05.05.04
Posted in Prions at 2:20 am by Danny Dawson
Inspectors failed to perform a required mad cow test on a suspicious cow in Texas, the U.S. Agriculture Department said on Monday, just as the Bush administration is pushing to reopen world markets to U.S. beef.
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Last year, USDA tested only 20,000 cattle for mad cow disease, a level criticized by consumer groups as inadequate, out of about 36 million slaughtered. For an 18 month period starting in June, USDA aims to test at least 200,000 cattle.
US Mad Cow Test Procedure Violated in Texas-USDA - Reuters
The Japanese, who test every animal for mad cow disease, will not allow American beef imports again until the U.S. cattle industry does the same.
In order to resume selling beef in Asia, Stewart made an offer: He would test every animal that came through his facility for mad cow disease, and he would pay the cost of having the government oversee the tests.
But the U.S. Department of Agriculture refused.
“They’ve told us if we attempt to buy those test kits and use them, they are going to put me in jail,” Stewart said.
The government has never allowed private testing. And even though test kits are available, they are not licensed.
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The USDA estimates testing all cattle could cost $1 billion. The rest of the cattle industry, which could be forced by competition to test as well, is siding with the government.
Mad Cow, Madder Cattleman: Rancher Willing to Pay for Mad Cow Tests, But USDA Says No - ABCNews
The recent case of a Texas cow that had symptoms of mad cow disease but was not tested is not an isolated event, a federal veterinarian told UPI.
USDA vet: Texas mad cow breach not unique - Washington Times
USDA said no part of the animal, killed on April 27, entered the human food chain.
USDA Says Procedure Not Followed with Texas Cow - Reuters
The FDA planned to send a letter to the business saying it “will not object to use of this material in swine feed only'’ because pigs are not considered [emphasis mine] susceptible to mad cow disease, one in a family of illnesses known to infect grass-eating animals.
FDA Says Texas Cow OK for Swine Feed - Guardian
Animals that have been destroyed can still be processed at rendering plants that prepare animal byproducts for use in consumer goods, from cosmetics to gelatin for drug capsules. The government believes such items pose no risk to human health.
Ill Texas Cow Killed Before It Was Tested - Guardian
Commercial melatonin may be extracted from bovine pineal gland. There may be a risk of contracting mad cow disease.
Melatonin - Wikipedia
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05.10.04
Posted in Web at 1:44 pm by Danny Dawson
It seems there’s another side to the social networking fad. While services such as Friendster, Orkut (Turkey, I’m still waiting for that email), and the like track the social habits of people on the web, Dogster is targeted at our surrogate children: our pets.
Already, some 35,300 dogs (or their owners) have signed up for the service (some 19,300 remain active) since at least at far back as July of 2003, which is around the time little Estro, dog number 46 and most senior active dog on Dogster, was registered.
Currently, Catster redirects to Dogster, but we can all rest assured that the cat owners out there will jump at the chance when the site is launched.
On a related note, I heard my mom’s dog howling last night for the first time. It really creeped me out. Buddy’s got this long, low, guttural, ambient kind of howl. It seems to come from all around and nowhere at the same time. The dog is dumb as nails, though. The moon had just risen and he was facing west.
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05.11.04
Posted in Web at 11:40 pm by Danny Dawson
MovableType was wonderful. There were many of those middle-of-the-night moments when I rolled over and told her so. I was with Blogger before I made the move to MT oh-so-long-ago, but Blogger always left me feeling unsatisfied. There was something missing in our relationship. I can hear you all out there, whispering behind my back, saying that Blogger should have been good enough for me, saying that I have control issues.
I won’t deny it. I wanted the upper hand on my weblogging software. And when I started fooling around with MovableType, I had it. Or at least I thought I did. You see, once I’d left Blogger, MT would spend all day every day waiting for me (she never left our server); she would cook me up a nice new archive page whenever I asked; she’d help me clean the outdated posts off my front page; she obeyed my every command.
In some ways, I found MT too complex (I never could understand what made those old-fashioned Perl girls tick); but in many other ways, she was too simple-minded for me. For one thing, she couldn’t always remember to lock my files when she’d finished with them. I felt vulnerable with her around. And even though she was always loyal, she took forever to finish doing whatever it was I had asked. Sure, she could put away my things into categorized containers, but could she break them down into sub-categories? I think not.
I decided it was time to move on to someone more with-it, more up-to-date, more adaptable, more…my speed, if you catch my drift. So I put myself back on the market. I wasn’t quite ready to part from her yet - yes, I am codependent on my weblog software, it is sad, but true - so I kept it secret. It was so hard not to post it here for all to see, but I kept it down successfully. I started fooling around with Textpattern and WordPress around the same time a few weeks ago (WP: I swear you came first). I would still post to MT, but my posts weren’t frequent, and I would be messing with WP’s code the whole time. (How does she react when I put this in there? Ahh, I like that.)
Textpattern just wouldn’t do it for me. She spoke a language I knew I’d never bother to learn, she didn’t really seem to do anything that WP didn’t already or couldn’t learn, and her back-end…well, let’s just say that there was too much there. (I’ve always been known to prefer a compact-looking back end. Besides, I can manipulate WP so easily, if I wanted her to put on a few pounds, she could pack it in pretty fast.)
So begins my relationship with Wordpress. I admit, she’s another piece of software whose language I’m not yet fluent in, but I can understand her enough to communicate, and I’m eager to learn. Maybe it won’t last. Maybe this is just today’s NBT. But so what? I could never resist those foreign-language girls.
In case you’re wondering, BSAG introduced us. I went looking for the moon and found myself among the stars.
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05.13.04
Posted in Movies at 6:42 am by Danny Dawson
I watched Donnie Darko again last night and decided to look up some further analysis of the movie.
I found a few websites with reviews and plot/timeline breakdowns which were almost notable, but they seemed to lack something. Then I came across Mark Joseph Young’s analysis. Reading through it made for an interesting lesson in time travel, but it wasn’t until the second to last paragraph (jump to Conclusions and scroll down) that I found what I was truly looking for (some semi-spoilers):
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Web at 6:29 pm by Danny Dawson
Looks like my ex-girlfriend’s a bitch.
Seriously, though, I have to fight myself not to cry out “Ben and Mena, why?!?” I know that SixApart is now a legitimate company that has to make legitimate money…
I can’t help but feel a sense of loss, though. My old comrade is stuck on a sinking ship, and she refuses to get into the damn life raft. I’ve got plenty of room here, and regardless of how stubborn she’s being now, I’m thinking of all the good times we’ve had and of the redeeming qualities that remain. I know there are others out there who can still love her like I once did. It doesn’t have to be over yet. Please, MT, don’t let it be so. Just swim over here and get in the boat!
I’m also worried about all the traffic this is going to send the way of Wordpress.
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05.14.04
Posted in General at 9:08 am by Danny Dawson
I finally got around to integrating a stylesheet switcher. Over in the sidebar you’ll see a “Style” heading which lists the three styles I’ve designed for use so far: aranji (the default), chamomile, and neon. I plan to add to these as time goes on, and I will consider all requests, but don’t expect a new style every day.
I did this mainly so that I can create new designs without irritating the bejesus out of you by changing the look of things every other day. Your choice of design is stored in a cookie that expires after a year, so even if I change which design is the default, you shouldn’t notice because your design choice will remain the same. (This is how things are supposed to work. Let me know if it doesn’t actually happen that way.) I get bored/fed up easily with my designs, and I wanted a way to add new ones without bothering you.
See, I only had your best interests in mind.
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Posted in General at 9:33 am by Danny Dawson
It’s time to play Guess That Image. Today’s image comes to you from beautiful Berkeley, CA. I captured it on Sunday, June 1, 2003 if I can trust the file creation date. [edit] Nope: Wednesday, December 18, 2002 (Found the EXIF data) [/edit] What the hell is it? (Slightly photoshopped)
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Posted in Web at 6:09 pm by Danny Dawson
[17:05 on 05/14] {markp} who gets the money from wordpres.org/donate.php?
[17:05 on 05/14] {markp} er, wordpress.org
[17:05 on 05/14] {laughinglizard} markp: photomatt
[17:05 on 05/14] {archon} I got a nothing, because it’s free. :P
[17:05 on 05/14] {crw} markp: i was wondering that earlier
[17:05 on 05/14] {markp} ok
[17:05 on 05/14] {markp} hope he shares
[17:05 on 05/14] {laughinglizard} :) he has expenses
[17:05 on 05/14] {markp} i just donated
…
[17:43 on 05/14] {markp} site is live
–from the wordpress irc channel
The prominent Mark Pilgrim made the switch today, as have uncountable others. His reasons are here. More impressive is his $535 donation to the project.
They aren’t exactly my reasons, though. I wanted an easily customizable back-end and I wanted to immerse myself in php for the educational aspect. I had other reasons, but those were the main two. MT 3.0 was still in beta when I made the switch, and I hadn’t heard anything with regards to development details, so that had no influence over my decision. It does reaffirm that I made the right one, though.
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05.20.04
Posted in Health, Travel at 8:05 pm by Danny Dawson
Website workings will be on hold for awhile. I’ve got posts in draft form that I’ll post later. I’m going back out to California until at least next Tuesday, and I’m too excited to attempt concentration on this. Jared’s getting married to Vicki on Sunday in LA, and then I’ll be driving up to the Bay Area with Carlos and Yuwynn for a few days before flying back in to FLL.
I got my Robocop-appendage removed yesterday and posted the pictures today (the pins in my wrist are still there). I’m in a cast now for another week; when I get back from CA the cast is coming off and the pins are coming out. I’m looking forward to a painful recovery.
In the meantime, though, I’m looking forward to finding my heart back in San Francisco.
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05.21.04
Posted in Travel at 6:15 am by Danny Dawson
As I write this, I am sitting in FLL’s Terminal 1, Concourse B, Gate B3 waiting to board Flight 299 to LAX via MSY, departing at 7:50am EDT. I have boarding pass number 4 and a pretty blue preboarding pass because of my arm mom. I’m drinking a free can of orange juice, plugged into a free outlet in this column next to me, on the free “Guest” wireless network, waiting for my free flight across the country where I’ll reside with a great friend who has told me not to worry about the cost of food, or lodging, or transportation. And I’m blogging this.
If networking isn’t important in today’s society, what the hell am I doing here?
This is the cat’s pajamas.
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Update: That was the best flight experience I ever had. Free Bloody Marys, a window seat that I never had to move from, and a row to myself for the second (longer) leg of the trip. When I got off the plane, I went to the bathroom to put my contacts in, walked to the carousel right as my luggage was disgorged from the depths, and walked outside right as Steve (Carlos’ brother) pulled up in front of me. We then grabbed some quick fast food and cruised the PCH and Sunset Blvd. Nice beginning to my trip so far.
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