Dripmail

Can somebody explain to me how to find an apartment? I don't know how to
do that. I am like a big useless baby. The kind that doesn't know
anything about renting... I'm not talking about the ones that are real
estate moguls from the crib. I'm not like that kind. The other kind. First
kind. Yeah.

Apartment listings are useless if you live in any sort of large city. By
the time they're published, they're probably taken, and they always
sound better in the ad than they do in person. The best way to go is
just walk or drive around the neighborhood you want to live in looking
for vacancy signs. Call em up and schedule an appointment to see the
place, or often you can see things right then.

You probably won't be able to fill out your first lease appliction on
the spot, because they'll ask you all this stuff you don't know about
past residences and jobs and things. Take it home, fill it out, and make
a copy of it, so the next time you fill one out you can just copy from
one to another.

And if you can, bring a girl with you. She probably has better taste
than you do.

-josh

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2003/12/01#a3081

[Re: design and development of MIT's open courseware -
http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html ]

"During the lecture the students learned that, although ocw.mit.edu is a
purely static .html site, it is produced with a database-backed content
management system. In fact, of the $11 million donated by foundations
to support the service, about $2 million was spent on technology and
the salaries of folks at MIT who oversee the technology.

The more sophisticated portion of ocw.mit.edu is a 100 percent Microsoft
show. A student asks the speakers why they chose Microsoft Content
Management Server, expecting to hear a story about careful in-house
technical evaluation done by people sort of like them. The answer: 'We
read a Gartner Group report that said the Microsoft system was the
simplest to use among the commercial vendors and that open-source toolkits
weren't worth considering.'

Students began to wake up.

A PowerPoint slide contained the magic word 'Delhi.' It turns out that
most of the content editing and all of the programming work for
OpenCourseware was done in India, either by Sapient, MIT's main contractor
for the project, or by a handful of Microsoft India employees who helped
set up the Content Management Server.

Thus did students who are within months of graduating with their $160,000
computer science degrees learn how modern information systems are actually
built, even by institutions that earn much of their revenue from educating
American software developers."

...is hopefully easier in other parts of the US than it is in new york.
i looked at about two dozen places in various parts of manhattan before
choosing.

things to ask:

- location, location, location (duh). figure out what part of town you
wanna live in before you start, and what your price range is. how far
away from a main drag do you want to be? close to public transit?
restaurants? grocery stores? just go and walk around, figure out if you
could live there, and ask yourself -- does it feel like home?

- what's important to you? studio? one bedroom? view? balcony? carpets
or hardwood floors? high ceilings? is a basement apartment okay for
you? what about windows that face into a wall? when was it last
renovated? do you have pets? busy street? quiet street? washer and
dryer on premises? parking space? absolutely need cable? need dsl? do
you want to walk up stairs or live on the bottom floor? do you cook?
can you absolutely not live without a dishwasher? going to be having a
lot of visitors or none at all?

there's a zillion factors, you're not going to be able to find the
absolutely perfect place, so what are you willing to compromise on?
figure out what your lifestyle is and what your needs are.

- who do you call in case of emergency? a super? where does s/he live?
who owns the building? who are your neighbors?

when i looked for a place in CA i essentially walked around the area i
wanted to live in, saw lots of signs saying stuff like "1 BD/1BA
available," wrote down phone numbers, made appointments to see places
(it doesn't take very long), and used craigslist (a lot).

just dive in and start! that way you get a good feel of what you can
and can't afford and what you can and can't live without. and after a
while, you'll know when you've found the right one.

good luck.

It's 2003. Matt has a new camera. A cutting edge, state of the art, 6
megapixel digital SLR. An astounding piece of technology And what does he
do with it?

That's right - takes pictures of his cat to post on his web site.

http://a.wholelottanothing.org/archives.blah/007593

Oh, how far we've come.

It is a large 2 bedroom in Urbana. It is nice.

It has a fireplace! And a balcony! And a washer! And then, when you're
done with the washer, you can use the dryer! And... then put stuff in the
dishwasher! But probably not the same stuff.

I'm going to be MR DOMESTIC.

I know what you all was thinking, that I'm just gonna spam this spam and
irrelevancies. Well, you were right.

Article 1 - Disregard for all intensive purposes

But, what I really want to do is respond to all those spam emails,

re:here is the paris hi1ton tape, did you see the Paris Hi1ton video?

And tell them yes, I did see it, its really blurry, its really stupid.

The problem is that email comes from my good friend ##%email## . I mean,
what am I supposed to do with that?

Dear ##%email## ,

Yes, I did see the tape! I assume you did, what do you think? I mean,
what does that make you think about with Shannon Doherty and everything?
I mean, she is on charmed every week and is almost making a serious
comeback from the 90210 days and then this! And that poor blonde girl
too! Why does Brenda always lose? It's the exact same thing that
happened on the show. Dylan is all about taking Brenda's poor virginity
and then next week he's like Kelly my dad was killed by the mob because
he is involved in an intenrational conspiracy. What I'm trying to get at
is Brendan is a massive tool, I mean he works for the school newspaper,
except its college. Come travel around the world with me on all the
money I am getting from my dad's "death". Well, Kelly said no, I prefer
to date drug who stick to there habits thank you! But still, Dylan
definitely took Kelly for a ride, when everyone knows he was really
always Brenda's guy. If you think about it, she had no point on the show
outside of Dylan. What I'm trying to say is this is serious payback from
the rest of the cast for Doherty's "making it" in a post 90210 world.
She really is the only successful one, Garth's new show will be out
faster than you can say Jermiah, amatuer race car driver, or ian
ziering. Yes, thats pronounce Eye-in. Don't think about it too hard,
your head might explode. Its like Jenny, with an F, pronounced sh.

your friend,
bad santa*

*Note. Not my "real" name.

But what kind of letter is that? When I get good spam it comes from my
friends Julie, Dave, Anna, Karen, Need Money?, Online Car Program,
Xandria Collection, and NEO! While I may not be best friends with these
people, I try to at least get back to them once in a while. I mean, I
feel bad since they email me like every day and I don't even have the
time to email back once a week!
It's like my friend Jon. R says, you remember tony right?
?=3DYUAREDBZCFD.

The point is I do remember tony, because he has a name! ##%email## , how
am I ever going to know you? And don't give me that nobody ever knows
anybody thing!

Article 2- Useless, but not moreso than the rest of dripmail

Because it seems like politics ruins every perfectly cool thing on the
web, and I hate dripmail, I like typing in crappo text in a 74 pixel
square because I am old school, I will bring up the politirococo...

"In the immediate phase ahead of us, between now and the end of June, we
will actually see an increase in attacks, because the people who are
against us now realize that there's huge momentum behind both the
economic and political reconstruction of this country," Bremer said.

To me, thats a ballsy thing to say. Shits going to get worse. Basically,
what they are saying is they got nothing. Its like saying well, I mean
if they want to bomb shitm there's really nothing we can do about it.
Well, I would glady offer my services and provide that sort of
protection for half the price if that is all we can do with our 6000
trillion dollar millitary budget in a country we just occupied. Whatever
happened to finding every single person and hitting them in the face and
literally closing off the borders. Well, you would need like hundreds of
thousands of soldiers to do that. And? What the problem, what else are
we fucking doing? We are occupying the country? Do we just sit around at
bases and stare down the guys on the street?

Ok, thats my thing.

By the way, I've never actually seen the movie.

At least this time they gave you a credit I guess.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3298443.stm

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/08/technology/08google.html?ex=1071994794&ei=1&en=fcaf4cb4e8db3d0b

"Craig Silverstein, Google's director for technology, says the company
sees nothing wrong with the public using its search engine this way. No
user is hurt, he said, because there is no clearly legitimate site for
"miserable failure" being pushed aside.

Moreover, he said, Google's results were taking stock of the range of
opinions that are expressed online. 'We just reflect the opinion on the
Web,' he said, 'for better or worse.'"


As much as it sort of pains me to see people take Google Bombing seriously
as "news" - the fact that it makes Google look stupid almost makes up for
it. (Yes, I'm still bitter they didn't hire me.)

http://trenchant.org/misc/myfuture.jpg

[ via jwz - http://jwz.livejournal.com/284187.html ]

So I've been subscribed to Dean's mailing for a very, very long time.

This does not necessarily mean I'm a Dean supporter, but, I mean, really,
with options like Joe "I Would Absolutely Be A Right Wing Conservative if
I wasn't a Jew but If I wasn't A Jew Maybe Gore Wouldn't Have Lost So
Many Southern States" Liebermann, Dick "I have been running for President
since you were in diapers" Gephardt, and John "I'm Skull And Bones, I'm
Obviously Supposed to Be The Nominee" Kerry, the governor of a
small rural state with universal health coverage and legalized civil
unions doesn't seem so bad. (But can he dance like Sharpton? No way.)

But every once in a while Dean does something so asinine that I wonder if
there's any chance he's electable. You know, like that Confederate Flag
comment. It's one thing to say "Republicans have been race-baiting for
years. It's wrong, it's unethical, it's important that everyone, black,
white, brown, whatever, face the issues that unite us. Namely, why the
fuck are we in Iraq, and why the fuck do over 40 millino americans have no
health insurance?" But saying you want to be the candidate for people with
Confedereate flags on their pickup trucks just shows such an ignorance and
insensitivty that I can't blame anybody, African American or otherwise,
for being pissed at him.

And on that note... here's a bit from an email I just got from the Dean
campaign.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2003 15:17:26 -0500
From: "Gov. Howard Dean, M.D." <info@[xxx]
To: Adam
Subject: On Vice President Gore's Endorsement

Dear Adam,

Today is a great day for our campaign. An extraordinary leader, and a
fine American, has joined our cause. I am honored to accept the
endorsement of Vice President Al Gore.

[...snip...]

And I look forward to January 20th, 2005, when we follow the example of
another great Tennessean, Andrew Jackson -- we will throw open the doors
to the White House and let the American people back in.

Yours sincerely,

Governor Howard Dean, M.D.

[... snip ...]



That's Right. Andrew Jackson. You may remember him from such great
American historical events as The Trail of Tears. Or you may remember him
as the last of our Presidents to engage in a duel to the death, when he
shot and killed Charles Dickinson for calling him a "scoundrel" in a
newspaper. Great Tennessean indeed.

whereabouts in urbana?

all of us will probably have to redraw our stalking routes, no doubt.

i mean, no, that's creepy. just joking.

and is this for this spring? surely not...surely fall?

look at how nosy i am.

On Tue, 9 Dec 2003, a concerned citizen wrote:

> whereabouts in urbana?

About a mile and half northeast of campus (I think.)

> and is this for this spring? surely not...surely fall?

Yes, spring semester I'm starting a Masters program in Library and
Information Science. (I will probably wrote more about that in trenchant
daily eventually.)

http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/3733

"Why did closing off weblog-related MetaTalk content and moving to the
dedicated Blogroots seem to kill the conversation?"


http://www.metastatic.org/text/concern/#508a0d9a03c04cb5

"Is it ok to hate Google because they didn't hire you? (Or me.) ..."

http://www.xent.com/pipermail/fork/Week-of-Mon-20031208/027341.html

[didn't get through it all yet, must finish reading later]

Oh wow! Look - RockRock updated with Dakota Smith's entire mp3 library!

http://rockrock.org/

(Ok, maybe it was me. I'm hoping it will motivate Dakota. But there's some
stuff up there that hasn't really been available until now.)

dakotasmith: see my problem
dakotasmith: now i'm not going to work on these songs anymore
adammathes: oh right
adammathes: because you were REALLY WORKING on them before
dakotasmith: i was working harder than you are
adammathes: no
adammathes: i renamed the mp3's
adammathes: that was more than you did
dakotasmith: um
dakotasmith: i made the songs
adammathes: oh yeah
dakotasmith: bitchass
adammathes: i mean, like, since you made the songs
dakotasmith: ha
dakotasmith: no way
dakotasmith: i play them more
dakotasmith: i just haven't rerecorded them
adammathes: where's the new recording?!
dakotasmith: because i am a single father
dakotasmith: with a puppy to take care of

You may remember that story a while back about how we were getting
charged 5 dollars gallon of gas when it was only costing about 5 cents
at the local Mobil in Kuwait.

The Pentagon said a Halliburton subsidiary failed to get a reasonable
price for the fuel from a subcontractor in Kuwait and passed the
additional charges - $61 million - on to the U.S. government. Mr. Bush
says that if there was an overcharge, and he believes there was, he
expects the "money to be repaid." VOA

Turns out, that story was actually true. So now when the Iraqi soldiers
quit when they only get paid 8 cents an hour (that is a generous
rounding up), we know how to solve it.

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, speaking at a news conference, said the major
reason for the defections was pay, specifically allowances for married
soldiers who were struggling to support their families on $60 a month.
AP

Now, I've lived on $60 a month. True, that was 1957, but I did it.
Fortunately all I had to do was mow the lawn. You'd think there would be
slightly more compensation for high risk activities.

PowerPoint Makes You Dumb
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/14/magazine/14POWER.html?ex=1071982800&en=799ad449b398c2d7&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

"Microsoft officials, of course, beg to differ. Simon Marks, the product manager for PowerPoint, counters that Tufte is a fan of ''information density,'' shoving tons of data at an audience. You could do that with PowerPoint, he says, but it's a matter of choice. ''If people were told they were going to have to sit through an incredibly dense presentation,'' he adds, ''they wouldn't want it.'' And PowerPoint still has fans in the highest corridors of power: Colin Powell used a slideware presentation in February when he made his case to the United Nations that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Of course, given that the weapons still haven't been found, maybe Tufte is onto something. Perhaps PowerPoint is uniquely suited to our modern age of obfuscation -- where manipulating facts is as important as presenting them clearly. If you have nothing to say, maybe you need just the right tool to help you not say it."

Visit the following FAQ:
http://www.angelfire.com/film/bttf2/
for details of the problems wiht the Back To The Future DVDs

Richard

Dilemma Over New Flu Vaccine
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,61605,00.html

Should they stick with last year's formula, even though a new strain of
the bug was ominously building strength? Or should they try to make a new
vaccine and risk complications or delays that could result in a shortage
or maybe even no vaccine at all?

In the end, the committee voted 17-1 to bring back last year's version,
even though they feared they were telling millions of Americans to roll up
their sleeves for shots that might not work very well.

Many of them probably agreed with Dr. Theodore Eickhoff of the University
of Colorado, who said: "For the first time in many years of participating
in these deliberations, I must add I am very uncomfortable with the
recommendation."

What Eickhoff and the others dreaded is exactly what happened. That new
strain of flu became the dominant variety, accounting for three-quarters
of all cases as the disease got an unusually early start this fall.

About 83 million doses of vaccine were made, but no one really knows how
much protection from illness it gives. It almost certainly will not be the
usual 70 percent to 90 percent, and some experts fear it is below 50
percent.

British Ignite Debate in U.S. on Drugs and Suicide
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/16/health/psychology/16SUIC.html?ei=1&en=da7b7166babdc8ee&ex=1072605991&pagewanted=all

"But after reviewing 11 studies of the drugs in treating depressed
children and adolescents, the regulators concluded that for most of the
medications, the potential for harmful side effects . including suicidal
thoughts and behavior, as well as hostility . was greater than the
evidence for their effectiveness. Doctors should not prescribe the
medications except in certain circumstances, the regulators said.

The drugs included Paxil, from GlaxoSmithKline; Zoloft, from Pfizer;
Effexor, from Wyeth; Celexa and Lexapro, from Forest Laboratories Inc.;
and Luvox, from Solvay. Prozac, by Eli Lilly, was exempted from the
advisory. (Effexor is a serotonin-norepinephrine inhibitor.)"


I feel rather certain that 50 years from now, people will think of our
mental health medical procedures along the same lines we currently view
the midieval practices of bloodletting. "You prescribed Zoloft? To kids?!
And Adderall? What, were you fucking idiots?"

dakotasmith: so
adammathes: so
dakotasmith: yes?
dakotasmith: i'm going to be a rock start
dakotasmith: start!
dakotasmith: stop
adammathes: awesome

http://64.39.14.237/pics/nsc/16-112603-10.jpg

batman looks terrible without his belt. his hands hang uselessly as he frowns in his little leather boxers.

(and i have no idea how his cape flies like that, or how their shadows are positioned like that)

In that email Adam 'sent' up there (or down there rather, from this
emails point of view), was anyone else concerned/distressed by the fact
that anti depressants such as paxil and zoloft had side effects quite
similar to that of.....depression? Why not just let the kids get
suicidal thoughts on their own? they don't need drugs to do it for them!

.....okay, so that could possibly be what adam's entire email was about.


Drugging up depressed kids, particularly teenagers, has always seemed
asinine to me. I feel that putting drugs on an issue is never going to
solve anything. Oftentimes, the depression isn't even deep enough to
warrent rampant drug prescriptions, however, that is often the first
thing doctors turn to. So sad.

In response to Heather, I don't know how you prove drugs such as Zoloft have
a "side-effect" of depression. If you prescribe a kid with depression Zoloft
and he is depressed in 6 months, why is that a side-effect, versus a failure?

Onto the fine country of Illinois and why you are all fat assholes eating up
my tax dollars. Yes, every single one of you.

This story should clear things up...

States Look to Combat Obesity With Laws - AP.

_Require physical education programs in Louisiana schools, and encourage it in
Arkansas and Mississippi. Though once a staple, such daily classes are now
only required by state law in Illinois; other states let local officials
decide or require exercise less often.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?
tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=519&e=4&u=/ap/20031222/ap_on_re_us/states_battling_obes
ity_2

The real point is the biggest briberies weren't all those cushy government
contracts to buy segways for political donations, they were those 11th hour
deals to cut mandatory p.e. and put Coke machines in the lunch line. My high
school was recently renamed McDonalds and Coca-Cola present Niles West. Like
the Chicago Bears being renamed The Chicago Bears presented by Bank One. So
now on every news cast its not just the Bears or Niles West, its free
publicity. So go alamand left and grand right and left your asses.

i am such a dork.

so... because i think the ATOM syndication format is stupid and not worth
spending any time on, i've decided to keep RSS 0.91 but expand to
include... microsoft CDF.

trust me, this will be awesome!!!

or not.

you can try! http://trenchant.org/dripmail/dripmail.cdf

Didn't that come out with like, IE4? Wasn't that when "push" was all the
rage? Damn, you're O.G. for shizzle.

-josh

I've started working on a new system to categorize/interlink/repurpose my
web site content. You can see the very beginnings of it if you click
around here:

http://trenchant.org/entwined/

I think the subject hierarchy is too wide (needs more organization and
intermeidate categories) and the interface/design/colors/etc need a lot of
work. (In particular, I think the keywords/facets/categories stuff at the
bottom of each entry may move off to the side, and links to actual content
should be visually distinguished from subject-hierarchy links .)

The basic idea is to encourage exploration through the archives in ways
other than the existing previous-next date based navigation, and the
near-useless archive [ http://trenchant.org/daily/archive.html ]

Thoughts? Suggestions?

i sort of want a "display all" feature where i can see all the nes/narnia/failure/whateverelse stuff at once, though i think that might be just me.