Jokes My Mother Sends Me – (1) Ol’ Blue

A young cowboy from Wyoming goes off to college. Half way through the semester, he has foolishly squandered all his money.

He calls home. "Dad," he says, "You won't believe what modern education is developing! They actually have a program here in Laramie that will teach our dog, Ol' Blue how to talk!"

"That's amazing," his Dad says. "How do I get Ol' Blue in that program?"

"Just send him down here with $1,000" the young cowboy says.. "I'll get him in the course."

So, his father sends the dog and $1,000.

About two-thirds of the way through the semester, the money again runs out. The boy calls home.

"So how's Ol' Blue doing son?" his father asks.

" Awesome, Dad, he's talking up a storm," he says, "but you just won't believe this - they've had such good results they have started to teach the animals how to read!"

"Read!?" says his father, "No kidding! How do we get Blue in that program?"

"Just send $2,500, I'll get him in the class."

The money promptly arrives. But our hero has a problem. At the end of the year, his father will find out the dog can neither talk, nor read. So he shoots the dog.

When he arrives home at the end of the year, his father is all excited. "Where's Ol' Blue? I just can't wait to see him read something and talk!"

"Dad," the boy says, "I have some grim news. Yesterday morning, just before we left to drive home, Ol' Blue was in the living room, kicked back in the recliner, reading the Wall Street Journal, like he usually does. Then he turned to me and asked, "So, is your daddy still messing' around with that little redhead who lives
in town?"

The father exclaimed, "I hope you shot that SOB before he talks to your Mother!"

"I sure did, Dad!"

"That's my boy!"

The kid went on to be a successful lawyer, and then he went on to become the Governor of Illinois.

RyanAir to Charge to Use Toilets

Really? Or, is it a joke. If it's a joke, I laughed so hard I almost peed in my pants.

The Guardian reports that RyanAir's chairman has said that he would like to charge for using the toilets while a flight was in progress. His goal is to keep the cost of the air fare down and gives Liverpool Street rail station as the example of how you have to pay for this privilege in other transportation settings. There's no end to the possible puns for this story ("no relief for passengers on RyanAir" is a good start), but I can imagine a Senate hearing on this if any American airline tried it!

New gTLDs to Confuse and Amuse - II

Another entry in the new gTLD sweepstakes is dotSport -- as in poor.sport and many other inanities that I can imagine. I find this one interesting in that dotSport is apparently already trademarked. It's also being coordinated by someone who is pretty knowledgable about the ICANN environment. I wonder if this one has legs?

New gTLDs to Confuse and Amuse - I

Dot health is one of the organizations who is trying to convince us that the new gTLD process will lead to a ripening of the top level of the DNS and a series of useful and good DNS names.  I’ll try to provide a link to the .health support site when I find it.  I have no idea whether or not .health is a good idea (www.bad.health?) but I’ll certainly look forward to see if it has the money (ICANN) or traction to make it through the new gTLD process.

Guerrilla Knitting

I'd never heard of guerrilla knitting, but apparently this is a widespread practice. I've never seen such things in Madison, but perhaps I'm not looking hard enough. I wonder if there is a chapter of Knitta Please here in Madison. Naturally, I'm happy that such a practice is referred to as "fluffy" graffiti.

London and the Snowstorm

Another picture from the snowstorm that brought London to a standstill in early February.

Snow Shuts Down London

24 Books a Year: (2) Borkmann’s Point

Added to the long line of Swedish police mystery series, we now have English translations of the Inspector Van Veeteren mysteries by Hakan Nesser. The first of these to reach English translation is his second book: Borkmann's Point [ amazon.com or borders.com ].

Borkmann's Point is more in tune with the sorrowful and lonely Kurt Wallander series by Henning Mankell than the older Beck series by Sjowall and Wahloo. The principal, Van Veeteren, has the same detached approach to working through the mystery, but Nesser focuses on the drudgery of the work needed to find solutions to crimes. That drudgery doesn't get in the way of a good story and the principal vehicle for the story is a set of characters who shift back and forwards in the story's frame almost as silently as wolves in a Swedish forest.

In this case, the mystery involves sending Van Veeteren to a tiny police force to assist in the investigation of two ugly axe murders. Van Veeteren leaves during a vacation and the investigation is colored by the loss of his vacation and the difficulty of making progress. The story follows Van Veeteren's emerging relationship with an older chief of police and the sheer grind of attempting to get enough information to draw conclusions about the axe murders. The half of the story line that follows Van Veeteren's relationship with the aging cop is bittersweet and unusual in a police procedural. The other half, following the investigation itself, is simply less compelling stuff.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the book is that, for the alert reader, the murderer is identified about two-thirds of the way through the book. This makes the last third a story of finding the evidence needed to compel the murderer to confess or to confront them with their guilt. It's this last third of the novel that is worth the price of admission. The grace and light style of this final part of the story is exceptional. This makes the book seem like part of a series that will certainly be a worthy addition to the remarkable tradition of Swedish police procedurals. Nesser uses this last third of the book as a meditation on how difficult investigations can be and how they are both a physical and mental exercise. There's not a huge set piece at the end, just the inevitable and gradual accumulation of information and personal characteristics that leads to a very surprising but believable conclusion.

Here's hoping that there's more Van Veeteren to come in English. Recommended to mystery readers.

[ 256 pages; ISBN 978-0333989845; read it in the Hardcover version ]

Switched from TDS to AT&T

USB Fever

I'm as geeky as anyone else, but this site is a terrible temptation. My absolute favorite is the USB slippers (Blue) and the customization that says: "Today is Saturday, Feb 21 109." Hilarious.

On My iPhone (I) - Jott

There was a survey published yesterday that suggested that iPhone users download/buy applications, use them about once and then never use them again. My experience with games is somewhat similar to that, but not regular applications. Instead, I tend to find iPhone applications that I really like and then use them daily.

One of those is Jott. Jott has a simple premise: it integrates the phone with the web. Sounds simple? It's actually pretty elegant: you use jot to record notes ("jotts") that are then transcribed and returned to you. Where Jott is particularly successful is in linkages to other services. I can "jott" my updates to Twitter, Facebook, or Remember the Milk! Jott transcribes the 15 seconds that I speak and then directly updates the online service I choose. If I want to simply leave myself a note, Jott records, transcribes and then returns the note to my device.

There's a traditional component called "Jott Express" that you can download to your computer so that you can manage and use your "jotts" on the Web. I don't use that as much as the iPhone component which has recently been updated. The screenshot show the different categories that you can upload your "jott" notes into as well as the "Jott Links" to other Web applications. One of the remarkable things, which I don't use much is the ability to have a set of Jott contacts which can recieve your Jotts after they have been transcribed.

For me, Jott is one of those essential iPhone applications: it's one of the favorite sixteen apps on my front page. Highly recommended.

Big Brother? Yes, you!

cnet reports on a new bill by Republicans to have ISPs, owners of hot spots and yes - you - be forced to keep records of Internet access to aid "law enforcement." I'm not sure how much data 2 years of DHCP and NAT records would be for my home network, but I'm not sure if the government wants to fund this nightmare. Let the government pay to educate my 80-year-old mother-in-law on how to set up a syslog. Let the government pay for the terrabytes that it would take to store the average coffee shop's access logs. Let the government deal with the problem that the logs are easy to edit and manipulate. Why does the Internet attract so much regulatory nonsense? What's next? A modem tax? Oh, wait . . .

How Can Anybody be Interested in Baseball?

I no longer understand how anyone can be interested in baseball as a sport. Baseball has reached the same level of credibility that cycling and professional wrestling have -- albeit on a much larger scale. The A-Rod revelations aren't the tipping point -- it's just an example of how the sport doesn't get the point. How can Cal Ripken say he is "shocked and surprised?" Are we supposed to laugh, like that moment in Casablanca when Capt. Louis Renault says that he's shocked to find gambling in Rick's casino?

And then Bud Selig says, "I don't want to hear the commissioner turned a blind eye to this or he didn't care about it." He's joking, right? Right? Jose Canseco wants an apology? He's joking, too -- right? Roger Clemens? Please stop.

How can anybody be interested? Except those who find legal reality shows on CourtTV interesting.

24 Books a Year: (1) Dear American Airlines

You should be able to read at least a book every other week, right (okay, so that's twenty-six – give me a little break here)? Well, let's find out this year.

Dear American Airlines (amazon.com or borders.com) is a short novel in the form of a complaint letter to American Airlines. That, by itself, would make a great start, but Jonathon Miles turns the premise into bad tempered, but hilarious, gold. The narrator/author of the poison pen letter to American is stuck at O'Hare in Chicago on his was to his estranged daughter's wedding. When the flight is cancelled, his one chance to reconnect with his past – and atone for some of that past – is lost. Hopeless adrift in the airport he reflects on his life as a failed poet, middling translator of middling Polish literature, and hopeless husband and father. It's the voice that Miles conjures up: so hopeful at the prospect of meeting his adult daughter, so hopeless as the airport clock inexorably makes the meeting impossible. While it's a short novel, the voice given to Bennie is unique in its anger, regret and wit. The idea that a complaint letter would be the foundation of a regretful look back at a life that could have been better (not interrupted, delayed) is a wonderful conceit and Miles handles it perfectly.

Most online reviews fail to mention the inner story in the novel. Bennie brings forth quotes from a Polish novel he's translating to illustrate the fates that befall us as we become responsible for our choices -- and for those fates for which we have no responsibility other than being in the right or wrong place at some time. This novel is brought into the letter several times. Each time with the point that an obscure life (even if it is a novel) sometimes illustrates and illuminates the fates that condemn us to either happiness or otherwise.

Dear American Airlines is one of the few books in the last five years that I've pushed on a friend. I almost never do that and it's a tribute to how bittersweet and wonderful this short novel is. Highly recommended.

[ 192 pages; ISBN 978-0547054018; read it in hardcover ]

Primary Election Day in Wisconsin

Not too much to get excited about here. In my district there is only a primary for State Schools Superintendent and a primary for a Circuit Court. The turnout is likely to be very low. While a number of local primaries are on the ballot in other districts in Madison, Marsha Rummel is running unopposed in District 6. That's fine by me.

Running for state superintendent are current deputy Tony Evers, virtual schools advocate Rose Fernandez, Concordia University professor Van Mobley, National-Louis University professor Todd Price and Beloit Schools Superintendent Lowell Holtz. I plan to vote for Mr Evers. We'll see what happens.

The general election is on April 7, 2009.

Blogging from an iPhone

. . . Ought to be a lot easier! I'm using a tool called iBlogger, but it doesn't support pictures. It's fine for text and links, but one of the nice things about an iPhone is the camera. Any iPhone blog tool ought to have camera and GPS integration. iBlogger does have a tool to use Google Maps to show where you are blogging from. As in this . . .

Mobile Blogging from here.

I hope the developers continue to update this little app. With picture support it would be pretty useful.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

The Dreaded Wrong Passcode

The "Broken" Internet - I

Is the Internet so broken that it needs to be replaced, not fixed? A pretty alarmist - and very short - article in the New York Times suggests so. It's a pretty conventional diatribe against the current security arrangements and trust models on the Internet - with an emphasis on what anonymity implies for security.

The problem with "sky is falling" articles like this is that 1) there's no rational model for replacing the current Internet, only evolving it; and 2) even if you could build version two, who and what would move to the "New Internet?" In fact, there's a much more fundamental problem for the replacement of the current Internet and that is the depth and extent of the current Internet's infrastructure. The financial and technical underpinning of the current Internet makes a "lift and shift" approach to a new Internet impossible.

Circle Park's Shamrock Shuffle

I'm trying to get a neighborhood group together to do a group run/walk on March 15th. If you're interested, contact me. It already looks like there may be three or four runners and maybe eight walkers. There's prizes for the best costume and the fastest runner, but I can't imagine that any of us will qualify as either "best" or "fastest" in any category.

The Lure of Big Boxes - I

I listen to lots of music and since I have a little background in classical music, some of that music is traditional. Classical music recording companies are in trouble of course - the audience is graying, getting smaller and spending less of its disposable money on classical music. My listening habits are changing too. I used to be an energetic collector of classical, with thousands of CDs in my collection.

Times are changing for me as well as the industry. Classical music companies have started pulling together large collections of older recordings and putting them in large collections of CDs - the Big Boxes. The result is interesting, inexpensive and large collections of classical music that you might have to pay two or three times for if you bought the boxes individually. I'm a big fan of The Big Boxes.

This one, Solomon, the Master Pianist, is currently one of the playlists on both the CD player in the house and on the iPod. It's a perfect example of what EMI and others are doing right. It hardly costs EMI a thing to produce something like this from the archival tapes. By offering it inexpensively, I can dip into repretoire - or in this case, a pianist - that I might not have been able to listen to before. Not everything is perfect in this release: some of the sound quality is ancient, for instance. However, the chance to listen to a virtuoso from the 1950's is a real treat; especially since Solomon's approach is so less clinical and measured than most pianists today.

EMI has a winner with this series. I'll talk about others in the series in other posts. If you are interested in what virtuoso pianism sounded like at the end of the Second World War, then this (and its comapnion Lipatti box) are for you.

Olbrich Park Master Planning

I spent most of last night at a meeting talking about different plans for Olbrich Park. The meetings would have never taken place without some intervention at the previous Park Commission meeting and I'm suspicious that the result, overall, is not going to change despite the intervention of two neighborhoods.

Betty Chewning gave a presentation on an alternative neighborhood plan. Of course the "neighborhood plan" was cooked up by about three people and doesn't really represent the "neighborhood" at all. Instead, it is better to see it as a more "alternative plan" with another set of warts and wrinkles. The problem is that the Parks Commission is under pressure to do something with the Master Planning process so that the Garver Building reuse can continue. The Garver Building reuse is dependent on something good happening with the deed restriction Olbrich Gardens has over that property. Until the deed restriction is lifted, the Garver Building process will not continue. Olbrich Gardens is unlikely to lift the deed restriction until they see a Olbrich Park master plan that meets their needs.

That brings us to the Parks Department. They've failed the neighborhoods in this case and been pretty unresponsive the public input they received from neighborhoods and major user groups. It is still to be seen if they will be responsive as a result of last night's meeting.

Taking recent evidence into account, it seems unlikely that they will be.

Day Two

It's day two of having Keavy back from surgery and day two of another round of steroids for a respiratory infection that has become seriously out of whack. Keavy is lucky to have a bunch of friends coming over to cheer her up and cook a ton of less-than-wholesome food for her. Pretty nice for her since she's making slow progress toward getting mobile again. There's no substitute for your own friends when you aren't feeling well and I'll bet that Keavy really appreciates not having to spend another evening just talking to her parents!

Where I Plan to Be at ICANN in Mexico City

Besides being the Secretariat, I have an interest in many issues at ICANN. Here’s a list of places where you may find me during ICANN week in Mexico City:

Sunday, 1 March 2009
At-Large Summit: Workshop 2: Future Structure and Governance of ICANN
At-Large Summit: Workshop 5: DNS Security Issues within ICANN's Mandate
At-Large Summit: Workshop 3: New gTLDs including IDN gTLDs
GNSO Fast Flux Working Group

Monday, 2 March 2009
SSAC Open Meeting
New gTLD Applicant Guidebook Q&A
Joint SO/AC Public Meeting

Tuesday, 3 March 2009
Cross Constituency Meeting"Users House" Meeting: BC/IPC/ISP/ALAC/NCUC
Internet Service and Connectivity Providers Constituency Meeting
GAC Meeting with the ICANN Board

Wednesday, 4 March 2009
GNSO
DNSSEC Workshop
Workshop: SSAC Review
Workshop: NomCom Review
IPv6 Workshop
GALA EVENT at the San Hipolito Convent

Thursday, 5 March 2009
Public Forum
SO/AC Chair Reports