Oh man, that was incredible. A bunch of tikiphiles on a chartered bus, stopping at the best Polynesian restaurants/bars in Mass. I’m so glad I signed up!!

The Official Homepage
Some great pics from Waitiki
A few of my own

edit 8/29- A whole bunch of great pics from Johnman!

I am pleased to announce my candidacy for the office of President of the Internet. Please cast your vote by linking the text “president of the internet” to my homepage.
It may be a long shot now, but time is on my side. Thank you for your support.

My name is Paige Howarth, and I approve this message.

Did you know that several governments have spent millions since the 1950s on weather control programs? Did you know that China claims that it will not rain at the opening ceremonies at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games?Somehow, in the ever-expanding torrents of information we filter through each day, we haven’t categorized this one as important. True, the efficacy of cloud-seeding is debated, since creating a weather-control is both the ends and the means of properly testing the process (a real catch-22!) But I’m still amazed I never heard of this until now.

Apparently silver iodide (aka dry ice) is shot into the sky, in order to somehow cause rain. There is a perceived dependency of this in dry areas of China, where tanks routinely shoot large quantities of the stuff into the air to produce rain. Even in the United States, companies exist solely to drop dry ice from airplanes for rainmaking purposes.

If you trust any of this at all, research more at Wikipedia.

Lookee here! One of the first web pages in existence. On August 7th, 1991, CERN researcher Tim Berners-Lee published a description of his World Wide Web project on the newsgroup alt.hypertext, and made the service publicly available.

http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html

The Sample Lab

In Tokyo’s iceberg building in Harajuku, there is a new business operation that benefits consumers and manufacturers in a novel way. For a membership fee, patrons can sample electronics, food, beauty products and more. The “try before you buy” salon allows members to take home up to 5 items per visit as well. The samplings include unreleased and innovative items, which means that companies have a new may to test-market their new products (Visitors are asked to fill out surveys after each testing session.) As cool an idea as this is for consumers, it is really a marketing scheme intended to collect user feedback and spark word-of-mouth advertising. I wish I could try it.

From the mass migration to CSS-based web design these past few years, a single tool has emerged to help young grasshoppers. It is a beacon, a rite-of-passage and a pool of tranquility in the ever-churning, dynamic webscape. It is a curiosity of a website, static yet inherently transitory, in an age when permanence is enjoyed solely by megaliths like google and myspace.
If you’re a web designer, and you’ve passed the specific turning-point where you begin to understand the power of CSS, then you’ll already be familiar with the Zen garden. Should you find yourself at that juncture in the future, surely you will happen upon this site, the famous CSS Zen Garden. (when the student is ready, the master will appear!)
It is a fantastic resource. A static HTML file explains the garden, and lists a number of styles submitted by people from all over. Click on one, and the page reloads with the selected style sheet. The textual content is the same, but the layout changes dramatically. After trying out a few of these, you’ll begin to realize (satori!) what CSS is capable of and why it is beneficial.
And studying the CSS files themselves is a great way to learn CSS. Just install the equally-helpful web developer toolbar for firefox, peek under the hood of any Zen garden style, and you’re on your way to standards-compliant Buddha-dom.

Dr. Nick Bostrom, a philosopher and director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford has come up with an interesting theory that is getting a lot of press. On the surface, it looks pretty much like The Matrix, in that we are all living in a computer simulation. The following assumptions are a little different, however: the “programmer” is a human, and his or her motivation is not very different from a gamer immersed in World of Warcraft, The Sims or Second Life. Or perhaps future scientists will have created a program to study their ancestors, for anthropological reasons. The motivation doesn’t matter much, so long as we can assume it will be done.
The logistical basis is interesting in itself: as we all know, Moore’s Law predicts that computer power doubles every 18 months. Given what we know about the human brain, that puts a simulated human with complete nervous system in the relatively near future. And the entire current human population of 6.6 billion? Around 2050.
Now this is where it gets really interesting. Assuming that humans create such a simulation before they go extinct, and assuming that a great number of them are made, probability begins to factor in. Given 10 simulations, the probability that we exist in one spikes dramatically. The theory postulates that if one simulation is created, thousands will follow, therefore it is a statistical certainty that (given our assumptions are correct) we exist in a computer simulation.
Some cool stuff to think about! Now, I’m thinking that there’s no reason to believe that such a simulation would be totally accurate, no more than the Sims are an exact duplicate of reality. So we could be a hugely simplified (or buggy) version of an unfathomably intricate reality.

So, apparently I’m a pescatarian. No, I don’t belong to some weird cult (except the Church of the Subgenius.) I’m essentially a vegetarian, except I eat fish too. Yeah, I know, I know- what a hypocrite. But I find that diet is no longer a battle for me. I can use condiments without checking sardine-content (you laugh, but read labels and you’ll know what I’m talking about). I don’t crave meat, so I rarely give in. I may not be strict, but I’m sustainable.
So there are cruelty issues, yes. And overfishing is a massive global problem. So I’m glad I stumbled upon the Seafood Watch Card, which details which fish are overfished, and which are sustainable. Check it out online or download a printable copy. Unless of course you’re a vegetarian, in which case cheers to you.

Dancing cowboys, vaguely middle-eastern youths on a Mary Poppins-ish rooftop, enlongated livestock embedded with state names… The web banner ads for lowermybills.com are ubiquitous and distinctive, and surely you’ve wondered from whence they came. Turns out, they are generated by one Jennifer Uhll, the unassuming 35-year old former creative director at LowerMyBills. Yes, former, because– brace yourselves– the ads were such a success that she left the company in 2005 to start her own company, Juhll Inc. Now for the big payoff, folks- check out her website. It’s exactly what you’re envisioning.

The Principality of Sealand came to my attention after reading a news story a while back. The Pirate Bay, a website devoted to trading torrent files, has apparently undergone some amazing struggles to stay afloat in recent years. I should devote a whole post to this, but I’ll just mention that their headquarters underwent a massive raid by police in May ‘06. Anyway, TPB, deciding that they could only ever by truly free from copyright law by operating from an autonomous nation, found one for sale: the Principality of Sealand.
Sealand was once Fort Roughs, constructed off the coast of Suffolk during WWII. It’s a sort of platform supported by two towers, complete with helicopter pad. Major Paddy Roy Bates, a pirate radio broadcaster, commandeered the structure in 1967. Their Royal Highnesses Prince Roy and Princess Joan of Sealand have ruled ever since. After an incident in which warning shots were fired at British ships servicing a buoy in Sealandish waters, Roy of Sealand introduced a constitution. This was followed by a flag, a national anthem, a currency and passports.
Sealand’s independence is predictably disputed, but it has all the trappings of a sovereign nation. It’s fought a war, for God’s sake. And it’s currently for sale: figures “eight digits and over” are being considered. Oh, and The Pirate Bay was ruled out as a buyer, even if they could acquire the money. To preserve the Sealandish way, bids from mobsters, crooks, or anyone attempting to avoid international law will not be considered. I implore you to read up on this, it’s really inspiring.

Sealand’s Official Website: http://www.sealandgov.org/