Sunday night

Just cleaning up a few things here.

+ Did you see the Worldprocessor globes by Ingo Günther in Wired? Some really cool representations here. Of course, I want a digital globe that could show all of them in turn...

+ Jaq ranks his favorite superhero movies. I'm going to do mine, too, but briefly (feeling too lazy to explain/comment):

1. The Incredibles
   
2. Batman Begins
3. Spiderman 2
   
4. X-Men 2
5. Spiderman
6. Daredevil
   
7. X-Men
8. Hellboy
   
9. Batman
   

Friday's links

+ Geeky article on mounting an auxiliary monitor (read: Pocket PC) to the outside of your laptop. Apparently some manufacturers are fixin' to go that way.

+ Resubscribed to dictionary.com word of the day (this time in Bloglines). It took a few days before I finally got one I didn't know: refulgent.

+ 'I've won a major award! I won the Fischerspooner contest over on Between thought and expression . The loot came yesterday: CD, CD single, poster and - ! - LP! Cool. Listening to the the album right now (ripped into WinAmp). Thanks MonsterMo.

+ defective yeti humor tags: Jesus lol bank spenders.

Hush, hush. Keep it down now...

A reference to Tuesday (meant for publication yesterday, but here goes).

+ Jaq's got a spoiler-laden discussion of HP6 that I commented on.

+ Google's customized home page just added a lot of content including not-too-easy feed subscriptions.

+ Like Brad, I got excited about Yahoo (Konfabulator) Widgets. Like him, I can't think they're anything more than sparkley things I don't need...

+ Best vigilantic use of Flickr ever! y[Yahoo!]cantpark.

US labor

+ I was really interested in NPR's report on the split in the AFL-CIO yesterday. What is the place of unions in today's world? They had the Andy Stern, president of the SEIU, on and he advocated a return to a GM-type economy. But GM is sucking wind and trying to get out of their health care. He said workers should be able to bridge to the middle class, and I agree with that. He said now executives get most of the money. That's partially true, but, really, the whole thing is driven by the price on Wall Street. We've cut back on pay and benefits and funnelled everything into the stock market where the rich get richer. He said used to be the largest employer (GM) took care of people and a family could do well on one income. Now, the largest employer (Wal-Mart) has made a lot of money for a lot of people, especially Waltons and other stock holders, but not for employees. It'd take three or four Wal-Mart incomes for a family to do well (he said). I agree with a lot of that stuff. On the other hand, I'm a Barnettian and that includes globalization and isn't the modern stock market and its machinations part of that?

Can you tell I haven't thought myself clear on this one yet? I would really value your input.

For my part, I think the new organization is a good idea (of course, I always like new stuff). I imagine the AFL-CIO is institutionalized and too slow to move.

What do you think?

Friday's links

Hmm. Long time no post. No real good reason. Some of it is tendonitis in my wrists. Makes me a little less apt to post in my spare time.

+ I've definitely been enjoying following the Tour, watching updates when I can during the day and listening to podcasts at home at night. Lance should have it nailed shut, barring something catastrophic.

+ How cool is that? This post links the spot where the Powers of Ten video took place, so you can recreate part of it yourself.

+ Funny McSweeney's (via kottke):

Ever wonder what the world's best palindrome is?

"My girlfriend has a freaking weird name: Eman Driewgnikaerfasahdneirflrigym."

+ Tiffin grows

This is crazy: Tiffin project in the works

The growing town of Tiffin is considering a huge $200 million facelift that would include an outlet mall, hotel, water park, restaurants, condos and office space.

Yikes! I was very worried this would be on our side of the highway. It's not. They're looking at the NE corner of this interchange and we are a couple miles west of this interchange on the south side of the highway.

The next day, the Press had this headline in reference to the article above: Does area have mall overload? The simple answer to that question is 'yes'. And it most certainly would if they built another big mall in Tiffin. The big 'a' Coral Ridge Mall is only 3 miles east of this interchange.

+ Via Brad, a cool little mashup of Google Maps and the Bible. I'd like to see some people really go to town with this, Google Sightseeing style, with links that would work in Google Earth.

Tuesday

+ Missed yesterday, so, if you've been following my series, here's Monday. It looks to me like there are two different etymologies over there: one saying it's a translation of the Latin ' l?nae di?s' which we see easily in the Spanish 'lunes'. Another says it's from Mona, the Saxon moon god.

+ Similar deal going on for Tuesday, where one says it's a translation from the Latin 'di?s M?rtis' (again, cf Spanish 'martes') and one says it comes from Tyr.

For my part, I'm guessing the Latin names for those days fo the week and the Latin order came first and that they got translated locally under Roman influence.

And, with that, I'm done with the days of the week. What will come next? Stay tuned!

+ Thursday night Christine said the words to me that every husband longs to hear:

Our TV is too small!

;-) And, at 19", she's right, especially with the living room's current configuration. Not that it's going to do us any good. No money budgeted for a bigger TV and lots of stuff in line ahead of it. We could make do if we rearranged the room, but I don't think we want to do that.

+ Saw a link on ZenPundit to tdaxp and read some really good stuff there that I haven't really seen elsewhere. To wit:

• Part of this Karl Rove business is a CIA 'operation':

Valerie Plame's CIA bosses took care not to ask Mr. Wilson to sign a confidentiality agreement, routine in such cases, almost as if they wanted him to make a public fuss. They were not surprised, one might think, when Mr. Wilson promptly took his story to New York Times Op-Ed Editor Gail Collins, one of the great Bush-haters of all time. As Joseph DiGenova, former US Attorney for DC, recently said, "The CIA isn't stupid. They wanted this story out.

If the United States is attacked again by terrorists, one reason will be that our CIA has wasted time fighting the White House rather than the enemy. 

Those are strong (and likely true) words.

• Restructure health care by doing away with the corporate tax loop.

82 percent of Americans who earned more than $75,000 last year had job-sponsored health plans excluded from taxation, but only 23 percent of Americans who made less than $25,000 did.

Sounds good to me.

• If Al Qaeda et al. are so good at quick decision making, super-empowered individuals, and motivation, let's not try to beat them on those fronts. Let's find the places they're weak.

+ Everyone says the Tour is now Lance's to win or lose.

Thoughts on Harry Potter

No spoilers herein.

The twins used to say 'Harry Pottern', which I really liked.

I'm interested in HP. I have to be, since Christine is absolutely obsessed (and finishing up as I type. I look forward to getting my wife back). But I don't have the patience for Ms Rowling's rambling prose or her constant introduction of new characters. 'Get on with it!' I think. Then I have this absolute aversion for hateful characters like the Dursleys and Dolores Umbridge. They haven't gotten their literary due yet, and that makes me mad (not that Ms Rowling has to dish it out).

One interesting row (to use the Britishism) I found in comment threads out there was whether or not you should speed read HP. Guess what? It's up to you. It's not fine literature. If you're like me, and principally want to know plot, then go for it. Keep on rockin in the free world. If you want to read for plot first and then 'savor' it, go for it. If you want to read more slowly, go for it. This is all self-evident, right?

Something else I came across was some of the links in Technorati where people said 'Now maybe we can get past all of this HP mania.' Their prerogative. Interesting.

I searched for spoilers yesterday morning and found them. As usual, I don't have a lot of patience for many of her plot devices. One major one, in particular, in this novel seems pretty cheap to me. As far as my take on the end of this book, I think there's every chance it's not that cut and dried. That general statement makes perfect sense, right? :-) If you want to know more, email me. And let's hold off on posting spoilers in the comments.

Sunday

+ Sunday: In English, Sunday gets its name from Sunna, or Sunne the Germanic sun goddess.

+ My only list for a long time on Amazon was Resources for Tolkien Purists . Last night I got inspired and added My favorite graphic novels . While we're delving into My Amazon pages, I'm outing myself as the guy who wrote this negative review of His Dark Materials and an anonymous review of DA Carson. Unfortunately, I don't see a way to change them from anonymous to public.

+ Tom says that part of the reason reconstruction went so poorly in Iraq is that State didn't want to pave the way to war. Nor should they. That's their role. They're the Department of Peace. But we need that kind of interagency stuff coordinated if we ever get into something like this again.

Saturday

(written on Saturday, but published a day late)

Good old Saturn. And a little bonus quote for you from that link:

Its name is unique among the names of days, in that it is derived from the Roman god Saturn, while the other six names are derived from Saxon gods.

+ My overwhelming impression following The Tour over the past 24 hours is that it's a challenge of how strong you are and how much pain you can inflict on yourself. Do you enjoy putting it onto others enough to outweigh the pain your enduring? And Lance does. Mighty Lance put almost a minute into his closest competitor, Basso dropped back a very little, and Ullrich more than that.

Friday

(Named for Frige)

+ This story blows my mind. Might as well just quote the whole thing from kottke:

Here's a story that mentions that Slashdot commenter that outsourced his job , By jkottke

 

"About a year ago I hired a developer in India to do my job. I pay him $12,000 out of the $67,000 I get. He's happy to have the work. I'm happy that I have to work only 90 minutes a day just supervising the code. My employer thinks I'm telecommuting. Now I'm considering getting a second job and doing the same thing."

+ I see the proliferation of Google Mapps related to earlier developments of the planetary chalkboard and GeoURL.

+ If you're interested in mashups at all, you should check out Good Blimey Tunes. He has an amazing array of mashups all in one place. Here's a strategy. Scroll through and look for a song you like. Intrigued by the mashup? Can you stand the vs. artist? Give it a try...

+ defective yeti humor tags: Google Earth Starbucks Seattle Hipster Density.

Thursday

+ So this one has to be for Thor, right?

+ Egypt asks UNESCO for help in securing return of Rosetta Stone, other precious artifacts . Sounds fair to me.

+ Have you ever followed the Tour minute by minute? It's fun to do sometimes. If you're doing that, you should compare the commentary with the stage map. To think, they break them out be how many inches they are behind the leader...

+ WOW!!! Want to see the future of keyboards? So majorly tech-lusting...

+ It's amazing how much less email I get (including spam) since I accidentally let my domain name lapse. Should clean things out good. If you want to get me, use seanmeade-at-gmail-dot-com.

Wed-nes-day

Such a funny way to spell what we pronounce. Didn't remember the name was for Woden.

Anyway, I see in my comments that ZenPundit is reading and has added me to his BlogRoll, which I consider a great honor. Thanks, Mark, and welcome.

I also see in comments that Macon is waiting to get his new DSL hooked up (well, actually I find that fleshed out over at Kith and Kin). I know what'cha mean, Macon. Being at my folks' for a week with Mac OS 9 and AOL dialup was no party (Intarweb-wise).

Back from vacation

Hello, all. I'm back from vacation and also trying to turn over a few new leaves, so I haven't dived right back into my previous web-surfing behavior. I'm waking up at 545 each day and exercising, trying to get my diet back under control (still working on the plan), and restarting 'The Artist's Way'. I'm hopeful that these will be good changes. Not sure what the long-term weblog effects will be, but I'll keep you posted.

This morning I give you Tom's interesting take on the CIA leak, which was a different one than I'd seen elsewhere, and not very sympathetic.

Thank God it's Friday

+ I'm syndicated! (even beyond RSS/atom) Some guys started a clearing house for weblogs by members of the Evangelical Covenant Chruch called Covenant Blogs. I asked them if they wanted me on the list, and they did, so there you have it. If you are coming over here from Covenant Blogs, welcome (welcome if you're not!).

+ Brooke Shields Fires Back at Tom Cruise. Tip: don't get your psychiatric advice from celebrities. I'm afraid that some people will.

+ A little light today, but I worked for a LONG time on a longer post that isn't ready for prime time yet. We leave for Iowa tomorrow, but I will try to polish it off while I am there. I know you're waiting with bated breath! ;-)