2004 03 31 - Wed
posted by jack at 05:26 CET in / politics 
Today is the first broadcast day for
Air America, a new radio network with a radical concept: Instead of loudmouth right-wingers commanding the airwaves, let's showcase some loudmouth leftists! I can only welcome this. They only have a few broadcast stations now, but there will be a live internet feed as well, which means even us overseas people will be able to listen to the likes of
Al Franken and
Janeane Garafalo skewering the Bush administration, etc.
Hooray!
2004 03 18 - Thu
posted by jack at 13:43 CET in / humor
My fortune on
orkut today:
You have an unusal equipment for success, use it propery.
I wouldn't mention this if not for the fact that the short sentence contains two misspellings. Perhaps the ability to correctly spell words is my "unusal" equipment. I just hope I'm using it "propery" now!
posted by jack at 08:03 CET in / politics
It looks like some congressmen are taking seriously the threat to American democracy that is posed by non-voter-verifiable electronic voting machines! The
Verified Voting campaign backs a bill, soon coming up before congress, that will require electronic voting machines to be retrofitted with a voter-verifiable paper system by November of this year! Now might be a good time to
go there, and write or call your congressman to promote this important legislation!
The Swedish word
slut simply means "end" in English. This means that you see this word everywhere: Ends of movies, ends of stories, etc.
2004 03 15 - Mon
posted by jack at 09:49 CET in / politics
I wrote
a while ago about the problems inherent in the various electronic voting systems being implemented throughout America. One of the main problems is the lack of a printed record, which would allow people to see and verifty that their vote was counted correctly, as well as allow for recounts in case of close results.
Manufacturers like Diebold have been strangely reluctant to include vote-printing options in their machines. At first they claimed technical incompetence (apparently, attaching a printer to a computer is a daunting task for Diebold), and then when they finally conceded that this technical miracle was possible, they put exorbitant prices on the printer add-ons.
Now comes the big surprise: As
Robert X. Cringely describes in his column, the Diebold machines already have printers! The internal printers are required by law for end-of-day vote tallies at least. Modifying the systems to create user-verifiable printed records would require simple changes to the software, and minor enhancements to the computers' casings to allow the printed receipts to be seen.
Fortunately for Diebold, the major media are still ignoring this story. Blah.
2004 03 12 - Fri
This is perhaps not a "word" in some sense, but rather a proper name of a
store I've seen in Stockholm and an associated brand. I propose that the word "pukeberg" in English should be used to described the splatters of frozen vomit that can often be found on sidewalks near nightclub entrances in cold climates (e.g. Sweden).
2004 03 10 - Wed
Although it seems like the name of a device to help prevent you from passing gas, a
farthinder is actually what we call a speed bump in English.
2004 03 09 - Tue
posted by jack at 15:05 CET in / humor
Not particularly new, but this
hilarious audio cut-up of America's greatest gas-bag has him hurling his venom at himself for a change. Incredibly funny for Limbaugh haters and lovers alike. I bet Rush would even like it himself, especially when he's all
hopped-up on goofballs.
Today's funny Swedish word is
fart. This means "movement" or "speed". Fortunately for English-based humorists, this is used to build lots and lots of compound words seen in road signs, shop windows, etc. Stay tuned.
2004 03 03 - Wed
Today's funny Swedish word is
fukt. This means "moisture".
posted by jack at 10:50 CET in / compute / blogging
Holy smokes, it's been almost a month since I last posted! Well, hey, I've been busy, traveling, sick, etc. And I missed the bus. And my dog ate my homework.
