I don't see why people here are more concerned with which department entered the ban than the ban itself.

Here's a more detailed accounting: NextGov: IBM suspended from new federal contracts

What a great idea.

It just needs a ball of fire.

I should point out that this piece is apparently named the Uroko House and it was built by Point Architects in Tokyo.

I'm sure the Japanese had a bento box just like this a decade ago.

What has happened to us?

That was a good interview. I'm bummed I missed his talk at TechShop last week.

My wife and I attended a photography lecture he held at Good Vibrations once. He showed slides of his work and talked some about the process but mostly just told stories about the people involved and how he was capturing some real underground movements. The most memorable story was about Fakir Musafar a Silicon Valley executive who was secretly the leading force in the emergent body modification scene in American culture. Looking forward to this show, he had some great stuff.

in the book 1491, a summarization of the last fifty or so years worth of new knowledge of what the Americas were like prior the European colonization (hint, you probably don't know 99% of it and it contradicts most of what you think about the place/time), the myth that America was a vast wilderness and that the natives lived in some sort of spiritual harmony with the land is pretty thoroughly debunked. It's incredibly good reading, check it out.

Ninety-one and playing the drums!

Love it!

Normally I don't approve much of drunken fisticuffs ...but it's pretty cool to have been kicked off a continent for getting in a fight.

My daughter just started doing this same look a few weeks ago. She got the same response (laughter) from everyone who saw it so she broke it out all the time for a couple of weeks. Kids are cute.

A friend of mine has, for over a decade now, sent weird, creepy and sometimes threatening letters to a poor schmuck who annoyed her once. She learned a particular different handwriting style to use and she writes the missives on hotel stationery her friends collect for her as they travel around the world. Her friends also post the letters from various places around the world too. It is, imho, the best art project I've ever known.

I'd like to see a photo of someone wearing this. I suspect they won't look as badass as you might imagine.

Can we get someone in the SF Bay Area to hold a similar class?

Nikos: In 1980 the World Court convicted the USA of 'unlawful use of force' in regards to actions taken in Nicaragua. Is there any relationship between this charge and terrorism? Some research shows that Noam Chomsky makes the same claim you do, but I'd like to see where 'unlawful use of force' is actually equated with terrorism in international law.

Yes, Kevitivity, do you have anything to back up that statement, or is this just want you want to believe?

I wish he got a pic of those crazy utility vehicles they drive around the market. It's like a small cart used to tow carts, very loud engine iirc and uses what looks like a barrel as the steering wheel. Turns on a dime too.

Cory,

Have you checked out Ray Kurzweil's Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever? In addition to describing a diet that sounds very similar to the one you now prefer (one change might be Kurzweil's aggressive use of supplements) it goes fairly deep into the biomechanical reasonings behind the dietary recommendations. It also has insets describing near future bio-tech innovations that he believes will constitute the second bridge (the first being switching to his diet) on the path to fulfilling the books subtitle.

I went on the diet immediately after reading the book back in June 2005. Dropped 20 pounds in about 6 weeks to my ideal weight (as described in the book) and felt healthier than I had in nearly two decades. I started slipping a bit on the diet in about 9 months, but I've still never returned to my previous weight. Will I live forever? No idea, but I do think this diet will allow me to live longer.

I

Fantastic, I was planning on figuring out a greasemonkey script so I could favorite posts, now I don't have to!

Apparently I can't use an img tag, but here's a relevant cartoon

For a bit more and some photos, my wife blogged a bit about her grandfather's funeral in Japan a couple of years ago.

In some weird coincidence, I was just riding home and when I got off of I-280 onto 18th Street in San Francisco I had to stop my motorcycle to watch in awe as this giant airplane with A380 painted on the side appeared overhead in an unusual flight path that made it seem as if it had just taken off from the Mission district. The plane was being escorted by a fighter jet, which was less surprising since it is Fleet Week here in SF and the sky has been full of Blue Angel jets for the past couple of days. I watched it do a low circle over the Bay and then out past downtown and out towards the Golden Gate.

Then I get home and see this Boing Boing article. The weird coincidence is just this morning I noticed that Todd Lapin of Telstar Logisitcs, who posted the photos of the A380 in this BB article, commented on a Flickr photo I had also commented on that was taken in the very spot where I happened to stop my motorcycle this afternoon.

Heh, I think he means "hairy"?

There is a lot more information on this and other dangerous passages here:

Danger in China

NPR did a nice piece on the carnival pig racers a month ago.

I've been using Miro for a month or so now on my living room TV. I'm about to pull the plug on my cable tv subscription. Between Miro and Joost there's nothing else I need. Joost is slicker, but Miro gets great content (imho).

Miro is a great project, I'm definitely going to donate.