Category: Daily Life

Knoxville is honored with a reference in this Slashdot article (which originates from this CNN article)

OAK RIDGE, Tennessee (AP) — The government is offering a rare glimpse of the massive machines used to enrich uranium for the “Little Boy” bomb — the first atomic weapon used in war, dropped 60 years ago in August on Hiroshima, Japan.

Ummm.. Weren’t they tearing all that down?

“Don’t you know the people in Knoxville wondered what in the world was going on out here,” Department of Energy guide Ray Smith said Monday. “All this material was coming in, truckload after truckload, and nothing ever left.”

If you squint and read that, I think they might be poking fun on our intelligence.

Boing Boing tells us of the secret service bullying a person to remove a photo collection from Flickr.

Top Five Job Opportunities brought to us by Yahoo via PCWorld.com:

1. Auction Fraud
2. Phishing Scams
3. Nigerian 419 Letter
4. Postal Forwarding/Reshipping Scam
5. "Congratulations, You’ve Won an Xbox (news – web sites) (IPod, plasma TV, etc.)"

Dan Tynan has elegantly outlined each of these job opportunities with The setup, What actually happens, The risk, and The question you’ve gotta ask yourself.

Award-winning journalist Dan Tynan has written about Internet scams and scammers for more than a decade. He’s the author of PC World’s Gadget Freak column and the upcoming book, Privacy Annoyances (O’Reilly Media, 2005). He has never come to the rescue of a deposed African bureaucrat.

Related:VeriSign launches guide to safe Net Verisignsecured.com

Hunkering down for the distraction of paperwork and phone calls.

Today coffee is necessary…

When you sit still, alone, in some peace and quiet, what does your mind do?

I just sat on the hood of the Jeep and stared up into the sky. Few clouds blocked the bright stars. Lightning foreshadowed a storm to come. The trees flickered like Christmas trees with a growing number of lightning bugs. In a couple of weeks there will be thousands more and the trees will be vibrant with light. Staring straight up shows me a tree meeting the sky. The fireflies are not in the trees or on the trees as one might suppose instead they fly a foot or so from the edge of the tree respecting its space. Clouds begin to roll in eeriely as if Speilberg were directing the evening. As the last star was blotted the sky, the first rain drop came ushering me to the house.

I cannot be calm and enjoy the moment. I must compose! I review encounters and dialogs from my day creating alternate paths and endings. I makeup situations which may or may not lay in my future to see how I would handle the scenerios. I have conversations with myself. I write blog, journal entries, and poetry in my head. My mind cannot rest.

I think of when I was a child and could sit in a tree and think of nothing. Wait. That’s not what really happened. I reviewed encounters with bullies and dumb things that I said creating alternate paths and endings. I fantasized of the days to come and imagined how I would handle each one. I conversed with myself. I daydreamed, composed letters never to be drafted nor sent, and poetry in my head. My mind would not rest.

From July 2 to August 20 three infrared, solarpowered cameras will beam video from a campsite in Northern California to the Norwich Gallery in hopes of seeing Bigfoot.

San Francisco-based American artist Jill Miller is participating in Norwich Gallery’s EAST 05 international exhibition, July 2 – August 20, 2005. Although she will exhibit a performance work, she will not appear in the gallery. At least not in the flesh. Miller’s durational performance-installation, “Waiting for Bigfoot,” will be located in a remote Northern California forest (“Bigfoot Country”). A live video feed will be delivered to the Norwich Gallery as real-time video via satellite uplink, 24 hours a day. The artist will live at the campsite, situated in the epicenter of Bigfoot sightings, for the duration of EAST 05.

Geldof condemns sale of Live 8 tickets on eBay

LONDON (Reuters) – Live 8 organizer Bob Geldof has condemned as “sick profiteering” the sale of free charity concert tickets on auction Web site eBay.

This sale currently sits at GBP $99,100 (US $179,093.52). I’d say Geldof supporters are having fun. And this one is GBP $210,000 (US $361,620.72). But another is reasonably at GBP $82 (US $142.19).

Geldof branded the site an "electronic pimp" and called for a worldwide boycott. eBay said in a statement they were selling the tickets because "we live in a free market where people can make up their own minds," but said they would donate at least the equivalent of the fees they raised through the sale of Live 8 tickets. Geldof rejected this offer, saying instead he was appealing to their "sense of decency to stop this disgusting greed."

The concert is not to raise money for Africa but to "raise the profile of African poverty and influence leaders of the G8 group of industrialized nations."

The Offshoring Digest found my April 25, 2004 post to be noteworthy.

Student: I understand vasectomies are painful.
Master: I understand college tuitions are painful.

Student: Do you have any advice regarding babies?
Master: Day surgery.

Since no one jumped on my wife I must assume two things: 1) No one has Floyd tickets they are willing to give up and 2) the readers here are smart enough to recognize the previous post was made with certain jocularity. Of course, my wife will probably say something like "because I’m old and fat" even though she is neither.

It’s now been discussed. We will trade sex for Pink Floyd tickets. On a side note, yes, sex is a spectator sport! I find it peculiar that during the discussion "tickets" was singular and my presence wasn’t required at either event.

Sharon Cobb calls for Bredesen to step down.

I started researching the TennCare issue for a documentary I wanted to shoot at the start of 05. However, I met with some resistance from some of the TennCare advocates. Two of them were afraid of upsetting the governor. They were afraid “I was too much like Michael Moore.” While I considered the Moore comparison a compliment, I was deeply troubled that a few of these advocates were afraid to upset the governor. A couple of them clearly had a conflict of interest.

Evidence:

• This document contains proof that the Governor wanted to prevent alternative proposals, and reenroll–"front loading" in 06
• Build back enrollment in Year 2
• "Front-Load bad news allow add backs later"
• From: Goetz to Hickey… "To Hell with the Tennessee Justice Center" email

Update:

• More Actual Proof That Bredesen Did Not Negotiate In Good Faith
• One More Document That Proves Bredesen Did Not Negotiate In Good Faith

Student: I’m a new dad!
Master: After the first child, "new" is an unnecessary qualifier.