General

I looked at the calendar this morning and started to panic. I realize that I have less than 3 weeks – only 2 weekends – before I move and so much left to do.

I still need to go to the new place to buy paint so the handyman can paint & clean up. I also need to buy new locks & something to replace a low-hanging ceiling lamp in the dining room that Cody would be hanging from. I’ll probably do all that this weekend.

I’ve gone back to a standard theme – I got tired of experimenting & I also added comments.

GOP/Enron satire site threatened. Those guys have no sense of humor [The Register]

Morons in the News: Father Lets 7-Year-Old Kid Drive Car, Car Wrecks. “I’m not irresponsable, I just had a few beers…” [Morons Dot Org]

At least he wasn’t driving drunk

14860 ª February 17 11:01 AM. Those who vote for Democrats only aid the terrorists. “In a series of TV and radio ads in each of five states hosting top Senate contests, President Bush utters the tag line to a narrated paragraph slamming the Democratic senator of that state for being partisan during a time of national duress.” Has anyone seen any of these ads? What did you think of them? [MetaFilter]

14862 ª February 17 11:13 AM. Reed proposed faith-based Enron support Ralph Reed, former Christian Coalition leader and now corporate lobbyist and Georgia GOP chief, made a business offer to the Enron Corp. in October 2000. In a memo outlining the offer, he proposed mobilizing religious leaders and pro-family groups for a battle over electricity industry deregulation. The price? Reed suggested $380,000. Could any cynical comments made about this proposal possibly be harsh enough? [MetaFilter]

Morons in the News: Just In Case You Doubted the Hatred of Far-Right Loonies…. Ann Coulter, a far-right kook, believes that the U.S. should execute “American Taliban” John Walker to send a message to “liberals.” [Morons Dot Org]

I just got back from dinner with 3 elderly programmers, all old-time IBMers who moved to Boca in the early PC days. They had some fascinating stories about working on machines like the IBM 650, which used drum storage. One of them talked about writing his code so the inner loop was run from the precious core memory instead of a spinning drum, so it ran at incredible speeds.

Quite a different world than we have now, working with 1GB of RAM and 100GB of hard drive space & CPU speeds above 1 GHz. I only started programming around 1980 & I felt like a newbie talking to them.

Morons in the News: Roy Moore Denies Lesbian Mother Child Custody, Gives Kids to Abusive Father. “The Ten Commandments Judge” strikes again… [Morons Dot Org]

14843 ª February 16 10:57 AM. Operation No Living Thing Part of the larger website-Postcards from Hell- a website of A. Raffaele Ciriello’s photojournalism. I still can not believe what happened in Sierra Leone actually happened, much less remains obscure to most people. These are photos of some people who survived. Their quiet dignity is beyond words. [MetaFilter]

I first heard of the events in Sierra Leone years ago when Dr. Harding, an executive of Seeq Technologies, went home to look for his family and lost everything there. I don’t know if he’s safe, but it’s pretty doubtful.