Preston L. Bannister { random memes }

In Orange County, California there are two free widely distributed monthly publications – OC Weekly and OC Metro. Articles in OC Weekly tend to be politically “liberal”, and articles in OC Metro tend to be politically “conservative”. Read both and you might get some sort of “balance”…

Both publications are entirely supported by advertising, and – based on the ads – it appears that selling sex keeps both publications in business. In OC Weekly you get a lot of low-dollar sex ads – strip clubs, escort services, and the like. In OC Metro you get a lot of high-dollar sex ads – liposuction, cosmetic surgery, Model Quality Introductions, and the like.

A quote from Philip Greenspun got me thinking.

… conventional (male) pilot wisdom … “If it floats, flies, or fucks… rent it”

Does this imply that pilots tend to be more “liberal”? Seems unlikely somehow as pilots tend to be more affluent. Do affluent “conservatives” pick up OC Weekly when they want a rental? Certainly OC Metro does not appear to carry sex-for-rent ads.

Maybe I was missing the very obvious, as Model Quality Introductions and the like may well be just exactly that sort of service. On the surface this looks like a dating service for rich guys to meet attractive women – and perhaps for some guys that is exactly what the service delivers. On the other hand, this would be a terrific cover for a high-end sex-for-rent operation. Rich (or psuedo-rich?) guys pay the service for “introductions”. The service does not need to mention sex (though they might). Some girls will offer sex for free (in hopes of hooking a rich guy). Some girls may offer sex for gifts (or money). The only question is if the service knows which girls offer sex – and directs their clients accordingly.

Now in fact I have no idea if this service is anything other than what they appear on the surface – though it would be interesting if we found out (unlikely) that a portion of their clients are already married. Somehow I doubt we will ever find out.

The local District Attorney apparently does favors for at least some wealthy individuals in the county (and I am not sure about the local Sheriff either). If some of the DA’s friends are also clients of this service – seems unlikely law enforcement would ever take a hard look.

Geez, this all sounds like some made-for-TV movie…

Update: … should have looked. Turns out OC Weekly did an article – it costs $25,000 to join (for men, free for women). Numbers are (by report) about 100 men and 1000 women. Wonder if there is a site for finding trophy wives as well somewhere … one ad on craigslist (not really the right place to advertise).

RoundaboutsUSA
“RoundaboutsUSA can assist you with your roundabout project by: conducting a feasibility study, CAD design, and peer review of current designs. Contact Bill if you need assistance by email or at the phone numbers listed below.”

The site referenced above presents some excellent and very sensible (and common-sense) arguments for the use of roundabouts.

First – I will admit without hesitation that I like roundabouts. Sitting stopped at the four-way-stop signed intersection is mind-numbing (not to mention time and gas-wasting). How many times have you sat waiting for the light to change – when there are no other cars moving, or no other traffic at all?

There are two traffic circles (not roundabouts exactly if I understand the distinction) somewhat local, one in the center of the city of Orange, and another in Long Beach a major intersection with Pacific Coast Highway. Apparently there are American communities (primarily in Utah and Colorado) finding success with roundabouts. I encountered a pair of small roundabouts just off the I-70 in St. George, Utah.

Wonder if I could push for the local city to adopt roundabouts rather than putting in more (and more!) traffic signals – especially on the major streets?

An opinion from a source we should respect.

intlet.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Just another reminder – much of what we are sold as needed for “security” is not worth the money – or the intrusion.

Schneier on Security: London Bombing and the Usefulness of Terrorist Watch Lists

More whimsy…

Passing an endless chain of food franchises on the road between California and Colorado, I remembered Heinlein mentioned a place to eat that sounded wonderful. Just ran across the story Cliff and the Calories (1950) in the Heinlein collection Expanded Universe. The story is fiction but the place described – Santa Claus, Arizona was real. Makes me wish I had a time machine.

Finding the location on a map took some hunting. Google Maps had nothing. Finally in deep among the Google search results was a link to a Microsoft TerraServer page.

The best satellite image from Google Maps is not nearly as good as the image from Microsoft Teraserver. TerraServer also has Google beat in the link to Topo Maps shows the location in old maps, as apparently newer maps remove the name.

Wonder what is left? Worth a drive??

A good tutorial on Mail Filtering from Jef Poskanzer.

Now – how can I find a web hosting/email providor that supports IMAP and email filtering as throughly done as Jef describes?

Sam Ruby: The New Public Relations
Tim Bray: The new PR pipeline is a lot shorter, simpler, and wider:

1. Senior management works out a company’s goals and messages.
2. Management works hard to make sure that the employees understand them.
3. The people who are really doing the work tell the story to the world, directly.

I have one problem with this. To figure out what it is, note the use of the word “works” in the first two bullets. Now apply the third bullet.

Different sorts of work, Sam – and you run the risk of sounding cynical . Yes, sometimes management is operating in a clue-free zone, and doubtless both Sam and Tim have been around long enough to have worked in that sort of situation at least once.

On the other hand, take the case where senior management does have definite goals. Sometimes – maybe even somewhat often – the folks at the bottom “really doing the work” know that parts of those goals do not make sense. What needs to happen is that information needs to flow up from the folks with the greater specific knowledge to the folks trying to work out the meaningful overall goals. Odds are there are or should be folks in the middle who can digest and combine the information flowing up.

Put differently, if the message from the top does not make sense, then the folks at the bottom need to work on pushing information up the chain. Oddly enough I have a specific (constructive) example, but since my present employer has no policy with regards to weblogs, I will not write about it…

Sometimes the flow of information up the chain does not work. If the company approves of employee’s writing about company issues, then employee weblogs become a fallback or failsafe. If there is a problem that just isn’t making up the management chain (say a PHB in the middle somewhere), then airing issues in weblogs gives upper management a chance at a reality check.

I do think that Tim’s model makes sense.

the Parks Department
Wednesday, Jul. 16, 2003 Has the Bush Administration declared war on a former ambassador who conducted a fact-finding mission to probe possible Iraqi interest in African uranium? Former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson raised the Administration’s ire with an op-ed piece in The New York Times on July 6 charging that the Administration had “twisted” intelligence to “exaggerate” the Iraqi threat. Since then Administration officials have taken public and private whacks at Wilson, charging that his 2002 report, made at the behest of U.S. intelligence, was faulty and that his mission was a scheme cooked up by mid-level operatives. Some government officials, noting that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, intimate that she was involved in his being dispatched Niger to investigate reports that Saddam Hussein’s government had sought to purchase large quantities of uranium ore, sometimes referred to as yellow cake, for the purposes of building nuclear devices.

The Huffington Post | The Blog
… Time magazine’s emails will reveal that Karl Rove was Matt Cooper’s source.

Is this a dream that could come true?