Tuesday, August 27, 2002

posted by Ufez Jones to Baseball August 27 2:50 PM. At least Randall Cunningham's debatable. But Dubya in Cooperstown? Politics aside, is there any justification for this at all? [SportsFilter] Dubya is one of 60 people on a list of potential non-player candidates for Hall of Fame inclusion. 15 of those 60 will be passed on to the new Veterans Committee, which will decide who, if any, get in to the Hall. And George W. freakin' Bush is a potential candidate. Jim Caple puts it best in his article: "Baseball's all-time hits leader is not eligible for the Hall of Fame but the man who traded away Sammy Sosa is."

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Live: Champions League [BBC World] Aaah...only a few more days 'til I have hours of high-quality European and South American soccer from Fox Sports World...
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New Patriotic Posters (from whitehouse.org) Example: "Sgt Rummy sez... Hope Allah's wearing Kevlar!"
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Coppola to film Kerouac's "On The Road" (via tenorman.net) Eek - starring Billy Crudup and Brad Pitt? Directed by friggin' JOEL SCHUMACHER?!?!? I'm moving to Lowell this weekend, and work there now - the hometown of Jack Kerouac. Kerouac Park, a nice little park by the canal, is right outside my new apartment window. If this movie comes out, I need to hold a protest there. JOEL SCHUMACHER?!?!? Didn't Coppola SEE Batman Forever and Batman And Robin?

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Primed for a Math Breakthrough. Professor Manindra Agrawal asks mathematicians of the world to unite to help him shrink his zero-error algorithm for identifying gigantic prime numbers. Manu Joseph reports from India. [Wired News] To some extent, I desperately want to be a badass mathematician. Dad's a math whiz working in computers, and high-level math has always seemed really interesting to me. Alan Turing is my hero - I'm convinced that he's the most important scientific thinker of the last 75 years. But I'm not near smart enough to cut it...I get bored with trig and calculus, and failed linear algebra the first time I took the course. So my math mania is restricted to reading articles like this, ones that don't go into too much technical detail. Ah well.

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Virus writers 'obsessed with sex and computer games'. Dr Evil need not apply [The Register] Really? Never noticed.
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Woo...I now have wireless. I inherited a wireless card from a departing coworker, and have it up and running. I'm actually sitting in a training class my group is giving right now - I'm sitting in a corner, writing a document. In theory. Actually, I'm just browsing the web and getting a massive kick out of the fact that I've got high-speed internet access without a cable. I feel light and freeeeeee! =)

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India offers troops in bandit hunt [BBC World] I love this story. I had a chat with a coworker of mine from Bangalore yesterday. He finds this whole bandit thing to be just as strange as I do - except he's used to it, since this guy's been wandering around stealing things and people for years.
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Joe Conason's Journal. Bush envoy's speech shocker: Iraq war "unwise." [Salon Headlines] The envoy in question is Anthony Zinni. In a speech in Tampa last Saturday, he said (among other things): "[M]ore important than Iraq right now are 'the opportunities that exist for the United States to encourage a peaceful transition in Iran where young people are increasingly challenging the power of the Islamic theocracy.'" Right on.

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Great escape for Sox. Boston Globe Aug 27 2002 6:24AM ET [Moreover - Boston news] This Sox team is the definition of frustrating. Just when I feel like it's safe to give up (See my entry from last Thursday for an idea of what I mean), they proceed to win two in a row, looking like the luckiest team in the world while doing it. The next game, they just can't score runs, despite a great pitching performance. And Sunday...blowing the game in the 9th is never fun. So around the office on Monday, the general consensus was that the Sox were done, cooked, bring on the strike... ...so they win last night by scoring 4 in the 9th, two off the Angels' elite super-closer, Troy Percival, and then win it in the bottom of the 10th on a solo homer by Johnny Damon to near-right field, just past the Pesky Pole...basically, it was about three feet farther than the shortest possible home run in Major League Baseball. But it counts - and now there is Joy In Mudville again. I'm trying to stay off the bandwagon this time. I'll watch when Pedro pitches - he is The Pitching Jesus (to paraphrase Bill Simmons' nickname for Larry Bird: the Basketball Jesus). I'll pay attention to Manny Ramirez - when healthy, he's the best hitter in baseball not named Barry Bonds, and even more fun to watch work at the plate. But I have no expectations for my Sox, and that's alright. If they win anything, fine. I'm just waiting for basketball season.

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Analysis: Making the case for attack [BBC World] Nothing all that new here, but this picture jumped out at me - that's exactly how I expect Cheney looks at all of us.
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US 'mosque plotter' goes on trial [BBC World] ...why is that this is the first I've heard about this? Have there been stories in the Times/Post and I just missed them?
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Japan court rejects germ warfare suit [BBC World] Boooo. The court accepts the facts of the case, namely that the Japanese engaged in biological warfare in China during WWII. Nasty, nasty stuff they did. Now they're getting sued by a couple hundred of their victims. The case got thrown out because, according to the court, individuals don't have the right to seek compensation from a state under international law. That isn't right.

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E-Mail Forwarding Patented, PTO Sued [Slashdot] Yeah, they've been granted a patent for forwarding email. Admittedly, it's not quite as simple as putting another email address in your .forward file on Unix, which predates these guys by...well, a long time. From what I can gather from the patent document itself, there's some method of automatically determing who the final destination of the email should be...no, wait. As I read this, it IS just like using a .forward file, but with a 'forwarding address server' that does the same thing the .forward file does. Ow. My head hurts from the patent stupidity. I got me an idea - I think I'm going to register a patent on programs opening files. It's not like there's prior art or anything.

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Some in Argentina See Secession as the Answer to Economic Peril [New York Times: International News] Patagonia, the southern half of Argentina that holds less than 5% of the population but a lion's share of the natural resources, is considering seceding from the rest of bankrupt, economically-wrecked Argentina. Can you blame them?
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Woke up this morning to CNN in the background. I don't really like CNN at all these days, with the exception of Aaron Brown. The pre-7 anchor is annoying, and don't even make me think about Paula Zahn. What got me particularly irritated today was that they had a 'radio talk show host' on to give his opinions on Iraq and airport security. As he himself said at one point, he's 'no foreign affairs expert,' and it showed. One fun one from him - 'Why would Hussein be trying to get weapons of mass destruction? It's not for defense.' Yeah, because it's not like a major world power is threatening to invade Iraq or anything. Why is that I've heard barely anything about Scowcroft/Baker/Eagleburger/Schwarzkopf/etc dissenting from Cheney's party line on CNN? Why the hell does CNN feel like they have to veer towards Fox News? They're never going to steal that many of Fox's audience, so why not try something different like, y'know, NEWS?!?

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A commercial for some new ABC series just flashed by, something about time travel...a guy goes back in time to high school and tries to redo his life for the better. Anyway, the reason I noticed at all - the music in the background was Social Distortion's 'Story of My Life'. I love love love that song - it's nice to hear it in a mass-media context, 'specially since Mike Ness has got to make a few bucks off it in royalties... Which reminds me - time to go find my Mike Ness CD. I think it's reasonably near the top of the boxes.

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