flok dekoke world

Flok Dekoke World- in memoriam

2005-11-06T19:39:00.000-08:00

It is hard to find the right words for this entry into flok dekoke world. On April 17th, 2005, just a few weeks after his last entry, flok dekoke passed away unexpectedly while undergoing plastic surgery.

Flok was an extremely shy figment of his imagination and it was painful for him to write his blog. In the final months of his life he would spend frustrating hours every night working on his blog entries and immersing himself in the world of open source software. He also felt off balance with the idea of leaving his beloved California to move east. Through it all his lab work suffered for it and his travel journal, the one in ink and paper with letters for his children, was abandoned during the brief months he kept this blog.

Flok will be remembered here for his good intentions and little else. His friends at the lab will remember him for his willingness to take chances by trying out treatments on himself, for the way he questioned everything, and his ability to piss off his bosses.

So flok leaves his little world while in his sleep. Actually under anesthesia, which is a better way to check out than most of us will get in our final hours. It seems the tubes supplying oxygen and CO2 in the operating room were inverted on the day he was finally getting his ample nose reduced to a human scale.

Funny that he would go while getting a nose job, the flok never struck me as a vain person but then again he did have this blog didn't he?

Please don't shop at Walmart

2005-03-18T18:19:00.000-08:00

Big government announcements yesterday as Walmart settled a lawsuit for hiring illegal aliens. They agreed to pay $11 million to settle the case, apparently the highest fine ever for such a case but barely a fraction of the $285.2 billion in sales that Walmart rang up last year according to CBS Marketwatch.

A quick Google search comes up with a surprising number of lawsuit settlements in recent months in cases raging from federal child labor violations to submitting false prescription drug claims.. In the Child labor case they were fined a paltry $135,540 and in the fraud case they paid $2.8 million. Walmart denies any wrongdoing in all three cases.

Am I wrong to think these fines are far too small for a company with annual sales over $285 Billion dollars? Over the years Walmart has shipped untold numbers of jobs to China, torn down hard earned workers benefits, banned employees from joining unions, destroyed thousands of small family retail businesses, screwed their suppliers, and the list goes on and on...

Tom Fuentes is a democrat!

2005-03-14T22:41:00.000-08:00

Señor Tomás Fuentes remains in the news after inserting a foot in his mouth last week by leading a crusade to cancel a study abroad program in Spain for students attending South Orange County Community Colleges. His reasoning is that Spain turned its back on the US by withdrawing from the Iraq war last year, that Spain is a dangerous place, and because the study abroad program is elitist.

Dana Parsons in the LA Times has an interesting update with reactions from one parent who got a response from Señor Fuentes.

A quick glance at the statistics on NationMaster.com shows us Spain has far fewer asaults, murders, rapes, and crime than we do here at home. Furthermore, they have less traffic fatalities and their life expectancy is higher than ours in the US. The fact is the kids would have an experience of a lifetime if they went to Spain and are likelier to run into harm's way if they stay here!

Señor Fuentes, former chairman of the Orange County Republican party, tells us the program is elitist because only students who can afford it can go. What a noble thought for a republican. Not just any republican, but as the SOCCCD website informs us, a democratic minded Knight of Malta and Knight of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem. The same website also points out he is a sixth generation Californian so we don't confuse him with some other lesser ranked species.

Did you know the Knights of the Holy Sepulcher are the only people allowed to ride into a church on a horse? Isn't that a bit elitist? That's worthy of another post.

Poisoned Apple and angry spammers

2005-03-11T23:09:00.000-08:00

Apple has won the right to subpoena the editors of the three websites it sued in its terror campaign against employees who divulge new product information before the big shows. The judge cites a 1982 appellate court case and basically makes the point that no one has "a free pass", not even journalists, to protect the identities of their sources when a crime has been committed.

Todays Mercury News has an open letter from to Steve Jobs asking him to lighten up with the lawsuits and preserve the good underdog image the company has built over the years. A pont we made here a few days ago.

Well, it is too late for that, they have pissed off the blogs and the press. I predict that in the future, reviews of new Apple products will not be as kind or lenient as they have been in recent years. We will be reminded their computers are slow, compatible software is overpriced, other brand music players do the same for less, etc. Worse yet, Apple users will probably be subjected to more viruses and crap as people decide to punish the company. It is the relative lack of security problems which attracted flok dekoke and many others to Apple in the first place.

On another topic, we noted in a prevous post the effort to link sites for Online Poker to the Wikipedia definition of the term. The idea being to get top billing on Google to spite the spammers. Soon after the effort was announced, the Wikipedia listing climbed to 5th place on Google and yesterday it was in third place. Today I notice it is not even on the top ten. Have the spammers noticed?

Señor Frog declares War on Spain

2005-03-07T21:27:00.000-08:00

Rarely has flok dekoke world come across such a juicy bit of news in the media. Orange County is a wealthy enclave located south of Los Angeles in our beloved California Republic. You may remember them from the early 90's when they gambled away over $2 billion dollars of county funds in some cockamamy derivatives scheme.

Well, they are in the news again and this time it is bizarre even by California standards. The OC Weekly reports that Orange County's Saddleback Community College is canceling their study abroad summer program in Santander, Spain. Lucky Saddleback students have been going there for the past 15 years and they had no reason to believe this was to change this summer. That is until they ran into Señor Tomás Fuentes, former chairman of the Orange County Republican Party from 1984 until last year. Señor Fuentes is not only a notorious local caudillo, he is also a trustee for the South Orange County Community College District.

In Mr. Fuentes' own enlightened words, "Many of our students in this college, and of its sister college Saddleback and Irvine, past and future today, fight on the battlefield of Iraq under the flag that is behind us. Spain has abandoned our fighting men and women, withdrawing their support. I see no reason to send the students of our colleges to Spain at this moment in history." He adds that these programs are elitist and that Spain is a dangerous place for the students.

Fear not, OC Weekly reports the students are left with a bounty of choices for study abroad programs this summer: Cambodia, China, New Zealand and Vietnam. Clearly all staunch supporters of the war in Iraq and distinguished members of the "coalition of the willing". We could go on and on with jokes about this but we'll let the news speak for itself this time.

By the way, note the timing of the announcement, this news is hitting the papers just two days before the first anniversary of the March 11 train bombings in Madrid. Nice touch Señor Frog. And yes, Spain pulled it's troops out of Iraq after the conservatives lost power, but they were in Iraq and Afghanistan from the start and they too have lost sons in both conflicts.

Update: While checking the Irvine Valley College website I notice they only list one study abroad program now: China. I wonder if Vietnam, Cambodia and New Zealand are victims of Señor Frog too? Let's hope he puts his foot further in his mouth in tomorrow's papers!

Unsweetened Apple Sauce

2005-03-06T15:58:00.000-08:00

As predicted, Apple is getting pounded in the press (and the blogosphere) for their lawsuits against three websites. At last count there were 173 related news articles today on Google News. Here is a small sampler:

Martin Stabe
Dan Gillmor
New York Times
eweek
San Francisco Chronicle
Kansas City Star

There is nothing wrong with Apple trying to protect its trade secrets. It is the way they are going about it that is questionable. They should deal with employee confidentiality issues internally. Instead, Apple will kill the messenger in an effort scare their employees from further revealing confidential product information. Apple's corporate attorneys know it is easy to intimidate young inexperienced website owners with expensive lawsuits. But they may have miscalculated the price themselves.

Things have gotten out of hand for Apple with the judge declaring that the websites in question are not "legitimate press". The thing is that limiting legal protection to "legitimate" journalists is an old way of controlling the press. It is a common practice in nasty one-party states.

Countries can set up registries and accreditation schemes for the press, which come in handy when pesky journalists start prying too deep into corporate or government matters. Journalists may loose their accreditation/liscense and investigations into corruption and other unsavoury affairs are suddenly shut down. The consequences of this go far beyond anything Apple could ever possibly want to protect and their good image will suffer for it. Even if they win their case.

Even Steve Wozniak, one of Apple's founders, is unhappy that Apple is going down this path and is actually donating money to help the cause of one defendant in Canada.

This Apple has a worm in it (II)

2005-03-04T14:43:00.000-08:00

An update on a previous post regarding Apple's bullying tactics against websites that speculate on upcoming products and their sources of information.

The Mercury News reports in Apple 1, bloggers 0 that Apple will likely get away with their suit against websites like Think Secret that discuss upcoming products among other Apple related things. It appears the sites have no protection on revealing their sources of information because they are not "legitimate press". Forbes Online sums it up nicely today in Is Apple the New MicroSoft?. Being likened to the dark side has to hurt, ouch!

It is truly remarkable to see how Apple, which is riding the crest of the popularity wave with its iPods and itunes, is hellbent on tarnishing its public image over a relatively minor internal issue. You could argue that insider information, especially if erroneous, can hurt the company. But frankly, when I read Think Secret, I know they are speculating on new and exciting products at Apple. The fact that the products turn out differently is not a shock to anyone and the buzz created by these websites actually benefits Apple.

In the days leading to the San Francisco Mac Expo in January, I read the Think Secret site every single day eagerly hoping to learn the smallest tidbit on any of the exciting new products that might be announced at the show. No advertising campaign could ever give Apple that level of attention and hype. This is good for them but they don't understand it. This blog thingy is scary for the control freaks among us.

My unsolicited two cents for Mr. Jobs is to loosen your belt one notch, take a deep breath, and work with the sites to spin the information to your advantage. Deal with the insider information internally and focus on creativity which is why we like you in the first place. It will save you much bad "illegitimate" press like this in the coming weeks. See the Guardian's Online Blog for more on this.

An Anti-Spam Experiment

2005-03-03T20:55:00.000-08:00

Before my three readers begin scratching their heads upon seeing my new link to Online Poker, please note I don't have the slightest interest in poker or gambling. This is about combating spam.

If you click on the link, you will be taken to Wikipedia's definition of online poker. The point here is to thwart spammers so the top ranking on Google searches for online poker lead to the Wikipedia instead of a site promoting spam. Spammers crave the top rank on any search and if enough people link to the Wikipedia they will never get there.

As Frenchfragtory puts it: "Each time a search engine bot (for example, Googlebot, the "machine" that crawls the internet and logs pages and links) indexes a page where there are links to some site, these sites are granted more "page ranking". More site linking to your web means greater page rank, and therefore better position in search engine results. Basically, what spammers are trying to achieve is being result #1 returned by a Google query."

A noble experiment is worth the effort.

Subject A is my Hero

2005-03-02T21:12:00.000-08:00

It has been brought to my attention that flok dekoke world has neglected posting anything recently on subject A and her many adventures. This is a shame because her life goes far beyond the borders of fdk world. So here it goes.

Subject A embarks on her first ever expedition to Mexico in two weeks. She travels with her 5th grade schoolmates and I'm green with envy. It will surely be an unforgettable experience for her. We hope she takes many pictures and that we can post one or two in flok dekoke world as we have done with our current photo (which she took during another expedition).

Subject A is the bravest little person in the world, or at least in her classroom. She is fearless when it comes to expeditions, camping out, and visits to the doctor. She even relishes visits to the orthodontist. She deals with pain. What else could one wish for but to live without fear when so many others want us to feel it?

Keep your hands out of that cookie jar!

2005-03-01T15:53:00.000-08:00

I know, I know, the last thing you want to read is another dopey blog on social security reform but I can't help asking one question. If the social security system is going to run out of steam in 2053, or whenever, why would diverting cash from it to personal accounts help things?!

Wouldn't it make more sense to leave it alone and just expand the 401K system so people can put a little more cash into that instead? Am I being too simple minded?

The answer, your stock broker might tell you, is NO because stock markets in other countries where pension systems have been privatized are booming as the mutual funds have to scramble to invest payroll taxes into the market every month. Presumably this is better for you, but this is how bubbles are built. It's a giant pyramid scheme where the brokers make a killing on commisions regardless of where the market ends up.

The system might last a little longer if our politicos kept their hands out of the cookie jar and stopped spending our current social security surplus on porkbarrel projects.

Overflowing hangover

2005-02-28T21:26:00.000-08:00

My Chicago hangover has overflowed into a bad cold/flu in a seemless fashion. Snot, headache, lowgrade fever etc. Went to visit the patrons at the orifice today and maybe two or three of them will share my virus. Must remember to take notes over the next two weeks to see how this thing spreads around the castle.

I'd like to download the new version of Ubuntu linux (Hoary Hedgehog) when it comes out. Subject M will stitch my gills for trying this but flok dekoke cannot resist tampering again with the old pc.

Hopefully fdk will be in better mood and spirits soon to try and get this hapless blog back on track.

Kingston Mines

2005-02-26T21:13:00.000-08:00

A most excellent evening was spent by fdk and Mr. Sumo listening to the blues live in Chicago's Kingston Mines. Mr. Sumo has been going there since 1991, when the neighbourhood was seedier and few tourists would venture there. One of best blues clubs on the face of the planet, the place is well worth a visit if you are fortunate enough to find yourself in Chicago. Only down side is the pricey cover ($15) and fairly pricey drinks but still worth the trip.

It will have to be a short entry today as flok dekoke's liver, lungs and brain are slowly recovering from the self inflicted punishment last night. Be sure to click on the Kingston Mines link to hear some blues and see the place.

The Keystone Cops at Choicepoint

2005-02-24T19:40:00.000-08:00

Flok dekoke will blow a gasket if we get a letter from Choicepoint in the coming days. Choicepoint is, in their own words, a "...leading provider of decision-making information that helps reduce fraud and mitigate risk." For those of you unfamiliar with this jewel of corporate America, Choicepoint handed over detailed information on 145,000 people including their social security numbers, addresses, telephone numbers etc. to criminal outsiders as they put it. I guess that truly makes them a leading provider of decision making information.

The jackasses at Choicepoint, and this is the kindest term one can use, have put out a statement on their website regarding the incident (http://www.choicepoint.com/news/statement_0205_1.html). They start off saying they are bending over backwards to help those affected by offering one year of free credit checking and a customer service telephone line. To understand how pathetic and disgraceful this offer is, you need to know that anyone can get a free credit check from any of the three credit rating agencies in the US each year. You can also buy one for less than $15 in most cases. What they don't tell you is the amount of work and vigilance that every person on that list will have to go through over the next several YEARS to make sure their good name is not being used by someone else wanting to go on a shopping spree.

The next paragraph goes on to say Choicepoint were not the victims of hackers, no one compromised their system. Presumably this means their services are intact and corporate clients need not take their business elsewhere. Phew, we were very concerned about this.

But this is not the first time Choicepoint is in the news. Two or three years ago, Choicepoint made the headlines in several countries by unethically obtaining identity records of almost every citizen in ten Latin American countries. This information was obtained without the authorization of anyone on the database and, as I recall reading, some juicy commisions may have been paid to government officials to get the information. See (http://www.cpa.org.au/garchve03/1138data.html) for more on that. The databases were then sold off to various US government agencies.

Every single keystone cop/officer at Checkpoint ought to be filing unemployment forms by now. Heck, they deserve the mother of all class action lawsuits! At the very least their own names and files should be added to those they so generously sold out.

Free Arash and Mojtaba

2005-02-22T23:37:00.000-08:00

Flok dekoke was going to post a rant on the vulgarity of Carly Fiorina's $21 million severance pay after her mediocre performance at HP. Before I got to that, however, I was reminded by the Woolamaloo Gazzette that today is the international blogger's day of action. Ms. Fiorina and her fancypants Stanford MBA degree will just have to wait their turn.

The Committee to Protect Bloggers has launched their first campaign to free two fellow bloggers imprisoned in Iran. Their stories are described on CPB's site. The idea is that people focus their blogs today on this particular campaign so here is fdk's drop in the blogospheric ocean.

Freedom of speech is an important cause in flok dekoke world and we have posted several rants on the topic previously. Mostly stuff concerning individual bloggers who get trampled by nasty corporate types. But the CPB reminds us that in other parts of the world, in this case Iran, people are rotting in prison for expressing an opinion. This is clearly wrong even if the opinions are distasteful. It is also yet another reminder for us in our cushy little homeland of how bad things can get when narrow minded dunces take over.

Not even Ms. Fiorina deserves to be treated that way.

The French Connection

2005-02-20T11:04:00.000-08:00

Flok dekoke world is back! I flew back from Paris yesterday afternoon after a solid good week in France. We conducted three experiments and they were successful! The first case in Rennes went well and monsieur B requested a second case for the next day. This was providential as the case scheduled originally in Paris for the next day was cancelled at the last minute. All three human subjects are doing OK and fdk set the stage for more cases at three other labs.

The trip over was a last minute mad rush. Everything, the airline and train tickets, the hotel reservations, the devices, the coordinates, everything was only ready on Saturday morning and I barely made it to airport. I flew over on Virgin Atlantic via London Heathrow. It was the best deal fdk could get to Paris (US$680).

Flok dekoke wonders if the lady at the Virgin check in counter is an fdk world fan. The flight was completely full except for one row of three seats which was assigned to none other than yours truly. This meant fdk could lie his carcass in a horizontal position much like the heavy breathers in Upper Class.

There was, however, one dilemma, to sleep or to watch movies. Normally not an issue on United or American Airlines, but Virgin is deploying a new entertainment system on their flights with large color screens on every seat and with over 300 movies, and countless TV programs, games and documentaries to choose from. Designed to meet the needs of the most demanding couch potato, this system is highly recommended, very niiiice...

France was good to flok dekoke. My three readers may recall I had no budget and no expense account for this expedition. Despite this, I ate well and was invited to spend the last two days at monsieur Le Schof's cozy place right smack in the heart of the Marais district in Paris. No room for francophobes in fdk world.

Labor pains

2005-02-10T21:00:00.000-08:00

The airline tickets finally arrived today, less than 48 hours before departure. Still waiting for the TGV tickets for the three hour train ride from the airport to Rennes. It's going to be stressful if those tickets don't get here on time. Unrefundable and all that crap. Not to mention it is virtually impossible to get to Rennes on a Sunday evening without a reservation and changing trains three times!

All this after 15+ hours of flights via London. To spice things up, flok dekoke has to be in the operating room first thing Monday morning and the devices are not ready at this writing...

Time to head back to the lab for more punishment.

The coffee is killing me

2005-02-09T23:09:00.000-08:00

The espresso machine has been failing for several months. The gasket is hardened and leaks hot water into the cup when you use it. Krups, of course, is not interested in making it easy to get a replacement so the rootin tootin machine is just taking up valuable real estate in flok dekoke world's tiny kitchen counter. I bought a cheap stove top espresso maker on my last expedition to Madrid and subject M likes the taste but I feel nauseous after I drink the coffee. We only use 100% colombian in flok dekoke world and I don't think it's a brand thing. It's likely some chemical reaction thingy. Fdk is addicted to the smoothest coffee in the world and can feel his blood pressure gently rising with each gulp. Mood improves in minutes and then the nausea sets in for a while. Aneurism developing, not good...

I read that men that have smoked more than 100 cigarrettes in their life should get an ultrasound exam to see if they have an aortic aneurism. 100 cigarettes over 50 years is not a heck of a lot so practically every guy surviving beyond 60 is going to need an exam. The thing is, according to the article, when an aortic aneurism bursts, you can die within minutes. A real bummer if you can't make one last post on the old blog and say goodbye to everyone but maybe not a bad way to go compared to other diseases.

flok de koke should write a will, or maybe not. Let them fight over the scraps. Make that a triple espresso.

Bloated tripe and rejection letters

2005-02-08T22:29:00.000-08:00

Subject M returns tonight from her second interview out east. Not her top choice apparently. Not that we have many choices in any case. Now we wait, and we wait, until a skinny white envelope shows up in the mail or the telephone rings unexpectedly. The tears will follow if it's an envelope and the anxiety will rise to new heights if it's an offer. Of course, nobody has a clue whether to accept or not to accept. So we will agonize over this and there will likely be some heated discussions until a decision is made and flok dekoke world changes for ever.

In the mean time, flok dekoke returns to France on Saturday for our first human experiments over there. It will be nice to get out of my beloved california republic for a few days. No expense account on this trip so the tripe will be subjected to eurotrash food and prolonged periods of abstinence. The fungi will flourish again on my feet and every pitiful devalued dollar fdk spends will hurt like a like a kick in the shin. Fdk needs to hustle some money soon so we make do these trips with some class.

So you think you have problems?

2005-02-07T21:13:00.000-08:00

A quick search on Google News today turned up surprisingly little on Darfur and the horrific, ongoing genocidal conflict in Sudan. We have forgotten about Darfur. It was shoved off flok dekoke's radar screen with all the coverage about the tsunami disaster, the superbowl, George II's coronation, sponge bob's amoral inclinations, apple computers overhyped expo, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Iraq, Iran, Social Security reform, Michael Jackson, etc, etc.

Amid all the bland aspects of our little flok dekoke world, we have managed to move the victims of Sudan's conflicts out of sight and out of mind. We don't see it, we don't hear about it, so it's not there.

Want to donate some money for the refugees in Sudan and Chad? You can do it at the American Red Cross website but even they have managed to make it hard to find in their site so that you have to slog through several paragraphs to figure out the money has to go through their International Response Fund.

In all fairness, the Red Cross does an astonishing amount of good work. Their site reminds us of important needs like donating blood, vaccination campaigns, refugee support, hurricane and flood relief programs, tissue donation, and the list goes on and on. They even report they have fully met their fund raising needs for tsunami victims and suggest other ways of helping. It just seems they could make it a little easier on their webpage to help with Darfur and any other programs they us to support.

Flok dekoke suggests raising awareness on Sudan and other nasty ongoing wars in Africa. You can learn more about Darfur and other conflicts at Human Rights Watch.

A Sour Note and a Happy Ending at the Woolamaloo Gazzette

2005-02-04T23:54:00.000-08:00

Two quick things on the life and times of Joe Gordon, the guy who got fired from his job at a well known bookstore chain in the UK.

The first is a post on Plasticbag complaining about the whole affair, but missing the point on how corporations can intrude maliciously in our personal lives and why it is important to push back on this trend regardless of the details of this particular case.

The second, is that Mr. Gordon has landed a nice position in the book trade with Forbidden Planet, purveyors of science fiction and comic books among other things. So this adventure seems to end with fame and glory for him and a higher paying job doing what he likes.

As one astute observer posted in today's Woolamaloo Gazzette, "Well done on the new job. Don't twat it up like the last one."

There's a worm in that apple

2005-02-03T20:49:00.000-08:00

Several days have passed since flok dekoke world has read anything on Apple's lawsuit against Thinksecret. You may recall that Apple recently filed a lawsuit to "shutter the reporting efforts of a Web site that since 1998 has been the Internet's top source for news scoops about Apple and the Mac" as Thinksecret puts it.

The lawsuit was a bit surprising considering how positive and Apple friendly the Thinksecret site generally is. In the days before the Macworld expo a few weeks ago, Thinksecret was instrumental in building up the hype around Apple's new products as they speculated on what new toys would be unveiled at the show. Thinksecret is often cited in the press and has undeniably helped build the Apple mystique.

In flok dekoke's small mind, Apple is getting off too easy with this lawsuit. A few days before Apple announced the lawsuit, a bookchain in Scotland fired an employee for comments on his personal blog (The Wolamaloo Gazette). What followed in that case is an ongoing uproar around the world that the book chain will surely regret for many moons to come. See today's Guardian for more on that story.

Apple could use a little of this medicine too. They are often treated with kid gloves by the press because we see them as the underdog in a windows dominated world but methinks they have gone too far this time. As much as fdk likes apple computers, we own two, some heavy duty blogospheric slamming is in order unless you think it's OK for cocky corporations to trample over our right to free speech!

Warning: The FCC and FDA have determined the speech you are about to watch contains harmful...

2005-02-02T22:41:00.000-08:00

A good day at the lab with human specimens today. After a few hiccups cranking up the old steam generators we got going nicely with a borrowed diesel version. Unlike the old temperamental unit that would randomly stop working at the most inconvenient moments, usually with a human subject on the table, this new one seems to work too fast at times so that we actually found ourselves slowing things down to avoid charring the tissue. The foundation was pleased.

Subject M just returned from her travels East. Reports liking the setting and doing reasonably well in the interviews. Rejection, or an offer, to come by the end of February. Another interview is to follow next week at another site east. Flok dekoke is not ready for this.

Did any one follow fdk's advice to watch a free download movie from Cinequest instead of the state of the union address tonight? Give yourself extra pints and points if you did. I'll bet a lab session without anesthesia that the movie was gentler on the brain cells. Fdk was too busy to catch the speech and would be grateful if one of my three readers can update me. Did we declare war on any one new? Did we declare victory? Shouldn't the FCC and the FDA post a warning before these speeches to prevent bursted aneurisms and chest pains in anyone with more than an inch of forehead?

Cinequest and the state of the union address

2005-01-31T22:45:00.000-08:00

The San Jose Mercury News arts + entertainment section has an interesting article today about Cinequest, the San Jose film festival. That would be San Jose, California, not the film festival down in Costa Rica. The 15th edition takes place on March 2-13 and at $5-$9 for each screening, prices are reasonable by California standards.

What is especially nice about Cinequest is that they were the first festival to provide free DVD quality movie downloads from its website www.cinequestonline.org. Yep, its free, they still do it, and it is legal so go ahead and check it out right now boys and girls.

For extra credit flok dekoke suggests watching your free movie while the state of the union speech is happening tomorrow night.

Derailed already

2005-01-29T23:52:00.000-08:00

Yesterdays blog was dreadful, it was crap, fdk has hit a deep low and I should have known it when I typed the title before I wrote anything else. What a hopeless neophyte. Who cares about the weather around here!

To make matters worse, I screwed up my site counter while cleaning up some html code on the template. Not that fdk had much life to begin with but it was fun watching the numbers grow with each post.

Subject M travels east on Monday for a job interview. The thought of moving makes me nauseous. Starting over in another city yet again, this will be the 11th move in flok dekoke's sordid little life.

Thank goodness the options right now are all in blue states, fdk would go postal if we had to learn creationism side by side with evolution. No, no, no, noooo. Better divorced but sane in our beloved california republic than employed and surrounded by fundamentalists in some redhole state.

Moving means fdk may have to find something productive to do over there. No sense in stressing over this since Subject M has no offers at this point. We'll have to wait and see if the lab is still standing by the end of the summer. If so, in vivo human experiments may continue somewhere in the north east.

Rainbows and ants

2005-01-28T23:22:00.000-08:00

It has rained for the past two days in that odd Pacific coast way. Dark gray clouds move in quickly from the ocean, with sunny patches of winter light and double rainbows in between.

The ants make themselves at home with each storm and there is not much one can or ought to do about it other than trying to keep the place clean. Pesticides are verbotten in this house but a few years ago I tried vacuuming the ants and sealing the holes with tape and that did the trick for a couple of days. Duct tape is part of our decor. In his memories, Richard Feinman, the CalTech physicist, talks about patiently spending hours one afternoon placing mounds of sugar in different spots around his house to gently lead the ants outside.

Subject M prefers chemical warfare and regularly deploys 409 All Purpose Cleaner when the ants mass around a crumb. And if she leaves behind a few cadavers the other ants take their bodies away. Sometimes they heroically carry the little bodies up vertical walls and through dangerous crossings where they might get crushed. Where do these tiny funeral processions end?

Don't give up Joe!

2005-01-26T22:56:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking of Joe Gordon over the past couple of weeks. Joe Gordon, you might recall, is a blogger in Scotland who recently lost his job at a well known book chain because of some relatively mild comments he made on his blog the Woolamaloo Gazette. You can read all about it on his excellent blog at The Woolamaloo Gazette

His gazette, by the way, is one of flok dekokes favorite blogs and is one of the first I read every day. In any case, it turns out Mr. Gordon went to his appeal yesterday backed by the RBA, which is his trade union. I have no idea whether or not his appeal will prosper but I can imagine it must be a fairly stressful thing to go through. He ends today's entry hoping the company will be reasonable "since no-one wants to go down the route of an industrial tribunal".

I selfishly wonder if it might not be better for all of us if he takes the matter to the bitter end at the tribunal. I realize doing so may involve spending a pile of money on lawyers and a prolonged dispute which may affect his employment opportunities because of the publicity involved. But even if he looses, there is merit in defending freedom of speech and bloggers rights to rant. At the very least, the negative publicity ought to make corporations think twice before doocing an employee for a blog. Maybe next time your enlightened boss feels offended by your clever observations, she/he will have a quiet word with you rather than throwing your carcass out the door.

Please don't dooce me boss!

2005-01-25T20:03:00.000-08:00

Three interesting articles on blogging in today's San Francisco Chronicle, here's a link to one on the fun things that can happen when your coworkers discover your blog: SF Gate

So boys and girls, it looks like we're going to have to be extra careful with the comments on brain tissue experiments, the boss' bad breath and his fondness for that new intern among other saucy topics.

It is still OK to buy girl scout cookies for his daughter's troop.

A Good Time and Blown Gaskets

2005-01-22T16:02:00.000-08:00

The boat ride last night went better than expected as we sailed around the bay under glorious weather. The food was great and the glass of scotch on the deck after dinner with the cold wind blowing on the face as we headed towards the Golden Gate reminded us how lucky we are to be alive, well and here. Subjects A and E danced the night away and enjoyed themselves inmensely and that was the icing on the cake.

FDK is still avoiding the news, the pundits, the papers and anything related to the coronation. I still can't view the stuff without blowing a gasket so it's best to think of other things for now. I did find myself laughing out loud while reading a somewhat mean spirited blog on Condoleezza Rice on the January 19th entry in http://labile.canalblog.com/. I'm just not in a constructive mood yet.

Of Otters and Coronations

2005-01-20T20:29:00.000-08:00

A busy day at the lab tending to administrative stuff and preparing for the next batch of experiments. One really good thing is that Subject A actually practiced violin today, an increasingly rare sight. I am jealous Subject A gets to go to Monterey next week to the Seymour Marine Institute to see the otters. Definitely cool!

The laboratory's patrons have leased a yatch of some sort tomorrow night for a cruise around the city and the bay. A suit & tie affair with families aboard. No resistance from Subject A for the moment.

Coronation ceremonies for George II were held in the capital today. We avoided all media by burying our heads in the sand and managed to get only minimal schrapnel from some religious wonk gloating on the radio over the moral mandate George II received from the people... blah, blah.

The Invention

2005-01-19T18:59:00.000-08:00

The laboratory's internet connection collapsed on Sunday and we've been struggling with our settings so I have missed a few days on the blog as a result.

We tested the latest invention on a living human being today. It was a nine hour procedure and the electrodes deployed nicely into the tissue. I used varying power levels which were tolerated well by the subject. Rest assured we strived to provide the most humane possible conditions for the subject. The only unusual side effect of note is a 2 degree rise in body temperature during the procedure but this should revert to normal by tomorrow. The invention does look like something out of Victor Frankenstein's laboratories but with a little luck and much perseverance we should see some clinical benefit soon enough.

On another topic, Subject A feels I should post more comments on other flogs. Duly noted.

Day 2

2005-01-16T13:51:00.000-08:00

Spent the afternoon working at a fast food joint during a women's basketball game to benefit the local elementary school's 5th grade trip to Mexico. One doesn't really think of the hectic pace and hard work that goes on behind the scene at these places when you are there eating. We gained a lot of respect for the people that work hard at these joints earning minimum wages. Can't ever complain about havimg to wash dishes at home ever again. It was a good cause and flok dekoke's little world grew a little more yesterday.

FDK thanks Subject A for providing the new picture posted last night on flok dekokes world. Somehow it seems to capture the state of the realm these days and it is one of my favorite pictures. Subject A's advice and support on these postings are much appreciated.

Over the holidays we found a copy of a diary belonging to JM property of O describing (blogging?) his travels through Corsica, the south of France, and Paris from 1921 into the great depression and the return to the village to face bankruptcy. Reading through his notes is one reason flok de koke decided to try writing this blog. Of course, my world is a lot smaller than JM property of O's, so our hope is for these dull posts to be of interest in 85 years. I wonder if anyone will be able to access blogger then?

Day 1

2005-01-15T10:11:00.000-08:00

This is a window into my little world. You may catch glimpses of my 2 dimensional life here. It is possible other inhabitants might bubble up and burp here on occasion but they are shy not often collaborative.

I suppose I should start with a little something about me, flok dekoke. My little life rarely takes place in my village any more. Flok dekoke's realm is in California, not far from San Francisco. Our little world changed 9 years ago when we left the mountain for the coast. That only lasted a couple of years and after an earthquake and much turmoil in the fields we packed our hammocks and moved our world to California. Our work is almost finished here and the time is coming for another move but who knows where?

This short entry has required much bravery and there is no time left for more words on this first day. El Molino's high energy fundraising mothers are waiting. It is quite an act of faith, or ignorance, to ask flok dekoke to volunteer for something that involves money and responsibility. More on that some other time.