All I can say is, it feels like a crazy situation where you hope you’ll wake up any minute now, since things couldn’t get worse. I understand that there are places in the world, where, undoubtably things ARE worse than they are here in the US. It is just sad, and outrageous, that we are, as a people, changing our concept of right and wrong so dramatically. Maybe it’s always been like this, but it feels like we’re in a different space now.

Missouri Representatives who voted on the bill to authorize torture:

Nay MO-1 Clay, William [D]
Aye MO-2 Akin, W. [R]
Nay MO-3 Carnahan, Russ [D]
Nay MO-4 Skelton, Ike [D]
No Vote MO-5 Cleaver, Emanuel [D]
Aye MO-6 Graves, Samuel [R]
Aye MO-7 Blunt, Roy [R]
Aye MO-8 Emerson, Jo Ann [R]
Aye MO-9 Hulshof, Kenny [R]

All Representatives who voted on this bill: H.R. 6166: Military Commissions Act of 2006 (Vote On Passage)

Here are some links discussing this historic piece of legislation. This is now the law of the land. The United States now officially sanctions torture. (These were linked by reddit today).

• This Is What Waterboarding Looks Like
• We are now officially living in a dictatorship
• Dear Senators - CIA Letter on Torture
• Habeas Corpus, R.I.P. (1215 - 2006)
• Antiterrorism Bill on Detainees, Geneva Conventions - Rushing Off a Cliff - New York Times
• Bush Rules
• Remarks of Senator Barack Obama on the Military Commission Legislation
• One Day Forward, 900 Years Back : Democracy Murdered In Broad Daylight
• This Time, Congress Has No Excuse

America, the beautiful. America the land of the free. America, land of hope. America, what are you doing?

Popularity: 2% [?]

I may qualify as the biggest dork ever. Inspired by the #1 Matt on Google, I set out on a single-handed campaign to break into the top 10 results for my name.

As of today, out of 107,000,000 total results, I’m currently #9. Nerd points galore for me huh. w00t.

Check for yourself: Google Search for “Gabriel”

And if / when I drop back down to the depths of search engine obscurity, you can say “I knew him when he was the #9 result on Google…” Looking at the remainder of the other important Gabriels, it seems that I may be able to climb a couple places higher. It will probably be tough to get higher than the #1 Gabriel - Gabriel shocks though. They do own Gabriel.com and whatnot. But, here’s to trying anyways…

If you feel like helping out for whatever reason, use this code on your website to link to my site:

<a href="http://www.gabrielserafini.com/" title="Gabriel">Gabriel</a>

P.S. The kid in the picture is Jackson Wade Wallace, my good friend Damon’s awesome little boy from when I was visiting them in California this summer. He’s gonna be famous someday.

Popularity: 1% [?]

SourceForge.net: Tesseract OCR

A commercial quality OCR engine originally developed at HP between 1985 and 1995. In 1995, this engine was among the top 3 evaluated by UNLV. It was open-sourced by HP and UNLV in 2005.

Popularity: 1% [?]

This is an Alexa traffic graph showing quantity of traffic, comparing a number of fitness related sites:

Not surprisingly, Collabofit isn’t even on the chart yet. Well, with only 26 members and an invite-only system so far, we’re not too worried about it. I’ll check back in a couple of months and see how we’re doing then…

Popularity: 2% [?]

We just added some new features to Collabofit that are pretty exciting:

• RSS feeds for each activity
• 3 new activities (including my most recent favorite activity, Sledgehammer)
• Team manager badges
• and more…

Check it out: RSS feeds for every activity are now live (+ 3 new fitness activities!)

P.S. If you would like to start tracking your own fitness hit-points, let me know. I can probably hook you up with an invite.

Popularity: 2% [?]

I’d been wanting to do this for a while. The biggest feature for me was the “static” DHCP setup, where you can keep DHCP for most machines on your network but assign a couple of machines to static IPs that never change. This comes in handy when you’re running servers that need to always have a specific port forwarding to them.

The installation was really easy - just download the latest firmware, unzip it and upload it using the Linksys web gui.

One note: Use Firefox, not Safari when navigating the new/upgraded pages. It kept all the pre-existing data / preferences.

HyperWRT is a GPL firmware project for the Linksys WRT54G/WRT54GL/WRT54GS and WRTSL54GS wireless routers based on the
latest stock Linksys firmware. The original goal of the HyperWRT project was to add a set of features–such as power boost–to the Linux-based Linksys firmware, extending its possibilities but staying close to the official firmware. Over time, it has continued to be updated with newer Linksys firmware, and
incorporated many more features typically found in enterprise routing equipment.

Thibor’s HyperWRT page

Popularity: 3% [?]

I thought this might be useful for our contractor Eric since he was talking about getting a 3d drafting package of some sort. Hard to beat free to start…

3D for EveryoneDeveloped for the conceptual stages of design, SketchUp is powerful yet easy-to-learn 3D software. We think of it as the pencil of digital design. This award-winning software combines a simple, yet robust tool-set that streamlines and simplifies 3D design inside your computer. SketchUp is being used by anyone with the desire to…

Go download it now: SketchUp Home

Popularity: 2% [?]

I enjoyed going to the Clayton Art Fair today after lunch. We walked around for about an hour and a half. Tonight I walked Kuma in the park and did the normal route twice, for a total of an hour of brisk walking (~4.25 miles). All in all, a good day of locomotion.

During my dog walk tonight I finally got a chance to listen to the Health Hacks Podcast, and it was excellent.

I’ve been reading up on two simple systems developed by Reinhard Engels - one called the No S Diet (No Snacks, sweets or seconds, except on S-days (sometimes)) and his sledgehammer exercise program called Shovelglove (I know, funny name huh.)

Well, starting this weekend I’ve officially begun the No S diet, and will also be trying the Shovelglove exercises as well. Both make so much sense, and have an elegance to them that feels like a well written shell script — do what you want, no more, no less.

I’ll be continuing to track my progress on my Collabofit page: Collabofit - gserafini’s Member Page, and hopefully we’ll be adding Sledgehammer as one of the home exercise activities you can easily track there.

My goal is to be at 205 lb by October 5, slimmer by ~ 13 lb in time for my brother’s wedding. We’ll see how it goes.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Superfine new mp3 out by Weird Al that shows his nerdcore skills go deep. And it is hilarious. And a great listen. 5 stars.

Listen: White & Nerdy (mp3 file)

White & Nerdy
————
Parody of “Ridin’” by Chamillionaire
New lyrics by Al Yankovic

They see me mowin’
My front lawn
I know they’re all thinking I’m so white and nerdy
Think I’m just too white and nerdy
Think I’m just too white and nerdy
Can’t you see I’m white and nerdy?
Look at me, I’m white and nerdy
I wanna roll with
The gangstas
But so far they all think I’m too white and nerdy
Think I’m just too white and nerdy
Think I’m just too white and nerdy
I’m just too white and nerdy.
Really really white and nerdy.

First in my class here at MIT
Got skills, I’m a champion at D&D
MC Escher - that’s my favorite MC
Keep your 40, I’ll just have an Earl Grey tea
My rims never spin, to the contrary
You’ll find that they’re quite stationary
All of my action figures are cherry
Steven Hawking’s in my library
My MySpace page is all totally pimped out
Got people beggin’ for my top eight spaces
Yo, I know pi to a thousand places
Ain’t got no grills but I still wear braces
I order all of my sandwiches with mayonnaise
I’m a whiz at Minesweeper - I could play for days
Once you see my sweet moves you’re gonna stay amazed
My fingers’ movin’ so fast I’ll set the place ablaze
There’s no killer app I haven’t run
At Pascal, well I’m number one
Do vector calculus just for fun
I ain’t got a gat but I got a soldering gun
Happy Days is my favorite theme song
I could sure kick your butt in a game of ping pong
I’ll ace any trivia quiz you bring on
I’m fluent in JavaScript as well as Klingon

They see me roll on
My Segway
I know in my heart they think I’m white and nerdy
Think I’m just too white and nerdy
Think I’m just too white and nerdy
Can’t you see I’m white and nerdy
Look at me, I’m white and nerdy
I’d like to roll with
The gangstas
Although it’s apparent I’m too white and nerdy
Think I’m just too white and nerdy
Think I’m just too white and nerdy
I’m just too white and nerdy
How’d I get so white and nerdy

I’ve been browsin’, inspectin’
X-Men comics, you know I collect ‘em
The pens in my pocket, I must protect ‘em
My ergonomic keyboard never leaves me bored
Shopping online for deals on some writable media
I edit Wikipedia
I memorized Holy Grail really well
I can recite it right now and have you ROTFLOL
I got a business doing websites
When my friends need some code, who do they call?
I do HTML for ‘em all
Even made a homepage for my dog
Yo, I got myself a fanny pack
They were havin’ a sale down at The Gap
Spend my nights with a roll of bubble wrap
Pop, pop, hope no one sees me
Gettin’ freaky
I’m nerdy in the extreme
And whiter than sour cream
I was in AV Club and Glee Club and even the Chess Team
Only question I
Ever thought was hard
Was do I like Kirk
Or do I like Picard
Spend every weekend at the Renaissance Fair
Got my name on my underwear

They see me strollin’
They laughin’
And rollin’ their eyes ’cause I’m so white and nerdy
Just because I’m white and nerdy
Just because I’m white and nerdy
All because I’m white and nerdy
Holy cow, I’m white and nerdy
I wanna bowl with
The gangstas
But, oh well, it’s obvious I’m white and nerdy
Think I’m just too white and nerdy
Think I’m just too white and nerdy
I’m just too white and nerdy
Look at me, I’m white and nerdy

Via digg - Weird Al - Ridin’ Dirty (White & Nerdy)

Popularity: 3% [?]

This class is a Prototype/script.aculo.us version of the excellent Bill Scott’s Carousel component.
I needed it to be able to use it in Ruby On Rails application without using the 200KB of YUI JS classes.

This library is licensed under a MIT-style license, so you can use it for anything you like, as long as you include the copyright notice.

The current version (0.1) is the first release with only few parameters. I am working on it to have a lot of more features.
This version has

* Ajax or static content
* Horizontal orientation
* Rails helper

It’s has been tested on IE 6, Firefox (PC,Mac), Opera 9, Safari and Camino.

Check it out: Prototype Carousel

Popularity: 5% [?]