Laika Podcast

Clark Boyd did a special podcast about Laika, the first animal in space. It includes an interview Nick Abadzis the guy who wrote the excellent Laika graphic novel.

Nick Abadzis’ interview starts around 3:30 in the mp3

"Comics will break your heart"

Over the past year I’ve spent a lot more time reading and studying comic books and cartooning. The history has been far more interesting than I ever expected.

Percy Crosby creates the Skippy cartoon in 1923 and builds it up into a $3 million business by 1932. He goes after FDR and the New Deal for being communist. Then his woes begin.

By 1964 he’s dead in an insane asylum after a war with the IRS and their alleged corporate proxy, the Rosefield Packing Company. The Rosefield Packing Company takes the Skippy name and creates Skippy peanut butter.

President Bush the bully

Bush turns out to be more clued in than I would have thought. Harper’s posted part of a transcript of a meeting between President Bush and President Aznar of Spain before the Iraq war.

Bush: Countries like Mexico, Chile, Angola, and Cameroon should know that what’s at stake is the security of the United States . . . [Chilean President Ricardo] Lagos should know that the Free Trade Accord with Chile is awaiting Senate confirmation and a negative attitude about this could put ratification in danger. Angola is receiving Millennium Account funds [to help alleviate poverty] and that could be jeopardized also if he’s not supportive… via Harpers

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Saving humanity one virus at a time

Some day I’ll write a virus that does one thing. It finds the person’s mail app, desktop or web, and disables the “Quote entire message every time I respond” functionality.

Texas red light camera legislation

I noticed that SB 1119 was enrolled today. It aims to clean up the state laws around red light cameras. The first point it aims to fix is a big one:

Municipalities are currently installing photographic traffic signal enforcement systems (red light cameras) based on an attorney general opinion, but have no statutory authority to do so.

It mainly focuses on making sure municipalities don’t exploit this as a revenue opportunity. They can’t share revenue with companies that provide red light service. They can’t report violations to a credit bureau. They must conduct a traffic engineering study of the intersection to make sure it has a legitimate safety purpose. I don’t see anything about penalties if a municipality ignores the law.

Perils of Science

Computer Science programs that don’t emphasize set theory and abstract algebra are a fraud. I didn’t know this when I started taking CS classes at a university in Alabama in 1992. They focused on engineering math like Calculus. Calculus is great, don’t get me wrong. It’s just not great for computer science. I’ve since learned that the ACM recommendations for a BS in CS specifically downplay Calculus in favor of math relevant to CS:

God Bless America

America, stop listening to your preacher about politics and government. They’re probably great at religion and explaining where you fit in God’s plan, but 55% of you are misinformed about where our government comes from.

Rejuvanation

Programming Collective Intelligence has me excited about web development in a way I haven’t been for a few years.

Even got me doing stuff in python.

Laika

Love animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Do not trouble their joy, do not harass them, do not deprive them of their happiness, do not work against God’s intent.

Man, do not pride yourself on your superiority to animals: they are without sin, and you, with your greatness, defile the earth by your appearance on it, and leave the traces of your foulness after you. Fydor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821 - 1881) THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV via Moscow Animals

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AFFD 2007 has begun!!

The Asian Film Festival of Dallas 2007 had its opening night tonight. Justin Lin’s new movie Finishing the Game was the opener. It is sort of a fake documentary about an attempt to finish Bruce Lee’s last movie Game of Death. You can catch the Fist of Führer spoof from the movie on youtube. Sung Kang and Roger Fan are the stars but it has cameos from Ron Jeremy, George Takei, MC Hammer, and James Franco.