I was referred by Plastic from Time To Pay The Piper to this amusing parable by William F. Buckley on the National Review called A Parable: The Tenth Man. In it, he poses the current tax situation and relative tax burdens of various members of society as a group of ten men eating dinner. Each man represents a tenth of society. It’s supposed to educate you about last year’s tax cut. I’ll reproduce it here for you:

“Every night, ten men met at a restaurant for dinner. At the end of the meal, the... [More]”

With the President still enjoying huge ratings in most polls, others are feeling much more confident in taking the “with us, or against us” message to new fronts. Former Secretary of Education, William Bennet, has founded Americans for Victory over Terrorism. The aim of the organization is to “take to task those groups and individuals who fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the war we are facing”, or basically, to educate America’s citizens about their wrong-headed liberal views. It’s principles... [More]

Iraq is due to be rolled on next. It’s been almost ten years since all-out war there. Bombings are still going on there now (“…in 1999/2000, according to the Pentagon, the US flew 24,000 “combat missions” over Iraq”). What have the sanctions been like there? John Pilger published this article on March 21st, 2002 about the state of Iraq today, after over a decade of sanctions. He discusses the supreme irony of the U.S. and Britain, two powers with plenty of blood on their hands, imposing... [More]

Wired Magazine’s April issue has Peace Is War which covers in detail the degree to which the U.S. military stranglehold exists.The author, Bruce Sterling, attributes much of the power to not just an immense arsenal, but also to multifarious space-based military capabilities. In fact, he’s christened the Persian Gulf War as Space War I and the Yugoslavian carpet-bombing as the Second Space War. Space War III is in its final stages right now and was exacted upon Afghanistan.

Secretary of Defense... [More]

Next stop for the War on Terror Express? Iraq. Why? Ostensibly because Iraq refuses to allow inspectors into the country to look into the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction. Forget the incredible irony of the double-standard at work here. Forget that Iraq has been under crippling sanctions for over a decade. Let’s just take for granted that fewer weapons of mass destruction in this world is good.

Unfortunately, that isn’t the agenda of the U.S. The previous unalloyed statement needs a... [More]

In an announcement that has simultaneously stunned the auto world and silenced vocal critics, Porsche AG issued a recall yesterday on all 911 models. The recall covers all model years from the 1982 Coupe and Targa to the present day Coupe, Targa, Cabriolet, Carrera, and GT2.

Citing numerous incidents of vigilantism that ended up destroying several vehicles in the New York City area and endangering consumer’s lives, Porsche has determined that the model name’s stigma now “…constitutes a real... [More]”

The Mac Expo last week announced the latest IMac. I think Mark Morford summed it up best in Please Lick This iMac:

<q>It looks like a big vanity mirror stuck atop a large scoop of white rice. It’s utterly annoying in that whole getting-it-right sort of way. It forces you to justify instant feelings of rabid consumerism. It makes you want one. Immediately.</q>

The New York Times had an equally delirious article, For Apple, to Be Flat Is a Virtue.

<q>In other words, Apple’s new design manages... [More]

Cassandra Claire has written the definitive, behind-the-scenes diaries kept by the stars of the the Fellowship of the Ring (Lord of the Rings). The diaries are scattered throughout her(?) online journal, but have been gathered together very nicely here* and, if that site’s not working, here. As both pages mention, the diaries are the most fun when read in order. The diaries are rife with homoerotic humor, but it’s mostly pretty funny. My favorites are Ringwraith #5 and Legolas (still the... [More]

If you’re in the market for a new display system, there’s an extensive review of the latest and greatest video cards on the Tech Report called ATI vs. NVIDIA: The next generation…. The first 4 pages are just geeky pictures of the video cards themselves (though, being a geek, I think the cards look pretty nice). The ‘contest’ begins on page 5, with basic system specs for the test harness and raw throughput numbers for each of the cards. The cards compared are the “Radeon 7500 vs. GeForce4 MX 440... [More]”

Quantum Picture develops image-recognition technology. Their proof-of-concept is an ingenious automated cat-flap that prevents kitty from bringing in any unwelcome guests (as cats are wont to do). It’s called the Flo Control Project. You can see a picture of Flo standing in front of her high-tech door, which is commercially available as Cat Mate, to the left.

Basically, the setup has a digital camera and a lamp, the lamp projects a silhouette of the cat’s head onto a screen, then the camera... [More]

The American Mathematical Society recently published a paper titled All Questions Answered (PDF):

“On October 5, 2001, at the Technische Universität München, Donald Knuth presented a lecture entitled “All Questions Answered”. The lecture drew an audience of around 350 people.”

Donald Knuth is the grand old man of programming. He published the The Art of Computer Programming Vols. I-III (with the fourth one on it’s way, believe it or not) and invented T_EX and METAFONT, the definitive document... [More]

Kodak is hosting a feature called On the Road: American Mile Markers. Matt Frondorf drove across the country from New York City to San Fransisco, taking a picture every mile out the passenger side window of his car. The camera was hooked to the odometer and fired every mile, but every 36 miles, he’d have to change the film he didn’t pull over or stop.

“I would count the miles,“ he says. “As soon as the thirty-sixth came, I would change rolls, put the exposed roll in a canister, enter its number... [More]”

Back in January, Microsoft announced that their next version of Windows would consolidate their multifarious data-stores into one package. Currently, they have NTFS, SQL-Server and the Exchange format to house and index data. This was reported and covered in detail by the Register in XP successor Longhorn goes SQL….

Recently, the Register ran an interview with Benoit Schillings and Dominic Giampaolo, both of BeOS fame, called Windows on a database…. The BeOS probably came the closest to... [More]

Marco’s Papers, Notes, Research & Manuals are now available for browsing. All existing documentation has been reformatted, cleaned up to valid HTML 4.01 Strict standards and collected under a shared style sheet (not earthli themes, though). The listing has also been re-organized to provide a full chronological listing and a project listing.

John Carmack made a couple of interesting posts to his .plan file recently. If you’re interested in seeing what the best 3d graphics programmer in the world is doing and thinking, check out his .plan from February 11, 2002. In it, he talks about implementing the Radeon-specific rendering instructions for the DOOM engine.

Of particular interest to those in the market for a video card when his next engine comes out is this quote: “Do not buy a GeForce4-MX for Doom.” He goes into some detail as to... [More]

The April issue of the C++ Users Journa[1] published a letter by Ashley Williams pointing out yet another wart of C++. For any class in C++, you may declare as many member variables as you like. Each one of these member variables may be initialized in the constructor in the “initializer list”. References, in fact, must be initialized in this list.

Now, if you had to guess, in which order would those initializers be called? In the order they’re written? Remember that parameters passed to a... [More]

The LA Times recently leaked a document called the “Nuclear Posture Review” (excerpts, briefing). In it, contingencies are discussed about using nuclear weapons in the current campaign, under which conditions they’d be used and against whom and which types are needed and must be developed/tested further.

I suppose the obvious questions is why can’t the U.S. just say they wouldn’t use nuclear weapons? I mean, I thought they were the good guys. I understand about carrying a big stick, but when... [More]

Well, let’s recap. Almost a year ago, it was reported that Ashcroft Holds Prayer Meetings at White House. These are Pentacostal prayer meetings, are not enforced on staff, and in no way blur the separation of church and state. Ahem.

More recently, John Ashcroft’s Perilous Nipples by Mark Morford of the SF Gate explains that Ashcroft is afraid of nudity:

“…order[ed] his very own Justice Department to spend $8,000 to purchase heavy blue drapes to cover the two large, noble, partially naked... [More]”

The earthli Christmas theme beta program is over and user complaints have been addressed. The christmas theme is now the default for the holidays. For more holiday-related stuff, check out Oz’s new pictures.

The New York Newsday reported a Stunning Turn of Events… recently. In a somewhat transparent attempt to provide some continuity from the attack on Afghanistan to a continued war in Somalia, the Pentagon announced recently that a GPS from a soldier killed in Somalia (and whose name Black Hawk Down has entered into the public consciousness) has been found in Afghanistan. Whereas this should be more than is needed to satisfy an unquestioning public, an Army reporter noted immediately that the... [More]

The New York Newsday is reporting that Vatican Reaffirms Anti-homosexual Stand. In a stunning turnaround of events, the church has admitted that it has deep-rooted problems and has accepted all blame for them, vowing to do better and fix their problems. Just kidding.

“Noting that most reported cases of sex abuse have involved priests and boys, Catholic officials in Rome have reaffirmed their stand against homosexuality, saying gays should not become priests.”

I knew it was the gays. Damn it,... [More]

SatireWire published Closed Disinformation Agency Can’t Convince Staff It’s Closed, which does Joseph Heller proud with Rumsfeld playing the role of Major Major and a subordinate filling in for Milo.

““We got ya, sir, we’re ‘closed’,” said a winking Major Chad Brumley when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld found him at his desk again today. “There is no one here spreading misinformation now, and certainly there won’t be anyone here spreading misinformation daily from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sir.””

By this point, you should have heard of the new hit spin-off from the Department of Defense (formerly called the War Department) called the Office of Strategic Influence. As reported in the New York Times in Pentagon Readies Efforts to Sway Sentiment Abroad, this office would be in charge of:

<q> … developing plans to provide news items, possibly even false ones, to foreign media organizations as part of a new effort to influence public sentiment and policy makers in both friendly and... [More]

The Register is covering the ongoing Microsoft trial, which has entered the penalty phase. As a bit of background, the states are basically proposing that Microsoft make Windows more modular, so that OEMs can distribute versions of Windows with other vendor applications replacing Microsoft versions. This seems to make sense and at least begins to address Microsoft’s crippling monopoly on the desktop by allowing even the possibility that, upon purchasing a computer from a major vendor, one might... [More]

America Sells Itself Out for Stability on the New York Newsday is a fantastic piece by Ralph Peters, “a retired Army officer and the author of two books on strategy”. He very succintly and calmly points out that quite a lot of the U.S. problems in the world today stem directly from a foreign policy that supports ideals exactly opposite to those the U.S. espouses.

While the premise is not new, his approach is much more factual and far less hyperbolic. He arrives at the modern-day reality that the... [More]

John Pilger published an article on March 7, 2002 in the New Statesman about President Chavez of Venezuela. It seems that Venezuela is having trouble learning the lessons of its neighbors in the 20th Century. The story is the same as that told many times before. Democratically-elected left-leaning government nationalizes private oil industry and implements land reforms (which involves giving unused lands away to those that might make use of it) in order to address crippling poverty in over 80%... [More]

osOpinion has an interview with Jef Raskin, …Jef Raskin Talks Skins…, one of the original UI designers for the Macintosh.

Skinning is all the rage with many applications these days (like earthli.com’s themes). A lot of the time, it seems that the designer is more interested in the fun had making the skin or the look of it than the actual usability of it. Apple recently drew criticism for keeping its UI, “Aqua”, closed to skinning in order to provide a more consistent interface for users.
... [More]

Sometimes it’s so hard to keep track of U.S. foreign policy. Especially when trying to figure out where tax money is being spent on making war. There are so many levels of funding available:

1. Foreign aid to oppresive regimes to “stabilize” the local government (think Saudi Arabia)
2. Overt military aid in the form of actual hardware (think Israel)
3. U.S. military “advisors” in the field (think CIA and who knows where they all are)
4. U.S. Troop deployment (bases in over 100 countries, but recently,... [More]

Examples abound of things that are happening (or have happened, fait accompli) that are morally and ethically offensive, but that’s that and move right along. Nat Hentoff wrote Big John Wants Your Reading List for the Village Voice revealing that Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act (oh yeah, it passed, remember?) “…would grant FBI agents across the country breathtaking authority to obtain an order from the FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] court . . . requiring any person or business... [More]”