Seen driving on the Long Island Expressway, the tail end of this car was held together by duct tape.

...slums are being demolished...[but] the rectangular tenements that replace them have not a trace of invention. Their bleakness is absolute. No man has ever dreamed of a city of such monotonous severity, and there must be some bond between our houses and our dreams.

- John Cheever, as quoted in the documentary New York

Yesterday was a long day of sysadmin work.

Note to self: vmstat!!!

swapping bad. swapping hurt mark. mark smash puny memory.

bitter pill DOT® org, a holy owned subsidiary of Yummy Foods Inc., has released its latest revision in the market of internet search* tools. After years of success in the field of inter-media exchange and deliberate publishing software research and development, bpDo® is proud to include this latest release of "internet search" in its vast array of ineffectual software tools and services.

Leveraging the power of Google's search algorithms and the Google API, bitter pill DOT® org has taken an effective and robust search platform** and leveraged it to produce a fairly mediocre search engine for bpDo®.

Try the bitter pill search today, absolutly free*** (free as in Thunderbird Wine).

* Internet search does not guarantee the ability to search the internet. It implies a search, possibly involving a computer, with the word internet preceding it. bitter pill DOT® org makes no guarantee of search results, nor does it guarantee the ability to search anything at all, ever.

** Platform being the current nomenclature for software stuffs that work over the "internet". We also would of accepted 'web services', or 'that place where I click and find porn'

*** bitter pill DOT® org search limited by Googl's API to 1000 queries a day. Results may vary.

Why specs matter - dive into mark

filed under: technical, boring to most, annoying to some, tiring to others

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame, "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

- by Emma Lazarus, New York City, 1883 - The New Colossus

The court struck every single one down? Well, that makes the failure rate for gay marriages almost double that of straight marriages.

Michael Harlson Banker - The Onion

Jim, always the champion for freedom of speech and expression, gets his nose caught in a giant red cone.

And I thought I had too much free time: Lebowski Fest.

The top search string for bitterpill.org in August so far is: 'dumb ass'.

It really speaks for itself.

Update: did a google search for 'dumb ass', and bitterpill.org came up seventh. Finally, all the hard work is paying off.

Driving down the Belt parkway last weekend we saw a van with the word 'Crunk' painted on the back and sides in big bold orange letters. We had to do a little bit of lane ballet to get close enough to the van to find out exactly what this 'Crunk' was all about. Apparently, it is a new low cal high energy drink, or a heaping pile of marketing crap for short. Either way, if you get thirsty and are in need of energy, CRUNK!

Update: sweet sunny x-mas, I found the official Crunk website (warning, is flash and keepin' it real, Yo).

A few months ago I was pondering the origin of Brooklyn's Name. Was there a great brook that ran through the borough? Was it founded by someone named Brook or Brooks? Was it derived from the Native American name of the region. Today, while watching the Documentary New York, the answer was revealed.

In 1636, about twelve years after Dutch settlers began to establish the community of New Amsterdam at the southern tip of Manhattan Island, a handful of pioneers among them spread across the East River to set up plantations on the western-most edge of Long Island. In 1646, the first Dutch community on the island was incorporated. It was called Breuckelen, after a town in the Netherlands.

A Virtual Tour of New Netherland

The Queen Must Die - And Other Affairs of Bees and Men

Only the continuing life of the colony counts. This is the first commandment of the hive--a manifestation of that mysterious and dispassionate force that guides all bee life. It is called, with little understanding of what it means, "the spirit of the hive."

The primary rule is inflexible: work or die.

minister of fear - a little flash satire by Mark Fiore.

Unemployment, boredom, too much free time, lack of any discernible social life, all have conspired to bring comments to bitter pill.

A few technical notes for those who care (really just a bit of padding to this, our first post with comments).

The comments form is generated using Velocity, a super cool java templating tool that Nick had pointed out a few years ago and then Gina a little while back. Both are much smarter and prettier than I, and I should listen to them always, Always!

The data store is simply mysql and some jdbc, nothing fancy, and a dash of DAO to keep things separate.

I added a dynamic image validation scheme ala paypal to keep people honest. Not that I thought that it would be an issue. I just wanted to play around with it is all.

In the end, really not much more than a time killer, but it's been a while since I've done any real development here at bitter pill, and it was nice to get back into the old heap of barely manageable code.

So, comment or don't, but keep it clean, and come out punching.

Today the world mourns a musician and performer of the funkiest kind

Singer Rick James Dies - CNN

What is the morality of war? This is a question that Robert S. McNamara poses in the documentary film The Fog of War. When talking with people about war, either the current war or war throughout history, what strikes me is the ability for people to detach themselves from the harsh reality of innocent death that war brings. We can talk about the justifications of war, the need for countries to defend or protect themselves, the need for countries to stand strong against aggression, but nobody wants to discuss in length the questions of morality, the morality of innocent people losing their lives for a war they may or may not endorse. How does a government add up the numbers and deem a certain number of innocent deaths acceptable or even redeemable.

Wars in general are intwined with a countries need to protect its economic interests. Wars are fought to protect or acquire land and resources. The ideas of democracy and fighting for freedom come as secondary behind economic and political interests. Many hawks before the war in Iraq agreed that invading iraq was not about democracy and freeing the Iraqi people, or protecting the United States from supposed weapons of mass destruction, but of a greater cause to help create stability in the region. A stabile middle east would plainly protect western oil interest. People will argue that oil interest have nothing to do with America's involvement in Iraq, but I would argue that this line of thinking completely ignores the history of western involvement in the middle east and Iraq itself. Regardless, It would be hard to pose an argument against the fact most wars are fought to protect economic and political interests, and when there a few interests to protect war is not undertaken.

How do you define that as moral?

A very personal message from the President.

-via peter

Jim is blogging about blogging (blogblogging). I am blogging about his blog blogging, so this is a blog blogging blog blo...or something like that.