LookIt

Wonderful live funk

The NYCTaper comes through again. This live show from last week sizzles, and that's before Booker T. Jones (yes, that one) comes on and wails with them. What could be higher than that? David Hidalgo of Los Lobos joining them all.

Whew. Just whew. Plan on some fun.

A new, important meme: Graham's Corollary

This article covers some great points, but one part jumped out at me: "Any sufficiently technical expert is indistinguishable from a witch". Yes, yes, a million times yes.

The prosecution of Aaron Swartz was not only bullying. It was either technically flawed (if you believe that no one who wrote it understood how common MAC address spoofing is) or outright dishonest.

Wireless: bad news and good news

The bad news is that my ADSL is down due to a physical line problem between the demarcation point and the street.

The good news is that the phone company says they will come tomorrow.

The bad news is that there are now no open wifi access points in the neighborhood.

The good news is that we have taught people to close off open access points.

The good news is that the college kids next door were happy to tell me their password.

The excellent news is that the password is memorable but definitely non-guessable, meaning we have succeeded in instilling even more good security practices.

When Doves Cry, in bluegrass

Courtesy of Greensky Bluegrass (whose mando player is named Paul Hoffman...), a version that is not at all Princely.

Picking up Phish

Wondering why so many people have loved Phish for more than 25 years? You could go to a show, you could buy an album, or you could hear some best-of compilations from their summer tour. Any one of these gives you a good taste of what Phish sounds like live these days.

Mars; here

I know this will be an unpopular view, but I really wish that the hundreds of millions of dollars we just spent to learn about Mars was instead spent on learning about what causes cancer. Knowing more about Mars will satisfy our curiosity; knowing much more about cancer will save millions of lives.

Things I hate about Windows, part 42972

Mom calls, is having problems with printing. "It says 'Unknown printer error'." Drive down, verify that is what it is saying. We determine that she is trying to print to a printer that no longer exists. I show her how to pick a new printer from the Print dialog box, prints fine. To make sure it doesn't happen again, I open "Devices and Printers" and delete the old printer; it disappears from that window. I go to print again and the old printer reappears. I go back to "Devices and Printers" and, sure enough, Windows put the printer back. Delete again; poof. Close "Devices and Printers", open "Devices and Printers": it's there again.

FAQs that don't include Qs you are sure are F

I'm quite intrigued by Glassboard. The privacy model looks great, and there are probably many ways that they can get good revenue. The big problem: they assume that everyone only wants to use the product on mobile devices, not on laptops and desktops. That seemed like an oversight, so I looked at their FAQ to see when other OSs would be added. The fact that Windows and Mac OS are not even mentioned seems kind of dubious, to say the least.

The Willy Wonka future

Maybe I'm the last one to know this, but there is gum with two distinct flavors. Stride Shift starts off fruity, then after a minute or so becomes distinctly minty, then a minute later shifts back to fuity-minty-fruity-minty, then settles into minty for quite a while. Pretty impressive, particularly for someone who basically never chews gum.

Unhappy

Earlier this year, someone asked me "Most Grateful Dead songs are happy, right?". Well, not really. I was just re-listening to a 1988 concert by Brent Mydland that included two of the songs he co-wrote, and "happy" isn't the right word for them.

Gentlemen, Start Your Engines is probably the darkest song of the Dead's repertoire. Lines such as "One if these days I'm gonna pull myself together / Soon as I finish tearin' myself apart" and "It's dark outside, but it's darker within" paint it deep black.

I Will Take You Home is a much brighter song about a father who promises to always be there for his daughters. Two years after this performance, with the song still a regular in the Dead's rotation, Brent killed himself with a heroin overdose. I simply can't imagine what it would be like to have your father call you onstage a huge rock concert, sing you that song, and then break the promise forever.