I love this story. It’s been making the rounds, on boingboing and mefi.

You send out a news crew to do a local interest story on migrating bald eagles. They come back, but half the interview footage is missing. So what do you do? Yes, you punt:

An interesting thingamajig called FormatPixel.

It’s page layout on the web. I haven’t tried it out yet, but it might be an interesting tool. InDesign as a web app. w00t.

…I tried it, and it was interesting. I couldn’t find a way to, for instance, print to PDF, which would be useful.

Why have I not ever heard of Bobby Conn before?

Wednesday I had the pleasure of meeting a guy named Mike.

He responded to my craigslist ad about getting rid of all my computer junk.

After it was all done, I wished I’d taken pictures of the van, loaded down with all manner of obsolete computer crap. But I didn’t. I had to add some air to the tires, which might tell you a little bit about how much stuff there was. Reinforced tires r00l.

It took me and Mike about 8-10 trips each to put it all in his house. Mike was a nice guy. His wife was very patient, and the cats kept trying to get out. And every time they’d try and get out, his wife would yell, “No!” and the cat would look sheepish (a small irony in itself). So that’s somewhere between 16-20 shouts of sublimated frustration.

And I must say this: Mike’s storage room is worse than mine was before I cleaned it out. I mean, before we started moving in, there was so much stuff…

But I hope Mike does well with it. Good luck, Mr. Mike. And farewell, all ye computer crap!

Also: I’ve been wanting to put this up, because it’s so completely badass, but never found the right spot. So I degree it thus: This is the right spot for ‘Level 5′ from King Crimson.

I realize I’m on a King Crimson jag at the moment, but you’ll just have to bear with me, wontcha?

See also.

Talk about: Corruption in Iraq reconstruction.

Ignore: Pelosi’s air travel.

More from craigslist to follow up on this entry:

Yes, Astroturf. What a great idea.

I have this notion where I buy this van (it’s only $1500, which is a good deal if you like orange), wet sand it, and then leave it in certain parts of town with a little kit of spraypaint and a sign that says, “Tag me. Please avoid spraying over license plates, headlights, turn signals, and windshield.”

I monitor craigslist, by the way, because there are some parts I could use for my van, but which I don’t really absolutely need. I’d love to have a backup alternator, for instance.

The storage unit is now, officially, not costing me any money monthly. Whew. I can roll the costs over into bonds every month, because I know I can live without it.

All the stuff, however, is still in my van. RePC charges recycling fees. The lowly CRT is going the way of the dodo, and someone has to dispose of the lead and other toxic crap in it. The sad thing is that it’ll end up being shipped to India or China and separated into its constituent parts and then just dumped. I’ve been hoarding toxic waste. Woo!

So I was thinking about things to do with glass with lead in it, like in a CRT. You melt it down and make nuclear waste containers out of it. Turns out this isn’t a new idea; I’d only be adding the recycled CRTs. And here’s a guy who proposes making glowing nuclear Christmas ornaments out of the stuff.

Anyway. The deal is that I have a van full of old computer stuff. All about the same vintage (my van and the junk inside, that is). Now to round out the late-80s retro package I need to listen to some Level 42 or Howard Jones or something on the van CD player.

I went to get lunch, and secretly wished someone would steal the van just then.

I got home and posted to craigslist. Free pile of computer junk, will deliver. An hour later a guy sent me his phone number. I’ll call tomorrow.

And in honor of all this, I present ‘Dig Me.’ What was deluxe becomes debris.

I went to the storage unit today, taking my first tentative steps towards ending my relationship with the stuff contained therein.

The plan was to sort stuff. The unit is a big closet size, and it wouldn’t take long to sort it into three piles: Computer recycling, Goodwill, and dump.

But it turns out that I had already done that. There’s only the computer recycling pile. And because that’s not what I planned, I ended up not doing much of anything with it. And to make matters worse, I thought I might bring home an old Mac and a big bag of floppy disks to see if any of my old writings were on them.

Stupid. It’s all still in the van. I’ll never look through those disks. I will, however, use the old Mac as an end table. It’s a Quadra 950; a small family could live inside it.

I also have a box of broken 680×0-era PowerBooks and assorted parts, which I’m stupid enough to think I should sell on craigslist. But the computer recycling people (Re-PC) will know what they’re looking at, and won’t just put them in the trash. At least, that’s the story I’ll tell myself.

So tomorrow is Re-PC day, and if they won’t take some of this stuff, I’ll… Well, I dunno. Call dibs if you want something. For instance, I have a SCSI-based video display for PowerBooks. Monochrome. Har.

Color-infrared photos of the Irish countryside.

It’s apparently the 4-year anniversary of Colin Powell’s appearance before the UN, where he presented the case against Iraq. Remember the vial of anthrax? Yes. That one.

Atrios has his run-down of what the warmongers were saying about it. They weren’t only wrong, but spectacularly so. They were wrong in ways that should make anyone, even their most ardent supporters, point and laugh like that kid on the Simpsons.

Except, of course, that people are, you know…. Like dying and stuff over it.

My favorite is George Will:

In estimating the impact of Colin Powell’s U.N. presentation on persons who believe that there is no justification for a military response to Iraq’s behavior, remember the human capacity for willful suspension of disbelief. Remember this: People determined to believe that a vast conspiracy assassinated President Kennedy believe that the absence of evidence of the conspiracy proves the vastness and cleverness of the conspiracy.

People committed to a particular conclusion will get to it and will stay there. So the facts that Powell deployed, and the pattern they form, will not persuade people determined to be unpersuaded. But Powell’s presentation, its power enhanced by his avoidance of histrionics, will change all minds open to evidence.

Thus it will justify disregarding the presumptively close-minded people who persist in denying . . . what? What are people denying who still deny the need for force? That Iraq has weapons of mass destruction? Or that Iraq is resisting the inspections? No, they are denying only that force is needed. They say an enhanced presence of inspectors will paralyze Iraq’s weapons programs.

*stops laughing and wipes tear from eye*

Oh, thanks for that, you bow-tied tool …of irony! I guess I have to laugh because, well, what else can I do?