It's true: you never know when you may end up bringing home a teapot. Like, for instance, when attending an international graphics conference.

The reason for this apparently had to do with the large exhibit of teapot-based digital art in the International Center section of the conference, inspired by this guy whose name I don't remember who was drinking tea with his wife one afternoon and looking for a cool object with lots of curves to render. And she told him to use the teapot. There's nothing quite like Boston Skyline rendered in teapots. Served with a slideshow presentation of the history of the most popular beverage in the world (including, of course, many references to the Boston tea party), SCONES, tea, SCONES, and free teapots from Upton Tea Imports--at least for four minutes or so until the buzzing hordes got through with snatching them up.

I'm really quite pleased, since I, being a poor college student and only recently having started collecting my own kitchenwares, didn't own a teapot before and am now able to conduct devious experiments with loose tea instead of relying on teabags all the time. The pot's not big but it'll do fine for one person!

Today, I witnessed somebody attempting to read a magazine on a dark bus via the light of their cell phone.

Makes me wonder what OLPC will end up causing.

Thursday, February 9th My digital camera starts acting up, having strange behavior with the buttons. Friday, Feb. 10th I use HP's web-based e-mail support to appeal for help with the borkenness. I receive a response back in less than an hour giving a suggestion as to what to try. I try this and it doesn't work, so I respond with more information. I am quickly informed that it may be a hardware problem and am offered a free replacement under warranty. Sunday, February 12th I receive a second reply because I hadn't yet responded to the last one (busy that weekend). Monday, February 13th I respond with information at 4:08 PM and am called 20 minutes later for credit card information (in case I don't ship the broken camera back). Wednesday, February 15th HP ships the replacement from Texas. Monday, February 20th The replacement arrives.

Now all I need to do is drop the broken camera off at the UPS pick-up station at Staples and be done with that. Even has a pre-paid label. <3 HP.

Just about every teenager in Central New York (and throughout the USA, I'd say) who's online and uses instant messaging (read: probably 90+% of 'em to varying degrees, depending) uses AOL Instant Messenger. It sucks. Really. Though gaim makes it better.

I'm glad, however, that there will soon be an alternative that doesn't involve having to ditch 3/4 of my contacts and say "use another network or don't talk to me."

I look forward to the day when people can say "IM me at X" and not have to stipulate a network to go along with that (and log onto 1 network instead of 3 or so).

I never knew how neat these babies were until I got one a couple days ago. I never want to look a floppy in the eye again, or excruciatingly burn CD-RWs as a sneakernet.

Looks like this, holds half a gigabyte:

Not even that expensive these days, though I admittedly did not pay for this one (myself).

Not much that I've seen in the news lately that's really been crazy, but this I must say takes the cake. Three hours after clinical death? I had to read that twice. At least.

From here.

By the way, the language is named after the BBC show "Monty Python's Flying Circus'' and has nothing to do with nasty reptiles. Making references to Monty Python skits in documentation is not only allowed, it is encouraged!

I definitely didn't know that - but it rocks! (see current blog subtitle) Now, to continue my investigation for helix... (well, for me, actually, but because of helix)

Presidential and Congressional ratings at a low. The real irony is in the relevent ads that happened to pop up alongside the story on CNN when I read the story. (I'm sorry, I couldn't resist.) (Yes, that's my screenshot.)

WTF? Military rationality? Is there a reason that women need congressional approval to serve in high-risk combat roles? Afraid of getting flak for equal treatment?

We run cars on corn and H!

Human rights on the decline... US to blame? (Amnesty says so. I would agree most of the time.)

House passes spyware bill. Will it help? Doubt it. They should change the "click here" link at the bottom to click here. [/shameless promotion]

Why you should use an alternative IM client.

End of the Senate showdown? I like this editorial. The notes about the court of appeals nominee are particularly amusing and anger-worthy.

The House gives Bush the finger (well, sort of). Though sort of a win-lose situation. And some of the "testimonials" from certain parties are rather... amusing...

15 Ways to Dispel Evolution Attacks. Shady tactics deserve hard facts.

Why not to be an idiot. Also: anybody can be a social engineer!

Yes, this IS cool. Debian + Gnome, mmm.

There's my leftist mainstream news rants for the month. Au revoir, societal angst.

I hate that expression, but seriously: WTF? Either that is a very stupid joke, or somehow Microsoft has strangely come to be completely responsible for 64-bit processors. Just for releasing XP 64-bit -- "all because of Microsoft!"

Even though there are other OSs that have been able to run on 64-bit processors for some time... Someone seriously needs to get a grip.

This is cool. If it or any similar project gets completed and implemented in the future, I might just wish I had been born a few years later. Go MIT.