little red book

little red book
Originally uploaded by davebarber.

Hey everybody, I just discovered this wonderful book of wisdom!

I highly recommend you (and all your friends) request this book via interlibrary loan.

NEW BEDFORD -- A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung's tome on Communism called "The Little Red Book."
[...]
The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand's class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents' home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said.
The professors said the student was told by the agents that the book is on a "watch list," and that his background, which included significant time abroad, triggered them to investigate the student further.
(read the rest of the story at SouthCoastToday)

I gotta run now, I'm off to the library to request a copy of Mao's most excellent little red book.

2005 Dec 24 Update:
Apparently this story is a hoax. damn, I requested my little red book for nothing.

Hey Dubya, nice job keeping an eye on those "terrorists"

I feel much safer knowing that those radical militant quakers and dangerous anti-nuke activists are being spied on.

Earlier this week NBC News exposed the existence of a secret Pentagon database to track intelligence gathered inside the United States. The database including information on dozens of anti-war protests and rallies particularly actions targeting military recruiting.

The list included: counter-military recruiting meetings held at a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Forth, Florida. Anti-nuclear protests staged in Nebraska on the 50th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki. An anti-war protest organized by military families outside Fort Bragg in North Carolina. And a rally in San Diego to support war resister Pablo Parades. The Pentagon database described all of these events as threats. (continue the article at Democracy Now)

Good thing we're going to renew Patriot Act. I feel safer knowing that, when some crazed anti-war protester plans to set off a dirty bomb in Chicago, the military will be there to nip it in the bud. Yes, we should definitely take the advice of Georgy, Rummy and Dick and trust our government. Yep, those old post-Nixon restrictions on domestic surveillance are definitely antiquated.

What with all the dangerous war protestors, Quakers, anti-nuclear loonies and radical militant librarians we should probably just cut to the chase and bypass the Patriot Act by delcaring martial law until the War on Terrorism has been completely won (tm). The only way to protect our freedom is to destroy it.

Hopefully this seditious blog entry will be redacted by party censors soon seeing as how I'm probably blabbing state secrets by restating publicly accessible information.

Seen on Usenet

Remember usenet? That was the internet when I was a wee laddy. Here is an interesting quote I read in a usenet newsgroup today:

On the other hand: Lisp looks like a theoretical
optimum. It has a minimalistic way of structuring
hierarchical data, it has a minimalistic way of
expressing program structure as hierarchical data,
it has a minimalistic way of automatizing
writing program snippets. In this light it is
very well possible that a sufficiently advanced
civilization has Lisp, just as it is entirely possible
that it has a Go-like game. It would be a next
to impossible incident if this civilization had
a Chess-like game or Java because both are much
more arbitrary than Lisp or Go. Who knows how
well those extra-terristial Lispniks do in convincing
their compatriats adopting the language? Maybe
the first signal from space-alien will be a
flame-war between Lispniks and members of the
extra-terrestial equivalent of the ruling Java-mainstream.
(Tin Gherdanarra ...@gmail.com>)

Waiting for the bus

Waiting for the bus
Originally uploaded by funkyj.

I experimented with taking the 'highway 17 express' bus and the lightrail to get to work.

It was an interesting experiment. If I take the bus that arrrives at just the right time to immediately catch the light rail then I can get to work in about 1 hour 45 minutes (not including the trip between home and the bus stop). The commute by car takes 50 minutes. Uh yeah.

Cafe Baklava

Cafe Baklava
Originally uploaded by funkyj.

I asked this friendly waiter if I could take his picture and he kindly obliged me.

A few seconds after this picture he got suspicious of my motives and began asking me "WHY DO YOU WANT TO TAKE MY PICTURE?" over and over.

I may be wrong but this place has the feel of a family owned restaurant -- people who have a vested interest and care about the business are working here.

Oh, the food was very good and reasonably priced. A good place for an afforable lunch.

Gmail is on the fritz.

Apparently some (much?) of the email I've sent from gmail the past two days has been diverted to /dev/null. It appears that I'm receiving email at gmail just fine but sending is a problem.

It would be much nicer if gmail would at least let me know when I can't send email as opposed to silently failing (as it currently is). Oh well, here is a black eye for google.

Yum

IMG_2135
Originally uploaded by funkyj.

what a tasty looking slug

movie: Off the Map. This one gets 5 stars and enters Jonathan's hall of fame (where it joins The Triplets of Belleville). If you are used to movies travelling along at the speed of Babette's Feast you may feel that this movie moves a tad too quickly, nonetheless, you will probably enjoy it.

movie: Limbo. 4.5 stars. I love movies with such well developed plot resolution. This one joins Lost in Translation and Broken Flowers at the top of the class in the category of excellent plot development! I love a movie in which nothing (or very little) happens.

Phobos-viking1

Phobos-viking1
Originally uploaded by funkyj.

I saw this on wikipedia today. I love pictures of asteroids and small moons. There is something religious or mystical about seeing a real photo of something millions of miles away in the cold vacuum of space. 243 Ida is another favorite.

Queen Mary

IMG_8997
Originally uploaded by funkyj.

Amelia and I stayed a night on the Queen Mary ship/hotel in Long Beach while visiting family in Orange County.

Our rude idiot neighbors in the next room started watching TV at 3:30 in the morning. After about a hour of unsuccessfully trying to get back to sleep (there is not much sound insulation between rooms) I went out and explored the ship.

I also left a note for the hotel staff to "please spit on any food that is delivered to room M138". Hopefully they will get their just desserts.

The Diagnosis

The Diagnosis
Originally uploaded by funkyj.

... Maranti is terminally ill.

This picture was taken at the meeting in which we were informed that the board of directors was pulling the plug on our company, Maranti (Google cached).

raven portrait

raven portrait
Originally uploaded by flappingwings.

Someone else on flickr took this excellent picture. I love ravens and crows...

Waiting for the Half Blood Prince

IMG_8860
Originally uploaded by funkyj.

Harry Potter

IMG_8882
Originally uploaded by funkyj.

and the Half Blood Prince went on sale today. This picture is of the release party at Bookshop Santa Cruz.

The Court of Mysteries

IMG_8739
Originally uploaded by funkyj.

When I win the lottery I will buy the Court of Mysteries.

Until then I'll have to content myself with a few pictures. I have more pictures of this eccentric decaying homage to the brick layer's art. I'll be adding pictures taken in a morning light sometime later.

Farewell Mike

IMG_4249
Originally uploaded by funkyj.

Mike Berg, a good friend of mine, died last year. Recently I uploaded some pictures to flickr that I took at a party celebrating Mike's life. The two pictures shown here are pictures of Mike before we met.

you can see larger versions of this picture by clicking the picture (this takes you to flickr) and then clicking the all sizes button above the picture.

You may recognise Mike's name as the one you see if you follow the blog sensei link on the left side of my blog page.

Cafe Brazil

Cafe Brazil
Originally uploaded by funkyj.

My mother in law is visiting this weekend so we went to Cafe Brazil for brunch. Normally we wouldn't bother going out to brunch at such a late hour (10h30) on a holiday weekend but with company visiting you have to do crazy things. The food was good (as usual), after the interminable wait.

There are more of my photos of Cafe Brazil on flickr.

Loulou au frais

Loulou au frais
Originally uploaded by pascale une autre.

cruzing other folks photos on flickr is fun! This is a recent favorite of mine.

Le Boeuf Quintet

Le Boeuf Quintet
Originally uploaded by funkyj.

There was a swinging groove goin on last night at the Kuumbwa as the Le Boeuf Quintet played their first show to a enthusiastic home town crowd.

Check out the Le Boeuf brother's official website and buy a CD!

menage a trois

menage a trois
Originally uploaded by funkyj.

More Santa Cruz tide pool stuff.

On the movie front I recently watched The Motorcycle Diaries (about Che Guevara) and 'The Last Metro' (oooh, Catherine Deneuve). Both were very good. I really liked the acting and directing in Metro.

sea grass

sea grass
Originally uploaded by funkyj.

this hasn't been mowed in a long time.

I love this color green.

Relaxing by the ocean

Relaxing by the ocean
Originally uploaded by funkyj.

tilted horizon, oh well.

tree, cliff

IMG_6941_crop
Originally uploaded by funkyj.

Amy and I did some reading.

contemplative

IMG_6708
Originally uploaded by funkyj.

I went to the beach today.

Word association football and peen hammer smith & wesson pure canola oil addiction.

Astronomers have directly confirmed the existence of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker (pictured), previously believed to be extinct since 1944 when the English explorer James Knight died on an expedition in search of the Northwest Passage.

IMG_1523

IMG_1523
Originally uploaded by funkyj.

Isn't London romantic? It isn't easy photographing a kiss when you are the kisser and photographer.

BTW, the nice folks over at Flickr.com gave me 2 free Flickr Pro accounts to give out as gifts.

If you are a friend of mine and want a Flickr Pro account drop me a line. If I don't here from anyone I'll give 'em away to strangers.

Portland

IMG_5416
Originally uploaded by funkyj.

Catching ticks

IMG_5645
Originally uploaded by funkyj.

Lots of wildflowers (and the ubiquitous ticks)

I signed up for a Flickr Pro account and have been posting photos there. In addition to hosting photos Flicker, conveniently enough, has a very simple interface for posting flicker photos to various blog sites (including this one). Flickr rocks, I only wish they'd hurry up and provide a picture printing service.

Flickr has a variety of ways to browse photos:

• by photo sets (i.e. albums)
• by tags
• by calendar
  

you can browse an individuals photos by tag or you can see all public photos on flickr with a particular tag (e.g. montmartre , fish or elbow).

Flickr also has groups for likeminded photographers to share and discuss photography and flickr related topics. I haven't had time to delve into flickr groups much.

I gotta bounce now dawg. Peace out,
--jfc

Greenbelt

IMG_5641
Originally uploaded by funkyj.

I took the dog out for a walk and took some pictures too.

Two hungry crows, one biscuit

IMG_3976
Originally uploaded by funkyj.

Movie: Amelia and I watched Ray last night to prepare for the Oscars. The movie was really good. Jamie Foxx definitely earned his best actor award. I give this one 4 stars. The acting is top notch but some of the cinematic devices used to move the plot along detract from the experience.

Western Digital Sucks



About a year ago I bought an iPod. Shortly there after I invested many hours into ripping CDs, purchasing music online and downloading said purchased music. I quickly realized what a major bummer it would be if I lost all this data (e.g. if the hard disk crashed). In an effort to ward off the aforementioned digital disaster I purchased a RAID controller from Western Digital. I configured the controller with 2 SATA HDs for RAID 1 (i.e. the second disk is an identical copy of the first).

Months later, one of the hard drives fails and joy of joys, I still have all my data and it is accessible. This is good, no? Of course I didn't want to tempt fate for too long so I bought a second hard drive to replace the failed drive. Unfortunately when I installed the new drive and attempted to have the RAID controller synchronize the new drive with the old (working) drive, all my data on the working drive was destroyed.

The $%#@ing RAID controller trashed my data. The whole reason I had shelled out extra money for two hard drives and a special controller was to protect against this very problem.

Needless to say I am not happy. If Western Digital were to pay me, say $2000, I might stop feeling so much anger and hatrid for them. Of course the screwball snake oil hucksters at WD are not going to compensate me for the damage they've done so I will continue seething and breaking into a fit of cursing everytime I hear their name spoken.

You can help me though. Please, if you get the opportunity to make someone at Western Digital miserable do it. If you can do something that is legal and will hurt them and their bottom line do it. Help turn that karmic wheel and screw them as I (and no doubt other suckers who bought their RAID controller) have been screwed by them.

movie: Waking Life. 5 stars. The film is made up of several episodes. It is immediately apparent that this animated feature used real life footage as the basis for animation. Each of the episodes is animated by a different person. The episodes consist largely of monologues or dialogues on intellectual topics such as free will or evolution. The movie is much more interesting than my bland description of it.