08.28.06
More on Moleskine
The Moleskine is indeed a wonderful notebook, and here’s a blog devoted to it.
What happens next to housing prices?
Take a good long look at this graph. It’s from the book Irrational Exuberance.
GOP continues to subvert elections
It looks as though the San Diego special election (to replace convicted GOP felon “Duke” Cunningham) was subverted. The following article is by Michael Collins:
It appears the US media overlooked one of the great political stories of the year. In what is becoming something of a pattern, here’s a brief chronology:
On June 6, 2006 Republican Brian Bilbray allegedly slightly outpolled Democrat Francine Busby in the special election for California’s 50th Congressional District, despite Busby’s lead in the polls going into the election. There were immediate cries of foul following the election due to major irregularities, including electronic voting machines sent out to the homes and cars of volunteers for up to 12 days prior to the election, and irregular election results like huge mega-precincts of absentee ballots where turnout was thousands of percent more than registered voters.
On June 13, 2006, Bilbray flew to Washington, DC and was sworn in as a member of the United States House of Representatives by House Speaker Dennis Hastert.
On or about June 30, 2006, 17 days after Bilbray was sworn in as a member of the House, Mikel Haas, Registrar of San Diego County, officially completed the audit of election results required for certification, and officially certified the election of Bilbray over Busby based on 163,931 votes cast, of which 2,053 votes were said to be cast on Diebold TSX touchscreens, and the remainder scanned via Diebold Accuvote OS computers.
On July 31, 2006, the Contestants filed an election contest, seeking a hand recount and to invalidate the election on several grounds, not only including the affirmative evidence of irregular results, but also including the stonewalling of citizen information requests and the pricing of recounts at an estimated $150,000 that made it difficult or impossible for any citizen to tell who won the election.
On August 22, 2006 the defendants moved to dismiss, arguing that the swearing in of Bilbray deprives everyone else of jurisdiction including specifically the San Diego Superior Court because Art. I, sec. 5 of the US Constitution has been held to mean that the House and Senate are the judges of the Qualifications of their Members, one of those qualifications is supposed to be “election.”
There is some thing very wrong with this sequence. Elections are not complete, anywhere, until they are officially certified by local authorities. How can a citizen get sworn in as a member of the House of Representatives before his or her election is certified? Only Speaker Dennis Hastert, his team, and Bilbray have the answer. Read the rest of this entry »
Note on Japanese cellphones
From Peter Payne’s email newsletter:
Saturday was “new keitai day” for our family, and we all went down to the local “au” store to get new mobile phones (keitai, in Japanese). As usual, the pace of technology in Japan is very fast, and even though it’s been just a year since I got my last phone, there have been two complete generations of new models introduced in the interim. The new crop of phones included features like “Wanseg” digital TV viewing with a screen that can rotate horizontally, a phone with a physical switch to go from “business” to “personal” mode, and the football helmet-tough Casio’s G’z One, made for people who drop their phones a lot (like me). As usual, Japanese phone manufacturers are all about style, and each of the phones had a unique, fresh approach to appeal to a different segment of phone buyers, with several phones specifically touting their simple “Friendly Design(tm).” All the phones we looked at had features such as GPS “Safety Navigation” (so we can find missing family members), extra-large text for older users, music capabilities, cameras, and a virtual “Hello Message!” room where you and your friends can chat with each other, with each person represented by a different animal. While it was nice to have some cool phones to choose from, there are almost no “smart” phones like the Treo or Blackberry here, since kana can be entered quickly with a ten-key pad and Japanese consumers presumably find phones with QWERTY keyboards to be ugly.
Our brains are primed for addiction
New Scientist has a very interesting article in its current issue—behind a subscription wall, unfortunately. But it supports the notion that addictions are much the same:
David had been a normal, happy child, growing up in an English seaside town. But by the time he was 18 he was miserable, withdrawn and rebellious. He skipped school, got angry when confronted, and stole from family and friends. He had a habit to fuel, and it took up all of his time. He lost sleep, had anxiety attacks, and sometimes got violent when he couldn’t get what he needed.
David, his parents, and psychologist Mark Griffiths of Nottingham Trent University in the UK, who gathered his case history, have no doubt that David was an addict. It changed his personality and behaviour, gave him a high, and dominated his thoughts for four years. The word addict usually triggers images of drug abusers or alcoholics, yet David’s “addiction” was not to any chemical. It was to slot machines, the most innocuous-looking of gambling games, freely accessible to school kids and open all hours, all year round.
Was David’s problem as serious as that of a heroin addict? Is it sensible to lump such behaviour together with addiction to drugs? Granted, the term addiction is bandied about a little too readily by chocaholics, workaholics and teens who spend a bit too long playing the latest computer game. “We can’t define it simply by excess,” says Griffiths. Yet two decades of research have convinced him that excessive behaviour can cross the line and become every bit as real an addiction as being physically dependent on a drug. Read the rest of this entry »
Mighty Mouse redux
Just read today about this new Logitech mouse, quite opportunely: my Microsoft mouse is starting to act very flakey. According to the article, the Logitech MX Revolution has 420 parts, compared to 20 for a standard mouse. Lots of built-in intelligence, broad range of capabilities, etc. Who could resist? Not I.
12 Pointers for the Person on the Way Up
Years and years ago, I came across a little pamphlet that had some excellent advice for the ambitious young person. I came across it on my computer today, so I thought I’d share it. (It’s a PDF file.)
It will strike some as unbearably square, but in fact the advice is excellent—and if followed, will stand you in very good stead.
Just a thought—or, rather, 12 thoughts.
New shaving technique, perfect shave
Normally, I’ll not blog about routine shaves—though I continue to look forward to each day’s shave, quite a change from the past. But today’s shave was by no means routine and is worth mentioning. I tried a new technique due to Chris Moss, after whom the Moss Scuttle is named.
The technique is using Trumper Coral Skin Food as an every-pass pre-shave: Wash your beard and rinse, leaving it wet. Spread a bit of Coral Skin Food over your wet beard, then lather. Shave, rinse, repeat: spread Coral Skin Food over wet stubble, lather, shave and rinse. As many passes as you like.
As usual, I finished up with an alum bar rub after the cold-water rinse at the end.
Wonderfully smooth shave with not a single nick or cut. I used a new Feather blade in a razor new to me—a gold 1940’s Gillette Super Speed (which, being gold, probably has a special name (later: it does: Milord))—along with a new shaving cream (Nancy Boy, about which I’d read many good things, and which is wonderful). So it wasn’t exactly a controlled experiment, but I’m convinced.
Coral Skin Food is available from QED on the Geo. F. Trumper page—see their menu at the left. It’s $23 for 3.5 oz, but OTOH you use just a drop at a time. And the shave is superb.
