Dirac Angestun Gesept

This was, as always, loads of fun and one of the highlights of the conference for me.

After being royally skunked in the final round every time in the past, I’ve finally managed to win instead of coming in a distant second; I now have a spiffy Google lava lamp to show for my efforts. It’s not blue, though.

Oh, and some books and hats and t-shirts, including one of the no longer being sold printed 4.4BSD Daemon shirts, autographed by Marshall Kirk McKusick himself.

(It is, however, XXL and therefore a bit large to actually wear…framing for display is being considered instead.)

The Amazing Race is the only reality-competition show I consider worth watching (barring stuff like Scrapheap Challenge, of course, which doesn’t have meaningful monetary prizes).

Season 5 is now close enough to show up in the TiVo’s guide data.

As the official website puts it, “Don’t miss the 90-minute broadcast premiere of THE AMAZING RACE at a special time, 9:30PM ET/PT, Tuesday July 6th.”

I’m at the USENIX Annual Technical Conference all this week.

The conference has Wi-Fi coverage, so I can still do some blogging; though I didn’t bring a laptop along (I’m commuting to the conference by T and don’t want to have to haul it along, especially with the Constitutionally-dubious behavior of the MBTA these days), the Palm web browser appears to work well enough to post with.

We were in Harvard Square this weekend, and we noticed another store has closed. Yes, sadly, in another blow to the unique experience that once embodied the area, we’ve now lost the Abercrombie & Fitch that was in the Wursthaus’s old spot.

What ever will we do?

(Yeah, like that’s a surprise.)

Today’s Boston Globe has an article The Geek Mystique that (triggered by a trademark lawsuit between The Geek Squad and Geek Housecalls) talks about the term and how it’s become “so cool”.

“Geek” has a long history in the English language, and, until the technological age, was the term applied to carnival performers whose talent consisted of biting off the heads of live chickens and snakes. It later became part of the technical lexicon, describing the technologically astute who just as voraciously ate computer bugs, said Brian Jepson, an editor at the technology book publisher O’Reilly Media Inc.

Jepson said he first noticed the term geek gaining positive connotations in 1993, with the introduction of the “geek code”, a method used to compress data to speed up e-mail when modems were painfully slow.

So, if you’re not used to the Globe, you might wonder whether Jepson actually said that the “geek code” was a data compression mechanism or if the Globe reporter screwed up somehow.

Well, Jepson’s blog entry makes it pretty clear:

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. A free copy of one of my books to the first person who posts a comment reconstructing what I originally said.

Conservatives seek to help Ralph Nader

The Oregon Family Council also has been working the phones to boost attendance at Nader’s event — with the idea that it could help Bush this fall.

“We aren’t bashful about doing it,” said Mike White, the group’s director. “We are a conservative, pro-family organization, and Bush is our guy on virtually every issue.”

Yup; the anti-gay folks are out there pushing Nader onto the ballot.

How does the Nader camp feel about this?

The head of Nader’s Oregon campaign, Greg Kafoury, said he’s had no contact with the two conservative groups that have been calling people this week. But he said he’s not bothered by their actions, either.

Great. He’s not bothered. Does anyone need any more evidence that Nader running again is just going to hurt the causes he claims to promote?

Wired News covers the post-9/11 regulation problems affecting hobby rocketry. Basically, chalk up another casualty of the War on Things People Might Possibly Do Bad Stuff With Somehow.

I think the timing of the article is probably due to the success of SpaceShipOne; I’d heard grumblings about this before, but the juxtaposition of “private industry gets to space” and “government stomps on folks trying to do rocketry” is new.

I suspect Homer Hickam is not too happy about the situation; good thing these regs weren’t around in the late 1950s. Note another of his books, written after 9/11: We Are Not Afraid.

Where junk food rules, Food Access is bringing fresh vegetables.

As the Guardian puts it, “Fresh fruit and vegetables are so scarce in parts of London that mobile supermarkets have been set up”. London’s poorest areas have such bad options for buying anything but junk food that thirteen East London wards are considered “food deserts” by the Capital Eats study.

Other information from the study shows that 25% of London’s businesses sell food, but 4/5 of that food is imported into London…and London has over 30,000 acres of farmland! Presumably they aren’t counting Hyde Park.

Food Access buys the fresh food at New Spitalfields market, then sells through their mobile supermarket and at schools in the areas that need the food, with lower prices than in the shops to encourage people to eat more healthily.

Who drives a Honda Insight, powers his gadgets with solar panels, and even travels sometimes using wind power–on land?

Eco Man!

Another tool Trainer uses is something he calls a wind blade — a vertical advertising board in the shape of an airplane wing balanced on a single wheel or on a modified scooter. It catches the wind and pulls him along on his in-line skates.

A neat article about a guy who really takes alternative energy seriously, but isn’t a dogmatic “my way is the only way” guy:

But he doesn’t stomp. He doesn’t roar. And he doesn’t browbeat. In the driveway he shares with his neighbors, a white sport utility vehicle towers over Trainer’s little silver bullet. It belongs to Melissa Dunford, who lives with her husband in the unit next door.

“We’re kind of opposite of him,” she said, laughing at the contrast of the two cars parked side by side. “But we’re very good friends. They’ve never judged us.”

The good news: SpaceShipOne had a successful flight.

The bad news: the US Supreme Court decided 5-4 that refusing to identify yourself is not Constitutionally protected. When I was a kid, we were always told that “papers, please” was something only the Nazis and Communists required, and weren’t we glad we lived in a free country? I suppose it was nice while it lasted.