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Sat. Nov. 20 2004:
Shrek 2 sucked. Amazingly un-funny. Wanna see a good animated movie? See The Incredibles ..
Updated the weather diary
and surfed around for webcams (looking
for "life-on-the-street" cams/ city cams). Thur. Nov. 18, 2004
Israeli
Tank Kills 3 Egyptian Policemen The FACT, passed in House & Senate and signed into law in 2003, requires credit reporting agencies to provide you with your credit report for free once a year. This law is being phased into effect by state. In Califonia, this law takes effect on December 1, 2004. For more info, see this page. On Wednesday, December 1, the three nationwide consumer reporting companies – Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion – will begin processing consumers’ requests for free annual credit reports at www.annualcreditreport.com.
Try also the following Google searches: November 15, 2004:
Hot off the presses: "Supersize
Your TV for $300: Build Your Own XGA Projector! " index-temp | tribe | Listmania | chill out : youth of britain | irish myth | Heroic Romances of Ireland November 11, 2004:
added encyc entries What are you playing right now?
Halo |
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Monday, Nov. 8, 2004: Israeli - Palestinian Conflict; news 2004, Nov. 4 - 7 November 3, 2004 - The US - Iraq war: Total Body Count Conservative Source:
Non-conservative source:
November 2, 2004:
------------------ Ok, from this, call the election (guess the winner):
Got it?
No?
Okay, now call it:
As of 8:40 PM, I call it for Bush. Why? Because the Bush-leaning states
add up to 61. (NM:5, CO:9, WI:10, OH:20, and sucky Florida: 27) Candidate Electoral ......States Won....Vote %.......... Votes Total Voters: 109,871,868 (37% of our population)
Date irrelevant:
How Do You Catch A Unique Rabbit?
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The grasshopper looks surprised and says, Oct. 31, 2004: Happy Halloween /* Nerd Joke Follows */
>Q: Why do engineers give presents on Halloween? bon mots definition:Bon Mot (French) [lit. good word]. A good or witty saying; a pun; a clever repartee, a clever remark [websters] October something, 2004: The quest for Licorice root (licorice sticks): buying dried licorice online. October 18, 2004:
This week in the Israeli
/ Palestinian conflict
The death toll for the four-year old Palestinian intifada now stands
at 4,504 people,
For the 17-day offensive by Israeli forces in north Gaza, which ended
Oct. 17 : October 11, 2004: Link for today: Lex Libertas (somebody else's web log; came across it doing a search for "Libertas," which is latin for Liberty). Excerpt: >> Wikipedia This is a public service announcement. Don't use Wikipedia ... ever. It is, hands down, the best general informational resource on the web. And even cooler, it's open source in the sense that it's written by us, the users. In a tribute to Rumsfeld. There are things there you know you want to know. Things you know you don't want to know, and things you don't know you want to know. And that's exactly the problem. I go for one quick citation and end up spending hours cliking on links to other things. It just feeds my unhealthy addiction to knowledge. I'm telling you, if you value your time - please, don't use this dangerous service. Don't even visit the intro page that I linked to. On it they offer up ideas of things to learn about. << October 9, 2004: Was Bush Wired? (the Milli Vanilli president) You may have heard this one, but speculation is flying about the strange device that appears to be on Bush's back during the debate Friday (Oct. 8). One (or more?) web sites (blogs) have speculated that it was a booster for a tiny hidden earpiece. Here's the AP Photo [ legitimate source | another ]:
Here's another one ( enlargement ):
You don't see anything obvious in this one, but he's not hunching forward:
read more about this here and here
But keep in mind, the first one might be an optical illusion (that's his shoulder blade, and the bulge is in, not out ?) and the second one could be just a weird suit ripple from the tension on the jacket? October 8, 2004:
We're Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore Something has gone seriously haywire with the Republican Party. Once, it was the party of pragmatic Main Street businessmen in steel-rimmed spectacles who decried profligacy and waste, were devoted to their communities and supported the sort of prosperity that raises all ships. They were good-hearted people who vanquished the gnarlier elements of their party; the paranoid Roosevelt-haters, the flat-earthers and Prohibitionists, the anti-papist anti-foreigner element. The genial Eisenhower was their man, a genuine American hero of D-Day, who made it okay for reasonable people to vote Republican. He brought the Korean War to a stalemate, produced the Interstate Highway System, declined to rescue the French colonial army in Vietnam, and gave us a period of peace and prosperity, in which (oddly) American arts and letters flourished and higher education burgeoned and there was a degree of plain decency in the country. Fifties Republicans were giants compared to today's. Richard Nixon was the last Republican leader to feel a Christian obligation toward the poor. In the years between Nixon and Newt Gingrich, the party migrated southward and down the Twisting Trail of Rhetoric and sneered at the idea of public service and became the Scourge of Liberalism, the Great Crusade Against the Sixties, the Death Star of Government, the gang of pirates that diverted and fascinated the media by their sheer chutzpah such as the misty-eyed flag-waving of Ronald Reagan who, while George McGovern flew bombers in World War II, took a pass and made training films in Long Beach. The Nixon moderate vanished like the passenger pigeon purged by a legion of angry white men who rose to power on pure punk politics. The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brown shirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fairs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini Libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong's moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us. Newt Gingrich's evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk. Republicans: The No. 1 reason the rest of the world thinks we're deaf, dumb and dangerous. Rich ironies abound! Lies pop up like toadstools in the forest while the swine crowd 'round the public trough! Outrageous gerrymandering! Pocket lining on a massive scale! Paid lobbyists sit in committee rooms and write legislation to alleviate the suffering of billionaires! Hypocrisies shine like cat turds in the moonlight! O Mark Twain, where art thou at this hour? Arise and behold the gilded age reincarnated gaudier than ever, upholding great wealth as the sure sign of Divine Grace. Here in 2004, George W. Bush is running for reelection on a platform of tragedy - the single greatest failure of national defense in our history, the attacks of 9/11 in which 19 men with box cutters put this nation into a tailspin, a failure the details of which the White House fought to keep secret even as it ran the country into hock up to the hubcaps, thanks to generous tax cuts for the well-fixed, hoping to lead us into a box canyon of debt that will render government impotent, even as we engage in a war against a small country that was undertaken for the president's personal satisfaction but sold to the American public on the basis of brazen misinformation, a war whose purpose is to distract us from an enormous transfer of wealth taking place in this country, flowing upward, and the deception is working beautifully. The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few is the death knell of democracy. No republic in the history of humanity has survived this. The election of 2004 will say something about what happens to ours. The omens are not good.
Our beloved lands have been fogged with fear - fear, the greatest political
strategy ever. An ominous silence, distant sirens, a drumbeat of whispered
warnings and alarms to keep the public uneasy and silence the opposition.
And in a time of vague fear, you can appoint bullet-brained judges, strip
the bark off the Constitution, eviscerate federal regulatory agencies,
bring public education to a standstill, stupefy the press; lavish gorgeous
tax breaks on the rich.
Whenever I think of those New Yorkers hurrying along Park Place or getting
off the No. 1 Broadway local, hustling toward their offices on the 90th
floor, the morning paper under their arms, I think of that non-reader
George W. Bush and how he hopes to exploit those people with a little
economic uptake, maybe the capture of Osama This year, as in the past, Republicans will portray us Democrats as embittered academics, desiccated Unitarians, whacked-out hippies and communards, people who talk to telephone poles, the party of the Deadheads. They will wave enormous flags and wow over and over the footage of firemen in the wreckage of the World Trade Center and bodies being carried out and they will lie about their economic policies with astonishing enthusiasm. The Union is what needs defending this year. Government of the Enron and by the Halliburton and for the Southern Baptists is not the same as what Lincoln spoke of. . . This is a great country, and it was made so by angry people. We have a sacred duty to bequeath it to our grandchildren in better shape than however we found it. We have a long way to go and we're not getting any younger.
Dante said that the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who
in time of crisis remain neutral, so I have spoken my piece, and thank
you, dear reader. It's a beautiful world, rain or shine, and there is
more to life than winning. *though you can't trust anything on the internet, the publication and attributation of this article to Garrison Keillor at In These Times.com appears legitimate. Oct. 2, 2004: Visited the San Jose Museum of Art (spending time with mom for her birthday). Found some really funny stuffed animals in the gift shop called Ugly Dolls. [www.uglydolls.com; Pretty Ugly LLc; doll price $22]
Other random notes scribbled on a postcard: *(this page refreshes the image to display the entire book. So keep the page open for a minute or two. See http://www.silbermedia.com/lostkisses/ for more info.)
Sept. 26, 2004: My pirate name is Black Roger Rackham. Arrrr! Sept. 17 - 20, 2004: Trip to Minneapolis (also St. Paul, Ren Fest, etc.) September 7, 2004:
Weather in San Jose/Milpitas/Silicon
Valley -- 104 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade today. August 19, 2004:
August 4, 2004: This is a very good resource for quitting smoking. July 28, 2004: Many of the speeches at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) are not shown on the standard channels. If you're interested, the absolute best way to watch either of the conventions is via C-SPAN. They play the whole thing without moronic commentary (such as that provided by CNN and Fox) and WITHOUT COMMERCIALS! The most important speech today, which you probably didn't see, was by Robert Kennedy, Jr. on the environmental threat posed by Bush and his administration. RFK Jr. is the president of the Waterkeeper Alliance, an organization dedicated to protecting American waterways and bodies of water. Kennedy said in his speech that the Bush administration has promoted 400 changes that render some federal environmental laws unenforceable. He also said the Bush team has pulled back on Clinton administration moves against companies that were accused of illegally using old, coal-fired power plants and that gave millions to Bush and other Republicans in 2000. Kennedy, in a speech in Alabama on Tuesday, said that the Bush administration is "treating the planet as if it were a business in liquidation" to allow "a few years of pollution-based profits."
You can read the transcript of Kennedy's speech here.
June 29, 2004: Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a debilitating and complex disorder characterized by profound fatigue that is not improved by bed rest and that may be worsened by physical or mental activity. Persons with CFS most often function at a substantially lower level of activity than they were capable of before the onset of illness. In addition to these key defining characteristics, patients report various nonspecific symptoms, including weakness, muscle pain, impaired memory and/or mental concentration, insomnia, and post-exertional fatigue lasting more than 24 hours. In some cases, CFS can persist for years. The cause or causes of CFS have not been identified and no specific diagnostic tests are available. Moreover, since many illnesses have incapacitating fatigue as a symptom, care must be taken to exclude other known and often treatable conditions before a diagnosis of CFS is made. See also Fibromyalgia. Chronic myofascial (my-oh-fass-shall) pain (CMP) is a neuromuscular chronic pain condition with Trigger Points (TrPs) that can cause muscle weakness and dysfunction, and pain. TrPs can also cause extreme dizziness, migraines, buckling knee, clumsiness and calf cramps. Pains in localized parts of the body — the back, hands, neck and other areas — are a symptom of CMP Trigger Points.
June 21, 2004: The X-Prize: Do we have a winner?
Private U.S. Rocket Plane Soars Into Space [Reuters, 6/21/04]
Private craft makes space history [BBC, 6/21/04]
A baby green sea turtle is seen in this Feb. 27, 2004 file photo in Marathon, Fla. A global decline in sea turtle populations is threatening jobs, tourism and coastal economies, particularly in developing countries, the environment group WWF said Tuesday, May 24, 2004. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee, File) June 8, 2004: There's a little black spot on the sun today.
May 29, 2004: Yeti Sports! [flash games to waste your time] May 28, 2004: Median Home Prices Pass Half-Million Mark; Figure Reaches $520,000 In Bay Area
Bay Area home prices have crossed a new threshold with
the figure reaching $520,000. May 27, 2004: News from the Field: Security Update: Stolen Cisco Code Runs On Most Game Consoles!
In a startling revelation today, industry insiders admitted that Cisco's
Proprietary IOS Software has been ported to Sony Playstation and X-Box
game consoles.
Cisco Unveils HFR! (FYI, internally HFR stands for Huge Fucking Router, as in "That's one HFR!" ).
Rumsfeld 'a bit tired' the next day but otherwise okay, say doctors
CNN
May 17, 2004: What's the deal with phones? Not cell phones, but regular phones. All I know is that I bought a 900 MHz Panasonic phone (which is supposed to have good quality) and the answering machine quality has gotten steadyily worse and worse; now it's at the point that the messages are so "digitized" as to be incomprehensible. And the volume (even when you hit the "loud" button) has always been too low. To buy a new one (or to buy almost anything electronic these days) you have to become a certified expert in everything about the technology just to make a decision. I swear they make these things with planned obsolence. And "digital quality" is a joke. Guess what folks: analog has always been better quality. Just saying something is "digital" is meaningless. What's the sampling rate? What's the Hertz? If you've lived long enough, you can remember that phone audio quality was much better before the nation made the move towards digital connections using digital phones. E.g. tape answering machines were much clearer than the majority of digitial answering machines available today. But you can't buy tape answering machines anymore.
April 26, 2004:
new entries:
RAM (memory types)
April 12, 2004: (some of these blog entries are just
for me; bookmarks) April 6, 2004: Most popular page in my Eclectic Content subsite: pictures of Queen Victoria (victoria.html) with 12,689 hits since June 2002. 2nd most popular: A page on the history of Dungeons and Dragons (d_and_d.html), with 3,587 hits since July 2003.
Least popular pages include: a
map of Brittany, Deiseil,
and the Germanic
language group. Most visited page on lyberty.com: The Ogham Stone home page, with 17,770 hits since June 2002 (which averages to a little more than 800 per month).
Date irrelevant:
sushi race (adult content)
Can't... stop... racing... sushi! Minimal beats... entrancing... causing
me [from luke] March something-or-other, 2004: Have you heard of There? It's the virtual world that's better than the Sims. Well, the Army is having the folks at There recreate the entire world. If they open the There-World to civilians, I predict the birth of the second internet (that's how the first internet got started you know).
Speaking of virtual worlds and avatars... Adobe now offers a product
for the creation of explorable environments, with a chat option. Adobe
Atmosphere March 22, 2004: The B.O.F.H. is dead. Long live the Egoless Admin. (bofh is dead - zen and the art of technical support) March 17, 2004: (St. Patrick's Day) If you ever find yourself on a dark country road in Ireland, bring along some salt, red thread, and a cross. That's what you'll need to protect yourself from "the other crowd." Raidió na Gaeltachta [archives] March 8, 2004: Sony Adds Worm Support to SAIT Drives March 4, 2004: Just got back from my trip to India and New Zealand. Missing NZ already (post-trip blues, probably). Ian Smith, I think, captures why you aren't going to see a lot of photos on my web site: "Many years ago, when movies used to always have a supporting feature, I saw a documentary on Venice which featured a narrative written and performed by John Cleese. The film was a serious, rather turgid 'obvious filler' documentary that would have been instantly forgettable, save for one single commentary line that appeared without warning about ten minutes into the feature. In a scene that showed for the third time a shot of the local boats Cleese's dulcet tones said '..and oh look, more f***ing gondolas'. It brought the cinema audience to life, and today I feel I know how John Cleese felt as I take more and more shots of the local countryside that should probably be captioned '... and oh look, more f***ing mountains'! The problem is that although the scenery is stunning, and subtly changing as [we] travel across the South Island, no photo's can really capture what it's like to actually be here in the middle of it. A fellow traveller agrees, "I'm not showing anyone any pictures. It's pointless", he says, "I'm just going to tell them they have to come here to find out for themselves". "
By the by, this is a nice little personal "tip" sight (with photos!) Monday, March 1, 2004: GAS (petrol) in New Zealand -
Okay, so I got 22.66 Liters of Premium Unleaded for NZ$27.62 in Wanaka
... that's 1.219 NZD per Liter... to convert (british) Litres (liters)
to US Gallons you multiply by x 0.2642*.. so.. (carry the one..mumble..over
4 decimal places...) And we complain about $2.00 a gallon here in California...
* "convert US gallons to litres, multiply by 3.79. Litres to
US gallons, multiply by 0.264"
"Gas is sold by the Litre, which is just over an American quart. For those of you who want to get really technical, one U.S. gallon is 3.786 Liters. (Note that the US gallon, for some reason, is different than the British (Imperial) gallon.)" gas petrol prices in New Zealand News Article (extra.msn.new_zealand):
Petrol Prices Drop Again Petrol prices have taken another downwards step. Shell is taking a further two cents off the price of petrol and diesel with immediate effect. It is the second reduction in just over a week. Retail manager Mark Nobilo says the reduction is thanks to an easing of the cost of imported petrol together with the continuing strength of the New Zealand dollar.
The new price at most Shell service stations throughout the country
will be $1.05.9 for 91 grade, $1.10.9 for 96 grade and 59.9
for diesel.
1.059 NZ is currently about $ 0.736 USD, so that's 0.2642 gallons for
74 cents, or $2.78 for a gallon.
in 1 US gallon, there's 3.785 Litres. **update Mar. 9, 2004: ex rate is now at 1 NZD = 0.6743 USD Monday, March 1, 2004: So I'm in Queenstown, New Zealand, taking my first early evening of the trip, and I turn on the telie and watch LOTR The Return of the King win Academy Award after Academy Award.... How cool is that? I do have to say though, that they didn't thank everyone in NZ, 'cause they forgot to thank me... Addendum: There ain't no party like a hobbit party, 'cause a hobbit party don't stop! http://www.lordsoftherhymes.com [click the MEET THE LORDS link, upper left-hand corner] (note: this is probably only really funny to you if you're the kind of person who's read the Silmarillion...) February 28, 2004: Stayed at Green Gables Deer Farm in Methven. Very nice place, I'd definitely recommend it. Thursday, Feb. 26, 2004
Went on a "Lord of the Rings sites-around-Wellington"
tour today. Very nice.
Sites in the tour: Mt Victoria ('Get off the road' & 'Escape from
the Nazgul');
I've been having film trouble... Yesterday, after I arrived, I took
the cable car up to get the high view of Welligton and the Bay. I brought
my video camera with me, but when I got up there I found out Tomorrow: taking the Lynx ferry across to Picton, on the South Island. Renting a car, then on to Nelson... February 25, 2004, Wednesday:
Upon arrival in Wellington, NZ: Feb. 24th (sort of), 2004:
I would have to say the airport in Kuala Lumpur is the nicest airport
I've ever been in. The following things strike me in my jet-lagged delirium as I wait around the Kuala Lumpur airport:
-I just realized I've never worked out the deal with Singapore being
down on the tip of Malaysia... - DLARANG MEROKOK ! (No Smoking) - KELUAR ! (Exit) - MASA MASUK ! (Boarding Time) Saturday, February 28, 2004:
PHOTOS
| MORE
PHOTOS
The Monuments: Thursday, February 19, 2004:
Staying at the TAJ
COROMANDEL, Chennai.
Hotel Laundry (comes back ironed, folded, and with a rose on top)
Warning Label On Beer In India:
"ALCOHOL RUINS FAMILY Rs = INR = Indian Rupees 1 lahk = 100,000 Rupees (written as, for example, "Rs. 0.96 lahks") (laksa in Sanskri means 100,000) car price : starting around 4.00 lahks, so that would be about $9,122
newspaper: Rs. 3.20
So a basic evaluation of VALUE (similar buying power, when compared
to the cost of US goods) yields
February 1, 2004:
Okay, I've booked the tix. Check it out: The Great Circle Trip January 28, 2004: "Come explore Middle Earth" New Zealand Tourism Board (NZTB) --> now at http://www.newzealand.com/ building a Make Your Own LOTR Tour site (okay, it's really just a place for me to collect notes for my trip); includes more links, etc.
(mapquest route to mordor and mt doom)
The Motley Fool Introduction to Indexes: blah blah blah [could match
the] S&P 500 by simply investing in the Vanguard 500 Index Trust mutual
fund. January 27, 2004:
Can someone please explain to me why I pay $50 a month so I can get
70+ cable channels with 50% commercials on most of those channels? The
worst offenders (in terms of total time spent playing commercials) are
MSNBC and the Discovery Science Channel. Actually, the Discovery Science
Channel changed its name to just "The Science Channel". What makes it worse is that for every commercial break, at least 30 seconds (one slot) to a minute (2 slots) is spent playing a commercial FOR THE STATION YOU ARE ALREADY WATCHING. Jesus, why do they have to advertise the same station I'm watching already? "We interupt this program to encourage you to watch another program, which we will interupt to advertise another show, maybe even the show you're watching now!" If they want to get me to watch another one of their shows, just play the ad for the other show ONCE AN HOUR. Not every fricken commercial break! (Bastards.) Don't they see the irony of playing commercials for other commercials? Yet we still plop down our money. We pay for the privilege of watching commericals. Great scam. I'm not doing it anymore. Call me when I can pay only for stations with no commercials. Or at least commercials once an hour, like on PBS (non-commercial? Yeah, right.) And don't get me started on those bottom-of-the-screen branding adds, which are getting bigger (with more movement) all the time. I can't count how many times I seen key parts of a program (like subtitles) obscured by station identificaiton and advertising crap. January 26, 2004:
Interesting report from the NewsHour
with Jim Lehrer today [episode #7850]
; new report (published in Science magazine) states that cancer causing
elements are so high in farmed salmon (as opposed to open-water "wild"
salmon) that people should not eat it more than once a month. For salmon
farmed in Europe, this recommended period is increased to once every four
months. "DR. DAVID CARPENTER: 'Our recommendation for the average consumer eating farm salmon is not to eat more than one meal a month ... unless you're willing to increase your risk of cancer.' "
"Study co-author Dr. David Carpenter says some European farmed
salmon should be consumed only once every four months, and he especially
advised females to reduce consumption, as dioxins and PCBs are known to
interfere with the developing fetus. " [more]
Also saw a report a month or two ago about a local (bay area) doctor
who diagnoses a form of exhaustion as coming from high mercury levels
in fish. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Another odd news story found today [source: the
Newshour "extra" website] Out of the nearly 40 million e-mails that will be archived in the Bill Clinton presidential library, only two were sent from the former president himself. One was sent to former Ohio Sen. John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth. Staffers helped Clinton send the e-mail to the space shuttle while it was in orbit. The commander in chief praised Glenn for returning to space after 40 years. The other e-mail, which may not even count, was a test message to check to see if the president knew how to send e-mail. "He's not a techno-klutz. I don't think President Bush sends e-mails, either," said Skip Rutherford, president of the Clinton Presidential Foundation, which raises money for the library. "Most of the decisions in the Oval Office are made through decision memos," he said." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ M2K4 NASA's second Mars rover, Opportunity, scored 'an interplanetary hole-in-one' by safely landing inside a shallow impact crater, coming face to face with the first exposed bedrock ever seen on the Red Planet, mission scientists said on January 25, 2004. Spirit, the NASA rover than landed on Mars January 3rd, was having some software problems. "On Wednesday, January 21, Spirit was preparing to run its Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT), a grinding device that removes dust and weathered rock, on exposed fresh rock, when the robot came to a screeching halt. The leading theory is that the robot suffered a breakdown in software that controls file management of its memory." Shouldn't have used Windows. "Spirit mission manager Jennifer Trosper said the team may try to access that flash memory tomorrow, where scientific and photographic data is stored, to do a health check. The day after, she said, they may try to delete some files, believing an excess of data in memory may be part of the problem. " "MARS OR BUST" I'm all for Bush's announcements about going to Mars and money for electric cars. But it's clear he can make this announcements because they're so far off, he doesn't actually have to do anything to work towards those goals. In other words, he gets political credit for committing to the goals, and no political backlash by having to put up money towards those goals. Check out these websites: www.space.com ; NASA.gov (nasa's got kind of a cool flashsite, if you're broadband-capable) January 19, 2004: Here's the deal on the immunizations I needed for India: I had my tetanus booster shot (Td) in Feb. 2002, so I didn't need that.
Got a Hepatitus A shot (aka immune globulin [IG]); plus a prescription for an anti-Malaria (though you should still avoid mosquitos; get DEET), and a prescription for traveler's diarrhea (just in case I accidentally drink the water, or eat a salad)
[UPDATE FEB. 6]: If you get the oral Typhoid
vaccine, don't make the same mistakes I did: If you do mess up like I did though, you can get a Typhoid shot in the week before you leave. The shot (Typhoid Vi Polysaccharide Vaccine) is supposed to provide 2 years protection. However, waiting to get the shot reduces is potential effectiveness: you are supposed to get the shot "at least two weeks prior to expected exposure to S. typhi." Interestingly, "no studies have been conducted ...to evaluate interactions or interference between the concurrent use of Typhim Vi and drugs (including antibiotics and antimalarial drugs), immune globulins (Hepatitus A), or common traveler's vaccines." In other words, they don't know if any of the other drugs will become less effective, or make the Typhoid vaccine less effective. Also the drug "has not been evaluated for its carcinogenic potential, mutagenic potential, or impaiment of fertility. It is not know whether Typhim Vi can cause fetal harm..." I thought all those tests were required in this country? [source: prescription information sheet]
Effectiveness: "3,454 subjects were vaccinated
in Katmandu, Nepal to test the efficacy of this vaccine. The overall protective
efficacy was determined to be 74% during 20 months of post-vaccination
follow-up. Correlation of vaccine-induced antibody levels with subsequent
efficacy, or levels that will provide protection have not been determined.
Immunogenicity studies have shown that a single dose produces a four-fold
increase in antibody levels in 88-96% of subjects within 1 month post-vaccination.
" January 18, 2004: Apparently, when people from the US go over to India for work related travel, the Indians go through some trouble to make sure that the visitors feel welcome and involved. But it doesn't seem to work in the opposite direction (for Silicon Valley). Here's what my company web site says: So you’re visiting from India, and everyone in San Jose -
We have tried to make a list of web-links and resources to make your time here more enjoyable...
This is followed by list of links for Transportation, Shopping, Sight-seeing,
and so on, including links to local Hindu Temples and a local "Indian
Movie Theatre" (sic)... January 13, 2004: Beware the dreaded forest brigand of India! I'm going to Chennai, India in a couple of weeks for business (to train some contractors). While reviewing the U.S Dept. of State Consular Info Sheet for India, came accross this tidbit, which merited its own section: "CRIME IN KARNATAKA AND TAMIL NADU: For two decades, the forest brigand Veerappan has engaged in serious criminal activity, including abductions and murders, in the forested border areas between the states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. U.S. citizens planning to enter these forested border areas should consult the Forest Department and local police authorities regarding security conditions." date irrelevant: January 12, 2004: I'll go on the record and say I thought The Last Samurai was great. Catch it before it leaves the theatres.
On that theme, here are the
Precepts of the Samurai, and some background. I've been reading The Nobility of Failure (Tragic Heros in the History of Japan) by Ivan Morris. Funny name, sure, but an interesting book on the historical "failed heros" of Japan. January 10, 2004: Hey, if you haven't seen it before, it's new to you, right? REAL ULTIMITE POWER - THE OFFICIAL NINJA
January 1, 2004:
This is interesting: Die fertigen Hauptplatinen. = The finished motherboards.
EE = Emotion Engine December 30, 2003:
Link d'jour: Michi Online; A Journal
of Japanese Arts December 24, 2003: About font sizes in web design & web browsers. As an example, the page you are currently reading uses the following style definitions:
p { font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 95%} December 22, 2003:
Today is the first day of Winter. Happy Winter Solstice! Created a Bible entry for Eclectic Content. December 17, 2003: Meet the real star of Lord of the Rings - a 1,600-box server farm. Got me wondering how they got the processors to run at "teraflop speeds".... FLOPS are floating-point operations per second.
To get processors to run at teraflop speeds, you apparently need a The pentium 4 processor (when scaled to 1 GHz clock freq) runs at about 300 FLOPS.
megaflop: A million floating point operations per second
"The smartest supercomputer now in use is capable of only teraflop "Scientists have begun to envision computers operating at petaflop speeds."
December 16, 2003:
Links:
Dec. 15, 2003
Still working on updating "Learn
to Sing Sakura Saku" (as a silly exercise in brushing up
on my Japanese). Dec. 11, 2003
At 12:03 PM 12/11/2003 -0800, Meredy wrote:
Good one.
The biggest irony is that "many consumers think nothing of paying three times So much for the cars of the future that run on water ;-)
But I think the main factor for most people is convenience.
Decoding the Aquafina label: "Aquafina delivers a water so pure, we promise there is nothing but crisp, clean refreshment in every bottle." = This sentence has no real meaning. ("You promised me crisp refreshment!") "Reverse osmosis for pure taste" = Note that it doesn't say "Reverse osmosis for water purity." But I do think the tap water here [at work] has a "chlorinated" taste. . . so whaddya gonna do? Prepare to feel old:
Reading: Child's Play This article is extremely quotable. The best example (while playing Pong):
"My line is so beating the heck out of your stupid line. Others:
"Brian: It's Princess Peach.
"Kirk: I'm sure everyone who made this game is dead by now."
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Drove
down the coast (actually, my driver took me), 58 kilometres (about 37
miles) from Chennai/Madras on the Bay of Bengal, to stop for lunch at
Fisherman's Cove (the Taj), then on to Mahabalipuram (Mamallapuram).
