Proposal to encode Cirth in Plane 1 of ISO/IEC 10646-2

"The Cirth script was invented by the philologist and author J. R. R. Tolkien as part of the mythological world he created and was widely popularized through his work, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, etc. Along with a family of artificial languages and a large corpus of etymological data describing their relationships, the Cirth script has attracted the attention of a large community of linguists and other enthusiasts interested in this expression of Tolkien's expertise in historical and comparative linguistics. It can be categorized as a Category D (Attested Extinct) alphabet: there is a relatively limited corpus, and a relatively small (but existent) scholarly body studying it. In order to set a standard Cirth character coding for such scholars and enthusiasts, it has been suggested that this character set be included into the Unicode standard and ISO 10646."

Today I've been learning about Unicode, UTF-8 and so on for a paper I'm going to be writing about multilingual support in Microsoft operating systems. I happened across this interesting proposal to represent Cirth in the ISO 10646 UCS. There are also proposals for Tengwar, Cuneiform and Heiroglyphics

Download Progress Quest, it's well worth it. This game is a little like NetHack, but once you've played, I'm sure you'll find the experience is much more like Diablo.

The coolest dice you will ever wish you owned

Link courtesy of Philos

Brandon has posted a gallery of his photos in preparation for his upcoming photographic journey to Paris.

United Tile...extending the tradition

Just in case you were thinking of buying some tile.

I'm listening to kexp at work, and the long winters (founded by John Roderick from Harvey Danger in conjunction withSean Nelson and Chris Walla) is playing. It's quite good. I think John Saffian would like it.

"I mean to quite stealing as soon as I quit for the last time"

Fans Booing Anthem Need a Penalty Box

"When nihilist thugs attacked the United States on Sept. 11, Americans were reassured by the military and emotional support from their neighbors. Now, during something as trivial as a cranky hockey series between hardened professionals from all over the world, these suburban rustics dare boo the Canadian anthem?"

I-5 monorail idea gathering steam

"It started with a graduate student's thesis and grew into an idea with broader appeal -- why not build a monorail along Interstate 5 to carry commuters between North Seattle and Sea-Tac Airport and perhaps beyond?"

Visit the Freeway Monorail web site here.

Yahoo! News - House Votes to Abolish INS

This could be a very good thing. Not only does INS need to be more efficient in its process, but it needs to be more accountable to the people it's supposed to help. If the new system fails in either of these roles, the result could be worse than what we have now.

wnbc.com - News - Breaking News: Explosion Rocks Chelsea Building

Cosmic Encounter Online

Someone's making an online version of the classic boardgame Cosmic Encounter. They're also currently offering free introductory meberships.

Something neat

Play the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy Infocom game online

The Central Artery/Tunnel Project - The Big Dig

LOTS of neat stuff here. Link courtesy of Philos.

High roller

"It ain't no little kid ride. [...] It's a thrill comin' down the hill. I ain't got bored with it yet."

Thanks to Loxser John for the link.

The Western Front - Student strips down to protest preaching

Link thanks to Ariel

Seattle's budget woes widen to $50 million

"Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis said that likely will mean some city layoffs. But precisely how many, and whether the city's budget crunch will mean dirtier streets, unfilled potholes or more library closures, is yet to be seen."

Tighter budgets: threat or menace?

Cardinal Law Seen as an Issue in Rome

"Cardinal Law has repeatedly insisted that he will not resign, most recently late last week after a secret meeting with Pope John Paul II."

Why when someone meets with the Pope is it always a "secret" meeting. I mean, how secret can it be if it's reported in the NY Times?

Gamegrene.com / Rants / Why Star Wars Galaxies Might Suck

For you end-of-Monday pick me up.

I, Cringely | The Pulpit

"It is a peculiar system, because it counts on those visionaries to come up with new businesses, then systematically destroys those very businesses."

Bob's talking about IBM, but he could be talking about any corporation. A big part of the genius of Microsoft is that despite having become a world leader in software, it continually manages to move and act like a much smaller company. This is largely because of the leardership of Gates and a few other who have molded the company in their own image, and partially because of thie ability to absorb smaller organizations and benfit from their vitality. I wonder how long they can keep it up.

Kevin James, whom I went to college with and have had precious little contact with since, has started The Goliard Blog, named, I presume, after our college newspaper.

Mourning My Miscarriage

"But for me, there is another uncomfortable truth: my own pro-abortion-rights politics defy me. Social personhood may be distinct from biological and legal personhood, yet the zing of connection between me and my embryo felt startlingly real, and at direct odds with everything I believe about when life begins. Nor have those beliefs -- a complicated calculus of science, politics and ethics -- changed. I tell myself that this wasn't a person. It wasn't a child. At the same time, I can't deny that it was something. How can I mourn what I don't believe existed? The debate over abortion has become so polarized that exploring such contradictions feels too risky. In the political discussion, there has been no vocabulary of nuance. "

Vatican's Influence Is in Vision, Not Details

"But with an annual operating budget of around $200 million, the Holy See has neither the resources nor the inclination to get involved in most local matters. Its entire doctrinal operation, for example, employs only about 15 people, and support staff, to keep an eye on Catholic theologians and ensure orthodoxy around the world. These officials concentrate on overarching theological issues and feel they are sometimes dragged into minutiae."

Google Runs Into Copyright Dispute

"In the new procedure, Google informs its users when a link has been removed from a set of search results and directs them to the Chilling Effects site. For example, a search for the word 'helatrobus,' which appears in some Scientology texts, brings up a page of results with this notice at the bottom: 'In response to a complaint we received under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed one result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the D.M.C.A. complaint for these removed results.'"

Google is smart, again. Thanks to my lovely wife for spotting this article.

ABERCROMBIE & GLITCH / Asian Americans rip retailer for stereotypes on T-shirts

Today's corporate evil entity of the day is A&F.

Loxser John linked to this article on The Art of Turboing

/fm Article: The Beautiful and the Damned: Enforcing 'the look' at Abercrombie & Fitch. The Harvard Crimson Online

"They told me to stand in a silver square and they gave me a lacrosse stick [...] it rocked. I was getting paid eight bucks an hour to stand there and look popular. On one of the hottest days of the summer, they asked two girls to put on bikini tops and stand in the square. They were supposed to look like they were having fun."

News flash: Robin Williams visits local game store

Photo thanks to Zannah

:: Douglas Rushkoff - Weblog ::

It's an Inch Long and Wingless, and a Surprise to Insect Experts

"In a finding sure to stun the world of entomology, scientists say they have discovered a major new group, or order, of insects, the first to be identified in 88 years."

Check out the 570BARS.COM redesign.

WSJ.com - Major Business News

"Journalism is the opposite of pancake makeup and boudoir lighting. The farther journalists get away from you, the worse you look."

ninja shirt

Somehow, Dissolver.org, a perfectly legit weblog which I read from time to time and which linked to tony.dowler.com, turned into a spam explosion (as Loxser John pointed out to me). The offending vileness has been removed.

Want an eye opener? Go to the King County Dept. of Health page and do a search on your favorite restaurant.

Thanks to Crow at the Ministry of Peace for the link.

Warblogs:

• Daddy Warblogs
  
• Warbloggers Watch
  
• Sgt. Stryker

This is only a short list. There's a lot of good speculation and a bit of cutting edge news out there. Of course, as blogger will, they also waste a lot of time trying to cut one another down.

Check out the music of Heather Kropf on her debut album, "Sky." All of the tracks are good, but my favorite ones are "Cholera" (based on Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "Comet," and "Madrigal." Kropf fans will be pleased to know that a second album is on the way.

What is Business Intelligence?

I, Cringely | The Pulpit

"Look at Enron, a company that was leaking billions, yet hardly anyone in the organization even knew it. The data was there -- it had to be -- even the crude tools they used (Microsoft Excel) would have shown the company was in trouble, but there was no mandate to use that information. Nobody was looking."

New 7 Wonders

Something to browse while you wait for the latest IIS security patch to download.

Salon.com News | Pope summons American cardinals to Vatican

Top official says cracks in Three Gorges dam

"A senior Chinese official says cracks have appeared in the controversial Three Gorges hydro-electric dam on the Yangtze river, state media reported on Friday."

What the story does not tell us, is the probably death toll from a catastrophic failure of the three gorges dam:

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Business (Tax Rebate)

"The tax-relief checks that will start arriving in mailboxes next week don't have a consumer-warning label, so we're happy to provide one.
Warning: This check is not a "rebate" of taxes you already paid. It's an advance on the refund you'll get when you file next April.

If it's an advance, you ask, does that mean my refund in April will be $300 smaller than it would have been? And if I'm unlucky enough to owe taxes, does that mean my tax bill will be $300 higher?

The answer to both questions is yes. But you'd never guess that from the 1040 you'll fill out next year. It's been designed so that it's nearly impossible to realize how the 2001 rebate checks affect your tax preparation in 2002."

Thanks to my lovely wife for digging this one up.

If you love the Catholic Church, fight for reform

"There can be no peace without justice. But justice needs a soul, and the soul of justice is mercy. At its best, the Catholic Church in America has fought the good fight for justice and for mercy. That is just one more reason why those of us who love and value the church must fight for its reform and rehabilitation."

Kudos to the author for pointing out that anti-Catholicism is nothing new, and for noting that shouting 'foul' isn't going to help the church in this crisis.

Late Night Catechism is supposed to be pretty funny. I think we're going to go check it out.

Gumball Poetry - What is it?

"Gumball Poetry is a non-profit literary magazine that publishes the best poetry it can get a hold of. But we publish it differently - into gumball machines (capsules) and onto the Web. We also publish everything else we can get our hands on: line art, sculptures (Wildcaps) and new media (flash, .gif animations, etc.)."

But northwesterners will have to go to Portland to buy it.

Library Cats Map

When games stop being fun

"Some have suggested that warning labels be placed on “EverQuest,” which has more than 400,000 paying subscribers."

BBC News | SOUTH ASIA | Lost city found off Indian coast

"Here in Mahabalipuram we have proved the myths right and the academics wrong."

VOANews.com - Explorer Thor Heyerdahl Near Death

"The adventurer gained world fame in 1947 when he led a six-man, 8,000-kilometer expedition from Peru to Polynesia. The seaworthiness of the balsa log raft proved that ancient Peruvians could have migrated to Polynesia in prehistoric times. A film documenting the adventure won an Academy Award."

Subway Life is a gorgeously put together site of the artists sketches of random subway riders in multiple cities around the world.

Sushiwhore.com: sushi in West Seattle, with webcam!

CNN.com - Experts: Chat rooms a haven for hackers - April 10, 2002

CNN has just made the amazing discovery that hackers may be using the Internet to talk to one another.

Loxser John forced us to watch 3 episodes of The Osbournes. Now I just can't get the image of Ozzy out of my head.

FOUND magazine- A 21 Balloons Production.

This is definitely the best find I've made all week.

Maverick by design: Steve Badanes is an architect with a tool belt and an attitude
"Steve is not an ivory-tower professor. He's out there working with his tool belt on."

Link thanks to Orkgrrrl

NOVA Online | Hitler's Lost Sub | Map of Lost U-Boats

Mmmm... maps...

Call goes out for an initiative, and the target is cell phones

"I'm a rational adult who knows when its safe and not safe to use a cell phone. It's a tool I can't live without"

The Telegraph Online “Tri-M is all about musicianship and being good music students, as well as good academic students."

This is an article that quotes the younger brother of good friend and regular reader of tony.dowler.com, Philos. The above-quoted also has a weblog of his own.

Just a reminder that you should take a look at bluishorange once in a while.

s y b e r p u n k . c o m - Engrish

Link gleaned from Zannah, the quenn of the link.

NATIONAL POST ONLINE | News story

"University of Toronto researchers have solved a problem that has puzzled miners for more than a century: Why is there natural gas buried deep in the ancient rock of the Canadian Shield?"

The Comic Book Periodic Table of the Elements

Niles Monorail History Page One

"I've wanted my own rideable monorail for a long time and these little sketches are proof. In fact, the dream goes way back before I got involved in monorail promotion for transit. I drew these while I was a high school junior way back in February of 1969. My Dad wouldn't give me a permit to build it though, so the dream would have to wait...a long time it turns out."

CrazyMofo.com: Crazy Mofos

A site dedicated to the supervillians who've given us so much over the years.

Pictures of the Year International has the best print images of the year. Some of these are amazing, and the site is well worth the look. This year includes several categories around coverage of September 11.

Link gleaned from Ariel

Guggenheim Museum - 2002 Internet Art Commissions: something to fill the next six minutes.

SKELETOR AND GANG is ripping weird!

Like so many of my links, stolen from metafilter

When you visit the ThreeRing Web Mapping Project homepage, it puts a dot on a blank map at the physical location of your ISP. The idea is to watch as the physical shapes of the continents emerge. It's pretty neat, actually.

It's a very, very rare occurrence to come acrosss a new blog that you want to read every day. I skim about a half-dozen blogs a day, and that list has changed very little in 6 months, despite the fact that I'm finding new blogs all the time. So go check out Sgt. Stryker's Daily Briefing.

Thanks to Loxser John for the link.

le piano graphique is freaking awesome.

New online ads can't be clicked off

"They say the new ads give greater opportunity for creativity. And their virtual inescapability is a major plus. But while surfers may not like the more aggressive salesmanship, they'd better get used to it, analysts said."

"Consumers had bett