Speak Stiltedly and Wear a Yellow Shirt

As hinted in previous entries, I have a new job. This will mean more True Tales of the T and also assorted Windows at Work horror stories. Now you, too, can experience the clashing blue/green infamy of Windows XP from the relative safety of your RSS reader or friends list.

Today’s horror story is brought to you live by the OS. When I was AFK, innocently assembling my lunch, Windows decided to update itself (fine so far) and also reboot itself (not so good). I had all sorts of programs and Firefox tabs open at the time. Fortunately I got back to my desk while it was still counting down and stopped it. It tried again just a few minutes later. Next time I’m going to let it and see whether it really dumps all my stuff and reboots. More to follow…

Jerie said I couldn’t do a 4-word blog entry, so instead I bring you Web Design in 2005. Brown is the new black, and the worn look may be hanging on just a little longer—perhaps until it’s tattered or shredded.

This one is from sf-f.org: a neural network grown in a petri dish learned to fly a jet simulator. I don’t think it can land, though, so we’ll have human pilots for a few more years yet.

The 2004 Geminid Meteor Shower peaks today. Look south toward Gemini either before dawn Monday or around midnight Monday night/Tuesday morning.

iPod accessory of the day: the iPod shirt

Despite John Gruber’s attempts to squelch flash-based iPod rumors (Flash Gordon, Dec. 2), mock-ups abound. The Cult of Mac has posted pictures of both a round yo-yo iPod and a credit-card sized iPod. John Gruber dismisses the yo-yo as well as yet another design, the screenless milano cookie.

You probably need to be a philosophy geek to fully appreciate this one, but renowned British philosopher Anthony Flew has gone from atheist to Deist in the space of a year. His theism will be immortalized in a new edition of God and Philosophy.

The journal Philosophia Christi has an interview with Flew available on-line and also as a PDF. Flew’s reason for his change of heart is science’s alleged difficulty in explaining “the origin of life and the complexity of nature.”

Once again, I’ve posted an extended dance version of this entry to GNXP.

In the false but pervasive spirit of holiday affirmative action, I bring you:

• Singing Hanukah candles (click on each candle)
• Singing reindeer (click on each reindeer)
• And a Kwanza chant (light the candles in the right order)

But we all know that this is actually the Christmas season, no matter how many minor holidays we try to include from religions that really would rather not be a party to the national shopping spree. You can keep your Season’s Greetings and Happy Holidays. If you don’t want to specify the holiday, then how about saying something meaningful like Peace on Earth? Nobody objects to that one.

Fines are the price of parking in Boston, and now you can pay your fines with toys. Thanks to Seema for the link.

Browser of the Day: forget Firefox - Camino is up to 0.8.2.

InterfaceLIFT has nifty Mac icons plus instructions on changing your system icons manually for those of us too cheap to spring for CandyBar.

Geek link of the day: free programming books (via Weblog Tools Collection)

I firmly believe that the best things in life are sugar, salt, and fat. Sugar is the gas that makes your body run, salt is an essential mineral without which you’d keel over, and fat…well, fat just tastes good. Salt gets a bad rap, though. We wince in horror when Emeril tosses a handful of it into his latest recipe, we scold people who eat it straight from the shaker (take my word for it on this one), and we feel potato chip guilt—because we know the lowly potato chip is nothing more than a vehicle for the administration of the forbidden mineral.

But I’ll never turn down a potato chip again, because salt is actually completely harmless for the majority of munchers. Earlier this year, JunkScience reported on the Federal government’s ongoing and groundless
Salt Assault. I just spotted the news in their 2004 Junk Science Awards, where the salt assault placed at #9. Here’s the blurb, in their own words:

In early 2004, a panel of the National Academy of Science‚Äôs Institute of Medicine urged that the recommended daily allowance of sodium be drastically reduced by almost 40% and that the average American‚Äôs actual sodium consumption be slashed by more than 60% — even though 10 major studies conducted since 1995 have all concluded that lower sodium diets don‚Äôt produce health benefits and may pose risks for some. Why the extreme recommendation? Political correctness run amok. Read more…

I think I’ll break out the chips to celebrate.

[Update: I posted a longer version of this entry at GNXP, with a bonus link to Emeril’s malassadas recipe.]