Category: Things

Novell Acquires Ximian.

With the release of Perl 6, the ascendancy of Python as programming language will move into full swing. “Perl” they say, “is the best wrench to hammer in all your screws.”

The increasing popularity of swanky (and expensive) new Vespa scooters in the US will drive hipsters and indie-rockers to ride classic mopeds. I’ve seen several around Allston and Somerville just this past week.

Home economics archives. Different kind of economics from the ones I’ve been looking at.

The cost of classes at Harvard Extension seems to obey interesting rules. The more you want to get from it, the more you have to pay, certainly: to take it for no credit, it’s three or four hundred. For credit, perhaps five. Writing intensive courses are seven hundred, enrollment limited (more labor-intensive as well, thus more expensive). And the business school classes are always part of a degree or certificate program, and cost a minimum of $1200, pointing out their extra economic value, or something.

I’d like to know more about economics, but that would require more math than I’m willing to suffer. I suppose there’s always business school, which would have the additional advantage of shocking and horrifying my parents.

I’m a big fan of the weekly review over at Harper’s, so here’s my take: Americans are considering emigration to Canada again, while others hope to impeach Bush. The forged documents from Niger lend credence to the theory that the region, and in particular, Nigeria (its oft-confused neighbor), conduct all business in capital letters. Christian businessmen considered the communitarian nature of Linux and Jesus. We learned what’s wrong with the property market when a condo in NYC sold for forty five million dollars not including the approximately fifteen million that will be spent to outfit the completely empty space. Pakistani news agencies have noted that the US is frozen in the 1980s. A museum of psychiatric ad images is out there doing its thing.

Spiked covers risk and why we’re so risk-averse lately.

Fox News sues a parodist thereby making him famous and keeping him in business. “Faux News” is a great idea– but I prefer “We distort, you deride” to their slogan. Note: ask politely, then ignore unless it’s a real threat. Stupid lawyers.

Michael Kinsley has taken up my idea about deregulating marriage.

BusyBusyBusy has been doing the “very very short summaries” theme recently. For example, the George Will article Lap Dancing on the Constitution is summarized as: “By my logic, private consensual sex is indistinguishable from public sex acts, commercial sex transactions or marriage contracts, so if one is constitutionally protected then all must be outside the purview of the state.”

I should note, in response to Will’s article that commercial sex transactions may be regulated as they are commerce, that public sex acts may be regulated as they affect the view, and that private sex acts cannot be regulated as they are nobody’s business.

On the other hand, that would be feeding the trolls, which of course I do all too much already. And as they say, arguing on the internet is like being in the Special Olympics: even if you win, you’re still retarded.)

Scary or creepy bears in the literal sense, as toys, and in the the slang sense of the word.

Booksellers are not happy about a trend in people not buying their books at bookstores. Megadiscounters, it seems, are beating the bookstores just like they did with toy stores, drug stores, grocery stores, auto parts stores, clothing stores… some book stores are actually going to Costco and buying carloads of Harry Potter– the Costco price is as good as what a bookstore gets from a wholesaler, and the actual bookstores can’t get enough while Costco has a surplus. Not good.

Another guy cut off his own arm. Meanwhile, Economists editorialized about interest rates and monetary policy.

Question: if I get a big fat check from the government, how should I best use it to stimulate the economy? I could invest it all on Wall Street, or stick it in a savings account, or give it to charity. I could buy a bunch of little things– gum and newspapers, say, or a big-ticket item like a TV or a a used motorcycle. I could send it into the underground economy, buying off-the-books labor or contraband. I could start a business– a small one, obviously, with little start-up capital. Like maybe a street-side carwash or a lemonade stand or a cigarette smuggling ring.

Probably some combination of these would be best, like buying shares in a company that hires illegal immigrants to sell drug-related t-shirts and uses the profits to launder money earned smuggling cigarettes from Virginia into Canada.

Friedman’s Active Wear has come to my rescue as a good source of American Apparel clothing at good prices. Secretly Ironic custom t-shirts will soon be available; place your orders now.

Sierra Mist: Neither mountainous, nor misty

I passed my motorcycle test. Barely.

I’m seriously reconsidering the whole enterprise based on the poor score and the fact that I would not in other circumstances consider blowing three grand on an impractical and dangerous toy which will decrease dramatically in value once I drive it straight into the dumpster behind the Star on Kilmarnock St.

Neat online mags:
Working for the Man
Bookmouth
Identity Theory
Cabinet Magazine

Articles:
Washpost says DeCSS mania is stupid and I agree of course.
TNR says Rowling is like Lewis in that Potter is all about Christ. Spiked says it’s children’s literature, and adults shouldn’t keep going on and on about it.

Pics:
Jingoism Truck
Scientology book from the 70s
Accidentally accurate news caption

I got my Summer issue of Readymade today and it’s the usual orgy of cool things: hilarious underwear for men and women, modular carpeting systems, a very sarcastic design shop that advertises death as a product, some much better than magnetic poetry magnets and a book called DIY, or How to Kill Yourself Anywhere in the World for Under $399 (from a designer who shows you how to make a coffin from an Ikea bookshelf.) (Link corrected 6/24/03. Bad nav on that site).