Nate Edel's blog
Via the Portsmouth Herald:
BRENTWOOD – The “family jewels” of one Brentwood man recently were locked up for two weeks – literally.
On Saturday, July 30, at about 3:40 a.m., Brentwood police assisted ambulance and rescue personnel with a 39-year-old man with a padlock on his testicles.
via DBA
From the Times Online in the UK: Young men suffering from ‘early life crisis’
ONE in seven of Britain’s young men is anxiety ridden, according to a new report. Instead of enjoying their carefree twenties and thirties, men are racked with worry about employment issues, time pressures and financing their lifestyles.
While one in ten of men of all ages feels that the pressure of modern living is too much to handle, the anxiety peaks among those aged 25-44 who feel stressed and overworked.
Via AmericaBLOG
(I resembled those remarks quite a lot a few years ago… still a little bit now. Ah well.)
OK, there are a few fanfic stories I’d really like to read. Perhaps I’ll get to writing one someday; more likely not.
Two alternate versions of Harry Turtledove’s Lizards/Worldwar books:
1) “Fleetlord Atvar and the Cuban Missile Crisis”
2) Lizards arrive in 2021, as described/implied in John Birmingham’s Axis of Time Trilogy
Harry Potter:
1) Book 7 ends with Harry and Voldemort, the way Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards ended
2) An alternate universe where Harry joined Slytherin house
There are some others I’m forgetting now, perhaps I’ll update this later
I have zero idea how long the blog has been down; I may have to set up a script to mail me if it goes down again — being that as it may, it wasn’t software; the server was quite visible here in the apartment, and the SFChat.org address stayed up… it was a DNS problem.
If this means nothing to you, don’t sweat it. We’re back now, and should remain up and running until, well, something else goes wrong. I’m sort of tempted to see about moving the blog to a real hosting provider, but since nobody really reads this anyway, well, I like the geek factor of running my own server. It just has its downsides, as we’ve just seen.
Via comp.sys.ibm-pc.chips, on the Inquirer: Smoking laptop nearly brings down plane
Person with burning crotch
By Nick Farrell: Friday 15 July 2005, 08:12
AN AUSSIE aircraft hit panic stations after the smell from an overheated laptop was thought to mean that the plane was on fire.
Older story, but worth reposting here….
Calif. housing bubble seen deflating
UCLA researchers see prices flattening
Updated: 5:37 p.m. ET June 21, 2005
SAN FRANCISCO – California has a housing bubble, but it may not pop with a bang, UCLA researchers said in a quarterly economic forecast.
Sounds like wishful thingking. I’ll believe it when I see it.
From The Chronicle of Higher Education : Bloggers Need Not Apply
What is it with job seekers who also write blogs? Our recent faculty search at Quaint Old College resulted in a number of bloggers among our semifinalists. Those candidates looked good enough on paper to merit a phone interview, after which they were still being seriously considered for an on-campus interview.
That’s when the committee took a look at their online activity.
In some cases, a Google search of the candidate’s name turned up his or her blog. Other candidates told us about their Web site, even making sure we had the URL so we wouldn’t fail to find it. In one case, a candidate had mentioned it in the cover letter. We felt compelled to follow up in each of those instances, and it turned out to be every bit as eye-opening as a train wreck.
If I head back to grad school, I will take this seriously into account in terms of whether to keep this site live. As long as I’m in IT, I don’t think it matters. Heck, some eccentricity is expected.
(Passed on by an friend.)
A two-bedroom, two-bathroom mobile home perched on a lot in Malibu is selling for $1.4 million. This isn’t a greedy seller asking a ridiculous amount no one will pay. Two others sold in the area recently for $1.3 million and $1.1 million. Another, at $1.8 million, is in escrow. Nearby, another lists for $2.7 million.
This is JUST for the trailer itself — you still have to pay RENT on the land that you do not own (nearly $3k a month on top of the million). I do like California weather, but I think I’ll take a little bit of snow for sanity in housing prices.
Housing may sting more than dot.com bust
Whether it’s a national bubble or just pockets of regional froth, an end to surge in home prices could inflict economic harm that would make the 2000 tech bust look tame in comparison.
Duh.
More discussion at “Housing crash to be worse than dot.com bust?” on AMERICAblog.
Bugger.
On CNN via DBA:
“This is to inform you of my decision to retire from my position as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, effective upon the nomination and confirmation of my successor.
“It has been a great privilege, indeed, to have served as a member of the Court for 24 terms.
“I will leave it with enormous respect for the integrity of the Court and its role under our constitutional structure.”
Lots of talk on AMERICAblog, MyDD, DailyKos, and I’m sure all the other usual suspects as well.
It cannot possibly be overemphasized how much damage an unbalanced conservative court could to to civil liberties in this country. This was why I vehemently opposed Bush in 2000, and is probably more important even than the war issue today. Get involved, stay involved.
SCIENTISTS have created eerie zombie dogs, reanimating the canines after several hours of clinical death in attempts to develop suspended animation for humans.
US scientists have succeeded in reviving the dogs after three hours of clinical death, paving the way for trials on humans within years.
Via RASSF
High court OKs personal property seizures
The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that local governments may seize people’s homes and businesses — even against their will — for private economic development.
[…]
“The city has carefully formulated an economic development that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including — but by no means limited to — new jobs and increased tax revenue,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.He was joined by Justice Anthony Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.
Granted, this kind of crap is nothing new – it’s a favorite tactic of some big box stores. But I’d always figure that the SCOTUS would set some bar to it if it ever got there, or at least that it would be the pro-business conservatives.
In all, I’m ashamed to be lumped under the same “liberal” label as this decision… on the other hand, major props to Justice O’Connor both for her adissent, and for this particularly apt note:
“Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random,” O’Connor wrote. “The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms.”
via Eddy on the DBA mailing list.
Typo corrected: 2005-07-11T04:53:32