“an architecture of the commons”

Posted on Friday, 2003 December 26 by Anton

Charlie Stross has some remarks on open-source hardware.

Posted in technology | Leave a comment

drug war news

Posted on Friday, 2003 December 26 by Anton

Steve Kubby, Libertarian candidate for governor of California in 1998, has just been denied asylum in Canada. He will appeal. (Cited by Rational Review News Digest)

September 2005: Not deported yet!

Posted in drugwar | Leave a comment

years of low-maintenance operation

Posted on Tuesday, 2003 December 23 by Anton

Cat User’s Manual (cited by JoAnne Schmitz)

Do not operate the CAT above water. This may lead to user damage.

Posted in general | Leave a comment

stylish spamments

Posted on Saturday, 2003 December 20 by Anton

Seen among another blog’s comments:

Unusual ideas can make enemies.
Posted by: Thomas Jennifer at December 9, 2003 06:33 PM

Cultivated people foster what is good in others, not what is bad. Petty people do the opposite.
Posted by: Sakano Jennifer Goldsborough at December 20, 2003 01:47 PM

Since neither observation has any obvious relation to the history of the kilogram, I am not particularly amazed to find that each contains a p*n*s enl*rgem*nt link.

2004 Oct 30: Now that I have comments, similar fortune-cookies have been submitted here.

Posted in blogdom, spam | 1 Comment

fifty failures

Posted on Saturday, 2003 December 20 by Anton

According to the BBC,

More than 50 other gun control bills have come before [Brazil’s] Congress over the years and failed to be passed.

In other words, they were defeated. You don’t suppose the Beeb has some ulterior motive in using the longer phrase?

Posted in politics, weapons | Leave a comment

Kitty Hawk Day

Posted on Thursday, 2003 December 18 by Anton

Russell Whitaker (Survival Arts) reports:

Yesterday was the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers’ pioneering flight. On the same day that a hobb[yi]st at Kill Devil Hills was trying unsuccessfully to replicate that flight, the real news of the day went mostly unnoticed:

Today, a significant milestone was achieved by Scaled Composites: The first manned supersonic flight by an aircraft developed by a small company’s private, non-government effort.

Posted in history, technology | Leave a comment

detective fiction staples

Posted on Wednesday, 2003 December 17 by Anton

“He was left-handed, but the gun was found in his right hand. This is no suicide!”

I turned to my One True Ex and said, “If I ever decide to kill myself and frame someone for it—”
“I’ll remind you to use your other hand.”

Posted in arts | 2 Comments