New Scientist mentions a study where old mice are rejuvenated by being conjoined with young mice and sharing their blood supply.
Have we learned nothing from science fiction and horror? If there’s one lesson to be taken from hundreds of stories, it’s that creating a Fountain of Youth by harvesting from the young always turns out to be a bad idea. 
Subject line from today. Refreshingly straightforward. Disturbingly familiar.
“You have not had sex with a Russian girl? Come to us and you shall have it!”
I might think different after a while, but I was kind of interested in MacWorld’s live coverage of the event, so I decided to write down some thoughts to see if they survive as time goes on.
I like this gadget, but I just can’t see where it would improve my life in the age of the iPhone and netbooks. I’ve already got light-enough computing in a form factor that’s been around forever, and I’ve got good-enough ubiquitous data access.
But, that all being said, it’s one step closer to that future of computerized houses, touchpads, and jetpacks I’ve been hoping for since I was a kid, so I appreciate it for that.
Update: Almost forgot…if it’s running the iPhone OS, I’m guessing no Flash. Maybe more pressure to adopt some HTML5 alternatives?
Update, redux: I’m getting slightly irritated by the sheer number of blog posts I’ve read lauding the iPad as high-tech at a cheap price. Really? At the base level, it’s a 1GHz processor, 16GB of flash storage, 1024×768 multi-touchscreen, and Wireless-N. It’s not delivering high-tech…it’s delivering good-enough tech in a better form factor than we’ve been used to. That’s called design, and Apple does that regularly.
BTW, I have figured out an awesome use for the iPad in my life: A computer my mom would regularly use. She’s not a big fan of mice, or touchpads, or the pointy cursor, but a large touchscreen would be awesome for her. Now, if AT&T would actually deliver 3G to Reidsville, NC, getting her on the Internet would be easy. As it is, we’d have to get cable or DSL and a wireless router in her house.
Twitter: I really want to use Twitter to comment on Twitter suffering a denial-of-service attack. That isn’t happening. I wonder if the attack is actually that impressive, or if it’s just taking advantage of something about Twitter’s setup?
NetNewsWire and Google Reader: If you like to get your feeds through a desktop client, but still want to have access to them elsewhere, NetNewsWire 3.2 Beta now syncs with Google Reader. Apparently Newsgator is confident enough in it to shut down their own online feed reader. I’m not sure whether I prefer it to Google Reader, or how well it works yet. (I can confirm it downloads the feeds. I haven’t tested the syncing beyond that, however.)
One thing to mention about NetNewsWire 3.2 Beta that I had trouble finding anywhere else: When it tells you your Google login will be kept in the keychain, it means it. I’d enter my login, and the login window would pop back up like I hadn’t done anything. Turned out, my keychain had somehow gotten set to another user, and NetNewsWire wasn’t happy it couldn’t save the login info. Repairing the keychain using Keychain Access (I think that’s the name) worked.
GitHub: The comparison table for GitHub plans just shocked me for no good reason. It runs from most expensive on the left to free on the right. I’m used to the other way around, so my first thought was that the base paid GitHub plan was $200 a month. Nope, that would be $7.
Steelcase: I’ve been trying to get Lorrie interested in something like an Aeron chair for the office for quite a long time, but no dice. However, Steelcase won her interest all on their own. Good job, Steelcase. I probably need to start using my desk again as well. So hard to do when you can sit in a recliner and use your laptop. 
Update: Wow, the Twitter/Facebook/etc. attack was on one user? That’s a lot of electronic capital expended.
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Text courtesy of The National Archives.
Each summer I go through the same experience of getting really annoyed with how hot my hair is, and thinking about shaving it off. So, I decided to blog some of the reasons I can think of for not doing it, for future reference.
1. I’m a little afraid that, if my hair started growing back, it would end up looking like Notre Dame QB Jimmy Clausen’s hair did his freshman year. Seriously, that dude had some weird spiky hair going on.
2. I’ve had the same hairstyle since sixth grade. Why change now? And would it even be possible, or would my hair actively resist change? Maybe it’s like Superman’s hair by now?
3. These are things I’m afraid I would find on my scalp, if I could see it: A birthmark, a barcode, a vestigial third eye, tattooed messages of things I didn’t really need to remember anytime soon. (Memento. Excellent movie. See it.)
4. Too much work. I’m already lazy about shaving my face. And still bad at it. I can’t imagine trying to shave the back of my head. I’d need transfusions.
5. Seriously, my beautiful hair? What if it doesn’t come back? I’ll never be that pretty again.
6. There is potential that light reflecting off the whiteness of my scalp could cause an air and ground navigation hazard.
7. Yul Brynner looked awesome bald. On the other hand, hair is my evidence I’m not a large, mobile, noisy potato.
One of my more recent Twitter statuses had what sounded like an ad line for Diet Mountain Dew, so I came up with a few more while waiting for .Net Framework 3.5 to install.
“Diet Mountain Dew – You get used to it.”
“Diet Mountain Dew – Shhhh, don’t fret…the cravings stop after a while.”
“Diet Code Red (Cherry Mountain Dew) – The flavor combination that never occurred to you.”
“Diet Dr Pepper – You’ll be pleasantly surprised.”
“Diet Dr Pepper – Making Dr Pepper taste like root beer since 1991.”
“Diet Dr Pepper – Diets and Doctors, in one bottle.”
“Diet Coke – Does this taste funny to you?”
“Diet Coke – Bleh, I think I got your Diet Coke.”
“Diet Coke – You’ll never forget the taste…at least not for the next hour or so.”
“Diet Coke – It’s the first thing you’ll want after waking up from a coma.” (Inside joke. Sorry.)
“Coke Zero – Go from Coke to Diet Coke, and then to Coke Zero. It’ll taste great!”
“Diet Rite – For the last time, we’re not the store brand!”
“Diet Rite – We make Diet Coke look better!”
“Diet Pepsi – For when the restaurant doesn’t carry Diet Coke.”
“Diet RC – Just try to find me!”
“Tab – What the hell was that?!?”
“Tab – Check the date on the can.”
“Tap Water – Why can’t you love me?”
What…What was…I don’t…Who’s that…What happened?
Now, for post-Crank thoughts, here are my reasons why Crank should have been nominated in several Oscar categories.
Best Screenplay: I didn’t understand half of the words Jason Statham was saying, and there were so many characters I had no idea what most of them were doing in the movie. This is similar to my past experiences with Shakespeare.
Best Actor: Chev Chelios needs to keep moving and keep his adrenaline pumping to survive. Bringing this character to life is an impressive achievement, largely due to the fact that actor Jason Statham normally never seems to get more excited than, say, Clint Eastwood. One assumes, given the fast pace of the movie and what people would normally call “dialogue,” that Statham actually took some sort of drug to speed up his metabolism and risk his life, and one has to admire that sort of commitment to the craft.
Best Supporting Actor: Dwight Yoakam creates a character by literally phoning in his lines. I’ve never seen anyone do that before. Now, in this category there could be competition from some of his own Crank castmates. After all, you can’t completely discount the performances of The Guy Who Played Pedro In Napoleon Dynamite (Efren Ramirez) and The Guy Who Played Weevil In Veronica Mars (Francis Capra). But I’d give it to Dwight.
Best Supporting Actress: Amy Smart is so natural in the role of Eve it’s almost like she didn’t realize she was in a movie. I don’t think she did. I think, during the take, Jason Statham just showed up at her apartment and she improvised as well.
Best Cinematography: One take, ninety minutes of following an adrenaline-fueled Jason Statham around while he’s improvising. ‘Nuff said.
Best Director: True, it might seem easy to take that screenplay and those actors and turn out the best movie of the year, but directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor took it all one step farther: They were brave enough to have a word appear, most of the way through the movie, for one second, floating by itself on Statham’s forehead, with no real context or precedent. How often do you see that? Martin Scorsese didn’t do it. Neveldine and Taylor did.
Best Foreign Language Film: There were smatterings of English, but that shouldn’t disqualify it. This movie’s native tongue was the whole-body sign language called Action!
Best Picture: Not Crank. Apocalypto. Apocalypto is like historic Crank, and history always makes films better.
Did you miss one of the great films of our generation in theaters? Not to worry. April, 2009…CRANK: HIGH VOLTAGE!
Stephen Fry, quoting Oscar Wilde:
Satan, one afternoon, was wandering in the Libyan desert when he came across a group of junior devils trying to tempt a monk. The monk was very holy: Satan watched as the little demons offered him worldly riches, power, wisdom, anything he wanted if only he would renounce his God. The demons were getting nowhere, the monk was firm in his faith and rooted in his virtue and steadfast holiness.
Lucifer could bear watching no more and approached. ‘What exactly is going on here?’ he asked.
‘Master,’ the imps replied, ‘This man is entirely good. He will not be provoked in to renouncing God. We have offered him every worldly pleasure and power.’
‘Out of the way,’ said Lucifer. ‘Let me show you how it’s done.’ Lucifer stepped forward and whispered something into the monk’s ear. Immediately the monk roared with anger, tore his holy robes asunder and filled the air with the most profane and obscene oaths against God. It was an awesome sight. The demons immediately fell to their knees and cried to Satan.
‘Verily, you are the Master. For forty days and forty nights have been tempting him to no avail, and yet, even in a twinkling, you turn him from God to us. What, in hell’s holy name what did you say to him, oh Lord of Darkness?’
‘It’s really very simple,’ said Lucifer, ‘I just told him his brother had recently been made Bishop of Alexandria.’
Seems like a lot of these floating around right now. I got tagged by Too Many Topics, Too Little Time. It was originally seven things, but I decided to modify it a little to see what happens.
The rules:
1. Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post.
2. Share seven (and a half) facts about yourself in the post.
3. Tag seven (and a half) people at the end of your post by leaving their names.
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged.
Here we go…
You ready?
This is so exciting…
Feel free to back out at any time…The safe word is “Rechtsschutzversicherungsgesellschaften”.
Spoiler warning…
Okay, let’s do this…
1. Post-college, I’ve never worked for any length of time in a non-public-service-related environment. My job trail goes association > newspaper > nonprofit news organization > association > government contractor > government contractor. I didn’t intend it that way. It just happened. Kind of makes me wonder what I’ve missed.
2. During that period of time, I’ve lasted through something like eight major layoffs without getting hit. Not sure how that happened, either.
3. I got a Wii Fit the other day. NewEgg.com had them for list price. Balance is very important to the Wii Fit. I think it was laughing at me when I tried it out. My center of gravity is apparently two feet behind me, possibly at some sort of Lagrange Point between myself and the Earth. (Either that, or it’s the fact I have the posture of a 19th-century Bavarian burgomeister.)
4. “Misanthropic introvert who doesn’t like to be alone” describes me well. The last time I took a Myers-Briggs test for work, I hit 30 (the highest) on Introversion. Yet I suspect some folks would consider me chatty.
5. INTP. In case you were wondering. I also scored 30 on Intuition. We got cards with our letters on it. I could never remember what they meant. They don’t have a Memory score.
6. I don’t remember high school very well, and hanging out on Facebook I’m starting to think that might be abnormal. I remember people from high school, but not a lot of specifics about me or things that happened around me. I’m not really sure those count as my formative years. I’ll bet they would if I hadn’t liked them, though, which is why I’m glad I went where I did. (There was something cool about walking into a 9th-grade classroom at a school I hadn’t been to since the 6th grade, and having one of the guys say, “Hey, Shane’s back!”)
7. Speaking of high school, I do have at least one vivid memory: I was going to ask someone out, and ended up walking past them, going into the bathroom, and throwing up because I was nervous. Luckily I stopped doing that sort of thing by grad school.
7.5. I’m really proud of my ability to…
Anyway, time to tag 7.5 people. I’ll copy this to Facebook, where many of them reside. Y’all can figure out the half-person thing amongst yourselves, but remember…It could be that I just consider everyone else to be 15/16ths people. (Although, technically, if I went by mass, and the unit of measurement were me, I could easily see some of my friends being one-half.)
Let’s see: Adam, Astrid, Carolyn, Chris, Katy, Lorrie, Melanie, Sarah.
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Jan | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| 28 | ||||||
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