This morning's Indianapolis Star profiles a local programmer who is raising funds to put Tux on a race car for the Indianapolis 500, which runs in later this month. His website has already raised over $11,000 for the cause, which hopes to promote Linux during one of the world's most-watched sporting events. If he can raise $350,000, a primary sponsorship would be available, which would mean a larger logo featured on the side of the car.

CompUSA has the wide screen Envision G22LWk 22-inch LCD monitor for $220 after two rebates totaling $90. After taxes it should be $260. My friend bought one yesterday and I went with him to compare. I'm need a new monitor and might get one today.

So far I'd rate if four out of five at the $250 price. Compared to a Samsung next to it I'd say visually they tied. That's after turning off color enhancement on the Samsung, and using paint.exe to draw blocks of colors. It has a very poor viewing angle though. Two people standing side by side three feet from it will see the same colors, but three people would not. Especially if there's a height difference. Tilting the monitor a bit up or down from the viewer noticeably darkens the colors. My friend bought it because he's going to sit at his desk and face it just where he should. HP has one for about $350 with a viewing angle that lives up to it's claims much better. So does Apple's 23" but it's hundreds of dollars more.

We checked in the store and found no dead or stuck pixels. At home next to my six years old 19" Viewsonic PF790 CRT I hooked it up digitally and messed with the controls on it and my Radeon for an hour or so before getting it remarkably close to match my screen. In fact I'd say it looks like the dark greens on my screen are a bit weak.

I made up the blocks of color test pattern again. On the Envision the blue and red match pretty well, the green is maybe a touch strong. But after playing The Rundown simultaneously on both and comparing the flesh tones as well as the jungle, I think it looks really good. I turned the brightness on the LCD down to 7 out of 100, the contrast to 66, and on my Radeon the brightness down to -69 on a scale of -100 to 100. At those levels the white wasn't causing eye strain on websites, and black was acceptably black. There's a little bit of light-bleed mostly in the bottom half-inch, but when watching a movie that's a black bar that wouldn't bother me.

So I'm wondering if anyone has opinions on, seen, heard, or read about the competition? I know there's 19" models with better colors and probably contrast too. I really like the 22" size, but if someone knows of a 19", or 20" that's visually great and has a fast refresh, I'd like to hear about it.

In order to follow the rest of the herd and see what the new pasture looks like, I've set up a profile over at Multiply. Instead of "TopShelf", I'm going by Forechecker over there, as that's the nic I'm using for my blog and assorted other online venues now (TopShelf comes from a column I wrote over 10 years ago)... so if you see a Forechecker knocking on your Multiply door, you know who's coming.

After getting delayed a week, Sunday's hockey article at the NY Times cites my hockey blog, in a piece discussing the relation (or lack of one) between physical play and scoring. It's nice to get that kind of recognition after having just gotten this blog rolling in the last six months...

This is nice, I just got off the phone with a sports editor at the NY Times, and they'll be mentioning my blog in this Sunday's hockey article, focusing on the lack of any correlative link between NHL teams that out-hit, and teams that out-score their opponents.

The video.

Has Israel been disproportionately targeted for criticism compared to other human rights issues going on around the world?

The fan on a friend's 7600GS is dying. I added a drop of oil but that's not good enough. It's a tiny 30mm surrounded by almost 60mm x 60mm of aluminum. I have a quiet 60mm fan but I don't think it'll stay on the existing heatsink, which is held to the board with two spring-loaded pins. I'm considering removing all that, then gluing to the chip an unused Athlon 1.2GHz heatsink. The quiet fan can go on that. Clearance shouldn't be a problem, but I'm concerned about weight pulling on the chip since the assembly will hang upside down.

The uber-brawl between Colorado and Detroit occured 10 years ago today, and back in those days I wrote for a hockey website called In the Crease (where "Top Shelf" was the title of my column, and became my /. nick). It was a purely "by the fan, for the fan" endeavor, but we had garnered enough credibility that I was issued a press pass to cover this, the most anticipated regular season game in ages. I've posted the original piece I wrote that evening over at my blog (complete with a link to some video of the game), since ITC is no more, only to be found over at the Internet Archive.

Enjoy...

Wednesday night I went over to UC Berkeley to hear this guy speak for about forty-five minutes and thirty minutes of questions. He didn't have encouraging words though.

Currently the Palestinian government needs funding and aid from the US and European countries. These countries essentially give the money while saying "won't you please change some things to help your people and the peace process?" Then the Palestinians say they'll see what they can do. The money runs out, and the cycle repeats. The way Khaled Abu Toameh sees it, the Palestinian government won't change until the West firmly refuses more money until changes are made. For one, it needs to plainly acknowledge Israel's right to exist. Unfortunately, he sees no indications the Western countries are going to do that.

He also explained that that Fatah won the elections with promises of ending corruption and bringing change. Then they proceeded to abandon those campaign promises. Hamas won because their campaign was basically the same promises and voters figured they might as well see if anything would change this time, because Fatah sure didn't.

Just maybe the new Wasatia party will deliver on some of its promises.

Straight Talk on Palestine
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
March 20, 2007;
Wall Street Journal - Page A19

Even before the Palestinian "unity" government was sworn in Saturday at least five European countries announced that they would resume their business with the Hamas-led coalition.

The U.S. has endorsed Israel's position on the Palestinian government -- namely, that its political platform does not meet the conditions set by the so-called "Quartet" of the U.S., EU, U.N. and Russia for ending the boycott. Washington is now under heavy pressure from its Arab allies in the Middle East to deal with it.

But the U.S. should stand firm. The Palestinian government is not committed to the Quartet's demands that it renounce violence, recognize Israel and abide by agreements signed with Israel in the past. The speeches delivered by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his new Hamas partner, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, at Saturday's parliamentary session show that the Palestinians are determined instead to continue their strategy of double-talk.

Neither the president nor the prime minister openly called for an end to terrorism or for recognizing Israel's right to exist. And to add to the confusion, the two men came up with a political program that contains many contradictions and ambiguities.

The wording of the program was drafted in such a way as to allow both Hamas and Fatah to argue that neither party had totally abandoned its traditional position. The equivocal tone is also designed to appease the Americans and Europeans. After all, the main goal of the new coalition is to get the international community to resume desperately needed financial aid.

With regard to the three main demands of the Quartet, the program leaves the door wide open for different interpretations.

On the issue of terrorism, the program states that the new government "stresses that resistance is a legitimate right of the Palestinian people . . . and our people have the right to defend themselves against any Israeli aggression." But the program also says that the new government will "work toward consolidating the tahdiya [period of calm] and extending it [to the West Bank] so that it becomes a comprehensive and mutual truce."

The program sets a number of conditions for halting the "resistance" -- ending the "occupation" and achieving independence and the right of return for Palestinian refugees, as well as an end to Israeli security measures in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (including the construction of the security fence). In other words, Fatah and Hamas are saying that the violence will continue as long as Israel does not meet these demands.

Regarding Israel's right to exist, the program does not even mention the name Israel. Instead, it refers to Israel as "The Occupation." It also makes no mention of the two-state solution. Rather, it reiterates the Palestinians' opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state with temporary borders.

Although the document declares that the "key to peace and stability is contingent on ending the occupation of Palestinian lands and recognizing the Palestinian people's right to self-determination," it does not specify which "lands" -- those captured by Israel in 1967 or 1948.

Fatah representatives, of course, argue that the program refers only to the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. Hamas, on the other hand, will be able to argue that the phrase "Palestinian lands" applies also to all of Mandatory Palestine.

Referring to the third demand of the Quartet -- abiding by agreements between the PLO and Israel -- the political program states that the new government will only "respect" agreements signed by the PLO.

Hamas leaders have already explained that there is a huge difference between "respecting" an agreement and making a pledge to fulfill it. In other words, Hamas is saying that while it accepts the agreements with Israel as an established fact, it will not carry them out.

Elsewhere in the program, the new government says that it will abide by unspecified U.N. and Arab summit resolutions, leaving the door open for Fatah to claim that this is tantamount to recognizing the two-state solution and all the agreements with Israel. Fatah will cite the 2002 Arab peace plan that implicitly recognizes Israel.

Hamas, on the other hand, can always claim that among the Arab summit resolutions that it intends to abide by is the one taken in Khartoum, Sudan, in September 1967. The resolution contains what became known as "the three no's" of Arab-Israel relations: no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, and no negotiations with Israel.

Although the program makes it clear that the PLO, and not the new Hamas-led coalition, will be responsible for conducting negotiations with Israel, it also seeks to tie the hands of President Abbas by stating that any "fateful" agreement must be approved by the Palestinians in the PA-controlled areas and abroad through a referendum.

The program, moreover, closes the door to any potential concessions on the problem of the refugees by emphasizing their "right of return to their lands and property [inside Israel]."

The international community must demand an end to the era of ambiguity and double-talk. If the new government is opposed to terror, there is no reason why it should not state this loudly and clearly.

If it recognizes Israel -- as some of its members claim -- then why not announce this in unequivocal language? The international community must insist that the messages coming out of the Palestinian leaders be the same in both English and Arabic.

There is no point in pouring millions of dollars on the "unity" government as long as it's not prepared to make a clear and firm commitment to halt terror and recognize Israel's right to exist.

Mr. Toameh is Palestinian affairs editor of the Jerusalem Post.

I remember how some forums used to show posts and replies in a threaded Usenet-style. Only the title was visible until clicked on and unread ones could be in bold.

I can't remember any recent forums letting me easily see which replies are new since the last time I viewed the page. I find it hard to believe people wouldn't like this feature. I'd like to see which are the new comments on multiply, slashdot, fark, and so on.

So why doesn't this exist? It doesn't have to add work to the server. The server doesn't have to keep track of when a page was asked for. The client can do that, say for the last seven days (changeable), and bold the title of new posts.

Google announced today a partnership with the National Basketball Association to provide a new "NBA Channel" on YouTube, featuring game highlights and videos featuring NBA players. The new arrangement isn't as extensive as that between Google and the National Hockey League, which provides full games for online viewing, but marks a significant new addition to YouTube's partnership-driven content.

The NHL repeatedly gets blasted for perceived marketing failures, so it's interesting to see the media-darling NBA following in their footsteps in this case.

edit: I overlooked a simple checkbox.

Just upgraded from Firefox 1.5 to 2, and Tabbrowser Extensions don't work anymore. I found Tab Mix Plus, which is almost as good. [Edit: cut, snip, delete.]

I just found the MileWideBack add-on. Just slam the mouse to the left edge of the browser page and scroll up or down to cycle between tabs, or middle-click to close a tab. Unless the cursor is already positioned over the tab bar, it's probably even faster and more convenient than having to accurately position the cursor along the bar.

Waitasecond. In the pursuit of further speed and convenience, how about if the user could just right-click-and-hold and scroll or middle click to do what MileWideBack does? Can anyone think of a problem with this? When I right click there's no menu until I release. With an extension, if I scroll or middle click those actions would cancel the menu from appearing. Or does this already exist too?

Specifically people from the Bay Area going up to the snow for the first time this winter. Until last week the snow was crap so I can sympathize. No sense buying snow clothing and boots for your kids in December if there's the chance you just won't go this year.

Nevertheless, outdoor retail functions a month or two ahead of the season it's targeting. Meaning that my store shifted to fall clothes in mid-August, replaced bikes with skis in October, and this past weekend was the start of our super clearance sale so we could have room for spring-wear. The sale runs through Monday, but 75% of the merchandise was sold last weekend.

So especially for kids, there is zero ski and snow-wear left. This has led to sad and frustrated parents. One solution is combine a rain jacket and pants with warm fleece leggings and jacket underneath. If the kid(s) have a jacket or fleece already, it won't cost so much, and the separate garments are useful in Bay Area weather and temps. Some of the parents get it. Those used to getting what they want take more time, or walk out to try another store that they'll find also has nothing. I experience a slight bit of schadenfreude when they break down and buy the rain-wear/fleece I suggested.

Alternatively, I know stores in the towns around Lake Tahoe keep plenty of stock on-hand longer than the Bay Area stores. Since there's basically no gloves and boots left, these parents will have to stop in to the Tahoe-area shops anyway and pay extra.

Someone took neimo back in 2005, so I'm neim0
    Meh.