I'm pleased to see that many of you readers know how to behave when given clear instructions. My rating at Is My Blog Hot or Not is creeping up respectably.

A reader of Ron's Log ventures to explain that as blog readers you all have no lives — or at least no lives more interesting than mine. Makes perfect sense to me, but I'm sorry I hadn't noticed that starved-for-entertainment voyeuristic hunger look on your blog-fed faces until just now. I will try to feed you better.

Some day I've got to tell you about the guest with the 3-legged rim chair. Some day.

Research proceeds on a data storage system that could record up to 97.5 trillion (97,500,000,000,000) bytes per square "inch" (6.45 cm² or 15,112,530,000,000 bytes/cm²). I think that's equivalent to more than 21,000 CDs per cm². Or in the usual parlance: 6,300,000 "songs" (by Britney Spears, I guess — so she will have to get workin' now). I expect to see it used first in the iPod. The new iPod will be worn as one earplug with a single wire connecting it to the other earplug. It will store "500,000 songs". It will cost $999.95. To operate it, you insert it in your ear and flex various jaw muscles, grind certain teeth, and wince. Calibration by a dentist will be included in the purchase price. A new social phenomenon will emerge: iPod listeners whose faces are strangely unresponsive to the social situation after having suddenly boosted the volume when smiling or switched into a Sousa march when oggling.

Bloghop

Bruce Sterling rambles on about the evils of Microsoft monopoly and more. He has one tiny dig-ette at Apple.

• "I took the further trouble to install System X, and I backed up everything of course, but I still don't get it about System X quite frankly, and neither does System X. It never knows what it's running. There are chunks of Microsoft code in there like giant lumps of black putty just lying to you about what they are doing on the Internet. It's like trying to wade through drilling mud running this thing. It steers itself by committee."
• "It blows my mind that these VC guys, who spent 20 years blathering about Ayn Rand capitalism, don't just admit that they live and work in a stagnant monopoly."
• "It amazes me that the grocery boys in Silicon Valley don't just kick them unconscious and take their sports cars."
• "I thought that there needed to be some kind of political and legal solution. Like building a galvanized steel cage in Cuba and throwing all the spammers and virus writers in there as unlawful combatants who are clear and present deadly enemies of humanity.
  Audience: YAAAY!!! (Applause)"

Gay Brazilian man's weblog. Who could say no? Certainly not me.

Make yourself miserable. Read this blog by a whiny bitchy woman in New York who hates everything, including New York. She improves the world in ways like this: "I have decided it is easier to walk my dog across the street and let him shit in the cemetary on peoples' graves than it is to let him shit in my yard and have to clean it up."

This might be just disgusting. Might be. But not. Practice your aim.

Here's a letter to the editor that appeared in today's Boston Globe:

Keep a close eye on this man

IN RECENT weeks I have read your coverage of President Bush's plans to enlist millions of Americans to spy on their fellow citizens and to feed that information to a centralized database. Contrary to what your columnists have argued, I believe that much important information can be gathered through the TIPS program.

Please consider this as the first entry into the database. I have observed potentially alarming conduct on the part of the president:

Just weeks before Sept. 11, Bush traveled to Germany for the first time in his life. From there he traveled to Russia. Germany is where a number of the Sept. 11 hijackers planned their attack on the United States. In 1975, Bush spent six weeks ostensibly visiting his parents in Communist China. In 2000, Bush spent months crisscrossing the country in an unmarked plane, often staying just one night, without his family, in cheap motels in places like Manchester, N.H. and Iowa City.

During one of the presidential debates, Bush announced that he did not trust the federal government. A few weeks after Sept. 11, Bush hosted a dinner at the White House for representatives of 53 Muslim countries to mark the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

I understand that things are often not what they seem, but we cannot be too careful. We should keep a close eye on this man.

SIGMUND J. ROOS

Here's a good weblog from Springfield, Massachusetts, of all the godforsaken places. The guy is straight, but hey, he's got a gay friend!

It has come to my attention that my regular readers are not bothering to go to Is My Blog Hot or Not to give me 9s and 10s. If you don't think my blog is only a paltry 8 or pitiful 7, then you are morally obligated to write me and

• tell me what dull, uninteresting crap I should drop
• or send me an embarrassing juicy story about yourself that hasn't already circulated all over the net

Theme Thursday

The current version of Lord Of The Rings (FOTR) is, of course, not the one you want to buy. You want to wait for the extended version that's coming out later in the year, the one with MORE scenes, maybe even the rumored full frontal nudity.

This is amazing: a dot-com shoe resoling outfit! Shoe resoling has been a gradually declining business in this country. Imagine trying to make a profit at it over the web. And yet, there's that resole.com site, obviously sitting there and trying to do something.

GSSM: Gay-Seeming Straight Males. It's tough for them — rejected by women because, ya know, they're straight men — rejected by gay men because although they seem superficially nice, they still can't decorate.

There is a site called submitcorner.com that purports to help people promote their websites in search engines. In their Search Engine Guide here's part of what they have to say about Google:

Google is a new contender in the search engine market and is making itself known with its very powerful and accurate search results. Google's database may be smaller than some of the large search engines, but the quality of the results make up for it.

At least they provide this information at an appropriate price: it's all free.

This caps it. Everybody in DC except Colin Powell is a raving lunatic, and the nuttiest are in the Department of Justice. Beginning of referenced Salon article here. Has anyone considered the possibility that someone is dumping hallucinogens into the water consumed by Bush and his minions?

::Dinner tonight at Bangkok City

New layout. Opinion?

Nice Boston boy.

Satellite view of the pyramids (3 mb)

Read the real truth about Massachusetts drivers as viewed by other Massachusetts drivers.

Davey and Goliath to make a comeback! The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is working on 26 new episodes. As a kid I found that program to be supremely irritating, but I do like the Mountain Dew ad.

Tons of good stuff to read at The Jon-Jon Diaries. No, really! Very good stuff!

Circular Logic does the Pallotta 3-day in New York, but does he say anywhere if it's the one for breast cancer or the one for AIDS?

The price of a Minolta Dimage X is down to $350 at Amazon. And the price of the 128 mb card is down to $65.

This year's Pallotta Canada-US AIDS Vaccine Ride canceled due to low registration (1,200 registered versus a goal of 2,800). In previous years this had been the only vaccine ride to actually make money.

Jane's has a bit more info about this anti-grav business at Boeing.

Melanotan - a drug under development now:

1. it gives you a tan (the original intention of the developers)
2. works against erectile dysfunction, but unlike Viagra, it works on the CNS, so females can use it too
3. suppresses appetite

Other possible benefits:

• reduce inflammation
• combat diabetes
• eradicate acne

Too late to invest?

"Smart mobs"

I made the serious mistake of getting Deep Impact from Netflix. If DI is not the worst film ever made…well, I just don't want to know what's worse. The only bright spot was that it made Mission Impossible 2 (which I had just viewed previous to DI) look moderately entertaining and sensible. The only reason I got DI was that people had said it was better than Armageddon, which I found stupid, but moderately entertaining. DI, OTOH, is brain dead and not in the least entertaining. We hung in there just to see how they did the one comet splashdown. That was nice. Too bad it didn't wipe out the film crew. My first clue that things were seriously wrong in DI came when the President described the comet as "The size of New York City — from the northern edge of Central Park to The Battery." Okay, that would be the New York City most likely seen by tourists, the whiter end of Manhattan. The President really should have taken a walk through Queens before it got washed away. Other things: space flight in feet and miles; approaching the comet along its tail to maximize damage; exploding the nuclear weapons while the ship is still within their range; the tails of the comets are always "behind" the head rather than opposite the sun; the President getting on TV to be the narrator and general scientist for our movie audience; the absolutely stoic calm with which the public receives the news of the disaster; the man in Washington Square reading a newspaper as the tsunami washes up Manhattan (well, maybe he was deaf and drunk); this baseless antagonism between the reporter and her father because he remarried after divorcing the reporter's mother (all resolved when they stand on the shore to be squashed). Stupid science. No interesting story lines.

"The last time I was forced to reboot my Macintosh was eight months ago, and it was my fault that it crashed." I think this may highlight an important difference between Mac and PC users: Mac users are pleased if they can feel guilty when their computers malfunction. PC users, OTOH, get to maintain their self-respect by blaming it all on an evil corporate empire. Unix users probably don't assign blame or guilt, they just regard it as an error to be fixed.

Is this some kind of variation on bondage?

If you're looking for leftist blogs, go here, where they cover everybody from "centrist liberals to socialist wingers." I see BoingBoing is on the list. I hadn't noticed substantial political content there.

Stupid idea of the day.

"Faze" writes in Metafilter comments regarding yesterday's MBTA commuter train that followed its regular schedule even though a passenger aboard was dying from a heart attack:

I understand that something like this happened back in the early 1960s, when the BMTA was known simply as teh MTA. A man, whose first name was (as I recall) Charles, boarded a train at Kendall Square Station, where he handed in what was then the 10 cent fare. Then he changed for Jamaica Plain. There, the conductor told him that because of a recent change in the fare policy, he need to pay an extra five cents. Charles, unfortunately, had only brought a dime. As a result, he was unable to get off the train. At the time, it was widely believed that he never returned, and as far as the latest Google and Nexis searches can tell me, his fate is still unlearned. The most recent available quote from Charles indicated his dismay at being unable to see his sister in Chelsea or his cousin in Roxbury. I'm simply tell you this to let you know that the insensitivity of the BMTA is not a recent thing. They've been like this for years.

For those of you who don't get it, go here for the original. This is, by the way, the official Boston municipal anthem.

The news story is here, if you haven't already seen it.

The most disgusting product on the market! Take these pills and in 7 to 28 days "your semen will change from an unpleasant salty flavor to a delicious apple flavor." Jeezus! If I wanted apple flavor I could just pick up a bottle of juice.

BART train runs to SFO. I'm amazed! When I was there just a month ago, the Caltrain ran alongside the BART construction and some of it looked very incomplete (like just bare dirt, no tracks or nuthin'). Either I was wrong, or BART doesn't need tracks anymore. The photo to the right is Millbrae station, I think.

Fuji announces XD-Picture card. The 128 mb card will be only $90.

Pee-mail

Boeing experimenting with anti-gravity.

ALL of the NY Times has been digitized. 3.4 million paper pages in only 4 terabytes!

In September Michel Fournier will skydive from a height of 40,000 meters. The previous record is 31,333 meters. Fournier will experience temperatures as low as -110 degrees Celsius and speeds of up to 900 mph (yes, supersonic). The greatest risk is going into a spin before going supersonic.

Dictionary of Bureaucratese

::360 degree panorama of San Francisco on a clear day! (673 kb)

31.25 %

My weblog owns 31.25 % of me.
Does your weblog own you?

Timothy Wilken begins to solve the fossil fuel depletion crisis by packing an entire gas bag of hot air into a very compressed 32 paragraphs. No meaningful verbs or nouns were destroyed in the process of this earth-saving compression.

Funeral Depot: "Where Overpaying Is Not Dignified^®"

And then there's Funeral-Cast.com, a service that lists webcasts of funerals (using Realplayer).

In Joliet, cremation ashes are recovered from a car seized for unpaid tickets.

Software that says it will recover images from your camera's digital media. If you try it, let me know how well it does.

Three ways to go to a random blog:

• One
• Two
• Three

• The Texas Capitol in Austin - 3D image requiring crossed eyes to view.
• 3D image in Carlsbad Caverns

Iran is considering state-sanctioned prostitution.

Scientists discover that a separate network of nerves in hairy skin surfaces (e.g., not the palm of my hand) responds to hugs and caresses.

::Sculpture at DeCordova Museum
::The grave stone of Captain Sampson Waters in the Dorchester North cemetery, 1693 (364 kb)
::Green Line construction (not Big Dig) (421 kb)
::Another view of the same Green Line construction

::Here I am with a couple of friends at a picnic last week

::A closer panorama of the new convention center
::An even closer, end-on view of the convention center
::A close view of a vent on the Big Dig in South Boston
::A view from the World Trade Center towards the downtown skyline, with some Big Dig action, too
::Quincy Market last fall

Went to see the latest Star Wars flick tonight. A time waste, but it was the first time I've been to a digitally projected movie (yes, I do live under a rock). My opinion on that: also a waste. Very pixelated. I'm giving it a couple of years before I spend any money on a digital movie. I don't understand why they're doing it if the quality doesn't even match that of the cheapest film.

::The new World Trade Center station on the Silver Line

::Panoramic view from the rebuilt Summer Street of the convention center, a vent for the Big Dig, and the hotels in South Boston (207 kb)
::Panorama of the new convention center and some of the Big Dig construction in the area (336 kb)
::The Hatch Shell just before the July 4 festivities
::Panorama along the Charles River from the BU Bridge to Harvard Bridge, viewed from the Boston side (249 kb)
::Grave stone of Mrs Ann Barbara Bender in the Granary Burial Ground, 1794

Headline in today's Metro:


Obviously they meant to write "mo' darn art!"

London paramedics are using bicycles this summer. They get to the scene before the motorized ambulance 88% of the time.

Bike the Pasadena Freeway — or walk it. Sometime next year, I think. They aren't specific.

Phil Liggett owns and rides a Bike Friday! "And who is Phil Liggett?" some of you may be asking. Well, on this page Phil is accurately described as "the most popular English speaking cycling commentator in the world" He's famous for his "Liggettisms." For example:

• And Ulrich looks behind him, goodness knows why, because the whole of the Tour de France is in front of him.
• Jalabert looks over his shoulder and -- ho ho, he does a double take! I don't think he expected to look back and see the yellow jersey!
• The peloton is riding like scalded cats.
• He looks between his legs and sees…nobody there!
• The Tour chooses its champions where the mountains bear the snows of winter.

In Savannah, Georgia, this hair is somehow perceived as a barrier to justice. The dress code at the Chatham County Court also requires women employees to wear pantyhose at all times — but it doesn't forbid pants on women.

Is my Blog HOT or NOT? You tell me!

This one is: Fire Truck Diary

Let this be a warning to all overly adventurous boys: "Boy's Penis Stitched Back After Donkey Bite"

Smoke pot and stay out of jail.

You may have missed your chance to buy the Brooklyn Bridge!

My thanks to Michael C. for bringing to my attention this article about Greenspan and Ayn Rand. If you can't find it at the NY Times, try here.

"how can we trust our government to spot terrorists when it thinks that glow sticks are items of 'drug paraphernalia?'" Good question.

Spending on library construction is up, the number of items checked out is up, the shortage of librarians is worse, and some people think the internet is a key element in this growth.

Here's Lance showing us his Prince Albert! He's got a fairly comfortable 5 minute lead now.


And here's Bobby Julich showing us a classic biker tan.

Violence Man in "Company Picnic"

Mysterious predators appear in Central Park, NYC.

Some theory on stitching panoramic photographs. Hey, when they sell the idiot software to let me do good stuff like this, I'll buy it.

• The Panoramic Network
• Panoramic Photography Yahoo Group
• Panoguide.com
• The SLiVR digital panoramic camera - takes all the work out of it. Nikon mount. Basic system (no lens) starts at $9500.
• Good gallery of panoramas here
• Pano of the Pentagon sometime after September 11
• 360º from the top of the Marriott Custom House in Boston

I took that chart from the National Safety Council and sorted it from most likely to least likely cause of death (over a lifetime), and cleaned it up a bit. Here are the results:

Type of Accident or Manner of Injury	One year odds	Lifetime Odds
TOTAL DEATHS DUE TO INJURIES	1,796	23
All Accidental Deaths	2,762	36
Firearms	855,215	50
Transport Accidents	5,904	77
Motor-vehicle	6,212	81
All Suicide Deaths	8,839	115
All Homicide Deaths	15,104	197
Firearms	15,510	202
Falls	16,606	217
Other accidents	17,103	223
Assault by firearm	22,906	299
Other and unspecified firearm	25,184	328
Poisoning by solids and liquids	26,353	344
Other and unspecified firearm	27,400	357
Drugs, medicaments and biologicals	27,470	358
Other and unspecified fall	32,654	426
Hanging, strangulation, and suffocation	47,197	615
Other drugs	58,130	758
Drowning, submersion (excluding water transport drownings above)	68,176	889
Undetermined Whether Accidentally or Purposely Inflicted	72,143	941
Fracture, cause unspecified	73,457	958
Handgun	76,320	995
Poisoning by solid and liquid	80,767	1,053
Radiation, E926 - Other and unspecified	82,924	1,081
Fire and flames	83,025	1,082
Complications, misadventures of surgical, medical care	83,720	1,092
Other, unspecified assault and late effects	85,711	1,117
Analgesics, antipyretics, and antirheumatics	86,039	1,122
Other, unspecified drowning, submersion	91,859	1,198
Conflagration	100,576	1,311
Inhalation and ingestion of other object	114,125	1,488
Poisoning by solid and liquid	114,950	1,499
Shotgun	117,346	1,530
Assault by cutting and piercing instrument	129,491	1,688
Poisoning by gases and vapors	156,575	2,041
Other drugs acting on central and autonomic nervous system	175,486	2,288
Natural and environmental factors	177,678	2,317
Fall on or from stairs or steps	194,563	2,537
Motor-vehicle exhaust gas	203,347	2,651
Other fall from one level to another	227,673	2,968
Inhalation and ingestion of food	235,613	3,072
Mechanical suffocation	252,568	3,293
Handgun	258,117	3,365
Machinery	265,470	3,461
Late effects (deaths more than one year after accident)	298,617	3,893
Other, unspecified suicide and late effects	306,751	3,999
Firearm missile	312,065	4,069
Hunting rifle	318,313	4,150
Other, unspecified undetermined deaths and late effects	361,294	4,710
Shotgun	361,778	4,717
Fall on same level from slipping, tripping, or stumbling	365,200	4,761
Other and unspecified mechanical suffocation	371,220	4,840
Struck by falling object	373,787	4,873
Water transport	390,532	5,092
Air and space transport	390,532	5,092
During sport or recreation	394,523	5,144
Assault by hanging and strangulation	408,847	5,330
Jumping from high places	435,182	5,674
Other and unspecified firearm missile	458,825	5,982
Agricultural machines	476,628	6,214
Fall from or out of building or other structure	491,360	6,406
Electric current	493,153	6,430
Poisoning by gases and vapors	494,960	6,453
Railway	524,753	6,842
Cutting and piercing instruments	567,748	7,402
Other utility gas and other carbon monoxide	608,667	7,936
Drowning (excluded from drowning below)	611,421	7,972
Excessive cold	643,448	8,389
Poisoning by other solids and liquids	648,077	8,450
Other and unspecified gases and vapors	680,725	8,875
Legal Intervention	713,055	9,297
Excessive heat	720,661	9,396
Drowning	720,661	9,396
Fall on or from ladders or scaffolding	767,750	10,010
Other and unspecified fire and flames	790,199	10,302
In bathtub	801,923	10,455
Struck against or by objects or persons	804,310	10,486
Other psychotropic agents	809,126	10,549
Other and unspecified electric current	849,836	11,080
Alcohol	900,827	11,745
Adverse effects of drugs in therapeutic use	979,159	12,766
Other, unspecified machinery	1,047,473	13,657
Others, not motor-vehicle exhaust gas	1,063,969	13,872
Hunger, thirst, exposure, and neglect	1,072,413	13,982
Other water transport	1,080,992	14,094
Drowning	1,085,333	14,150
In bed or cradle	1,094,121	14,265
Other road vehicle	1,149,991	14,993
Cataclysmic storms, and floods resulting from storms	1,324,745	17,272
Child battering and other maltreatment	1,393,031	18,162
Motor-vehicle exhaust gas	1,422,358	18,544
Ignition of clothing	1,580,398	20,605
Explosive material	1,743,535	22,732
Generating plants, distribution stations, transmission lines	1,876,722	24,468
Hunting rifle	1,916,652	24,989
Handgun	1,930,343	25,167
Vehicle accidents not elsewhere classifiable	1,944,230	25,349
Cutting or piercing instruments or objects	2,233,455	29,119
Caught in or between objects	2,290,237	29,860
Lifting machines and appliances	2,370,596	30,907
Hot substance or object, corrosive material and steam	2,502,296	32,624
Tranquilizers	2,525,682	32,929
Fall into hole or other opening in surface	2,844,716	37,089
Other injury caused by animals	2,905,892	37,886
Other gases and vapors	3,106,299	40,499
Shotgun (automatic)	3,106,299	40,499
Other and unspecified explosive material	3,295,707	42,969
Poisoning by gases and vapors	3,295,707	42,969
Earth moving, scraping, and other excavating machines	3,420,861	44,601
Other and unspecified injury by animal	3,464,718	45,172
Poisoning by and toxic reaction to venomous animals, plants	4,222,625	55,054
Lightning	4,289,651	55,928
Explosive gases	4,504,133	58,724
Domestic wiring and appliances	4,580,475	59,719
Ignition of highly inflammable material	4,913,600	64,063
By falling earth (noncataclysmic cave-in)	4,913,600	64,063
Other and unspecified solids and liquids	5,004,593	65,249
Hunting rifle	5,404,960	70,469
Hornets, wasps, and bees	5,874,957	76,597
Motor-vehicle exhaust gas	6,434,476	83,891
Other and unspecified gases and vapors	6,756,200	88,086
Antibiotics	6,929,436	90,345
Petroleum products, other solvents and their vapors	7,304,000	95,228
By plastic bag	10,009,185	130,498
Industrial wiring, appliances, and electrical machinery	10,009,185	130,498
Other natural and environmental factors	10,394,154	135,517
Cataclysmic earth surface movements and eruptions	11,260,333	146,810
Deaths From Operations of War	15,896,941	207,261
Barbiturates	16,890,500	220,215
Gas distributed by pipeline	18,016,533	234,896
Dog bite	18,016,533	234,896
Other and unspecified animals, plants	20,788,308	271,034
Due to lack of air (in refrigerator, other enclosed space)	20,788,308	271,034
Fireworks	20,788,308	271,034
Cleansing, polishing agents, disinfectants, paints, varnishes	27,024,800	352,344
Other sedatives and hypnotics	33,781,000	440,430
Agricultural, horticultural chemical, pharmaceutical preparations	33,781,000	440,430
Fall on same level from collision, pushing, or shoving	45,041,333	587,240
Corrosives and caustics	54,049,600	704,688
Venomous snakes, lizards, and spiders	54,049,600	704,688
Anti-infectives	67,562,000	880,860
Foodstuffs and poisonous plants	90,082,667	1,174,481

People's Republic of China working on a Linux-based OS with functionality similar to Windows 98. "The monopoly of foreign office software over the Chinese market will be broken." Called Yangfan 1.0, I think we can safely assume it will be packed with hooks to allow the all-benevolent People's Republic to be able to monitor all computer uses to the finest degree.

At the University of Missouri at Rolla in southern Missouri, Professor Oliver Manuel theorizes that the sun was formed in the aftermath of a supernova and that it is made up mostly of iron, not the standard hydrogen and helium combination that we are so familiar with. Scoffing is heard. Here is his own web page.

Not sure here if Rush Limbaugh is criticizing Apple for "their politics" (I don't know what they are) or because "Jobs is a big, Clinton-loving Democrat" (is Jobs overweight?) or (much more likely) because Apple refuses to advertise on the "EIB Network" (I've no idea what that is, either). On the other hand, Limbaugh has nice things to say about Apple products, which is probably bad news for Apple. [Translation: "System 10" is OS X]

Finally, here is a news story about a religious organization other than the Roman Catholic church that is involved in a systematic coverup of sexual abuse of children: the jaydubs. But the Jehovah Witness coverup extends to more than the clergy, according to the article.

A 54-year old Des Moines nursing home resident with lung disease rolled outside in his wheelchair with an oxygen tank strapped to the back one fine morning this week to light up a cigarette. It was his last.

"I believe homosexuals (including lesbians and bisexuals) as well as people with fetishes, ought to be put in mental hospitals." That's just the very tip of this guy's hilarious iceberg. For instance: "Fags can be heard chanting 'TEN PERCENT IS NOT ENOUGH, RECRUIT, RECRUIT, RECRUIT' in their fag parades." He also wants to ban jeans.

Very fun anti-government fix here.

Your chances of dying from… courtesy of the National Safety Council.