The Google Suggest beta is ingenious as a simple let slick Ajax add-on to regular Google Search.

I've been testing out the Microsoft Start beta recently as a showcase Ajax portal/RSS aggregator application. It's incredibly simple and intuitive to use, but seems to lack support for organizing feeds into groups and subgroups (and therefore importing OPML files organized as such). It is web-based, of course, so at least it's portable and quick.

In legal news, the landmark trial over Intelligent Design has now started. In health news, pomegranate juice might guard against prostate cancer. A different kind of rice update: Condoleezza Rice visited Haiti. A historical update: Sacajawea now has her own website. In recent weeks, the church has been making news with it's well-executed hurricane relief efforts. Very cool.

In shocking geocaching news, a local cache (on Idaho 55 Rainbow Bridge) created a bomb scare yesterday, shutting down a highway for 6 hours, and was publicized widely over TV, newspaper, web, and radio outlets. Ouch.

We celebrated Neal's 140th birthday last night (he has two birthdates each year) at Scott's home in Nampa. We thereafter toured Ginger's new house just down the street from him. Very nice.

Finally, someone with some common sense has stepped forward in the Google Print copyright debate. In this first article, a lawyer has switched sides on the issue. In this second article, lessons learned in the past shed some light on the current issue. I am also glad to see at least one other person besides myself that has actually TESTED what everyone else is simply talking about. His results are interesting, and add value to the discussion and my own understanding of Google Print's implementation.

At first, Ben thought his dead car battery was just some crappy, run-of-the-mill battery.



Think again.   =)

Most of Misti's folks and family are in town this weekend for Mari's baptism, which was today. Afterward, we all went to lunch at the Golden Corral in Nampa. Since seeing the phrase "Oy Vey!" in the film "Shark Tale", I had to look it up. (Not many Ashkenazi Jews around here.)

Hurricane Rita is, of course, already headline news today. Rice update: Misti made some more rice tonight in the rice cooker, but used a 2:1 water to rice ratio, and it was plumper and not dry at all (like it was before with the 1:1 ratio), but was a little clumpy. Tasted wonderful, however.

To illustrate (instead of just talk about) the real problem with Google Print, click on these links to six successive pages of a Print Publisher Program book, clearly printable, saveable, emailable, bookmarkable, etc., and beyond the supposed 5-page limit:

http://snipurl.com/hwq1 (Page 1)
http://snipurl.com/hwq3 (Page 2)
http://snipurl.com/hwq5 (Page 3)
http://snipurl.com/hwq8 (Page 4)
http://snipurl.com/hwq9 (Page 5)
http://snipurl.com/hwqa (Page 6)
...and so on...

Anyone can view the source on a Google Print page of a book governed by a Print Publisher Program's agreement to get the actual image's location (link), and therefore directly access more than five (5) successive pages to a book. That's the real problem, not all this Print Library Project garbage that everyone is whining about. They're all barking up the wrong tree. Why isn't anyone else noticing this?

Of course, in reading over Google Print Publisher's Terms of Service (see #4, "Restrictions on Use of Authorized Content"), they don't guarantee that they can stop anyone from being able to print, copy, etc., so I guess if you're a publisher and you agreed to these uncertain terms, there's nothing you can really do about it? Also, it doesn't say anything in there about the five pages, it clearly says 20% of a book in any 30-day period. Hmmmm, I'll have to look into that. In any case, I guess Google is still covered - it's clearly not copyright infringement. The plot thickens.

The recent debate over Google Print is really interesting. Here are the facts: there are three different scanning scenarios in Google Print (public domain books [copyright expired], copyrighted books submitted voluntarily by a publisher with permission to use, and copyrighted books not submitted but scanned via The Google Library Project). Thus, there are three different types of results you can get from Google Print: full book viewable, limited page access, and snippets only (which is allowed under the 'fair use' exception of copyright law).

The only potential problem I see is in the middle scenario. If you've ever used Google Print for a book in this middle category, you'll notice that the entire book is not viewable at first, but only a couple pages before and after a search result. According to Google's FAQ (item #6), this is the way it's supposed to work. There is, of course, a way around it - if you out-smart the system repeatedly to bring up subsequent pages (which is possible using a simple refined search), it'll let you the first few times, but then it'll require you to log in (with your Gmail account info) - presumably so they can track your movements. It does, however, let you continue on. For books scanned in as part of the Print Library Project, if a particular search term appears many times in a book, the search engine allows you to only view three instances of the term, thus preventing you from accessing too much of the book. No similar control seems to be in place over books submitted via the Print Publisher Program. That's the problem.

Thus, in theory, you can view (but not easily print) the entire text of some copyrighted books (at least for now until Google reads this blog entry). Of course, they're probably watching you, but it is possible and fairly easy to do, and even then possible to print off the entire book if you are determined to do so.

Herein lies what should be the crux of the copyright case against Google by the Authors Guild and the concerns of the Association of American Publishers (AAP): Google is allowing access to the entire copyrighted text of a book out on the web for free, contradictory to Google's own Print Publisher agreement. The Authors Guild is focusing on the wrong aspect - they're trying to build an argument based upon the Print Library Project, when they should be concentrating on the Print Publisher Program's logistics instead. It's not copyright fair use theory that should be under scrutiny here, but rather Google's implementation of the Print Beta's web interface and adhering to the Print Publisher Program's terms of service.

In my opinion, any lawsuits against the Print Library Project focused on the Fair Use doctrine are doomed to fail. As a primer, there are four (4) factors in the Fair Use privilege of the Copyright Act:

1) Commercial nature of the purpose and character of the use.

Is the usage being done exploitatively to make a commercial profit? Does the usage supplant the need for the originals? Are the results of the secondary usage used for the same, or for a different function or purpose, as the originals? Also important here is how "transformative" the new work is - the more it's been altered (i.e., the less it resembles the original), the better.

2) The creative nature of the copyrighted work.

Creative works are more covered under copyright law, whereas fact-based works are less so. Has the work already been published? Published works are less-protected (i.e., more subject to fair use) than non-published works, because the artist/authors have already expressed their ideas to the world and potentially already profited from it.

3) The portion of the work in ratio to the work as a whole.

Fair Use says you can copy a portion, but not the whole thing. This factor, however, depends on the intended usage. If the usage only makes sense if the entire work is copied, then that is allowed.

4) The effect of the usage on the value of the original.

Does the secondary usage undermine or supplant the market or value of the original? Can someone get the original work from you instead of going to the original copyright holder? Does the secondary project harm the ability of the original copyright holder to license or sell the original work?

Since Google Print doesn't negatively impact or tread upon any of these four fair use factors, I feel that Google is in the clear.

In browser news, Opera is now free (without ads), and Firefox 1.0.7 is now available (and patches a new 'extremely critical' security hole in Firefox 1.0.6 [running on Linux/Unix only]). Interesting. Here's Becky, as promised, with her new training wheels on Bonny's old bike, and also our joint sidewalk chalk fish masterpiece:





Dan tipped me off to this hilarious ROTS (Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith) page. It loads completely slow (and sometimes not at all, due to the poor overworked, coralized images - not to mention the Slashdot effect), but it is worth the wait if you are into Star Wars and/or want to see horrible English-Chinese-English subtitle translation at its absolute worst. Here's another one.

Our new ISP uses PPPoA instead of PPPoE for its ADSL. Interesting. We found "Eddy's" cache tonight, but it had been looted, so I gathered up its remains and am providing it safe haven 'til such time as its owner comes to retrieve it.

The recent Symantec threat report (for Q1 & Q2 of 2005) confirms something I've always suspected: Firefox and Macs are not more secure than IE/Windows, they're just not as popular. In fact, Firefox is less secure than IE so far this year, with Firefox suffering from double the number of security holes of IE. From the article: "...switching from IE to Firefox as a way of minimizing security risks [is] no longer valid advice." Ouch. In those immortal words, "...there is no 'safe' web browser."

Misti made round three of rice last night, but she used our rice cooker that we got as a wedding present. (Shamefully, I think this was the first time we've used it.) It wasn't perfect, but it did turn out fairly good - it was light and fluffy, wasn't clumpy or stuck together, but it wasn't as plump as it should've been. Once again, it recommended only a 1:1 ratio of water to rice, which is why I believe it seemed a little dry. The quest for perfect rice goes on. In unrelated news, Apple's new iPod nano came out recently and is already making quite the splash. Becky 'graduated' from her red tricycle to Bonny's old bicycle yesterday, with the addition of some new purple training wheels. I'll post a photo tomorrow.

Hot dogs. The selection at the store is quite wide, with some brands proudly proclaiming their product "franks", with others calling them "weiners". Interestingly, however, none of them actually use the term "hot dog". So, what's the difference between a frank and a weiner, any way? Apparently, nothing.

I have, however, learned a couple of interesting trivia tidbits in trying to get to the bottom of this most pressing of questions. First, it would be false advertising if they actually called them "hot dogs", since they don't actually become "hot dogs" until they're: 1) hot, and 2) in a bun. If there's no bun, it's not a hot dog. Second of all, tangentially, ketchup is for kids. Never use ketchup on a hot dog. Period. Oh, and never boil them, either. Ever.

There are also lots of names for this type of food, including (but not limited to): red hots, white hots, frankfurter, frank, hot dog, tube steak (not kidding), danger dog (in Mexico), Coney dog, sausage sandwich, weenie, wienie, wiener, perrito caliente (Spanish), cane caldo (Italian), chien chaud (French), heisser hund (German), worstjes (Dutch), wienerwurst, dachshund sausage, Hummel dog, cheese dog, chili cheese dog, kraut dog, pretzel dog, kosher dog, mustard dog, corn dog, francheesie, francheezie, polish dog, Ripper, French hot dog, chorizo, banger, etc.

Hot dogs are basically just a type of cooked sausage, and date back to circa 850 B.C. and are mentioned in Homer's Iliad. The hot dog, as we know it today, however are generally thought to have come into existence around the 1880-1900 period. The towns of Frankfurt (Germany) and Vienna (Austria) both claim to be the origin of the modern dog, but no one is sure. Frankfurt obviously gives us the name "frankfurter", but Vienna is actually "Wein" in German, thus giving us "weiner". The most common length of a hot dog is 6 inches (15.24 centimeter), with other sizes including the foot long, and Vienna sausage cocktail weiner size (a la Lit'l Smokies) - approximately 2 inches. The average American will consume approximately 60 hot dogs annually. Conversely, Takeru "The Tsunami" Kobayashi, the world record holder, devoured 53.5 weiners in 12 minutes.

The USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) regulates how domestic hot dogs are made. (No rats, hooves, etc.) No one type of hot dog has been standardized, however, because of the vast numbers of differing brands, meat mixtures, preparation methods, casings, cooking techniques, seasonings, and sizes. And that doesn't even touch on the near-infinite possibilities of condiments, toppings, and buns - the combinations are mind-boggling! In Toronto, Canada, apparently, hot dogs are the only 'street food' allowed by law!

There are, of course, thousands of hot dog eateries or more. Leading brands of dogs include:

Nathan's
Oscar Mayer
Hebrew National
Armour
Ball Park
Bar S
Jennie O
John Morrell
Hillshire Farm

Hot dog fanatics and purists may insist upon pure beef dogs, but many dogs on the store shelves are actually a combination of turkey, pork, chicken, and/or beef. In fact, the all-beef dogs are generally cheaper than the combination dogs, thus leading one to believe that all-beef dogs are the "cheap" variety, whilst the bird/pig/cow combo are the "quality" choice. I leave that decision up to you, the reader, to decide.

We watched the 57th Annual Emmy Awards on TV last night. Bizarre, as usual. Cooking rice seems to be more of an art than a science. Since I love "cinnamon and sugar rice", I decided to whip some up, and it did take a couple of tries. The myth about equal parts rice and water is just that - a myth. Most recipes I've seen in the past few days recommend more water than rice, in ratios of 1.5:1 or 2:1. Tonight I successfully made a wonderful batch using the 2:1 ratio. I'm not talking about instant rice, which is pretty fool-proof, I'm talking about good old fashioned non-instant rice.

My first batch ended up too wet, simply because I used the 1:1 ratio, and after a few minutes it was clearly going to burn for lack of liquid, so I kept adding more water every few minutes for fear of burning it. It cooked for 30 minutes this way, partially uncovered, and it ended up wet and gluey. My second attempt tonight went much better, covered, simmering for only 20 minutes, with the 2:1 ratio, then sitting without heat but still covered for an additional 5 minutes. It tasted wonderful, not wet, still a little clumpy, but quite nice overall. I'm sure there is more skill involved to get it to turn out non-sticky with no clumps, but I'll have to work up to that, I suppose. I didn't rinse it first, like most recipes recommend (to get rid of potential excess starchiness), so maybe therein lies the key. Others recommend tilting the lid slightly so some steam can escape, not using a lid, boiling in too much water then draining and drying in the oven, using salt, microwaving instead of boiling, using a rice cooker, etc., etc. The experiment continues.

Here's a backward twist: The U.S. is currently receiving foreign aid for Hurricane Katrina victims. Interesting. We found a few caches today:

Copy Cat #3
A Sign of the Times
Stroll in the Park # 1

and also went over to Nerea's place to eat cake for Phil's birthday. There were also a couple of caches we couldn't find today:

Are you hungry? (GCNC2H) (again - my second try)
Cacheaholics Program - Step 10 (GCM38E)

I read an awesome article today on the phishing economy which explains how banks aren't doing enough to protect their customers. Bank of America should be commended on being one of the only banks that uses Triple–DES encrypted magstripe tracking methods which thwart ATM fraud. It also explains why I would never use Washington Mutual or Key Bank.

We found the "Emerald City" cache today. Here's a brief description of various sweeteners (taken in part from an excellent Beachbody Nutrition article):

Sucralose (Splenda): animal tested, calorie-free, and FDA approved. Too new to know of long-term effects, however. Tell-tale aftertaste for about half the population.

Sugar Alcohols (Xylitol, Sorbitol, Mannitol)/Tagatose (Naturlose): Some calories; FDA approved. Causes flatulence, bloating, and diarrhea. Yucka.

Aspartame (NutraSweet, Equal): calorie-free, FDA approved. Can cause headaches. Many people think it's harmful (science is undecided, however).

Acesulfame (Sunett): causes rodent tumors. Aftertaste.

Stevia: not a chemical - it's an herb. Not approved by the FDA, but available as a 'health food supplement'. Causes reproductive side effects in rodents.

Saccharin (Sweet'N Low): caused cancer in Canadian rats once, so the FDA tried (unsuccessfully) to ban it. Generally considered safe now, however.

Sugar/Corn Syrup: sucrose, glucose, dextrose, fructose - they can all make you fat, which is a major cause of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Makes kids hyper, then extremely emotional. Cheaper than the others, however.

Take your pick.   =(

UPDATE: Here is another excellent article on these substances.

Well, some idiot got recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance ruled unconstitutional in California. Write your Congressmen!

In better news, Google's new Blogsearch looks promising, and we were the first to find the "Child's Play" cache tonight - woohoo!   =)

We've tried some new foods lately (at least new to us), including Caffeine Free Diet Dr Pepper, Vanilla Yogurt Burst Cheerios, Jumex Strawberry Banana Nectar, two different Hershey's Limited Edition Twosomes (Reese's Mini Pieces and Heath English Toffee Bits), and a Herr's Chocolate-Flavored Pretzel Rod. Speaking of food, check out Dan's Japanese Oreo's.

I attended the Idaho Business League's Idaho Job and Career Fair yesterday at the Western Idaho Fairgrounds. A little lame, in all honesty. The job hunt continues... In older news, a 13 billion year old explosion has just been observed from edge of universe. Very cool.

I was slightly dismayed to learn that MS Windows Vista (the upcoming successor to XP) will come in 7 different versions. Oh, joy. No confusion there... Speaking of lame, another Firefox security flaw has surfaced. Wasn't Firefox supposed to be the secure browser? Guess not.

We attended Mari's birthday party at Nerea's on Friday night. She had a group of friends over and got some cool presents. We then returned home and viewed "The Pacifier" (2005; Vin Diesel, Lauren Graham, Chris Potter, Carol Kane, Brad Garrett) on full-screen DVD. Funny film.

I enjoyed watching some more of the US Open yesterday with Andre Agassi beating Robby Ginepri in another excellent match. Becky has become interested in tennis in recent weeks, so I we stopped by Fairmont Park last night to play a little tennis with her. We all had fun, and Jared enjoyed running around the court chasing balls. Cute. Speaking of Pat Poyfair, someone in our new ward here is related to Dan Stucki, too - she introduced herself after Sacrament today, but I'm horrible with names, so...

We enjoyed a wonderful "get to know you" BBQ at Shane Carlson's house yesterday afternoon. They are friends of Brad's from Intuit, but they're also from Carson City, which is funny because we know some of the same people there and attended the same ward, etc. Small world. Becky and Jared enjoyed playing with their kids, and there was even an amusing bathroom incident that made us all chuckle.   =)

Well, well - our move from Reno to Boise is finally complete and we're all settled and unpacked - phew! Many thanks go out to everyone who helped us load the truck in Reno and unload the truck in Boise. Not blogging for a week and a half is torture, because now that I'm back online, so much has happened that I've got a whole backlog of things to mention - so here goes (in no particular order):

Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf of Mexico states this past week, of course. The destructions, floodings, and death toll are simply horrific. There have been so many side stories related to the hurricane that I would have never even considered, like the scores of unclaimed premature babies from the evacuated hospitals. Sad times, indeed.

Bob Denver (Gilligan) dies at age 70. Poor little buddy. We grabbed a VHS copy of "Cheaper by the Dozen" (2003; Steve Martin, Bonnie Hunt, Hilary Duff, Tom Welling) for only $2.88 at Wal-mart. Cute flick.

I spent a few hours on Labor Day watching some incredible U.S. Open tennis with Andre Agassi narrowly beating Xavier Malisse, and learning about the incredible personal comeback story of James Blake. Great players, all.

I also just learned about an interesting addition to geocaching, called waymarking. Very interesting, and I'm glad that the stats tie into the regular geocaching.com stats, too - convenient. Becky said the cutest thing the other day: 'metal defector' - very cute.

We went out in search of a nearby park, and ended up walking around the slightly stinky Redwood Park in Boise, instead. Weird smell. Is is the fake lake? The nearby orchard? Hmmmm. Since moving in, we've replaced a few cheap household appliances, with such items as our new Bissell PowerForce bagless upright vacuum, a new Uniden EXI 976C cordless phone with Caller ID, and a new Sanyo VWM-950 Hi-Fi VHS VCR. The older counterparts of these items either didn't survive the move, or were left behind.

We went out caching with Bradigan last week while he was here on business, and we visited 23 caches, but only found 19 caches, plus 1 benchmark:

Macaile's Charmed to the Point
Disc Me
SAINT THOMAS
Ugly Duckling
Fun & Games by the River
Crane Series #2
Intro to benchmarking II (with benchmark OH1122, also)
Family Pet's Nest Here
Lowe's down on the whole town
A R N M Cache
L R I H M Cache
In PUB-lic view
Wheels On The Bus Go...
50 States
"NEW RELEASE"
Near the Border
M8 For You Ron
High and Lowes
For My Teacher
OH1122

Not too bad for a little casual caching. The four we did not find (for various reasons) were:

Are you hungry? (GCNC2H)
C L M Cache (GCPB0Y)
Home Run Zone (GCK69C)
Sonic Stop Before School (GCPBPW)

During the moving process, we consumed some very refreshing Propel fitness water, some delicious chinese food from Confucius Restaurant, and some obligatory IHOP. Additionally, we had a bizarre but free experience at the Denny's by the airport with a missing salad, unchocolatey hot chocolate, raw meat, and Brad's "fish and stuffing" combination. I also enjoyed the Italian Ciabatta w/ Basalmic Viniagrette sub at Port of Subs a day later. Mmmmm.   =)

During the drive from Reno to Boise, I captained the moving truck, while Misti piloted the family car and kids. We communicated quite well between vehicles with a pair of Uniden GMR325-2 walkie-talkies. Effective, but they sure seem to eat up the batteries.

Becky scored some new bottlecaps recently, with one new one from the nearby 'Beerhouse' (Hooch Hard), and a Tommyknockers Strawberry Creme soda that I imbibed while pondering John 14:6 (which was imprinted on the label) while Brad choked down a reportedly yucky Almond Creme by the same vendor. At least the Chocolate Cowtail cheered him up, though.

Slow Qwest DSL here is killing me, but at least we're connected. We enjoyed some characteristic pink Breast Cancer awareness M&M's - two shades of pink, in fact. Our cheap little podcast recorder didn't survive it's first day in Boise, as a critical drop on our new driveway spelled death to the small black little handheld device. =(

We picked up a rocking chair at DI, and we also unloaded 9 bags worth of old clothes there, too, that we hauled up here with us for some reason. (Our old rocking chair also didn't make the move.) I saw Pat Poyfair (from high school) at church on Sunday. It was truly a fluke deal, since it was our first day in our new ward, and he was just visiting from Utah. Serendipitous. Becky has been enjoying our new back patio, which now sports yards and yards of sidewalk chalk drawings and tic-tac-toe games. I enjoyed a wonderful lunch recently at Highlands Hollow Brewhouse. Very tasty.   =)