just in case

you were wondering where the recent posts are:

http://www.roblef.com

Both for this and my roBlog blogspot blogs.

Download of the Day: YamiPod

Download of the Day: YamiPod: "

Freeware program YamiPod is a standalone app that you can run off your iPod that lets you manage your iPod's music without iTunes.

If you remember my self-sustaining iPod feature, YamiPod looks like an updated, more feature-rich version of vPod that is supposed to run under Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. With YamiPod you can copy music to and from your iPod, play your music off your iPod on your computer, and even manage podcasts and news RSS.

If you've ever wanted to manage your iPod from any computer without the need for iTunes, YamiPod looks like an awesome solution.

YamiPod

'
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Related: How to replace your iPod mini battery

"

(Via Lifehacker.)

Predecessors of anti-game hysteria: anti-novel, anti-waltz, anti-phone!

See current rants on television, videogames, and the like.

Predecessors of anti-game hysteria: anti-novel, anti-waltz, anti-phone!: "Cory Doctorow:
Attacking games as corrupters of youth is nothing new -- historically, self-declared protectors of innocence have damned novels, the waltz, movies, telephones, comics, and rock and roll as one-way tickets to delinquency. Tom Standage catalogs the hystericaal media responses to historical new art-forms from the novel onwards:

Novels

'The free access which many young people have to romances, novels, and plays has poisoned the mind and corrupted the morals of many a promising youth; and prevented others from improving their minds in useful knowledge. Parents take care to feed their children with wholesome diet; and yet how unconcerned about the provision for the mind, whether they are furnished with salutary food, or with trash, chaff, or poison?'

- Reverend Enos Hitchcock, Memoirs of the Bloomsgrove Family, 1790

The Waltz

'The indecent foreign dance called the Waltz was introduced ... at the English Court on Friday last ... It is quite sufficient to cast one's eyes on the voluptuous inter¬twining of the limbs, and close com¬pressure of the bodies ... to see that it is far indeed removed from the modest reserve which has hitherto been considered distinctive of English females. So long as this obscene display was con¬fined to prostitutes and adulteresses, we did not think it deserving of notice; but now that it is ... forced on the respectable classes of society by the evil example of their superiors, we feel it a duty to warn every parent against exposing his daughter to so fatal a contagion.'

- The Times of London, 1816

Link

"

(Via Boing Boing.)

frosty treats and food for thought. i like it.

The Tactical Ice Cream Unit coming to Los Angeles: "

The Tactical Ice Cream Unit (TICU) rolls through the city in an act of intervention that replaces cold stares with frosty treats and nourishing knowledge. Combining a number of successful activist strategies (Food-Not-Bombs, Copwatch, Indymedia, infoshops, etc) into one mega-mobile, the TICU is the Voltron-like alter-ego of the cops' mobile command center. Although the TICU appears to be a mild-mannered vending vehicle, it harbors a host of high-tech surveillance devices including a 12-camera video surveillance system, acoustic amplifiers, GPS, satellite internet, a media transmission studio capable of disseminating live audio/video, and of course, ice cream. With every free ice cream handed out, the sweet-toothed citizenry also receives printed information developed by local progressive groups. Thus, the TICU serves as a mobile nexus for community activities while providing frosty treats and food-for-thought.

(Via Boing Boing.)

religion and fascism in Serbia

Jasmina Tesanovic: Preachers and Fascists, Out of My Panties: "Xeni Jardin:

Jamina Tesanovic

Belgrade, April 24, 2006

Preachers and Fascists, Out of My Panties

(Italian feminist slogan, Milano rally, January 2006)

Easter is not a religious feast anymore. This is
Serbian Jihad, said a young man, a hip icon in the
young generation of writers and musicians.

Only a few days ago, a new law on the church was
passed
in the Parliament, notwithstanding its outrageous
piety and lack of public debate. In this country, or
what's left of it, where no law on church existed
since 1945, this law spins the wheel of history
past that year to centuries before. The Serbian
church becomes a state within the state, a privileged
entity out of reach of civil law.

Even honest priests and believers are scandalized by
such
fundamentalism. As somebody said: why do we need such
a church law at all? It's enough to have an amendment
in the
constitution guaranteeing freedom of all religions.
Like in the US -- but the problem is that we don’t
even have
a constitution yet.

(Via Boing Boing.)

The Resurrection of Al Gore

Wired 14.05: The Ressurection (sic) of Al Gore: "Al Gore? Five and a half years after leaving the political stage, only the fourth man in US history to win the popular vote for president without being inaugurated, Gore has deftly remade himself from an object of pity into a fearless environmental crusader. The new Gore is bent on fixing what he calls the 'climate crisis' through a combination of public awareness, federal action, and good old-fashioned capitalism. He's traveling the globe, delivering a slide show that, by his own estimate, he's given more than a thousand times over the years. His one-man campaign is chronicled in a new documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, which made Gore the unlikely darling of the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year and will be released on May 26 by Paramount Classics. He has also written a forthcoming companion volume of the same name, his first book on the subject since the 1992 campaign tome Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit."

(Via Wired News.)

PandoraFM

Take two of my fav ways of hearing music on the 'net, Pandora and LastFM, and mash em up together. You get:

PandoraFM: ""

(Via Warren Ellis.)

Techdirt: Shocker -- Kids Get Around Web Filters

I've been saying this for years, in one way or another. Locking shit down does NOT make it safer, nor does it keep kids out of things. They're SMARTER than we give them credit for. Try and remember back to when you were one of them, you loser.

Techdirt: Shocker -- Kids Get Around Web Filters: "Shocker -- Kids Get Around Web Filters

Following last week's Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday, apparently today is Obvious Wednesday. First, the news that gee, internet users really do use the internet, and now News.com has an article with the breaking news that kids can figure out how to circumvent web filters their schools use to try to keep them from accessing undesirable sites. The only surprise here is that the reporter seems surprised. What's next? Kids sneaking into R-rated movies? Hiding Playboys under the bed? It's been proven time and time again that filters don't work -- so, again, why not use the time and resources spent on these filters and tracking kids' ways around them on teaching critical thinking and good judgment instead?"

now that's useful

Mixture of white and brown rice goes down easier: "

My kids routinely balk at brown rice, no matter how much I tout its whole-grain goodness. Refined white rice meets with total approval, of course. My compromise: a half-and-half mixture of cooked white and brown rice is white enough to get past their radar.

I cook a large pot of brown rice and let it cool. I freeze 1/2 cup portions in freezer bags. After I cook white rice, I add the frozen brown rice on top. The accumulated steam defrosts the brown rice in about five minutes. Toss with a little butter, and serve.

(Via Parent Hacks.)

Don Cheadle's new Uganda doc Journey into Sunset

This is important stuff. GO see Hotel Rwanda. Let's figure out how we can help. Looks like Mr. Cheadle is already doing that.

Don Cheadle's new Uganda doc Journey into Sunset: "Xeni Jardin:

Last May, actor Don Cheadle and his family traveled to Kampala, Uganda for a fundraiser screening of Hotel Rwanda to benefit the 'night commuters' of Northern Uganda. These are the children who have to flee their homes every night and hide in urban camps to avoid being forced to fight in the rebel Lords Resistance Army.

Filmmaker and longtime ABC News producer Rick Wilkinson traveled with the Cheadle family, and documented what they found in a 24-minute short called 'Journey Into Sunset.' The film profiles the lives of some of these children, some of whom did not manage to avoid being kidnapped:

They lived or died at the will and whim of their captors. They were forced to fight. And some commited horrible atrocities. We meet some of the kids managed to escape the clutches of the LRA. They're free now, but the scars on their souls will never heal.

I first heard about the film when I met Rick a few weeks ago in Los Angeles, at the home of a mutual friend. I haven't seen it yet, but it sounds and looks incredible, from what's on the website.

Rick now shares word with BoingBoing that the film will'premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in NYC on April 26, where both he and producer John Prendergast will present for a Q&A. Journey will also be screening at the Boston Film Festival, the Atlanta Film Festival, and (probably) the'Maui Film Festival, all of which take place in June.

I can't wait to see this film. Link to website, and here are screening details for the Tribeca premiere on (April 26, with a few more NYC screenings over the week that follows.

Image above:'Cheadle with 'night commuter' children at a camp called 'Noah's Ark,' photo by Rick Wilkinson.'(Thanks, Scott Shulman and Rick Wilkinson!)

"

(Via Boing Boing.)

mac geekery with css and mail.app

Custom CSS Signatures in Mail (UPDATED) » All Forces: "Custom CSS Signatures in Mail (UPDATED)
The default interface for Mail signatures allows you to do rich text signatures using the fonts and colors palette. You can even drag an image into the compose signature window and it will be included in every email as an attachment. This is fine for most people, but attachments should be just that, an attachment of a file I am sending, not an image in my signature. So here’s an easy guide on how to do CSS signatures referencing images on an outside server and not as an attachment.

This tutorial covers Apple Mail in Mac OS X Tiger v.10.4

STEP 1: Create a new Mail signature



Launch Mail, located in the Applications folder. From Mail’s top menu, select ‘ Mail > Preferences ‘ and go to the Signature pane. From the Signatures pane, click the plus icon underneath the middle column to create"

cigar box guitar

Straight outta boingboing

Out of Milk and Butter Blues played on cigar box guitar: "Mark Frauenfelder:


My old high school friend (who wishes to be called Blind Lightnin' Pete), built the electric cigar box guitar in Make 04. He also built a tiny batter- powered amplifier inside a cracker box for $5. (He mailed one to me, and it's beautiful).

Blind Lightnin' Pete is writing an article for Make on how to make one of these amps.

Here is a video of BLP playing 'Out of Milk and Butter Blues' on his cigar box guitar and cracker box amp.
Link

"

(Via Boing Boing.)