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Peter Nixon
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Saturday, 31 July 2004
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Thursday, 29 July 2004
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Bush's lies about Castro plagiarised from undergraduate essay on Internet. Bush recently characterised Castro's remine in Cuba as proud of the prostitution there, a bizarre charge that had no basis in fact: Castro simply never said what Bush accused him of saying ("This is his quote -- 'Cuba has the cleanest and most educated prostitutes in the world' and 'sex tourism is a vital source of hard currency.'"), and no one except Bush says that he did.
It turns out that Bush's speechwriters found the quote in an undergraduate paper for Dartmouth, and they plagiarised it out of context:
Three days after Bush's remarks, the Los Angeles Times reported that the White House found the comments in a Dartmouth undergraduate paper posted on the Internet and lifted them out of context. "It shows they didn't read much of the article," commented Charlie Trumbull, the author.
Link
(via Fark) [Boing Boing]
11:31:07 PM 
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Random: Stupidity Awards Results. Our friends at the World Stupidity Awards have presented
President Bush with the award for Stupidest Man of the Year,
among others...
Here's the press release from the World Stupidity Awards:
Bush, Hussein, Trucker Hats win big at Stupidity Awards
President Bush and deposed dictator Saddam Hussein were the big
winners at a start-studded presentation of the World
Stupidity...
[morons.org headlines]
11:10:35 PM
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How and Why Wonder Books. 
Did you read them as a kid? Rob Storey has scanned in all the covers from his collection.
[I certainly did read them. Mum and Dad bought them for me all the time. I always wanted more. I definitely had the one pictured which gave me a fascination for dinosaurs which has lasted my whole life. The dinosaur on the cover was probably the best known and loved, and is now known not o have existed. That is brontosaurus was the body of one animal attached to the head of another. The body is now known as apatosaurus; I don't know wht the head was.]
[Paul Boutin]
10:56:44 PM
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Date Friday, July 23, 2004
Their e-mail: With all the Flash crap in the world, it is good to see an excellent use of Flash.
My comments: You're right about the page. This is what Flash is great at doing. On the other hand, the proper terminology for crappy Flash is "FlashCrap."
Le Tour de France [Web Pages That Suck -- Examples of Bad Web Design]
12:23:11 AM
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Thursday, 22 July 2004
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Wednesday, 21 July 2004
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You can imagine how much email I've got about the anti-virus article today (an MSN front door story can draw 500,000 or more readers in eight hours), but most are about the same two topics:
1) If you've had problems with Spybot and other programs slowing your PC or removing perfectly good programs, see this article about using a different browser instead of Internet Explorer, to block spyware from installing itself in the first place. Both these articles originally appeared on Slate about a week apart last month.
2) If you're on a Mac, my general advice is "don't worry," because virus writers seem to be chasing Windows PCs instead. If you use MS Word a lot, Norton AntiVirus can catch the viruses that show up in Word documents. [Paul Boutin]
12:36:53 AM
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Tuesday, 20 July 2004
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I'm not sure about the whole free thing. Pixels 3D has been trying to attract the market with a very attractive product for years, and finding it very difficult.
[The Macintosh News Network]
11:54:37 PM
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In September, The Hospital gallery in London will display items belonging to Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen, including a blood-stained "Never Mind the Bollocks" poster collected from the Chelsea Hotel room where the couple lived (and she died).
"The collection of artefacts, including original T-shirts, posters and handwritten lyrics, has been assembled over 15 years by art dealer Paul Stolper and Andrew Wilson, deputy editor of Art Monthly. They told The Independent on Sunday that the hotel items were sold at auction by Sid Vicious' mother, Anne Beverley."
Link
In other Sex Pistols news, plaque were ceremonially unveiled in north Norfolk to honor two venues where the Sex Pistols had played important early and late gigs.
Link [Boing Boing]
1:38:00 AM
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Saturday, 17 July 2004
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Friday, 16 July 2004
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 Mark "Devo" Mothersbaugh has created a stunningly surreal series of manipulated antique photographs. Many of them are displayed in vintage daguerrotype frames. From the artist's statement:
"It was in the early 1900's that Rorschach and other psychiatrists developed hunches regarding symmetry and the internal workings of man. Humans, great pretenders to bi-lateral symmetry, are in actuality, closer to potatoes in their lack of precise symmetry. A close look reveals what is truly inside the people around us."
Mothersbaugh's Beautiful Mutants collection is currently touring galleries around the United States. Link [Boing Boing]
12:05:02 AM
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Thursday, 15 July 2004
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Wednesday, 14 July 2004
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Alex sez, "The now out of print The Illustrated Story of Copyright is now available online. Unfortunately it's not under any sort of Creative Commons license. The permissions page is here. Personally I find the current online layout a little bit hard to read and confusing, this is the sort of thing that could really be improved if only people were allowed to 'remix' it for better legibility." (I agree)
Link
(Thanks, Alex!) [Boing Boing]
11:53:51 PM
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Monday, 12 July 2004
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Saturday, 10 July 2004
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William Wirt: "Seize the moment of excited curiosity on any subject to solve your doubts; for if you let it pass, the desire may never return, and you may remain in ignorance."
[Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog]
5:59:59 PM
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A new BBC Dr Who series will not have any Daleks in it, because the estate of the creator of the Daleks has demanded creative control over any show that licenses the ambulatory homicidal pepper-mills.
For its part, the Terry Nation estate accused the Corporation of attempting to "ruin the brand of the Daleks". Estate representative Tim Hancock said: "We wanted the same level of control over the Daleks that we have enjoyed for the last 40 years. If the BBC wanted to re-make any of George Lucas' films, you can bet George Lucas would have something to say about it."
Link [Boing Boing]
12:54:08 AM
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Friday, 9 July 2004
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And Keating is with Fraser.
[ABC News]
2:15:05 PM
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I've said it before and I'll say it again; the Longer Malcom Fraser has been out of Parliament the more I like him.
[ABC News]
1:33:15 PM
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One of the craziest Bush judicial apointees yet.
The nominee in question, Leon Holmes, for the federal court in
the eastern district of Arkansas, is simply nuts. I really don't
know how else to describe the guy. First off, Orrin Hatch and
Rick Santorum are both wild about him. This alone should be...
[morons.org headlines]
1:22:28 PM
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Clear concrete The Associated Press has an interesting article about the translucent concrete developed by Hungarian architect Aron Losonczi. During the mixing process, glass fibers are added to the traditional stone, cement, and water. This enables light to shine through the material. Several variations of the new material are on display as part of a National Building Museum exhibit called Liquid Stone: New Architecture in Concrete. Judging from the Web site, it looks to be a stunning exhibit. Link (to AP article) Link (to Liquid Stone) (Thanks, Gabe!)
[Boing Boing]
12:57:00 PM
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Here's a little blurb about POTUS from David Rubenstein,
co-founder and Managing Director of The Carlyle Group. It isn't
pretty.
The first thing that the GOP did when Kerry announced that he
selected John Edwards as his running mate was complain about
Edward's lack of experience. According to Cheney, John Edwards
has only six years of government experience which makes him...
[morons.org headlines]
12:43:24 PM
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Thursday, 8 July 2004
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Richard M. Nixon: "The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger - but recognize the opportunity."
[Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog]
11:58:54 PM
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Wednesday, 7 July 2004
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Tuesday, 6 July 2004
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This is just crazy. [PN]
I just discovered bo logh, written entirely in Klingon.
[Paul Boutin]
11:55:36 PM
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Via Scripting News: Voltaire never actually said, "I disagree with what you have to say but will fight to the death to protect your right to say it."
[Paul Boutin]
4:27:38 PM
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Here's a fantastic clip of the Daily Show discussing the class-action suit against Wal-Mart for gender discrimination in payment (Wal-Mart pays women workers $2,000 less than the poverty line in annual wages).
6.7 MB Quicktime Link
(via On Lisa Rein's Radar) [Boing Boing]
2:13:17 AM
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Monday, 5 July 2004
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Sunday, 4 July 2004
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Biggest story ever broken by a blog? It appears that blogger/BBC News correspondent/landmine survivor Stuart Hughes was first to break news of the early handover of authority in Iraq today, on his weblog. Link. Hughes was in Istanbul at the Bush/Blair press conference after that, and filed live text and audblog coverage here: Link [Boing Boing]
11:58:14 PM
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A Yorkshire graffiti writer has come up with a really clever writing technique: he lays a template with his tag over a dirty wall, then sprays the template with solvent, leaving behind a clean patch bearing his message. It's inverse graffiti -- he's selectively cleaning up dirty walls.
He decided to commercialize the process and tagged Smirnoff ads in Leeds, and that's where he got into trouble: he's been ordered to "remove" the clean patch of wall and get rid of the ad.
Link
(via /.) [Boing Boing]
11:51:32 PM
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Saturday, 3 July 2004
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This antenna (and many others on the linked page) was evolved by NASA using a genetic algorithm. While highly effective, its design is counter-intuitive.
First, there is the potential of needing less power. Antenna ST5-3-10 achieves high gain (2-4dB) across a wider range of elevation angles. This allows a broader range of angles over which maximum data throughput can be achieved. Also, less power from the solar array and batteries may be required.
Second, the evolved antenna does not require a matching network nor a phasing circuit, removing two steps in design and fabrication of the antenna. A trivial transmission line may be used for the match on the flight antenna, but simulation results suggest that one is not required.
Third, the evolved antenna has more uniform coverage in that it has a uniform pattern with small ripples in the elevations of greatest interest (between 40 and 80 degrees). This allows for reliable performance as elevation angle relative to the ground changes.
Link
(Thanks, zogby!)
[Boing Boing]
10:51:58 PM
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A piece by my Wired News colleague Katie Dean about a slew of legislation passed on Capitol Hill this week that could outlaw a range of devices and software, and impose severe penalties on anyone caught trading files. Link. And Andrew Orlowski offers an astute analysis in The Register, which begins: "It may soon be possible to carry around an AK-47 assault rifle and an iPod with you down the street - and be arrested for carrying the iPod." Link
[Boing Boing]
10:27:53 PM
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Friday, 2 July 2004
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"Hinterland
Who's Who" was a series of 1960s-era short nature films that used to
air as interstitial material on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
when I was a kid, maddeningly interrupting the cartoons. There was a
very funny sendup of these on an old SCTV episode, but other than that,
I haven't seen these since I was a small child. Until today. Now
they're all on the Web. Now, the Internet is complete.
Link
[Boing Boing]
12:36:42 AM
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I didn't know there was a mystery, but apparently there is a blob of x-rays which is hard to explain.
[Scientific American]
12:26:50 AM
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.A BB reader sez: "This is the world's biggest database for comparing statistics between countries. Sounds boring, sure- but check out the 'Mortality' stats. They've got World Health Organization stats on how people die all over the world - e.g. Austria has the highest per-capita rate of deaths resulting from "Falls involving ice-skates, skis, roller-skates or skateboards". Heaps of Japanese die of 'drowning and submersion in bath tub". Check out "struck by reptile". Amazing." Link
A BB reader sez: This crashes firefox and mozilla browsers. PLEASE warn your users before clicking.
[Boing Boing]
12:15:08 AM
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Thursday, 1 July 2004
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I know the following explanation for this is long, but it really is worth a look.
The President's handlers foolishly granted a Presidential interview (requires RealPlayer, interview starts about 20:40 into the stream) to a non-White House Press Corps journalist, Carole Coleman, the Washington correspondent for RTE, the Irish public national television network. When she asked him pointed, pertinent questions, he became upset when his stock answers failed to satisfy her. An aide to the President later complained that Coleman had "overstepped the bounds of politeness."
Coleman is a mainstream European journalist who has conducted interviews with top officials from a number of countries - her January interview with Secretary of State Colin Powell was apparently solid enough to merit posting on the State Department's Web site.
Unfortunately, it appears that Coleman failed to receive the memo informing reporters that they are supposed to treat this president with kid gloves. Instead, she confronted him as any serious journalist would a world leader.
She asked tough questions about the mounting death toll in Iraq, the failure of U.S. planning, and European opposition to the invasion and occupation. And when the president offered the sort of empty and listless "answers" that satisfy the White House press corps - at one point, he mumbled, "My job is to do my job" - she tried to get him focused by asking precise follow-up questions.
The president complained five times during the course of the interview about the pointed nature of Coleman's questions and follow-ups - "Please, please, please, for a minute, OK?" the hapless Bush pleaded at one point, as he demanded his questioner go easy on him.
Mark's note: I haven't been able to see the video interview, but I read the White House'stranscript of the interview, and I think the description above, by John Nichols of The Capital Times, is misleading. President Bush said more than just "My job is to do my job;" he said "My job is to do my job and make the decisions that I think are important for our country and for the world." And President Bush wasn't asking the interviewer to "go easy on him;" he was asking her to allow him to finish answering her questions. That said, Bush's answers weren't satisfactory.
Link
Vidiot sez: The White House complained later that Coleman was disrespectful and didn't ask the "suggested question" about what Irish PM Ahern was wearing that day.
Coleman has responded to White House criticism, noting that she submitted her questions three days in advance.
Andrew sez: "Since I get on with RealPlayer about as well as a house on fire, I wasn't able to watch the link given. I have been pointed here, though; even assuming it's been, ah, tactfully clarified by a White House aide, the transcript is still pretty atrocious - the lines you quoted are still in.
[Boing Boing]
11:35:38 PM
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© Copyright 2005 Peter Nixon.
Last update: 27/9/05; 9:36:53 PM.
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