Pugilistic Periodicalistas
Elyse Sewell came in second place on America’s Next Top Model. I know this because I spent two solid days watching it on YouTube this winter while battling the flu.
Why should you care about Elyse Sewell? Well, she’s funny, she has a livejournal, she’s smart as hell, and she visits libraries for fun. Libraries like the François Mitterrand Library.
Enjoy, and remember: Librarians can be hot and models can be smart.
And vice versa, probably. But we don’t talk about that here.
Locking down your in-home wireless network is like paying the cable company to take your neighbor’s money.
It’s to everyone’s advantage to fill their neighborhood with wireless access. It should be a municipal service. We benefit as a community when a resource is widely available. The tragedy of the Commons only applies when the shared commons is a limited resource.
The only people who don’t benefit from open community networks are companies who profit from the marketing-created illusion that bandwidth is rare, precious, and costly.
Do you scream at your neighbors: “get your OWN cell phone network and stop using mine!”
Do you call the cops when someone takes a shower using YOUR aquifer?
Does your radio’s signal belong to you?
Remember when it was illegal to make a free long-distance call? Were we going to run out of phonelines? Or was it because, for awhile, “long-distance calling” was the only established business model available to consumers, and eventually legislation built up to protect the market?
Once cellphones created a different profit model, did free long-distance calling stop being “wrong”?
“Ownership” of a wireless network connection is marketing, not reality.
Nobody is going to break into your computer. Nobody cares about capturing your keystrokes. There are better ways to secure your computer than hiding inside a little ComCast/TimeWarner-generated moat and trembling in fear of imaginary baddies who want to eat your bandwith.
Bandwidth is not a limited resource. You are not gonna run out of Internet.
Do you know anyone who has ever run out of Internet? No.
Get a firewall and quit whining.
I spent five fun-filled hours waiting for the cable guy to show up and give me Internet this afternoon. The next-door neighbor figured out that I’ve been freeloading her wireless, and locked down her router.
Curse you bittorrent! Curse your deadly allure and telling bandwidth consumption!
Yesterday during a convergence of April birthdays and near-birthdays, I attended a large party.
The Large Party was held in honor of Lexie (who has turned a bewitching 30) and somewhat less so, myself who will turn a similar age in a few days.
Attendees were numerous and varied, and ranged from dog to human, and (often) back to dog.
An entire pig was roasted.
The pig, we are told, led a happy life. He went to the best schools, enjoyed daily trotter-massage, and had a healthy skincare regimen.
Lexie’s wife Marguerite shot him between the eyes and hung him from a tree in the backyard.
He was delicious.
Wishing you good friends with sharp knives,
-Erica
Salon has obtained an internal 117-page draft proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The document proposes to:
“limit the number of species that can be protected and curtail the acres of wildlife habitat to be preserved. It shifts authority to enforce the act from the federal government to the states, and dilutes legal barriers that protect habitat from sprawl, logging or mining.”
Read more here. I guarantee the final draft will be titled “Helping Endangered Species Act” or something similarly compelling. The “Saving Wolves Act” would be nice. Or how about the “Freedom for Endangered Species From Government Interference Act”?
I’m in a parking lot in Owego, NY (an actual place!) borrowing bandwidth from an anonymous linksys router. Upstate connectivity sucks. There’s a German Shepherd dog asleep in the back seat. Her name is Fiona. I borrowed her for the trip. I just bought this car. One problem solved.
Don’t know if you’ve heard, but a version of Katamari is coming out for the Wii. Hope you aren’t doing anything this summer.
I’m reading Guns Germs and Steel: A Short History of Everybody for the Last 13,000 Years. It gives an excellent overview of the evolution and intersection of human cultures. I’m not far into it, but it’s pretty captivating so far, like taking an anthropology course from Oliver Sacks.
Miles to go before I sleep. Woof to everyone.
Today was big and full. I’m tired, so here’s a list for you. Bullet points are less intimidating.
Goodnight. More adventures tomorrow as I travel to Pennsylvania to pick up a car and my motorcycle learners permit.
Stay tuned.
Spring birds are yelling from snowy trees this morning. It’s spring, despite wind, snow, roaring wood stove, and other evidence to the contrary. I’m taking today off of work. I’ve got nine stitches. I can do whatever I want.
I finished re-reading Microserfs
An excerpt:
Susan is 26 and works in Mac Applications. If Susan were a Jeopardy! contestant, her dream board would be:
* 680X0 assembly language
* Cats
* Early ’80s haircut bands
* “My secret affair with Rob in the Excel Group”
* License plate slogans of America
* Plot lines from The Monkees
* The death of IBMSusan’s an IBM brat and hates that company with a passion. She credits it with ruining her youth by transferring her family eight times before she graduated from high school – and the punch line is that the company gave her father the boot last year during a wave of restructuring. So nothing too evil can happen to IBM in her eyes.
…
Susan’s a real coding machine. But her abilities are totally wasted reworking old code for something like the Norwegian Macintosh version of Word 5.8.
Thanks for your kind comments last night during my Dark Night of the Beer. Friendly words were unexpected and wonderful. I often forget that there are people out there. Hello imaginary people. It’s as though my fictional heroes (Elizabeth Bennet! Harriet The Spy! Meg from Wrinkle in Time!) suddenly started interacting.
Off to haul wood one-armed and scour Craigslist for cars. What would your Dream Jeopardy! categories be?