A Postmodern Desi

Actually, my car has always had the symptoms reported by the NHTSA, that little freakout the Prius gets on uneven surfaces (like crossing railroad tracks in wet weather). I've just learned to compensate for it. Mine's an 05...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35300624/ns/business-autos/from/ET

Palin was making wisecracks about Obama's teleprompter in her speech yesterday. But it turns out... she has her own cheat sheet...


(AP Photo)

closer...



Energy
Budget Tax cuts
Lift American Spirits

HuffPo has moar

When the meme becomes real news, the internets is over...

A Lesbian couple wants to adopt.

Religious fundies go nuts, send out email with photos of "the lesbian couple"

Umm ... not so much.

Frank: You don't look like a gay guy.
Dennis: That's because he's a bear.
Mac: What?
Dennis: He's a bear, you see some gay guys are twinks and other are bears, this gay guy is a bear. By the way, we are totally cool with that, to each his own
Frank: Wait I'm a little confused here, what's a twink?
Dennis: Twink is small and slender, like mac.
Mac: Whoa, no, I'm too muscular, I would be a bear.
Dennis: Uh, don't think so bro, not hairy enough.
Frank: Smooth. Now, I would be a bear.
Dennis: No, no, I see, I don't think you'd be a bear either, as a matter of fact I don't know what you'd be, you're definitely not a twink.
Frank: I'd be a top, that's for sure.
Mac: Can a twink be a top, or is that reserved for bears?
Dennis: I'm sure there's a great deal of switching back and forth but I think more often then not bears are tops, unless they happen to be power bottoms.
Frank: What's a power bottom?
Mac: A power bottom is a bottom that is capable of receiving an enormous amount of power.
Dennis: Actually Mac, you've got it backwards, you see, the power bottom is actually generating the power by doing most of the work.
Frank: Does power have to do with size or strength of the bottom?
Mac: Now Dennis, I heard speed has something to do with it.
Frank: Speed has everything to do with it. You see, the speed of the bottom informs the top how much pressure he's supposed to apply, speed's the name of the game.

heh.

No, not this Firefox:



This one!



It turns out that Russia has unveiled a new stealth fighter to compete against the F-22. The NATO codename for the Sukhoi's T-50 is Firefox.

ETA: "Think in Russian..."

If there is a supreme creator, s/he has a wacky sense of humor in creating a Rev. Fred Phelps and a Lady Gaga.



Westboro Baptist Church parodies Poker Face. Brain breaks.

Posted without comment, but plenty of lulz.

Donald duck wallpaper that has DDT embedded in it. Kills bugs, entertains the kids...
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/01/24/disney-logoed-ddt-im.html

A great flickr set...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/usairforce/sets/72157623087518481/

Okay, okay, I'm biased. Haiti has basically been the Alpha and Omega of my life since the quake struck, and I guess six or seven days devoted to that one story given the current culture of 24-hr news cycles, we were bound to go back to "junk food journalism" at some point.

TV that's been beaming us live reports from Haiti for days now was showing heavy coverage about the election in MA (left/right pundits yelling at each other), and a story about Tiger Woods having checked into a sex rehab clinic.

There are many journalists out there who struggle to try and tell compelling, interesting stories whose primary purpose is to inform the public square, rather than to inject yet another lurid detail into water-cooler gossip, but man ... Tiger Woods? REALLY? There are so many "real" stories... how did this get on the air?

I should just stick to the PBS NewsHour, which is generally above such things ... too bad they don't have an entire news channel dedicated in the same mold. They don't do junk food journalism.

...and a special thank you to merchimerch who provided yummy home-cooked food and great company this evening...I feel blessed!

Yay!

Powerful pictures.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/01/haiti_six_days_later.html


We have not stopped moving since the quake happened. Today's HuffPo has an article from the CEO of NetHope, who mentions some of our work - there's a lot more going on behind the scenes, too:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-brindley/bringing-technology-and-c_b_426289.html

Silicon Valley pitches in:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g6N5cRl3CmkwonM8W0p1Q3IYWWeQ

The quake is just the worst in a long series of catastrophes...tropical storms and hurricanes cause lots of damage too...

"Why does Haiti suffer a seemingly disproportionate number of natural disasters? The answer in that in large part, these are not natural disasters--they are human-caused disasters. Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. With oil too expensive for the impoverished nation, charcoal from burnt trees has provided 85% or more of the energy in Haiti for decades. As a result, Haiti's 9 million poor have relentlessly hunted and chopped down huge amounts of forest, leaving denuded mountain slopes that rainwater washes down unimpeded. Back in 1980, Haiti still had 25% of its forests, allowing the nation to withstand heavy rain events like 1987's Category 3 Hurricane Emily, without loss of life. But as of 2004, only 1.4% of Haiti's forests remained. Jeanne and Gordon were not even hurricanes--merely strong tropical storms--when they stuck Haiti, but the almost total lack of tree cover contributed to the devastating floods that killed thousands. And it doesn't even take a tropical storm to devastate Haiti--in May of 2004, three days of heavy rains from a tropical disturbance dumped more than 18 inches of rain in the mountains, triggering floods that killed over 2,600 people.

What can be done to reduce these human-worsened natural disasters? Education and poverty eradication are critical to improving things. In addition, reforestation efforts and promotion of alternative fuels are needed. In the past two decades, the U.S. Agency for International Development has planted some 60 million trees, while an estimated 10 to 20 million of these are cut down each year, according to the USAID director in Haiti, David Adams. If you're looking for a promising way to make a charitable donation to help Haitian flood victims, considering sending a check to the Lambi Fund of Haiti, which is very active in promoting reforestation efforts, use of alternative fuels, and infrastructure improvements at a grass-roots level to help avert future flood disasters."

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1413

Talked to a travel physician today about whether I could really go to Haiti. He confirmed that the overall risk would be low if I took the appropriate precautions against mosquitoes, but he would not be comfortable unless I had immediate access to medivac upon the first signs of fever, etc relative to my teammates who have no prior exposure.

Given the chaotic situation in Haiti, there's no way I'd be able to guarantee I'd get out on the next flight out of Port Au Prince if I suddenly had a fever, etc. It's listed as an extreme risk destination right now, for a reason!

Anyway, the first rule of emergency response is "don't bring more victims to the party" and in this case, I think the potential risk outweighs the benefit for me and the team and those we'd be serving.

There will be other disasters, many of them in the US where diseased mosquitoes are not an imminent threat to life and limb!

I was in the Dominican Republic not all that long ago, and I was working with refugees from Haiti:



So tonight I hope that all these kids and their families are okay. Communications are largely down in Haiti, and our team has been on the phone non-stop since this event occurred to various NGOs, government agencies, etc to assess their communications abilities. We have a lot of resources to bring on a situation like this...

It's going to be a busy few days for us.

(I was also explicitly told that I would *not* be deployed on this one if this were required, since my recent bout of dengue makes me a higher risk for medical complications. Dammit.)

"...we won't let it get us down, we're Californians..."

Let me hash out the series of events that will befall the readers on Engadget, just to take away some of the suspense.

1) Apple will release a beautiful tablet with a UI that no other company would have ever thought of implementing, but they will leave out a vital feature that most geeks (but not regular folk) find invaluable, like the ability to play music with a bitrate of infinity squared.

2) As a result of this missing feature, the geeks will angrily dismiss anyone who likes the so-called Tablet, including the editors of Engadget. In fact, the geeks will even question whether the Apple Tablet is actually a Tablet, due to this missing feature, which will be ironic because no such definition for what constitutes a "true" Tablet will currently exist. A new definition containing said missing feature will quickly be created by the offended geeks, for the sole purpose of bashing the Tablet henceforth.

3) Months later the Tablet will be released to glowing reviews and lines outside Apple Stores, enraging the offended geeks further. As a result, any Tablet related posts made by sites like Engadget will swell with angry geeks, dismissing the Tablet out of hand. Taunts of "Well, the iTablet is nice, unless you want to listen to music in a bitrate of infinity squared," will be repeated ad nauseum until it becomes an annoying cliche.

4) As a result of the popularity of said Tablet posts, sites like Engadget make even more Tablet related posts, which in turn, cause the angry geeks to accuse sites like Engadget of being "biased" for Apple. The click rates on the hated Tablet posts go even higher until invariably, it wins gadget of the year in magazines like Time.

5) Shortly after the iTablet makes a big splash and great sales, several companies will promise to come out with Tablets that contain the missing feature that the angry geeks have been wailing about, but the imitation Tablets can't quite "touch" the new revolutionary interface that Apple has designed expressly for their Tablet. As a result, the so-called "iTablet Killers" don't make quite as big as an impact.

6) The few people who are actually brave enough to praise Apple for the iTablet, will mock the new "iTablet Killers" by pointing out just how much the other companies rip off Apple's new revolutionary UI. The angry geeks will respond in turn by pointing out that Apple didn't invent Tablets, and will even dig out an obscure company in Romania that did Apple's revolutionary UI first.

7) The controversy about the iTablet finally dies down when rumors surface that Apple is working on a new gaming console. Angry geeks everywhere start tearing their hair out.