Technology, politics and the rest

Read it Later is an extension for firefox 3 (you upgraded, didn’t you?) that lets you save pages for reading later, even offline.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLNfsLpM8zo

I’ve installed it but haven’t used it yet. Right now, I use Google Reader’s offline feature to give me a bunch to read on the plane. Unfortunately, this doesn’t let me easily save non-reader web pages for offline reading, so I’m hoping that Read it Later will fill the gap. I’ll give it a try next time I fly (two weeks!).

Here are a bunch of items I’ve had starred in google reader for a while and haven’t written about.

An article from The Atlantic about the Chevy Volt, GM’s ambitious plug-in hybrid car project. It’s basically an electric car with a gas engine that can charge the battery on a long trip (but it doesn’t directly run on gas). $4/gallon gas has some advantages (it’s $4.70 on my street, actually).

Yahoo Autos has an article about why the 3,000-mile oil change is a myth. Good thing, because I kept forgetting to get mine changed.

Bruce Schneier recounts one of my favorite stories from his book Beyond Fear:

At 3,106 carats, a little under a pound and a half, the Cullinan Diamond was the largest uncut diamond ever discovered. It was extracted from the earth at the Premier Mine, near Pretoria, South Africa, in 1905. Appreciating the literal enormity of the find, the Transvaal government bought the diamond as a gift for King Edward VII. Transporting the stone to England was a huge security problem, of course, and there was much debate on how best to do it. Detectives were sent from London to guard it on its journey. News leaked that a certain steamer was carrying it, and the presence of the detectives confirmed this. But the diamond on that steamer was a fake. Only a few people knew of the real plan; they packed the Cullinan in a small box, stuck a three-shilling stamp on it, and sent it to England anonymously by unregistered parcel post.

Awesome boxing kangaroo!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_FVD0BR2Mc
That thing throws quite a punch!

A panoramic view of Obama’s Detroit rally.. a massive crowd.

NYTimes: “A household with income under $13,000 spends, on average, $645 a year on lottery tickets, about 9 percent of all income.”
Wow :-/

And finally, a picture from Igor (a coworker) from a little while ago:

Igor’s an excellent photographer, you can see his work here.

I have a bunch more stuff to share, but I’ll save it for another post. Hopefully you bored-at-work folks are sufficiently distracted for the moment. If not, I have more on my friendfeed page.

There’s going to be an Arrested Development movie.. it starts shooting next year.

I can’t wait!

The temperature exceeded 90 degrees today, which was weird. I almost never check the weather forecast because it varies so little. When I walked outside at work, instead of thinking “Wow, it’s hot out today”, I thought “Wow, I don’t remember that Summer is this hot”.

Hmm, now that I’ve written that, I realize it doesn’t make much sense, but I’m not going to rephrase it. Good luck.

I’ve been trying to get a good grasp on the recent Boumediene v. Bush supreme court ruling without much success (that’s the one that granted habeas corpus to Guantanamo prisoners). Most of the news articles focus on the political aspects and are generally vague. I read some of the court opinion itself (along with the dissent), but wasn’t able to reconcile the two side: they seemed to be arguing about different things, which I suppose isn’t that usual. If you have any suggestions for ways to learn about this sort of thing, I’d appreciate it.

A couple of recent speeches I’ve enjoyed:

Obama’s Father’s Day Speech (23 min)

One of my favorites in a while, worth a watch.

Gore endorsing Obama in Michigan (15 min)

(probably won’t play in Reader)
I enjoyed this more than most of the political speeches I remember hearing from Gore, but I guess it’s been a while.

For some unimaginable reason, I ended up spending some time tonight reading through parts of clintons4mccain.com, a site for Clinton supporters now supporting John McCain. I don’t actually recommend going there, unless you like to watch logical gymnastics performed poorly. My favorite quote was (paraphrased): “I like that John McCain is a fighter, just like Hillary. That’s something they have in common”… except that they’re fighting for the opposite things!

Also “[Obama] doesn’t represent us, or grassroots Americans.” What is a grassroots American? If any campaign is grassroots, it would be Obama’s, by any empirical measure. Their selective amnesia is mind-boggling. They don’t remember how Clinton was the inevitable nominee, according to the press, before a vote had even been cast.

OK, I shouldn’t write any more about this. It’s like arguing with an answering machine.

Firestorm from powrslave on Vimeo.

This violates my “mandatory Benny Hill Theme for any time-lapse footage” rule, but I’ll let it pass.

Useful website: MovieStinger.com tells you if anything interesting happens during or after movie credits.

Sometime within a month (not quite sure when yet), I’m moving 40 miles to San Francisco. I’ll be living with one roommate whom I met last week via craigslist and commuting to google via shuttle (about 3/4 mi away). The apartment is near here.

It’s not too far from Alamo Square, about which Wikipedia says:

The opening sequence of the American sitcom Full House (1987–1995) features a romp in Alamo Square Park with the famous row of Victorians in the background.

I can name at least a half dozen people I know who have moved or are moving around now. It would make sense if they were triggered by lease terms coinciding with the end of the school year, but for the most part, it seems just random.

I’m almost done catching up on life after my last trips.. this is going to make for another busy month.