You looking at me?
An alpha goat defends a highly coveted rock from a challenger near Pine Haven, N.M.
From SFGate.com‘s Day in Pictures. There’s another interesting shot a few clicks down from that one, too.

Yep. Anyone surprised?

A wacky election, MouseAdventure, and the World Series is gonna be the A’s and Giants, I just know it. Oh, and I think we’re supposed to release Alpha 2 sometime that month as well.

I’m offering a limited number of free hosting accounts on Project Insomnia. Your URL would be of the form: http://www.project-insomnia.com/{your name}. If you’re currently using LiveJournal or BlogSpot and want to move to something over which you have much more control, why not move here?

If you don’t want to bother reading the article, the one word is: hashes. The RIAA claim to have a database of MP3 hashes dating back to files traded on Napster. Sounds like the easy way around this is to simply wipe and recreate ID3 tags on all your MP3s, as that will certainly change the hash of the overall file. I think the problem with this will be that “swarming” (multiple sourced downloads) may not work if the file hashes are different. With DSL and cable modems so widespread now, though, it may not matter as much as it would have a couple of years ago. I wonder if a facility to refresh ID3 tags will appear in upcoming versions of file-sharing clients?

Thousands greet new Ikea in East Palo Alto but I don’t know when we’re actually going to get over there. I’m never excited about crowds, so perhaps we’ll wait it out for a few weeks.

If you think the recall election is a joke, you may enjoy this roundup of recall jokes.

D’oh! MousePlanet is Slashdotted.

The Mercury News‘ Sheila Himmel explains IKEA dining options.

You could eat all day at Ikea, and you may need to. The shortest path through the 290,000-square-foot store opening today in East Palo Alto runs more than half a mile. On average, customers spend more than two hours in Ikea stores, which means many people stay a lot longer.

Wait a month and you can eat at Ikea 30 minutes before the store even opens for the day. On Oct. 1 the ground-floor bistro will begin serving breakfast starting at 9:30 a.m. every day but Friday and Saturday, when the gates to coffee and cinnamon buns open at 8:30 a.m.

The linked article also has a series of photos of the cafeteria and bistro areas of the new store.

Osirusoft, the organization that runs several proxy/open relay/spammer realtime blacklists, has ceased operations in a very ugly way–their blacklists are now returning 127.0.0.2 (that means a positive, e.g. spam, response) for every host submitted. Anyone using the following RTBLs in their spam filter should reconfigure immediately or risk losing legitimate email.

• SPEWS
• relays.osirusoft.com
• inputs.relays.osirusoft.com

Interesting campaign profile of Arianna Huffington. I don’t necessarily have a problem with someone who is personally comfortable and wealthy simultaneously championing “populist” issues, and I’m especially interested in her reported bargain with Green candidate Peter Miguel Camejo, where she has promised to withdraw and support Camejo if it appears he has a significant chance of winning, and vice-versa.

New Ikea to furnish big change for region

The opening of Ikea’s second Bay Area megastore will draw shoppers from as far away as South San Francisco, San Jose and Fremont, transforming East Palo Alto into a destination. But beyond the dread, anticipation and ballyhoo, Ikea’s arrival signals change not only for East Palo Alto, but also for many others who live and drive on the Peninsula as well.

Also, an entertaining walkthrough of the new store:

Also accessible from the lobby is the Marketplace, where a wise early bird I’d met outside advised I go first. Good thing he told me. Out of all those helpful signs in the lobby, I saw none pointing me to this shopping option, which is effectively screened from direct view.

Ikea prefers to funnel shoppers upstairs on an escalator to room displays. Here, the decorating-challenged can see those flat-packed cardboard boxes all put together, just like in real life. Well, at least Ikea’s version of it.

Bobby Bonds dies at 57

I have a new favorite read: The Word Detective.

A similar case that often raises questions is “disgruntled,” meaning “angry or aggrieved.” Many folks go looking for the term “gruntled,” which they feel must logically mean “happy.” Well, “gruntled” did exist at one point, but it meant “angry or cranky,” not “happy.” The “dis” in “disgruntled is really another intensifier, making “disgruntled” mean “very gruntled.”

Ever wonder what those cool hand signals in movies like SWAT actually mean? (Thanks BBSpot)

The San Francisco Chronicle‘s Henry Schulman has an excellent write-up of tonight’s Giants game, including Barry Bonds’ second 10th inning walk-off home run in three days to pull off a series sweep of the Braves.

The Atlanta Braves are the best team in the National League. They have been for more than a decade, which is why the Giants had not swept them in a three-game series since 1990. They were three outs away from ending that run when the Braves popped closer Tim Worrell for three runs in the ninth to wipe out a 3-0 Giants lead.

And then, Barry Bonds reminded everyone why he’s the best. With one out in the 10th inning, he launched Trey Hodges’ first pitch into the center-field bleachers for his 39th home run of the year, the 652nd of his career and, most important, a 4-3 Giants victory.

Now if only they can stay healthy. Well, relatively healthy.

I continue the somewhat humorous countdown to IKEA East Palo Alto’s opening next week with this Mercury News article about how family friendly the store will be. For some reason I doubt that 40 family-sized parking spaces will be enough, considering the overabundance of behemoth SUVs around here.

Caesar over at Ars Technica has a gentle reminder to longtime users, and a helpful introduction to those who don’t know about AdAware. I’ve been using it for a couple of years. I tried SpyBot and was turned off by the interface and by its insistence that every MRU (most recently used) file list was spyware.

Hypocrisy? Here I am, displaying Ads by Google on one hand, and recommending Ad Muncher on the other.

I don’t see these as conflicting viewpoints. Ad Muncher will remove popups, popunders, interstitials, banners, skyscrapers, and most other forms of online advertising, but it is highly configurable. Google AdSense displays short text-only ads which are (mostly) relevant to the content on the site where they are displayed. I’ve configured my copy of Ad Muncher to allow Google AdSense ads, and encourage others to do so as well. Here’s how:

1. Open the Ad Muncher configuration dialog. In the “Recent Items” listbox, find an entry containing googlesyndication.com.
2. Click the “Add” button.
3. Under “Category”, leave the default selection “Exclude filtering on site”.
4. Under “Formatting”, select “Site domain” and remove everything in that text box except googlesyndication.com.
5. Click “Add” and the new entry will appear in your Custom Filter List.

Now Ad Muncher will continue to block annoying popups, banner ads, and the like, but will allow Google’s relevant text ads through.

Oh, and the reason I posted this is because I have added an Ad Muncher button at the bottom of the page. Isn’t it cute?

Please note: I hate the smell of popcorn when I’m at work. Popcorn at home watching a movie or a ballgame is fine, but I don’t want to smell it in the office. Yuck.

Mike Pucher and Sidney Ponson

We live just on the other side of 101 from the new IKEA store in East Palo Alto, which opens next week. For the past few days all that’s been talked about is the expected tremendous influx of traffic, similar to that which overran the Emeryville store when it opened a few years ago. EPA PD is working with other agencies to set up signs and routing for the grand opening. I’m looking forward to it myself (after the two-week grand opening ends)–we’re looking for a new living room couch and some cool new lighting.

CNN.com – Man killed when hair catches on roller coaster car

Good reason to remember to tie my hair back before getting on a coaster.

A keyboard for pirates.

It’s Left-Handers’ Day. Please take a moment to give a thought to Left-Handers as you go about your daily business.