The Dead Skunk Guy

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Awkward Skunk

Awkward Skunk 07/07/2004 10:54 PM

It's time to reveal a part of my personality.  I don't like telling people what to do, but I do.  I don't like sticking my neck out for anything, but I find myself doing so for no reason.  It's no wonder I often feel like an awkward skunk.  Hey, it's not me.  It's just my nature.

Mmm, conjoined anthropomorphic skunk
erotica...

Mmm, conjoined anthropomorphic skunk
erotica... 06/24/2004 09:28 PM
The Finest Siamese Twin Cartoon Furry Porn on the internet. Evar!

Skunk Gel Repels Drug Users, Prostitutes
(AP)

Skunk Gel Repels Drug Users, Prostitutes
(AP) 07/24/2004 09:10 PM
AP - Drug users and prostitutes are turning up their noses at the condemned buildings they once frequented in Richland County. Deputies here have begun using a chemical spray that makes the places smell like a skunk has come calling.

Skunk Studios releases Tennis Titans
game

Skunk Studios releases Tennis Titans
game 03/19/2005 03:14 AM
San Francisco-based casual game developer Skunk Studios' latest original release is Tennis Titans, a new cartoon-style 3D tennis action game for Mac OS X and Windows. The game features two different modes, easy mouse controls, real-time ball physics, comical characters and more.

Dead, Dead, Dead. Someday Soon We'll All
Be Dead.

Dead, Dead, Dead. Someday Soon We'll All
Be Dead. 12/02/2003 10:13 PM
I had a 120gig SATA Hard drive in my G5. It died. Dead blocks all over. My last full backup...

""Pat isn't with God,'' he said. "He's f
-- ing dead. He wasn't religious. So
thank you for your thoughts, but he's f
-- ing dead.''"

""Pat isn't with God,'' he said. "He's f
-- ing dead. He wasn't religious. So
thank you for your thoughts, but he's f
-- ing dead.''" 05/05/2004 09:39 AM

Dead pixels instead of dead trees

Dead pixels instead of dead trees 12/22/2004 01:49 AM

I love books, I love browsing stacks, I love libraries, I love Powell's in Portland, I like collecting books, I always have a stack nearby to read, I love looking through picture books, and I love books even though I didn't really become much of a reader until the end of my college years (I never read for fun until then). Plunging into the Internet fed my book addiction further, as I had to read dozens of computer classics to get up to speed and stay ahead of the curve. Every computer desk I've had until recently was flanked by bookshelves loaded with titles.

Earlier this year, I remember hearing Cory Doctorow give a talk about how ebooks were going to rule the world and folks would abandon the printed page for the laptop screen. I thought it was a good talk, but I felt the thesis was a bit ahead of its time. There's really no comparison between curling up with a book and a blanket in front of a fireplace, versus trying to read thousands of words on a screen.

Last weekend I was doing some house cleaning and I kept finding stacks of books. A stack next to the reading chairs. A stack on the coffee table. A stack beside my bed. All these stacks contained books I bought in 2004, but never read. Some, I got halfway through, but even more I got maybe ten pages in. A few I never even cracked open.

When I think back to the last three books I enjoyed, they were all heard on my iPod, while on a road trip. I can't recall the last book I finished in my hands.

I'm going to take a holiday trip soon to a fairly remote location where there's not much to do besides read. I'm going to sit and read the only book I've wanted to read this year, and I have a feeling it might just be one of the last dead tree books I read for a long time.

As much as I didn't agree with Cory back during his E-tech talk, I'm finally realizing it's coming true in my own life. I read thousands of words everyday on my monitors and I rarely take time to read anything on the printed page, and there's no sign of reversal on that trend. The scariest thing for the bookfan inside me is that I don't think it's bad thing, either.

Long live the ebook. Long live the audiobook. So long, dead trees.

Dead Like Me - Dead or Alive?

Dead Like Me - Dead or Alive? 02/01/2005 09:59 PM
In television these days, there is hardly a show that doesn’t have the blood flowing or the boobies showing. It is hard to find a show that makes it on wit alone. Till a few weeks ago, I thought I had found the saving grace with Showtime’s original show, Dead Like Me. I guess a few executives didn’t share my opinion. The fight is far from over though. In the past shows would have died…

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DOS -- not dead yet

DOS -- not dead yet 12/05/2003 03:21 AM
DOS -- that's a word you may not have heard in a while. After all, Microsoft proudly claimed "DOS is dead" when it released Windows XP. DOS is a stable and well-known operating system, but the same can be said for Linux, and some might argue that even Windows XP has become stable. So why would you run DOS when you have these newer, better operating systems?

The PC Is Not Dead

The PC Is Not Dead 03/22/2005 03:39 PM

WAP Is Dead?

WAP Is Dead? 08/10/2004 07:27 PM
The Feature Aug 10 2004 11:14PM GMT

Ten gig FC is all but dead

Ten gig FC is all but dead 04/02/2005 07:23 AM
TechWorld Apr 2 2005 11:18AM GMT

Not Dead.

Not Dead. 04/19/2004 01:33 AM
I'd better leave this on here for the night so I don't wake up to a deluge of email tomorrow morning. The Zen Garden has been down all day, as has been well reported by now. A whois comes...

dead, dead, dead

dead, dead, dead 12/03/2003 06:09 PM

Wow, they really did kill MP3.com. So much of the net's history gone in a flash, I do hope they create some mechanism (that isn't laden with DRM) to bring back music hosting or anyone that can record a song at home on their PC.

I bet GarageBand.com takes off in the absence of MP3.com, they were like a better version, though they require users and musicians to actively participate for it to work.

Yes, It's Still Dead

Yes, It's Still Dead 09/06/2004 11:22 PM
6 long years after the introduction of the bondi-blue iMac, reporters are still writing about the death of floppy disk.
Well, at least it's still better read than the upcoming death of Apple Computer, Inc.

The pop-up ad is dead (nearly)

The pop-up ad is dead (nearly) 02/18/2004 05:55 AM
Europe in brief

Is the PDA dead?

Is the PDA dead? 06/02/2004 07:51 PM

Dead shows

Dead shows 06/20/2004 05:18 AM

Lots of great Dead shows being posted to the Internet Archives.

One of these days I wanna get the Deadbase project going - but first it's FOAFnet time. Anyway - any show at the Warfield or New Year's Eve shows - were great!

Grat eful Dead: 1982-02-17. Live at Warfield Theater.

Grat eful Dead: 1982-12-31. Live at Oakland Auditorium Arena

These recordings have MP3s/Oggs [from the Internet Archive]

Film ain't dead yet

Film ain't dead yet 01/22/2004 12:53 PM

A photo taken on New Year's Eve which we spent at a friend's house with several other couples and their children who didn't stop moving all evening. It was one of the very first shots taken with the Leica and a really old roll of C-41 process B&W film I happened to have around. I'm impressed that I captured her smirk in spite of the low light, her dervishness and my rusty manual camera reflexes. The picture would have been totally different had I taken it with a digital camera and I'm not entirely certain it would have been a presentable photo.

Recently, Kodak announced that it plans to discontinue a number of products including their line of APS film cameras which, if you believe a lot of the chicken little reports around the net, means the end of film photography as we have known it for the past century. Well, aside from the bias that people in the insular world of the internet tend to place on everything from Dean to the blog revolution, film is not doomed or otherwise obsolete even if all the kids who wouldn't part with their digital cameras say it is. The market Kodak is getting out of is one that has gone digital but there are plenty of film fanatics, film cameras and film processing labs out there to keep film in business for many more years.

I succumbed to the siren call of a digital camera about 3 years ago and, while I think digital has helped me to become a better photographer, I don't know that it has produced better photos than a film camera. I recently read Why digital cameras = better photographers which is a nicely done article on what makes digital attractive but, judging by a lot of the digital photos I've seen around the net in comparison to the film photos, I don't know that this is entirely true. Digital has produced a lot more photographers and photos so that the odds of there being more and better pictures is greater than before. I often wonder how many great photographers there would have been in the 1920s and 1930s had there been as many film cameras in the hands of people as there are now. A digital SLR gives you enough exposure feedback to get a feel for what the camera is doing which you can then take back to your film camera, but most digital cameras are completely automatic. People are taking more pictures and enjoying their cameras more so digital is a boon for getting more people interested in photography. However, this is not the death knell for film. Not yet anyway.

I'm getting back into film partly due to many of the inspiring photoblogs I've found at Photoblogs.org in which many of them have pictures taken on film that appeal to me far more than many of the digital photos I've seen or taken myself. Both formats have their strengths and weaknesses for me and, I suspect, they are similar for others.

Digital

• weaknesses
• DSLR is big, bulky, and heavy. Intimidates people at times.
• Trouble focusing in low-light.
• Batteries; aside from needing charging, they don't live long in cold conditions.
• It can crash at unexpected times without warning.
• Shutter lag.
• Lower light sensitivity.
• Archival concerns with digital format.
• Lots of equipment needed just to view and print pictures at home.
• An almost clinical perfection.
• strengths
• Instant gratification.
• Instant feedback.
• Easier to share photos with wired friends.

Film

• weaknesses
• Film can be expensive.
• Processing can be expensive.
• No instant gratification or feedback.
• strengths
• Small and light cameras.
• Fun.
• More creative.
• A Challenge.
• Film has the capacity to surprise in ways that digital never will.
• No batteries necessary.
• No shutter lag.
• Fewer buttons and gadgets.
• No CPU to crash at unexpected times.

The Elph is a fun little digital camera that I can take in my pocket anywhere and use for photographic post-it notes or fun candids to share. The 10D may gather some dust for a while since the Leica and the Lomo are a lot easier to carry around and they seem to capture more interesting images as perfection doesn't leave a lot of room for creative imperfection.

dead but lifelike

dead but lifelike 09/17/2004 12:57 AM
JAMES LILEKS: .. Lileks

lileks.com/bleats/archive/04/0904/091604.html
track this site | 4 links

The Danger of the Dead

The Danger of the Dead 08/02/2004 04:36 AM
Across the country, coroners and health officials are figuring out how to dispose of hundreds or thousands of infectious corpses in case of a terrorist attack. By Randy Dotinga.

Sun: UltraSPARC Not Dead Yet

Sun: UltraSPARC Not Dead Yet 04/15/2004 12:55 PM
Sun's top microprocessor executive now says the UltraSPARC V may come to market after all, following the recent refocusing of the company's roadmap.

Functionality is dead

Functionality is dead 12/22/2004 01:26 AM
Computer Weekly Dec 21 2004 8:32AM GMT

Get Off Your Dead Ass and Sample!

Get Off Your Dead Ass and Sample! 09/25/2004 12:14 AM
Three Notes and Runnin' has decided to protest the recent court decision that cited N.W.A. with illegally sampling a snippet of Funkadelic's Get Off Your Ass and Jam that had been modified to the point of unrecognizability. So in the tradition of online civil disobedience such as Grey Tuesday, Downhill Battle has issued a challenge to sample-based artists to create 30-second remixes that consist of nothing but the disputed 1.5-second Funkadelic sample.

The fax machine: not dead yet

The fax machine: not dead yet 12/31/2003 01:10 PM
BBC News article about the lowly fax machine and how it hangs on in the face of email, text messaging, and the everything else that...

Dead-end job memoir

Dead-end job memoir 01/09/2004 09:56 PM
This is the first of a two-part Salon piece on working at a dead-end customer service job in North Carolina. This genre of memoir is really compelling to me, maybe because I'm so thankful to not have a job like that, but also because it's the 21st Century equivalent of Orwell's labor-condition memoirs like Down and Out in Paris and London and The Road to Wigan Pier.

This was the awakening, the realization that I had officially and for all time put my head in a noose and the hangman was taking his sweet time. And that's the day I officially stopped caring. Never stay late. Never work overtime. Never offer opinions. Do not go the extra mile. At one time, I offered to train new employees, without a raise in my salary, just so that I could take the time to train them more thoroughly (training was fast becoming an afterthought, as people were needed immediately to answer phones. It didn't matter what they knew how to do). The problem was that the people who were training me told me as much, and I refused to believe them. But the equation was simple: Management is entrenched. They're not going anywhere. The department is too unwieldy from turnover to create another position. So why would management struggle to improve the call-taker's lot?

Link

Update: Dan points out that the full texts of Down and Out in Paris and London and Road to Wigan Pier are online.

Are Taxonomies Dead?

Are Taxonomies Dead? 01/09/2004 09:58 PM

The taxonomy was always supposed to be the be-all and end-all of information architecture. A good, solid category structure was how all the information in an enterprise was supposed to fit together.

But they're harder to build than you think. There are shades of gray and complications. You need related categories so people can jump from branch to branch; you can slice information so many different ways; who can agree where something fits, etc. I've tried to build a half-dozen, but I can't point to any major successes.

Is the ideal of taxonomy possible? Or is it just better to invest in a good search engine? Think about it, when you visit a site, do you ever browse a taxonomy, or do you just go right to search? If you're looking for something you've seen on this site, do you wade through the category list, or just hit the search engine?

When was the last time you actually browsed Yahoo! or DMOZ? I know they're there, but I haven't visited them in ages. Last time I did visit, what was the first thing I did? That's right — typed something into the search box.

Search is a lazy man's taxonomy. It's not as organized or structured as a taxonomy, but human beings — imperfect creatures than we are — tend to settle to what's easier. So, as an information architect, do you stand on principle, or do you cater to the lazy way your users are going to look for information?

This comes from my current infatuation with wikis. There is no categorizing of pages in wikis (even after my railin g against all their shortcomings a few months ago), there's just search and linking between pages. But the search is good, and it always seems to work. Same with the search on this site — when I'm looking for a previous post, it just always seems to work, and that search is nothing but a SQL "LIKE" query, the dumbest search of all.

So, are taxonomies an ideal that just don't survive the reality test?

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Is Linking Dead?

Is Linking Dead? 08/10/2004 10:48 AM
Simple question - complex answer.

PPTP is Dead, Too

PPTP is Dead, Too 12/22/2004 01:27 AM
Microsoft's VPN protocol PPTP is now dead, too: It's been known for a while that MSCHAPv2 authentication was a bad idea, and PPTP (Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol) relies by default on this method of credentials. George Ou explains how Joshua Wright, developer of the Cisco LEAP breaking software Asleap has simply added PPTP breaking to the mix. Both protocols are weak enough that a weak key choice--short and found in a dictionary with some variation--can be broken by iterating through a very large database of precomputed password hashes that a cracker has put together in advance. They don't have to crack the authentication process, just grab the transaction and run it on their own computer against their hashes at a rate of 45 million passwords per second on a normal desktop computer, Ou writes. Laptops would be slightly slower. Ou notes that he thought LEAP and PPTP had similar weaknesses, and Wright's update--made only after contacting Microsoft and being quite decidedly rebuffed over his concern--shows he was correct. Long, complex, user-managed passwords can still protect PPTP because this is a brute-force attack. You can also switch to using EAP-TLS for the credential exchange in PPTP, but that then requires corporate public-key infrastructure. WPA has a similar problem with weak passwords but it's tied to an SSID. So you can't precompute generally for passwords as with the LEAP and PPTP weakness, but you could precompute passwords against common SSIDs, like linksys. Assuming, as wardrivers have discovered, that the vast majority of base stations have a default SSID, this makes it a little simpler, but not trivial. Likewise, only weak WPA passwords can be broken, so you're stuck for people who throw in a couple of exclamation points. I'm just testing Buffalo's new VPN (PPTP) router, and discovered that they set the default SSID to the MAC address of the unit, which, although ugly looking in a list of available networks, would defeat a precomputed default SSID password database. (Thanks to Robert Moskowitz for a prod to clarify this.) When I say a security protocol is dead, I don't mean that it's actually impossible to use. It's just that you can no longer use it with any degree of assurance that the purpose for which it was intended can be fulfilled. It's like driving a car with a cracked windshield. It keeps the bugs off, but it's not really safe to drive...

"I sue dead people..."

"I sue dead people..." 02/05/2005 09:26 PM
The RIAA has done some MIND BLOWINGLY stupid things in the past, but this one actually had me baffled! According to a report from Ars Technica, it seems that the RIAA has gone after a deceased woman in order to get what they feel they have coming to them. Yes folks, these idiots actually tried to sue someone who has already passed on. Worst part was, I have seen no evidence of an apology for…

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Are Bookmarks Dead?

Are Bookmarks Dead? 01/25/2004 09:24 AM

What's Next: Now Where Was I? New Ways to Revisit Web Sites: There is a $378,000 study underway to figure out why no one uses heir bookmarks.

...bookmark lists have become "information closets" that hold a jumble of sites people never return to. Only hyperorganized users sort sites into folders, clean out dead links or click on inscrutable addresses to figure out why they were bookmarked in the first place

And, not to beat a dead horse or anything, Microsoft is again going to rei nforce my point that taxonomies just may be dead and you really just need good search.

...a senior researcher with Microsoft who is also part of the University of Washington team, has helped develop a program called Stuff I've Seen. The software is designed to help people recall documents like e-mail messages and Web sites through a unified search interface. Keyword search results include related Web sites already visited, regardless of whether they have been bookmarked.

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WAP technology is not dead

WAP technology is not dead 09/10/2004 03:49 AM
Mad.co.uk Sep 10 2004 7:52AM GMT

"I already feel I'm dead"

"I already feel I'm dead" 09/15/2004 11:55 AM
Is Iraq descending into civil war? As the seemingly indiscriminate violence spreads, many are worried that it is.

The Floppy is Dead

The Floppy is Dead 09/07/2004 09:48 PM

CNN is proclaiming the death of the floppy drive. If you ask me the floppy has been dead for some time now. Once it became easy to email attachments I all but forgot they even existed. I think the deciding factor for most people was probably the widespread use of USB drives and CDRs. Let's not forget the grief that Apple received for being the first company smart enough to eliminate the floppy drive when the iMac was introduced five years ago.

So what's next? What time tested piece of PC hardware is the next to go?

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A Third of the Dead Are Said to Be
Children

A Third of the Dead Are Said to Be
Children 12/28/2004 03:02 AM
Survivors arranged for mass burials and searched for tens of thousands of the missing in countries thousands of miles apart.

"Libeling A Dead Man"

"Libeling A Dead Man" 02/13/2004 02:37 PM

Dawn of the dead?

Dawn of the dead? 08/31/2004 01:55 PM
David Pescovitz: A fertility scientist at the Kentucky Center for Reproductive Medicine, Panayiotis Zavo, claims to have taken cells from dead humans and cloned them. He stopped short of implanting the embryos, but the scientific community is in an uproar. According to New Scientist, one of three cases used DNA from a young girl killed in an automobile wreck. Apparently her parents kept the tissue in the refrigerator for a few days until sending them along to the maverick scientist.

“This man preys on the strong desires of the most vulnerable people in society - giving them false hopes,” says Robin Lovell-Badge, head of developmental genetics at the UK's National Institute for Medical Research. Other scientists argue that, even if cloning a person were possible, the risk of major birth defects is huge.

Zavos's claims have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Link

Useful Dead Technologies

Useful Dead Technologies 02/01/2005 09:18 PM
As time progresses, we expect technology to progress as well. It doesn't always do so. Whether from corporate greed or corporate stupidity or just plain evil orneryness, some very good technologies have been allowed to die, usually being replaced by something vastly inferior and sometimes not being replaced at all. Listed here are some technologies that were very useful, but have become not more useful but less; or died off completely. These are good and useful technologies that have been superceded by less useful and usually very annoying technologies.

One-Third of the Dead Said to Be
Children

One-Third of the Dead Said to Be
Children 12/27/2004 11:15 PM
Survivors arranged for mass burials and searched for tens of thousands of the missing in countries thousands of miles apart.
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The Dead Skunk Guy

The following phrases have been identified by the grok system as matching this entry: dead skunk