Great Headlines

I like good headlines. (I also keep track of people with unfortunate names, but that will have to be another blog post some time). My personal favorite of all time was when Dow Corning was charged with misrepresenting the danger of the silicone breast implants. The headline on the article was Breast Implant Maker Accused of Distortions. I have to admit, though, that this story about finding a kind of woodpecker that was long thought to be extinct is going to go on my list of headline greats: Extinct Pecker Pops Up.

Why Scott Has Survived on American Idol

It's a mystery. The voice is lacking, and the looks are worse. The recent disclosure of him beating up the mother of his child did not slow him down. For weeks, I've been telling Dara that I'm sure he has some hacker friend who has set numerous phones to autodialing. Now the secret is out.

Why bother voting for someone talented when this show can be so much more fun to watch? Scott Savol outlasting Carrie Underwood or Bo Bice? Now that's good TV! Browse this website for material to help us spread the pledge to all of your friends.

It seems that the power of the Internet is being harnessed in a massive Anti-American Idol effort. Dara and Kirsti are vindicated.

Time Waster

This game is probably decent training for the SAT test.

Skeletons on the Zahara

I mentioned this book to Dad on the phone over the weekend. It's a non-fiction account of the survivors of a shipwreck on the coast of Africa in 1817. The author, Dean King, combined the first-hand accounts from the captain and another crew member, which makes it more interesting. He is also the author of a book about Patrick O'Brian's books. Let me tell you, you did not want to be shipwrecked on the coast of Africa in those days. Hell, it can't be too pleasant now. At that time, though, it was common practice for the bedouins of the region to make Christians into slaves. Living wasn't great for the bedouins, but it was unbelievably cruel for their slaves. There was a black market (or was it white market) in Christian slaves, so much of the story involves the circuitous path of these poor bastards as they are ultimately traded for a ransom. It is a great narrative about an offbeat time and place. The original books were bestsellers in their time, and some of the implications of slavery that come about when the tables are turned had implications all the way through to Lincoln's time.

Environmental Economics

I often think that free trade would a be a lot fairer if there were a way to properly value many of the intangibles we enjoy in this country. Hmm, I guess I'll get to think a lot more about it during my trip to India in a few weeks. In any case, though, the general notion of accounting for environmental issues in a kind of credit system seems like a generally good idea to me, especially if it could be enforced in trade agreements. This was one of the basics of the Kyoto accord, and it's not really a new idea. I thought this article in the Economist was interesting. It gives as an example of the Panama Canal using fresh water at a huge rate, and the need for reforestation to help restore it. So how do you finance the reforestation when in fact Panama could probably make more money off of selling the water than they do off of running the canal?

In the case of the canal, the financial value of reforestation is clear even if who pays for it is not. But putting a cash value on what are called variously "environmental", "ecosystem" or "ecological" services has, historically, been a fraught process.

Early attempts at such valuation resulted in impressive but unsound figures that were seized on by environmental advocates and then, when they were discredited, used by opponents to tar the whole idea. Now, though, things have improved.

First of all, science is producing abundant evidence that the natural environment provides a wide range of economic benefits beyond the obvious ones of timber and fish. Ecologists now know a great deal more than they used to about how ecosystems work, which habitats deliver which services, and in what quantity those services are supplied. Last month, for example, saw the publication of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the first global survey of ecological services. Its authors warn that attention will have to be paid to these services if global development goals are to be met.

Some skepticism is warranted, of course. Cost benefit analysis has been used as an excuse for lots of things over time. We won't go into any of my, er, issues with the current administration.

Still, many conservationists dislike valuation. Some misunderstand it as an approach that ignores cultural and spiritual values. It does not. It simply converts these values into monetary units that can highlight the cost of a course of action. Of course, it might not be appropriate in some cases for this value to be a factor in making a conservation decision. For example, closing the canal and selling water, or building tower blocks on the site of St Paul's cathedral in London, might be perfectly rational from an economic perspective, but also very unlikely to happen.

How one agrees on the conversion process is the trick, eh.

Why Johnny Can't Do EMail

No wonder I'm feeling stupid all the time!

Workers distracted by phone calls, e-mails and text messages suffer a greater loss of IQ than a person smoking marijuana, a British study shows.

I am about a 200 Emails a day kind of guy, so even if you exclude the phone calls and text messages, I must be suffering.

Popesquatting

At that strange and sparsely inhabited intersection of technology and religion, I enjoyed the Katie Couric interview with the guy who managed to get the domain name for benedictxvi.com. It was a gamble on his part, and his demands to the Vatican for the domain name seem quite reasonable to me:

1. A mitre. As long as it's not some kind ecclesiastical impossibility, he wants one of those pope hats.
2. A stay in the Vatican hotel. He's only asking for three days, two nights.
3. Complete absolution for some of his previous activities.

Perfectly reasonable.

Intel Supports Pack Rats

It was somewhat interesting to hear that Intel was offering $10K for a mint copy of the original article in which Gordon Moore, Intel founder, outlined what would later become known as Moore's Law. Moore's Law posits that the number of components on an integrated circuit will double yearly (although it was later revised downward). What was more interesting was that they found the article thanks to a guy who had squirrelled away magazines for years.

He had stored old copies of the magazine underneath the floorboards of his home for decades.

"His wife gave him a hard time over the years for hoarding the magazines, but he kept telling her one day they'd be worth a lot of money," [an Intel spokesman] said.

See, you never can tell when those Goofus and Gallant comics from Highlights Magazine might be worth having in your garage.

Better Picture Posting

In the ongoing war for user share, I saw that Yahoo! bought a company called Flickr the other day. Flickr's claim to fame is photo sharing, and some of the interesting things they do to provide ways to "tag" photos. Anyway, I thought I'd give it a try for posting picture to use on the Harris blog. It works great, and a hell of a lot better than that annoying Hello thing. Here's what you do.

1. Get yourself a Flickr account for free. You can post up to 20MB of photos a month, which is going to be more than anyone in our little group needs.
2. Choose "Upload Photos". Pick your photo from wherever it is, even off your camera I suppose.
3. Once the photo is uploaded, click on it. Look for the "Blog this" button. You will be prompted to set up your web log, and "Blogger blog" is the first choice. The Harris Online blog is a "Blogger blog" because it is set up on the www.blogger.com web site.
   

That's about it. Now you should be able to upload pictures to Flickr and post them to the blog. You have a choice of "templates" to use. You should use "Medium" size pictures.

Tori's Visit

Tori came out last week in honor of the birthday that shall not speak its name (and you know what that is, Keith). We had a nice time over the weekend, doing the San Andreas fault walk in Los Trancos open space preserve, and generally enjoying the good weather. Then, while I was out Mon-Wed, Tori proceeded to exhaust Dara with trips to Berkeley to see Rob, San Francisco (above), and to Filoli. Filoli Center is one of those rich person's houses that was turned over to the state. Its main 15 minutes of fame came from being used as the house in the TV program Dynasty, but it has fantastic gardens and grounds -- a classic California scene about 10 minutes from our house. Last night we topped it off by going to see Colin Mockrie and Brad Sherwood perform a two person version of Whose Line Is It Anyway. We love the show, so it was really fun to see these guys do it in person. Much to Dara's regret, none of us was chosen from the audience to participate. I'm not sure I could have handled having them sing a rap song about me anyway.

Talking turkey

I mentioned I was going to particapate in the spring turkey season here so I thought I would report no birds killed yet. It may not sound like much fun to some of you but sneaking through the woods trying to act and sound like a hen ready to mate is not as easy as it sounds. Early on sat morning I was answered by a male, we conversed for at least 2 hours the whole time closing what started as probably a 1 mile gap to nearly 100 yards between us I could barely see him through some very thick brush at the end of our flirt. Alas my skills on the caller probably gave me away or I just called to much, at any rate he retreated much faster than he approached and my hunt was over without a shot fired. It was however very exciting and I'm looking forward to next saturday and hoping for a better conclusion.

1 special baby

Its understandable to see and hear proud grandparents oogaling over such an outstanding child I am in full agreement Tommy is great but when the lord comes out on his behalf...well I'm impressed. Those pics were great and it sounds like a great time was had by all Dad looked particularly happy holding that boy.

More Travels

Just a note to let you know that I'll be off to LA Monday for three days on business, so I'm not going to be blogging much. (Dara's sister Tori is out here visiting this week, too.) You will just have to entertain yourselves!

Things are starting to get out of hand.

More Innovative Scamming

It turns out that there is a class action lawsuit against PayPal, due to people not being able to get access to their money somehow. If you've used EBay, you've probably used PayPal. So, imagine how happy I should have been when I got a very official looking mail from PayPal saying:

You have received this Notice because the records of PayPal, Inc. indicate you are a current or former PayPal account holder who has been deemed eligible to receive a payment from the class action settlement in accordance with PayPal Litigation, Case No. 02 1227 JF PVT, pending in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in San Jose.

In your specific case you have been found to be eligible for a payment of $8971.99 USD.

The aforementioned settlement funds may be transferred directly to your bank account providing you have a linked card. The funds may not be credited directly to your PayPal account as this would render Paypal to be accumulating interest and thus profiting on litigation settlement funds which contravenes Federal law. Your bank account will be credited within 7 days upon submission of account details.

To credit your bank account please click here.

Hot damn! As usual, the law of "be suspicious of getting something for nothing" holds. The really slimy part, though, is that a Google search on "02 1227 JF PVT" (the lawsuit) ends up showing all kinds of pages telling you that this is in fact a real lawsuit, and that the mail you received -- a different mail than this one -- is in fact "true". I guess at the point in time when the legal firm representing the class action lawsuit was looking for participants, they sent out a mail seeking people. As a result, there were lots of people trying to figure out if the mails were real or not. Fortunately, the official web site for the claims administrator, which looks remarkably unofficial and scamlike itself, has a warning about this scam. Be careful out there.

VIP Visits Naples

I swear none of you were as cute as this, even Keith with his perfectly shaped head. Thomas has learned to crawl faster than the speed of light. He stops only long enough to pick up teeny tiny unidentified specks on the floor and pop them into his mouth. He arrived smiling on Monday afternoon and left still smiling on Wednesday. Oh yeah, he did bring his mother and "the other grandmother" with him. It was fun having the little group here, especially since he provided all the entertainment anyone needed. Grandpa was totally entranced but I managed to stay calm and objective about it all.

Look Who's Reading to Thomas 

The Real Underlying Cause of the Social Security Crisis

It's simple. The cost of living now outweighs the benefits.

"This is sobering news," said study director Jack Farness. "For the first time, we have statistical evidence of what we've suspected for the past 40 years: Life really isn't worth living."

"Since 1965, the cost-benefit ratio of American life has been approaching parity," Farness said. "While figures prior to that date show that life was worth living, there is some suspicion that the benefits cited were superficial and misreported."

Analyzed separately and as one, both the tangible and intangible factors suggest that life is a losing investment.

Great Pics

It looked like a great trip! Its good to know you and The Iris Lady had a nice time and Kyla and Garrett can take some satisfaction in knowing you enjoy those out of the way spots without them. That bird was a little close for comfort I've seen one of them kick a guy one time and it looked painfull. We have something like that place around here probably alot smaller but they have several exotic animals, while trying to feed a pig Kirsti was bitten and sustained quite an injury. Proof positive any safari can be dangerous. With the spring weather finaly arriving and several projects at home underway my blogg time has been sparse but I will try to keep up. My next project is Spring Gobbler season I plan to hunt saturday. Turkey hunting has always been quite a challenge for me,I've managed to have some limited success but never in the spring season.

Garrett, this one is for you. Quite possibly the cutest animal baby known to man: the baby ringtail lemur.

The iris lady herself in a field of wild Pacific coast irises out on the headlands, with Mendocino in the background.

Other than hippos, water buffalos are the most dangerous mammals in Africa -- and California.

I never thought I'd be scared of a bird.

Trip Report -- North Coast

When you're a Northern California resident, the North Coast is anything above Marin County (which sits just on the other side of the Golden Gate). We left Friday after rush hour(s) and proceeded across the Gate, had lunch in Mill Valley, and drove lazily up the coast to Gualala. This is a spectacular drive along the coast, but in our case it alternated pouring rain and gloomy most of the way. Still, you cannot beat the sheer cliffs up here, with the road precariously tacked onto them, unless maybe you get down to Big Sur. The wildflowers are blooming everywhere, bright orange California poppies mixed in with purple lupines. Dara had booked us into St. Orres, a place we stayed with Mom and Dad twenty years ago. At that time, they only had one separate cabin. Now they have quite a few, and we had one set back against the redwoods, with a view of the ocean and virtually no neighbors.

Dara told me she would surprise me on Saturday. After breakfast, we climbed back into the car and proceeded inland. All the rain was gone, and it was a clear day on the coast. I was left guessing the whole way: winery tours (the obvious choice), a visit to the fainting goats (great treat for the sadistic animal fancier), and the petrified forest all turned out to be wrong as we pulled into Safari West. I'm sure Kyla and Garrett will appreciate the fact that we arrived two hours early! It was a great tour. Dara had suggested going to this place to Garrett many times. You can stay the night, listening to the mating calls of the adax and giraffes (or something like that). We got waaaaay to close to things, let me tell you. I needed a macro lens on the camera when the Ostrich came by. They have a large collection of antelopes of various kinds, water buffalo, african mountain goats, giraffes, ostriches, watusi cattle, adax, and a bunch of other things I cannot name. It would really mix things up if they added a lion or two, but perhaps the tour would have been overly tense. As I kept mentioning to Dara when things came close, "Hey, I've seen Juraissic Park." After a family style dinner, we headed back to our cozy cabin by the ocean.

On Sunday, we headed farther north, to Mendocino. Mendocino is a funky little town that has often been used in the past to simulate a classic Maine seaside scene. I think this is where the scenery from Murder She Wrote was taken. When you get this far north, there is a strange mixture of ex-hippies and artsy types. We just wandered around, taking in the sights on the headlands, shopping, and eating. We picked up some wine and cheese for a fireside dinner back at the cabin.

Today we wrapped things up by taking a bit more rustic route over the mountains to Healdsburg. It's hard to imagine just how remote things are in the hills here. There is only a tortuous, scenic two lane road coming up the coast. To get from San Francisco to Mendocino probably takes close to five hours if you did it in one shot. Then, because of the mountains on the coast, there are very few roads running inland toward the famous wine country. In about 40 miles of driving, I think we saw one other car. (But, Kyla, the road was paved!!!). Everything was so green it made your head hurt. The leaves are all out in the vinyards. Healdsburg is kind of your quaint little wine country town, with redwoods in the downtown square, bookstores, and a variety of restaurants. After a nice lunch, we battled the traffic back down a real highway (101) to the GG Bridge and back home again.

Back to real life tomorrow. A few pictures to follow.

Why Is This Cool?

A while back, MapQuest used to allow you to see satellite photos of any address you entered. Now Google Maps is doing it. If you think about it, this feature is useless. So why is it cool? I don't know! It reminds me of something I saw on Dave Barry's blog the other day.

So I was grazing, as guys do, in a technology store yesterday, and I overheard a salesperson trying to sell a cell phone to an older couple (by "older," I mean "older than I am," which is extremely old) and at one point he told them that the phone he was holding in his hand had all of Spider-Man 2 loaded into its memory. This raised two questions in my mind:

(1) Who in the world would watch Spider-Man 2 ON A TELEPHONE?

(2) Why did I immediately want this phone?

Anyway, here is our house, surrounded by trees and, er, many, many other houses. I tried Keith's address, and I'm afraid the closest they could get was Front Royal. Kyla and Garrett, if you look closely enough, you'll see us standing on the back deck waving to you. Closer, closer...

There must be some mistake Scott wouldn't do that

I'm not a big Idol fan but I happen to be in the room when Dan and Kirsti were watching! Any way it was early in the show and we all picked our favorites to win and don't you know it I pegged Scott as my odds on favorite. Maybe it was something about the music he picked or the judges reaction to his performances or it was that "I just beat my wife" look in his eye. Sure he lacked a little in the stage presence department but raw talent should see him thru. I think that story was planted by the last 2 contestants as a cheap ploy to narrow the field. Since I only see the show by pure coincidence I don't really know what happened to him yet so maybe there is still hope. Now I have to sign off because I'm about to miss the reality shows I really like American Hot Rod and American casino.

Idol Hands Do the Devil's Work

I suppose most of us have somehow gotten caught up in reality TV shows. Out here, we openly confess to being Survivor and American Idol fans. We have our limits, though. Shows about midgets getting married are clearly out. The best of all time was the Joe Schmoe Show. In it, the entire cast was made up of actors playing classic reality show typecast characters, except for the one guy who was the only real person in the show. There was the "gay guy", the "slut," the "buddy," the "religious goody two-shoes," and of course, the "smarmy host." If you've ever enjoyed one of these reality shows, it's a classic you should watch if you ever get chance. There are a number of other shows that I'll leave to Dara to confess to if she wants, but for those I'm sticking to my story that "I happened to be in the room when my wife was watching..."

Anyway, the recent Americal Idol show has definitely had a set of contestants that are more talented than the previous seasons. Mostly they fall into the "beautiful people" category, too. It's hard to be an American Idol if you ain't pretty, let's face it. The one exception this time around has been a guy named Scott, who is never going to be featured on the cover of GQ. This news isn't going to help him.

Pride in Weirdness

Everyone out here in California knows that New Yorkers need a place to focus their preconceived notions on, a place to make fun of. Well, congratulations, Mom, because it looks like you guys in Florida are finally going to overtake us in the "only in" stories category. Well deserved, I might add.

After the tug of war over Elián González and the presidential recount of 2000, the anthrax scare after the 2001 terrorist attacks, four consecutive hurricanes in 2004 and now the Schiavo case, the rest of the world moves on. But for Florida there is a curious psychic toll, a sense of emerging from an alternate universe where gripping sagas blot out the beloved sun.

It was not always this way. California used to be the capital of cultural, political and environmental crises, the place that baffled and mesmerized with its vivid goings-on.

"California looks like a staid old New England state at this point," said James Kane, chief pollster for Florida Voter, a nonpartisan polling group. "In some respects people here get embarrassed, but there is a certain amount of pride that we are not like any other state."

Oh well. We still have Michael Jackson.

Swing Conservative

I know this blog is supposed to be a No Politics Zone. Still, for those of you with any interest in politics itself, as opposed to political positions -- and the former is always something I am interested in, regardless of the latter -- this is a very interesting article about Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and the phenomenon of "swing conservatives" in congressional politics. Worth reading.

April Fools for Google News

It looks like Google News hasn't perfected the irony filter yet. At least Forbes managed to take them in.

In a surprise move, Apple Computer announced Friday, April 1st, that it was licensing Microsoft's Windows Media platform for use with both the iTunes Music Store and the company's market-leading iPod music player.

"We've had a pretty good run so far, you'll have to admit," said Mr. Jobs, "but let's face it: This is Microsoft we're talking about. Everyone knows they get it right by the time version 3.0 rolls around, and it was only a matter of when before our time in the limelight of success was merely dust in the wind."

He continued, "Why take chances? This way we can keep our customers while letting Microsoft have all the headaches of managing customer expectations and problems. That stuff was killing our margins."

That's weird. I've managed to do one post including Steve Wozniak, and one including Steve Jobs, in sequence. I wonder if this is somehow connected to the iPod shuffle I got from the Easter bunny. Damn those subliminal messages!!!

Polo Silicon Valley Style

I wonder if you need a string of Segways to play this game. It seems Steve Wozniak thinks so.

This morning's contest pitted four against four. Mr. Bauer's team wore blue T-shirts. Mr. Ko's team wore yellow and included Stephen G. Wozniak, one of the founders of Apple Computer and the owner of seven Segways. He is respected, if not feared, on the polo field for his aggressive play.

And this part should appeal to Kyla, after all those long hours at the barn:

"It's similar to real polo," Mr. Ko said, "but without the manure."