is even a Hebrew word.

5. At the end of the auction, I have decided to take an opportunity to speak with the winning bidder for two reasons: a.)To make sure that the winning bidder is a serious adult who has employed some valid reasoning skills in making the decision to accept whatever this is. I will not be judgemental. Do whatever you want or need after the sale. b.)To offer full details of the events that have transpired. After I have carried out those responsibilities, and upon payment, I will have the cabinet and its contents delivered by U.S.MAIL, FED-EX, or UPS to the winning bidder. At that point, I will have no further involvement with the matter in any way, shape, or form. Period.

6.) To all of you who have offered to pray, I may not be religious, but I am certainly open to the possibilities --no matter what your religion might be. THANK YOU!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Jun-14-03 at 05:216 PDT, seller added the following information:

Here is another update for everyone following this listing.
NO! No, I will not circumvent, or make any deals outside of EBAY - EVEN FOR MORE MONEY THAN THE FINAL AUCTION PRICE!!! If you want to win the auction and have the kind of money some of you are offering, there shouldn't be any reason why you cannot simply place your bid in an open honest fashion. I'm sure you can understand why I might be suspicious.

ALSO....

For those of you wanting to know if I am still experiencing anything out of the ordinary, I thought everything was going OK until I got home on Friday - the 13th of June - and found that the fish in my fresh water aquarium - all 10 - were dead.

I'm still hoping that all of this is coincidental crap.
====================================

And that is all from the first owner. The new owner (eBay screen name of spasmolytic) added this to the posting of the item....

I bought the box from the first sellar above in the Ebay auction around June of 2003, out of curiosity about the 'haunted' box. After receiving a deluge of e-mail about the box, I set up a web site to answer some questions, which I stopped updating in September and haven't updated to this day because I didn't want to talk about it with anyone.

For the sake of information, I found that a dibbuk/dybbuk in Jewish folklore/mythology/teaching/whatever is a misplaced spirit that can neither rise to Heaven nor descend into Hell, essentially stuck in Limbo or purgatory. Here's another definition I found: 1. (Jewish folklore) a demon that enters the body of a living person and controls that body's behavior. Synonyms: dybbuk. 2. Evil Spirits, that cause mental illness, rage and changes of personality. The spirit or soul of a dead person that inhabits the body of a living one, with sometimes evil, sometimes positive results.

If you believe in paranormal phenomena, the box contains or is possessed by at least one dibbuk, possibly two, as the grandmother stated: a dibbuk, and a keslim. Keselim is a term similar to a turkish word that means "priest." This would probably correspond to the pair of wrapped strands of blonde and brown/black hair.

The Hebrew carving on the back, to my knowledge, is a relatively common Jewish prayer: Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. Blessed is the name of his honored kingdom forever. Said frequently at times of fear, death, etc...

I was doubtful of the 'haunted' box, and I still don't believe in the paranormal. What happened in August and Septemember is likely coincidental, so I will relate it as I originally wrote it down in a log.

Sunday, 31 August 2003 Over the last week some interesting, though possibly coincidental, items of note have come up. Firstly, I share a house with six other people; we have been taking turns sleeping with the box in each of our rooms.
Two people are now complaining of burning eyes, one is listless and depleted of energy, and another became spontaneously sick. [In retrospect I would say it was alergies.]

A few days after these ongoing annoyances started, the air outside our house was filled with small bugs for several hours (a Friday). [Weird summer stuff?]
Last night (Saturday) we discovered that the box, now located in the back corner of the house, had come mostly open, though it had been shut and it seems unlikely that anyone could or would have touched it.

Wednesday, 10 September 2003 Though it seems impossible to prove that the box is a direct cause of misfortune, we have definitely seen a tidal wave of "bad luck."

Strange odors now permeate the house, the dumpster out back overflows with trash and decay, one roomate suddenly got bronchitis, and I broke a finger.
Several mice have died in the engine of one car, and more electronic devices seem to be dying everyday: xbox, toaster, t.v., and watches.
------

I don't really want to talk about anything between September and January, so I'll just say that I'm selling the box now for a couple reasons:

Around October 6th, I started feeling bad, with trouble sleeping. This problem has persisted through today.

I live alone now, and as of late I have noticed replacing a lot of burnt out lightbulbs, and getting many unusual car repairs (transmission fluid was burned out of the reservoir.)

I've started seeing things, sort of like large vertical dark blurs in my periphreal vision. I smell something like juniper bushes or stingy ammonia in my garage often, and I have no idea what from.

Most disturbingly, last Tuesday (1-27-2004), my hair began to fall out. Today (Friday) it's about half gone. I'm in my early twenties, and I just got a clean blood test back from the doctor's. Maybe it's stress related, I don't know.

Anyhow, for personal reasons I very strongly do not want this box anymore. I hope there's someone on Ebay that will take this thing off of my hands. [I would just throw it away in the woods or something, but I know there has been some interest in it in the past.]
========================================

And that, as they say, is that. I know nothing more about this item or what has happened to any of the owners. I was able to (sort of) track the sale of the item, as I mentioned above to a musuem.

It turns out that the winning bidder (agetron) posted a comment on the item on another site (you can read that comment near the bottom of this page ). So, it will be interesting to find out if this item comes back on the market or if the new owner will post any other messages. Perhaps we'll hear from it again some day....

Silence isn't Free

In case you're regularly listening to some overtly loud music (maybe like some screaming Finns), and you are looking for something to cleanse the palette, I do have a suggestion for you: You can buy "silence" from Apple's iTunes.

From CNET News:

As [iTunes] notes, Apple treats the silent songs just like their more musical counterparts. The silent tracks sell for the same 99 cents as other songs, feature free 30-second "previews" and are all wrapped in Apple's usual digital-rights management software to prevent unauthorized copying.

... three of the tracks--all titled "Silent" and all by hip-hop group Slum Village--are labeled as explicit, even though there is only silence. For those who worry that the lack of sound will be too racy, iTunes offers "clean versions" as well.

I guess all you need now are noise-canceling headphones to make the experience complete.

Bread and Religion

"Feed us first, then ask for virtue."
— Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

I heard a tale on KUT this morning that reminded me of the above quote from Dostoevsky. It goes a little something like this ...

God called three people to Him. "I want you to go out and gather some rocks for me; as many and of any size as you wish."

The first person felt that it was a time-based test, so he ran out and grabbed a pebble and came back quickly.

The second person was gathering rocks for several hours and came back with a wheelbarrow full of various sized rocks.

The third person didn't come back until midnight, and came pushing a mountain.

From these rocks, God made bread; the first person had a biscuit, the second person had many loaves, and the third person received a bakery.

The next day, God asked the same three people to gather in front of him. "I would like you to gather some rocks for me again."

This time, the first person was out for many hours....

The second person again came back with a wheelbarrow full of rocks.

The third person again came back with a mountain.

However, they all waited a very long time for the first person to come back. They waited until midnight. They waited through the early morning. Finally, just about dawn, they felt the earth shake and heard a terrible rumbling. The first person arrived, pulling several mountains and throwing many, many rocks to the appointed meeting place.

God said to the three, "upon these rocks, I shall build my church."

"I'll be damned if you will," said the first person. "You're going to make bread today."

Socialism for Computers

The idea of "sharing" computers has been around for a while. The premise is based on the idea that, if your computer isn't doing any computing for you, it could be tapped by someone else, with your permission of course.

One of the most popular examples of this is the SETI @ Home project, which allows SETI to compute information on your computer while you aren't using it (it comes on as your computer's screen saver). The cool thing about the SETI project is that you are donating your computer; no one is profiting on the arrangement.

Now it looks like Adobe is bringing this idea to the mainstream — and for profit. According to one news story, Adobe is putting this technology into their video effects software, After Effects Professional. Applying effects to movies can require lots of computing time (and raw power) and using this particular paradigm makes a certain amount of sense, in that it makes sense to use untapped resources.

It looks like Adobe's model is pretty cool, at least for them. Sure, Adobe designed the software to make it possible, but they are essentially renting my computer processor. What would compel me to pay Adobe to allow someone else to use my computer? Perhaps my own need to "borrow" someone else's processor?

I see a few pros and cons here; I'm not too keen on the idea of allowing my computer to line the pockets of some other company. At least with the SETI @ Home project, I could feel a certain amount of "civic pride," as I was donating my CPU to their organization; it is a relatively pure socialism.

But this Adobe model... there's something about this that I don't like.

Additionally, the license with Adobe "includes permissions to run the grid software on two processors of other computers besides the one After Effects Professional is running on." You have to spend additional money if you want to use additional processors....

More Mars Coolness

Astronomy has always been in my blood. Star Wars is probably to blame, but that whole idea of exploration, thinking about what's "out there," and all that has been reinforced throughout my life. In college, I even took astronomy classes as electives, even though they required some physics (math that an Anthropology major wouldn't need to take)....

All of that marvel made this discovery (thanks to In The Park for the link) all the more fascinating for me. If you are looking for some way to comprehend all that is going on and all that was (and is) involved in getting the Spirit rover to another planet, you really need to check out this digital animation. It's quite dramatic. [QuickTime is required to view the animation, and I would also highly recommend speakers or headphones.]

Way Too Cool

Wow. If you are at all interested in what is going on with the Mars rover "Spirit," then you have to check this out. Have to. Not an option. Although, it is rather CPU intensive, and you do have to accomplish some technical steps to get things to work. But once it's working.... Wow. Very, very cool.

What's so cool? The program that you are downloading with the above link essentially allows you to use the same program that NASA is using to control Spirit. Download the images, and BAM! You are on Mars. Now, of course, you are not actually controlling Spirit, but you are able to see the images that Spirit has sent to Earth in much the same way that NASA can.

But that's only part of it. They do some story narration, to let you know what your looking at, as well as some orientation of how to use the program....

And, by the way, a note to the cell phone companies. How come NASA can send and receive messages 115 million miles away, yet I have difficulties getting a good signal on my cell phone in my house? You might want to think about upgrading the system....

TrackBack Test

A friend of mine just implemented the Trackback feature in his Movable Type Web site, which I thought was a good idea... So I decided that I'm going to do this as well with Parentetx.com.

Basically, this allows anyone else who is running a Web site to be able to link to a particular entry and reference it specifically. Also, there's a thread that is formed, sort of like via a forum, that will link other sites that reference a particular entry, thus allowing readers to check out other sites that talk about the same topic (or at least reference it).

Music Rebellion

If you like to download music (legally), I just found out about a new place to do so — for cheap.

www.musicrebellion.com has instituted a "floating price" for the music. All music starts out at $0.10, and as more people buy, the price goes up. As far as I can gather, your first purchase is $0.10.

The only downside is that a lot of the music I'm looking at is only available in Windows Media format, which is alright, but not ideal.

Anyway, I've been trying to find this one album forever, and haven't had any luck. Now, not only can I find it, but I can buy the entire album for $1.30. Pretty sweet.

Recycle Your Aluminum

[From Yahoo! News]

OLYMPIA, Wash. - What kind of friends coat your apartment — and nearly everything in it — with tinfoil while you're away? Here's a hint: One of the only objects that escaped the shiny treatment was a book titled "Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends."

Chris Kirk found his downtown Olympia apartment encased in aluminum foil when he returned home Monday night from a trip to Los Angeles.

The walls, ceiling, cabinets and everything in between shimmered, after the prank orchestrated by Kirk's longtime friend, Luke Trerice, 26, who was staying in the apartment while Kirk was away.

"He's known for large-scale strangeness," Kirk, 33, told The Olympian. "He warned me that he would be able to touch my stuff, but it didn't sound so bad."

Trerice, who lives in Las Vegas, and a small group of friends draped the apartment with about 4,000 square feet of aluminum foil, which cost about $100.

Not surprisingly, the idea was hatched on New Year's Eve.

"It was just a spur of the moment thing," Trerice said. "I really don't even consider it art. I consider it a psychology project. ... He seems to be upbeat, so I consider this a success. "

No detail was too small or too time-consuming. The toilet paper was unrolled, wrapped in foil, then rolled back up again. The friends covered Kirk's book and compact disc collections but made sure each CD case could open and shut normally. They even used foil on each coin in Kirk's spare change.

And to sweeten the theme, they left silver Hershey's kisses sprinkled throughout the apartment.

"The toilet was hard. The molding around the doorways took a very long time," Trerice said.

Aside from "Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends," which doesn't include this particular trick, only a portrait of his girlfriend, the bed and a bath mat were left unfoiled.

"He took special pains not to move anything," Kirk said.

A foil-encased picture hanging outside his apartment was Kirk's first clue that something inside was amiss.

"I heard him open the door and gasp and start laughing," said Beth Kelly, who lives in an apartment down the hall. "I love the quarters. It's almost more funny realizing the things that were left unwrapped."

Andras Jones, who lives on the same floor, became curious about what was transpiring in Kirk's apartment as he noticed "a parade of strange characters" going in and out.

Since Kirk's return the entire building has been buzzing about the transformation, Jones said.

"There's a party atmosphere down by the room," Jones said. "Of course, everyone has their favorite part. I think the kitchen is just amazing."

Kirk's awestruck neighbors and friends kept him up until late Monday night. He hasn't started unpacking his belongings and isn't sure when he will. "

"As I was trying to sleep last night, I realized that, actually, it's creepy," Kirk said.

And as for whether Trerice will ever be allowed to stay again at the apartment unsupervised, Kirk said: "I don't know. We'll see."

But Trerice hopes Kirk will find a way to get him back.

"I'm going to be insulted if he doesn't try," Trerice said. "It's kind of a challenge."

Largest Known Prime Number Found

In the Totally Useless Information department:

Michael Shafer, a 26 year-old volunteer in the Mersenne.org research project called the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS), has discovered the largest known prime number. Shafer used a Michigan State University lab PC and free software by George Woltman and Scott Kurowski as part of an international grid of 211,000 networked computers in virtually every time zone of the world.

The new number, expressed as 2 to the 20,996,011th power minus 1, has 6,320,430 decimal digits and was discovered November 17th. It is more than two million digits larger than the previous largest known prime number, and belongs to a special class of rare prime numbers called Mersenne primes . The discovery marks only the 40th known Mersenne prime, named after Marin Mersenne , a 17th century French monk who first studied the numbers 300 years ago.

Read more at the mersenne.org site.

I Know I Don't Know What He Knows

[from Yahoo! News]

A bizarre comment by U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on the hunt for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction has been awarded the "Foot in Mouth" prize by the Plain English Campaign.

Rumsfeld, renowned for his uncompromising tough talking, received the prize for the most baffling comment by a public figure.

"Reports that say something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know," Rumsfeld told a press briefing.

"We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know.

John Lister, spokesman for the campaign which strives to have public information delivered in clear, straightforward English, said: "We think we know what he means. But we don't know if we really know.

Misperceptions, The Media and The Iraq War

The Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) conducted polls in June, July, and August-September 2003 of those that get their news primarily from one source. Three perception questions were asked of these people that get their news primarily from one source:

1. that evidence of links between Iraq and al-Qaeda have been found
2. that WMD have been found in Iraq
3. that world public opinion approved of the US going to war with Iraq

Do all news agencies provide accurate, objective reporting that wouldn't give misleading information to their audience? According to this study, the answer is a definitive no.

For the purpose of this study, all three of the above perceptions would be considered "false;" that is, President Bush has stated that no evidence has yet been found to link Iraq with al-Qaeda (although there is an active search to find a link); no evidence of WMD have been found up to this point (although there is an active search to find evidence of such); and the general world public opinion disapproved of the US going to war with Iraq.

Of those who had a primary news source, the following chart shows the percentage of individuals that had at least one misperception (meaning, at least one of the above questions was answered as "true"):
FOX - 80%
CBS - 71%
ABC - 61%
CNN - 55%
NBC - 55%
NPR/PBS - 23%

Conversley, here are the percentages of those that had no misperceptions (all questions were answered as "false"):
FOX - 20%
CBS - 30%
ABC - 39%
CNN - 45%
NBC - 45%
NPR/PBS - 77%

PIPA also did polls that tested if these results cut across party lines (i.e., Democrat and Republican). As long as the person received their news primarily from one news source, the percentages held up.

For those who want to see the press release of this study, you can go to the PIPA web site (this links to a PDF document).