My comments on other blogs, blogged.

(ie, the poor man's trackback)

http://www.goodspeedupdate.com/2004_03_01_archive.html#108075198578458037

So the issue is that the fraternity houses are located on campus? do they get funding from the university? Why aren't frats independent of the university anyhow? What is the relationships between frats and the University that gives the Uni the authority to "require a live-in advisor"? Making the frats independent organizations seems like the logical thing to do. And why are women going to these places in the first place? Do we need the law to keep them out? Why not educate them? I think it's a great thing that this is getting exposure, and I agree with the criticism of the Daily: the coverage seems cold and incomplete.

http://www.decafbad.com/blog/links/boodjocjbg.html

Bingo. Paul Krugman writes an editorial today for the New York Times in which he mentions Nixon, Bob Woodward and John Dean.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/30/opinion/30KRUG.html

http://www.decafbad.com/blog/links/boodjocjbg.html

About the Clarke deal; with the selective declassification, executive privelege, and all that good stuff. I read All The President's Men last year, I've still got presidential conspiracies on the brain.

http://www.decafbad.com/blog/links/boodjocjbg.html

When can we start making Nixon analogies?

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/000541.html

Brad is so much sexier in Czech.

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentaries/commentary_text.php4?id=1450&lang=6&m=series

http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/our_thoughts/nonscientific_poll_rss_readers.php

Since this is a survey, I'll toss in another vote for Bloglines. A feature that hasn't been mentioned yet: you can group the feeds into nameable folders and view all new posts in a folder by clicking on it, or click on the + sign to expand the folder and view new posts feed by feed. The public view is also neat, it's fun to see what other people are reading: eg, here's mine.

http://stereoboy.org/archives/002788.php

I'm sure you've seen the registrar's new website, designed by Brian Kerr of Raygun Gothic. Nice guy, and codes to standards.

http://ugcs.wubi.org/comment.cgi?perm=p20040326

I pretty much agree with the US Constitution, that we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, including the right to personal freedom and self-determination (which we are called on to give up... but that's another matter). So ideally I fall on the side of 'people should be free to choose their own leaders', which is closer to the democratic model than any other. Practically, I think the republican system works pretty well, and avoids some of the deadlocks and abuses that a true democracy can give rise to.

http://www.goodspeedupdate.com/2004_03_01_archive.html#108033320096319455

God gave /us/ freedom of choice.

http://www.brainysmurf.org/archives/000917.html

Adam, I apologize for the off-topicness, but check this out, from the People's Daily today:

http://www.people.com.cn/GB/shizheng/1026/2413126.html

Particularly the last line.

http://www.sinosplice.com/weblog/archives/001183.html

For what it's worth, I too thought the article was bunk.

As for katakana, I think Jing is correct in that it's "mostly" used for loan words. Doesn't it have other uses? For example, I hear that telegrams are transcribed in katakana. Also, somebody mentioned the invention of katakana, and I believe that at its inception it was not an alphabet for loan words.

http://wobumingbai.typepad.com/wo_bu_zhidao/2004/03/eat_the_rainbow.html

Ahh, how nostalgic. I remember seeing colored chicks like these for sale at the market in a small town in southern Spain, where I lived as a kid. Many many years ago.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/shaaarii/36704.html

update:

http://www.mckenna.edu/news/pressreleases/article.asp?article_id=329

http://mcomment.blogspot.com/2004_01_01_romanika_archive.html#107466374994862196

A couple of notes:

Growing up in Spain, a popular schoolyard snack was the Bollycao, an elongated sweet bun with chocolate filling. Bollycao usually came with a little collectible sticker as a prize; at one point, the theme of the stickers was green aliens holding up and acting out signs with messages like "Toy 'Elao", "Toy Plastao", "Toy hecho polvo". I think I still have them somewhere out in the garage back in Cali. Anyhow, it was so long ago (mid eighties) that I can't remember if it was supposed to be cute, or country bumpkin-ish, or if the promotion ran outside of Andalucia.

Also, the Hispanic (mostly Mexican/Mexican-American) community in Southern California uses the Ud form when they speak to children. It drove me nuts when I first came back from Spain. A titillating saying that my dad used to repeat to me (no doubt from the Franco days) was that you only use "tu" when speaking to God or to your dog. And to children, I would add.

http://mcomment.blogspot.com/2004_03_21_fortheride_archive.html#10799156814950818

your father's dog, ten years ago ;)

http://seat.defcode.com/index.php?p=262&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

/me is jealous. /me was also serious about getting a ride. The next time the Liars are in town, let's hook up.

http://www.srah.net/weblog/2004_03.html#006153

oatmeal brownies

pianos

warm sunny spots on the rug

Radiozilla

Vernor's ginger ale

my sister

Everything But The Girl

analog watches

snow (yeah, sue me)

http://simon.incutio.com/archive/2004/03/21/avoiding

I have a handful of messages in my "postponed-msgs" mailbox that I will delete as soon as I no longer care enough to send them. Same principles, different medium.

http://www.xanga.com/item.aspx?user=Tsubasa97&uid=72698361

Peace Corp? You're young, unattached, and educated. I'm sure they'd take ya, the deadline for getting sent out this fall is fast approaching. Get some exposure to a foreign country doing tech stuff or teaching math/science, get a decent exit bonus after a two year term and help applying to to the diplomatic corp.

Maybe another service-type organization... there's the Geek Corp, or... apply to work at a juvi: shades of the military, and a chance to do whip bad kids into shape.

Otherwise, I stand behind my original suggestion: hash it out with somebody *you trust*, maybe a friend or even an older role-model type; and I mean face to face, none of this weblog stuff. Talk about more "big picture" stuff, like you did above: now we know that you feel a little moral itch, how important are things like a comfortable salary to you? Location? Did you like Washington DC? Prefer to live close to family? Attached to a particular church? Feel any urgency about starting a career, or willing to take a meandering path? Looking to break with the tech business for good, or just a break? And if it's somebody older, they can ask you better questions than I can, I'm sure.

For a good, decisive "change of direction" post, read Vickie's from a couple days ago:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/vampyre_kitty/68365.html

http://www.livejournal.com/users/vampyre_kitty/68365.html

booyah! go Vickie.

http://www.livejournal.com/community/ann_arbor_ypsi/285553.html

ditto. Mind if we move the University down there?

http://www.xanga.com/item.aspx?user=Tsubasa97&uid=72698361

Hey, that was really helpful; obviously, like you say, you've thought this through thoroughly before. I'm off to a seminar right now, I'll try to type up something useful later.

http://www.brainysmurf.org/archives/000897.html

I have it from a knowledgable source that one of Wen Jiabao's requests on his visit to the US last winter was for George Bush to call on Chen to cut the anti-China rhetoric (as he did), because it really put the Chinese leaders between a rock and a hard place: keep quiet, and Chen claims victory over the commies; criticize Chen, and watch him roll to victory on his referendum and in the election. Neither conducive to peaceful cross-straits dialogue.

http://www.arborblogs.com/2004_03_01_arborblogs_archive.html#107935836127619611

It would be nice if there was a link to this at the top of the page; say, next to the calendar icon.

http://www.xanga.com/item.aspx?user=Tsubasa97&tab=weblogs&uid=72641373

Maybe this is too cliched, but sit down with somebody you trust and figure out what your priorities are. Money? Family? Nice Weather (for all the socal folks out there)? Then look at what is going to fill those priorities best. You do have some dollars saved up, don't you? And you're still young. You should have a little flexibility on both counts. If you still can't find a focus, talk to more people; like, serious talks; maybe travel a little, expose yourself to new places and ideas. Forget having to find your place tomorrow, concentrate on the journey for a while instead of the destination.

Wow, that all sounds so "heard it before". I think the point is, sometimes your ready to hear it, and sometimes your not. To me, it is making more sense the older (and more mature? questionable) I get.

http://disjointed.org/archives/000731.html

Ahh, the associated press says that "The group's latest statement, dated March 15, will be published in Thursday's editions of Al Hayat. The paper did not provide a text Wednesday."

They also emphasize in their articles that the group responsible for the claim has very little credibility with int'l law enforcement.

http://disjointed.org/archives/000731.html

What's interesting is that the Spanish newspapers report:

Dirigen insultos contra el presidente George W. Bush y le amenazan con atacar a Estados Unidos para "conseguir que pierda las próximas elecciones".

[They level insults against president George W Bush and threaten to attack the United States to "cause him to lose the upcoming elections." ]

which is pretty different from what Yahoo reports, about wanting Bush to win the election. I'd be interested in seeing a link to the full text of the letter, if anybody has it, to reconcile the two different messages

http://www.michigandaily.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/03/16/4056a8b1d551d

"several people at the University are following this trend." Several? More than several:

http://www.arborblogs.com/
http://www.livejournal.com/community/ann_arbor_ypsi/

http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20040313_blogcn_blogdriver_shut_down.htm

There is some speculation:

http://makeashorterlink.com/?X6DB216B7

http://www.livejournal.com/users/bjorng/65936.html

I second the RSS suggestion; Bloglines is a good tool for that if you use multiple computers because it's web-based; otherwise, try a dedicated feed reading program.

Re: the original question, Mozilla with the Multizilla extension installed will remember "sessions" (which tabs are open) when you close the app, and brings lots of other functionalities to the tab interface -- tab drag and drop, switch left/right on tab close, and lots of other stuff you are probably accustomed to by now and wouldn't want to switch anyways, but can if you want to. My only qualm is that it doesn't give you a chance to cancel if you accidentally hit the "close window" box when you have multiple tabs open, like Mozilla w/o Multizilla does (haha, never mind. Glancing through the extensive prefs, I found the checkbox to turn this on. Multizilla has it all!)

http://marmot.blogs.com/korea/2004/03/irans_saying_no.html

Iranian soccer fans.

http://www.brainysmurf.org/archives/000886.html

I lived in Spain for a while so I've seen this before. I don't mean to be insensitive, but Europeans *love* demonstrations. They'll take to the streets for just about anything. I'm not sure why. Like Easy said, Americans just grieve differently.

http://www.sinosplice.com/weblog/archives/001166.html

This is great stuff; somebody should try to record samples of rap music from every language in the world.

As far as metal music, my instinct is (and it's been a while since I was in China, so somebody back me up here) that Chinese metal predates Chinese hip hop by a long time; it probably even predates Chinese punk rock, which has a lively scene happening now in Beijing, and Wuhan. The person to go to for an authoritative answer on Chinese metal, though, is Kaiser Kuo, "Chinese Rock Star".

http://www.al3x.net/archives/2004/03/11/way-to-leverage-those-databases-dipshits/

When I left Borders to go back to school last year, they were still using inventory software designed by... Altavista. That's right, the one that lost the search engine war to Google. The store computer terminals display at high resolution but the app has one window, 640x480, and cannot be resized. Gives you an idea of how low-tech their inventory services are. Sure, the interface they provide for customers is some sort of Internet Explorer based, DHTML+JS kiosk app, but the back-end is pure archaic junk. And this is a company that made it big by implementing one of the bookselling industry's first computer inventory programs, written by one of the original Borders brothers. Sad. I can't speak for Barnes and Nobles, but ever since Borders went public, sold out to Kmart, and then hired an executive from the *supermarket* sector to plan its book stock and placement, things have been all downhill from the book lover's POV. Can't say the same for the stockholders, but then again, we can't all be money-grubbing investors running honest companies into the ground for another dollar.

Phew, there went my my anti-bigcorp rant for the day :)

http://seat.defcode.com/index.php?p=244&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

How come this isn't on Upcoming... oh wait, it is!

Anybody have a car, wanna carpool?

http://silkworms.chinesetriad.org/index.php?p=54

I want to echo Pete’s statement that a lot of thought it given to methodology, especially (and I’ve discovered it to be a big difference from undergrad) at the graduate school level.

At the same time, I want to say “right on” about the art collecting bit. It’s really preposterous how collusion between auction houses, millionaires who would like to believe they have “culture” and corrupted art historians has stripped so much of the world of its historical objects.

http://www.xanga.com/item.aspx?user=msittig&uid=70756100

Hey, pork is good meat. Oh, I see. Lent?

I would comment on your Xanga posts, but they are always so criptic. At least mine are shallow and obvious: I had dumplings for dinner last night. Andy, you're a man of mystery!

http://www.livejournal.com/users/rainygreyday/94793.html

Pitchers!

http://www.decafbad.com/comments/links/boodjocjoi

Funny, I just read the chapter on fhqwhgads.

http://broccoli.wubi.org/w00t.cgi?perm=107869270391354831

You were very welcome to the meal, Merry Christmas again. I guess Radio Mozilla would be strange anywhere, eh? And thanks for pointing out the date, I remember it being off at some point when I was debugging the site (the backend is a work in progress), I guess I never got around to fixing it. Crazy how our schedules have conspired against us meeting, I suppose it should happen at one point or another. I've been looking for an excuse to visit San Francisco, maybe this is it.

http://vielmetti.typepad.com/vacuum/2004/03/time_management.html

I've had these two bookmarks at the top of my TO READ list forever, but of course I've put them off for as long as I can. Too comfortable in my procrastination, I guess:

http://www.cs.unc.edu/~azuma/hitch4.html
A Graduate School Survival Guide: good time-management and character trait tips.

http://wonderland.hcii.cs.cmu.edu/Randy/timetalk.htm
Time Management Talk: webified Powerpoint talk on time management, geared toward the grad student, with invaluable, *practical* tips.

http://philringnalda.com/blog/2004/03/bookmark_blogging.php

Two thoughts:

If everyone attributed, each poster would only have to attribute one step back. And like MHall said, the reader would have the complete chain of attribution for their perusal. So in the ideal world, the onus of attribution would be a single link backwards.

Second, it seems like diff would be a great tool for creating a linkblog: save a copy of your Mozilla bookmarks every 24 hours, and diff the current file with the saved file for a record of added (and removed) bookmarks. And like you said, this would be easily scriptable. I think 0xDECAFBAD already does something like this.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/shaaarii/35490.html

That's what friends are for! Go Shirley, I'm sure you'll pass on the first try.

http://www.simplebits.com/archives/2004/02/29/simplequiz_part_xiii_empholdics_conclusion.html

I think the standard way of emphasizing a word in italicized text is to reverse the italicization, ie to make it non-italicized. This is easy to do with css if, for example, I want to italicize this word.

<em>I want to italicize <em>this</em> word</em>.

em { font-style: italic; }
em em { font-style: normal; }

And again, let me plug eschewing CLASSes in favor of nested tags. Class names, by not being defined in the DTD, are semantically meaningless to a computer, regardless of how they are named. As an extreme example, I would propose dropping class="thisisreallyimportant" in favor of:

<em><em><em>foobar</em></em></em>

http://disjointed.org/movable-type/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=690

And what's up with this website:

http://www.nsa.org/

http://broccoli.wubi.org/w00t.cgi?perm=107804118700393888

After I was in China, I started a "movie fast" that has lasted through the present — my policy has been to not watch movies unless it's a social event with other people. Part of that is because Shirley was really into movies so while we were dating I suffered a bit of an overdose; part was because we've never been a movie-going family, I'm not used to sitting in a dark room for two hours staring at a screen, and I feel like I can get a lot more out of a book; and part because I had a crisis of faith in movies as vehicles of truth at about that time (which I'm beginning to experience for books, but that's a topic for another day).

As a result, I'm less interested in what the movie itself has to say than in the social and religious discourse it gives rise to in different segments of society. That's why I'm not so reluctant to talk about "the movie" without having seen it. Because it's just as important how people interpret the movie, as it is the content of the movie itself. And context is important, but we all don't have the same context. You yourself may know that grace is hidden at the center of the Passion story, but do other people without a seminary education behind them realize this? In fact, as a strong Catholic, does Mel Gibson know this?

Personally, I think the whole anti-Semetic angle is over-blown — if it even peeped its head above the screen it would be targetted (justly) for criticism by any rational person, Christian or not. The part of the review I pointed to where he discusses this felt like nit-picking to me.

What I'm most interested in, and I hope this showed in the couple of entries I wrote, is what people are taking away from this movie in regards to the Christian faith. That point is especially salient, given that for many churches this is intentionally and/or unintentionally a chance for outreach to what the people here at Harvest Mission call "pre-Christians" (non-believers, elsewhere). What does the audience think? Is this a "feel sorry for Jesus" film (as a result of Gibson's focus on the violence of the Semana Santa)? Or does it highlight Gods love, holiness, and the "cosmological" (not the right word, I know) significance for us today of his sacrifice on the cross? Can Christians support the movie by going to see it, but disagree with its methods and still use it as an opportunity for evangelism?