tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34039042024-03-07T01:15:12.909-05:00fhbFred@Dreamtimehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341564329610259477noreply@blogger.comBlogger1256125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403904.post-1094820242201889052014-11-18T15:20:00.000-05:002014-11-18T15:20:37.631-05:00No Obligation to Satisfy Your Lover and Lose Pounds - The Origins of SpamAmy wants to sell me Viagra. So do Shannon and Roy. Terrance offers a male penile enlargement that sounds both uncomfortable and redundant. And Arnold promises I can look younger and lose weight in just three weeks with human growth hormone.<br />
<br />
I’ll need all that and more if Sandie and Krys have their way with me. They’re proposing things performed by hot teenagers of both sexes that would make a Singapore whore blush. Of course, the girls and boys are going to need someone who can keep them in style, but Jonathon has that covered for me too. Debt reduction, refinancing, a world of winnings at the Lucky Nugget Casino, and a new career working out of my home are all but a mouse click away.<br />
<br />
That’s just this morning’s spam. I get an average fifteen to twenty unsolicited email messages every day, which translates to about 5,000 clicks on the “X” button per year. That small amount is considered a laughable minor annoyance by most of my Net acquaintances. Missy, a researcher on Google Answers, once claimed one of her email accounts was receiving 3,000 pieces of spam a week before she finally closed it. But everyone – everyone – gets spam, and gets lots of it, unless they’re extremely protective of their email address.<br />
<br />
<strong>THE BIRTH OF SPAM</strong><br />
<br />
<em>“THERE IS NO WAY TO PEACE. PEACE IS THE WAY.”</em><br />
– Opening line from the first known piece of spam, an antiwar message sent to over a thousand people at M.I.T. in 1971<br />
<br />
<br />
Tom Van Vleck, an engineer and research scientist, claims to have seen the first instance of spam over 30 years ago at M.I.T. Van Vleck built M.I.T.’s email system and ran the programming group for the school in 1971. As he writes on his Web site, “…I was mighty displeased one day … to discover that one of my team had abused his privilege to send a long anti-war message to every user… I pointed out to him that this was inappropriate and possibly unwelcome, and he said, ‘But this is important!’”<br />
<br />
If you agree with Van Vleck’s definition of spam, any mass email message sent to a large group of unwilling recipients, then he may be right that the M.I.T. anti-war email was its first instance. However, most people think of spam as commercial messages hawking anything from weight-loss pills to hard-core porn. A salesman named Gary Thuerk was the one who opened the Pandora’s Box of commercial spam seven years after the M.I.T. anti-war message. If the Pandora’s Box analogy holds true, and the last thing that emerged from Thuerk’s box was also Hope, it has yet to have made much headway against spam.<br />
<br />
<strong>THE GODFATHER OF SPAM</strong><br />
<br />
<em>“DIGITAL WILL BE GIVING A PRODUCT PRESENTATION OF THE NEWEST MEMBERS OF THE DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY…WE INVITE YOU TO COME SEE THE 2020 AND HEAR ABOUT THE DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY AT THE TWO PRODUCT PRESENTATIONS WE WILL BE GIVING IN CALIFORNIA THIS MONTH…”</em><br />
– Excerpt from the first known piece of commercial spam. Sent by THUERK at DEC-MARLBORO on May 1, 1978<br />
<br />
It’d be unfair to call Thuerk the father of spam. He’s more like the unlucky guy who first had the idea to inhale smoke from a burning weed, or maybe he’s more like Alfred Nobel. Call him the Godfather of Spam—the unwilling patron of a bad boy constantly getting into trouble. Thuerk was just the first to invent something that almost everyone—at least everyone who isn’t making money from it—wishes hadn’t been invented at all. But if it hadn’t been Thuerk it would have been someone else. There’s always another Pandora willing to open the box.<br />
<br />
In 1978 Thuerk was a sales representative with Digital Equipment Corporation, also known as DEC, a now-defunct computer company based in Massachusetts. DEC was well known on the East Coast in 1978, but had little visibility elsewhere. Known within DEC as an aggressive marketer, Thuerk was given the task of expanding DEC’s presence in the West, especially California. Thuerk decided to hold a series of marketing “open house” to promote a new computer the company was releasing, and came up with the idea to advertise through a message to all 393 people who then had email addressees on the West Coast.<br />
<br />
Thuerk now works for Hewlett-Packard, which bought out Compaq in 2001, which had in turn absorbed DEC in the `90s. “Actually, I still think it was a pretty good idea,” Thuerk told me when I called him at his office. For someone who’s been the target of bad vibrations for over 20 years, Thuerk is a surprisingly cheerful and talkative guy. If he has one tic about spam, it is that he dislikes using – or hearing – the word. He prefers the phrase, “commercial email.”<br />
<br />
“It was great marketing, very targeted,” he says. “I didn’t think of it as all that different from sending a flyer through regular mail. You have to understand that the only people who had email in the seventies were people connected to the ARPAnet.”<br />
<br />
ARPAnet was an early version of today’s Internet and Web, created and controlled by the military, and connecting a few thousand scientists and engineers at universities and government labs. DEC’s new computer was the first to have ARPAnet software built in, something which should be something of interest, Thuerk thought, to everyone in the ARPAnet community.<br />
<br />
The reaction to his email, Thuerk admits, was mixed.<br />
<br />
“We did get complaints,” he says. “A major from the Department of Defense called my boss the next day and chewed him out royally. A few days later the major sent out a blanket email saying ‘no more commercial messages.’”<br />
<br />
That message read in part, in all capital letters:<br />
<br />
“ON 2 MAY 78 DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORPORATION (DEC) SENT OUT AN ARPANET MESSAGE ADVERTISING THEIR NEW COMPUTER SYSTEMS. THIS WAS A FLAGRANT VIOLATION OF THE USE OF ARPANET AS THE NETWORK IS TO BE USED FOR OFFICIAL U.S. GOVERNMENT BUSINESS ONLY. APPROPRIATE ACTION IS BEING TAKEN TO PRECLUDE ITS OCCURRENCE AGAIN.”<br />
<br />
As well as getting the date wrong (Thuerk had a DEC technician send the message out on the first of May, although some recipients didn’t receive it until several days later), the major was also not the best predictor of the future, as time and increasing swarms of spam would tell. Although never trying it again himself, Thuerk was satisfied with what he had accomplished with this first piece of spam.<br />
<br />
“It worked pretty well,” Thuerk says. “We received a lot of positive reaction and I made some new sales contacts. All in all, I thought it was a success.”<br />
<br />
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Thuerk is also complacent about the monster his demon child has grown into. “At least 80 percent of the commercial email I get is useless,” he acknowledges. “But the problem is that it’s bad marketing, not that it’s marketing. It’s just overwhelming. Somebody will eventually come up with a way to target the messages only to the people who want to see them.”<br />
<br />
I hang up the phone and wonder about a world where people would welcome daily email about breast reductions and penis enlargements.<br />
<br />
<strong>SPAM vs. spam</strong><br />
<em>“We do not object to use of this slang term to describe unsolicited commercial mail… [but] if the term is to be used, it should be used in all lower-case letters to distinguish it from our trademark SPAM, which should be used with all uppercase letters.”</em><br />
– Notice on the “<a href="http://www.spam.com/ci/ci_in.htm">SPAM Website</a>, brought to you by the makers of the SPAM Family of products”<br />
<br />
<br />
As almost everyone knows by now, the term “spam” itself comes from a 1970 Monty Python routine about a restaurant where it’s impossible to get anything without spam – and lots of it – included, “You mean spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, and spam?” a waitress asks at one point.<br />
<br />
Although probably wishing that the Monty Python team had picked on Jell-O rather than their product, the owner of the SPAM brand name, Hormel Foods, publicly seems more concerned with the possibility of losing its unique trademark than of its association with unwanted email. Emphasizing the difference in an almost comic notice on their Web site, Hormel states that their SPAM is not email spam. “We coined this term in 1937,” Hormel plaintively notes. “…Ultimately, we are trying to avoid the day when the consuming public asks, ‘Why would Hormel Foods name its product after junk e-mail?’”<br />
<br />
The word started appearing as computer jargon in the early eighties. In tech-speak, “spamming” was used to describe flooding a computer with so much data that it would eventually freeze and crash. Among on-line chat room junkies, “spam” could either mean unwanted, verbose messages from new members, or as reaction against them: those bored with endless newbie chatter would sometimes use an automated program that would endlessly type the word, “spam”, to stop the conversation.<br />
<br />
<strong>“PERSONS BORN IN MOST COUNTRIES QUALIFY, MANY FOR FIRST TIME.”</strong><br />
– Excerpt from the Canter and Siegel “Green Card” spam<br />
<br />
“Spam” as a term to describe unwanted online advertising came into general use in 1994. A husband-and-wife lawyer team from Arizona, Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel, hired a programmer to post an advertisement on every USENET newsgroup flogging their services to help illegal foreign workers obtain green cards. An early version of online conferencing, USENET participants could discuss everything from UNIX computer programming to the trading of erotic versions of Disney cartoon art. You posted to a USENET discussion group through email, and received other postings and replies the same way; either individually or in daily digests.<br />
<br />
At the time there were several thousand USENET groups, and each one of them received the Canter and Siegel advertisement, usually not once, but several times. Since many USENET participants often subscribed to dozens of newsgroups, their mailboxes were flooded with hundreds of the same message. “Spam” quickly became the favored online term for the Canter and Siegel “Green Card” solicitation, and went on to be applied to anything broadcast repeatedly and annoyingly in USENET groups.<br />
<br />
Canter and Siegel also became infamous as the first totally unrepentant spammers. Even though their answering machine, fax, and email were flooded with complaints and threats, Canter and Siegel increased their spamming, happily gave media interviews, announced that they were available as consultants to others who wanted to post USENET ads, and ultimately self-published a book with the spam-like title of, “How to Make a Fortune on the Information Superhighway: Everyone's Guerrilla Guide to Marketing on the Internet and Other On-Line Services.”<br />
<br />
<strong>STEMMING THE FLOOD</strong><br />
<br />
Canter and Siegel faded back into obscurity after the publication of their book, but their experiment taught rogue programmers that mass e-mailing software, which had previously been used mostly to handle large mailing lists, could easily be perverted to send junk email. Today it’s dangerous to disclose your email address anywhere. Software that harvests email addresses from forum postings, captured from Web sites, even stolen from supposedly secure databases, has come into common use by spammers.<br />
<br />
In a March 2003 study, the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), a non-profit Internet organization, concluded that e-mail addresses posted on Web sites or in newsgroups attract the most spam. The study also notes, “For the most part, companies that offered users a choice about receiving commercial e-mails respected that choice. Most of the major Web sites to which we provided e-mail addresses respected the privacy choices we made -- when a choice was made available to us.”<br />
<br />
Can you avoid spam? Probably not, especially if you’re already receiving it. Spam lists propagate faster than a red worm farm, and once your address is in a spam database it will probably be there forever. But to protect yourself, the CDT study recommends:<br />
<br />
1) Disguise your email address if used publicly. The study notes that their tests received the most spam just by placing an e-mail address at the bottom of a web page. If you must use your primary email address, make it invisible or unusable to automated programs, while still human-decipherable.<br />
<br />
2) Use multiple email addresses. Establish alias email addresses specifically for newsgroups, forums, or Web postings. Make each address a little different and you’ll soon be able to track who’s providing your address to the spammers.<br />
<br />
3) Use a filter. Most email services now offer some type of spam filtering, with varying degrees of success. If you’re inclined to filter spam yourself, you can install a tool such as MailWasher (<a href="http://www.mailwasher.net/">http://www.mailwasher.net/</a>), an email checker that can eliminate both spam and viruses before they ever reach your mailbox.<br />
<br />
<strong>WE HAVE SPAM, SPAM, and SPAM</strong><br />
Lawsuits, better filtering and blocking software, legislation, whatever is brought against them, spammers have shown a resilience that makes it unlikely they’ll ever be totally brought under control. Spammers are like viruses – they adapt to survive. And like a virus, we may have to learn to tolerate the annoyance of spam, like the occasional summer cold.<br />
<br />
Somewhere in Colorado, the godfather of spam is working at his computer. A soft chime tells him of incoming email. He glances at a subject line and moves the cursor to the “Delete” button. Another one of the brood he first created in 1978 disappears back into the ether. And Gary Thuerk smiles.<br />
<br />
###<br />
<br />
<br />
NOTES<br />
<br />
The bulk of the research for this article – as well as the excerpts from the early spam messages – came from Brad Templeton’s most excellent Web page, “Reflections on the 25th Anniversary of Spam” at:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.templetons.com/brad/spam/spam25.html">http://www.templetons.com/brad/spam/spam25.html</a><br />
<br />
I highly recommend it for those interested in a more detailed history of spam.<br />
<br />
The full Center for Democracy & Technology’s March 2003 report, “Why Am I Getting All This Spam?” can be found at:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.cdt.org/speech/spam/030319spamreport.shtml">http://www.cdt.org/speech/spam/030319spamreport.shtml</a><br />
<br />
Thanks to Gary Thuerk for his kindness and for giving me the time to interview him by phone.Fred@Dreamtimehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341564329610259477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403904.post-51260088354166081412014-06-20T10:04:00.003-05:002014-06-20T10:05:05.309-05:00Spicy Adventure Stories -- January 1939<br />
<br />
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<br />Fred@Dreamtimehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341564329610259477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403904.post-1095080805563833042014-05-16T14:13:00.000-05:002014-05-16T14:14:40.160-05:00Life as a GAR - Working at Google Answers<strong>Q: How do I sign up to become a Researcher?</strong><br />
<br />
A: Because of an overwhelming response by qualified candidates, we are temporarily not accepting additional applications. Please check back with us again, as we likely will begin accepting applications again in the near future.<br />
<br />
- From the Google Answers FAQ<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQGDA6yDvDXiHr1PWk0NX2qVfwYDKRfRQn48rhr0dKSxI4JJjnmbtszpZbIZs_837PmnSjJpCVXsONW28Te4C05qtIry9LVg3LCSbAji3JFJcorAh9Sbhn8b8uGa-y-LDA159y/s1600-h/gar.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQGDA6yDvDXiHr1PWk0NX2qVfwYDKRfRQn48rhr0dKSxI4JJjnmbtszpZbIZs_837PmnSjJpCVXsONW28Te4C05qtIry9LVg3LCSbAji3JFJcorAh9Sbhn8b8uGa-y-LDA159y/s320/gar.jpg" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5074886386445695746" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt;" /></a>For roughly a year - May 2002 through May 2003 - I was a <a href="http://answers.google.com/answers/">Google Answers</a> Researcher<a href="http://answers.google.com/answers/"></a> (known among researchers themselves as "GARs") , working under the handle of "<a href="http://answers.google.com/answers/ratings?user=4357635074275158134">rico-ga</a>." The "ga" stands for "Google Answers", an appendage that Google attached to every member name. The nickname "Rico" has a long history, which, under different variations, I've been using for over three decades.<br />
<br />
If you know me or have read my <a href="http://fredbals.blogspot.com/">personal blog</a> long enough, you know my story already. The company I had worked for over the preceding 10 years closed its doors in late 2001, leaving me out on the street and with two weeks of severance for those 10 years. After several months of unemployment, I found a new job that I was supremely unhappy in. Fate, or the Muses, or maybe my Fairy Godmother, decided to lend a hand, and that company sacked me - as well as several dozen others, including their CEO - after I had been there just a month. Ironically, between the signing bonus, salary, and severance, I received more parting money for one month's employment there than I had from the other company for 10 years.<br />
<br />
That second company went out of business a few months later.<br />
<br />
The experience left me with an epiphany, as well as some money, the gist of it being that being a good boy and playing the game wasn't working, and I needed a new game. So, I started exploring alternatives to traditional go-to-work work. Happily, I had a wife who agreed and was willing to back my play.<br />
<br />
I did several things until I settled back into contract work. And now I write, podcast, and blog for money. Sometimes I have several clients, sometimes I have lean periods. Occasionally, I end up out of work for awhile. But it's a pretty good life all-in-all.<br />
<br />
As I said, while I was building that life, I tried my hand at several things, one of which was being a <a href="http://fredbals.blogspot.com/2004/09/life-as-gar-part-i-becoming-researcher.html"></a>Google Answers Researcher. Google Answers launched in April 2002, a self-described <em>"... way to get that help from Researchers with expertise in online searching. When you post a question to Google Answers, you specify how much you're willing to pay for an answer. A Researcher will search for the information you want. When they find it, they will post it to Google Answers, and you will be notified via email. You will only be charged for your question if and when an answer is posted to it."</em><br />
<br />
Based on the payment schedule I knew that Google Answers wasn't going to provide me with a living. I think the most I made from it in any one month was $600. But, my life and confidence had been pretty well shattered at that point. I wanted to do something - anything - to prove to myself I could still earn money. And for that, Google Answers was good for me.<br />
<br />
Except for helping me get back some self-confidence and a blanket that Google sent as a Christmas gift, and which my wife Peggy still uses, there's little else that I remember fondly about Google Answers. It was one of the first new projects spawned out of the Googleplex, and it was pretty obvious that - except in a technical sense - the anonymous "Google Answers Team," didn't have a clue about what they were doing, especially about how to manage their contractor researchers.<br />
<br />
Poorly conceived, poorly executed, and even more poorly managed, much bothered and annoyed me about working for Google Answers. There was the near-paranoid obsession with secrecy to the point that researchers were dismissed if they talked/wrote about their work publicly. There was the management insistence on their anonymity - researchers would get email from management under the blanket "Google Answers Team" title. During the year I worked for Google I never knew the name of one member of the "Google Answers Team." <br />
<br />
There was the arbitrary and inconsistent decision-making. You'd have answers pulled, restored, and pulled again dependent on which of the "Google Answers Team" was monitoring the work, sometimes with an explanation, often with only the reply that you had violated some ill-defined policy. One night, frustrated by a monitor who had decided to pull my answer for the third consecutive time with only boiler-plate explanations as to why, I sent an email advising what the entire Google Answers Team could collectively go do and resigned. I never regretted that decision.<br />
<br />
There's some good memories too. One of my answers which was pulled by the ever-watchful Google Answers Team was to a question having the memorable and self-explanatory title, "<span style="font-style: italic;">Have Small Cock, Need Small Rubber</span>." I spent an entertaining half-hour searching the Web, learning more about prophylactics both for the over- as well as for the under-endowed than I would probably ever have known otherwise. As I said, Google pulled the question shortly after I answered it, but did email my answer to the customer, who in turn sent a happy acknowledgment.<br />
<br />
Of course, I never got paid for that one, although as I remember Google congratulated me on my initiative.<br />
<br />
There's some other ones still there I'm proud of. <a href="http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=72133">The source of an obscure poem</a>. <a href="http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=59874">After dinner toasts for a newly married couple</a>. <a href="http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=99521">A murder mystery</a> that bothered me so much that I came back six months after my original answer with more information. <a href="http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=155315">A Kennedy assassination question. </a> <a href="http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=142877"> A sad question about a plane crash in 1958</a>.<br />
<br />
But that last, as some other questions did, also had me questioning what I was doing. It was pretty obvious that I wasn't providing the customer what she really wanted. All I could do was point to resources that might help her find more information. There were too many questions like that; questions that no one could answer.<br />
<br />
Some of the customers were clueless about that, as well as apparently clueless about basic search techniques. And some of them were pretty rude and stupid-mean as well as clueless. But generally, they were pretty good, and appreciative of our efforts. The GARs, which officially numbered somewhere between 500-800, although probably less than 100 were actively answering questions at any given time, were also a pretty good group. Super-intelligent as you could expect. Interesting. Funny. A couple of turkeys in that bunch too, but less than your average on-line community.<br />
<br />
In early 2002, you could still apply for a researcher position, but within a few months Google would freeze Google Answers hirings and, despite the implication in their FAQ, never re-opened the application process. While it was still possible to become a GAR, the candidate needed a recommendation from one or more established Google Answers researchers to get his or her foot in the door. In fact, someone who would become one of the most popular and prolific GARs - pinkfreud - was unanimously nominated by the Google Answers community because of her delightful and detailed commentary on various questions.<br />
<br />
But, back in May 2002 you could zip an application off to Google Answers and, in a few days, get back a link to a group of sample questions that you could try your hand at answering. Pick any three, take your best shot at answering them, send them back to the "Google Answers Team," and maybe you'd get hired.<br />
<br />
Here's the three I chose, with my answers:<br />
<br />
1) Question: What is the oldest existing film of a professional wrestling match, and where can I find it?<br />
<br />
Your question made for a fascinating tour through the somewhat surreal world of professional wrestling web sites. The oldest pro wrestling film known to be in existence shows Earl Caddock wrestling Joe Stecher in front of 14,000 fans at the old Madison Square Garden in New York in 1920.<br />
<br />
According to “Wrestling International Newsmagazine” (W.I.N.), Caddock was a former three-time AAU national amateur champion and was the then current world heavyweight professional champion, and Stecher was a former champion. Both had recently returned from World War I.<br />
<br />
If you happen to be in the vicinity of Newton, Iowa (about 35 miles from Des Moines), you can view this historic film at the International Wrestling Institute and Museum’s video theatre. It’s one of the museum’s most popular attractions.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.wrestlingmuseum.org/features.html">http://www.wrestlingmuseum.org/features.html</a><br />
<br />
Securing a personal copy may be a little more problematic, but I did find one site selling a video that includes the match, as well as several other historic bouts ranging from the 1930s through 60s.<br />
<br />
Keywords Used:<br />
<br />
oldest wrestling film known exist<br />
<a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=oldest+wrestling+film+known+exist&btnG=Google+Search">http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=oldest+wrestling+film+known+exist&btnG=Google+Search</a><br />
<br />
Stecher Caddock Wrestling Match<br />
<a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&q=Stetcher+Caddock+Wrestling+Match+&btnG=Google+Search">http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&q=Stetcher+Caddock+Wrestling+Match+&btnG=Google+Search</a><br />
<br />
regards, rico-ga<br />
<br />
2) Question: I'm trying to find a song with the lyrics "A little too little, a little too late."<br />
<br />
If we had been doing this for real, I probably would have asked for some clarification regarding time period/genre. Nevertheless, I’m fairly certainly that the tune still bopping through your brain after all these years is “Little Too Late” written by A. Call and sung by the powerful Pat Benatar on her 1982 release, “Get Nervous”.<br />
<br />
The lines you quote are from the song’s chorus:<br />
<br />
“It's a little too little<br />
It's a little too late<br />
I'm a little too hurt<br />
And there's nothin' left that I've gotta say<br />
You can cry to me baby<br />
But there's only so much I can take<br />
Ah, it's a little too little<br />
It's a little too late”<br />
<br />
Given that the chorus repeats four times, it’s understandable why the lines stuck in your head. You can confirm that I’ve pegged the song by hustling over to Amazon and listening to an excerpt from “Little Too Late,” and then buy the CD for your listening pleasure if I’ve got it right.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000008DDC/qid=1021822277/sr=1-9/ref=sr_1_9/104-0587863-3450314">http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000008DDC/qid=1021822277/sr=1-9/ref=sr_1_9/104-0587863-3450314</a><br />
<br />
Keywords Used:<br />
<br />
lyrics "+a little too little"<br />
<a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&q=lyrics++%22%2Ba+little+too+little%22&btnG=Google+Search">http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&amp;amp;amp;lr=&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&q=lyrics++%22%2Ba+little+too+little%22&btnG=Google+Search</a><br />
<br />
yours in power-pop, rico-ga<br />
<br />
3) Question: What is the unit of measure for pain? Distance is miles or km, weight is km or lb. What is pain measured in?<br />
<br />
Without getting all Einsteinian on you, unlike distance or weight, pain’s a relative thing and difficult to measure. Having my thumb slammed by a hammer might cause paroxysms of weeping on my part, while the same blow to you might be felt as no more than a “painful” annoyance. But let’s not try.<br />
<br />
The term “dol” (from the Latin “dolor” for “pain”) is the generally accepted term in science and medicine for a unit of pain intensity, according to Harcourt’s “Dictionary of Science and Technology”, Princeton University’s online WordNet system, and Dictionary.com.<br />
<br />
In practice, the sufferer usually reports dols on a numeric or verbal scale or, in the case of children, often through the use of “Happy Faces” or “Oucher” scale.<br />
<br />
If you’re not happy with “dol,” a Dr. Y. Vazharov of the Institute of Orthopedics and Traumatology,<br />
Sofia (Bulgaria) has proposed the term “alg.” Given that the doctor outlines a measurement method, “where the patient complaining of pain is exposed to the effect of a second pain produced by electrical current. The secondary pain is gradually increased until both pains become equally distressful …” I have my personal doubts as to whether “alg” has much chance of catching on. <a href="http://www.medun.acad.bg/medun/Coolll/Pain_i.htm"></a><br />
<br />
Keywords Used:<br />
<br />
Dictionary science medicine<br />
<a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=Dictionary+science+medicine&btnG=Google+Search">http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=Dictionary+science+medicine&btnG=Google+Search</a><br />
<br />
unit pain intensity<br />
<a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&amp;amp;ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&q=unit+pain+intensity&btnG=Google+Search">http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&amp;amp;amp;lr=&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&q=unit+pain+intensity&btnG=Google+Search</a><br />
<br />
online dictionaries<br />
<a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=online+dictionaries">http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&amp;amp;amp;lr=&q=online+dictionaries</a><br />
<br />
According to various postings by now-ex-GARs on the Web, things didn't improve over at Google Answers after my departure. In fact, conditions gradually worsened until s portions of the system had broken and were left unrepaired by the "Google Answers Team," who obviously had already moved on to new challenges long before the official shutdown notice. The Google Answers Team, with the same charitable concern for the feelings of contractors that they consistently demonstrated during my tenure, notified researchers through email sent a few hours before the official announcement... although apparently it wasn't a surprise to anyone who had been paying attention.<br />
<br />
Google Answers closed its doors in November 2006.Fred@Dreamtimehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341564329610259477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403904.post-49801699349846243922010-06-28T13:47:00.000-05:002010-06-28T13:47:03.523-05:00If You Encounter a Bear<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk3w-eAuGxwIktF0g1HgfjkQBL7HaDUk9xlWadiVNxz8PlvDDat4yPqwNwWyHVb6iwmGwMtdM0r8wf95xxD0WvTlBUtOqLN3hiwWQdnq1beK2JMWcIJSpJS_Yq0KasmImHkZ64/s1600/bear.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk3w-eAuGxwIktF0g1HgfjkQBL7HaDUk9xlWadiVNxz8PlvDDat4yPqwNwWyHVb6iwmGwMtdM0r8wf95xxD0WvTlBUtOqLN3hiwWQdnq1beK2JMWcIJSpJS_Yq0KasmImHkZ64/s400/bear.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Fred@Dreamtimehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341564329610259477noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403904.post-45272665562082878962010-06-18T11:19:00.002-05:002010-06-18T11:19:54.453-05:00We've redefined success and still failed<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" height="353" style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font: 11px arial; width: 360px;"><tbody>
<tr style="background-color: #e5e5e5;" valign="middle"><td style="padding: 2px 1px 0px 5px;"><a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/" style="color: #333333; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">The Daily Show With Jon Stewart</a></td><td style="font-weight: bold; padding: 2px 5px 0px; text-align: right;">Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 14px;" valign="middle"><td colspan="2" style="padding: 2px 1px 0px 5px;"><a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-june-16-2010/an-energy-independent-future" style="color: #333333; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">An Energy-Independent Future</a><a href="http://draft.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3403904"></a></td></tr>
<tr style="background-color: #353535; height: 14px;" valign="middle"><td colspan="2" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 5px 0px; text-align: right; width: 360px;"><a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/" style="color: #96deff; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">www.thedailyshow.com</a></td></tr>
<tr valign="middle"><td colspan="2" style="padding: 0px;"><embed allowfullscreen="true" allownetworking="all" allowscriptaccess="always" bgcolor="#000000" flashvars="autoPlay=false" height="301" src="http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:312470" style="display: block;" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="360" wmode="window"></embed></td></tr>
<tr style="height: 18px;" valign="middle"><td colspan="2" style="padding: 0px;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" height="100%" style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr valign="middle"><td style="padding: 3px; width: 33%;"><a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/" style="color: #333333; font: 10px arial; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Daily Show Full Episodes</a></td><td style="padding: 3px; width: 33%;"><a href="http://www.indecisionforever.com/" style="color: #333333; font: 10px arial; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Political Humor</a></td><td style="padding: 3px; width: 33%;"><a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/videos/tag/Tea+Party" style="color: #333333; font: 10px arial; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Tea Party</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Fred@Dreamtimehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341564329610259477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403904.post-40101444347120004822010-05-26T16:13:00.002-05:002010-05-26T16:13:28.841-05:00Bad News Travels Like Oil Slicks<iframe frameborder="0" height="490" marginheight="5" marginwidth="5" scrolling="no" src="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/oil-ticker/video.html" width="300px"></iframe>Fred@Dreamtimehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341564329610259477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403904.post-62772675469189321652010-02-11T14:59:00.000-05:002010-02-11T14:59:09.864-05:00Fred is Here<iframe frameborder="0" height="314" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&t=h&layer=c&cbll=42.796035,-71.528655&panoid=ZMkwfgh32mscsJufkX3wDw&cbp=13,306.44,,0,5.9&hq=&hnear=542+Amherst+St,+Nashua,+Hillsborough,+New+Hampshire+03063&ll=42.795975,-71.52875&spn=0,359.998493&z=19&source=embed&output=svembed" width="562"></iframe><br />
<small><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&t=h&layer=c&cbll=42.796035,-71.528655&panoid=ZMkwfgh32mscsJufkX3wDw&cbp=13,306.44,,0,5.9&hq=&hnear=542+Amherst+St,+Nashua,+Hillsborough,+New+Hampshire+03063&ll=42.795975,-71.52875&spn=0,359.998493&z=19&source=embed" style="color: blue; text-align: left;">View Larger Map</a></small>Fred@Dreamtimehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341564329610259477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403904.post-56119956135698696272010-01-20T09:57:00.000-05:002010-01-20T09:57:16.957-05:00He's Upstairs Colloborating With Raymond Chandler<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCzrW8K_LshmPHAg0pVww6XiYBhH7VdxvczcRnsOsw41_CGf0zG4mCTmyp0Bu1r23paifohk5vh65ZHuU0I7BtTSZQ2xNJ2_Oz3Tiu56uFHJVWWbSAc9kg10mgtm-QPA4lNd5z/s1600-h/mourner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCzrW8K_LshmPHAg0pVww6XiYBhH7VdxvczcRnsOsw41_CGf0zG4mCTmyp0Bu1r23paifohk5vh65ZHuU0I7BtTSZQ2xNJ2_Oz3Tiu56uFHJVWWbSAc9kg10mgtm-QPA4lNd5z/s320/mourner.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://open.salon.com/blog/luluandphoebe/2010/01/19/for_robert_parker">Godspeed Robert Parker</a>.<br />
</div>Fred@Dreamtimehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341564329610259477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403904.post-34328863608224868942010-01-14T10:01:00.000-05:002010-01-14T10:01:28.371-05:00The Moses Tablet is Coming<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicDUCWrWp5UbIv6kytx2gZc8LT3QhIVX6FYJFCRCtQPUGuzQqbqWnD-4QlXdjazyQ6rDr__ae7hHtJb-zfmgMJRUGnuZ_749HsunO9uBbZ9iOo_HNcgKgp1_OBOtacJpsZK60c/s1600-h/moses_tablet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicDUCWrWp5UbIv6kytx2gZc8LT3QhIVX6FYJFCRCtQPUGuzQqbqWnD-4QlXdjazyQ6rDr__ae7hHtJb-zfmgMJRUGnuZ_749HsunO9uBbZ9iOo_HNcgKgp1_OBOtacJpsZK60c/s400/moses_tablet.jpg" width="306" /></a><br />
</div>January 27, 2010Fred@Dreamtimehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341564329610259477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403904.post-46364772559096584162010-01-05T11:00:00.000-05:002010-01-05T11:00:49.938-05:00You can take the dog out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the dog<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp6jg7jfi-gioaWxYsH9PXvDKvQezFmFhhyh8DtZn-jNeinUYHfFrKqatgVxLGIby7Sy8JkTOl2lHjo0V3qL_CG5A7g1LIWB9xNYYdpWxAu3OXYPoaJcNwBC-RDrsUq-59s1yj/s1600-h/gracie.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp6jg7jfi-gioaWxYsH9PXvDKvQezFmFhhyh8DtZn-jNeinUYHfFrKqatgVxLGIby7Sy8JkTOl2lHjo0V3qL_CG5A7g1LIWB9xNYYdpWxAu3OXYPoaJcNwBC-RDrsUq-59s1yj/s320/gracie.jpeg" width="320" /></a><br />
</div><br />
So notes our Washington correspondent about the attached photo (pictured: Gracie the Wonder Pup).<br />
<br />
"A bird flew into the kitchen window with great force and died. Gracie graciously retrieved it for me. Unlike what she usually does to my arm or knees, she handled it with a soft mouth. She also left it outside the door, so I could neatly take care of the poor thing."Fred@Dreamtimehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341564329610259477noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403904.post-33217592542567737692010-01-02T12:42:00.001-05:002010-01-05T11:45:38.224-05:00Kindlized<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinToeiAPX-lrh45VGnptnVyLjci40WwE2voIOF51-ZeEQxLIdtSNXNZkTvjHa3fnE4wf05nyhradS0xtlOaRUprsf926SYynBrWd-EM83fWFamKO01HntYWOesDL8dbQJgm8N5/s1600-h/kindle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinToeiAPX-lrh45VGnptnVyLjci40WwE2voIOF51-ZeEQxLIdtSNXNZkTvjHa3fnE4wf05nyhradS0xtlOaRUprsf926SYynBrWd-EM83fWFamKO01HntYWOesDL8dbQJgm8N5/s200/kindle.jpg" width="150" /></a><br />
</div>Portrait of a study in contrasts. Peggy and I in front of the living room fireplace on a snowy New Hamster day. Peggy is playing Spider Solitaire on her new iPhone. Fred is reading the <i>New York Times</i> on his Kindle...<br />
<br />
So, Santa was overly generous this year and a new Kindle was found under the tree by one super-spoiled Freddy. First impressions from a new Kindle owner.<br />
<br />
I was concerned about how well the Kindle's "Whispernet" connection (Whispernet is the wireless connection either being supplied by Sprint or AT&T, I'm not sure which). Given that our cell phones barely work unless we stand out in the driveway, I thought Whispernet was going to be a bit problematic. And indeed, at best I only get two bars of signal strength. On the one hand, cruising the Web or downloading content from other-than-Amazon through the Kindle ranges from difficult to impossible. On the other hand, getting content <i>from </i>Amazon is simple and without problem.<br />
<br />
<b>Magazines and Newspapers</b>: Kindle may never kill printed books, but I think it (and its various e-Reader brethen) is probably going to be the death-blow to print newspapers and magazines. Within a few days of adding the <i>New York Times</i> to my Kindle, we had killed the delivery of the print Sunday edition. A telling piece of evidence is that the Kindle subscription is less than <i>half </i>of the price of the Sunday print version... plus I now get the other six days as well, all for $14 a month. It's still an open question about whether I'll move my <i>New Yorker</i> subscription over to the Kindle. According to various reports the Kindle version is incomplete and lacking cartoons. Given that those issues get worked out, I may consider subscribing through the Kindle when my print subscription ends in 2011.<br />
<br />
There is little as cool as waking up in the morning, switching on the Kindle, and by the time I'm sipping my first cup of coffee, I have the <i>Times </i>ready for my persusal.<br />
<br />
I was disappointed to discover that there was no Kindle version of <i>Wired</i>, about the only magazine except the <i>New Yorker</i> and <i>Cigar Aficionado</i> (I know, I know) I read regularly. According to the rumor mills, <i>Wired</i>'s publisher, Conde Nast, is preparing a multimedia version of the mag for the rumored-but-probably-true Apple tablet.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
<b>Experience</b>. Pros: The reading experience is ah, "<i>book-like</i>" enough that very quickly you forget that you're looking at a high-tech device rather than paper. <b>Pluses</b>: You can change the font size, an important factor for anyone with 50+-old eyes, as we all discover eventually. The built-in dictionary is way cool. Move the cursor in front of the word, and see an abbreviated definition. Click, and call up the full definition. I think of myself as a fairly literate guy, but I didn't know that <i>maven </i>is from the Yiddish, for example. The controls are simple and relatively easy to use, although I still have a tendency to poke the wrong button at times.<br />
<br />
<b>Minuses</b>: The only button placement I really object to is "Previous," which is midway up the left side of the Kindle. While it probably works if you're holding a "bare" Kindle (that is, <i>sans </i>cover), I'm holding a beautiful leather cover from Oberon rather than the device. With cover on, you can't click "Previous" easily. You have to poke it. I didn't realize how much I refer back to earlier pages until it became difficult to do.<br />
<br />
Although text is easier to read on than a computer, the Kindle screen will occasionally reflect light until you find the right angle. The "page-turn-Flash" that everyone complained about when the Kindle 1 was released is there, but to me barely noticeable, no more distracting than turning a page.<br />
<br />
While I keep on reading claims that the Kindle will hold a charge for as long as a week (with the Wireless turned off except when needed), my Kindle seems to be draining the battery much faster than that. I haven't decided whether that's a problem yet or not. "<i>Seems</i>" is still the operative word. Stay tuned on that one.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.oberondesign.com/Kindle2.php" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTCa6ktmOvA6x0HGpMOPhqFStfwcvP9waZem8VaqNcNT1GIQOQikb058WceeCcom2xc2IC_AwT89xw2TDUB2OsHcESzxaXslCE9Ti8TBs1K0plLVvheYE2A2a3Uij-zRq41MXr/s200/raven.jpg" width="143" /></a>- <b>Cover</b>: Believe me, you want a cover, and you want a nice cover., You want to be gripping and holding leather rather than plastic. It changes the entire Kindle reading experience. So, spend the extra cash. Mine is from <a href="http://www.oberondesign.com/Kindle2.php">Oberon Design</a> in California. Santa somehow knew that the cover to the left - in blue - was the one I wanted and had it ready for me on Christmas Day.<br />
<br />
- And finally, <b>Books</b>. <br />
<br />
So far, I have a few free public domain books, including <i>Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea</i> and <i>The Time Machine</i> on my Kindle. I'm kind of looking forward to reading old favorites, Dickens, Twain, Wells, Verne, on the Kindle. I found the links to various archives of free/public domain eContent through one of my first Amazon purchases, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B001TOCCRK/fredbals-20">The Complete User's Guide To the Amazing Amazon Kindle 2</a></i> by Stephen Windwalker, which I heartily recommend at its low-cost .99 cents. It covers Kindle basics, probably nothing you couldn't suss out on your own, but its real value is its links to on-line content, especially free content.<br />
<br />
My second purchase was David Grann's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B001NLL414/fredbals-20">The Lost City of Z</a></i>, one of those "meaning-to-read" books that got lost in the daily noise and which I ws reminded of when it showed up on one of those "best books of 2009" lists. In a couple of minutes and $9.99 later, the book was on my Kindle.<br />
<br />
And that's both the delight and danger of the Kindle, especially for someone like me. Read an interesting review and want that book? No need to wait for the next trip to the bookstore or to be put on the library waiting list. And the chances are good that in a week you'll have forgotten the title, or why you thought it interesting, or will have been distracted by the next, new shiny object and not get the book. But no more of that. Now you can have it on your Kindle in the time it takes to read this blog post.<br />
<br />
So, a couple of house rules are already in effect: one set by Peggy and one set by me. Peggy has me on an allowance, which is probably a very good idea, knowing me. Me, I'm going to try the enforce the rule I use for buying physical books. No new purchases until the books already on the "to-read" list are either abandoned or finished.<br />
<br />
Of the two, I think the allowance rule will probably be more effective.Fred@Dreamtimehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341564329610259477noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403904.post-27833524735306196422009-12-09T08:49:00.000-05:002009-12-09T08:49:09.189-05:00A Kindle Lover Unboxes a Nook<embed allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="265" src="http://blip.tv/play/82GBtaBIAg" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="365"></embed><br />
<br />
Len Edgerly, host of the great The Kindle Chronicles podcast, unboxes the somewhat unfortunately named Barnes and Noble "Nook." I was at a local B&N over the weekend, and they had a little booth set up directly inside the entrance with two people eager to tell you all about the Nook, even though all they had to offer the curious were two mock-ups. <br />
<br />
"We'll have it in the store on Monday," said one of the demo people.<br />
<br />
"To buy?" I asked.<br />
<br />
"No," he answered. "Just to show."<br />
<br />
I like the <i>idea </i>of the Nook, especially the thought of cruising into a B&N with Nook in hand and browsing through books. And the Nook touch interface looks a lot more elegant and iTouchish than the Kindle. But, having said that, I'm a scarred enough technophile to be wary of early adoption of anything. All-in-all, everything I've read or heard indicates that a Kindle 2 is a more realistic eReader choice than a Nook at this stage of the game... especially if you're hoping Santa might put one in your stocking. But the eREader wars are heating up, and that's likely a good thing for consumers.Fred@Dreamtimehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341564329610259477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403904.post-45844883994513702642009-12-01T09:55:00.000-05:002009-12-01T16:13:10.145-05:00Happy Thanksgiving!<object height="265" width="325"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ccj2BH25c0I&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ccj2BH25c0I&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="365" height="265"></embed></object><br />
<br />
<i>fhb </i>is back. Stay tuned.Fred@Dreamtimehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341564329610259477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403904.post-81380289676041241212009-05-10T14:58:00.002-05:002009-05-12T08:13:59.706-05:00Too Many Goodbyes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbSAovd9F7rLIIAbG2a0kltRthJUaeLISorlsOzq2W1G-M23DbT5iBPstF_aBqiSud3OQRXySZqkMiSf9LYxbT30a8PD15vre5AfNh0UqUHu4I1Y2oVCHIX1nAcS2T62IeV1Nf/s1600-h/header_jazzBrunch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbSAovd9F7rLIIAbG2a0kltRthJUaeLISorlsOzq2W1G-M23DbT5iBPstF_aBqiSud3OQRXySZqkMiSf9LYxbT30a8PD15vre5AfNh0UqUHu4I1Y2oVCHIX1nAcS2T62IeV1Nf/s320/header_jazzBrunch.jpg" border="0" /></a></div><br />As you've probably gathered, I don't update <i>fhb </i>all that much anymore (I think once every five months would qualify as "not all that much"). I'm still writing regularly over at <a href="http://www.dreamtimepodcast.com/"><i>Dreamtime</i></a>, which better suits my interests at the moment.<br /><br />Of course I have the issue that Bob Dylan has apparently ended Theme Time Radio Hour with the "Goodbye" show, but I still have a few more <i>Dreamtime </i>posts, maybe even a podcast or two, and some other plans.<br /><br />It's not turning out to be a good year for radio shows we like, as today we heard the news that Jeff Turton's long-running <i>Jazz Brunch</i> has ended after 26 years on WFNX, which parallels the time that Peggy and I have been together. We started listening to the <i>Jazz Brunch</i> shortly after Peggy moved in with me during that brief (but enjoyable) period we were living together in sin. We listened to the <i>Jazz Brunch</i> after we married; after a move from Massachusetts to New Hampshire; after we bought our first home, a condo, and then after we bought our first house and home, the one I'm writing in today and where we heard Jeff's announcement.<br /><br />A lot of Sundays. We went to see Jeff and have brunch when he was doing the live <i>Jazz Brunches</i> in Cambridge. We bought a lot of wonderful wine thanks to Howie Rubin at Bauer Wine's recommendations. I even went to Bauer Wine after missing Howie's regular appearances on the show. "How come you don't do <i>Jazz Brunch</i> anymore?" I asked. "Because they won't pay me," he answered.<br /><br />We listened to Jeff's son Ben grow up over the years through his annual appearances. We learned how much Jeff hated winter and Christmas music, especially jazz Christmas music. We ate at the East Coast Grill in Cambridge because we heard about it on the <i>Jazz Brunch</i>. Jeff introduced us to more artists and their music than I can name now, but included Debra Henson-Conant, Madeline Peyroux, Nancy Wilson's <i>Guess Who I Saw Today</i>, and Sarah Vaughan's <i>Just A Little Lovin</i>' to acknowledge a few singers and songs we first heard on the <i>Jazz Brunch</i>. I spent years tracking both Wilson's and Vaughn's cuts down, and in fact only found the album containing the live version of <i>Guess Who I Saw Today </i>last October in San Francisco, triumphantly bringing it home to Peggy after 20-odd years of looking for it. Jeff Turton is probably directly responsible for several hundred dollars worth of CDs residing on my shelves.<br /><br />In other words, Jeff Turton and the <i>Jazz Brunch</i> have been a big part of our lives as long as we've been together. It was evident that the end was nearing. Jeff's on-air time was cut from six hours - from 6 a.m. to noon - down to four a couple of years ago, the <i>Jazz Brunch</i> apparently only remaining on at all because WFNX's owner liked jazz. In the past year Peggy and I started looking for other alternatives to listen to on Sundays as Jeff fiddled with the programming to try to attract a more contemporary audience. Instead, I think he probably alienated his core listeners, like us. There are only so many jazz covers of pop tunes or weird "world music" you can listen to until you start longing for some straight-ahead Thelonius Monk or Abby Lincoln, which had all but disappeared on the <i>Jazz Brunch</i> in recent months.<br /><br />But we still checked it out regularly, hoping that we'd hear the older programming that had made us <i>Jazz Brunch</i> fans, and we were listening to it today, and were at least happy to be there at the end, as we were at the beginning. We'll miss the <i>Jazz Brunch</i>, and Jeff Turton. Jeff you have our thanks for being part of our Sundays over the last 26 years.<br /><br />As you get older, you find that few changes are good.Fred@Dreamtimehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341564329610259477noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403904.post-61401004204197742512009-01-12T15:12:00.002-05:002009-01-12T15:46:06.421-05:00And Daily Deer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw4Nl5PF-56G-KQMz_Zd_xWClAmUNUMeBRfYSuOAgP07nfNheBn2BLvF3pDzrKq4wdyNXhchtIZBz90dkzuYKGKC-_3PQq7ChSnx5PSZcmLqQoiVnGxSlz6_x1CKsn1v_oSb8A/s1600-h/P1030748.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw4Nl5PF-56G-KQMz_Zd_xWClAmUNUMeBRfYSuOAgP07nfNheBn2BLvF3pDzrKq4wdyNXhchtIZBz90dkzuYKGKC-_3PQq7ChSnx5PSZcmLqQoiVnGxSlz6_x1CKsn1v_oSb8A/s320/P1030748.JPG" border="0" /></a>And, continuing the Double-D theme of the day, here's a pic of "Daily Deer," so named because of his habit of showing up almost every day and grazing on fallen bird seeds, as well as our yews, which I wish he wouldn't. </div><br />But, I have a soft spot for DD, because he's got a bum hind leg. We first thought he had dislocated it, or had been hit by a car, but have now concluded it's a birth defect. He gets along quite well on three, thank you very much, even through the snow.<br /><br />On the other hand, he looks like he's expending a lot of energy doing with three legs what other deers do with four, so I put out a feed block for him (you can see it behind DD), and he seems to be enjoying chawing on that. After consulting with our vet, I've now also expanded the DD menu to apples, carrots, and a hay bale and Peggy has taken to calling me "Farmer John."<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">DD may have put out the word that I'm a soft touch, as a few days ago, a posse of four new deers, including a Fall fawn, showed up behind him. Although DD is too slow-moving to keep up with them, they all seemed used to hanging out together, and I suspect they all share some bedding place in the woods behind us.<br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I dithered about "nature taking its course" and all that, but again, after a frank discussion with our vet, who I trust, we figured that as long as DD nether looked like he was suffering or starving I'd at least give him a fighting chance. As the vet said, if he can make it through the Winter, the chances are he'll do fine come Spring. Interestingly, she says deers with only three good legs are quite usual, and many of them live a deer's normal allotted time.<br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And, I have this nagging thought that DD is a sign to an often-morose Farmer John that " you have to farm in the weather you are given, you can't be waiting for the sun to shine."<br /><br />Live long and prosper, DD.<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div>Fred@Dreamtimehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341564329610259477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403904.post-77357866999648563382009-01-12T13:30:00.003-05:002009-01-12T14:02:44.190-05:00Demolition Days<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEUOh6ttdwB7rSU-pt36ORQQqJgRJ4BfxsX4X5faicCgVjR-to_OgVVXAUWGMieiFN01_dxAf6e7gOJ_lK4psLHUy2hAhPeYTSbOHUVrHQ86V-lhPShyphenhyphenFlhWrUcHjLCwep29n9/s1600-h/bear.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEUOh6ttdwB7rSU-pt36ORQQqJgRJ4BfxsX4X5faicCgVjR-to_OgVVXAUWGMieiFN01_dxAf6e7gOJ_lK4psLHUy2hAhPeYTSbOHUVrHQ86V-lhPShyphenhyphenFlhWrUcHjLCwep29n9/s320/bear.jpg" /></a></div>For those asking for news of how bad the flooding in our basement was... it was <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fhbals/sets/72157612441702577/">this bad</a>. Or more accurately, this was the aftermath.<br />
<br />
About the only thing that we didn't <span style="font-style: italic;">have </span>to take down was the ceiling, but at that point it seemed ridiculous to renovate the basement office and leave the funky, old, ill-lit, mouse-infested ceiling in. So it went too.<br />
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As did the dark, old, `60s-era wall paneling, pleasing Peggy to no end. We found that the walls had been incorrectly studded and most of the paneling wasn't anchored to anything. Hence the reason behind the walls bulging out from the pressure of the water behind them.<br />
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As did all the insulation , which was still soaked six inches up after three weeks. We were going to cut the wet insulation out, saving what we could, but the insulation was so inefficient compared to modern standards that we had it all pulled.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidfCCwxSeM4mSxcpDWBuf4ow_3grVvP2DzlqcXy7zYt6p0DXxWCyIJSjdpIsdUNXtPG-u9jX6EFcrEY_UnmiGsUQlYDt4MskuVyf8mCGXPVBj9CjWmWg-w4M3pu8yHSfnslm1-/s1600-h/demo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidfCCwxSeM4mSxcpDWBuf4ow_3grVvP2DzlqcXy7zYt6p0DXxWCyIJSjdpIsdUNXtPG-u9jX6EFcrEY_UnmiGsUQlYDt4MskuVyf8mCGXPVBj9CjWmWg-w4M3pu8yHSfnslm1-/s320/demo.jpg" /></a></div>As did all the studding. We were going to add new wall studding in, but found that the floor studs - after repeated soaking over the years, were sodden, rotted so badly that they were crumbling, and covered with black mold. So we pulled it all out.<br />
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The rug, an indoor/outdoor, has been pulled, but is salvageable. The pad wasn't. We probably won't replace the pad - "once is accident, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action."<br />
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I lost about 30 years of books, happily not all of them. Mostly the paperbacks. Peggy lost Christmas decorations, books, boxes of memories. Probably other things that we won't know about until we try to find them.<br />
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Yes, we know, We appreciate the sentiment. We're getting over it. <br />
<br />
What was the finished basement is now an empty shell. Actually, it isn't an empty shell. As I write this, new studding and wallboard have arrived and are being loaded downstairs.<br />
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As that frosty poet, Robert Frost, once said, "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned in life: It goes on."<br />
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And it does. And so will we.Fred@Dreamtimehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341564329610259477noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403904.post-44594235983045247602009-01-04T12:28:00.000-05:002009-01-04T13:02:32.973-05:00Into `09<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNoCTXPgFiOXMrRRIMAPbVgzfIRWlfslGEO9uwCdVcI4y1vHvkmwJ-stcLBPAEuzdJDzduIUNjNTu8ZC8BSLo2kvCPidKD020Jw-9iOhbJvYZB9HdkjGIyoZKF-uibHNhmn7Sc/s1600-h/sign-fail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNoCTXPgFiOXMrRRIMAPbVgzfIRWlfslGEO9uwCdVcI4y1vHvkmwJ-stcLBPAEuzdJDzduIUNjNTu8ZC8BSLo2kvCPidKD020Jw-9iOhbJvYZB9HdkjGIyoZKF-uibHNhmn7Sc/s320/sign-fail.jpg" /></a></div>I have a semi-policy not to talk problems on <i>fhb</i>, mostly because I could easily turn the blog into a forum about nothing except my problems. Occasionally, like we all do I run into a string of bad luck where there seems to be nothing to talk about except problems... and that's been pretty much true since mid-October, and is partially the reason I stopped blogging at <i>fhb</i>.<br />
<br />
But y'know, writing that brings to light that the statement isn't entirely true. Yeah, we've had some tough times in recent months, and we're not out of the woods yet.<br />
<br />
But up to October, it was a pretty good year, although the last three months overshadowed the preceding nine. But we had a great trip up at my ancestral watering hole in Moosehead Lake, Maine. <br />
<br />
I did some work - both for clients and for myself - that were as good as anything I've ever done, and of which I'm still exceedingly proud.<br />
<br />
We had one of the best Thanksgivings ever with our family. Thanks to their generosity, we also have access to a beautiful house on Martha's Vineyard whenever we want it.<br />
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<i>Dreamtime </i>continues to keep me sane and whole.<br />
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I have two cats who love me unconditionally, because they don't know any better. <br />
<br />
And I have Peggy - who certainly <i>does </i>know better, but who still loves me, too.<br />
<br />
I'm not sure at this point how much I'll continue blogging at <i>fhb</i>, although the fact that I wrote the word "continue" without thinking about it indicates to me that I'm not quite ready to shut it down altogether. As I've said, most of my writing is over at <i>Dreamtime </i>now, and posts here will probably continue to be sporadic at best.<br />
<br />
But 2008 is over. Let's see what 2009 brings.Fred@Dreamtimehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341564329610259477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403904.post-27503575777615525262008-10-18T10:35:00.000-05:002008-10-18T10:52:38.232-05:00Use iGoogle? Hate the Look & Feel Changes? Here's How to RevertGoogle, with it's usual arrogance, foisted off a new version of the iGoogle look and feel with zippo warning to users. I left my iGoogle page yesterday, opened it another tab a few minutes later, and had a classic "WTF" moment, thinking somehow I had chaged my page settings accidently. I spent a fruitless afternoon trying to revert to my old settings, until finally realizing today that it wasn't me, but that great big Goog in the sky.<br />
<br />
I'm going to leave aside the arguments about whether the changes are good or bad. Personally I think they suck, especially moving the tabs to the left side of the page and the mail preview that can no longer be turned off. But opinions of suckiness aside, the point is that I was/am <i>familiar </i>with how my iGoogle page works. I don't <i>want</i> to have to adapt to some new way of working because some Google engineer thinks it's "better" for me.Maybe eventually I will, but at my own speed and inclination, Google, not yours.<br />
<br />
Hidden on the "Google Operating System" blog are these instructions to get the old interface back - at least temporarily: <br />
<blockquote>If you have the new version, but you prefer the previous interface, go to the <a href="http://www.google.com/ig/settings">settings page</a> and select English (UK) from the list of languages. Please note that this is just a temporary fix. </blockquote>Fred@Dreamtimehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341564329610259477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403904.post-47135882276668900012008-09-29T12:37:00.001-05:002008-09-29T12:43:30.011-05:00News You Can't Make Up - Part the Nthvia William Gibson:<br /><br /><blockquote>A US Illuminati black op to seek, locate and disarm a Soviet nuke disguised as a blue plastic cow sculpture ended in failure when the special agent charged with the task got stuck in an air duct in Knoxville Museum of Art, and was obliged to call for traditional law enforcement assistance.<br /><br />According to Knoxville's WBIR, 25-year-old Richard Anthony Smith rang 911 at around 4.30am on Wednesday to alert the authorities to his predicament. When officers arrived, they found him trapped in said duct about 45 feet below the roof, having "repelled [sic] from a CH2 Huey"* onto the museum. Smith simply said: "Mission failed."<br /><br />Once extricated, the spook - dressed in "camo top and bottom, black shirt and green hat" - elaborated that he was in fact a "special agent with the United States Illuminati, badge number 0931" ordered by "Director Womack" to "defuse and confiscate a Soviet-made MERV6SS-22AN warhead, with 14.5 kg of enriched uranium and a plutonium trigger, capable of delivering a 40-kiloton yield".</blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/18/illuminati_black_op/">Full story here</a> which also includes my favorite part - that after becoming stuck in the duct, Gibson received another call from "Director Womack" advising that he had made a mistake, and the cow sculpture was actually in Memphis.Fred@Dreamtimehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341564329610259477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403904.post-90615181014242025262008-09-28T12:45:00.003-05:002008-09-29T07:05:08.904-05:00City By the BayAnother podcast series, as Leo LaPorte likes to say, is in the can, this one from Oracle OpenWorld (OOW) in San Francisco, which is where I've spent my last week.<br /><br />OOW surprised me by its size - over 43,000 in attendance, according to reports. It was kind of like a Comdex, the super-technology show in Las Vegas which I used to work regularly in the `90s. Blocked-off streets, packed sidewalks, hotel lobbies so crowded that it was hard to move through them. This all in San Francisco, so outside of the influx of the 43K technophiles, you also had the early Fall <span style="font-style: italic;">turistas </span>on the streets. San Francisco is probably one of the best cities in the world to visit in the Fall if it isn't raining, and nary a drop did we see that week. Weather was mild and in the mid-70s during the day, mid-60s at night.<br /><br />I haven't been in the City for the past eight years. In fact, I haven't been much of anywhere in the past eight years. I've traveled more in 2008 than I have in the previous eight combined. I was pleased to find that few of the personal landmarks I remembered had changed. I was able to hit <a href="http://www.nvwe.com/">Napa Valley Wines</a> and take care of our holiday wine needs in one fell - albeit expensive - swoop. <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS240&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=Vy's+Jewelry+San+Francisco&fb=1&view=text&latlng=636884307388431324">Vy's Jewelry</a> was still in the same location in Chinatown, so Peggy got a present for being abandoned with two unhappy cats as I worked and played out west. I went back to one of my all-time favorite sushi places, <a href="http://www.sanraku.com/sanraku.html">Sanraku on Sutter</a>, and found a new favorite, <a href="http://www.colibrimexicanbistro.com/">Colibri Mexican Bistro</a> on Geary, which I highly recommend - I had one of the best meals of my life there, undoubtedly oiled by two margaritas with blue agave tequila.<br /><br />I didn't get to <a href="http://www.kayobooks.com/">Kayo Books</a> or <a href="http://hunanhome.ypguides.net/">Hunan Home</a>, or <a href="http://www.johnsgrill.com/">John's Grill</a>, which would have pretty much rounded up Fred's Cooks Tour of S.F., but given I produced and engineered a dozen podcasts over a four-day period, I was pretty pleased that I got in as much personal time in as I did.<br /><br />I have a love/hate relationship with San Francisco. It's one of the great cities of the world. If you like walking around as much as I do, it's a perfect place to visit. But, the armies of street people/homeless/bums/winos/panhandlers can get me down, especially when San Francisco is on the tolerant side of the pendulum, as it seems to be now, and essentially leaves them alone just as long as they're not aggressively scaring away the tourists. So walking can become similar to running a gantlet. You shake the head and stare straight ahead, and hurt inside, trying not to wonder about their stories.<br /><br />But that's the down side. The up side was that it was a great trip - a good job done well in a beautiful, intriguing city.Fred@Dreamtimehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341564329610259477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403904.post-48825254551331643692008-09-09T08:05:00.000-05:002008-09-09T08:22:53.997-05:00How Heinlein Responded to Fan Mail<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisfTaekD-ODE7zxEgHa4glviWoj-XYT_AAE2n-fIzv4umV5fopVeTz1Og69Nz1rB1Qv4TGdSJevNAGbOyhuLOA3LR9xBwBVAJcUGmQZchod7mbhbv-4TVZKRmCoduh8WvqkLVa/s1600-h/heinlein.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ0EAtaldO-DjSTZ4dR2h6xyeGatjHFYweqm4PhdS4EimKaiA1F2lfmLZ5kjbDIpfOruIINHyw5P648EgYUk_KTE8ISFY5J9T8T-L5ORvFzLF6pK4WQg9jyHbPvrvSAaKaR0E8/s400-r/heinlein.jpg" /></a></div>Click on the image for a readable version. Not a problem that I have, although I do get the occasional cranky email asking why I didn't answer someone's earlier email, and most of my responses to <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Dreamtime </span>email are a canned version of "Thanks for the kind words." But it's interesting to see how RAH handled the situation. Harlan Ellison used to send a pre-printed postcard, as I remember, which said in a florid pseudo-Chinese style something to the effect of "if I spent the time replying to how much you enjoyed [insert title here], I'd have less time to write the stuff you enjoy. So forgive this canned response."<br />
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I think my favorite of the group is the terse, "Please do not write to me again."<br />
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<a href="http://kk.org/ct2/2008/09/heinleins-fan-mail-solution.php">via Kevin Kelly</a>Fred@Dreamtimehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341564329610259477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403904.post-81190194910003394702008-09-06T14:40:00.001-05:002008-09-06T14:48:56.071-05:00Not Vetting Sarah<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWTSAyv_U6PE2Vt6nz8-IZp11l4HNKifLcEo4lX2CGuj49X_jmlNdqGSEpXHqimBfFEgE4o4dabzw_5yE9WWTP_lPomgcx_-tAfjGGdhEEJ47er4YTGDiElsMc7_lujK_M4toi/s1600-h/palin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvhWmbW2krl2OCJY4mJ0TMZ_afmAoOSfA6ll7n2UXWa_06wcBGbJO4c0HvF9fU6Mnt8jir4TfwQ2TR1FCNUmnk2RTKxZu3qFtGCQT3R_tXXoj3LdmoEhqhgBb41HceKBqJmC-K/s400-r/palin.jpg" /></a></div>From the usual gang of idiots over at <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Mad </span>magazine. I was (almost) willing to forgive Palin anything until the polar bears.Fred@Dreamtimehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341564329610259477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403904.post-90005236782242068092008-09-02T09:02:00.007-05:002008-09-02T12:11:55.670-05:00Rusticatin'<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaM3OP2c4ye6GKt_Is6yFokhD8nAQJMYMaRcpew0OR4wktxE_4o9_trjkyhhX4Eirbyk8lXZ7HArqV2H6l07nzAWbFrRdi_gnfTXffg_RqfYb1ft-LoYcv1zUymCQhgPWs1_Xe/s1600-h/fred_moosehead.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVGAd7bplz9xkCOaVjTWctWz5EOEERJIxBXsRx0iS1ytiIMhXueN1flGFX0e_DGjU8cNVmN2YTjJJbqn_KAIMvzXnySp6a-TmI-GC4g7gmJXzVLQ7KCHekoGUlNur-DsJf-fFR/s320-r/fred_moosehead.jpg" border="0" /></a></div>We're back from our annual Labor Day vacay, this time taken way up North at Beaver Cove, Moosehead Lake, Maine, where men are men and spend most of their time lazin' on the deck.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7kHqEnBPj33Er55EJ87po9mmPgt1ZL_S6jYmQzorjhcghoC4T5DLaAdmuhIQP2G4D47P8I0B-QYfCInFdiiTNEIJP7Kz3EGQme-75-5k8cjvMB1osxiz4FOVyiyB-m0FTFeAJ/s1600-h/katahdin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVWlS0ku9rufRxwUB-0Bn32zBZrzRYjBG5achUmZKVcfPMupEOI8ZcI26sTD9S3voNp3pw4_3PpLK75xIEaN8-dv93-11hLQk4iRcCv4KVXJMsp1xgo5Npl0L6RJv_mo3Qx65i/s320-r/katahdin.jpg" border="0" /></a></div>Peggy and Fred took a 3-hour cruise on the steamship <i>Katahdin </i>- highly recommended - which covered less than half of the 40-mile Moosehead Lake.<br /><br />During his tour narration, our captain noted that the lake trout population, known locally as "togue," had been virtually wiped out because some idiot - or group of idiots - had introduced Yellow Perch into the lake. When I was a kid in the `60s, it wasn't unusual to catch a dozen or more togue in one day's fishing. Tragically, all gone now, and probably not to come back.<br /><br />While visiting the quarterdeck, I mentioned to the captain I grew up on Sebago Lake, the second largest lake in Maine. "Oh, that pond?" the captain grinned at me.<br /><br />We found that the only direct route to Moxie Falls involved a route that personified the phrase <i>20 miles of bad road</i>. About 5 1/2 miles in on a badly rutted, washed out road with large rocks poking out just waiting to take out things without which our long-suffering Murano would probably not run, we met a beat-up pickup heading in the opposite direction. "You can't go down there, the road's terrible," the driver called.. "You couldn't make it without a 4-wheel drive. Where you headed?"<br /><br />"Moxie Falls," I replied. "Maybe, I should turn ..."<br /><br />"We're going right by it," he interrupted. "Follow me." And with that he sped off on <i>another </i>road that led off God Knows Where which a) was even worse than the one that we were on and b) our GPS, which had gamely sent us down the original road didn't even recognize as a <i>road</i>.<br /><br />In fact, the GPS - which we've anthropomorphized with the name "Tommy," gave up trying to navigate us, except to point an arrow at where we had been, apparently in the hope we'd recover our senses and return to Known Territory. Which we eventually did after about a mile or more of following the Mad Mainer, who blasted along the road at upwards of 40 miles an hour as I crawled over ruts and rocks. As his dust trail disappeared into the trackless wastelands, I found a spot to turn around, not an easy thing to do, and headed back to where Tommy's arrow pointed. After a long long long time, we finally made it back to the point where Tommy was willing to acknowledge that there was a road there, such as it was, and then only had to spend another 5 1/2 miles crawling back out to the paved road.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY-0utoJmXwdG6dXUqZvyayw2Rd9-saSlkZ8QF2IErpHsyQdNCNRxdPyR1ZKsIhhxUcUYehomf1ZIOdKD48vi1l3hfjN_cF14BWsekwR5o-oE6pqS7tdgZn-iyXr7H-0JZmSX0/s1600-h/maynards.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-3DXyZssCAmE1ciOkxrlbXJeDf8XJVdCocVZ-eaz6KhU7a5DZWKqY2n5i9oFKDWPkkPVaEK7PoXHbIT6AUs45_kewrg_3GMl5DrTZVCZ6GR10NxRagY-17hjGnx_NPHRMPp79/s320-r/maynards.jpg" border="0" /></a>We'd finally make it to Moxie Falls the following day after Peggy plotted out a circuitous route that covered about 60-odd miles to a destination that was about 20 miles away as the crow flies but, by God, had the benefit of being entirely upon pavement.<br /><br />Moxie Falls is very beautiful, if a little difficult to visit.<br /><br />We also found the lodge my family stayed at during our regular visits to Moosehead in the `60s - Maynards. Already old when I first came there, Maynards was established in the early 1920s, the place is virtually unchanged in 2008, the only noticeable difference that I could find is that the cabins now have a full bath. Back in 1964 it was an outside shower and an outhouse.<br /><br />And we did many other things, the things you do when you're on vacay in the Great North Woods: We visited Kamp-Kamp, the largest store in Greenville, Maine where Peggy longed for moose antlers and Fred for a set of <i>Classic Illustrated</i> Comics that could have come straight from my bunk at Maynards. We bought hand-picked blueberries and blackberries and fresh-baked goods for dessert every night. We hiked the Lily Pond State Park, read about local things in the local paper - including the kids fined for leaping jay-naked off the Black Frog restaurant dock.<br /><br />And mostly we relaxed, 'cause that's what it's all about.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin8kBTJvJ2Ayrza7PzwRLMaElzk3QWXn7iH7w85PWRpe8INyA-79VtVCSns1AgW5O90OaG_EKOZNfIPe05ujPEQqN1IaHkOOYMTmS_kLrkk1hTpiABR8X88veDdSLZEot43vwD/s1600-h/sunset.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM8zjpxK-BeBdHpp7M4vhceky8MDTISlyibY7d4gEwxpEqCDqC4P3BI7pMU13Xa9WC9SXIahM0DEr3f0EjYVhfk5pYxWaSUReL1zifoL6SLBnN9x9i0Fdh-B5h3P2oB_MynMEV/s320-r/sunset.jpg" border="0" /></a></div>Fred@Dreamtimehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341564329610259477noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403904.post-87622047126303699142008-08-25T12:00:00.002-05:002008-08-25T12:16:11.913-05:00What Makes a Good Blog?<a href="http://www.43folders.com/2008/08/19/good-blogs">via Merlin Mann</a>, who I hope doesn't think I'm ripping him off, and if he does, I'm sure will something snarky about me on Twitter (just kidding, Merlin)...<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="display: block;" id="formatbar_Buttons"><span class="on down" style="display: block;" id="formatbar_JustifyRight" title="Align Right" onmouseover="ButtonHoverOn(this);" onmouseout="ButtonHoverOff(this);" onmouseup="" onmousedown="CheckFormatting(event);FormatbarButton('richeditorframe', this, 12);ButtonMouseDown(this);"></span></span><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***<br /></div><ol><li><strong>Good blogs have a voice.</strong> Who wrote this? What is their <em>name</em>? What can I figure out about who they are that they have never overtly told me? What’s their personality like and what do they have to contribute — even when it’s “just” curation. What tics and foibles fascinate make me about this blog and the person who makes it? Most importantly: what <em>obsesses</em> this person?<br /><br /></li><li><strong>Good blogs reflect focused obsessions.</strong> People start real blogs because they think about something a <em>lot</em>. Maybe even five things. But, their brain so overflows with curiosity about a family of topics that they can’t stop reading and writing about it. They make and consume smart forebrain porn. So: where do this person’s obsessions take them?<br /><br /></li><li><strong>Good blogs are the product of “<code>Attention</code> times <code>Interest</code>.”</strong> A blog shows me <em>where</em> someone’s attention tends to go. Then, on some level, they encourage me to follow the evolution of their interest through a day or a year. There’s a <em>story</em> here. Ethical “via” links make it easy for me to follow their <em>specific</em> trail of attention, then join them for a walk made out of words.<br /><br /></li><li><strong>Good blog posts are made of <em>paragraphs</em>.</strong> Blog posts are written, not defecated. They show some level of craft, thinking, and continuity beyond the word count mandated by the Owner of Your Plantation. If a blog has fixed limits on post minimums and maximums? It’s not a blog: it’s a website that hires writers. Which is fine. But, it’s not really a blog.<br /><br /></li><li><strong>Good “non-post” blogs have style <em>and</em> curation.</strong> Some of the best blogs use unusual formats, employ only photos and video, or utilize the list format to artistic effect. I regret there are not more blogs that see format as the container for creativity — rather than an excuse to write less or link without context more.<br /><br /></li><li><strong>Good blogs are weird.</strong> Blogs make fart noises and occasionally vex readers with the degree to which the blogger’s obsession will inevitably diverge from the reader’s. If this isn’t happening every few weeks, the blogger is either bored, half-assing, or taking new medication.<br /><br /></li><li><strong>Good blogs make you want to start your own blog.</strong> At some point, everyone wants to kill the Buddha and make their own obsessions the focus. This is good. It means you care.<br /><br /></li><li><strong>Good blogs <em>try</em>.</strong> I’ve come to believe that creative life in the first-world comes down to those who try just a little bit harder. Then, there’s the other 98%. They’re still eating the free continental breakfast over at FriendFeed. A good blog is written by a blogger who thinks longer, works harder, and obsesses more. Ultimately, a good blogger <em>tries</em>. That’s why “good” is getting rare.<br /><br /></li><li><strong>Good blogs know when to break their own rules.</strong> Duh. I made a list, didn’t I? Yes. I did. <a href="http://www.5ives.com/" target="_blank">Big fan</a>.</li></ol><div style="text-align: center;">***<br /></div>Although I've never taken the time to articulate my thoughts on the subject, Merlin pretty well captures what I attempt to do when I "blog," more so at <span style="font-style: italic;">Dreamtime </span>than here. But I do try to have so small measure of craft even with <span style="font-style: italic;">fhb</span>, which I consider more a public diary than anything else.<br /><br />And it's why I keep <span style="font-style: italic;">fhb </span>going, although my focus is obviously on <span style="font-style: italic;">Dreamtime </span>these days. And when I think about it, most of the blogs I still read, and podcasts I still listen to, follow Merlin's list of what gets my attention - and why.Fred@Dreamtimehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341564329610259477noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3403904.post-82841035919208022242008-08-12T07:54:00.000-05:002008-08-12T07:56:25.605-05:00The Ultimate iPhone Application<object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/noZcgSTmDA4&color1=11645361&color2=13619151&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/noZcgSTmDA4&color1=11645361&color2=13619151&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />
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And for $999, you too can tell the world, "I am Rich." Actually, you can't right now, as the humorless Apple has removed the app.Fred@Dreamtimehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341564329610259477noreply@blogger.com1