Spirit photos…
I was cleaning through some old CDs and came across a batch of photos of Irene's horse Spirit that a friend of Irene's had taken. I had forgotten how much…
Clean Air = Reduced sulfates = Arctic warming?
Recent NASA research suggests that warming trends in the Arctic during the past 40 years aren’t due to CO2 emission increases. Instead, the spike in Arctic temperatures during the past forty years appears to be due to reduced aerosol particulates, specifically to reduced sulfates in the atmosphere. The sulfate reduction is believed to be the result of improved emission standards that were implemented to, ironically, improve the environment through reductions in acid rain. Aerosol sulfates reflect heat back into space, reducing temperatures, whereas different aerosols, termed “black carbon aerosols” and produced largely by burning coal, have the opposite effect: holding heat in.
Office Reno 2009- Update #2 (finished)
The reconstruction of my home office is essentially complete. I still have a computer or two to move in, some wiring to re-organize, and a few other bits and pieces. But the flooring is done and all the new furniture is in place. Here is how it looks now:
Click the above photo to see more images from the reno
Conficker worm fizzles… for now
The news has been full lately with hyperbole regarding the Conficker series of worms. If you believed some pundits, the Internet should have ground to a halt today as millions of infected computers picked up their new instructions for the coming armageddon. What really happened was… not much of anything. But that doesn’t mean the risk is gone…
Sometimes evil makes me laugh…
I have been reading Looking For Group for several months now. It is a webcomic from the same minds that bring us Least I Could Do, Ryan Sohmer and Lar deSouza, and is an ongoing saga involving some rather unusual fantasy characters. Initially, these characters were loosely based on races and professions found in games such as World of Warcraft, but the connection is rather tenuous. Mostly it is about the “good” guy, Cale’Anon, and his twirl-your-mustache evil friend, the undead Warlock Richard.
Sci Fi channel renames itself SyFy, insults all current customers
The cable content provider formerly known as the Sci Fi channel has renamed itself “SyFy”. Here is their reasoning for this rather bizarre change:
The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular. We spent a lot of time in the ’90s trying to distance the network from science fiction, which is largely why it’s called Sci Fi. It’s somewhat cooler and better than the name ‘Science Fiction.’ But even the name Sci Fi is limiting. … (Changing the name to Syfy) gives us a unique word and it gives us the opportunities to imbue it with the values and the perception that we want it to have.
So in one giant leap, the SyFy channel has both insulted their entire existing client base and devised a new name that sounds like a sexually transmitted disease. It also means nasty things in Polish, apparently.
Earthquake monitoring…
I was recollecting my first few days in our house here on the west coast tonight. We took possession of the house on September 2, 2000, and I was out…
Home office reno- Update #1
Progress on my office renovation is starting to shape up. Despite the minor disaster last night, I managed to finish cleanup of the room and it is now ready for the flooring to be done. Here is what it looked like before we started (2008 picture)
BEFORE
Timber!
As I mentioned previously, I’m working on improvements to my office space at home. The painting is all done, and I’ve booked installation of a hardwood floor for Monday. This means I have to (fairly quickly) remove everything from the floor of the room. That meant disassembling several computers, reorganizing wiring, and figuring out a way to keep my network switches/routers connected without anything actually resting on the floor. I thought I had it all worked out until disaster struck…
The Onion shovels some more in: wearable feedbags
The Onion is one of my preferred sources of comedy on the Internet. Their simulated news stories often hit frighteningly close to the truth, but every once in a while…