Crafty Stuff

Hehehe - I like the way humans work by rubbing stuff together until they get a spark:
www.simarillion.com/Simarillion.htm

More Disintermediation
www.salwarkameezindia.com
Online Shopping - Buy All Our Products Directly from India - Free Shipping
for our International Buyers
We offer several payment options, accept all major currencies as payment modes and ship to all countries of the world. Should you face any difficulty in ordering, please feel free to send us an email.

A group of Bosnian refugee ladies who make socks, slippers and rugs in America. They survive on the income they make in knitting these things.
http://www.merrystahel.com/author/MyFavoriteCharities.htm

Yet another fibre alternative. Well, I could make a joke about fibbers, but it'd be nasty.
www.rugsandcrafts.com/yarn/banana_yarn.html
Banana Silk fibber yarn is made from the fibber of the banana tree. The fibber is refined, processed and skeined in Nepal by women. Banana trees are renewable, sustainable and produce environmentally friendly by-products. Only the decaying outer layers of the trees (aged bark) are harvested and soaked under water to quicken the natural process. When all of the chlorophyll structures are dissolved, the cellulose fibbers remain. They are extracted, washed and crushed by hand to make it suitable for spinning into banana yarn.
To make our banana fibber yarn vibrant, brilliant, and saturated with colour, the yarn is hand-dyed. Women's groups in Nepal carefully make each yarn skein. They come in 100 and 200 gram skeins. 200 grams contain about 135 yards. We currently offer 9 different colours of banana fibber yarn.

Some Sydney Stuff; Good Example or Horrible Warning

Sydney from the air in the early 60's
31 May 2005
An aerial view of Sydney taken in the early '60s. With fly-pasts of Gladesville, the unfinished Opera House, Maroubra, Coogee and Bondi beaches, through to Watsons Bay and the North Shore.

Some Links to info on the Strand Arcade, Sydney, a restored 19th century retail site.
www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/hs_hb_strand_arcade.asp
www.strandarcade.com.au
www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/sydney-shopping/ShoppingCentres/TheStrandArcade.html
www.sydneypubguide.net/pubs/Strand.aspx

Catherine Aird
www.xs4all.nl/~embden11/Engels4/aird.htm

1930-
Pseudonym of Kinn Hamilton McIntosh. She was born in Huddersfield, Yorkshire. She is the creator of Inspector Sloan, CID department head in West Calleshire, England
Biography
Catherine Aird is the author of more than twenty crime novels and story collections, most of which feature Detective Chief Inspector C. D. Sloan. She holds an honorary M. A. from the University of Kent and was made an M.B.E. Her other works include Amendment of Life (St. Martin's Minotaur, 2003) and Little Knell (St. Martin's Minotaur, 2001). She lives in England.
His Burial Too
Ms. Aird's version of a "locked-room" mystery is an intriguing one. Her dry wit and intelligent writing make it an excellent example of thie genre. Not only that, but the book in its entirety takes place during the space of one day. It can't get much tighter than that. It all begins when an arm is seen amongst several tons of broken plaster in a locked church bell tower ... But its her characters that make the story so special - the enigmatic Sloane, the bumbling Sergeant Crosby and the colourful Superintendent Leeyes. Ms Aird is a master craftsman of the the cozy mystery formula.
Published Bantam; 1973 Reissue 1986 ISBN: 0553139495. 1st Bantam Printing

EnglishSpace
esmeraldus.blogspot.com
A collection of snarky literary criticism, comments, and fiction. Where else can you find Jean Baudrillard and cat snot in the same post? Nowhere, I'd bet.

Los Alamos blog & assorted links

Possibly amusing caption contest
obsidianwings.blogs.com/ obsidian_wings/2005/04/contest.html

Free Online Graph/Grid Paper PDFs
www.incompetech.com/beta/plainGraphPaper
Includes Dots (Like normal graph paper - but with dots instead of lines); Hexagonal; Celtic Knotwork Graph Paper [?!? Wow] ; Asymmetric (Asymmetric graph paper is typically used for knitting patterns. Knit stitches are wider than they are tall. You can set your own width to height ratio.) and Multi-Width.

Struggle for Atomic Facts
www.commondreams.org/views04/0810-01.htm

More Atomism

Blogs seem to be everywhere. But this one is unusual, in that the Los Alamos National Laboratory, isolated in the mountains of New Mexico, has a long history of maintaining the highest level of federal secrecy.

The blog ( www.lanl-the-real-story.blogspot.com) went public in January and since then has registered more than 100,000 visits, with more than half a million pages viewed and more than 5,000 comments. Discussions run on a variety of topics, from the sanctity of retirement benefits to the likely identity of the next contractor who will run Los Alamos.

Since most messages are anonymous, there is no way to know how many laboratory employees contribute to the blog. Even so, from the sheer volume, detail and differing styles of the messages, the number is clearly many more than a handful. The language, often studded with obscure acronyms, suggests that the authors have a deep knowledge of the laboratory's exotic culture.

[Current news is about a death, see story at www.freenewmexican.com/ news/13584.html which details another nasty incident, recalling www.parrot-farm.net/%7Eroberts/ blog/Raspberry_Jam_Lost ]

UPDATE 2006: The LANL blog has been moved to its final resting place, at www.parrot-farm.net/ ~roberts/ lanl-the-real-story
LANS officially assumed the LANL contract June 1, 2006. This blog shuts down July 1.

Friday, June 30, 2006
Last Post
This is the last post to LANL, The Real Story . 869,847 visitors, 3,274,719 page views as of today.

This blog will remain on-line for some as yet undetermined period, but I have turned off the ability to comment on existing posts, and there will be no more submissions accepted. The Los Alamos Historical Society has requested that I burn a copy of the blog to DVD so that they could archive it, and I will do this. In addition, I may install a stand-alone version of the blog on computer at the Los Alamos Museum where visitors will be allowed to browse a "live" copy of LTRS, but not make any modifications to it.

By kayak from Germany to Australia

www.nswseakayaker.asn.au/mag/50/oscarspeck1.htm

[Full story not included here - see at URLs.]
from the NSW Sea Kayaker Magazine Edition 50
Oskar Speck's Epic Journey From Germany to Australia
Reprinted with the kind permission of Australasian POST magazine

www.nswseakayaker.asn.au/magazine/50/journey.htm
Incredible Journey
by Oskar Speck
As told to Duncan Thompson

Mr Oskar Spec, citizen of Hamburg, Germany, introduced the kayak to us in 1939.
He paddled it here — alone!

For seven years he paddled it, from Ulm on the Danube, to Australia, skirting the wrath of great seas and oceans, slipping from island to island, in a craft never designed for the sea.

That you did not hear of his arrival was either his fault nor yours.

For Speck chose a wrong period in world history for his amazing voyage — 30,000 miles in a frail frame-and-canvas canoe. For the kayak, the longest way round hugging the coastlines of the world is the only way home.

Germany was at peace (and in poverty) when Speck left Ulm in 1932.

Seven years later, in September 1939, he coaxed his kayak through the surf and on to the beach at Saibai, an island 60 or 70 miles north from Thursday Island. Officially, Saibai is Australia proper. At his bow, often smothered in the flying surf, fluttered the tiny Swastika which he had brought from Germany with him.

Three Australian police were waiting for him to berth his kayak. If this was the
German invasion, these cops could handle it. “Well done, feller!” they said, shaking his hand warmly. “You’ve made it — Germany to Australia in THAT. But now we’ve got a piece of bad news for you. You are an enemy alien. We are going to intern you.”

They did just that.

Speck went behind barbed wire at Tatura, Victoria ... Censorship clamped down on
the story of his voyage.

So that is why you have never heard of Oskar Speck.

Bolkein & Beyond

From The Green Man: thegreenman.net.au/mt/archives/001068.html

Martins lopsided view of the film is that he thought was excellent but would have been so much better as a musical...
Pearson has taken some of the better parts and assembled a CD that he is counting on to make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. The said CD is entitled "The Unfinished Spelling Errors of Bolkien, being a three part musical synopsis of book and file LOTR."
It is a collection of songs, ( MP3 sample: www.solsup.com.au/greenman/gandalfsong.mp3) and narrative (MP3 sample: www.solsup.com.au/greenman/narrative.mp3)

You can contact Martin Pearson by email on martinpearson@iinet.net.au or by snail mail at
Martin Pearson
PO Box 2373
Richmond South 3121
Australia
It costs $40 for the double CD. That is in Australian dollars which is
probably about 75c US

[ahem - I think he means $AU1 is about $US0.75, not that $40 is. It has sometimes felt that way, tho'. The UK pound is still quite daunting.]

... and related to another book recently adapted for film:
filmforce.ign.com/articles/607/607319p1.html
The Hitchhiker's Guide to Douglas Adams
Friends and colleagues remember the man behind the Guide

[includes] "A much better tribute to Douglas is the new, final radio series ( www.abovethetitle.com/) based on the fourth and fifth Hitchhiker books. The reason those books don't work very well is because they were rushed so there is almost no editing. Douglas needed a good editor or producer to make his work really shine and what Dirk Maggs has done with these final eight scripts is extraordinary and exactly what an editor would have done with the books had there been time.'

(Art imitates Life imitates Art? Or should that be Life imitates Art imitates Life? An Eternal Golden Braid.) Another in the world of stranger-than-fiction obituaries.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/ Operatic-exit-for-polisher-of-despots-sullied-images/ 2005/05/04/1115092565949.html
www.smh.com.au/text/articles/ 2005/05/04/1115092565949.html(Text-only)

Being Fractal

(See at moments.circumtech.com/1996/12/beingfractal a fine piece from an excellent site.)

... which brings me to:
Sierpinski Sieve
mathworld.wolfram.com/SierpinskiSieve.html
A fractal described by Sierpinski in 1915 and appearing in Italian art from the 13th century (Wolfram 2002, p. 43). It is also called the Sierpinski gasket or Sierpinski triangle ... Surprisingly, elementary cellular automaton rule 90 also produces the Sierpinski sieve (Wolfram 2002, p. 870).
Sierpinski Carpet
mathworld.wolfram.com/SierpinskiCarpet.html
A fractal which is constructed analogously to the Sierpinski sieve, but using squares instead of triangles.

See also:
Lindenmayer System, Pascal's Triangle, Rule 90, Sierpinski Arrowhead Curve, Sierpinski Carpet, Tetrix

Wolfram, S. A New Kind of Science. Champaign, IL: Wolfram Media, pp. 870, 931-932, 2002.

Online banking fees for the five major Australian banks:
(This needs to be put into a table, sorry will have to wait)
Bank Account: Transaction; Inquiry; BPAY
ANZ Transact: nil; nil; nil
ANZ Access Advantage: nil; nil; nil
ANZ Equity Manager: nil; nil; nil
Commonwealth Streamline: 30c; nil; 30c
National Passbook: 20c; 20c; 20c
National Smart Access: nil; nil; nil
National Smart Direct: nil; nil; nil
National Tertiary Student: 20c; 20c; 20c
St George Freedom: nil; nil; nil
Westpac Classic: 25 cents; nil; 25 cents
Westpac Classic Plus: 25 cents; nil; 25 cents

Commonwealth's online transaction fee to rise to 50 cents on July 1.

Source: The Australian Consumers Association's flickyourbank.com.au

Cheering you up a bit, perhaps, this eBay store:
stores.ebay.com/ALTER-EGO-EROTICS

'Twas early in the morning upon the fifth of May
When seven police surrounded him as fast asleep he lay.
Bill Dargin he was chosen to shoot the outlaw dead
The troopers then fired madly, and filled him full of lead
They rolled him in a blanket and strapped him to his prad
And led him through the streets of Forbes to show the prize they had.
$nbsp;$nbsp;$nbsp;$nbsp;$nbsp;$nbsp;The Streets of Forbes

Some Kind of Courage

Sign-language interpreter told `the truth' on state TV about Ukraine's election
By Nora Boustany
The Washington Post
Posted May 1 2005
Dmytruk, 48, made sign language her vocation and today interprets for Ukraine's state-run television.
Her face and hands appear in a little box at the bottom of the screen as she sends out the news on the mid-morning and early afternoon telecasts to the hearing-impaired.
During the tense days of Ukraine's presidential elections last year, Dmytruk staged a silent but bold protest, informing deaf Ukrainians that official results from the Nov. 21 runoff were fraudulent.
Her act of courage further emboldened protests that grew until a new election was held and the opposition candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, was declared the winner.
... "After every broadcast I had to render in sign language, I felt dirty. I wanted to wash my hands."
The opposition had no access to the state-run media, but Dmytruk was in a special position as a television interpreter to get their message out.
On Nov. 25, she walked into her studio for the 11 a.m. broadcast ... The newscaster read the officially scripted text about the results of the election, and Dmytruk signed along. But then, ... In her own daring protest, she signed: "I am addressing everybody who is deaf in the Ukraine. Our president is Victor Yushchenko. Do not trust the results of the central election committee. They are all lies. ... And I am very ashamed to translate such lies to you. Maybe you will see me again," she concluded, hinting at what fate might await her. She then continued signing the rest of officially scripted news.

The Zen of Computers

A classic collection for possible use in a sig-file, rotating blog header, or something similar.

In Japan, they have replaced the impersonal and unhelpful Microsoft error messages with their own Japanese haiku poetry, each only 17 syllables, 5 syllables in the first line, 7 in the second, 5 in the third.

Your file was so big.
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.

The Web site you seek
Can not be located but
Countless more exist.

Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.

ABORTED effort:
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.

Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.

Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.

First snow, then silence.
This thousand dollar screen dies
So beautifully.

With searching comes loss
And the presence of absence:
"My Novel" not found.

The Tao that is seen
Is not the true Tao - until
You bring fresh toner.

Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.

A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.

Three things are certain:
Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.

You step in the stream,
But the water has moved on.
This page is not here.

Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.

Having been erased,
The document you're seeking
Must now be retyped.

Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.

Tips on Spinning Cat Hair

Tips on Spinning Cat Hair

Comix Without Words A-Z

Letters of Marque and Reprisal

Wrist PDA - Watch this space

Watch this space
By Adam Turner
March 29, 2005 [ Next ]
www.smh.com.au/news/Upgrade/ Watch-this-space/ 2005/03/28/1111862289183.html

Often the coolest gadgets aren't the cheapest or most practical, they're the ones that make your tech-head friends green with envy, like Fossil's Wrist PDA ...The device lasts four days without a charge if you use it as a PDA for 30 minutes a day and don't use the backlight but you lose all data if the battery goes completely flat. We think it needs a separate watch battery ...
A Wrist PDA Software Development Kit is available and Australian Palm developer Gavin Maxwell ( pocketscience.com.au) has written several applications for it, including a version of the popular Wassup.
Wassup lets you quickly see how many appointments you have, how many to-do items you must attend to and your remaining memory and battery life. If you're sick of carrying around a handheld PC just to remind you what time Channel Nine have randomly chosen to screen Star Trek this week, the Wrist PDA will put you in Nerdvana.
Fossil's Wrist PDA, rrp about $315. Details: fossil.com

But does it have a camera? (There is a camera-watch available.) Yes, I kinda like it, but needs nicer looks and rather better functions. Different to technolust.)

Searching for SF?

I like Science (aka Speculative) Fiction for its ideas.
If you want information on the authors, titles, series, dates, etc., of published works, try:
The Internet Speculative Fiction Database www.sfsite.com/isfdb
Contento's Index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections www2.best.com/~contento/0start.html
The Locus Index to Science Fiction (1984-1997) www.sff.net/locus/notes.html
The Library of Congress Home Page lcweb.loc.gov
Ingram Book Group's The Book Kahoona www.ingrambook.com/surf

Drop a Rock on Your Nearest Landmark!

Earth Impact Effects Program
Robert Marcus, H. Jay Melosh, and Gareth Collins

www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects

Welcome to the Earth Impact Effects Program: an easy-to-use, interactive web site for estimating the regional environmental consequences of an impact on Earth. This program will estimate the ejecta distribution, ground shaking, atmospheric blast wave, and thermal effects of an impact as well as the size of the crater produced.

SMS campaign backfires -- car firm fined for sending spam

Slightly cheery news for the spam-haters, and those dreading its infestation of mobile (cell) phones. From the Sydney Morning Herald: SMS campaign backfires as car firm is fined for sending spam
By Kirsty Needham, Consumer Reporter
April 6, 2005
A car company that sent text messages to people after copying their mobile phone numbers from classified advertisements has been fined under the Spam Act.

It is the first time that text message advertising has been caught under the new law, which came into effect last year and is designed to cut the torrent of junk email.

Carsales.com.au was fined $6600 after members of the public complained to the Australian Communications Authority about the unwanted marketing messages.

The chief executive of the automotive website, Greg Roebuck, said his staff sent out several hundred of the text messages each week because he believed it was "less intrusive" than calling.

But the authority ruled that the recipients of the messages had no relationship with the car website and did not give their consent to receiving the text messages.

News Release: NC State Paleontologist Discovers Soft Tissue in Dinosaur Bones

www.ncsu.edu/news/ press_releases/05_03/075.htm "NC State Paleontologist Discovers Soft Tissue in Dinosaur Bones"
Scientists have recovered 70-million-year-old soft tissue inside a Tyrannosaurus Rex bone they found in a sandstone formation in the US.

The find included what appeared to be blood vessels, and possibly even cells.

The material is currently being studied, and if scientists can isolate proteins from the material they may be able to learn new details of how dinosaurs lived, lead researcher Mary Higby Schweitzer of North Carolina State University said

“Soft-Tissue Vessels and Cellular Preservation in Tyrannosaurus rex”
Authors: Mary H. Schweitzer and Jennifer L. Wittmeyer, North Carolina State University; John R. Horner, Montana State University; Jan B. Toporski, Carnegie Institution of Washington Geophysical Laboratory
Published: March 25, 2005, in Science

WAL-MARX

WAL-MARX

The weblog of Citizen Cross. Here you will find entries dealing with politics, history, the media, and cultural, social, and economic issue

Tuesday, March 22, 2005
The Politics of Diversion
I was going to write about the current controversy regarding Terri Schiavo. Then I decided against it. But in order not to, I have to write a little something about it anyway. You know, it’s easier if I just begin . . .
Another is the hypocrisy of Our Great Father, who has been talking about a “culture of life” and how in cases such as this, it is “better to err on the side of life.” ...
This is the man who, as Governor of Texas, publicly mocked a woman (Kayla Faye Tucker) he put to death, despite her plea for clemency: "'Please,' Bush whimpered, his lips pursed in mock desperation, 'don't kill me.'"...
Finally, it is worth asking how her medical care has been paid. It turns out, by Medicare - the very program conservative Republicans are determined to eliminate. And what helped pay for her early treatment and medical bills? A million-dollar settlement from a lawsuit, the very kind of malpractice lawsuit that Republicans are determined to eliminate. Isn't irony just delicious? ...

Phil Agre's Home Page

Phil Agre's Home Page

Includes links to some of his recent publications, such as:

The practical republic: Social skills and the progress of citizenship, in Andrew Feenberg and Darin Barney, eds, Community in the Digital Age, Rowman and Littlefield, 2004.

Internet research: For and against, in Mia Consalvo et al, eds, Internet Research Annual, Volume 1, Peter Lang, 2004.

Information and institutional change: The case of digital libraries, in Ann P. Bishop, Nancy A. Van House, and Barbara P. Buttenfield, eds, Digital Library Use: Social Practice in Design and Evaluation, MIT Press, 2003.

Peer-to-peer and the promise of Internet equality, Communications of the ACM 46(2), 2003, pages 39-42.

Real-time politics: The Internet and the political process, The Information Society 18(5), 2002, pages 311-331.

The practical logic of computer work, in Matthias Scheutz, ed, Computationalism: New Directions, MIT Press, 2002.

Cyberspace as American culture, Science as Culture 11(2), 2002, pages 171-189.

Changing places: Contexts of awareness in computing, Human-Computer Interaction 16(2-4), 2001, pages 177-192.

Supporting the intellectual life of a democratic society, Ethics and Information Technology 3(4), 2001, pages 289-298.

Your face is not a bar code: Arguments against automatic face recognition in public places, Whole Earth 106, 2001, pages

yellowarrow.org

yellowarrow.org
bout

The YellowArrow is a global public art project that merges graffiti and sticker culture with wireless media, creating an interactive forum for people to leave and discover messages pointing out what counts in their environment. Participants place arrows to draw attention to different locations and objects -- a favorite view of the city, an odd fire hydrant, the local bar. Each arrow has a unique code, and by sending a text-message (SMS) from your mobile phone to 1.646.270.5537 in the format "+code your message" you associate a short text with your arrow -- messages can range from literary quotations to personal commentaries to game-like prompts to action. When another person encounters the arrow, he or she sends "?code" to 1.646.270.5537 and immediately receives the message associated with it on their mobile phone. Through this location-based exchange of text-messages, the YellowArrow becomes a symbol for the unique characteristics, personal histories, and hidden secrets that live within our everyday spaces. And it's not just places, it's people: YellowArrow TXTshirts are individually coded just like the stickers. YellowArrow text-messaging is currently compatible with all phones and service providers in the US as well as internationally with those networks under the GSM standard. The website, YellowArrow.org, allows participants to annotate their arrows with photos and maps and is the online gallery of YellowArrows placed throughout the world -- visit to order arrow stickers and tshirts and see announcements about new events and features.

Court: Man can sue over 'surprise' pregnancy

Chicago Sun-TimesCourt: Man can sue over 'surprise' pregnancy
February 25, 2005
BY ABDON M. PALLASCH Legal Affairs Reporter
Fef a woman performs oral sex on a man, leaves the room, secretly uses that sperm to impregnate herself, then sues the man for child support, is that "extreme and outrageous" conduct?

Yes it is, the Illinois Appellate Court ruled this week.

The justices said Chicago doctor Richard Phillips can try to convince a jury that his ex-fiancee pulled that trick on him, causing him emotional distress.

The ex-fiancee, Sharon Irons, also a doctor, says Phillips got her pregnant the old-fashioned way -- sexual intercourse -- and concocted the oral sex story as a novel excuse to get out of paying child support for their 5-year-old daughter.
...
The panel, however, tossed the other two counts in Phillips' suit, including the one for conversion because they could not accept that Irons "stole" Phillips' sperm.

"She asserts that when plaintiff 'delivered' his sperm, it was a gift -- an absolute and irrevocable transfer of title to property from a donor to a donee," Hartman wrote. "There was no agreement the original deposit would be returned upon request."

Plants In Motion

Plants In Motion
Created for nonprofit educational use
by
Roger P. Hangarter
Indiana University, Department of Biology, 915 E 3rd St, Bloomington, IN 47405

sunflower.bio.indiana.edu/~rhangart/ plantmotion/starthere.html

With few exceptions, plants grow and change on a time scale that is too slow for us to observe in real time. Time-lapse photography is a simple technique that allows us to see the movements of plants and clearly demonstrates that plants are living and capable of some extraordinary things. This is done by capturing a series of images at intervals ranging from minutes to hours apart. The images can then be viewed in rapid succession, much like a flip book. The effect is to compress into a short period, the changes that occurred over a relatively long period of time. We especially hope this site provides material that may captivate the interest of budding plant biologists but even seasoned plant biologists will find interesting material...
* Germination
* Photomorphogenesis
* Tropisms
* Nastic Movements
* Circadian Responses
* General Growth
* Flowers
* Cellular Responses

Teaching / Learning Projects
* Plant Dance
* Making time-lapse movies
* Plant projects

Plants & Art
* Plant Art
* Plants in Hollywood

Note that all of the movies are in QuickTime format. The QuickTime plug-in is available for free at quicktime.apple.com. However, if you want to save movies to your computer for educational use away from an inernet connection, you will need a copy of QuickTime Pro

Trebuchet - not the font/typeface

www.trebuchet.com: Trebuchet.com * Dedicated to the art of hurling *

Now available, these two previously out-of-print books!

Catapult Design, Construction and Competition
AND
The Projectile Throwing Engines of the Ancients

The convertible tabletop trebuchet!: This small trebuchet is fully functional and is based on true trebuchet mechanics.
It can be converted from a hanging counterweight model to a fixed counterweight (and back!) in seconds! Great for hurling missiles across the room!

Be sure to visit our other web site at:
www.mangonel.com
The ancient Roman engine of war, Mangonel, also known as an Onager. This fully functional model is professionally engineered and is as historically accurate as possible. It really works and can throw golfballs, potatoes, eggs, tennis balls and more!

I always wondered why the Sydney Morning Herald never ran a story about the scandals about the Swiss pushing Jewish & other refugees escaping the Nazis back over the border, or even directly taking them to patrols, ever as much as it put the stories of Australian treatment of people arriving at our borders on the same or facing pages, let alone tried to run them in parallel columns, which would have made the point reasonably clear.
Two WWII examples are Sabine Sonabend & Joseph Spring. See here www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/ lawrpt/stories/s96863.htm and here www.jewishsf.com/content/ 2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/7369/ format/print/edition_id/139/displaystory.print

Hmmm ... dunno about this ...

Congratulations! You are the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra

You seem quite logical and approachable, but you're actually quite Complex, in more ways that one.

Which Fundamental Theorem of Mathematics Are You?


brought to you by Quizilla

Hemispheric contrasts, and other things

February 10th, 2005: A quite chilly-looking photo in Daily Imagery at topleftpixel. Some interesting patterns, not just aesthetic, but showing what's happening.
wvs.topleftpixel.com/archives/photos_snapshots/ 050210_1030.shtml
Note, the previous day's one is very like my stuff.

These are the sort of things that remind one, Gee, the weather hasn't been all that bad in Sydney recently. (see also first link from topleftpixel, above)
cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6509576224

"Reversioning" picture books
www.whatisdeepfried.com/zogg/zogg1.html

A set involving discussion of the use of PhotoShop and author's photos
nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/ 006081.html#74135
also
nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/ 006081.html#74139
and a short note at
nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/ 006081.html#74144
discussing these photos
www.pulseweekly.com/article_read.asp?id=2234

I guess this is a horror 'zine online. Quite nicely done - at least with a fat pipe. Less atmos with lower-rent home brand.
www.chizine.com/

Navy releases tsunami images
By Richard Black
BBC environment correspondent
newswww.bbc.net.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4247409.stm
UK scientists have released images of the ocean floor near the epicentre of December's giant Asian earthquake.
They were obtained by the Royal Navy's hydrographic survey ship HMS Scott.
The three-dimensional pictures ( newswww.bbc.net.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/05/ sci_nat_asian_tsunami_rupture_zone/html/1.stm) detail the deformed seabed 150km (94 miles) off the Sumatran coast, and reveal huge underwater landslides.

[Sorry about gaps. This blog is down the priority list at the moment. Lots of other things taking up time, physical & mental energy. Please check interesting things at some of my recommended links in the sidebar & beyond.]

Discussions

From Rob Hansen (December 31, 2003 07:14 PM)
Mitch Wagner wrote:

I think the central gimmick -- the rolling roads -- is deeply wonderful, and who cares whether they're practical or not? Ever driven for hundreds or thousands of miles on flat, featureless highway? Wouldn't it be nicer to >have a whole STREET along with you, sit in a pub or restaurant for a little while, go out for a little stroll -- all while moving at 100 mph -- and then arrive at your destination?

I've done this. The thing I did it on is called a train.

From Anne (January 6, 2004 09:22 PM)

I have a warning for all of you: if you have not yet read The Da Vinci Code, avoid it at all costs! The whole thing is based on faulty philology, not to mention the fact that it's so badly written that I can't think of an entertaining way to insult it. Go read Preacher instead, which although based on the same bad philology is a masterpiece.

From teep (January 6, 2004 11:17 PM)

Two thumbs up on Preacher here, heck of a fine comic. (Graphic Novel? Something. Sequential art in panels with word balloons, whatever you want to call it.) It has lots of head explosions that are not particularly tasteful. It's got amazingly fun dialogue. Vampires! Angels! Corrupt earthly organized religion! Strange inbred people! Cannibalism! Sodomy of all kinds! Arseface! There's also a preacher and a dead guy (not a vampire) and the devil and so forth. Fun stuff. With, did I mention, astonishingly graphic head explosions? Oh, and you'll see a serial killer, a meat-processing plant, a few horses, some grand theft auto, a certain amount of sex, a truly frightening grandma, and John Wayne.

Preacher lead to the following memorable conversation with my mother:

My mom (flipping through a volume of Preacher): "This is pornography!"

Me (over her shoulder): "No, mom, that's cannibalism."

My mom: ...

Savage Love column: New Year's Eve stories. www.thestranger.com/2004-01-01/savage.html

Atlanta Nights by Travis Tea (Book) in Books > Fiction & Literature > Women's Fiction > Glitz & Glamour

Atlanta Nights by Travis Tea (Book) in Books > Fiction & Literature > Women's Fiction > Glitz & Glamour [on lulu.com ]

http://www.lulu.com/content/102550

Travis Tea is a pseudonym for a group of (mostly) science fiction and fantasy authors who were amused by PublishAmerica's claim (at their authorsmarket.net site) that SF & F authors are "writers who erroneously believe that SciFi, because it is set in a distant future, does not require believable storylines, or that Fantasy, because it is set in conditions that have never existed, does not need believable every-day characters."

So about thirty writers knocked off a novel over a long weekend, writing it as ineptly as they possibly could. Plot, characterization, graceful prose ... none of them are to be found in ATLANTA NIGHTS. Grammar and spelling take a drubbing. The book was submitted to PublishAmerica -- and it was accepted.

Now you can see for yourself what PublishAmerica considers to be "believable storylines" and "believable every-day characters."

Prepare to be amazed.

Reviews
Breathtaking! Mind expanding!You will never view reading a book in the same way!

Amazing. Incredible. Mind-bending. Sweet. Coy. Surprising. These are all words. Some of them are found in this book. Buy it. Read it. Lend it. Love it. I have seen the future of American literature. And his name is Travis Tea.

hy on earth... by MacAllister Stone
Wed 26 Jan 8:36 am EST 2005 last modified on Wed 26 Jan 8:40 am EST 2005
would a talented, smart, dedicated, and otherwise exemplary group of people participate in a hoax of this magnitude? For a worthy cause, I suppose.

I anticipate MANY pleasant hours reading and re-reading this piece of utter drek--trying to puzzle out which of my favorite writers to blame for each and every dreadful chapter.

I just hope I recover from the annoying twitch beneath my left eye that I developed upon reading the first three pages. Fans in the know could develop an online game of "identify-the-chapter-writer" to keep ourselves occupied for months.

Skeptic's Annotated Bible (also Quran (Koran) and Book of Mormon)

Skeptic's Annotated Bible
www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/index.html
Also available:
Quran (Koran)

Book of Mormon

There are particular links under the headings

Injustice
Absurdity
Cruelty and Violence
Contradictions
Intolerance
Women
Good Stuff
Family Values
Prophecy
Sex
Science and History
Language
Homosexuality
Interpretation

As well as the text of the Old and New Testaments linked book-by-book, a phrase search/concordance, and some other useful related links.

Plush Lust & Dinoplush desire

Two places wherein much plush lust may be slaked -- or, alternatively, stirred -- including dinoplush desire. Approach with caution. (Isn't a beanie a type of hat?)

http://www.thebigzoo.com/Store/Toys/Tyrannosaurus_Rex.asp
Medium Plush T-Rex
This 10" plush dinosaur is sure to be a big hit with dinosaur fans.

Small Plush T-Rex
This 7" plush dinosaur is sure to be a big hit with dinosaur fans.

Velvet T-Rex
This 11" tyrannosaurus rex is covered in soft velvet and features characteristically small arms and lots of teeth!

http://www.warehouse23.com/info/plush.html
GIANTmicrobes | Godzilla Origins | Bunnywith | Alien | Battle Cattle | Caltrops | HoL | Other Side of the Looking Glass | Fuzzy Dice | Fat Dragons | Call of Cthulhu | Here Be Monsters | Monty Python | Beanosaurs | Presidential Plush

Memes aka The Big Lie aka Truth getting on its boots

Although some of the Stella Awards cases are true, many are pure fictition, others are partly true, but changed to make them sound ridiculous. The true cases are also usually told in a slanted way, or the story ignores the fact that the case was thrown out either straight away or on appeal.

The "cruise control" story is definitely false. [ www.snopes.com/autos/techno/cruise.asp ]

The material below is from a US site, but the comments on the story from people around the world on the sitepoint out that the same process is happening in many places.

The first section is just a quick summary example using 'Stella'.
The section below that is a longer bit giving more examples, websites to check things, tracing some of the history and making the points in greater detail.

You can probably remember the big fuss about similar things and changes made here which have cut back both the health and life expectancy of injured people, and the responsibility of careless and negligent people or groups to not injure us, without much visible improvement in the evils this was meant to cure.
________________________________

nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/005850.html
December 03, 2004
Common fraud

You know all those stories you’ve read about ridiculous court cases where greedy plaintiffs and their greedy lawyers collect huge settlements for minor injuries that were their own fault in the first place? The McDonald’s coffee case is the most famous. I’m sorry to say that those stories are fabrications, part of a PR campaign. Some of them are pure fiction. Others have been cooked up by grossly misrepresenting real court cases. The Net has spread them far and wide.

... Even Snopes.com has fallen for them. But then, Snopes would. They grew up out of the old Internet, back when less money was at stake, and they’re dependent on their informants.
...
Remember, that supposedly huge settlement $2.6 million settlement against McDonald’s wasn’t because they gave Stella Liebeck third-degree coffee burns (though they did, and then refused her offer to settle if they would just pay her medical bills). The punitive damages were because it came out during the trial that in the ten years prior to Stella Liebeck’s accident, over 700 people had been seriously burned by the coffee McDonald’s kept at an unsafe temperature. McDonald’s knew this was happening, but they maintained their coffee at 190 F. anyway ...

the amount of the award wasn’t McDonald’s income for two days, nor even McDonald’s income from coffee for two days. It was two days’ profit from selling coffee that their own spokesman characterized as “unsafe for human consumption.” Ten years of serious injuries didn’t get them to turn down the temperature on their coffee pots. Two days’ coffee profits did.

Common Good's website ( http://cgood.org/ ) claims it’s about “restoring common sense to American law,” and pretends that Common Good is a grassroots organization ... It smelled wrong ...

I looked further. It didn’t take long, and Common Good was at the top of the list.
From the ConsumerWatchDog.org site, 29 May 2003:

Consumer Group & Author Reveal Corporation’s Invisible Hand Behind Attack On Individual’s Legal Rights
Santa Monica, CA
The growing attempt to roll back legal rights for individuals in state houses across the nation is being surreptitiously coordinated by America’s largest corporations through the use of front groups, a national consumer group and author revealed today. …The “Astroturf” corporate consultants masquerading as independent, grass roots reformers, according to FTCR’s research, include:

* Common Good, described in Monday’s front page New York Times story only as “an advocacy group…dedicated to changing what it calls the lawsuit culture,” was founded by corporate defense lawyer Philip K. Howard, the Vice Chairman of Covington & Burling. This leading corporate defense firm represents many of America’s largest corporations, all of whom have a large stake in limiting consumer’s legal rights. The list includes Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., Lorillard Tobacco Co., Philip Morris Inc., and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co, the American Automobile Association, the Association of American Railroads, the American Petroleum Institute, Eli Lilly, ExxonMobil, Goodyear, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Trane, and Union Pacific.

That is, Common Good is a corporate-funded organization whose entire purpose is deception and the spread of disinformation.
...
In the case of Common Good, the agenda being pursued can be loosely grouped under tort reform, which isn’t a reform movement at all. It’s a massive lobbying and PR campaign surreptitiously financed by business interests. It works to (1.) bring the law into disrepute; (2.) turn public opinion against small plaintiffs by portraying them as greedheads who file groundless or frivolous lawsuits; (3.) spread the idea that American firms are being driven out of business by runaway jury verdicts (which they aren’t)(and by the way, juries tend to make smaller awards than judges do); (4.) likewise spread the idea that American doctors are being ruined by skyrocketing malpractice premiums caused by an epidemic of outlandish malpractice awards (premiums are up, but malpractice awards aren’t, and the greedheads in this instance are actually the insurance companies); and (5.) create a climate of public opinion that will enable them to get laws and regulations permanently changed in their favor.

[To explore] this issue, probably your best single-stop website is CorpReform.com ... As the site sums things up,

Tort reform isn’t about fixing a “broken” justice system; it’s about protecting the public image and bottom lines of the biggest and most powerful companies in the world. Tort reform isn’t about protecting doctors from high insurance rates; it’s about protecting their insurers from having to pay large judgments. Tort reform isn’t about keeping “greedy lawyers” from filing frivolous lawsuits; it’s about keeping those who are severely injured out of the court system and away from the public eye.
...
The message is not new. For the past fifteen years, pro-business interests in America have sought to “reform” the judicial and regulatory systems ... by limiting the remedies of injured citizens. Until now ... most states have rejected the more Draconian reforms. In fact, courts in some states have struck down tort reform attempts as unconstitutional.

The tort reform campaign has gained much wider acceptance, however, in the jury box. Many jurors now treat as axiomatic the notion that the nation is plagued with “frivolous” lawsuits and outrageous jury verdicts. The rich and greedy plaintiff’s lawyer has become a part of American folklore. Of course, these stereotypes have not emerged by chance. They have grown out of a calculated attempt by corporate America to portray itself as the helpless victim of an unfair legal system—to cultivate a legal system that favors business interests

Some links to satellite photos of Indian Ocean tsunami damage

Digital Globe satellite photos of tsunami damage to coastlines:
www.digitalglobe.com/tsunami_gallery.html

National University of Singapore satellite Asian tsunami photos:
www.crisp.nus.edu.sg/tsunami/tsunami.html

Indian Ocean Tsunami Warnings & Helpful Hints - charities & contacts

www.smh.com.au/news/Asia-Tsunami/Who-to-call-and-how-to-help/ 2004/12/29/1103996616211.html

Indian Ocean tsunami disaster: Who to call and how to help

December 30, 2004

Foreign Affairs help lines
The Department of Foreign Affairs has two toll-free help lines. The first is for people concerned about relatives or friends in tsunami-affected areas: 1800 002 214. The second is for Australians in disaster zones who need help from embassy staff: +61 1300 555 135 or 6261 3305.

Travel advisories
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has issued warnings about these areas:
Thailand: The west coast and islands, including Phuket, and southern region (Ranong province and all provinces to the south). A temporary consulate has been established at the Hilton Hotel to assist Australians in the surrounding islands and can be contacted on +66 76 370 672 or aus-phuket@inet.co.th. Phuket Airport is operating and travellers are encouraged to leave by commercial flights. A Department of Immigration and Indigenous Affairs officer will be at Phuket Airport to provide travel documents to Australians who have lost their passports.
India: Coastal areas of southern and eastern India plus, in particular, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Sri Lanka: The east coast from Trincomalee in the north-east to Galle in the south. Colombo Airport is operational. Travellers are encouraged to leave by commercial flights. Four-wheel-drive vehicles are being used to transport Australians to Colombo and the Sri Lankan Air Force will also help stranded Australians who are south of Colombo.
Maldives: Avoid all travel to the Maldives until further notice. A British team has set up an emergency consulate at the Iskander school in Male. An Australian official will join these consuls for any Australians in the Maldives who require assistance. The airport in Male is operating and travellers are encouraged to leave by commercial flights.
Indonesia: The west coast of northern Sumatra, including Aceh province and offshore islands.
Malaysia: The resort islands of Penang and Langkawi were hit by the tsunami, but escaped the devastation of other areas. The department advises those heading there to check with local authorities and hotels that it is safe to travel there.

More information and updated advice from the department at www.smarttraveller.gov.au

Donations
PLAN: Vist www.plan.org.au or call 1800 038 100.
CARE Australia: 1800 020 046 or www.careaustralia.org.au
Australian Red Cross: Call 1800 811 700, visit www.redcross.org.au or post a cheque to GPO Box 9949 in capital cities.
Oxfam: 1800 034 034 or www.oxfam.org.au
Medecins Sans Frontieres www.msf.org.au
UNICEF: 1300 884 233, 1300 732 240 or www.unicef.org.au
World Vision: 13 32 40 or www.worldvision.com.au
Baptist World Aid Australia: Call 1300 789 991, by mail to Baptist World Aid Australia, Locked Bag 122, Frenchs Forest NSW 2086, or www.shareanopportunity.org
Caritas Australia: 1800 024 413 or www.caritas.org.au

Some banks are also allowing donations to be made to various charities at their branches.