Cruftbox: My Box of Cruft

The ends do not justify the means.

The girls and I really like playing Katamari Damacy together. I saw the sequel to it at E3 this year called We Love Katamari.
I finally got off my butt and can now present a video of the demo I saw at E3.
We Love Katamari – E3 2005 Demo (9MB wmv file)
They have added a new cooperative mode with bodes well for family play. Overall, it doesn’t look like any revolutionary change, which is good in my book. Take a look.

A few weeks ago, I went to E3 and had lunch with a few people including Andy Baio (name drop) and Eric Marcoullier. As we ate Chinese food in a very hot basement of an expensive restaurant, Eric told me about his pet project called MyBlogLog.
I finally got around to installing it on ye old Cruftbox, and it Rocks.
Basically, you sign up with MyBlogLog and add one line of javascript to your weblog templates and instantly you can see what people are clicking to leave your site. Yep, you are used to seeing the referrers that send people into your site. Now you can see what people are finding interesting enough to leave your site.
Take a look:

That’s a screen shot of the stats page for part of today. Notice how you can see exactly where people are going to when they read your site. I put the javascript on the main index template and on the individual page template. Since it’s on the individual pages, I can see how people arrive via google searches and then see what they link on the way out.

Here you see a typical inbound link, in this case from someone using Yahoo to find out info abot installing Windows. They are going to my entry 867 where I discussed how to install Windows when you need to add a driver during install off a floppy.

Here you see an outbound link from someone that found my entry via a search engine and is now leaving to go visit the Usenet post I linked to in my entry.
Pretty neat to see what readers find worthwhile to link to from my site. Obviously, to commercial sites, this kind of thing is great for tracking exactly how popular outbound links are by direct measurement.
So if you are interested to see where your readers go, check out MyBlogLog.

Ha.
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
More proof that anything is possible in Steve Jobs reality distortion field.

Electric Universe: The Shocking True Story of Electricity – David Bodanis
A few weeks ago, I saw a review of Electric Universe on kottke.org and decided to pick up a copy.
Now, I am trained as an electrical engineer, not like these new-fangled electronic engineers you see nowadays. Back in my day, we learned about electrical power, analog circuitry, and had a single short course on semiconductors. I fear the today’s EEs wouldn’t know a vacuum tube from a vacuum cleaner.
So I began the book about the history of electricity with great gusto. Alas, my excitement was short lived. To make the book accessible to non-engineers, the author reduced the complexity of the science to it’s minimum level, even avoiding using common terms to describe things.
While I understand why he did this, to me the book was lacking in the very detail he was trying to avoid. While descibing the Trans-Atlantic Telegraph Cable, I desperately wanted to know the details of cable construction and the amount of current that was feed across the ocean. in several other places I wanted more detail and information that was not included.
I was a bit suprised to see that there was little or no mention of the direct current versus alternating current battles that pitted Edison against Telsa. The AC/DC debate is core to the history of electricity and it is not mentioned at all.
If you don’t know much about electricity but like history, then the book is probably perfect for you. But if you are an engineer, pick it up from the library or borrow my copy.
Market Forces by Richard Morgan
I thought the first two books (Altered Carbon and Broken Angels) by Richard Morgan were great and was eager to read Market Forces when it was released. The book is not a Takeshi Kovacs novel. It takes place in the near future in a world where capitalism is allowed into the realm of literally controlling international affairs.
Trans-national firms get contracts from nations and rebels to help fight for control while reaping huge profits on the conflict. For some unexplained reasons, the firms compete in automobile combat to win the contracts. Beyond that, the executives of the firm can challenge each other to car combat for promotion. Yeah, far-fetched, but go with it.
Imagine Steve Jackson Car Wars meets Rollerball.
In a world where raising yourself out of the lower class is nearly impossible due to the better parts of town literally being fenced off, the protaganist, Chris, has made it out. The book looks at his time at a new firm, much fiercer than any he has worked for before.
Chris spirals deeper and deeper into the rough world of ‘conflict investment’ each step of the way justifying his actions until he feels he can dispense justice on his own terms. While the world seems focused ont he idea of “There is no right or wrong, only profit.” Chris finally finds his place but only after losing much that is dear to him.
The author obviously has some ideas about what unchecked globalization will do to the world and takes them to an extreme to make his point about the lack of morality seen in today’s business world. As one of those executives in a trans-national company, I hope I don’t need to battle for my position, but the ideas are intriguing.

Recently I was keeping up on what my Congressman Adam Schiff was up to regarding legislation. I was intrigued to see a report that he had co-sponsored a bill ‘against internet jamming’.
I could find anything online, so I called his office and asked. They said the bill was new and unpublished, but as soon as it was printed, they’d send me a copy. I got an email today with a link to the text of the bill.
You can look at the summary of the Global Internet Freedom Act aka House Resolution 2216 in a pdf version or plaintext.
After reading the bill (it’s only 8 pages), I was blown away. Here was our stodgy Congress actually trying to look out for the free flow of information in the world. Here are a few quotes:

(2) All peoples have the right to communicate freely with others, and to have unrestricted access to news and information, including on the Internet.

(4) Unrestricted access to news and information on the Internet is a check on authoritarian rule by repressive foreign governments in countries around the world.

(10) The success of United States policy in support of freedom of speech, press, and association requires new initiatives to defeat totalitarian and authoritarian controls on news and information over the Internet.

Wowsa folks! I think that Thomas Jefferson might agree with this bill if he were around today.
The bill goes on to request FIFTY MILLION dollars in 2006 and 2007 to “deploy, at the earliest practicable date, technologies aimed at defeating state-sponsored and state-directed Internet jamming by repressive foreign governments and the intimidation and persecution by such governments of their citizens who use the Internet.”
People, it’s time to rally the blogosphere around this bill and convert it to law. Find your Representative and DEMAND they cosponsor the bill. How can they be against freedom?
Take five mintues to stop surfing the internet and call Congress to get them to support HR 2216 – Global Internet Freedom Act. Do it now, reading the next site can wait.

Well, at least there are others just as crazy as me. A computer should be quiet.
The Wall Street Journal’s article on quieting PCs.
I tend to get my gear from QuietPC, they have good prices and quick shipping.

Yes, I know I haven’t updated much recently.
This passage best summarizes the situation…

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

I’m in London, England for business this week.
This is my first trip to Great Britain and here are my initial thoughts.

You don’t use Euros in England, you need pounds.

There aren’t many TV channels.

What is called a Milky Way here is really a Three Musketeers.

It’s 3:30 in the morning and I just got home from seeing Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith.
It’s good.
Much light saber fighting and most story issues are neatly wrapped up. No big suprises, but it has everything that people will expect.