Hah! Survived it again! - 14 February 2007

After getting up to radio announcements of public school closings because of snow and cold, I put my winter wear on and went to lecture, where the disembodied voice of the lecturer taught us a thing or two about relationships and validations in Rails. There were some demos, and we got an hour to grill the former webmaster of the University, and then I went off to my search lab. Did okay on that, I hope. It’s very experiential learning here - we learn what we can do, we do it, and then we learn how we should have done it. In some of these cases, it looks a lot different than what we did. The grades haven’t been lethal yet, so we can only hope they continue to be good. For the moment, I’m going into Rails lab tomorrow stuck on one or two things. If I can get by those, it should be clear sailing to the end of this assignment.

In most parts of the world today, it was Red Day, Singles Awareness Day, Valentine’s Day, and I have a strong suspicion there were several performances of the Vagina Monologues. Isn’t today the “traditional” day for such things? Others celebrated Viking Day, and still others, Chocolate Appreciation Day. Others are still coming away from their Darwin Day celebrations two days ago.

Someone stole one of the Maltese Falcons from the diner that’s mentioned in the story. It’s a replica, and it’s signed, and whomever stole that really has no appreciation for what they’ve just done, I suspect. Or is fully aware of what they’ve just done, in all the literary fun, and we’ll be seeing garden gnome-like pictures of the Falcon.

Five Geek Social Fallacies. I’d say these have shelf life out past geeks into regular society, but since they concentrate in subgroups and places that may lend themselves to drama and bad social relationships.

For the woman who posed in Playboy in uniform and dog tags, she's been taken off extended active duty status with the Air Force, which reverts her from being a staff sergeant to an airman in the National Guard. Can’t say the military doesn’t try to maintain its own image, even with other images being published of its members.

A Madman in the Marketplace tells us all, not all ye who enter, abandon hope, but don't be deceived by false hope that things will turn out better - actively do things to make them better. I’m just as guilty of buying into this as many - I’m not actively out making the world a better place, demanding accountability of my government or trying to get the world fed, sheltered, and up to basic levels. I hope that other people will do the things that will make us better, while I study and try to get to the point where I Can make a difference. Even then, it’s not going to be world-shakingly obvious or grand and sweeping. But quietly, I hope that I’ll be able to make things better. That could be false hope, too, that I’m good enough to make things better, but without a little self-confidence (or self-delusion), I’m not going to be inspired enough to try.

Science (SCIENCE!) rolled out some new things for people to keep their eyes on. D-Wave had a demonstration of their 16-qubit quantum computer, of which the IEEE’s Spectrum magazine is taking a sensible "wait and see" approach to find out whether this computer will lead to breakthroughs or just be a fun, but expensive, toy. Research is going into trying to develop a haptic glove that can simulate the feel of fabric in realtime. And lots of data on diabetes and the human genome, among other things, are making their way into the public domain. Freely sharable and collaborative data and projects could speed science up tremendously, rather than waiting for a private company to make the breakthrough, then charge everyone an arm and a leg to get the treatment or medicine that results. Last, with slightly more humble applications, beer is being made out of milk in the Nakahara liquor ship in Hokkaido. They also make beer out of potatoes. Apparently milk beer tastes the same and has a slightly different look. I wonder how that process goes through, to avoid things like curdling.

The UK's top paraglider survived a run-in with some eagles getting tangled in her contraption. It sounds like the eagles got territorial, and then one got tangled and tried to free itself. Once it finally did so, the eagle left. So I don’t know if it was necessarily a “cheating death” as the article put it, but it was probably pretty scary, and getting clawed up by eagles probably didn’t help much.

The following link is not safe for work. It involves a creative solution to getting Danish motorists to recognize and obey the speed limit laws in Copenhagen. The technique? A topless woman holding a 50 km/h speed limit sign. From the short video provided, it appears to be working - although perhaps a little too well, as some motorists, rather than slowing down, come to a stop and back up traffic behind them. Still, a unique way of making people more aware of the speed limit laws.

The Edwards campign blogger firestorm continues. Shakespeare's Sister has resigned from her position as technical adviser, apparently not as a blogger for the campaign. There’s more than 1,000 comments left to that post, so unless you’ve got a lot of time to kill, figure out how to get the highlights. I suspect a significant majority of them are supportive messages. The ideological warfare apparent has been turned up not just all the way up to 11, but well past it. Lane Hudson in the Huffington Post claims that the two have received death threats from their detractors, but there’s no linkage or evidence to support the claim. That may be because it’s not really permitted to be released in one way or another, or because neither of the two feel particularly inclined to display the things they’ve received. It’s possible, even plausible, that such things have occurred, but how serious they are is a another matter, and my skepticism wants to say that if serious things have been laid in, then there would be reporting on it because of investigations or other police work. The other blogger, who has also resigned, rather than being fired, displays a small sample of the material that she's received. Also, more than three hundred fifty comments (and probably more coming) to that post. Again, find the highlights, if you can. The “big guns”, or at least potentially bigger guns, are taking swings at this whole routine. Michelle Malkin (whom, if you’ll recall, 7.62 mm Justice supports, even though she is a woman) posted her reasoning on why Amanda Marcotte deserved what she got. Malkin says that Marcotte is foul-mouthed, revisionist on her own blog, and hardly "insightful" or "issues-oriented", as she claimed to be. I get why people are shouting at each other, because clearly, there’s been some very offensive things said. I just wonder if this isn’t a tempest in a teacup sort of thing. Does it deserve to be played out on the grand stage of the Intertubes?

Last bit for tonight, saved for professional gloating... or something like that. Here’s 33 reasons why librarians are still extermely important to society. Some of those could probably be collapsed into one bit, but still, it’s a well-written (although not totally bug-free) summary of the arguments why, more than ever, people need to use the library and librarians. Read it. Be informed. And support your local libraries.

Aftermath - 15 Feburary 2007

Today was a day lost to the maw of Rails programming. I got up late for lab, but still managed to get there. It didn’t turn out to be as helpful as I though, but with the great assistance of unspeakablevorn, I was able to finally make some progress on things. After which, I promptly hit another barrier, which I will try to work through tomorrow.

There’s a monstrosity of links, so get comfortable.

Salmonella outbreak in peanut butter. If you have Peter Pan or Wal-Mart brand, check out your jars for a product code beginning with “2111” - if it’s there, toss the jar. Could be contaminated.

Inflatable Power Jacket. For people who need some help in making their muscles work again, or those who prefer the stylish portability of an exoskeleton over raw power. It could have been useful for this X-Box 360 that was masquerading as a PS3 - assuming that all the PS3’s claims about being more powerful are true. On the computer end, though, IBM unveiled a new type of on-chip memory that claims the fastest access times recorded. This being on-chip memory, it’s not something we’d slot in, but something more like cache memory for the processors, right? In terms of non-volitaile RAM, like flash memory, Nanowerk describes research being done on telescoping nanotubes that claims to make really fast memory on this sort. If speed goes up, then that’ll be nice - but some new protocols may have to be designed to permit data transfer at speeds that the new memory type will be capable of. From there, we can implement three-dimensional images that will be manipulated through gestures or speech. All of this technofascination, Joel Johnson says, leads to people shelling out ridiculous cash for early adoption. And to him, Web sites that hype all this new gadgetry are only promoting the whoring out of those early adopters, continuing the cycle of stupidity.

After many, many years of trying to get kids not to eat Legos, Kellogg has introduced a line of Lego fruit gummies. Now parents will have to discern between the building Legos and the eating ones.

More research on marijuana forthcoming, despite the D.E.A., apparently. The focus seems to be on painkilling, especially in patients with chronic or terminal conditions. It’s a start. Maybe after that, they can do research on other effects that marijuana or cannabinoids havr been put to, or others that it could be put to. Might help make marijuana legal all over the country. Or, the results of the research might be buried, subjected to a smear campaign, or other things designed to nix their credibility. Time will tell.

It’s not quite Live Aid (actually, nothing is quite Live Aid, and I might be totally off in making this reference), but Al Gore has a musical lineup for a climate change awareness concert tour. Good to be getting the word out about what we need to do. If one of the Saudi branches of al-Qaeda is successful, though, the United States may slow down on climate change, but have to pick up on alternative fuels. The group has called for a cutting-off of oil supplies to the United States, by any means necessary. Maybe that kind of threat, taken seriously, would kickstart the U.S. into producing efficient, renewable fuels and power sources. Maybe not. If the quotes that the Creative Generalist pulls from The Long Emergency are true, we've only got a small amount of time to get with the program... assuming we decide to spare the processing cycles to do so. With the amount of information we’re producing, we also have to factor in that data center energy consumption is double waht it was in 2000. Putting everything on the Web means having and using the energy to keep it all running.

Domestic politics: A bill to repeal the Military Commission Act has been introduced. New Congress, new legislation. Hopefully, it passes. And then we can take bets on whether the President will exercise another veto. Members of the Congress are also trying to pass a bill that would require agencies to be more public with their information and reporting, using the Freedom of Information Act as a launch point for the new bill. In terms of the nonbinding resolution, the conservative strategy is not to talk about the surge, or Iraq, but about the "radical Islamic movement". (Hat tip to ThinkProgress) At least they’re admitting that, y’know, if they talked about the issues, they’d get whipped.

Fittingly, one of the biggest redevelopment projects in a city know for its music is Musician's Village - although the people trying to get in sometimes have to scramble for paperwork to prove they’ve got enough of a regular income to may their mortgages.

With the prevalence of materials designed to permit sexual function long into the late years of life, it would follow that sex ed classes for the elderly are being held. Along with those just getting to the age of consent, those well into the upper decades are the people most in need of good sex ed, because they may not know about all the tools and tricks that are available now. Reinterpreting “sex ed” just slightly, shifting the focus away from humans, several zoos are offering tours about the how and when of animal sex.

Drinking and driving may get harder, if technology created by Toyota Motor Corporation ends up being mandated into all vehicles. An ignition interlock could detect blood-alcohol content or unfocused pupils and refuse to start/stop the vehicle if already driving until the occupant was sober. Or sober enough, depending on the settings. Could make for a very interesting night if someone drove in to have some drinks, and then got driven out at last call - depending on how much they’d had, the car might be where they slept for the night.

In other car stuff, DaimlerChrysler might be letting go of the Chrysler part. In doing so, they’d have to find a buyer, or expect the automaker to survive on its own, a dim prospect for American automakers at the moment.

Some JetBlue passengers spent more than 10 hours on a plane. And no, there were no motherf---ing snakes on the planes. Just ice and snow around them. The company apparently was concerned about passengers hurting themselves, but they waited a really long time before actually getting the people off and back to JFK. Were they expecting the storm to just pass by?

The human brain can actually make new brain cells. Which sort of knocks out what we were told earlier about them, and suggests that degenerative diseases of the brain, like those of the body, could be beaten with care and stem cells. By now, stem cells are like midichlorians, I guess - they’ve got this all-healing, all-encompassing Force in them, or something. Well, bottoms up to science, and hope they figure out what they can and can’t use, and how, in my lifetime.

Something that may be of use to anyone living in or visiting Australia - the map of the public toilets. All sorts of tools there to make sure you’re never too far away from a loo.

So that’s what happened Yesterday.. I promise to get back on schedule today, and not let Rails suck away the rest of my soul and working hours.