Adam's Blog

In the age of DRM and software patents, almost nothing can suprise me anymore, at least when it comes to people claiming to "own" ideas or "intellectual property." The world is screwed up, and the government serves only corporations. So it's all the more disarming and alarming when it comes from your own circle. David "Dawg" Grisman, a mandolin player who moonlighted with the Dead for a period, has apparently sued Google, Inc and YouTube for copyright infrigement. The Grateful Dead! The ones who stood for free taping. The ones who insisted that their music was best enjoyed live, who built a mega-following not from selling their tapes, but from playing great music and presenting a show. This is a sad day, as "Dawg" has truly cashed in a little of the overflowingly positive Grateful Dead karma; karma that was already bruised from the scuffle the Dead had with the live music archive, archive.org.

Apparently, several of Attorney General Alberto Gonsales' distinguished classmates from the Harvard Law class of '82 decided to take out an ad in the New York Times to tell him how he's doing. PDF of the New York Times. Check the bottom right.

Not to get all random and off topic, but did you know that carrots aren't all orange? And more importantly, the baby carrots you get at the supermarket are generally so processed and shaved down that they are consistently deemed less flavorful and less "carroty" than real carrots? Check these out:

Scratch this off the list of crazy ass shit I've never seen: a baby going head to head with a cobra snake. I wish I were kidding. But alas, I am not.

LOLCats are, according to Wikipedia, "a photo of a cat with a caption characteristically formatted in a sans serif font [...] The caption is intentionally written with deviations from standard English spelling and syntax featuring "strangely-conjugated verbs, but tend to converge to a new set of rules in spelling and grammar." So, without further adue, my favorite LOLcats, courtsey of icanhascheezburger.com. Read more for the rest of the pics.

Fantastic video Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California grilling Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in his congressional hearing: Gonzales won't crack, because he can't crack. Because the minute he does, it will expose corruption in this adminstration that pre-dates 9/11. Corruption that leads up to the very core of the executive branch. Corruption that may or may not expose an all out assault on Middle Eastern controlled oil reserves, government contracts, a bicameral government, indeed American democracy itself.

Fantastic video Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California grilling Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in his congressional hearing: Gonzales won't crack, because he can't crack. Because the minute he does, it will expose corruption in this adminstration that pre-dates 9/11. Corruption that leads up to the very core of the executive branch. Corruption that may or may not expose an all out assault on Middle Eastern controlled oil reserves, government contracts, a bicameral government, indeed American democracy itself.

While perousing the 'net for reactions to this past Wednesday's Lost, I have to say, this is the best Lost theory I've read so far. It involves the least suspension of disbelief, the fewest major leaps of faith, it explains the motivations of many of the characters. Another thing I like is that many "things" that have gotten little attention are major players in the storyline, which suggests that (a) the writers have, in fact, known where they were going since at least the beginning of Season 2, (2) the story is all encompassing and we've only scratched the surface, (d) the solution does have some roots in science fact, rather than science fiction, and (IV) we haven't been nitpicking details for nothing. The only unexplained thing here is the way the survivors lives intermingled... destiny? I think it's becoming more and more likely that Mikhail is Radzinky, or at least the same person whose eye was found in The Arrow. It also seems likely to me that there's a connection between Mikhail, a Soviet spy, and Kelvin, who we know was an American military officer (also a spy?). A few months ago, I said Lost was no longer #1...

Last night I added a new section to sethadam1.com: the sethadam1.com link blog. It is exactly what it sounds like: it's just a long list of cool links. Since I come across so many links that I really would like to bookmark somewhere somehow, I decided to just have a long list of interesting links on my site. So check out sethadam1.com/links - I hope to keep it very updated.

I came across a crazy story about a rural Kentucky orphan name Martin Fugate, who, along with many generations of his descendants, it appears, had blue skin! The condition was due to a missing enzyme in his blood. What was even crazier about this was that due inbreeding (not so much brother-sister as about 5 families continuing to refold similar genes into the same genetic pot), the recessive condition remained active for over a century. Even wilder than that was that by taking the proper supplement, the body could be oserved slowly changing from blue to pink! Searching the web will yield several versions of "The Blue People of Troublesome Creek," a 1982 article that introduced the Fugate story to the world.