Murmurs of Earth

The Science of Battlestar Galactica

2010-09-28T10:41:00.001-04:00

Flower bike

2010-09-19T15:59:00.001-04:00

More treelimbs down

2010-09-16T18:43:00.001-04:00

Limbs down in #prospectpark after storm

2010-09-16T18:18:00.000-04:00

Daily Show Interviews we'd like to see..

2010-09-05T13:34:00.001-04:00

Gun Rights Supporter: Refusing to let me sit in a Starbucks wearing my gun is exactly the same as refusing to let you, or your parents or grandparents sit at a lunch counter for having dark skin. Wyatt (or Larry): That's right. I mean, I can certainly keep my dark skin locked in a drawer at home if I want, but I don't. I choose to go out like this [points to arm]. Gun Rights Supporter: Exactly!

Brighton Beach in the 1970s -- today!

2010-09-04T11:40:00.000-04:00

Giant lump of homemade milk plastic

2010-08-23T18:10:00.001-04:00

In which I confront AntiSemetic Russians

2010-08-19T13:32:00.001-04:00

At court, you have to take a number from one of those paper ticket dispensers like they have in bakeries, and then get on line and wait to be called. On the way to the courtroom, two Russian guys, one bulbous, one viperine, walked down the corridor side-by-side with me. When we got to the courtroom, and it was obvious I was going to the same place, they trotted faster in order to get on line ahead of me. I went to get a number and got on line behind them. Bulbous guy smirked at me, but then he looked around and realized his mistake. Infuriated, he turned around to me and said "You tricky! You get number first!" I smiled politely and nodded. It galled him that he exerted himself to beat me to the line and yet I would be called first. He looked at the NOW SERVING board, then at me, and said "Gimmie your number!" I looked incredulous and smugly said "No." Bulbovitch turned to Viperov and said in English "I said to gimmie number and he said no!". Viperov looked at me from under half-closed eyelids and said to Bulbovitch, "Must be a Jew". In my most booming voice, the one that fills the room without being a scream, I said "WHAT. DID. YOU. JUST. SAY?". Viperov just stared at me. Bulbovitch said "Nawthing, nawthing, nevermine." I said to Bulbovitch, "IT SOUNDED LIKE HE SAID 'MUST BE A JEW'. IS THAT RIGHT?" Some of the other people on line, who were dressed as observant Orthodox Jews turned around to watch. Bulbovitch repeated "Naw, is nawthing," while Viperov tried to look bored. I had accomplished my goal with these clowns, which was to make sure that shit like this always gets called out. Always. But now that the Russians had blinked, it was time to de-escalate and offer them a face-saving olive branch before they started shooting. "Wow," I said in a somewhat lower voice. "I would have sworn that's what he said. Thanks.". Bulbovitch nodded and turned his back to me. At least he was still ahead of me in line. And then the clerk called my number.

Sweating before the judge to become who I am, Conclusion

2010-07-24T07:27:00.000-04:00

[ Start with part 1 here ]

Once I found the Chase branch, things went pretty smoothly, so the rest of this story will be pretty fast. The Chase people were easily able to print out my statement, and they were kind enough to xerox my driver's license. I packed everything into my soggy manila envelope and trotted back through the steam to the courthouse.

I was once again soaking wet when I got to 141 Livingston Street, which was good because Officer Dummkopf was on search duty and you know he would have busted my balls if the idea weren't so disgusting in this heat. I went back up to the ninth floor, where the clerk handed me a piece of paper telling me to go to the third floor and pay $65. After I paid, the third floor clerk gave me a piece of paper telling me to go back to the ninth floor. I figured this was finally where I'd be able to drop off the papers and go home.

The clerk made various stamps on my paperwork, stamped my receipt from the third floor, and then handed me a piece of paper telling me to go to the eleventh floor. Ok, so maybe that was where I would finally be able to drop off my papers and go home.

"Court convenes at 2:30, so you've got about five minutes before you see the judge."

See the judge??? "Why do I have to see the judge?" I asked. I figured that somehow I had been given the wrong paperwork, and instead of getting my name changed they were convicting me of a felony. Stranger things have happened.

"You want your name changed, don't you?" The typical bureaucratic passive-aggressive non-answer.

The building was very well climate controlled, so I was no longer soaked, though I was still damp. "But the website didn't say I'd be meeting with the judge today!" I could only imagine what kind of impression I would make.

The clerk rolled her eyes. "There is just so much wrong with that website. NEXT!"

True to form, the 2:30 court convened at 2:47. The court officer took all our paperwork and made neat piles on his desk. Then we waited. And waited. When you're in the court system, your time is theirs. I could see the thunderstorms of a summer Friday afternoon through the courtroom windows. Occasionally the court officer would call out a name. People would shuffle or saunter up to the bench and inaudibly confer with the judge. Some people were there for small claims hearings, and the defendants sent or came with their lawyers. One of the lawyers looked exactly like the late Allen Funt of Candid Camera fame. He might have been, for all I know. The court officer occasionally would call the names of people who weren't there. I wrote erotic stories on the back of the unused pages of my financial statement.

Finally at 4:17 the judge called my name. Easiest way to suck up to a judge: stop about four feet away from the bench and wait for them to invite you to approach. Judges just eat that stuff with a spoon. In my statement I said I wanted to change my name in part because all my books and articles were bylined "Patrick DiJusto". He asked if I wrote for the Park Slope Courier. I said I didn't. He smiled and said, "Oh well, now you will". When the clerk handed me my papers I saw that that was where I had to place the legal notice of my name change. Good, I thought. No one will see it there.

I now have 60 days to get the legal notice printed and 90 days to return proof of the notice to the court. As far as I'm concerned, however, my name now is legally Patrick DiJusto.

Sweating before the judge to become who I am, Part 2

2010-07-24T06:38:00.001-04:00

[ Read part 1 here ]

"Ok, the clerk said. Here's what you do: you can go home and get those documents, but you'll have to be back here before 2PM."

It was 12:58. Not going to happen.

"Or?" I said.

"Do you have a bank account? Well, then, find the nearest branch and ask them to print out your last statement. With your address. We'll accept that. NEXT!"

I slinked to the elevators, where the Slavic woman was crying into her cell phone. I just stood there, ashamed that I had ever thought she should look to me as an example of anything but hubris.

But enough of that. I had to find a bank. Cell phones don't work in the courthouse elevators, so when we got to the lobby I dialed Chase's automated help line.

"HEY!" someone yelled. I was sure it was Officer Dummkopf. Years ago I trained myself not to respond when someone says HEY in that arrogant fashion. I put the phone to my ear and walked toward the door.

"HEY! No cell phones inna lobby!" Dummkopf screamed. "Take it outside." Since I was already walking outside, Dummkopf had placed himself in a win-win situation: no matter what I did, I was obeying him. I reminded myself yet again that if I am ever convicted of a crime I would have to kill myself before sentencing, since with this kind of attitude I would last maybe 15 seconds in prison.

"Chase Customer Service, may I help you?" The rain had stopped and the air outside consisted of 80% nitrogen, 19% steam, and 1% oxygen. MTA workers were building an anastamosis linking the nearby subway stations, so the streets around the courthouse were torn up, and multiple jackhammers pounded out of phase. "BROOKLYN!" I shouted into the phone. "JAY STREET AND LIVINGSTON! NEAREST BRANCH!" I could just barely hear the operator reply "Eighth street?" "NO!!!! JAY STREET! J-A-Y STREET! AND LIVINGSTON! BRANCH!" I started walking down Jay Street to get away from the construction.

An ambulance tried to zoom around the corner, but their on-board navigation system didn't tell them that the street had been torn up. The driver screeched to a stop and leaned on his siren, making deep "WOCKA-WOCKA-WOCKA" sounds that in no way harmonized with the jackhammers. "Avenue J in Brooklyn" the Chase Customer Service operator said faintly.

"NOOOOOOO! J-A-Y STREET AND... where am I now? WILLOUGHBY STREET. Oh crap! W-I-L-L-O-U-G-H-forget it, thanks! Never mind! Bye." I didn't need her anymore. I was approaching Metrotech Center. Metrotech Center is the Brooklyn home of JP Morgan Chase. There's a huge Chase logo atop 4 Metrotech Center -- you could see it for miles. Surely they had to have a Chase branch. Surely.

30 minutes later, "Surely" had turned into "WHERE THE FUCK IS THE CHASE BRANCH ALREADY?????" There are 28 buildings in Metrotech Center, and I had been to each one, begging for a teller. Each time, the security guard sent me to a different building, further from the courthouse. I began to believe that there was no Chase branch, that JP Morgan Chase wasn't headquartered there, and that MetroTech center was merely a metaphor for the first layer of hell.

[more to come]

Sweating before the judge to become who I am

2010-07-24T05:16:00.001-04:00

Patrick is not my real name. I actually have an incredibly ethnic name, in the style of Annunziato or Ermenegildo. (But neither of those. But just as bad.) And I've always hated it. I mean no disrespect to the grandfather for whom I was named, it's just that in the 1970s where I grew up, having a name like Zanibuono DiJusto (not my old name, but just as bad) simply wasn't healthy.

About 5 years ago I decided to legally change my name, to the point of getting the forms and obtaining a birth certificate. But back then, you also needed sworn statements from people who had known you as your new name for x number of years, and I got lazy and never collected them.

But since then the rules had changed. According to the website http://www.nycourts.gov/courts/nyc/civil/namechanges.shtml, all you needed now to change your name was to fill out some forms, drop them off at the courthouse, pay $65, and in about three weeks you could be a new person. The forms were on line and there was even an interactive program that assumed you were as intelligent as a third grader and would need a great deal of help and handholding to get everything right. It couldn't be this simple. Could it? I dug out my birth certificate from the aborted 2005 name change attempt, printed out the name change petition forms, and jumped on the subway.

At the Jay Street station, people were clustered at the bottom of the stairs. That means only one thing. New York had been having a horrendous heat wave for the entire month of July; one for the record books. I had spent the past week indoors sitting at the confluence of three fans, hoping for rain. Now I was out and about with places to go and things to do and ... rain! Sweet summer rain, pouring down the subway stairs. I arrived at the courthouse soaked to the skin.

I emptied my pockets into a filthy plastic bin, walked through the metal detector and asked the guard where I could drop off the forms for a name change petition. As soon as he heard me say "name" he said "ninth floor", but since I was still saying "change petition" I couldn't understand what he said, with the result that I had to ask him again where I could drop off the forms for a name change petition. Again, he said "ninth floor" as soon as he heard "name", but this time I was expecting it, and even though I still insisted on saying "change petition" I understood what he said. "Sounds like you said 'ninth floor'" I said. As soon as he heard me say "ninth", he said "yeah, ninth" as I was still saying "floor". I probably should have just strode up to him and yelled "NAME!", but Officer Dummkopf would probably have just tazed me.

There was a small line on the ninth floor. One woman with a thick Slavic was in despair as the clerk spoke in a low monotone. "No," the woman said "I didn't know you had to bring that.... No, they didn't say I needed that... Why can't you use this?... I don't have that with me...." and so on. Poor thing. If she had only used the idiot proof interactive website, as I had, she wouldn't be in this mess. The other clerk called my number and I strode up to her window.

"Hi!" I said cheerily. "I'm here to submit the forms for a name change petition. Here are the forms, all properly notarized. Here is my certified birth certificate. Here is my sixty-five dollars." I glanced over at the Slavic woman. Maybe I could serve as an inspiration to her on how to do things right.

"You used that website," the clerk said, looking over the forms with a frown.

"Yes ma'am," I said with a winning smile.

"Did it tell you the other things we need?" the clerk asked.

"N-no," I said. "Like what?"

The clerk sighed. "It never does. We need a photocopy of your government ID, like a drivers license, passport, military ID."

"I didn't know you had to bring that," I said.

"We also need proof of residence in Kings county, like a letter addressed to you. Do you have that?"

"No, they didn't say I needed that. Why can't you use this?" I said, handing over my driver's license.

"We're not permitted," the clerk said. "Did you bring a letter addressed to yourself?"

"I don't have one with me," I said.

"Ok, the clerk said. Here's what you do...."

[continued in Part II]

Ralph 124C41+

2010-06-23T10:50:00.002-04:00

Patrick sat down in his chair, which had a back that had been specially designed to curve like a human spine. He flipped a switch and a glass screen before him lit up. It was a Liquefied Crystalline Displayer. Unlike the old fashioned cathode ray tubes which glowed with phosphorescence as an electron beam rapidly played over the inner surface of the glass, this new LCD could paint images as realistic as a colored photograph, using nothing more than energy. Patrick's Computation Machine began to hum and whirr as high voltage electricity flowed through its circuits. This machine could store and manipulate data hundreds of times faster than the human brain. It was the major totem in Patrick's life.

The Computation Machine could, at times, serve as a Communications Machine. During those times, it broadcast a signal on the 12.5cm wavelength to a smaller machine located in the parlor of Patrick's house. This smaller machine, known as a Modulator/Demodulator, converted the wireless signal into electrical impulses that could travel along a high speed cable no bigger than a man's thumb. Such a cable snaked out of Patrick's basement, joining other cables from other buildings, until the mass of cables filled hundreds of conduits buried in the bedrock of New York City.

From there, the communication signals from Patrick's Computation Machine traveled across the country at the speed of light, until they reached a set of Computation Machines near the city of San Francisco. These Computation Machines served as a "meeting place" for the best and the brightest thinkers in the world! Patrick pulled toward him a rectangle of neo-bakelite plastic: it contained 101 electric buttons, each marked with a letter or other typographic symbol, and was based on the layout of ancient printing machines. A skilled operator, which Patrick was, could "compose" as many as twenty words per minute on such a device. He gathered his thoughts, and rapidly began to typewrite:

"I just started the book 'Ralph 124C 41+' for the first time, and I
love it! It's so mindbendingly dorky; how could I not love this
book?! It has no real plot, crepe-paper characters, cinderblock
dialogue, and a tendency to wander. But oh, wow; such
marvels! Especially if you try to put yourself back into a 1911
mindset.

It's the way my science fiction would come out if I wrote science
fiction: as a catalogue of really cool technology, presented in
Aspergerian detail, with ill-defined people walking through it
doing...not much of anything, really.

Has anyone else here actually read this book? What did you
think?"

Patrick hoped his friends enjoyed the message he left for them. They'd see it the next time they connected their personal Computation Machines to the ones near San Francisco, however many hours or days later that be. Patrick looked at a small box on his desk. The figures "1:45 am" glowed in red light on one face of the box. "Getting pretty late," Patrick thought, as he turned off the Computation Machine. He stretched and flipped a wall switch. His office light, a spiral tube of low-pressure gas which ionized and glowed whitely when energized, went dark. Patrick removed his synthetic acetate shirt, manufactured by a process that created a silk-like fabric from nothing more than plant chaff and vinegar, and headed off to his petroleum-based extruded foam mattress, and to sleep.

When asked about the leaders of the movement, they were expected to say "I Know Nothing"

2010-06-21T11:38:00.001-04:00

1. Severe limits on immigration, especially from non-Protestant Christian countries.
2. Restricting political office to native-born Americans.
3. Mandating a wait of 21 years before an immigrant could gain citizenship.
4. Restricting public school teacher positions to Protestants.
5. Mandating daily Bible readings in public schools.
6. Restricting the use of languages other than English.

The 2010 Tea Party platform? No, this is the platform of the Know Nothing American Party of the 1840s and 1850s. They had the same kind of distrust of government, and fear/hatred of immigrants and non-Christians as the current day Tea Partiers do.

The good news: their political movement petered out after a few years, with most of the Know Nothings joining the Republican party.

The bad news: their political rallies frequently turned into political riots, which left over 50 people dead.

The Know-Nothing Party

Know Nothing Riot of 1856

More Know Nothing Riots

Catholic take on the anti-catholicism of the Know Nothings

A Know Nothing Pamphlet from the 1850s

Apophis and the Russians

2009-12-31T11:21:00.003-05:00

ANDY ASKS: "Just read that the Russians are going to shoot a rocket at this thing. They say that in 2029 Apophis has a 1-37 chance of hitting earth and that is too close for comfort for them. Ok now my questions...Near earth orbit people say that in 2029 Apophis will pass us by by 18,000 miles, a little close yes I know, could or will we be able to see it with the naked eye?...Finally, they all agree it is not a planet killer, but what will a 1,000 foot long meteor do to us upon impact? e.g: take out Ardsley? or Yonkers? or NYC? or NY state?"

Some background: yes indeed, the asteroid 9942 Apophis (uh-PO-fis) is going to pass by the Earth on April 13, 2029. Yes, it will pass about 18,000 miles above the surface, and should be visible through binoculars from Asia, Africa, and Europe; at its nearest point it should be moving across the sky about 80 times faster than the Moon! Apophis absolutely will not strike the Earth in 2029.

But the flyby in 2029 will be so close that the Earth's gravitational pull will definitely change the asteroid's orbit. And that's the problem: we don't yet know precisely how much the orbit will be changed. As things stand right now, there is a tiny, 1-in-250,000 chance that the flyby in 2029 will change the asteroid's orbit in such a way that leads to Apophis impacting the Earth in 2036.

The 1-in-37 chance that Apophis would hit the Earth was based on early calculations, when we didn't know exactly where the asteroid was. As more images came in, we were able to better calculate Apophis's orbit, and the odds of impact got less and less.

But how could we not know where an asteroid is? Can't we see it with telescopes?

Yes we can -- but not clearly. When you take a picture of your face, you can do it in such a way that each dot of the photograph is "life size" -- one inch on the photo corresponds to one inch of your face. Things change when you take pictures of distant objects. When photographing a field, one inch on the photo might correspond to 100 feet in real life. For a far off mountain range, one inch might correspond to 10 miles. And when photographing space, one dot might represent 10000 miles.

When photographing an asteroid from Earth, you almost never actually see the asteroid's surface. What you see is a dot of light, meaning that somewhere in a 10000 mile region of space, there is an asteroid. By examining multiple photos of space, you can narrow down where an asteroid is, but there will almost always be some uncertainty.

Former Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart started the B612 foundation to come up with plans for what to do about Apophis. The first thing he suggests (which the European Space Agency wants to try) is to fly a lander to the asteroid the next time it comes into the Earth's neighborhood in 2013. The lander will have a radio beacon on it, allowing radiotelescopes on Earth to triangulate the asteroid's position precisely down to a few _feet_. With that information, we should be able to calculate precisely where Apophis will be from now to the year 2070. More than likely, we're going to find that Apophis poses no threat to the Earth, even taking the 2029 gravitational shift into account.

But suppose we get unlucky with our 1-in-250,000 chance, and we find that the 2029 flyby puts Apophis smack into the Earth in 2036. What then?

The smartest thing to do is probably the simplest. NASA astronaut Ed Lu came up with the idea of launching a massive 20-ton spacecraft to fly next to the asteroid without touching it. The gravitational field of the spacecraft will gently tug at the asteroid for years, eventually pulling the asteroid out of the danger zone for striking the Earth. To get faster results, you can add an ion engine to the spacecraft so that it can more effectively tug the asteroid-- this can change the asteroid's speed by 0.02 mph, which is all that you need to save the Earth.

Other ways to move Apophis might entail attaching a solar sail to the rock, so that the pressure of sunlight can gently shift the asteroid -- remember all we need is to change its velocity by 0.02 mph. Other ideas might be spraying ice on one side of the asteroid and/or crushed dust on the other side; the white ice might act like a solar sail, or the dark dust might absorb (and then give off) so much heat that the small thrust should move the asteroid.

The gravitational tug is probably the safest and simplest way to move an asteroid. Unfortunately, the concept wasn't developed until 2005, after the movie Armageddon, so in the popular imagination the only way to destroy an asteroid is to BLOW THE SHIT OUT OF IT WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS, YEAH!!!

This is probably the stupidest thing we could do. This was mentioned in the movie "Independence Day", when General Gray said "the only thing that would accomplish is turn one dangerous falling object into many"; in other words you'll be just as dead if you're hit with a shotgun blast as if you're hit with a howitzer.

Remember, we're discussing "what if" scenarios: Apophis has a 1 in 250,000 chance of hitting the Earth, and I think the odds are going to go more in our favor as we learn more.

But since you asked, suppose everything fails and Apophis is headed directly for Earth. What happens then?

If the asteroid hits a rocky place, the resulting crater will be 2.2 miles across. That's more than twice as large as Ardsley itself, and about 1/10th the size of Yonkers. But that's just the crater! If you were 28 miles away from the impact, the heat would be about 20 times as intense as the Sun; and will set trees and buildings on fire. Nine seconds later, the seismic shaking will arrive; it will be equivalent to a 6.6 Richter earthquake, and will cause consuderable damage to most structures. A minute and a half later, the ejecta will come raining down; molten chunks of lava the size of soccer balls. But that's OK, because the blast wave, which will arrive 40 seconds later, will feel like a wind 140 miles per hour, and will knock down what remains of the buildings and burning trees.

If the asteroid were to impact Ardsley, all of Westchester/Putnam/ Rockland from Harriman to West Point to Brewster would be destroyed. Fairfield County Connecticut, from Ridgefield to Long Island Sound, would be on fire. On Long Island, pretty much all of Nassau County and a chunk of Suffolk County out to Cold Spring, Huntington, and Bethpage would be wiped off the map. The structurally sound buildngs of lower Manhattan might still be standing, but Queens, the Bronx, Harlem, and northern Brooklyn would be rubble, and Central Park would be one giant forest fire. Most of northeastern New Jersey, from Bayonne to West Milford, would be destroyed.

We're lucky this is NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!

Murph the Surf

2009-12-09T23:33:00.001-05:00

Jack Murphy was a violin, tennis and chess prodigy who threw it all away to become a Florida surfer dude. He started a surfboard company, became famous as Murph the Surf when his copmany skyrocketed, and then lost it all to bad business dealings. He soon became involved in petty robberies in Florida.

He came to New York in October 1964 to visit the World's Fair, without any plans to rob anything. On the night of October 29, he was staying with a friend on 75th street as a mid-autumn thunderstorm lashed Manhattan. Murph and the friend drunkenly got the idea to steal the jewels from the American Museum of Natural History around the corner.

Nowadays, the jewel exhibit is in a walled off enclosure deep in the center of the museum, but in those days the jewels were kept in a third floor gallery overlooking 77th street. Murph and his friend climbed up the cragged rock wall of the museum and opened the window to the jewel room. Later investigation revealed that the fuse to the window alarm had been accidentally blown by the lightning; as a result, the guards were not alerted.

However, the guards patrolled the building on regular 20 minute rounds, and Murph and his friend happened to climb through the window just as a guard was entering the third floor gallery. They managed to close the window and hide without being detected by the guard. When the coast was clear, Murph walked over to the Star of India sapphire, lifted off its plexiglass cover, and pried the stone out of its setting. Both the cover and the stone sat on pressure sensors tied to separate alarm systems, but these were battery powered, and later investigation revealed that the batteries were dead. The pair pocketed 26 other gems, including the 16.25 carat Eagle Diamond, the Midnight Sapphire, and the de Long Ruby.

Murph and his friend climbed out the window, down the rock wall, and stashed most of the jewels in the 75th street apartment. Badly in need of some more alcohol, they hit a neighborhood bar, where Murph tried to pick up two young women by bragging that he was a jewel thief. He produced the Eagle Diamond as proof, but no one believed his story, or that the gem was real, and he and his pal wound up going home alone.

Of course, the next day the robbery made the afternoon news. The two women remembered their inept lothario from the night before, and alerted the police. Meanwhile Murph, realizing how hot he was, decided to head back to Miami. By all accounts he left the apartment a few minutes before the police arrived.

After a week-long manhunt, Jack Murphy was arrested in Florida. The jewels, except for the Eagle Diamond, were recovered from a locker in a Miami bus depot. Murph the Surf served two years for the robbery.

Jesus, the token booth clerk.

2009-11-27T16:32:00.001-05:00

What's Ahead for NASA: Sell ISS to the highest bidder!

2009-10-22T12:05:00.001-04:00

    The Augustine Commission report on NASA's future has just been released, and it is an eye-opener. The report basically states that NASA's goals should match its budget, and its current budget doesn't really allow for lofty goals. The report calls for enhanced US cooperation with other space-faring nations as a way to spread the cost and benefits of space exploration, and strongly suggests that the US government turn to private launch companies to put Americans into space.
    Earlier this year, NASA's space station program manager Michael T. Suffredini hinted that after spending nearly 100 billion dollars and 17 years building a space station, NASA plans to deorbit ISS in the first quarter of 2016. This was most likely an institutional cry for help -- the way teenagers will hurt themselves to call attention to the pain inside them. The Augustine report addresses this, acknowledging that crashing ISS into the Pacific only 5 years after is it completed is ludicrous; yet it also acknowledges that keeping ISS will drain money away from other human spaceflight plans.
    The report doesn't recommend the most obvious course of action: NASA should sell the International Space Station. Maybe not the whole thing, and certainly not all at once, but sell it.
    The most likely buyer would probably be the Russians. They're part-owners already, and it wouldn't take much paperwork to hand the whole thing over to them. Once the shuttle is retired at the end of Fiscal year 2010 (or, as the Augustine report suggests, 2011 or even later) NASA's astronauts will be like kids without a driver's license, always trying to cage rides to space from anyone who will take them. In return for continued access to the station, NASA should sell off its stake in ISS to the Russians in bits and pieces, trading equity for the price of a ride. At the current rate of roughly 20 million per passenger, astronauts could travel to the station for many decades. Of course, what's more likely is that once Russians oligarchs obtain 51% ownership, they'll kick us out completely and turn ISS into an orbiting casino and brothel.
    We could sell ISS to the Chinese. It is probably too idealistic to think we could sell it at a profit -- after all, the earliest modules have 1.67 billion miles and 11 years of space exposure on them -- but we might be able to unload it at cost. Cost, that is, in NASA accounting terms. ISS bears the burden of the tens of billions wasted in the 1980s trying to build a space station for Ronald Reagan. As a result, estimates for the cost of ISS range between $30 and $100 billion – no one really seems to know. Offing it to the Chinese at a fire-sale price of $20 billion might be attractive; such a sum would service about 41 days of our debt with Beijing. At the very least, we can sign over the title and have the Chinese pick up the payments.
    But a much more imaginative solution would be to sell the International Space Station to Disney. The Mouse could turn some of its vast Florida holdings – located conveniently close to the Kennedy Space Center -- into an amusement park/astronaut training facility. Those with millions can train for a real-life ride to space; those with thousands can ride a Disney vomit comet; those with hundreds can go through the motions or riding a rocket sled or centrefuge.
    Along with ownership of ISS would come naming rights ("The Haunted Space Station" has quite a ring to it, doesn't it?) and licensing deals, which should pay for some basic research to continue (via mechanisms like the Tang Instant Breakfast Drink Quantum Gravity Instrument Pod, for instance). The culmination would be an ABC reality show -- "Model Rockets", perhaps -- where 5 international fashion divas are brought into orbit and then slowly voted off the station one by one.
    You know, an orbiting casino sounds more intriguing.

Personal Urns

2009-08-02T10:31:00.000-04:00

http://www.cremationsolutions.com/Personal-Urns-c109.html

This is one of the creepiest things I've ever seen in my life.

Generation Why

2009-03-27T12:09:00.003-04:00

The Wall Street Journal has an article on the Facebook Generation and their relation with the Fortune 500, and the future of how business gets done. The article lists (and goes into detail on) 12 characteristics of business as usual for Gen Y:

1. All ideas compete on an equal footing.
2. Contribution counts for more than credentials.
3. Hierarchies are natural, not prescribed.
4. Leaders serve rather than preside.
5. Tasks are chosen, not assigned.
6. Groups are self-defining and -organizing.
7. Resources get attracted, not allocated.
8. Power comes from sharing information, not hoarding it.
9. Opinions compound and decisions are peer-reviewed.
10. Users can veto most policy decisions.
11. Intrinsic rewards matter most.
12. Hackers are heroes.

Some of these items are more odious than most. For instance, I do not want to go to a hospital that's operated along the lines of propositions #1 and #2. It's a shame if you think this attitude describes an elite snobism, but the simple fact is that the janitor's opinion of how to treat kidney failure is not on an equal footing with a nephrologist's.

#6s claim that groups are self-defining is a gob of spit in the face of gay people who would like to define themselves as married, but can't. And I'm sure there are other groups all over the world who would like to define themselves as an ethnic minority that shouldn't be massacred, but can't. Tell them how wonderful self-definition is.

And as for #7: suppose we take a vote right now among the Facebook generation about whether we should allocate resources toward resurfacing 100 year old water mains in city cores, or something shiny, distracting, and above all, new. Which would win?

Every single one of these items is predicated on one thing: they're true only if someone else does the shit-work instead of you.

Every job has a certain amount of boring, uninteresting drudgery that can’t (yet) be fobbed off on a robot or piece of software. Of course it’s easy to say that you want a “fun” job, but those fun jobs only exist because they were built on someone else’s “not fun” job.

And, remember, there is some value to the not-fun job: I'm going to trust your opinion on my lawsuit a hell of a lot more if it can be backed up by the shit-work of your having slogged through law school where you actually learned something.

I understand that the Facebook generation are mainly in their early 20s, and so I don’t expect maturity from them. But I don’t get a sense of empathy for others from them either. They expect that all these things should be the way they want them because... well, because that's the way they want them. And that scares me.

And then the V train came into the station...

2009-03-18T09:45:00.005-04:00

Coming back home last night on the subway, I caught one of the old F trains --those ribbed, stainless steel cars that are as old as I am. Lots of floor space, parallel lines of seats facing each other.

At Broadway-Lafayette, a tall, 20 something guy with a huge duffel bag got on. As the train started to pull out of the station, this guy LEAPED out of his seat, sprinted down the length of the subway car to the very end -- and pulled the emergency brake cord!!!

We heard a loud pneumatic hiss, and the train slammed to a stop. The guy yelled "SORRY! I'M SORRY!", and ran back to his duffel bag. He scooped it up, opened the front door of the car, squeezed between the two cars, and leaped onto the platform. We could see him run down the length of the station.

I am convinced that nearly every New Yorker wants to reach out and talk to the people around them, but they don't dare because they know that it just isn't done without a special dispensation. So we all sat there watching the guy or staring off into the middle distance. No one knew what had just happened, or why. We were startled and a little scared. But still we remained in our shells. Then someone from the front of the car, near where the guy had been sitting, said "He said he must have left his camera on the platform."

That remark was the absolution we needed. Instantly, the entire subway car became a committee of the whole, organized to debate the man's behavior, selfishness, stupidity, ancestry, and recto-cranial capacity:

"A camera? A CAMERA?"
"Who takes their camera out on the platform?"
"Who leaves their camera on the platform?"
"That better be a five thousand dollar camera."
"It's not just this train, you know! He's backing up the whole line."
"If he comes back on, let's throw his duffel bag on the tracks."
"I thought he was epileptic!"
"I thought he had Tourettes!"
"A CAMERA???"

When that died down we went back to just sitting there. I habitually sit in the last car of the F train. The first eight cars of the train were in the tunnel -- our car and the car in front of us were still on the platform. And thank the gods of every religion for that. If I had been stuck in the tunnel for 25 minutes, they would have pulled me out a drooling, babbling idiot good for nothing but a long visit at Bellevue.

Not unlike the guy in the wheelchair. It was St. Patrick's Day, remember, and the guy in the wheelchair had decided to drink himself legless. About five minutes after Camera Guy pulled the emergency cord, Wheelchair Guy started shouting. "HEY! Get me off this motherfucking train!" "Open this bitch up!!!" "Do you work for the CIA?" He slammed his wheelchair over and over into the front door of the subway car. His leprechaun hat fell off.

There was an elderly black man seated across from me. He looked at Wheelchair Man, let out a long, deep, sigh, and said in a Barry White voice, "I must be on the Crazy Train."

About 10 minutes after Camera Guy pulled the emergency cord, the conductor showed up, walking through the front door of the subway car (I should mention that the side doors of the car had remained sealed all this time). The guy in the wheelchair said "What took you so motherfucking long? We could have been dead back here!!", which was a completely reasonable observation. "You must work for the CIA!!! Now let me off this motherfucker!"

The conductor took out his special key and opened first side door. Wheelchair guy wheeled himself out. No one else took the option to flee. The conductor went back into the other car without examining the rest of our car. Had he stayed for another second, we would have pointed out that it was our emergency brake that had been pulled.

The PA system cracked to life. "Conductor," the voice said, "garble flurben flarben garble garble floogle boogle garble zim zam zooney." We all looked at each other expectantly: did anyone understand what we had just heard? The conductor's voice came on the PA system: "Yeah, he's on his way." Apparently the conductor did.

The entire 25-minute long event could be roughly divided into pre-conductor and post-conductor eras. Before the conductor showed up in our car, we passengers were relatively cheerful -- talking to each other and cracking sarcastic jokes about Camera Guy and the MTA. After the conductor came and went, the jokes ended, and our complaints became louder. Wheelchair guy's pronouncement -- that the train staff took a good 10 minutes to investigate what could have been a tragedy -- still hung in the air. We were growing disgruntled. And then the V train came into the station.

I had always thought that when the emergency brake is pulled, the signal lights in the tunnel turn red to prevent another train from entering the station. Barring that, I figured the motorman or conductor would radio the trainmaster to hold all trains in that particular part of the line. I was wrong both times. In less time than it takes to read, we heard a V train thunder into the Broadway-Lafayette station! Almost immediately, its motorman slammed on its brakes with a shriek of steel on steel. The V train came to a shuddering stop about three car lengths behind us. Not very close, I'll admit, but dammit, it shouldn't have been there at all!

Now, the people in the subway car were solidly pissed. Wheelchair Guy's observation still rattled around in our heads. And then the V train! What was up with that? How could such a thing happen!?!? Before anyone could work themselves into doing something stupid, the conductor re-appeared. He took out his special key and opened first side door of the subway car. Two MTA employees got on. The conductor led them to the control booth at the back of the car. The two men fiddled with some stuff in the booth for no more than 30 seconds, then came out and said "good to go". We were too disgusted to complain. The train started moving about 5 minutes later.

At Delancey Street a beautiful woman in her 40s got on. The PA system cracked "Lays and Gemmum, garble farble flooble garble floy floy be moving shortly." Eager to regain the lost camaraderie we used to have, I said to everyone, "I think this train has met its quota for getting stuck tonight." No one said anything. The crisis was over, and we had lost that magical dispensation that allowed us to speak to each other. Instead of people sharing an adventure, we were once more individual New Yorkers, back in our shells, brooding about how late this train was.

Then the beautiful woman piped up. "Is that why this train was so late? You were stuck in the tunnel?"

And we all got to tell her the story of the crazy guy who lost his camera and pulled the emergency brake.

...and kiss your ass goodbye

2009-02-09T10:38:00.001-05:00

Planning Guidance For Response to a Nuclear Detonation(PDF), a report by the Department of Homeland Security.

Executive Summary: If a terrorist nuclear detonation occurs in your city, you're fucked.

Salient Points:

There will be no significant federal response for 72 hours.
You're fucked.

Professor Dumbledore stars in Pulp Fiction

2009-02-04T18:42:00.001-05:00

Not Network

2009-02-03T14:19:00.001-05:00

I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!

When Robot Programmers get bored

2008-12-09T08:51:00.001-05:00

John McCain and the Overhead Projector

2008-10-16T14:27:00.001-04:00

My friends, I'm betting it happened this way...

Just before the second debate, one of McCain's policy aides breathlessly rushes up to him.

"Chief," he says --you just know that McCain's staff is encouraged to call him something like 'Chief' or 'Boss'-- "we have evidence that BHO voted to provide three million dollars for a projector for a planetarium in his hometown of Chicago! You can really nail him with this!"

They can't bring them selves to say Obama's name out loud. They prefer to call him something like "BHO", in the way that the 9/11 Report called Kahlid Sheikh Mohammad "KSM" and Osama Bin Laden "OBL". It gives them a sense of comraderie -- a sense of mission.

McCain's eyes light up. Projectors? This is something he knows about. His post-POW years in the Navy were spent giving military briefings to politicians. He's worked with overhead projectors for years. He knows all about overhead projectors. He can even change the bulb in most models of overhead projectors; find another Senator who can do that. And who ever heard of spending three million dollars on an overhead projector? That's the kind of overspending even the Pentagon, his beloved Pentagon, which has turned overspending from an art into a science, couldn't manage.

McCain realizes he's got something good here. "Tonight, at the town hall debate," he says, "if _that one_ dares to mention wasteful government spending, I'll sock it to him with this!" McCain chuckles. "A three million dollar overhead projector!"

The aide is about to correct McCain when Cindy walks into the room. McCain's wristwatch beeps twice.

"Two thirty, Johnny", Cindy says. "Nap time."

McCain is happy. He looks in a nearby mirror. His seventh cranial nerve fires, pulling his risorius facial muscles back into something that looks like a smile. He's really going to hand it to that upstart tonight.

"Nap time." Cindy repeats.

-------------

"What the hell do you mean, wrong?" McCain thunders at his young science aide. The second presidential debate ended about an hour ago, and McCain was sitting in his suite at the Carleton in his US Navy bathrobe when this kid brought the news.

"Well, Chief, um, it wasn't an overhead projector that BHO tried to get for the planetarium. It was a planetarium projector. Different thing."

McCain will have none of it. "What the hell's a planetarium projector?" he thunders again.

"Well, sir, if you remember the last time you were in a planetarium, that big thing in the middle of the room. Looks like a giant insect. That's the planetarium projector.

"That thing? What does it do?"

"It projects the image of the stars onto the dome."

"I thought that was a pendulum to make the room spin."

"Uh, no sir, when you're in a planetarium and if feels like the room is spinning, sir, that's really the projector making the stars spin."

"Son, I'm an old fighter pilot and if the seat of my pants tells me that I'm moving, I'm moving. I know a spin when I feel one."

"Yes, sir." The young science aide pauses. "Chief, should I have Ms. Pfotenhauer issue another clarifying statement to the media, explaining what you meant to say?"

"Fuck 'em," McCain growls. "I'll bet not a single Warshington reporter knows the difference between this planetarium projector and an overhead projector, either.'

"Yes, sir," the aide says gamely. "But the blogosphere, especially the science bloggers; they're up in arms."

"Blogosphere?" McCain asks for the thousandth time.

The science aide wiggles his fingers in a typing motion.

"Oh, yeah, those geeks who write on the internet tubes," McCain says. "You told me they loved Sarah."

"Well, yes, sir. But there's a small group of science writers who really care about planetariums."

"Are any of them going to get to go on TV and complain?" McCain asks. This is something few young people understand about McCain -- he doesn't get modern technology, but when it comes to technology he grew up with, he's a master at using it for his ends.

"Not likely, sir" the science aide sighs.

"So fuck them too," McCain snaps. "Anything else?"

"Just next time, chief, if you could remember that it's a planetarium projector, not an overhead projector."

McCain just stares at him. "Anything. Else?"

The aide knows a dismissal when he hears one. "No sir, nothing else."

"Good night, then," McCain says, reaching for the tv remote.

"Good night sir."

----------------------------------------------------

Halfway through the third and final debate, McCain's young science aide makes the mistake of taking his attention off the screen for an instant as he gets another cup of coffee. Suddenly the Blackberry on his hip starts twitching and buzzing. The RSS feeds to the top science blogs have simultaneously started spewing. The aide rushes back to the TV.

"Did he?" the science aide asks.

"Yep," the foreign policy advisor says. "'Overhead projector' again."

The science aide's fingers start to go numb as his Blackberry continues to vibrate nonstop.

World Climate Report » Global Warming Good for Mediterranean Tits?

2008-08-27T11:31:00.000-04:00

World Climate Report » Global Warming Good for Mediterranean Tits?

Damn -- it's not about what I thought it was about.

Take a Memo: Rock My Vote

2008-08-26T11:12:00.000-04:00

A (wonderfully intelligent) twenty-something's take on Barack Obama:

Take a Memo: Rock My Vote

Protein synthesis: an epic on the cellular level

2008-08-16T00:10:00.001-04:00

Protein synthesis, acted out in dance form by a bunch of long-haired hippies in a park.

"They know they're lying..."

2008-08-15T23:16:00.001-04:00

It's as if he heard me!!!!!!

Google Insights for Search - Search Volume: is obama muslim - United States, Last 12 months

2008-08-15T16:32:00.000-04:00

Google Insights for Search - Search Volume: is obama muslim - United States, Last 12 months

Take a guess as to where in the United States the Google search "Is Obama Muslim" is most popular. Then click the link above.

Picture+1.png (image)

2008-08-15T13:10:00.000-04:00

Picture+1.png

If this doesn't make you feel as if the floor opened up and swallowed your soul, nothing will.

The speech Obama needs to give

2008-08-05T01:45:00.001-04:00

"Senator McCain can't tell you the truth about his energy plan -- so he tells lies about mine.

He can't tell you the truth about his health care plan -- so he tells lies about mine.

He can't tell you the truth about his Iraq strategy -- so he tells lies about mine.

He can't tell you the truth about his education program -- so he tells lies about mine.

This is not the John McCain I know.

This is not the John McCain we respected in 2000.

This is the John McCain whose new friends and advisors all were graduated from the Karl Rove School of Dirty Politics.

Well, I'd like to give Senator McCain some advice my grandmother gave to me. She said 'It's easier for low friends to pull you down than it is for you to pull them up. '

I'd hate to see that happen to him.

And that's all I'm gonna say about that."

Karl Rove Decoded

2008-06-25T00:14:00.002-04:00

"Even if you never met him, you know this guy," Rove said, about Barack Obama. "He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by."

Decoded:

"He's the guy at the country club" -- This nigger can get into a country club now. You can't. Unless it's through the servant's entrance. The entrance HIS people used to have to go through. And whose fault is that?

"with the beautiful date" - This smooth bastard can get all the good looking white women he wants. Doesn't that just piss you off? You had yourself a looker, once. Course she's not much to look at now. Neither are you. He still is. Fucking bastard.

"holding a martini and a cigarette" -- Who does this nigger think he is, James Fucking Bond? Martini. Bet he lifts his pinkie up to drink it, too.

"that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by." -- Especially you, when you're working your third job as a caterer at the country club. And why do you have to work three jobs? Because of smug bastards like him.

The Science of Battlestar Galactica: The colors of space

2008-06-19T18:31:00.001-04:00

My first video podcast for The Science of Battlestar Galactica: The colors of space are not what they seem.

Science of BSG: Why So Sweaty on Demetrius?

2008-05-20T18:37:00.001-04:00

Can't it just be too damn hot in the spacecraft?

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Great tits cope well with warming

2008-05-10T03:21:00.000-04:00

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Great tits cope well with warming

I think the headline says it all.

Last of the Mohicans

2008-04-06T20:25:00.001-04:00

Last of the Mohicans is the most nearly perfect movie. It's got American literature based on American history. It's got English colonists fighting with Native Americans. It's got English colonists fighting against Native Americans. It's got different Native American tribes fighting each other. It's got fighting with tomahawks and muskets. It's got people fighting under Glens Falls. It's got Daniel Day Lewis. It's got Madeline Stowe at her most beautiful. It's got the underrated Jodhi May. It's got Wes Studi as Mogwa, the baddest badass Indian in American cinema. It's got the best cinematic depiction of Lake George and Fort William Henry I've ever seen (I spent every summer of my childhood at Lake George). It's got Daniel Day Lewis shouting to Madeline Stowe as they're dragged apart, "STAY ALIVE. I WILL FIND YOU!"

I wonder if James Cameron studied this movie while he was planning Titanic; because the formula is so clearly ripped off: throw in plenty of action for the boys and plenty of doomed romance for the girls, and you've got yourself a hit.

The Science of Battlestar Galactica

2008-04-05T09:17:00.001-04:00

Spoilers about the first episode of season 4 ahead.

How did Starbuck get to Earth and back in only six hours?

The first episode of the fourth season presents us with an interesting physics problem. Starbuck returns two months after the destruction of her Viper with a brand new ship, claiming to have been to Earth. She thinks she's been away only six hours. What's going on? Some possibilities:

Starbuck discovered a wormhole network between gas giant planets in various planetary systems.

Buried deep in gas giant atmospheres, wormholes could permit instantaneous travel between widely separated points in the universe. Starbuck says she remembers seeing a gas giant planet with rings; without a telescope (even with a pilot's sharp eyes), she'd have to be very close to Saturn to see its rings. Perhaps our solar system's end of the wormhole is located at Saturn.

Starbuck's still got to get from Saturn to Earth and back again. In the Miniseries, it was determined that Colonial One can travel at about 1/10 the speed of light. Taking a wild guess that a military fighter can travel at twice that speed, it would take a viper at full throttle 178 minutes to travel the most likely distance between the Earth and Saturn (it could be 161 minutes, it could be 196 minutes, or any value in between). With relativistic time dilation caused by traveling at 20% of the speed of light, the 178 minutes would seem to Starbuck (and the clock in Starbuck's viper) like 175. It is just possible for Starbuck to travel from Saturn to Earth, take some quick pictures, travel back to Saturn, and traverse the wormhole.

But she came back at a different place from where she left. That implies a second wormhole in our solar system, leading to a second destination. If the new wormhole is at Jupiter, say, then Starbuck had time for a quick orbit of the Earth (which is what she said she did) before traveling to the second wormhole.

Of course, the big unanswered questions with this scenario are: how did she know where Earth was in relation to Saturn, and how did she know where the return wormhole was?

Some agency managed to accelerate her Viper it to 99.99132% of the speed of light.

At that speed, the relativistic time dilation effect would make her feel as though 6 hours had passed while two months has elapsed for the Fleet. (Of course, the fleet is moving at about 1/10 the speed of light itself, but this time dilation is negligible). If this is what happened, then the colonists have the answer they've been searching for: the the round trip distance to Earth.

But it's an answer that's meaningless. At 99.999132% the speed of light, a one month outbound trip covers 482.7 billion miles – about 1/12 of a light year. (Makes sense: one month is 1/12^th of a year). This is 1/50^th the distance between the Sun and Alpha Centauri, and about half the distance between the Sun as the Oort cloud. If the fleet were that close to the Sun, they'd certainly be able to detect its planets, and possibly be able to observe Earth directly.

It's not Starbuck.

Starbuck died in a vortex of a gas giant planet. The thing that returned is some sort of replica, created in the image of the real Starbuck by some unknown agency, flying a showroom-new viper to replace the one that got destroyed.

This is the simplest answer and the most unscientific. At our present level of understanding, a technology that could do such things is indistinguishable from magic.

Repeat to yourself it's just a show, I should really just relax.

Date with Matt Damon?????

2008-04-01T15:18:00.003-04:00

Go to Google Calendar on July 25 and enter "X-files II" as a daylong event. What response do you get???

Date with Matt Damon?????

2008-04-01T15:18:00.001-04:00

Go to Google Calendar on July 25 and enter "X-files II" as a daylong event. What response do you get???

2008-03-26T22:41:00.001-04:00

Ok, I've got writer's block. At least provisionally -- I can write magazine stuff, but the book is stuck in my brain and won't get out.

THE place to celebrate your penis enlargement surgery

2008-03-25T20:48:00.001-04:00

THE place to celebrate your penis enlargement surgery
Originally uploaded by justpat

resignation headline contest

2008-03-11T09:54:00.001-04:00

my entry: Spitzer Swallows Pride

newly updated for 2008

2008-03-09T13:03:00.001-04:00

There are 10 types of people: those who are sick of this joke and those who never got it in the first place.

Persona

2008-01-12T13:24:00.001-05:00

Persona
Originally uploaded by justpat

I'm led to believe that when people picture me in their heads, they usually picture me making this face, or a face very much like it.

Notes on Watching MS-NBC

2008-01-08T22:09:00.001-05:00

If the election coverage were to be played as a Christopher Guest mockumentary, Chris Matthews would be MS-NBC's own Fred Willard.

Click-click-click-click

2008-01-07T14:05:00.001-05:00

I needed a Geiger counter for a bit of investigative journalism, and I couldn't find one to borrow or rent. So now I own one.

I did my investigation and the substance I was testing is not radioactive. This is mixed news because (a) it is good that this thing in our homes is not radioactive but (b) bad because there goes my story.

And now I've got a Geiger counter and nothing to do with it.

The Drake Equation

2007-12-21T00:44:00.001-05:00

I'm giving a lecture on the Drake Equation at the Port Washington Public Library, Port Washington, NY, on Friday December 21 2007 at Noon.

The Tennessee Waltz

2007-12-20T10:43:00.001-05:00

The lyrics to the song "The Tennessee Waltz" go like this:

I was dancing with my darling
To the Tennessee Waltz
When an old friend I happened to see
I introduced her to my loved one
And while they were dancing
My friend stole my sweetheart from me.

A sad story which clearly takes place in the past. Possibly the recent past, but the past nonetheless. Now, if the friend stole the sweetheart during the Tennessee Waltz, then how could this song be the Tennessee Waltz? How can the song influence an event in the present (like causing a friend to steal a sweetheart) while simultaneously describing the exact same event which had taken place in the past? This is a self-referential loop that should destroy itself the moment energy is applied to the system, such as when the song is sung. Every performance of The Tennesee Waltz should go "I was dancin- BOOM!"

Don't even get me started on the self referential nature of "Roll Over Beethoven".

and the spelling isn't so bad either

2007-12-01T08:17:00.001-05:00

The best thing about the writer's guild strike is that it's a writer's strike. In most strikes, I barely understand what the real areas of contention are -- media reports boil them down to the classic "The workers want more money, and the owners don't want to give it to them."

But these strikers are writers, and are able to explain what they want in a way that anyone can understand, using all the rhetorical tropes of the writer's trade. So far, this strike has produced such gems as the Parable of the Tires, or the Parable of the Four Cents.

They're not Joe Hill, but they get the message across. The next time workers in any industry go on strike, I recommend they hire a screenwriter to create a pithy explanation of their complaints and demands. They might not win at the bargaining table, but they'll definitely win in the court of public opinion.

It is cold. It still tastes blah.

2007-11-14T21:46:00.001-05:00

The closest I've ever come to killing myself was about 15 years ago,
when I worked for the Federal Government. I was a computer programmer
in the Cash Systems Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
They were building EROC, the East Rutherford Operations Center, a
computerized and, more importantly, roboticized
bank vault, using warehouse technology. Banks like Citibank or Chase
would call into our AS/400 computer with a request for, say, $100
million, broken down into $50 million in 20 dollar bills, $30 million
in 10s, and $20 million in 50s. The computer would search its database
until it found a currency storage container that contained $50 million
in 20 dollar bills, $30 million in 10s, and $20 million in 50s. It
would then dispatch a robot (and, if necessary, the overhead robotic
crane) to that specific container in the vault/warehouse. The robot
would take the container to the loading dock, where the armored car
from Chase would be waiting to take their $100 million. This was
pretty amazing high tech stuff for 1991.

My boss there was
Vidkun Quisling. (Those of you with a taste for history will know that
his name couldn't have been Vidkun Quisling, and it wasn't. I just
wanted to use the name of a despicable weasel, and Quisling fit the
bill.) Quisling was a refugee from behind the Iron Curtain, and you
know what they're like when (1) they get a bit of freedom and (2) a bit
of power. He was the classic case of a person raised in an
authoritarian regime -- overbearing to those below him, and a total
suck up to those above.

One day I pointed out a problem in the
database specifications (the database specification he had designed, I
should add). He was using two digits to represent the year, but if
EROC was supposed to work "well into the 21st century", we would need
to use four digit years. Essentially, I discovered in 1991 that we
were going to have a Y2K problem. I thought I should bring it to
someone's attention. I thought maybe I'd spared us from having a huge
problem. I thought maybe they'd think I was a hero.

Instead, my
discovery set Quisling off on a personal campaign to destroy me. I had
questioned his ability as a database designer! I had flouted his
authority! I was acting outside the area of my competence! I was
causing trouble! Most unforgivably, I was right, and he knew it. I
must be destroyed.

From that moment, I was subjected to what we
now call a Hostile Work Environment. When I handed in clearly labeled
first draft computer programs (the ones with the bugs in them), he
treated them as if I were handing in finished code with mistakes, and
berated me in staff meetings. I was given impossible-to-meet
deadlines. I was given tasks that really were outside my skill set. I
was denied use of the staff lounge. I was retroactively made to
reimburse the government for all the times I used the late night car
service, on the grounds that I had no reason to work late. Each
quarterly review I got was worse than the one before.

This was
in the middle of the 1991 recession. The NY Times help wanted section
for computer programmers had shrunk to a few columns. Computer jobs
were impossible to get. I was locked into thinking that I couldn't
leave, and
stuck in a place I couldn't stay. I was 26 and my hair was turning grey.

One
day we got a memo from the editors of the Fed's internal newsletter.
They were looking for articles written by ordinary Fed staffers. If we
had anything to say that reflected on life at the Fed, we should drop
them a line to discuss it.

I had an idea to write an article
about this new thing called a computer virus, and how it could attack
your computer. I pitched it to the editor, he loved it, and I wrote it
up using the official Fed rules regarding computer virus infections.
It was a funny and informative piece called "How to Practice Safe
Hex". Throughout this ordeal with Quisling, I had still managed to
keep my sense of humor.

The article came out and Quisling hit
the roof. He called me into his office and told me I had seriously
jeopardized my career at the Fed with this ill-advised move. By
writing this article I damaged the reputation of the Cash Systems
Division! Did I think I was some kind of writer? Maybe I shouldn't be
a computer programmer, then. He demoted me one grade level and
officially put me on disciplinary probation.

That night, as I
waited at the edge of the platform for the 4 train in Union Square, I
realized how peaceful everything would become if I merely took one
giant step forward just as the train pulled into the station.

Well,
that settled it. I quit at the end of the week, even though I didn't
have another job. Fortunately I only spent about a month unemployed.
Anything would be better than staying at the Fed and literally wanting
to die...

NOW FOR THE PUNCHLINE:

About a week ago, a very
good friend and fellow worker from those years attended a fancy dress
function at the Federal Reserve's executive dining room. Who does she
run into but Vidkun Quisling! She doesn't like him because of what he
did to me all those years ago, but she can't manage to avoid him. She decides to turn the
tables and exact some revenge for me.

She manipulates their conversation
so that my name comes up. Quisling remembers me, of course (everyone
remembers me for some reason.) She gets Quisling to ask how I'm
doing. She exaggerates and says that I am an important technology
journalist. She slowly lists my credits for him: Contributing Ed at
Wired Magazine, Contributor to the New York Times, New York Magazine,
Popular Science, Scientific American. NPR commentator. She exaggerates
to the point of lying and says I play a major role on
PBS's Wired Science.

Through this all, Quisling is listening
with a look of honest delight on his face. When my friend finishes,
she gives him a smug look that demands "What do you think of Patrick
now, tough guy?"

Quisling says "That is just magnificent. I
always knew he had talent! Remember that story he wrote about computer
viruses? That was so funny! And smart! Just like him! I still have
the article!"

Paranoia recipe #282

2007-11-09T09:03:00.001-05:00

Read from the first half of Stephen King's "The Stand" while on a long New York City subway ride in November.

Watch the launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis from New York City

2007-11-07T22:18:00.001-05:00

If everything goes well -- a big IF -- on the late afternoon of
December 6th those of us who live in the New York area will have the
chance to see the Space Shuttle Atlantis lift off on its last mission
to the International Space Station.

Atlantis
is scheduled to lift off at 4:31. Fortunately for us, December 6 is
when the sun sets the earliest here in New York City, at 4:27 PM. The
shuttle will become visible from New York at around 4:42PM, just as the
sky is getting dark. If weather conditions are right we'll see a bright
starlike object -- glowing both from reflected sunlight AND the exhaust
from its rocket engines -- zoom across the deepening twilight sky from
the southwest. The shuttle will arc across the southern sky and then
head southeast, reaching an altitude of about 8 degrees (about two
extended fists) above the horizon. If all goes well we might actually
see the shuttle's engines cut off! The whole thing takes about 90
seconds from first visibility to last.

If people are interested
I'd like to get a group together to see this. We'll need a place with a
great panoramic southern view. I'm thinking maybe the beach/boardwalk
at Coney Island, or Columbia University's Rutherford Observatory (if we
can convince them to open it), or even the middle of the Brooklyn or
George Washington Bridge!

There are dozens of things that can
prevent us from seeing the shuttle fly past New York. The launch might
be postponed -- as much as a day will screw things up for us. The
launch can be aborted that day, anywhere up to 30 seconds before
ignition. The sky could be overcast. The sky could be perfectly clear
except for a cloudbank over the southern horizon. All these drawbacks
are risks we have to take -- having seen the shuttle fly past New York
before, I'd say the view is worth it.

Let me know if you are interested!

See the Space Shuttle Launch from NYC!!!

2007-10-30T17:37:00.001-04:00

If everything goes well -- a big IF -- on the late afternoon of December 6th those of us who live in the New York area will have the chance to see the Space Shuttle Atlantis lift off on its last mission to the International Space Station.

Atlantis is scheduled to lift off at 4:34. Fortunately for us, December 6 is when the sun sets the earliest here in New York City, at 4:29 PM. The shuttle will become visible from New York at around 4:42PM, just as the sky is getting dark. If weather conditions are right we'll see a bright starlike object -- glowing both from reflected sunlight AND the exhaust from its rocket engines -- zoom across the deepening twilight sky from the southwest. The shuttle will arc across the southern sky and then head southeast, reaching an altitude of about 8 degrees (about two extended fists) above the horizon. If all goes well we might actually see the shuttle's engines cut off! The whole thing takes about 90 seconds from first visibility to last.

If people are interested I'd like to get a group together to see this. We'll need a place with a great panoramic southern view. I'm thinking maybe the beach/boardwalk at Coney Island, or Columbia University's Rutherford Observatory (if we can convince them to open it), or even the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge!

Of course, there are dozens of things that can prevent us from seeing the shuttle fly past New York. The launch might be postponed for weeks. The launch can be aborted that day, anywhere up to 30 seconds before ignition. The sky could be overcast. The sky could be perfectly clear except for a cloudbank over the southern horizon. Its a risk we have to take, but having seen the shuttle fly past New York before, I'd say the view is worth it.

Let me know if you are interested!

WIRED SCIENCE | What's Inside with Chris Hardwick | PBS

2007-10-15T14:07:00.001-04:00

I was just forwarded this email from the folks at PBS:

"As of today, Wired Science What's Inside Cool Whip is now the most viewed clip PBS has ever put on YouTube, and the first of our clips to go over 100,000 views."

When I think about me, I hype myself

2007-10-02T13:51:00.001-04:00

My "What's Inside Cool Whip" article from Wired Magazine is scheduled to be brought to life on the small screen for the premiere of Wired Science, a new weekly tv show from Wired magazine. I'm not on camera (Yet. I'm working on that), but I worked on the writing/production of two early segments: Cool Whip, and "How to Make a Glowstick".

The show premieres on Wednesday, October 3 at 8PM on most PBS stations.

Heartbeat, It's a lovebeat (conclusion)

2007-10-01T18:41:00.001-04:00

Suddenly, a huge black man wearing a hospital orderly uniform appeared in the doorway of my room. He was holding a glistening wand about four inches long in his right hand. I looked over at him questioningly. In a deep voice he said, "Pull your pants down...."

Put this event in context here.

Cell phone obscene calls

2007-09-17T10:53:00.001-04:00

Has anyone reading this been the recipient of obscene or harassing phone calls on their cell phone? How did you handle it?

Someone with a blocked CallerID has been calling my cell phone in the wee hours and -- ignoring my Barry White baritone when I say hello -- asking me if I'm wearing panties. I know, I know. It's the 1AM part that I find most annoying, and last night I decided to call T-Mobile about it.

I asked how I could activate Anonymous Call Rejection, or Anonymous Call Blocking, on my cell phone. They said there was no such thing. I said there is such a thing on my landline. They said there is no such thing in the cell world. Why not? It just isn't. (Ansd they're not lying -- the FCC doesn't require cellular providers to provide ACR.) They admitted that it was one of their most requested features. So why don't they implement it? They just don't. They recommended I change my number (for a $15 fee).

The bottom line is that T-Mobile operates in some sort of looking glass world where the rules of customer service are inverted: repeated customer wishes -- wishes that can add to a customer's safety and security -- are ignored if they cause a customer to spend less of the currency of the realm, cell phone minutes.

Anyway, being a reporter and all I decided to make an article about this, and to do so I need real-world examples. Have you gotten obscene calls on your cell phone, and how did you handle it?

I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king...

2007-09-13T14:32:00.001-04:00

The new cool kids' meme is to go to www.careercruising.com (login nycareers/password landmark) to take their career aptitude test. You enter your likes and dislikes, they give you a list of jobs you'd be good for. Here is my list:

Computer Programmer, Technical Writer, Criminologist, Business Systems Analyst, Writer, Critic, Comedian, Musician, Database Developer, Web Developer, Print Journalist, Composer, Special Effects Technician, Political Aide, Computer Engineer, Actor, Magician, Computer Trainer

With the exception of criminologist, I have been employed or earned money in every single one of these fields.

left brain, right brain

2007-09-11T13:39:00.001-04:00

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-politics10sep10,1,5376455.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

Scientists at New York University and UCLA show that political orientation is related to differences in how the brain processes information. Liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work.

I know, like this is news?

Previous psychological studies have found that conservatives tend to be more structured and persistent in their judgments whereas liberals are more open to new experiences. The latest study found those traits are not confined to political situations but also influence everyday decisions.

Again, nothing we didn't know, but it's always nice to have more evidence.

Each participant was wired to an electroencephalograph that recorded activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, the part of the brain that detects conflicts between a habitual tendency (pressing a key) and a more appropriate response (not pressing the key). Liberals had more brain activity and made fewer mistakes than conservatives.

Sound like anyone we know???

liberals were 2.2 times as likely to score in the top half of the distribution for accuracy. Based on the results, liberals could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas.

That sounds about right.

In the Shadow of the Moon

2007-09-06T12:05:00.001-04:00

The Underwire - Wired Blogs

Last night I met and spoke with Apollo 12 Lunar Module Pilot Al Bean, Apollo 17 Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmidt, and Apollo 14 Lunar Module Pilot Ed Mitchell. I also met, but did not really speak with, Apollo 16 Lunar Module Pilot Charlie Duke and Apollo 11 Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin.

This was at the premiere of In the Shadow of the Moon, a Discovery Films documentary about the Apollo missions.

Apollo 12 Lunar Module Pilot Al Bean

2007-09-06T12:01:00.001-04:00

Apollo 17 Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmidt

2007-09-06T11:28:00.001-04:00

Harrison Schmidt talking about NASA's new push to visit the moon

Apollo 14 Lunar Module Pilot Ed Mitchell

2007-09-06T11:27:00.001-04:00

Apollo 14 Lunar Module Pilot Ed Mitchell talks about the possibility of returning to the moon.

KANSAS REJECTS STONE TOOLS, FIRE

2007-09-04T11:23:00.000-04:00

TOPEKA, Kan. (September 4) - The Kansas Board of Education rejected the use of man-made stone tools Tuesday, dealing a victory to Neanderthal special interests who are increasingly challenging education in U.S. schools.

The 12-member board, ignoring pleas by more highly evolved Cro-Magnons, voted seven to five to embrace new standards for school curricula that eliminate the creation of stone tools and the fire bow as the underlying principle of educational advancement.

"It good thing," said Zog-who-live-in-big-cave-high-on-hill, a Neanderthal hunter-gatherer and school board member who helped create the new standards.

"Fire hurt," Zog said, adding that the use of stone tools and fire by students was "bad thing."

Individual schools can continue to teach higher forms of tool making, in classes between elementary and high school. However, knowledge of the creation and use of hand axes, and understanding of how to start a fire by rubbing two sticks together, will not be required and will not be needed to pass state-sanctioned tests.

School board members who were opposed to removing tool use from the curriculum recoiled at the change.

"Fire good. Fire is friend. Stone help kill animal. Get more food. Leave more little ones. Big smart babies," board member Oothar-Moon-Watcher, a Cro-Magnon, said.

Fire husbandry is traditionally thought to have been developed many seasons ago by the legendary Alley-Oop the Great. Use of fire, which is a creative as well as a destructive force, has been controversial ever since, leading to many attempts to ban the teaching of new technologies.

Stone tools are even older, dating back to Australopithecene use nearly 3 million seasons ago.

Prior to Tuesday's vote, the presidents of Kansas' six public universities wrote a letter saying the new standards "make Kansas weak. No fire is no stone tool and no spears. No spears is no fight Wakabu tribe! Wakabu come, take women. Make fiky-fik. Make Wakabu babies. Bad."

Prior attempts by Neanderthal groups to discard tool using in school curricula included a failed attempt in Arkansas in 2003 to ban the use of the wheel.

365 Portraits

2007-08-29T22:12:00.000-04:00

365 Portraits

Those of you who know me know how much I hate having my picture took. I leave the room, or I offer to take the picture myself, but I really do not like being photographed. Something about my soul being stolen.

No, seriously, I don't like pictures of myself because I almost never look as good in photographs as I hope. It's never the fault of the photographer or the camera -- it's me.

So it took a lot to let myself be shot for an hour by Bill Wadman, a New York photographer who is doing a project in which he's creating a portrait every day for a year. He took nearly 100 pictures (in some of them I was actually standing in a waterfall!), and then emailed me. "Half are handsome, half are funny. Which do you want me to use?" I told him to use the most honest one.

It looks like he succeeded perfectly.

Me

2007-08-29T21:21:00.001-04:00

http://www.365portraits.com/index.php?date=0829

eclipse 3

2007-08-28T05:50:00.001-04:00

The moon is now behind the trees, the clouds are thick and starting to turn a monochrome early morning blue.

I am underwhelmed.

eclipse 2

2007-08-28T05:29:00.001-04:00

And we are now completely socked in.

The clouds are banded, alternating thick and thin layers, so as they
were moving in over the moon they gave a nice impression of the moon
going into the umbra. it was like watching a real eclipse on fast-forward

eclipse

2007-08-28T05:19:00.001-04:00

Well, after weeks of saying that i wasn't going to watch the eclipse, that I've seen eclipses before, that there was nothing special about this eclipse, my body betrayed me and woke me up at 4:55, just in time for the eclipse.

So far, as expected, it doesn't quite thrill me.

Eh.

It doesn't help that we're at about 8/10 overcast.

Kevin Mitnick's Business Card

2007-08-16T17:50:00.001-04:00

Kevin Mitnick's Business Card
Originally uploaded by ranh

Kevin Mitnick's business card is a break-out lock picking kit.

John Lennon sings Dear Yoko

2007-08-16T15:48:00.001-04:00

How to lose friends and terrify people

2007-08-10T01:37:00.001-04:00

It looks like one of those video-sharing sites that's not GooTube. It even ends in ".tv", the way the cool sites do now. An embedded video window beckoned me to click Play.

It started to play a news clip from Miami television station WBFX, talking about a serial killer on the loose. As people in hazmat suits clean up a bloody crime scene, a youthful reporter described the demographics of the victims, and they were all remarkably like me-- male, early 40s, background in journalism. Geez.

And then my intestines froze: on the wall of the crime scene, written in blood, was my name, with the warning that I am the sericl killer's next victim. The reporter says the cops are hoping to find that person before the serial killer does. The video ended, and the only part of my brain that still functioned was the part trying to decide whether I should call 911 and have the police take me into protective custody, or if I should just drive to the police station myself.

But then comes the real punchline: I've been hoaxed. The website and video are part of a viral promotion for Dexter, a show on FXUK about, wouldn't you just guess, a serial killer. Someone I know -- one of my closest friends, actually -- entered my name, demographics, and email into the website, which then generated the video and sent me a link. Now that I'm in on the gag, the website offered me the opportunity to scare it forward by providing someone else's info. Even though, in a world in which a major city can be paralyzed with fear by a few strategically placed Lite-Brites, a website that cranks out serial killer threats is wrong in too many ways to count.

Of course, I sent one to everyone I know.

So far the responses I've gotten have been muted: real death threats, charges of assault, social ostracism (my brother's email read simply: "You are no longer my brother."). Even when they later claim to notice the anomalies in the video -- a Miami tv station would never call a parking lot a "car park", the "handwritten" message is written in Helvetica type, there is no WBFX in Miami -- seeing their name in blood was terrifying to every one of my victims. They calmed their fears by promptly sending a video to everyone they know.

The next step: some moron will send one of these to an elected official, and wind up on the receiving end of some Secret Service lovin'.

I was the Son of Sam's paperboy, part II

2007-08-07T10:14:00.001-04:00

I never met him, but David Berkowitz, the man we'd soon come to know as the Son of Sam, the .44 caliber killer, lived around the corner from me. One night in August, the street filled with police cars as I calmly explained to my mother that the Son of Sam was MILES away.

http://unmolested.blogspot.com/2007/08/son-of-sams-paperboy-part-ii.html

I was the Son of Sam's paperboy, part I

2007-08-06T11:05:00.001-04:00

I never met him, but for one week in the summer of 1977, I took over my friend's paper route and delivered the local newspaper to the apartment building of David Berkowitz, the man we'd soon come to know as the Son of Sam, the .44 caliber killer.

http://unmolested.blogspot.com/2007/08/son-of-sams-paperboy-part-i.html

Arduino issues, continued.

2007-08-01T12:11:00.001-04:00

The problem was that I was programming the Arduino the same way I would program a computer, even though they are not the same thing. The entire concept of program flow, just to choose one example, is vastly different between the two platforms.

Once I got my head wrapped around that bit of obviousness, the program wrote itself. It works just fine on the prototyping platform; now I just need to build up the hardware and change a few parameters in the software.

Arduino report

2007-08-01T08:27:00.001-04:00

I thought I had lost all ability to write a simple program. Every time I ran the thing, it crashed the computer.

Turns out, it's a known compiler issue. It's not me.

arduino update

2007-07-31T14:52:00.001-04:00

OK, so the circuit I initially designed violates the laws of physics. OK, so I didn't know this at first and tried to implement a software fix. At least it shows I'm thinking, right?

Anyway, the initial circuit design, being impossible in this universe, has been scrapped. I've gone to a newer, much simpler circuit design, which isn't nearly as much fun as the first but has the advantage of not being imaginary. I am now writing the software for it, then I have to go to Radio Shack and get a momentary NO pushbutton switch so I can actually build it.

And then I shall rule the world.

geek sex

2007-07-30T07:14:00.000-04:00

An oldie but a goodie:

grep;touch;strip;unzip;head;mount /dev/boy -t

wet;fsck;fsck;yes;yes;yes;umount /dev/boy;zip;sleep

New Heart Device Installed in Cheney

2007-07-28T17:24:00.001-04:00

WASHINGTON, July 28 — Vice President Dick Cheney, who has a long history of heart disease, had minor surgery Saturday to replace the implanted cardiac device that can monitor and correct his heart rhythm, the White House said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/washington/29cheney.html?hp

Years ago, Time magazine developed a series of expressions their writers were to use to get certain messages across to the reader while limiting the chance of legal action against the magazine. For example, Time never said that a politician was drunk in public, which can be very harmful to a person's career and can't be proved by a reporter without a verified blood alcohol report made at the scene. In Timespeak, drunk public officials were "dazed and confused" as they rambled in their speech. If they were a crying drunk they were "tired and emotional". A person's illicit lover (whether homosexual or extramarital or both) was their "great and good friend".

The idea continues to this day. When Rudy Giuliani was found having an affair with a member of his mayoral staff, the Village Voice tiptoed around the issue by saying that the woman "had served under him in a variety of positions over the years".

Therefore I love the Times' use in this headline of the verb "installed". I believe that like "dazed and confused' and "served under him", the phrase means more than it says: it's as if they're trying to tell us that like Darth Vader, Cheney is now more machine than man.

Arduino

2007-07-26T21:09:00.001-04:00

I finally got my Arduino working. I now have a small, fully functional computer that costs $39 and is smaller than the palm of my hand. I am now this close to ruling the world.

How to Be a Real Writer

2007-07-23T11:18:00.000-04:00

107 words: Jesus Christ, there's no way I'm going to be able to stretch this out to 800 words. I've already said everything there is to say. Short and concise, that's me. Hemingway. Bam, to the point! I suppose I can add some detail...

253 words: One third of the way there. I know they wanted 800 words, but come on. I'm going to have to write the equivalent of what I just wrote, then write the same amount _again_. Not gonna happen. I'm lucky if I can get 500 words out of this.

403 words: Halfway point! Time for a break! What movie can I watch?

505 words: Ok, if I stretch things out a bit, I'll probably make 800 words.

652 words: Uh, I might be in a bit of trouble here. Let me make a quick outline to see what's still remaining to talk about. I should have done an outline before I started. I always forget.

733 words: OK, I'm just gonna keep writing until I get it all down, then I'll cut.

958 words: Jesus Christ, there's no way I'm going to be able to shrink this down to 800 words. I've already left out so much.

909 words: Yeah, cleaning up the first half always helps.

856 words: Great. Now I have a string of great quotes without anything to hold them together.

871 words: Going in the wrong direction here. I think I have to lose the descriptive passages. It's the best writing I've ever done, so of course it has to go.

775 words: I cut too much. This whole thing makes ZERO sense now.

813 words: There! They won't mind if I'm a little bit over.

Saving the world, one frame at a time.

2007-07-20T10:13:00.000-04:00

The Grenlight Earth Day Film Festival in Palo Alto, CA is your typical South Bay angstklatsch, where uber-serious student filmmakers present their ultra-serious films about the mega-serious environmental problems facing our hyper-serious world.

But this year the Tamaddon siblings, Austin, 14, and Arianna, 11, blew away the judges and spectators with their charming claymation short films The Happy Hybrid and the Polluting Pickup and Mr. Gopher, taking 1st place in the middle school and open competition categories respectively.

In Austin's The Happy Hybrid, a blue hybrid car (so environmentally friendly that is gets the flowers dancing and the birds singing) gets into a shoving match with a bushy-browed ragin' red pickup truck. The truck is stronger, but the effort quickly depletes its gas tank, leaving the truck dead in the road and enabling the hybrid to push it out of sight. The flowers are revitalized, the birds resume singing, and the hybrid dances a happy dance (thus the title). A 12-part special on the environment couldn't tell the story as clearly as this one minute and fifty second parable.

Arianna's Mr. Gopher is a bit more preachy. The title character burrows into the frame (leaving a trailed hump of disturbed earth, much in the same way Bugs Bunny used to travel underground) and is immediately beset by polluting cars and discarded cans and cigarette butts. The gopher is sad. A title card brings us into the future a few years later, when the roadway has been turned into a bike lane and flowers now grow where the cans and butts used to be. The gopher (and presumably the rest of the world) is happier.

Now that even Nick Park has embraced the digital, maybe the future of claymation rests with the children.

Neocons on a Cruise: What Conservatives Say When They Think We Aren't Listening

2007-07-18T16:21:00.001-04:00

Please read this article by Johann Hari of The Independant in London. He signed up for the National Review cruise and wrote about six days of conservative talks and lectures, punctuated by his encounters with the other guests on the ship. The point was to find out what American conservatives say when they think the rest of us aren't listening.

It's already been determined that conservatives are "easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and vulnerable at age 3." It turns out that they're pretty much the same at age 53 as well.

Some examples:

Her companion adds, "I went to Paris, and it was so lovely." Her face darkens: "But then you think - it's surrounded by Muslims." The first lady nods: "They're out there, and they're coming."

Dave changes the subject. "The liberals don't believe in the constitution. They don't
believe in what the founders wanted - a strong executive," he announces, to nods. A Filipino waiter offers him a top-up of his wine, and he mock-whispers to me, "They all look the same! Can you tell them apart?"

They carry notebooks from the scribblings they made during the seminar teaching them "How To Shop in Mexico". Over breakfast, I forgot myself and said I was considering setting out to find a local street kid who would show me round the barrios - the real Mexico. They gaped. "Do you want to die?" one asked.

"Treating Don Rumsfeld like Pinochet is disgusting." Egg Man pounds his fist on the table: " Treating Pinochet like that is disgusting. Pinochet is a hero. He saved Chile." "Exactly," adds Jim. "And he privatised social security."

1977 Blackout

2007-07-14T03:00:00.001-04:00

You do know that I was singlehandedly responsible for the 1977 New York City blackout, don't you?

Also in easy-to-read digest form here:

http://unmolested.blogspot.com/2007/05/1977-blackout-part-1.html
http://unmolested.blogspot.com/2007/05/1977-blackout-part-2.html
http://unmolested.blogspot.com/2007/05/1977-blackout-part-3.html
http://unmolested.blogspot.com/2007/05/1977-blackout-part-4.html
http://unmolested.blogspot.com/2007/05/1977-blackout-conclusion.html

The Future

2007-07-14T00:04:00.001-04:00

Futurist Jamais Cascio has started The Futures Meme:

So here's the task: Think about the world of fifteen years hence (2022, if you're counting along at home). Think about how technology might change, how fashions and pop culture might evolve, how the environment might grab our attention, and so forth. Now, take a sentence or two and answer...

What do you fear we'll likely see in fifteen years?
What do you hope we'll likely see in fifteen years?
What do you think you'll be doing in fifteen years?

Here are my answers:

FEAR: Another terrorist attack, less deadly than September 11 but somehow more frightening, leads to the declaration of a Presidential State of Emergency, acquiesced to by both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court, in which our remaining civil liberties are suspended "for the duration". The majority of the population will go along with it, and will not notice (and will castigate anyone who points out) that the duration never ends.

HOPE: Having seen what happens when belief, whether in the alleged teachings of an organized religion or merely in one's own version of reality, takes the place of objective understanding, the world see-saws back to a more rational way of looking at things. Technocrats replace the ideologues.

DOING: I'll be the wise old hacker in an underground resistance movement against the cyber-zombies.

What are your answers?

IGNAZ SEMMELWEIS WATCH

2007-07-12T07:40:00.001-04:00

Quickly!  Go to the Blackwell website to vote for the #1 unsung medical hero of all time.  Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis is among the nominees, and  with your help we can put him over the top.

The voting process is a bit weird -- rather than vote directly for Dr. Semmelweis, you're taken to a page that instructs you to nominate your own Unsung Medical Hero.  Simply write in the name Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis and click the Submit button. (NOTE: Blackwell has a cunningly worded opt-out procedure: check the box at the bottom of the form if you do NOT want them to spam you, thanks just the same.)

Go Ignaz!

Members Only Jackets - with Anthony Geary (Commercial, 1982)

2007-07-11T14:22:00.001-04:00

This 1982 commercial is cringeworthy all by itself; it's even more repellent to those of use who have to live with the fact that we used to look like that.

Shining, gleaming, steaming, flaxen, waxen

2007-07-09T12:15:00.001-04:00

My mother has always looked remarkably like Elizabeth Taylor. When she and my father were on their honeymoon in Rome at the same time Liz was fliming Cleopatra at Cinecitta, paparazzis followed my parents around thinking she was the actress (and wondering who the fat bald guy next to her was, as he certainly wasn't Richard Burton). This resemblance to Elizabeth Taylor is one of the cornerstones of my mother's life.

To keep this look my mother has been coloring her brown hair black for more than 50 years. And every time she went into the bathroom with her squeeze bottles and gloves, we kids knew that a major existential freakout was coming. There appears to be something about coloring one's hair that can lead to serious thoughts along the "Who Am I, What Am I Doing" vein. Granted, not everyone feels this way, but certainly my mother -- as well as various other relatives, friends, and girlfriends -- have usually not had a great day when it came time to break out the hair dye.

Was this on my mind? Of course not -- I can ignore mountains of evidence if I have to. I write the "What's Inside" column for Wired Magazine, and I suggested to my editors that we cover Just For Men hair coloring in an upcoming issue. And like a good journalist, I felt it was necessary to test the product thoroughly before writing about it. Ever since my hair started going gray while I was being tortured by the Federal Government*, I had half-joked about dying my hair red. Bright red. Clown red. Run, Lola, Run red. Over the years, that idea has faded to a slightly more biological orange-red, the carotene color of natural "red" hair. But for various reasons that were no real reason at all, I never did it.

But now I had a reason. Participatory journalist, that's me. I bought a box of Just For Men Sandy Blonde hair color (they don't make a red hair mix), and on Friday night I started the 48 hour allergen test to see if this stuff would send me into anaphylactic shock.

From the Just For Men website: "Just For Men has a new True Color Formula that targets only the gray hair -- replaces it with subtle tones that match your own natural color." Remember those words.

My natural hair is a kind of dark dusty brown. There is one huge patch of gray, about the size of an outstretched palm, on my right temporal zone above my ear. There are other gray hairs scattered throughout the rest of my head like milkweeds in a field of barley. Since Just For Men targets only the gray, my idea was to leave my dusty brown hair dusty brown, but color the grey sandy blonde so that I would have dusty brown hair with sandy blonde highlights scattered throughout seemingly at random (with the obvious exception of a huge sandy blonde patch on the right temporal lobe, which I could live with). I honestly believed this would happen.

Last night I snapped on the gloves, mixed and shook the bottles, then glopped the warm reacting mixture onto my hair. As the instructions suggested, I started with the area that was most gray, then worked to the rest of my head. The instructions said to leave the hair color on for 5 minutes to reach the desired shade -- leaving it on for a longer time results in a darker color, while a shorter time might not "take". I waited exactly 4 minutes, then stepped into the shower.

Great gobs of brown liquid came off my head and dirtied the bathtub. My first reaction was that this was Not Good. The instructions said to shampoo, so I shampooed my hair until the lather and water ran clear.

I looked into the mirror and did not recognize the creature peering back at me. Just for Men may indeed target only the gray, but the rest of my hair was an unintended casualty: the dye had colored all my hair, not just the gray. My head is now monochrome, a sight I haven't seen since I was 25, and it's a glossy milk chocolate brown that I've never had in my life. And I'm having a major existential freakout. There appears to be something about coloring one's hair that can lead to serious thoughts along the "Who Am I, What Am I Doing" vein. Granted, not everyone feels this way, but I'm not having a great day now that I've broken out out the hair dye.

No pictures.

*No, I wasn't in Guantanamo -- I was working at the bottom of a long ladder of martinets at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. We were programming the robots that transferred astronomical sums of money out to and from the vault. The boss was a refugee from Czechoslovakia (back in the days when there was a Czechoslovakia, and refugees from it) and the communist prison camp example informed his every decision as a manager. How awful was this guy as a manager? The previous guy to hold my position killed himself by jumping out of a window, that's how bad he was. I figured that jumping out of the same window would be too unoriginal, so my not-quite-attempted suicides of the period were based on various subway scenarios. My time at the Fed perfectly coincided with the 1990-1992 recession, so finding another job as a computer programmer took me 18 months; every day at that job was a tossup between living and dying. The recession must have been easing off at the time I left, because approximately half the staff quit in the spring of 1992. And in every case, the boss was genuinely astonished that anyone would leave. The mass exodus of his staff hasn't seemed to
hurt his career -- he is now a senior vice president in the Federal Reserve System.

Oops!

2007-07-02T01:10:00.001-04:00

"The rule of law, the very foundation for a free society,
has been under assault, not only by criminals from the
ground up, but also from the top  down. An administration
that lives by evasion, coverup, stonewalling, and
duplicity has given us a totally discredited Department
of Justice.  The credibility of those who now manage the
nation's top law enforcement agency is tragically eroded.
We are fortunate to have its dedicated career workforce,
especially its criminal prosecutors, who have faced the
unprecedented politicization of decisions regarding both
personnel and investigations."

 -- the G.O.P. National Platform, 2000

Special report - Coney Island Aroma

2007-07-01T23:10:00.001-04:00

What is that special smell on the beaches of Coney Island in the summer of 2007? Find out HERE.

Nixon Campaign 1972

2007-07-01T01:12:00.001-04:00

Here is a report from the CBS evening news of January 18, 1972 on the Nixon's re-election campaign organization, the Committee to Re-Elect the President. Quite a few names that would later turn up in the Watergate scandal show up here, six months almost to the day before the break-in.

But one person in this report, while not tainted by Watergate, went on to a hideous infamy all his own. Watch for the young man at 4:09.

A Pocket Guide to Iran

2007-06-21T10:49:00.001-04:00

Some readers were wondering if the War Department, which produced the Short Guide to Iraq

for soldiers stationed there in 1943, ever produced a similar guide to Iran.

They did.

It's not all that different from the Short Guide to Iraq, truth be told.

Actually, they'll attack when they're ready for it, not before...

2007-06-21T09:44:00.001-04:00

I debated whether I should post this, because I don't have time to deal with all the subsequent wingnut attacks that will materialize -- but here goes:

Usama Bin Laden's FBI wanted sheet does not connect him with the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Processing

2007-06-16T19:27:00.001-04:00

I spent the day Processing, and I'm exhausted.

Processing, in this case, is a new (to me) programming language.  It looks and feels like Java, which looks and feels like C++, which looks and feels like C, and I know how to program in C.

Processing is used to program small embeddable computers like the Arduino.  Now all I need is an Arduino.

Polio

2007-06-14T10:40:00.001-04:00

Here's a link (PDF, 2.7 megabytes) to a pretty cool webcomic about the history of poliomyelitis. The gimmick is that the story is being told from a polio virus's point of view, as it speaks in an unnamed 12-step encounter group. (Infections Anonymous?)

I never knew that polio was spread in sewage and was pretty much endemic in early populations (in the same way malaria still is in some parts of Africa), and that 96% of cases are totally asymptomatic. Only about 0.16% of people who encountered polio in ancient times ended up with some form of paralysis.

So why was it treated as such a horrible disease? It seems that as world health and hygiene improved, fewer and fewer people came into contact with sewage, which meant they had less exposure to the polio virus and thus fewer chances to develop immunities to it.  In the developed world, polio went from being endemic to being epidemic, and when it struck, it went straight for the spinal cord and shut parts of it down.

An effective sewage system, while working wonders at stopping other diseases like cholera outbreaks, actually led to the "strengthening" of the polio virus.  Cleanliness led to infantile paralysis.

Think about that the next time you reach for the antibacterial hand sanitizer.

ZOMBIES

2007-06-13T18:19:00.001-04:00

http://myelvesaredifferent.blogspot.com/2007/05/blog-like-its-end-of-world-bliteotw.html

No one is going to believe this. I don't believe this.

Back in April, I started a fiction blog, in which I would write about the end of the world as zombies overran civilization. In my blog, the first signs of the zombie attack were to take place on June 18. No reason for that particular date. It would give me about two months to get a head start on the writing, that's all.

Things were going fine for the launch, when this OTHER zombie thing came along. I only heard about it today. In response, I've had no choice but to launch my zombie blog a week early.

Anyway, I present my zombie blog: The Life Of The World To Come.

PS: It's the first day. The zombies aren't there yet. But they're growing.

A short guide to Iraq

2007-06-12T14:35:00.001-04:00

In 1943, some American troops were stationed in Iraq. Here is a PDF of a War Department handbook introducing them to the country, and providing some dos and don'ts when interacting with the Iraqi people. Some highlights:

NEVER discuss religion or politics or women with Moslems.
Don't stare at anyone. Remember the fear of the "evil eye".
Knock before entering a private house. If a woman answers, wait until she has had time to retire.
If you see grown men walking hand in hand, ignore it. They are not queer.
You can usually tell a mosque by its high tower. Keep away from mosques. [Emphasis in the original] If you try to enter one, you will be thrown out, probably with a severe beating.
There are four towns in Iraq which are particularly sacred to the Iraq Moslems: Kerbala, Najaf, samarra, and Kadhiman. Unless you are ordered to these towns it is advisable to stay away from them.
Moslems here are divided into two factions something like our division into Catholic and Protestant denominations -- so don't put in your two cents when Iraqis argue about religion.
There are also political differences in Iraq that have puzzled diplomats and statesmen. You won't help matters any by getting mixed up in them.

And then there's this:

American success or failure in Iraq may well depend on whether the Iraqis (as the people are called) like American soldiers or not. It may not be quite that simple. But then again it could.

Amen, brother!

Brooklyn Heroes

2007-06-02T03:41:00.001-04:00

Photo-0013
Originally uploaded by justpat

Two men risked their own lives earlier today to save a disoriented stranger who fell onto subway tracks.

A delirious, unkempt man fell onto the tracks at the elevated F line stop at 9th St. and 4th Ave as I watched from the other side of the tracks. I heard a collective "oooooo" go up from the people on his side of the platform. He appeared disoriented and unable to extricate himself from the very real hazard he was in, so two strangers jumped onto the tracks. The man couldn't muster the coordination necessary to climb back onto the platform, even with their help, so the two strangers walked the man all the way to the end of the platform, where there are stairs back up to safety.

When they all were back on the platform, everyone involved went back to just standing around, waiting for the next train.

Dracula Fiction

2007-05-28T12:30:00.001-04:00

My first piece of fiction in ages: The Dark Of the Moon

Yes, it's a short-short, one joke piece. I know.