If you like the new series of OfficeMax commercials, (just nominated for an Emmy award), you can now see them online. This also includes the “teaser” spots and two “making off” shorts.

Okay, it’s not quite a startup (owned by a medium-sized company back east) but the startup attitude is quite prevalent here. From the exposed ductwork ceilings to the free soda and snacks in the kitchen–to the slightly panicked feeling of realizing exactly how much we’ve taken on here–the sense of deja vu is pretty strong. Except for the money faucets. Those are pretty much permanently off.

New job starts tomorrow. I’m a bit nervous. Trying to find some note-taking materials that don’t look like high school Pee Chee and Trapper Keepers.

It looks like I will be able to keep the second job at B&N;, either 7-close weeknights or Sundays (or both).

On the first day of my summer vacation, I woke up. Then I went downtown. To look for a job. Then I hung out in front of the drugstore.

On the second day of my summer vacation, I woke up. Then I went downtown. To look for a job. Then I hung out in front of the drugstore.

On the seventy-second day of my summer vacation, I woke up. Then I went to Berkeley. To look for a job. Then I got a job. Keeping people from hanging out in front of the drugstore.

Does this remind anyone else of the classic Broderbund game Lode Runner?

I’m on the road right now, and using this post to save some links for later.

• http://www.bitgoogle.com/
• http://www.xs4all.nl/~pot/infocom/
• http://www.dogtoyormaritalaid.com/
• http://www.computerpoweruser.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles/archive/c0407/03c07/03c07.asp&guid;=4B6E615DF0FC4214B19CFFD80508F124

What really happened on the last lunar mission… The Lonely Astronaut

(Flash, language)

You couldn’t even muster a bare majority. Prominent Republicans refused to vote for it. It’s a joke and not a funny one (Nelson notwithstanding). Can we stop now?

The Senate dealt a crushing defeat to a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage Wednesday, failing to muster even a simple majority on a procedural move to bring the measure to a vote.

Mark Fiore’s daily animated editorial explains the “Minister of Fear”.

(Flash)

CNet News.com reports Continental Airlines offers free Wi-Fi service in most of its “Presidents Club” locations. Now, not to belabor the obvious, but that really means “inside and within 100 feet of” its Club locations. I wonder what sort of user authentication they’re going to require inside the club, and how difficult (or not) it will be to gain access outside, from the regular peasant waiting areas.

Doesn’t anybody else remember those radio commercials, played ad infinitum in the 80s on KROQ, for the “Academy of Radio Broadcasting”? I can find no online evidence that they ever existed, but I know I can’t have imagined them that many times.

I would very grateful for a recording (in any format, analog or digital) of that commercial.

After watching the 1971 Warner Bros. classic Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (based, of course, on the Roald Dahl novel), did you ever wonder what happened next? Wonka had just announced that he was giving the multimillion-dollar factory to Charlie Bucket. How would this eight-year-old boy handle it?

Zack “Geist Editor” Parsons of Something Awful has answered that question in a piece he calls “Charlie Bucket and the Chocolate Factory“.

Ladies, gentlemen, Oompa Loompas, thank you all for coming today. As many of you may know the esteemed Mr. Wonka has decided to hand sole ownership of his candy production facility over to me. Mr. Wonka believed that because I was a child I would be naïve and continue to do things around here in the whimsical and shockingly inefficient manner he has. I am here to say that things are not going to be the same at all. After speaking with Mr. Wonka’s accountant I have come to discover that the factory here is rarely operating in the black. In fact, Mr. Wonka has basically saddled me with years of debt caused by some of the ridiculous expenses involved in producing our candy here.

(Something Awful is not a site for children or the easily-offended)

Alien in 30 seconds with bunnies. Well, what else is there to say?

(Flash)

Somehow I forgot to mention this two days ago, but this incarnation of Project Insomnia has now been in existence for one year! I started it on July 7, 2003, and wasn’t sure if I’d want to keep it going or if it would just fade out. I guess that question has been answered.

San Francisco Chronicle political writer Carla Marinucci has an insightful analysis of the strange situation where Republican donors are sending money to the Nader campaign.

Nearly one in 10 of Nader’s major donors — those writing checks of $1, 000 or more — have given in recent months to the Bush-Cheney campaign, the latest documents show. GOP fund-raisers also have “bundled” contributions — gathering hefty donations for maximum effect to help Nader, who has criticized the practice in the past.

The donations from wealthy Republicans — combined with increasingly vocal Democratic charges that they represent a stealth GOP effort to wound Democrat John Kerry — prompted Nader’s vice presidential running mate, Green Party member Peter Camejo, to suggest the consumer advocate reject the money that doesn’t come from loyal Nader voters.

Not too surprising, I guess. Ugly, unethical, against the spirit of Nader’s own campaign, but not surprising.

Also, I’ve been meaning to note with much amusement the presence of a “Change to Republican here!” table outside the Safeway grocery store near my bookstore. It doesn’t get much business.

However, it’s gratifying to see a potentially serious security hole in Mozilla fixed in less than 48 hours. Moz/Firefox/Thunderbird users on Windows NT/2K/XP should visit that page for a quick fix.

For once, anyway. In troubleshooting some annoying sync failures on my Speakeasy DSL service, the tech support guy mentioned as a possible solution this new program offered in partnership with Covad, and reported by Ars Technica:

Back in the day (the mid 90s), dedicated-loop DSL was the primary means of delivering ADSL service. Now it looks to be poised for a comeback, as Covad this week announced a new dedicated-loop DSL offering in partnership with Speakeasy. Also known as dry-loop DSL and naked DSL, dedicated-loop DSL differs from the more common shared-line DSL in that the service is carried on a dedicated line that does not require voice service. Once regulators began requiring local telephone companies to lease lines in the late 90s to DSL providers such as Earthlink and Speakeasy, dedicated-loop DSL fell by the wayside, as it was more expensive and required the ISP to come out and do a custom installation.

So I said, let’s give it a try. The installation fee is waived because I’m a current customer, the new CPE (“Customer Premise Equipment” or DSL modem, for the acronym-declined), if I need it, will be fully rebated, and the extra $5/month will be more than offset by the $25/month savings of dropping our SBC landline.

Also, note the little “by the way” bit at the bottom of the Ars Technica piece:

With Covad and Speakeasy planning on offering a 6.0/768 dedicated-loop DSL package soon, it may put pressure on the ILECs to improve their offerings, or even to follow the lead of Qwest in offering naked DSL.

(emphasis mine) Mmmmmmm.

Another Internet Explorer flaw found — CNET News.com’s Robert Lemos reports on the discovery of yet another serious insecurity in IE.

A computer science researcher has highlighted the shortcomings of Microsoft’s latest patch for its Internet Explorer browser by identifying another way that online vandals could run malicious programs on a Web surfer’s computer.

Microsoft on Friday released a fix that’s designed to protect computers from one of three flaws that, together, could be used to digitally slip past a PC’s security through the browser. This weekend, however, a security researcher identified another flaw that could serve the same purpose and that isn’t fixed by Microsoft’s patch.

“They chose to address only one part of the problem,” said Jelmer Kuperus, a computer science student in the Netherlands who posted the code for the work-around. “They should have seen this one coming.”

Okay, so why do I keep harping on this? Because IE in its present state is dangerous and it concerns me that so many people, including the friends and family who read this site, continue to use it. Mozilla‘s latest, Firefox, has every capability and feature of IE (except, of course, for the gaping security holes) and is free. Please give it a try.

In case you needed more convincing after the past couple of weeks of deadly serious security holes in the world’s most widely-used Web browser, Slate — that’s right, part of MSN, owned 100% by Microsoft — is recommending Mozilla Firefox in this article by Paul Boutin.

CNET reporter Robert Lemos zeroed in on why the attack was so scary. “This time,” he wrote, “the flaws affect every user of Internet Explorer.” That’s about 95 percent of all Net users. No matter how well they had protected themselves against viruses, spyware, and everything else in the past, they were still vulnerable to yet another flaw in Microsoft’s browser.

Scob didn’t get me, but it was enough to make me ditch Explorer in favor of the much less vulnerable Firefox browser. Firefox is built and distributed free by the Mozilla Organization, a small nonprofit corporation spun off last year from the fast-fading remnants of Netscape, which was absorbed by AOL in 1999. Firefox development and testing are mostly done by about a dozen Mozilla employees, plus a few dozen others at companies like IBM, Sun, and Red Hat. I’ve been using it for a week now, and I’ve all but forgotten about Explorer.

The dismissive attitude in this paragraph (“about a dozen employees”) is funny considering that the author is encouraging his readers to switch. Over on Slashdot, of course, the paranoiacs reign supreme as theories are tossed about as to how a Microsoft-owned media property can dis the parent company and get away with it.

Interesting times.

“Google bans Gmail swaps and sales,” reports CNET News.com rather breathlessly. In fact, as clarified later in the article and also in the revised Gmail Program Policies,

The changes are designed to deter people from creating multiple e-mail accounts with the purpose of reselling or trading them, according to a source at the company. The policy alterations do not target people trying to barter Gmail invitations, which allow people to sign up for a new membership.

(emphasis mine)

So invitation-swapping or -donation sites like Gmail Swap and Gmail 4 Troops are still fully in the clear.

By the way, I still have one Gmail invite left.

The Telephone

(Flash)