Mike Cohen

9-11 image montage. This is

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9-11 image montage. This is a 7Mb file, so only view it if you have a fast connection. It’s a pretty intense series of images set to Enya’s “Only Time”.

I love Enya’s music and I used to enjoy that song, but now I can’t hear it without thinking of the events of 9-11.

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13806 ª January 14 5:26 AM. It’s the music *you* love but everyone you know hates it… It’s the band you love. You’ve played them to all your friends. All your friends hate them (don’t they see? haven’t they got ears? can’t

they hear?) You’ve tried the old “no – really just *listen* to them…honestly they *are* great – can’t you even see yet?” ploy… But you can’t make anyone understand and everyone you know still hates them. This is my one. (mp3’s available) What’s yours?

(nb. i know most of you are going to hate this band, so it would

be pointless to post replies of the “this band are sh*t nature) [MetaFilter]

Lately, I just can’t get enough of Thione Seck, a Senegalese singer. He’s one of that country’s “big three” entertainers. The other two, Youssou N’dour and Baaba Maal are well-known internationally, but Thione doesn’t have an international recording contract. He performs almost every night in his Dakar nightclub.

Like the others, he has a powerful, soaring voice. His music is said to be deeply philosophical, although I don’t understand Wolof, so I can’t decypher his lyrics. His rhythms are infectious and his voice soars over the rhythmic chaos. The Motown-inspired horn section heard in many of his songs would sound familiar to most Americans.

DEA outlaws hemp food products.

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DEA outlaws hemp food products. The Washington Post reports that the DEA has sunk another notch in its war on drugs. The order? No hemp in food. Despite having only trace amounts of THC (the active ingredient in marijuana), the DEA has ordered all hemp food products off the shelf. Quote: “This is from the same administration that says it’s okay to have more arsenic in water than it is to have hemp in cereal.” The DEA defended the decision by stating that they are required by law to ban anything containing THC (no matter the amount). Bagels to be banned next? [kuro5hin.org]

Now, this is ridiculous. Hysteria & inflexibility have won out over logic & reason. I personally don’t approve of drug use. I’ve seen too many lives ruined and too many people die before their time.

I smoked pot frequently when I was 16 & 17, but when I discovered computers a year later, I quit because I lost interest and also drifted away from my old friends who were getting more heavily involved in drugs. I don’t know what happened to them.

Despite my personal beliefs, this is just plain wrong. It ammounts to throwing out the baby with the bath water. Do we deny any possible medical and health benefits because of rigid, inflexible laws or do we make our laws more reasonable?

ICANN Weblog: "I'm not ready

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ICANN Weblog: “I’m not ready to put ‘find me on Google’ on my business card in place of my e-mail address and domain name.”  [Scripting News]

If you do a Google search for Mike Cohen, most of the links you’ll find aren’t me. The only good link is the second one, which is my Radio Weblog. There’s also a link to an outdated page at ISIS International, but nothing at MC Development. The majority of the links refer to other people with the same name. I’m not a Jeweler, I’ve never been to Jerusalem, and I didn’t grow up in Massachusetts & Maine. I did grow up in NYC and live in Los Angeles & Casper, WY before moving to Florida. I’m a Macintosh developer and I’m really into World Music.

The Plex is a decentralized

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The Plex is a decentralized network for sharing data. Like a giant database or spreadsheet, it allows one to store bits of information in the form of triples (like “John emailAddress john@example.org”) and then query it later. By using digital signatures and trust metrics, it enables anyone to publish while filtering for information of interest to you.

This is one to watch.

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13796 ª January 13 6:03 PM. President Bush fainted briefly in the White House residence Sunday after choking on a pretzel while watching the Baltimore-Miami playoff game on tv. Let the one liners begin… [MetaFilter]

Maybe he’s trying to contribute a new word to the language. His father contributed the word bush-suru (not sure of the spelling) to the Japanese language, meaing “to vomit” after what he did to the Japanese prime minister at a dinner in Japan.

I checked the references by doing a google search. The correct word is bushusuru, which means “doing the Bush thing” – updated 1-19-02

Dave Winer: "Life is good.

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Dave Winer: “Life is good. Aaron Swartz has discovered Jeremiah Rogers. Two prodigies, both in their teens. Both off-the-scale smart. The Bill Gates of 2010 meets his Paul Allen. Which is which?”

Heh! Thanks, Dave. Although I’d take Jobs and Woz over Gates and Allen any day. (Even if it means I only get a dollar.) 😉 [Aaron Swartz: Secret Agent]

Aaron & Jeremiah should meet Justin Christie, co-webmaster of MacMegasite and author of CreativePage. Proof that “Yoot” really are the future of the Macintosh. All of the interesting new stuff will come from young programmers.