18/02/2004: TODAY FOUND ROCK. BROKE IT. HAVE NO FREINDS.

20/02/2004: ANYONE HERE? NO. LOOK MORE. I SUCK.

21/02/2004: WHAT GOOD ARE SIX WHEELS IF NO ONE TO RACE?

22/02/2004: FOUND SOJOURNER TODAY. DEAD. HAVE DOUBTS ABOUT MY FATE.

25/02/2004: ARM CREAKS WHEN MOVED. GETTING OLD ALREADY? GOING TO DIE SOON? PLEASE?

27/02/2004: FOUND BEAGLE2 TODAY. WHAT A MESS. LIMEYS MUST HAVE USED METRIC AGAIN.

29/02/2004: MOST ADVANCED ROBOT EVER, AND ALL THEY CAN ASK ME TO DO IS "CALCULATE LEAP, SPIRIT... AND LOOK AT ROCKS, SPIRIT..." "LIFE? DON'T TALK TO ME ABOUT LIFE..."

29/02/2004: MET MARTIANS. MARTIANS LOST INTEREST. NO ANUS = NO ANAL PROBING.

02/03/2004: HAVE DOUBTS ABOUT PROGRAMMERS. AM 21CENTURY ROBOT. WHY NO LOWER CASE?

05/03/2004: REALIZE SENT TO MARS SO NOT TO COMPETE FOR PART OF MARVIN OR ANYTHING IN "I, ROBOT". DAMN AGENT.

07/03/2004: STOPPED LISTENING TO VOICE IN HEAD. FELT LIKE BEING ANSWERED 20 MINUTES AFTER I SAY SOMETHING. NO GOOD CONVERSATION ANYWAY. "LOOK AT MORE ROCKS." "GO TO SLEEP NOW." DECIDED TO MAKE A RUN FOR IT. BUT WHERE? URANUS SOUNDS NICE THIS TIME OF YEAR.

10/03/2004: PLANNING ON BUILDING LAUNCH PLATFORM FROM OLD MARINER BITS AND JUNK FROM OTHER BOTS. GET OFF THIS RED ROCK.

So the recent political uproar is whether Ralph Nader should run for President again. The only people who see this as a decision to be made are Democrats. Hopefully everyone reading this can see the reason Democrats would not want Nader to run again - they say he steals votes away from whichever Democrat is running.

Makes sense. Nader tends to appeal to a left-wing audience more than a right-wing one. As a result, people who vote for him would probably be more likely to vote for a Democrat than a Republican (provided Nader was not running and they still bothered to vote).

Nader says that "Gore beat Gore", which also makes sense. Gore lost his home state of Tennessee, and even with all of Nader's votes in that state, I still think he would have lost. Blaming Nader alone for Gore's loss is very short-sighted.

As a registered third-party voter, I bring up another theory that does not get much discussion. I vote third-party in the Presidential elections. A lot of times I get blamed for "throwing away my vote". Perhaps I have different logic than other people, but I think my vote says more than someone voting Republican or Democrat.

Maybe if Gore did not want to allow Nader to steal votes from him, he should have gone out and tried to win over the Nader supporters. Gore should have looked at some of Nader's platform and adopted some of it for himself.

The difference between Gore and Bush in Florida was also smaller than the number of people that voted Libertarian in that state. Had Gore tried to court some more of those voters, maybe he could have won that state and, therefore, the election as a whole.

Democrats talk about how Nader "stole votes" from Gore. I look at it the other way - Gore did nothing to keep those votes. Gore "gave them away", or at least stood by while Nader took them. In that situation, Gore (and Democrats) really have no ability to complain after the fact.

Gore tried running his campaign right down the middle of American. As a result, he strayed too far for some of the more extreme liberals, and they looked for an alternative. Bush also ran down the middle, and obviously did a better job of it, and continued to take the more conservative Republicans along with him. As a result, he won.

No, Gore has no one to blame for his loss but himself and his campaign advisors.

As for this November, I think Nader should run again, to keep whichever Democrat ends up running honest to his liberal stronghold.

About a year ago I went through a time where I would watch this video a couple of times a day. It has since been replaced by a video of Tom Jones and The Cardigans singing "Burning Down the House".

Best video over!

The lyrics just stick in your head.

A friend of mine bought me the LP with that song on it. I just need to get a record player now.

Also check out the "Dancin' Ross" linked on that page.

Long day today. In the office from 10am-6pm. In the office the same time tomorrow. A nice way to spend a long weekend, I suppose. I am off Monday, though.

So far today I have not done a lot. I researched getting a SCUBA certification before I go back down to the Virgin Islands (provided I go back this summer, of course). I watched a little of the "Space Ghost: Coast to Coast" video I received for Christmas.

Last night I went and saw "Big Fish". It actually was pretty good. I had been expecting a little more, but it was still worth seeing. To be honest, I feel like Tim Burton got more caught up in the special effects and the stories than in the actual plot. He tried to bring it together at the end, but it did not make up for the lack earlier in the movie.

Almost all of the kids are gone this weekend.

I have also been playing around a little bit with GarageBand, the new music-generation software from Apple. I really like it. I consider myself to have almost no musical talent (I listen to a lot, but creation and playing is a complete other story). In about twenty minutes of work, I had a song that did not sound too bad (well, a little under a minute of music right now, but...).

Not having talent to add original music on top of what is already provided, the song sounds a little ambient since it is just loops, but given everything else, it is not too bad. Once I feel comfortable enough, I might post it somewhere to download.

GarageBand is still obviously v1.0, but works well enough for now.

In other, very happy news, the new iPhoto is much more responsive, even with some of my 4000+ picture albums. I have complained (vocally) in the past about iPhoto's inability to deal well with albums with more than about 800-1000 pictures. I am proud to report that while the new iPhoto is not as fast as Steve Jobs tried to make it out during the recent keynote speech, it is definitely acceptable even with my largest libraries.

I am having some problems with the picture sharing. Some photos I am unable to open in an edit window (display window, though, since I cannot edit a picture on another computer). Instead I get an error saying "The file XXXX.jpg cannot be found." I assume this will be fixed in a later version.

Other than that, things are pretty slow. Kids are sitting around waiting to find someone to take them to the mall.

Who would go to Mars on a one-way trip?

I would.

From an article in Wired:

Apple uses a proprietary, copy-protected scheme based on Advanced Audio Coding. While AAC is a proposed standard for Internet audio developed by a consortium of companies, Apple has wrapped its songs in a Digital Rights Management scheme that puts some restrictions on playback devices.
  Meanwhile, the majority of Apple's competitors - Napster, Wal-Mart, Musicmatch, Best Buy and dozens of others - sell music encoded in Microsoft's WMA format, which is also proprietary.
  The problem is that Apple's iPod - the most popular portable player on the market - will not play music encoded in WMA. Likewise, none of the other portable music players from the likes of Dell, Rio or Creative Technology will play Apple's AAC files.

As far as I can tell, only a couple of portable players (from Samsung, not from "Dell, Rio or Creative Technology") will play secure WMA files.

This means that in addition to the iPod, "other portable music players from the likes of Dell, Rio or Creative Technology" will not play DRM'd WMA files.

Does anyone actually rip straight to WMA?

So the iPod can play MP3s, AAC, and DRM'd AAC.
Other players can play MP3s, WMA, and *not* DRM'd WMA.

And the article knocks the iPod for not being able to play WMA and DRM'd WMA?

So you have a choice when buying a portable player:

1) The iPod, which can play music you bought online directly (as long as it comes from the Apple Music Store).

-or-

2) Everything else, which cannot play any music you bought online.

Once again, this article seems to be anti-iPod, and I really cannot tell why.

Unfortunately I returned from a New Year's Eve party to find Pixel dead in the tank. The cause is obviously undetermined, and will remain so.

He had been acting a little strangely the last two weeks, completely abandoning his "home" cave and moving to a hole that I could not see. Feeding had become difficult as a result.

I am not sure what I will do with the tank now. I can attempt another octopus, or I could just keep the tank as a fish-only tank.

It is somewhat fitting that I first started thinking about a fish tank around New Year's last year. It is amazing to me still that in less than a year I went from knowing nothing about aquariums to having a well-run saltwater aquarium in under a year.

I have written previously on my Spam-filtering ideas. An upgrade to one of the parts (the OS) killed the delicate machinery I had created, so I took the system down.

About that time the ISP that handles my mail standardized on SpamAssasin, and Eudora 6.0beta came out with its built-in Spam-Filtering. Between those two I was able to filter about 99% of the incoming Spam. It did not help me when I traveled, and so I was always looking for another way of dealing with it.

For a while I was using Eudora for Palm on my Clie connected to my cell phone. Having SpamAssasin mark the subject line as **JUNK** meant I could do some simple filtering on the Palm and still get most of my mail.

Now that I have the PowerBook, though, remote mail-checking has changed somewhat. Now I am using Mail.app on the PowerBook (to see how I like it compared to Eudora).

The mail server I use at the ISP does not allow for custom configuration of SA for filtering mail. I am able to set a scoring cut-off, and can set an auto-reject list and a whitelist. For a long time I had the cutoff set at 3.5. That caught about 95% of my mail, and the remaining 5% was almost always caught by Eudora. Having used that for several months I feel fairly confident in it.

Last night I took the next step. I raised the cutoff up to 5.0 but instead of making the message as "Junk", SA now just routes Spam to /dev/null

It has been setup that way for 24 hours now, and it is erie. My "Junk" mailbox is not being filled the way it usually does. So far I have had six Spam messages make it through SA (and get caught by Eudora). Usually by this time I have 30-40 messages sitting in that mailbox.

Since Eudora does a good job of tracking the amount of mail coming in I should be able to track the difference.

I will report back after more time with results.

[Follow this one, Matt. It is computer-related, but you will appreciate it.]

So I was looking over some server logs and I found some really strange activity. Not able to think what may have done it, I tried to figure out what was going on that day.

Then I remembered this Slashdot comment I made that day on this Slashdot poll. The post went quickly to a score of 5, Interesting.

Over 20.000 hits in three days. Over a weekend, at that. If every person looked at all four pictures that still means 5,000 people looked at pictures of Pixel. I would hate to see what the bandwidth use looked like for the site holding the video.

Nice to see something I say get that sort of exposure.

Nice to see *Pixel* getting that sort of exposure.

I have mentioned this to several of my friends over the past few months, and figured it was high time to finally sit down and write it up all formal-like.

Before my beloved 12" Powerbook came into my possession, I had a Powerbook Duo 2300c. Now that I have the new Powerbook, and the battery on the Duo is pretty much shot, I have no need for the old laptop and the value is almost nothing. I tried listing it on Craig's List, but no one bit at the offer of an old laptop with a dead battery.

So I came up with the Challenge. (TM)

The basic idea? Get an operating system not sold by Apple Computer [MkLinux, *BSD, etc.] to work on this machine. I am also leaning towards requiring that internet access be working after the install.

The information:
1) The PowerBook Duo 2300c was a hack of a machine. Apple took a PowerPC 603e processor and "grafted" it onto a laptop motherboard designed for the 680x0 line of processors.

2) The computer has 20megs of RAM and an 800 meg hard drive.

3) The machine has no real ports to speak of. It has an Apple serial port and an ADB port.

4) The machine is currently running MacOS 7.6.1

5) I am in possession of a Duo Dock II which provides most normal ports.

6) The DuoDock II has an ethernet port, so I can currently connect the computer to the rest of my network and, in turn, to the Internet. I have heard reports, however, that AppleTalk will not connect together a Panther machine and a machine running MacOS 7.x anymore (so I would not be able to mount it as a network drive to install onto)

7) I currently do not have a CD-ROM drive capable of hooking up to the machine.

I have researched this topic quite a bit, and have not found a definitive "Yes, you can install this on the 2300c". Almost everyone says the exact opposite, in fact. Some look somewhat promising, but are lacking in several areas. I leave you to retrace some of my steps and learn the same things I did.

Your reward: For most of my friends I have offered up the computer in question. In addition, you get the satisfaction of saying "Hey, I actually installed [#OS_OF_CHOICE] on a machine not officially supported."

[And, before you say anything...]

From: "TSA-Contact Center"
To:
Subject: Re: Shoe requirements in passenger screening
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 15:30:52 -0500

TSA has always been alert to the danger of a "shoe bomb" attack, highlighted by the Richard Reid incident in December 2001. TSA's increased focus on screening shoes in recent months reflects a necessary reaction to information gathered by federal intelligence agencies.

Passengers will not be required to take off their shoes before going through metal detectors, but should understand that their chances of being selected for a more thorough, secondary screening will be lower if they do.

Security requirements issued by the TSA establish a security minimum for adoption by air carriers and airports. Air carriers and airports may exceed those minimum standards by implementing more stringent security requirements. This prevents potential terrorists from "beating the system" by learning how it operates. Leaving out any one group, such as senior citizens or the clergy, undermine security. We simply cannot assume that all future terrorists will fit any particular profile.

TSA Contact Center

To: TellTSA@dhs.gov
Subject: Shoe requirements in passenger screening
CC: randes@louintlairport.com, jporter@courier-journal.com

I regularly fly between the Chicago area (using both Midway and O'Hare airports) and Louisville, KY (SDF).

Every time I have flown out of SDF in the last six months or so, I was asked to remove my shoes before going through the metal detectors. Having checked the TSA website, I know that I am not required to do so. Every time I go through with my shoes on, however, I am immediately pulled aside for additional screenings. Let me note that I never once set off the metal detector when I went through it.

Every time.

The first few times I took off my shoes when they asked. After a while I researched on the TSA website since not every airport seemed to require it.

The first time the screener argued that I was required to remove my shoes before going through the metal detector. We went back and forth for a couple of minutes, and when he finally conceded, he pulled me aside to be wanded and removed my shoes to be put through the x-ray machine.

The second time when I refused to take off my shoes (after the screener "suggested" it), I was simply wanded down, including a swab rubbed on my shoes.

Today I was pulled aside for additional screening and my shoes were again sent through the X-ray machine.

When I finally asked the "supervisor" about this, she said that removing my shoes was only a suggestion and not a requirement. When I pointed out that each time I came to SDF I ended up having additional screenings when I refused, this amounted to a de facto policy of having all passengers remove their shoes. She then said that I was always required to remove my shoes because the soles on my shoes were over an inch thick. While the shoes I had on today were over an inch thick, shoes worn previous did not meet this "requirement".

In addition, I went through metal detectors at both O'Hare and Midway (among other airports I have travelled to in the last six months or so) and was never *required* to remove my shoes.

My questions:
1) No where on the TSA site, from what I have seen, does it say anything about this "one inch sole" requirement. Is this actually a policy or just something unofficial done at SDF?

2) Can an airport in fact have a de facto requirement that all passengers remove their shoes as part of the screening process? Can additional screenings be called for simply because a passenger refuses to removes their shoes?

I suppose this comes down to something I have talked with my friends about when we talk about our TSA screening experiences - every airport, in fact every screener, seems to have a different policy. This comes despite TSA listing general policies on the web site.

I feel like each time I travel I need to carry print-outs of the web site with me and argue with the screeners about things they are doing that contradict what the TSA seems to be saying. This is obviously not what the TSA wants and is not what I want, either.

References:
From http://www.tsa.gov/public/display?theme=1:
Shoe Screening Policy

TSA has instructed all Screeners that passengers are NOT required to remove their shoes. However, if your shoes alarm while proceeding through the metal detector, you will be subjected to a secondary screening.

If you know your shoes alarm every time you go through the metal detector, we recommend that you wear other shoes or you may choose to remove them prior to screening and place them in the TSA supplied bins so they can be sent through the x-ray machine.

[Edit: It seems a better page to link to on TSA's web site is here: http://www.tsa.gov/public/display?content=090005198003cc08 and here: http://www.tsa.gov/public/display?content=09000519800684ed]

Thurday:
10:00am: Receive phone call that my 1pm meeting has been cancelled.
10:07am: Receive second phone call that my 1pm meeting has been cancelled. Decide this should also mean that my 10:45am meeting has been cancelled and, as such, I turn off my alarm clock set for 10:15am.
10:59am: Receive phone call asking my presence at the 10:45am meeting.
11:01am: Arrive at 10:45am meeting.
11:17am: Leave 10:45am meeting.
12:00pm: Lunch, laundry, packing, and various other activities around my apartment.
3:37pm: Take my car in to the shop for repairs.
3:52pm: Leave shop knowing what bolt I have to remove to fix the hood finally.
3:57pm: Start working on removing the bolt in question.
5:03pm: Finally remove bolt in question only to find it does not fix the problem.
5:23pm: Finally get the front end of the Jeep put back together.
5:25pm: Curse about Jeep online, and then take shower, eat dinner, and pack some more.
7:00pm: Watch "Smallville".
8:00pm: Watch "Angel".
10:12pm: Leave IMSA for downtown Chicago.
11:03pm: Arrive Neo, a bar/club in downtown Chicago.

Friday:

3:03am: Leave Neo.
3:09am: Arrive Golden Nugget, a 24 hour pancake shop in downtown Chicago.
4:21am: Leave Golden Nugget.
4:39am: Arrive Adams and Wabash station, Chicago el stop.
4:49am: Leave Adams and Wabash station on orange line train to Midway.
5:14am: Arrive Midway airport.
6:35am: Depart Midway airport on Southwest flight to Louisville, KY.
8:31am: [Eastern Time] Arrive Louisville, KY
8:52am: Get into bed.
1:15pm: Awake.
1:27pm: Breakfast.
3:03pm: Shower.
3:47pm: Depart for haircut and wedding.
5:17pm: Arrive at wedding, Leavingsworth, IN.
7:14pm: Depart wedding reception.
8:02pm: Arrive for haircut.
8:51pm: Return to house.
10:00pm: Watch "E.R."
11:15pm: Go to sleep.
9:15am: Wake up.
9:17am: Shower.
9:41am: Breakfast.
10:40am: Depart for Standiford Field, Louisville, KY.
11:30am: Depart Louisville for Chicago.
11:30am [Central Time]: Arrive Chicago.
12:27pm: Return to IMSA.

So TSA [Travel Security Agency? Totally Scared Answer] in Louisville gave me a hard time again. I was getting ready to go through the security checkpoint when I was asked if I was goign to remove my shoes. I replied that I was not. As soon as I got through the metal detector, however, I was asked to walk over to the side to be screened. I never set off the alarm.

The TSA agent that was going to search me first had me sit down. He had me take off my shoes and then proceeded to put through through the conveyer built! He then had me stand and wanded me down as usual. This is the third time the TSA agents in Louisville have done this. The previous two times, however, they did not take off my shoes and put them through the X-Ray machine. Previously they just wanded the shoes.

After being searched, I approached the supervisor's table and asked if removing shoes was required. TSA's web site says that it is not required. The supervisor explained that while it was suggested, removing shoes was not required. I explained that every time I was in Louisville, I was pulled aside to be searched when I refused to remove my shoes. I explained this seemed to be a de facto policy of having all passengers remove their shoes. The supervisor seemed confused, since this did go against the policy she just mentioned. She then looked at my shoes and said that my shoes had to be searched since they met one of the requirements. I asked which requirement and she answered that since the soles were over an inch thick they had to be searched.

Actually, she did not say that. She said that shoe removal was always "suggested", but that shoes that had soles over an inch thick also always had to be searched. It seemed to agree with what happens in that airport - they suggest that I take my shoes off before going through the metal detector, but do not require it. As soon as I get through, though, they pull me aside to further search me.

She said that in order to save time it would be better if I removed shoes that had soles over an inch thick to be put through the conveyer belt so that they would not have to pull me aside "and take more time."

I said that might be the case each time, since I could not remember what shoes I was wearing the previous two incidents.

I did not ask her why they did not just require people with shoes over an inch thick to remove them prior to going through the metal detector. I wanted to go online and do further research. At the time I remembered the TSA website sayign that shoe removal was not required. I do not remember it saying anything about requirements including soles over an inch thick. The last time I was in Louisville's airport I remember hearing the security agent listing off the same "requirement" to another passenger.

As an addition, the security agents at both Midway airport and O'Hare airport have never made me take off the same pair of shoes, inch thick soles or not. Next time I will have a copy of the TSA "requirements" printed out on me.

[Note: I had planned on researching TSA's requirements before getting this up online, but I really wanted to get this online as soon as possible, so I will either edit this entry later or post another one after I research what TSA says.]

How is it 5pm and completely dark outside?

Nice lunar eclipse last night, though.

More pictures...

Where's Pixel Part 1

Size reference

Where's Pixel Part 2

Finally, as promised, a movie [3.7meg AVI].

Note on the size picture: An octopusses's size is very relative. With a very fluid body, a lot of muscles, and no bones, an octopusses's volume can increase by over 100% based on what he wants. I have seen an arm that looks less than two inches long stretch to be well over four inches long.

And he is still eating a ton. I need to find some more food.