] The decomposing remains of a 60-tonsperm whale exploded
] on a busy Taiwan street, showering nearby cars and shops
] with blood and organs and stopping traffic for hours,
] local newspapers said.

[ ick.

Does anyone else remember that video that was cycling the net, oh, i guess about 5 or 6 years ago, where a beached whale had died and they chose to try and "blast" it off the beach? Pieces of decaying blubber were raining down on the cameraman and busting up cars and shit. Man was that funny. ]-k

Random picture of the day - Whale Exploded

3. “Whatever” and “Same as last week” are perfectly acceptable status reports.
2. All technical issues resolved by saying “Well, it works on my PC.”

[ those are the best... it's just so easy to visualize.
PHB :"Hows that project coming, bill?"
Bill :"Whatever."
If only. ]-k

BB Spot | Top 11 Things That Would Happen If Software Engineers Ruled The World

] IEI is busily transforming all of its advanced neural
] network paradigms into TCP/IP based systems. The overall
] intent is to convert many, if not all, of the TCP/IP
] nodes on the Internet into functioning neurons. The
] resulting freethinking entity will be capable of
] introspecting upon all human-originated content residing
] on the Internet and World Wide Web, and from that
] knowledge store creating new ideas and strategies that
] will inevitably transform our thinking and our planet. As
] this World Brain accumulates new knowledge, it will begin
] to create a "SuperNet" above the Internet, vastly
] overshadowing the present content stored there.
]
] This coming World Brain will not be accessed via search
] engines. We will simply ask it to introspect on the
] information we, as humans, seek.

Imagination Engines, Inc. (Stephen Thaler) is not shy about
proclaiming the potential of this technology.

IEI's World Brain Project

] Dave had some surprises up his sleeve as well. You'll
] remember that I said he was using a ThinkPad (running
] Windows!). I asked him about that, and he told us that
] many of the computer security folks back at FBI HQ use
] Macs running OS X, since those machines can do just about
] anything: run software for Mac, Unix, or Windows, using
] either a GUI or the command line. And they're secure out
] of the box. In the field, however, they don't have as
] much money to spend, so they have to stretch their
] dollars by buying WinTel-based hardware. Are you
] listening, Apple? The FBI wants to buy your stuff. Talk
] to them!

Macs get props from FBI & RCMP...

just click on the photos link... it pops up a bunch of photos of this graffiti bot... very very cool.

Hektor.ch

] At the nerve center of each MER rover is a 6-by 9-inch
] electronics board containing one computer responsible for
] every process that goes into a mission, whether it be
] monitoring spacecraft health in transit, deploying
] parachutes during landing or roving about the red planet.
] The computer, called a RAD6000, is a tried and true
] component for NASA space mission that has formed the
] brains of past Mars missions in the, as well as the
] recent Stardust comet encounter.

k-rad, even. sorry, couldn't help myself...

the venerable powerpc in yet another form.

Thinking on Mars: The Brains of NASA's Red Planet Rovers

Escher drawings made 3-D physical in LEGO blocks. AMAZING!

[ that's frickin awesome. god, i love lego...]-k

Escher's 'Ascending and Descending' in LEGO

Barlow's argument is similar to one I offered Rattle after Iowa: that the Dems have lost the election because doing so is preferable to loosing control of their party to Dean's new infrastructure. Rattle countered that he thought Dean might have intentionally flamed out and is in the process of handing the infrastructure he built off to the old heart of the party. I'm still not sure which one of us is right.

[ both. neither. for one, i don't think the dems have lost anything. i think even john kerry has a shot at beating W. i think, like it or not, the democratic core is being forced to absorb some of the fundamentals that Dean/Trippi brought to bear. It was a case of convergence... blogging was a meme on the edge of expanding into the public conciousness, and i think Dean's catalyzing nature, and the resulting political dialouges, actually helped propel that beyond the brink. DailyKOS was on the cover of USA today last month... that's something. No democratic campaign will be run, from now on, without a blog, online donations, and if they're smart, tools for organizing and mobilizing their support base.
i definitely don't believe dean flamed out on purpose... (or that he's totally out of it yet, though it'd take a miracle). if i thought he was that sort of person, i wouldn't have supported him. I think, despite the eventual outcome, people are going to view his campaign as a turning point in politics... something approaching the actual meaning of grassroots organization. i think commentators will look back and see, certainly, tactical errors, but they will also see a man who raised a hell of a lot of money in little tiny blocks, and that's the kind of "of the people" that i think will continue to be appealing.
perhaps i'm overly hopeful... the party needs to be shaken up after the bush-apologist, spineless, self-serving manner in which it has been run recently. If nothing else, Dean has offered a compelling vision of how it *could* work (even if it doesn't this time) and i think there are enough progressives to make that happen.

as for extracting bulk mind-share from the tv-sphere to the blogosphere... i think it'll happen, eventually, but i wouldn't be comfortable with a prediction. Even online, entrenched interests still wield too much power, too many people are still unwilling to analyze the speech on a blog for themselves, so they turn to CNN who they feel can be implicitly trusted as "right". that'll change, someday, but not soon i think. ]-k

BarlowFriendz: The Counter-Revolution Has Been Televised

from the much ballyhooed best page in the universe...

] I'm impressed that they've been able to take a 2D
] character with a 1D personality and bloat it into a 3D
] disaster. With a tagline like "it's all about ME-OW," you
] can be guaranteed the cinematic equivalence of having
] your hand fed to a wood chipper when this mind-dump hits
] the screen. The tagline would be more fitting if it were
] changed to "it's all about
] ME-OH-SHIT-I-THINK-I-JUST-HAD-AN-ANEURISM." A movie about
] Garfield? What next, a sequel to "The Mask" starring a
] CGI baby?

yeah. that sums up my feelings too...

Garfield the movie

My first sysadmin job was working with SCO, and I replaced it with Linux because SCO sucked so bad.

[ yeah, my last job involved supporting SCO boxes. What a frickin nightmare. Of course, these days, linux pisses me the fuck off too, but SCO went above and beyond the call of duty in retardation. thankfully, i've purged much of what i remember about it.
I expect IBM's FINISH-THEM!-Mortal-Kombat-style-smackdown to occur before anyone catches this virus author, rendering the reward pretty moot. there won't be a lot to DOS when the SCO main page says simply "THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK. -IBM" ]-k

SCO Offers Reward for Arrest and Conviction of Mydoom Virus Author (BallsDeep Declares war on SCO)