tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-135381282011-09-21T07:47:28.225-04:00What was the question again?Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.comBlogger1111100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-45828030496368289472010-12-23T11:07:00.002-05:002010-12-23T11:11:50.519-05:00

Skype knows their users don't care about the technology, they just want it to work (from from foxnews.com): "Under normal circumstances, there are a large number of supernodes available," network features which act like phone directories for Skype, Haas said. "Unfortunately, today, many of them were taken offline by a problem affecting some versions of Skype." Engineers created new "

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-37553701271927020792010-07-11T00:49:00.004-04:002010-07-11T01:24:12.308-04:00

I have an idea. This article on truthout.org argues that if voting were mandatory in the U.S., it would eliminate the extremism in our political system, changing the pool of voters from highly emotional and polarized groups, into the entire country, producing a vote better reflecting the true majority opinions. First, I love this idea, but there's no way it would pass, because everybody

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-86235192775586837712010-06-29T13:58:00.005-04:002010-06-29T14:16:24.790-04:00

John Bohner said in an interview with the Pittsburgh-Tribune: "Ensuring there's enough money to pay for the war will require reforming the country's entitlement system". That's a pretty shocking declaration. He followed it by proposing raising the retirement age to 70. Using the same math, one could instead say: Ensuring there's enough money to take care of our seniors requires reforming

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-73493785869449705612010-06-17T18:39:00.007-04:002010-06-17T19:52:07.560-04:00

Some fool is saying that Obama's speech was written to too high a grade level for his target audience. I say bullshit. Anyone who watched that speech, from a Nobel Prize winner to a sea turtle, understood that BP is paying for the spill. We all understood that because that's the only thing he said. The end. No one understood the rest of the speech because it contained no content. It seemed

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-9841221673386115842010-06-17T05:39:00.003-04:002010-06-17T06:08:11.284-04:00

Americans don't like soccer because we like points, and soccer has no points. The rules allow for the scoring of points, but it rarely occurs, and when it does, it's a fleeting moment created seemingly by chance. The game instead consists of a continuous back-and-forth of the soccer ball over a vast field, punctuated occasionally by fouls, players pretending to be fouled, or the ball going out

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-10183382515724434672009-04-21T11:14:00.004-04:002009-04-21T12:00:14.158-04:00

I'll be speaking at a lymphedema awareness/research benefit on May 2nd in D.C! I've never done such a thing, and my brain keeps telling me that I'm not inspiring enough to do this, but my brain says a lot of nonsense to keep me in my comfort zone, and frankly I've somehow never failed to move and inspire a crowd, and I'll be great. There is also going to be a 13-year-old boy there with

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-17307832342920161902009-04-21T11:14:00.001-04:002009-04-21T11:16:13.899-04:00

History buffs, you will love this Google Labs project. Type a year into the Date field like 1968 or 1492, or a search term like "Susan Boyle", and view everything about it on a week by week, day by day or month by month basis - all the relevant articles and images from lots of online publications and wikipedia. Great for researching anything, or just browsing through time. Google News

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-30113156227561816482008-11-19T10:43:00.006-05:002008-11-19T11:00:08.866-05:00

Wrote an article for IBM Developerworks on a small PHP framework I designed called Butterfly, because it facilitates the transformation of XML via chains of XSLT stylesheets, and was inspired by the Apache Cocoon project. IBM even designed a little butterfly graphic for it. The big coup this time was that I finally, finally, got them to link directly to my website, because it's about a

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-27537362726542848132008-11-19T10:28:00.002-05:002008-11-19T10:42:50.097-05:00

Another clear explanation by Ron Paul of how our monetary system currently works, in contrast to how it is intended to work as described in the Constitution, including why the dollar is collapsing.

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-31870486656491669512008-11-10T14:41:00.007-05:002008-11-10T15:02:07.234-05:00

An astounding tidbit from the conversation with my friend Suzie: Jesus cured a man with lymphedema: 1 One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. 2 There in front of him was a man suffering from dropsy. 3 Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” 4 But they remained silent. So

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-2360099381559809362008-11-10T11:58:00.003-05:002008-11-10T12:06:00.345-05:00

Forgot to post this the other week - my latest opus has hit IBM Developerworks, a tutorial on creating a Google Mapplet, letting you add your own information to a Google Maps search page. Who cares you say? Well, that's an excellent question. So far I'd say no one except IBM, my editor, me, and my bank. So that's at least four people. Special thanks to my coauthor Dave Wegman, who found

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-22029530645363894232008-11-10T11:17:00.008-05:002008-11-10T11:53:41.941-05:00

The lymphedema documentary project is slowly but surely coming to life. I spoke yesterday with Suzie Burden, an amazing woman in Indiana who has primary lymphedema like me, has had symptoms since birth, like me, and is also completely kickass. Like me! It seems to come with the territory. We discussed many things, one that Sam Donaldson apparently has secondary lymphedema from lymphoma

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-91540672751736888742008-11-04T13:01:00.003-05:002008-11-04T13:04:42.638-05:00

Got an email from a police department about a new car theft scheme. When you first put your car in reverse and turn around, if you then notice a piece of paper or sticker on the rear windshield, do not get out to remove it - drive away first. The carjacker is waiting for you to get out of the car leaving the front door open and the keys in the ignition. Drive away first, then remove the

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-20159279456629955732008-10-07T23:52:00.005-04:002008-10-08T00:09:28.325-04:00

And my third masterpiece of software genius has hit IBM Developerworks, this time an exploration of using XSLT and PHP's SimpleXML to separate content from presentation, specifically to render my personal resume as an HTML page. I kid you not - I managed to use part of my personal resume as the sample data in the tutorial, including a link to my web site right smack in the middle. It isn't a

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-30842995952902142622008-09-23T12:14:00.002-04:002008-09-23T12:18:06.214-04:00

Ron Paul makes a lot of sense to me. Government manipulation of interest rates and the value of the dollar leads to unnatural boom market conditions which then collapse, as we're now seeing. This is Ron Paul on the current Wall Street bailout.

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-36443374062286690202008-09-09T00:48:00.002-04:002008-09-09T00:53:04.370-04:00

What if we passed a law that held the parent responsible and punishable with jail time if their kid commits a crime using the parent's gun? That might deter gun ownership quite a bit, and would treat one of the big problems with gun ownership, that it puts guns potentially within reach of emotionally distressed minors.

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-64330031996074681752008-09-04T23:14:00.012-04:002008-09-14T20:30:38.155-04:00

Just had my second article series published on IBM Developerworks, this time on how to overlay custom data onto Google Maps and Google Earth. Inspired by Nine Inch Nails' graphical display of their album downloads around the globe, which they produced (I assume) using the technique I describe in the two-part series. We used the graphic from Nine Inch Nails' website, which I thought the IBM

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-50270584676530046472008-08-07T11:48:00.002-04:002008-08-07T11:57:44.667-04:00

So last Saturday I went out for my friend Jen's birthday party, and used my lymphatic system to get into a club. I know Jen because I'm currently planning a documentary on a medical condition I've had since birth called lymphedema, and Jen has it too - she's the first person my age I've ever met with it. We met through a common friend who told Jen about my documentary. (I'm currently looking

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-29823135815506267142008-08-04T17:27:00.003-04:002008-08-04T17:34:04.497-04:00

The republicans are getting really subtle in how they rig the election. Now they're deleting registered voters' records and outright blocking new voter registrations. One million Democrats attempting to vote in this year’s primaries found their names missing from voter rolls. WHERE THE HELL DID THEY GO? Red alert. I'm too depressed to include an exclamation point.

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-79204984820215399992008-08-03T02:40:00.003-04:002008-08-03T02:43:01.554-04:00

When you wear those dresses that have the wide elastic band under the butt hugging it to your thighs it looks like you're wearing an inflatable diaper. It's a completely unflattering sack of fabric. Please show some respect for yourself and burn that dress immediately.

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-20268324512552577302008-07-28T14:54:00.002-04:002008-07-28T15:05:20.618-04:00

Critical Mass is a group in NYC that stages monthly group bike rides through the city, to protest NYC's bike-unfriendly laws, for example not allowing more than a few bikes to ride together at a time. Members are occasionally arrested and spend a night in jail. This time they were riding through Times Square, and a cop just outright assaulted one of them, knocking the rider off the bike onto

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-12256014985831454402008-07-24T14:56:00.006-04:002008-07-24T15:26:52.126-04:00

I love these guys! Makes me want to create music and music videos. Flight Of the Conchords, Foux du Fa Fa

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-45610588719174810502008-07-23T20:18:00.006-04:002008-07-24T15:23:45.319-04:00

My friend Crash sent me this one. I've heard of these guys but had never seen them. They depict modern life with this off-handed, casual sense of humor that they hold together with tight music. The guy on the left, Germaine, also reminds me a lot of Austin Powers. Flight Of the Conchords, Business Time

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-71866029418844963172008-07-18T15:29:00.002-04:002008-07-18T15:35:10.573-04:00

Al Gore said this out loud! We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that's got to change. Perhaps I'm naive (in which case GFY!), but this is possibly the most forward-looking statement I've heard from any "mainstream" politician. The astonishing thing to me is that he mentioned the borrowing from China. Be

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-72856736694182674442008-07-11T16:36:00.018-04:002008-07-25T11:04:21.393-04:00

236.com has posted a hilarious video montage of news anchors and pundits groping awkwardly to report Reverend Jesse Jackson's declaration that he wants to cut off Obama's nuts, without actually saying "nuts" on television. Thank you Reverend Jackson (and Reverend Sharpton for the look on your face during the interview). That senior black correspondent has a hell of a time explaining it, to

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-19104459090934707452008-07-11T14:01:00.013-04:002008-07-11T17:20:05.312-04:00

About 30 of my friends from various generations of the The Binghamton Crosbys (my college acappella group) and I have rented this huge, gorgeous 30-acre estate for next weekend, an event we're calling "Freedom Estate 2008" (the T-shirt says, "Go Free Yourself"), and we were all asked to read the lease. I may be the only one who actually did, but it proved a marvel of English syntax and paranoia.

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-74988344789632347232008-07-10T16:45:00.007-04:002008-07-10T17:00:27.466-04:00

I ever tell you about the time me and Flappy Donuts hopped a freight car down in wheezy, right in the middle of the state pumpkin parade, and then pushed over a hayseed bank in Arkansas wearing nothing but really long ties? Oh I got lotsa stories - that old Ibanez guitar once saved my cat Teddy; she was sittin on a tree branch bendin lower than yo mama on a Saturday night, swattin at wild salmon

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-23741841737438111482008-07-08T12:13:00.002-04:002008-07-08T12:18:56.107-04:00

This one cheered me up when I was having a tough morning. A conspiracy theorist walks up to Buzz Aldrin and starts calling him a coward for faking the moon landing, and Buzz just knocks him the fuck out. Buzz is twice this guy's age.

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-72398761231302422672008-07-05T05:45:00.006-04:002008-07-10T16:58:45.556-04:00

George Carlin's "Seven Words" routine got me thinking this morning about profanity. Why is, for example, the word "cock" considered profane? It's not the sequence of letters, c-o-c-k, and it's not the word itself, because it also means "rooster" and it appears in the bible in that context. It also isn't the reference to a penis that's offensive, because we can refer to the penis in a medical

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-77179166377565481322008-07-03T12:02:00.011-04:002008-07-03T14:17:25.987-04:00

Also found this, Kevin Spacey doing a number of great impressions on Inside the Actor's Studio. The interviewer, James Lipton, is possibly the most annoying and self-indulgent person on Earth - the pauses make you want to scream - but Spacey's impressions are ingenius. I especially enjoyed Katherine Hepburn and Marlon Brando. From the wikipedia page on James Lipton, it would seem that the

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-48581627309222696242008-07-03T11:16:00.006-04:002008-07-03T14:18:03.336-04:00

Great Christopher Walken impression, and also funny. It takes you a few seconds to settle into it as an impression, and the sound seems like it might be a split-second off from the video or something, but I thought it was dead-on. This must be from a real TV show, but I don't know who this guy is. Since I don't have a TV, YouTube has become my TV. My tube.

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-4968383758754080882008-07-02T11:35:00.007-04:002008-07-05T12:12:47.975-04:00

I only met Ruslana Korshunova once, but she struck me as a lovely person and I enjoyed talking with her. All the news items about her death keep reminding me of our conversation. I met her over dinner a few months ago with my friend Kira; they grew up together in Kazakhstan. She and Kira were adorable together at dinner, gleeful even, like 7-year-olds at summer camp, gently taking hold of each

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-80873115604809280372008-06-26T10:31:00.003-04:002008-06-26T10:35:00.093-04:00

Oh yes - I also made it to yoga this morning at 7AM for the second time. "Jake, who gives a shit?" Me, it's my blog. Look, I've been having difficulty getting out of bed my entire life, so getting up earlier and actually doing something like yoga is big news around here. Fine, go watch the George Carlin video.

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-86605642333098494352008-06-26T10:26:00.007-04:002008-06-26T11:02:07.954-04:00

I found George Carlin's "Seven Words" hilarious at moments. Yes, this is what I'm doing at work while I sip my frappuccino... which spellcheck doesn't like no matter what I do to it. I'm also enjoying my new CSS style for embedded YouTube videos - the grey border with the lighter thin border, like a TV. You know, for kids. What's that? You think my reference to the CSS style only

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-85852301114613417722008-06-24T21:46:00.009-04:002008-06-29T22:17:08.771-04:00

Whenever I start thinking I can't do something due to circumstance, I'll think of this guy: The first song is Joe Croce's "Rapid Roy".

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-45135351981908458232008-06-24T11:54:00.003-04:002008-06-24T12:16:33.140-04:00

To my amazement, this morning I attended a 7AM yoga class. Unprecedented. Getting out of bed in the morning is the most difficult and painful thing I do all day. But I'm going to become a morning person. Last night I joined a gym, and I'm going to visit this gym in the mornings before work, and do gym-like things like yoga classes and weight lifting. I was inspired in part by the picture of

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-87664464773671713312008-06-19T13:59:00.003-04:002008-06-24T11:54:18.819-04:00

So I managed to be irresistible and magnetic for a week straight, but it's breaking down and I'm starting to feel more the way my poodle Sonia must have felt right after her surgery, when she was whining uncontrollably and trying to find a comfortable position on the floor of the car. Sonia, what a trooper. I loved her so much. Furry, emotionally sensitive companions lacking Broca's areas are

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-25303672126985093072008-06-18T17:42:00.004-04:002008-06-18T17:47:30.270-04:00

And Part 3 of the Facebook application tutorial is online at IBM Developerworks, where you'll develop the specific application functionality. Not much else to say on that - if you're a tech nerd go read it. Enjoy.

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-56523894378755668182008-06-12T14:35:00.005-04:002008-06-18T17:47:53.474-04:00

I just noticed that Part 2 of my Facebook application tutorial is on IBM Developerworks this week. This part of the tutorial tackles using Java and PHP within the same application, including use of the Spring framework, Spring MVC, creating a connection-pooled JNDI data source in IBM Websphere, and a few hand-rolled PHP classes that let you structure your PHP and Java code similarly,

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-48442329168992341652008-06-04T18:03:00.003-04:002008-06-04T18:08:55.123-04:00

The world at large is impressed with Obama's ability to speak coherently: Michael Cox, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics, said Obama's win "has sent out a lot of positive signals around the world." "He has a very appealing persona - elegant, fluent, strings lots of sentences together into paragraphs," Cox said. "But in terms of (his) actual policies

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-61481516726637682092008-06-03T23:57:00.003-04:002008-06-04T00:00:13.216-04:00

This is the last sentence of the Reuter's article on Obama's presidential nomination: An Obama aide said he called Clinton after their speeches, congratulated her on her South Dakota victory and asked her to call him back. Reuters, Obama makes history with nomination You can always count on the last sentence of a news article to drop some sort of whammy or punchline that the editors and

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-23655641642996716072008-05-22T15:23:00.003-04:002008-06-12T14:52:06.542-04:00

This is the interview we did about the Facebook tutorial. Pretty cool - it was like being a guest on a radio show. I can't believe the photo they chose of me though (on IBM's podcast page), I look like a smug turtle.

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-17381929517431719782008-05-21T16:44:00.007-04:002008-06-12T14:53:46.422-04:00

I just got word that my first publication, a tutorial on writing Facebook applications using Java and PHP, was made the top piece on IBM developerWorks. Part 1 introduces the reader to Facebook and the components of Facebook application development, and also walks the reader through the installation of the various IBM tools used in the tutorial. Parts 2 and 3 will provide an

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-8176432885377667962008-03-30T22:00:00.004-04:002008-03-30T22:26:54.621-04:00

Little breakthrough in tennis today. As an experiment I tried not thinking about how I was hitting the ball, and just focused the whole time on which way the ball was spinning. Each time the ball flew towards me I focused only on determining which way it was spinning as I moved into position and swung. The result was that I returned more consistently than... well maybe than I ever have. We

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-66070706687152910812008-03-30T02:47:00.010-04:002008-04-08T10:41:11.202-04:00

I'm playing a game with my friends that I have to walk up to five girls I don't know that I find attractive and talk to them, by Wednesday, because this is for some reason my greatest fear in life. I could stare down Dick Cheney but I can't go up to a girl with great legs and ask for her number. I've been afraid of this since elementary school. So Day One: I didn't exactly talk to a girl today

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-60539484132071825172008-03-24T12:54:00.007-04:002008-03-30T03:31:33.579-04:00

When I saw that photograph of Kristen in the bikini, I wanted to have sex with her. I then envied Spitzer's money and power. And then Kristen's. My envy destroyed Spitzer's life. I'm not alone in this - the world gleefully and efficiently brought down the man enjoying such privilege. It's no different than if we'd stormed his house and burned it down while reading aloud choice phrases from

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-60026359827525063782008-03-17T14:01:00.018-04:002008-03-17T17:37:27.691-04:00

It shits on the middle-class! The Times article puts it this way: Hoping to avoid a systemic meltdown in financial markets, the Federal Reserve on Sunday approved a $30 billion credit line to engineer the takeover of Bear Stearns... The New York Times, "Fed Acts to Rescue Financial Markets" truthout.org begs to differ: There are two points about this bailout that should be

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-56231972662119232952008-03-12T13:18:00.014-04:002008-03-30T03:35:41.209-04:00

I had a karaoke birthday party this weekend, and the day of the party I was calling everyone I know to invite them, when I saw the issue of Time Out on my couch with Julia Allison on the cover, wearing a red dress and holding out a note with her phone number on it and the words "Call me!". So I invited her to my party. First I went to her website in case I actually spoke to the woman, because

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-45006384674631610052008-03-11T15:02:00.003-04:002008-03-11T15:12:00.808-04:00

I'll just quote my mom, whom I just spoke with: "The day Ted Kennedy resigns over Chappaquitic is the day Eliot Spitzer should resign over this call girl." Seriously - we're calling for someone's resignation over THIS? Is life so boring and pleasant that we're resorting to Monicagates again for fun? Why is NO ONE mentioning the wiretap as a big deal?! It's the only relevant piece of

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-12212596181223090962008-03-11T12:41:00.006-04:002008-03-11T13:22:10.686-04:00

In today's news, the NSA took advantage of the country's addiction to self-righteousness, in order to scare the hell out of them, by destroying Eliot Spitzer's life. It's all in the first sentence of the Times article: Eliot Spitzer ... has been caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet with a high-priced prostitute ... The New York Times, "Spitzer Is Linked to Prostitution Ring"

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-34771800151602513002008-02-19T15:56:00.004-05:002008-02-23T22:40:28.555-05:00

Dear Body, I've been terrible to you. You've been nothing but upbeat and optimistic, carrying me through unbelievable highs and lows, pure love, and I take you for granted and make things very difficult for you, and then berate you for being weak when my neglect makes you sick. I think I do this so that I can always hide behind the excuse that if only my body weren't weak I'd be superman, to

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-74378227427890037072008-02-13T16:40:00.020-05:002008-02-19T15:11:43.515-05:00

A man spent 6 years and 6000 euros building a full-scale Mercedes F1 stock car out of 956,000 matchsticks, first cutting off each one's inflammable tip individually with what seems to be a special matchstick-tip-cutting device. As the article puts it, We are at a loss for words as to why a female appears in one of the pictures... It's an insane project, but so are many things I've

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-16541484488597927962008-02-13T14:17:00.016-05:002008-02-19T15:08:06.898-05:00

I just ordered an alarm clock that wakes you up by slowly brightening a light bulb, that slowly heats a reservoir of scented oil to stimulate your olfactory sense, and then after 15 minutes starts playing "soft, yet lively nature sounds". After that it releases a flock of doves into the room. They hold hot towels in their beaks that they dab lovingly at your face. If you're not out of bed by

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-48400599991628083972008-02-04T13:52:00.000-05:002008-02-04T14:25:29.204-05:00

This is a great story I either read somewhere or someone told me once. So I acknowledge that it's someone else's work, but I don't know who to acknowledge. I just like the story and remembered it while talking with my tennis partner. A school of young fish were hanging out underneath the dock one day, and they overheard the humans sitting on the dock talking, and the humans kept referring to "

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-55741456726056834602008-02-01T00:05:00.001-05:002008-02-19T13:10:37.880-05:00

According to the Lamsa Bible, translated from the Aramaic (Jesus' native language), Jesus is misquoted in the famous line It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. [Matthew 19:24, King James Version] This sentence makes some sense, because a camel is an enormous animal and the eye of a needle is a tiny hole,

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-77301947372175255512008-01-31T13:20:00.000-05:002008-01-31T13:35:37.067-05:00

If we nominate Clinton, McCain's going to win. If we nominate Obama, Obama might win, but as my brother put it at dinner last night, the nation's youth will be badly brokenhearted. The most change he represents at this point is the color of his skin. Which isn't nothing, but the people excited about Obama really want what Kucinich was offering - a change from the current power structure that

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-31868951788230613022008-01-30T11:41:00.000-05:002008-02-01T19:53:17.645-05:00

I am committed to the possibility of being courageous, free, honest, healthy, and at ease. Woohoo!

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-60548421714032984142008-01-28T14:45:00.001-05:002008-01-28T19:00:05.301-05:00

...but goddamn if we're gonna let him! It's also nonsense. Not only is he a human being and has a race, which is therefore in the equation, and not only do all the voters have races as well, adding even more race to the question, but Obama has emphasized that he is not pursuing the presidency as an "African-American candidate." What does that sentence even mean? "Jake Miles has

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-35796111565275635482008-01-25T04:49:00.000-05:002008-01-25T05:21:15.302-05:00

I've now been lying in bed for about 7 hours, hoping for a REM cycle or two, my brain a shark at sea. As I turned on the light at 4:45am or so, giving up, I became aware of three things - the heavy pain in my left leg, the empty taste in my mouth, and the weight of my body standing up out of the sheets. The pain is from my old chronic friend cellulitis, an infection I get in my leg a few times

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-32101130550226254722008-01-24T16:01:00.000-05:002008-01-24T17:19:46.675-05:00

The New York Times posted a study on tuna mercury levels in New York City, which are much higher than previously thought. Cooking does not affect the mercury level, but more expensive tuna tends to contain more mercury, so sushi contains the most: "In general, tuna sushi from food stores was much lower in mercury. These findings reinforce results in other studies showing that more

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-80618149131991945952008-01-15T13:55:00.000-05:002008-01-15T15:01:20.718-05:00

This article, We Own The World, is a really clear (and fairly brief) illustration of U.S. foreign policy for the last 100 years or so, by Noam Chomsky. A pretty smart guy, worth reading. The title sums it up, but the article proves in simple terms and with simple facts that our country's central belief is that we own the world, and the rest of you should shut up about it. This isn't just about

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-61914950827866837812008-01-10T00:34:00.000-05:002008-01-15T13:25:40.852-05:00

Exciting times. If passengers will direct their attention to the right, they'll see an Archives list sorted by date descending: the most recent months appear at the top rather than the bottom. Blogger, in one of its many mysterious and/or lazy design choices, sorts them the other way and provides no way to change this. You'll find many solutions to reverse-sort them via Google, but here's one

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-11085754477292601152008-01-06T17:15:00.000-05:002008-01-10T02:08:04.380-05:00

That's me in a kilt. In October my friend Gary got married, and he had his groomsmen wear full kilts, complete with a dagger we kept in the sock. ...it's funny, I'm trying to think of things I can report about this wedding, but every one of them is secret for one reason or another. Anyway, this is me attaching the clip of my pocketwatch to the jacket - Gary also gave all his groomsmen

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-65775491550306242292007-12-19T13:00:00.000-05:002007-12-19T13:54:53.634-05:00

In the New York Times' article today on Morgan Stanley's huge losses this quarter and subsequent sale of shares to China Investment Corporation, the article had this as its very last sentence: "the People’s Bank of China continues to accumulate $1 billion a day as it buys up dollars to prevent the value of China’s currency from rising in international markets." I saw Noam Chomsky speak at

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-9107988920424073732007-12-08T02:06:00.000-05:002008-01-10T10:21:01.406-05:00

What? I just think this is damn cool, taken straight from SICP (Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs) - the first-semester textbook at MIT, and the best textbook I've ever read on anything. The idea is that you don't need to create data structures to represent data, if functions are first-order objects in your programming language, as they are in Scheme (among other languages).

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-92042880114567091962007-11-07T22:29:00.000-05:002007-11-22T02:55:34.698-05:00

Another random nerd post for the three other people on Earth who will want the answer to this question, concerning Kawa, an implementation of Scheme that compiles to Java bytecode, and allows Java and Scheme code to call each other freely, and which I love more and more each day, but whose documentation could use a few more examples for the newcomer. To convert from a Java String (

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-43944055850613515122007-11-01T19:44:00.001-04:002007-11-20T11:45:31.319-05:00

How to restart a dead Powerbook G3 Firewire (Pismo).I've had my Powerbook G3 in the closet for a couple years, and when I pulled it out it simply wouldn't start. I pushed the button, nothing happened. I reset the PMU, nothing happened. I bought a new yo-yo adapter, pushed the power button, nothing. I tried charging it overnight, nothing again. Then I happened upon this blog post, which

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-67269639540753488152007-10-30T17:23:00.000-04:002008-01-06T18:36:08.065-05:00

My friend Joanna is taking a year-long tour of the world soon, so I have taken on her cat Teddy as my new roommate. I think the photo speaks for itself.

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-39962776332294174002007-05-25T16:11:00.000-04:002008-01-06T18:36:43.248-05:00

Last month I met mayor Bloomberg at a reception for New York Cares, a volunteer organization through which I run the St. Luke's Saturday School in Harlem. Bloomberg isn't the most sociable guy in the world; seemed quite uncomfortable that I even said “Hi, Mr. Mayor” before we turned to face the camera. Explains the completely tense expressions on our faces. I never want a life in politics

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-86665842853276632152007-05-15T14:34:00.000-04:002007-05-15T15:16:43.025-04:00

Whassup me maties. The sun is out and it's Springtime for Jake. When you're in your groove the world comes to you. This is the approach we're taking with the coaching. Had my session Sunday, and goddamn on the subway ride back home there was suddenly this cute girl in a tank top striking up a conversation with me. Out of the blue - I was reading a book and probably talking to myself as usual

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-45227024223970571432007-05-14T12:29:00.000-04:002007-05-15T14:32:30.756-04:00

Public service announcement. Flossing very likely prevents heart disease: After analyzing the population’s general health, Carolina researchers found that people with severe gum disease were more likely to develop heart disease than those without gum problems. Other studies showed that pregnant women with severe gum disease were seven times more likely to deliver premature babies. ... Oral

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-23963689136621572222007-05-14T12:07:00.000-04:002007-05-14T12:09:48.004-04:00

I have no idea how to stop this problem given how the world really works, but it's a biggie. Deforestation: The hidden cause of global warming - Independent Online Edition > Climate Change

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-34930087210067954722007-05-09T15:31:00.000-04:002007-05-09T16:37:20.784-04:00

Dude, I pee a lot. I think I've literally peed about 8 times in the last 5 hours. I'll post photos. So I met with my new life coach Dani Rukin this weekend. She's kickass, full of energy and she knows bullshit a mile away. We had a great time talking in Prospect Park for a few hours. She had me close my eyes and do a visualization exercise sitting up against a tree. She talked me through

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-59893300105272321982007-04-27T15:22:00.000-04:002007-05-14T12:58:41.597-04:00

This is a an incredibly well-done short film, both in direction and technical skill/artistry. I found it quite moving. Then again, I find Chicken Run quite moving. When the plane lifts off the ground - gets me every time. If I weren't male and it weren't ridiculous for a guy to be crying over a bunch of claymation chickens, I'd start bawling at that point. Doll Face Here are a couple more

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-62362630903295601692007-04-27T13:36:00.000-04:002007-04-27T16:00:06.598-04:00

In time honored tradition, I'm posting my latest online dating profile (nerve.com), partly because my friend wanted to read an example, and partly because I enjoy writing the profiles more than the dating. I have no idea if it's an effective profile (though the women that have written have started off by saying that it's funny), or if I'm any sort of authority just because I've met every woman

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-26274334732602934052007-04-03T17:17:00.000-04:002007-04-27T12:17:33.078-04:00

Someone just emailed asking whether JDate is as bad as I make it sound. Yes. From female friends on JDate I've heard a number of horror stories, all of which entail an arrogant guy feeling entitled and treating them badly. My experience on JDate is that the women are fiercely practical, to a barbaric degree in my mind, about their dating lives. It is heartless to me and I had to leave - it

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-14312378123100931292007-02-18T13:04:00.000-05:002007-02-18T13:16:05.815-05:00

Buyakasha. My main man George Orwell provides practical guidelines for better writing: http://www.writingclasses.com/InformationPages/index.php/PageID/300 Reminds me of something one of my high school writing teachers told us (I'm paraphrasing): "If you write a phrase you're heard before, find a new way to write it." Of course, all these rules can be broken, usually making the writing funnier

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-70328318575852203702007-02-16T15:44:00.000-05:002007-02-16T15:45:06.893-05:00

I was pretty much obsessed with the idea of being a mysterious child with magical powers when I was a kid. One of the dorkier things I've ever done was at summer camp when the counselors made everyone write down a wish at the beginning of the summer on a little piece of paper and crumple it up, not telling us that they were going to uncrumple them at the end of the summer and read them out loud

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-1164869423843682982006-11-30T01:30:00.000-05:002007-04-27T16:01:09.411-04:00

Since I've recently graduated from JDate back to nerve - and I can't believe I was on JDate for so long, bunch of Jew-freak chosen-sperm shoppers - I thought I'd post here my JDate profile's "My Ideal Relationship" essay, because I like it and it captures something I don't want to forget: We're hot stuff. We light up a room. Frequent laughing and disappearing into closets together. The world is

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-1163378847986304392006-11-12T19:06:00.000-05:002006-11-25T01:31:13.973-05:00

If a pill existed that made women orgasm as easily as men from intercourse, human behavior would change so radically that civilization would be unrecognizable. Crime, depression, pornography, prostitution, drugs, misogyny, war, racism, domestic violence, violence in general - all gone by day three. This pill would so radically change human behavior that it would even inflect human evolution.

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-1162246066303971522006-10-30T16:57:00.000-05:002006-10-30T18:16:09.550-05:00

I saw a lot of friends this weekend, and one of them said, "You know, Jake, this is what I see. You're smart, you're creative, you're cute, you're sexy. But I see that when you're with other people, you don't own it, and that's your problem." I've been thinking about this a lot. I no longer know what "owning it" means, or how one goes about trying to own it if one doesn't already own it (I

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-1161719249695473832006-10-24T15:08:00.000-04:002006-10-24T16:35:51.326-04:00

Never give a girl your number. I was in a pizza place once, and a guy managed to start up a conversation with a girl next to him, and it wasn't exactly sparks flying, and when the girl got her pizza and was leaving he said, "A pen?" She had no idea what he was talking about, but she finally said "Oh, oh..." and gave him a pen. He wrote his number on a napkin and gave it to her and she departed

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-1160889994180839772006-10-14T21:50:00.000-04:002006-10-15T14:58:10.276-04:00

I had the most incredible morning. Today was my first day co-leading a tutoring project in Harlem through New York Cares - it's a morning Saturday school we're running for underprivileged middle school kids, where we tutor them half the time on math and then do a group activity and work on writing skills. I was born to teach - I haven't felt this good in a while. Something quite incredible

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-1158079827307497432006-09-12T12:45:00.000-04:002006-09-12T12:55:42.946-04:00

There once was a hottie on JDate. She wanted much more than a playmate. She had it all planned, the napkins, the band; the kitchen she'd do up in slate. And now she needed a male. Just something to fill out her sail. He'd have to be smart, and fun, never fart, and have passion for something besides tail. He'd work hard, he'd play hard, be a general J-tard - a bad boy but ultimately controllable.

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-1153858807923452642006-07-25T15:51:00.000-04:002006-07-26T14:09:51.170-04:00

I called the court today to ask when I could come in to talk to a judge about getting my bike back, and they had no idea what I was talking about. There's no reason they would - the ticket has a hearing date of September 20th on it, but the cop explicitly told me to go to the courthouse this week, before the ticket was registered in the computer system, to avoid getting a fine and to render the

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-1153602826959599572006-07-22T15:41:00.000-04:002006-07-27T10:00:42.253-04:00

I was riding my bicycle down Central Park West today when another man about my age rode up alongside me and asked me, in a gentle Irish lilt, to dismount. I was feeling pretty blue and not at all in a dismounting mood, but he was wearing a police officer's uniform, and although his shorts looked pretty silly he had quite a lot of weaponry dangling from his crotch so I obeyed. He immediately

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-1152025700896581472006-07-04T10:53:00.000-04:002006-07-22T19:08:05.763-04:00

I'd love to see the reaction of the Senate if a bill was proposed that made election day a national holiday, meaning that businesses were closed and everybody could actually get to the polls in time to vote (I realize I'm not the first to propose such a thing). I'd love to see even more a bill that made voting on election day mandatory within reason, or that somehow rewarded people for voting,

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-1148366291285471232006-05-23T01:23:00.000-04:002006-05-23T02:42:39.093-04:00

This one's for the computer science nerds out there. In a fit of insomnia tonight, reading the marvelous book Practical Common Lisp, I invented what I think is a new implementation pattern for Java. I call it RecoverableException, inspired by Common Lisp's condition-handling scheme, and it's pretty simple but really twists the language on its ear. The idea is this. We're writing an application,

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-1140037235532942382006-02-15T15:18:00.000-05:002006-02-15T17:29:54.503-05:00

Like most people on the night of Valentine's Day, or The Night Of Eternal Darkness, as we'll call it, I spent the evening reading The Atlantic's article on the science of love. Many online dating sites are now using versions of Myers-Briggs and similar personality/behavioral indexes to match people based on similarities and complementary differences. Since I'm a longtime believer in Myers-Briggs

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-1138302224801978352006-01-26T13:34:00.000-05:002006-01-26T14:29:04.203-05:00

There is a man on a ladder next to my cubicle wall. He is visible from the knees up, his head has disappeared into a hole in the ceiling, and he is unknowingly and unabashedly brandishing his ass. His pockets are overflowing with tools, and although the thin blue t-shirt enveloping his corpulent form is tucked well into his jeans, the jeans hang brazenly at half mast, and were the shirt not

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-1138215978418461602006-01-25T14:00:00.000-05:002006-01-25T15:27:58.343-05:00

I am a big nerd with no life, so when Gizmodo sent me a comments invitation today, in response to a brilliantly hilarious comment I sent in, it marked the high point of my 30.8 years on Earth. Pulitzer should be calling any day now. In other news, the security guard downstairs has a Playboy rather carelessly hidden beneath the clipboard on his desk - the 'OY' peeking out is unmistakably the

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-1137481641157562332006-01-17T01:41:00.000-05:002006-01-17T02:08:35.133-05:00

I think Philip Seymour Hoffman should have given his acceptance speech as Truman Capote. That would have been hilarious. I also think that the blond haired guy who accepted some award for Brokeback Mountain once played the Russian pilot in that 80's movie with John Travolta, in which the Soviets create a facsimile middle-American town in the middle of Russia. The pilot's the guy who flies in

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-1137180686685441342006-01-13T13:39:00.000-05:002006-01-13T16:23:20.023-05:00

Sorry, nothing about women today (or maybe there will be, I'm not telling). I like to read the gadget blog Gizmodo, and they often review digital cameras. One thing they've never mentioned, and that for some reason no one talks about in camera reviews, is that more megapixels may worsen the picture. The common assumption is that the more megapixels in a digital camera the better. This is only

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-1136923492098295262006-01-10T14:47:00.000-05:002006-01-10T15:49:00.643-05:00

The problem with being an extrovert is that without human contact I fall to pieces. I start pining after the girls on magazine covers and in the Victoria's Secret catalogs that arrive daily in my mailbox for some unknown but happy reason. I send out emails, leave phone messages, pout, sigh audibly, mumble, forget to wear pants to work - every form of covert S.O.S. I can broadcast without

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-1136830851117352832006-01-09T12:39:00.000-05:002006-01-09T14:14:04.016-05:00

When life gets me down, there's nothing like a blog entry to put the spring back in my step and the zip back in my zippers. Come on friends, we're off to Jake Miles Land. A few months ago in my online dating spree, someone's profile said not to bother writing if you have delusions of grandeur. I wrote anyway - frankly, I wish my delusions were of nothing but grandeur; it's my delusions of

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-1136508972547001372006-01-05T17:55:00.000-05:002006-01-05T20:00:01.633-05:00

In matters of art and sex, the people of the world seem to object most to a lack of resistance. When we go to a play, we want to see people yell and scream and spin themselves into a tizzy before breaking down and weeping. If they started weeping when the curtain went up and just kept crying for two hours, we'd feel bored and cheated. Even the yelling and screaming would be pretty boring after a

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-1136312476666838952006-01-03T12:19:00.000-05:002006-01-05T20:01:55.066-05:00

It's strange, the things we do on January 3rd. Despite a gnawing pang in my chest, I just cancelled my Onion personals gold membership, meaning that after January 8th I won't be able to see other member's faces on the site, only their hands and feet. It's odd how I came to this decision. I cancelled the Onion personals account after first getting fed up with my Vonage voicemail account, then

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-1135445595766104112005-12-24T11:53:00.000-05:002005-12-29T16:21:05.293-05:00

Today I'm taking the first step towards cancelling a subscription to the Onion personals, a.k.a Nerve/Friend-Finder/Cupid-Network. I'm at the tail end of a four-month online dating spree that has been a source of great stress and occasional heartache, though admittedly also a source of great kissing, and I'm trying to muster the backbone to go cold turkey. Since one of my favorite things about it

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-1135118304446319862005-12-20T16:43:00.000-05:002006-01-03T13:56:23.683-05:00

Impeaching Bush for wiretapping is like arresting Al Capone for tax evasion (see The Onion's Our Dumb Century). And watching CNN commentators discuss scandals on Capitol Hill is a bit like watching two lawyers try to get each other into bed. They grab onto whatever little detail they can that supports their intention, talking to constitutional scholars - what the hell does a constitutional

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13538128.post-1128715512474889612005-10-07T15:43:00.000-04:002005-10-07T16:45:43.690-04:00

Since no one will ever read this blog anyway, I thought I'd go for it and post something having nothing to do with computers, chicken, or sex. But speaking of sex, it seems that by age 30 most women are thoroughly bored with men. And then, for some reason, they get married. Oscar Wilde said that men marry because they're tired, women because they're curious, and that both are disappointed.

Jacob Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09448609462730672691noreply@blogger.com1