Thane Plambeck

More Eggers

The Stanford daily on the previously blogged Eggers event

green citizen

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Gloria handed me their brochure, suggesting that I dump our ever-expanding pile of dead computers, cell phones, and other momentary gadgetry on them. "Where is it, I wonder," I thought. I flipped it over.

At GreenCitizen, we want to make recycling electronics so easy that you'll make it a part of your everyday routine. For our part, we'll be working with the most trusted recyclers to ensure that the electronics you place in our hands will be stewarded to their safest disposal.

There's the faintest odor of euphemism lingering over that paragraph. So, you can imagine the conspiracy theory that formed in my mind when I flipped the brochure over and found the green citizen recycling point is immediately behind Fry's Electronics in Palo Alto.

Now I know where all those suspectly-shrinkwrapped "previously opened" boxes really come from. Someone dumped them in the trash behind FRY'S!!

Ha!

Tchaikovsky 5/4 waltz

Somewhere I've written down the music in the movie Minority Report, including something from T. that is written in 5/4 time. But the 2nd movement of the Pathetique symphony doesn't seem to be it.

What is it?

[OK, I found it—I guess it is that movement after all. People like to describe it as "undanceable," or "lopsided." Sort of like Tom Cruise himself.]

Warren Wilson College

The college "most leaning to the left" according to an article I just read.

Autonomic

From a pop-up dialog window on my laptop computer:

The IBM Active Protection System is an autonomic feature that helps protect your hard drive from damage caused by physical shock and vibration. It continuously monitors the movement of your ThinkPad computer and temporarily stops the hard drive when a fall or similar damaging event is predicted

Nice word—"autonomic." Googling it reveals that IBM owns it (seemingly).

Sure beats all those "self-healing" software systems I read about 10 years ago. And if I hear something described as "mission-critical" again, I may throw a fit. So be warned.

Botnet

Just what is a botnet

botnet (I'm feeling lucky) / botnet herder (google search)

Bots, Drones, Zombies, Worms and other things that go bump in the night.

Ed Witten in anti-Filibuster protest

link; also this at Not Even Wrong.

This isn't much to start a meme with, but still, I thought I'd give it a shot:

I don't have a bullhorn, but I've always wanted one.

[If you've got a copy of the Griffiths Elementary Particles book, take a picture of yourself Frist-Filibustering with it and send me a pointer to it (or a copy of it)....I'll add it to this page (or link to you), or whatever...]

Palindromes

link A Solondz movie—it doesn't look so good to me, after seeing the trailer. As corroborative evidence, I offer these two Solondz quotations from the magazine FLM ("The Voice of Independent Film," Spring 2005, pg 8):

(1) One of the first questions people tend to ask me after seeing Palindromes is, "Why did you cast so many actors in the role of Aviva, instead of just one?" I suppose if hadn't made this movie it would be my first question as well...

(2) ...for I remember when they changed actors playing Darrin on TV's Bewitched: one season it was one actor, the next another, and it didn't seem to faze Samantha at all...

Tsunami in Tahoe?

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What is a seiche? Could a seiche counteract the forward energy of a tsunami? How do you pronounce "seiche"?

Microsoft Office Assistant: The Paper Clip

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Dave Eggers and Friends

Cameraphone photo taken before Dave Eggers (with Spike Jonze and David O Russell) showed two interesting documentaries at Dinkelspiel auditorium on the Stanford campus.

Spike Jonze, who seemed to be very uncomfortable in the spotlight, squirmed when Eggers asked him how he selects projects.

"I don't know, how would *you* answer that?" Eggers couldn't think of a good answer, either.

In mid-2000, Jonze made a great rough-cut documentary meant to illustrate what Al Gore is really like. Gore liked "Being John Malkovich," and let Jonze carry a handheld consumer video camera into his ranch in Tennessee (I think that's where it was) to shoot candid scenes with his family. It's a thirteen-minute film that was supposed to be used at the Democratic convention, but instead was shelved. Gore comes off very well in it, sitting around the dinner table being teased by his daugthers. Eggers asked Jonze why it was never used. "I don't know," he said, "I had a chance to show it on Nightline, but was finishing up another project. I feel kind of bad about that." [I'm paraphrasing, but that was the idea.]

[link (stanford lively arts) and link (mcsweeneys.net)]

mail order chickens

link

Definition of extortion?

Let's say I find a human finger in my Wendy's chili. Let's suppose that I didn't put it there, and I have no idea how it got there.

Then I call Wendy's corporate headquarters, and say, "Hey, I found a finger in my chili. I'm really upset. I'm about, let's say, $400,000-worth upset. Make me not upset or I'll tell everyone about the finger."

My question—is this extortion? What is extortion, anyway, legally speaking?

From FindLaw:

518. Extortion is the obtaining of property from another, with his consent, or the obtaining of an official act of a public officer, induced by a wrongful use of force or fear, or under color of official right.

519. Fear, such as will constitute extortion, may be induced by a threat, either: 1. To do an unlawful injury to the person or property of the individual threatened or of a third person; or, 2. To accuse the individual threatened, or any relative of his, or member of his family, of any crime; or, 3. To expose, or to impute to him or them any deformity, disgrace or crime; or, 4. To expose any secret affecting him or them....

So?

520. Every person who extorts any money or other property from another, under circumstances not amounting to robbery or carjacking, by means of force, or any threat, such as is mentioned in Section 519, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for two, three or four years.

Guilty, or not guilty?

Technical difficulties

This web server is acting strangely.

It may be a terminal condition.

I need to get a new machine up to LLIC.

Book request

We're not a church-going or religious family. But with the Pope(s) in the news and our recent visit to Rome, Florence, and Orvieto, the kids are increasingly becoming aware of religious topics.

Yesterday, Cole (9) was reading a comic book "History of the Universe" and read the story of David and Goliath in it. He wondered if it was the same David as in Michelangelo's sculpture. "Yea, verily," I replied (or words to that effect). So:

Cole: So this story is from the Bible.

Thane: Yes. Lots of stories come from the Bible. OK, practically all stories come to from the Bible. At least the ones that come to mind. And what isn't in the Bible, comes from the Bible. At least it seems that way. It's hard to make up new stories, so people just rework the old ones. Or they change it around sort of, but it's still a Bible story. Or it has some part in it, or some symbol, that you're supposed to know comes from the Bible. It's a big book. It's hard to get away from the Bible—it's quite an interesting book, I should read it more myself. In fact, if a person wants to say some book has all the important stuff on some subject, they call it a "Bible," so you know, you've got the "bible of golf" or whatever... (I think I could have rambled along boringly on this subject for awhile, so it was good to be interrupted...)

Cole: (Resignedly) —Well, it would be *nice* if we had a Bible. (This is the tone he uses when he wants me to buy a book).

Thane: I think I can turn up a Bible [departs for the home office].

It turns out I have quite a few Bibles, at least three. Amazingly, the first one I opened opened almost exactly to the David story in 1 Samuel 17. Goliath is looking for an Israelite champion to fight:

And he stood and cried unto the armies of Israel, and said unto them, Why are ye come out to set your battle in array? am not I a Philistine, and ye servants to Saul? choose you a man for you, and let him come down to me. If he be able to fight with me, and to kill me, then will we be your servants: but if I prevail against him, and kill him, then shall ye be our servants, and serve us. And the Philistine said, I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we may fight together.

Nowadays, a person would say

I'm going to kick whoever's ass comes down here

or (again) words to that effect. We live in a swaggering age I guess.

Liudprand, Embassy to Constantinople [963 AD]

I think that I shall have as much pleasure in describing this procession as my masters will have in reading of it. A numerous company of tradesmen and low-born persons, collected on this solemn occasion to welcome and honor Nicephorus, lined the sides of the road, like walls, from the palace to Saint Sophia, tricked out with thin little shields and cheap spears.-As an additional scandal, most of the mob assembled in his honor had marched there with bare feet, thinking, I suppose, that thus they would better adorn the sacred procession. His nobles for their part, who with their master passed through the plebeian and barefoot multitude, were dressed in tunics that were too large for them and were also because of their extreme age full of holes. They would have looked better if they had worn their ordinary clothes. There was not a man among them whose grandfather had owned his tunic when it was new. No one except Nicephorus wore any jewels or golden ornaments, and the emperor looked more disgusting than ever in the regalia that had been designed to suit the persons of his ancestors. By your life, sires, dearer to me than my own, one of your nobles' costly robes is worth a hundred or more of these. I was taken to the procession and given a place on a platform near the singers.

As Nicephorus, like some crawling monster, walked along, the singers began to cry out in adulation: "Behold the morning star approaches: the day star rises: in his eyes the sun's rays are reflected: Nicephorus our prince, the pale death of the Saracens." And then they cried again: "Long life, long life to our prince Nicephorus. Adore him, ye nations, worship him, bow the neck to his greatness." How much more truly might they have sung:-"Come, you miserable burnt-out coal; old woman in your walk, wood-devil in your look; clodhopper, haunter of byres, goat-footed, horned, double-limbed; bristly, wild, rough, barbarian, harsh, hairy, a rebel, a Cappadocian!" So, puffed up by these lying ditties, he entered St. Sophia, his masters the emperors following at a distance and doing him homage on the ground with the kiss of peace. His amour bearer, with an arrow for pen, recorded in the church the era in progress since the beginning of his reign. So those who did not see the ceremony know what era it is.

link; Eastern Orthodox Church (at the Wikipedia, which laments, "The Eastern Churches have no one so powerful as the Roman Pope;" also—a site on the difference between the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches. This stuff is complicated! I started off wanting to read a little about the bad popes, and now I'm quickly submerging in schismatic detail. At least there's plenty of sex and violence to keep up a person's interest.)

Added later: From The Bad Popes, pg 27:

The Theophylact women emerge suddenly, in three dimension, from the dark background, bathed in the same lurid light as shone on Sergius. But unlike Sergius, they had their own chronicler, a bitterly hostile one who destroyed what good name they might have possessed in exchange for the immortality he granted them. His name was Liuprand, bishop of Cremona, a Lombard by birth and therefore a bitter enemy of all that Rome and the Romans stood for. Marozia and her mother are introduced into his history in a passage of concentrated venom which established their reputations for centuries to come. Cardinal Baronius, struggling in the sixteenth century with the task of writing the first papal history, hand no choice but to follow Liudprand and coined the vivid term "pornocracy" for that period of the Papacy which the two women dominated.

Benedict

In every photo of the new pope, I see a sneer. Is it just me?

The Nag Hammadi Library

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Against the Heresies

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The Grand Contraption

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