Category: Uncategorized

Follow this link and do as they say. Since June or July of last year, the FCC mandated that all Cable Boxes have FIREWIRE ports. This is very cool because with some free software from Apple, you can turn you Mac into a TIVO to record your favorite television, time shift, etc. I’ve been recording my favorite MTV videos off of VH-1 Classic (which sucks a lot more now than it did before I left for Hong Kong I should note). But then discovered my cable company has On Demand videos, which created a dilema. Why should I time shift something that is always available? In a world with a jukebox in the sky, why do I need a local copy of anything? This is the kind of thinking RIAA needs to get on board with. Give us what we want and we won’t steal it. ]]>

Even the BBC is reporting on the demise of the protestors at the World Bank this weekend. Traffic was snarled around DC not because of roving gangs of anarchists–no, it was because the cops closed down the roads expecting roving gangs (that never came). Fewer than 200 demonstrators showed up, Ramsey said. There was so little activity that commanders sent officers assigned to protest duty back to their districts for crime patrols. “It was quiet,” Ramsey said. “There was no comparison” to past protests. I don’t mind protests. I just hate wimpy ones.]]>

Hirata Masanori is a friend of mine running for the Japanese Diet. He graduated law school at Notre Dame and then went back to Japan to practice law and accounting. He’s now running as part of the Democratic Party of Japan (the opposition). Most of his site is in Japanse, but it is neat to see. Hirata was struck by a car when he was 19 and confined to a wheelchair. It’s good to see that that has not stopped him. ]]>

podcast directory is still under construction. I had a problem where certain items kept clogging up the system, leading me to belive it had to be something serious, like a bad server or a permissions error in the database or something really complicated. It was a ‘ mark. A misplaced ‘ mark messed up my code and nearly crashed the entire server. Man it is a pain sometimes. Like the early days of HTML where you had to match ‘ > < " and all that with a text editor. Anyway, in other computer news, the new version of Adobe Go Live is out, but I haven't decided if I will buy it. I bought the last "upgrade" only to discover, afterwards, that they took out the most important function--dynamic websites via php. That swore me off buying software for a year or so. But then again, I did just buy a version of Eudora instead of using the free one. The junk mail filters are only available if you buy a version, and WOW--what a difference. Before my e-mail would be alerted every 10 minutes or so for some spam (95% of the spam is caught at the server, but about 40 a day still get through). Now those e-mails get routed to a junk mail filter and I only get "new mail" alerts for basically legitimate stuff. Really has saved time and helped me keep focused as I'm not always checking my e-mail. Ok, off to the long commute.]]>

Washington Post has video of the suitcase stange man on Capitol Hill. Pretty strange world. ]]>

Hong Kong Police launch series of raids. Apparently in a routine bust, 50 triad youthes battled the police and now the cops are furious. They’ve launched massive operations turning out brothels, gambling houses, drugs, etc. and the triads are publicly apologizing for the incident (hoping the cops will go back to normal). Pretty funky battles. Now, in another piece of oddness, I flipped on the TV and Laura Croft is on, walking through the streets of Hong Kong. Looks like Times Square–yea, filmed in front of the Times Square building in Causeway Bay. ]]>

Legend of the Seven Waves and has been passed down by the generations over several hundred years. When someone saw the warning signs, that coincided with the words in the song, he sounded the alarm. It took people awhile to believe that the song had come to life, but they quickly scrambled for higher ground and were saved as the waves crashed their village. Kind of amazing actually.]]>

Asashoryu, the mighty Mongolian. His 12-0 start to the Osaka tournament placed him only One Win Away from his 11th Emperor’s Cup and culminated a 27 bout win streak. But today was different. Tochiazuma, the relatively average Japanese wrestler, fought with him for nearly 30 seconds until he managed to pull him down with a quick turn out of the ring. But the instant replay confirmed what the officials saw–it was basically a tie. Both wrestlers hit the ground at nearly the same instant. No way to call one the winner or the other. So they fought again. The crowd was going nuts (as nuts as they could sitting indian style on these little mats) and the fight again lasted nearly 30 seconds before Tochiazuma flipped him over to break the unbeaten streak. The little cushions under everyone’s seats went flying on to the stage. A huge upset in a sport I never watch or really care about, but hell, I was sick and I had nothing better to do. Way to go Tochiazuma!]]>