Copyrighteous

Dr. Bronner's may be hippy soap but it's my favorite soap. I like it for two reasons:

First, it gets my body very clean and leaves me smelling like peppermint, lavendar, or something else pleasant.

Second, it makes me laugh because the bottle is covered with what seems like 5pt ramblings offering advice about love and cleanliness in "God's Spaceship Earth." You can read an example label here or browse through the complete list.

I ran across this Yiddish Proverb recently: What soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul.

I think that if you ignore the label's claim that it can also be used as toothpaste, this is truly a perfect cleaning solution.

As I was scanning through the strongly connected set trust analysis last night. I noticed this UID on key 0x3CDB1972:

Marina Bykova (A girl) <mbykova@cs.ohiou.edu>

"A girl," enclosed in parentheses, is a comment and is usually not something one needs to verify when doing a keysigning.

Hypothetically speaking (as I have no reason to believe that Marina Bykova (A girl) is not A girl), I can't help but wonder: If I met Marina and Marina was not A girl, should I sign the key?

I went to federal court to hear a challenge of part of the Communications Decency Act as part of Nitke v. Ashcroft. One of the lawyers for the government asked Barbara Nitke if photo galleries (the non-online version) were subject to constraints of space and could only show limited number of photos at a given time.

Imagine, for a moment, a physical photo gallery that could transcend the limitations of physical space. I like the idea but it seems a bit far-fetched. Nitke's answer was, of course, that they were constrained by physical space.

I think someone who needs needs to ask this is very imaginative -- a quality I respect. However, I do not think they are as observant as I'd like in my federal attorneys.

Yesterday, I remembered a protein joke I made up a year or so ago:

Two proteins pass each other on the street. The first protein thinks he recognizes the second protein from his school days and asks her if she went to Protein High.

A little confused at first but definitely not from Protein high, the second protein says, "Ah, me? No."

When I write a novel, I am going to include a character who eats flying fish row (飛びこ) because he revels in the idea that he is eliminating hundreds of potential lives with each bite.

I would never like to meet such a person but I think it would make a fanscinating character trait.

Yesterday, I learned new and important definitions for words that I thought I already knew:

wag:

'Any one ludicrously mischievous; a merry droll' (J.); a habitual joker. (In early use often combined with sense 1.) Phrase, to play the wag.

slag:

slang. a. A worthless or insignificant person (freq. used as a term of contempt): spec. (a) a coward; (b) a rough or brutal person; (c) any objectionable or contemptible person; (d) a vagrant or a petty criminal; also, such persons collectively; (e) (the most usual sense) a prostitute or promiscuous woman; a slattern.

(I understand that this definition will not be new to most English speakers from the other side of the pond.)

My rhyming poetry with lines ending in 'ag' will never be the same again.

If you want to catch someone off guard, I think a good idea would be to show up to meet them soaking wet on a non-rainy day and then interrupt, change the subject, or evade the question if they ask how you got that way.

People tend to think that someone needs to have a good reason to be very wet and become obsessed when they can't find an obvious one. They'll rarely guess that their obsession is, in the fact, the reason.

I've been using Frederico Di Gregorio et al's PostgreSQL Python module psycopg since June. Only a couple days ago did I hear it pronounced and realized that it was pysco-pg (like "psyco PostGres") and not psycop-g (like psycops -- or mind police). It makes a whole lot more sense now.

Despite having grown up in the United States, I've never managed to learn the rules behind American football. I have always figured I wouldn't like it very much.

I do however, understand the rules behind the arcade game Pigskin 621AD which I enjoy very much. I've heard it's based on American football.

As far as I know, the things I enjoy most about Pigskin 621AD -- the concealed weapons, the skeletons, haystacks and mudslicks on the field, the trolls introduced onto losing team in the final quarter -- are all missing from American football. I can't imagine why anybody would like American football without spears and the trolls.

A number of years ago, a friend and I were brainstorming about the following idea that I still has merit.

Often caricature artists at fairs on the street display pictures of celebrities as proof of their artistic ability. When you pay them to draw a picture of you, they draw a caricature of your head on a tiny body doing some activity you tell them you like.

I want to learn how to draw a single celebrity: Snoop Doggy Dogg for example. Then, I would set up shop on the street as caricature artist and advertise my work with 1-2 well-drawn pictures of Snoop. Every time someone asked me to produce a caricature of them doing a given activity, I would draw a picture of Snoop Doggy Dogg, with something roughly approximating the customer's hair, engaged in the activity of the customer's choice. If people objected, I would insist that, "that is just how I draw people -- I thought it was clear from the example."

Last week, I went a Japanese ￥100 Store which has opened a branch in New York (except with import cost, it was a lot more like a ￥161 store). It was basically a dollar store in a different currency.

One thing they had for sale for ￥161 was silver stainless steel cylinders to hold ingredients for cooking. Being an outlet store, they had only two types:

• a cylinder with "Sugar" embossed onto the front;
• a cylinder with "Other" embossed onto the front;

I advocated buying the entire stock of "Other" cylinders and keeping all of my house's food in these. While doing this might introduce some usability and learning curve issues into our kitchen, I think the aesthetic and philosophical qualities introduced would be well worth any inconvenience. The people I live with were less convinced.

This Saturday, I had the "opportunity" to open a wine bottle without a corkscrew. While the process is straightforward, many people seem to be stumped by the problem. Given that I've done it several times, I was able to educate my guests in the process of opening the bottle.

My friend Greg thought it would be nice to document the experience and arranged and directed an educational photo-narrative starring myself and Mika. He completed the piece and added titles to tie the whole thing into an educational photo documentary he's called The Recalcitrant Cork.

For those who just want to learn how to open a bottle sans corkscrew, I've quickly written up an addendum in the form of technical notes that some people might find useful.

The three primary problems I have with GNU Arch are:

• The user interface is nearly unusable. Without zsh tab completions, it is unusable.
• Arch is very slow over a network.
• Arch is very slow not over a network.

However, Arch is only VCS that makes branching and merging so natural that I do it regularly. As a result, I develop software and even documents in a way that is fundamentally differently (and better) than the way I have in the past.

Arch is the worst kind of good software; or perhaps the best kind of bad software. The more you use it, the more you hate it; unfortunately, the more you use it, the more you hate all the alternatives more.

Using arch is not a type of masochism, but sometimes it reminds me of masochism a tiny bit.

A few days ago, I talked about titles and business cards.

I think the coolest job title in the world is that the of the military commander of NATO. How cool would it be to have "Supreme Allied Commander" on your resume? The answer: very cool.

I think I will lobby Mark Shuttleworth to my have title at Canonical be Supreme Community Commander.

I'm serious.

One think I liked about living in Boston was that there was an email list of all the local Debian developers that was used to coordinate meetings and keysignings when Debian folks stopped over in Beantown.

A number of local developers including myself did a decent job of replicating this in Seattle. Now that I'm in New York City, I've decided it's something I'd like here as well.

If you are:

1. A New Yorker (or you're nearby);
2. Interested in Debian and in meeting with other Debian-minded folks at infrequent and irregular intervals over beverages -- caffeinated and/or alcoholic;

...you should definately join the new Debian NYC Social email list. If you're only one or neither of these things, you're still welcome to join but I suspect you'll get a lot less out of it.

One relatively recent development in the field of intellectual property is the ability to file for what are called business methods patents that do not cover a thing, an invention, or a design (the tradition scope of patents) but a way of doing business.

I think it would be a good strategy for companies with lots of over-broad -- and in in-all-likelihood bogus -- patents to file a business method patent on the act of filing over-broad and bogus patents to use as strategic leverage or tools for litigation. Better yet, they might patent the method of filing to have someone else's' patents reexamined and tossed out.

Of course, there's plenty of prior art but the USPTO doesn't seem to be too bothered by details like that anymore.

I own a gold mobile telephone.

At first, I tried to deny it. I tried to convince myself and others that it was "bronze" or "champagne." The truth triumphed.

Later, I tried to change it. I bought a transparent face and back-plate on ebay. Over a few months, these have cracked and shattered into pieces and my phone has returned to its original color.

Today, I have decided to embrace the fact. I will take proud in my gold telephone and have changed its ringtone to this midi rendition of the theme to Goldfinger to demonstrate my pride to everyone within earshot.

There's an animal called the "bighorn sheep." In the Museum of Natural History in New York, they have the stuffed remains of the bighorn sheep with the biggest horns on record.

Think of how that ram would have felt if he had known that he was the biggest-horned bighorn sheep. I think that such an achievement must be the source of both confidence and satisfaction on a level that I doubt I will ever experience -- and am probably better off without.

I know people who have multiple job titles and multiple sets of business cards to match. They claim that this allows them to fluidly assume different roles when speaking to different people.

The head of the Anglican Church is one of these multi-title jobs. If I had that job, I would want at least two sets of cards. The first would say, "Archbishop of Canterbury" because I think that title commands a lot of respect. The second would say, "Primate of All England," because I think there's a very different, very interesting, and and potentially very useful, effect that this title could exert as well.

I've known for a long time that many foods that are bad for us humans -- high fat, high cholesterol, high sodium, high sugar -- are also extremely delicious.

I wonder if there are poisonous foods, and I mean fatally poisonous foods, that are extremely delicious but that, for obvious reasons, we cannot enjoy.

Mika wonders if a condemned man would be allowed to request such a delicacy as his last meal.

I can't wait until the war on terror is won and no one is ever terrified again.

A couple nights ago, Mika and I were listening to a tracked called In My Eyes by Milk Inc. The lyrics to the songs begin:

In my eyes you'll see,

The way it used to be.

Take a look and see,

The light still shines in me.

Mika misheard the lyrics. It's interesting how replacing "eyes" with another English vowel+s/z piece of anatomy can change a song about personal strength and perseverance to a song about colonoscopy.

I took a subway a few days that I thought was sending an interesting message. On one side of the car was nothing but advertisements for an anti-smoking campaign. On the other was nothing but advertisements for (somewhat less public-service oriented) pro-beer-drinking campaign.

One of my favorite moments in history comes from the story of Xerxes trying to cross the Hellespont. Here's the relevant passages from The History of Herodotus in the translation by George Rawlinson:

Towards this tongue of land then, the men to whom the business was assigned carried out a double bridge from Abydos; and while the Phoenicians constructed one line with cables of white flax, the Egyptians in the other used ropes made of papyrus. Now it is seven furlongs across from Abydos to the opposite coast. When, therefore, the channel had been bridged successfully, it happened that a great storm arising broke the whole work to pieces, and destroyed all that had been done.

So when Xerxes heard of it he was full of wrath, and straightway gave orders that the Hellespont should receive three hundred lashes, and that a pair of fetters should be cast into it. Nay, I have even heard it said, that he bade the branders take their irons and therewith brand the Hellespont. It is certain that he commanded those who scourged the waters to utter, as they lashed them, these barbarian and wicked words: "Thou bitter water, thy lord lays on thee this punishment because thou hast wronged him without a cause, having suffered no evil at his hands. Verily King Xerxes will cross thee, whether thou wilt or no. Well dost thou deserve that no man should honour thee with sacrifice; for thou art of a truth a treacherous and unsavoury river." While the sea was thus punished by his orders, he likewise commanded that the overseers of the work should lose their heads.

Bad weather can get us all down but I feel like whipping, branding, and insulting bits of geography is quite over the top -- which was the point of course. When I first read this passage, I thought of this as the archetypical example of frustration taken to an illogical and implausible extreme.

Over time though, I've found that there are certain moments of intense frustration where branding the ground and insulting the ocean might actually make me feel better in a way that other sort of release might not.

I'm finishing up a great book called Laughter: A Scientific Investigation that I'll review more fully in the near future. Before I get there though, there was one nugget in there that I think deserves the spotlight to itself.

We all have experienced the way that laughing in contagious. We all remember laughing in a group for no good reason until the whole situation just got out of control. Well evidently, in 1962, this happened on an epidemic level in what is now Tanzania and it was so bad that it kept some schools closed for over 6 months.

I went back and dug up the original New York Times article and transcribed it here. It's an interesting read but there are a few things that have become clear with time that weren't clear at the time that the article was written:

• The epidemic was not because of environmental causes, food poisoning, or a virus or bacteria as researchers at the time suspected. It was a simple, but extreme, example of contagious laughter and was purely a social (or neurological) phenomenon. It started with girls giggling in primary schools and moved through connected communities -- primarily affecting women. The chance of someone "catching" the laughter from someone else correlated heavily with the closeness of the relationship between the two. It basically swept through sisters, to mothers, to good friends and on. It was a multi-year, debilitating, regional giggle fest!
• Kuru, the diseases described in the end is not at all related. It's also not, as the article suggests, hereditary. It turns out to be a product of cannibalism and is a prion-based variant of a spongiform encephalopathy much like Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease and or BSE (more commonly known "mad cows disease"). I read on book this one too once.

If a similar giggle fest broke out today, I would be strongly tempted to just drop everything and go see it for myself -- and maybe add a few good guffaws of my own into the mix.

It seems like a fine book, but the Encyclopaedia of Medical Ignorance is not nearly as much fun as the title might initially lead one to believe.