Today Are Crazy Sex Day, Plus 35 Is NOT Middle-Aged and Racewalking From Samurai

* Grammar Nazis and Crazy Sex Day: From today's Sinfest comic:

Sinfest's Slick: "If I was president every day would be Crazy Sex Day."

While I am something of grammar and spelling purist, I don't consider myself a "Grammar Nazi" -- I'm more of a, um, "Grammar Youth." Possibly a Grammar Detective -- part of the Grammar Police, only undercover: observing, gathering evidence, building a case.

* 35 Is Not "Middle-Aged." (Dammit): A news item of no particular consequence about a 35-year-old guy who allegedly blackmailed a 20-year-old MySpace friend into having sex (after she revealed that she'd had a three-way -- well, it just says she engaged in sexual acts with them, so I will believe what I want to believe -- with two college hockey players that she thought might have been videotaped).

Okay, maybe there's some particular consequence here (*furiously taking notes*). But the Fark headline from which this story comes reads:

"If you're a middle-aged fat guy looking to pick up college chicks, this local paper has a step-by-step guide... if you don't mind the ensuing jailarity. (with mugshot goodness)"

Besides the usual snark, there's a sidebar discussion in the comments as to what constitutes "middle age," with a lot of vociferous protestations and denial from fellow mid-30s oldsters.

As I'm going to live forever (also, I'm going to learn how to fly -- high!), I must also add my note of protest.

* Know When to Walk Away, Know When to Run (Samurai Edition): Lastly, here's a video (via BoingBoing) that asks and answers the question: When chased by sword-wielding samurai, would a champion racewalker walk or run?

Bonus: Remember this video the next time you sit in a massage chair.

Tags: sinfest, grammar nazis, middle age

Social Media Clubbing

Heading over now to an event in Falls Church (I'm going to be late, evidently) -- it's a meeting of the DC chapter of the Social Media Club.

Since we're in the penultimate day of NaBloPoMo, I wanted to get a quick entry in to make sure I didn't mess up so close to the finish line. I'll post more after.

Bloggers Need Free Photos Cuz They Ain't Making Any Money

Two bloggy items -- first, somehow, I don't think this is gonna work: Corbis offers bloggers free photos, with ads:

"The photos will either include an ad overlay on part of the image, or embedded advertising that pops up when a Web user runs a cursor over the picture."

An example, based on what's at the PicApp blog.

Okay, say I really, really, really need a piece of stock art that I can't get anywhere else, and I'll put up with an embedded ad. What powers Corbis' embedded advertising? Flash. Yes, why embed a mere photo in your page, when you can have a Flash widget that looks like a photo, but also serves up a text ad?

Look, unlike some steal anything/share everything folks, I do believe in some theoretical way for content creators to maintain some level of control over their content or even get paid for the use of it (even if I Creative Commons license most of my own photos). But this is just crap.

Good luck with that, Corbis.

Oh, and they also mention potential revenue share, based on clicks to the photo. That leads to item #2...

...from Read/WriteWeb, There's No Money In The Long Tail of the Blogosphere, which smacks down some of the Web 2.0 long-tail sloganeering and says that, while long-tail content aggregation companies may be able to make money, don't expect long-tail content providers (regular folk) to do so. In other words:

"You can make money on the long tail but not in the long tail."

Sounds about right. Hey, apparently (well, according to a throwaway line in Heinlein's The Rolling Stones) the fortunes to be made during the California Gold Rush didn't come from the gold-rushing prospectors, but rather to the merchants who provided products and services to them.

And for all those get-rich-quick bloggers -- unless you find a niche (and you're a first-mover, at that), don't expect to make any money. (I used to cover my hosting nut with Google Adsense ads -- mostly from clicks on my platonic friends pages -- though that hasn't happened for a while.)

But wait -- aren't we in this for ourselves? At the very minimum, aren't we participating in the broader sphere o' blogs, staking out a spot in the global communication? Sure we are. But blogging is time and time is money. I barely pulled a C in econ, but that sounds like an opportunity cost to me -- if I spend 10, 20, or whatever hours a week blogging, when I could be using that time to earn money, at what point does it stop making economic sense to blog (or at least to cut back)? How much is ego-stroking or a creative outlet worth?

Tags: long tail, picapp, corbis, stock photos

A Pocket Full of Lithium-Ion DEATH

Saw this story in Slashdot today:

Exploding cell phone battery may have killed South Korean man: officials

"SEOUL, South Korea: An exploding cell phone battery may have killed a South Korean man, police said Wednesday, although the phone's manufacturer said it was highly unlikely.

[...]

Kim Hoon, a doctor who examined the body, said the death was probably caused by an explosion of the battery.

"He sustained an injury that is similar to a burn in the left chest and his ribs and spine were broken," Yonhap news agency quoted Kim as saying." [emphasis mine]

Okay, so we know that cell phone and other types of batteries have been known to explode. But if your spine breaks due to an exploding cell phone battery, one of two things happened:

1. The cell phone was attached to a block of plastic explosive (because you were making an IED).
2. You were driving, the phone blew up, and you drove into a tree. (Falling off a high ledge or scaffold would also work.)

As a commenter noted, you have to remember that many South Korean doctors also believe that running an electric fan in a closed room will kill you.

Obviously, something else happened here. But you know, I'm thinking that anything to moderate the pace of cell phone usage (especially loud, public cell phone usage) may not be a bad thing.

Tags: exploding batteries, fan death

I'm Laughing, But I'm Really Crying Inside

Another blog-focused Pearls Before Swine today:

Rat tells Goat why he likes blogs.

Bonus, via lots of places: Entire Blogosphere Stunned By Blogger's Special Weekend Post.

In other news, I'm doing laundry and listening to the oldies station (to be fair, "oldies" ain't what it used to be -- it's just classic rock).

If I get ambitious, I may reorganize my linen closet, which is demonstrating severe entropic decay.

I did have a meeting over coffee this morning, though, so all is not lost.

As if I Needed Another Reason to Hate You

It's not enough that you're glued into the passing lane like you own it, and that you're physiologically incapable of moving out of it, no matter how many cars are stacked up behind you or how many times you're passed on the right. (I'm thinking it's a genetic trait, but I also consider environmental factors, such as having a Maryland license plate.)

Oh no.

You also have to be sporting a "9/11 Was an Inside Job" bumper sticker.

I'm a little surprised I was able to resist the urge to PIT your car and run you off the road.

---

I got a late start on the road this afternoon. (One of the benefits of joblessness is being able to extend a holiday weekend to avoid traffic.) I'd wanted to leave at noon so I could go see the tanks at the Army Ordnance Museum in Aberdeen, or maybe visit the NSA Museum, but one thing led to another and I didn't get moving until about 3pm.

Just in time for DC rush hour, yay.

Anyway, I made it back. I liberated my sister's old Mac Classic to add to my own junk pile/hardware museum, as well as a few other things. Now back to the non-work.

This Is a Quick Post to Stay Legal for NaBloPoMo

Tales of wild, wacky exploits in the big city to come.

Okay, now that that's out of the way. I came into Manhattan. I got a burger with t33pee at the Burger Joint. We went to other places, including the Time Warner mall and the Apple Store. I then went to the Blind Tiger. A good time was had by all. (Except those of us who did not show.) Photos will come eventually.

Getting My Mind Out of the Gutter

I spent a couple of hours up on a ladder this afternoon, cleaning the gutters at my parent's house.

Normally, it doesn't take very long at all -- they had the Gutter Helmet installed a few years ago, and it usually works pretty good.

However, after I went up, I saw that there were a couple of birds' nests up in there, jamming things up. And because the opening for the water is so small, it was pretty tricky trying to pull out the nests a little bit at a time.

The front gutter downspout was jammed up pretty good, and that's the side next to the power line, so I had to be extra careful. Though I wasn't too careful to avoid dropping the cleaning stick (an old rake prong) into the gutter.

I finally unscrewed the screw holding the downspout so I could clean it out the leaves, grass, and muck clogging it up. I put the screw on the roof. Guess what happened next.

Since the rusty brown screw disappeared after falling 20 feet into the grass, we cannibalized another screw from lower down and got everything back together.

I was kind of glad to finally get off the ladder.

Tags: gutters, gutter helmet

Stranded in the Land of the Chinese Hair Women

As tends to happen, my parents and I went in to Chinatown today for lunch and the usual rounds. My Mom also needed a haircut, so I accompanied her to one of the many hair salons on Pell Street.

This was more than me being a dutiful son, as I, too, needed highlights and a haircut, because my roots were longer than my not-roots, and I'd already achieved my "mistaken for a woman" quota after that night at Whitlow's and an earnest "want to make friendship" e-mail from what I gather to be a Pakistani computer science student.

Why go to Chinatown to get your hair done? Try $55 (plus tip) for full highlights and a haircut, which is basically half-price. Why so cheap? Lower labor costs and extra-carcinogenic hair dyes (we pass the savings to you!).

Anyway, I wasn't the only non-local trying to catch a deal -- a few non-Asian heads passed through while I was there.

My dad wants me to get a crew cut. It looks like a better idea all the time.

Now, even though I'm well into my 30s, there are still a few times when I feel like a complete mama's boy -- and this was one of those times. This is because I was a triply-alienating environment:

1. I was in a hair salon, which is still more or less the exclusive domain of women (no matter how many male customers there are, or even if there is a more barber-ish side of the room)
2. While I'm in the chair, I don't have my glasses on, and thus can't see. When I can't see, I don't like to talk.
3. I'm surrounded by Chinese-speaking ladies. I don't speak Chinese.

Because of #1 and #2, getting my hair colored is, to me, more like a necessary medical procedure, rather than a cosmetic enhancement with social benefit. Add #3 and I'm completely out of my element.

I spent the next 3 hours in the chair. It's never taken that long before -- I guess it was a combination of: 1). Not sitting under the hair dryer to speed things up (net loss: 15 min.) and 2). Having to spend extra time painting all the gray hairs out (net loss: an hour or so. Dammit.)

The resulting haircut is pretty good; I probably went a shade too light (it looked darker in the book) and too short (my fault -- overreaction to the whole gender thing).

Tags: chinatown, pell street, highlights

Tabbing Through Web Form Fields in Mac OS X

While I've always liked Macs more than PCs, over time, I'd come to appreciate one thing about Windows: Since it basically started out as a graphical shell over the DOS command line, it meant that you could do just about everything in Windows using just the keyboard (including repositioning windows).

Macs have always been built around the mouse (which makes it a little harder to defend the lack of a two-button mouse for so long), and it shows... though OS X does give it essentially a command line underpinning.

Case in point -- for a long while now, I've been annoyed by the fact that using OS X and Firefox, when you try to tab between form fields on a Web page, it skips drop-down menus. Since I was doing most of my stuff on the PC at work, this wasn't a huge problem and I never bothered to look into it, but now that I'm exclusively Mac, I found it intensely annoying.

I did a little searching around for an extension or something to change, so I found to my chagrin that it's just a simple settings change in the Keyboard & Mouse preference in Leopard (and probably previous versions) -- in the section marked, "Full keyboard access: In windows and dialogs, press Tab to move the keyboard focus between:" change the selection from "Text boxes and lists only" to "All Controls":

Why this isn't the default is baffling to me.

I'm sure I'm the last person to figure this out. (However, remember: Just because you know something doesn't mean that it's common knowledge, and just because you didn't know something doesn't mean it's obscure.)

Now that that's squared away, in System 7 and 8, I used to have an extension that assigned hotkeys to menu items (similar to Windows menus) -- I have to find the OS X equivalent.

Things I Learned This Thanksgiving

* Our family has pretty much always carved the turkey as if we were butchers (NYT video, via Metafilter).

* ICBM silo launch crews ("Turn your key, sir!") have had Internet connections since August. (One hopes they don't confuse the "really nuking people" computers with the "hackable/playing DEFCON" computers.)

* Lest we forget: Viral video marketing people are really evil. ("Shilling, friend-spamming, sockpuppets: We guarantee 100K views on YouTube or your campaign is free!")

This is not to be confused with record company viral video marketing people, who are also really evil, only in a different way.

* That Haier-built MP3 player that AOL announced at CES earlier this year? (You know, the industrial steel-looking one that looked kind of ugly in the few press photos, the one we all scratched our heads and asked "Why are we doing an MP3 player?" -- AOL never really did hardware very well.) Silicon Alley Insider looked at it, and made it sound like it... doesn't suck. (Former CTO John McKinley also popped up in the comments.)

Casual Encounters: Thanksgiving Driving as a Series of Craigslist Titles

* Late-Blooming SAM Seeks Poss. LTR on the Beltway: I got a later start than I'd hoped, so I didn't really get moving until 12:30pm, which was probably about an hour too late to skate. I lost at least 30 minutes crawling on the Inner Loop. 95 and the Harbor Tunnel weren't too bad, much better than I was expecting.

* Must Love Dogs (Your Pic Gets Mine): Snapped this cameraphone pic in Delaware, which was slow around the $5 toll, but not too bad otherwise:

There were actually two dogs in the bed of that pickup, but you can only see the one.

* Rants and Raves: Hey fuckface in the blue Eclipse, zipping by the jam-up in Delaware using the left shoulder -- your flashing hazard lights aren't fooling anyone: Die in a motherfucking fire!!!!

* Missed Connection -- You: Blue Dodge Charger sedan. Me: Red Mazda Protege 5. Where: Crawling between Exits 5 and 8 on the New Jersey Turnpike. Did you feel a real link between us: How you saw how I maintained an even pace, trying not to touch my brake? The sense of mutual trust I felt, that you would pay attention to my needs, respect my boundaries, and not slam into my car? How you didn't lose your cool, even if a couple of cars snaked in ahead of me?

Call me.

Go to a Caps Game, Get a Flu Shot!

I went to the Caps vs. Panthers game on Monday, tickets courtesy of Uncle Ted (Leonsis, natch), who blogged about the game -- a loss -- and acknowledged the fans' unhappiness (as evidenced by the chants of "Fire Hanlon" and "Please Don't Suck.")

Me, I don't care about any of that stuff.

Anyway, as might be expected from a Monday night game on Thanksgiving week, the crowd was pretty thin, even filled out with AOL employees holding complementary tickets.

On the plus side, there wasn't any line if you wanted to get a flu shot:

Our seats were really good -- Section 105, Row L, just behind the goal:

Between periods, one of the AIM product managers, Ryan, was a contestant in the Fan Announcer Challenge:

She won. Funny how that works.

I saw more than a few familiar faces on the big screen and in the stands.

I have to admit, though: I was an ungracious guest -- every time the announcer mentioned AOL, I booed. Loudly (just being playfully contrary, or something):

"The Caps would like to welcome all AOL employees (and ungracious involuntary alumni) for [sic?] tonight's game."

Like I said, the seats were really good. Since we were behind the goal, we had a clear view of four goals. Of course, only 2 of them were Caps goals (we'd started out at RFD and got to the game when it was 1-1). Here's a save:

Afterwards, we hung out at Fado for a bit, where there was a somewhat-resentful trivia night crowd, then packed it in.

Tags: washington capitals, ungracious involuntary alumni

What's the New York MTA Doing in Tyson's Corner?

I had a lunch meeting at Cafe Deluxe in Tyson's Corner this afternoon. Lunch was good (tuna steak sandwich, medium rare), but the restaurant is under the Crate and Barrel and has what has to be the worst parking lot exit ever (it bottlenecks out onto International Drive and takes forever).

Oh, and lunch might possibly lead to some work. We'll see what happens.

Since I was right there, I went across the street to Tyson's mall. Went to the Apple Store and played with Photoshop Elements, which I confirmed works on Intel and Leopard, and has the features I need (Shadow/Highlight, primarily). So I ordered it from Amazon.

(Bet you didn't see that last bit coming.)

And just who are all these layabouts who hang out in malls during the workday?

Oh, yeah: I'm one of them.

I also stopped by Ranger Surplus, which is on Route 7 next to the old Tower Records. (It's now a DSW shoe store.) I was looking at some cheap German Army officer's jackets, but they didn't fit (right arm length, but too narrow in the not-quite Eisenhower jacket-style waist -- odd).

There was also a box of old patches that looked to be mostly old bowling patches. But a bunch of these caught my eye:

These were really familiar. It took me a minute to figure out -- it's the old logo of the New York MTA -- the Metropolitan Transportation Authority -- which switched to a new logo back in the 90s.

Here's a recent sighting of the old logo, taken by Flickr user soopahgrover:

Anyway, I thought it was odd that the old MTA patches had made it down to a surplus store in Northern Virginia. (Maybe they're helping with the Metro extension to Dulles. It would explain a few things.)

I bought it. Set me back twenty-six whole cents.

Tags: mta logo, ranger surplus, tyson's corner, cafe deluxe

Why Don't We Wear Helmets in Cars?

As the Great Thanksgiving Migration approaches, I've got driving on the mind, which kind of nudged something I've been percolating on for some time: Why don't we wear helmets when riding in cars?

Yes, I know it's just a bike helmet.

This is not a new musing; people have tried marketing car helmets for kids. (The thin end of the wedge?)

It also comes up whenever there's a debate about motorcycle helmet laws -- the "let the riders decide" crowd brings it up, and the pro-regulation folks either ignore it or dismiss it as a reducing the argument to absurdity.

Of course, the very idea gets wrapped up in issues of societal costs vs. personal responsibility and freedom, and is invariable accompanied by such terms as "nanny state" and "bubble-wrapping the world."

Do we even need helmets in cars? You could rationalize not needing them lots of ways:

* Inside a car, your head isn't as exposed as while on a motorcycle (But it's to prevent your head from banging around inside -- that's why fighter pilots wear them. But what about airline pilots? Hrm.)
* The safety systems inside cars already protect the head in many ways -- padded interiors, head rests, seat belts, and particularly air bags (though what about before they were available?)
* Helmets cut down on visibility and hearing (but isn't that also considered and dismissed for motorcyclists?)

But then you look at race car drivers. Even autocross drivers, many of whom drive (mostly) regular cars, use helmets on the course.

I don't know if there have been every been any studies about the benefits of helmet use in regular driving -- I would assume it'd be so unpopular that even a study would be a non-starter.

It basically comes down to the fact that most folks (myself included) just wouldn't want to wear a helmet inside a car. Ever.

Helmet laws for motorcyclists? Sure -- comparatively few people ride motorcycles, and if someone else has to do something that benefits society, we're all for it. Right?

Now, I don't think I'm turning libertarian; I don't plan on driving with a helmet anytime soon; and I do still think that mandatory helmet laws for bicyclists and motorcyclists are a good idea. I just wanted to think a little bit about why we think what we think.

Oops, forgot to put on the seat belt.

Beware Pickpockets, Loose Women, and the Irish

A bunch of us met up at Whitlow's on Saturday night, to celebrate Conor's visit.

I was the first one to arrive, at a little before 10pm. I settled in at the bar just as some guy next to me was getting kicked out. I didn't see why. Though he was wearing a visor, which may have been part of it.

Now, I'm fairly certain I haven't been drinking that much more in my enforced downtime, but I really wasn't feeling it. Even after a few beers, a round of Tuaca (I suggested the round, which I never do), and some sample shot of some caffeinated vodka that some drink reps/shot girls were handing out. (It was kind of nasty. Also weak.)

There are some photos. Here's one I took:

Beware Pickpockets, Loose Women, and the Irish.

Annoyingly, while waiting to get into the men's room, on two separate occasions, someone saw me standing and started in on the "Hey, this is the men's roo...", before they saw that I was, in fact, a male, and just sort of trailed off.

I played dumb and didn't pursue the matter. I know I need a haircut.

At the end of the evening, some guy who may or may not have been associated with the bar came in and started yelling, "You have 5 seconds to finish your drinks and get out of here."

Other people at the bar took offense to this. There was a lot of chest bumping and such. The yeller got hustled out.

I drove home, quite sober, but way low on gas. The needle was on E and the low fuel light was on. I knew I had some leeway according to the odometer, but I drove really conservatively on the way back.

Tags: whitlow's

Stalked by Vampire Deer at Great Falls on Halloween

I never did blog my pics from my Halloween avoidance hike in Great Falls Park which, despite only being a few weeks ago, feels like a completely different (not to mention much brighter and warmer) time.

As usual, I started in from Riverbend Park, which is about a mile upstream from the falls. In addition to not charging an entry fee, there's rarely a line, it passes by a dam, and the trails are nice.

I took photos of trails and trees. I like tip-ups and widowmakers (broken off branches hanging in the canopy, caught on lower branches), but I couldn't capture any good examples. This closeup of a tree trunk was kind of neat:

The depth of field comes from using the macro setting.

There's also a log trapped on a big rock just off shore. I've seen it before -- I don't know if it has a name, so I call it "Logon Rock":

Log on Rock. Logon Rock, get it?

I took a bunch of photos at the Aqueduct Dam. There's a fence at the end of the walkable part:

And of course there's water going over the dam:

The photos of the actual falls are pretty generic and not very good -- I was there late in the afternoon, so there the parts in the sun were really bright, right next to really deep shadow, even after twiddling:

I really miss Shadow/Highlight. Photoshop Elements, here I come.

There were two kayakers in the rapids. I went down to the water's edge and stalked one for a while:

As I headed back, I saw one of the photographers who had set up on a cliff downstream. Here he's talking to another visitor -- I like the way the falls looked almost like a matte painting:

On the hike back, I kept hearing rustling noises in the woods. I didn't see anything, so I figured they were squirrels or other small creatures, but I eventually saw that they were deer:

Well-camouflaged.

I still think deer are neat -- as long as they don't give me Lyme disease or run out in front of my car. It seemed they were following me -- I tried getting closer, but they heard me and got spooked.

Hiking back up the trail, here's mirror-like water at the dam:

There's also a tree falling into another tree -- the hollow in the supporting tree kind of looks like an open mouth screaming:

Finally, here's what looks a trash barrel, though the sign clearly says that it's not for litter. Or am I being too literal?

Anyway, that's it. The full set is 118 photos: Halloween at Great Falls. I suppose I should go again now that the colors have changed.

Tags: great falls park, riverbend park

Continuous Flow Intersections Are Keen

I'm backing up my hard drive in preparation for upgrading to Mac OS X Leopard, so in the meantime, here's an item that's been sitting in my topic slushpile.

I've been doing a lot more mid-day driving, and consequently, I've been doing a lot more sitting in traffic. Which sucks.

I saw an item on TotalFark about a different type of traffic intersection installed in St. Louis last month (there's also one up in Accokeek, Maryland) that might help things along -- a continuous flow intersection.

It addresses the problem where traffic that's turning left interferes with oncoming traffic (even with left-turn lanes and arrows and such) -- if northbound traffic is turning left, southbound traffic has to stop (except for those folks turning right), tying things up.

By essentially extending the intersection and moving the left-turny part up a few hundred yards up the road, it moves the left-turn folks out of the way:

Here's the actual tutorial animation.

It's one of those things that's really hard to visualize, even with photos -- Flash animations really help here:

* Utah Dept. of Traffic: Continuous Flow Intersection Tutorial

* Video Demonstration of Continuous Flow Intersections

They're kind of odd to look at, and they involve a kind of double-traffic light, but seeing the animations show how they work. They take up space, though, so I guess you'd only see them at major intersections. I'm also not sure how pedestrians and cyclists fit into the picture. But I'm for almost anything to help improve the efficiency of traffic (until our flying cars get here, of course).

Tags: continuous flow intersections