Update:

Microsoft has found it in its frozen heart to grant our school district a reprieve until January. Also, check the Slashdot thread.

***

In a technically legal but still outrageous move, Microsoft "randomly" audits the nine largest school districts in Oregon.

The schools must audit 25,000 PCs in 90 days. If they can't find the staff, Microsoft will thoughtfully send some people free of charge--unless they find one computer out of compliance. Then the district has to pony up.

There is a blanket licensing agreement available where the district counts computers and pays about $42 each. The catch? They have to count all computers--not just PCs. The cost adds up to about ten teaching positions.

The solution? Local Linux user groups are scrambling to help. It is my sincere hope that MS has made a fatal error.

Dave sez:

Succaland, home of my friend Nick, has been stolen. It's easy to steal a domain name from some registrars. All that's required is a fax. They don't even bother to check with the owner--a simple, simple matter.

I recently moved all my domains to Dotster. While they double-checked via email, my current registrar, Verisign, did not. They just handed over the keys. I'm so glad I switched.

But that won't help Succa. His domain was stolen by a place called Ultimate search, and they do this on a regular basis. I wouldn't recommend writing them, as it rarely does any good to reason with a criminal. You might yell at namesecure for him, but the best thing is to spread the word! Talk about this issue on your blog! Get the word out there about unsafe registrars! And most of all: move your domains.

Looking for outtakes from Phantom Menace? Wacky Fight Club merchandise? A bikini-clad Aki? Grab your DVDs.

Easter eggs, a common term for fun, secret stuff thrown into software, have become common on DVDs. You can explore on your own, but some are tough to find so you may need a little help from the experts. My favorite site so far is DVD Easter Eggs, with the usual suspects you'd find on a DVD site, plus a thorough list of hidden extras. Another good site just drops the S. A bit more on the edge, you can post and discuss DVD eggs at DVD Reviewer's Easter Egg Forum.

For me, this stuff is hours of fun on nights when I'm procrastinating. Some DVDs just have one or two real gems, while others are packed stem to stern with surprises.

Now I'm off to break my DVD player.

Portland Police Chief Mark Kroeker is going back to LA. His first act in Portland was to instate a dress code prohibiting personal adornment and facial hair, making sure his cops didn't look like the people they served. His second act was to treat protesters like rioters, causing more violence than he prevented. His third act was to explain that his homophobia didn't affect his job.

Before Kroeker, the city had a good relationship with its police force. Community policing and working with protesters (who are common in these parts) was important. Kroeker was all about enforcing a Stalinist authority that doesn't fit here.

Don't let the screen door hit you on the way out, motherfucker.

I watch a movie nearly every day. Some people read, some people watch sitcoms, I watch movies.

I'd like to blog at length about all of them, but I find I simply do not have the energy. Instead, I've added yet another side bar doo-dad, over on the left where the other movie stuff goes. The Daily Flicker is just a quickie 1-5 star rating of the stuff I watch all the time. Enjoy.

DID YOU KNOW?

Frytopia combines four blogs and two different types of archives for the main blog on one page.

In 1967, Stanley Milgram sent packages to random addresses in the Midwest. He asked the recipient to pass them along to the person most likely to reach a target address in the Boston area. On average, it took about six people for the package to reach its destination. Thus the idea that we are all separated by six degrees of separation was born.

While fascinating, the experiment has been difficult to duplicate--especially worldwide. Columbia University is giving it a shot with their Smallworld program. Using email only, they hope to get thousands of participants to target a few final addressees. Because of the prevalence of spam and chain mail, it's difficult to get the emails forwarded.

Let that be a lesson to everyone who has ever forwarded chain mail. It really does damage trust in the medium!

In any case, you can participate by accepting an email or by being a target. Just sign up at the site. We'll see how many degrees there really are. After all, it is a small world.

Think me cheap or populist, but I love, love, love the work of Dale Chihuly.

I've always had a soft spot for glass art. Combine that with massive scale, complexity, shimmering color, and installations that look like they stepped out of a sci-fi movie, and I'm utterly hooked.

If I ever had extravagant amounts of money to spend on something non-utilitarian, I would have one of his chandeliers, and a house big enough to hang it in.

No, I'm not depressed or (still) sick or anything. I'm busy. As in:

Learning VB;
Designing the Blogathon site;
Doing lots of other Blogathon stuff;
Painting the livingroom;
Dealing with the discombobulation of painting the livingroom;
Reading interesting books;
Watching interesting movies;
Maybe a few other things.

Zoom!

I've been snobhopping again.

All about online privacy with Privacy Digest....nifty layout, but it pisses me off when people sign up for blogsnob and don't put up the code....a very pretty dream journal....the Friday Five makes me stop reading...."I'm not paying $1600 for a lamp"....I do not understand celebrity-themed designs.

Someone got to frytopia by Googling my address. Curious, I followed the link back, and discovered my neighbor Larry G. Johnson. Don't let the "suite" 310 fool you. This guy is a floor up from me. Maybe he gets to say suite because it's a bigger apartment. Very possible, since he's a lawyer. Be sure to follow his lawyer joke link. They aren't all good, but I loved the one about the tight ties.

Oh, and Larry? I'm sure you're a nice guy. I'd love to meet you. But hire a web designer.

Jennifer at Illusionaire has finally done one of those things that was on my list, but I never quite had time for: getting the Portland webloggers together. It's a wonderful thang.

If you want the scoop, join the group. You'll get to meet some cool people. Also, I'll be there.

For most folks in the States, it's that ~wonderful~ time of year when we get to "spring forward." Setting my clock this morning got me thinking about my recurring irritation: the innacuracy of my PC clock. Damned thing is always losing time. I decided to find some solutions.

I used to depend upon CNN World Time with their nifty flash interface. The wacky Swatch™ InternetTime always makes me giggle. It's a concept whose time never came. Unfortunately, I recently discovered time-zone errors--they weren't keeping up with the Daylight Savings Time switch properly. I know it's tough to track, but when you boast an entire page about time, you'd better be right. Also, I wanted my solution to be more automated. I didn't just want to look up the time and set my own clock. How passe.

Because I'm a bit antiquated, I downloaded AtomTime98. It hooks up with the atomic clock in Boulder, Colorado, and synchs up my PC. I'm happy. The Atomic Clock Sync looks interesting and is free, but is a bit more complex than I need to get.

I was talking with my friend Bill last night about gendered thinking preferences. When I took a Myers-Briggs for work (the full version), the analyst was surprised when he met me. He'd assumed I was Cat like Cat Stevens, so male are my thinking preferences.

Bill had taken a quick quiz in a book called Brain Sex to determine that, well, I'd better not tease him about swinging both ways again.

The Brain Sex test is online, and unlike the Myers-Briggs, it's short and to the point. The test is weighted for your birth gender, so you'll end up with either a Male or Female score, but they show you both. If I'd been a male, I would have scored 5, or Normal Male. My female score was 20: Masculine Female. No surprises there.

Addendum: Bill scored a 65, or Feminine Male, for the male score, and a 100 (Extremely Female) on the Female score. Yes, as a matter of fact this will be an endless source of entertainment for me.

Sometimes statistics can be terribly interesting. Paul has had about 50 hits from Finland in the last few hours. No referrer, so they're typing the address into the browser. Lots of different Finlanders. And inexplicably, they're going to the Links page and that's it.

What a baffling little mystery. My guess: some Finnish web-design teacher is using me as a bad example.

THE ART OF FILMMAKING COURSE #101

SECTION 1: mondays, jun 10-aug 26, 6:30-9:30 P.M.

Instructor: ENIE VAISBURD

This foundation course, a comprehensive introduction to film production and basic film analysis, uses the Super-8mm format to examine the aesthetic properties of light, movement and time as they relate to the art of filmmaking. Students will also achieve a working knowledge of the nonsync film production process by producing an original short film either individually or in a group, and they will be encouraged to develop their own artistic vision of the subjects they wish to pursue. Basic camera operation and shooting technique will be examined, as will basic principles of editing. In-class screenings, discussion and critiques will support each stage of production activity. Students should expect to spend outside time on their film production. Equipment provided through equipment/lab fee. Film, processing and minor supplies are a student responsibility. Textbook ($12) required.

I don't like to talk about things before I do them. At least not in a public forum like this. It sets up expectations, along with the possibility of failure. So, though I've been waiting for registration to open for a while, I held back talking about this until I'd actually registered. The check just went in the mailbox. Yes, it is a large check.

What I will do with this I don't know. The purpose is to explore the medium, to see if there's some piece of it about which I am passionate. Maybe I'll end up with nothing more than a hard-won souvenir.

I'm only taking one class to begin because:

• It starts right when the Blogathon launches
  
• I've been out of school for decades
  
• It was expensive.

I should be able to stuff later classes together, should I choose to continue. This is a sizable adventure for me. Wish me luck and patience.

Q: Will I ever have sex again?
A: Yes.

Q: Will it involve live gerbils?
A: Without a doubt.

Q: Will the gerbils survive the experience?
A: Yes - definitely.

Q: Will I survive the experience?
A: My reply is no.

I'm angry.

My Yahoo! Club Portlandoregon was founded on the first day clubs became available--August 18, 1998. That's a long time on the web. Over these years, we've grown to nearly 800 members.

When the merger with Groups was first announced, I checked the FAQ and was relieved to read that whichever site was more established, the group or the club, would be the one to retain its name. This was important to me, because there's a tiny, non-active Group with my club's name.

No more. Now the FAQ states that the Group gets the name. People are now starting to join the non-active Group, with a founder incognito as far as I can tell.

In addition, my Club has been held hostage for almost two weeks, and I'm beginning to think it's gone for good. Okay, so you get what you pay for. But we're talking years of work, friendships built, hundreds of people and stories gone by.

Are you a member of my beloved lost Club, wondering what's going on? Want to help out in general? Here's the form. Tell them to give back the Portlandoregon Club, and ask them to retain the original name. Every note counts, and if you write, you have my sincerest thanks.

Ever have one of those dreams that you think is funny as hell, and you think to yourself (in your sleep), man I gotta tell everyone about this? If I still think it's funny when I'm awake.

I had one of those last night. But it gets sillier. As the evening progressed and I had other dreams, like the one where I'm horseback riding with Rene Russo (I'd just seen Showtime), at the end I'd remember that funny thing from earlier, chuckle in my sleep, and think: "boy, I gotta tell everyone about this. If it's still funny when I'm awake." This happened about three times throughout the night. So of course as soon as I woke up, I was all excited about sharing the following:

I'm at a party with a bunch of people. Jennifer Connelly is there, over by the fireplace. She says: "Hey everybody, this is my impression of Elvis getting a blowjob." Then she starts grunting and moaning to the tune of Love Me Tender. The whole room busted up when she got to the "darling" part.

I know. Not funny. Sometimes my dreams are so disappointing.

On the office copier today: THIS COPIER IS NOW VOICE-ACTIVATED. SPEAK YOUR COMMANDS SLOW AND LOUD. Pretty funny despite the grammar. Wish I'd done it.

The web is abloom with April Fool's jokes. Every year I lament my lack of one. I'm creative. I have a sense of humor. I just never quite get on the ball in time.

I did think about doing a long entry about how I finally want a baby. I decided that would scare the crap out of too many of my friends. When I'm writing a joke like that, I'm far too earnest.

Luckily, you don't have to depend upon me for the good jokes. Check out Google's secret search technology, MetaFilter's new ownership, eBay's fashion tips, and let Martha Stewart show you how to make a delicious glass of ice water.

All these folks are better than me, and I bow to them.

ADDENDUM: I found clips of my favorite April Fool's joke ever: 1957's Spaghetti Harvest.