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December 30, 2005 Friday Cat Blogging
The Last Friday Cat Blogging of 2005: Miko As you can guess from the recent blockage of bloggage, I've been busy with family and work of late. Sorry. I've been thinking of making some changes at the website for 2006: Cat Blogging will continue, but because this year pretty much burned through my back catalog of cat pictures, so I'll publish the really good new ones as I take them. (Not that I don't have hundreds of unpublished cat photos, I take 3-5 for each one I publish, but as they are indoor cats the number of poses is somewhat limited.) That's going to leave room for a more eclectic mix of photos, and since many of the photos I'd like to share just don't look right when shunk to 384x288, I'll be re-designing the hompage and feed for bigger photos. I'll be refreshing the layout to support the larger graphics, and maybe replace the banner from time to time. (Once again, following Dave Winer's lead) I'm also thinking of splitting the RSS feed into two: one related to the Hompage and general podcasts, and one for Anime and fanfiction podcasts. Fri, 30 Dec 2005 08:34:56 PST - Link December 28, 2005 Matthew Simmons' Address To ASPO
EV World was also granted permission to record audio at the conference, and they have a 45 minute podcast of Mr Simmons' presentation to the APSO USA Conference. Wed, 28 Dec 2005 08:29:42 PST - Link December 23, 2005 Friday Cat Blogging
Tory James, sink. BTW, Cats In Sinks has loads of pictures of cats in sinks. Fri, 23 Dec 2005 17:40:26 PST - Link December 21, 2005 Happy Solstice!
Wed, 21 Dec 2005 08:14:49 PST - Link December 20, 2005 Drip. Drip. Drip.
Grrr. Tue, 20 Dec 2005 08:49:59 PST - Link December 19, 2005 Oil Shale
This from a state with good wind resources an plenty of mountain locations for pumped-water energy storage systems. Mon, 19 Dec 2005 15:58:31 PST - Link December 16, 2005 Friday Cat Blogging
Cat. Sun. Sleep. Tory James - Link Hack. The. Election.
Funny — the things that get reported once the teflon is off the administration. As always, BradBlog is the tip of the spear on eVoting Fraud. Fri, 16 Dec 2005 11:59:08 PST - Link December 9, 2005 Friday Cat Blogging
This time of year, the boys find the duvet irresistable. Fri, 09 Dec 2005 08:40:47 PST - Link December 8, 2005 Peak Oil HearingTranscripts and .mp3 and .rm audio of the December 7 congressional hearing on peak oil are now online at Global Public Media You need to hear this. Thu, 08 Dec 2005 22:36:20 PST - Link December 6, 2005 Beanball EconomicsFirst, this headline and story from US News:
To get hit with:
Say—who is this great economy great for, anyway? Tue, 06 Dec 2005 11:37:08 PST - Link A Jon Stewart Moment...This Yahoo headline caught my eye... May make mistakes? — MAY? Like someone give this administration permission to continue to screw up? Oh yeah — 2004. Nevermind. Carry on. Nothing to see here. Tue, 06 Dec 2005 08:25:11 PST - Link Word Of The Year...Tue, 06 Dec 2005 07:57:20 PST - Link Aw, Whata HamVia Cunningham-Lee, a few photos from those Be Demos in Tokyo Ueda-san (Of the Shibuya office of Metrowerks Japan) was doing the translating, he was a little hesitant in the first demo, but as the week went on he was really getting into the spririt of the demo! Thanks for the Photos, Gary! Tue, 06 Dec 2005 07:54:00 PST - Link December 5, 2005 Peak Oil Hearing and Webcast from Washington DC
Webcast details TBD, at the URL above. Mon, 05 Dec 2005 17:56:40 PST - Link December 4, 2005 Welcome, OS NewsWoah. Nice flurry of hits from OS news, welcome guys! While you're here, check out:
And make sure not to miss the most popular part of my site:
Sun, 04 Dec 2005 21:36:56 PST - Link Let Them Burn CakeA while back a friend (one who belives that the free market will prevent Peak Oil from being a major, world changing economic event) sent me a link to an article By Peter Huber in Forbes. I tried my best to respond to the article, but I was not really able to devote enough time to it to really deconstruct Mr Huber's arguments. This being the age of the internet it just took a couple of weeks before somone with the time and knowledge to take Mr Huber to task:
Sun, 04 Dec 2005 21:17:40 PST - Link December 3, 2005 Worst. President. Ever.From The History News Network at George Mason University:
Sat, 03 Dec 2005 11:27:15 PST - Link Girls, With Rockets.Adorable Rockets is a new blog dedicated to anime reviews. No muscle-bound super-heros here, think school girls, some magical, some with rockets, and some even have fangs. It's just getting started, but I like the clean layout and screenshots. Hey Rocket — have you seen Windy Tales or Kamichu yet? Sat, 03 Dec 2005 09:34:38 PST - Link BeBox InterviewA couple of months back I was asked to answer some questions about the Quad 604 BeBox, in the form of an online interview. You can read the interview at BeBox News Sat, 03 Dec 2005 09:20:03 PST - Link December 2, 2005 Friday Cat Blogging
Miko Fri, 02 Dec 2005 20:36:50 PST - Link Checking PredictionsThe Energy Information Administration, an "independent statistical and analytical agency within the Department of Energy" occasionaly predicts the future. Ron Patterson took a look at some 2001 predictions, and compared them to actual performance.
EIA: North Sea will peak in 2006 at 6.6 million barrels/day.
EIA: Mexico: 4 million barrels/day by 2010, and little decline to 2020. Fri, 02 Dec 2005 07:53:45 PST - Link November 30, 2005 A Barrel A Year Is All We Ask
Wed, 30 Nov 2005 21:34:29 PST - Link A Sea Of SuitsThis morning, Bush gave another one of his "speeches in front of people likely to clap harder at the right time", this time In Anapolis. It was a bit creepy, since the house lights were down, and any time you saw a wide shot of the auditorium, you saw a sea of identical dark suits, each sitting ram-rod straight in their seats. I've seen that movie, and it didn't end well. It's really time this president faced the great unwashed. It's really time we insist he stand before a real cross section of America. We don't like where we've been, we don't like where we are, and we don't like where he wants to take us. It occured to me this morning that there was a point where the the Iraq war train was off the tracks:
This was 6 months before shock and awe, and just one month later, (2002.11.18) UN weapons inspectors were permitted back into Iraq. So it seems that on October 21, 2002 there was a moment when this war was not inevitable. It had to be Colin Powell's doing, we now know he was the only one in the white house that was pushing for moderation and caution, and for one brief moment it appears that he'd swayed Bush to his position. I wonder if we'll ever find out who put that train back on the tracks. John Kerry and Jack Reed are giving the Democratic response to the Bush speech, and taking unscripted questions from the press. I've been miffed at Kerry for losing 2004, listening to him speak now reminds my why I supported him. His calm depth and command of the issues was a poor match for the campaign trail, but he sure sounds good now, and the world would certainly be a better place were he in office today. You can know that he wouldn't have been on vacation when Katrina hit, and Brownie wouldn't have been in charge. Grrr. Wed, 30 Nov 2005 08:43:38 PST - Link Four New Saudi Arabias
Hard to believe, isn't it. With today's price for Gasoline returning to near $2.20 a gallon, it's hard to believe that things won't just keep going on like this forever, and that buying a hulking huge pickup with a half acre of chrome bumper isn't a good idea, but it's not. We'd be hearing more about peak oil if it were a real problem, right? We are hearing about it. Not from this administration, of course. We're hearing about it from the energy companies. Instead of spending thier recent record profits on exploration, they're buying airtime and opening websites in an effort to try to soak one simple fact - oil can not be the energy of the future - into the public. Go ahead, visit the British Pertolium website. The headline, in in eco-freindly green is "Alternative Energy". Watch for the ads. Replay them on your Tivos. They ask us to turn down our thermostats. They urge us to drive 55. They ask us about where the energy of the future will come from. Ask yourselves why they are running the ads. Wed, 30 Nov 2005 08:43:38 PST - Link November 28, 2005 In The NewsWASHINGTON: A part of the marble facade of the Supreme Court building has collapsed to the entry stairs below. Structual engineers on the scene say the damage appears to have been caused by the accumulated stress upon the court of Bush v Gore decision, the cracking of the original foundation by use of torture in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, the erosion of the separation of powers, and structural stress caused by years of pressure to move the court to the right. Mon, 28 Nov 2005 07:43:55 PST - Link November 27, 2005 Shouting Movie In A Crowded Firehouse.It's been a rare two movie weekend: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: Even though and a lot of the source material was left out of the screenplay, the first half of the movie feels rushed. The pacing settles down in the second half, and the scenes play true to the images I'd seen in my head while reading the book. It is perhaps ironic that this darkest of the Potter films was the most magical, and also a has the most laughs. I wish this movie were two hours longer. (Extended DVD version, guys? Pretty Please?) RENT: is not so much an adaptation, as it is a cinema presentation of the original Broadway production, but shot on location. The music was stirring, and the cinematography and set design were inspired. Bring Kleenex. Sun, 27 Nov 2005 20:59:53 PST - Link November 25, 2005 Friday Cat Blogging
T-chan soaking up some sun. Fri, 25 Nov 2005 22:54:58 PST - Link November 24, 2005 Best. Turkey. Ever.I'm not sure what happened — A turkey that should have taken 4 hours (16lb 8oz) took a full 5 hours before it was done (165 degrees internal temp). I was frantic that with all that time in the oven, it would be as dry as toast—but it wasn't. It was perfect. Better than any I've ever had. Ever. What did I do I right? Thu, 24 Nov 2005 23:29:49 PST - Link Half Full
Source: Happy Peak Oil Day? - The Oil Drum
Today is a day to relax, and eat well, and be with your families. Tomorrow is the day to roll up our sleves and get serious about energy. Thu, 24 Nov 2005 10:19:01 PST - Link November 19, 2005 Did I Hear You Say "Peak"?
This is a little confusing at first, since the chart shows BP first, and they were up in both the first and second quarters. What the author is doing is grouping together the top 5, which as a group lost ground, then the top ten, which as a group lost ground, then the top 22, which as a group lost ground. It's interesting to note that BP (The largest of this group) pumped 69 times as much oil as the number 22 entry: EOG Resources. If there's any gain to be had it's way out in that long tail of small producers. Sat, 19 Nov 2005 16:37:43 PST - Link November 18, 2005 Friday Cat Blogging
Tory James Fri, 18 Nov 2005 07:32:57 PST - Link November 14, 2005 Something Rotten In The State Of Ohio
This is chilling. This is the stick-shaker stall-warning in the cockpit of Democracy. We must get to the bottom of this before we run out of airspeed, altitude and ideas. Mon, 14 Nov 2005 23:32:40 PST - Link On Getting Things DoneCeej blogged an interesting artical on how to be more productive. I agree 100% with the big / dual monitor concept. More pixels is better. I've recently stepped up to two LCDs at work, and It really does help. This bit caught my eye:
I've used the 'plain text file' for years. In the old days (Back when monitors were 800x600) I used to keep my trusty Psion running in a text editor nect to my keyboard. As I thought of things I'd just jot them in as check box items:
When I'd finished the task, I'd check the box:
This rather crude scheme was highly effective on my PDA of the era, a Psion 3a, but became far more cumbersome and unmanagable on the Series 5 — they'd "upgraded" the text editor into a miniature word processor, which wanted to "help" you format items, and the fonts changed, and they were either too big or too small, and for some reason it was really hard to stay in monospace. I use NoteTab Pro as my text editor these days. It's simple, and unlike Word it is happy to record your keystrokes exactly as you type them. It's happy to let you indent a line without trying to "help" you by making a bullet item list. It won't paste in the formatting when you've copied a bit of text off a webpage — like you really wanted that part number in 24 point, dark blue, bold helvetica in the middle of that 12 point courier paragraph. Ah, jeez. You can see where this is going, right? When a program does something that I didn't ask for, (which Word seems to do every other line) I loose productivity. It's not just the time to go undo the "help" I've just been "given"—it's exactly like an outside interruption. My task, which was to move ideas from my head onto the screen was disrupted, because what I got was not what I expected, and not what I wanted, and now I'm in a full context switch to try to undo somthing I didn't want, and it wasn't even my fault. Of course, the task of removing unwated formatting can be as daunting as getting an unwilling cat into a carrier for a trip to the vet. How is it an animal that can squeeze through a baseball-sized gap behind the recliner, and climb up into the springs, so that when you tip it over you have to be carefull not to activate the mechanism so as not to harm the cat, can then re-configure itself so that it cannot be pushed though the opening in the carrier which is big enough to take a regulation soccerball? And why are they black and white, anyway? The soccer balls, not the cats, who are Seal points, and one Blue point, which is more grey than blue, anyway. Where was I? Oh. Distractions. Interruptions. Tools that interrupt you. I spent much of last weekend using a top-name CAD package. It must have crashed 50 times. By the end of the weekend I had trained myself to save every 20 seconds or so, which was unpleasant because the program seemed to want to take 5 seconds to save a file. 15 seconds of work, 5 seconds of waiting. By the end of the session, I was in a state of clenched-fist, arm-waving frustration, drained of any interest in examining the end product of my toils. So, back to productivity. Big monitors good. Plain text editors, Good. Programs that are written to cause distraction, bad. Programs that crash often: Very Very Bad™. Mon, 14 Nov 2005 22:39:54 PST - Link November 12, 2005 Friday Cat Blogging (Late Edition)
Miko on the monitor. Poor baby, that desk anchor will soon be replaced by a cat-hostile LCD display. Sat, 12 Nov 2005 08:33:59 PST - Link November 10, 2005 Sanity? In Washington?
More Good News™ Thu, 10 Nov 2005 08:46:39 PST - Link November 9, 2005 54.64 Miles x 54.64 Miles is all we ask
This Pyron system is really clever, it uses plastic injection-molded lenses to concentrate the sunlight on a solar cell designed for use at 400x the brightness of the sun. To keep the cell from melting, the whole thing floats in a shallow pool of water, and cells are mounted in heat sinks which transfer the heat from the cell to the water. Since it's floating, the entire array can be rotated with a tiny (1 watt) motor to track the sun. The only downside is that it must be mounted flat, but it looks like a 12 foot diameter array (12.56 Sq Yards) would be plenty for the average home. I can easily imagine designing homes with a re-enforced flat-roof ready for just such an array. Wed, 09 Nov 2005 08:50:51 PST - Link Ahnald Strikes OutAll eight of the ballot inititives on the ballot here in California have gone down to defeat, including all four of the initiatives that Schwarzenegger placed on the ballot. Wed, 09 Nov 2005 07:18:59 PST - Link November 8, 2005 Well, There Is One Thing He's Really Reaaly Good At.
Tue, 08 Nov 2005 21:19:24 PST - Link November 7, 2005 Matthew Simmons Interview
I think Mr. Simmons is spot on his predictions, but I disagree with him on drilling ANWAR. Not yet. Not while you can still buy a Hummer. (And get a HUGE tax break if you claim it's for business.) I watched the 'live debate' episode of The West Wing last night. I was sorely dissapointed in the discussion on energy, the Republican position was written as "the free market will save us" and the Democratic position was "Renewables - blah - blah - blah". We're in a Very Bad Place™ when we can't even fictionalize politicians really facing the cold hard facts on energy. Mon, 07 Nov 2005 08:04:10 PST - Link November 4, 2005 Friday Cat Blogging
Tory James Fri, 04 Nov 2005 08:35:33 PST - Link November 3, 2005 Oily Calculations
Hmm. 11m barrels per day at $60 a barrel = $660 million dollars per day. Invest $14bn (About 21 days of sales) to keep the price stable... 12.5m barrels per day at $60 a barrel = $750 million dollars per day. Or - Keep the 14bn, and let the price rise 50%.. 11m barrels per day at $90 a barrel = $990 million dollars per day. Which of these two business plans do you think the Saudis will follow? If course, of you've read "Twilight in the Desert" you'd know that it may be geologically difficult for Saudi Arabia to raise production at all, and that $14bn (and more) may be needed to just stay even. Thu, 03 Nov 2005 07:53:05 PST - Link November 2, 2005 Joe needs...From M at Language Geek
Okay, M, I'll bite:
Wed, 02 Nov 2005 21:26:07 PST - Link November 2, 2005 100% Of Your Daily Requirement Of Bummer
Peggy jumps to the conclusion that it's all to big for a president to deal with. No, Peggy. It's just too big for this president to deal with, and his hard right social, and hit neocon economic politics, are exactly the wrong prescription for what ails this country. May I remind Ms. Noonan, in this administration, politics trumps policy. Wed, 02 Nov 2005 08:45:25 PST - Link October 28, 2005 Friday Cat Blogging
Tory James, in repose. He's in repose often. Fri, 28 Oct 2005 07:53:28 PDT - Link October 25, 2005 NOC knocked...Sorry about the outage, but Hurricane Wilma apparently took down NTT/Verio's server farm in Boca Raton yesterday morning. This is the first time I've ever noted an outage, and it took a catagory 3 hurricane to do it. My guess is that there are meetings happening today to figure out how to prevent it from happening again. In any case, it looks like the Network Operations Center ops team was up all night to get things back on line. Thanks for your work, guys. I have to think you'd have prefered spending the last 24 hours dealing with the effects of the hurriane on your homes and families. Tue, 25 Oct 2005 08:29:26 PDT - Link October 22, 2005 A Liberal By Any Other Name - or - You Know That Word You Keepa Usin'? I Don' Think It 'A Means What You Think It 'A Means.
Sat, 22 Oct 2005 07:02:37 PDT - Link October 21, 2005 Friday Cat Blogging
T-chan. Miko. Red Office Chair. Fri, 21 Oct 2005 07:46:16 PDT - Link October 17, 2005 More Mirrors
A deeper analysis can be found in their report: Solar Parabolic Trough [pdf] Mon, 17 Oct 2005 23:10:36 PDT - Link October 15, 2005 A Mighty Wind
I keep wondering how it would look if you design for an 80+ year life for the tower, and replace/refurbish the generator on a 20 year schedule. After all, the Golden Gate Bridge is over 80 years old... Sat, 15 Oct 2005 13:17:43 PDT - Link October 14, 2005 What's That Buzzing Noise?
Fri, 14 Oct 2005 10:12:56 PDT - Link Friday Cat Blogging
T-chan Fri, 14 Oct 2005 09:53:01 PDT - Link The Silence Before The Storm
Read this. Fri, 14 Oct 2005 08:42:40 PDT - Link October 13, 2005 New Job!The really great news:
The (somewhat) bad news:
My new gig is at a start-up in deep-stealth mode, so I won't even publish the name of the place (yet). If you look back though my blog, you'll find realating to my job I've always been careful to link to third party press releases and articles, or I've waited until the product is in the customer's hands before publishing my own photos. You can expect more of the same. I'll talk about it when I can, but in the meantime: <stealth-mode>. I hadn't really been looking for a start-up. I had applied at a couple of big companies, And I thought the interviews went well, but in one case I was told that what they really wanted was a manager, and in another case the interviewer said 'from your resume, it looks like you're one of the first 3 people I'd want at a start-up'. I took that as a compliment, but my peculiar mix of skills wasn't a good fit. I really clicked with the people at the new gig, and after a very few minutes I was thinking "I could do this", and after a few more minutes, it was "I really want to do this."
So — here I am, back in a start-up. I start Monday.
Thu, 13 Oct 2005 10:11:55 PDT - Link October 11, 2005 Left vs Right
Kevin Drum over at Washington Monthly has been looking into the Left vs Right split, and he's linked to a remarkable table from the National Election Studies website which tracks the Conservatism Index from 1964-2002. I've plotted that data (averaging '76 and '80 for the '78 value) to come up with this chart. Red is more conservative, Blue is more liberal. I'm not sure why their data shows a consistant offset to the conservative side, but it's pretty clear that from Johnston to Nixon to Ford to Carter to Reagan to Bush to Clinton to BushII the country hasn't really moved much one way or the other. We're a pretty purple bunch, after all. Tue, 11 Oct 2005 11:07:43 PDT - Link October 10, 2005 Pencil And PaperPencil Revolution is an engaging blog about pencils. Yes, Pencils. Real ones, made from incense cedar wood with a graphite core. There really is something comforting about the feel of a real pencil, and sharpening them with a hand-cranked sharpener has the feel of ritual. Since reading the blog I've begun keeping a couple classic #2 pencils in my bag, next to my mechanicals: a Pentel Forte black .5mm, Red and Blue at .7mm, and my favorite - a 2mm yellow lead in a draftsman's mechanical lead holder (With a yellow cap!). The 2mm yellow lead has become very hard to find, a couple years back I ended up having to order two packs from a shop in Canada. They are perfect for highlighting while checking schematics, the line is narrow and clear, it won't cause ink to bleed, and unlike marker pens, yellow lead doesn't stain my fingers. I don't know what it is about Pencil and Pen companies, both the Pentel and Staedtler have high gloss, but user-hostile websites. You'll need some paper to go with your pens, and the best notebooks are made in Italy by Moleskine Matias turned me on to these legendary notebooks a couple years back, and since then I've become a big fan. The cover is solid, but they lay comfortable flat. The paper is sturdy, takes erasures well, and has a yellowish tint that is comfortable to read in full sunlight. Notebooks come with an elastic band to keep them closed, and a built-in ribbon bookmark. As an engineer, I prefer the style with squared rulings — they're great for lists of parts and sketching out schematics. You can find them in fine art stores, and at Moleskine US Mon, 10 Oct 2005 16:55:30 PDT - Link Door Number TwoYou know, this whole Harriet Miers nomination has me flashing back to the game show Let's Make A Deal. Harriet is like the gift wrapped box - we don't really know for sure what is inside, but we know for sure it's not a goat (a long-running gag on the show was to open a door or curtain to reveal a farm animal.) So — the Democrats are standing there, in thier Raggedy Ann costumes, biting thier nails, staring at the box, and the Right Wing of the Republican party (I repeat myself) is demanding Monty Hall to give them a look behind Door Number two. Mon, 10 Oct 2005 11:11:28 PDT - Link October 9, 2005 Back Of The Envelope CalculationsI saw an ad during one of this morning's news shows that got me thinking. I didn't catch who the ad was from, but the message was clear: 20,000 windmills would be required to supply electricity to the city the size of Paris, then there was an image of the Eiffel tower with three gaint blades. I guess the idea was to make 20,000 sound like an impossibly huge number, and that for that fact alone, we should look elsewhere for energy. Not specified in the ad was what the meaning of "Paris" — is it the 2 million in the core city, or is it the 10 million in the greater metro area? Anyway, I thought I'd pull out my HP calculatator and take a whack at the USA. The Energy Information Administration provides a few starting points.
Modern windmills are in the megawatt range, and they cost about $1/watt, so to replace all of the electrical power used in the USA, we'd need 443,285 windmills, at a cost of 443.2 billion dollars. That sounds like a lot, until you think that to date we've spent nearly half of that on the war in Iraq. It's less than the ammount that will be added to the national debt — this year alone. Now realistically speaking, we'd never get 100% generation for each windmill site, and there are transmission loses, so a derating factor would have to be applied, just as a swag we'll call it somewhat less han 50% so we need an even 1,000,000 windmills. That's a trillion dollars, or about what we'll be adding to the national debt in just 19 months. A million is a whole lot of windmills, but on the other hand, the technology it no more complicated than a modern automobile, and GM alone sold nine million cars and trucks globaly in 2004. Now I have to think that if we set out to build a million windmills, we might be able to find some economies of scale. If 20,000 windmills for Paris sounds like a lot, remember that over twice that number of new cars are sold each day, in the USA alone. Sun, 09 Oct 2005 13:47:02 PDT - Link October 7, 2005 Friday Cat Blogging
Another in the series of Palmer cats on red office chairs... Fri, 07 Oct 2005 10:27:58 PDT - Link Thoughtlets: On The BeBox
Andrew's put together a nice story about the BeBox release with loads of links to Be resources. Domo, Domo! BTW, that's a first generation "We Be Geeks" pocket protector. I really can't remember who came up with the idea, for these but they were quite popular at trade shows. And you know, these things are really useful. I wonder why they went out of style...
I saw an add for temporary tattoos in one of those magazines that the airlines put in thier seat pockets and thought we should get some. That was one of the really great things about being at Be, if any of us had ideas for viral marketing JLG would jump onboard. At one point, a group at Apple had rented a movie theater for a mid-morning show, and someone there invited the Be engineers along. We asked JLG if we could give out t-shirts, and he gave us a dozen which we left on random seats before the show. I don't know if we snagged any new employees from that, but it did help build goodwill. I think it was that showing that gave me the idea to put slides up in the theater promoting Be. It was around the time of the Star Trek movie featuring the Borg. When I got back to the office I brought the suggestion to JLG, and within minutes we'd rented a slot in two major markets in Silicon Valley, (It was not very expensive back then) and artwork was being sent to a place that could make the slides. The slides said:
They ran for a month or so in a couple dozen theaters (the ones most likely to contain future Be employees and customers.) I never did get to see it on the big screen. (Sniffle) Fri, 07 Oct 2005 10:10:30 PDT - Link October 3, 2005 BeBox Still In The News (But Not Good News)
You know, those guys would need a Very Big Truck™ to take away all of that sort of stuff from my garage. Mon, 03 Oct 2005 16:35:05 PDT - Link Happy 10th Birthday, BeBox!
It was 10 years ago today that the BeBox was first shown to the public at the Agenda Conference. I've found a handful of photos from that show to put in the new Be, Inc Gallery. I also dropped in a few photos of the first run of BeBoxen, which were assembled in the Be offices in Menlo Park, and a bunch of pictures from Macworld Japan, 1997. Photos of my BeBox (Signed by all the employees on my last day) are here.
Mon, 03 Oct 2005 10:53:26 PDT - Link September 30, 2005 About OkonomiyakiThe LA weekly reviews an Okonomiyaki shop in LA. I make okonomiyaki myself at home, using this receipe, which also contains the charming and immortal bit of HTML formated prose...
Somehow that just cracks me up. The formatting makes it look like we're in for a whole list of food an beverage pairings, but the list contains just one item. beer. He's right on that, by the way. Oh yeah, the Chinese yam is called nagaimo. I always leave a ring of the skin on it, if you peel the whole thing with a potato peeler it gets too slippery to hold. In fact, the first time you work with nagaimo you will be freeked out at how slithy it is. (But it really tastes great!) It's a lot of work to make them, so anytime I make them I make a few extra to freeze for lunch. They're pretty good re-heated in the microwave. Fri, 30 Sep 2005 17:49:43 PDT - Link Podcast - The Seasons Stories 2: Spring - a Ranma 1/2 Audio FanfictionThis is a Ranma 1/2 audio Fanfiction. No, it's not a new story, it was first published over 10 years ago. Spring is the second in an arc of four stories which have come to be called "The Seasons Stories" in the Ranma 1/2 fanfiction world. Enjoy, and please let me know if you like what you hear. P.S. I'm much happier with the recording quality of his one. Fri, 30 Sep 2005 15:06:40 PDT - Link Friday Cat Blogging
T-chan, Tory and Miko. I used the flash to fill, but you can still make out the patch of sun that attracted them. Fri, 30 Sep 2005 08:48:39 PDT - Link September 29, 2005 New York City and Colorado Photo Album
I've added a new photo gallery of images taken on my recent vacation to New York City and Colorado. Enjoy! Thu, 29 Sep 2005 12:31:54 PDT - Link The $3 Threshold
To think, when I bought my Prius last year, people told me I'd never make up the added price of the hybryd system in gas savings. I wonder if they would say the same thing today. Thu, 29 Sep 2005 09:07:24 PDT - Link Rita May Have Caused More Damage Than Katrina
The Oil Drum has a list of rigs that are Beached, Sunk, Missing, Aground, and Upside Down. Oil is one thing, many of us can make cut-backs in our driving to save 5 or 10%, we could probably deal with the loss of 1.5 million BL/Day in the Gulf. What I'm worried about is Natural Gas. If it's a cold winter, things could get Very Bad™. Thu, 29 Sep 2005 09:07:24 PDT - Link September 28, 2005 Got Arctic Ice Sheet?
You know those levees in NOLA? You need to rebuild them stronger. And Higher. A lot higher. Wed, 28 Sep 2005 16:07:26 PDT - Link Whas That A Shoe I Heard Falling - And Why Did It Splash?
I just tracked down a receipt from June 16. Gas was $2.48 / Gallon on that date. It's now $2.92 at the station arround the corner. It's up $0.44 or nearly 18% higher today. Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:46:35 PDT - Link Brother Can You Spare A Subcompact?
I'm shocked, shocked I tell you. Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:46:35 PDT - Link Rep. Bartlett's 2005 Energy ConferenceRepresentstive Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) held an energy conference on September 26th, Unfortunately C-Span has not sheduled a re-run, but you can read the transcripts at his website in [pdf] or in lovely HTML at Energy Bulletin: [1] [2] [3] He was also on the Washington Journal call-in show this morning (Warning: Link decay in 15 days) I really hope a torrent of this conference becomes available, the bits I caught were outstanding. P.S. Rep Bartlet spoke about this article by Matt Savinar. Wed, 28 Sep 2005 12:23:52 PDT - Link Wired Rave Award
Sometimes good things happen at bad times. On September 1st, as the images of people crying for help in NOLA were on the television, something very good, and very long awaited happened to me—I got something very nice in the mail. I’d like to publicly thank Christine and the rest of the Rave Awards team at Wired for making this possible. There aren’t many opportunities for an engineer like myself to get this sort or recognition for the work that we do, and it means a very great deal to me that I now have such a substantial memento. Wed, 28 Sep 2005 10:32:02 PDT - Link September 26, 2005 Hou Have GOT To Be Kidding me.
Mon, 26 Sep 2005 16:55:03 PDT - Link NYC
Wife and I spent four days in NYC last week, seeing many of the classic tourist sites. It was my first trip, so my image of the city was mostly based on what I'd seen in movies and on television, which gave me a very distorted view. Manhattan is a friendlier, less gritty and safer place than I'd been lead to expect. (Why is it that so many dramas based on crime and violence are filmed there?) The subways are great for getting around, we picked up Metro Cards first thing and were able to sort out the train-route uptown-downtown scheme within a few minutes, and only once ended up going in the wrong direction. I've yet to go through all of the photos, but if I come across any that are really good, I'll sprinkle a few here. Mesa Grill? Go for the smoked shrimp cake, it was outstanding! The Grilled Tuna Steak was a bit uninspired, however. I recommend the Sea Scallops and Roasted Sirloin of Beef at the Gramercy Tavern Mon, 26 Sep 2005 12:24:00 PDT - Link "We Have Lost Control" - Greenspan
Bush stayed on vacation when Katrina hit New Orleans, when he should have been in the Whitehouse. Now with Rita, he's flitting about the country as the acting FEMA director. Mr. Bush, you have to understand that you can save a lot of jet fuel by staying at home. You have a situation room, you know. That's where you belong when we have a situation. Besides, the bigest problem you face is not in the Gulf States, it's in your budget. You can't fix that from Colorado Springs. Mon, 26 Sep 2005 08:46:00 PDT - Link September 23, 2005 Friday Cat Blogging
Miko getting his ears cleaned by T-chan. (Awww.) Fri, 23 Sep 2005 07:29:21 PDT - Link September 19, 2005 HumorI ate at the Mensa Grill last night, it took an hour to figure out the menu. Mon, 19 Sep 2005 08:08:49 PDT - Link September 16, 2005 Friday Cat Blogging
Miko Fri, 16 Sep 2005 19:37:18 PDT - Link Potemkin Power - or - JUMP!
Go ahead and jump. Fri, 16 Sep 2005 09:30:47 PDT - Link September 12, 2005 SPECIAL REPORT:'Unacceptable': The Federal Response to Katrina
Mon, 12 Sep 2005 09:25:11 PDT - Link September 11, 2005 Disgrace
This too is Real News™. Sun, 11 Sep 2005 19:31:28 PDT - Link September 9, 2005 Friday Cat Blogging
Cousin Pete experiments with time travel. Photo: B. Palmer Fri, 09 Sep 2005 13:43:16 PDT - Link Lessons Unlearned
Fri, 09 Sep 2005 09:39:38 PDT - Link September 7, 2005 Two Strikes And We're Out
Katrina made landfall in Florida on the 13th Anniversary Of Hurricane Andrew. Andrew was the 1st named storm of 6 in 1992. Katrina was the 11th named storm in 2005. Wed, 07 Sep 2005 20:36:44 PDT - Link September 6, 2005 Hurricane Katrina-Our Experiences
Funny thing, isn't it — the natural inclination of people in need to gather together to form governments in their common interests. Tue, 06 Sep 2005 22:01:26 PDT - Link I Just Got Back From A FEMA Detainment Camp
Just read it. It's Real News™. Tue, 06 Sep 2005 21:29:49 PDT - Link Shouting Movie! In A Crowded Fire House
Tue, 06 Sep 2005 21:29:49 PDT - Link September 4, 2005 Pendulum. Stops. Here.On second thought Mr. President, resign. It's nothing personal, sir, it's just that your administration's handling of the aftermath of hurricane Katrina has at long last exposed that the most closely held doctrines of the neoconservative movement are diametrically opposed with the principals of good governance. To borrow your own words, what you need to understand is that you, personally, have failed this nation, and your strict adherence to neocon policies have caused damage to this nation that will take generations to repair. You need to go, and you need to take your neocon buddies with you. It is now abundantly clear the bumbling cascade of 'intelligence' mistakes that led to the war in Iraq, and the inept execution of the post-war reconstruction cannot be chalked up to malice or incompetence. Occam suggests that the efforts in Iraq have been guided, chapter and verse, by the neocon rulebook. We see the tragic results every day. It is now abundantly clear that the unconscionable budget deficits are a direct result of your callus disregard of simple mathematics. Your tax cuts provided temporary solace to your strongest supporters, corporate profits are up, but in every other measure the economy has performed worse for the vast majority of Americans under your guidance and polices. Look today, Mr. President. The Dow Jones, NASDAQ, S&P 500 are all lower due to your policies. Your trickle-down policy has trickled out It is now abundantly clear that every action you have taken in the past demonstrates that you are the wrong man to lead this nation forward. Your priorities are not our priorities. Your goals are not our goals. Your vision for America is not our vision for America. Mr. President, this summer Cindy Sheehan stepped forward put a face to this nation's doubts about the Iraq war. She asked a question you couldn't answer, about a war that shouldn't have happened. There is no doubt to her moral standing to ask that question. Mr. President, there are many more questions we'd like answered — questions that don't have such a face behind them. Questions about global warming, the environment, the economy, tax policy, oil, renewable energy, the rising costs of health care, drug policy, education, stem cells research, evolution, and intelligent design. We have questions about the separation of church and state, civil rights, privacy rights, reproductive rights. Some of these are trick questions, we already know your answers, and on issues of fact, you disagree with the facts, and on issues of opinion, your opinions are in opposition to the majority. Mr. President, the ropes are beginning to slip through the hands of your supporters. The pendulum, held overlong in place by corporate interests and their wholly owned media subsidiaries, has today begun its overdue swing back the middle. Like the city of New Orleans, you stand today at the high-water mark of neo-conservatism. Like the city of New Orleans, the clean-up will be an effort that will take generations. Mr. President, at long last, for the good of our nation, for the good of the world, it is time for you to go. Sun, 04 Sep 2005 10:16:42 PDT - Link September 3, 2005 Long-term Ambitions
Yeah, Bush, that's what you really needed to spend this Saturday doing. I guess there wasn't anything more important to do today.
Mission accomplished, Grover. All it took was a bigger bathtub. A much bigger bathtub. A New Orleans sized bathtub. Is this what you had in mind? Your conservatives have been in power for four and a half years, remaking the Federal Government in your conservative mold. Are you happy with the results? Did you spend the last 5 days standing in your attic up to you neck in poisonous waters, waiting for your model conservative government to come knocking? Nearly four years after 9-11, and the first time the Department Of Homeland Security is called upon to serve its charter the first thing they do is wastes lives and time in a truf battle with the Governor of Louisiana. Was it because she is a Democrat, Grover? This threat was moving slowly so slowly it took days to arrive, and was so big it could have been clearly seen by the naked eye from the surface of the moon. If the DHS couldn't deal with that, how well will they do against a terroist threat? Four years, and untold billions of debt later, and this is what your conservative model of Government comes up with? Back in 2000, FEMA (Now run by a man who was pushed out of his last job - policing horse shows) placed three threats at the top of the list. 1) A terrorist attack in NYC. 2) A Hurricane-caused flood in New Orleans and 3) A major earthquake in San Francisco. Two out of the three have happened on Bush's watch, and nearly four years after 9-11 the conservative government response to the Flood in New Orleans less organized, and less effective, less timely. For those of you who live near Earthquake faults, (yes, those of you near New Madrid too.) stock up. Two weeks of food and water per person, and you're going to need a shovel to dig a latrine. We now know that you must be prepared to fend for yourself if Bush finds himself in a position to reprise his famous line: "lucky me — I hit the trifecta". Sat, 03 Sep 2005 23:57:03 PDT - Link Indifference Is A Weapon Of Mass Destruction.
Sat, 03 Sep 2005 10:34:42 PDT - Link September 2, 2005 AnguishNew Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin gave a heart-wrenching an interview (.mp3 file) to WWL-AM. (Via Scripting News) CNN's transcript does not come close to expressing the anguish, desperation and anger in the voice of the mayor. Real News is that information you need to keep your freedoms. This is Real News. It is critical to your understanding of what is happening in New Orleans to listen to this. Katrina opened a tear in the fabric of society, and tens of thousands of Americans have fallen through. The first to fall were the elderly and poor, those with no cars to drive themselves out of town. The first to fall were those with no money left at the end of the month for a bus ticket. The first to fall were those who simply had nowhere to go, and no way to get there. But there were may be some 350,000 houses lost to the floods, these houses were home to perhaps 1,000,000 people. Those with jobs, and cars, and money for gas, were able to get out of Katrina's path, but now, their homes and jobs are underwater. They got out, but they have no where to go back to. Soon their credit cards will max out, and what then can they do? Where will they go? There may be 100,000 souls on the streets on New Orleans today, what will the rest of us do when the next 100,000 are forced from their motels, and then the next 100,000, and then the next 100,000, and the next 100,000... Fri, 02 Sep 2005 15:11:18 PDT - Link Friday Cat Blogging
Tory James I didn't really feel like cat blogging today. I've been glued to CNN, CNBC, and the web all week, and the news from New Orleans just keeps getting worse. Yes, I've given to the Red Cross (Thanks, Amazon, the Red Cross Website was too busy to get in) but it doesn't seem like enough. We're not doing enough. My chair is comfortable, there's phones, television, internet, electrical power, water, clean clothes, a bathroom and a shower. If I'm thirsty I walk downstairs to my well-stocked refrigerator. If I'm hungry I pull something from the freezer and pass it through the microwave. If that runs out I can walk on clean, dry sidwalks the two minutes to the closest store. Civilization, such as it is. Then I turn on that TV. The people in New Orleans have none of that, not even the dry land. They're waiting for help on rooftop islands, or chasing false rumors of help, chest-deep in foetid water. One day. Two days. Three days. Four days. Five days. Civilization makes way for survival. The president was on TV "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." If I'd have been interviewing him I'd have read him the riot act, right then, right there on national TV. This was one of the most predicted disasters in human history. It was in the top 3 of FEMA's worst-case catastrophies. Mr. President, in fact, EVERYONE ANTICIPATED THE BREECH OF THE LEVEES. Everyone but you, Mr. President. Fri, 02 Sep 2005 13:54:23 PDT - Link August 30, 2005 NOLA images
From Hunt101 via Kathryn Cramer, An image of the break in the levee. The red roof is clearly visible on Google Maps Tue, 30 Aug 2005 10:59:58 PDT - Link Katrina, 24 Hours LaterAs the sky clears, the true extent of the damage is slowly being seen. New Orleans was spared the direct hit, but the damage is extensive, and flooding continues. The news on TV seemed to be on top of it, I saw plenty of reporters standing in the wind and rain, but these were pinpoint views, from safe locations scouted out before the storm. As the day went on, it bacame clear that Katrina missing the heart of New Orleans only meant that the worst of the damage was moved to Mississippi and Alabama, where the reporters were fewer, and further between.
I think they are talking bout this bridge, but I'm not positive — the local coverage uses neighborhood names not found on google maps. It looks like the flooding is to the east of this bridge. There are also reports of devistating flooding in the Ninth Ward, which is to the east of the canal in the center of this map. My heart aches. Tue, 30 Aug 2005 09:28:42 PDT - Link August 29, 2005 Katrina - After LandfallIt's nowhere close to over, but it now looks like NOLA was spared the worst. Time to exhale — just a little. Hang tight, and my thoughts are with you. — J Mon, 29 Aug 2005 09:14:36 PDT - Link August 28, 2005 Katrina - Before LandfallFor those in the path of Katrina, please stay safe. Take care of your families, take care of yourselves. My heart and thoughts are with you. — J Sun, 28 Aug 2005 21:20:12 PDT - Link August 26, 2005 Friday Cat Blogging
Miko Fri, 26 Aug 2005 08:19:37 PDT - Link August 25, 2005 Systray Icons Missing
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