BoingBoing has a very interesting article: Prescription for consumers challenging academic textbook cartels that begins to address the issues surrounding over-priced college text books that students are being forced to pay for if they adhere to the "required text" portions of their class schedule.

I recall from the mid-1980s that many texts were reasonably priced and useful, but many others were clearly just padding to help line the pockets of certain professors and their friends (back then it was clearly a minority of greedy faculty, and most faculty were very considerate of the costs and needs of students). I have nieces in college now and some of the class requirements for textbooks are extremely suspect. Rather than individual greed, it looks more like a market manipulated by slick corporate handling of the entire business... for profit margins any business manager would be thrilled by.

The comparison with prescription drugs as a racket is interesting. That is another market where the chooser does not bear the brunt of the costs; and it is another market where the costs have spiraled more quickly than other markets and where the profit margins are ... well, gross.

I have often thought that electronic book readers could serve the markets for throw away books like magazines, newspapers, and college texts; but the sad truth is there is no incentive for text book publishers to switch to electronic systems nor to reduce costs. We (as purchasing parents and relatives of students) will have to force this issue by organizing and forcing at least more circumspect behavior if not public regulation.

Ataque de Pánico! (Panic Attack!) 2009



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dadPWhEhVk

Fede Alvarez tells a little about how he made the short film:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=154&t=822329&highlight=big+robots

They look like Mechforce Marauders to me... but perhaps I played a little too much of Ralph Reed's excellent Amiga game in the early 1990s...

I found this amusing:

Silent Monks Singing Hallelia Chorus

Happy Holidays!

Take a peek at the weather service forecast for your location over the next several days.

If like us, your area is predicted to get daily high temperatures only a few degrees warmer than freezing, you should know that the snow you need to move this morning is going to be sitting wherever you put it until the next warm day or heavy warm rain.

Think about that before you move it, for the easiest time to move heavy snows like this are when the snow is fresh and soft. If you shovel it into a pile, you have compacted it, and the pile will be harder to move if it is not where you want it. If you leave it sit, and it melts a little, then re-freezes, it will become frozen solid and be very difficult to move. We cannot count on the warmth of the sun melting this anytime soon according to the weather services; at least not in our area.

This is something we are not accustomed to in the Washington DC area. So plan ahead and think about where you will pile the pretty white snow. It's going to be there for several days at least... Think about where it will be safest to locate the mounds of snow which will eventually melt and flood...

Get ALL your exits cleared and a path away from your home cleared so you can evacuate in case of fire.

If you are going to be driving, completely clear off your ENTIRE car, not just the windows. That giant pile of snow on your roof will come off and blind or damage the vehicle behind you; and it if is me, you can be sure I will crash you so I can get the person truly responsible for the accident. Please be responsible and completely clear ALL snow off your whole vehicle, especially if you drive a van or any vehicle with a large roof that collected lots of snow and ice.

Traction in this kind of snow is all about having some tread on your tires. The kind of vehicle does not matter. If you have a huge planet-killer 5000 with four wheel drive, if your tires are approaching bald, you will still have no traction. Don't risk it, put on snow chains or winter/snow tires, or any tire with plenty of tread.

Snow this deep means that ground clearance is an issue, here trucks and taller vehicles do have an advantage; but please remember, height does NOT improve traction. You must slow down for bridges, exit ramps, and turns... and slow down well before any of those slippery areas.

Be safe out there folks, and plan ahead. I grew up in central New York where any snow we got would likely be with us the entire Winter season. Please treat this like one of those snow falls if you have a forecast of many days where it does not get warm enough to melt off.

Of course, if this all melts suddenly, there will be a whole different set of flooding problems...

I am more and more glad I started avoiding high fructose corn syrup because it tastes icky years ago...

Child diabetes blamed on food sweetener (London Times)

This has disturbing ramifications for most American children, really disturbing.

Hat tip to Waldo Jaquith for the link.

If you were recently on my friends list, and I have unfriended you; it is nothing personal. I like being your friend but cannot stand the twitter noise; and I am too lazy to write a custom filter just for you. Sorry.

It should make very little difference to you, as the vast majority of my posts here are public anyway. I tend to only use private posts for travel updates while we are actually on the trip; then open them to public once we are home.

The mainstream media needs to find a new adjective to describe Joe Lieberman, for you cannot be called independent when you are a wholly owned pawn of the insurance industry. Just because he was rejected by the Democratic Party of his own state, and is therefore not in either of the two main parties; that does not make him independent. It makes him a "reject", or perhaps a "former Democrat." In truth he is just a corporate shill, but that involves more brains than the media typically shows, so "bi-partisan reject" is the most appropriate.

Independent should be reserved for those who really are independent.

Finally, a movie I actually want to go see in a theatre!

I thought perhaps 2009 would pass by with only a single theatre worthy film (Coraline)...

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus looks to be the first, if it actually makes it to the cinemas before the end of the year...

I could be intrigued by S. Darko, if it ever gets released...

Avatar?

Earlier in the year I admit to enjoying Star Trek, but it is now barely memorable and it's only been months...

There have been a few decent films suitable for home viewing (Up, Pirate Radio, The Hangover? Inglourious Basterds? The Men Who Stare at Goats?).

There are many false rumors in the world, and I cannot address very many of them, but I have direct experience with two devices that people have all sorts of false conceptions about; and I can share my experience with each...

iPhone 3G: mine is over a year old now (September or October 2008) and I routinely get about 54 hours out of a battery charge with mixed standby, cell phone calls, and moderate data use during that 54 hour period. Everyone said that having batteries I could not change myself would be a problem. They are wrong, the batteries are fine. The other FUD that people keep saying about the iPhone is that it is not multi-tasking; well, I frequently look things up online while on a call. I check other people's addresses and phone numbers in my contacts list while on a call when the caller asks for it. I check my calendar while on a call to verify an appointment. I think that is pretty effective multi-tasking. The iPhone is not the end-all, be-all device; I still carry around a Palm Tungsten C for long note taking on the go (the iPhone needs an optional, occasional use folding bluetooth keyboard), but it is surprisingly good as a camera and phone, and pretty decent as an ultra-portable network aware computer. AT&T does not really suck that much, at least not when compared to the other mobile carriers... which pretty much all suck... So AT&T is neither far better nor far worse than the pack of nasty nickel and dimer slime we all have to deal with; though perhaps they are less slimy than Verizon (as is everyone else).

MacBook Air: mine is a first generation model, purchased in March 2008 and heavily used (some might even say brutally used) every day since. It has been dropped twice on hard flooring from about 4 feet once while open and running, once while closed and in sleep mode; both times it got minor dings but kept running. I routinely get 4-5 hours of battery life through heavy office work (heavy in the sense that there are 6-15 apps running, but all are office automation and communication, none are rendering nor graphics design applications). The solid state drive is small at only 55GB as seen by 10.5's filesystem, but latency is extraordinarily fast (about the same as RAM from the 1980s). Bandwidth is no better than a standard drive; and perhaps a little slower, but it is fast enough to watch HD full screen action content streamed from the drive. I do not miss lugging around a rarely used optical drive, and simply plug in a 3rd party USB drive the rare time I need to load software from DVD/CD. The one thing this machine needs is a security port to attach a security cable; because there is no attachment point at all, I am forced to carry this thing around more than I like or lock it in a drawer. The FUD I keep hearing is that the battery will no last long, and that it will need to be replaced all the time. My experience is the opposite; I am still on the original battery and it lasts 4-5 hours of heavy use from a nearly full charge.

These products are not for everyone; but the FUD about battery life (both per charge and overall) needed to be debunked. I am very grateful that these devices continue to make life easier and information more accessible to me.

This droog costume is subtly and deeply disturbing: http://blog.yimmyayo.com/post/267832353

I have already cleared the driveway twice this morning; and it is already buried again. Being in the lee of a mountain means we generally don't get as much wind here; but the snow just gently dumps on us when there is a local fall; we typically accumulate 2-3 times as much as the top of the mountain and the surrounding area.

It is quite lovely, but the cats do not approve.

I rearranged the garage so that the mower is stowed for the winter and the snow-thrower is accessible; that meant firing up Sutragirl's fun car to move it, and both mower and thrower to move them. I moved the shovels to where they are more accessible, and put the scrapers back in my car (Sutragirl is already running errands, so I did not get to her car yet... hope she does not need a scraper or already had one stashed).

1/4" of slush covered by 1 3/4" of wet, packable, snow... great for angels and snowball fights. Very bad for driving...

Be careful out there.

Three Edged Sword, a fan fiction audio drama based on Babylon 5, has been making my daily commute seem much shorter. If you like Babylon 5 and enjoy a decent audio drama, it is available free as a podcast from Voices of Babylon.

sutragirl and I continued to have a lot of fun on our recent vacation to Seattle, Portland, and Cupertino.

( Portland leg details... )

sutragirl and I had a lot of fun on our recent vacation to Seattle, Portland, and Cupertino.

( Seattle leg details... )

Now, do something fun with your loved ones, like visit a park, museum, or just stay home and talk to each other.

Yum!

Good way to start thanksgiving

Post from mobile portal m.livejournal.com

Through the second half of 2008, my lovely wife and I did not travel because she was finishing her MBA. I promised her a vacation for March of 2009 once she had her degree and we could relax. Sadly, by February my job status at TotalMusic (aka Ruckus) was up in the air and we curtailed travel entirely pending stable job situation. Well, most of 2009 has been hectic employment-wise... I am still contracting, though when you have been on the same contract for 6 months I guess it is pretty stable. So we are finally, over a year late, taking a long overdue vacation.

We are flying to Seattle tomorrow, we'll spend a few days seeing the sights and relaxing. We might hook up with a few friends. Our plan is to head to Portland on Saturday the 21st see more sights and hook up with friends and family. We are then flying to San Francisco to visit Erci's Dad and Uncle for Thanksgiving and return the 28th.

This will be our experimental first time on Virgin Airlines.

Seattle; some of the things we might do if time allows:

Alexis Hotel

Pike Place Market

Pioneer Square

Space Needle

Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum
- Revolution Bar in the SFM store is a pretty cool bar destination all by itself
- Gelatine Lux (glass exhibit) opens November 21st; amazing

Seattle Aquarium

Pacific Science Center

Argosy Cruise

Portland; some of the things we might do if time allows:

Hotel Vintage Plaza

Japanese Gardens

Chinese Garden

Portland Art Museum

Caprial's Bistro / The Kitchen

Powell's City of Books

Cupertino/San Francisco will be family time.

LJ and WordPress.com bloggers should be happy with their blogging service right now - for those excellent hosted services are hiding one of the longest steady comment spam attacks I've seen from you and your readers. Thank them (your hosted blog service provider), for this is annoying at the service level.

My personal WordPress blog (the one I host) has Akismet to filter the likely spam from the real comments; and it is working... but the scope of this 11 days and running long attack is mind boggling. IP address ranges of mostly hacked PCs indicate that the bot-net spreading the comment spam circles the globe and is sophisticated enough to vary the attack from each hacked PC suck that the obvious triggers are not caught by the anti-spam firewalls. This indicates to me that there are a LOT of Windows based PCs that are doing far more than their owners want them to do.

It also raises liability questions. I used to think that if you were the unwitting victim of an attack, and while hacked your PC did something illegal, you should not be held accountable. I am not sure anymore and begin to question if everyone who puts a machine on the net does not have some obligation to prevent it's being used illegally. Statistically, most of the hacked PCs have had no steps taken to secure them at all. Is that not a little frightening?

The product this attack is pushing are black market brand name drugs; and the language of the hook text in the spam is so poorly constructed that I suspect it's all from Eastern European programmers being paid by organized crime syndicates. Hopefully the crime lords have to pay by the comment injected wether it actually gets published on our blogs or not; for at least then some programmer is getting paid and sucking the money out of the criminal's hands.

It does also make me wonder how much of a markup the drug companies are charging for legal drugs; this method of marketing is hideously inefficient - but they must be getting a return on their "investment" which implies the margins are staggering.

Sorry Apple, I am disgusted that a device I bought and paid for forces upgrades that I do not want.

This is the third time an upgrade has been applied automatically before I allowed it, before I was ready, and before the software that I added has been ready for the new version.

I paid for the device, I should get to decide. Period.

History of upgrades that I did NOT agree to:

• May 13th, 2009: AppleTV upgraded from 2.3 to 2.3.1 on it's own; wiping out my installation of Boxee, Couch Surfer, Flash Plug-Ins, and my enabling of ssh. Instead of enjoying my AppleTV to watch what I wanted to watch, I spend a weekend re-installing Boxee, XBMC, Couch Surfer, and enabling ssh again; then re-installing my own content via scp. I never did recover flash plugins.


• August 29th, 2009: AppleTV again upgraded itself (this time to 2.4); and again wiped out my own installs and media. I was more careful about documenting the May disaster, so re-installing everything was quicker (about 4 hours of my time)


• November 11th, 2009: AppleTV upgraded itself to 3.0.1 without my agreement! Now I am inspired to sue Apple for my hours of lost time and chuck the box out the window. It is not even clear that all the software I use on my AppleTV will work with the new version yet (which is why I was waiting).

Frankly, this is exactly the crappy treatment we got from Microsoft and DISH network over our original DISHplayer 7200; it worked great for years then the relationship between the two companies soured and Microsoft started force feeding our DISHplayer upgrades we did not want; it became less and less stable as a DVR until we were forced off the device out of sheer disgust. DISH ended up giving us a free "upgrade" to a DishDVR 508 which did not have the same features (at the time) but was way more stable.

Perhaps I can get Apple to give me a free Mini to replace the broken and unstable AppleTV?

Update: a day later and I have cooled off enough to download the newest Apple TV firmware (3.01 is 2Z694-6004-003.dmg), and use that with ATVUSB-Creator (v1.0b10) to update my USB memory stick with new "patch stick" software. I bounced my Apple TV with the USB stick, which re-installs ssh, then bounced my Apple TV again.

Scouting several forums revealed that there is a new XBMC Launcher (3.2 beta3):

wget http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/858897/XBMC/Launcher-3.2.beta3-debug.run
scp Launcher-3.2.beta3-debug.run frontrow@appletv.local:/Users/frontrow
rm Launcher-3.2.beta3-debug.run
ssh frontrow@appletv.local
chmod +x Launcher-3.2.beta3-debug.run ; ./Launcher-3.2.beta3-debug.run

Then I used the new Launcher (now visible on Apple TV menus) to update to the latest versions of Boxee (aplha 0.9.14.6992) and XBMC (9.11 alpha). That gets XBMC and Boxee working again.

I still need to test Couchsurfer and see how to lock out the upgrade script.