Wandering thoughts...

Links

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:34:17 GMT

I've been on Stratfor's free email lists for over a year. I find them unbiased and non-partisan. They currently have two free emails: GeoPolitics Weekly and Terrorism Weekly. (They had a Public Policy Weekly, but that hasn't gone out since 2007.) You can sign up for the weekly emails here. spiritualmonkey, I'll particularly recommend the various articles on the Middle East to you. Oh, and this one, on why China will never leave Tibet.
Make shares video of the tuned mass damper in the Taipei 101 building reacting to the Great Sichuan Earthquake of last May. I actually think the video is somewhat anti-climactic, as the viewer doesn't get any sense that it's really the building moving around the damper, and not the damper moving inside the building. Still, that's a heavy freakin' ball developing quite a swing!
http://ecofabulous.blogs.com/ showcases eco-friendly products and services.
Seattle Steampunk Worldcon in 2011? That'll be about time for me to take a vacation from Burning Man again... ;) (The graphics on the home page are beautiful!)
T. Boone Pickens, who has been an oil man for over half a century, is advocating an energy independence free of fossil fuels.

Heck with lolcats,

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:35:28 GMT

I submit for your pleasure "lolpeople."

see Obama pictures

see McCain pictures

Another job posting.

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:16:54 GMT

My company just opened a position for Graphic Designer, here in Seattle.

http://cooljobs.attachmate.com/

If I refer you, and you get hired, I'll buy you dinner with my referral bonus... ;)

Whassup?

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:12:45 GMT

On Saturday, my trailer went in to get solar installed. And A/C. But, I won't have enough battery power to run the A/C. I'll need to connect to "shore power" for that.
The stitches were supposed to be in for a week, which would have been Saturday, the day before yesterday. Unfortunately, the tails of two of the stitches were actually lying in the slice, preventing it from closing. Those two came out last Wednesday. After another 24 hours of seeing how well closed the slice had become, I took out the third one. Now, everything is scabbed over, and I should be fully healed in another week.
The Dark Knight is very cool. Morgan Freeman had the best line in the movie. Heath Ledger deserves a posthumous nod for Best Supporting.
Hancock, seen a couple weeks ago, was also very cool, and included a twist I never saw coming.
So, I don't track my weight. What I track is the notch my belt is on. Last week, right about when I noticed that I was hitting notch 6 from notch 5, my appetite went right through the f'ing roof. I'm back to notch 5... :p I sit around 220-225, normally. I'd love to be around 200. If you believe BMI (which I don't, really), I should be around 180.

[lj-cut text="Links"]

A Federal appeals court threw out the indecency fine for the Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction."
davehogg shares Barbaro and Big Brown talking smack. Hilarious!
mactavish shares a video from the EPOXI project of moon transit. Very cool!
phonemonkey has a user icon that would be even funnier if I knew which old BritRail station it was making fun of. "Swearword & Ethanol." Any guesses?
The MAKEers have included method for harnessing water power. The idea is to coil a "long water column" on the side of the wheel. As the wheel turns, it scoops out a little more water. The multiple scoops of water work their way to the center of the coil. At the center, they exit the coil with the force of all the water scoops behind them.
They also posted a video of oobleck dancing on top of a speaker. The video's actually kind of creepy! It squirms!
gridlore shares a vacation package I want a ticket for! Follow in the steps of Alexander the Great! One of the commenters to his post linked to the blog of some folks following the old silk road between Constantinople and Beijing. He also shares an automotive computer interface from ThinkGeek.
Finally, bunyip links to a video periodic table of the elements, and I thought he was the source of Beaker singing "Ode to Joy."

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Got'n itch...

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 23:21:19 GMT

So I scratched it, and then realized that the itch was my stitches. H'ray for fast healing!

I'm an idiot...

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 05:18:56 GMT

After 38 years, 5 months, and 26 days, I have finally needed stitches due to injury.

And, it's an injury I can only attribute to my own stupidity. See, I was working on putting some electrical conduit in my trailer, and I was stupid enough to try to cut the conduit while holding it next to my body. Of course!, the knife slipped, and I put a 2½cm slice into the bottom of my rib cage, just left of center.

I immediately pulled up the shirt I was wearing to bunch up and compress against the injury, gathered my first aid kit, and went into the bathroom. It only needed about three minutes of direct pressure to stop the bleeding. Once I could see it, I realized it was about 3 or 4 mm deep, and the edges wouldn't hold closed.

Well, sh*t.

So, I put a folded 4x4 over it, with some tape to hold it down, and drove over to the local clinic. They saw me almost immediately, and the doctor whipped three stitches through the injury, neat as you please.

At no point did this injury hurt more than the smallest twinge, which I thought was odd, but wasn't going to gripe about.

In any case, I'm now current on my tetanus booster.... :-p

Idiot.

(The conduit is all up, though. I just need to get some stuff I missed to finish the wiring. Then, I get to install the storage bench I'm going to use for the batteries and charging system.)

Finally getting a round tuit.

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 17:17:16 GMT

So, last Thursday, July 3rd, Support is told that we can all work half-days, provided we ensure that every product has coverage until 15h. I get together with the other Verastream guy, we sort ourselves out, and I'm in at 08h, out at 1145h, and taking the 1245h ferry home...
Back home that afternoon, my pager goes off for a fire half a mile away from me. I pull into a nearby driveway the same time the first unit gets on scene. The Incident Commander's jaw drops as I walk up to check in.
"Who're you?!"
"A volunteer. I only live half a mile away," I grin at him.
So, he pairs me up, and I go inside to help make sure the food on the stove didn't start a fire in the wall behind the stove, and tear down the half melted vent hood.
Had I worked a full day, I'd've never known about the fire. Had I lived any further away, I'd've been cancelled before I ever got there.
Sometimes, things work out... ;)
The funeral for the family friend went well. Many people told great stories about her.
Those allergies I mentioned turned into (turned out to be?) a sinus infection! I usually beat those in about a week. So, at Day 12, I went in to the local clinic. I'm now 9 days into a 2-week course of Septra. Having been late with a couple doses, over the last week, I suspect the drug is just beating the bacteria to a draw, and I might get the infection back once the course is done. I hope not, though!

[lj-cut text="Links"]

Animated Knots is a wonderful website for learning how to work with ropes and lines.
The snail mail story is several weeks old, now, but trés geeky!
lexica510 shares this story about how Prozac led to a complete red herring of a theory of why depression happens. The good news was that good science to "prove" that theory called it into question, instead. The article is long, but worth reading.
browngirl shares the art of Paul Avril (NSFW). What makes his work interesting is that he is using classical painting compositions and techniques to create explicit pornography using some famous painting subjects.
Having trouble communicating? eleri shares some form letters that can help! ;)
brcmapgirl shares a NY Times article on weeds and global warming. Why are weeds so prolific? Humanity and evolution! We've killed off the weaker plants we don't like. The ones that are left are very good at surviving everything we do to them...
jemstone shares that an original copy of Metropolis has been found, in Argentina. As several people have asked: When are we going to get to see it!? I first saw the Giorgio Moroder version at UC Davis, and have loved it ever since. I either have it on DVD, or I once rented a DVD. I don't remember, right now.
born_to_me shares this delightful, hilarious Heinz commercial. As she said, I ROFL'ed. Some of my readers might find it a little shocking... ;)
rmjwell shared the Zeusaphone, with several videos. What do you get when you mix science and creativity? TEH KOOL!!!!!
janetmiles shares "What is past the end of the line?" It's a "curiosity killed the cat" story, with a twist.
Kilauea has a new lava fountain! Cool! Video at that link.
The Little Green Fire Truck is a childrens story about how your color doesn't matter as much as your ability to do the job.
Make your own silkscreen press!
Make Magazine also passes on an article about GPS jamming, and ways to fight it.
They also shared a YouTube video of the sound design in Wall-E.
spiritualmonkey shares a garden decoration I could really dig! ;)
wcg points out that Senator Phil Graham wrote the bill that deregulated the futures markets, resulting in the rampant speculation that is contributing to our huge gas prices. He also points out that Senator Graham is now the economic advisor to Senator McCain's Presidential campaign. As if you needed another reason to not vote Republican...
This shirt is on my wishlist. Just sayin'... ;)
How about a vacation resort in a tree house? Not for people afraid of heights. Also, there's no services up there. Food and water get carried up. "Waste" gets carried down... I think it sound like fun!
A list of cool hiking destinations? I think so!

[/lj-cut]

That was quite a list!

Another quickie...

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:45:49 GMT

I recognize that rock in the background! It's black!

see more dog pictures

Quickie

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 04:38:42 GMT

Tonight, at training, I got a walk through of drafting water out of an unpressurized water source. (Lakes, ponds, portable water tanks...) One walk through, and then I did one. It's absurdly easy, if your pump is air tight...
Hey, the_ogre? I just want to make sure this gets on your radar, since you'll be up this way during that time period. If you do it, I'll sponsor you.
Many, many links to come, but it's past my bed time...

Baisez-moi! Nous avons eu un feu!

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:50:48 GMT

Seeing as how I was only half a mile away from the lady who set fire to the dinner she was in the midst of cooking, I was actually on scene, dressed, and helping before they could cancel the responding volunteers...

Hee hee hee....

Update

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 00:00:31 GMT

The services for the family friend will be on Monday. I fly to CA Sunday morning, and back Monday evening. All my time is committed.

In other news, this week has been the worst for my hay fever in at least five years. I stayed home on Tuesday, and had to come home early, today.

[lj-cut text="Quiz result"]

Your result for The Commonly Confused Words Test...

English Genius

You did so extremely well, even I can't find a word to describe your excellence! You have the uncommon intelligence necessary to understand things that most people don't. You have an extensive vocabulary, and you're not afraid to use it properly! Way to go!

Thank you so much for taking my test. I hope you enjoyed it!

For the complete Answer Key, visit my blog: http://shortredhead78.blogspot.com/.

Take The Commonly Confused Words Test at HelloQuizzy

[/lj-cut]

Drees are habing segs in my node...

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:31:43 GMT

Again.

*sneeze*

*sniffle*

Did I already post about InTrade? It's a futures market on the likelihood of US and World events.
saoba shares http://polidorichocolates.typepad.com/, who occasionally announces sales of her chocolate experimentations...
Mr. Obama's comments on detainees and Afghanistan. Damn straight!

Rain? What rain?

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:08:33 GMT

A curious fellow died one day and found himself waiting in the long line of judgment.

As he stood there he noticed that some souls were allowed to march right through the pearly gates into Heaven. Others though, were led over to Satan who threw them into the burning fire.

But every so often, instead of hurling a poor soul into the fire, Satan would toss a soul off to one side into a small pile.

After watching Satan do this several times, the fellow's curiosity got the best of him.

So he strolled over and asked Satan what he was doing. "Excuse me, Prince of Darkness," he said. "I'm waiting in line for Judgment, but I couldn't help wondering. Why are you tossing those people aside instead of flinging them into the Fires of Hell with the others?"

"Oh those . ." Satan groaned. "They're all from Seattle . They're still too wet to burn."

(From an email list...)

Updatey

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:57:03 GMT

Taxonomic name: Homo sapiens intoxicans. Common name: rubber-leggéd drunk. ;)
So, any time you get a large group of people together for what amounts to a weekend party, someone's going to drink too much. This particular individual reached his limit pretty close to the opposite end of the venue from where he was camped. And, where he was sleeping at the far uphill end of where people could camp. We had a cart, but that was a long push!
This has been waiting a while for me to update: A portrait of a young Elizabeth I has been uncovered. That's kinda cool!
I forget where I read the article about the woman with the PhD in computer science and animation getting a job with a biotech, in order to animate biological processes. They're really beautiful.
InTrade is a low cost futures exchange and social experiment. Create contracts on a future event, and extrapolate the moving price of that contract into the likelihood of the event happening. Also kinda cool!
Hey, lotusice and kimatyza? Does G need to do a science project for school?...
The Boston Globe has brought back photojournalism.
Burning Man is driving me nuts!
Many people have commented on Senator Kucinich's reading out of Articles of Impeachment against President Bush. At this point, I'm content with that being in the Congressional Register. Actually shutting down the Legislative Branch to consider those articles, this close to the election, can only be a distraction. President Bush is already doomed to go down in history as doing a horrible job. In the end, I think his Presidency will be much more poorly remembered than the successful impeachment of President Clinton.

I honey, I'm home!

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 04:20:51 GMT

I've been at Critical Massive since last Thursday, and I just reached skip=120. I have 65 emails in my Inbox. It's 2120, and I still need to shower before I go to bed. And, my alarm goes off at 0500.

If there's anything I've missed, link me, K?

(What? The tally? Oh. Two sprained ankles, one of which was an aggravation of a week-old injury, and one rubber-legged drunk. Remind me to tell the story about him, when I'm awake.)

(What? Oh. I was Medical Lead.)

(And, I'm madly in lust.)

(Again.)

Words of the day

Wed, 28 May 2008 21:26:14 GMT

desserted - adj.: Hit in the face with a pie. "He was desserted by his friends."

kernel - n.: The person in a military unit that you don't want to pop!

Another job posting.

Wed, 28 May 2008 20:54:22 GMT

My company just opened a position for software engineer. http://cooljobs.attachmate.com/

It's been a few weeks...

Tue, 27 May 2008 16:11:22 GMT

One sentence movie review for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: "All the pieces that had to be in the movie were in the movie. They just weren't portrayed very well." Notes and spoilers at the bottom.
Memorial Day weekend was pleasantly mellow, didn't include any fires, and did include an afternoon barbeque at the home of one of the folks I sit with on the afternoon ferry.
Lots of folks have written about remembering the reason for Memorial Day. I have nothing, really, to add to those great words.
I don't know why I had as much empathy as I had for Sarah Fischer as I did, on Sunday, but I did. For all the challenges she had to overcome just to get to the Indy 500, she didn't deserve to crash out like that. Watching it, and her post crash interview, was heartbreaking. There Ain't No Justice.
All of Inflation's Little Parts tracks the bits that going into the Consumer Price Index, done in a very approachable fashion.
All streets is a map of the US created by encoding all of the streets in the country. Seeing geographic features displayed by virtue of inability to pave them is somewhat odd.
The development deal that sets aside much of the southern tip of California's central valley is a few weeks old, now. I've run across a couple commentary headlines that were critical, but I didn't read the articles. The headlines implied that accepting this deal will allow the developer a free pass on some horrible project in the future. I don't know about the accuracy of that, though.
People with depression are less able to process the "happy hormones."
Daylight Saving Time doesn't save energy. Can we quit switching back and forth, now?
digby reports yet more evidence on the possibility of an attempt to suspend democratic processes in this country. I've posted about the potiential for US fascism before. At that time, I noted that the silver lining to this cloud is that we don't have a "beloved leader" to implement fascism. In comments, unixronin asked me why I didn't think GWB qualified. Now, many months later, I can answer that.
Lactic acid is fuel, not waste (NY Times, reg. required). For all that it took a century for refutation to occur, I still consider this a great story for the file "science works!"
saoba writes a great little essay on how the Boomers might finally be able to hand off the baton of social justice, and how she hopes we don't face some of the same resistance her generation did.
Technology is cool! Did you ever wonder why "wire photos" were called that? (Actually, what amazes me was the amount of time between that technology and fax machines. Although, cost might have been a factor, and fax machines using wire technology might have been prohibitively expensive.)
In the United States, you may not, legally, divorce someone in the Islamic fashion. Yes, I consider this a victory for women's rights.
Oh, that's funny! Harrison Ford records a very personal PSA on rainforest destruction. It's very cringe worthy...
Who said economics couldn't be funny?
The best political commercial EVAR! Outdoing the simplicity of that commercial will be a tough challenge.
Hooray for 4-day weeks!

The resolution of the adventure was amazingly well protected. I had no idea, going in, how the race for the treasure would end. Given how the first three movies paid homage to the great adventure stories of the late Thirties, I'm not at all surprised that this movie paid homage to the great adventure stories of the late Fifties. The Thirties were the literary era of Rex Stout and Agatha Christie. The Fifties were the era of Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov.
Now, having said they resolved the story in the only way they could, the way Mr. Spielberg actually engineered that resolution was horrible! Ms. Blanchett was unconvincing. The (indistinguishable from) magic was unconvincing. Mr. Spielburg did a better job of special effects when he stuck lightbulbs in the soldiers' costumes in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Watching Shia LeBoeuf channel screw around with the Greaser stereotype was a lot of fun!
Good: Indy and Marion finally getting married!
Good: Indy not passing on the hat!
Bad: How many times are we going to have to see the hat in silhouette?
Wow! That's where I recognized Ray Winstone's accent! Talk about creating a different look, between the two movies!
Bad: What was up with that bit of silliness involving the Marcus' statue? Entirely unnecessary...

Need a job?

Thu, 08 May 2008 16:22:00 GMT

New job requisitions at my workplace:

07-0079 Lab UNIX Administrator
08-0011 Technical Documentation Manager
08-0013 Configuration Management Engineer
08-0014 Software Test Engineer - RSIT UNIX

http://cooljobs.attachmate.com/

History, and links

Wed, 07 May 2008 16:31:55 GMT

The link that really got to me, today: Via browngirl, liz_marcs tells a story she heard from her Mother. The story is about a Holocaust survivor who doesn't exist. Except, she did exist, and her existence contradicts "known" history about Auschwitz.
My Great-Uncle Owen was spent the last two years of WWII in a German POW camp. My Mom was clear that he didn't like to talk about it. Until, one day in 1984, while we were visiting England, he told two stories in four or five sentences. The only thing I remember is that one story involved a German soldier and a knife. I still occasionally regret I hadn't hidden a tape recorder somewhere. Mom and Great-Aunt Joan were floored. At the time, I was frozen, afraid that he'd remember that he didn't want to talk about these things. He was sitting in an armchair (Green? I think so.), with his legs up on an ottoman. I don't remember what I was sitting on, but I was facing him on his right, and about level with the ottoman.
It's the little histories that I love. They don't make the text books.
Albert Hofmann, who first synthesized LSD, passed away, last week.
From dirtwitch: Go to the Edible Landscaping website, and scroll down to the "Climax" variety of blueberries:
Large berries ripening uniformly with a sweet flavor. Ripens about 1 month before Powderblue. Leaves have a blue hint and are very ornamental, turning red in the fall. Everyone should have a Climax in their backyard!
I agree completely. I'd love to have several!
*ahem*
This fire came in about an hour before I was due to get up to go to work. Thus, I missed it.
The paper guy wonders why the papers are stacking up at the home of an elderly couple. He wonders so much, he goes back to investigate, and finds the wife has been trapped under her husband's body for a few days. Take care of your neighbors, and tell your family you love them.
DNA tests have identified the final missing children of the last Russian Czar. Now, the family may rest together.
More "little history:" farmleaf lives about 40 minutes north of me. Her grandfather helped push out the Wright Flyer for its first flight tests. Part of the year, my parents live about an hour north of Kitty Hawk, NC. Connections...
This photo of last week's tornadoes in VA caught my eye. The debris in the middle of the street is the house that got pushed off the foundation in the lower left corner...
A little English humor: in case you've ever wondered what British soldiers do to beat the heat...
I first saw The Kings Singers in an episode of the old Evening at Pops in 1982. I recently found on YouTube their rendition of the overture from The Barber of Seville from that episode. I found that because someone showed me their send up of the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor... Hee!

Today's RIP

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 22:11:56 GMT

Dr. Albert Hofmann, credited with synthesizing Lysergic Acid Dyethylamide, has passed away at 102.

(Have I mentioned recently that I love the King's Singers? This is actually relevant! Because, sometimes, listening to them is psychedelic!)

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:10:53 GMT

I can't be the first person to decide that BLTs make great breakfast sandwiches, can I?

mmmmMMMMmmmm.....

On toasted sourdough...

What's that smell?...

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:43:10 GMT

My fire pager went off as I was getting to my truck, last night. What timing! Turned out to be some smoking insulation under a house. The first team under the house got the fire out and started pulling out all the affected insulation. They came out, and I was next up to finish clearing out stuff. I got to play tunnel rat for about 20 minutes. The good news was that this was a nice, tall crawl space, so I wasn't all that constricted. Still, crawling around under a house while wearing 50lbs of gear got me breathing hard.
Happy Birthday to my Sister-in-Law, who has never drunk the LJ Kool-Aid^®!
Only one link, today. For qzz, yes, that's a theramin. For everyone else: "Poor, easily confused kittehs!"
I heard about my annual raise, last week. It was very nice, but I don't want to go into details in a public forum...

Pedantic and ponderous?...

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 18:10:21 GMT

I am the sonnet, never quickly thrilled;
Not prone to overstated gushing praise
Nor yet to seething rants and anger, filled
With overstretched opinions to rephrase;
But on the other hand, not fond of fools,
And thus, not fond of people, on the whole;
And holding to the sound and useful rules,
Not those that seek unjustified control.
I'm balanced, measured, sensible (at least,
I think I am, and usually I'm right);
And when more ostentatious types have ceased,
I'm still around, and doing, still, alright.
In short, I'm calm and rational and stable -
Or, well, I am, as much as I am able.

What Poetry Form Are You?

Actually, I like sonnets...

Links

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 03:13:43 GMT

Some of these are too cool to let lie...

Decision Tree: The Obama-Clinton Divide is an image shared by mactavish. I can completely see the amount of effort that went into compiling those statistics. And, the conclusions that we can reach from that effort are fascinating.
Botched Paramilitary Police Raids is a Google map with stickpins for every location in the country where a "no knock" warrant was served with results vastly out of scale with the crimes alleged on the residents. (That doesn't read right. How may I say that better?) My opinion is that middle-of-the-night police raids are a sign of shoddy investigation. They are the inelegant option taking by law enforcement officers who can't be bothered to thoroughly check their data, or discover a better way to seize a property. Courtesy of The Stranger.
Participating in the current financial markets is like eating junk food.
Most of us eat these absurd foods with no thought of the gulf in complexity between, say, a potato and a Pringle.
How your tax dollars are spent. A CNBC slide show.
Baby lions! Courtesy of usqueba, I think.
I'm weird in many different ways. One of those ways is that I like collecting videos of BLEVEs. The best example of a BLEVE occurred in Mexico City. Until now, I hadn't found video of it online. The bad news is that we have to put up with Sheriff what's-his-face doing his dramatic introduction...
In an extraordinarily appropriate move for someone, UC Santa Cruz is going to get the Grateful Dead archive. Yes, gridlore, I'm sure they'll let you visit.