I've got almost 50 items listed on half.com. If they don't sell by Dec.1 I'm throwing them away.
October 2005 Archives
Watch this video.
The expression on Billy G's face is priceless.
http://www.brewsterjennings.com/
Have to check this out once it's done getting /.ed
http://www.brewsterjennings.com/
Have to check this out once it's done getting /.ed
Is so very wrong, for so many reasons.
I've copied/pased this gem from the web below.
http://abstractfactory.blogspot.com/2005/10/only-debate-on-intelligent-design-that.html
Moderator: We're here today to debate the hot new topic, evolution versus Intelligent Des---
(Scientist pulls out baseball bat.)
Moderator: Hey, what are you doing?
(Scientist breaks Intelligent Design advocate's kneecap.)
Intelligent Design advocate: YEAAARRRRGGGHHHH! YOU BROKE MY KNEECAP!
Scientist: Perhaps it only appears that I broke your kneecap. Certainly, all the evidence points to the hypothesis I broke your kneecap. For example, your kneecap is broken; it appears to be a fresh wound; and I am holding a baseball bat, which is spattered with your blood. However, a mere preponderance of evidence doesn't mean anything. Perhaps your kneecap was designed that way. Certainly, there are some features of the current situation that are inexplicable according to the "naturalistic" explanation you have just advanced, such as the exact contours of the excruciating pain that you are experiencing right now.
Intelligent Design advocate: AAAAH! THE PAIN!
Scientist: Frankly, I personally find it completely implausible that the random actions of a scientist such as myself could cause pain of this particular kind. I have no precise explanation for why I find this hypothesis implausible --- it just is. Your knee must have been designed that way!
Intelligent Design advocate: YOU BASTARD! YOU KNOW YOU DID IT!
Scientist: I surely do not. How can we know anything for certain? Frankly, I think we should expose people to all points of view. Furthermore, you should really re-examine whether your hypothesis is scientific at all: the breaking of your kneecap happened in the past, so we can't rewind and run it over again, like a laboratory experiment. Even if we could, it wouldn't prove that I broke your kneecap the previous time. Plus, let's not even get into the fact that the entire universe might have just popped into existence right before I said this sentence, with all the evidence of my alleged kneecap-breaking already pre-formed.
Intelligent Design advocate: That's a load of bullshit sophistry! Get me a doctor and a lawyer, not necessarily in that order, and we'll see how that plays in court!
Scientist (turning to audience): And so we see, ladies and gentlemen, when push comes to shove, advocates of Intelligent Design do not actually believe any of the arguments that they profess to believe. When it comes to matters that hit home, they prefer evidence, the scientific method, testable hypotheses, and naturalistic explanations. In fact, they strongly privilege naturalistic explanations over supernatural hocus-pocus or metaphysical wankery. It is only within the reality-distortion field of their ideological crusade that they give credence to the flimsy, ridiculous arguments which we so commonly see on display. I must confess, it kind of felt good, for once, to be the one spouting free-form bullshit; it's so terribly easy and relaxing, compared to marshaling rigorous arguments backed up by empirical evidence. But I fear that if I were to continue, then it would be habit-forming, and bad for my soul. Therefore, I bid you adieu.
This /. link is the replies posed to this comment. Some are funny, some are informative. Overall, good reading on a Sunday morning.
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=166820&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&tid=146&mode=nested&pid=13909977
Even more confusing is exactly what all the initials stand for. SBC, which used to stand for Southwestern Bell Communications, doesn't stand for that anymore. Years ago, the corporation decided that since it had gobbled a lot of companies that weren't in the Southwest, the letters SBC would no longer stand for anything besides SBC.
About the same time, AT&T decided that its letters didn't stand for American Telephone and Telegraph anymore, because there was no longer any telegraph. They just stood for AT&T.
That means that one company whose letters don't stand for anything is paying what some industry analysts predict will be more than $100 million to change its name to another company whose letters don't stand for anything.
So, I'm at risk of making this place even more popular by posting here. But I figure since only 2 people read my blog on any given day the threat isn't that bad.
I posted earlier that Ritual Roasters in the Mission district was recommended by Wired. This place is great. It's an excellent place to sit down with a laptop and do some work.
You of course aren't allowed unless you are using a Mac Powerbook, and you carry it in a Timbuk2 bag. It seems like just about everybody here fits that description.
Wired News said to go to this place.
I wrote an email to Barbara Boxer a little while ago asking her to vote any possible broadcast flag legislation. Here is her reply:
Dear Mr. Horowitz:
Thank you for contacting me about possible "broadcast flag" legislation. I appreciate the opportunity to review your comments.
As you know, the broadcast flag would restrict consumers from redistributing copyrighted material transmitted through digital broadcasts. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) attempted to mandate that all equipment capable of receiving digital transmissions recognize the "flag," with broadcasters retaining the right to determine whether content should be flagged. However, in May 2005, a federal appeals court decided that the FCC does not have the authority to impose broadcast flag requirements on receiving equipment.
Subsequently, the debate over the acceptable use and extent of a broadcast flag continues. Various industry and consumer groups have urged Congress to examine the issue. As a member of the Senate Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over broadcast issues, please be assured that I will keep your views in mind as legislation on this matter is considered.
Again, thank you for writing to me. Please do not hesitate to contact me again about this or any other issue of concern to you.
Barbara Boxer
United States Senator
It's a little wishy-washy for my taste, but ... what can you expect.
When they defined the bluetooth spec.
A new look at IP and some solutions.
The Adelphi Charter (pdf)
Apple manages 2 of cnet's top ten products of the past ten years.
Love and Loss
I was lucky. I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started?
Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me - I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT.
I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple.It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers.
Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking.
Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs gave this as his second story of his Commencement Address at Stanford University on June 12, 2005.
