Unnaturally Long Attention Span

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If you want a good laugh, try reading CNN sometime. US politics and FR are such a joke these days..

Gen. John Abizaid's testimony came at a contentious Senate Armed Services Committee hearing at which Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld clashed with members of both parties, including a renewed call by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts for him to step down.

Citing what he called repeated "gross errors and mistakes" in the U.S. military campaign in Iraq, Kennedy told Rumsfeld: "In baseball, it's three strikes, you're out. What is it for the secretary of defense?"

"Isn't it time for you to resign?" Kennedy asked.

"I've offered my resignation to the president twice," Rumsfeld shot back, saying that President Bush had decided not to accept it. "That's his call," he said.

Kennedy has called for Rumsfeld's resignation before.

Wow, I wonder how Rumsfeld's self-esteem is doing these days.
source: CNN

Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones seems especially suitable for adaptation by Hayao Miyazaki because it has many of his favorite themes. The central character is a young girl who shows determination and loyalty when she is brought into a world of strange and magical characters, many of whom appear oddly remote. She faces challenges that teach her that she is more capable and loving and deserving of love than she knew. And it has the kinds of settings that Miyazaki loves to illustrate, with intricate mechanical devices, characters who are transformed or disguised, and shifts of angles and planes that show off his gift for vertiginous perspectives.

The story is about a girl who is transformed into an old woman by a witch whose spell prevents her from even telling anyone what happened. So, she becomes the cleaning lady for a mysterious wizard who lives in a magical castle that flies from one place to another.

It turns out she is not the only one who is not what she seems. A graceful but silent scarecrow, a wheezing dog, a little boy, the wizard, and even the wicked witch will all have unexpected transformations as they try to escape from the order of the king, who wants all magicians to help him fight a war.

There are some gorgeous visuals,a lush field of flowers, a charming town, and the endlessly inventive castle, which moves along on chicken feet. But like the title character, it seems to be missing a heart. The characters are reserved and distant, and they tolerate, even seem to expect a level of disengagement from enemies, friends, and even family that is disconcerting. The voice talents include Lauren Bacall, Blythe Danner, and Christian Bale, but they never mesh; it's as though each is in a different movie. It is unsettling that the objects -- a flame (voice of Billy Crystal), a scarecrow, even the machines seem to have more personality than the humans. Ultimately, it is easier to appreciate the movie than to be enchanted or engaged by it.

Parents should know that this movie includes battle violence and frequent peril and tense confrontations. Characters are transformed or disguised in forms that may be troubling to some in the audience. A character smokes a cigar. There is brief non-sexual nudity (tush) and implied off-screen nudity.

Families who see this movie should talk about the advantages and disadvantates Sophie finds in being old. Why does she change her mind about the witch?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy the Oscar-winning Spirited Away. They should read the book and some of the other stories by Diana Wynne Jones. They will also enjoy the books of Lloyd Alexander, Brian Jaques, and Tamora Pierce.

Made it into office at a record 12:45PM... I'm putting the finishing touches on this vertical crawler I'm working on and eating a Honey Ham sandwich I brought for lunch. All of the sudden I'm surrounded by three skinny Latino girls with short frilly skirts, bleach died hair, and tight revealing tops.

"Hi, Michael! Is that your name?", I hear as I swivel around and notice the out-of-place female in front of me. I look across the hall at Scott, sitting in his office and giving me a smart smirk.

"The Elements of Statistical Learning, how is that book?"
"It's a bit dry", I say.
"We're here selling perfume for Father's day", she says as she sprays a liberal amount of yellow liquid and massages it all over my arm. "How old are you?"
"I'm 22."
"Oh, so am I! What do you guys do here?"
"We make websites.."
"I have a website, too! Do you want to see my pictures?"
"It's ok."
"Normally, I would charge $30 for this cologne, but today, for you, It'll only be $15 since for Father's day. We take checks, too and it includes the box."
At this point I escort the ladies out of our office, and send them off. I go to the bathroom to wash off the cheap cologne off both my arms. I still smell it...

LOL, only in the Valley.. I wonder how far they walked today. Reminds me of the days in high school me and Saee used to walk into high-tech companies and through tech park parking lots looking for jobs.

I was looking Dell coupons to buy a Plasma HDTV and came across this awesome deals site. You definitely want to check it out! They have all the best coupons and some pretty good special offers. http://www.streetpricer.com - I've put the link permanently on the right side, in case you want to visit it again in the future.

Recently, I found this great stock tutorial online. It goes over the basic types of stocks, short selling, and derivatives and options. Check it out for a great overview of the market as well as for an excellent directory of merchants. Visit http://www.stocktutorials.com

Video clip

PALO ALTO, California -- Steve Jobs told Stanford University graduates Sunday that dropping out of college was one of the best decisions he ever made because it forced him to be innovative -- even when it came to finding enough money for dinner.

In an unusually candid commencement speech, Apple Computer's CEO also told the almost 5,000 graduates that his bout with a rare form of pancreatic cancer reemphasized the need to live each day to the fullest.

"Your time is limited so don't let it be wasted living someone else's life," Jobs said to a packed stadium of graduates, alumni and family.
Jobs, wearing sandals and jeans under his robe, was treated like a rock star by the students, in large part due to the surge in popularity of Apple's iPod digital music player.

A group of students wore iPod mini costumes over their robes and several shouted, "Steve, hire me!"

Jobs, 50, said he attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon but dropped out after only eight months because it was too expensive for his working-class family. He said his real education started when he "dropped in" on whatever classes interested him -- including calligraphy.

Jobs said he lived off 5-cent soda recycling deposits and free food offered by Hare Krishnas while taking classes.

He told the graduates that few friends could see the value of learning calligraphy at the time but that painstaking attention to detail -- including mastering different "fonts" -- was what set Macintosh apart from its competitors.

"If I had never dropped out I might never have dropped in on that calligraphy," Jobs said.

Jobs also recounted founding Apple in his parent's basement and his tough times after being forced out of the company he founded when he was only 30.

"I was a very public failure and I even thought about running away from the valley," Jobs said.

Instead, he founded Pixar Studios, which has released enormously popular films such as Finding Nemo and Monsters, Inc.

"It was awful tasting medicine but I guess the patient needed it," Jobs said.

When he was diagnosed with cancer, Jobs said his doctor told him he only had three-to-six months to live. He later found out he had a rare, treatable form of the disease -- but he still learned a tough lesson.

"Remembering you are going to die is the best way to avoid the fear that you have something to lose," he said.

You know, I used to somewhat like Root Beer. I would often get it at restaurants or fast food places to go with dinner. That is--before my girlfriend mentioned that it tastes like toothpaste. That just ruined it for me, and I haven't been able to bring myself to drink it since. Maybe there is hope, though, if I make my own. Here are instructions for how.

A few weeks ago, Paul Graham gave an excellent talk at Berkeley about the future of hiring. Classic Paul Graham stuff. For those of you that missed it, he's written up a short essay based on his talk on his website: http://www.paulgraham.com/hiring.html

Think Google Maps is cool? Try out this new mapping site (http://map.search.ch/) to see an even better mapping program. Try double-clicking on the map!

I open my eyes to a pulsating red glow and deep sweat. I am in bed and it's 6:30 in the morning. The text message on my cell phone that has awaken me politely informs me that our machine in the server facility has gone down again. Shit. Time to reset the crawler, merge the indicies, start up the query processing backend, and reboot the web application. I jump out of bed, through clothing, and into a car. I barrel down the 2.5 mile stretch of El Camino Real that connects the Stanford campus and my office, passing by green lights and small coffee shops just waking up for the day. Burger place, gas station, internet company, burger place, internet startup, Starbucks, internet startup...

So, another day begins at the internet company I work at. After resolving a certain persistent server crisis, I head over to the company gym across the building. A short jog, 5 sets on the bench press, curls, abs, squats and I'm awake. Life is beautiful. I sit down on my black task chair in my corner office on the first floor of our Mountain View building. In front of me are two laptops, four bottles of water, two protein bars, three paper notebooks, a stack of charts and tables, and a stack of research papers. One of the laptops has a blinking console open to the NERSC supercomputing cluster at Lawrence Berkeley Labs. So much to do, so few CPU cycles..