I've been lax in updating lately because I was at the National Archives on Wednesday and at Fort Dietrich on Friday. This morning I had meeting and file management of the Wednesday and Friday stuff to deal with. So while I ready the first of what will be several Solar Decathlon related posts I give you something I lifted from http://www.idrewthis.org/.
Puppy-kickers
posted by Liberal Eagle at 12:51 PM
In this column here, which you should read, Paul Krugman analyzes the conservative sense of "humor." (I'm so glad the NY Times is no longer putting its opinion writers behind a subscription wall, if only for Krugman and Bob Herbert.)
It has not escaped my notice in the past that when conservatives are being "funny" they always come off as complete and total assholes (P.J. O'Rourke, who I actually quite like, being the one notable exception I can think of). Think of Rush Limbaugh joking back in the '90s about holding the "Homeless Olympics" or calling Chelsea Clinton, who was 14 at the time, the "White House dog."
Molly Ivins wrote of Rush, around the same time:
Satire can be quite a cruel weapon. It has historically been the weapon of powerless people aimed at the powerful. When you use satire as a weapon against powerless people, it is not only cruel, it is profoundly vulgar.
When I listen to Limbaugh, as I often do [brave woman, Molly], I find he consistently targets dead people, little girls, the homeless, and animals--none of whom are in a particularly good position to respond. It is the consistency of his selection of helpless targets that I find so appalling.
I miss Molly Ivins.
(And we won't even get into the slime of Ann Coulter, who thinks it's the hight of hilarity to call people "faggots" and advocate murdering Supreme Court justices and blowing up the New York Times building with all its reporters and editors inside. I've been told I don't "get" her humor. My theory is that this is because I have a soul.)
Of course, as Krugman notes, conservative assholery has a high pedigree, having been given legitimacy by the patron saint of modern conservatism, a man who (ironically) is widely thought of as sunny and positive.
But Ronald Reagan thought the issue of hunger in the world’s richest nation was nothing but a big joke. Here’s what Reagan said in his famous 1964 speech “A Time for Choosing,” which made him a national political figure: “We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry each night. Well, that was probably true. They were all on a diet.”
Ha ha ha ha ha ha. I think my sides may have split. Billy Kristol, writing in the present day, can you follow that act?
In anticipation of [Bush's veto of the SCHIP bill, which would have expanded health care for children], William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, had this to say: “First of all, whenever I hear anything described as a heartless assault on our children, I tend to think it’s a good idea. I’m happy that the president’s willing to do something bad for the kids.”
Honestly, it's very hard for me not to hope Bill Kristol gets flattened by an ambulance on his way home from work.
I suppose this is inevitably what you get when you mix these particular ingredients into a political movement. Take a bunch of privileged rich kids. In high school and college, have them all read Ayn Rand, thereby drilling into them the idea that acting in their own naked self-interest at all times is not only allowable, it's a supreme moral virtue. Stir.
Krugman also points out something interesting about George W. Bush, he of vetoing a children's health care bill that has over 70% support nationally:
Mark Crispin Miller, the author of “The Bush Dyslexicon,” once made a striking observation: all of the famous Bush malapropisms — “I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family,” and so on — have involved occasions when Mr. Bush was trying to sound caring and compassionate.
By contrast, Mr. Bush is articulate and even grammatical when he talks about punishing people; that’s when he’s speaking from the heart. The only animation Mr. Bush showed during the flooding of New Orleans was when he declared “zero tolerance of people breaking the law,” even those breaking into abandoned stores in search of the food and water they weren’t getting from his administration.
At least he didn't tell a lot of jokes about the displaced refugees. (He left that to his mom.)
But I think this underscores an important point about who we as a nation should be empowering. George W. Bush is only interested in being the big tough manly man, not in, you know, actually governing. What was so great about Bill Clinton, for all his failings, was that he actually liked governing, believed in it, and was good at it. He cared about policy and making it work.
In a way, that's the choice in front of us in the next election, isn't it? Vote for the party which, by and large, actually wants to govern, or vote for the party which, on the whole, couldn't care less about governing, unless by "governing" you mean going out and kicking some weak little country's ass so we can all feel tough.
The nerdy administrator who'll make your life easier, or the macho bully who'll make fun of your kids if they get sick. It's up to you, America.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Thursday, October 11, 2007
New shows
There's three new shows this season which are basically the same show. The basic premise of these three shows is some early twenties person in a go nowhere job has something happen which grants them great power which more powerful people wish to exploit.
The first show is "Chuck". Chuck works as a computer geek at a "Best Buy" knockoff. An old college buddy of Chuck was in some government agency and he went rogue. Before getting killed he sent Chuck an e-mail of a video which jumped into Chuck's head with all the secrets of the FBI, CIA, and probably some others. Now both agencies have someone using him for missions.
The second show is "Reaper". Our hero works at a "Home Depot" knockoff. His parents sold him to Satan before he was born in exchange for curing his father. When he turned 21 Satan comes to collect. Satan made him a bounty hunter to collect the souls of people who escaped from hell. So far this is my favorite.
The third show is "Bionic Woman". Our hero works in a bar and takes care of her little sister. One day she was in the car with her boyfriend when it got hit by a semi. He was just banged up, but she was mangled. He also happened to be part of a secret project to develop super spies with bionic bits and pieces. He saved our hero's life by getting her broken bits replaced. Both legs, an arm, an eye, an ear, and her blood. Now she works with the agency.
Another new show of interest is "Pushing Daisies". It's sort of Tristan and Iseult made for TV. Our hero was born with the ability to bring the dead back to life by touching them. When he touches them again they die and stay dead. If they stay alive for more than a minute someone else dies. A detective found out about this. Now they work together. They bring murder victims back to life long enough to ask who killed them and then collect the reward. This is not the Tristan and Iseult part. That comes when he brings back his first sweetheart and keeps her alive. Now they're deeply in love and can never every touch each other or she'll die.
See, in the original Tristan and Iseult were separated by a wall with a small hole in it. They conduct the entire romance through that hole.
The first show is "Chuck". Chuck works as a computer geek at a "Best Buy" knockoff. An old college buddy of Chuck was in some government agency and he went rogue. Before getting killed he sent Chuck an e-mail of a video which jumped into Chuck's head with all the secrets of the FBI, CIA, and probably some others. Now both agencies have someone using him for missions.
The second show is "Reaper". Our hero works at a "Home Depot" knockoff. His parents sold him to Satan before he was born in exchange for curing his father. When he turned 21 Satan comes to collect. Satan made him a bounty hunter to collect the souls of people who escaped from hell. So far this is my favorite.
The third show is "Bionic Woman". Our hero works in a bar and takes care of her little sister. One day she was in the car with her boyfriend when it got hit by a semi. He was just banged up, but she was mangled. He also happened to be part of a secret project to develop super spies with bionic bits and pieces. He saved our hero's life by getting her broken bits replaced. Both legs, an arm, an eye, an ear, and her blood. Now she works with the agency.
Another new show of interest is "Pushing Daisies". It's sort of Tristan and Iseult made for TV. Our hero was born with the ability to bring the dead back to life by touching them. When he touches them again they die and stay dead. If they stay alive for more than a minute someone else dies. A detective found out about this. Now they work together. They bring murder victims back to life long enough to ask who killed them and then collect the reward. This is not the Tristan and Iseult part. That comes when he brings back his first sweetheart and keeps her alive. Now they're deeply in love and can never every touch each other or she'll die.
See, in the original Tristan and Iseult were separated by a wall with a small hole in it. They conduct the entire romance through that hole.
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Solar Decathlon: pregame show
Gandolf (my parrot) and I went down to the National Mall to check out the Solar Decathlon setup. We've gone together to every show so far. The 2002 show was her first major public outing. I've got a couple groups to show around next weekend when the houses are open and I wanted a preview to prepare myself. Sorry, I didn't take the camera this time. Next weekend, I promise.
There seems to be less diversity in design than in other years. It's all pretty much a box with south facing solar panels on the roof. The differences should be more clear on the inside.
Texas has some artwork on the sides and some plastic panels covering it. I saw a few flapping up in the wind. I couldn't quite figure out why so I asked a young lady on break. The short answer is that they're there for aesthetic purposes. Some are clear and some are opaque and they're arranged in an artistic manner, but they're real purpose is just to keep the rain off the real art.
Texas also stands out in that their hard hats are shaped like stetsons.
A couple of the houses have vertical planters stuck to the southern exposure. They're dirt and peat in a plastic housing which is turned vertically so the plants stick out the side. One has an elaborate system welded together to hold their trays in a rack with a big plastic grey water tank mounted near the top to water them. Grey water is used water sans-sewage. Stuff from the sink and shower, but not the toilet.
It looks like all the houses are using evacuated tubing for their hot water. These are replacements for the old fashioned pipes in a black box that I grew up with. They're supposed to be arranged with one end higher than the other so that convection currents convey the heat to the top and into the water pipe. The first year some of the schools had to start covering theirs or taking it apart because they were getting so much hot water. One school this year covered their southern exposure with these pipes. They have enough to power a turbine, it seems. But they installed them horizontally so I think they'll have trouble getting the heat to the correct end.
Having had time to think about this I think I know what's going on. One school had what appeared to be a hot tub as part of the design. Maybe that's this school.
Besides ingenuity in energy savings the students must be creative in design for transport. One school put their panels in wooden frames to make them easier to put up and take down. The rest of the schools are assembling theirs on site. You may notice on this house the shadow that these boxes cast. Some of the boxes act as awnings over the southern windows. During the summer time when the sun is high (you can reach right up and touch the sky) the shadow covers the windows completely. But in the winter they provide nearly no shade so the sun shines in to make the most of the winter sun.
The Germans have an all glass southern exposure and nearly no awning. I thought they were gonna cook in there. But they have folding doors with screens on them that can be opened and closed to provide as much or as little light as possible.
The Solar Decathlon officially opens on October 12 and runs through the 20th. It's located near the Smithsonian Metro stop at the Mall exit. They're open for tours 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM on weekends and only until 3:00 PM on weekdays. If you find yourself near there after dark they typically have plenty of solar lighting making it an attractive place even at night.
There seems to be less diversity in design than in other years. It's all pretty much a box with south facing solar panels on the roof. The differences should be more clear on the inside.
Texas has some artwork on the sides and some plastic panels covering it. I saw a few flapping up in the wind. I couldn't quite figure out why so I asked a young lady on break. The short answer is that they're there for aesthetic purposes. Some are clear and some are opaque and they're arranged in an artistic manner, but they're real purpose is just to keep the rain off the real art.
Texas also stands out in that their hard hats are shaped like stetsons.
A couple of the houses have vertical planters stuck to the southern exposure. They're dirt and peat in a plastic housing which is turned vertically so the plants stick out the side. One has an elaborate system welded together to hold their trays in a rack with a big plastic grey water tank mounted near the top to water them. Grey water is used water sans-sewage. Stuff from the sink and shower, but not the toilet.
It looks like all the houses are using evacuated tubing for their hot water. These are replacements for the old fashioned pipes in a black box that I grew up with. They're supposed to be arranged with one end higher than the other so that convection currents convey the heat to the top and into the water pipe. The first year some of the schools had to start covering theirs or taking it apart because they were getting so much hot water. One school this year covered their southern exposure with these pipes. They have enough to power a turbine, it seems. But they installed them horizontally so I think they'll have trouble getting the heat to the correct end.
Having had time to think about this I think I know what's going on. One school had what appeared to be a hot tub as part of the design. Maybe that's this school.
Besides ingenuity in energy savings the students must be creative in design for transport. One school put their panels in wooden frames to make them easier to put up and take down. The rest of the schools are assembling theirs on site. You may notice on this house the shadow that these boxes cast. Some of the boxes act as awnings over the southern windows. During the summer time when the sun is high (you can reach right up and touch the sky) the shadow covers the windows completely. But in the winter they provide nearly no shade so the sun shines in to make the most of the winter sun.
The Germans have an all glass southern exposure and nearly no awning. I thought they were gonna cook in there. But they have folding doors with screens on them that can be opened and closed to provide as much or as little light as possible.
The Solar Decathlon officially opens on October 12 and runs through the 20th. It's located near the Smithsonian Metro stop at the Mall exit. They're open for tours 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM on weekends and only until 3:00 PM on weekdays. If you find yourself near there after dark they typically have plenty of solar lighting making it an attractive place even at night.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Science Lesson 5: How planes fly
Ira Flatow (Newton's Apple, NPR's Science Friday) was in town Tuesday signing his new book "Present at the Future: From Evolution to Nanotechnology, Candid and Controversial Conversations on Science and Nature". I'm only about 30 pages in, but flows nicely. I'll tell you all about it when I finish it.
One subject that Ira is passionate about is the myth of how planes fly. He dedicates a chapter to it, discusses it in the introduction, and spent part of the talk on the subject.
What we've always been taught in school, and what Ira used to believe, is the Bernoulli's Principle story. That is that a wing has greater surface area on the top than the bottom so the air has to travel faster over the top to reach the back of the wing at the same time as the air that goes under. Since the air is moving faster over the top the pressure is lower and the wing gets sucked up.
It always seemed to me that this was wrong. The pressure difference would create some lift, but not nearly enough. I didn't see why the air on the top would really need to move faster. Even if it were so then wouldn't greater and lesser lift be best created by making the top of the wing expand and contract to alter the surface area?
This isn't wrong, it's just incomplete. If this were all there was to it then a 747 would have to be traveling at 400 mph to get off the ground.
I've always supplemented Bernoulli with how a fan works. Blades at an angle push the air when they're moving. Surely that's why wings have that flap. The flap points down forcing the air that goes under the wing to go down and the wing up. So the wing is getting pushed up. Right? Wrong. When I stick my arm out the car window and shape my hand like an airfoil it feels like angling my hand or wiggling my pinky causes the air hitting the bottom of my hand to lift my arm.
But, I'm told, that if you read books on aircraft engineering that they don't mention Bernoulli at all. It's all about Newton. Now, when I heard this I was cheering myself for figuring all this out way back in grade school. But I was still wrong.
A rocket doesn't depend on how the air moves over it to fly. It pushes the exhaust down and by pushing the exhaust pushes back. A helicopter pulls air down. Bernoulli has nothing to do with either one of these. The airplane also pulls air down. I'll get to how in just a moment.
Think of yourself in the shower. You reach up to wash your hair and water runs down your fore arm. Instead of just shooting off your elbow it curves around and runs down your upper arm. It's attraction to your arm is greater than gravity. There's even rain gutters that use that trick to make the water cling to a curve and run into the gutter while any debris off the roof shoots off into the yard.
Air does much the same thing when going over a wing. We get an idea about this when talking about Bernoulli. It's just that instead of trailing behind the wing the wind continues more or less in the direction it was going when it left the flaps. The wind is rushing down and pulling the plane up. The steeper the angle of the wing or the flaps the more downward the wind rushes.
According to Ira, the underside of the wing isn't terribly important. That's why they can strap on engines and guns and rockets and whatnot. It's the air flowing over the top and then downward that's really important.
note: I had this entry proofed by El Cid, an aircraft engineer with Boeing, just to make sure I understood correctly. His further notes are below.
At low speeds it is very hard to push the air around; it just gets out of the way. That is why the shape of the bottom of the wing is not so important. Most every thing that happens at subsonic speeds happens because of the air getting pulled around by a low pressure area. Low pressure can be maintained in a stable thing called a vortex (smoke rings, dust devils). There is no stable high pressure area. When you introduce an area of high pressure into the air, it is called an explosion. Not stable. A wing or a fan blade carries a vortex along with it. The relative effect of lift caused by low pressure vs high pressure is about 8 to 1. (you won't find that in any textbook, it is El Cid's calculation.) And yes the result is that after the wing has passed by, a large quantity of air gets flung downward.
If you want to look at it mathematically, look up Newton's 2nd law F=MA. Rearranging it gives F = dV*M/dt, the Force generated by the wing is equal to the Velocity that the air gets flung downward times how much Mass of air gets flung per second.
"...wouldn't greater and lesser lift be best created by making the top
of the wing expand and contract to alter the surface area?"
Yes!, that is exactly why we use flaps at low speeds: to change the area, and shape, of the top of the wing so that it sucks the air downward at a greater velocity. The result: less M/dt, more dV, same F.
One subject that Ira is passionate about is the myth of how planes fly. He dedicates a chapter to it, discusses it in the introduction, and spent part of the talk on the subject.
What we've always been taught in school, and what Ira used to believe, is the Bernoulli's Principle story. That is that a wing has greater surface area on the top than the bottom so the air has to travel faster over the top to reach the back of the wing at the same time as the air that goes under. Since the air is moving faster over the top the pressure is lower and the wing gets sucked up.
It always seemed to me that this was wrong. The pressure difference would create some lift, but not nearly enough. I didn't see why the air on the top would really need to move faster. Even if it were so then wouldn't greater and lesser lift be best created by making the top of the wing expand and contract to alter the surface area?
This isn't wrong, it's just incomplete. If this were all there was to it then a 747 would have to be traveling at 400 mph to get off the ground.
I've always supplemented Bernoulli with how a fan works. Blades at an angle push the air when they're moving. Surely that's why wings have that flap. The flap points down forcing the air that goes under the wing to go down and the wing up. So the wing is getting pushed up. Right? Wrong. When I stick my arm out the car window and shape my hand like an airfoil it feels like angling my hand or wiggling my pinky causes the air hitting the bottom of my hand to lift my arm.
But, I'm told, that if you read books on aircraft engineering that they don't mention Bernoulli at all. It's all about Newton. Now, when I heard this I was cheering myself for figuring all this out way back in grade school. But I was still wrong.
A rocket doesn't depend on how the air moves over it to fly. It pushes the exhaust down and by pushing the exhaust pushes back. A helicopter pulls air down. Bernoulli has nothing to do with either one of these. The airplane also pulls air down. I'll get to how in just a moment.
Think of yourself in the shower. You reach up to wash your hair and water runs down your fore arm. Instead of just shooting off your elbow it curves around and runs down your upper arm. It's attraction to your arm is greater than gravity. There's even rain gutters that use that trick to make the water cling to a curve and run into the gutter while any debris off the roof shoots off into the yard.
Air does much the same thing when going over a wing. We get an idea about this when talking about Bernoulli. It's just that instead of trailing behind the wing the wind continues more or less in the direction it was going when it left the flaps. The wind is rushing down and pulling the plane up. The steeper the angle of the wing or the flaps the more downward the wind rushes.
According to Ira, the underside of the wing isn't terribly important. That's why they can strap on engines and guns and rockets and whatnot. It's the air flowing over the top and then downward that's really important.
note: I had this entry proofed by El Cid, an aircraft engineer with Boeing, just to make sure I understood correctly. His further notes are below.
At low speeds it is very hard to push the air around; it just gets out of the way. That is why the shape of the bottom of the wing is not so important. Most every thing that happens at subsonic speeds happens because of the air getting pulled around by a low pressure area. Low pressure can be maintained in a stable thing called a vortex (smoke rings, dust devils). There is no stable high pressure area. When you introduce an area of high pressure into the air, it is called an explosion. Not stable. A wing or a fan blade carries a vortex along with it. The relative effect of lift caused by low pressure vs high pressure is about 8 to 1. (you won't find that in any textbook, it is El Cid's calculation.) And yes the result is that after the wing has passed by, a large quantity of air gets flung downward.
If you want to look at it mathematically, look up Newton's 2nd law F=MA. Rearranging it gives F = dV*M/dt, the Force generated by the wing is equal to the Velocity that the air gets flung downward times how much Mass of air gets flung per second.
"...wouldn't greater and lesser lift be best created by making the top
of the wing expand and contract to alter the surface area?"
Yes!, that is exactly why we use flaps at low speeds: to change the area, and shape, of the top of the wing so that it sucks the air downward at a greater velocity. The result: less M/dt, more dV, same F.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Would you kill Hitler?
Old question: If you had a time machine and had a shot at killing young Adolf Hitler would you do it?
In various contexts it's a question about whether you could commit murder for a good cause, kill someone who hadn't YET done anything, alter the timeline, and a few others I can't recall at the moment. I'm gonna say that I wouldn't and show you the thought process.
At the time the Jews were pretty much despised across Europe. Many world leaders liked Hitler because Hitler hated the communists. Lots of other people were content to let him do his thing because they were only Jews. But by going after them in these numbers Hitler created sympathy for them and made Jew bashing a bad thing. So, a lot of dead Jews, but afterward people didn't actually WANT them dead anymore.
However, this newfound sympathy got the British Empire to give up Palestine to found Israel. Sixty years later Israel is a constant source of tension and conflict in the region. The actions of their government even draws comparisons to WWII Germany.
So, he helped squash most Jew bashing in Europe but he created the longest lasting and hardest to solve source of conflict in the Middle East.
On the plus side of the Holocaust the population was diminished. There were already some overpopulation issues causing economic problems. Think how many people there'd be in Europe now if Hitler hadn't culled the herd.
And then there's the space program. Hitler did more for rocket research than anyone in history. He got all the greatest minds and got some serious research done. Then all those scientists got divvied up between us and the Soviets. Hitler fathered the Space Race. If not for him we probably still wouldn't have gone to the moon, never mind all the weather, communication, and GPS satellites zipping around in orbit.
Sure, there'd still be tensions in the Middle East. They've got the oil. But most problems over there wax and wane. The existence of Israel is a persistent problem and a key recruiting point for terrorist organizations.
So would I rather be rid of the terrorist fuel or have the space program and population relief? I'd rather have the space program, population relief, and a President who believed in diplomacy working to defuse the Israel problem.
In various contexts it's a question about whether you could commit murder for a good cause, kill someone who hadn't YET done anything, alter the timeline, and a few others I can't recall at the moment. I'm gonna say that I wouldn't and show you the thought process.
At the time the Jews were pretty much despised across Europe. Many world leaders liked Hitler because Hitler hated the communists. Lots of other people were content to let him do his thing because they were only Jews. But by going after them in these numbers Hitler created sympathy for them and made Jew bashing a bad thing. So, a lot of dead Jews, but afterward people didn't actually WANT them dead anymore.
However, this newfound sympathy got the British Empire to give up Palestine to found Israel. Sixty years later Israel is a constant source of tension and conflict in the region. The actions of their government even draws comparisons to WWII Germany.
So, he helped squash most Jew bashing in Europe but he created the longest lasting and hardest to solve source of conflict in the Middle East.
On the plus side of the Holocaust the population was diminished. There were already some overpopulation issues causing economic problems. Think how many people there'd be in Europe now if Hitler hadn't culled the herd.
And then there's the space program. Hitler did more for rocket research than anyone in history. He got all the greatest minds and got some serious research done. Then all those scientists got divvied up between us and the Soviets. Hitler fathered the Space Race. If not for him we probably still wouldn't have gone to the moon, never mind all the weather, communication, and GPS satellites zipping around in orbit.
Sure, there'd still be tensions in the Middle East. They've got the oil. But most problems over there wax and wane. The existence of Israel is a persistent problem and a key recruiting point for terrorist organizations.
So would I rather be rid of the terrorist fuel or have the space program and population relief? I'd rather have the space program, population relief, and a President who believed in diplomacy working to defuse the Israel problem.
Monday, October 01, 2007
I hate sleep
I think the term I'm looking for would be "somniac inertia" or some such nonsense. It's meant to apply Newton's First Law of Motion to a state of wakefulness. A person at rest wants to stay at rest and a person awake wants to stay awake.
At least that's how it works for me. On weekends, if I wake up before 10:00 then I feel I have somehow failed. Getting out of bed is always an ordeal. I tried setting my alarm clock to a country music station to force myself out of bed in a hurry. It works, but starting your day in a frothing berserker rage isn't conducive to having a good day. My new alarm clock has two alarms set 31 minutes apart. When the first one shuts off I get a minute of silence to let me know that I've been there for half an hour before it goes off again. It also projects the time on the ceiling above me so I can't miss it.
Then at night I have the exact opposite problem. I'm working on a project, I'm reading a book, I'm watching some DVD, I really don't want to go to bed. I've got stuff to do.
Part of the problem is that my natural sleep cycle doesn't mesh with that of the business world. I'd sleep all day and work all night if it were up to me. Or at least switch me to a 28 hour day.
If you think this is nuts then you probably shouldn't hear my rant about how much a waste of time I think food is. Just give me a box of "Bachelor Chow" and I'd be happy. 100% of your daily nutritional requirements. Available now in six artificial flavors. Makes it's own gravy when mixed with water.
At least that's how it works for me. On weekends, if I wake up before 10:00 then I feel I have somehow failed. Getting out of bed is always an ordeal. I tried setting my alarm clock to a country music station to force myself out of bed in a hurry. It works, but starting your day in a frothing berserker rage isn't conducive to having a good day. My new alarm clock has two alarms set 31 minutes apart. When the first one shuts off I get a minute of silence to let me know that I've been there for half an hour before it goes off again. It also projects the time on the ceiling above me so I can't miss it.
Then at night I have the exact opposite problem. I'm working on a project, I'm reading a book, I'm watching some DVD, I really don't want to go to bed. I've got stuff to do.
Part of the problem is that my natural sleep cycle doesn't mesh with that of the business world. I'd sleep all day and work all night if it were up to me. Or at least switch me to a 28 hour day.
If you think this is nuts then you probably shouldn't hear my rant about how much a waste of time I think food is. Just give me a box of "Bachelor Chow" and I'd be happy. 100% of your daily nutritional requirements. Available now in six artificial flavors. Makes it's own gravy when mixed with water.
Weekend
By now you've totally missed the Friends of the Arlington Library Book Sale. I went last Thursday with My Krode, a chap that works in a nearby museum. Only members could get in so I had to pay a $15 cover charge to become a member and hope they had something I wanted. I walked out with $101 worth of books averaging about $1.75 each. And here I was finally getting my book pile whittled down. Mr. Krode on the other hand made a couple of trips and used his daughter as a book sherpa. I think he bought $350 or so worth of books. Many of those he will be selling to some university that he's an informal buyer for.
If you can you should try to go next year.
Saturday my parrot and I went out to the LoC Book Fest on the National Mall. Not as many gotta see authors as normal, but there were a few. Terry Pratchett has a new book out so he was there telling stories and taking questions. That chap who was writing all those alternative history books was there. And some older lady whose stuff I've never read but whose name you'd recognize if I remembered it was there.
Mostly I sat there hoping to hear from someone that I might want to read.
Sunday me and the bird went to Adams Morgan for the Crafty Bastards shindig. If I were a woman I'd have loved it.
I got a massage since I hadn't had one in several years. That's one of the things I miss about college. Massages were as plentiful and freely exchanged as sex back in the 70's. And sex definitely wasn't plentiful. He was fairly good. Mostly he loosened things up enough for me to be aware of all the stuff that still needed to be loosened up. But the money went to some AIDS for kids charity. I failed to ask if they were for or against it.
From there we went down to Dupont Circle in hopes of reading the book I was carrying around. Some little boy, 10ish, who seems to move around so much that he doesn't have much in the way of friends spent most of the day wanting to hold Gandolf. He was born in Russia and has lived in Paris, Holland, DC, and a few other places. He spoke fluent Hollish, Hollandaise, uh, DUTCH! yeah, he kept swapping between English and Dutch depending on who he was talking to. I think I read all of a page.
While in Starbucks I ran into this girl who didn't know me from Adam, but I recognized her immediately. I responded to her personal ad once. She never wrote back. She was terribly embarassed. I'm the second person who has come up to her and said something to the effect of "Hey! Didn't I see you in a personal ad once?"
If you can you should try to go next year.
Saturday my parrot and I went out to the LoC Book Fest on the National Mall. Not as many gotta see authors as normal, but there were a few. Terry Pratchett has a new book out so he was there telling stories and taking questions. That chap who was writing all those alternative history books was there. And some older lady whose stuff I've never read but whose name you'd recognize if I remembered it was there.
Mostly I sat there hoping to hear from someone that I might want to read.
Sunday me and the bird went to Adams Morgan for the Crafty Bastards shindig. If I were a woman I'd have loved it.
I got a massage since I hadn't had one in several years. That's one of the things I miss about college. Massages were as plentiful and freely exchanged as sex back in the 70's. And sex definitely wasn't plentiful. He was fairly good. Mostly he loosened things up enough for me to be aware of all the stuff that still needed to be loosened up. But the money went to some AIDS for kids charity. I failed to ask if they were for or against it.
From there we went down to Dupont Circle in hopes of reading the book I was carrying around. Some little boy, 10ish, who seems to move around so much that he doesn't have much in the way of friends spent most of the day wanting to hold Gandolf. He was born in Russia and has lived in Paris, Holland, DC, and a few other places. He spoke fluent Hollish, Hollandaise, uh, DUTCH! yeah, he kept swapping between English and Dutch depending on who he was talking to. I think I read all of a page.
While in Starbucks I ran into this girl who didn't know me from Adam, but I recognized her immediately. I responded to her personal ad once. She never wrote back. She was terribly embarassed. I'm the second person who has come up to her and said something to the effect of "Hey! Didn't I see you in a personal ad once?"
Friday, September 28, 2007
Northwest Passage
I wanna go on a cruise. Not just any cruise. In fact no cruise line has this route scheduled yet. I want to go on a cruise through the Northwest Passage. This trip has been a dream of sailors and cargo haulers since 1492 or thereabout.
A painting of a ship trapped in the ice. Most photos are of ships trapped in the Antarctic ice because sailors long ago learned not to fuck with the North Pole.
Photo lifted from http://www.gutenberg.org
Contrary to popular opinion, as long as there have been sailing ships people have known that the world is round. Columbus was trying to get to the Indies not only for a trading route but also in hopes of finding an easy way to get behind the front lines of the Muslim armies trying to fight their way North from Gibraltar. Instead he found this huge sodding land mass in his way. In the decades and centuries that followed sailors started trying to find a way around this worthless lump of dirt. The way to the south was open but it was a really long way. They tried taking the rivers across America but that didn't work. They really wanted to take the northern route over North America. But even at the height of summer there was still ship crushing ice. Eventually they gave up. The Panama Canal was built as an alternative to the Northwest Passage or the trip around South America.
But a week or so ago the European Space Agency announced that their satellites have shown that the Northwest Passage has cleared. The glaciers have retreated and the ices have thinned that much.
A photo built by the European Space Agency from their satellite footage showing the open route.
As excited as I am this is not a good thing. Not just for the polar bears that can't catch seals or find a place to stand. Forming ice on existing ice is fairly easy. Forming ice on salt water is much less so. Russia/Soviet Union is so large, in part, because they had no open waterways in the summer. They had to conquer down to the Black Sea. The waterways to the north would close during the winter. Or, rather they used to. Their northern border is almost clear, too. But it was glaciers moving in that closed the route more than just being really bitter cold. The glaciers no longer advance. The fact that the water is melt water and fresher than normal ocean water should help.
But since this has happened I want to do what history's greatest explorers never could. A cruise through the Northwest Passage gets put on my list of things to do before I die along with seeing a Space Shuttle launch, visit Devil's Racetrack, and see the Northern Lights.
In addition this past summer's melt from Greenland has spiked dramatically. It lost enough ice to cover the United States twice. I'm just not sure how thick a covering they're talking about.
A painting of a ship trapped in the ice. Most photos are of ships trapped in the Antarctic ice because sailors long ago learned not to fuck with the North Pole.Photo lifted from http://www.gutenberg.org
Contrary to popular opinion, as long as there have been sailing ships people have known that the world is round. Columbus was trying to get to the Indies not only for a trading route but also in hopes of finding an easy way to get behind the front lines of the Muslim armies trying to fight their way North from Gibraltar. Instead he found this huge sodding land mass in his way. In the decades and centuries that followed sailors started trying to find a way around this worthless lump of dirt. The way to the south was open but it was a really long way. They tried taking the rivers across America but that didn't work. They really wanted to take the northern route over North America. But even at the height of summer there was still ship crushing ice. Eventually they gave up. The Panama Canal was built as an alternative to the Northwest Passage or the trip around South America.
But a week or so ago the European Space Agency announced that their satellites have shown that the Northwest Passage has cleared. The glaciers have retreated and the ices have thinned that much.
A photo built by the European Space Agency from their satellite footage showing the open route.As excited as I am this is not a good thing. Not just for the polar bears that can't catch seals or find a place to stand. Forming ice on existing ice is fairly easy. Forming ice on salt water is much less so. Russia/Soviet Union is so large, in part, because they had no open waterways in the summer. They had to conquer down to the Black Sea. The waterways to the north would close during the winter. Or, rather they used to. Their northern border is almost clear, too. But it was glaciers moving in that closed the route more than just being really bitter cold. The glaciers no longer advance. The fact that the water is melt water and fresher than normal ocean water should help.
But since this has happened I want to do what history's greatest explorers never could. A cruise through the Northwest Passage gets put on my list of things to do before I die along with seeing a Space Shuttle launch, visit Devil's Racetrack, and see the Northern Lights.
In addition this past summer's melt from Greenland has spiked dramatically. It lost enough ice to cover the United States twice. I'm just not sure how thick a covering they're talking about.
Ghastly Old Patriarchs
Second verse,
Same as the first.
A little bit louder,
and a little bit worse
I was getting ready for work this morning and heard a familiar issue on the radio.
See, way back in the 2000 Presidential campaign there was some talk about how George Bush vetoed a hate crimes bill in Texas. A hate crime bill makes stronger punishments if you beat the hell out of someone because of some bigotry than you'd get if you beat the hell out of someone during a mugging, crime of passion, and the like. The new bill would have expanded on the existing bill by adding gays to the list of blacks, women, hispanics, asians, muslims, etc. who receive some measure of protection with the threat of extra punishment.
When this came up in one of the debates George Bush took the attitude that since a hate crime bill already existed they didn't need another. Al Gore had the opportunity to slam George for refusing to extend the bill to cover homosexuals. He didn't. This is one of the reasons I say Al Gore had more to do with losing the election than Ralph Nader ever did.
Anyway, this morning NPR was talking about how the Senate added a bill onto the increased military budget that would include gays and handicapped in the federal hate crimes bill. Republicans tried to filibuster but enough of the GOP recognize this as a popular bill that the filibuster1 was voted down. The bill now goes to the House where it should get through fairly easy.
The question now is whether George is willing to give up his war money to prevent gays from getting hate crime protection.
Remember, America, this is what being a Republican means. Tacit approval for beating homosexuals within an inch of their life.
1Remember, filibusters? A few years back the GOP thought filibusters were treasonous and unamerican and should be illegal.
Same as the first.
A little bit louder,
and a little bit worse
I was getting ready for work this morning and heard a familiar issue on the radio.
See, way back in the 2000 Presidential campaign there was some talk about how George Bush vetoed a hate crimes bill in Texas. A hate crime bill makes stronger punishments if you beat the hell out of someone because of some bigotry than you'd get if you beat the hell out of someone during a mugging, crime of passion, and the like. The new bill would have expanded on the existing bill by adding gays to the list of blacks, women, hispanics, asians, muslims, etc. who receive some measure of protection with the threat of extra punishment.
When this came up in one of the debates George Bush took the attitude that since a hate crime bill already existed they didn't need another. Al Gore had the opportunity to slam George for refusing to extend the bill to cover homosexuals. He didn't. This is one of the reasons I say Al Gore had more to do with losing the election than Ralph Nader ever did.
Anyway, this morning NPR was talking about how the Senate added a bill onto the increased military budget that would include gays and handicapped in the federal hate crimes bill. Republicans tried to filibuster but enough of the GOP recognize this as a popular bill that the filibuster1 was voted down. The bill now goes to the House where it should get through fairly easy.
The question now is whether George is willing to give up his war money to prevent gays from getting hate crime protection.
Remember, America, this is what being a Republican means. Tacit approval for beating homosexuals within an inch of their life.
1Remember, filibusters? A few years back the GOP thought filibusters were treasonous and unamerican and should be illegal.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Three bags full.
I just started my third bag of mortar. I'm rather proud of this. The first bag lasted from March 13 to August 13. The second lasted from August 13 until Sept 25. This time I bought some help instead of doing it on my own.
A co-worker of mine has a son with some real promise as a geek. He built his own computer and then sold it on Ebay. He then took that money and bought a G3 laptop of Ebay. I think he got taken twice. He was underpaid for his computer and then the laptop had all sorts of problems. He brought it into the office where I was gonna load him up with some older software that we'd abandoned. But we couldn't make it work. So now he's without computer. Or, rather, he has to borrow his mom's and she needs it. I intended to remedy this by loaning him something from my museum but I kept failing to bring it into the office.
So, I told my co-worker that if she'd help me haul home a bag of mortar we'd use her car to bring my extra Mac G3 tower to the office and I'd rig it up for her son.
The computer left the office the next day with Photoshop 7, Illustrator 10, Office, sound editing software, Scratch (MIT's programming language for kids), and the web server turned on. I wanted to install PHP and MySQL but it rejected them. I couldn't find my old copy of Flash and the backup wasn't responding. I think I had already loaned them to him. Oh, shoot. I meant to give him Painter, too.
10 years ago this would have been my dream machine.
Also, my green bean plants did finally put out a few pods late in the season.
This drought has been pretty hard on all my plants. I've drained my rain barrel twice this summer. It's kept the plants alive but not happy.
Someone left two very large pots along the sidewalk up the street from my house. I hauled them home the other day and transplanted some of my brother's uber-mint into them. It should be happier there if it can take root before it gets too cold.
Mosquitoes are supposed to hate this stuff. The bees seem to love it, however. This is fine with me. I like bees.
A co-worker of mine has a son with some real promise as a geek. He built his own computer and then sold it on Ebay. He then took that money and bought a G3 laptop of Ebay. I think he got taken twice. He was underpaid for his computer and then the laptop had all sorts of problems. He brought it into the office where I was gonna load him up with some older software that we'd abandoned. But we couldn't make it work. So now he's without computer. Or, rather, he has to borrow his mom's and she needs it. I intended to remedy this by loaning him something from my museum but I kept failing to bring it into the office.
So, I told my co-worker that if she'd help me haul home a bag of mortar we'd use her car to bring my extra Mac G3 tower to the office and I'd rig it up for her son.
The computer left the office the next day with Photoshop 7, Illustrator 10, Office, sound editing software, Scratch (MIT's programming language for kids), and the web server turned on. I wanted to install PHP and MySQL but it rejected them. I couldn't find my old copy of Flash and the backup wasn't responding. I think I had already loaned them to him. Oh, shoot. I meant to give him Painter, too.
10 years ago this would have been my dream machine.
Also, my green bean plants did finally put out a few pods late in the season.
This drought has been pretty hard on all my plants. I've drained my rain barrel twice this summer. It's kept the plants alive but not happy.
Someone left two very large pots along the sidewalk up the street from my house. I hauled them home the other day and transplanted some of my brother's uber-mint into them. It should be happier there if it can take root before it gets too cold.
Mosquitoes are supposed to hate this stuff. The bees seem to love it, however. This is fine with me. I like bees.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Book review: Sixty Days and Counting
Back in March I mentioned that I went to a book signing by Kim Stanley Robinson. While the book reading was pretty lame the book turned out to be the best of the trilogy. See, during the reading he didn't want to give away any spoilers so he read lots of quotes by Thoreau that appear in the book and some OK banter from one of the families in the book.
"Sixty Days and Counting" is the third and final book in the Science in the Capitol trilogy. In the first two books, "Forty Signs of Rain" and "Fifty Degrees Below", most of the interesting stuff happened in the last 100 pages or so. In this book we have a new president who is aware of global warming and dedicated to doing something about it. Our leading characters finally get jobs where they can throw some weight around. They get to argue with and smack down the head of the World Bank. People who try to stand in the way of dumping the oil based economy get fired. Some technologies are discussed that are really being considered that were works of science fiction only ten years ago.
My post a few weeks back about how to make sure nuclear power is only a transitional power source was inspired by discussions in this book.
This whole series is a bit of work, but if you read the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy of books then you can make it through this.
"Sixty Days and Counting" is the third and final book in the Science in the Capitol trilogy. In the first two books, "Forty Signs of Rain" and "Fifty Degrees Below", most of the interesting stuff happened in the last 100 pages or so. In this book we have a new president who is aware of global warming and dedicated to doing something about it. Our leading characters finally get jobs where they can throw some weight around. They get to argue with and smack down the head of the World Bank. People who try to stand in the way of dumping the oil based economy get fired. Some technologies are discussed that are really being considered that were works of science fiction only ten years ago.
My post a few weeks back about how to make sure nuclear power is only a transitional power source was inspired by discussions in this book.
This whole series is a bit of work, but if you read the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy of books then you can make it through this.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Book review: The Other End of Time
Frederick Pohl is one of the grandfathers of science fiction. Isaac Asimov and Arthur C Clarke read his stuff before they started writing.
I just finished reading his book "The Other End of Time". It's hard to know how much to tell you. It's a good book, but half of the fun is the ongoing revelations as the story progresses.
Earth has received a message from space. It shows the expansion and contraction of the universe from Big Bang to Big Crunch. A second one shows the same thing but with seven alien races that become known as The Seven Dwarves.
Our lead characters go up to a defunct observatory satellite to investigate some strange radiation. They meet one of the seven alien races who zaps them. One version of them goes back to Earth with altered memories. Another version is replicated in a mirrored room where they're studied by more of the aliens.
The aliens believe that Heaven comes after the big crunch. There everyone who lived comes back to life and lives forever. They're being attacked by an 8th alien race that they view as terrorists. The few messages our heroes get from the terrorists give a different viewpoint. But they would, wouldn't they? If and when they escape who should they support? Who should Earth listen to?
The book ends with a happy ending and a twist.
This book doesn't go in my top 10 but would probably make my top 100. It's kind of like "Ringworld" in that the characters are there largely to explore the world the author has created.
I just finished reading his book "The Other End of Time". It's hard to know how much to tell you. It's a good book, but half of the fun is the ongoing revelations as the story progresses.
Earth has received a message from space. It shows the expansion and contraction of the universe from Big Bang to Big Crunch. A second one shows the same thing but with seven alien races that become known as The Seven Dwarves.
Our lead characters go up to a defunct observatory satellite to investigate some strange radiation. They meet one of the seven alien races who zaps them. One version of them goes back to Earth with altered memories. Another version is replicated in a mirrored room where they're studied by more of the aliens.
The aliens believe that Heaven comes after the big crunch. There everyone who lived comes back to life and lives forever. They're being attacked by an 8th alien race that they view as terrorists. The few messages our heroes get from the terrorists give a different viewpoint. But they would, wouldn't they? If and when they escape who should they support? Who should Earth listen to?
The book ends with a happy ending and a twist.
This book doesn't go in my top 10 but would probably make my top 100. It's kind of like "Ringworld" in that the characters are there largely to explore the world the author has created.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Fall Equinox
Above is a somewhat disappointing result to our analemma experiment.
You may remember back in April or May when someone announced the discovery of an extra-solar Earth type planet. They didn't mean that you could live there or that there was life. It's just one of the first solid planets found outside our solar system. Most of the hundreds of planets we've found have been gas giants big enough to make Jupiter look piddly. Any they were only found because they were so huge.
A co-worker asked me how far a light year was. I explained that it's how far light can travel in a vacuum in one Earth year. Being a science geek I've had years to get used to dealing with these kinds of distances. I had to bring her up to speed. It takes 8 minutes for light to reach Earth from the sun. The nearest star to the sun is are the Alpha Centari stars ~4.5 light years away. There were also charts of our local neighborhood and some other stuff to help explain it.
This led to other questions including how did people know how long a year was thousands of years ago. So we started building an analemma on her office floor.
Here's how it worked. I put a sticker on her window. Having a west facing office we had to wait until 3:00 to see where it's shadow fell. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 3:00 I'd find the shadow and put a sticker where the shadow fell. What you see above is the result. For awhile things went well. The bottom of the arc falls around June 21-22, the summer Solstice. At that point there's not much of a change from day to day. But late July-early August you can see there's a gap since we only put the sticker every other day and a larger still gap on weekends. Then the clouds came. Big gaps appear as we had a week of rain. A few times we had sun all day but a cloud came at 3:00. A bit of a wobble in the line shows that we didn't always hit it at exactly 3:00. A few times we got as much as 15 seconds late.
Then the sun went behind a tree. We didn't get to the equinox on Sept 21-22. I'm hoping for the dot to return when the leaves fall but I'm not counting on it.
The shape caused by tracking the sun's motion is called an analemma.
Below is a more respectable analemma that I lifted from http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020709.html.
I'm hoping that some of my readers will continue the experiment for me. If you have kids, a class, or just a south facing window please continue the experiment. I'd like to see pictures of your analemma along with the time of day you recorded it and your latitude.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Movie review: Resident Evil: Extinction
This third chapter in the "Resident Evil" movie line is the best of the lot. This isn't saying much. The story has more holes than it takes to fill the Albert Hall. I wanted to play "MST3K: The Home Edition" through the whole thing.
You don't have to have seen the first two movies or played any of the games to understand what's going on in this movie. It might help a bit, but really, it's not worth seeing the earlier movies.
"Resident Evil" are basically zombie stories with the evil corporation and heartless scientists thrown in for good measure. Raccoon Corp. created some immortality treatment that became a zombie virus. It spread beyond their underground complex, beyond Raccoon City, and tore off across the planet. Unlike most zombie viruses this one attacked more than just humans. Dogs, birds, bugs, and plants all died or became zombies. Most of the planet is a desert. A band of survivors moves around in a caravan looking for food, fuel, and other living people. They meet up with Alice. Alice is another creation of the Raccoon Corporation. She has a natural immunity to the virus, physical superiority, and telekinetic powers.
The remains of Raccoon Corp are stuck in their underground compounds all over the world. They've been cloning Alice to try to get their own cure but they really want her back. They use the blood from some of the clones to make super zombies that they release to kill Alice so they can sample some of her blood.
There's machete fights, assorted gun play, flame throwers, zombie dogs, mutant zombies, cities in ruins, a small band of people led by a bunch of strong female leads, and lots of scenes where you just wanna say "awesome!"
I'm not getting it on DVD. It's a fun movie and I suggest watching it with people who like to make fun of movies.
You don't have to have seen the first two movies or played any of the games to understand what's going on in this movie. It might help a bit, but really, it's not worth seeing the earlier movies.
"Resident Evil" are basically zombie stories with the evil corporation and heartless scientists thrown in for good measure. Raccoon Corp. created some immortality treatment that became a zombie virus. It spread beyond their underground complex, beyond Raccoon City, and tore off across the planet. Unlike most zombie viruses this one attacked more than just humans. Dogs, birds, bugs, and plants all died or became zombies. Most of the planet is a desert. A band of survivors moves around in a caravan looking for food, fuel, and other living people. They meet up with Alice. Alice is another creation of the Raccoon Corporation. She has a natural immunity to the virus, physical superiority, and telekinetic powers.
The remains of Raccoon Corp are stuck in their underground compounds all over the world. They've been cloning Alice to try to get their own cure but they really want her back. They use the blood from some of the clones to make super zombies that they release to kill Alice so they can sample some of her blood.
There's machete fights, assorted gun play, flame throwers, zombie dogs, mutant zombies, cities in ruins, a small band of people led by a bunch of strong female leads, and lots of scenes where you just wanna say "awesome!"
I'm not getting it on DVD. It's a fun movie and I suggest watching it with people who like to make fun of movies.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Blood of patriots: check
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." - Thomas Jefferson
This quote has been thrown around a lot the last few years. It's usually used by Bush supporters to explain why we had to invade Iraq and depose Saddam for the crimes of some Saudi terrorist operating out of Afghanistan.
This quote is right. Every so often we must suffer through the deaths of patriots and kill off some tyrants. But who is the tyrant in question? Whose been systematically dismantling the Constitution? Who has been holding American citizens without charge. Who has been invading and occupying foreign nations without cause? Who has been torturing POWs and imprisoning people who we know are not and were not ever terrorists? Who has been giving multi-billion dollar government contracts to his friends to provide spoiled food and toxic water to troops? Who has been tapping our phone lines without warrants? Who refuses any sort of oversight?
The tyrants are George Bush and his administration. 3,787 American soldiers are dead and another 27,848 are wounded just for the Iraq war. The blood of these patriots helps to show who the tyrant really is. The blood of these patriots helps to show where our liberties are being stripped away.
Impeachment is for criminal politicians. You don't impeach people like George Bush, Dick Cheney, and the members of their administration. Politicians like these go before war crimes tribunals.
This quote has been thrown around a lot the last few years. It's usually used by Bush supporters to explain why we had to invade Iraq and depose Saddam for the crimes of some Saudi terrorist operating out of Afghanistan.
This quote is right. Every so often we must suffer through the deaths of patriots and kill off some tyrants. But who is the tyrant in question? Whose been systematically dismantling the Constitution? Who has been holding American citizens without charge. Who has been invading and occupying foreign nations without cause? Who has been torturing POWs and imprisoning people who we know are not and were not ever terrorists? Who has been giving multi-billion dollar government contracts to his friends to provide spoiled food and toxic water to troops? Who has been tapping our phone lines without warrants? Who refuses any sort of oversight?
The tyrants are George Bush and his administration. 3,787 American soldiers are dead and another 27,848 are wounded just for the Iraq war. The blood of these patriots helps to show who the tyrant really is. The blood of these patriots helps to show where our liberties are being stripped away.
Impeachment is for criminal politicians. You don't impeach people like George Bush, Dick Cheney, and the members of their administration. Politicians like these go before war crimes tribunals.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
That's it for summer
It was 51°F when I rode to work yesterday morning. This means that it's time to dust off my winter Segway helmet and figure out where I put those gloves.
It's now late enough in the year that I think it's safe to say that I also went the whole summer without turning on the air conditioner. I did it last summer, too, but I kind a cheated by spending the hottest two months sleeping on the floor of a heavily air conditioned office. The two settings were stifling and freezing. This summer I did it for two reasons.
1) To see if I could.
2) Because my house is so leaky that all the cold air would leak out.
3) Because the AC was covered in a tarp so I wouldn't drop dirt and rocks in it as I cleaned out my spare room.
THREE! Three reasons not to turn on the AC.
It was both more and less miserable than I expected.
I had expected to buy a moisture vaporator, a device that makes drinkable water from humidity, to cut the humidity in my house. Most of the misery comes from humidity. I don't need cooling all the time. And the city water is lead filled and smells like lake.
Alas, the people who make it didn't want to sell to me for some reason. I have money, they have product, I don't see the problem here.
Opening the windows at night and closing them before going to work managed to keep the indoor temperature at around 83°. No breeze and varying humidity, but topping out at 85°.
In July I built a small fan from a solar experimentation kit that my brother got me for Christmas and a D-cell battery. I pointed it at my face at night. In August I finally bought a small fan that clipped onto the bird cage. It blew on me at night and everything was good.
Night was the worst. During the evenings it was hot, but I wasn't doing much. But the humidity made sleep difficult. Thus the fan. If there was a ceiling fan over where I was sleeping I wouldn't have bothered with the little fan.
Think about it for next summer.
A fan or two, opening and closing the windows at strategic times, shading exposed windows, and not moving much will allow you to avoid a lot of AC expense.
I will be attempting this again next summer WITH a moisture vaporator.
It's now late enough in the year that I think it's safe to say that I also went the whole summer without turning on the air conditioner. I did it last summer, too, but I kind a cheated by spending the hottest two months sleeping on the floor of a heavily air conditioned office. The two settings were stifling and freezing. This summer I did it for two reasons.
1) To see if I could.
2) Because my house is so leaky that all the cold air would leak out.
3) Because the AC was covered in a tarp so I wouldn't drop dirt and rocks in it as I cleaned out my spare room.
THREE! Three reasons not to turn on the AC.
It was both more and less miserable than I expected.
I had expected to buy a moisture vaporator, a device that makes drinkable water from humidity, to cut the humidity in my house. Most of the misery comes from humidity. I don't need cooling all the time. And the city water is lead filled and smells like lake.
Alas, the people who make it didn't want to sell to me for some reason. I have money, they have product, I don't see the problem here.
Opening the windows at night and closing them before going to work managed to keep the indoor temperature at around 83°. No breeze and varying humidity, but topping out at 85°.
In July I built a small fan from a solar experimentation kit that my brother got me for Christmas and a D-cell battery. I pointed it at my face at night. In August I finally bought a small fan that clipped onto the bird cage. It blew on me at night and everything was good.
Night was the worst. During the evenings it was hot, but I wasn't doing much. But the humidity made sleep difficult. Thus the fan. If there was a ceiling fan over where I was sleeping I wouldn't have bothered with the little fan.
Think about it for next summer.
A fan or two, opening and closing the windows at strategic times, shading exposed windows, and not moving much will allow you to avoid a lot of AC expense.
I will be attempting this again next summer WITH a moisture vaporator.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Movie Review: Dragon War
This is a movie about dragons fighting military weapons and other dragons. Ok? You're going to see this to see dragons fighting. If you expect anything else out of this movie then you WILL be disappointed.
This movie should have been Anime. Anime or maybe an 80's TV show. The Anime would have explained the bizarre logic and weird fantasy world they created. It would also explain the stilted dialog. But the 80's TV show would explain the lousy acting, the plot holes you could drive trucks through, and the strange pacing.
One particularly glaring example is when they discover some dragon scales partially buried in the ground. They explain that they are scales, but not why they're buried or anything about them. When doing test on the scales someone says "Do you know what the hardest substance known to man is?" someone else replies "Diamonds." and then the subject is dropped COMPLETELY. Never again is the subject of diamond brought up or any comparison to the hardness of the scales made.
The movie starts with a young reporter, whose hair and clothes indicate that he just stepped out of 1975, going to a disaster site where the scale is found. Seeing the scale triggers a flashback to when he was a kid. During the flashback there is another flashback to 500 years ago. Very awkward story telling.
We learn that every 500 years or so that one dragon is rewarded for it's good deeds by being given a spirit that manifests in a particular woman when she turns 20. This turns the good dragon into Super Galactic Happy Happy Good Time Dragon or some such weirdness. But there's an evil dragon that also wants it. God forbid anything be done to protect this woman. Sure, she's given some guy with a necklace, but they have to face down an army of Cylon/Stormtrooper hybrids, many of whom are riding giant lizard creatures on loan from Skywalker Ranch (LucasFilm Studio) and sporting energy cannons.
This is all assuming that 70's Necklace Boy is willing to both protect the girl and feed her to a giant good dragon.
See? Add some tentacle rape and it's Anime.
With all that said, the special effects are Lucas quality and the fight scenes are pretty awesome.
Still, I'm not gonna get it on DVD. I suggest waiting for a second run theatre or Dillon's cheap-ass rental.
This movie should have been Anime. Anime or maybe an 80's TV show. The Anime would have explained the bizarre logic and weird fantasy world they created. It would also explain the stilted dialog. But the 80's TV show would explain the lousy acting, the plot holes you could drive trucks through, and the strange pacing.
One particularly glaring example is when they discover some dragon scales partially buried in the ground. They explain that they are scales, but not why they're buried or anything about them. When doing test on the scales someone says "Do you know what the hardest substance known to man is?" someone else replies "Diamonds." and then the subject is dropped COMPLETELY. Never again is the subject of diamond brought up or any comparison to the hardness of the scales made.
The movie starts with a young reporter, whose hair and clothes indicate that he just stepped out of 1975, going to a disaster site where the scale is found. Seeing the scale triggers a flashback to when he was a kid. During the flashback there is another flashback to 500 years ago. Very awkward story telling.
We learn that every 500 years or so that one dragon is rewarded for it's good deeds by being given a spirit that manifests in a particular woman when she turns 20. This turns the good dragon into Super Galactic Happy Happy Good Time Dragon or some such weirdness. But there's an evil dragon that also wants it. God forbid anything be done to protect this woman. Sure, she's given some guy with a necklace, but they have to face down an army of Cylon/Stormtrooper hybrids, many of whom are riding giant lizard creatures on loan from Skywalker Ranch (LucasFilm Studio) and sporting energy cannons.
This is all assuming that 70's Necklace Boy is willing to both protect the girl and feed her to a giant good dragon.
See? Add some tentacle rape and it's Anime.
With all that said, the special effects are Lucas quality and the fight scenes are pretty awesome.
Still, I'm not gonna get it on DVD. I suggest waiting for a second run theatre or Dillon's cheap-ass rental.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Office cleaning
I have an office of my own.
This is not because I'm some high ranking so an so within the organization. I have an office because I'm the resident geek. As resident geek I am the keeper of the electronics. Old computers, computers in need of repair, dirty keyboards, extra keyboards, software storage... all this falls to me. Nobody wants to look at this junk so they give me the space with the door that can be closed.
This works out fine for me. I always have multiple projects going on so my desk is covered with paper, books, blank disks, monitors (plural), and vats of keys suspended in cleaning solution. As my boss told someone she was giving a tour to yesterday, I thrive in this environment. I do the work of three people by my estimate and five people by hers.
It's also, at the moment, storage for lots of our old books. For reasons I won't get into now my office was filled with boxes of our old book. I finally got permission to unbox the books and put them on the shelves. This left me with lots of empty boxes. I gave a few away, but most were just gonna go to the dumpster. I couldn't allow this to happen.
I broke down the boxes and layed them out flat. With some carpenter's glue I started gluing them together slightly offset so the folds never line up. I made an eight foot section of seven layer thick cardboard. Yesterday, after I went off the clock, I pulled out my jigsaw and shaped the big cardboard monstrosity. Off with the flaps that closed the top and bottom of the box. Off with anything less than seven layers and over eight feet.
This morning I dug out the vacuum cleaner and vacuumed my office. I know how to run it, I just usually don't. I've got a Roomba at home and at work I just turn off the lights. It really did look like the floor of a high school shop class in here. There's a fine layer of dust over everything now. When I run my finger over stuff it turns brown. I'm gonna need a new plan for the next piece.
What am I working on? I'm making shelving. Hopefully for books, but even if it can't handle that weight it'll serve for lots of other junk. I'll take pictures as I make the other side.
This is not because I'm some high ranking so an so within the organization. I have an office because I'm the resident geek. As resident geek I am the keeper of the electronics. Old computers, computers in need of repair, dirty keyboards, extra keyboards, software storage... all this falls to me. Nobody wants to look at this junk so they give me the space with the door that can be closed.
This works out fine for me. I always have multiple projects going on so my desk is covered with paper, books, blank disks, monitors (plural), and vats of keys suspended in cleaning solution. As my boss told someone she was giving a tour to yesterday, I thrive in this environment. I do the work of three people by my estimate and five people by hers.
It's also, at the moment, storage for lots of our old books. For reasons I won't get into now my office was filled with boxes of our old book. I finally got permission to unbox the books and put them on the shelves. This left me with lots of empty boxes. I gave a few away, but most were just gonna go to the dumpster. I couldn't allow this to happen.
I broke down the boxes and layed them out flat. With some carpenter's glue I started gluing them together slightly offset so the folds never line up. I made an eight foot section of seven layer thick cardboard. Yesterday, after I went off the clock, I pulled out my jigsaw and shaped the big cardboard monstrosity. Off with the flaps that closed the top and bottom of the box. Off with anything less than seven layers and over eight feet.
This morning I dug out the vacuum cleaner and vacuumed my office. I know how to run it, I just usually don't. I've got a Roomba at home and at work I just turn off the lights. It really did look like the floor of a high school shop class in here. There's a fine layer of dust over everything now. When I run my finger over stuff it turns brown. I'm gonna need a new plan for the next piece.
What am I working on? I'm making shelving. Hopefully for books, but even if it can't handle that weight it'll serve for lots of other junk. I'll take pictures as I make the other side.
Science lesson 4: Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
Having nothing better to talk about...
Lets talk about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: the very short version. It states that when observing subatomic particles you can't know the location and speed at the same time. By observing one you alter the other.
This is related to why observing equipment screws up the double slit experiment mentioned earlier.
This principle is also the basis for much geek humor.
Lets talk about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: the very short version. It states that when observing subatomic particles you can't know the location and speed at the same time. By observing one you alter the other.
This is related to why observing equipment screws up the double slit experiment mentioned earlier.
This principle is also the basis for much geek humor.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Movie review: In the Shadow of the Moon
In the Shadow of the Moon
Between 1968 and 1972 twenty-four people went to the moon and back. Not all landed, but they all have a story. The surviving astronauts are all about 77 years old now. With this movie Ron Howard collects their stories.
Science fiction does some cool stuff, but it almost never manages to convey the power and emotion that footage of the real thing does. "In the Shadow of the Moon" shows lots of footage that I've never seen, and some footage that the public at large has never seen. Rockets exploding in an orderly upward manner and rockets exploding in a less orderly outward manner. Instead of just the Apollo 11 footage this movie shows footage from all the moon launches and landings. Good quality shots of landers and rovers with the astronauts themselves telling what was going on in their heads.
If you lived through this you'll want to see this movie. If you have children you'll want to take them to see this. If you're like me and too young to have been alive then and kinda pissed about that then you'll want to see this.
This is a great documentary and should win some awards. I will definitely get this on DVD.
I'd also recommend the movie "The Dish". When sending people to the moon we need to be able to see them all the time. So NASA made a deal to use the huge dish in a sheep paddy in Parks, Australia (also known as PKS in radio chatter). "The Dish" tells the true story of what was happening and what went wrong at Parks in the lead up to and during the 1969 landing.
Between 1968 and 1972 twenty-four people went to the moon and back. Not all landed, but they all have a story. The surviving astronauts are all about 77 years old now. With this movie Ron Howard collects their stories.
Science fiction does some cool stuff, but it almost never manages to convey the power and emotion that footage of the real thing does. "In the Shadow of the Moon" shows lots of footage that I've never seen, and some footage that the public at large has never seen. Rockets exploding in an orderly upward manner and rockets exploding in a less orderly outward manner. Instead of just the Apollo 11 footage this movie shows footage from all the moon launches and landings. Good quality shots of landers and rovers with the astronauts themselves telling what was going on in their heads.
If you lived through this you'll want to see this movie. If you have children you'll want to take them to see this. If you're like me and too young to have been alive then and kinda pissed about that then you'll want to see this.
This is a great documentary and should win some awards. I will definitely get this on DVD.
I'd also recommend the movie "The Dish". When sending people to the moon we need to be able to see them all the time. So NASA made a deal to use the huge dish in a sheep paddy in Parks, Australia (also known as PKS in radio chatter). "The Dish" tells the true story of what was happening and what went wrong at Parks in the lead up to and during the 1969 landing.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Science lesson 3: quantum computers
Quantum computers are mostly theoretical. Some simple versions have been built but the technology is unstable.
You should remember in the double slit experiment that electrons fired at a wall with two slits in it give the appearance of going between both slits and interfering with itself. Quantum computer rely on the ability of sub-atomic particles, like electrons, to simultaneously exist in multiple states. The idea is that they'd be able to use each of the multiple states as a separate processor. No, that's not quite right. They'd be able to calculate multiple solutions at the same time. The answer returned would not be a hard yes/no answer like with current binary computers. Answers would be more like pie charts listing all the possibilities and how often certain answers popped up. This isn't an accurate description, but I'm not sure how to put the more technical answer in layman's terms.
Current computer encryption codes can get up to 128 bits. If you don't have the decryption code your grandchildren would have to get the answer for you. A quantum computer should be able to get the answer back to you in a few hours.
WHY am I telling you all of this? Why have I spent three lessons giving you the broad strokes of quantum physics? Because more and more these fundamentals are key in various science fiction stories.
In the Hominids/Humans/Hybrids trilogy Neanderthals are experimenting with a quantum computer. They're calculating larger and larger numbers causing the individual quantum processors to reach into more and more parallel realities where other quantum computers exist. When the numbers got too big the computer reached into a reality where there wasn't a quantum computer. They reached into our reality.
In "Calculating God" there's an alien race that spends almost all it's time in prayer. Remember how putting an observation device at one slit made the electron pass through only one slit? By the aliens' thinking God is the observer so God determines which of the many universes is real. Only by constant prayer can they keep God watching their universe and continue making their reality THE reality.
In the Discworld series there have been a few references to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (which I haven't explained yet) influencing leopards that move so fast they can't know who they are and where they are at the same time.
Even Star Trek seriesesesees have mentioned the need for Heisenberg Compensators to fix the nebulous nature of individual electrons when scanning the person to be transported.
For you and me it's just a curiosity that makes life a bit more interesting.
You should remember in the double slit experiment that electrons fired at a wall with two slits in it give the appearance of going between both slits and interfering with itself. Quantum computer rely on the ability of sub-atomic particles, like electrons, to simultaneously exist in multiple states. The idea is that they'd be able to use each of the multiple states as a separate processor. No, that's not quite right. They'd be able to calculate multiple solutions at the same time. The answer returned would not be a hard yes/no answer like with current binary computers. Answers would be more like pie charts listing all the possibilities and how often certain answers popped up. This isn't an accurate description, but I'm not sure how to put the more technical answer in layman's terms.
Current computer encryption codes can get up to 128 bits. If you don't have the decryption code your grandchildren would have to get the answer for you. A quantum computer should be able to get the answer back to you in a few hours.
WHY am I telling you all of this? Why have I spent three lessons giving you the broad strokes of quantum physics? Because more and more these fundamentals are key in various science fiction stories.
In the Hominids/Humans/Hybrids trilogy Neanderthals are experimenting with a quantum computer. They're calculating larger and larger numbers causing the individual quantum processors to reach into more and more parallel realities where other quantum computers exist. When the numbers got too big the computer reached into a reality where there wasn't a quantum computer. They reached into our reality.
In "Calculating God" there's an alien race that spends almost all it's time in prayer. Remember how putting an observation device at one slit made the electron pass through only one slit? By the aliens' thinking God is the observer so God determines which of the many universes is real. Only by constant prayer can they keep God watching their universe and continue making their reality THE reality.
In the Discworld series there have been a few references to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (which I haven't explained yet) influencing leopards that move so fast they can't know who they are and where they are at the same time.
Even Star Trek seriesesesees have mentioned the need for Heisenberg Compensators to fix the nebulous nature of individual electrons when scanning the person to be transported.
For you and me it's just a curiosity that makes life a bit more interesting.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Nuclear energy
Major changes need to be made to our power generation system. Coal and oil need to be completely abandoned. Gone, done, over. But what to replace it with? We can phase over to solar, wind, waves, etc. but getting there directly is gonna take awhile. We need to convert about 15 years ago.
The fastest way to get major cleanish power is nuclear. Sure, there's toxic waste, but at least that can be kept localized. That is to say that the waste stays in one place instead of blowing all over the place.
The big question is how to do it. How do you get safe nuclear power and how do you get it to go away so we don't stop there but push on to even cleaner supplies? I think most of our problems can be solved by making sure that the government runs all the plants. I'll explain why.
1) Safety in design.
Talk to the French. Talk to the Japanese. Talk to the US Navy.
The French are already mostly switched over to nuclear power. Their plants are pretty safe, too.
The Japanese are heavily into nuclear power, too. But that's due more to being an island with few natural resources and the fact that it's really hard to bluff people who've been nuked about the dangers of radiation.
The US Navy has had a nuclear program for several decades with nearly no accidents. no significant unclassified accidents anyway. In a pinch they can back a battleship up to a small city and keep the lights on. They wanted me to be a nuclear engineer on a sub. I'm just not a military fella.
These three can help design the safest nuclear plant possible. The Navy can tell us how to operate and secure them the best.
2) Safety in operation.
Corporations are all about profit. Get the most money for the least work. Most any American nuclear power plant you go into shows signs of cut corners. By keeping them in the hands of the government and/or military they're gonna be working to keep them safe and charge the public only what they need to.
I know that many government organizations are slackers and screw ups. FEMA used to be one of the pride and joys of the federal government until Mad King George cut their funding and stuffed them into Homeland Security. The point being that when it's important they can do it right. And while we'll want the Army securing the plants we'll want the Navy inspecting them.
3) Moving on.
Part of the reason... strike that, most of why it's proving hard to move away from a petrol based economy is because there's huge profits in gas and oil. If we move to nuclear then the big money will be there and moving away from that will be the challenge. But by keeping the profits low there'll be less resistance to switching to renewables.
I know that a lot of people think that privatized everything is better. Competition and market forces and all that. In some cases it is, but in many cases it's not.
CNN was a good news agency before Fox and MSNBC came along. Now they sacrifice news for ratings. Competition hurt our ability to get informed. Meanwhile the BBC, a government funded news agency, remains one of the best in the world.
Hiring soldiers for Iraq is proving to cost us more by at least a factor of 10 above using the Army or Marines.
My office is full of boxes from when the Government Printing Office privatized their warehouse. Truckloads of boxes just started showing up here one day.
The base is full of handymen who were brought on as contractors after the old handymen were fired. They don't know where stuff is or the history behind the various problems and they cost more money.
Our health care system is one of the most technically advanced but functionally worst in any developed country. We're also about the only one who doesn't provide universal healthcare.
In fact, most things that have been privatized have wound up costing more and being worse than when run by the government.
The fastest way to get major cleanish power is nuclear. Sure, there's toxic waste, but at least that can be kept localized. That is to say that the waste stays in one place instead of blowing all over the place.
The big question is how to do it. How do you get safe nuclear power and how do you get it to go away so we don't stop there but push on to even cleaner supplies? I think most of our problems can be solved by making sure that the government runs all the plants. I'll explain why.
1) Safety in design.
Talk to the French. Talk to the Japanese. Talk to the US Navy.
The French are already mostly switched over to nuclear power. Their plants are pretty safe, too.
The Japanese are heavily into nuclear power, too. But that's due more to being an island with few natural resources and the fact that it's really hard to bluff people who've been nuked about the dangers of radiation.
The US Navy has had a nuclear program for several decades with nearly no accidents. no significant unclassified accidents anyway. In a pinch they can back a battleship up to a small city and keep the lights on. They wanted me to be a nuclear engineer on a sub. I'm just not a military fella.
These three can help design the safest nuclear plant possible. The Navy can tell us how to operate and secure them the best.
2) Safety in operation.
Corporations are all about profit. Get the most money for the least work. Most any American nuclear power plant you go into shows signs of cut corners. By keeping them in the hands of the government and/or military they're gonna be working to keep them safe and charge the public only what they need to.
I know that many government organizations are slackers and screw ups. FEMA used to be one of the pride and joys of the federal government until Mad King George cut their funding and stuffed them into Homeland Security. The point being that when it's important they can do it right. And while we'll want the Army securing the plants we'll want the Navy inspecting them.
3) Moving on.
Part of the reason... strike that, most of why it's proving hard to move away from a petrol based economy is because there's huge profits in gas and oil. If we move to nuclear then the big money will be there and moving away from that will be the challenge. But by keeping the profits low there'll be less resistance to switching to renewables.
I know that a lot of people think that privatized everything is better. Competition and market forces and all that. In some cases it is, but in many cases it's not.
CNN was a good news agency before Fox and MSNBC came along. Now they sacrifice news for ratings. Competition hurt our ability to get informed. Meanwhile the BBC, a government funded news agency, remains one of the best in the world.
Hiring soldiers for Iraq is proving to cost us more by at least a factor of 10 above using the Army or Marines.
My office is full of boxes from when the Government Printing Office privatized their warehouse. Truckloads of boxes just started showing up here one day.
The base is full of handymen who were brought on as contractors after the old handymen were fired. They don't know where stuff is or the history behind the various problems and they cost more money.
Our health care system is one of the most technically advanced but functionally worst in any developed country. We're also about the only one who doesn't provide universal healthcare.
In fact, most things that have been privatized have wound up costing more and being worse than when run by the government.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Nerd stuff
How do little kids afford comic books? They don't have any money.
I started collecting comics late in high school. It was back when Superman "died". The second time I went to Prairie Dog Comics it was like walking into Cheers. As I walked through the door one of the staff greeted me by name. I'd only been there one time and they knew me. When I went off to college I picked up some stuff at a Clay's place near campus and picked up some stuff in Wichita. When I moved to Kansas City I had PDC pull stuff for me to pick up when I came back to visit family. When I moved to DC I had them start mailing me stuff every $50 or so. Around holidays they make sure to see if I'm gonna be in town so I can pick them up in person. They're just great about working with me.
Why do I remain loyal to PDC? It's partially because they knew who I was and partially because it's so hard to find anyone who can compete. I've been to several comic book places around DC. Some people tell me I've been going to the wrong ones. Most that I've visited have been terribly snobbish. The store was mostly Manga and graphic novels. The comics they had were mostly off brand and obscure titles. The staff got uppity and snobbish if you said you were looking for actual comic books like Batman and Spiderman. It happened several times in several different stores.
A new comic book store has opened on 14th st NW. I forget the name of it but it's a branch of another comic book store in the area. The staff was friendly and tried to be helpful. They had a TV setup to show the cartoons they were trying to sell. They had lots of graphic novels but not the one I wanted. One small room in the back had the comics - Batman, Superman, Spiderman, etc - but there was no back issue collection. When I asked about a specific title they said the owners made a decision not to carry that. It was also about 1/3 the size of PDC's old store and about 1/8 the size of their new store.
So hail to Prairie Dog Comics. The only store with a clue.
I finally got a Wii this weekend. Since I'm supposed to be doing housework I told myself that I wouldn't get one until I could walk into a store and see one on the shelf. Even so, I wanted one by Christmas so I could hook it up at the family gathering at my parents' place. Most stores will tell you not to expect to see it just sitting on the shelves until after New Years. But I found a non-chain store out near the University of Maryland called "Pandora's^3" or "Pandora's Cube" that had several. It's located in a run down little mini-mall. While it has video games and video game systems that doesn't appear to be it's main business. Half the store was dedicated to Manga and Anime. Even browsing that area felt like casually strolling through a porn shop.
Yes, I do react to Manga and Anime the way people in the comic book shops I mentioned respond to popular comics. I've seen a couple of good Anime films, but they're still just Speed Racer and tentacle rape to me.
A couple more shelves had Japanese foodstuffs like Pocky. Behind the counter they had several Japan only releases of some Transformers.
The shop keeper was friendly and helpful. He cut me a couple of deals. If they weren't so far out of the way I'd go back in again. I still may.
If you, too, have a Wii I can be reached at 4106 1848 4070 3967. If you don't have a Wii this number will be meaningless to you.
I started collecting comics late in high school. It was back when Superman "died". The second time I went to Prairie Dog Comics it was like walking into Cheers. As I walked through the door one of the staff greeted me by name. I'd only been there one time and they knew me. When I went off to college I picked up some stuff at a Clay's place near campus and picked up some stuff in Wichita. When I moved to Kansas City I had PDC pull stuff for me to pick up when I came back to visit family. When I moved to DC I had them start mailing me stuff every $50 or so. Around holidays they make sure to see if I'm gonna be in town so I can pick them up in person. They're just great about working with me.
Why do I remain loyal to PDC? It's partially because they knew who I was and partially because it's so hard to find anyone who can compete. I've been to several comic book places around DC. Some people tell me I've been going to the wrong ones. Most that I've visited have been terribly snobbish. The store was mostly Manga and graphic novels. The comics they had were mostly off brand and obscure titles. The staff got uppity and snobbish if you said you were looking for actual comic books like Batman and Spiderman. It happened several times in several different stores.
A new comic book store has opened on 14th st NW. I forget the name of it but it's a branch of another comic book store in the area. The staff was friendly and tried to be helpful. They had a TV setup to show the cartoons they were trying to sell. They had lots of graphic novels but not the one I wanted. One small room in the back had the comics - Batman, Superman, Spiderman, etc - but there was no back issue collection. When I asked about a specific title they said the owners made a decision not to carry that. It was also about 1/3 the size of PDC's old store and about 1/8 the size of their new store.
So hail to Prairie Dog Comics. The only store with a clue.
I finally got a Wii this weekend. Since I'm supposed to be doing housework I told myself that I wouldn't get one until I could walk into a store and see one on the shelf. Even so, I wanted one by Christmas so I could hook it up at the family gathering at my parents' place. Most stores will tell you not to expect to see it just sitting on the shelves until after New Years. But I found a non-chain store out near the University of Maryland called "Pandora's^3" or "Pandora's Cube" that had several. It's located in a run down little mini-mall. While it has video games and video game systems that doesn't appear to be it's main business. Half the store was dedicated to Manga and Anime. Even browsing that area felt like casually strolling through a porn shop.
Yes, I do react to Manga and Anime the way people in the comic book shops I mentioned respond to popular comics. I've seen a couple of good Anime films, but they're still just Speed Racer and tentacle rape to me.
A couple more shelves had Japanese foodstuffs like Pocky. Behind the counter they had several Japan only releases of some Transformers.
The shop keeper was friendly and helpful. He cut me a couple of deals. If they weren't so far out of the way I'd go back in again. I still may.
If you, too, have a Wii I can be reached at 4106 1848 4070 3967. If you don't have a Wii this number will be meaningless to you.
Friday, September 07, 2007
Science lesson 2: Schrödinger's Cat
In 1935 Irwin Schrödinger came up with the thought experiment known as "Schrödinger's Cat".
In yesterday's lesson how we learned that subatomic particles, like electrons, don't really seem to exist in one place until you see them. Instead they give the appearance of existing in a cloud of places where they possibly or probably are until they're observed.
Here's how Schrödinger suggested you imagine it.
One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small, that perhaps in the course of the hour one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges and through a relay releases a hammer which shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts.
It is typical of these cases that an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic domain becomes transformed into macroscopic indeterminacy, which can then be resolved by direct observation. That prevents us from so naively accepting as valid a "blurred model" for representing reality. In itself it would not embody anything unclear or contradictory. There is a difference between a shaky or out-of-focus photograph and a snapshot of clouds and fog banks.
Huh? Let me rephrase.
Take a box. In the box you put a cat. Next to the cat you put a vial of poisonous gas. The vial of gas is sealed by a complicated device containing an atom of a radioactive element that has a 50/50 chance of decaying in the next hour. When that element decays it will release the gas and the cat will die. Now seal the box.
When you come back in an hour the radioactive element may or may not have decayed. In fact the math shows that it has both decayed and not decayed and it has neither decayed nor not decayed. The only way to find out if it has decayed or not is to open the box and look at the cat. Until the box is opened the state of the cat is in flux. The cat is both dead and alive and neither dead nor alive.
Irwin regretted writing this explaination for the rest of his life. Most people misunderstood what he's explaining. The cat isn't real. The experiment wouldn't work. It's only told to try to explain subatomic behaviors on a scale we can better grasp
Among physicists this thought experiment has provoked several philosophical physics questions. You can read more about them at Wikipedia. Among non-physicists this provokes mostly misunderstandings. In the crap-science film "What The #$*! Do We Know" they try to make this a point of religious thought for worshipers of a 35,000-year-old warrior named Ramtha.
Some eastern philosophies make the point that we control our own universe. This is true as far as how an individual views his own life. Getting fired can be a crushing blow or a breaking of chains. Your car breaking down can be a point of great stress or the beginning of a story you can tell for weeks. But your viewpoint can't change the nature of water or manipulate matter as the movie tries to claim Schrödinger proved.
In yesterday's lesson how we learned that subatomic particles, like electrons, don't really seem to exist in one place until you see them. Instead they give the appearance of existing in a cloud of places where they possibly or probably are until they're observed.
Here's how Schrödinger suggested you imagine it.
One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small, that perhaps in the course of the hour one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges and through a relay releases a hammer which shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts.
It is typical of these cases that an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic domain becomes transformed into macroscopic indeterminacy, which can then be resolved by direct observation. That prevents us from so naively accepting as valid a "blurred model" for representing reality. In itself it would not embody anything unclear or contradictory. There is a difference between a shaky or out-of-focus photograph and a snapshot of clouds and fog banks.
Huh? Let me rephrase.
Take a box. In the box you put a cat. Next to the cat you put a vial of poisonous gas. The vial of gas is sealed by a complicated device containing an atom of a radioactive element that has a 50/50 chance of decaying in the next hour. When that element decays it will release the gas and the cat will die. Now seal the box.
When you come back in an hour the radioactive element may or may not have decayed. In fact the math shows that it has both decayed and not decayed and it has neither decayed nor not decayed. The only way to find out if it has decayed or not is to open the box and look at the cat. Until the box is opened the state of the cat is in flux. The cat is both dead and alive and neither dead nor alive.
Irwin regretted writing this explaination for the rest of his life. Most people misunderstood what he's explaining. The cat isn't real. The experiment wouldn't work. It's only told to try to explain subatomic behaviors on a scale we can better grasp
Among physicists this thought experiment has provoked several philosophical physics questions. You can read more about them at Wikipedia. Among non-physicists this provokes mostly misunderstandings. In the crap-science film "What The #$*! Do We Know" they try to make this a point of religious thought for worshipers of a 35,000-year-old warrior named Ramtha.
Some eastern philosophies make the point that we control our own universe. This is true as far as how an individual views his own life. Getting fired can be a crushing blow or a breaking of chains. Your car breaking down can be a point of great stress or the beginning of a story you can tell for weeks. But your viewpoint can't change the nature of water or manipulate matter as the movie tries to claim Schrödinger proved.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Science lesson 1
I am a geek of all trades. Among the many kinds of geek that I am, I am a sci-fi geek. The best kind of sci-fi are the kinds where the science is based on real science. An understanding of the fundamentals is key to appreciating some books. So I'm going to give some simple lessons in areas of physics that most people aren't likely to have dealt with.
Let me start by insulting your intelligence and work up to more complicated issues.
Things that you can touch are called "matter". If you smash up matter into little bitty pieces and then smash it up some more you get what are known as molecules. Break down the molecules and you get atoms. Atoms break down into neutrons, positrons, and electrons. In charts of atoms you get a picture that reminds many people of the Solar System picture. That is a big thing in the middle with smaller things going around it. In an atom the thing going around is called an electron. But instead of having a nice orbit where you can point at the electron and say "there it is" the best you can do is point to an area around the nucleus (the big thing in the middle) and say it's in here somewhere. You can chart the probability of where it is, but if you actually measure it then you've changed it.
At the subatomic level - I mean when working with the electrons, neutrons, and positrons - there's all kinds of weirdness.
Watch this film that explains the double slit test.
Let me start by insulting your intelligence and work up to more complicated issues.
Things that you can touch are called "matter". If you smash up matter into little bitty pieces and then smash it up some more you get what are known as molecules. Break down the molecules and you get atoms. Atoms break down into neutrons, positrons, and electrons. In charts of atoms you get a picture that reminds many people of the Solar System picture. That is a big thing in the middle with smaller things going around it. In an atom the thing going around is called an electron. But instead of having a nice orbit where you can point at the electron and say "there it is" the best you can do is point to an area around the nucleus (the big thing in the middle) and say it's in here somewhere. You can chart the probability of where it is, but if you actually measure it then you've changed it.
At the subatomic level - I mean when working with the electrons, neutrons, and positrons - there's all kinds of weirdness.
Watch this film that explains the double slit test.
Dr. Quantum Explains Double Slit Experiment
Posted Jun 07, 2007http://www.FreeScienceLectures.com
This is the strongest experimental proof of alternative universes.
Remember what I said about not being able to know where the electron was around the nucleus? Just where it PROBABLY is. Similarly, in the experiment you just watched you only get to know where the electron you're firing PROBABLY is. Some scientists think that the electron is in all the locations it could be but in parallel universes. So even when firing just the one electron at a time all the possible electrons in all the possible universes interfere with each other and make the pattern on the wall. BUT when you put up something to see which slit the electron goes through you force one of the universes to become OUR universe. This is what Doc Quantum meant when he said that it "collapsed the wave form". All the possible universes collapsed once observed.
Think of "Back to the Future". By going back in time they changed things and reality split into two alternative time lines. So Marty had to go back and fix things so that the two realities collapsed back into one. It's fun to think about alternate realities where Hitler died in that WWI gas attack and what not. But what about that reality where the only difference is you wore a green shirt one day instead of the blue one. The color of your shirt didn't change anything so those two realities collapsed back into one once two versions of you take the shirts off. Similarly, all those parallel and interfering universes with the electrons collapse into one. When they collapse depends on when they're observed. If observed before going through the slit only one hits the wall. If you wait to observe until after it hits the wall then all the other universes have messed with it. Only one of the many possible electrons in the many possible universes gets to hit the wall. But all the possibilities influence the path it takes.
I know, freaky, huh?
We have nothing but science fiction writers to allude to multiple universes on a super-atomic scale. It's just a helpful allegory to help understand the weirdness of the double slit experiment. And it's a fun "what if" thought experiment.
Next time I have nothing better to talk about I'll explain Schrödinger's Cat or maybe how what we've learned today is the foundation of research into quantum computing.
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
DS9 Clothes
Just sort of thinking out loud here.
A coworker is loaning me his "Star Trek: Deep Space 9" DVDs. The clothes in Star Trek intrigue me. Nobody wears anything with a corporate logo or cartoon character on the front. Most non-Starfleet characters wear fairly simple clothes, except for the ones who have very elaborate clothes. Lots of solid colors. No stripes or dots or patterns... typically. There's the rare exception, but only among either the very rich characters or the Dabo Girls.
I've got this mental image of how they get their clothes. I imaging the replicators have a small library of simple clothes that you can get for free. Like a lame clip art collection that you get for free because you'd never use anything on the CD. If you want something flashier you can buy a new replicator pattern from the Apple Clothing Store or you can find a tailor.
Similarly, in that universe, they have replicators with a library of food you can have at home, but there also appears to be certain food programs that you either have to buy for yourself or go to some restaurant that has it. But there's also still real restaurants with real food and chefs.
It's the perfect blend of socialism and capitalism. They can fulfill the needs of those with the least, but you can also achieve and gain more if you so desire.
The point that I started to make was that we should have a similar line of clothes. As well as food stamps there'd be garment credits that could be spent on some low cost, no frills clothing. Or would the fact that you're wearing them serve as an announcement that you're poor and encourage mockery and beatings?
Next, the logistics of such a task. My clothes are already pretty much as cheap as they come. Except when I try to buy hemp clothes, that is. Tee shirts and jeans. Cheap shoes. Child labor in south-east Asia somewhere. How the hell am I gonna get cheaper than that?
Simple, dummy. Start your own sweat shop in VietChinSingMalayistan, double the wages over the sweatshop next door, simple designs with no licensing fees or celebrity endorsements ("I'm Michael Jordan and I wear 'Poverty Clothes'!") and even after shipping you should be able to sell your stuff for 1/3 (or less) of what the stuff from the sweatshop next door goes for. This is assuming you're not in this for the money like the neighbor.
Or do I need to wait for the invention of the replicator?
A coworker is loaning me his "Star Trek: Deep Space 9" DVDs. The clothes in Star Trek intrigue me. Nobody wears anything with a corporate logo or cartoon character on the front. Most non-Starfleet characters wear fairly simple clothes, except for the ones who have very elaborate clothes. Lots of solid colors. No stripes or dots or patterns... typically. There's the rare exception, but only among either the very rich characters or the Dabo Girls.
I've got this mental image of how they get their clothes. I imaging the replicators have a small library of simple clothes that you can get for free. Like a lame clip art collection that you get for free because you'd never use anything on the CD. If you want something flashier you can buy a new replicator pattern from the Apple Clothing Store or you can find a tailor.
Similarly, in that universe, they have replicators with a library of food you can have at home, but there also appears to be certain food programs that you either have to buy for yourself or go to some restaurant that has it. But there's also still real restaurants with real food and chefs.
It's the perfect blend of socialism and capitalism. They can fulfill the needs of those with the least, but you can also achieve and gain more if you so desire.
The point that I started to make was that we should have a similar line of clothes. As well as food stamps there'd be garment credits that could be spent on some low cost, no frills clothing. Or would the fact that you're wearing them serve as an announcement that you're poor and encourage mockery and beatings?
Next, the logistics of such a task. My clothes are already pretty much as cheap as they come. Except when I try to buy hemp clothes, that is. Tee shirts and jeans. Cheap shoes. Child labor in south-east Asia somewhere. How the hell am I gonna get cheaper than that?
Simple, dummy. Start your own sweat shop in VietChinSingMalayistan, double the wages over the sweatshop next door, simple designs with no licensing fees or celebrity endorsements ("I'm Michael Jordan and I wear 'Poverty Clothes'!") and even after shipping you should be able to sell your stuff for 1/3 (or less) of what the stuff from the sweatshop next door goes for. This is assuming you're not in this for the money like the neighbor.
Or do I need to wait for the invention of the replicator?
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Movie Review: Halloween
Before I get into the review I need to say a thing or two.
"What the hell's wrong with you!?! Get that toddler out of here! This is a a slasher flick!"
"Seriously? ANOTHER phone call! This is a movie. Why are you on the phone? Why are ANY of you people on the phone?"
Ok, the movie.
I don't recall much about the original version of "Halloween" I saw it on TV fairly young. Not toddler young, but too old for trick-or-treating but too young to drive. I wasn't impressed. Sure, it was edited for TV, but still. Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers, these are not scary people. Daleks are scary. Cybermen are creepy. The robot from that Dr Who episode called "Robot" had me behind the couch. But these slasher flick are not at all scary.
Since it's been so long since I saw the original I can't compare the two. But I know that I liked this one more. Not enough to get it on DVD, but on a gut level I was more impressed by this one.
The first half of the movie is a psychological horror. We start with a young Mike Myers and his screwed up family. His mom is a stripper, his step-father is a nasty, hateful, unemployable sleeze, and the two scream at each other constantly. The older sister is the standard production of a home like that, the baby sister screams at key points of the parents' fight, but for mercifully short periods. Michael is about ten years old, one of many victims of his step=father's verbal abuse, likes wearing a clown mask everywhere, and is already torturing and killing animals. But his mom really is pretty nice when not fighting with the drunk-of-the-house.
At school Mike is the target of a couple of bullies. After being jumped by the bullies in the bathroom and saved by the principal he lashes out at the principal. This gets his mother called in, a therapist lined up, and pictures he's taken of animals he's tortured found in his bag. While they're talking Mike slips out and kills one of the bullies in the woods.
That night, Halloween, his mom goes off to work. His sister was supposed to take him trick-or-treating but goes to have sex with her boyfriend instead. The boyfriend has the William Shatner mask that becomes Michael's trademark. So instead of making the candy rounds Mike kills his step-father, his sister, and her boyfriend. When Mom gets home he's sitting out front holding his baby sister and the cops are just showing up.
Mike goes off to an institution. Mom gets to visit once a week. He doesn't recall, or says he doesn't, killing his family. He spends his free time making masks. Some time later he kills a nurse and stops talking. His mom shoots herself.
Fifteen years later Mike escapes and goes looking to reunite with his baby sister. But she doesn't know about her original family. Mike still doesn't talk. That and the wake of brutally murdered corpses makes the reunion a bit ... awkward.
A lot of thought was put into establishing the character and motivations of Michael Meyer. This gives the movie a lot. The first half of "Halloween" feels kind of like that "Silence of the Lambs" prequil that came out not too long ago. The second half benefits from the first half, but is more of the bloody slasher flick that we expect a "Halloween" movie to be.
I won't be getting it on DVD. I'm not suggesting that you run out and see it. Not unless you're into this sort of thing. But I feel it was better than the original. Rob Zombie did well.
"What the hell's wrong with you!?! Get that toddler out of here! This is a a slasher flick!"
"Seriously? ANOTHER phone call! This is a movie. Why are you on the phone? Why are ANY of you people on the phone?"
Ok, the movie.
I don't recall much about the original version of "Halloween" I saw it on TV fairly young. Not toddler young, but too old for trick-or-treating but too young to drive. I wasn't impressed. Sure, it was edited for TV, but still. Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers, these are not scary people. Daleks are scary. Cybermen are creepy. The robot from that Dr Who episode called "Robot" had me behind the couch. But these slasher flick are not at all scary.
Since it's been so long since I saw the original I can't compare the two. But I know that I liked this one more. Not enough to get it on DVD, but on a gut level I was more impressed by this one.
The first half of the movie is a psychological horror. We start with a young Mike Myers and his screwed up family. His mom is a stripper, his step-father is a nasty, hateful, unemployable sleeze, and the two scream at each other constantly. The older sister is the standard production of a home like that, the baby sister screams at key points of the parents' fight, but for mercifully short periods. Michael is about ten years old, one of many victims of his step=father's verbal abuse, likes wearing a clown mask everywhere, and is already torturing and killing animals. But his mom really is pretty nice when not fighting with the drunk-of-the-house.
At school Mike is the target of a couple of bullies. After being jumped by the bullies in the bathroom and saved by the principal he lashes out at the principal. This gets his mother called in, a therapist lined up, and pictures he's taken of animals he's tortured found in his bag. While they're talking Mike slips out and kills one of the bullies in the woods.
That night, Halloween, his mom goes off to work. His sister was supposed to take him trick-or-treating but goes to have sex with her boyfriend instead. The boyfriend has the William Shatner mask that becomes Michael's trademark. So instead of making the candy rounds Mike kills his step-father, his sister, and her boyfriend. When Mom gets home he's sitting out front holding his baby sister and the cops are just showing up.
Mike goes off to an institution. Mom gets to visit once a week. He doesn't recall, or says he doesn't, killing his family. He spends his free time making masks. Some time later he kills a nurse and stops talking. His mom shoots herself.
Fifteen years later Mike escapes and goes looking to reunite with his baby sister. But she doesn't know about her original family. Mike still doesn't talk. That and the wake of brutally murdered corpses makes the reunion a bit ... awkward.
A lot of thought was put into establishing the character and motivations of Michael Meyer. This gives the movie a lot. The first half of "Halloween" feels kind of like that "Silence of the Lambs" prequil that came out not too long ago. The second half benefits from the first half, but is more of the bloody slasher flick that we expect a "Halloween" movie to be.
I won't be getting it on DVD. I'm not suggesting that you run out and see it. Not unless you're into this sort of thing. But I feel it was better than the original. Rob Zombie did well.
Friday, August 31, 2007
anniversary
This is the first anniversary of the day I moved back into my house. I've been sleeping on my couch for one whole year.
Progress report
Previously on Dougintology...
This house was built between 1870 and 1890. The mortar used back then was lime based. But much of that lime has washed away leaving sand between the bricks.
In March I started uncovering the bricks.
http://dougintology.blogspot.com/2007/03/construction.html
Then I destroyed a cart getting some mortar.
http://dougintology.blogspot.com/2007/03/knock-down-this-wall.html
After ten days I showed a picture of my progress.
http://dougintology.blogspot.com/2007/03/archaologists-find-brick.html
It was easier to work upstairs during the winter than during the summer. The summer is miserable. But with cooling weather I've been making myself get something done almost every night. It's "almost" because there's still some hot humid spells.
This picture was taken two nights ago.
All the cement was torn off the face of the bricks. I started chipping out the mortar but soon switched to a drill. These days I drill holes in between the bricks to loosen up the mortar a bit more. This also tells me the relative hardness of the mortar. Some is still pretty hard so I only go in half an inch. Some offers no resistance and I punch clear through the wall. Some bricks came out completely but most stayed. The worst damage in this room is the chimney. Drilling and milling around the chimney is like drilling into Rice Crispie Treats.
The work was being done in zones. I'd clear an area, blow out the dust with a wet-dry vac in reverse, let the dust settle, pack mortar, repeat elsewhere. This was intended to help prevent the wall from falling on me or at least keep bricks from falling out where I didn't want them to. But it turns out that precaution is only necessary in the chimney. In this room anyway. The next room will likely be worse. I started here because the room was already empty after the back wall was replaced.
I'm having to be careful, particularly around the round thing in the chimney. This house had a wood burning stove, once upon a time. That's where the exhaust went. If the house were a bit bigger I'd put one back in or get a corn burning stove. As it is I just don't have the room.
Compare to this pic from March.
This house was built between 1870 and 1890. The mortar used back then was lime based. But much of that lime has washed away leaving sand between the bricks.
In March I started uncovering the bricks.
http://dougintology.blogspot.com/2007/03/construction.html
Then I destroyed a cart getting some mortar.
http://dougintology.blogspot.com/2007/03/knock-down-this-wall.html
After ten days I showed a picture of my progress.
http://dougintology.blogspot.com/2007/03/archaologists-find-brick.html
It was easier to work upstairs during the winter than during the summer. The summer is miserable. But with cooling weather I've been making myself get something done almost every night. It's "almost" because there's still some hot humid spells.
This picture was taken two nights ago.
All the cement was torn off the face of the bricks. I started chipping out the mortar but soon switched to a drill. These days I drill holes in between the bricks to loosen up the mortar a bit more. This also tells me the relative hardness of the mortar. Some is still pretty hard so I only go in half an inch. Some offers no resistance and I punch clear through the wall. Some bricks came out completely but most stayed. The worst damage in this room is the chimney. Drilling and milling around the chimney is like drilling into Rice Crispie Treats.
The work was being done in zones. I'd clear an area, blow out the dust with a wet-dry vac in reverse, let the dust settle, pack mortar, repeat elsewhere. This was intended to help prevent the wall from falling on me or at least keep bricks from falling out where I didn't want them to. But it turns out that precaution is only necessary in the chimney. In this room anyway. The next room will likely be worse. I started here because the room was already empty after the back wall was replaced.
I'm having to be careful, particularly around the round thing in the chimney. This house had a wood burning stove, once upon a time. That's where the exhaust went. If the house were a bit bigger I'd put one back in or get a corn burning stove. As it is I just don't have the room.
Compare to this pic from March.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
future of cars
DARPA is the wacky research arm of the US Military. Only about 1 out of every 10 projects they get involved with goes anywhere. They built the DARPA-Net which became ARPA-Net which became the internet.
A few years ago DARPA sponsored the DARPA Grand Challenge. The challenge was to design self guiding vehicles. They had to navigate a long winding track in the desert that they were unfamiliar with 24 hours before the beginning of the race. Of the top three winners two used GPS while one relied on it's own sensors.
This November DARPA will be sponsoring the DARPA Urban Challenge. This time they'll be navigating a city. They'll face traffic, on and off ramps, highways, and city streets.
The point is to be able to convert most military vehicles in the field to automated vehicles. After all, a robot can't refuse to drive a tanker full of tainted fuel through insurgent territory.
It won't be long before this technology is made available for our vehicles. Probably with a combination of GPS, cameras, and laser scanning. GPS for planning routes and being able to predict what's coming. Lasers to determine the shapes and proximity of things around you. Cameras to determine what those things are.
You should be able to get in your car, tell it where to take you and it'll drive you there. So I was thinking about problem conditions and safety issues. My GPS gizmo works pretty well, but maps change and construction fouls things. The car's built in GPS system would need to have the maps in updatable flash memory. It would need to receive updates about construction so it wouldn't try to exit on a closed off ramp.
If the car wasn't able to receive updates for an extended time or if the flash drive failed the car would have to refuse to start. Or, in the early days, refused to automate.
Of greater concern is the fact that your vehicle would be completely trackable. Universal LowJack would be great. It would eliminate car theft except for the most tech savvy thief. On the other hand you'll have to worry that the feds can find your car anywhere and anytime. When you get stuck in the snow they'll be able to find you. If you're having an affair they'll be able to prove your car was at so-and-such home or hotel at a certain time in the divorce proceedings. When George Orwell Bush III takes office he'll be able to follow you anywhere.
So, would you take a fully automated car if you knew you could never go off the grid?
A few years ago DARPA sponsored the DARPA Grand Challenge. The challenge was to design self guiding vehicles. They had to navigate a long winding track in the desert that they were unfamiliar with 24 hours before the beginning of the race. Of the top three winners two used GPS while one relied on it's own sensors.
This November DARPA will be sponsoring the DARPA Urban Challenge. This time they'll be navigating a city. They'll face traffic, on and off ramps, highways, and city streets.
The point is to be able to convert most military vehicles in the field to automated vehicles. After all, a robot can't refuse to drive a tanker full of tainted fuel through insurgent territory.
It won't be long before this technology is made available for our vehicles. Probably with a combination of GPS, cameras, and laser scanning. GPS for planning routes and being able to predict what's coming. Lasers to determine the shapes and proximity of things around you. Cameras to determine what those things are.
You should be able to get in your car, tell it where to take you and it'll drive you there. So I was thinking about problem conditions and safety issues. My GPS gizmo works pretty well, but maps change and construction fouls things. The car's built in GPS system would need to have the maps in updatable flash memory. It would need to receive updates about construction so it wouldn't try to exit on a closed off ramp.
If the car wasn't able to receive updates for an extended time or if the flash drive failed the car would have to refuse to start. Or, in the early days, refused to automate.
Of greater concern is the fact that your vehicle would be completely trackable. Universal LowJack would be great. It would eliminate car theft except for the most tech savvy thief. On the other hand you'll have to worry that the feds can find your car anywhere and anytime. When you get stuck in the snow they'll be able to find you. If you're having an affair they'll be able to prove your car was at so-and-such home or hotel at a certain time in the divorce proceedings. When George Orwell Bush III takes office he'll be able to follow you anywhere.
So, would you take a fully automated car if you knew you could never go off the grid?
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Book Review: The Draco Tavern
I've been very unkind about Larry Niven's more recent work. He's just not what he used to be. But he's always kicked ass with his short stories and still does.
"The Draco Tavern" is a collection of very short stories that take place in a bar called "The Draco Tavern". Some years from now, about 10 years from whenever you happen to be reading the story, an alien craft parks near the moon and sends landers to a good landing point in Siberia. Many more have come and gone since then. The ships are owned by a race known as the Chirpsithra. But there's lots of other aliens who have booked passage on their ships.
Sometimes when talking to the aliens a person can learn something that will make him a fortune. Rick did so and earned his fortune early on. He spent his money to open a bar near the landing area. A bar that caters to aliens of all kinds. Most of his staff are researchers who volunteer to work there just to be able to be close and study the aliens.
These are genuinely alien aliens, too. Being a book he's not restricted to people in costumes.
Most of the stories are thought provoking in some manner or other. And they're typically only about 5 pages long. More bathroom literature. You'll probably have to brush your teeth or rinse your mouth to get a story finished.
Great book.
"The Draco Tavern" is a collection of very short stories that take place in a bar called "The Draco Tavern". Some years from now, about 10 years from whenever you happen to be reading the story, an alien craft parks near the moon and sends landers to a good landing point in Siberia. Many more have come and gone since then. The ships are owned by a race known as the Chirpsithra. But there's lots of other aliens who have booked passage on their ships.
Sometimes when talking to the aliens a person can learn something that will make him a fortune. Rick did so and earned his fortune early on. He spent his money to open a bar near the landing area. A bar that caters to aliens of all kinds. Most of his staff are researchers who volunteer to work there just to be able to be close and study the aliens.
These are genuinely alien aliens, too. Being a book he's not restricted to people in costumes.
Most of the stories are thought provoking in some manner or other. And they're typically only about 5 pages long. More bathroom literature. You'll probably have to brush your teeth or rinse your mouth to get a story finished.
Great book.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Book Review: Hybrids
The third book in a series by Robert J Sawyer.
Book 1: Humans
Book 2: Hominids
Book 3 Hybrids
The series takes place in reality where 40,000 years ago the universe split. In one history humans became intelligent while the Neanderthals died off. In the other the Neanderthals became intelligent while the humans died off.
In the first book Neanderthal researchers doing experimentation in quantum computing accidentally punched a hole through to our world and one dropped through.
In the second book a permanent porthole was established allowing travel back and forth by scientists and diplomats.
In this third and final book the Neanderthal that fell through in the first book and the Neanderthal genetics researcher who confirmed he really was a neanderthal are in a serious relationship. They're looking at getting married and having children. But Neanderthals only have kids once every ten years. This means the two must have children on a schedule if their kid is to fit in on both worlds. Plus, we have 23 chromosome pairs while they have 24. Even if they do have a kid naturally it'll be like a Neanderthal with Downs Syndrome. Luckily a scientist on the other world has developed a device that would allow them to tweek the genes so that they could not only match up, but determine what characteristics the kid would have. Most difficult is the part of the brain that makes people imagine there's gods, ghosts, and UFOs. Neanderthals don't have it.
Plus, the device is banned in that world and the researcher has disconnected from the network and gone to live in the woods. They hunt her down, get the device, smuggle it back to our world, and leave it with a trusted friend. This trusted friend starts using it to develop a Neanderthal specific version of Ebola so he can wipe them all out and take over their world for mankind.
There's less of the anthropology science that was in the first two books. We've also gotten past the religious debates and most of the genetic science. There's some genetics, but most of the hard science is in the development of the virus. The interesting philosophical discussion in this book is related to whether or not, given the option, you'd make sure your child couldn't believe in God. Plus, some about whether or not all human men should be banned from the other world.
It was a good end to a strong trilogy. This series, as with everything by Robert J Sawyer, goes near the top of my recommended reading list.
Book 1: Humans
Book 2: Hominids
Book 3 Hybrids
The series takes place in reality where 40,000 years ago the universe split. In one history humans became intelligent while the Neanderthals died off. In the other the Neanderthals became intelligent while the humans died off.
In the first book Neanderthal researchers doing experimentation in quantum computing accidentally punched a hole through to our world and one dropped through.
In the second book a permanent porthole was established allowing travel back and forth by scientists and diplomats.
In this third and final book the Neanderthal that fell through in the first book and the Neanderthal genetics researcher who confirmed he really was a neanderthal are in a serious relationship. They're looking at getting married and having children. But Neanderthals only have kids once every ten years. This means the two must have children on a schedule if their kid is to fit in on both worlds. Plus, we have 23 chromosome pairs while they have 24. Even if they do have a kid naturally it'll be like a Neanderthal with Downs Syndrome. Luckily a scientist on the other world has developed a device that would allow them to tweek the genes so that they could not only match up, but determine what characteristics the kid would have. Most difficult is the part of the brain that makes people imagine there's gods, ghosts, and UFOs. Neanderthals don't have it.
Plus, the device is banned in that world and the researcher has disconnected from the network and gone to live in the woods. They hunt her down, get the device, smuggle it back to our world, and leave it with a trusted friend. This trusted friend starts using it to develop a Neanderthal specific version of Ebola so he can wipe them all out and take over their world for mankind.
There's less of the anthropology science that was in the first two books. We've also gotten past the religious debates and most of the genetic science. There's some genetics, but most of the hard science is in the development of the virus. The interesting philosophical discussion in this book is related to whether or not, given the option, you'd make sure your child couldn't believe in God. Plus, some about whether or not all human men should be banned from the other world.
It was a good end to a strong trilogy. This series, as with everything by Robert J Sawyer, goes near the top of my recommended reading list.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Movie Review: Black Snake Moan
This is not the movie they showed in the trailers. In the trailers "Black Snake Moan" is the story about some religious fundamentalist who chained up a druggie sex fiend in his house while he tries to drive the sin from her. Seems like a story that stars mostly just two people and their interaction. Could be performed just as well on a stage.
In reality this is the story of two people. One is a middle aged (or just past) black man whose wife has just left him for another man. The other is a late teens white girl whose boyfriend has just joined the army so she's started having sex with everything that moves and doing a lot of drugs.
The first part of the movie covers how their lives fall apart and how poorly they're dealing with it. Then the girl gets dumped in a ditch outside the guy's house after getting beaten by one of the guys who wanted to jump her. The guy brings her in and fixes her up. She keeps wondering about in a delusional haze so he ties a chain to her. When she comes to he doesn't undo the chain. She still "ain't right".
A little time is spent with her making crude comments and him preaching to her. She acts like he's her molesting father and he acts like she's his cheating wife. But with time they both soften and become friends. He gets her to dress better and she gets him to play his guitar in public again, he expresses his grief through the blues.
By the end of the movie he's got a new girl and she's got her boyfriend back and the ability to cope when he's not around.
Not something I'd have bought on DVD, but it's worth watching once.
In reality this is the story of two people. One is a middle aged (or just past) black man whose wife has just left him for another man. The other is a late teens white girl whose boyfriend has just joined the army so she's started having sex with everything that moves and doing a lot of drugs.
The first part of the movie covers how their lives fall apart and how poorly they're dealing with it. Then the girl gets dumped in a ditch outside the guy's house after getting beaten by one of the guys who wanted to jump her. The guy brings her in and fixes her up. She keeps wondering about in a delusional haze so he ties a chain to her. When she comes to he doesn't undo the chain. She still "ain't right".
A little time is spent with her making crude comments and him preaching to her. She acts like he's her molesting father and he acts like she's his cheating wife. But with time they both soften and become friends. He gets her to dress better and she gets him to play his guitar in public again, he expresses his grief through the blues.
By the end of the movie he's got a new girl and she's got her boyfriend back and the ability to cope when he's not around.
Not something I'd have bought on DVD, but it's worth watching once.
Friday, August 24, 2007
iPhones in Space
I was at the Weird Al concert and someone a few rows in front of me had his new iPhone out. I started to wonder if an iPhone might work in space, aside from the fact that it's way outside the service area, or would the electronics fry in the solar wind?
A decade or two back we had to be very careful with our orbiting electronics because the radiation from the sun would fry things. Even now we have to power down a lot of our satellites during periods of intense solar activity. You may remember stories about sun spots messing with TV reception back when everyone used antennas. It's even been suggested that they were partially responsible for the big blackout across the American north east a few years back.
The reason I ask this question is because the iPhone is so powerful. It's practically a whole computer. My PalmPilot is more powerful than what went to the moon. The iPhone isn't on par with my Macintosh G5, but it seems to be competitive with the MacMini except no CD-ROM, keyboard, or monitor.
I'm still working up to something here. Hang on.
My PalmPilot has all kinds of attachments available to it. There used to be a modem you can clip onto the bottom, I've got a wi-fi card for mine, there's GPS attachments, barcode scanners, infrared keyboards, cameras, microphones, solar rechargers, etc.
Now imagine being able to do the same thing with an iPhone. Clip on some microthrusters and some solar panels and you have a satellite. Clip on a better camera and it's a spy satellite. Clip on an infrared camera and it's a weather satellite.
Got a deep space probe? Why build a whole new computer for it? Build your satellite and then pop in an iPhone as it's brain.
You could send up a constellation of seven small satellites. Six surrounding one. Each within wi-fi range of three others. The one in the middle could have the sat-phone attachment so that it could just dial back to NASA using the Iridium satellites instead of needing a big radio dish.
Once enough old satellites got replaced with this new brain then they'd be able to talk with other nearby satellites in orbit. It's pretty crowded up there and collisions need to be watched out for. They'd be able to communicate and negotiate the slight changes in orbit they need to miss each other.
I'm only really using the iPhone as an example because that's what gave me the idea. And there's already a manufacturer for it. But if NASA (or Boeing or Lockheed-Martin or...) could develop one multi-purpose satellite brain that could be used just dropped into whatever needs it I think they'd save a lot of time, effort, and money. Clip on the attachment, install the software, chuck it out the back of a Space Shuttle.
A decade or two back we had to be very careful with our orbiting electronics because the radiation from the sun would fry things. Even now we have to power down a lot of our satellites during periods of intense solar activity. You may remember stories about sun spots messing with TV reception back when everyone used antennas. It's even been suggested that they were partially responsible for the big blackout across the American north east a few years back.
The reason I ask this question is because the iPhone is so powerful. It's practically a whole computer. My PalmPilot is more powerful than what went to the moon. The iPhone isn't on par with my Macintosh G5, but it seems to be competitive with the MacMini except no CD-ROM, keyboard, or monitor.
I'm still working up to something here. Hang on.
My PalmPilot has all kinds of attachments available to it. There used to be a modem you can clip onto the bottom, I've got a wi-fi card for mine, there's GPS attachments, barcode scanners, infrared keyboards, cameras, microphones, solar rechargers, etc.
Now imagine being able to do the same thing with an iPhone. Clip on some microthrusters and some solar panels and you have a satellite. Clip on a better camera and it's a spy satellite. Clip on an infrared camera and it's a weather satellite.
Got a deep space probe? Why build a whole new computer for it? Build your satellite and then pop in an iPhone as it's brain.
You could send up a constellation of seven small satellites. Six surrounding one. Each within wi-fi range of three others. The one in the middle could have the sat-phone attachment so that it could just dial back to NASA using the Iridium satellites instead of needing a big radio dish.
Once enough old satellites got replaced with this new brain then they'd be able to talk with other nearby satellites in orbit. It's pretty crowded up there and collisions need to be watched out for. They'd be able to communicate and negotiate the slight changes in orbit they need to miss each other.
I'm only really using the iPhone as an example because that's what gave me the idea. And there's already a manufacturer for it. But if NASA (or Boeing or Lockheed-Martin or...) could develop one multi-purpose satellite brain that could be used just dropped into whatever needs it I think they'd save a lot of time, effort, and money. Clip on the attachment, install the software, chuck it out the back of a Space Shuttle.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Bad news for rat phobics
I saw an article a few years ago that I thought just amazing. Anyone I tell about it is similarly stunned. Someone demanded the source article and some references. So I provided them. I hate to waste research so you'll benefit, too.
Basically, the original article talks about how researchers at the University of Florida scooped the brain out of a rat fetus, grew it in a petri dish until there was and array of 25,000 cells. They hooked up 60 electrodes and the rat brain learned how to fly an F-22 flight simulator. Not at first, obviously. At first it wiped out a few hundred times. But it slowly got better and better and the neural network developed in response to the controls.
Don't believe it?
I first heard about it from "The Register".
http://www.theregister.com/2004/12/07/rat_brain_flies_jet/
The University of Florida announcement
http://www.napa.ufl.edu/2004news/braindish.htm
A picture of the doctor
http://www.bme.ufl.edu/contact/directory/detail_person.php?PEOPLE_id=2
The article in the Australian newspaper "The Age"
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/12/06/1102182227308.html#
National Geographic
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/11/1119_041119_brain_petri_dish.html
Discovery Channel
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20041018/brain.html
CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/11/02/brain.dish/
Wired
http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2004/10/65438
Just Google "Rat brain F-22" and you'll get a zillion hits.
Basically, the original article talks about how researchers at the University of Florida scooped the brain out of a rat fetus, grew it in a petri dish until there was and array of 25,000 cells. They hooked up 60 electrodes and the rat brain learned how to fly an F-22 flight simulator. Not at first, obviously. At first it wiped out a few hundred times. But it slowly got better and better and the neural network developed in response to the controls.
Don't believe it?
I first heard about it from "The Register".
http://www.theregister.com/2004/12/07/rat_brain_flies_jet/
The University of Florida announcement
http://www.napa.ufl.edu/2004news/braindish.htm
A picture of the doctor
http://www.bme.ufl.edu/contact/directory/detail_person.php?PEOPLE_id=2
The article in the Australian newspaper "The Age"
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/12/06/1102182227308.html#
National Geographic
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/11/1119_041119_brain_petri_dish.html
Discovery Channel
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20041018/brain.html
CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/11/02/brain.dish/
Wired
http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2004/10/65438
Just Google "Rat brain F-22" and you'll get a zillion hits.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
TV Show Review: Eureka
I just discovered "Eureka" on the Sci-fi Channel. Eureka is a small town established by the US government to house all the most brilliant scientific minds of the day. It's also where I'd move if I had the chance. Granted, I'm probably gonna need another eight years of school just to be the janitor, but it's my kinda town. The schools are fully funded, Segways are commonplace, as are Smart cars and Gem cars. The spa is powered by the thermal waste from the nuclear power plant. There's little to no interest in sports. The place is perfect. It's perfect aside from the weekly threat to life, limb, and sanity.
The show is like "The Outer Limits" but with every episode set in the same place with the same people. Also with better directing. "The Outer Limits" always seems to put me to sleep. You know how many shows have a certain quality to them that lets you identify the show instantly? Like I can flip on "SG1" and know that it's "SG1" even though the main characters aren't around and the scene is not remotely Stargate-ish. You can turn on "The Outer Limit" and know that's what it is because of some quality to the lighting or general blahness. The story may be great but I'm still gonna nod off. "Eureka" has those good stories but isn't gonna knock you out.
If you're like me and don't have cable you can now watch your favorite Sci-Fi Channel shows without pirating them or waiting for the DVD. For Eureka just go to http://www.scifi.com/eureka/ and click on one of the links that say "Watch full episodes". It'll take you to the start of season two.
Also available is Flash Gordon, Dr Who, Battlestar Galactica, Heroes, both Stargate series, Enterprise, Dresden Files, and some other stuff that doesn't interest me.
The show is like "The Outer Limits" but with every episode set in the same place with the same people. Also with better directing. "The Outer Limits" always seems to put me to sleep. You know how many shows have a certain quality to them that lets you identify the show instantly? Like I can flip on "SG1" and know that it's "SG1" even though the main characters aren't around and the scene is not remotely Stargate-ish. You can turn on "The Outer Limit" and know that's what it is because of some quality to the lighting or general blahness. The story may be great but I'm still gonna nod off. "Eureka" has those good stories but isn't gonna knock you out.
If you're like me and don't have cable you can now watch your favorite Sci-Fi Channel shows without pirating them or waiting for the DVD. For Eureka just go to http://www.scifi.com/eureka/ and click on one of the links that say "Watch full episodes". It'll take you to the start of season two.
Also available is Flash Gordon, Dr Who, Battlestar Galactica, Heroes, both Stargate series, Enterprise, Dresden Files, and some other stuff that doesn't interest me.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Risk
"Never get involved in a land war in Asia" - The Sicilian "Princess Bride"
One of the best ways to furnish your house in DC is to spend some time aimlessly wandering the back streets. You can get a sofa, chairs, TV, lamps, bed frames, kitchen cabinets, window air conditioners, shelves etc. etc. Just leave the mattresses where you see them.
My most recent discovery was a copy of Risk/Castle Risk that someone left out for the taking. They also left out a copy of SceneIt but someone had already looted the DVD out of it.
Risk is a very educational game.
Geography for example. I know that I'd have no idea where Kamchatka is if I hadn't spent so much time invading across the Bering Strait.
You can also learn tactics. Even if you've never heard of Napoleon or Hitler you'll soon understand why Asia makes such a lousy battlefield.
With the right players it reinforces history lessons. "I just spent 25 armies on Vietnam! Why can't I beat them?" "Same reason the French, Americans, and Chinese couldn't keep it, punk."
And statistics... Can my four armies take your three or will your two dice carve up my three?
So when I saw it with a "free" sign on it I grabbed it. After a couple of weeks the weather cooled enough for me to catch the neighbor kids out and about. So I snagged them and we started a game. Their lives are very different than mine at that age so I knew they'd never played before. We only got through a couple of rounds before having to end the game. But the next night we got a four player game going in the middle of the sidewalk.
We started with the fast start method. This is where you deal all the cards and that's how territories are assigned. I had to help them. On a map of the world they couldn't find the United States, they couldn't find Australia, they couldn't find Africa. But by the end of the game they were starting to work out the continents at least.
Tactics were next. I had to spell out for them that by continually attacking until nothing was left they left themselves open to a slaughter. And if you don't want to attack places with a bunch of armies then others won't want to attack you where you have a mass of armies.
My favorite part was watching the twins. They decided early on to work together. But being brothers that didn't last. They were driven to destroy each other while I hunkered in Australia waiting to swarm out and rain death. Charles learned the value of striking at weak points but he always fought until he had nothing left to attack with. This left him open to easy slaughter.
The twins really got into it. I mean, they're just starting 10th grade and can barely read, but they were getting their countries down and really getting into the game. Charles was running around when he wasn't playing and quit when he saw he was gonna lose. So when the twins asked to borrow it I gave it to them. Their siblings and cousins are gonna scatter pieces everywhere and ruin the cards, but until that happens the two of them should be tricked into learning something.
One of the best ways to furnish your house in DC is to spend some time aimlessly wandering the back streets. You can get a sofa, chairs, TV, lamps, bed frames, kitchen cabinets, window air conditioners, shelves etc. etc. Just leave the mattresses where you see them.
My most recent discovery was a copy of Risk/Castle Risk that someone left out for the taking. They also left out a copy of SceneIt but someone had already looted the DVD out of it.
Risk is a very educational game.
Geography for example. I know that I'd have no idea where Kamchatka is if I hadn't spent so much time invading across the Bering Strait.
You can also learn tactics. Even if you've never heard of Napoleon or Hitler you'll soon understand why Asia makes such a lousy battlefield.
With the right players it reinforces history lessons. "I just spent 25 armies on Vietnam! Why can't I beat them?" "Same reason the French, Americans, and Chinese couldn't keep it, punk."
And statistics... Can my four armies take your three or will your two dice carve up my three?
So when I saw it with a "free" sign on it I grabbed it. After a couple of weeks the weather cooled enough for me to catch the neighbor kids out and about. So I snagged them and we started a game. Their lives are very different than mine at that age so I knew they'd never played before. We only got through a couple of rounds before having to end the game. But the next night we got a four player game going in the middle of the sidewalk.
We started with the fast start method. This is where you deal all the cards and that's how territories are assigned. I had to help them. On a map of the world they couldn't find the United States, they couldn't find Australia, they couldn't find Africa. But by the end of the game they were starting to work out the continents at least.
Tactics were next. I had to spell out for them that by continually attacking until nothing was left they left themselves open to a slaughter. And if you don't want to attack places with a bunch of armies then others won't want to attack you where you have a mass of armies.
My favorite part was watching the twins. They decided early on to work together. But being brothers that didn't last. They were driven to destroy each other while I hunkered in Australia waiting to swarm out and rain death. Charles learned the value of striking at weak points but he always fought until he had nothing left to attack with. This left him open to easy slaughter.
The twins really got into it. I mean, they're just starting 10th grade and can barely read, but they were getting their countries down and really getting into the game. Charles was running around when he wasn't playing and quit when he saw he was gonna lose. So when the twins asked to borrow it I gave it to them. Their siblings and cousins are gonna scatter pieces everywhere and ruin the cards, but until that happens the two of them should be tricked into learning something.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Movie Review: Death at a Funeral
Not a well publicized movie, but I've seen a few trailers. It's terribly British.
Basically "Death at a Funeral" is a movie about a funeral where everything goes wrong. And it's directed by Frank Oz (Yoda, Grover, Bert, and a director of fantasies and comedies) It's a two hour version of "Frasier". Things go wrong, people try to hide it, and there's lots of miscommunication making things worse. I loved it.
There were several actors that I vaguely recognized. The only one that I could place was Alan Tudyk who I know best as Wash from "Firefly/Serenity". He spends most of the movie tripping as his fiance gives him some hallucinogens that she thinks are Valium. Much funnier than the guy who was eating mushrooms in "Severence".
The movie opens with the wrong coffin, thus wrong corpse, being delivered to the funeral.
Alan wants to marry into the family but her father hates him so he's freaking out. Thus the need for Valium.
One of the brothers is a famous writer in New York while the other stayed at home to take care of the parents. So there's tension there.
One guy is there just to hit on Alan's fiance.
A midget shows up with proof that the deceased was having a homosexual love affair with him and wants money. They tie him up and give him a handful of "Valium".
Meanwhile Alan is in the bathroom freaking out and then...
You know, this is one of those movies where the discovery is half the fun. I have to give enough away so you'll want to see it, but not so much that I'll ruin it.
I'm not going to get it on DVD right away. Like I said, the unveiling is half the fun. I may get it sometime down the road.
Basically "Death at a Funeral" is a movie about a funeral where everything goes wrong. And it's directed by Frank Oz (Yoda, Grover, Bert, and a director of fantasies and comedies) It's a two hour version of "Frasier". Things go wrong, people try to hide it, and there's lots of miscommunication making things worse. I loved it.
There were several actors that I vaguely recognized. The only one that I could place was Alan Tudyk who I know best as Wash from "Firefly/Serenity". He spends most of the movie tripping as his fiance gives him some hallucinogens that she thinks are Valium. Much funnier than the guy who was eating mushrooms in "Severence".
The movie opens with the wrong coffin, thus wrong corpse, being delivered to the funeral.
Alan wants to marry into the family but her father hates him so he's freaking out. Thus the need for Valium.
One of the brothers is a famous writer in New York while the other stayed at home to take care of the parents. So there's tension there.
One guy is there just to hit on Alan's fiance.
A midget shows up with proof that the deceased was having a homosexual love affair with him and wants money. They tie him up and give him a handful of "Valium".
Meanwhile Alan is in the bathroom freaking out and then...
You know, this is one of those movies where the discovery is half the fun. I have to give enough away so you'll want to see it, but not so much that I'll ruin it.
I'm not going to get it on DVD right away. Like I said, the unveiling is half the fun. I may get it sometime down the road.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Concert review: Weird Al
I don't go to many concerts. They just cost waaaay too much. I once won tickets to an MC Hammer concert. A friend took me to a free concert of a bunch of heavy metal bands. But the only ones I've paid money to see have been Weird Al and Weird Al.
Last night was my second Weird Al concert. The first one was back in Kansas city about seven years ago. It was an outdoor venue, my seat wasn't that good but some better ones were open for me to move too. As the concert was about to being the skies opened and it poured for about an hour. We all moved to shelter and waited. Barely anyone left. I bought an extra ticket with the intent of taking a date. I couldn't find anyone to go with me.
This time was indoors at the Warner Theater in downtown DC. I considered buying a second ticket but didn't since I knew it would go to waste.
Weird Al spends the first third or so of the concert changing outfits between every song. While he changes they show clips from the various TV shows and movies he's either appeared in or been mentioned on. Then he switches to a medley of his less popular songs. Then back to costumes later on. Applaud long enough and he will come back out.
For clips and interviews from AlTV go to http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=Al+TV&hl=en
For "The Saga Begins be brought out Darth Vader and eleven members of the 501st. The 501st. You know, Vader's Fist? STORMTROOPERS! They stood at attention at first but as the song went on you see them start bobbing their heads. By the end they were rockin' out. Vader lit up his light saber and was waving it in the air like a lighter.
During the line "And in the end some gungan's died..." someone shouted "NOT ENOUGH!"
There's enough people who have been to several of his concerts to know how things work. During "Fat" he wears the fat suit. When he jumps the audience is supposed to do a little hop
Part of his encore was a song based on an "interview" with Michael Stipe where they agree to do a duet. Stipe says "Everyone has cellphones. I mean come on" or something to that effect. Al turns it into a song. So everyone brings out their cellphone, makes it glow, and waves it in the air.
Anyway, next time he's in your area you want to go to his concert. There were people there ranging in age from 90-something to only 8.
I'd also pay to see "They Might be Giants" or an "Oingo Boingo" reunion tour.
Last night was my second Weird Al concert. The first one was back in Kansas city about seven years ago. It was an outdoor venue, my seat wasn't that good but some better ones were open for me to move too. As the concert was about to being the skies opened and it poured for about an hour. We all moved to shelter and waited. Barely anyone left. I bought an extra ticket with the intent of taking a date. I couldn't find anyone to go with me.
This time was indoors at the Warner Theater in downtown DC. I considered buying a second ticket but didn't since I knew it would go to waste.
Weird Al spends the first third or so of the concert changing outfits between every song. While he changes they show clips from the various TV shows and movies he's either appeared in or been mentioned on. Then he switches to a medley of his less popular songs. Then back to costumes later on. Applaud long enough and he will come back out.
For clips and interviews from AlTV go to http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=Al+TV&hl=en
For "The Saga Begins be brought out Darth Vader and eleven members of the 501st. The 501st. You know, Vader's Fist? STORMTROOPERS! They stood at attention at first but as the song went on you see them start bobbing their heads. By the end they were rockin' out. Vader lit up his light saber and was waving it in the air like a lighter.
During the line "And in the end some gungan's died..." someone shouted "NOT ENOUGH!"
There's enough people who have been to several of his concerts to know how things work. During "Fat" he wears the fat suit. When he jumps the audience is supposed to do a little hop
Part of his encore was a song based on an "interview" with Michael Stipe where they agree to do a duet. Stipe says "Everyone has cellphones. I mean come on" or something to that effect. Al turns it into a song. So everyone brings out their cellphone, makes it glow, and waves it in the air.
Anyway, next time he's in your area you want to go to his concert. There were people there ranging in age from 90-something to only 8.
I'd also pay to see "They Might be Giants" or an "Oingo Boingo" reunion tour.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Very Large Array of very tiny dishes
If you saw the movie "Contact" then you've seen what's called the "Very Large Array". It's two rows of a few dozen large satellite dishes set at an angle from each other. The dishes work together as a radio telescope. I've been wondering if one could do something similar with a few hundred of the satellite dishes people used to have in their back yards or that TV stations have on the roof.
Looks like Direct TV has a similar idea.
Looks like Direct TV has a similar idea.
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