Nice lecture. Isn't the usual "use tables for layout stupid" and "Structure should be seperated from content" rant. This site actually shows you how to break an existing webpage down to its basic structure and built it back up with CSS, DIVs, and more.

I've been working today on using some Javascript to make the Recommendation page have more, but hidden, options. Inserting this into a page that uses tables for layouts is a bitch.

-Memestreams includes CSS defined inline with each page.
-Memestreams uses Tables instead of DIVs for layout. The main page is over 30k, most of it table formatting. I know Tom has a good Co-Lo deal, but the bandwidth savings here will help Memestreams users.

Why tables for layout is stupid: problems defined, solutions offered

Fans of the cult-hit series Firefly will be pleased to learn that the show has been picked up by the Sci Fi Channel--just two months before the release of Serenity, a Universal Pictures film based on the series.

SciFi picked up the rights to show the 1st season of Firefly, including the 3 unaired episodes. They also will be showing them in order.

This move scares me. With the movie coming out in 2 months, you'd think Fox would adopt a "wait and see" attitude about the show. Why are they selling rights to a show that could get very popular? If they had any plans to restart the show after the movie, you'd think they'd want to keep the 1st season.

Not that this is the first time Fox has done something silly. Family Guy is currently showing on 3 different networks spanning 2 major studios: reruns are shown on Cartoon Network and TBS (owned by Time Warner), and reruns/new episodes are shown on Fox.

Firefly picked up by SciFi Channel

[ This wouldn't have anything to do with advanced remote package delivery systems, would it? -k]

News Flash:
Most Significant Bit Labs retracts its statement yesterday regarding its interest in remote package delivery systems. This was made in junior officer who didn't fully understand the situation. The actual project is the development of high altitude weather balloons. We at MSB Labs understand how these 2 systems look very similar, and how this error was made.

Allow us to state categorically that MSB Labs has no interest in package delivery systems, especially advanced or remotely controlled package delivery systems.

Thank you for your time

Package System rumors are completely false!

The AMIS protocol was designed in the late 80s early 90s to allow Voice mail systems of different vendors to automatically transmit voice mail messages to each other.

It uses DTMF tones to communicate back and forth, establishing who the voice message is for, where it is coming from, and for the destination system to specify if the mailbox is full, to provide a forwarding number, etc. The use of timeouts, checksums and acknowledgements make this a reliable protocol, with a variable payload length. The analog voice message itself is not digitized, and is played real time. A sample session looks like:

-A dials B
-Using DTMF tones, A and B agree on a protocol.
-A tells B for the message is for, who it is from
-B confirms information is correct and mailbox is available
-A plays voice message "Hi Billy, this is Jill..."
-A signals message is over
-System gracefully terminate.

While I don't really care about forwarding voice mail, the use of DTMF tones to create a reliable datalink layer is something I was trying to do. A pair of FSR radios, some DTMF chips and some PICs and I have a reliable, low speed (~45bps) data communcations with around a mile range for under $50. This is far more flexible then the model airplane remote controls that cost over $75.

Cisco has some info on it too.

AMIS: DTMF Data Link (kind of) [ZIP]

OAK RIDGE, Tennessee (AP) -- The government is offering a rare glimpse of the massive machines used to enrich uranium for the "Little Boy" bomb -- the first atomic weapon used in war, dropped 60 years ago in August on Hiroshima, Japan.

"Don't you know the people in Knoxville wondered what in the world was going on out here," Department of Energy guide Ray Smith said Monday. "All this material was coming in, truckload after truckload, and nothing ever left."

For the first time, the public will be allowed to see the old calutron machines -- devices used for separating out fissionable uranium for reactor fuel or bombs -- in tours this weekend as part of Oak Ridge's annual Secret City Festival.

The tours quickly filled in advance with more than 600 people signing up.

Hmmm. I'm thinking I'll take a side trip on my way back from Phreaknic this year. Talk about delivering the package.

Oakridge TN, Nuke factory tours

Kevin Kelleher suggested an interesting way to compare programming languages: to describe each in terms of the problem it fixes. The surprising thing is how many, and how well, languages can be described this way.

Some of my favorites

Fortran: Assembly language is too low-level.

Cobol: Fortran is scary.

Basic: Fortran is scary.

C: Assemby language is too low-level.

C++: C is too low-level.

Java: C++ is a kludge. And Microsoft is going to crush us.

C#: Java is controlled by Sun.

Perl: Shell scripts/awk/sed are not enough like programming languages.

Python: Perl is a kludge.

Paul Graham: What Languages Fix

Southern Command said the inquiry had found five cases of "mishandling" of a Koran by US personnel, but no evidence it had ever been flushed down a toilet.

In the incident involving urine, which took place in March, Southern Command said a guard left his post and urinated near an air vent and "the wind blew his urine through the vent" and into a cell block.

It said a detainee told guards the urine "splashed on him and his Koran." The statement said the detainee was given a new prison uniform and Koran, and that the guard was reprimanded and given duty in which he had no contact with prisoners.

Southern Command said a civilian contractor interrogator, who was later fired, apologised in July 2003 to a detainee for stepping on his Koran.

In August 2003, prisoners' Korans became wet when night-shift guards threw water balloons in a cell block, the statement said. In February 2002, guards kicked a prisoner's Koran, it added.

In the fifth "confirmed incident" of mishandling a Koran, Southern Command said a prisoner in August 2003 complained that "a two-word obscenity" had been written in English in his Koran.

Southern Command said it was "possible" a guard had written the words but "equally possible" the prisoner himself had done but they did not offer any explanation of his possible motive.

Pentagon: Koran was 'mishandled' at Guantanamo

"Wasn't it in the best interest of our country to give women the right to vote?" Furtado asked the senator.

"Not necessarily so," O'Connor said.

Although she does vote, O'Connor said in two subsequent interviews with The Kansas City Star that if men had been protecting the best interests of women, then women would not be forced to cast ballots and serve in the state legislature. Instead, they could stay home, raise families and tend to domestic duties, she said.

Asked if she supports the 19th Amendment, the Republican lawmaker responded: "I'm an old-fashioned woman. Men should take care of women, and if men were taking care of women (today) we wouldn't have to vote.

"I'm sorry women have not been taken more care of," she said. "We have gotten the short end of the stick."

... Damn.

Female Kansas Senator: Women shouldn't have to vote

Acidus gives Elonka a run for the money. Way to go Acidus!
How scary. And how refreshing.

Make, a new quarterly put out by O'Reilly Media, is a throwback to an earlier time, before personal computers, to the prehistory of geekiness - the age of how-to manuals for clever boys, from the 1920's to the 50's.

The technology has changed, but not the creative impulse. Make's first issue, out in February, explained how to take aerial photographs with a kite, a disposable camera and a rig of Popsicle sticks, rubber bands and Silly Putty. It also showed how to build a video-camera stabilizer - a Steadicam, basically - with $14 worth of steel pipes, bolts and washers; how to boost a laptop computer's Wi-Fi signal with foil from an Indian take-out restaurant; and how to read credit card magnetic stripes with a device made with mail-order parts and a glue gun.

Congratulations to Acidus on being the first MemeStreams user to make the New York Times op-ed page. And on a Sunday, no less! (14:59, 14:58, 14:57, ...)

Too many projects, to little time, and believe me I do want to push something out the door before the egg timer goes off. There is one project that has special meaning for me, and the timeline is rather fixed...

A New Magazine's Rebellious Credo: Void the Warranty!

State evidence showed the men spent the night before their flight at a bar where their receipt shows a $142 tab for about a half dozen people. The amount covered food and the equivalent of 30 beers. About six hours later, the men went through the airport security checkpoint on the way to their flight.

Those low cost carriers have to cut costs somewhere. Apparently that means pilots with integrity

CNN.com - Pilots convicted of operating plane while drunk