2002/3/15
I'm typing this in an Internet café in Apollo Bay. The computers are quite ancient, but they're sufficiently unprotected for me to download PuTTY and ssh home.
I spent most of today on a coach travelling down the Great Ocean Road. Not the most luxurious form of travel. If you have to catch a coach, you're well advised to take a source of music and headphones. (The headphones cannot be stressed enough; i.e., not like the dude with the boombox across the aisle who was sharing his taste in nu-metal with the other passengers; granted, he had the volume down, but why bother?)
Discovery of the day: the perfect soundtrack for riding down the Great Ocean Road is Slowdive's Pygmalion; it goes sublimely with the scenery (surf on deserted rocky beaches, roads winding around desolate craggy cliffs, etc.); and seeing the approach to Lorne open up two minutes into Blue Skied An' Clear was just perfect.
Righto, that's enough blogging for now; I'm off. Blogging will probably be sporadic or nonexistent over the next few days.
Scientists in Israel have found a connection between fast music and dangerous driving. As the tempo increases, drivers take more risks and drive like maniacs. (Which confirms my observations, some years ago, on the effects of goa trance whilst driving down the freeway.)
Nifty: A program which locates found haiku in text files. Well, found senryu, to be precise. (It needs Python 2.2, as it uses generators.) (via bOING bOING)
Stop hating us or face the consequences: The editor of US conservative publication National Review wants to nuke Mecca if there are any more terrorist attacks. Ever the humanitarian, he argues that Mecca should be a target because "few people would die and it would send a signal". And probably start a holy war against America by the 99.999% of Muslims who, prior to the attack, had no sympathy for the terrorists. Of course, such retaliation can be averted by threatening to nuke other cities in the Islamic world if there is any outpouring of anti-American sentiment:
"Damascus, Cairo, Algiers, Tripoli, and Riyadh should be put on alert that any signs of support for the attacks in their cities will bring immediate annihilation."
(via bOING bOING)
The Digital Consumer Bill of Rights; which reads curiously like Aleister Crowley:
- Users have the right to "time-shift" content that they have legally acquired.
- Users have the right to "space-shift" content that they have legally acquired.
- Users have the right to make backup copies of their content.
- Users have the right to use legally acquired content on the platform of their choice.
- Users have the right to translate legally acquired content into comparable formats.
- Users have the right to
kill those who would thwart these rightsuse technology in order to achieve the rights previously mentioned.