ncfocus

Everyone else is linking to the report by Eason Jordan (chief news executive of CNN) on The News We Kept to Ourselves in order to keep the CNN Baghdad bureau open.

Snake robots. How long until either robotic or live snakes can be equipped with "invisible fence" style collars (well, microchips) and let loose in your yard's gopher/mole tunnels to terminate their makers? seems like an idea whose time is coming...

from the tech blog of ken, a vegetarian saw:

With the device installed in a consumer-grade tablesaw, a company representative fed a hot dog into the spinning blade, using the hot dog as a substitute for a wayward finger. Remarkably, the blade stopped the instant it touched the hot dog, allowing the dog to escape with no more than a light scratch.

and, delving back to the Pleistocene of the web, a quote from C.J. Silverio:

...The net is precious to me because it gives ordinary human beings a way to communicate with other ordinary human beings. Corporations have too many ways to cram their ads down my throat. Human beings have the net...

and she wants you to go out and start a weblog:

...Don't give the world another glorified multimedia dot-finger file. Give the world your art, your music, your poetry, your political rants, your short stories, your first grade photos, your shareware and freeware, your archives of hobby stuff, your hints about how to make great tie-dye, your really handy Perl script, your list of the ten best bookstores in the Greater Podunk area. You know something that nobody else knows. You can do something that nobody else can do quite the same way. You've made something that the rest of the world has never seen...

remember, it's free quick and easy - and surely you could post better stuff than this. So go here to start your weblog. (although if you want to put up anything but text, money must change hands)

posted by Anna at 8:47 PM

Friday, April 11, 2003

on Iraq

(edited to remove wild claims that might be substantiated in fact or might not but i have no confidence to judge)
via David Theroux via Dan Gillmor, the tearing down of Saddam's statue looks different from a distance. my not very educated guess is that inter-ethnic hostilities and the general inclination of the Bush administration to shy away from substantive policy issues make the near-term future of Iraq not look so good. It's a lot easier to tear down than to rebuild.

via bodyandsoul via stoutdem via slacktivist, here's a donor's guide to aid for Iraq.

via Dan Gillmor again, a great suggestion by Jeff Jarvis to support Iraqi freedom of the press by helping Iraqis to start weblog newspapers:

Weblogs give them the chance to publish freely, overnight, with no expense of printing presses and paper, no production equipment needed, no distribution network needed, no investment at all.
The beauty of weblogging is that it is the world's cheapest -- no, history's cheapest -- means of publishing. Weblogging brings the power of the press down to the people. And these people need it...

(of course initially there would not be huge #s of iraqi readers of these weblogs...)
Josh Marshall in Talking Points Memo making good points (which you will have to go & read, am not summarizing) on the looting:

...I think it is virtually inevitable that you're going to have some period of rupture -- a window of time when there's an utter vacuum of authority -- when a government like this falls under military assault...

posted by Anna at 3:09 PM

make your will now, avoid the rush; or, howdy from Chicken Little

It kind of looks like SARS is on its way. BTW sarswatch.org is a good place for info/links. (and hopefully unlike the Agonist the author doesn't plagiarize)

Also see the April 11 WHO report on Status of the outbreak and lessons for the immediate future.

my suspicion is that those of us whose colds always turn into $%^& bronchitis or pneumonia anyway best make the most of the time that's left, unless They figure out how to treat it soon.

question: in the short run health care will be swamped and the economy will tank, but if it cleans out us weak & sickly, won't that reduce health care costs & make the economy stronger in the longer run? and what an ingenious way to save Social Security...

on a lighter note...
great bumpersticker sighting:

I [heart] Explosives

which is running neck&neck with the previous Top NC sighting, namely

Warning: I drive like you do

and in case I'm wrong and sky is not falling, here's the pre-registration form for the Calif. "do not call" anti-telemarketing list.

posted by Anna at 2:37 PM

fine art in Nevada City

Mike's truck is downtown this morning exposing itself to passers-by. At least i assume it is still Mike's truck. Having seen it evolve from something near normality to its present splendor, sure hope it is not for sale (vehicles parked in that spot often are) - would hate to see it driven out of town.

apologies for image lack of quality, the real thing is much better.

posted by Anna at 9:00 AM

Thursday, April 10, 2003

fish wrap, cynicism, honor

ok, even the freshest part of this almost a week old, but...

Cynicism pervades Top Leadership (the feudal lords, if you will) at The Union. And perhaps in many if not most cases it's justified, and protects against gullibility; however when you see the world through cynic-colored glasses you're likely to make errors in the opposite direction, and ascribe cynical or base motives to honorable, decent people who are are basing their decisions on ethics, not on political maneuvering.

And yes, such people do exist.

To wit:

In last Saturday's editorial touching on the County supes' pro-war resolution, re the Nevada City Council deciding not to pass an anti-war resolution, the editorial said:

The council sensibly decided to not enter THAT lion's den.

Sounds like a calculated political decision, albeit one The Union agrees with. But the reporting at the time of city council meeting shows it in a different light:

"It is not inclusive," Mayor David McKay said of the resolution. McKay, who said he had been to a peace march in January, said the proposed resolution did not represent all of Nevada City's residents.

And of course he was correct; it didn't represent me, for one (am probably the only Nevada County resident who is still undecided on the war). And when I read the article I was proud to have have him as as our mayor; not everyone understands that achieving consensus (or as much of one as possible) is part of the job.

(aside, from the Grass Valley and Truckee City Councils:

Grass Valley Mayor Patti Ingram and Vice Mayor DeVere Mautino do not believe a stand against the war is within the City Council's purview, regardless of one's feelings. "I think that would be a pretty dumb move on our part," Mautino said...

Truckee will not take a position either. "We have a tradition of not taking positions on global issues," Truckee Mayor Ted Owens said Sunday.

)

The other case is that of former supervisor Bruce Conklin (who lost by 20 votes after his opposition's campaign coffers received a $28,000 still-mysterious donation); this article and this editorial questioned the ethics/motivations behind his being hired by the Nevada County Land Trust with money that the outgoing supervisors had voted (4-0) to give to the Land Trust.

Unquestionably, if you don't know the background to this story, it looks fishy. But this is a small community and we do know the background, most of which The Union's article and editorial neglected to mention.

First, was giving the money to the Land Trust an otherwise-unexpected course of action?

Clearly in most communities the answer would be yes--if you bequeath your money to the county, you expect your county to spend it, not to give the bulk of it to an entirely different organization to distribute. However, Nevada County right now is not like most communities. Here's the background:

To my knowledge it is undisputed that the money was bequeathed to Nevada County, for parks and open space.
At least one member of the new pro-property-rights regime of county supervisors made it clear that, given the opportunity, he would not spend the money in accordance with its donor's wishes. (so much for property rights...)
Therefore (given that there was only a month or so of time to allocate the money before the new group was in control) the only way to make sure that the money was spent as its donor wished was to put it in the hands of a non-governmental organization.
...preferably one devoted to its donor's cause, namely preserving open space and other near-natural treasures.
...and preferably one that was avowedly non-denominational, apolitical, willing-seller-willing-buyer etc.
which would appear to narrow the field down to a single potential recipient, namely the Land Trust.

Second, was hiring Bruce Conklin an otherwise-unexpected development, i.e. was there any indication that he was not the most suited for the job?

I don't know the answer; I don't know who the other applicants were. I'll tell you though that my reaction on reading of his hiring was "of course, what a perfect choice". Not "it's all a political setup and he must have bought them off". And based on his experience he has qualifications that no other applicant could match.

yes, maybe I'm naive. certainly in my past i've erred in being too gullible, but my gut says that with a few people, even if you don't know them well, you can tell. There are people who are sincere and there are people who are not. There are people who take cheap shots and there are people who do not. There are people who are authentic and people who are not. There are people who do sleazy things for personal gain and people who do not. And, obviously, vast majorities lie in between.

Please excuse naive earnestness here; it's temporary.
And I count David McKay and Bruce Conklin among those whose integrity is obvious; they are cut from the same cloth as Jimmy Carter. The media was hostile to Carter too; remember the scoffing that went on, when he announced that "human rights" would be a consideration in determining which countries to have good relations with? When he confessed to feeling lust for women other than his wife? When he said "I will not lie to the American people"?

ie. executive summary: while it is good to be on lookout for less than straightforward motives it is not good to just assume that that must be what's there.

(for other articles and letters on the Bruce Conklin/Land Trust issue, on The Union's Search Page type Conklin "Land Trust".)

posted by Anna at 10:58 PM

non-consumer reports

[solved mystery and slightly cranky commentary deleted]
did some research on web, on those credit-card-sized digital cameras, & found
a) lots of sites scamming Google by uploading stale pages every day (note to site owners: this does not generate goodwill)
and
b) Radio Shack started selling one, the FlatFoto, back in November for a paltry $80. And while it doesn't have a flash (as in bulb, not as in memory) still it seems worth buying/using until the flashy ones come out.

went to get one yesterday, and found that no, Radio Shack doesn't have them anymore, that was just for xmas, but they do happen to have an equally tiny one for just $300...

posted by Anna at 4:49 PM

the past

ran across this just now while digging through old email. reminds me of a few Blogger posts I have transiently known...

> YESTERDAY
>
> Yesterday,
> All those backups seemed a waste of pay.
> Now my database has gone away.
> Oh I believe in yesterday.
>
> Suddenly,
> There's not half the files there used to be,
> And there's a milestone hanging over me
> The system crashed so suddenly.
>
> I pushed something wrong
> What it was I could not say.
>
> Now all my data's gone and
> I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay.
>
> Yesterday,
> The need for back-ups seemed so far away.
> I knew my data was all here to stay,
> Now I believe in yesterday.

posted by Anna at 4:29 PM

Wednesday, April 09, 2003

those supermarket cards

They dont save you money. ("Non-sale prices at stores with card programs 28%-71% higher")

They violate your privacy:

According to one privacy expert, at least one national grocery chain voluntarily handed over to the government records from its customer loyalty card database in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

And others say customer databases -- including those culled from travel, financial and insurance industries -- are routinely shared with the government for surveillance purposes.

They will violate it further in future:

The writer, who wished to remain anonymous, was employed in software development and worked on a data mining system to be used with card programs. The most interesting comments concern other businesses that were closely watching the project:
"[...] one of my jobs was to wow potential customers. I had to take them through my data center and development labs and show them our stuff. The usual suspects were there - various marketers and database mongers. But the most interesting were the reps from the insurance companies. we had a BUNCH of 'em."

"The reason they were interested is that they wanted to collect lifestyle information on people so that individuals can be charged according to their lifestyles. 'We see that you eat too much red meat so your life insurance will be higher than the norm'. 'We see that you've bought a lot of electrical supplies which means you're doing unauthorized electrical work on your house. Therefore we're canceling your homeowners policy.' that kind of stuff..."

But you can fight back:

"If you shop at Safeway, I need your assistance in creating an army... an army of clones.

Send me an email with your address and I'll send you a label with my membership number and bar code on it. When you get the label in the mail, stick it on the back of your own Safeway Club Card, carefully covering the old zebra stripes.

Anyone who does this will be lumping their shopping data together with mine. Together we might amass a profile of the single greatest shopper in the history of mankind..."

posted by Anna at 4:10 PM

Tuesday, April 08, 2003

metablogging

Did Herb Caen have the first weblog?

some days i am a (comparative) fount of mellifluence, other days just an inarticulate quotemonger. But being an I.Q. isn't completely pointless, it's just being a disk jockey in a different medium.

(when did disk jockeys become "Personalities"? how do you tell the difference between a "personality" and a "person"?)

posted by Anna at 6:03 PM

Web[ma]ster's II

Self indulgence: acting upon the assumption that anything which interests you will be of equal interest to your reader. For examples see previous and following posts.
posted by Anna at 5:49 PM

I shall inherit the earth

From Deus Irae again:

Lurine said, "Learn to be what Christ called 'meek'. I bet you don't know what that means...Actually meek means 'tamed', as in a tamed animal...Then it got to mean humble, or even merciful, or long-suffering, or even bad things like weak and soft. But originally it meant to lose the quality of violence."

p.s. if you are sufficiently obsequious i might let you stay on.

posted by Anna at 5:46 PM

more cognitive dissonance in religion and politics

I do not know how it is possible to be simultaneously Libertarian and Christian. My understanding is that Christian teachings are about acting in such a way as to help the community, about being well socialized and nice to each other and not selfish, while Libertarianism is about self reliance and to hell with the rest of the community if they can't take care of themselves. So what happens when you combine the two? Ran across a weblog a couple months ago that did so, and the outcome was unusual. Never before have I seen heaven described as the place where at long last you get judged on what you can do instead of seeing your efforts diluted and obscured by those pesky halt and lame.

usual disclaimer: I am missing something.
posted by Anna at 5:44 PM

Monday, April 07, 2003

cognitive dissonance and conservatism

Brad DeLong on why American conservatism is not a reliable friend of human liberty

and a short one at MemeMachineGo! on the irony of rich and powerful politicians being Christian
posted by Anna at 6:34 PM

humanitarianism, to go with yesterday's post

Peter Maas in NY Times, via Body and Soul:

...I asked whether [the battalion commander] had talked with Iraqis and perhaps shared a meal to find out their needs. He said his civil affairs unit handles those things. He doesn't have time for kebabs. "I don't like eating goat," he said and smiled...

posted by Anna at 6:21 PM

Sunday, April 06, 2003

collage

From interview with former middle east peace envoy Anthony Zinni:

The biggest mistake the United States made in the war, Zinni said, was speaking of "shock and awe." "That was a way to say: 'Your fate is inevitable. We're going to crush you. The might of America will defeat you. Just surrender and throw down your arms.' You don't speak to Arab pride and Arab manhood in this way. That whole psychological business gave them another cause to fight for, more than they would have fought just for Saddam."

and, in BBC news via Shi'a Pundit (via Cobb, the blog, via Timothy Burke):

The townspeople, whose mosque was destroyed years ago, prayed in the privacy of their own homes. But instead of their worship being a secret and dangerous thing, it was freely performed with new joy. The 1st Battalion Royal Irish secured a public address system for the Imam and men from their attached Royal, Electrical and Mechanical Engineers installed it on Thursday night in time for Friday prayers.

and the comparison between British and American contact with civilians

The British soldiers suffered defeat on the dusty streets of Umm Khayyal, when they took on the local football team. A thousand spectators came from all ends of the town to watch the match, with the players wearing full strip, boots and squad numbers. The home side was rallied to a 9-3 victory by throngs of screaming men and children, who marked out the boundaries of the pitch...

Some British officers disparagingly refer to Americans as "Ninja Turtles" because they are covered in body armor, helmets and Ray-Bans. "There's a warrior-wimp syndrome in the U.S. Army," Wilkinson said...

and from Burke:

This is not a war that can be won solely with bombs and guns, though military action has had and will continue to have a major and legitimate role. Nor can it be won only with fabulous prizes and soup kitchens for the poor of the Muslim world.

This is primarily a struggle against an ideology, a way of seeing the world. How do you win such a war? In part, by understanding what makes it powerful and by persuasively countering its appeal with an appeal of your own....

posted by Anna at 10:34 PM

i'm not here

short one tonight. Two inward links and two outward links, you get to decide which are which.

political cartoons from Denver Post via Yubanet, on dissent (a repost) and the media

nevada county as seen by san francisco chronicle this past week, with respect to the county supervisors' pro war resolution and our plethora of bookstores

and let us spare a compassionate thought for poor Richard Somerville, editor of The Union, caught in the crossfire as subscriptions are cancelled right and left. Look at it this way pRS, when the dust clears your readers will all be centrists which will make your job much easier.

posted by Anna at 6:13 PM

HOME