I saw this recipe awhile ago on NPR's website. I've cooked it twice and it's tasted pretty good. I've altered the recipe a bit, though. I used lemon juice from a bottle, used frozen spinach, used garlic powder instead of minced garlic and omitted the ginger -- ginger is expensive.
I heard this piece on Marketplace the other day on downloading music illegally in France. While I think it's important that artists' rights are protected, I'm not entirely sure that I agree with the method that France is using. Summarily disconnecting someone from the Internet, without a court order, strikes me as a little bit draconian. The idea of monitoring someone's Internet use without a court order also strikes me as a little bit creepy. Comments?
I got a brochure from Bank of America about their pricing changes, and I learned that if you want to transfer an IRA to another financial institution, they will charge you $50 (!) to do so. They shouldn't hold someone's retirement savings for ransom. Here's a link (to a PDF) for it. You should probably transfer the funds out of a Bank of America IRA before 5 June, when the pricing changes go into effect.
Last Saturday, I hiked forty-one miles across Maryland in the Hike Across Maryland. We started at 5:20 a.m., when a school bus disgorged us at the start of the trail. After a rock scramble at 6:30 a.m., I was at the second checkpoint (and had hiked 5 miles) by 6:57 a.m. According to the statistics, of the people that finished this hike, I placed in the first quarter. I was hoping to finish faster than I did (11 hours and 49 minutes), but I'm still pleased.
I've posted pictures to Flickr. It's definitely an experience I won't forget.
Although it is after March Madness, I wanted to post about this story on NPR the other day about how aggressively the NCAA and its attorneys pursue trademark infringement relating to March Madness. Unfortunately, it looks like you'll have to listen to the audio to get the whole thing. From my conversations with someone who knows a lot more about trademark law than I do, I can understand why they are so aggressive about it.
I was talking to a friend who was near a tornado, and when I advised him to get underneath an overpass, he told me that the radio had told him not to. He was right, although the misperception is pretty widespread. This website from NOAA has a lot of information on why an overpass is not the place to be in a tornado.
One of the designers of Firefox did an interesting post on just how well-designed software should interact with the user. It's interesting to see how things that I really don't give much thought to in Firefox or Internet Explorer have quite a bit of thought put into them. It helps explain why Clippy was not the success that Microsoft wanted him (it?) to be. The discussion of their prototype for a new tab page is neat. It's pretty neat to see how far Internet browsers have come in the last few years.
Yesterday I went to the National Gallery of Art's free concert series to see a performance by Harmonious Blacksmith, who played renaissance and baroque music. They were quite good. Afterwards, I discovered that they had free mp3s on their website.
I made black bean soup following this recipe from the Times, and it came out quite well (even though I omitted the salt). Cilantro was the only ingredient I was not familiar with, and it was found alongside the parsley and lettuce in the vegetable section. It was $.99 for a bunch, so relatively inexpensive. Just be careful not to let the beans scorch, you have to stir it somewhat often.
There's a funny article in this month's ABA magazine about trial techniques, and how an attorney has won cases by using some unorthodox methods. There is not much legalese in it, so it should be funny even for a non-lawyer. Be forwarned, the article does contain profanity. Here is a link.
There was an interesting post on Boston 1775 (a blog I read) about a Virginia Supreme Court case that involved a copy of the Declaration of Independence that was stored in the attic of a house in Maine. It looks like Maine's attorney, by not preserving issues for appeal, lost out on arguing a number of things before the Virginia Supreme Court.
There was an interesting article in the Times today about a Manhattan assistant district attorney who intentionally lost a case where he did not believe in the conviction. According to the Times article, the responsible court agency (which I presume is the First Department Disciplinary Committee) chose not to purse a case against Mr. Bibb. The case raised the question of what zealous representation means when one is a district attorney.
A country music singer, John Rich, who, according to Wikipedia, used to play in the country music band Lonestar, has come up with a song about the current economic situation. While I don't think it's ever going to gain the same historical traction as some of Woody Guthrie's songs, I do think the song is pretty good. His website has a streaming version of it.
Another country music song that discusses economics is Cafe Down on the Corner by Sawyer Brown. That's much older.
By calling one toll-free number:
800–829–1040, you can get answers to your tax questions, order free publications and order transcripts of information you entered on previous tax returns. All of these services are free.
With regard to publications, may I suggest Publication 17, both for its utility in answering tax questions and helping you fall asleep.
The automated system for getting transcripts will ask you for your address, so I'm not sure how it will react if you want things sent to a new address because you've moved. In any case, though, the phone system is quite efficient, and you can order multiple transcripts with one phone call.
See:
http://www.irs.gov/faqs/faq/0,,id=199557,00.html
Google has set up a status page for its applications (like Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Talk, etc.)
See:
http://www.google.com/appsstatus
They really ought to have had such a status page since the beginning of Gmail, but I suppose late is better than never.
Yesterday and tonight I poached salmon fillets for dinner. To make this, I did the following:
1. Took a frying pan and put a little bit of water into the bottom of it.
2. Brought this water to a boil.
3. Put the salmon in the water and covered it with a lid.
4. Waited until the salmon was done (flaked easily with a fork and was light pink).
I also made a side dish of pasta (small pasta works better, like orzo if you have it or elbow macaroni), and served it with lemon juice, which you can pour right over the fish and the pasta.
You could also, I suppose, use rice instead of pasta, although then I suppose the lemon juice wouldn't work so well.
It was quite easy to do and did not take long at all.
Last Thursday night a friend and I went to see Sons of Bill (music samples are on MySpace and Facebook). They were quite good, and both of us thought that they were better than the main act, Reckless Kelly. I'll definitely keep my eye open for them to see if they are in Metro DC again.
There's been an interesting discussion in both the mainstream media and Facebook's blog (there have been two entries) about Facebook and copyright law. My three cents is that the only thing that Facebook needs a perpetual license to is an email that I send to a friend via Facebook. I think it's weird that they'd even need this, given the fact that one normally doesn't think of email as copyrighteable. If I send an email on Gmail to my friend on Yahoo!, am I really granting Gmail a license to copy my email and send it to my friend? Ordinarily, I wouldn't have the need to claim copyright on an email I sent. Even if I was sending my friend a manuscript for a book I was writing, could I then sue Gmail for copyright infringement? I don't think I'd have a cause of action.
Anything else that I post on Facebook, like a wall post or photo, can be deleted. Therefore, any license I give Facebook for posting something like that should be revocable at my will.
I wonder whether someone who sued Facebook for copyright infringement for redistributing his or her pictures would even have a cause of action (so long as Facebook posted them in compliance with his or her privacy settings). I guess Facebook is covering itself, but are they going over the top?
Flickr's terms of service are pretty clear. Once I remove my content from Flickr (which is owned by Yahoo!), Yahoo!'s license to display and/or distribute this information is instantly revoked. Sometimes, as when I submit content to a Flickr-sponsored group, the license, by its terms (you'll need a Yahoo!/Flickr account to see these terms), expires at a certain time.
Google's answer to Flickr (Picasa Web), on the other hand, has much broader (and less favorable) terms for me as an end-user. If I upload a photo to Picasa Web, under the terms of service (Section 11.1), I give Google what essentially amounts to an irrevocable royalty-free license to display my information. As a result, I don't use Picasa much.
It's interesting to see what at tangled web is woven with all these license agreements. It also shows the importance of reading license agreements.
Go to this website for free coffee. There's no strings attached.
Update: They're out.
