I have no comment other than “hi-larious”.
From this week’s Onion: Yes, Sweetie, Mommy’s Heard Of Gil Scott-Heron: “”
I’ll admit to being a bit of a weather junkie, but this should be of interest to anyone with a political sensibility generally to the left of, say, those who would advocate privatizing roads and sewers and such.
Apparently Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) — yes, Savage Love readers, that Rick Santorum — has introduced a bill that would prohibit the National Weather Service from providing “a product or service…that is or could be provided by the private sector”, with the exception of severe weather alerts. In other words, services like the Weather Underground would no longer be possible, since they ‘compete’ with commercial interests including what has to be one of the most boring cable TV channels around (and that’s saying a lot!).
In the course of his great analysis of the proposed bill, Dr. Jeff Masters of the WUnderground points out that, in order to fulfill its purported core mission of providing severe weather alerts and information to the public, the National Weather Service has to monitor and forecast continually. In other words, their costs are going to be pretty much the same whether the public has access to the day-to-day weather information or not.
This bill is described as a way to use the more efficient private sector to provide a service that the public sector doesn’t need to provide. If the public sector costs are more or less fixed, however, that argument doesn’t work, and the result is simply to force us to pay for the same thing twice — once to the government, and again to Santorum’s campaign donors.
The bill is still in committee — please take a moment to sign this petition, and if you live in a state with a Senator on the Commerce Committee (and I know at least some of you do, Floridians…), give them a call to urge them to oppose this shameless ploy.
Apr 212005
Police in the UK have successfully tested a 160 MPH helicopter that can read license plates from as much as 2,000 feet in the air. The Eurocopter EC135 is equipped with a camera capable of scanning 5 cars every second…
The use of Automated Plate Number Recognition (ANPR) is growing. ANPR devices photograph vehicles and then use optical character recognition to extract license plate numbers and match them with any selected databases. The devices use infrared sensors to avoid the need for a flash and to operate in all weather conditions.
The stated intent of the system is, predictably, “denying criminals the use of the road”. Just as predictably, other uses are already in the works:
Within the U.S., two cities are using the technology in a device called “Bootfinder” to identify and tow vehicles with unpaid parking tickets or even overdue library books. One woman’s car in Connecticut was towed out of her driveway because she had $85 in unpaid parking tickets.
and even more insidiously:
One of the companies that sells the camera scanning equipment touts it’s potential for marketing applications. “Once the number plate has been successfully ‘captured’ applications for it’s use are limited only by imagination and almost anything is possible,” Westminister International says on its website. UK police also envision a national database that holds time and location data on every vehicle scanned. “This data warehouse would also hold ANPR reads and hits as a further source of vehicle intelligence, providing great benefits to major crime and terrorism enquiries,” a Home Office proposal explains.
<sigh>
I wonder if things like this or this work against such a system. (If they do, presumably it will then become illegal to obscure the overhead view of your license plate…)
(Via Schneier.)
Given that they bought keyhole.com, it is very far from surprising that google has integrated its satellite imagery fu with its already excellent map service.
Given that google generally and consistently does things well, it is far from surprising that the result is impressive.
Still, I’m pretty blown away. Try the “satellite” link from any page of google maps, and you’ll see the from-space version of the map view (or the directions view!) you were previously looking at. Awesome. Even better, defining maps.google-isms like the pretty shadowed pinpoints and the no-page-reload-required APEX that drives the zoom control work in satellite view.
If it’s not clear, I’m excited by this. Sorry things have been quiet here lately — I was in Savannah, GA for a long weekend / mini-vacation. Had a good time enjoying spring, friends and family (was there for a wedding), and Savannah’s food and drink. A and I went here on Sunday night — I’d greatly recommend the scored flounder if you’re ever in the neighborhood.
Mar 292005
Received from a coworker via email, this purports to be sentences found in patients’ medical charts. Of course, the accuracy of its origin is impossible to assess, but regardless it’s pretty damned funny:
- She has no rigors or shaking chills, but her husband states she was very hot in bed last night. - Patient has chest pain if she lies on her left side for over a year. - On the second day the knee was better, and on the third day it disappeared. - The patient is tearful and crying constantly. She also appears to be depressed. - The patient has been depressed since she began seeing me in 1993. - Discharge status: Alive but without my permission. - Healthy appearing decrepit 69-year-old male, mentally alert but forgetful. - The patient refused autopsy. - The patient has no previous history of suicides. - Patient has left white blood cells at another hospital. - Patient's medical history has been remarkably with only a 40-pound weight gain in the past three days. - Patient had waffles for breakfast and anorexia for lunch. - Between you and me, we ought to be able to get this lady pregnant. - Since she can't get pregnant with her husband, I thought you might like to work her up. - She is numb from her toes down. - While in ER, she was examined, X-rated, and sent home. - The skin was moist and dry. - Occasional, constant infrequent headaches. - Patient was alert and unresponsive. - Rectal examination revealed a normal size thyroid. - She stated that she had been constipated for most of her life, until she got a divorce. - I saw your patient today, who is still under our car for physical therapy. - Both breasts are equal and reactive to light and accommodation. - Examination of genitalia reveals that he is circus sized. - The lab test indicated abnormal lover function. - The patient was to have a bowel resection. However, he took a job as a stockbroker instead. - Skin: somewhat pale but present. - The pelvic exam will be done later on the floor. - Patient was seen in consultation by Dr. Blank, who felt we should sit on the abdomen and I agree. - Large brown stool ambulating in the hall. - Patient has two teenage children, but no other abnormalities
I want to know how this supercool trick is done.
Mar 242005
Lawrence Lessig points out that Yahoo unveiled a creative commons aware search engine last night. He explains the point clearly:
This is exciting news for us. It confirms great news about Yahoo!. I met their senior management last October. They had, imho, precisely the right vision of a future net. Not a platform for delivering whatever, but instead a platform for communities to develop. With the acquisition of Flickr, the step into blogging and now this tool to locate the welcome mats spread across the net, that vision begins to turn real.
Mar 222005
MJP pointed me to this very cool demonstration of CSS capabilities. As I mentioned recently while lamely defending my crappy markup, I don’t have much HTML / CSS fu, but I know nifty when I see it.
If you’re running a current-ish browser, check this out if only for the oohs and ahhs.
Mar 212005
c|net’s news.com reports that Yahoo has purchased Flickr and its parent company.
Flickr, for the unfamiliar, is a relatively new and nifty (though apparently somewhat slashdotted at the moment) tag-based photo sharing site. It has also spawned some very cool applications like Mappr, which throws geography into the mix and demonstrates some really excellent web UI fu in the process.
It’s not the least bit surprising that Flickr was acquired, though I must admit it felt like more of a google thing than a Yahoo thing to me…
Mar 182005
Via we make money not art, who seems to have been at O’Reilly’s ETech conference this week:
Adrian Bowyer, from Bath University (England), envisions a make-it-all machine that would enable you to design and manufacture yourself plates and many other consumer goods.
Once they start making and taking their own hallucinogens as in Transmetropolitan, Warren Ellis’ truly disturbing prescience will be again confirmed.
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