Category: general

Police arrested a 36-year-old man Thursday on suspicion of kidnapping a 7-year-old girl who was murdered in Nara in November.

Japan Today: Man admits kidnapping 7-year-old Nara girl, but denies murder

Slashdot: Quake Changes Earth’s Rotation, Moves Islands

Slashdot: The Coming Atlantic Mega-Tsunami

Benjamin Rosenbaum: Tsunami Relief: Charity Efficiency and Transparency Ratings

CNN: More than 80,000 reported killed in tsunamis; Officials just reaching hardest hit areas in Indonesia

Toddler survives two-day tsunami ordeal

Four-year-old Vathanyu Pha-opas has been reunited with his parents after a monster wave which hit southern Thailand left him stranded in a tree without food and water for more than two days.

I’m not sure I would call a four-year-old a “toddler”…but nevertheless, I’m glad to hear that the little boy is safe.

“The strange thing is we haven’t recorded any dead animals,” H.D. Ratnayake, deputy director of the national Wildlife Department [in Sri Lanka], told Reuters on Wednesday.

“No elephants are dead, not even a dead hare or rabbit,” he added. “I think animals can sense disaster. They have a sixth sense. They know when things are happening.”

Does this mean we should pay more attention to what animals do? (I think we should, regardless.)

I’ve been a fan of Cory Doctorow’s writing since I first read Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. Today he reminds me why he impressed me–but in a completely different way.

This essay is at once sobering, and a complete hoot.

Which brings me back to Clive’s casual note that Microsoft DRM can keep media “out of pirate hands.” It’s a statement that’s so categorically untrue, it seems to come from a parallel universe with different laws of physics and economics. BitTorrent proves the futility of DRM as surely as DRM turns honest customers into studio-hating downloaders.

Check it out:

BitTorrent write-up in Wired

(Side note: I have noted with much amusement that since Cory’s moved to Great Britain, he’s altered his writing style to match British English, including not only lexical differences–“lift” instead of “elevator”–but also spellings, such as “colour” instead of “color”, and slang. There isn’t much of that in this article, though…it gives me the impression that Britishisms haven’t found their way into his natural writing style just yet.)

(Side side note, written 2005/11/7: It occurred to me recently that Cory Doctorow is from Canada, so some/all of the “Britishisms” might have come from his original dialect.)

I went to make my oatmeal this morning, and realized that the pan I usually heat water in was dirty and in the dishwasher. Rather than pull it out and wash it, I chose one of the small pans with detachable handles…and rather than attach the handle, I simply filled it with water and set it on the stove.

When the water had come to a full boil, I was then faced with the problem of how to get that water into my bowl. So, naturally, I tried to pick up the pan with an oven mitt.

The oven mitt promptly caught fire.

After putting the oven mitt out, I enjoyed a long struggle with the pan to get the handle put on. It has a latching mechanism that has to be attached just so–easy enough when the pan is cool, but rather difficult when you’re afraid to touch the pan even with an oven mitt, and when heat from the eye is enough to feel as though it’s burning your hand. Finally, with a swift thrusting motion, I got the handle on enough to latch. I poured the water I needed into my bowl, dumped the rest, and left the pan in the sink.

All that for a bowl of oatmeal.

From MSNBC, 8:29 p.m. ET Dec. 28, 2004:

Stricken Indian Ocean nations worked swiftly on Wednesday to bury thousands of bodies as experts warned disease could kill as many people as the 63,000 already dead from the violent crush of Sunday’s tsunamis.

While governments and rescuers tried to cope with the aftermath of possibly the deadliest tsunamis in more than 200 years, the United Nations mobilized what it called the biggest relief operation in its history. A top World Health Organization health expert warned that diseases could double the natural disaster’s death count before the situation can be stabilized.

Will has been discussing the U.S.’s apparent lack of action, so I found this part of the article interesting:

Meantime, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday the United States “will do more” to help the victims. “Clearly, the United States will be a major contributor to this international effort,” he said on NBC’s “Today” show. “And, yes, it will run into the billions of dollars.”

He also said he regretted a statement by Egeland, the U.N. official overseeing the relief effort, suggesting America was being “stingy” by only making an initial pledge of $15 million in aid.

That of course makes it sound like we were embarrassed into helping. That’s really the kind of image we need right now…

I am still having a hard time comprehending all the deaths.

The end of the article discusses how tsunamis work, and our lack of early warning systems.

Officials in Thailand and Indonesia conceded that immediate public warnings of gigantic waves could have saved lives. The only known warning issued by Thai authorities reached resort operators when it was too late. The waves hit Sri Lanka and India more than two hours after the quake.

But governments insisted they couldn’t have known the true danger because there is no international system in place to track tsunamis in the Indian Ocean, and they could not afford the sophisticated equipment to build one.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard and the head of the British Commonwealth bloc of Britain and its former colonies called for talks on creating a global early warning system for tsunamis.

The U.N.’s Egeland said the issue of creating a tsunami warning system would be taken up Jan. 18-22 at the World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Kobe, Japan.

I hope they’re able to come up with something quickly, even if “Tsunamis as large as Sunday’s happen only a few times a century.” We need to learn from this.

Here are some interesting pictures of tsunami from above. It’s hard to get an idea of 3D scale, but you can infer a few things from some of them.

I have drunk 66 ounces of water today. I haven’t eaten anything more than a small nibble on a piece of roast beef because Sean said it tasted funny–guess it was going bad, I didn’t like it either. At around 4 or so, I took a nap, during which I dreamed of eating a baked potato that cost me 300 calories.

These holidays have really messed me up. I’ve had so much bad food that my face is breaking out (ew). And yesterday I couldn’t seem to stop myself from snacking. So today I just decided that I would not eat anything.

It’s actually a lot easier to not eat anything than it is to just eat a little. Once you’ve started eating, it’s difficult to stop at a reasonable point. But if you haven’t started eating at all, you can just pretend you’re putting it off until dinner.

I figure, though, that my system needs flushing out, and that fasting today will help me remember some of my resolve tomorrow.

I’ve heard lots of different things about fasting, that it’s good for you, that it’s bad for you. Muslims fast all day during Ramadan, to a crazy degree–they will not consume anything, including water and toothpaste, while the sun is up. I found myself wondering today if that kind of fasting is helpful in a desert setting. (Muslims are very particular about being clean, too, so it’s interesting that during Ramadan they have to be sure and do their washing before the sun comes up and after it sets. I’m not really sure why this is. And let me stress that this is all second-hand knowledge from an old friend of mine who converted to Islam; I may not be remembering correctly.)

In any case, I have fasted before, though it’s been a long time. I have never fasted for longer than a day. Always I have been concerned with flushing out my system. This time was a little different, because now I am taking vitamins and calcium daily, and I didn’t skip those, but I hardly see how that can hurt me.

(An aside: DietPower says that my Nutrition Quotient for the day is 100–an “A+”–advises me that to be even more healthy, “Get more calories, less vitamin B12.” For some reason I find that infinitely amusing.)

Tomorrow I plan on being back on track…starting my day with oatmeal, eating a sensible little lunch, and enjoying a nice dinner.

Sean says he wants pizza tomorrow; obviously his goal is to destroy my diet at every turn. ;P And speaking of Sean, off I go to make his dinner.

So, I just got this email from Slate, regarding Microsoft’s sale of said magazine to the Washington Post.

Our records indicate that you have signed up for certain Slate Magazine services, such as a newsletter subscription or “the Fray” readers forum. In order to permit the new owners of Slate Magazine to maintain your account and continue providing you with these Slate Magazine services, Microsoft intends to transfer your name and email address to WPNI.

No biggie. I’d like to continue receiving Dear Prudence in my email, though email subscriptions seem horribly outdated to me now.

This is the reason I’m posting about it:

However, if you do not consent to having your information transfered as part of this sale, you may opt-out by sending a notice to optout@slate.com before Januray 10, 2005.

Well! I guess I have some time then! It won’t be Januray until ever!

I don’t read a whole lot these days. Time was (like, maybe, middle school), you could always find me with a book…though I wasn’t as well-read as some of the other geeks. But the reading just sort of dropped off.

I started up again, sort of, after getting married; I reread, for example, the Anne of Green Gables series, and I tried to read the Lord of the Rings series (I managed through the first one, then stalled at the beginning of the second), and I reread the Johnny Maxwell Trilogy (the first one is the best), and I even finished reading some new things, The Time Traveller’s Wife and the Harry Potter series.

But I’m not always reading, and lately it has occurred to me why that is.

You see, I’m rereading the Harry Potter books, and they are all I can think about.

It’s gotten a little warm. Maybe I should go biking. But no, I’m almost finished with this chapter. I’ll just read a little more.

Oh, it’s dark now, guess I can’t go riding. I should probably figure out what I’m having for dinner, and stop snacking.

Hmm, Sean’s home and I haven’t worked out dinner yet. Oh well, I can’t stop reading now.

Okay, fine, I’m cooking. I’ll take a little break to check my Bloglines and the AMRN while I’m eating. …no, never mind, scratch that, I’m going to eat my fajitas on the couch while I’m reading.

Damn, it’s getting late. Let me shut down the computer and go to bed. Okay, here are my clothes for tomorrow. I’ll just bring the book in here and read a couple chapters before I go to sleep.

Oh, hmm. I don’t want to stop reading, but at this rate I will only get about five hours of sleep. And here’s a section ending. I will stop here. I will stop here!

Ugh…I can’t get up now. I’ll just snooze until 20 minutes before I have to leave, and skip the shower this morning.

Bleh, why didn’t I bring the book to work? I’m sooooooooo boooooooooored.

Yeah.

I get a little too caught up, don’t I?

The bad thing is, I know what’s coming. When I get to the end of Book Five, that’ll be it. I’ll be done with Harry Potter until July (or until I reread them again). Wrenching myself back out of an imagined world is far more difficult than falling into it; just look how hard it was for me to put the book down long enough to sleep! But once there is literally nothing left for me to read, it will be far worse.

It will be like being in mourning.

It’s horrible! Terrible! What are we going to do?!?!?!?! Languages keep changing! Jesus Christ on a stick, man, can’t you see this is serious? The natural evolution of language over time just isn’t right! We’ve got to freeze it somehow…got to make it stop…make it stop…

Here’s a page with information on how you can help the victims of the quake and tsunamis in Asia.

The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami: News and information about resources, aid, donations and volunteer efforts.