Go Nutty

Cause for concern with California's High Speed Rail project?

2009-02-16T20:39:00.000-08:00

This one is for all the Californians in the house.

Last November, while we were all busy voting for change and stuff, voters also approved proposition 1A to issue almost $10 billion in bonds to fund the initial stage of a high-speed railway that could cost upwards of $40, perhaps as much as $80 billion dollars. When the election results came in, I was bummed that voters had signed us up for more debt to be paid from the state's general fund (I voted against the measure).

Now that more of the particulars are coming to light, I'm becoming increasingly anxious about what might actually get built. You see, the grounds of GoNutty.com Central Global World Headquarters abut the Caltrain tracks that run up the peninsula from San Jose to San Francisco. There's talk around town about what might happen with the tracks and such, and some of it sounds grim. Like a 15 foot wall of concrete to separate the tracks from the grade. I've also heard a much more enticing proposal to run the train through a tunnel.

For its part, The California High Speed Rail Authority site is long on glossy concept stuff, but short of specifics of what this project might mean to those of us who neighbor the tracks. Palo Alto Weekly has used a lot of ink on the high speed rail project, and there's a Yahoo group for Palo Altans concerned about High Speed Rail.

There are a number of meetings scheduled in the next couple of weeks for Palo Alto residents who are concerned about the potential impacts of the project. The first is tomorrow, Tuesday February 17th at 7 p.m. It's a meeting with city representatives and will be held at conference room A of the PAUSD office at 25 Churchill Ave.

There's another meeting scheduled for Thursday, February 26th at 7 p.m. to talk with city representatives AND folks from the High Speed Rail Authority. That one will be held at the Mitchell Park Community Center at 3800 Middlefield Road.

Finally, the Palo Alto city council meeting on March 2nd at 7 p.m. at City Hall will include High Speed Rail on the agenda. There's even a march to City Hall that evening, starting at Lytton Plaza at 6 p.m.

It sounds like the window for public comment on this project is scheduled to close pretty soon (March 6th), so if you have questions/comments/concerns about the project, now is the time.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled nuttiness, already in progress....

Happy John Frum Day!

2009-02-15T20:14:00.000-08:00

Every February 15th, followers of John Frum have a parade in celebration of the expected return of their cargo cult god. They're not sure what year he'll return, just that it'll be on February 15th. As one of them said to David Attenborough in the 50's: "If you can wait two thousand years for Jesus Christ to come an' 'e no come, then I can wait more than nineteen years for John."

So, every year they get out their bamboo rifles and march around military style, with "USA" and "TA" (for "Tanna Army") painted on their bodies. Here's an interesting video of the proceedings one year at the village of Lamakara at Sulfa Bay on the island of Tanna in the South Pacific nation of Vanuatu.

Okay, time to head out to the makeshift control tower I built next to the driveway. Now where did I put my coconut shell headphones?

Going Nutty at the Sundance Film Festival

2009-02-13T23:22:00.000-08:00

If you've been following me on Twitter or Friendfeed or even Facebook, you already know that I went to Park City, Utah last month for the Sundance Film Festival. If you don't follow me on those sites, well, you know now. I was lucky enough to stay with my ol' college buddies Jake and Sonja, who were gracious hosts and who helped me learn to ski. A lot of people have asked me what I saw while I was there and what I thought, so here goes.

First off, what I didn't see was celebrities. I heard a bunch of directors talking about their films in the Q&A after screenings, and there were a bunch of actors there, but I didn't see any big big stars. That's okay with me, but it seems to be very disappointing to people when they ask about the festival. I did see a moose, which I thought was a cow at first. I also kept seeing a kid who I thought must've been John Krasinski's younger brother, except now that I looked on IMDb it looks like John is the youngest of three brothers. Maybe it was a cousin? Nephew?

Okay, so now you know what I didn't see. What I did see was 14 features in 7 days (and the moose, of course). The number is even higher if you count short films in addition. I'll share some thoughts on each, but won't go into too much detail lest we drift into spoiler territory.

The Yes Men Fix the World
Sundance '09 page | IMDb | Official site
The Yes Men are prankster activists who create mock corporate websites in order to get themselves invited to speak at big conferences as spokespeople for big companies like Dow Chemical, Exxon Mobil, etc. I gave these guys a standing ovation, not so much because the film was technically great (although it wasn't bad) but rather because they were doing their quixotic best to make a real difference, to point out stuff that's really, really wrong about business as usual. It reminded me of Michael Moore, but felt better going down for me (Moore has started playing a bit too fast-and-loose with the facts). I especially appreciated the Yes Men's honest portrayal of their own nerves and anxiety as they prepared for their pranks. This was not only a highly amusing documentary, but it was also quite inspiring to see the impact that ordinary folks can have if they decide to give a crap. As a special bonus, they handed out a great issue of the NY Times from the future possible.

The Girlfriend Experience
IMDb
This was billed as "An Evening with Steven Soderbergh" but that was a pretty poorly kept secret. Even an industry outsider like me was able to guess what would be screened just by looking at IMDb. This film was shown as a work in progress, so I can't really come down on it too much, but it dragged a bit for me. It was an intriguing concept exploring the world around a high-priced call girl through layers of story revealed out of sequence. The thing that kind of lost me was the amount of redundancy in the clips. That might be a function of it not being finished. If not, it requires a more patient viewer than I. It would be really interesting to see the thing in the straight chronological order without all the timeshifting. I'm not even sure how long it would be. It felt like it might've been half as long without the redundancy, but again, it was a work in progress. Well, it seems as if I've caught the redundancy bug, so I'll quit while I'm behind here.

The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle
Sundance '09 page | IMDb | Official site
The title is a mouthful, but the film was a trip. No, really, there were so many hallucination sequences that it felt like I was having flashbacks. That's not to say that it wasn't fun. What's not to like about a ragtag band of janitors getting messed up on chemical-laden cookies? There was a weird, paranoid, yet funny vibe throughout that was reminiscent of "Repo Man." The film touched on a variety of topics ranging from religion to big business to consumerism and more. After the show the director said that he wasn't really trying to make a particular statement so much as just getting a bunch of stuff out of his head into the script. Depending on your own mindset, this movie could give you a lot of food for thought. Me, I just enjoyed the sensation of warm cookies.

Cold Souls
Sundance '09 page | IMDb | Official site
One of my festival favorites, "Cold Souls" is a metaphysical cautionary tale which will certainly draw comparisons to films like "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "Being John Malkovich." Paul Giamatti played himself, and did a great job. You could really believe that he was Paul Giamatti. Beyond that, the film made you think about the nature of identity, and entertained along the way with a quirky story and good production.

Humpday
Sundance '09 page | IMDb | Official site
I saw Humpday on a Wednesday, but it didn't have anything to do with being over the hump of the work week. No, this Humpday was a comic story about two college friends reunited after years traveling different paths through their lives. In addition to grappling with some awkwardness between them, they both wrestle with their own feelings about their lives since college. All the grappling and wrestling results in them agreeing to do a non-gay male-on-male porn flick together for Hump!, a real-world amateur porn film festival in Seattle. Hilarity ensues, and not the kind of cheap gay porn jokes you might have come to expect from Hollywood. Sure, there are jokes, but they aren't cheap jokes. No, these are high-class dude-on-dude jokes.

Sin Nombre
Sundance '09 page | IMDb | Official site
Sin Nombre is a powerhouse story, chronicling the journey of illegal immigrants traveling through Mexico on their way to the United States. Paralleling and intersecting that storyline is a tale about the brutality of gang life and its impact on two young men. Desperation and hopelessness run through this film, but so do hope and perseverance. It's a poignant mix. Normally, subtitles really get in the way of me getting engaged in a film, but they weren't an obstacle here. The emotions were so raw, so real, that they spoke a language all their own. It was my favorite of the festival.

Mystery Team
Sundance '09 page | IMDb | Official site
Three childhood friends solve crimes. No case too big, no case too tough. Will also work for fruit roll-ups. In the tradition of Encyclopedia Brown, the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, et al., these kids are detectives. Their early success in mystery-solving didn't translate well to their teen years, but they don't seem to have noticed the world changing around them. This film is the first feature-length production by Derrick Comedy, whose films are usually of the internet short variety. The transition isn't completely smooth, as it felt like the film could've been shorter, but there are lots of laughs along the way.

Big Fan
Sundance '09 page | IMDb
Patton Oswalt stars in this portrait of an obsessed NY Giants football fan who has his loyalty tested. Written and directed by Robert D. Siegel, former editor-in-chief of The Onion and writer of "The Wrestler", the film managed to be both depressing and uplifting in a twisted way. Fandom is an interesting thing; it's staggering the amount of emotional investment that gets put into something over which there's no real control. This picture really holds that up to the light, and holds up well.

Peter & Vandy
Sundance '09 page | IMDb
"Peter and Vandy" examines the rise and fall of a relationship. This one, like Soderbergh's high-priced hooker flick, tells the story in a non-linear fashion. I don't mind that technique per se, in fact I really liked how Tarantino used it in "Pulp Fiction" and "Reservoir Dogs" (a Sundance film back in the day). The thing is, shifting the timeline around doesn't make the story more interesting if the story isn't that interesting in the first place. A lot of the story dwells on the mundane, which I suppose is different than what you get from a lot of films, but personally I don't go to the theater for mundane. There's enough of that in real life. This is sounding a bit harsher than I mean it to. It wasn't a terrible film or anything, but it was a little underwhelming when held up next to all the really kick-ass films at the festival.

Adam
Sundance '09 page | IMDb
Adam is sweet on a woman who lives in his building, and she's sweet on him. Adam has Asperger's syndrome, on the autism spectrum, so there are some challenges there. It's a sweet movie, and enjoyable enough, but it was a little bit Gump-y (Forrest-y?) in spots. (They actually made a joke about this in film when Adam says something along the lines of "I'm not Forrest Gump, you know.") Again, the film isn't as bad as it might sound from my tepid description, but that's largely a function of comparison to all the kick-ass things seen so close to it. For what it's worth, "Adam" did win the Alfred P. Sloan prize �for its credible and moving portrayal of an engineer with Asperger's Syndrome whose passion for science helps him in his struggle to achieve a meaningful relationship.� So it's got that going for it, which is nice.

D�d Sn� (Dead Snow)
Sundance '09 page | IMDb | Official site
As one of the Sundance staffers said before the midnight show at the Egyptian, "When I say Nazi, you say zombie!" Pretty much all you need to know about this film is that it's full of Nazi zombies. There can't be too many people on the fence about that sort of thing, can there? You're either for the zombies or you're against the zombies. Personally, I am a huge zombie fan, and I wasn't disappointed, even though these zombies weren't nearly slow or stupid enough for my taste. But come on, they're Nazis! Not quite as funny as "Shaun of the Dead" or "Evil Dead" it was still on the funny side of the zombie spectrum. As an added bonus, they warmed up the crowd with a very entertaining slasher short entitled "Treevenge" about what happens when the Christmas trees decide that they've had enough. Ho ho ho!

Animation Spotlight
I had high hopes for the animated shorts program, but it ended up being a mixed bag. The highlights of this program were "This Way Up" (an Academy Award nominee), "Dear Beautiful," "Western Spaghetti," and "I Am So Proud of You." The lowlights won't be named, but my friends and I wondered how the Sundance programmers ended up with this group out of the hundreds of submissions they received.

We Live In Public
Sundance '09 page | IMDb | Official site
This was the Grand Jury Prize Winner for the documentary category. It follows the rise and fall of one Josh Harris, an internet/new media personality who has done a lot of personal and professional exploration of online surveillance and connectedness. It was an interesting, thought-provoking film, though some of the assertions that it made were annoyingly over-general. In particular, I had trouble with the line of logic that went like this: 1) Josh Harris was an internet pioneer. 2) Harris is narcissistic and engaged in some really invasive social experiments. 3) Therefore, every social site is inherently narcissistic in nature. I thought maybe I was reading too much into it, but then the director said in the Q&A that she thought that online community/networking sites are driven primarily by narcissism. That seems cynical to me, and discounts the desire to connect with other people and share something meaningful, not just "look at me, look at me, look at me." The film was technically well-made, with years and years of footage, and was an interesting biopic about Harris. The broader conclusions were a bit of a stretch, though. They looked in the mirror for data, and narcissism was staring back.

Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
Sundance '09 page | IMDb
Not to be confused with the superpower flick "Push" coming out in theaters now, this film won both the grand jury and audience prizes for dramatic film -- high acclaim, indeed. The premise of the film is grim, telling the story of an illiterate teenage girl in Harlem who is pregnant with her father's child (again). Doesn't sound like a feel-good sort of flick, does it? Well, I honestly wouldn't have gone to see it if it hadn't been the dramatic winner at the festival, but I'm glad that I did. There were lots of really strong performances, and a story that was really moving without being cheesy. You probably wouldn't want to have this as a first date movie or anything, but it was worthy of all the accolades.

Overall, Sundance was a great experience and I would recommend it to anyone who loves movies and doesn't mind being challenged a bit. You might not see a bunch of stars, especially if you go toward the tail end, but seeing so many great independent films in such a short span is a real treat. With any luck, this will become an annual tradition for me. A film nerd could get used to that sort of thing....

Breaking and fixing the economy

2009-01-08T00:04:00.000-08:00

The New York Times recently ran a great two part op-ed by Michael Lewis and David Einhorn. The first part is entitled, "The End of the Financial World As We Know It" and it's followed by "How to Repair a Broken Financial World." Both are excellent reading for anyone interested in why we're in the mess we're in and what we can do to correct some of the mistakes. Among the best suggestions:

Stop making big regulatory decisions with long-term consequences based on their short-term effect on stock prices. Stock prices go up and down: let them. An absurd number of the official crises have been negotiated and resolved over weekends so that they may be presented as a fait accompli �before the Asian markets open.� The hasty crisis-to-crisis policy decision-making lacks coherence for the obvious reason that it is more or less driven by a desire to please the stock market. The Treasury, the Federal Reserve and the S.E.C. all seem to view propping up stock prices as a critical part of their mission � indeed, the Federal Reserve sometimes seems more concerned than the average Wall Street trader with the market�s day-to-day movements. If the policies are sound, the stock market will eventually learn to take care of itself.

Amen. The ridiculous political theater that we've seen in response to the crisis just makes me sad. It rivals the security theater that we've seen over the past seven years since 9/11 -- sound and fury, signifying nothing. I'm cautiously hopeful that with the changing of the political guard that we might make a little more progress on both. I don't think for a second that we'll see an end to political pandering, but it can't get worse, can it?

Yes, we can!

2008-11-04T22:26:00.000-08:00

It's official. Barack Obama is the President-Elect of the United States of America. The electoral results weren't even close, with Obama winning more than twice the electoral votes garnered by McCain. The collective optimism for the future is palpable, and it feels great after all these years of dread under Bush/Cheney. Have a great night, and a better tomorrow.

Everybody Loves Obama

2008-10-19T23:11:00.000-07:00

Colin Powell, a Republican and former Secretary of State in the Bush administration, endorsed Barack Obama for president today on Meet the Press:

The best part of the endorsement starts at the 4:27 mark in the video above, where Powell takes his own party leaders to task for all of their fear mongering about Obama being Muslim. Powell makes the points that 1) Obama is actually Christian, and 2) even if he were Muslim, so what? This is America, and freedom of religion is part of the philosophical bedrock upon which this great nation was built. Religious freedom does not only mean that you have the freedom to pick which form of Christianity you believe, it also means that you can worship Allah or Zeus or even (gasp!) no God at all. Sadly, intolerant, overly zealous members of a number of religions both in America and abroad are giving religion in general a bad name. But I digress....

Colin Powell isn't the only one endorsing Barack Obama for President these days. Obama leads McCain 105-33 in newspaper endorsements. Lest you believe the "liberal elite media bias" it should be noted that Kerry and Bush had basically a dead heat in endorsements 213-205. Obama has been endorsed not only by traditionally Democratic papers, but also many that have historically leaned Republican.

And it's not just Americans who love Obama. The Economist is running a global online poll asking people all over the world who they favor for the next President of the United States. They are tabulating the results as a global electoral map, weighting the results of each country based on their population. As of this writing, Obama is leading McCain by a staggering 8,906 to 38. McCain is only carrying four countries in the poll: Cuba, Moldova, Macedonia, and Georgia. Granted, the Economist's editorial stance is classically liberal, but only four countries for McCain? Ouch.

Who else likes Obama?

American voters responding to polls like Obama.
The New Yorker loves Obama, and they put together a very eloquent endorsement.
Peter Norvig likes Obama, and he's put together the highly recommended Presidential Election 2008 FAQ. (As the creator of the Gettysburg Address PowerPoint, I'd say that Peter knows a thing or two about matters presidential.)
Best of all, the stock market loves Democratic Presidents.

And as if it wasn't already painfully obvious, Barack Obama receives the highly coveted GoNutty.com endorsement. Regardless of who you love in this year's election, be sure to get out there and vote!

Stop the ride, I want to get off

2008-10-12T22:49:00.000-07:00

Here's the roller coaster that we're currently riding:
U.S. Home Prices Adjusted for Inflation 1890-2007

um... whee? Here's how the stock market roller coaster compares to past bear markets.

We've been hearing an awful lot about the bursting sub-prime mortgage bubble and the accompanying worldwide financial fallout. I imagine that by this point you either know a lot about what's going on, or have your head well buried in the sand, but in case you'd like to learn more, I'd recommend The Money Meltdown as a great source for background and news.

If you're like me, though, you'd probably rather watch another video. Here's a great one about the fundamental nature of lending and currency creation entitled Money as Debt:

This American Life on NPR connects the dots on the credit crisis with an interesting piece called "The Giant Pool of Money."

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go find a hole in the sand.

Buy My Shitpile!

2008-09-22T21:28:00.000-07:00

Now that Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have converted to commercial banks, they stand to receive a lot of the proposed aid from former Goldman chairman and current U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

Would you like to belly up to the government trough, too? Now you can at BuyMyShitpile.com! I've already thrown some old vinyl LPs on the pile, like this copy of AC/DC's "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap".

Now I'll just sit back and wait for the guvmint to bail me out!

Are you registered to vote?

2008-09-21T21:35:00.000-07:00

Vote for change.

The Hodg-man warns us about the mole men

2008-09-08T21:11:00.000-07:00

Your Momma for President

2008-08-27T22:14:00.001-07:00

Paris Hilton for President?

2008-08-05T21:30:00.000-07:00

Not sure how closely y'all have been following the presidential campaign. For those who haven't been following, Obama had a kick-ass world tour visiting troops and making speeches rock star style in front of crowds of literally hundreds of thousands of people in Berlin while McCain had lunch at Schmidt's Sausage Haus in Pennsylvania. The following week, McCain's campaign issued a bunch of lame attack ads including one super-lame one that basically suggests that Obama is too popular to be a good leader. Huh?

Anyway, that lame attack ad included short clips of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, feebly attempting to insult both them and Obama. Paris Hilton has fired back with a a Funny or Die video (below). I've always been fairly "whatever" about Paris Hilton, but gained some respect for her after watching this:

As Paris would say, "That's hot."

Sites to help you make stuff online

2008-06-30T22:54:00.000-07:00

Here's another post from the my-desktop-is-too-cluttered file. This time we'll look at some websites that help you create something.

Tikatok
Write, illustrate, and print a children's book. Child not included.
Mixwit
Online mix tape maker. Teenage angst not included.
Scripped
Write the screenplay for the next summer blockbuster. Elevator pitch not included.
Last.fm
Streaming music tagged to help you find new artists similar to your favorites. Headphones not included.
Read at work
Stories and poems formatted like Powerpoint presentations for surreptitious cubicle reading. Mind-numbing job not included.
Polyvore
Mix and match to make sets and get your fash on. Fabulousness not included.
Ponoko
Create, share, buy, and sell plans for laser-cut goods, fabricated on demand. Lame joke not included.

That is all. As you were.

DIY project roundup

2008-05-28T22:34:00.000-07:00

Following Maker Faire, I had a bunch of DIY projects that I wanted to do, and I have a bunch of browser windows open as reference. Since I haven't been able to get to the projects yet, I'm posting them all here in the hopes that maybe someone out there might actually do something with them other than just blog about them. Or maybe someday *I* might actually do something about them. Without further ado....

How to Make Play-Dough
The good folks at Instructables offer up this easy recipe for making Play-Dough for your kids (or yourself).
The Infamous Marshmallow Shooter
This one's from Howtoons, and gives simple instructions on how to create a marshmallow blowgun out of half-inch PVC pipe. They had some of these at Maker Faire, and they were launching those mini-marshmallows halfway across the expo floor.
How to Build a Giant Dinosaur
Toolmonger shows how to take one of those small wooden dinosaur models that you get at museum gift shops and turn it into a nearly life-size dinosaur model.

All shook up

2008-05-28T00:16:00.001-07:00

The earthquake(s) in China have been making a lot of news lately. If you want to keep your eye on what's shaking around the world, dig this earthquake map from the USGS. And if you've always wondered what the deal is with earthquakes and why they happen so often in some places and not others, dig this tectonic plate map.

Green Porno

2008-05-27T23:50:00.000-07:00

Isabella Rosellini wrote, co-directed, co-produced and stars in "Green Porno" -- a series of short films where she narrates and acts out the reproductive habits of a variety of creepy-crawly critters while wearing some great costumes. I never knew that snails were such sado-masochistic hermaphroditic super freaks.

Picture this

2008-05-27T23:40:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting "periodic table of visualization methods." It's a great resource if you're grappling with how to visually convey a complex set of concepts.

Fire on the (Santa Cruz) mountains

2008-05-23T09:35:00.000-07:00

The Summit Wildfire is still raging in the Santa Cruz mountains. Pretty smokey here in Palo Alto, but no real danger for our family from this fire (or really any other wildfire) since we live in town relatively far away from the unkempt wild. There's a good Google map of the fire at the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Our thoughts are with those families who have already lost their homes, or who are evacuated and keeping their fingers crossed. We're also hoping that all the firefighters can stay safe out there.

Save our skoolz!

2008-05-22T23:00:00.000-07:00

A lot of things in my life have changed in the five years since I became a parent. Tonight I had a watershed moment in the life of a parent -- my very first PTA meeting (all right, it was a "community forum" not a hardcore PTA meeting, but still... not something that I had ever really pictured myself doing). The forum was a screening of John Merrow's "First to Worst", a documentary about California's public schools, followed by Q&A with a pretty impressive panel of speakers: John Merrow, Marshall Smith, Deborah Stipek, and Delaine Eastin.

It was nice in a lot of ways... well-made documentary, good panelists, engaged parents, free snacks, ample parking, etc. So what was the downside? Well, there was the one crazy older lady next to me in the front row who did *way* too much hissing and booing and talking at inappropriate times during both the movie and the Q&A, but she wasn't the real downer. No, the real downer was the state of near-total paddlelessness for many public schools in the state of California.

Here's the CliffsNotes version. Please note I am by no means an expert on this stuff, this is just what I've gleaned tonight from the forum and from some reading online. Anyway, here's my understanding of the state we're in:

California used to have excellent schools in the 50s and 60s. Some were more excellent than others (I'm looking at you San Dimas), so a class action was taken to, um, level the playing field.
In the 70s, a series of California Supreme Court opinions on Serrano vs. Priest did level the playing field. Unfortunately, the result was revenue limits for each school district, effectively bringing down the level of funding for good schools rather than bringing the poor schools up.
In 1978, Proposition 13 was passed, capping property taxes which severely limited the amount of revenue available for schools at the local level. At that point, the state government became the major source of funds for most schools. Of course, there are lots of, um, challenges getting money from Sacramento.
In the 90s, Pete Wilson championed legislation that limited class size, without any corresponding funding for things which are required to meet that limit... things like classrooms and teachers.
California public school districts remain limited in the ways that they can raise additional funds needed to improve schools:
- School facilities bond measures: require a 55% vote, reduced from 2/3 by prop 39
- Parcel tax: a local property tax requiring 2/3 vote... often a tough sell, especially when typically <20% of voters have kids in school
- Private donations: many foundations have sprung up to provide funding for public school programs like music, art, computers, libraries, etc. Wealthier communities tend to have these foundations, while lower-income districts get whatever the state provides... So much for equality.

The takeaway for me as a Palo Alto parent was that the Palo Alto Unified School District was doing a great job, due to the affluence in our city coupled with the efforts and advocacy of teachers, administrators, parents, and private foundations. Just down the road in much less affluent East Palo Alto, though, it's a different story. And that's a huge bummer, not just for me and other people who have kids, or who care about kids on general principle, but also for our society as a whole. As the panelists put it, the next time you fly on a plane, think about all the public school graduates (mechanics, air traffic controllers, etc.) that you rely on for your safety and well-being. It's a dramatic example, maybe overly so, but the point that we live very interconnected lives is still quite valid. Given the number of kids in the California school system, this is a problem that affects not just people in California, but the entire country.

For more information, here's the list of resources provided at the Palo Alto PTA meeting tonight:

In the immortal words of Jeff Spicoli (a graduate of California public schools):

"What Jefferson was saying was, Hey! You know, we left this England place 'cause it was bogus; so if we don't get some cool rules ourselves - pronto - we'll just be bogus too! Get it?"

Don't be bogus, people -- support public schools. And if you live in Palo Alto, vote yes on Measure A on the June 3rd, 2008 ballot.

Class dismissed.

Best of Maker Faire 2008

2008-05-20T23:54:00.001-07:00

More Maker Faire pictures

2008-05-20T11:07:00.001-07:00

Here are some great Maker Faire pictures, from Laughing Squid.

Maker Faire 2008 recap

2008-05-18T21:34:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago, Kerah and I took the kids to Maker Faire 2008. The first day we had a play date with another family, and Max and I had such a good time that we had to go back on Sunday. We took a bunch of Maker Faire pictures.

The whole experience was really fun. It was inspiring to see so many people exercising so much creativity. Make Magazine, the hosts of the event, published this great video of some of the most interesting vehicles that were on display:

We really liked all the cool vehicles, but Max and I really liked the robots, especially when they destroyed stuff. On Saturday, we watched an excellent display of destruction from Subjugator and Manipulatrix, and followed it up on Sunday by watching the Combots Cup for a while.

The robots didn't have the mechanical violence market cornered, though. We also saw an amusing display of remote control destruction courtesy of the Western Warship Combat Club. They had a bunch of RC warships armed with CO2 pellet guns which they would shoot at each other whenever they could maneuver around for a broadside shot.

There were also many excellent fire-breathing machines, like the Crucible's fire engine, or some of the entries in power tool drag racing, or the many flaming sculptures on display. But please don't let me give you the idea that the show was all about destruction.

The real spirit of the show was creation, often re-creation using scrap materials. My personal favorites were all the frankenstein bicycles, mostly done by Cyclecide and Wooden Bikes. There are good shots of them in action in the YouTube video above. The show also featured great DIY stuff, like Toolmonger's giant dinosaur, Instructables, and Howtoons.

Other highlights for us included LegoJeep, the Quickup camper, Art Golf, the 15-passenger-powered Busycle, Pleos, Nemo Gould's kinetic sculpture, the Neverwas Haul, Life-Sized Mousetrap, and Dystopic Horizons Realty. Max even got to meet his MythBusting hero Adam Savage. Here's the full lineup of Makers from Maker Faire 2008.

The whole thing inspired me so much that I joined TechShop. I'm looking forward to learning a bunch of new tools and doing some work in metal -- should be fun.

The "Straight Talk Express" has totally crashed

2008-05-18T19:31:00.000-07:00

I would have voted for John McCain in 2000 had he won the Republican nomination, but he seems to have lost all touch with honesty. So sad. Go Obama!

Fifty funniest comedy sketches of all time

2008-05-17T00:15:00.000-07:00

On a lighter note, here's an entertaining list of the 50 greatest comedy sketches of all time. I was really happy to see that The State and The Upright Citizens Brigade were represented. Both did some really interesting stuff in the 90s. My favorite was "$240 Worth of Pudding."

"First I cook, and then I chill. Aw, yeah..."

Off the nutty newswire

2008-05-16T23:11:00.000-07:00

Two news stories jumped out at me this week. Early in the week it was another jump in first-class postage from 41 cents to 42 cents. Apparently there's a new law that they have to review postage prices annually and adjust them every May as needed. Those forever stamps are paying off faster than I thought they would.

The other news item that jumped out was the California Supreme Court's ruling overturning a law prohibiting same-sex marriages. Here's the full text of their decision. Honestly, I really don't understand why so many people are so adamantly against same-sex marriage. It's not like anyone is telling them that it's what they have to do.

Self-important "Christians" who decry the ruling should be ashamed of themselves. Jesus was all about love, not intolerance. Live and let live, people.