ISP woes

More internet issues. This seems to be the year for them. On Monday the server of my ISP (Hostik)went down. I didn't get back up until Thursday night. "During a routine backup Plesk [the internet interface] was corrupted," they said. Must have been some corruption. So I'm talking to their tech support guy. "Is this going to happen again?" I ask. "Absolutely not!" he assures me. "What was different this time?" I ask. His answer: "I do not know."

A New Rendering of the Yi Jing

I've made a new rendering of the Yi jing (I Ching) and posted it
here

Check it out. It has a random flash component that will cast a hexagram for you.

Bouquets to Art

I've posted some photos from this year's Bouquets to Art over at www.rightreading.com. This year it was at the de Young again, instead of the Legion.

Assays

I've finally got around to putting several things up on the web that I've been intended to post. What's new is listed here.

Herd on the Street

Check out this new feature at my companion site, www.rightreading.com.

Bush changes a light bulb

This picture purports to show GWB "pitching in" to change a light fixture in New Orleans.

Me: How many presidents does it take to change a light bulb?

Carol: Forget the light bulb, just change the president.

Still a ways to go, however

Okay, I'm going to shut up about Google now. But first, I want to say that using the "site:" search command I find that Google has information about 126 pages from the site that I turned off more than six months ago, but only 22 pages from the new site with the same (or better) content. (Plus, the old site had 580 links or mentions.) Okay, nothing more about Google. (Unless I change my mind.)

Free at last!

Well, I'm back in Google's index, after only a couple weeks of e-mails.

I will give them that they did take care of it finally (good thing I don't live in China). But it's a little scary when a single entity has so much power to conceal or make visible parts of the web. That's one reason why it's a good idea to check out other search engines from time to time. I have some info about this here.

Gagged by Google!

For some reason Google has decided my website www.rightreading.com) is some sort of scam or spam or something. It's ironic because I have services and stuff I could sell but I've purposely kept the website completely noncommerical.

I noticed that Google wasn't indexing it. (Determined by putting the url in Google's search box.) All other search engines that I've tested do index me. By being persistent, I finally got this response from Google:

"Your page has been blocked from our index because it does not meet the quality standards necessary to assign accurate PageRank. We cannot comment on the individual reasons your page was removed. However, certain actions such as cloaking, writing text in such a way that it can be seen by search engines but not by users, or setting up pages/links with the sole purpose of fooling search engines may result in permanent removal from our index."

But I haven't done any of those things! What can I do?

The Hypothetical President

On Tuesday Mr. Bush announced that the U.S. is "addicted to oil." And he should know -- he's the pusher. After all, what can you expect when you put oil men in the executive office? But that's not the story. That speech made front pages everywhere -- but did this?

"One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent, his energy secretary and national economic advisor said Wednesday the president didn't mean it literally." (Knight Ridder)

See, when he said cut imports he didn't mean, you know, cut imports. He meant, um, something else. It was like a general sort of, er, example.

Hey, how's a guy to govern if people take what he says as if he means it?

It's hard. It's hard work.

How many megapixels do I need?

The answer is here.

Right Reading RSS feed is now live

Please add my RSS to your feeds by going here.

(The source of the feed is http://www.rightreading.com/feed.xml. The above link can automate adding the feed through bloglines, and it provides some information about RSS for those who need it.)

The Right Reading feed is more complete and current than the Atom feed that is offered here at this blogger account.

BluPlusPlus and JAlbum

Got the BPP skin to JAlbum looking more or less the way I like. Made a photo album (really a partial one as I plan to add more slides to it) and posted it here.

Tom Conquers the Netherlands

Dear Mr Christensen,

We would like you to collaborate on a publication in a new architecture magazine called Mark--Another Architecture. The idea is to make an international quarterly with a difference. Architecture mags tend to be serious, factual, descriptive and, if you like, boring. So we are trying to make a magazine that's lively and personal, offering another angle on the usual architectural news.

For a feature on the new De Young Museum, which is, as we're told, an amazing accomplishment of Swiss architects Herzog & De Meuron, would you be interested in telling about your relationship with SF, Golden Gate Park, and the De Young, and having your photographs published in our magazine?

Please let us know what you think!

Best regards,

Robert Thiemann
Editor in Chief
Mark Magazine, Amsterdam

Tom Conquers Russia

Dear Mr. Christensen,

I am applying on behalf of the Kolonna Publications, a Moscow-based publishing house. We are planning to publish Hieroglyphic Tales this Fall; it would be the first Russian translation of the book. We are asking for your permission to use your wonderful preface in a slightly abridged version for our edition.

Kindest regards,
Dmitry Volchek,
Editor, Kolonna Publications

Grrrrr

Over at stutteringhand.com my credit card expired. So what did my host do? They deleted my site! Which is pretty huge (I need to edit it, but not that drastically.) I had most of it backed up, but still ... If you happen to be over there and notice anything missing or otherwise amiss, please let me know.

Thanks,

Sharper than a hound’s tooth

That describes prosecutors in Bentonville. Arkansas, who subpoened Murphy Smith to testify in the murder trial of Albert K. Smith, after Albert wrote Murphy a letter from prison. When Murphy appeared as called, a deputy refused to let the shih tzu into the court, citing a “no dogs” policy. Prosecutor Robin Green said “The dog was friendly enough and probably would have been a very cooperative witness.”

Today's Culture Heroes: Gael Garcia Bernal and Jorge Drexler

These guys desserve credit for standing up to the marketing machine that is the Academy Awards. If you saw that show you saw Drexler's pained look as Carlos Santana and Antonio Banderas butchered his song from Motorcycle Diaries, "Al Otro Lado del Rio." Santana is Mexican-American and Banderas is Spanish, and neither is at all appropriate to perform the Uruguayan musician's song. When the Academy decided that Drexler wasn't a big enough name (and I guess Beyonce's Spanish must be even worse than her French), Gael Garcia Bernal refused to introduce the song in protest (the always obliging Salma Hayek filled in). When Drexel accepted the award he sang the song -- his version bore scant resemblance whatever it was that Santana and Banderas performed -- and accepted with dignity. Bravo, señores!

Photos below.

Jorge Drexler CD cover

Gael Garcia Bernal (foreground) and Rodrigo de la Serna in Motorcycle Diaries