Pickabar Blog

Wired has an article about how expanded intelligence gathering powers for the FBI were sneaked in as part of a spending bill. If parts of your government are using outright trickery to get measures passed, especially measures that continue the erosion of your civil rights, it’s time to worry. People say that the response to the Patriot Act has been overblown, “it’s going to help us fight terrorism, the government wouldn’t use it to take away civil rights”. Do you trust the government not to misuse additional power? You shouldn’t! This country was founded on the principle that power was inherently dangerous and corrupting, and therefore needed to be checked at all times. No one branch should be granted sweeping powers with no possibility of oversight by one of the other branches.

We all need to wake up! They are building the police state one measure at a time. Our grandchildren will ask us why we let it happen…I really need to find a way to get involved.

Last night Sarah and I went to the gym. Sarah goes pretty regularly, but I haven’t gone since before our european trip in July. The bottom line? It hurts to go to the gym for that first time, almost as much as it hurt the very first time. I actually got faint towards the end of our planned 45 minutes…I can’t imagine how I was ever able to do our full routine.

That’s what I hate most about exercise; it requires constant maintenance. If I didn’t play guitar for a few months, I’d be rusty the first time I picked it up again, but I’d still be able to play a bit. If you don’t keep up with your exercise regimen it’s right back to square one.

I also hate doing pointless work. I mean, why in the heck am I throwing you this weighted ball if you’re just going to throw it back? We’re not even keeping score for chrissake!

Those are my fallback excuses for not working out, but I’m going to try and use them as a spur for me to really start taking care of myself. I don’t want to be this out of shape, and I definitely don’t want to get light-headed from 45 minutes of light exercise. Being able to avoid shopping at Big & Tall stores for a few more years wouldn’t hurt either.

InfoPath seems to be building a community around itself. Here’s the first InfoPath blog I’ve heard of, InfoPath Faq.

[Via Pierre Greborio.NET (about ten years ago...I need to catch up ]

If you’re a member of technology mailing lists, you’ve probably received tons of emails where the sender has attached a huge JPEG screenshot just to share a message from a dialog box. Well, in many cases using Control-Shift-Insert copies the text from the dialog box, as well as the title, in a tidy little format.

Here’s a sample from a dialog I popped by calling “Net send”L

 --------------------------- Messenger Service  --------------------------- Message from GLINDSAYLAPTOP3 to GLINDSAY on 11/24/2003 3:40:20 PM  
Be like a squirrel.
 ---------------------------
 OK   
 ---------------------------

Remember, the bandwidth you save may be your own.

On Tuesday the 18th, Sarah and I went to see The White Stripes at the Roseland Ballroom. The show was originally scheduled for sometime in July, but Jack broke his pinky in a motorcycle accident. Ray and Diana were also going to the show, so for once Sarah and I could look forward to having someone to hang out with between bands.

The opening act for the night was The Hentchmen, another detroit garage group. They had a few catchy riffs, and some energetic moments, but I won’t be rushing out to buy their records. I’m a huge fan of the electric bass, and what it does to solidify a song’s rhythm. I’ve been able to look past the lack of bass in a few cases (say, the White Stripes), but in most cases you can really feel the absence. The Hentchmen include a guitar (some sort of semi-hollow on the night in question), electric organ, and drums…but alas no bass. As a result, the songs lacked rhythmic persistence and the guitars high end ran unchecked. To be fair, part of the problem might have been the sound system…maybe I’ll check out some of their recorded material. The crowd definitely seemed to enjoy them more than I did.

Speaking of the crowd, I didn’t notice any celebrities, but I did see tons of rock and roll types tricked out in their best red, black and white gear. Looking back, I should have made myself a Mondrian inspired T-Shirt or something so that I would have been able to fit in with the De Stijl (pronounced “de style”) aesthetic that was going on. My BB King T-shirt was black and white, maybe that get’s me an A for effort.

By the time Jack and Meg hit the stage, the crowd was primed and ready to go. They stormed there way through a bunch of their hits with minimal fuss or crowd interaction, not that the audience seemed to mind. I found myself jumping and bopping around indie rock style…I couldn’t help myself. My personal highlight was “Death Letter”, a cover of one of Son House’s most heart wrenching songs. Definitely check out both versions.

Jack really took it to the guitar the whole night with screaming bends and ferocious slide wails. For the most part, Meg’s minimalist drumming style provided room for Jack’s voice and guitar to amble, but it seemed drowsy and almost disinterested at times. Having a drummer that sounds like a guitarists foot stomping accompaniment is a cool novelty and adds to some of their songs, but I’d really like to hear what Jack can do with a solid rhythm section made up of the traditional drums and bass.

All in all a great night, except for Ray having a touch of the flu. I can’t wait to see them again.

Here’s a review of the show from the daily news.

The National Weather Service released RSS feeds for weather advisories. Subscribed! I don’t know how useful this service will be in NYC, but I’m glad to see RSS spreading to more organizations. I rarely browse sites that don’t have feeds. If you find the service useful, definitely fill out the survey so we can encourage more agencies to publish feeds.

[Via Scripting.Com]

When I first relocated to the Isle Of Manhattan, some sort of weird Burritoville obsession took hold of me. For about four months I had Burritoville at least three times a week…sometimes twice in one day.

I actually slowed down after getting sick from a Tempeh Burger wrap one time. I still order occassionaly though, as I assumed it was just one of those things. Sarah’s cousin is in town, and she’d actually heard of Burritoville on her own. We were planning on getting a Lost in Austin or two over the weekend, but after reading about their health department violations I’m not so sure how comfortable I am eating their food. Anyone know if these types of violations something to be concerned about?

Thanks for the pointer, Greg.

When I updated the template, I forgot to replace the excerpts which were in the default template with the full body. If you’re nice enough to waste your time reading this blog, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to read the posts right from your browser.

The latest version of my news reader of choice, SharpReader 0.9.3.2, is out, and I’ve installed it on my work machine. I love SharpReader, but I really wish it had auto-update functionality, so that I wouldn’t have to manually update it when new versions come out.

I’m also looking forward to some sort of synchronization functionality like RSS Bandit so that I can do some of my blog reading on my desktop machine. I may have to give RSS Bandit another try.

I’m working at home today, so I decided to order my old favorite…Burritoville. I don’t have any cash in the house, do I decided to put the order on my credit card. No big deal…I do it all the time. Here’s the weird part. Instead of putting me on hold, the lady who answered the phone must have just put the phone on the counter while she took another order. That order happened to be from someone else who must not have had money, as I was able to hear her exact credit card number and expiration date as the Burittoville person verified them for her. It’s not a big deal, but it’s scary how available that kind of information really is.