My wife and I were excited to see that Disney was bringing back 'family movie night' on ABC this Summer. For both of us that brings back memories of youth watching a movie with (our respective) families after Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, or 60 Minutes had ended.

However, apparently families with young kids are not the target audience Disney Corp. has in mind. For Saturday June 7th, they will have Finding Nemo, which runs just 100 minutes if you watch it uninterrupted. But if you don't own the DVD and want to watch it on ABC instead, you'd better give the kids a can of cola with dinner, because the movie will start at 8 PM Eastern Time and run until 11 PM. I can only assume that the additional 80 minutes will include some cast commentaries, as well as a preview of WALL-E, but what is the point if the kids fall asleep while Marlin and Dory are still stuck in the belly of a whale? You're just going to have to try and rent it or add it to your NetFlix queue so the kids can see the rest of it.

I had such great hopes for Disney when Steve Jobs became it's largest shareholder, I guess my trust was misplaced.

This really should have been a headline item in HTML 101 but it is surprisingly difficult to find a quick explanation of the non-obvious diagnostics which eventually led me to a relatively simple problem.

When there is a namespace clash in JavaScript, properties outrank methods.

When you name a submit button, that name becomes a property of the containing form. Assuming the containing form tag says name='myformname', the very useful document.myformname.submit() method becomes unreachable.

And the obvious answer, changing the form name, becomes impossible to contemplate when your main client's business-defining intranet is built on middleware which calls every submit button submit so that progress through a process is represented by values of $in{'submit'}.

I've even relatively recently added code which logs $in{'submit'} along with other details of every process that is run so we can learn more about actual usage patterns.

I have a long history of translating indicated attendance into actual numbers for functions, but basing it on acceptances from an untested source was always going to be risky.

So I don't know whether I should just celebrate that the eight who made it seemed like a pretty good sample or bemoan the 23 who didn't show out of the 31 who registered.

The obligatory photo evidence is on Flickr!

While I do think /. moderation includes the kernel of a good idea, specific examples are almost never worthy of meta conversation, at least not until I scored a 50% Insightful, 50% Flamebait which naturally adds up to +2 Flamebait.

Maybe that's what I should have expected for taking pot shots at all sides. Makes it hard not to hit some mod's comfort zone.

Puzzling webfilter here at the car dealer I'm getting my 30k service at.

Sites that are blocked for having "Web Communications":
babyparenting.about.com
talkingpointsmemo.com
atrios.blogspot.com
www.dailykos.com
livejournal.com
myspace.com
consumerist.com

Oddly not blocked:
most (all?) of the rest of about.com
littlegreenfootballs.com
www.drudgereport.com
www.powerlineblog.com
www.freerepublic.com
IRC
www.thomhartmann.com
newsbloggers.aol.com
www.huffingtonpost.com
www.haloscan.com (the server that ESCHATON "Web Communcations" actually occurs on)
SlashDot.org (obviously)

The pros:

1. FREE MONEY!

The cons:

1. the $10 has to be used between now and March 31, 2007 and can't be used with other Checkout promotions.
2. You have to provide a valid credit card number just to sign up.

The link:

HERE

I witnessed a fender bender yesterday
I left my name and number for the two drivers - no one else stopped out of the 30 or so cars in the vicinity, including one within 4 feet of the accident
no one was injured, but I'm surprised the driver at aparent fault didn't have a heart attack - he was like 85
this couple were literally "Sunday drivers" aparently coming home from church
the guy said he hadn't had an accident in 20 years
he complained that drivers don't brake to let other drivers make turns anymore
they were hit making a left hand turn through a long line of stopped traffic when they crossed throught the right-turn only lane than wasn't stopped

Here's what I recall in case I need to refresh my memory later:

At about 12:25 PM Sunday December 10th, 2006 I was driving my family Eastbound on MD 410 approaching the onramp for the Baltimore Washington Parkway (satellite view). The traffic on 410 going straight was backed up because of a red light at the 410 overpass, but the right turn only lane was clear. I was in the right most of the straight lanes. From what I could tell the traffic in the straight lanes had left a gap for traffic entering/leaving Eastpine Dr. which was two car lengths in front of me. A red car approaching westbound on 410 saw this gap and made a left hand turn across the eastbound lanes. Just as it was crossing the Right Turn only lane, a black car drove past me and hit head on into the right rear door of the red car. The light at BWP/295 changed and the other cars in the area all proceeded on their way. The two cars directly involved both drove a short way onto Eastpine and parked, as did I.

After ensuring that both drivers and the passenger in the red car were not injured, I offered use of my cell phone which was declined, then I provided my name and phone number to the drivers and noted the time, location, and license plates of the cars involved.

We had an interesting experience today taking my kids, wife, and 72 year old mother to the new playground where my youngest daughter and I planted a tree last weekend. A man in the driver seat of a fairly new LARGE SUV, (the real working kind, not a family type one) was aparently receiving oral favors from a woman standing outside the truck, this was going on in clear view of the playground. Well, somewhat clear view, you couldn't see what the woman was doing with her face in the man's lap, only that her face was in his lap, and that he seemed very happy. My wife noticed first and pointed the situation out to me so we could try get the rest of the family to the playground and absorbed so they wouldn't notice.

I found a corner of the playground away from my mother and kids and called the local police tip line, but as the park which has recently been annexed by the city I live in, hasn't officially been become part of the city yet, they transferred me to the county police. After being on hold for at least 5 minutes, they finally took my report. About 10 minutes later the county cop cars started rolling in, no lights or sirens or anything, and at an appropriate casual parking lot speed, eventually totalling at least six cars. At this we walked past the scene toward the duck pond. I couldn't follow everything that happened from there, but I think they got off (no pun intended) with just a stern warning, as the aparent activity had ended at some point between me hanging up and the police arriving. By the time we went back to our car, the SUV was gone, and there were only two cop cars left,

Later my mother wondered outloud what all yhe cops were there for. So I'm pretty sure she never picked up on the original activity.

So it is supposed to be news that elephants pass mirror test of self-awareness. What else could anybody not drowning in their own anthropophilic delusions expect? Clearly they ruled the old world, and their hairy cousins a fair chunk of the rest of the north, for quite a while before our kind made it out of Africa. We even forget that eyesight is not near as important to cetaceans and proboscideans as it is to primates, so we can only hope that science will eventually mature enough to look for truly unbiased signs of self-awareness that will help narrow down the few recent characteristics that have facilitated the human infestation.

Pulled up one car back at the lights at an exit from the Monash this morning, I was given a reminder this morning that there are still distinctions to be made between species as a mudlark repeatedly alighted on the door sill of one of the cars in front, then quickly dove towards the driver/passenger window of the car in the other lane, pulling up just enough to land on the other sill, clearly intent on repelling its reflected rivals, but still comical.

            Pure Nerd

            82 % Nerd, 47% Geek, 43% Dork

            For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.

A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.

A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.

You scored better than half in Nerd, earning you the title of: Pure Nerd.

The times, they are a-changing. It used to be that being exceptionally smart led to being unpopular, which would ultimately lead to picking up all of the traits and tendences associated with the "dork." No-longer. Being smart isn't as socially crippling as it once was, and even more so as you get older: eventually being a Pure Nerd will likely be replaced with the following label: Purely Successful.

Congratulations!

Thanks Again! -- THE NERD? GEEK? OR DORK? TEST

      My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 99% on nerdiness You scored higher than 99% on geekosity You scored higher than 99% on dork points

Link: The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test written by donathos on OkCupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

My now 5.25 yr old daughter used to think that Fairy Tales began with the words "On A 'Possum Time" which was a source of never-ending heart-melting cuteness to my wife and I.

Today my now 2.6 yr old daughter picked up a book and told me it was a "What About A Dime" story.

Please send over a box of paper towels to wipe up my melted heart from the floor.

This slipped under the radar of the media that at least I follow, tho aparently at least one diarist at DailyKos picked up on it. Gee, I don't know why it's not getting more coverage in the MSM.

Also, desperate for story submissions - so post some if you've got any ideas.

To my aparent heavily Libertarian-skewed readership here on SlashDot - now is your chance to build the "New" Plastic as a Libertarian haven. It already has a former Libertarian politician as a prominant contributor, so their is at least a core audince audience on which to build.

The recalled batteries were sold with the following Dell notebook computers: Dell Latitude(TM) D410, D500, D505, D510, D520, D600, D610, D620, D800, D810; Inspiron(TM) 6000, 8500, 8600, 9100, 9200, 9300, 500m, 510m, 600m, 6400, E1505, 700m, 710m, 9400, E1705; and Dell Precision(TM) M20, M60, M70 and M90 mobile workstations; and XPS(TM), XPS Gen2, XPS M170 and XPS M1710. The batteries were also sold separately, including in response to service calls. "Dell" and one of the following are printed on the batteries: "Made in Japan" or "Made in China" or "Battery Cell Made in Japan Assembled in China." The identification number for each battery appears on a white sticker. Customers should have this number available when they contact Dell to determine if their battery is part of the recall. Dell sold or provided these batteries with the notebook computers, as part of a service replacement, and as individual units from April 1, 2004, through July 18, 2006. The computers with these batteries sold for between $500 and $2,850 (US) and individual batteries sold for between $60 and $180 (US). Customers should contact Dell to determine if their notebook computer battery is part of this recall. Please visit the firm's Web site at www.dellbatteryprogram.com beginning at 1 a.m. Central Daylight Time Aug. 15 or call toll-free at 1-866-342-0011, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Central Time. Customers may continue to use the notebook computers safely by turning the system off, ejecting the battery, and using the AC adapter and power cord to power the system until the replacement battery is received. Customers can also write to: Dell Inc., Attn: Battery Recall, 9701 Metric Blvd., Austin, Texas 78758.

While in other circumstances I would rather trust the thinking of new tech companies than the telcos, I can't see that network neutrality is the kind of issue that the tech community needs to get into such a flap about.

Even when we were examining broadband futures for our then soon to be unelected government in the mid '90s, the idea was about that some anticipated internet applications would work better with a quality of service differential.

All that seems to have happened in the interim is that the net has proved good enough in practice for almost everything we have thought of to throw at it. That is just the kind of thinking that allows Windoze to maintain traction.