Dr. Albert Hoffman has died. Hoffman was the discoverer of LSD.

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Sorry about the feed, folks - as some of you noticed, the new version of WordPress broke it. I believe I’ve fixed it. This post also serves to test that belief.

On his way in to work, DJ demonstrates the ideal commute. Read the rest of this entry »

Thomas Hawk is making a journey this weekend into Yosemite with Michael Adams, son of Ansel - and I’m slightly envious. He, Scoble and Marc Silber are working on a video show called “Photo Cycle” that I’m now really looking forward to.

At long last, the FDA will no longer allow foods with HFCS to be labeled “natural.”

This is an issue that affects all of us. We spend billions of dollars enforcing marijuana laws, and distract good cops from enforcing real crimes. Almost a million people are arrested for marijuana possession each year. Many of them end up with permanent criminal records and are barred forever from receiving federal student aid. People don’t just have their lives ruined; some have even died as a result of marijuana law enforcement (e.g. shot to death in paramilitary style raids - yes, it happens.)

The criminalization of marijuana was pure foolishness driven by racism, hysteria and corporate special interests.

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“These are not soft numbers.  They are depression numbers.”

Here’s some early evidence.  She might, like, think independently and stuff.

Google has been trying to prohibit people from photographing their trade show booth at the Web 2.0 Expo. I’m getting really sick of all this. While this pales in comparison to the kind of photographer harassment I’ve whined about in the past, it does demonstrate a continuing odd attitude held by many toward photographers in public places. It’s one thing if you’re a badge-drunk sheriff’s deputy in San Antonio -but quite another for a forward-thinking technology company. It makes even less sense for a company that takes pictures of public streets and buildings and then makes them publicly available.

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Check out Chris’ Sunburn Galleries.

My friend Tom was out here in Los Angeles just a few weeks ago and began feeling unwell. He thought it was food poisoning, and opted to return home to Maine early. His illness turned out to be something much more serious; he had an inoperable, malignant tumor in his brain stem.

After his return home, Tom and I would not get another chance to speak. We traded a couple of e-mails as they struggled to diagnose his condition, but that would be all.

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Thanks, ABC, for an hour of “debate” that (unless I missed one) didn’t cover a single substantive issue. Thanks for asking about flag pins, people the candidates met 40 years ago, sniper fire, and favorite ice cream (or did I make that one up?)

It’s borderline criminal - and we wonder why good people don’t give a shit about politics. Thanks for the circus; you could at least have fed me during it.

Hey pork-lovers: remember the pig brain mist story?  Well, mother nature’s delivered us a fresh little firmware upgrade, just like I promised!

Pending a thirty-day comment period during which I’m confident fewer than ten people will make a sound, Federal law enforcement agencies will now collect DNA of arrestees via a cheek swab. Since we slept through the legislation getting passed, I doubt the ACLU’s efforts will wake anyone. But innocent people - have no fear! If you’re not convicted, you can “ask” them to destroy the sample. Yeah.

Pictures of some excellent packaging and commercial design.

Here’s a fun little list of brain oddities.  I remember as a kid my brother and I used to fuck with our heads by saying the same thing over and over again, say for a minute or so, until the phrase seemed so ridiculous that it no longer felt real - it would take on an alien, unrecognizable sense.  Try it yourself - pick a word, or a phrase, anything that makes sense to you at the moment.  Repeat it to yourself at a comfortable pace over a period of a minute or so.  It will shortly seem absurd.

Some cool photos of snow under a microscope.

Question is not if, but when, according to sources close to both.

Six hundred over the past ten days.. “unlike anything scientists have heard..” [Associated Press]

Today was one of those days that reminds me why I love living - and as a bonus, doing it here. The sun was shining and it was well above 80. The birds were singing away and frantically going about their springtime business. I have some (sparrows, I think) nesting on the north side of the house. I hear so many different birdsongs day and night that I’ve started checking eNature.com to try to identify them.

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