Today Craig called me to say he wasn't going to make it to work. The conversation was sort of surreal...
Hey, it's me. I wanted to let you know I had an accident while I was rock climbing today. I'm on the way to the hospital now...
Only later did I find out a rock had fallen, hit a ledge, and sliced his leg to ribbons. The cut was deep enough that you could see muscle tissue, and when he called back later (doped up on morphine) he said the muscle was actually hanging out of the cut at one point. Coooool.
Anyway, the good news is he's going to be okay. I think he was secretly looking for an excuse to have a long weekend (combined with the holiday next week, he'll score five days off).
06/30/2006 1:55pm
So Tuesday the NRO launched its latest super-secret spy satellite. Here's a snippet from an AP article:
VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. - A classified satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office was launched into space Tuesday night aboard a Boeing Delta 4 rocket. The purpose of the mission was not revealed.
It was not immediately known whether the satellite entered its planned orbit. Calls to the NRO were not immediately returned late Tuesday.
It's funny that some reporter would call the NRO to ask about it. One can just imagine how that conversation would have gone:
NRO: Hello, National Reconnaissance Office.
Reporter: Hello, I'm a reporter.
NRO: Splendid! How can we help you?
Reporter: I'm just wondering about that super-secret satellite you launched...
NRO: Yes?
Reporter: Did it enter its planned orbit?
NRO: You bet. Everything's working great.
Reporter: Can you tell me what the satellite actually does?
(pause)
Reporter: Hello?
06/29/2006 4:53pm
Here's an awesome Unix-geek shirt:
06/28/2006 1:02pm
One wonders whether the photographer of this prom couple intentionally placed those flags.
06/27/2006 11:49pm
Speaking of desecrating the flag, here's a great little picture of Bush autographing one:
06/27/2006 11:39pm
Thankfully, the Flag Desecration Amendment failed. Thirty-four patriotic Senators voted against the amendment, sending it to the showers for at least another year.
A couple of interesting quotes from the closing debate. First is Senator Bill Frist:
Countless men and women have died defending that flag. It is but a small humble act for us to defend it.
And then Senator Daniel Inouye:
Our country is unique because our dissidents have a voice. While I take offense at disrespect to the flag, I nonetheless believe it is my continued duty as a veteran, as an American citizen, and as a United States Senator to defend the Constitutional right of protesters to use the flag in nonviolent speech.
Amen, Senator. I should note that Inouye lost his right arm in combat during World War II and was later awarded the Medal of Honor. A patriot indeed.
06/27/2006 5:15pm
Our trampoline is falling apart.
After seven years or so, some of the springs are tearing out of the fabric. Once a few of them go, the strain on their neighbors is too high and a ripple effect takes out the rest of the rim. So we've told the kids not to jump on it until we can get it fixed (which may involve buying a new mat).
The funny side effect of this is we haven't had an army of neighborhood kids in our back yard for the past few days. The trampoline is typically the center of their games-- they're bouncing on it, playing dodgeball, sitting under it in the shade, or just sitting atop it having a popsicle and talking about whatever kids their age do. Without it, I guess they don't have much to do.
I still maintain it was the best $200 we ever spent. Hopefully we'll fix it soon.
06/27/2006 4:24pm
My friend Derek quoted an article in the National Review that condemned the New York Times for "exposing" the SWIFT monitoring program. I wrote him a lengthy response, some of which I've included here...
When the Gov says certain things-- like monitoring banking transactions, in this case-- should be secret, I roll my eyes. Anyone with the brains of cabbage would realize by now that the feds have been watching money flowing around the world. To prove my point, I actually did some (take a deep breath) research. In December 2002 the United Nations released a report containing this paragraph:
The settlement of international transactions is usually handled through correspondent banking relationships or large-value message and payment systems, such as the SWIFT, Fedwire or CHIPS systems in the United States of America. Such international clearance centres are critical to processing international banking transactions and are rich with payment information. The United States has begun to apply new monitoring techniques to spot and verify suspicious transactions.
Other groups, ranging from Taliban monitoring agencies to MIT graduate students, have either postulated that the U.S. was watching SWIFT, or had ample evidence that it was actually happening. In this sense, the expose by the Times (and other newspapers) wasn't revelational or even that surprising. Consider Bush himself, who said this while campaigning in 2004:
Before September the 11th, law enforcement could more easily obtain business and financial records of white-collar criminals than of suspected terrorists. See, part of the way to make sure that we catch terrorists is we chase money trails.
This was part of a rah-rah speech about the PATRIOT Act, and he all but told the terrorists he was watching their money. Two days ago, he said the Times article did "great harm" to the U.S. Doesn't it seem to be a bit of a double standard for Bush to talk about tracking money, but for him to condemn a reporter for doing the same?
Some of the criticism being leveled at the Times and Co. has been that the articles they've been publishing-- the SWIFT one as well as the past wiretapping exercise and others-- are somehow aiding the terrorists by telling them what the U.S. is watching. Give me a break. I'm sure there are dumb terrorists in the world, but the smart ones already knew things like phone calls and banking transactions were being monitored. At a minimum they realize that even if they aren't being actively watched, the Gov can swoop in at any time and demand records. We've seen how THAT turns out, to the great shame of several telecommunications companies.
The National Review article mentions:
When he blows secrets, Keller gets more attention-- and presumably more business-- for his newspaper.
I won't argue that. There's undoubtably a financial motive for the Times' publication of articles like these. But I'd like to believe there's also another motive: exposing the truth for public comment. That's an integral part of democracy-- transparency of the government, so the people can understand (and have healthy debate) about what is or isn't being done on their behalf. Remember always that the government exists to serve the people, not the other way around. There SHOULD be accountability for breaches of privacy, for sidestepping the law, for pursuing questionable agendas. To believe that the Gov is always right, and will always pursue its plans with our best interests in mind, is mind-bogglingly obtuse.
Allow me to quote Thomas Jefferson:
Our first object should therefore be, to leave open all the avenues of truth. The most effectual hitherto found is freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions.
He, as well as the other framers of the Constitution, WANTED the press to investigate the government. It was clearly the intent of the First Amendment to allow the press to always distrust the Gov, and vice versa, because only through this mutual dog-fighting does the system maintain balance. If the Gov was allowed to pursue things in complete secrecy, there would be no accountability and there would be no limit on the possibility of abuse. And again I maintain that to believe the government would not abuse its power is obtuse.
Here's another Jefferson line:
... In choosing government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter.
Recall that he and his compatriots were designing the American government specifically to avoid the abuses the British government had levied upon them. They WANTED, very much, for the government to have a system of checks and balances-- and even more checks and balances outside the government (i.e., the press). It is a telling sign that the Bush administration and their apologists want to remove the freedom of the press in cases like this because they fear that too much is being exposed.
The closing of the National Review article includes this:
The reporters who wrote about it, Eric Lichtblau and James Risen, should be subpoenaed, and if they refuse to reveal their sources, they should go to jail.
To me, this is the very antithesis of a free press. To imprison a journalist for telling the truth-- particularly on a matter of public concern and one that isn't terribly secret-- is taking a step into dangerous territory. It's saying the government can do whatever it wants, without question or oversight, and those who dare to stand up and ask should be locked away.
I for one don't trust my government. At all. And to those who do, I say they should examine very closely the events of the past four years, thinking about the abuses we've learned about as well as those which are doubtless happening now but cloaked in secrecy. We need more exposes; we need more reporters like those at the Times.
06/27/2006 3:37pm
I found this awesome set of images to compare Earth with other celestial objects. Too bad I didn't have this a few months ago when Laralee and I taught the second-graders about the solar system-- it helps put things in perspective.
06/26/2006 1:11pm
In a move that probably shocked no one, the New York Times has now been labeled "disgraceful" and "treasonous" because they dared to expose yet another secret spying operation launched by the Bush administration. Rep. Peter King, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told the Associated Press that the Times should not have reported on the SWIFT database snooping that's been happening for the past four and a half years. Bush also condemned the report, using such wise words as:
We're at war with a bunch of people who want to hurt the United States of America. For people to leak that program, and for a newspaper to publish it, does great harm to the United States of America... it makes it harder to win the war on terrorism.
Apparently he is still under the deluded impression we can ever "win" a war against an ideology, not to mention his tired but oft-used reference to mysterious Bad Guys who are looking to hurt us. He continues to believe he has infinite jurisdiction in private transactions as long as it's being done "to fight the terr'ists".
I always thought we had a free press specifically so the government can't run roughshod over everything-- it's just another piece of the checks and balances that keep our country from becoming a fascist police state.
Just another step... we're getting closer.
06/26/2006 12:46pm
"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."
-- Thomas Jefferson
06/24/2006 10:38am
Apparently the Bush administration is (slowly) realizing that the words "al Qaeda" no longer inspire the thrilling fear they once did. People aren't being hoodwinked by Bush and his cronies waving the Nine Eleven Flag, chanting "terrorism" at every turn, and justifying their growing list of abuses of power and privacy by saying it's all to protect us from al Qaeda.
So, looking for a new scare tactic, we see people like Attorney General Gonzales talking about "domestic terrorists". In a news conference yesterday, he mentioned that domestic terrorists could become as big a threat as al Qaeda. Thus, we need to be vigilant and diligent and give up a couple more freedoms along the way... because our next-door neighbors could be terrorists! Or our kids' teachers! Or the guy next to us at the stoplight!
Only a fool would believe all terrorists come from other countries or are card-carrying members of al Qaeda. Obviously there are terrorists living amongst us, and there have been since long before 9/11. But it's funny (not in a "ha ha" sort of way, though) that the Bush administration is now turning its propaganda machine in that direction, because the specter of the dreaded al Qaeda doesn't conjure up the same horror.
06/21/2006 4:29pm
Straight from the Associated Press comes this article about a thief who wanted to participate in this year's Darwin Awards:
Officials in Reading PA say a man was electrocuted on Tuesday, apparently while trying to steal what he probably thought was copper wire from atop a 50-foot utility pole.
Fire Chief William Rehr says employee found the victim, 33-year-old Samuel Ortiz-Valle, about 15 feet from the base of the Met-Ed pole at Cambridge Lee Industries Incorporated. Police Captain Francis Drexler says a pair of wire cutters was found next to the body, leading investigators to believe that Ortiz-Valle intended to cut down the wires to resell as scrap metal.
Note to self: don't steal copper if it's fifty feet above the ground.
06/21/2006 3:38pm
Those of you using Dell laptops (like me) should know about the Exploding Laptop caught on camera at a Japanese conference this week. Yikes.
Virtually every prediction the President and his followers made about this war has proven to be false, while virtually every prediction made by war opponents has proven to be true. The President and his followers controlled every part of this war with an iron fist, ignoring anything which their political opponents said and insisting on the right to exert full-scale, undiluted control over it. And now it has failed, and it’s everyone’s fault except theirs.
06/20/2006 12:14am
Apparently this is the month for stupid amendments. After the defeat of the Marriage Protection Amendment (thank goodness) we're now faced with the frighteningly real prospect that the Flag Desecration Amendment will be approved by the Senate-- it's currently only a single vote shy of passage-- and sent to the states to be ratified.
In one pundit's words, this is "the dumbest law ever". It boggles the mind that people want an amendment to the Constitution that specifically takes away one of the rights protected under the First Amendment. Burning a flag is, at its core, free speech. Sure, it makes some people angry. Voltaire once said, "I may not agree with your opinion, but I will fight to the death to defend your right to have it." Apparently his words fall on deaf ears these days, because politicians seem more intent on taking away freedoms than protecting them.
I think it's more "un-American" to prohibit flag burning than it is to actually perform the act. And if this atrocity comes to pass, I may very well burn a flag to protest it.
06/19/2006 12:39pm
The good folks over at Worth 1000 sponsored a contest for new Boy Scout merit badges.
I think the toast making badge is my fave.
06/18/2006 10:32pm
Today, apparently, is Father's Day. This evening we returned from our nine-day jaunt through the Southwest, and the kids quickly went to work making Father's Day gifts for me. After dinner we had a grand party while I opened them.
Alex gave me a couple of his most prized rocks from his rock collection.
Kyra made a bird feeder from half of a two-liter bottle and some construction paper, and even included the birdseed.
Zack boxed up a few things and presented them to me. In the box were:
a red plastic comb
a marble
a Koosh ball
a fingernail clipper
one half-liter of bottled water
When I commented about how exciting these items were, he proudly told me that he gave them to me so I could have "my very own".
Ahh, kids. They're such a riot.
06/09/2006 9:12pm
Direct from the New York Times:
Fed up with the inability of two lawyers to agree on a trivial issue in an insurance lawsuit, a federal judge in Florida this week ordered them to "convene at a neutral site and engage in one (1) game of 'rock, paper, scissors'" to settle the matter.
Our legal system in action. Woo hoo!
06/09/2006 9:08pm
Roger Duronio has recently gained fame as the IT guy you shouldn't annoy.
It seems he works (err, worked) for a bank called UBS Paine Webber, making a nice comfortable salary of $125,000 a year. He expected a hefty bonus of $50,000, but was sorely disappointed with a mere $32,000 bonus.
Unhappy with this, he decided to take a bit of revenge on his company... so he created a malicious piece of software that deleted all files on the bank's central server, and then moved to all branch servers and did the dirty work there as well. The program worked nicely, erasing files from every server in every branch. A total of 2,000 servers went down in flames.
In what can only be described as a classic IT situation, backup files didn't work. Everything Duronio's little program erased is gone. The bank called in 200 IBM support engineers for what was probably the largest IT firefight of the year, and the director of IT for the bank said the disaster rated "a ten-plus" on a scale of one to ten.
Wow. Never, never make the IT guy mad.
06/08/2006 11:58pm
From an Associated Press article:
The governor of Texas wants to turn all the world into a virtual posse. Rick Perry has announced a $5 million plan to install hundreds of night-vision cameras on private land along the Mexican border and put the live video on the Internet, so that anyone with a computer who spots illegal immigrants trying to slip across can report it on a toll-free hot line.
I'm not sure whether to categorize this as "scary" because it's our government asking us to spy on one another (again), or "staggeringly stupid" because they think people are going to sit in front of their computers watching a web cam of the Texas desert, waiting for a fuzzy ten-pixel blob to pop out of the sagebrush and make a move for the border.
Sometimes it's hard to believe the kind people running this place.
06/08/2006 11:50pm
The RIAA gets nastier...
06/08/2006 11:46pm
Apple is apparently getting snippy with their iPod ads.
06/08/2006 10:44pm
Seen on a Linux newsgroup:
Format C: ... Y ... Y Noooooooooo !!!!!! ^C ^C ^C
I love geek jokes.
06/08/2006 9:34pm
"If cruelty is no longer declared unlawful, but instead is applied as a matter of policy, it alters the fundamental relationship of man to government. It destroys the whole notion of individual rights. The Constitution recognizes that man has an inherent right, not bestowed by the state or laws, to personal dignity, including the right to be free of cruelty. It applies to all human beings, not just in America-- even those designated as 'unlawful enemy combatants.' If you make this exception, the whole Constitution crumbles. It's a transformative issue."
-- Alberto Mora, former General Counsel of the U.S. Navy
06/08/2006 9:15pm
Another sign that Armageddon is near.
The Transformers will be a movie this summer.
06/06/2006 10:05pm
Man, our house is really stuffy tonight for some reason. It's been hot the past few days, and we tend not to use the air-conditioning much, but at night normally it cools off nicely. It turns out that tonight in particular it's cooler outside than inside, and I have some work-related things to do on the laptop. I was kind of grumpy because I was uncomfortably hot, and Laralee suggested I just take the laptop outside.
So I did. I'm sitting in the backyard now, under the half-moon sky, hacking away. Nice!
06/06/2006 12:02pm
"Soon we'll be called the Recording Industry States of America."
-- millixaw on Digg, commenting about the RIAA's latest tactics.
06/03/2006 11:18am
I've been having discussions with friends (and Laralee) about the Marriage Protection Amendment, which will be up for vote in the U.S. Senate next week. I was a little surprised to find that people I talk to support it; I think it's a terrible idea.
On a whim, I wrote to my senators to tell them my views:
Sen. Allard and Sen. Salazar:
I'm writing to express some thoughts on the Marriage Protection Amendment scheduled for a vote next week. I do not support the amendment, and feel it will be detrimental in many ways:
1) In my opinion, the government has absolutely no right, nor authority, to meddle in affairs like this. The purpose of the government is to provide for the safety and security of its citizens-- nothing more, nothing less. I am against any expansion of government powers, particularly in the arena of personal relationships.
2) Under the Constitution, states' rights supercede federal rights unless specifically stated in the Constitution. That model was wisely incorporated by the Founding Fathers because they intentionally wanted to avoid a powerful federal government (like the one that ruled the Colonies). This amendment turns that general rule on its head by granting the federal government dominance over states' rights, and I think that's a dangerous road.
3) A constitutional amendment will have little or no direct effect on same-sex couples already in committed relationships. If I was gay (I'm not) and living with my partner, I see no reason why I'd suddenly break up with him because of this amendment. Thus, it does absolutely nothing to address the real issue-- it merely pushes it farther underground.
Let me be clear that I do not support gay marriage-- but I feel that addressing this sensitive issue can be done in different ways, and a constitutional amendment is not an appropriate choice.
Respectfully,
Jeff Schroeder
Longmont CO
I doubt it will do much good, since Sen. Allard is the author of the amendment, but if nothing else I let them know that at least one of their constituents doesn't support their approach.
06/02/2006 5:15pm
So I ran the annual Bolder Boulder 10-km Memorial Day race, and today they sent my photos. Of course they take pictures of pretty much everyone-- all 52,000 of us-- and then hope we'll all pay twenty clams to buy a nice 8x10" print. But hey, at least I can have a teensy digital picture of myself huffing and puffing along the race route.
So below is a nice before-and-after shot: me with my friend Sean (who ran much, much faster than I did) before the race, and me chugging toward the finish line.
And I did manage to beat my goal: my official time was 58:46. Nothing to brag about, I suppose, but considering I never trained and don't race any other time during the year, it's also not too shabby.
06/02/2006 2:40pm
My expertise has just been called into play on a matter of the most sensitive national security. The fate of the world lies in the balance, and I must solve this cryptic puzzle!
(Okay, truthfully my friend Bech sent this to me and expects my answer by Monday...)
06/02/2006 1:47pm
The ultimate Zen dialog box, straight from a Mac OS X screenshot:
06/02/2006 12:45pm
This article from today's edition of The Register is so funny I'm just going to quote it verbatim:
Those readers who have kids and are waiting with tredipation for the day when their offspring ask the question every parent dreads will be relieved to know they can now direct inquisitive minds to a Canadian website guaranteed to take the embarrassment out of that most sensitive of subjects.
So, when little Johnny finally asks "Dad, where does intellectual property come from?", there's no need to fake an urgent appointment and rush from the room with a quick "ask your mother", because Captain Copyright is on hand to set the record straight.
And how. Try the unexpurgated glossary of copyright terms, the heartwarming Story of Captain Copyright, or the educational Copyright Quiz which kicks off with: "You wrote a poem for class. Do you have to register it with the Copyright Board of Canada for your poem to be protected by copyright law? Yes or No?"
Oh yeah, and here's a fun fact about Canadian copyright guaranteed to burn itself indelibly into any developing brain: "Ottawa in 1889 passed an act requiring that, in order to secure Canadian copyright, a book would have to be published in Canada within one month of its publication elsewhere; otherwise, that book (in intent, that American book) would be considered common property in Canada, which meant it could be re-published without penalty by any Canadian firm."
Yes, I tried that one on my own 14-year-old son and he immediately jumped from the sofa where he'd been punishing his Playstation and declared: "Dad, forget that quad bike I wanted for Christmas. Get me a book on Canadian copyright law instead because I see now that when I grow up I want to be an intellectual property lawyer and make the world a safer, better place for my children and my children's children."
I goofed up my taxes for 2003 and 2004 (and only figured out they were wrong when I did the 2005 return!) so I had to file some corrective paperwork with the IRS. The resulting envelope of goodies was pretty hefty, so I figured I'd slap two stamps on it and send it on its way. Yesterday I received the envelope in the mail with a note that I owed nine cents of additional postage.
Luckily for me-- because I was in a smart-aleck mood-- I had a bunch of one-cent stamps laying around.
06/01/2006 8:53pm
"The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting."
-- Charles Bukowski
06/01/2006 3:55pm
So today I had a conundrum: it's Thursday, which means (of course) there's pickup ultimate at lunch time. But I went to Zack's preschool "graduation" party, and then Alex and Kyra's last-day-of-school party, and wasn't going to be able to catch the e-mail saying whether the game was a go. (We use an advanced system whereby everyone RSVP's to a single guy about the game, and then he reports if we have enough players.)
Thinking about how I might find out the result, the light bulb of inspiration was lit and I created a mail filter that forwarded all ultimate-related e-mail messages to my cell phone-- which of course I had with me at the parties. So there I was, sitting on the school lawn with the kids, and my cell phone chimed with a text message "game on". Woo hoo!
