All it Takes is the Right Paperwork

I want a permit to dump blood in the sewer.

I don't know when I would need to use such a permit, but I still want one.

...

It happened about two weeks ago in Northeast Minneapolis near a lab that does medical testing and dumps blood into the sewer. It is allowed but the city is now making changes to help protect workers in the future.

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The Met Council said it was a mix of human and animal blood used in medical testing at this nearby lab.

In fact, the company, R & D Systems, does have a permit to dump blood in the sewer system.

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The Met Council issued the permit. When asked if it's safe to have blood in the sewers, the Met Council said it is no more harmful than most other wastes in the sewer.

The sanitary sewer system is the appropriate place for this type of liquid wastes. There are other companies that have permits to discharge blood in the sewer system.

According to the Met Council, there are about four slaughterhouses, about 20 hospitals, and about a dozen medical and pharmaceutical companies that have permits.

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One more Reason to Love Wikipedia...

...The sheer volume of information about Battlestar Galactica, including:

Overview
Governing Structure of the 12 Colonies
Count Baltar Overview
Gaius Baltar Biography and list of Treacheries
Galactica 80
Galactica Ship History
Raptor Introduction
Description of Known Battlestars from 1978 show
Detailed Information about Number 6
Collection of Sharons
Cally Tyrol Details

And amazingly much more.

They Go Together like Seattle and Political Cowardice

These clips are great.

Battlestar Galactica meets The Office.

FAA Unintentionally Banned JFK Flight

Apparently, it can cost $30,000 to de-ice a 747. Plus fuel. And on March 16, planes went through multiple de-icings because of FAA policy.

JFK made the news again with the storms on 2007-03-16. Airlines cancelled flights. Passengers had to spend hours of days in airports. And others sat on the tarmac for hours on end.

This storm was different, though. Planes were allowed to fly, but had to take off within 25 minutes of being de-iced. The problem was that a plane can't de-ice and reach takeoff position in 25 minutes at JFK and and other highly congested airports.

The FAA says they have to have this restriction in place. The airlines point out it is based on what they claim is a flawed study.

This article goes into greater detail on the subject.

Play Cole Meets the Ninja

It's been a big week for Play Cole. Star Trek: The Sitcom had more than 22,000 views, and The Muppet Showing Starring William Shatner is closing in on 20,000.

There is now a new video at PlayCole.com.

Open mike nights are a great chance to see new, aspiring comedians take their first shots at stardom. Sometimes, a Ninja shows up.




Some content/language may be NSFW.

Alton Brown on Contaminated Food

Alton Brown is a well known host on the Food Network. His main show, Good Eats, mixes science, history, and cooking tips to demystify cooking. He also rates high on the geek meter.

Here is his take on the e. Coli outbreak from last fall.

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In short, a lot of people are sick and one person has died in Wisconsin. This is a bad thing. And yet, it was going to happen. It was bound to happen

I don’t want to sound like some crazy, anti-establishment bio-terrorist but maybe, just maybe this is a wakeup call. Truth is our food system has major flaws which point to one reoccurring theme: too much of our food is produced by centralized, industrial concerns. At this hour the continued suspicion is that the spinach, which may have been infected by irrigation water in a field, incorrectly composted manure used as fertilizer on organic crops, or by water used in processing. It may be quite a while before we know.

...

Had the big chain grocers and restaurant suppliers purchased locally grown produce, this wouldn’t have happened. But don’t blame them. Nope. Blame us. By demanding fresh spinach year round (or anything else for that matter) we create the monster.

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And to make matters worse, our ever-wise government has told us to eat no fresh spinach at all. They could have advised us to eat only locally grown spinach but Noooooooo. Let’s shoot every poor farmer in America that’s doing his or her job in the foot.

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Fight Piracy With Piracy

The Unintended Consequences of P2P Piracy

ARTICLE DATE: 03.19.07
By John C. Dvorak

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When you think about this, it's obvious. In fact, online piracy could be used as a strategy by record producers and movie folks to eliminate piracy altogether. But would anyone listen to the idea? And would there be anyone visionary enough to even dream up the concept?


Let me outline the architecture and strategy that the music industry could deploy today. It would cost less than the horrible current strategy of lawsuits and futile threats.

...more

Basically, if we stop fighting piracy, prices fall, and illegal piracy is no longer worth it. It's an interesting idea.

Come to think of it, this isn't that much different than the theories supporting the legalization of most drugs.

Boxer With the Gavel

This is about 6 kinds of awesome.

Star Trek: The Sitcom -- Update

Two days ago, I talked about the latest Play Cole hit -- Star Trek: The Sitcom.

It's still growing faster than we ever could have imagined. As of Thursday night, more than 7,300 people have watched it.

It made it on to both Fark.Com and Fazed.Net. What's interesting is that while both sites have a similar concept (though Fark is much bigger) the comments on Fark have been mostly positive, while the comments on Fazed have been mostly negative. The cultural breakdown between the two boards must be more significant than I expected. This will require further study.

The video has also been picked up by Webjunk.TV and Blinx.com.

If you would like to send any of your friends the video, you can click here to send my orignal post or direct them to http://www.playcole.com.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for 10,000 hits before the weekend is over.

Birthday Special

My birthday is next month, and the marketing department at Hilton Honors is on it.

I haven't been to Europe in more than 15 years. Nonetheless Hilton offered me a special Birthday package -- if I go to Budapest. This is the strangest promo I've gotten.

Although, now that I think about it, Delta has seats available for just $834...

Destinations
Birthday Package Bonus Points in Hungary

Between now and August 23, 2007, stay at the Hilton Budapest or the Hilton Budapest WestEnd and earn 1,000 Hilton HHonors bonus points per stay.

Getting bored of the usual birthday presents every year? Now you have a unique opportunity for a change - celebrate a birthday in Budapest! Whether you choose the Hilton Budapest, located on the BUDA side of the city in the heart of the historic Castle District, or the Hilton Budapest WestEnd on the PEST side, you'll enjoy an unforgettable stay in one of the most beautiful European capitals. Prices start from only EUR159, per double room per night.*

The Birthday Package includes:

- A daily Hilton Breakfast

- One bottle of sparkling wine† and a birthday cake upon arrival

- One candlelight dinner per stay at the Dominican Restaurant (located at the Hilton Budapest) or at the Arrabona restaurant (located at the Hilton Budapest WestEnd); dinner excludes beverages and is a three-course menu

- Accommodation in a Hilton Guest Room Plus, with a marvelous view over the city and the River Danube (at the Hilton Budapest)

- Accommodation in an upgraded Hilton Deluxe Room, with complimentary use of the Fitness Center and sauna ( at the Hilton Budapest WestEnd)

- Choice of a two-hour sightseeing tour or a visit to Szecheny or Gellert, famous Hungarian thermal spas (at the Hilton Budapest WestEnd)

Book online now:Hilton BudapestHilton Budapest WestEnd

A Green Light and a New Star Trek

I got my first Green Light on Fark yesterday.

I've linked to stories I've found there in the past. Fark gets throusands of submissions a day, and only a select few make it to the public pages. Over the past year I've probably submitted 10 or 15 links.

But yesterday my first submission was approved and made it to the video page.

OK, so it's not like I got a short story published in the New Yorker, but it's still kind of cool from a geek perspective.

It gets better though. It's actually a Play Cole video.

Jon took and episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation and added a laugh track. Here it is.




Because of Fark, this is the biggest launch we've had for any Play Cole video. In the first day, more than 3,300 people watched the video. It reached the top 50 comedy videos for You Tube yesterday, and it's popularity is growing.

LG TVs hate CSI -- But Only in Austalia

I originally saw this link on Fark.Com.

Apparently LG TVs are freezing when someone watches CSI. This may be the oddest story I've seen in a while.

LG flummoxed by digital freeze
Asher MosesMarch 20, 2007 - 3:15PM

Television manufacturer LG has failed to determine the source of a glitch in some of its televisions, which caused them to freeze when screening Nine Network's programs, despite being notified of the problem three weeks ago.

Riverfront Park in Spokane

When I was in Spokane a year and a half ago, I manged to get over to Riverfront Park for a couple hours. I took a bunch of pictures and just posted them to Flicker.

Some of my favorites, though, aren't the landscape shots. They're the Macro shots -- the ones where I can get close to my subject. As I look back through the shots I've taken over the years, that seems to be a common theme.

Here are a few of my favorite from that set.

A Great New Apple Product

This is a great sketch that actually builds over its 4:16 length. Some of the jokes may be predictable but it's worth watching to the end.

This clip is apparently from MadTV

Resistance is Futile 01: Treating Parkinson's

I wake up as they wheel me into recovery, which at Stanford is a kind of fun house sideshow. People in various states of undress — many of us having just had parts removed or new parts installed — loll or roll about in pain and confusion, all under the watchful eyes of a room full of nurses, orderlies, and aides. The occasional doctor breezes through to provide expert advice or — because this is a teaching hospital — comic relief. The nurses, rolling their eyes, patiently guide the young doctors like sergeants working with newly minted lieutenants.

That's my favorite paragraph from a great article about Parkinson's Disease that appear in the March 2007 (15.03) issue of Wired.

Author Steven Gulie talks about how he developed Parkinson's and how doctors treated the symptoms successfully by implanting electrodes directly in his brain and then installing essentially a brain pacemaker in his chest.

It's a long article but a great read.

Confess-o-matic

State bank on 9/11 terrorists' hit list
Confession by suspected mastermind released
...
The transcript also makes clear that al-Qaida wanted to down a second trans-Atlantic aircraft during would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid's operation.

Mohammed said he was involved in planning the 2002 bombing of a Kenyan beach resort frequented by Israelis and the failed missile attack on an Israeli passenger jet after it took off from Mombasa, Kenya. He also said he was responsible for the bombing of a nightclub in Bali, Indonesia. In 2002, 202 were killed when two Bali nightclubs were bombed.

Other plots he said he was responsible for included plans to attack the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Empire State Building and New York Stock Exchange, the Panama Canal, and Big Ben and Heathrow Airport in London -- none of which happened.

He said he was involved in planning assassination attempts against former Presidents Carter and Clinton, attacks on U.S. nuclear power plants and suspension bridges in New York, the destruction of American and Israeli embassies in Asia and Australia, attacks on American naval vessels and oil tankers around the world, and an attempt to "destroy" an oil company he said was owned by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on Sumatra, Indonesia.

He also claimed he shared responsibility for assassination attempts against Pope John Paul II and Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf.
...

Later, he claimed responsibilty for Adam Walsh's disappearce, said he admired the view from the Grassy Knoll, admitted to bombing an aircraft in New Mexico in 1947, and explained how he carried Syphilis to the new world in the 15 century.

Some More Pictures Approaching SEA

I shot these on Monday afternoon as we were on approach to SEATAC (SEA). I was on an Alaska Airlines flight from SNA to SEA.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ok. My hotel network connection seems to be limiting my upstream bandwidth so I can't post the pictures.

Instead, here's and article about a traveling Sushi Chef.

Sushi chef's monthly Whidbey visit makes islanders happy

As he draws his knife through marbled tuna fillets, he connects with regulars who are willing to wait as long as a couple of hours to get their fix -- though after a month's wait, what's an hour or two more?

This American Life OnLine

One of my favorite NPR shows is "This American Life." It's a weekly hour long program that usually feature 3 people telling stories. It's the show that introduced me to the the work of David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell.

The tales may be humorous or thought provoking. The may be poingnant or tender. But they are always captivating.

It's also one of the few NPR shows that is not time sensitive; you can listen to a program weeks or months after it aired and it's still a good story.

And now you can download the latest episodes for free. You can subscripbe through iTunes or just download the program straight from the website.

How Nerdy are You

Go ahead and post your score in the comments.

Donuts on $40 a Day

Dunkin' Donuts has a new pitchwoman: TV personality Rachael Ray .

As the Canton chain looks to expand nationally and get beyond its doughnut heritage, Ray's philosophy of better-for-you food seems to make her ideal for the role.

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