As digital-rights attorney Mike Godwin, who lost more than 80 pounds by cutting carbs, says, 'It's like you're exploiting a security hole in your own body.' He's quoting hacker Ian Goldberg, who should know -- Goldberg is famous in hacker circles for breaking the encryption on Netscape Navigator 1.1.

Salon.com Technology | Hackers on Atkins

I'm really enjoying tiny pineapple's chronicle of his trip to Disneyland with his two young daughters.

Interesting article about Daylight Saving Time. I had always assumed it originally had to do with farming communities, giving farmers extra daylight hours in which to perform chores. But time and me have a very tenuous, complicated relationship. It's mostly a mystery to me . . .

Apparently it's more to save resources and energy (i.e., if it gets dark earlier, people go to bed earlier, thus turning off lights and televisions, etc., and saving energy; the same is true if it's lighter in the morning, i.e., you don't have to turn on as many lights when you get up).

This completely surprised me:

In 1974, Daylight Saving Time lasted ten months and lasted for eight months in 1975, rather than the normal six months (then, May to October). The U.S. Department of Transportation -- which has jurisdiction over Daylight Saving Time in the U.S. -- studied the results of the experiment.

I don't remember that at all. And I should--those were the years I was in college. I'll have to ask Bob if he remembers that.

My wife could not understand what I was talking about. Eight hundred people, lined up at 8 PM on Friday in a shopping mall, for what did you say, a game?”

No. An operating system.

“These people need lives,” she said.

They have them, I explained. They just revolve around operating systems.

LILEKS (James) The Bleat

On the heels of Abbie the Cat--one of my favorite websites of all time--comes CAT TOWN, a series of dramas featuring the well-known Japanese costume cats.

I just discovered how to send HTML email from a Mac! This is not trivial, it's something we've been struggling with for a couple of years. As far as we could determine, HTML email (email containing images and formatting) could only be sent successfully from a PC using Outlook. We tried innumerable times using Outlook Express on a Mac, and it just didn't work.

I know it's silly, but this really bothered me. We don't send out spam, but we do send out newsletters and invitations, and every time we had to send one, we had to go ask one of the guys who have PCs to do it for us.

But from a blurb in MacAddict this month, we saw that it can be done through Netscape, of all things. I tried it, using the email editor in Netscape 4.7 on my Mac, and it works perfectly. And it has, of course, always been available. I used to use Netscape for mail sometimes, but I haven't for a long time. Maybe I will now, if only so I don't forget.

Ever wonder what the commentators on NPR actually look like? It's so funny--when I read the list of names, I can hear their names in my mind as I hear them on the air, but have no idea what they look like. Not that it matters, but it's kind of fun to see:

NPR People: On-Air Staff Bios

This is exciting:

Tears For Fears principals Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith have reunited and inked a deal with Arista Records, which will release the duo's first album together since 1989 early next year.

I used to have quite the crush on Roland Orzabal. Barb and I saw them in one of their last concerts in the late-80's, and they were amazing. After the concert, they were hanging out in the hotel bar and discovered local vocalist Oleta Adams ("Get Here"), who was singing in the bar. Orzabal ended up producing her debut album. I always thought that was very cool.

CNN.com - Tears for Fears reunites - Oct. 7, 2003