Power, at Last!

Yay! We have power!

Corporate Inside Scoops

Interesting site by a Seattle local:

http://www.trenchmice.com

Lucky Winds

It seems we were pretty lucky last night. We lost power at 12:15AM, and some major branches fell on and around the house, trashing the TV antenna. But, I also heard, among the earthquake-like shaking of the house, a loud creak, but no thud. I figured a tree fell, but didn't hit anything, and maybe it wasn't that close.

In the morning, I wasn't sure whether to bother walking the deck to see whether it had been hit, but I did. Amazingly, the deck wasn't damaged (at least not much), but this 4-5-foot wide tree that was uprooted, just next to deck, to the left of the second or third flight of stairs from the south entrance. The tree feel southward, along the slope below the parking spaces.

Amazon Gift Organizer

Amazon has a service that lets you organize your wish and gift idea lists, e.g. per person. Very cool tool for parents:

Amazon Gift Organizer

I'll have to see whether the information is public, though. I don't want people's birthdays to show up as public data.

Wired News

A Chance of Snow

Pirate Bay Bans ISP

Vista Gallery

Price of Petroleum

What Cell Phones are Made Of

Solar Trees

Predictions

Charging for Spam

Gaseous News

Blackjack

Wi-Fi as a Health Hazard

Iconistan

Historical Gadgets

Zune Review

Flickr for Statistics

Ian Yorston characterized Swivel as a flickr for statistics. It looks quite fascinating.

Orkut, Censorship & Terrorism

I've started peeking at some "inside Orkut" blogs, and they recently linked some fascinating discussions on Orkut, censorship and terrorism:

[...]Google demands a judicial order to process the request which further delays the arrest of the accused, who may even have fled by then.

"However, logs of accused using Yahoo mail (of Yahoo.com) or Hotmail (of Microsoft) are provided immediately upon request as Yahoo and Microsoft both have their subsidiaries in India," says an intelligence official.
— http://infotech.indiatimes.com/Orkut_wont_let_cops_hack_terrorists/articleshow/780497.cms

And, apparently, terrorist organizations are able to use AdWords to make money:

The specific Google properties which are serving these ads are housed on the Google Orkut social network. Orkut groups which were serving these Google Ads were set up by Hezbollah, Iraqi insurgent and other terror oriented groups.
— http://www.searchenginejournal.com/?p=4079

An interesting, and unfortunately shocking, quote from http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1068353:

Controversial website Orkut.com is back in the news, this time over the posting of ‘obscene’ material about ‘Hindu girls’. And leading the charge against it is Deputy Chief Minister RR Patil.
On Friday, after Shiv Sena MLC Arvind Savant tabled a copy of the ‘objectionable’ material in the legislative council, Patil announced that he has sent a missive to the Centre, asking for the site to be blocked and banned. The government, he said, has instructed all authorities concerned to block the site. Any cyber cafe owner found violating the rule would face criminal proceedings.

Another blog post on the topic: http://lpatil.wordpress.com/2006/07/17/blogspottypepad-ban-in-india/

I sincerely hope that this is not typical government behavior in India. Maybe we'll be seeing clear illustrations of the difference between "democracies" and countries with constitutions protecting basic individual rights, such as freedom of speech. Maybe we'll also see the difference between people able to see the difference between content authors and media transports.
Unfortunately, many Indians have little tolerance for foreign cultures. I have personally almost gotten thrown off a train by a train conductor in India for hugging my wife in public. (That said, India should be commended for being at least generally democratic in a region of dictatorships and religious hostility.)

I also hope that government officials are able to see that terrorists leaving traces on the Web is actually a good thing for law enforcement and national security agencies.

His Dark Materials, the Movie

One of my favorite recent reads (listens, actually), His Dark Materials, seems to be on its way to becoming a movie, starring Nicole Kidman.

I hope the Snow Leopard Trust gets a chance to some publicity through the movie, since one of the main characters is partly a snow leopard. (If you find that grammar peculiar, read the book.)

Extend Spotlight with Google

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/spotlight/googleimporter.html

And I thought this was my idea...

YOUniverse Deluxe ATM Bank Machine

New Ndiyo Hardware

http://www.ndiyo.org/blog/2006/12/06/a-sneak-preview/

Very sexy compared to earlier prototypes.

Martian News Pre-Announced

Wired is commenting that NASA has announced that they will be announcing a "significant find" on Mars.

Also, a moonbase is planned for 2024.

Leopard Release

How not to release a Leopard

Storynory Turns One

Storynory turns one just a few days after Aditi. Congratulations!

New Parallels Beta

http://forum.parallels.com/thread5997.html

Thanks to Q for the link.

Lepus Animatus

This is just too cute!

Free Fonts

Q posted an interesting link to a free fonts site.

Radiation Scare

Reuters

Hoffman's Princess Torte

I think it was my friend Bill Christensen who clued me in to Hoffman's in Kirkland, in the Parc Place mall. I mentioned a wonderful cake we eat in Sweden called the Princess Torte, and how I couldn't quite understand why tastes in Brazil and the US seem to be so different.

Well, it turned out there is a local bakery which makes Princess Tortes, and, local tastes aren't that different. Everyone I know who has tried the cake here loves it too.

What I don't understand is why it isn't being sold everywhere, and why Hoffman's isn't the new Costco or something.... ;-)

I'll be ordering one for my daughter Adidi's first birthday party on Saturday, with lots of mmmmmarzipan.

Layers of sponge cake with raspberry jam, whipped cream and Bavarian cream and covered with marzipan