Mark Hancock tells you how to clean your DSLR’s sensor.

Canned air + sensor = a strange feeling that something is about to be destroyed.

February 14, 2002

So, um… Does anyone actually like Sprite? At least with the colas, you’re getting caffiene along with your mouth-burning fizzy sugar water. With Sprite, it’s ‘lymon,’ which is half lion and half tiger. GHAAA.

Hey, so, uhm… What’s with the guestbook virus thingie?

I signed up for the US Treasury’s auction announcement email list. They sent an announcement (PDF) today for the next 4-week Bill auction.

I’ve been on a treasury investment kick for a while now, ever since I learned you can do the whole process online without a broker.

The 4-week bills are kind of interesting… You invest by participating in an auction for bills in demoninations of $1000, but you bid at below face value. You buy in for the winning bid amount, and then make money at the end of the term when the bill is redeemed. There are two ways of participating in the auction: Competitive and non-competitive. A non-competitive bidder just agrees to buy at whatever rate the market sets, and that’s what I plan to do.

I was curious about the tax situation for these things, and while I haven’t completely answered that question, I did find an interesting ‘blog called MyMoneyBlog, specifically this entry called Finding the Equivalent Bank Interest Rates For Savings Bonds.

I was also interested in the TIPS security, which adjusts your principle to keep you ahead of inflation. But for these things, not only do you pay taxes on the interest, you also pay taxes on the adjustment. Yikes. I’m trying to find out if the series I bond works the same way, because a similar adjustment is made. No answer just yet.

Any Xangafolk out there with experience saving/investing in short term T-notes?

There are some truths that sit on the shelf. 900 pages of truth that you mean to keep reading, but every time you start, you know your world will be shattered. And not only are you *not* up to shattering your world, you’re also not up to 900 pages of it.

But the fact of the matter is that you already know the truth. You don’t need those 900 pages, and the tiringly massive size of the tome is merely an excuse. You’re looking at 899 pages of proof supporting 1 page of insight, an insight you’ve already intuited, but which someone went to the trouble of deconstructing, researching, proving, and wrapping in a candy wrapper.

You’d rather not believe it, despite 899 pages of proof. So it sits on the shelf.

In my last entry, linking to lovely pictures of China, I put the ‘Currently Playing’ thing to ‘Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy,’ an album made by Brian Eno in 1972. It features a song called ‘China, My China,’ and has a Chinese theme running throughout, in no small part because the title of the album is lifted from a post-Mao Chinese lyrical opera.

And the ‘Currently Playing’ link will take you to a newly-remastered version of this album which I didn’t know about, and wouldn’t mind having. It’s a very odd record, but one which you can’t escape once you’ve wandered in, and a newer remaster would be great.

But the real reason I’m writing this ‘blog entry is this: Some other folks have re-recorded ‘Taking Tiger Mountain’ in a more straight-ahead rock style, maintaining some of the quirk of the original. Naturally, I’m interested in getting this, too, but I probably won’t. However: This review from Amazon.com pulls it all together and ladles on the irony:

At present it takes 7 weeks for Amazon to deliver this jewel. It will probably be out of print soon. If you can part with $15, buy it now. Worse case scenario, it will go out of print and be a hot commodity on ebay. I mean, no one else is writing music based on militaristic-cartoono-operatic playing cards anymore. This may be your last chance.

Look!

Lookit!

(The whole set.)

Interesting article over on SadlyNo. The gist of the argument is that we need to start thinking about these power grabs by the administration as real and actual threats to the American system of governance.

Even if you choose not to see it that way, and trust George W. Bush to not turn into a despot (but I digress), you’ll still find food for thought at the linked article.

More from the forest, via google: The ZeroCircles Project. Art activism.

Not sure how much good it’ll do, but it’s some lovely stuff. The Oregon page is pretty stunning.