Greetings from New York City. Two-day NASA workshop thingy starts tomorrow at the Rose Center of the AMNH. All about how to download and process satellite imagery with Photoshop and some other tools. Wheee! But now, off to go explore a little.

10 useless drewbert-points to anyone who gets the post title…

Totally bummed that I am not in Carrboro tonight to see Broadcast in concert at the Cat’s Cradle. At that crucial, last-minute moment I had to purchase plane tickets and make hotel reservations, I had a sudden bolt of frugality and rational thought and realised that it was an awful lot to spend on a hour and a half long concert. Even if it is (*whimper*) going to (*sniff*) be kick-ass.

And even if it means also missing out on the tour-only Microtronics 2 mini-album.

Dammit.

At least I found a music video. That makes me happier.

_{(One more link)}

[edit 11/28/05: According to a forum post on the Broadcast web site by bassist James Cargill, the band had absolutely nothing to do with that video. “It just appeared,” he says.]

Just had to verify (as if there were any doubt) that the puzzle in today’s FoxTrot was solvable. It is, of course.

Only needed help from Google for the last one. Calculus was a long time ago.

Today I got to take a ride in a Hummer Limo, and you didn’t. So there.

I must of course deplore this egregious waste of petroleum.

Then again, it was kinda cool.

Yeah, I know. Kindof an over-reaction there, I suppose. It’s just one more example of death by a thousand bureaucratic paper cuts that’s been going on down there. (Here’s one more, by the way.)

Here’s a photo essay taken by a Nicaraguan who was living and working in New Orleans at the time, that documents the scene before, during, and after the hurricane. I’m not finished looking at it all – it’s almost 200 pictures with captions, and I’m on dial-up. But it’s well worth a look. Thanks to Edith Frost for posting it on her blog.

Yes, I know. There are far, far bigger reasons to suspect FEMA of being next to thoroughly useless. But here’s one that sticks in my craw, and it’s not going to make the 6:00 news:

FEMA’s disaster assistance claim web site only works on Windows computers running Internet Explorer 6.

First of all, this is blatantly dumb.

Second of all, it hardly takes any work to make a web site which is standards compliant and works with nearly every browser made. There is absolutely no reason why a web site should only work on one browser. Ever.

This is insanely stupid.

It means that relief workers have had to spend extra cash purchasing Windows XP licences and wasting time setting up Microsoft’s buggy shitware just to access the web site.

This is blitheringly insane.

Oh, and by the way, the site also therefore happens to be in violation of the U.S. government’s Section 508 Accessibility Standards, which are in fact mentioned on FEMA’s own goddamned web site.

This kind of fucking crap pisses me off when it happens on just an average, boring e-commerce site. For it to happen on this site, it’s just… well…

There are surely even better adjectives and invectives I could use, but it’s late and I can’t think of them.

Now annoying the neighbors via rumbling bass Playing:

Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Live Forever – Explosions in the Sky

America’s Boy – Broadcast

Every year, local free indy paper Nashville Scene holds a contest called “You Are So Nashville If…,” inviting creative readers to fill in the blank. Gems from this year’s contest include:

• Your recording contract lasted longer than your marriage.
• You wonder what the Northern Baptist Convention is like.
• If he had his way, the headliner at your Fourth of July celebration would have half of the crowd deported.
• You didn’t know Nashville had a hockey team until the lockout.
• Your weatherman spends 45 minutes of prime airtime describing a five-minute storm.
• Your new guilty pleasure is circling the new Hustler Hollywood in your car because the Musica statue just isn’t doing it for you anymore.
• You wish Jack 96.3 would just shut up.
• You’re still wondering how to buy stock in E-Cycle.
• You’ve been dropped from TennCare, gas prices are too high, you can’t pay your rent, but you can still afford to buy a state senator.

But what was voted second place was actually the best:

• You used to like Bill Frist

Inspired by, well, my own comment in this Straight Dope thread, I took upon the task of making our newly appointed U.N. ambassador smile about something. He does seem ever so dour.

Maybe if he was somewhere sunny…

Ahh… much better.

[EDIT 8/9/05] My old man has called into question whether this is a genuine photograph of John Bolton, or perhaps a Photoshop or an imposter. Take a quick Google Image Search on ‘john bolton’ and see. (I’ll leave it up to you whether to leave ‘SafeSearch’ on or not. Let’s just say the trip could be somewhat more interesting with it off.) Anyway, the gentleman above shows up a few times, but his hair is darker and parted in the opposite direction. No other picture of him looks quite like this one.

The part direction’s no big problem (photos can get flipped easily) The bushy mustache may be trimmed slightly differently, but the chin’s right on:

But even allowing for those something’s not quite right, either with the color or the way it hangs over his forehead.

With all the shadowing and the blue background, what this photo looks like is a bad passport/driver’s license photo. And perhaps it was taken on a day when the future ambassador was in the midst of an unfortunate experiment with a bottle of Grecian Formula. Who knows? ‘Tis a mystery.

Use tables for layout. Yeah, I know. Tables Baaaad.

Personally I’ll just wait until W3C figures out a non-hackish sort of way to make web site columns with style sheets.