A curiosity -- is there a big difference between songs that could be extended indefinitely and those that could not? Often, the length of a song could be varied by mechanically adding repeated measures already present in the song, and perhaps if not being done mechanically, by adding some improv sections in there to spice things up. Try not to be offended, musicians -- many musicians actually do have different length versions they use for different occasions, and it's rare that much is lost between the short and long versions (although sometimes aspects of the impression left on people can be changed). And then there are songs, much more rare, that arn't at all suited for this kind of thing. I have a few in mind -- can you think of any? In some sense, I think one difference might be in metapatterns.. hmm.. is meta the right word there? Patterns OF patterns, patterns ABOUT patterns..

Oh, yes, there's an OpenSSH exploit floating around the net. Time for everyone to upgrade their sshd to 3.7 (no need for windows folk to worry about it, but then again, if you're running windows, you're so completely screwed WRT security that it doesn't make a difference).

On the bike ride to work today, I passed the same badger(?) that I've passed for the last two weeks. It's like he's there to greet me as I go by. Kawaii!

I wish, at work, they would stop skimping on the office supplies. I know I've griped about this before, but is it too much to ask to get pens that have caps that stay on and that can write decently? I'm sure it's great that they can get these things for 5 cents apiece (according to the supply cabinet form), but they are *REALLY* lousy. At the risk of alienating important people, I'm probably going to see if I can get this changed. Of course, it says a lot that I'm happy enough at work that the only real thing I have to complain about is the pens. Actually, some specs for how something is supposed to work recently changed, and it's the servlet code I've been working on for the last two weeks, code I really don't want to mess around with. However, the new design, although it'll take awhile to reshape the code to meet it, is actually more aesthetic, so I don't mind.

Recently, somehow, I got subscribed to a Mormon mailing list. Strange... but easy enough to fix with my killfile. Then, yesterday I finally figured out that two guys walking around Squirrel Hill who look like business school students (it's more nuanced than that, but this'll do) are Mormon evangelists. I stopped by and asked them what version of the Book of Mormon they'd reccommend I get, making it clear that I'm not a potential convert, and they gave me one of their sheets of paper with just a phone number on it. Yeah, sure, I'm going to give my postal address to door-to-door evangelists. Not gonna happen.

I also, on the way to get dinner yesterday, was stopped by cops, asking me to ride my bike on the road instead of the sidewalk. This is a thing about dealing with cops that some of my friends never got (or perhaps they have more time and/or boredom to deal with cops hostilely than I do) -- don't piss them off, and don't disobey them when they're around. I simply said 'okay', kept going, got food, and on the way back, I walked my bike well past well they were, and then got back on. Obeying them for all time is not an option -- riding a bike on the road all the time, around here, would be really stupid and perhaps dangerous. I'm good to pedestrians -- I'll happily reduce speed to walking speed until there's an opening to get by someone. The choice between sidewalk and road is something that I make according to circumstance. However, this isn't some big civil liberties issue, so I'm not going to get in a cop's face on it. It's like speeding -- it's a law that has become a game, with a light incentive towards safety brought by that game.

I recently have been reading the court decisions on Universal Studios versus .. well, what amounts to the editorial board of 2600 Magazine, and a few others of interest, written by a Judge Lewis Kaplan. It's interesting, but there are some spurious arguments (IANAL), and, more importantly, its arguments are what should happen, keeping with the current legal trends in this society. It's interesting, but I still advocate that people practice civil diso ... nah, that's prettying it up too much. I still advocate that people break the DMCA and all laws protecting IP (except for the protection of attribution, which may be removed, but not falsified). Rule of Law ... the philosophical position that people should obey/uphold laws, even those they disagree with, until and unless they can manage to get them repealed. I don't hold it, and you don't either. Would you have been part of the (illegal) underground railroad? Thought so.

I recently found a place to snag the video for "21st Century Digital Boy", by Bad Religion. Huzzah.

Oh, yes, there's continuing work in congress to put an end to the travel ban and trade with Cuba, BushJr is determined not to allow legislature through that would undo the recent FCC changes that allow scary levels of consolidation in the media market *sigh*, and here's two contrasting opinions on ecological vigilanteism. I'm not too sure where I stand on this. Hmm. I commend spiking of trees, in certain circumstances and areas, provided warning or sufficient protest is given, in order to prevent or impair nonsustainable logging or destruction of important natural resources. No, I haven't hashed out the second yet, don't ask (yet). I think SUVs are an abomination, and that they should be banned, legally made to be in horrible colors so people who really need them(??) will be the ones who have them and noone else, or perhaps that they'd result in a special, large, tax hike that would go to subsidize public transportation and/or research into or individual purchase of eco-friendly verhicles. I won't condemn vigilante keying or painting of SUVs, but I don't really think I currently approve of it either.

Finally, Rice and Rumsfeld have said there's no evidence linking Iraq to the WTC attacks. Duh. According to that article, though, lots of ignorant americans feel otherwise (or perhaps feel that there should be such evidence). How hard can it be to fool a public that so strongly wants to believe something that when the people who should know, and who already have a good reason to lie, and are pressured by their boss to do so, tell them what they don't want to hear, they go on believing it? Americans are to Europeans like American Cheese is to Real Cheese :)