Vitanuova for 2001 June 15

Absolute zero isn't?

Something can be colder than absolute zero? Or at least have a lower temperature?

A poll

I got to participate in my first-ever Gallup poll (at least, I think it was Gallup), a marketing survey for Disney. They've opened a new theme park in Southern California, and they want to know what people think about it. I guess I'm a great expert because I've actually once heard about this theme park (a newspaper article about how the park's neighbors didn't like it too much).

Actually, now that I think about it, I did hear about the California Adventure park. My friend made fun of it for being a California theme park in California -- so rather than seeing the actual California, you can go to Disney's virtual version of it! ("Thou stranger, which for Rome in Rome here seekest...")

Thursday

I went to the chiropractor, went back to VegTime for lunch, and then worked at EFF for a couple of hours. The highlight of that was that I solved the big problem which had led to all of the EFF's mailing lists not working. They're now working again.

I'm also working on an essay about standards, largely a recapitulation of EFF's position on copy protection.

In VegTime, I saw a copy of The Animals' Agenda. I haven't seen that magazine for years; it was fascinating.

In the afternoon, I went to Stow Lake (in Golden Gate Park) with my cousin and her dog. I'd never been there before, and I don't know Golden Gate Park well in general. It was a nice walk; we walked around the lake three times, and it made me want to come back and take a paddleboat out on the lake. (You can rent them there, just as you can on the lake in Look Park back in Florence, MA.) We had a nice chat, too.

My cousin has some old letters that my mom sent her just before and just after I was born. There's also a copy of the old picture of me stirring applesauce; I need to scan that and put it up on my web page.

If my arms would permit it, I think it would be neat to get into taking bike trips. There's so much to see in the Bay Area, and so much of it can be seen well by bike.

In the evening, I had some miso soup, and then I visited Robyn and played Trivial Pursuit. She beat me easily. My arms felt pretty much OK.

Some other things happened too, but I don't remember anything else offhand to mention here.

OK, why is it that electrical stimulation of muscles doesn't increase their strength? What does this claim tell us about how exercise works to make us stronger? (Today I heard that, even though external electric shocks can make muscles contract, just as ordinary nerve impulses do, they won't increase muscle mass! So how do the muscles know when they're supposed to get stronger? What's telling them?)

Macy's protest coverage

This TechTV story has a substantial amount of video footage from the protest (you need RealPlayer to view it, unfortunately) and I show up in the background in a couple of scenes (in a 2600 DVD lawsuit shirt, holding two signs). You can also see pretty much everyone who wore a wedding dress, plus Stanton in his kilt.

Here's the EFF list of media coverage of the event.