This idea came to me via jaderabbit. Anyone can participate, whether you know me or not. Invent a memory of me and post it in the comments. It can be anything you want, so long as it’s something that’s never happened. (Then, of course, post this to your blog/journal and see what people would like to remember of you, only the universe failed to cooperate in making it happen so they had to make it up instead.)

As I’ve noted a few times in my column, Free Software is definitely getting friendlier. In “The Rise of Interface Elegance in Open Source Software,” blogger Steven Garrity explores the trend.

[spotted at LWN.net]

USA Today reports:

A teacher at a Newton County school has resigned after officials say she admitted she told two students to throw a 14-year-old girl from a classroom window… . two boys later told principal Kenneth Daniels that they threw the girl out the window because they did not want to be written up for disobeying a teacher.

[spotted at MetaFilter]

I was cleaning out my browser bookmarks today and I found a link to Garrison Keillor’s old advice column at Salon, “Mr. Blue.” From May of 1998 till just a week before September 11, 2001, Mr. Blue dispensed advice about life, love, and writing. The advice was almost always stellar, the prose always a sheer delight to read. I will never forget the following exchange, from the 6/5/2001 installment of Mr. Blue: more...

Here’s an interesting Freedom of Information Act case, courtesy of The Memory Hole:

… I filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the following: All photographs showing caskets (or other devices) containing the remains of US military personnel at Dover AFB. This would include, but not be limited to, caskets arriving, caskets departing, and any funerary rites/rituals being performed… . The Air Force then sent me a CD containing 361 photographs of flag-draped coffins and the services welcoming the deceased soldiers.

Novelist Neal Stephenson interviewed at Salon:

One of things you like to do on the side is dabble in programming. Do you see similarities between writing code and writing fiction?

I think there are common threads between writing and programming. That’s a really easy statement for people to misunderstand and twist around so I’m a little leery of making it. All I’m saying is that the thing you’re making — the novel or the computer program — has got a very complicated and finely wrought hierarchical structure to it. The structure has to work right or the whole thing fails. But the only way you can work on it is by hitting one character at a time. You’re building this thing one character at a time while having to maintain the whole structure in your head. That description applies equally well to programming and novel writing even though they’re very different activities.

[You can watch a short commercial for a free Salon “day pass” if you are not a member.]

I have never watched a single episode of American Idol and that pattern is not likely to change. I am, however, aware of the mini-stardom of William Hung, the UC Berkeley engineering student who appeared on the show in January, singing his uniquely pathetic version of Ricky Martin’s “She Bangs.” Hung has been all over trash-media since; it seems like a new story about him pops up every few days.

I’ve been disturbed by Hung’s popularity from the outset, though I’ve found it hard to explain why. Well, SFGate columnist Emil Guillermo nails exactly what’s wrong with Hung’s fifteen minutes of fame in a two-part column: part one · part two

I especially liked this bit, which references a classic piece of Americana that I’ve long felt is tragically infused with a particularly insidious sort of racism:

[the folks behind Hung] are updating a classic anti-Asian image — that of the Mickey Rooney character in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” complete with buck teeth, bad hair and bad accent. Rent the movie and cringe.

Crew Boats Fend Off Otter Attack:

“I don’t think I’ve ever rowed harder in my entire life as I did trying to escape the otter — that devilish creature had already attacked Scott and now it was coming back for more,” said Noah Riner ‘06, who was in the second varsity eight at the time of the incident.

The Center for American Progress fact-checks Condoleezza Rice’s testimony before the 9/11 Commission: Part 1 · Part 2. An excerpt:

Claim: “We decided immediately to continue pursuing the Clinton Administration’s covert action authorities and other efforts to fight the network.”

Fact: Newsweek reported that “In the months before 9/11, the U.S. Justice Department curtailed a highly classified program called ‘Catcher’s Mitt’ to monitor al-Qaida suspects in the United States.” Additionally, AP reported “though Predator drones spotted Osama bin Laden as many as three times in late 2000, the Bush administration did not fly the unmanned planes over Afghanistan during its first eight months,” thus terminating the reconnaissance missions started during the Clinton Administration. [Sources: Newsweek, 3/21/04; AP, 6/25/03]

I’m watching the A’s play the Rangers on the tube, and an ump-heckler can clearly be heard on the broadcast. He has just tried out “Hey ump, why don’t you put your helmet on your other end? There’s more sense there!” which I will charitably rate two stars (on a typical four-star scale), it being opening day and all. He’s got the start of something here, but it’s a bit clumsy, and I don’t think we can let pass the classification of the ump’s headgear as a helmet.

The ump slam that made me laugh the hardest when I first heard it was the four-star “For chrissakes, ump! If you had another eye you’d be a cyclops!”

Grossest. Cake. Ever.

[spotted at jwz’s LiveJournal]