ktheory.com

Ack! I’m running out the door, but I want to post this:
A senior US diplomat, John Brady Kiesling, resigned today. His letter of resignation is good reading about the upcoming war in Iraq.
Ari has found his calling in computational biology. That’s wicked cool.
There was a third thing, but I forget it. Adios kids.

Duluth Shipping News is the best site on the web. It’s all about boats.
It’s extra good because my crazy roommate Donny is from Duluth.

Dave “Berg” Dinaburg has a good list of You know you’re from Binghamton when…
Also from the Berg is this gem, which did hilarify me:

“Well, at first I was looking up tenuous [on dictionary.com], because I know it means ‘not strong,’ but I wanted to know the exact definition, and I like the word origins…and […]

According to the venerable Andy Martin, I am “Keith Hernandez without the defensive skills…or possibly Evan Marriott.”
In a distantly related story, I asked Ruthie if she was at the party Friday, and she said that was the funniest thing she’s heard all day.

You know what’s all the rage? Ready.gov parodies. Check out idlewords, insubordinate, Kieran Healy, and YayHooray. Maybe even buy a t-shirt.
Here are some of my own parodies:

Beware of Trogdor. He will burninate you.

If you trap Trogdor in a closet, don’t let him out.

Thoughts of sodomy make people cry.

While you wait for a terrorist attack, play […]

Tom Ridge and the Department of Homeland Security have given us the invaluable asset Ready.gov. As you can see from this friendly graphic, we should always be wary of aerosol cans. They could be biological weapons. Says Ridge’s crony, “If you become aware of an unusual or suspicious release of an unknown substance nearby, it […]

Yesterday in my bioterrorism class, some girl said I looked like Evan Marriott from Joe Millionaire. Margaret thought it was hilarious, because I kind of do look like him, and he’s a big idiot.
I’m not sure how I feel about the comparison. Maybe I can drive some more illegitemate traffic to ktheory.com this way.

This humble weblog has experienced a threefold increase in visitors since the
past weekend. Ktheory.com went from roughly 500 visitors per day to more than
1,500 yesterday. The reason, unfortunately, is not a sudden appreciation of my
panache and web-savvy wit. It has to do with the way my public referrer
logs are generated, and quirks in Google’s PageRank
software […]

Last weekend, there was a horrible tragedy at a Chicago nightclub in which a security guard used pepper spray to break up a fight, causing a stampede that killed 21 people (Tribune story). I began reading an article sketching the lives off each of the deceased victims. As my attention waned, I simply scanned the […]

This American Life tries to give the real story about war. Listen to it (RealAudio link). The first act is a US Marine sniper reading from his memoirs about the 1991 Gulf War. The second act is about the bad things that happened to Palestinians during the 1948 War of Isreali Independence.

Paul Graham explains why nerds are unpopular.
“If intelligence in itself is not a factor in popularity, why are smart kids so consistently unpopular? The answer, I think, is that they don’t really want to be popular.”
And he gives a general critique of teenage culture along the way.
“I wonder if there is anyone in the […]

This is old news, but last Wednesday an Associated Press writer filed an article about the Bush administration’s response to the new bin Laden tape.
Even without further evidence or confirmation that the voice was bin Laden’s, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer (news - web sites) seized on the tape as evidence that Saddam and al-Qaida […]

The NY Times has an article about the cultural significance of duct tape in light of Tom Ridge’s advice regarding terrorism:
Duct tape is national shorthand for a job done almost right. It separates the technocratic repair elite ? who will order the right part to fix their stove ? from the common folk, who express […]

Pyra, the company behind Blogger, hammered out a deal Thursday for Google to aquire the web publishing tool and it’s hosting service, Blog*Spot. Dan Gillmor broke the story. The article also links to reactions about the announcement, such as the /. thread, Ev Williams’ synchronous post, and Cory Doctorow’s comments. See all the weblogs that […]

Gawker rocks my world. Last weekend, the Underground Literary Alliance decided to crash a literary event in NYC. After picking a fight with some of the readers, the ULA members were kicked out. Whining ensued on their Web site. Ms. Spiers derided their solipsistic and moronic ethos on Gawker, calling them “nerds”. ULA leader “King” […]

Holy crap. I just went to the Original Pancake House with Margaret and her sisters Nora and Susie. It’s the best place to get breakfast in Hyde Park, rivaled only by Valois.
The first thing to know is that the portions are huge. I ate a four-egg Spanish omelet that came with three pancakes. I swallowed […]

The “back” button is the most commonly used button by Web surfers, but its simple stack behavior often hinders users from finding the sites they want. 30 to 40% of Web pages are reached using the back button, and 80% of Web pages have been previously seen by the surfer. With this in mind, scientists […]

Frenchie Davis, my favorite American Idol finalist, was removed from the competition because she posed naked for a Web site four years ago. On the official contestants page, there’s just a blank box where Frenchie should be. According to an interview with The Smoking Gun, Frenchie posed topless on the Web site “Daddy’s Little Girls” […]

Dell dude arrested for possession of marijuana. I’m guessing no one is really suprised by this, but it’s juicy gossip nonetheless. Ruthie says, “Dude, you’re getting a cell.”
Power laws! Weblogs! I love this stuff. More at Kottke.
Madonna plans shocking new anti-war, anti-Bush music video, according to Drudge
Bin Laden offers military advice to Iraq, such as […]

Fantasy Economics: Why economists are obsessed with online role-playing games
Dustin Hoffman weighs in against the war in Iraq:
“I believe - though I may wrong because I am no expert - that this war is about what most wars are about: hegemony, money, power and oil”.
Hegemony and power? What diplomatic dispute isn’t about hegemony and power?
Funny […]