silveradept | Hitting the wall.

Tried to do work today - found out that the new release of the Flash Player for Linux causes problems with my browser. Which sucks. So I guess I’ll have to wait for version 10 or 11 to see if they can get it to work correctly.

I turned in my fist code draft today. What I need most right now are comments, and possibly a little inspiration. Tomorrow’s lab should provide the inspiration, and the comments should do the rest. Now that it’s basically complete, it’s a matter of adding spit, polish, and AJAX. Admittedly, I hate wrestling CSS, but I’ll get around to it eventually. Also, learned another neat Rails trick that will help me DRY out my code some. Fantastic stuff, Ruby on Rails.

There’s a horde of links tonight, so before they overrun me, let’s get them published.

The United States government could have a hot potato on its hands - the House of Representatives approved subpoenaing executive staff for information about the firing of attorneys, while The White House threatened that the only way the staff would testify is privately and not under oath. (There’s also a lot there about how the White House may have been doing much to evade subpoenas or archiving of their records, too.)

Playing with some software, the ISI Web of Science, and possibly a desire to see just how many buzzwords are flying about, SEED links to a map showing relationships among scientific paradigms, with closer (more papers mentioning the two together) relationships and farther relationships, and size of dot depending on how much the paradigm is used.

The Center for Mass Destruction Defence in Georgia confirms what we already know - When nuke bomb go boom, America's infrastructure falls down in the affected area, and possible further afield, depending on where the bomb drops. The previous envoy to the United Nations, John Bolton, adovcates destroying Iran's nuclear abilities before they have weapons. Assuming that they are making weapons. Still, this look suspiciously like the excuse to go into Iraq and thrash about with abandon, hoping something will appear that justifies it later.

There’s even more on the matters of opinions regarding Iraq. Inside, there are troops who want to get out. On the outside, and in the White House, Peter Wehner in the Wall Street Journal accusing the Democrats of overstepping their authority by making timetables for withdrawal.

Even nastier, however, is this account from Breitbart.com that says a car bomb was detonated that had children inside today. The children were apparently there to reduce suspicions, and once inside a checkpoint, the adults abandoned the car and then detonated it. Something like that is not only terrorism, but I sincerely hope that when those people pass on, they find out that there is a hell, and their tickets are stamped for a long way down.

A UFOMystic has harsh words for Penn and Teller. "Bullshit", to him, is more about making fun of people they perceive as dumb rubes rather than doing serious investigations into the paranormal. The comments extend on that, accusing P&T of setting up Straw Men and only making overtures to the scientific method. Considering that the duo have done well as illusionists and sleight-of-hand masters, that is thrown back at them as a reason why not to believe everything you see or hear from them.

Google Maps mashup takes NASA data and Google Maps and produces Flood Maps, showing off what would go underneath, were the waters to rise higher than they should.

Art in all corners of life, and on all sorts of media. Binh Danh puts photographs on leaves, using the leaves' chlorophyll to imprint the image. In a more traditional set of media, but expressing a world of long, long ago and far, far away, a Star Wars concept art portfolio. A lot of the things here are different compared to their final film versions, but they still look cool.

Al Gore was in the Congress today, meeting with the peoples, giving guff to Congresscritters, and saying the warming thing deserves serious attention. In another Gore-related story, the frontman and idol of many environmentalists, has run into a slight hiccup with his housing plans. Zoning rules currently in place prohibit him from installing solar panels on his roof. April 1 will allow for solar panels to be installed, but apparently, the hosues aren’t allowed to look ugly while they draw solar power, because the panels can’t be visible from the street or the neighbors. Which basically means there’s very few places those panels could be installed. Kind of defeats the purpose.

Role reversal. This quote demonstrates that not everyone acts their stereotype. Working off the same idea, The villagers in a Chinese village are complaining that the bribery in this year's election was sub-par.

And, running down to the end tonight, the short version on CNN says a teacher was dismissed for making reference to the Bible in his science class. The longer version, not on CNN, says just mentioned the Bible, my ass! There was 90 percent plus intelligent design on the test and in the class, and that much material was being drawn from a site that says anyone who contradicts the Bible is wrong. Paints a very different picture than what CNN has.

Oh, and You Don't Know Jack is Back. And apparently has been doing some flash bits for a while now. So for those whose flash player won’t crash their browser’s ability to load pages, enjoy. I think I’m going to manage to get to bed at a decent hour.