January 2005 Archives

Every Monday night is Drill Night at Station 6. Members of the company are expected if they are available to come to the station for training and other functions. Tonight was my first night as a member of the company and I got my first opportunity to participate in a drill. After the usual announcements, all officer, firefighters, and fire police went on a very unique tour of a local mall. One of the keys to success in emergency services is knowing the place where you are responding to. A large mall presents challenges since it is a large enclosed area with many corridors and passageways, as well as a large and varied infrastructure - electrical, gas, water and security - to support a variety of stores and restaurants, their employees, and shoppers. One of the line officers conducted the tour, pointing out fire control rooms, fire exits, and entry points. It is amazing how quickly you can get disoriented in white walled corridors that all look alike. By having the entire company actually see where important facilities are located, it will help all of us do our job safely in case we have to do it less optimal conditions. It also gives the company the opportunity to note problems that must be corrected by the mall's management. Fortunately, the mall we toured is well maintained. We now have the added advantage of knowing where things are and procedures to be taken in case we need to respond to a fire or rescue situation.

I just wanted to make sure that anyone who passes by here is aware of the fact that yes, I am proud to be a lifelong member of the Democratic Party. I am tired of those people who claim to be fighting for the party and are doing it for no other reason to lose. Yes, I said lose. These are the people who give up before they even expend the effort. They assume just because the election rolls say that there are fewer registered democrats than republcans. They assume that they can't raise enough money to make a difference. Amazing how these same people are now taking the success of groups like MoveOn.Org, ACT!, and Democracy for America as their idea. Well, my answer to them is that they had no part in the success we experienced in the 2004 Election Cycle. I think it is time for these people to realize that maybe, just maybe we do have a better idea and that yes, we want the Democratic Party to be a party of true inclusion. And, yes, they are still welcome to be a part of the party, but they have to realize that we should all have an attitude of winning rather than losing. We may have lost a Presidential Election in 2004, but it is not the last election. We have to continue with an even higher level of energy to insure that it never happens again. Victory is the only option.

Those words could describe something that goes thump in the night, snakes, that wierd guy that hangs out behind the Wawa, or a hundred other things. In this post, it refers to people who use WordPress and remove the link back to WP and other identifying marks. Call it theft, call it plagerism, call it what you like, but it is slimy. So, why do I care? Because if these jerks (and jerkettes) do this, it fails to acknowledge the hours of hard work by the WP developers as well as all of the users who care enough to participate in the support process on the boards. I do find it humorous how poorly they mask the fact they are using WP. They make it a point to remove the Powered By link at the bottom of the page not by deleting it, but commenting it out. If they do delete it entirely from the pages, they forget to remove it from... well, I think I'll leave that spot out. Suffice it to say, it appears in a number of places other than at the bottom of the page. :-) So, why did I spot this? Well, it is obvious that I do read other blogs, but the reason I found this is because I am tinkering with a new application I am writing that has to do with RSS and, while testing a function of it, I peeked through a number of blogs and noticed this inconsistency. As far as the application goes, I'll write more about it when it matures a bit more.

Yes, I admit it. I am a slave to IM (instant messaging) and I use it far too much. I also have found that it is such a pain to have multiple IM clients running at the same time. I have tried some of the mutli-protocol clients before and in my eyes, they all failed miserably. Well, tonight, while looking for some RSS code, I again stumbled into Jabber land and I am once again going to give several of the Jabber-supported clients a shot. I hope that I find one to my liking. If I don't, I can always uninstall them. More on this later... off to play! :-)

I have yet to figure out or justify this one, but the university's administration says that they some how screwed up in counting the number of days of classes in the semester. So, it decided to give all the students two additional holidays next Tuesday and Wednesday. I find this all rather humorous. When you plan a schedule, you always take into account the number of days and when the schedule should begin and end. At least that is the way you do it in the real world, which I realize in no way resembles the academic one. With my class schedule, this gives me a full week off (my last class was last Thursday and next class is next Thursday) early in the semester. It will give me time to catch up on notes and study, especially Paleontology. Memorizing the Latin names is giving me so much trouble. Mary has a book from one of her education courses that will supposedly help me in this quest. I think I will read it first before scrambling my brain further. I am also in the midst of learning how to use PayPal on several of our web sites. They have provided quite a bit of documentation and an API (application programming interface, for the uninitiated). Problem is that most of the examples are for PHP and I would much prefer to do the work in perl. Also, I picked up PayPal Hacks which has loads of helpful hints and shortcuts for the PayPal merchant. If you use PayPal for fulfillment, this book, like all of the ones from O'Reilly and Associates, is well worth adding to your bookshelf. So, along with getting some laundry done, waiting for the snow (expected this evening), and thinking about what to cook for dinner, I think I just might find a few minutes to relax, too.

No, I did not get rejected for anything. The best way, though, to describe the day I had is in the words of a song by a group called Cyrkle. If you remember them, you are as old as dirt just like me. I kmow it wasn't a summer's day, but it was a good one to just good off.

It's A Turn Down Day    by Cyrkle It's much too groovy a summer's day To waste runnin' round in the city But here on the sand I can dream away Or look at the girls if they're pretty It's a turn-down day Nothin' on my mind It's a turn-down day And I dig it There's nothing easier I can do Than lyin' around doing nothing It's a turn-down day Nothin' on my mind It's a turn-down day And I dig it Soft summer breeze and the surf rolls in To laughter of small children playin' Someone's radio has the news tuned in But nobody cares what he's sayin' It's a turn-down day Nothin' on my mind It's a turn-down day And I dig it Things that are waiting to mess my mind Will just have to wait 'til tomorrow...

And, in answer the obvious question of some, see whatever happened to Cyrkle.

An interesting post today on the APFN bulletin board entitled Microwaving Iraq points out one of the known bad side effects of being exposed to heavy doses of exlectromagnetic radiation. The posting talks about the use of poppers which are small radio devices that transmit on a broad spectrum of frequencies. The intended use is for communications to and from submerged submarines. The use in Iraq, many miles from nearest naval vessel appears to be otherwise.

"The 'poppers' are capable of using a combo of ULF, VLF, UHF and EHF wavelengths in any combination at the same time, sometimes using one as a carrier wave for the others," Hank explains, in a process called superheterodyning. The silent frequencies daily sweeping Fallujah and other trouble spots are the same Navy "freqs that drove whales nuts and made them go astray onto beaches." After powering up the unit, the grunts quickly exit the area. It is their commanders' fervent hope that any male survivors enraged by brutal American bombardments that damaged virtually every building in this once thriving "City of Mosques", displacing a quarter-million residents while murdering thousands of children, women and elders in their homes?will lose all incentive for further resistance and revenge.

PsyOps? Inhumane weaponry? Draw your own conclusion.

Yes, you read the title correctly. CNN is currently reporting that an Oklahoma state senator is trying to revive cockfighting in their state.

An Oklahoma senator hopes to revive cockfighting in the state by putting tiny boxing gloves on the roosters instead of razors. The Oklahoma legislature outlawed the blood sport in 2002 because of its cruelty to the roosters, which are slashed and pecked to death while human spectators bet on the outcome.

2002? Wait a minute... do you mean that cockfighting with sharpened metal objects on their claws was legal into the 21st Century? The article further details that this was reportedly a $100-million a year enterprise. I thought that this blood sport was mostly in back alleys in the US, but it appears that I was wrong. Sad thing is that tiny boxing gloves won't lessen the brutality. It seems like we are further pushing our country and culture back into the Dark Ages. Also, I must admit I am embarrassed by the fact that the politician proposing this law is a democrat. I encourage everyone to write Senator Shurden and tell him what you think of his idea. If you have any doubt that cockfighting is indeed cruelty to animals, stop over to the Oklahoma Coalition Against Cockfighting web site for the facts.

I have finally done something that I always wanted to do but never seemed to have the time. Since retiring and embarking on my second career, I am spending more time closer to home rather than commuting two hours a day and working in town. During the last election cycle, I worked closely with someone who was already a member of our local volunteer fire company. We got to talking about it. I said I was interested. He said that he'd remind after Election Day. He did and right before Christmas, I want to the fire house and filled out an application. At their monthly meeting earlier this evening, I was voted in as a probationary member of the West Whiteland Fire Company Fire Police. Over the next month, I will be taking Fire Police and Hazardous Materials training and getting used to responding to the station when my new constant companion, the Motorola Minitor III, alerts me to a fire or accident call. Fire Police are sworn officers whose main purpose is to provide protection for the firefighters, the victims, the onlookers and the incident scene. Pennsylvania is one of only a handful of states that provide fire police service in their codes. I must say that the firefighters and officers that I have met at Station 6 have made me feel welcome. They are my neighbors and it will be honor to serve with them and to assist our community. Now it is time to get back to studying Structural Geology, listening for the tones on the radio.

When it came to being gay in the military, the code phrase was don't ask, don't tell. With Bush, when it comes to real science, it is don't understand it, don't need it. Hence, the decision by the budget trimmers today to throw away the Hubble Space Telescope.

A White House decision to cut funding for a Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission and dump the observatory into a remote stretch of ocean waters at a future date is sure to incite debate in scientific, engineering and policy-making circles.

Since we can't put a saddle on the Hubble and gallop it off to Mars, the solution is to add a rocket to it to dump it towards Earth.

Sources said the White House plans to scuttle Hubble is part of NASA?s 2006 budget request, with some money in the budget allocated to using a propulsion module coupled to Hubble for its safe but destructive deorbiting.

I guess that they fear that scientists may discover something in deep space that will further show how unintelligent intellegent design is. And, of course, the fight to keep Hubble alive and making new discoveries is just another left-wing conspiracy led by the Democrats. Thanks to Barbara Mikulski, the Democratic Senator from Maryland, we are doing just that.

"It is essential that we have a safe and reliable servicing mission to Hubble," Mikulski said, that is consistent with the findings of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board and last month?s findings of a National Academy of Sciences panel on the Hubble issue. On Dec. 8, in the NAS final report released by the Committee on the Assessment of Options for Extending the Life of the Hubble Space Telescope, a blue-ribbon group of experts said that NASA should reinstate a space shuttle mission to refurbish the Earth-orbiting telescope. "I led the fight to add $300 million to NASA?s budget last year for a Hubble servicing mission, and I plan to lead the fight again this year. This is what the American people expect and deserve," Mikulski said in a statement.

The republicans are probably saying just what does the National Academy of Sciences know about science anyway. We must instead listen to the biblical scientific experts like Dobson and Falwell. I guess they expect to find heaven on Mars. Oh and I am sure that they'll use all the money they are saving on Hubble to fund more faith-based initiatives aimed at curing all those homosexuals. Be sure to check out Space.Com's coverage of this critical issue.

My friend and former co-worker, Arlene, peppered by email box with this choice list today. Pay attention to these sage thoughts and laugh a little, too.

1. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and laxative on the same night.
2. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential,that word would be meetings.
3. There is a very fine line between hobby and mental illness.
4. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.
5. You should not confuse your career with your life.
6. Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.
7. Never lick a steak knife.
8. The most destructive force in the universe is gossip.
9. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.
10. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.
11. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age 21.
12. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that deep down inside, we all believe that we are above average drivers.
13. A person, who is nice to you but rude to a waiter is not a nice person. (This is very important. Pay attention. It never fails.)
14. Your friends love you anyway.
15. Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.
16. Thought for the day: Men are like fine wine... They start out as grapes, and it's up to the women to stomp the crap out of them until they turn into something acceptable to have dinner with.
17. Final thought for the day: There is more money being spent on breast implants and Viagra than on Alzheimer's research. This means that by 2030, there should be a large elderly population with perky boobs and huge erections and absolutely no recollection of what to do with them.

According to a report in the Daily Times in Pakistan:

According to a stunning report posted by a retired Navy Lt Commander and 28-year veteran of the Defense Department (DoD), the Bush administration?s assurance about finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was based on a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) plan to ?plant? WMDs inside the country. Nelda Rogers, the Pentagon whistleblower, claims the plan failed when the secret mission was mistakenly taken out by ?friendly fire?, the Environmentalists Against War report.

Let's see what the Bush Crime Family has to say about this one!

After becoming more actively involved in politics during the 2004 election cycle, I feel like my old seventies voice has been revitalized. If we don't speak out for what is right, no one else is to blame but ourseleves. If we don't do everything that we can to change our world, we can't complain when it goes down the toilet. I have been looking towards the next major statewide election cycle in 2006, one that all of us in Pennsylvania must take very seriously not only in the congressional races but in the senatorial race. We must be successful in sending Santorum back to Virginia where he appears to want to be. After looking at Politics PA's short list last night, I cranked up Macromedia Fireworks and did a little paste and doodle. I know my graphics talents are lacking, but I think this gets my feelings across as to who's hat I think must be thrown into the ring. I think it is time for Philly boy Chris Matthews to kick some neo-con butt! Let the games begin!

Yes, we must start planning for the battle against the incumbent stooge of the Bush Crime Family, the senator from Virginia who thinks he is representing Pennsylania, Rick Santorum. Web sites are already popping up to help in the cause. To start your homework, go over to the short list on Politics PA of democratic possibilities for 2006. My vote right now: Chris Matthews of MSNBC Hardball fame.

It is kind of like the 11th Commandment these days - being envious of those who have a Gmail account. All that juicy storage and you don't have to drop a dime )or a penny for that matter) for it. I have had one since the early days, courtesy of a classmate of mine. I have been waiting patiently (not!) for the day when I would see those magic words appear on the top of my mailbox: Invite Friends to Gmail. Drum roll please! The day has arrived and, after covering those near and dear to me, I still have several invitations left. Yes, not telling how many, but it is less than 10 and more than 1. So, in the spirit of sharing, I am publically offering to share my remaining invites with some lucky people. No, it will not require a 2500-word essay or sending in 3 UPC codes with $2.95 shipping and handling. It will be first come, first served. The catch? Well, not really a catch, but I will queue up the requests by time received and 50% will be given to any of my fellow Philly-area bloggers who request them. It is now 2050 EST. The polls are open and will close when the several invitations are gone. Drop me an email at the address in the graphic above and include the URL of your blog if you have one. From what I have seen with other Gmail giveaways (no, I am not selling them on eBay), it is that they go in heartbeat. So, rattle my email box now! Oh, and while you're here, read my blog, listen to my streams, and, as my good buddy Rick says, share the love.

Snowy days are great days for moving web sites. No real reason to go out and shovel yet since it is still snowing heavily. In the meanwhile, the first of my other web sites that is coming over here is one that has been up for several years under the chescoradio.audio-stream.net domain name. It is now located at metzger.ws/radio. For the uninitiated, the audio streams that are hosted are live fire and rescue radio calls from Chester County, PA and the surrounding counties. It has been a very popular web site especially with volunteer firefighters and EMT's because it enables them to listen in on calls in progress even when they are away from the area. On a day like today, there are numerous calls for vehicle accidents as well as the usual inuries associated with snow removal. If you have never listened before, give it a try. All that is required is software to listen to MP3 streams, such as WinAmp or RealPlayer. And, as always, thanks to the countless volunteers who give their time and energy at fire companies and rescue squads here and around the world.

If you haven't looked out the window (if you are in Eastern Pennsylvania, Northern Delaware and Maryland, and that other state to the east :-)), it is snowing like a son of a gun. I'll put some pictures up later, but I thought it was more important to remind you that if you must go out, watch out for all of those folks on the road who think that by owning an SUV that they automatically know how to drive in winter storm conditions. I learned how to drive in the snow the best way: in a very large empty parking lot in front of Sts Francis and Edward Dorms at La Salle College (now University). Adding snow and a VW Karmann Ghia, you make a run, hit the brakes, and learn how to get out of a skid. Best part was that there were no other vehicles or obstacles to do harm to you or the car. Today, people just think they are Mario Andretti in their 4-ton road monster. Well, since they do it on the TV commercial , so can I. Hello? Didn't you see the fine print at the bottom of the screen: Professional Drivers. Closed Course. Do not attempt this yourself. My advice to you: leave the gas guzzler in the driveway or the garage, and curl up with your favorite person or cat (or both), watch the snow fall peacefully outside your window.

I have amassed an amazing assortment of alphabets (could not resist the use of alliteration) over the years in the form of TrueType and OpenType fonts. I always try to have just that right look for my work in print. I have always found it annoying that I could not be as liberal with fonts in my web work. I tried several of the dynamic font loaders but was never satisfied with the uniformity of the finished page under different browsers. Today, I am working (finally) on the rest of the web site and I wanted something unique for the section headings. Thanks to a tweak from A List Apart, I have replaced the simple text headings on the rest of my web site with stylish ones. They are dynamically generated using PHP and GD magic. The nice part is that I can easily change the font when ever I feel like it . Just upload a new font file, tweak the script, and it is off and running. For many, many site design ideas, A List Apart is a wonderful place to start. Update: I liked them so much that I added them here, too!

Where is Church Lady when we need her?

I do like my new no class on Mondays and Fridays schedule this semester. It gives me time to actually breathe. Granted, I do have classes on Thursday from 9:30 until 20:00, but I have enough breaks in the day now to remove the run from hither to yon feeling I had last semester. My goal today is to get started on typing notes, studying Paleo, and getting ready for the potential blizzard tomorrow. Oh, I said that wrong - let me put my National Weather Service writing style hat on. We are anticipating a significant winter storm this weekend. Yes, that makes it just vague enough in case they goof. :-)

Yes, the blog will be offline until the neo-cons finish their celebration of the further screwing of America. I find it hard to believe while our troops are halfway around the world that they feel that it is proper and fitting to be spending $40 million dollars on a party. I wonder how much body armor that $40 million dollars would buy. Maybe they could spend that $40 million dollars to fill the fuel tanks of transport planes and ships to bring our men and women home to America where they belong.

Well, I have held off for a long time but, in the words of the Borg resistance is futile. Since they are the least intrusive on your viewing experience, I have joined the ranks of many other people and added Google's text ads to my site. Please do not click through out of pity - really, I am not making this entry to start scam clicking or anything else. Seriously, if you do see an advertisement of interest, please do click through. Your help is appreciated. Signing off for the next 24 hours, adding my $0.02 worth to the protests for voter rights and protection of our personal freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution during the coronation ceremonies in Washington.

Over the past several days, there has been a lot of activity on the surface of the sun. As a result of this, NOAA's Space Environment Center is predicting extensive auroral activity. overnight. So, if you are still up and about, keep a look outside towards the northern skies. More information on auroras in general, see:

• Tips on Aurora Prediction and Viewing
• NOAA Aurora Information Paper (PDF) - excellent scientific, but understandable explanation

(via Coast-to-Coast AM)

While listening to Randi Rhodes on the way home from class today, she was going through the litany of protests that will be taking place in Washington and around the country and the world on Coronation Day on Thursday. One effort that has impressed me is the one being done by the ACLU to publicize how our personal liberties continued to be removed from us by a regime that considers the US Constitution a rough draft.. I re-read the account I posted earlier on another blog about harassment of another blogger. I tried to think of some way that I and others who feel it is important for news to be reported and opinions expressed in the blogosphere to inform, educate, and activate. So, I put off studying Geomorphology for an hour, cranked up Fireworks and created a simple graphic. I then designed a single page that will replace my blog for the 24 hours of the Inaugural. The only link on the page will be to the ACLU Take the Pledge page. If you have a blog, I invite you - no, I encourage you to steal the graphics and follow my lead to remind your readers that if the administration proceeds as they plan, they will no longer be able to get the information that you provide to them now.

Being one of those scientists who happen to believe that evolution is not junk science, I find this sticker from OpenStickers quite appropriate in the battle for teaching our students that evolution is not something to be feared, but reality. I have no problem with religion or faith. I do have a problem with the thought that science is out there making sweeping statements that can be disproved by stating who begat who. Stop over to OpenStickers for more designs and support there good work by buying a few. (via LynchMan)

This is one reason (other than the cost) that I do not surf the web on my cell phone:

Finnish anti-virus firm F-Secure has discovered a new worm that targets smart phones. The new worm, dubbed Lasco.A by the firm, targets Symbian Series 60 devices such as the Nokia 7610 and Siemens SX1.

Is no place safe? You bet it isn't. So, raise those shields, Scotty and warp ahead! You can read more about this on MobileBurn. I wish they would event a virus that turns cell phone ringers off in classes, restaurants, theaters, and other places where it isn't appropriate. Oh! I forgot! That's what the human holding the phone is supposed to do... hint, hint... (via the PhillyFuture aggregator) Update: I figured Symantec had something and they do, but only for Palm OS and Windows CE based devices which covers some smart phones.

I cannot believe that I am in the 21st Century. Really, I must be in the 1500's. This article has to be reporting on some medieval event. Women have less talent at the sciences than men? No, I must be reading this wrong:

The president of Harvard University has caused a stir among academics by suggesting women have less "innate ability" at science and maths than men. Former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers argued one group outperformed the other because of genetics, not just experience, the Boston Herald said. Several guests walked out of a conference after hearing the comments. Dr Summers said later that the shortage of senior female academics was partly because of child-minding duties. These would make it difficult to work the 80-hour week needed for advancement. Dr Summers said the theory that men were more naturally able at sciences was based on research, not his own opinions. Boys had achieved more top scores in tests than girls and the difference needed further investigation.

Several guests walked out? I cannot believe that they didn't riot in the aisles. He later issued a statement that people had misconstrued his comments. Sounds more like me Tarzan, you Jane. And it is not just some rogue report from the Beeb, either. CNN, The Guardian, the New York Times, the Independent, and MSNBC. I do find it humorous (and typical) - I am listening to Tony Snow on Faux News Radio (didn't change the channel from Coast-to-Coast AM) and the idiot is agreeing with Summers! You know, boys like to play with trucks and girls like to play with dolls. And he says this is the way it evolved. Sounds more like an intelligent design issue myself - don't even think about saying it was evolution! Let me off this bus of loonies!

Not a good evening on the hardware front - laptop bit the proverbial dust. :-( I am back to using my faster but less portable desktop. I have spent the past 8 hours trying to recreate from backups and reinstall the world. Time to get to sleep - big day ahead with classes and business to be taken care of.

For those of you too young to remember the Reagan Assassination Attempt, when then Secretary of State, Alexander Haig said in the heat of the moment I am in control here. Secretary Haig had forgotten that then Vice President George H. W. Bush was next in the line of succession. On CNN this morning in an interview with Wolf Blitzer, Norman Ornstein from the American Enterprise Institute said that we should all remember that at noon on Thursday, all three branches of our government will be sitting or standing in one, very vulnerable spot on the east side of the US Capitol building. With one act of terrorism, the entire human basis for our form of government could be killed or crippled. Yes, it is on this day every member of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Executive Branch are assembled to witness the coronation. One of my favorite questions was posed by Dr Ornstein: What if? Yes, what if such a horrific act took place. His article in the New Republic points out the potential scenarios when the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 cannot be fulfilled. Alex Haig should stay home and watch the festivities of January 20th on Faux News just in case he is called upon again to take charge, another very scary thought.

I have been avoiding this day like the plague. Well, not really, but I have grown accustom to using M$IE because of toolbars and right-clicks. I have decided to give Firefox a more serious try. Why? Because it is slimmer, faster, and I am tired of looking at the same old, same old browser window look. So, the evening's exercise: install, customize, and see how it works! Oh, and if you haven't tried it yet, click the cute little icon above so I can get some points. :-)

It has been rather busy around here the past two days. Cleaning up the remnants of Christmas, bringing a new web site (including blog) online, and studying are just a part of it. Add email, phone calls, sleeping (yes, still required), and feeding the cat. On top of this, we are attempting to get a bit more organized with our business. We are in need of a tool to keep track of projects and items we are working on alone or together. So, I went to Sourceforge to see if there were any turn-key open source solutions. My general reaction was one of disappointment. I actually installed several groupware projects and my first reaction to most was simple: lots of fluff. Having been in the IT world for 30+ years, I was singularly unimpressed with what is being developed in the open source world in this area. Yes, they have calendars, to-do lists, project management, and CRM's. The problem in general is in their user interfaces. Really, I do not want 600+ tiny icons loaded (and reloaded) on every flipping page. Sure, it is cute to have a 600KB picture of a surfer going over a killer wave, but not on the top of every window. Hello? Where did functionality go? I love to have a nice background on my desktop, but I don't reload it every time I open a new program. After installing and testing one of them for 30 minutes, I looked at my server traffic figures. I used more bandwidth in a half hour than was used by the server as a whole for the entire week. So I changed to what was termed a "simple" layout. Yeah, it only had 300 tiny icons instead and the color scheme was white on black. It looks like I need to go either buy a package or write one myself. Or resort to pencil and paper.

The first pictures are just coming in from Cassini-Huygens mission to Titan and they are spectacular and very curious from a geological point of view. Rocks! The interesting part is it looks to me with even my limited hydrogeology training that we are seeing a dry stream bed of some kind. The rocks appear sorted which you commonly see in a creek. I did read an early science release where they are alluding to streams of methane. This is going to be major news, as well as a wealth of work for geologists world-wide.

MSNBC is now reporting a huge avalanche at a Park City, Utah ski resort.

An avalanche crashed down a 300-yard-wide swath of mountain near a ski slope at the popular Canyons resort on Friday, trapping as many as 15 skiers under snow, according to local reports. Rescue teams and dogs were searching for the skiers, who were in an area off-limits to them.

When will it end? The weather is going absolutely crazy at the start of 2005. Yesterday, it was shorts weather here at nearly 70 degrees while today, the temperature is hovering just above freezing.

When I started this semester, I thought that my more painful than surgery with anesthesia class was going to be Structural Geology. I was wrong. I am actually enjoying Structural (so far). The course from hell is now officially Paleontology. The professor is outstanding with a great sense of humor - no problem there. The problem is with the ways that paleontologists go to great distraction to make the names as bizarre and confusing as possible. I know there is a definite system to it all, just like the naming of rocks and minerals and all things scientific. Steve gave us the best way to do it: memorize, memorize, memorize. So, tomorrow morning, my classmate/cohort in crime, Jason (alias Eduardo Hernandez - you have to be there to understand this) are starting our quest to make sure that we know the difference between a fossil Gastropod Mollusk (on the left above) and a fossil Dinoflagellate (on the right above).

If you were not involved in the 2004 Election Cycle in Chester County, you are probably asking yourself who the heck is Lani Frank. If you were involved, you probably know of her, have talked to her, or, like me, fought actively in the trenches along side her. Earlier this year, on the weekend of the release of Michael Moore's documentary, Fahrenheit 911, Lani was where most democrats were: at a local movie theater seeing the movie. Lani, as always, had a packet of voter registration cards with her and, as usual, offered them to anyone, democrat, independent, or even republican. Her belief, like so many of us, is that it is a requirement to participate in America's democracy. She was not carrying a sign or banner (on this occasion) nor proselytizing the cause of the Democratic Party. No, she was just offering cards to anyone who needed one. When asked by the theater's management to stop passing them out inside the theater, she did, moving to the large open parking lot, shared with a shopping center complex. She continued to offer them to any and all takers in what she thought was public property. What she was greeted with were several Pennsylvania State Troopers. In response to her persistent questions of the troopers as to whether or not it was public property, she was arrested, hand-cuffed, and treated to an evening at the local barracks. When the case came to trial, she was found guilty. Not satisfied that she was guilty of criminal act, she appealed the verdict and, today, she was found not guilty of any charges. Like so many who worked long, hard hours this past year, we are all pleased that Lani has been exonerated as well as saddened that it took so long. If it were not for people like Lani, we would not have seen the ranks of registered Democratic voters swell to nearly 100,000 strong in a county where I used to think I was just about the only Democrat. Congratulations, Lani, on showing all of us that not only is it important to insure democracy in America, but that the system can and does work.

There is something very wrong with this picture - see if you can find it. From Yahoo! News, Tennessee will be giving the heave-ho to 323,000 adults from Medicaid.

Gov. Phil Bredesen announced Monday that he will drop 323,000 adults from the state's expanded Medicaid program to save about $1.7 billion a year, but will preserve health coverage for children.

Isn't that special! The children will have health coverage, but their parents, older siblings, and relatives can get sick, become disabled, and die. So, who will take care of them? Oh, I guess the orphanages and child-care agencies that will cost far more than $1.7 billion per year. Also from Yahoo! News, Laura Bush has decided that Oscar de la Renta will create her ball gown for the Inaugural Ball.

The full-length wrap gown that Laura Bush intends to wear to the inaugural ball will be classic and elegant but "with a touch of shimmer and shine," according to designer Oscar de la Renta. De la Renta plans to go to Washington to the swearing-in ceremony. "I'll try to look my very best for the very important occasion," he said.

Isn't that special! While Americans are unemployed or underemployed, lacking good schools, and uninsured, the Bush Crime Family will be dancing in style at an affair paid for by the petrochemical and pharmaceutical industries. I wonder if Gov. Bredesen's spouse will have a new ball gown, too. To all of you in Tennessee who voted for Bush and now no longer have Medicaid: still think you did the right thing? I didn't think so. (Special thanks to my fellow progressive communicator, SearsOven, for this tip)

Well, I guess that right-wing-nut pundit, Rush Limbaugh is involved with the defense team in this court martial trial. He likened the horrors of prisoner treatment at Abu Ghraib to a fraternity prank. Seems like the defense attorneys are taking the same tactical move.

A lawyer for Charles Graner, the accused ringleader in the Iraq prisoner abuse scandal, has compared piling naked prisoners into pyramids to cheerleader shows and says leashing inmates was also acceptable prisoner control. "Don't cheerleaders all over America form pyramids six to eight times a year. Is that torture?" Graner's lawyer, Guy Womack, said in opening arguments to the 10-member US military jury at the reservist sergeant's court-martial.

No, idiot, it is not the same. That is unless you let your teenage child perform such stunts naked at gun point in a military prison. I think they need to reevaluate their own moral base on this one. As far as leashing goes, I find it offensive when a parent does that to a youngster in a mall or on a walk. Hello? Try holding their hand. Sometimes I just think that everyone in this world is trying to take the easy way out rather than just making a little extra effort to, as my buddy Rick says, to share the love. Oh, that's right, the leash makes it easier to drink your double chocolate mocha delight while talking on your cell phone. God forbid that you share some quality time with your child. Makes me mad... Editor's Note - Yes, I do like the Australian ABC news outlet. It seems as though they don't have to worry about the Bush Crime Family taking them off-the-air so they tell it like it is. Well written news reporting and commentary can be found on their web site. I am also learning a bit more about cricket (the field sport, not the insect or the dart game or the airplane or the magazine or the automobile).

I had to think of some witticism to describe the beginning of the first week of the Winter/Spring Semester at WCU as well as include other affairs of the world around me. Actually, my classes do not being until tomorrow, but I went down to campus today to get started on what my research for the semester is going to be. So, I spent a good part of my afternoon with my course and research advisor. I have had Tim for two classes so far (Geochemistry and Environmental Geology) and have him for another (Humans and the Environment) this semester. It has been greatly due to his teaching and influence that I think my graduate concentration will be in the Environmental wing of the Earth Sciences. We went through the usual search for what I was interested in (everything!) and discussed some ideas that he had as a result of my interests and goals. As a starting point, I will be working on a dynamic model of a reservoir. To do this, I will be using a systems model building package called Stella. More on this as the semester progresses. Now, I have to read the first chapter in Structural Geology. Best to be prepared, I say.

Sorry for the title, but it is true! Scientists have detected a massive space explosion that is part of an eruption that has occurring for over 100,000,000 years.

Scientists believe that this black hole is a relatively recent phenomena. This event was caused by gravitational energy release, as enormous amounts of matter fell toward a black hole. Most of the matter was swallowed, but some of it was violently ejected before being captured by the black hole. "I was stunned to find that a mass of about 300 million suns was swallowed," said Brian McNamara of Ohio University, lead author of a study on the discovery published in the latest issue of Nature.

When you consider that the galaxy where it is being observed is 2.6 billion light years (over 1.5x10²² miles away) away, this event happened when there was little life on the earth and we are just now observing what happened. It is things like this that just make me sit in awe of our universe and the great expanse of it that we can now observe.

According to an editorial in India Daily, both China and India have knowledge of an underground UFO base, supposedly buried in a tectonic plate boundary in the counties' border in the Himalayas.

According to the few locals people on the Indian and Chinese side, this is where the UFOs are seen coming out of the ground, According to many, the UFO underground bases are in this region and both the Indian and Chinese Government know this very well.

Art Bell reported this news on Coast-to-Coast AM a few moments ago. I am sure he and George Noory will be hunting down this one in future shows.

Installing a new plug-in... testing... more when it works (or doesn't)... Update: works super! It appears on the bottom of the page (scroll on down) and gives you a rough chronology of the time of day that I have posted over the past 30 days. Created simply by using the Blogtimes plug-in for WordPress.

In comparison to the great earthquake in December, the earthquake today in Sumatra was much smaller at only a magnitude of 6.2. Again, no tsunami affects to the Pacific Ocean Islands since it occurred in the Indian Ocean. It appears from all preliminary evaluation by the USGS that there was no tsunami generated from this event.

I guess if I owned an iPod that I would be impressed with iTunes. 20MB download (including the latest nagware version of Quicktime) and what do you get? Another WinAmp wannabe. Sorry all you Apple fans out there, but I am singularly unimpressed with it. Probably because I am using Windows? Maybe, but I wouldn't hold my breath. I have no desire to purchase music online and I do not have a portable music device (yet). I can use other tools to burn CD's and even I don't do that very often. Am I missing something? If so, please let me know. Back to coding, listening to DayGloRadio using WinAmp.

While I should be working on another web site or better yet, reading some of the pile of textbooks I bought for classes this coming semester, I am instead being vain. Yes, I admit it. I was traveling through the support forums at WP and got off on a tangential surf and found yet another 80x15 button maker that has a nifty feature of enabling you to include a picture. I know it's tiny, but it is me. :-) (via WordPress Reference Center - other interesting things there - worth a trip!)

I am sure this will make me public enemy #1, but I have to share this. Yes, I do use MSIE 99-44/100% of the time. Yes, I do view my sites using other browsers such as FireFox and Opera to insure interoperability. I find it rather offensive, though, when a web bigot decides that her/his web site cannot be viewed using MSIE (it could) and flops you off to an automated download of another browser. That is just juvenile behavior. I won't link to the web site, even though it had some very interesting software (for Macs only unfortunately) and noteworthy commentary. The most humorous thing, however, was not the childish prank, but rather her/his web site. Since I do have a copy of FireFox (which I like, but does not have a number of facilities that I use constantly that work only with MSIE), I viewed that web site and it looked worse under FireFox. In fact, she/he was coding some special characters using the HTML Coded Character Set - those funny &# followed by a number and a semi-colon strings used to get curly quotes and such - and FireFox choked the chicken on them. FireFox is nice but still developing. I have a copy, I test with it, I don't use it as my primary browser. Maybe someday I will, but not today.

It seems rather strange to me the morality that the multi-million dollar business eBay embraces. Personally, I rarely go to this web site. The words caveat emptor reverberate in my brain when it comes to the online hucksters on there. I was scanning CNN this morning an came across this article about how the parents of an extremely ill boy were running an auction on eBay to raise money for his cancer treatments. eBay pulled the auction, as is their right:

EBay closed the original auction Wednesday, citing numerous rules violations. Spokesman Hani Durzy said auctioneers are not allowed to advertise that money for their items will go toward a cause. The family amended the ad and had a new version up and running the same day.

Change a few words and it gets past them. My problem lies in how eBay administers their policy. I am sure somewhere buried in its terms of service they are very explicit about what can and cannot be sold. I just find it sad that they have picked on a couple of parents trying to make ends meet while coping with the reality of a child with cancer. Still, eBay allows the selling of used (and autographed, no less) underwear, personalized pornography, and other less savory items without censure. I guess there must be a market for it and I am sure they do not mind collecting their portion of the proceeds. Go figure.

I remember back in college the first time around that books were expensive, but this is ridiculous! I spent half-a-grand on four courses, only to pass through the Geology Department on the way home to find out I still needed one more book. Another $80 or so. I haven't even started with the school supplies list. It found something funny, too, in the course of this mandatory spending spree. I thought that maybe I could find my books cheaper online. So, off I go to Barnes & Noble and, yes, I could chip away a few bucks if I wanted to pay top dollar for brand new ones. That wasn't the humorous part. I found one of my required texts in two separate and distinct flavors of the same edition. One was the usual $105 while the other was only $45! Strange. Same number of pages and both included a CD. One, though, was marked textbook edition. Aha! Screw the college student (or her/his parents) with a premium price. Actually, from what I have learned, they are passing the additional cost on for things like answer guides for the instructor. Hello? If someone is teaching the course, shouldn't they be able to answer all the questions perfectly? Add to that the pre-made PowerPoint presentations and overhead transparencies, again, for the teacher. Don't they have to pay for their supplementary materials? So, as a part of this on-going investigation, I am going to stop by Barnes and Noble, order both versions of the text, and compare them in the store. Nice thing about B&N - you can look at books ordered, decide if you want them or not, and they don't even care if you say Nevermind. I'll report back my results. Back to work on a WYSIWYG editor I am installing in a new web site.

The honorable senator from California, Barbara Boxer, is my hero and the hero of every honest American today. She is on national television right now standing up for our rights as Americans to vote for the President of the United States. What a concept! Maybe some day we'll be elevated to the level of the citizens of the Ukraine.

It angers me that I just received an email from John Kerry (as penned by some staffer) saying that he won't be in the Halls of Congress tomorrow for the certification of the Electoral Votes. It angers me more that there probably won't be one single US Senator who will stand by the members of the House who choose to challenge the corruption of the elections just past. Another sad day for the real America.

The semantics folks at Princeton define friend as someone you know well and regard with affection and trust. Quite a bit earlier today, I sent out a note to a number of people who I truly consider friends concerning a recent discourse regarding a mutual topic of interest. I couldn't sleep. I woke up at 5 AM today (still on Winter Break, no reason to get up) with the words that have been flying back and forth in my mind. I was so frustrated, not with these good people, but with the reasons why we were even having these discussions. So, putting fingers to keys, I made an attempt to put the whole issue we were discussing into perspective and show how we were getting away from our ultimate goal by getting bogged down in being politically correct. I like how WordNet goes on to explain this term:

[The] avoidance of expressions or actions that can be perceived to exclude or marginalize or insult people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against. [That is] correctness [equates to] conformity to social expectations.

Interesting point since, without going into the details of our debates, we were avoiding a term that tends not to discriminate against anyone but ourselves. I think my message to the people struck the right chord since the response has been overwhelmingly positive. It was worth losing some sleep.

Another open source project, possibly the biggest, biting the dust? According to Malik, Six Apart is set to buy Live Journal. So, if you want the source for LJ, grab it while you can. I know a number of folks who are still using MT and are running 2.x. My word to them: WordPress. The blog monopolies are forming. I wonder when the DOJ will start busting them up. Not as long as the Bushies control Washington? Well, the GOP had a rough time with the blogosphere this past election cycle. They may just get their new Attorney General to have at it with them.

Folks have been predicting a big year for mergers and acquisitions in 2005, and we are starting the year with a bang. I have learnt [sic] exclusively that Six Apart, the parent company behind hosted blogging service TypePad, and Moveable Type is about to acquire Live Journal, for an undisclosed amount.

Seriously, congrats to Six Apart - they are living the American Dream to the fullest and, unlike the Bushies, not making life worse for anyone. (via Waxy)

This is going to be must see TV. On Thursday at 1 PM Eastern Time (you now how no excuse for saying I thought it was Friday at 2), C-SPAN (on satellite and cable), C-SPAN Radio (local to DC and on XM and Sirius), and live from their web site will be broadcasting live the Electoral College Ballot Count during a Joint Session of Congress. It is time to see if any US Senators will step up to the challenge of being a hero to the American Public and challenge the certification of a Presidential Election that is fraught with questions about black box voting and denying citizens the right to vote. Let's see who steps up to the challenge.

I always complain about the speed of my laptop and I have no one to blame but myself. Sure, I'd like to add another gig or so of RAM, but the pockets are full of lint rather than dead presidents so it will have to wait. I do like desktop gadgets, like the one I am running now, Sysmetrix. It runs nicely except if I add too many animated text widgets to it. I went off and looked at a few shell modification programs. I downloaded several that were either free or relatively cheap. I installed two of them, DesktopX and GeoShell, which I will not link to in this entry. Why? GeoShell was bare bones and a pain to configure. Uninstalled it within 10 minutes. DesktopX, while being really slick and full-featured, is a CPU hog, using anywhere between 40% and 80% of CPU capacity. Even with a bare bones widget set (calendar and CPU/network monitor) it still stole over 35% of CPU capacity. Uninstalled it within 30 minutes. Bottom line: I'll live with the W2K toolbar's ugly color, dress up my desktop with some nice wallpaper, and use Sysmetrix and Rainlendar with nice skins. I also have Rainmeter installed and I want to play some more with configuring it as well. Nice thing is that these products are free, frequently upgraded, and there are lots of skins available as starting points for customizing.

What a concept! Came across the Archinect web site. Their theme: making architecture more connected. Within the web site, they have a School Blog Project where there are selected students from architecture programs across the US and Europe blogging about their schools and their programs. If I were considering studying architecture, this would be a simply super way to get a glimpse into a variety of programs.

We have recruited representatives from a collection of architecture programs around the world to maintain blogs documenting their experiences and discoveries from each institution during the fall 2004 semester. The goal of this unprecedented endeavor is to provide a voyeuristic view into the environments of some of the most intriguing academic institutions for architecture.

You know, I think this would be a great idea for other disciplines, too. Hmmm... thinking cap on, smoke emanating from it... (via Bryan Boyer's blog - he's a student at Harvard's GSD)

I hope to be the first in the blogosphere to note that on Countdown on MSNBC while showing an amateur video of the tsunami let the f-word slip without a bleep (as in f-ing a!). Keith gave an "oops" after the video was over! I can see Michael Powell attacking with fangs a-blazing!

No, not pyrotechnics, but rather the graphics produced using Macromedia Fireworks. I feel that I have a major lack of artistic talent especially when it comes to colors and such. I have as one of my winter break goals to at least gain a comfort level building basic graphics. So, you will start to see the results of this exercise right here. First ones are the masthead and the menu top graphics. Comments, please. Just remember that I am just learning... Update: On a roll! Tinkering with the sidebar, too. I have to delve into the WP code to fix some of them. The challenge continues!

I spent the day and evening coding a new standardized Apache error handler routine. I detest the out-of-the-box error pages as well as scanning access and error files manually. I also like to know about unexpected or unauthorized events as close to real time as possible. I usually manually code the error pages but these days my priority is learning about hydraulic head and hematite rather than cutting HTML. So I built a standard routine in perl that I can (and did) drop into all of our web sites. When the proper trigger condition is hit, it fires back an error page and, if it is bad enough, fires off an email message and an instant message to me. It works nicely since I also built in a filter for those pesky comment and ping spammers. I send their referral right back at them, jamming the traffic right up their... well, you get the idea :-).

If you watch my listening to banner at the top of the page, you will discover that I listen to a very strange brew of tunes. It sometimes matches my mood, a regularly scheduled listening habit (like Coast-to-Coast AM), or what I am coding. Seriously, I code perl, HTML, and other things to particular styles of music, fast beat for got to do now projects to slower songs for sit and think about how to do this programming. Today, I have been floating around the Internet music scene to find the just the right mix and I happened upon 2 Cooks (don't bother, the web site is just a front page now). She/he/they have put together a nice 160 kbps stream of high energy disco, funk, and 80's music. Give them a listen - the only way to find them at the moment is to open your WinAmp streaming list and search for (you guessed it) "2 cooks". Update: Their stream header says they're testing and I guess they are because the stream and web site are offline. Just when I was enjoying it, too. Hopefully, they'll be back real soon.

If you notice my listening to box above, it quite frequently changes not only song, but style of music and station. I frequently surf WinAmp's Internet Radio selections, looking for something new. Tonight, I noticed several dozen streams with little or no identification information. So, I clicked several of them to find out what was playing. Asian-language rap music, strange new world themes, euro, and some Russian dance numbers. Snooping a little further, I found that the streams were originating from an Internet radio broadcaster in Korea. I find it so interesting that on a web site which is 100% in Korean that most of the heading graphics are in English. I couldn't resist snagging the partial screen view shown here which represents a bit of fractured English. I remembered seeing a web site all about this phenomenon a while back and just found it again. Engrish.com is a showplace for some very funny (and sometimes rude) fracturing of the English language. Actually, I am sure that if we would even attempt to speak Japanese (or any foreign language for that matter), we would probably make similar errors that native speakers would find humorous or embarrassing. One link I found out this site, though, is funny in any language. I know that our cat would be horrified by what this store thinks you should do to make your feline friend happy.

Dress her up. Cheer or yell, do whatever you like to enjoy the moment with your family. After you are enough with your joy, take a photo! Take some poses and leave her some cute photos! Remove her clothes and give her a hub, say "Thank you!"

Update! I think I figured out where most of the Engrish probably comes from on the web today. It is probably produced by automated language translators like Altavista's Babel Fish. I tried a little experiment using the first few sentences of this post:

If you notice my listening to box above, it quite frequently changes not only song, but style of music and station. I frequently surf WinAmp's Internet Radio selections, looking for something new. Tonight, I noticed several dozen streams with little or no identification information. So, I clicked several of them to find out what was playing.

and asking for it to be translated into Japanese: I then cut-and-paste that into the translate box and asked for it to be translated into English:

If the