Population 44,671
Day 9 Friday
Today sort of bled into tomorrow or is it yesterday bleeding into today? I found myself atop the lounge yelling a rooster's call at the top of my lungs. According to Paul, Center Camp published the population as being 44,671 as of noon.
Playa tech
Day 8 Thursday
Just about every industry has conferences where people get together to share ideas about their trade. Burning man is like that. We get together on the playa to share ideas on "open source yurt. In fact she had stopped by the lounge to see if she could talk to the habitant of a yurt that she said was built based on her designs. Another was the employee of a company that sold pre-made structures to large organizations (presumably government agencies like FEMA). At least one of them was camped at PlayaTech which, unfortunately, I wasn't able to visit.
There "green" exhibit near the man that featured a yurt dome that I imagine must have been based on the hexayurt designs. I visited it midday and was floored by how cool it was. The design was simple yet extremely effective. The only drawback was that it appeared to be much bulkier than yurts made from flexible materials like the shelter systems yurt dome.
The green exhibit had examples of some really creative and seemingly easy to build furniture based on cleverly interlocking pieces of wood. You can find the designs on the PlayaTech website. The designs seem so simple I might try making one myself.
Bloody Mary brunch
Day 7 Wednesday
We had our Bloody Mary brunch today. I've discovered that the lounge was a seductive place. Every time I passed through on my way to somewhere I inevitably find myself compelled to stay. Today I was determined to overcome this and get in some sightseeing so I divided my time between the brunch and some of the nearby camps; in particular, the gnome camp. There I met one of the most beautiful couples. He was tall with long hair and tan skin. She was fair with dark makeup and goth clothing. They had met each other when they were 11, started dating when they were 14 and were married as soon as he was legally able to. They've been married for 8 years and each wore a heart shaped necklace that said "monogamy" on one side and "if found please return to" with the other's name. I was so touched by their story that I shared it with anyone that would listen.
Arson
Day 6 Tuesday
Tuesday was a slow going day. I spent the previous night wandering around. I visited the man and headed back home after a brief glimpse at the lunar eclipse. When I woke up later that day someone passed me saying "welcome to charred man 2007". I dismissed the comment, not thinking anything of it. I think I was in the lounge when I learned that Gonzo (aka Paul Addis) had torched the man prematurely. There's one in every bunch, I thought. There are the ones with creative talent who build, out of their creative genius, the images that are in their mind; and, there are the ones, who lack either the creative genius or the physical strength to built anything and instead seek their 15 minutes of fame on the coat tails of others by destroying. The damage he caused was at the expense of Black Rock City. I think he should reimburse the city for damage caused by his actions. Being fined treble the damages including time and material seems like a reasonable start. It could be that his actions were caused by his not feeling a sense of community with the rest of the city. It would be fitting for him to be dressed in prison attire, complete with prison shackles, and be assigned to a position at the DPW's commissary where he can serve food. That way he'd get a chance to meet everyone that he affected and give the people a chance to tell him what they really think. Sending him off to jail away from the BRC community is far too sanitized a solution. Sentencing him to something that makes him understand what the Black Rock community is all about seems like a more fitting "burner" solution. Failing that, a good old stoning would probably work.
Sangria soirée
Day 5 Monday
We had our lamplighter sangria soirée today. I was surprised to learn how committed the regulars were to this event. I'd met a couple older attendees who had been to the lounge for this event several years in a row. They seemed to know more about it than I did. I had no idea, for example, that we served food! I was out pouring sangria (we had several hundred gallons as I recall) when they pulled me aside and asked when the quesadillas would be served. They were skeptical when I told them that I didn't think there were going to be any. I watched them closely throughout the rest of the night making sure their glasses were full. I asked our bartenders if they knew anything about the quesadillas but they were of the same opinion as me. Later that night low and behold I saw the quesadilla trays being ushered around and sure enough my new friends were one of the first to get their hands on them. We ran out of the sangria after a couple of hours. I'd call the whole thing a giant success.
Final day of early arrival
Day 4 Sunday
It's interesting how things start to change on the last day of early arrival. The music, which was absent on the days leading up to opening day becomes an essential part of the atmosphere. During the hours leading up to the opening of the gates, people have formed a shanty town around the entrance. From the top of the lounge I can see the massive line of cars waiting to get in. Shortly after the gates are opened people start to flood the bars. I see a group of recent arrivals race to the lounge thirsty for drink and celebration. I've never seen them before, they're not even lamplighters, but they're greeted with open arms. Who knows, maybe I'll be next to them at the chapel prepping the lanterns in the hours to come. Either way they're burners and part of our family.
Setup at the café
Day 3 Saturday
I arrived at the café to help volunteer. I spent most of the day painting. The massive collection of art at the café often goes unnoticed. The benches, the walls, every piece of wood is decorated with expressive visual pieces. As patrons stop to rest on a padded seat they might miss the artistry all around them in including the very seat they're sitting on. The café is an integral part of Black Rock city not only because it provides the traveler with a place to rest and catch up but because it is rich with the culture and aesthetic that is Black Rock city.
Recompression
Day 2 Friday
I took Friday as my re-compression day. When I arrive on the playa my body starts going through a radical change. The heat, altitude, and dryness all start to take their toll and it can take a while for my body to acclimate. I've seen other people go through the same thing. They might run from it, trying to get the most of their first few days; but, often, times it catches up with them. I decided to take it easy and let my body sort things out before jumping head first into things. It also gave me a chance to chill with some of my camp mates, all of whom are so unique that they make the playa take on a somewhat surreal quality.
Setup
Day 1 Thursday
I arrived on the playa shortly before dusk (8 PM). Last year I had taken the time before arriving on location to learn how to build my structure so that by the time I arrived it took me about 30 minutes to have it set up. This year when I went to set it up I realized it had been a year since I'd done it. I stared at it for a while after laying it out trying to make sense of where the poles were supposed to go. After fiddling with it a bit I discovered that some of the connectors were labeled "top". I also remembered that the windows were the first things that needed to be assembled. After some time a group from my lamplighter family came, having noticed that I was having a bit of trouble, and helped me set it up. These were people that I'd met in person only a few minutes before. This is exactly the soft of sense of community that I come here for. I knew at that moment that I was home.
Gone to burningman
This will be my sixth year at Black Rock city. I'm going early to help with the setup. This year, in the spirit for the Green Man, I'm taking my own power source. I'll also be arriving early to help build.
Travel map
A few months ago I described embedding a Google map on your blog. Google has come around and made it even easier by including a YouTube style box that you can use to copy and paste code with even less effort. I've used Google's "My Maps" feature to select a list of places I've visited. You can see them all in the embedded map below.
Jena 6
Six black students at Jena High School in Central Louisiana were arrested last December after a school fight in which a white student was beaten and suffered a concussion and multiple bruises. The six black students were charged with attempted murder and conspiracy. They face up to 100 years in prison without parole. The fight took place amid mounting racial tension after a black student sat under a tree in the schoolyard where only white students sat. The next day three nooses were hanging from the tree. -DemocracyNow.com
I could end your lives with the stroke of a pen. -District Attorney Reed Walter
Frank Caliendo impersonates every Seinfeld character
Frank Caliendo acts out a Seinfeld episode by portraying every character himself.
A tribute to every video site
These days there are a slew of video hosting sites where you can upload your videos. This clever video shows us what it would look like if those sites each did a first date video.
Genital mutilation season
The circumcision season of this year is underway. It starts every year during the annual school holidays. The death of the 11-year-old schoolgirl at a private clinic in an Egyptian village in June however has prompted the government to outlaw the custom of female genital mutilation, which is so widespread in Egypt that 95 percent of the country's women are estimated to have undergone the procedure.
Quantum tunneling
Günter Nimtz and Alfons Stahlhofen of the University of Koblenz, Germany, claim to have broken the speed of light using a phenomenon known as quantum tunneling.
Snoop Dogg at the Flava Flav roast
Flava Flav had a roast and a bunch of his friends came on board to give him some grief including Snoop Dogg.
The Green Man Private Reserve
This year I'm bringing a case of "The Green Man Private Reserve" vineyards with samples of the four different varietals: Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Merlot. The label is designed on the logo from the 2007 theme. I would have preferred to alter the image so that it contained a wine goblet or grapes but I ran out of time.
Intelligent image resizing
Dr Ariel Shamir has come up with a way to resize an image while still retaining the important content. The demo on intelligently erasing content is perfect for people who want to crop their x-girlfriends out of their pictures.
UPDATE: HackZine has an article on some related technology.
Charlie Chaplin Table Ballet
Youtube has a bunch of Charlie Chaplin videos. Check out the one below and if you like it, check out the related videos on YouTube.
Playa lighting
Trying to power an 18' yurt with a 300 watt power supply during 12 hours of night (the equinox is on the 22nd) can take some thought. Consider the issue of lighting for example. Stringing a strand of Christmas lights might seem like a reasonable way to light the dome. The C7 bulb however can consume 6 watts each. Even the incandescent mini-light consumes 0.48 watts. String 100 of those C7 lights together and you'll sucking up 600 watts in only one hour. You'll consume 48 watts with the mini-lights.
To get a perspective on what these numbers mean, consider the following. The C7 lights would consume the battery's power in half an hour while the mini-lights would consume the battery's power in 6 hours.
A couple companies are offering an alternative to incandescent Christmas lights: LED lights. These lights resemble the mini-lights but consume only 0.08 watts. A 100 bulb strand will consume 8 watts. That's one sixth the amount of power. To say it another way, the lights will take 6 times as long to consume the battery's power or 36 hours.
There is a power loss during the conversion from DC to AC. The process requires a device called an inverter. While the efficiency of inverters differ, the ones I've seen incur about a 10% power loss. For simplicity I haven't included that figure in the calculations but for reference, the times would be adjusted as follows. The C6 would last 0.5 hours, not 6. The mini-lights would last 5.5 hours, not 6. The LED lights would last 32 hours, not 36.
A company called Inirgee sells LED lights powered from DC. Using those lights would conserve the 10% power loss from the inverter.
Minor League Braves Manager Goes Crazy
Phillip Wellman, the minor league manager of the Mississippi Braves loses it and starts stealing the bases off the field.
Flash pet
HeartGuard has come up with a charming little website to promote their product. At the heart of the website is a flash object that calls flash videos based on what you type. If you type "beg", for example, it will "/video/beg.flv". Type "stand" and it will load "/video/beg.flv". The idea isn't unique. Previous examples include scantily clad and or buxom women carrying our your commands.
The technology that allows this object to work is really pretty robust. Since the object is loaded remotely, it can be updated without the user knowing so new commands can be added after people have added the object to their websites. The flash player is loaded on nearly every machine and the videos themselves are only loaded when the user types a command so the initial download is relatively small. They haven't figured out that making the object embeddable on other people's sites would take their marketing to a new level. You can try, but there's no way to silence that annoying music. They really missed the boat with that. Give the industry a few years, they'll catch up.
<object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0" width="425" height="350" id="site_template_v3" align="middle"> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" /> <param name="movie" value="http://www.idodogtricks.com/site_template_v10.swf" /><param name="quality" value="high" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff" /><embed src="http://www.idodogtricks.com/site_template_v10.swf" quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff" width="425" height="350" name="site_template_v3" align="middle" allowScriptAccess="sameDomain" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" />
Lexmark commercial
Foreign commercials can be so much more entertaining than American ones. Take this Lexmark commercial for example.
Dunkin' Donuts commercial
featuring Kiss guitarist ACE Frehley
If PNL (profit and loss) meetings were all this interesting, we wouldn't need coffee to keep us awake at them.
Identity theft
The term "identity theft" sounds absolutely ridiculous to me. My identity is what makes me me, how can someone steal that? In fact, the phrase seems more like a way for the credit card companies to be lazy. It provides them with a term to better exculpate themselves of any damage that occurs to your identity as a result of them thinking someone else is you. They can say someone stole my identity. A criminal might have committed the crime of impersonating someone else but did the credit card companies do everything they could to protect the victim? Who's really responsible for causing the blemish on the victims record?
Your credit card number is protected by what is commonly referred to in the computer industry as "security by obscurity". The term reflects the flaw of of trying to ensure the security of something by obscuring the method in which it's hidden. It's a lot like hiding a tin of money in your back yard. The security of the money is based on the hope that nobody knows where it's buried. It's better to put the money in a safe where everyone knows its location so that if there is a flaw in the safe, you'll hear about it before the criminals can exploit it. With credit card numbers, you're protected as long as criminals don't discover the hidden trick to generating these numbers. As it turns out, the trick to generating the credit card numbers is critical to validating them. As a result, there's a good chance that if you've written an online web form to validate credit cards, then you know how to generate credit cards too.
Another piece of information that holds the keys to this "identity" that criminals "steal" is our social security number. This number is even less secure than our credit card number. The number never changes and, if we're a student, can be found in our academic records; which are no where near as secure as our financial records.
One example of "identity theft" is opening a credit card using someone else's personal information. A criminal approaches a credit card company, provides them with information about the victim and is issued a card. A company called lifelock promises to protect your personal information against such violations. They charge a monthly fee for the service. The president Todd Davis is so confident in his company that he has published his social security number.
If the technology to protect us from "identity theft" is available then why don't we obligate credit card companies to implement the security themselves. How do we let them get away with tarnishing our reputation in order to save a couple bucks. It seems like their should be a class action lawsuit against them for failing to offer the sort of protection that Todd Davis seems to be profiting from.
"My Social Security number is 457-55-5462. And that is my real Social Security number." -Todd Davis
Festas 2007
Every year the portuguese community organizes a festa (pronounces fesh-ta) in Newark,CA. The parade starts at 10 AM and circles the block, carrying with it musicians, dancers and even livestock. The parade ends at the pavilion where one can indulge in Portuguese food games and entertainment. In the evening a traditional Portuguese meal called soupas is served. Rows of tables are filled with people eating drinking and socializing. The video below taken on Jul 12 2007 is from the midway point of the parade (my parent's house).
Lemon chicken
I clearly remember my years growing up around moonshine stills. Stills are of course illegal in the state of California (where this blog is presently hosted) so the name and location of this still will remain undisclosed. The still consisted of a pressure cooker that contained the material that would be evaporated, in this case homemade wine. The evaporate would travel out the top of the pressure cooker through a copper coil which twisted through a bucket of chilled water which would condense the vapor back into a liquid. What you ended up with was essentially liquid alcohol. From what I've read, the liquid starts off with a couple tablespoons of toxic alcohol, and the rest if potable. I'm not sure if my relative understood this subtlety. "Parts per million" he'd tell me, "parts per million." Mix that magic up with some passion fruits and you have a tasty little nectar that makes a young boy find love at the bottom of a bottle. It is important to note that it can be tricky, once you've reached the bottom of the bottle to remove the evidence by pouring water back in. Also, important is the fact that the water no matter how much you swish it around, never carries quite the same potency. Anyway I digress.
In the still, when you're done evaporating all the good stuff out of the wine, what's left is this nasty, nasty mess. It's so nasty that the smell of it can make one hurl. So the question is, what do you do with all that gunk? This relative, the clever conservationist that he is (you see, he was trendy well before his time) decided to use it as topsoil for his citrus tree. This same tree used to produce the strangest looking fruit. I remember on at least one occasion being passed a "finger" from a lemon that looked exactly like a human hand. The one in the photo above bears a striking resemblance to a small bird. There were all sorts of weird shapes in between. Now would be a good time to mention, that I know absolutely nothing of horticulture or of chemistry. Admittedly, I'm tying these facts together in a very unscientific manner. All I know is that the tree that received the grog booster and the tree with the funky shaped lemons were one and the same.
Horton Hears a Who trailer
Another Dr Seuss classic makes it's way onto the big screen with this Pixar film.
The Glitch with Jason Biggs
This video is American pie meets Groundhog's day. A guy gets stuck in time and is forced to repeat the same few minutes over and over again.
Seabright beach
I spent the day at Seabright beach in Santa Cruz for a birthday. See the pictures on Google Albums, they'll be there for the next 30 days or so.
Drowning Pool's "Bodies" is edited into ministry clips in this video.
UFO's make their way onto the net in this obviously doctored home video.
JibJab Starring ME!
JibJab has this new beta program that allows you to place your image in their videos.
Bush war on Zombies
Bush is questioned about his about 50 Billion dollar emergency defence supplemental to protect america from zombies in this video.
Hacking Netflix
The digital rights management software from Microsoft has been cracked. Netflix is offering movies online and hackers have provided instructions on how to download get the movies without paying for them. Here are the Cliff notes.
- Pick a movie from the NetFlix site.
- Find the URL for that movie in the web page source and download it without getting the key to decrypt it.
- Decrypt the file using a program called FU4WM (fair use for Windows media).