All of the cool bloggers are linking to this chilling article. Glad to see we live in a police state now.

Glenn Reynolds says that the raid “seems heavyhanded, but not dreadful. (Certainly not as bad as this pre-911 raid, which wasn’t even especially famous).” I certainly agree that it could have been worse, but it is different from the story he linked since it took place in a crowded restaurant, with customers who were certainly innocent. Glenn also questions why both the feds and the NYPD were involved. Though I am no expert in these things, it seems they often work together in urban areas.

Volokh conspirator Orin Kerr, wonders about the article’s legitimacy :

The idea that the author was told that he was “being held under the Patriot Act” sounds particularly unlikely to me. I can’t find a section of the Patriot Act that could conceivably apply to this.

… when they say things like this. Calpundit, Radley Balko, Matthew Yglesias and Atrios all tell you why from their unique viewpoints.

The author, Stanley Kurtz, tries to make the argument that legalizing adult incest (involving no minors) would create a slippery slope causing people to think incest was OK and therefore abusing their children. Similarly, according to Kurtz, homosexual marriage threatens heterosexual monogamy in marriage.

As the whole Santorum Business showed, conservatives are in a tough position when it comes to homosexuality. They want to outlaw it, and anything to do with it, since they find it morally wrong, but they don’t want to say that they want the government to enforce morality. So you get Santorum saying “I have no problem with homosexuality. I have a problem with homosexual acts,” Bush calling Santorum “inclusive” and a convoluted, illogical, mess of an argument like this one.

If you enter a phone number into a Google search, it does a reverse lookup for you telling you whose phone it is, where they live and a link to a map. Here is a semi-random example: 212-223-8723 (212-bad-toad). More info here. Stalking made easy. You can get your number removed.

My home phone is accurate. There is no listing for my cell.

Via Dave Tepper who links to a Washington Post article on the subject.

I discovered a way to get rid of moiré when resampleing. Do it stepwise. For the image above I went directly from 1391 pixels high to 400 pixels high (holding the proportions and using bicubic interpolation) in one step. For this image:

I resampled from 1391px to 1200px then to 1000px then 800px then 700px then 600px then 500px then 450px and finally 400px. No moiré in the image. Although there might be moiré in the thumbnail that movable type generated. I have found that it is benifical to decrase the step size as I approach the final value.

While there is no more moiré in the resampled image, it still contains a pattern which can moiré with the screens used to print the image. The portion of the printed piece containing the shirt was quite small, so the image needed to be reduced, although not all the way down to the 400px high image you see above; It was more like 600px. Here:

is a simulation of the black channel after being screened. The simulation comes from an ~600px high image, and it has been reduced.

So what I did was to blur the image a bit using the dust and scratches filter, which doesn’t effect edges as much as a gaussian blur, on a seperate layer. I then brought back the original edges, collar, logo, sleeves and buttons using a layer mask. The blurred layer was then reduced to ~75% opacity to let some of the pattern still be visible.

No more moiré.

Due to the lateness of the Republican convention, Bush may have to be write-in candidate in several states since his nomination will happen after their deadlines. This has already been reported about Alabama, but there may be issues in DC, West Virginia, and California. Some places are trying to change the law to allow Bush to be on the ballot, others are doing nothing. I imagine Alabama will be more accommodating than DC. I’d hate to give advice to the Republicans (although I doubt any are reading this blog) but a solution could involve having a “republican candidate” on the ballot instead of specifically “George W. Bush.”

This is entirely the Republicans fault. They should have been aware of the states deadlines, and they shouldn’t expect the states to accommodate them. They wanted to have the convention late so that they could use the 3rd anniversary of 9/11 right after their convention here in New York, to emphasize national security as an issue.. They should accept the consequences.

Via blogdex.

Tacitus, one of the conservative blogers I actually enjoy reading, came back last week after a brief hiatus. Kos was gone this weekend, but now he is back too. Finally, Patrick Nielsen Hayden is back as well after being absent since Apr 13.

U.S. Will Move Air Operations to Qatar from Saudi Arabia. Good. Many Saudis weren’t too happy with us there and

or the military, however, Qatar is a more congenial location. A tiny nation of 750,000 people, Qatar has come to view the United States as its main protector in the region.

Qatar built Al Udeid Air Base in 1996 at the cost of more than $1 billion. The nation did not have an air force at the time, but it wanted to encourage the United States military to base its aircraft there.

“We are not leaving Saudi Arabia,” a senior administration official said today.

Looks like Apple is creating an online music service. This must be the ‘music to your ears’ announcement that everyone was talking about. Here is another article for the registration phobic.

Looks like they will be charging 99¢ per song, which seems to be a fair price. I hope they can get enough music from the notoriously stingy record companies. It doesn’t seem too different from existing services (not that I have tried any of them), but the name Apple might lend some weight to it, particularly for Macintosh and iPod users.

In other news (from the times article):

Indeed, the company is expected to announce the next generation of its iPod portable music player on Friday

I submitted this story to slashdot, and stupidly put a link to this blog in it. Slashdot hasn’t picked it up, and they probably won’t since I doubt I am the only submitter, but if they did this site could be in for a slashdoting.

Update: Slashdot picked this story up. One of the longer discussions I’ve seen there. They didn’t use my submission though. Looks like they wanted to wait until Apple actually announced it. Also iTunes 4 is here as well as the new iPod.

AAARGH
I was just watching the Simpsons and I saw this commerical (Quicktime-RealVideo-transcript) about a death caused by “by a driver under the influence of marijuana..” The “evidence” they give:

In a roadside study, one in three reckless drivers who were tested for drugs tested positive for marijuana.

These folks aren’t helping their case by misleading. When the kids who see these ads grow up, they will doubt any negative comments about drugs, even the ones that are true.

Matthew Yglesias proposes:

So why doesn’t someone write up a federal “right to privacy” statute or maybe even a constitutional amendment… The existence (and scope) of a right to privacy in the constitution is a matter of some controversy, and proposing a constitutional privacy amendment might be seen as an admission on the part of privacy advocates that such a right does not exist in the un-amended constitution.

While IANACS (I am not a constitutional scholar), this seems to be covered fairly well by a combination of the ninth amendment and the fourteenth amendment (and probably a bit of the fourth amendment thrown in for good measure).

Rick DeMent in Matthew’s comments explains why the ninth amendment covers this better than I can:

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
Now if the right to privacy is not one of these unnamed rights that the people have retained then this amendment has absolutely no meaning. but if that’s true, then the founding fathers just sort of put it in there for shits and giggles…
Frankly for me this is one of the most important amendments in the BoR because it means that I retain all the rights I can think of and the burden is on the government for making a case why something should not be a right. Or to put it another way, any assertion of a right under the constitution is presumed to be protected until it is demonstrated that there is a vested State interest in limiting the right so asserted.

Chris Lawrence shares some interesting history on the ninth amendment.

Radley Balko, while discussing sodomy laws,illustrates, the need for the fourteenth amendment:

So [the framers] included the Ninth Amendment – powers not expressly granted to the federal government elsewhere in the Constitution are reserved for the people. Ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment then forced the states to respect the same individual rights the federal government is required to respect.

This whole Santorum business has certainly brought out the worst bigotry, hypocrisy and stupidity from the Republicans. As Calpundit and I have said before, gay rights could be a good issue which Democrats and Liberals could use to bring out the worst in Conservatives and Republicans and alienate their libertarian and moderate wings. Republicans, unsurprisingly, feel differently. Indeed, according to this article they think they can use this issue against Democrats, specifically Howard Dean, who supported civil unions as the governor of Vermont:

Richard White, a Republican state senator from Mississippi, said any candidate talking about gay rights might as well not even visit his state.

“The people down here, they are not going to put up with that kind of stuff,” White said. “We’re not prepared for all that in Mississippi or anywhere else in the southern states.”

The GOP argues that support for gay rights will cost the Democrats votes particularly in conservative southern states. However, I would argue that Democrats will never get the christian right vote and should work on getting the moderates who may well support gay rights even if they do not necessarily support gays. They may also be alienated by the anti-gay rhetoric coming from the right wingers.

Of course all this discussion begs the question: What does America think of gays? Anecdotally, I have certainly seen plenty of normally conservative people take a reasonable view on this issue (although admittedly Sullivan’s opinion is hardly suprising). However in a country where 51% of the people believe Saddam Hussein was ‘personally responsible for 9/11 and 59% believe that the prophecies of the Book of Revelation will happen sometime¹ I realize that the American people may be more conservative than I think.

The general trend seems to be that:

… Americans are becoming more accepting of homosexuality. A Gallup poll in the late 1990s showed a declining majority (59 percent) of Americans still agreed with Santorum that homosexuality is “always wrong.” That is most likely an expression of their religious convictions. But in what could be interpreted as strong support for their fellow citizens’ privacy rights, recent polls find that in the same time period, 52 percent of Americans regarded homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle while 44 percent found it unacceptable. Furthermore, 54 percent favored legalizing consensual homosexual activity between adults, while only 42 percent opposed legalization.

Indeed as the Will-and-Grace-ization of America proceeds, Americans are becoming more accepting, if not approving of homosexuals. this site shows some very positive trends in American opinions. For example, more people now regard homosexuality an ‘acceptable lifestyle’ than don’t:

Sodomy laws are now less popular than ever after an increase in popularity in the 80s. While a majority or people still think that homosexuality is “wrong,” that number is decreasing.

I think many moderates are of similar opinion of this man, a member of a focus group conducted by the Washington Post in 1999:

Jeff Bittner knows exactly what he thinks of gay men and lesbians. The 46-year-old grocery clerk from Madison, Wis., is certain that homosexuality is a sin – the Bible and common sense make that clear.

Does that mean we should outlaw homosexuality? Well, no, he says. The last thing we need in America is the government meddling in morality. “I know it’s not consistent,” said Bittner, shifting awkwardly in his chair. “It’s really hard.”

However, the issue that Republicans want to use against Dean specifically is his support of civil unions. Does America support that?

In the year 2000, [gallup] asked the question: "Suppose that on election day this year you could vote on key issues as well as candidates. Please tell me whether you would vote for or against each one of the following propositions. Would you vote…For or against a law that would allow homosexual couples to legally form civil unions, giving them some of the legal rights of married couples." Results were:

Date	Favor Unions	Oppose Unions	No Opinion
1996-APR	28%	67%	5%
200-OCT	42%	54%	4%

In 2001 they asked a slightly different question: "Would you favor or oppose a law that would allow homosexual couples to legally form civil unions, giving them some of the legal rights of married couples?" Results were:

Date	Favor Unions	Oppose Unions	No Opinion
2001-MAY	44%	52%	4%

These trends illustrate why even Santorum felt he had to say “I have no problem with homosexuality. I have a problem with homosexual acts.” Even he has to acknowledge that people are becoming more accepting of homosexuals.

I am a little annoyed by a certain behavior in Apple’s otherwise excellent Safari browser as illustrated here:

When one creates a new tab in Safari, the new tab appears at the end of any row of tabs. If the tab one has currently selected is behind one ore more tabs, the new tab will skip over the next tabs. If one then goes to the new tab and removes it, one winds up with the next to last tab selected, not the tab one was previously on. This behavior is annoying and inconsistent with other tabbed browsers such as Opera and Mozilla.

To clarify the behavior I will give an example. In the image above, a new tab is created while the first (left most) tab is selected. When the new tab is selected and removed, the selected tab is now the second tab instead of the first.

There are two potential solutions to this problem:

• When the tab closes, go to the tab which was previously selected, not the previous tab or…
• When a new tab is created, it should appear after the tab currently selected, not at the end,

I was looking at my access logs for my site and I noticed quite a few unusual requests for this:

http://www.scharlack.com/default.ida?XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX%25u9090%25u6858%25ucbd3%25u7801%25u909
0%25u6858%25ucbd3%25u7801%25u9090%25u6858%25ucbd3%25u780
1%25u9090%25u9090%25u8190%25u00c3%25u0003%25u8b00%25u531
b%25u53ff%25u0078%25u0000%25u00=a

I had seen this before but today I wondered exactly what it is. After quick google search I found the answer. It is code red.

Code red is a virus which affects Microsoft Windows servers running IIS. Not a problem since this site is hosted on a Linux computer running Apache. All the request would do to my site is generate a 404 error.

The site I linked to above suggested creating a file called ‘defualt.ida’ so you wouldn’t waste bandwidth serving a 404 error. I did just that by typing touch defult.ida at my site’s command line. However, for some reason, a request for http://www.scharlack.com/default.ida would redirect to http://www.scharlack.com/%3e meaning it is looking for a file named ‘>’. So I entered touch ‘>’ and I now have a blank file named ‘>’ on my site. No more 404, as you can see.

I was actually surprised at how many requests there were: a few a day. Quite a few Windows / IIS servers affected. I am glad I am using Linux and Apache. While that is a lot of servers, my bandwidth costs of the requests was fairly minimal and hardly needed all of that fixing.

I thought that with the Hiatus I took from blogging (I was busy, OK?) I would miss my chance to comment on this whole Santorum anti-gay comments thing but the issue is still generating some interesting discussion.

One of the things I am happiest with is the wedge it is driving between the libertarian and traditional values (i.e. christian right) wings of conservatives. The libertarians see this is, rightly in my opinion, less about homosexuality than about the right to do whatever you want in private, as long is it doesn’t harm anyone, without interference from the government. One of the core beliefs of many conservatives is that the government should be minimal and get out of people’s private lives.

From Andrew Sullivan:

The blog today is again devoted to the now-amplified comments of the third leading Republican in the Senate. I make no apologies for this. This is not about homosexuality as such. It is about the principles of limited government, tolerance, civility, compassion and the soul of the Republican party. There are no deeper political issues.

…I defended Bush and the party as best I could, even during the Bob Jones fiasco, Bush’s statement that the unsaved don’t get into heaven, and his mocking of Karla Tucker. However, the Trent Lott episode finally did me in. Of course Bush told him to step down, but clandestinely so. However, there has been no denunciation over Santorum’s remarks from the White House yet, nor will there be anytime soon. I know there are plenty of intelligent, open-minded people in the party, and that they’re fighting the good fight. However, I cannot, on principle, belong to a party that still has someone as high up as Santorum believing and saying the things he does. I refuse to support an organization that pursues American economic and military hegemony overseas in the name of freedom, but will not disown the most reactionary of social principles at home…

Of course as Dan Savage points out in his editorial for the New York Times (via Matthew Yglesias. Also how did I almost miss this? Dan Savage in the New York Times.):

Gay groups are trying to turn Senator Rick Santorum into the next Trent Lott. It’s not going to work. Mr. Lott lost his post as Senate majority leader because he said something he wasn’t supposed to. Mr. Santorum, who holds the No. 3 position in the Senate leadership, was only repeating what many Republicans have already said.

Those of us who actually follow politics on planet Earth, as opposed to politics in AndyLand, know what Bush’s view of homosexuality is. When asked about Texas’s sodomy law, which is limited to same-sex sodomy, Bush said “I think it’s a symbolic gesture of traditional values.”

As governor, “Bush supported a measure that banned gay couples from becoming foster parents or from adopting foster children.”

As Calpundit has been saying for some time, gay rights could be a very useful issue for the Democrats, exposing the most radical elements of the Republican party and alienating moderate and libertarian voters from the Republicans. I hope the issue remains about equal rights, privacy and government interference, not about gay marriage, which I strongly support but I imagine many moderates do not.

I couldn’t end this post without linking to this post by Radley Balko, which does a great job of showing the libertarian position on the issue and also is a good conclusion to this topic. I am a libertarian leaning lefty, not a real libertarian and certainly not a conservative, but I generally agree with the libertarian view of this issue: that the government should have no business regulating behavior between consenting adults.

In N.Z. Bear’s ecosystem I am ranked 1849 of 1853.

…

1847.Steve Goulet (0) details
1848.Mindbleed (0) details
1849.Jeremy Scharlack (0) details
1850.The Bitch Girls () details
1851.debitage () details
1852.Andrew's Blog () details
1853.Confessions of a G33k () details

I am at least the last one with a (0) mark. Looks like I need a few links.

Quoth our president:

“I’m confident the Syrian government has heard us,” Mr. Bush said. “And I believe it when they say they want to cooperate with us.”

…

“It seems like they’re beginning to get the message,” Mr. Bush said of Syria.

Also two Congressmen, Darrell Issa and Nick Rahall, have met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad

But Mr Issa said the Syrian president had given the congressmen a “twofold and absolute” assurance that Syria would not give asylum to any wanted Iraqis and would expel any that entered Syria, the Associated Press reported.

Mr Rahall said Mr Assad told them Syria had a list of wanted Iraqi war criminals not allowed into the country - a list longer than the one compiled by Washington.

“So, there’s no asylum being granted to any war criminals in Syria,” Mr Rahall was quoted as saying.

What worried me before were the very public threats directed at Syria by Bush and Rumsfeld about “consequences” if Syria was harboring Iraqi exiles or had chemical weapons. it looks like they are softening their public rhetoric and communicating more privately with Syrian officials through our congressmen. As Calpundit (who has a great new site) pointed out last week if we actually want Syria’s cooperation we shouldn’t make public accusations about them, we should negotiate with them more privately. We should only make public accusations to convince the American public and the world we need to take action against them. Being optimistic, I think I can write off the earlier bluster to the administration’s ignorance.

The first Iraqi newspaper published since the war hit the streets today and it is from the Iraqi Communitst party. It features a hammer and sickle and the headline “Collapse of a Dictato.”

I hope this is a sign that the U.S. will allow genuine freedom of expression in Iraq, even if it goes against American policy.

Heard on NPR’s weekend edition.

I find Google’s advertising scheme fascinating. I originally encountered it when I looked into it for two food stylists, who now both show up on . I would explain the procedure but I am sure Google can do a better job.

This guy used google ads to show various “poems” when someone searched for certian keywords. The ads were pulled since they were in clear violation of the Editoral Guidelines. However, he did have this interesting table showing what different keywords cost:

Traffic Estimator *
Keyword	Clicks / Day	Average Cost-Per-Click	Cost / Day
anal	390.0	$0.83	$319.90
art	800.0	$0.52	$409.67
bin laden	250.0	$0.10	$24.37
britney spears	490.0	$0.30	$144.20
capitalism	30.0	$0.10	$2.74
communism	2.1	$0.16	$0.33
death	92.0	$0.47	$42.66
dream	390.0	$0.17	$63.07
free	5700.0	$1.33	$7,569.23
freedom	5.1	$0.37	$1.88
gay	2200.0	$1.02	$2,239.56
hemorroid	0.5	$0.16	$0.08
language	650.0	$0.37	$237.30
lesbian	740.0	$0.80	$584.62
love	730.0	$1.74	$1,264.72
mankind	8.0	$0.59	$4.70
money	350.0	$0.81	$281.46
net art	0.9	$0.05	$0.05
self	80.0	$0.85	$67.72
sex	7500.0	$0.52	$3,836.79
suicide	18.0	$0.27	$4.72
symptom	23.0	$0.30	$6.83
Overall	20449.6	$0.84	$17,106.49

Very interesting. I like how “free” is the most expensive word. Via Trademark Blog.

A while ago people were criticizing Donald Rumsfeld for not sending enough troops to Iraq. At the time we were near Baghdad but our supply lines were stretched so thin that the troops furthest into Iraq weren’t getting enough food. The supply lines were also perceived as being vulnerable to attacks.

Then, of course, we marched into Baghdad with little resistance and quickly toppled Saddam’s regime. People said that the plan was fine all along and those of us who criticized it should eat our words. They said there were enough troops.

They were wrong.

We are inadequately prepared to deal with all of the looting that has happened. We have encouraged looting in Saddam’s palaces and Baath offices, but it has spread to hospitals, banks, stores, necessary municipal services, libraries and museums. It has quickly been followed by arson and vandalism. One can assume rape, murder and assault are also prevalent.

While the soldiers aren’t trained to be policemen especially in a foreign country, they do have the power to seriously reduce the looting and violence simply by their armed presence. That is if there are enough troops. Troops can also secure the area and allow badly needed humanitarian aid to enter.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden has an excellent post on this subject that goes into much more detail.

I was doing my taxes today (I filed for an extension). When I downloaded the instructions for a 1040 I found these graphs explaining how the government collects and spends your money:

I see reports on taxes and spending all the time and it is nice to see all the actual numbers. I am amazed how much we are spending paying down the debt (thanks Ronnie and now Bush). Also it seems social security can only get bigger as the baby boomers retire.

Mixed TV tonight.

 Buffy: Faith came back and the lead actor from Firefly (Nathan Fillon) guest starred. And exciting suspensful epsiode all around. They even let a few minor characters die and a major character got injured. I am glad Buffy finally got really good again.

 24: I loved this show last season, but what the hell is going on now? The country *has* to go to war in 3 hours? I know they “explained” that troops would die if they didn’t attack right away, but it still makes no sense. Even Bush, who has a hard on for war as much as anyone, waited a few days before attacking Afghanistan after 9/11. Also this stupid “palace coup” crap with the president has to stop. Although I guess the show is right that the President can be removed, at least temporarily, by his cabinet, or “the principal officers of the executive departments” (I thought they were mistaken at first), I don’t think they would remove him at 5 in the morning for failing to start a war within hours.

After seeing such depressing results from the LA Times poll last week, I have been looking for any news that wouldn’t make me lose faith in the American people.

Well the latest Times / CBS poll is less depressing. Everyone still loves Bush, and things don’t look too good for the Democrats. I was happy to see this, however:

But a majority remains opposed to a policy of pre-emptive attack like the one President Bush invoked in invading Iraq, and see the White House, emboldened by its success, as now likely to turn the nation’s military might on North Korea, Syria or Iran.

18. Which comes closer to your opinion about what the United States policy should be? The United States should not attack another country unless the U.S. is attacked first, OR the U.S. should be able to attack any country it thinks might attack the United States?

            U.S. should not attack    U.S. should attack       DK/NA
4/11-13/03            40                        47                13

19. Which comes closer to your opinion about what the United States policy should be after the war with Iraq? The United States should not attack another country unless the U.S. is attacked first, OR the U.S. should be able to attack any country it thinks might attack the United States?

      U.S. should not attack        U.S. should attack         DK/NA
4/11-13/03            51                        38                  11

Of course I couldn’t help noticing this:

54. Do you think Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon?

                  Yes        No         DK/NA
9/22-23/02         51        33          16
2/10-12/03         42        42          16                        
3/7-9/03           45        40          15
4/2-3/03 CBS       53        34          13
4/11-13/03         53        38           9

..is here, or via Software Update.

This is the second public beta release. The most notable improvement is tabbed browsing. I may never need to use Camino (the browser formally known as Chimera) again. Other improvements include forms autofill (haven’t tried it yet). It of course has some bugs fixed (I can check my webmail now Yea!), and renders a few things better.

The only notable problem I still have is that the <base> tag doesn’t work. I use this tag on this site I designed to simplify the backend.

Also if you are using PithHelmet (and I suggest you do to block ads), you should upgrade. You should anyway since PithHelmet has a much improved interface and better blocking rules.

Via Slashdot and MacSlash.

Dana (Shazam) Blake, 32, of Queens [the bouncer], was allegedly set upon by two Chinatown brothers after one of them refused to stop puffing inside Guernica on Avenue B, cops said.

While the smoking ban certainly didn’t “cause” this incident, it does demonstrate the kind of tensions that can erupt.

While I kind of like the idea of going out drinking without smelling like an ashtray, I am solidly opposed to the smoking ban here in NYC. I don’t smoke, but I feel that bar owners and patrons should be able to decide whether they want to smoke or not. I mean it’s a bar for crissake. You expect drunk people, loud music, dim lighting and cigarette smoke in a bar.

Update: So the smoking ban is dumb but this is far dumber:

Blake’s older brother, Tony Blake, said Sunday he blamed the death on the smoking ban. “I’m very bitter,” he said. “It’s a senseless murder because of this stupid cigarette law. That’s the reason this guy was killed.”

I talked earlier about HDTV and how it needed some content and a good way to deliver it other than broadcast if it is to catch on. Well it seems Microsoft has come up with an HD DVD. It uses their proprietary encoding, a version of the windows media player format. The new T2 “extreme edition” includes the movie in this format on a DVD. Microsoft has some samples which I can’t view because I don’t have a sufficiently fast windows machine. (The site is only available to users of windows internet explorer or those, such as myself, who know how to change their user agent to pretend to be windows internet explorer. The files are in self extracting archives in the .exe format, meaning they can only be opened on windows. I could probably open them on my slow windows machine and play them on my fast mac, but I am too lazy.)

This brings up a few issues I have with this new format. First off it is from Microsoft, always a bad sign given their track record with standard formats. For example they have intentionally confused the .doc MS word format to make it difficult for other programs or even earlier versions of word to read it.

Secondly it will most likely have copy protections and digital rights restrictions galore. It should be noted that DVDs already have quite a bit of copy protections themselves. However I am afraid that Hollywood and Microsoft will restrict this format so much that it will be difficult to make a DVD player that can play this media, making the market much less competitive and there fore more expensive.

I’d hate to have Microsoft in charge of the standard codec, instead of a consortium as with MPEG (video CD’s (MPEG-1), DVD’s (MPEG-2) and MPEG-4). First off I would hate to have to pay them royalties for every DVD player. Secondly they will probably screw it up.

I also worry that Microsoft will place so many restrictions on this coding, that independent and hobbyist film makers or even small commercial producers won’t be able to use it.

Well, it isn’t much yet. So far it can only be played on the awe inspiring 17” of your computer monitor with the lovely windows media player as a background.

Via Slashdot where there are way more interesting comments than the drivel I just posted.

…is here. In all of it’s 1000px by 540px glory (~100 MB Quicktime). Also available in less glorious 640 pixel (58 MB), 480 pixel (35 MB) and 320 pixel (17.4 MB) versions.

I haven’t been this excited about a movie in a while.

Via Slashdot.

At one of the palaces, half a dozen Syrian soldiers were found, one of them hiding in a refrigerator, military officials said. The Republican Guards responsible for the security of the palace had fled.

If this is true are we headed toward war with Syira? I am quite afraid of an esclating war. The paranoid in me fears an 1984 like endless war.

Via Tacitus.

There is an article in today’s NYT about how Hummer owners feel particularly proud since vehicles like theirs are being used in this war. GM’s sales of Hummers have also increased. Via Tom Tommorow who has this semi-relevant cartoon.

The article includes these inspiring quotes from Hummer owners:

They’re not out there in Audi A4’s,” he said of the troops. “I’m proud of my country, and I’m proud to be driving a product that is making a significant contribution.”

“If I could get an A1 Abrams, I would,” he added with a smile, referring to the tank,

Rick Schmidt, founder of I.H.O.G., the International Hummer Owners Group, said: “In my humble opinion, the H2 is an American icon. Not the military version by any means, but it’s a symbol of what we all hold so dearly above all else, the fact we have the freedom of choice, the freedom of happiness, the freedom of adventure and discovery, and the ultimate freedom of expression.”

“Those who deface a Hummer in words or deed,” he added, “deface the American flag and what it stands for.”

Well at least

Both the H1, which starts at $100,000 and is quite similar to the military Humvee, and the more baby-boomer-friendly H2, are so heavy they are not regulated by the same fuel economy rules that govern most cars and S.U.V.’s. They are also large enough to qualify for huge deductions for small business under loopholes in the tax code.

Look, I have nothing against people choosing a Hummer, and I even consider the Hummer stretch limo to be a brilliant statement of excess and uselessness. But they should be subject to the same regulations cars are, and people definitely shouldn’t be getting a tax break for them.

I am also disappointed in the H2. Hummers are supposed to be about excess and impracticality, like a beefier lamborghini. They should not be just another baby boomer SUV. Also, why is the vehicle yellow in all the ads? Yellow is the loser color for cars. The reason taxis are yellow is because they know no one else wants that color. I find it hard to take an SUV based on a military vehicle seriously when it is yellow.

And I am sure all this gas guzziling is really helping with our relations in the middle east. Thanks guys for doing your part for America.

So I get in my car this morning to go to an appointment in Westchester and I find this.

Yes some fuckhole broke my window. And it had to happen on a snowy, cold, wet day right after I had lost my hat.

Luckily I was able to move my appointment and I am now getting my car fixed.

You know what they ended up stealing too? My tire pressure gauge. Thats it. Quite a haul. I never leave anything valuable in the car for this very reason.

This happened to me twice when I just moved into this neighborhood, but it hadn’t happened for a while. They have never taken anything worth more than ~$4 (loose change), but it costs me ~$150 each time, plus all the wasted time getting the car to the auto glass place.

Fuckers.

It’s April 7th and its fucking snowing outside.

I normally love the snow, but this is a bit much. I am definitely not wearing my winter jacket, and there is no way that I am shoveling anything.

Who wouldn’t find this funny?

(Captured from nytimes.com this morning.)

Yes, I am 12.

Go read this entry, Images of a Kinder, Gentler War, from Body and Soul. (via Lean Left)

The post talks about how we are seeing images of the military helping civilians out and while this makes for great PR, it can often do more harm than good, particularly the way we are going about it now. I admit to knowing little about aid workers and this post was very informative.

Distributing aid is not a matter of showing up with boxes of food and handing it out to whatever grateful souls come along. Professional aid workers are experts at assessing needs. They get into a community and find out what is needed most – food, water, shelter, medicine – and take care of the most urgent needs first, not the needs that make the best pictures (a medical corpsman holding a child is inspiring, but what he’s doing doesn’t come close in importance to a team of engineers repairing a water treatment plant – as the Red Cross recently did, off camera, near Basra – which might save thousands of lives by preventing a cholera outbreak.) Professionals know how to get aid to the people who need it the most.

There is a very interesting article in today’s New York Times Magazine about reformers in Iran. It is appropriately titled “The Millimeter Revolution” since it indicates that change will be gradual. After reading it I have come to this conclusion:

We should absolutely not attack Iran.

Unfortunately the grand plan of the neocon hawks who are guiding this administration seems to include fighting Iran. Although Blair and Powell have both said there are no plans to take the war beyond Iraq, Rumsfeld has issued some pretty stern warnings against Iran and Syria. Also according to this L.A. Times Poll 50% of the people polled believe we should attack Iran if Iranians continue to develop nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction (there are other depressing results of the poll).

I should probably point out that although we do not have very friendly relations with Iran, they have not attacked us and have no plans to.

When countries are attacked, the people tend to rally around their leaders despite their differences. They also have more tolerance for their government cracking down on dissidents. This plainly happened after the US was attacked on 9/11 – we rallied around our president (even I supported his attack on Afghanistan) and provided the justice department with tools such as the patriot act. Iran’s government also cracked harshly down on dissent in its early years during a war with Iraq.

Attacking Iran will only cause it to become more conservative and anti-American. We already changed the regime in Iran when we installed the Shah in the fifties. Years of that brutal rule led to the revolution in the late seventies.

What can we do?

We can allow Iranians to come to this country freely. There is already a sizable immigrant community here. Many are helping Iranians in Iran by broadcasting messages from the US that they wouldn’t be able to get in Iran. We can also normalize relations with Iran as it becomes more democratic and fair, using a carrot instead of stick to help Iran reform. We also have to be patient. The article wasn’t called the Millimeter Revolution for no reason.

this. Via Radley Balko.