goer.org

« January 2002 | Main | March 2002 »

February 2002 Archives

February 2, 2002: Misinformation... on the INTERNET??

First, I'd like to call your attention to this month's sidebar commentary. I'm sponsoring a very special charity project. I'm sure you'll all agree that it's a worthy cause. Check it out... and give, give, give!

Last night Nancy, Randy, Shauna, and I went to a Bill Fredlund lecture on "Fra" Filippo Lippi, an influential painter in early 15c Florence. (I use "Fra" in quotes because as it turns out, Brother Lippi did not exactly turn out to be the best "Fra", as his wife the ex-nun might attest.) It was a good Bill-lecture, although at just over an hour, it was a bit short. Also, while some of Lippi's paintings were breathtaking, he had the same "misshapen baby" problem that all his contemporaries struggled with. Perhaps there was some tradition or taboo in Renaissance Italy where adult males were not permitted to see infants? I can't explain it otherwise.

Incidentally, while I was looking for Lippi biographies to put on the site, one of the biographies I ran across had this amusing statement near the bottom: "His pupils were far inferior to him." Ummm, really? Inferior like, say, Botticelli? Oh, well. I only mention this to remind you all that I scruplously check all links on this site for quality. Rest assured, a goer.org link is a mark of taste, erudition, and 100% quality, guaranteed. You're welcome.

In Other News: This morning I was listening to Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! on the radio today, and guess who they had as a guest? That's right, Petra Verkaik (warning: link unsuitable for children), perhaps better known as the Playboy Playmate who took 17-year-old Toby Hocking to his Winter Formal dance (as I mentioned earlier). Coincidentally, NPR is doing another Pledge Week right now. Can you think of a better reason to support National Public Radio? Neither can I.

Posted by Evan Goer on Feb. 02, 2002 at 10:17 AM

February 3, 2002: Ye olde goer.org

I've decided to switch webhosts.

It wasn't last month's several hours of unannounced and unapologized-for downtime. It wasn't the numerous typos on their help pages. No, I think what did the trick was the bill I received for $4,211.20 for unpaid web services. To accumulate that bill, I would have had to have been delinquent for 188 months, or since mid-1986. (That predates the Mosaic browser and the HTML standard, although not the TCP/IP protocol.)

Anyway I think the procedure is pretty simple:

1. Register with new host
2. FTP files to new host
3. Get NetworkSolutions to change their nameservers
4. Cancel service with old host

So if all goes as planned, the changeover will cause no interruptions to this site. Oh, damn. I've probably jinxed myself right there. I'd better move on before I do any more damage.

Last night Nancy and I went to Bill's for dinner. His sister Patty was there, along with Jennie and a nice Belgian couple, Sophie and Ward. The problem with the dinner: I can't say anything else about it. See, Bill is currently obsessed with my silly little website that maybe ten people bother to read on a regular basis. All evening it was, "Don't put that on the website!" "That's off-the-record!" This must be what Bob Woodward's social life is like.

So I think the only thing I can talk about is the wine. So here it is, another Winelog entry:

Stag's Leap, Napa, 1998 Cabernet Sauvignon: BRAVISSIMO!!

In Other News:

"Reassurance is good. Cash is better." - Ahmad Fawzi, spokesman for the United Nations special envoy to Afghanistan, on long-term American support for the nation (from Newsweek.)

Fawzi should take heart: if President Hamid Karzai doesn't get the support his country so desperately needs, he can at least knock us dead with his fashion sense.

Edit, April 2003: Well, it's pretty clear by now that we've screwed Karzai pretty good. I guess fashion sense isn't enough.

Posted by Evan Goer on Feb. 03, 2002 at 10:10 AM

February 4, 2002: Marijuana (or: Econ 101)

Well, it looks like Ken Lay has chickened out of his Senate hearing appointment, and now they're going to have to subpoena him. The article ends with a nice quote from the Chairman of the SEC, Harvey Pitt:

Pitt lamented the impact of Enron's dissipation on regular people who trusted the company. "It is these Americans whose faith fuels our markets, who have no lobby and no trade associations, whose interests are, and must be, paramount," he said. "I am appalled at what happened to them as a result of Enron's collapse."

Chairman Pitt's concern for the average American investor would be truly heartwarming... if only he hadn't played such a large part in creating the legal environment that let Enron rip off those investors in the first place. Oops!

Well, the Superbowl is over, and the Patriots, 14-point underdogs, beat the St. Louis Rams 20-17 in an exciting last-minute field goal. But even more exciting, apparently, were the Partnership for a Drug-Free America's Superbowl TV commercials, which pointed out that the drug trade supports criminals and terrorists. Well, the PDFA was sloppy; they conflated the tens of millions of dollars of Taliban heroin funding with the six hundred million dollars of cocaine money that went to the FARC with the rest of the illegal drug industry.

This of course prompted numerous self-righteous screeds from the other side that managed to muddy the issue further, claiming that the government is trying to tie marijuana to Al-Qaeda. I admit, the screedists did a good job. The straw-man argument that "smoking a joint supports terrorism!" can now be considered Officially Knocked Down.

On the other hand... according to NORML, Americans consume at least 1200 to 1800 metric tons of 6% THC cannabis per year. Here's the bad news: those hundreds of metric tons were not grown by your goofy slacker college roommate in his dorm room closet. No, I'm afraid the bulk of the revenue went to some very anti-social men in Northern California or Mexico. Men with guns and bear traps and dogs trained to kill. And what products and services did these men purchase with their profits? As much as I wish otherwise, methinks they did not invest in Enron.

We Americans have spent the last few months bitching and moaning about "the root causes" of terrorism. Where do these grievances come from? "Why do they hate us?" Well, we can debate whether the Arab world is justified in hating us from now 'till Doomsday. In the meantime, I'll tell you who does have real grievances against the USA. The Colombians, that's who.

Of course, if we legalized all drugs, this problem would go away. And I've got no objections to that. That's the best way to cut the legs out from under the organized criminals who profit from the business. However, just because you support drug legalization, don't for a second think that means you're pure as the driven snow when you consume them. Your choices have consquences; unfortunately, you don't usually end up paying them.

Posted by Evan Goer on Feb. 04, 2002 at 9:58 AM

February 7, 2002: Poker Night Invasion

Remember Charlotte Raven? Well, she's baaack. This time she's gushing about Muhammad Ali for telling an anti-Semitic joke at a recent charity banquet. (What's the difference between a Jew and a canoe? A canoe always tips. Yuk, yuk.)

Raven is, of course, thrilled with Ali. In fact, she goes so far as bestow Ali with the highest praise possible in the postmodern universe. Yes, she calls him "subversive". Nope, sorry, Ms. Raven. Telling anti-Semitic jokes is mainstream... and boring, to boot. Hiding Jews from the SS: now that's subversive.

In Other News: Gregg Easterbrook is not a happy camper. "Where's my Enron bribe?" he demands. After all, he's been writing long boring energy policy pieces for years. But nobody cared. Here's his account of trying to sell an energy deregulation piece to The Atlantic in 1992:

Bill Whitworth was silent for a long pause and then said in his modified Arkansas drawl, "Gregg, don't you think that topic is -- a little dry?" When Bill Whitworth, the most bookish and circumspect in a storied line of bookish and circumspect Atlantic editors, tells you your topic is a little dry, that's like the pope telling you that you need to get out and meet some girls.

As for my life:

Sarah got pretty sick last night. With Mom and Dad both out of town, I was the only one left to take care of her. She has some variant of the flu with a nasty fever. Poor kid.

On Tuesday, we had a major Invasion on Poker Night. Our old friend Phil was in town, and that brought out a number of friends from all over the bay, including a couple of significant others. Well, just one significant other. There was another cute girl (a cute Mudd alum!!) who I thought was Brian Cheney's spouse, but turned out not to be. Believe me, I was emphatically not-crushed to learn I was mistaken. Unfortunately she's moving to Albuquerque, NM in a matter of days. At least that's what she said... hmmmm....

Anyway, we had ten people for poker. We played with two decks, high-low split on nearly every game, with very few wilds. It worked out pretty well. I even came out a buck ahead, although Lord knows I didn't deserve to. On one game of "Pass the Trash" I had the winning high hand, but I folded on the first round. The hand that actually won was a straight. A freaking straight. It was agonizing to realize on the third round that half the pot should have been mine. Mine!

At least I played it cool at the time. I was simply too embarrassed to let everyone know how high my hand was. I'm still too embarrassed. I must be the Worst Poker Player Ever. Grandma Ruth, if she were still alive, would definitely not approve. And I don't care for basketball, either. Oh, the shame.

Posted by Evan Goer on Feb. 07, 2002 at 9:40 AM

February 9, 2002: George Goer

It's going to be a couple of days until my next journal entry. My grandfather, George Goer, passed away... peacefully, in his sleep. He was 93.

I'm off to Miami for the funeral. More later.

Posted by Evan Goer on Feb. 09, 2002 at 9:37 AM

February 13, 2002: Florida Funeral

I wasn't going to comment on my grandfather's funeral in Florida, but I've changed my mind. Just a few words on the rabbi:

• He was over an hour late. This was due to traffic -- although one of the mourners, coming from the same direction, managed to make it nearly on time by taking backstreets.

• He arrived wearing:

  • a white jacket and shirt
  • black pants
  • black shoes with large gold buckles
  • a yellow tie, askew
  • a deep orange tan
  
  

• My aunt had given him some anecdotes about my grandfather the day before. She was concerned about whether the rabbi had gotten everything down properly, because the conversation happened over a cell phone, while he was driving. My aunt took him aside right before the ceremony to make sure he had everything straight. It was a good thing she did -- he had everything completely mangled.

• The non-mangled eulogy wasn't a big improvement. He managed to get my grandfather's Hebrew name wrong, and he mangled a few of the dates. (Grandpa came to the States in 1920, not 1912 -- a significant distinction, because he spent those eight formative years starving in war-torn Poland.)

On the other hand, he drove off in a Mercedes S500 sedan. I can only surmise that the whole late-to-the-funeral, wear-tacky-clothes, and offend-the-grieving-aunts-and-cousins gig is, at some level, working out for him.

Posted by Evan Goer on Feb. 13, 2002 at 9:36 AM

February 14, 2002: Diamonds are a girl's best friend?

Happy Valentine's Day! I just finished reading an interesting Atlantic article, "Have You Ever Tried To Sell A Diamond?"

Until the late nineteenth century, diamonds were found only in a few riverbeds in India and in the jungles of Brazil, and the entire world production of gem diamonds amounted to a few pounds a year. In 1870, however, huge diamond mines were discovered near the Orange River, in South Africa, where diamonds were soon being scooped out by the ton. Suddenly, the market was deluged with diamonds. The British financiers who had organized the South African mines quickly realized that their investment was endangered; diamonds had little intrinsic value -- and their price depended almost entirely on their scarcity.

And thus, the DeBeers cartel was formed. DeBeers completely controls the world's diamond supply, maintaining artificial scarcity and artificially high prices. Those who defy the cartel (like Zaire in 1981) suffer the consequences.

But who cares? Diamonds are a luxury item. No one forces you to buy them... right?

Nope. Every American man is expected to spend, at a minimum, two months salary on a diamond engagement ring. Two months salary (before taxes?) on a pretty rock that should be about as valuable as jade or amber. And why, pray tell?

Because DeBeers says you should. The culture of buying staggeringly expensive diamond jewelry to cement your engagement did not exist until sixty years ago. But in 1938, DeBeers created the "Diamonds are Forever" marketing campaign, and the rest is history. In twenty years, the American psyche was transformed. At the end of the 1950s DeBeers was able to crow, "Since 1939 an entirely new generation of young people has grown to marriageable age. To this new generation a diamond ring is considered a necessity to engagements by virtually everyone."

Not that any of this is news. The Atlantic article I cited dates back to 1982. Economics and marketing professors have used the DeBeers cartel as a case study for years. It's a fascinating issue, from an academic perspective.

Unfortunately, there's no avoiding the result -- you can't get married in this country without giving your sweetie the biggest, bestest rock you can afford. End of story. Even questioning the idea makes me sound cheap, doesn't it? That's how ingrained the whole thing is.

Listen, I've got no problem dishing out the cash... if that's what it takes to prove my undying devotion, so be it. I just resent that a ruthless cartel is forcing me to spend money on a near-worthless object. (And let's not forget that these days, there is no way to know if you are buying a "conflict diamond", which is the sanitized way of saying "thugocracy diamond" or "rape-and-murder diamond".) All I'm saying is, why not spend the money on something positive? For example:

"Darling, I can't imagine spending the rest of my life without you. And to cement our relationship, please do me the honor of allowing me to pay back the next two years of your med school loans."

Or how about:

"Darling, I can't imagine spending the rest of my life without you. And to cement our relationship, I want to give you a really special gift. Let's go get your teeth straightened, like you've always wanted!"

Who knew I was such an incurable romantic?

Posted by Evan Goer on Feb. 14, 2002 at 9:32 AM

February 16, 2002: Rope 'em and brand 'em

M'ris reminds me why we need engagement rings. "Silly Evan," she says, it's because "paying off med school loans doesn't give a physical mark saying, 'Hands off! This woman is property!'" Sheesh, I can't believe I forgot about that.

We then discussed alternative solutions for the problem:

Mris:  >> Maybe a tattoo would work....

Me:    > Now *that's* using the ol' noggin!  The only problem is, 
       > the tattoo idea needs to hit "critical mass" in the public 
       > consciousness, otherwise it won't act as a deterrent to all 
       > those unscrupulous predators out there.  Kind of a 
       > chicken-and-egg problem there.

M'ris: Ahh, but the tattoo just needs to be on the forehead and 
       read "taken."  Subtlety is quite overrated.  Then as the custom 
       evolves, it can become simply a t or something like that.

When I brought up this issue with Mike, he immediately launched into a discussion of property law. In the 19th century, some whalers would hunt whales by firing harpoons from shore. However, there were many whalers, and when you'd shoot a whale, it would dive, swim off for a while, and then beach itself and die. There was no way to tell who owned the carcass. So each whaler had to decorate his harpoons in a distinctive manner. (The decorated harpoons were called, "waifs".)

I'm not quite sure what this has to do with marriage, and I'm not sure I want to know.

In Other News: On Poker Night this week, we only had three people (two of our regulars were out of town). So there weren't enough for poker. However, our host, Page, has been trying to get us to play Mordheim for a long time now. I admit, I had been cool to the idea of playing Mordheim -- I'm not really into miniature-strategy games. But Page finally wore me down -- "You can play a squad of human mercenaries, undead, rat-men, battle nuns..."

Battle Nuns?! Why didn't you say so in the first place!

So it turns out that basic rules in Mordheim are easy to learn, set-up is fast, and the game has a cool 3-D aspect to it. And the best part is that a match takes less than two hours (even if you choose to fight until one side is completely wiped out -- or as we call it, "To the Pain!"^TM).

Anyway, I am proud to report that my crack warband of Battle Nuns carried the day against Page's foul undead legions. Once again the Pants of Evil have been yanked down by the Mocking Hands of Justice! Page, good sport that he is, commemorated the battle in a news report.

Finally, last night I saw Monster's Ball with Mike, Nancy, and Sam in downtown San Jose. It was a decent flick (I loved the nearly wordless ending scene -- Halle Berry can act.) Unfortunately there was a jackass right behind us who had an inappropriate laugh or comment every minute-and-a-half. Yes, these jerks are in the artsier theaters, too.

Nancy then took us to Picasso's, where we ordered tapas and a bottle of wine. M'ris! Wake up, pay attention -- they had tapas! I found tapas! And this reminds me, it's time for another winelog entry:

Campillo, Spain, 1996 Crianza: ¡Bueno!

Posted by Evan Goer on Feb. 16, 2002 at 9:23 AM

February 18, 2002: Ruthless Sons of Bitches

According to a USGS report on US gemstone consumption, the numbers for 1999 and 2000 were the following:

Stones (cut but unset)	1999		2000
	Carats	Value (US$)	Carats	Value (US$)
Diamonds	19.2 million	9.16 billion	19.5 million	11.3 billion
Emeralds	5.04 million	183 million	22.1 million	176 million
Rubies & Sapphires	11.2 million	239 million	12.9 million	241 million

So in the U.S. market in 2000, cut-but-unset diamonds were worth (per carat) 72.8x more than emeralds, and 31.0x more than rubies & sapphires. Interesting.

Yesterday Dad cooked rack of lamb for dinner. It was just us guys -- Mom was out of town, and Sarah had an "emergency birthday party" to attend. We mostly told stories about Grandpa and talked about IntraOp. Good news -- they've just signed a new manufacturing deal with a new company. Hopefully the new partner, unlike the old one, won't simply renege on their contract because they judge that course of action to be more profitable. So that's one problem down. Now for more funding...

It's been so frustrating to watch IntraOp limp along so undercapitalized for so long... always, there's never been quite enough money to manufacture that next machine, hire another sales rep, ... you name it, they didn't have it. It was particularly painful during the Internet boom, where you had companies burning through ten million dollars a month with no business model whatsoever -- while IntraOp was spending two orders of magnitude less money, and selling a real product that cures cancer (and for a actual profit, imagine that!) I think Dad's problem is that he's too honest. "How can I ask someone to invest in a company without telling them exactly what they're getting into?"

What's happening to our family? Grandpa George was a successful businessman. On the other side of the family, my great-grandfather was even more successful (because, as my uncle says, "he was a ruthless son of a bitch.") But we Goers and Harmans and Kellstedts seem to be losing our edge. My fathers and uncles have struggled mightly to get their businesses off the ground. and my sisters and cousins have shown no interest in entrepreneurship at all.

Over the last few years I've read maybe over a hundred magazine articles that have extolled the virtues of The American Entrepreneur: being tough and fast and smart and blah blah blah. The funny thing is that the real entrepreneurs that I've spoken to all tell me the same thing: at any moment, your small business could be crushed. A big company will just take over the market and squash you. Or someone will rip off your patent, or refuse to pay for inventory, or renege in some other way. The sad part is, for a small business it doesn't matter whether you're in the legal right. As Mike likes to point out, justice, like medicine, is expensive. You might win your lawsuit, but it'll probably be far too little, too late to save your livelihood.

My impression of the entrepreneurial world? It's not really about being tough and fast and smart (although that helps). It mostly has to do with luck. And it probably has something to do with being a ruthless son of a bitch.

That's why I like writing. The luck part is clear enough, but the son-of-a-bitch part is completely optional.

Posted by Evan Goer on Feb. 18, 2002 at 11:19 PM

February 19, 2002: Damning Stephen King

Well, this is just sad. I've been running the Kenneth and Linda Lay Emergency Relief Fund since the month began, and how much have we received so far? One dollar. One stinking dollar. What's the matter with you people? Where's the compassion? Where's the love?

There's a rather stupid article on Stephen King's retirement up at Salon.com. The article isn't quite as bad as the "Lord of the Rings" vs. "Star Wars" article that appeared last month, but it's close.

Let's give the author some credit: he is brave enough to admit that he likes some of Stephen King's work. True, he establishes right at the beginning Stephen King is at best "unpolished"... and he feels he has to sprinkle a little reference to Tom Wolfe here and a firsthand account of a New Yorker awards ceremony there, just so we know his literary street cred is intact. But at least he lays the groundwork for a real critique -- you can't reduce his article to, "Stephen King sux!" So that's something, at least.

Still, this sort of damning-with-faint-praise really gets under my skin. Why is it each time a "literary" writer refers to a science fiction, fantasy, horror, romance, or mystery novelist, they have to play footsies? "When I was a child I just loved Writer X -- golly, she was such rip-roaring fun!" God forbid you should come right out and say, "I like Terry Brooks!" "Orson Scott Card is A-OK!"

(For the record: I've never been all that fond of Stephen King's fiction, and Terry Brooks was only rip-roaring fun when I was a child. There, now that my street cred is preserved, let's move on...)

Anyway, the really silly part comes on the second page, where the author tries to portray King as estranged from his fans, hiding behind legal warnings:

Consider the series of questions and answers his Web site, StephenKing.com, provides for fans. "Will he read my manuscript?" Nope. "To avoid any litigation problems, he has been advised by his agents not to look at any manuscript that has not been accepted by a publisher." Does he accept story ideas? "To avoid any litigation problems, he has been advised ... " Can he help find an agent? "There being some legal problems with this ... " You get the picture. King has built a tall, spiked, wrought-iron fence around himself, and hung a "Beware of (Rabid) Dog" sign on it.

Eh? I'm not aware of any published author who reads strangers' manuscripts, accepts strangers' story ideas, or helps strangers find an agent. If you know of one, let me know, because I sure could use someone to hold my hand while I find an agent...

No, King is absolutely right about the legal problems, but let's face it: he's being polite to use that as an excuse. I can't imagine how many submissions he would get from his millions of fans if he offered to read manuscripts... but I know it would put poor, overworked Tim to shame.

I dunno. Salon.com must really be in its death-throes, publishing obtuse articles just to provoke a response. After all, these days they're presenting product press releases as journalism. It's all downhill from here.

That's about it. Oh, except I bought a copy of Windows 2000 and did a clean install on my PC. I thought that would solve certain issues once and for all, but it doesn't seem to have helped a bit. And here I was being good, not buying a cracked version of the OS. I hate, hate, hate, Microsoft. That's the last cent I pay them, ever.

Edit, April 2003: Hang in there, Evan-from-February-2002. Salvation is just around the corner...

Posted by Evan Goer on Feb. 19, 2002 at 11:10 PM

February 21, 2002: Alexander the Great

It looks like there's going to be an Alexander the Great movie coming to theaters around Christmas 2003.

The good news is that the part of Alexander will be played by Heath Ledger.
The bad news is that the part of the director will be played by Oliver Stone.

Ledger is a brilliant choice. Right age, right talent, right looks. As for Stone... considering his total disregard for historical fact, I shudder to think what he'll do with this one. Particularly since if anything, we Americans know less about Alexander than we do about JFK or Nixon.

I learned a new metric unit of measurement today:

milliHelen

the amount of physical beauty required to launch one ship; 1/1000 of a Helen

Lord knows that one's going to come in handy.

Posted by Evan Goer on Feb. 21, 2002 at 10:58 PM

February 25, 2002: Lessons from the Slopes

I just got back from a ski trip to Big Bear (with a brief stopover in Santa Barbara to visit Rachel). Joining me on the trip were Nancy, Mike, Eric, Susan, Byron, and Karen. My philosophy is that all trips are in some way educational. On this particular excursion to exotic Southern California, I learned the following:

• Rachel is doing fine, but she has become very annoyed with another graduate student who is working with her on the same giant project. "I've decided to use my knowledge from my sociology classes to crush her," Rachel said. No, Rachel, no! You must learn to use your powers only for Good, never Evil!

• Rachel's husband Ben seems to be doing just ducky. He always seems to be doing just ducky. I think I'm not very good at reading him.

• It is good to know friends who have friends who have large cabins with vaulted ceilings in which you may stay for free.

• Lucky Charms are, cup for cup, healthier than Kellogg's Raisin Bran. Lucky Charms are equal or better in every vitamin/nutrient category, and they actually have fewer calories. The one category where Raisin Bran wins is fiber: 28% RDA to 7% RDA. But who needs regular BMs when you can have purple horseshoes and red balloons?

• Skiing in 50 degree weather is really nice, aside from the occasional slushy patch.

• Skiing in rental boots is not so nice, particularly when they give you blisters on your calves.

• Proficiency in Boggle does not translate into proficiency in Scattergories (vindication for the domain-specific knowledge theory of intelligence?)

• The official legal way to refer to "insider trading" is to call it a "Section 10(b)-5 violation".

• Contrary to popular myth, in blackjack a "bad" third base player does not affect the odds of another player winning or losing. Consider the following example:

  Dealer is showing 12, and so will bust if he draws a 10.
  The deck has N cards:  
    G   "good" cards (tens), 
    N-G "bad" cards (non-tens).
  
  If the third base player stays, the dealer's odds of busting are
  simply G/N.
  
  If the third base player hits, there are two cases:
  
    Case 1: a G/N chance he receives a "good" card.  There are then G-1 
    good cards left, so the dealer's odds of busting are now (G-1)/(N-1).
  
    Case 2: a (N-G)/N chance he receives a "bad" card.  The dealer's odds
    of busting are now G/(N-1).
  
  The total odds of the dealer busting are therefore:
  
    (odds of Case 1) x (odds that dealer busts given Case 1)
      + (odds of Case 2) x (odds that dealer busts given Case 2)
  
  Or:
  
    (G/N) x (G-1)/(N-1) + (N-G)/N x G/(N-1)
  
  which is, putting everything under a common denominator:
  
     G x (G-1)   (N-G) x G
     --------- + ---------
     N x (N-1)   N x (N-1) 
  
  which is, expanding and cancelling terms:
  
     G^2 - G + GN - G^2      GN - G       G x (N-1)     G
     ------------------  =  ---------  =  ---------  =  -
          N x (N-1)         N x (N-1)     N x (N-1)     N
  
  Which is the same result as if the third base player had stayed.
  

Posted by Evan Goer on Feb. 25, 2002 at 10:51 PM

February 26, 2002: Save Ken Lay!

Listen up, people.

We know Ken Lay isn't such a bad guy. We know that according to Linda Lay, he's a decent, upright individual. And despite that undeniable fact, the arrogant international press sees fit to insult this fine American entrepreneur in his time of need.

Well, I'm not going to stand for it.

I urge you all to click on the box above right now and give what you can to the Kenneth and Linda Lay Emergency Relief Fund. I know that in these days of terrorism, war, and crony capitalism, it's sometimes hard to see that we are all just human beings, doing our best to live, love, and make ends meet. Doesn't poor Ken deserve that chance, just like the rest of us? Prick him, does he not bleed?

Together, we can make a difference.

Posted by Evan Goer on Feb. 26, 2002 at 9:00 PM

February 27, 2002: All Hail Liquid Nitrogen

I did it! I compiled the Dada Engine! So far I only have it working on the commandline on my webhost's server. I haven't gotten a chance to do much much than run the default scripts. But I have a new toy to play with... oh boy oh boy oh boy...

From the Yeah, what I said department: Michael Lewis asks, "Are Enron Workers Owed Anything?"

For the most part, workers held shares voluntarily and could have sold them, and diversified their portfolios, at any time. The reason they didn't is that they were greedy: They had seen Enron's stock rocket and decided the smart thing to do was bet that it would keep rocketing. It's sad for them that it didn't, but should the rest of us be responsible for them, any more than we feel responsible for people who sunk their life savings into TheStreet.com Inc.?

Finally, what no science major should be without: 1001 things to do with liquid nitrogen. Boy do I miss liquid nitrogen.

My favorite item on the list is the first one, making ice cream -- although fer crissakes, you can use better ingredients than yogurt (as the site suggests). Here's a more sensible recipe... should you just happen to have a dewar lying around.

Posted by Evan Goer on Feb. 27, 2002 at 10:46 PM

February 28, 2002: Why I Support NPR

NPR closed "All Things Considered" with a story on Fox's upcoming Tonya Harding-Amy Fisher boxing match. Then show ended, and local NPR-guy Norm Howard came on to announce traffic and weather. "And that's why we ask for your contributions," he said in his dry baritone.

I'm not sure if he meant, "because we provide you with hardhitting high-quality stories like that one," or "because otherwise, our staff will have to scrabble for a living any way they can, hint, hint." Either way, it was pretty darn funny.

OK, so you want even funnier than those pranksters at NPR? Well, how about C|NET? Today they had a guest article on web services. The author was Frank Moss, who came out swinging at Microsoft, IBM, Sun, and BEA (how sad that everyone's forgotten about HP). After jeering at the big vendors, Moss says (warning: marketroid language ahead, may not be appropriate for sensible readers):

Okay, that's the pain--now for the pain reliever.

What I see emerging is a new layer of vendor-neutral software that sits on top of the Web services platforms from all the major players--the "Web services automation" layer. [Emphasis mine]

Hmmmm, I thought. What the heck is "web services automation"? This would require further research.

Fortunately, I didn't have to go too far. Moss is CEO of Bowstreet, a software company that "unleashes the power of web services". Here's an excerpt from a helpful page titled, "Our solutions":

What is the Bowstreet Business Web Factory?
The next-generation web services automation system, which works across heterogeneous web services platforms and provides the capability for modeling, assembly, dynamic change management and mass customization... [Emphasis mine]

Well, OK, I still have no idea what a "web services automation" system is. But surprise, surprise -- Moss is selling one!

Yes, yes, I know. C|NET and all the rest of the industry rags aren't even close to legitimate journalism. They are merely conduits of FUD and advertisement. But sheesh, they could try a little harder. Keep up a pretense, you know?

Posted by Evan Goer on Feb. 28, 2002 at 10:37 PM