rare bird

scifi.com/battlestar

Looks like I finally caught that cold that's been hovering around my workplace for weeks. Will this mean I blog more or less? We'll find out. Starve a cold? Feed a fever? Should I follow the quarantine rule and not go to work to avoid spreading the bug, or should I work no matter what as long as I can think?

Hallelujah! It looks like the opposition got everything it needed to ensure a fair and free election on Dec. 26th. It may be difficult after that, but at least the orange movement has gotten this far.

I talked with Igor on the phone yesterday. He said that the whole experience of living in Kiev during this orange revolution has been like nothing in his life he's ever experienced before. His relationships with many people have changed. People that he was only acquaintances with before the election are now friends, since they share the bond of demonstrating for Yushchenko. People who he never talked to before are now good acquaintances for the same reason. And people whom he thought were or could be friends are no longer, because they said they support Yushchenko but refused to participate in the demonstrations. His father (also Yelena's father) did not support the demonstrations. Their relationship has always been difficult - now it is nearly impossible. His father said that it is not worth it to go to the square, it accomplishes nothing, and getting killed for accomplishing nothing is meaningless. It seems to me that instead, meaninglessness comes from persons w...

Season Four of '24' is coming ... I don't know how long it's been posted on their site, but Fox says episode 1 will be Jan. 9th at 8pm / 7 Central. I haven't been there for ages but thought I would check. I was hoping they would be working on a new season of one of the finest series on television, but I wasn't sure they would.

I found this by accident, since I listen to KCRW online sometimes. Turns out there was only about a half-hour or so left. It was still worth it - and you can still listen to the archive at the link. Looks like his new album 'Hotel' is coming out soon - this is why they had him in.

If you work in Word a lot, you probably wonder if there isn't a faster or better way to do things. Indeed there is! Check out this section of O'Reilly and see what you can do better and faster than before. Hacks include: #3: Hack your shortcut menus #23: Make PDF's without Acrobat #100: Google without leaving Word Highly recommended (as is everything at O'Reilly).

This is probably old hat to most of you, but I discovered today I still didn't know how to stop tooltips from appearing. This walkthrough on getting rid of annoyances covers almost everything in a nice, systematic way.

- From VisionMan, our Entertainment and Lifestyle editor. Does this mean the upper-crust can now afford their own mobile nuclear arsenals? I can see the marketing now: "First you had the missiles. Now increase your range on a global scale with your own personal attack submarine!" I'm sure Tom Clancy would be interested.

Kuchma has not been foolhardy at all, so far as I can tell. He seems, like Putin, to be a politician of the highest ability. He is trying very hard to checkmate Yushchenko so that even if Y. wins he will have lost the ability to produce any real change as president. So we won't see the Russian army taking over Kiev. On account of the response the EU/NATO/UN would give to an obvious threat to Europe's security? If this is the case, then I guess NATO has won the Cold War, and we are in a new era, one where Russia cannot project power by flexing military muscle. The only reason I bring it up is because one does not have to go that far back in time to remember the Russian army invading Ukraine, ostensibly to save it from the Nazis, but in reality to keep it under Russian control. These memories are fresh in the minds of Yelena's grandparents and parents, I am sure. When we talk about public opinion, whose is Putin afraid of offending? Ukraine's? Remember, most Russians...

This is a link to an NPR story about Neil Innes, the man responsible for Monty Pyton's music. I never even realized it was one person. He's still touring, though his newer songs have a more satirical bent.

Note: this is not mine. It's beautiful, though. Just like the 12 days, it goes through all of these individually before the end. I'm only showing the end, though. when the twelfth bug appeared, my manager said to me 1. tell them its a feature, 2. say it's not supported, 3. change the documentation, 4. blame it on the hardware, 5. find a way around it, 6. say they need an upgrade, 7. reinstall the software, 8. ask for a dump, 9. use a debugger, 10. try to reproduce it, 11. ask them how they did it, 12. see if it happens again.

I wish Blogger expanded postings automatically so the casual reader would see comments. Since they don't, I'll keep posting comments manually when they're really good. This one is from our guest resident scholar in international affairs, Hamlet: I think the answer to this question depends on what the scale of the violence is and where the source of the violence is. It really depends on who starts it and what form it takes. Kuchma would be foolhardy to instigate the masses, and there is no way to see Russia brazenly rolling tanks into Kiev. There would be easier ways to bring the military into this story that would not galvanize the ever important public opinion. Perhaps the violence will start with a Yushchenko supporter targeting part of the political infrastructure. This isn't too unthinkable. It could be as benign as a building vandalized, or as bad as an assassination attempt (poison seems to be a preferred method here ;) ). Or, perhaps Russian spesnatz w...

Rare birders are secret admirers of Apple and everything it stands for. They really wish they owned a Mac, though they never have. They can only imagine how nice it is. They think IBM (or Sony, or any other worthy company) projecting Apple into the economic stratosphere would be an immensely wonderful thing.

Somehow I just find him hard to believe. Couldn't say why. Must be those clenched teeth behind his face. I think Putin deserves our confidence as much as, oh, say Kim Jong Il?

This is an excellent analysis of where the situation currently stands, with an eye towards the end. It also appreciates the supreme power of the president in Ukrainian politics and that defying him is a long hard slog. I wish more members of the western press, not to mention western politicians, understood the situation this well.

This was written by the BBC on Nov. 25: The political crisis in Ukraine looks as though it will head towards one of three outcomes. 1: The government candidate for president, Viktor Yanukovich (who has been declared the election winner) will back down in the face of large scale protests and accusations of fraud. 2: The opposition supporters, who've been on the streets to back their man, Viktor Yushchenko, will grow tired and dispirited and will melt away. 3: There will be a violent confrontation. Mr Yushchenko is certainly trying to keep up the pressure. He's called for a general strike starting today. The extent to which that strike call is heeded and could well give us a clue as to how things will unfold. From Kiev here's our correspondent, Sarah Rainsford. First Broadcast 25th November 2004 #1 has not happened, but if the Supreme Court declares the election invalid it won't matter. The question is whether or not Pres. Kuchma will back d...

Scientists from the RAND Corporation have created this model to illustrate how a "home computer" could look like in the year 2004. However the needed technology will not be economically feasible for the average home. Also the scientists readily admit that the computer will require not yet invented technology to actually work, but 50 years from now scientific progress is expected to solve those problems. With teletype interface and the FORTRAN language, the computer will be easy to use. If this is any guide, it suggests that our predictions for 2054 have to take into account that computers then will be a lot smaller, even more affordable, and use more technology that hasn't yet been invented!

Orange Christmas! 

Kuchma and Putin have come to an agreement. Neither of them will agree to Yuschenko's demands that a re-run of the runoff between him and Yanukovich proceed; they want completely new elections with new candidates, and two rounds again. This way Kuchma can choose another apprentice whom he thinks is more attractive than Yanukovich. Kuchma also made an announcement that the situation is causing a banking crisis, and that the exchange rate was going to jump five times from what it is now. The announcement caused a panicked run on the banks that nearly did cause the exchange rate to jump that much. Now all the business owners can think about, including Igor's boss, is their cash and accounts. The result of this evil plot is that momentum of the democratic movement has been challenged. The Supreme Court has gone into chambers to make a decision about whether or not the election was valid. They do not have the power to order a new election.