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Sunday, April 30 2000

Mass Transit

Mass transit is becoming popular again, though the number of public transportation trips taken in 1999 is still less than half the 23 billion taken in 1946. Today's FFGNFAIO (Fake-Feel-Good-Name-For-An-Industry-Organization) award goes to the pro-highway group quoted in the article: American Highway Users Alliance, which, based on their history page, appears to be an organization formed in 1970 from the remnants of 3 auto-industry-created organizations from the 30s and 40s.

The Post has some extra perspective on the DC Metro system in a 1999 article, looking back on the politics and wrangling from when WMATA (Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority) was first born in 1967.

AIDS a National Security Threat

The U.S. government has declared AIDS a threat to national security, due to its demonstrated effects in destabilizing governments in Africa, an effect expected to spread to India, Eastern Europe, and parts of the former U.S.S.R.

Related issue: patenting of AIDS drugs by US companies and US pressure on developing countries to honor those patents, which, interested non-profits say, ends up putting the drugs out of monetary reach for AIDS sufferers in other countries. The Consumer Project on Technology (a James Love/Ralph Nader group) has published a letter detailing the federal government's refusal to even allow the issue to be discussed at official meetings.

Mar Trai, Environmenta Her

Back when I used to read the comics page in the Post everyday, I'd read Mark Trail along with the rest, just because it was there... Word has a Mark Trail - tribute? parody? which captures the strip's spirit so well, that I had to stop reading due to sheer boredom... (Temple of Trail has a picture of the man that makes him look a bit much like Bob the SubGenius.)

Tuesday, April 25 2000

Virtual ads on TV

Yet another article about placing virtual ads in TV shows - putting logos in real-life locations at which news stories or sports events are occurring, and products in sitcoms after the episode of the sitcom has already been taped (so the writers, actors, etc. don't need to deal with the product placement, and different products can be placed with each airing). The article says the FCC says they've gotten no complaints about virtual ads; based on the FCC's website, the government definition of complaint involves much more effort on the part of the complainant than just writing a complaint letter.

Internet License Plates

Pictures of vanity license plates from around the US with an Internet flavor: Doug Johnson has "INTRNET" in California, Jeff Duffy has "OPEN SRC" in Virginia, Gail Katagui has "URL GURL" in California.

Monday, April 24 2000

Famine in Africa

About.com warns that millions will probably die of hunger in Africa (mostly in and near Ethiopia) this year, due mostly to civil war and bad weather (lack of rain). (I saw reference to the crisis elsewhere as well, but forgot where.)

Random News Bits From Salon

Salon's Daily Planet gives quirky stories from around the world on a daily basis. Recently: Zambian man ordered to do better in bed with his wife; Gnome Liberation Front steals 20 garden gnomes from an art exhibition; Argentine family carries coffin (with body) to the cemetery because the funeral company they hired refused to go to their (dangerous) neighborhood.

Friday, April 21 2000

12-Story Tetris Game

Residents of the Technology House at Brown University hooked up a bunch of Christmas lights in the university's Sciences Library and created (what is assumed to be) the world's largest Tetris game on the side of the building. Movies of old games are available; as are views of live games at night.

Change of address cards => junk mail

Salon article details what Adbusters readers have known for years: if you fill out a change-of-address card when you move, and a corp sends mail to your old address, they'll have the option to purchase your new address from the USPS. According to USPS rules, the corp isn't allowed to sell off lists of real-world addresses of recently moved people; but they do so anyway.

One of the reasons why I pay for a PO Box and never fill out change-of-address forms.

Wednesday, April 19 2000

Navajo Code Talkin'

Clinton honors Navajo code-talkers, the Native Americans who communicated over radio in WW2 in code that our enemies-at-the-time found impossible to penetrate. Aside from the cryptography angle, Wired probably decided to cover it because of the X-Files angle.

(BTW - Bart Simpson's take on the X-Files.)

Tuesday, April 18 2000

Forgot About Dre

Dr. Dre (rap DJ) became the second major artist to threaten Napster; (software for quickly and easily trading MP3s and other files) last week, Metallica (heavy metal band) sued the software maker.

Thursday, April 13 2000

Ben and Jerry's - Sold!

Ben and Jerry's, socially-conscious ice cream maker (which nevertheless contributes to the poor health of millions through sales of their ice cream), has been sold to a megacorp for $326 million. Frank "this article makes me sound like an asshole, doesn't it?" Ahrens dances on liberalism's grave in his article on the sale in the Washington Post. Wash. Post business section article says the Ben & Jerry's division of the megacorp (Unilever) will continue to donate 7.5% of pretax profits to charity.

April 13, 1970: Apollo 13 Power Failure

The New York Times has an On This Day feature highlighting important events from past years that occurred on a particular day. Today's entry: the Apollo 13 mission problem, on which the movie with Tom Hanks was based. You can read the full text of their article from 1970.

An Economy of Perfect Information

In a discussion thread dealing with the shutting down of UserLand's Net connectivity apparently because the head of UserLand criticized his ISP in an editorial, Jeff Shelton (not the head in question) talks tangentially, and a bit wordily, about my problems with both advertising and business today:

• much advertising is meant to create an emotional attachment (desire?) between a person and product (or the desire for such an attachment) which wouldn't need to be created if the product was deserving of the attachment
  
• I don't like not having full information about the entity (company) with which I am doing business (whether by buying $200/month SDSL service or buying a box of cereal) and the product they are providing. Libertarians (which I'm not one of) often say fraud is one of the few things a government should have laws against; not providing information can be just as misleading as providing false info.
  

Tuesday, April 11 2000

Doctors vs. the Net

According to a Forrester Research report (access to report requires registration), doctors see the Net as a waste of time - because they can't/don't charge for email consultations (yet), and because patients waste doctors' time with faulty information garnered from websites.

As a patient, I love the Internet. Surfing health-related websites one day, I came across a list of symptoms of sleep apnea. Based on the info, I had a sleep study done; and found that I have it. (Without the Internet, I would've continued through life tired every day and never getting a good night's sleep.) The sleep doctor I saw only gave me one treatment option, the worst of the 3-4 I had learned of online; only by asking specifically about the other options could I get her to refer me to someone who could treat me in a less invasive, more convenient way than the standard equipment she suggested. (Without the Internet, I'd be sleeping every night with a loud and uncomfortable machine connected to my face.) Finally, I found the doctor who ended up constructing a device for treating the apnea through an online list of qualified specialists - information that my insurance company didn't have. (Without the Internet, it would've taken me at least an extra week of phone calls and letters to figure out who could get me the device I needed.)

Long live Net medicine.

[correction: it has been pointed out to me that my use of the word "invasive" above is incorrect. the device recommended to me, CPAP, is not invasive; it does not enter the body in any way.]

Sunday, April 9 2000

Movie #5: Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. Director: Guy Ritchie. Genre: British crime comedy.

Ill-fated card game.

Edgy high-body-count plot.

Lock, stock, two barrels.

Friday, April 7 2000

In February 2000 hundreds of tons of cyanide-tainted slurry broke into the Tisza River and the cyanide made its way to the Danube in Serbia, leaving over a hundred tons of dead fish in its wake. According to this Feed Mag article, the conditions which made it possible in Central Europe - lax regulation and unsafe mining processes - also exist in the U.S. The authors also give a short list of similar toxic spills - not quite as devastating, but still tragedies - over the past 12 years in the U.S.

Thursday, April 6 2000

Human extinction? Whatever, dude.

A Wired News article says Silicon Valley denizens are unimpressed by Bill Joy's doomsaying article from a recent issue of Wired. Some folks thinking that "scientific truth" (and its pursuit) is more important than ethics; whereas others follow Hans Moravec's philosophy: "We will turn into robots. It's both inevitable and desirable."

One problem with the article, and with Silicon Valley's attitudes in general: technology does not equal science, and the advance of technology is not exactly equivalent to an advance in our knowledge of the world (which is what "scientific truth" is). Technology deals with the creation of tools, and manipulation of the world with those tools; science deals with our understanding of the world. Joy's warnings are really mostly about the application of technology, and only partly about science.

Science fiction in mainstream film

Good article on the mainstreaming of various science-fiction tropes: concurrent alternate possibilities (parallel worlds - but merged), and multiple personality musings, mostly.

Delayed Gratification Foods not selling well

Delayed Gratification Foods, makers of Homework-First Nut Clusters and Character-Building Puffs, is not doing well against other, irresponsible, snack-food makers.

Monday, April 3 2000

Horowitz on Hillary on New York Cops

David Horowitz, ex-liberal, pulls out statistics to argue that because of Rudolph Giuliani, homicide in general; killings of civilians by cops; and shots fired by cops are all down in New York City since David Dinkins left office. Of course, homicide is down in all major U.S. cities...

funnysf.com is up

Funny SF, a site devoted to funny science fiction, went up on April Fool's Day. Not quite complete, but check it out... It's built by Sandy Stewart, who I'm in an sf writing group with, and hosted on my machines.

Fuel Cells

A Washington Post article talks about companies developing fuel cells, which convert natural gas to electric energy with very little pollution/environmental impact. Visions of cell-powered buses, houses, etc.

The Department of Defense has a website dealing with fuel cells, specifically demonstrations thereof.

R U Hot? R U Buff?

Pix of body-builder women from about.com's body-building section.

Saturday, April 1 2000

April Fools Jokes

There are plenty of Web-based April Fools jokes going on. Stop 1: MacInBitch, a parody of Macintouch. Stop 2: Salon has a bunch of April Fools articles - perhaps the best being Brilliant Careers: Satan.

About this site

This is the personal web site for Edward (Ed) Piou. Consisting mainly of a blog (operational since 1999) and various photos.

Some online projects I'm working on

Politics

Charity, Non-profits...

A while ago, I decided to put my money where my mind is on a (roughly) monthly basis and give to:

Photos

Public events documented through pictures...