Month: September 2005

Sunday, 11 September 2005

Cold and Snappish Sounds Refreshing

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on Cold and Snappish Sounds Refreshing

Newsweek’s How Bush Blew it is only the latest report that Bush’s public distant, giggly, good-buddy facade covers a cold, distant, shoot-the-messenger defensiveness.

Makes me wonder what it would take to get one of these rumored tirades recorded and distributed around the internets.

Watching the authentic, backstage Bush go off, unprotected by co-dependent Telephone Sanitizers, would be a refreshing change.

Update: Good stuff in Dan Froomkin’s Now They Tell Us. One-stop read on the political impact of Katrina.

What I Read in the Sunday Paper – Sept 11, 2005

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on What I Read in the Sunday Paper – Sept 11, 2005

I started ignoring the Star Tribune’s OpEx section almost immediately after we signed up for the Sunday home delivery. I was expecting well thought through logical arguments rather than the ‘look-a-shiny-thing-that-supports-my-position’ ignorance so popular on television “news”. But, like I said, I don’t read it.

Today, I started reading the headline. Half way into the article, I realized I read this before. Of course, it’s the Thomas Friedman piece I read 4 days ago online. Yeah, it’s a good piece. But um, this is the Minneapolis Star Tribune not the New York Times. If I wanted to read the New York Times, I’d read the New York Times. Christ. I’m looking to the Strib for a local take on events, not a repeat of what I’ve already read from East Coasters.

Here’s the rest of what I paid attention to this Sunday, September 11, 2005:

  • Money & Business; skimmed the headline – on how Katrina won’t effect our economy as much as 9/11. Read the first half of the data recovery story. That was actually interesting – small local company recovering the hard drives damaged in the Lake George flood. Comment & question to the Strib M&B editor; the caption and photo in Ross Levin’s article made no sense. Should I expect a photo of last original German-made VW Beetle every time you need to quickly fill column inches?
  • Variety; Skimmed headlines, nothing seemed very interesting. Read horoscope – something about being more mature about money.
  • Arts & Entertainment; Read the callouts on Green Day and the upcoming SoundUnseen festival. Reminds me, Andrew Gruhn‘s putting together a podcast for it, keep an eye on PodcastMN for it.
  • Metro; Read the profile of mayoral candidate Farheen Hakeem. I’m glad she’s running. It’s good to have a young, Muslim, Green party, woman running against a sea of middle-age white men. Since I’m not in Mpls proper, I first heard about Farheen from Peter Idusogie on Inside Minnesota Politics.
  • Comics; Calvin & Hobbes (I agree with Mark, it’s good to have Calvin back, even in reruns), Get Fuzzy, Doonesbury, Dilbert, For Better or Worse, Close to Home, Boondocks, 9 Chickweed Lane (clever, real clever)
  • Opinion; The headline said it was going to compare Minneapolis and Vancouver, cool. It didn’t (double checked to make sure I wasn’t in the Travel section). Paged through, nothing else seemed competent.
  • Best Buy weekly ad; looks like I have all the electronics I need right now
  • Circuit City weekly ad; huh, DVD-R’s for $.25 each. Now if it only didn’t take forever to burn a DVD.

Looks like I missed this good article on Edina Rep. Ron Erhardt wanting to actually solve transportation problems. Thanks to the Minnesota Politics Guru for pointing it out. This bloggers-as-mass-media-filter seems to be working real well.

Friday, 9 September 2005

A Suggestion for Shareware-ing TV and Movies

by Garrick van Buren 1 Comment on A Suggestion for Shareware-ing TV and Movies

I’ve got a handful of password-protected PDF files. I can share those files with anyone, back them up on as many computers or discs as I’d like. If I want to actually read them, I need the password. The password cost me a $10 or $50 or what have you.

I’d like to see this model applied to TV shows and movies. If I want to watch my favorite TV shows for free – then I have to wait for a new episode each week and have it interrupted by commercials. If I’d rather watch on back-to-back episodes on my schedule, here’s $50 for the digital files and a password to open them. I’m far more comfortable paying for .movs than I am DVDs.

As a quick aside, this is what Doug Kaye talks about for IT Conversations in his conversation with Moira Gunn.

What about crackers writing patches to break this loose DRM? Yes, that’ll happen as it has and as it always will. They don’t really care about your stuff anyway, they’re just looking for something to break. If you’re real worried about that, just makes the files available for download and on BitTorrent and put a ‘Pay $50 to remove this message’ over the video. I’m confident a quick search at MacUpdate.com or VersionTracker.com will shake out more than a handful of software developers this model is working very well for.

TV and movie producers – if you’d still like a place in my daily life, I’m going to need your stuff in a format that fits my life. I’m not interested in filling my closets with DVDs or chaining myself to the sofa to purge the TiVo recordings. I’d much rather play your latest offering in the few moments I have in waiting rooms.

I’m weaning myself off public radio for this exact reason and I like them.

What Podcast Really Stands for

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on What Podcast Really Stands for

Aside from sounding cool, “podcasting” is a combination of ‘ipod’ and ‘broadcast’ To deflect the impression that ‘podcasting’ requires an iPod (it doesn’t). Doc Searls has recommended the name stands for;

“Personal Option Digital ‘casting”

Others have suggested

“Personal On-Demand ‘Casting”

Both are fine backronyms, though I prefer CyborgName’s response:


Person Optimized for Destruction, Ceaseless Assassination and Scientific Troubleshooting

An Evil Genius With the Personal Touch

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on An Evil Genius With the Personal Touch

I received my Evil Genius stuff package from Dave Slusher today. If you’re not familiar, Dave’s selling the Gentle Readers’ HiHoney and EGC t-shirts to support both his podcast and the band.

This month, he’s donating $25 of the $35 to the Red Cross. How could you not support that.

Opening up the package; yes, there’s a t-shirt and yes, there’s CD. Neatly tucked in the shirt are two pleasant surprises.

  1. August 27/28 from Dave’s George Carlin Quote of the Day calendar. Entertaining in itself. Flip it over and there’s a personal, handwritten note from Dave.
  2. Dave’s business card promoting Evil Genius Chronicles and Voices In Your Head. Again useful and hand in itself. Flip it over, and it’s one of Hugh Macleod’s gapingvoid blogcards. You know I’m a big fan of Hugh. Yeah, that really made my day.

Thanks Dave and yes, there’s photo forthcominghere’s the photo:

Evil Genius Style Council - Van Buren Branch

Thursday, 8 September 2005

Hugh Laurie on KCRW’s the Treatment

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on Hugh Laurie on KCRW’s the Treatment

Elvis Mitchell interviewing Hugh Laurie from Fox’s House – my favorite new show. It’s a great listen. I was completely taken aback by Hugh’s extremely British accent. I think that’s a mark of a fantastic actor – being able to remove yourself from the character completely.

On a slightly related note, Cayenne Chris‘ voice does a marathon of identities in the latest Teknikal Diffikulties.

This reminds me that in this week’s episode, where House admits he still loves his ex, he attempts to walk without his cane.

Honestly, if he would have succeeded in making that first step, I would have stopped watching. House is a great character because of the contrast of this most obvious weakness and his bitter, curt, authority. If he ever loses that weakness, the show will jump the shark.

Wednesday, 7 September 2005

Katrina – Timeline of Events

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on Katrina – Timeline of Events

Think Progress has a comprehensives Katrina Timeline. I thought it could use as much Google Juice as possible.

Two sections are good to remember.

Friday, August 26

GOV. KATHLEEN BLANCO DECLARES STATE OF EMERGENCY IN LOUISIANA: [Office of the Governor]

GULF COAST STATES REQUEST TROOP ASSISTANCE FROM PENTAGON: At a 9/1 press conference, Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, commander, Joint Task Force Katrina, said that the Gulf States began the process of requesting additional forces on Friday, 8/26. [DOD]

Saturday, August 27

5AM — KATRINA UPGRADED TO CATEGORY 3 HURRICANE

GOV. BLANCO ASKS BUSH TO DECLARE FEDERAL STATE OF EMERGENCY IN LOUISIANA: “I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments, and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a disaster.”

FEDERAL EMERGENCY DECLARED, DHS AND FEMA GIVEN FULL AUTHORITY TO RESPOND TO KATRINA: “Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency.”

Wednesday, August 31

PRESIDENT BUSH FINALLY ORGANIZES TASK FORCE TO COORDINATE FEDERAL RESPONSE: Bush says on Tuesday he will “fly to Washington to begin work…with a task force that will coordinate the work of 14 federal agencies involved in the relief effort.”

Thursday, September 1

8AM — BUSH CLAIMS NO ONE EXPECTED LEVEES TO BREAK: “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.”

I believe Amazon’s Free Shipping estimated delivery is 4 days, even then you get a tracking number.

George Lakoff on Katrina – Failure of Moral Values

by Garrick van Buren 1 Comment on George Lakoff on Katrina – Failure of Moral Values

In a nice follow up to my earlier There’s No Helping the NeoCons post, George Lakoff comments that Katrina was not only a natural disaster and federal failure, it was a complete failure of the Republican moral and political philosophy.

(emphasis is Lakoff’s)

“The [right-wing conservatives] central principle: Government has no useful role. The only common good is the sum of individual goods. It’s the difference between We’re all in this together and You’re on your own, buddy. It’s the difference between Every citizen is entitled to protection and You’re only entitled to what you can afford. It’s the difference between connection and separation. It is this difference in moral and political philosophy that lies behind the tragedy of Katrina.”

Tuesday, 6 September 2005