Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

I had more of these, but after four lockups and reboots of my NT box, not all of my Opera windows reloaded correctly. (Could've been worse. I could've been using one of the browsers that doesn't even try to save state and pick up where you left off after the OS crashes. Or one of the ones that crashes itself more often instead of one that usually waits until the OS barfs. Still, I wish I could remember what other windows I had open.)

• A fairly concise, insightful summary of why LiveJournal is a good thing by chaiya.
• The Diary of Samuel Pepys is being posted online in blog form. Now I've known for a long time who Pepys was (oddly enough because of a science fiction novel), but had never read any of his famous diary -- I basically knew that it was one of the things he was famous for. So when the usefulness of LiveJournal/blogs comes up, one of the things in the back of my mind is, "Will any of us wind up being our generation's Samuel Pepys?" But I've always felt funny saying that aloud without really knowing what I'm comparing us to. Now I get to find out.
• A different spin on the usefulness of blogging, "My Blog, My Outboard Brain", by Cory Doctorow
• This is just ... wrong. Not as scary as the Hello Kitty USB hub, but probably not the best thing to have on your screen in many workplaces when a cow orker walks past. Or when you've just taken a sip of coffee or cola. (It's only a 324 x 268 image, so it'll be easy to hide.) Then again, other offices might be amused if you ordered one and put it on your desk...
• Article about anti-gay connections of the Salvation Army which I found somewhat disheartening.
• The Maximilian and the Pellegrina, along with an explanation of why they look like that. Heard about these from a bandmate and did a web search. Evolution of classical stringed instruments continues. (That reminds me that I need to do some more work on my musical instruments page.)
• "In-Room Chat as a Social Tool", which says in its second paragraph:

  "The in-room chat created a two-channel experience -- a live conversation in the room, and an overlapping real-time text conversation. The experiment was a strong net positive for the group. [...] For us, the chat served as a kind of social whiteboard. In this note, I want to detail what worked and why, what the limitations and downsides of in-room chat were, and point out possible future avenues for exploration."

  The comments about "changing the interrupt logic" particularly struck me. I wonder whether what they observed generalizes, or whether the participants were all especially good at multi-tasking to handle parallel input streams. I know that I used to maintain a MUD connection, IRC chat with private conversations on the side, read and answer email, read news, and talk on the phone all simultaneously, and that a great many other people in the hacker culture display similar abilties. All in all, a fascinating article.
• The Psychology of Navigation by Jesse James Garrett, at digital-web.com, about designing web sites to make them Really Work for people. I'm not finished reading it, and I note it here as much to make sure I don't lose track of it if my machine crashes again as to share it with y'all.
• The Peanuts Arcana Tarot deck. I'm not finished looking at this one. I may decide it's useful (if the meanings jump out at me more than the deck I usually use). In either case, it's cute.
• Mini guitar amplifiers by David Grant. The Crunch Box is adorable. He says they're based on my own portable guitar amp, but he put a lot more work into his.
• The Onion strikes again: Bill Of Rights Pared Down To A Manageable Six
• Who snuck drug-company protections into the Homeland Security bill? along with a reward for the answer, over at tompaine.com. Slimy, slimy stuff, completely apart from the question of whether the claims they're being protected against have any scientific merit. (Such a bill is the wrong place to address that.)
• Cities Say No to Federal Snooping -- "Fearing that the Patriot Act will curtail Americans' civil rights, municipalities across the country are passing resolutions to repudiate the legislation and protect their residents from a perceived abuse of authority by the federal government."
• How Homeland Security affects some hobbyists. The short answer for why this detail ought to be changed: "The definition of an explosive is explicitly stated by Congress. It is a chemical compound or device that has a primary or common purpose to function by explosion. If APCP has a primary or common purpose of functioning by explosion, then every rocket should explode on the pad when the propellant is ignited. Clearly, this is not the purpose of APCP or any other rocket propellant. Therefore, APCP cannot be legally classified as an explosive under the Homeland Security Act."
• Shenanigans leading up to a naked Quidditch match (at least as of chapter 8 they haven't started the game yet) presented as an archive of email between various parties at Hogwarts. Much funnier than that description makes it sound.
• Teacher's sex change creates a stir in Vancouver. "The school sent out an information letter to parents last week. Some have since complained that it's an inappropriate thing to confront children with as they struggle to understand their own sexuality." -- it would have made my own life A LOT LESS CONFUSING and much less painful if I'd had any inkling that such people existed and what they were properly called when I was that age! It took until college to begin to untangle some of what my culture had taught me wrong before then. "School administrators and the school board argue the sex change is a learning opportunity for students, and a chance to create a more caring community." *whew*
• Android World, a repository of information about various projects working on building humanoid robots.
• This is a product of a sexual nature that I wanted to pass along the link to but dare not comment further on, because anything I could say about my reaction to it is guaranteed to startle or bother at least a couple of people I really don't want freaked out by me. So the rest of you just be amused or shocked by the idea, as apropriate.

More later, after I find the rest of my notes.