Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

I've got more, so if I have time, there may be a second installment this week as well. How long a list do folks consider reasonable/readable for these entries? I've been shooting for 10-15 items, though sometimes I keep going if I build up momentum while editing.

• Designated Breastfeeding Areas Deemed "Separate but Equal" (Ridiculopathy.com, November 2002) "'I'm uncomfortable even knowing that breasts have a biological purpose,' said one man who asked that his name not be used. 'I feel these women have robbed me of an important part of my life.'"
• What made the previous parody-news item jump out at me was the recent very real case in Richardson, TX, of parents arrested over a breast-feeding photograph (Dallas Observer, 17 April). Note that "The portrayal of the suckling child is found in countless numbers of artwork. Whether the medium is canvas, marble or Kodak film is irrelevant for the purposes of First Amendment protection." The charges were eventually dropped, after way more effort than it should have taken, but District Attorney Bill Hill's comment that "in this instance the system worked" overlooks the fact that the children have not yet been returned to their parents, and the parents are still being forced to jump through various hoops. There's discussion of it, including addresses of authorities to mail your opinions to, at Kuro5hin.
• Edgar F. Codd, inventor of the relational database, has died at age 79
• Pretty: anticrepuscular rays
• Jet engine for boats (ABC, February 2003): A steam-powered jet engine that would be less polluting than conventional boat engines and less likely to injure wildlife. Apparently the design sucks: "When the steam hits the water, it immediately condenses to 1,600th of its previous volume. The resulting effect is a dramatic drop in pressure -- essentially a vacuum -- that sucks water from the front to the back of the tube and thus produces thrust to move." The stream from the output end of the engine is only 5 Kelvins warmer than the input stream, so it won't scald wildlife either -- one of the safety benefits is the lack of a propellor to cut up manatees and such.
• A link others are already passing around is this amazing Honda commercial called Cog -- really, it's mesmerizing; I watched someone else watch it five or six times in a row, and he was still watching it when I left the room. (About a megabyte, has sound, requires a later version of Flash than I have at home.) The cool thing is that it's not computer-animation -- they really set it up like that. coraline posted a link to an article in the Daily Telegraph about the making of the commercial, and there's another article (Daily Record), in neither of which, I was shocked to notice, Rube Goldberg's name was ever mentioned (though Coraline handed me a bit of clue regarding that later). There's a little bit of discussion in Coraline's journal, and the first page I linked to (which is not Honda's site, but somebody who wanted to post a faster-downloading copy) mentions The Way Things Go, a 1987 film that apparently inspired the ad.
• I'm not sure what I think about this, but it's odd enough that I've got to pass it along: an art exhibit consisting of a dead fly and a tiny web server: "Within the installation, Fly, the utopian rhetoric invested within the notion of telepresence is ultimately usurped by the ultra-trite, supra-insignificant act of possession. Ironically, Hertz critiques techno-messianism by offering us tantalising techno-gimmerickery - leaving our engagement with the fly a sour residue of triviality." Unfortunately you have to scroll down past a bunch of slow-loading photos before you get to any explanation of what you're seeing.
• A physician claims " these are actual comments from his patients made while he was performing [colonoscopies]"
• "It must have been quite a sight - a near-naked man careering down a road on a motorised barstool, with his backside on fire." (The New Zealand Herald, February 2003)
• "The [Palo Alto city] council plans to dump a proposed guideline discouraging members from frowning or using other body language to show ``disagreement or disgust'' at public meetings." (Mercury News, 18 April) It seems to me that somebody didn't think things through.
• Okay, this one's likely to be controversial in one way or another (for my prediction of controvery if for nothing else, right?): an article about a Female-To-Male ("FTM") transsexual porn site (The Village Voice, 17 April). The star says, "Almost every FTM I know is probably in shock to see this." I haven't looked at the porn site (not like I have spare cash to satisfy my curiosity), but I found the article fascinating. ( cut for the sakes of folks reading this at work in offices where it wouldn't be 'work-safe' or who just don't want to see any more about this item )
  Near the end of the article: "It's controversial, bucking current conventions within the FTM community about sexual practices. Plus, it's titillating, raunchy, and sexy like an amateur porn site should be! [...] I had my preconceived notions challenged, I learned more about transmale sexuality, [...]"
• U.S. Army dismisses more gay linguists (Yahoo, 16 April). "'Our nation faces a serious shortfall in the number of trained professionals who can speak and decipher the languages critical to our national security,' said C. Dixon Osburn, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN). 'The continued firing of lesbian, gay and bisexual Americans who are trained in those languages underscores the detriment of 'don't ask, don't tell' on our nation.'"
• Office workers give away passwords for a cheap pen (The Register, 17 April). "Nine in ten (90 percent) of office workers at London's Waterloo Station gave away their computer password for a cheap pen, compared with 65 per cent last year." And later, "If they initially refused they were asked which category their password fell into and then asked a further question to find out the password. A further 15 percent were then prepared to give over their passwords, after the most rudimentary of social engineering tricks were applied." The article describes other troubling information security findings uncovered by the survey. Scary stuff for anyone trying to design security policies.