Accept no substitutes

Category: Amusements (Page 4 of 31)

Things that are amusing

Rich Beckman on State of Things

JOMC collegue photographer and multimedia developer, Rich Beckman talks about being in Chile out on Selkirk’s [also known as Robinson Crusoe’s] Island today on the air and later on the archives of WUNC-FM’s State of things. [mp3]

Chasing Crusoe: Three hundred years ago Alexander Selkirk opted to be marooned on an island rather than endure his English captain. His four-year long adventure inspired the classic novel Robinson Crusoe. Last spring a group of students from UNC-Chapel Hill returned to the island, four hundred miles off the coast of Chile, to document the legacy of Robinson Crusoe. Host Frank Stasio talks with Prof. Rich Beckman and graduate student Jay Heinz about the project. For more information, see: http://www.rcrusoe.org/ [this is the cool multimedia (flash) sight made there on the Island with games and 3-d images and photo essays etc]

SXPHW

I did get a little stall from the PT after a drive to Saxapahaw on Saturday. The car started almost immediately this time though.
We were on our way to visit with Elizabeth and Zach Exley. Zach ZACK Exley. Zack worked with MoveOn.org and with the Kerry campaign on their on-line organizing in the last US Presidential campaign. He’s also a HuffingtonPost blogger.
The scene on Saturday at SXPHW is a very nice one. There’s a little farmer’s market. There is a very cool music series. This week featuring The Breaks and Maxwell/Mosher. And there was great BBQ from our favorite (other than Allen and Son) the BBQ Joint.
Nice weather, good music, good people, hula hoopers, good talk, what more could you ask for.

Lordi loved in Finland; Dumber than ever

Stories are all over the news about how the Finns are reaching out in pride to their Eurovision winning latex-wearing monster band, Lordi. Even one report that there will be Lordi stamps soon.

Lordi, the leader of Lordi, has things in perspective when he says “Being a hero is easy: you just have to win the Eurovision Song Contest, apparently. Until a few weeks ago the whole nation was against us totally — they did not want us to represent Finland. Now all the magazines in Finland are printing Lordi masks for children. There’s not much logic going on inside. But let’s face it, people are stupid.” (quoted from a story by Dan Bilefsky in the International Herald Tribune)

Speaking of stupid, the new Lordi song “Who’s Your Daddy?” makes their “Hard Rock Halelujah” sound like a complex ELO song with Bob Dylan lyrics. The video is a sex change on the oppression of Goths. This time a letter jacket wearing boy band-ish lad gets the Lordi abuse instead of cheerleaders. But Lordi had much more budget to spend on fireworks and sparklers this time out. And it all takes place in a roller disco!

Too good to pass up! Especially good in this live version but Lordi in the daytime means no fireworks and much less set. A plus is that you can see the costumes and those funky boots better.

Jones is History (Channel)

Joe Newberry, great banjoist and NC Department of Cultural Resources bureaucrat, asked me to be part of a set of interviews with the History Channel next week. So’s on Wednesday just before lunch, I’ll head over to the American Tobacco Historic District and tape a discussion with them. We’ll talk about NC’s early showing on the Internet, NC related history projects on ibiblio.org like DocSouth, volunteer history projects like the Pearl Harbor Archives and HyperWar, music collections including the folk music index and perhaps the FolkDen and Folkstreams.net (since both have an NC part to them).

If you have other suggestions, lemme know.

Courtney at Wired’s Al Gore Event

I couldn’t take Chris Anderson up on his invite to run up to NY City for Wired‘s showing of Inconvenient Truth. I needed to be in Ames, Iowa for the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals. So’s I passed my invite on to the lovely and talented Courtney Pulitzer who wrote up the event on her Cyber Scene blog. It’s a great write up so check it out. Her newsletter today reminded me to check back up on her report and see her pictures.

Secret Diary of Steve Jobs to Return?

Steve writes in the comments of the only post remaining on the Secret Diary of Steve Jobs blog:

Mystic SteveDudes, I had no idea this blog was getting read so widely. I’m being held in captivity during the WWDC — scary story of rendition etc., which will be my firt new post. Anyway, I will relaunch soon, not sure where yet. Will keep you friggin informed. Like, with a post here or whatever. And FYI this is NOT an Apple publicity stunt. You really don’t think they have that much sense of humor, do you?
Cheers–
Fake Steve.

5:40 AM

New Yorker Librarians answer your questions

Over on Emdashes, a new monthly column by the librarians for the New Yorker has begun.

You ask.

They answer.

You’ve been dying to know, admit it, where the last typewriters in the New Yorker offices are kept and why:

Q. When was the last typewriter spotted in the office?

Jon writes: Today. There are three typewriters in the library (two IBM Wheelwriters and a Brother ML 300). Though the majority of our work is done on computers—and has been for some time now—there are still a few archival resources we maintain with typewriters. We’re the only department in the office that still uses typewriters on a regular basis.

And “Q. Are cartoons fact-checked? What’s the sort of thing that checkers ask to be changed in a drawing or caption?” See their column for the answer.

Sharks at the beach; Carroboro gets uncool!

Down on Oak Island where we saw a 4 foot sand shark pulled onto the pier a few yards from our room. The seas have brought in a lot of seaweed which is washing on the beach and bathers. Neither the seaweed nor the shark have detered anyone from being out on the beach and in the warm water.

But in Carrboro, things are getting decidedly uncool. The new Carrboro News reports that the Carr Mill management has banned “unauthorized performers” from the very public Weaver Street Commons. The Dancing Man, the flute player CJ, and even the beloved Hooping Women. (Other sources include Herald-Sun and Concerned Citizen WillR).

BarCampRDU

Just back from a BarCampRDU Organizing Committee meeting. Everything is looking great. Fred has done a great job of getting sponsors and the committee has gotten good food lined up and folks on the wiki have done a fine job of proposing and claiming initial sessions.

The Friday Night Pre-conference party has 60 folks signed up (there’s room for 15 more). Fred and Jackson tell me that there will be lots of food. Plan on treating this as dinner, they tell me.

So Confirm, Sign up, and Show up on Friday and on Saturday.

PS I saw the t-shirts tonight and they look even better than the picture.

PT Saga Continues

First let me say that I love my PT Cruiser. I’ve had it for over 5 years; it is a first year Cruiser. During that time I’ve only had a few minor repairs and not serious callbacks.
Then the stalling when the engine is hot started.
The occurance of the problem preceded my 60K mile maintenance by only 24 hours so I added a look at the stall to the scheduled maintenace. The 60K is a pretty big deal in which all the spark plugs, wires, hoses etc are replaced or at least checked. The guess of the service guys was that the PT had gunk built up in the throttle housing (?) and that in the heat the gunk became fluid enough to ooze down and cut off the flow. No trouble. Just clean it out.
I pick up the car and drive a bit. The stall is back — or more properly never left.
[inserting forgetten visit here]
I take it back to Chrysler. They have found a tech bulletin of some sort. They download new soft/firmware in to the car’s mind. That should fix it.
In the mean time, Sally’s car, an older Saturn, was stalling too. Her problem was related to the EGR valve.
The PT, even with it’s new brain download, stalls again and again. Some symptoms: fine until driven about 15 or 20 miles in the heat. Then beware on stoplights.
The Chrysler guys next speculated that the problem was the fuel pump. My choices: Drive around with a pressure recorder on the fuel line or Just go ahead and replace the pump.
We replaced the pump. Not cheap but effective or so it seems.
No more stalling — so far.
Thursday I drove the PT about 4 blocks and the Check Engine Light lit up. Finally some data for the poor mechanics. During all the stalling there was no Check Engine and no data or alerts generated.
Now we have something for them to look at.
More on Monday.
[insert Saturday stall outs]
So I take the first good medium length drive today. Over to Durham to hear Barry Varela read from his new novel, Palmer’s Gate at the Regulator. I get almost to 9th Street when I hit a stoplight. The car stalls.
I am cursed in several different languages as I try to restart the car even though I have the e-blinkers on and am in the rightmost lane.
Finally, as usual, the PT restarts. I get to the reading a little late, but I do get there.
After the reading and good talks with friends, I get in the PT. Starts fine. Drives fine. All the way to Chapel Hill. Until I try to turn off 51-501 onto Morgan Creek. Stall again. Yikes.

Long Tail Party in NYC and JJB

I couldn’t get up to NYC for the great book party for Chris Anderson‘s Long Tail so’s JJB took my invite and represented ibiblio by doing some serious partying. CNet has the story in which JJB gets the last words:

The crowd was an enthusiastic one. “It’s beautiful,” said John Bachir, an engineer for the online information archive Ibiblio. “It’s dangerous to say that it’s the ideal of Marx, but it is the ideal of Marx. [sic] In a controlled way.”

After saying that, Bachir glanced at this reporter’s notebook and added, “Make sure you mention that I’m not a Marxist, okay?”

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