Sunday, January 25, 2004

I am a little wary of this Splenda thing. It tastes practically like sugar, it is said to be made from sugar (its chemical name is "sucralose," which is very similar to the chemical name for sugar, "sucrose"), and yet it is not sugar. There must be some catch: I think that I might look into this. Hey, remember those god-awful Wow chips that had the fat-substitute, Olestra? Who knows.

Saturday, January 24, 2004

I don't understand. I have subscribed to Foreign Affairs before Christmas, and it hasn't arrived yet. I am starting to become worried, just a little bit.

Wednesday, January 21, 2004

I've been away for awhile. Saw the State of the Union address last night. A clearly divided Congress watched the President lay out his plan for what he thinks will become a second term (may God never let that happen), including the privatization of health care and social security, as well as permanent tax cuts for the wealthiest of all Americans. and the renewal of the provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act. You can read the text of his speech here. I hope that either John Kerry or Wesley Clark wins the nomination. Otherwise, we will be looking at another four years of the Bush/Cheney junta.

Wednesday, January 14, 2004

You know, with all of the problems we are having with the wars we are still fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, you would really think that Bush is trying to concentrate on how to solve them and, you know, promote democracy throughout the Middle East. Instead, he's trying to do this. Sometimes I seriously question this man's competence.

Sunday, January 11, 2004

Virginia Tech has hooked together 1,100 Apple Power Mac G5s together and, as of November 2003, has made the 3rd fastest supercomputer in the world, just behind the supercomputer at Los Alamos (which is only a little faster and over 40 times more expensive) and NEC's Earth Simulator (which is number one) in Japan, which is about 3.5 times faster but is about 60 times more expensive). Go here for more information, or go here to see a video on how they did it.

Tuesday, January 06, 2004

And the march of progress goes ever on...

Apple has released a smaller version of the iPod that holds "only" 1000 songs (like mine, which is the "old and clunky" 1st generation 5 GB model); it's called the iPod Mini. And it comes in five different colors, which I expected would eventually happen. And it's about three-and-a-half by two inches in size. Holy shit, Apple. When will you stop thinking of great things?

Monday, January 05, 2004

The Department of Homeland Security has launched the US-VISIT program, which will require the fingerprinting of all visitors to the United States, except for those who are citizens of "more than two dozen countries, mostly in Europe"; they are exempt from both fingerprinting and carrying a visa "if their visit is less than 90 days." Look: if you are going to fingerprint people who come into the country, fingerprint everyone. We do want to fight terrorism, don't we?

Friday, January 02, 2004

I just came back from seeing The Fog of War, a fascinating, enthralling documentary about 11 life lessons of Robert Strange McNamara, the Secretary of Defense under Kennedy and Johnson. The film deals largely with Vietnam, and it is a very moving film. I recommend everyone I know to see this movie.

Thursday, January 01, 2004

Happy New Year!