• Thief scared out of his shoes, and rightfully so.  Make me laugh a lot.  Also a great argument for wearing a cape all the time. Via Boing Boing
• Kind of related to the last point….
  
  Via Graph Jam
• An upside to the Somali pirates?
• Finally, our tax dollars being put to good use: a $400,000,000 piece of surveillance equipment you could take out with a BB gun.  Bet Bin Laden’s shaking in his boots (or dialysis machine) now.
• Local politicians (even when they’re some one else’s local) are funny.
• This one’s in really bad taste, but I just couldn’t pass up the headline.  Have you heard of the Quiverfull movement?  It’s basically a puppy farm where a human is the bitch.  Wait, I mean…, nope, that was what I meant.  It’s where you let god decide how many children you have, and don’t interfere with birth control (even if it means having 18 children and not being able to support or care for them).  It’s like Jesus is your condom…
  
  Via Pundit Kitchen
• And, hell, since we’re at it (and after that last bullet point, I’m probably headed there anyway)…
  
  Via Pundit Kitchen
• And while we’re at it… this made me laugh a lot too.

A while back I was talking to a guy who lives on a fairly remote farm, and who has been working for a long time to get as far off the grid as he can.  I only talked to him briefly (a friend of a friend whom I’d just met) and he was a really interesting and really nice guy.

He has a horse drawn buggy that he takes when he goes into town when it’s nice (still has a car), has ducks and chickens, and has been working on restoring some old farm equipment that’s powered by draft horses.

While we were on his farm, he mentioned a book about how farm work was done before gas engines (which in his opinion also reflected how it would be done after we run out of gas), which we could read if we were interested in the topic.  (All discussions of energy density, labor time, specialization, and efficiency aside for the moment.)

I only kind of remembered the name of the book, but I looked it up on Amazon and was able to find it.  However, I think they could have given a bit more though to the layout of the cover:

I wouldn’t believe it was a real book either if I hadn’t seen it at his place.  You can pick it up on Amazon here.

A little while back I put some Google ads on my site, hoping to pick up a couple extra bucks.  Because I was enrolled in their AdSense program for this (that’s the name of all the Google ads), I recently got the following email from Google:

Hi,

We’re writing to let you know about the upcoming launch of interest-based advertising, which will require you to review and make any necessary changes to your site’s privacy policies. You’ll also see some new options on your Account Settings page.

Interest-based advertising will allow advertisers to show ads based on a user’s previous interactions with them, such as visits to advertiser website and also to reach users based on their interests (e.g. “sports enthusiast”).  To develop interest categories, we will recognize the types of web pages users visit throughout the Google content network.  As an example, if they visit a number of sports pages, we will add them to the “sports enthusiast” interest category.  To learn more about your associated account settings, please visit the AdSense Help Center at http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?topic=20310.

As a result of this announcement, your privacy policy will now need to reflect the use of interest-based advertising. Please review the information at https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=100557 to ensure that your site’s privacy policies are up-to-date, and make any necessary changes by April 8, 2009.  Because publisher sites and laws vary across countries, we’re unfortunately unable to suggest specific privacy policy language.

For more information about interest-based advertising, you can also visit the Inside AdSense Blog at http://adsense.blogspot.com/2009/03/driving-monetization-with-ads-that.html.

We appreciate your participation and look forward to this upcoming enhancement.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

When you start clicking through all the links, and reading all the FAQ’s, it basically boils down to this: Google is going to track everyone on the internet across every site that they visit that has Google ads.  The only way they offer to opt out of this is to download some software from Google and install it on you computer so they can identify you as not participating.

Google has always walked that fine line between making really cool use of organizing data, and being exceedingly creepy.  In my opinion, this take a flying leap over that line to the side where the 70 year old men at high school gymnastics meets hang out.

I know they do things like this already.  I know that individual data isn’t all that useful from an advertising perspective, that they only care about the aggregate.  I know lots of companies probably have far more personal data about me than I’d really care for them to have.  But seeing that they want me to update the privacy policy of my site (and everyone who uses Google ads to update their site’s privacy policy as well), so they can track people, makes that one last little twig snap in my mind.

I have not intention of updating the privacy policy I have now.  I quite like my current privacy policy:

Don’t be evil.

So, here’s my prediction.  Over the coming year (maybe two), Google’s growth is going to slow down as people get more protective of their personal information, and Google asks for more of it.  Maybe at some point some unsavoury news will come to light about a deal between Google and a country’s government (aside from helping to filter the internet in China), or some dealing with another major company to skew search results just slightly in favor of one company or another.

<political side rant>

I think this will gain even more momentum as the government gets more involved in more aspects of life and the economy.  I think continued news coverage of  bailouts and corruption, and the betrayal of tax payer money to fund this, will lead to more and more distrust of any large company.  Especially those that have large market shares or who could be deemed “too big to fail” (which, in my opinion, means that the government has failed in the past by not enforcing anti-trust / anti-monopoly laws that could have prevented any company from being too big to fail).

</political side rant>

Accordingly, all the Google ads are now off of my site, and won’t be coming back.

(Note, the point of this post is well towards the end, but I got on a rant that I’ve been meaning to post for a while, and it got a little out of hand, skip to the end if you’re in a hurry, read it all if you’d like more of a laugh.)

When I first moved to Minnesota from Iowa, I had a jolting experience.  I was out of beer and wanted to go pick some up.  I went to a liquor store.  It was closed.  So, I went to another, which was also closed.  So, I went to a grocery store, but I couldn’t find the beer section.  I asked someone at the check out.  They said they didn’t sell beer there.  So, I went to a gas station.  By this point I was pretty annoyed, but was happy to find that they did have beer.  Though the cooler was locked (with a bike lock around the handle to the shelf inside, thus forcing the door to the cooler to stay open – not really important to the story, but it seemed weird to me at the time).  So, I asked the girl at the counter.  She mumbled something to the effect of “isthreetwo.”

“Um, yeah, a twelve pack of Budweiser if you have it.”

“Yaknowisthreetwo?”

“Um, sure.”

So, I got back to my apartment that Sunday evening (oh, did I mention that it was Sunday?) and searched online to figure out what this, “three two,” was that the clerk was referring to as I was drinking my beer, which didn’t seem quite right.  I found that when it comes to liquor laws, I’ve practically moved to Utah.  You can’t buy alcohol on Sunday.  You can’t buy alcohol at any place that sells groceries.  But you can sell beer that is 3.2% alcohol or less at a gas station on Sunday to unsuspecting recent transplants, which is a cruel joke which made me think about moving back to Iowa if that’s the kind of thing they pull up here.  (deep breath)

Now, as often happens when you have ridiculous laws, there are ridiculous workarounds.  So, a grocery store can’t sell alcohol, right?  Well, you can have two stores set up next to each other, in the same building even, sharing a glass wall and a name, one selling groceries, and the other selling alcohol, as long as the check outs are separate and there’s a solid wall or a space between them (I think).

For instance, Trader Joe’s (awesome) in St. Louis Park has a Trader Joe’s grocery store, and five feet away they have a Trader Joe’s beer and wine store.  Seen here, Trader Joe’s sign to the left = liquor store, Trader Joe’s sign to the right = grocery store.  Legal.

Another example?  Surdyk’s Liquor and Cheese Shop.  What’s that?  Cheese and Liquor in the same place?  Criminals!!!  Nope.  But wait, it’s one building, with one sign!!! Crooks!!! Nope, two doors.  Legal.

But still, no alcohol on Sunday, no matter how many doors you have.

Because Jesus rose from the dead that day, and separation of church and state is strong here on the frozen tundra.

Wait, scratch that.

No alcohol sales on Sunday, because it’s the 102,804th seven day anniversary of the day that the Catholic church picked arbitrarily / symbolically many, many years after the event to commemorate Jesus rising from the dead, not to mention making a symbolic break from Judaism’s Sabbath, while still coinciding with pagan rebirth/fertility celebrations.  Can’t you at least stock pile alcohol on Saturday for that?!?!?!  Screw separation of church and state, Jesus became a freaking zombie for your sins – buy alcohol on Saturday, not Sunday.  Isn’t the link obvious?  I mean, if you’re really a heathen, you can drive to Wisconsin if you forgot to stock up on Saturday.  They sell beer on Sundays there (sinners!!!).  At gas stations (blaspheme!!!).  With only one door.  Insanity, I know.

It’s even in the Bible, and, apparently, therefore the Constitution.  Ah yes, in Matthew 3: mumblemumblemumble it says:

After my death, the Norwegians shall go forth from their homelands and settle in a far off place.  They shall govern an area roughly bounded by the Red River, the St Croix River, the Mississippi River, Lake Superior, 43° 34′N Latitude, and variety of lakes near Canada.  There, from roughly one thousand, nine-hundred years after my death, for at least 90 years, they shall prohibit the sale, but not consumption, of any fermented liquids on the day of the week on which I rise from the dead.

Upon hearing this, the apostles were uneasy.  “You’re not going to eat our brains, are you?” they said unto him.  And Jesus walked up a mountain.

</rant>

But really people, there’s not much of anything that will make me say Wisconsin is better than anywhere else (as both an Iowan and a Minnesotan (still doesn’t feel right calling myself that), I’m obligated to make fun of Wisconsin where ever convenient), but this will make me say it.  Wisconsin is better than Minnesota on liquor sales laws.

The important part:

With the economy in the toilet, the state government’s budget is also going to crap.  Minnesota has a very “progressive” (hate that term) tax code, which lends itself making the state government being flush with money in good times, and massively in the hole on downturns.  So, law makers are looking for places to fill the holes.  And where do you get money?  Tax sin goods.

There is now a bill in the Minnesota legislature to allow alcohol sales on Sunday in Minnesota.

I give you, HF0155.

It’s to allow alcohol sales on Sunday, and give the tax revenue to child social service.  Won’t you think of the children.  You don’t hate children, do you?  Needy children at that.  Not supporting alcohol sales on Sunday in Minnesota is the equivalent of kicking an orphan in the face.  There, I said it.

Now find your representatives and let them know that you want to be able to buy beer on Sunday, or this could be Minnesota’s future, forever:

(bonus, it’s Slovenian)

Mostly NSFW:

• Biblical cars
• Island life
• Catholic surveillance
• The dating game
• Archaeology humor (and a plug for one of my previous posts)
• Building a reputation

Though there have been a ton of spoofs of the Obama logo/portrait thingy (something like 50,000 of them on this site alone, quite a few of the top rated ones are pretty funny), this one is far and away my favorite:

Via /Film, via LiveJamie, via… I forget how I got there, okay?

Anyway, it’s also avalible as a sticker from the guy who made it.

This made me laugh, a lot.

Via swissmiss

Okay, while we’re at it, one more BMW post.  Not sure how I got this many BMW links built up, especially since I prefer Acuras.  Though with how behind I am on posting things compared to bookmarking them, I would imagine I can probably get a fair number of themes going.

At any rate, did you know that all BMWs made since 1961 have one design feature in common?  The Hofmeister Kink.  It’s basically that the rear side window comes slightly back forward at the bottom instead of trailing back towards the rear of the car.  There’s an interesting article about it here.  One of those things you don’t really notice until someone mentions it, and then it’s everywhere in a million different little variations.

Via Kottke.

So, continuing my emerging theme here on the intersection of cars, form, visual illusion, etc, while at the same time proving I’m not just a BMW fan boy, I present you with a wire frame Corolla:

What’s that I hear you say?

“But Kearn, I’ve seen a million of these computer generated wire frame models of cars.”

Oh, I’m sure you have, but this one’s not computer generated, it’s a real sculpture:

Kinda trippy, huh?  Took me a few looks to believe it was really and not computer generated too.  There’s more about it, and a few more pictures on AutoBlog.  Also a couple more on the artist’s website.  The artist that made it, Benedict Radcliffe, has a whole lot of cool stuff on his website. Definitely worth a look around. He’s also made a peddle Lamborghini that’s actually driveable.

A really cool kinetic sculpture from the BMW museum.  As you’d expect, it’s has a tendency to show the shape of BMW’s, but really cool none the less.  Sort of a computer model in the real world.  A little slow to get going, but worth it, and also worth watching in the high quality mode (click the little “HQ” button on the bottom right).  The end is really cool.

Interesting for both the psychological aspect of how your mind creates images and connects the dots (literally) in 3D space, and the huge flexibility of what you could do with it.

Part of me thinks it wouldn’t be all that hard to make a rough equivalent of this thing.  A whole bunch of cheap computer controlled motors that don’t need to be powerful at all, a few ping pong balls, a can of silver spray paint, a reel of fishing line, and some free 3d modelling software like Blender.

More about it on the website of the company that made it, including some pictures of the guts of how it works.