Cool Gamer T-Shirts

My friend C has a T-shirt business now, consisting of all his own designs. The shirt, I think, are clever and well-done, and anyone who's a serious MMORPG gamer should check them out. Just don't use Safari on OS X when you browse to his site...

SETI@home killed off

"Distributed computing experiment SETI@home will be switched off on December 15 as it becomes part of the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC). The BOINC site will allow boffins to build other volunteer computing projects in areas like molecular biology, high-energy physics, and climate change study."

I was psyched about SETI@home when it was first announced, and I'm equally psyched that distributed computing projects are being centralized like this. Already I've downloaded the BOINC client and joined a couple of projects, though SETI seems to be rejecting join requests at the moment. Wondering if I could get all 70 Macs at school running this for me as well...muuhahahaha....

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Amazon's Mechanical Turk

I've become minorly addicted to this site in recent days. It's an easy $.03 per HIT and it's monkey work, basically. Kind of a cool concept, especially if they get more high-paying HITs that require some thought. I'm up to six bucks and counting - new graphics card, here I come! (in roughly 6 months).

Returning to Weblogistan

Well, not the proper Weblogistan - that's Iranian. Did you know that Persian is the fourth most popular blog language? Those Iranians are going to come shooting out of the gates any day now.

This entry is in response to M&J's request for me to return to blogging. It's hard to find the time, especially with a baby, but I have to admit that many bloggable moments have passed me by in the last several months, and I regret not using the forum to vent. Here's hoping I can return to it a bit.

Thoughts I have had:

• First, a big NYAH NYAH to the Republicans in power who are melting down right about now. When I sort of predicted this would happen I wasn't entirely sure - it was a fantasy that I allowed myself to indulge in because actually dwelling on the horrific reality of legislation being passed and illegal dealings going unpunished was enough to make me vomit, just a little, in my own mouth. But now that it's actually coming to pass, that their hubris is out on display for all, even the dumbest of midwestern red state hicks, to understand, it's only going to get worse for this administration and Congress. I think the key phrase Democrats should trot out, a la "up or down vote" and "cut and run", is "head in the sand." It's a great sound-byte way to describe Bush's philosophy, speeches, and attitude toward the problems he's facing, and I think it would resonate with citizens who have listened to him increasingly undock with reality and drift peacefully in the Neighborhood of Make Believe, where the war in Iraq is progressing, the charges against are trumped up and inconsequential, and his "use" of "intelligence" in the run-up to the war was perfectly straightforward and righteous. It's astounding that a President who wouldn't even admit that he received a brief entitled "Al Qaeda Preparing to Attack Inside the US" is now claiming that he was looking at the same intelligence as Congress and the American People. The sheer chutzpah of that statement is enough to make Pat Robertson weep. Or at least it would be if he were a human and not a crazed god-spitting weasel.

• Second, it's funny how having a baby can change your view of the holidays. I can recall last year ranting about the inane, centuries-old holiday music and traditions that the market trots out each year. I thought at the time that the staleness of the stuff was rivalled only by the mind-numbingly bad quality of all the new, "fresh" holiday music emitting from greedy studios everywhere. (See examples here, here, and most appallingly, here). I mean, aside from McCartney's "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime", what fresh holiday composition has entered the canon in the past 40 years? Now, however, I have a sprout who will be enjoying his first Christmas this year (not that he'll know it), and when I see him get excited about something, anything (even a spoonful of squash-flavored oatmeal), I'll do anything to keep that going. Suddenly stupid Christmas songs and lame window decorations don't seem so bad anymore - as long as they make my little boy happy.

• Speaking of our little sproutly wonder, I thought I'd post a pic that's never been published before.
  
  

  
  There's also new video of him posted at my .Mac homepage. (password is his real first name). These days he's trying to crawl (rocking on all fours at the moment, but very nearly figuring it out), budding two huge-looking front teeth, and discovering that objects dropped from a height often fall to the floor with a satisfying sound, and can be peered at longingly over the side of a high-chair. He woke up with a cold last night crying pitifully, and it took a bit of doing to get him back to sleep, but overall he's a joy and we can't wait for everyone to meet him. 10th Reunions anyone? We'll be there...