] UserFriendly makes a stab at the eternal. He's better at
] this then Scott Adams! Unfortunately, the message board
] is sorely in need of moderation. So, I'll ask our audience
] here. Does this comic speak to you? How? Don't be afraid
] to admit a silly supersitious beleif in fate. I'll even
] forgive a fundamentalist religious conviction. I just
] want some perspectives.

Durring the periods when I had customer facing support roles at ISPs, I used to frequent UserFriendly often. Although, I'll admit to having trailed off due to not wanting to be reminded of that particular hell.

I am glad this particular comic found its way to me. This one is a gem.

UserFriendly Strip - Feb. 22

* If deadly radiation knocks on your door, do not answer

Notice the little kid by the flag..

READY.GOV :: Helping America Prepare for Fiery Death

] A link to a site you read isnt the same as a link to
] someone you know through their blog or someone you
] actively collaborate with.
]
] After reviewing data of work relationships, information
] flows and knowledge exchanges from hundreds of consulting
] assignments inside Fortune 2000 organizations Valdis
] Krebs did not see much evidence of power laws in this
] data. His data is of confirmed ties [both persons
] agreed/recognized their mutual
] interactions/flows/relationships] from a worldwide pool
] of clients dating back to 1988. Of course he found some
] people were better connected than others, but the extreme
] hubs found in power law networks just were not evident.

Ross Mayfield's Weblog: Looking at weblog networks

Getting that "William Gibson watching Blade Runner" feeling..

Of course, this takes up so much of my machine's CPU that I can't actually nagigate around it sucessfully..

BlogStreet : Visual Neighborhood

* The Station's Show Schedule
Original URL: http://www.thestationrocks.com/schedule.html

I just happened to have this page loaded up mere minutes before they pulled the entire site.

Tomorrow was "Triple Tribute Night"... Next month's big show as Overkill. Tribute bands, tribute bands, tribute bands, cover bands, karaoke, and tribute bands..

Heh.. If 60 [U: 95!!] people were not dead, this would be funny.

What would have been..

] A huge fire engulfed a Rhode Island nightclub during a
] rock concert's pyrotechnics display, causing at least 10
] deaths and dozens of injuries, authorities said.
]
] Fire Capt. Russell McGillivray said an estimated 10 to 20
] people died. More were likely trapped inside.
]
] Great White is a 1980s heavy metal band whose hits include
] "Once Bitten, Twice Shy" and "Rock Me." The concert also
] featured the Canadian group Fathead.

Great White. Ok.

Now, this is one of those stories that at first glance would normally really get to me. I'm in clubs and at shows all the time. That being able to identify with the victims thing should instantally kick in.. But there is something I just can't get past..

Great White.

I feel really sorry for everyone there.. I hate to hear about people getting hurt and killed. I truly feel sorry for these folks.. Not only because they were at a concert where a fire broke out, but because they were at a Great White concert.

Picture their poor reletives.. Having to explain that.. Billy died at the Great White concert. That sounds horrible! And if you survived, and wound up horribly burned or something.. Having to tell folks where/how it happened. So sad..

On the other side of things, if you heard someone you knew died at, lets say, and Neil Young concert. It just sounds . . less tragic. Like, it might have been a worthy place to meet your end.. Of course, Neil Young wouldn't have fireworks blowing up behind him, its not his style really. Metallica has had problems with this. Michael Jackson too. Again, same thing kicks in.. There may be a connection.. Or natural selection in play. A signal from powers beyond our knowledge.

Now there is a good way to judge which shows you go to.. "Would it be ok if I died at this show?" If the answer is no, you skip.. Good filter.

So sad. Just heard on the news that the death toll is over 24. [U: 39 now..] [U: !!! +50!]

] The fire comes four days after 21 people were killed and
] more than 50 injured during a stampede in a Chicago
] nightclub that began when a security guard used pepper
] spray to break up a fight.

Just you watch... New fire code and search restrictions will start to be proposed for clubs. They will seem like really good ideas to the bulk of the population at a glance. But if by nothing other then botched implementations and enforcement, will wind up being a great blow to civil liberties, and somehow manage to force many places out of business. And by extension, wind up effecting the over all big picture of free speech in America.. People often forget the importance of venues.

Cock Rock Kills

] The Dept of Homeland Security would like to take this
] opportunity to explain the current political situation to
] you all.

Haha! This is grade-A funny. Its a remix of some of the "Duck and cover" stuff on Ready.gov. You must check this out.

Kieran Healy's Weblog: Public Service Announcement

] Below are some single frame snapshots captured February
] 15, 2003. The source station was KSBW-DT, channel 10 (195
] MHz), Salinas, CA. The program was "Law and Order", and
] the recording was made between 8 and 9 PM Pacific
] Standard Time.
]
] Samples were recorded to disk in real time at 20M
] samples/second using the mc4020-read-adc program provided
] with the GNU Radio MC4020 A/D card driver. Once the
] samples were on disk, they were processed using the GNU
] Radio HDTV receiver, atsc_rx. The output of atsc_rx is an
] MPEG transport stream consisting of a sequence of
] 188-byte packets. The MPEG tranport stream was then fed
] into the Xine MPEG player and displayed. The 2730 x 1088
] .png files were generated from within Xine.

Noticed this on BoingBoing. I think they are correct in their assumption that this is going to bring down some heat on the GNU Radio folks. They didn't do anything wrong, but Hollywood dosen't want this. They want strict control of coping in regard to HDTV. They are not going to get it.

The War on Technology rages on..

GNU Radio - HDTV decoding

] About 30 naked women lay down in the snow in Central Park
] forming the words 'No Bush' in an event described as a
] 'nude political action photo shoot' in New York on
] February 7, 2003. The protesters are opposed to U.S.
] President George Bush's policies and possible U.S. led
] war against Iraq.

From sdodson

Reuters Photo - 'No Bush' nude protest

] A U.S.-led assault on Iraq could push the price of oil on
] international markets to unprecedented levels - perhaps
] as high as $50 a barrel - and fuel a worldwide wave of
] terrorism by Muslims, Malaysia's prime minister warned
] Thursday.
]
] Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, in an exclusive
] interview with The Associated Press, expressed the
] apparently widespread sentiment among the mostly
] developing nations of the Non-Aligned Movement that an
] attack on Iraq was unwarranted.

Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | Malaysian Leader: War May Bring Backlash