April 03, 2008
Maximal Minimalism
This Sunday’s News & Observer contained this: newsobserver.com | Living in a work of art. It all looks very nice but I have to say I find I was a bit irritated with the use of the term ‘minimalist’ to describe a 4,750 square foot single family dwelling. Yes, I know that the usage refers to the style and not the scale but still, it smacks strongly of newspeak.
Filed under General, Raleigh, Architecture and Minimalism.
Posted by eric at 09:48 PM | Comments (0)
March 23, 2008
Memories of Ma Bell
An entry from Modern Mechanix that brings back memories: “Ever Seen Your Telephone Switchboard?” As it happens, I have. Way back I had the good fortune to tour Ma Bell’s switch in Dranesville, VA. All electro-mechanical relays at the time, a whole gymnasium sized room full of racks of ticking relays. Everything it did then probably now fits in a pizza box.
This was back when we were still planning on being nuked someday and as many of DC’s long lines came in through the Dranesville station, it was sunk twenty or so feet underground and accessed through double blast doors. The upper works were supposed to look like a farm house. The massive air intakes might have been a bit of a giveaway though.
I wonder what’s happened to all that space. I would guess that the same region could be served by a couple of rows of racks by now. They'd look awfully lonely in that room.
Filed under General.
Update: Hey, what do you know? Here it is, still trying to look like a farm house.
Posted by eric at 07:19 PM | Comments (0)
February 23, 2008
French Women Don't Get Fat?
From Boing-Boing we have this French people eat until they're full, Americans eat until the food’s gone. I presume that this refers back to the book that came out last year, “Why French Women Don’t Get Fat”. All I can say is that based on my visit to France, there is at least a minor conceptual problem with this title. Can’t say I noticed that much difference.
Filed under General.
Posted by eric at 08:13 PM | Comments (0)
February 11, 2008
This Should Upset a Few Apple Carts
Bank holiday in Second Life? Ran across this Second Life Banking goes BUST from Sarcastic Gamer. If you listen to the source article from NPR, it doesn’t sound quite this dire. Apparently a particular form of intra-SL-inter-bank — qualifiers start to multiply alarmingly when your talking about virtual worlds — transaction has been shutdown. None the less, it’s acknowledged that this will make life difficult for folks trying to squeeze real dollars out of linden dollars. It will be interesting to see what if any impact this has on subscriber activity of the next few weeks.
Filed under: General, Second Life, Virtual Banking and Economics.
Posted by eric at 08:39 PM | Comments (0)
February 10, 2008
Reading, Wrinting and...
The offspring continues to make great strides at kindergarten. He’s far ahead of where I was when I was there. The latest arithmetic goal has been to count to one hundred. Laudable and once again, accomplished without pressuring the kids and even entertaining them. But look what they’ve done to give the students a visual and tactile sense of 100. Yes, already my son is a bean counter.
Filed under General, Kindergarten and Arithmetic.
Posted by eric at 11:04 AM | Comments (0)
February 04, 2008
Wow! Something Good on "This American Life"
I’m not much of a fan of “This American Life”. The over dramatic music overlaying the narration and joining the segments seems manipulative and distracting. The stories are too often banal or annoying. However, on the way home from the airport on Friday, I got caught up in the second part of this episode By Brilliant Plan.
It’s a fascinating tale of a man who became a physicist, and quite a good one, because as a child he wanted to make a time machine to go back and warn his father about his heart disease. The twist is that even by the time he was a successful scientist, this was not just a childhood dream but a living obsession. Very interesting listening.
Filed under General, NPR, This American Life, Physics and Time Travel.
Posted by eric at 09:52 AM | Comments (0)
February 03, 2008
Most Strange
I’m typically not much of a conspiracy theorist but this is all starting too look a bit strange…Ships did not cut internet cables: Egypt - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). I’m more than a bit surprised that the usually hyperventilatory press isn’t already claiming fowl play.
Posted by eric at 09:47 PM | Comments (0)
January 27, 2008
Intellectual Property for Toddlers
The offspring reached the age this year when it comes time to venture forth into the educational system; full day kindergarten began this past fall. Amongst the flurry of documents parents receive when this happens is a program of educational goals in kindergarten, a kind of curriculum.
Most of the the goals and topics are as one might expect and would be familiar to Robert Fulghum. However, one section definitely looks new to me, “Information Literacy”. Included under this heading are items like “Acknowledge ownership of ideas.”, “Follow acceptable use guidelines (AUP/IUP) in accessing information.”, and “Comply with the Copyright Law (P.L. 94-553) and credit sources of information.” All sounds a bit advanced for kindergarteners don’t ya think?
A more cynical man than I might begin to think that the MPAA and RIAA has got hold of the school boards and teachers’ groups to begin indoctrination as early as possible.
Filed under General, Intellectual Property and Kindergarten.
Posted by eric at 11:17 AM | Comments (0)
January 16, 2008
The False Digital Dilemma
From the Wsahington Post we have this: In Child Porn Case, a Digital Dilemma - washingtonpost.com I must say that I’m astonished that it’s taken this long for a case like this to come up. But here it is and it would be this kind of case. Everybody seems to be willing to toss rights out the window when the defendant might be this kind of creep. Trouble is, toss them out in this case, and you’ve tossed them out in all cases.
Mr. Kerr’s assertion that Boucher lost his 5th amendment “privilege” [hey! thought that one was a right.] when he mentioned a couple of things to customs officers seems way wide of the mark. Why is it that as soon as technology is involved, we’re always supposed to be in some new unexplored realm as far as rights and law are concerned?
What if we were talking about a suspected murderer? Even if he’d made a couple of damaging statements, that wouldn’t permit the police or prosecutors to put him on the stand and demand that he tell them where the body’s buried or face contempt of court. The technology is not an issue here. The issues are the same as they ever were.
Filed under General, Your Rights, Fifth Amendment.
Posted by eric at 08:42 AM | Comments (0)
January 15, 2008
Domestic Focus
After only about seven months, we’ve more or less settled back into life in the US. Most, but not all, of our stuff is out of storage and some of it has been unpacked. At last we’re finally able to focus a bit of energy on decorating our new house the way we would like it. (I say new even though we bought it back in 2005. We haven’t actually lived here very long at all.)
We’re aiming for a 1950s googie look downstairs; sort of a mid-twentieth century Sunset Magazine dream house feel. Upstairs, we’ll try to achieve something that hints at an earlier, Deco aesthetic. The only trouble with being attached to the ideals of bygone eras is that few people make furniture, appliances and decorations to match.
We’ve started a long road with a couple of very small steps. I ran across the reproduction 1939 Westclox radio shown above, perfect for the upstairs look. Even though this is a recent reproduction, it was still unavailable. Eventually, an Amazon.com vendor got hold of one and I bought it of him. Very happy with it.
The spouse found a Black & Decker toaster oven to replace our 90s plastic monstrosity. All metal case, classic clockwork controls and not an LED in sight. A perfect fit.
To move beyond these baby steps, there are a few vendors I’ve run across who may be useful. Moderne Life Interiors in Jenkintown, PA has a number of living and dining room pieces (particularly dining room) that fit the 50s modern look. Gomod.com has a good list of sites that sell moderne style furniture and decorations. SoCal Modern has links to a number vendors of just the right stuff.
Now to see if we can arrive at a budget and then do what we want within it.
Filed under General, Interior Decorating, Googie, Art Deco, Moderne.
Posted by eric at 08:54 PM | Comments (0)
December 24, 2007
It's Really Not So Bad Out There
I just returned from Triangle Town Center and it&rsqou;s really nothing like the horror stories related in this piece (Parking: Manners turn to malice)
from the N&O this weekend. Today there are scads of parking spots and I encountered no lines, apart from the one at Starbuck’s, to speak of. Seems like the real panic buying days were Saturday and Sunday with something like sanity returning today.
That said, I didn’t encounter very many of the ultra deep discounts that some were predicting by this point in the Christmas sales cycle. Maybe merchants have moved enough stock already to feel like playing out the usual game of economic chicken until the very end.
Filed under General.
Posted by eric at 06:03 PM | Comments (0)
December 23, 2007
There Should be People
I’ve been making occasional forays from the office to the Post Office in downtown Durham. It’s about a fifteen minute walk out and back. During that time, it would be surprising to pass more than two people. This is while walking through the middle of one of North Carolina’s larger cities. Not right.
There’s lots of re-development and Durham is in far, far better shape than I left it two years ago but still, there aren’t any people. There should be a department store or two, some smaller shops, sandwich counters and drug stores. All that’s going in is more residential space. There should be people walking out to lunch, out to pickup a few things, dropping off letters. Instead, the place is dead.
Compare to London, were I to walk through Westminster on a Sunday for the same amount of time, I would encounter almost a hundred times more people. It gives a city a feeling of life. Where there are no people, the opposite feeling prevails.
Filed under General.
Posted by eric at 09:31 PM | Comments (0)
November 18, 2007
An Altar to Your Tech Toys
Now you can properly worship the things most important in your life. Here, on one altar, you may appropriately adore your PDA, iPod and cellular telephone. Convenient drawers are provided for offerings to your personal gods.
I ran across this in a personal organizer catalog that showed up in my mailbox yesterday and was rather struck by what appeared to me to be the somewhat confusing imagery of this product. But maybe I shouldn’t be confused and, all joking aside, these are the things that people worship today and so they require their own ritualistic equipment.
Filed under General and Religion.
Posted by eric at 01:01 PM | Comments (0)
November 14, 2007
Anonymity Double-Plus Ungood
From the Washington Post we have “Intel Official: Expect Less Privacy” It seems that highly placed spook Donald Kerr is telling us that when we live in a world where our freedoms are continuously threatened, we must make sure we defend them. And if any of these freedoms get in the way of defending them, they’ll just have to go.
In fairness, his remarks really amount to a plea not to confuse privacy and anonymity; a distinction I’ve been harping on for years. However, he managed to couch his argument in such Orwellian terms that I doubt his message is likely to survive its manner of delivery. Also, I’m not convinced that all of the things he equated with anonymity are really that; some sounded more like, well, privacy.
Filed under General.
Posted by eric at 03:22 AM | Comments (0)
October 27, 2007
Fun With Neutrons
Ran across this on Google News Sci/Tech links:
Researchers at Michigan State University, US, have squeezed 29 neutrons into an atom of aluminum, bringing into doubt current theories which predicted that it would too unstable to exist.
Quite interesting. It sounds like a lot of fun and I’m sure that had I taken about six more years of college physics, I’d understand just what these results will tell us about the strong force and its relationship to the must sought Theory of Everything. However, I’d hate to have to be the guy who has to go in front of congress and explain how they’re not just making multi-billion dollar balloon animals out of nuclear particles.
Filed under General, Science and Physics.
Posted by eric at 04:49 PM
February 06, 2007
More Server Agonies
Life isn’t getting much better for our services today. I’m still down to half an MPLS circuit with, when I left, on E1 up and one down with line protocol down as well and several interface resets to its credit. BT was by for much of today working on their portion of the link. We have a new NTE and are using a new copper pair, the old one having been found to be error ridden. But still, I can’t raise the interface from the router.
Meanwhile, our poor file server is in a bad way. My role, at this distance, has largely been to manage expectations at the London office. I’m not sure that the guys back in the states have had much sleep since Sunday afternoon. By now they’ve probably knitted a new file server from spare parts as the original machine is looking like it really doesn’t want to play.
Not the calm we were hoping for after the storms of late last year. With luck we’ll turn the corner tomorrow.
Filed under General.
Posted by eric at 11:42 PM | Comments (0)
February 05, 2007
Just One of Those Days
Today was one of those days which, if one wasn’t so terribly rational, might tend to reinforce a superstitious nature. It began with our main file server, located in the US, loosing a couple of drive simultaneously. Odd that. One at a time is my usual expectation for that particular failure mode. After these were replaced, the RAID failed to rebuild itself properly and by early morning EST the file server, though on-line, was known to be a most unwell machine.
Meanwhile on our side of the pond, no sooner had the file server become available than line #2 of our local connection to the company MPLS started entering an alarm state ever minute or two. This made our connections to the newly restored file server a bit dodgy to say the least. Sprint are still working on this one.
All through these incidents, the UI to our accounting system was acting as though haunted by some malicious spirit. While the coincidence of the first two failures may be interesting, this last is in fact a direct implication of the other two problems. Even so, human nature can’t help waiting for another shoe to drop.
Filed under General
Posted by eric at 11:07 PM | Comments (0)
January 14, 2007
Visions of the 21st Century
A recent post on Boing Boing called my attention to the "Modern Mechanix" blog. They were enthused about the thirteen new devices for the little woman about the house. While poking about other entries, I found this: Modern Mechanix - Miracles You’ll See In The Next Fifty Years. "Popular Mechnics" vision of life now from the distance of 1950. "Nobody has yet circumnavigated the moon in a rocket space ship, but the idea is not laughed down." Good stuff.
Filed under General, Technology, Prediction.
Posted by eric at 05:04 PM | Comments (0)
January 01, 2007
Dame Evelyn Glennie: Well Deserved
Just noticed this Evelyn Glennie's good vibrations on the BBC. Finally! Somebody about whose work I actually give a toss has made the honours list. If you’ve not seen Evelyn Glennie in concert, do so. She’s one of a small handfull of people who actually take music in a new direction and who are helping to resuscitate orchestral music. I saw her some years back with the NC Symphony and it’s a treasured memory.
Filed under General, Music and Percussion.
Posted by eric at 11:06 PM | Comments (0)
October 12, 2006
The Heart of the Republicans' Problem
From the Washington Post yesterday we have: Shays: Page Scandal Isn’t Chappaquiddick. Well, thanks for clearing up that point Chris. It’s probably nothing for us to worry our little heads about. I mean common, covering up for a possible pedophile; it isn’t like anybody really got hurt or killed is it?
Is this the fundamental problem with this generation’s crop of Republicans? They seem to really believe that if there’s no dead or maimed body, or at least not one on U.S. soil, there’s no real crime. Fraud, influence peddling, insider trading? No harm no foul pal. Don’t like it? Call your congressman.
And by the way Chris, Chappaquiddick? That’s the best you can come up with? It’s so last century man.
Filed under General.
Posted by eric at 12:04 PM | Comments (0)
October 06, 2006
Zoiks! Bad Things Happing in the Old Hood
From the Washington Post we have Thousands Evacuated From N.C. Town. Said town, Apex, is right next door to where we lived shortly before transplanting to London. Should check with some of the friends and neighbors back home to see if and how they’re affected. Everybody should be fine. I’m sure that the high property values in Cary will keep the chemical cloud at bay.
Posted by eric at 03:01 PM
State of Limbo Banned: Pope Tells Lost Souls to Stop Loitering and Get a Move On
I litterally almost fell out of my chair when I saw this headline. From the BBC we have Vatican to review state of limbo. This would kinda knock Dante’s opening for “The Inferno” on the head wouldn’t it? I guess that it will slide a lot of infant souls to the heaven side of the ledger. May that’s the point, tring to stay ahead of the competition. Wouldn’t be to shift attention away from the recent Paleologus debacle would it?
Posted by eric at 10:44 AM | Comments (0)
August 26, 2006
Gibson: On the Rocks
From Heckler Spray — though if you don’t like this site you can pick the same story from plenty of others — we have this gem Mel Gibson Sorry For All The Boozy Jew Slagging And That. I usually don’t go in much for celebrity meltdown stories; they all start to sound the same after a while. However, Mel has really gone the extra mile here. I think his reported morning after explanation adds the touch of art to the whole thing. Ahem, I thought that alcohol lowered one’s inhibitions and made it more likely that one would say what one really felt without all those pesky social filters in the way.
Posted by eric at 07:15 PM | Comments (0)
July 20, 2006
King Tut's Gem From Asteroid Impact?
From the BBC: “Tut’s gem hints at space impact”. A documentary about a glass gem in King Tut’s funeral necklace which has a bit more history than might have been expected. While the home page headline talks about a “shocking secret&rdqou;, I&rsquom not sure I’d go that far. It looks interesting at any rate and I’ll watch if circumstances permit.
Filed under General, Egyptology, Geology, Tutankhamun.
Posted by eric at 07:15 AM | Comments (0)
February 14, 2006
Skating's a Crock: Part XXVII
From the BBC we have Russians triumph in skating drama. Apprently, one can fall on one’s backside and then poke about for five minutes before resuming one’s program and still wind up with a silver medal. C’mon, in what other “sport” could you get away with crap like this. I mean, could you imgine this in gymnastics? “Well Gordon, he did fly off the high bar into the stands and killed a couple of fans but he came back, gave it all he had and finished his routine and you’ve got to admit that shows a lot of pluck. Given his past performances, I’ll bet the judges give him the benefit and hand him some pretty highy marks.”
Why are the skating judges and comentators always wittering on about “past performances’? If those are so important, why not have the “athletes” stop and relax at home and let the judges hash it all out without all the fuss, bother and zobonis. That way the rest of us could get on with watching real sports… like curling.
I must say that BBCi is a bit of a godsend in this case. There’s always an optional feed aside from skating.
Filed under General, Olympics, Figure Skating.
Posted by eric at 02:02 PM
November 29, 2005
Match 3, Day 1
The BBC brings us the ill news this morning: Day one as it happened. I’d heard that Englands’ target was 400 on this pitch. If so, this doesn’t seem to be the way to go about it. The words ‘England’ and ‘Collapse’ are paired all too frequently lately when Cricket is discussed. Four batsmen out from ill advised sweep shots. Unless the tail end batsmen put on quite a show, taking the series to a draw is starting to look like long odds.
Filed under General and Cricket.
Posted by eric at 12:01 PM
November 10, 2005
Now I'm Really Worried
In On the Effectiveness of Aluminium Foil Helmets:
An Empirical Study we are informed through a scientific study that our aluminum helmets may be worse than useless. In fact, they may even be helping the UN mind control devices! Or is this only what they want us to believe? I wonder what this means for the Faraday cage around my bedroom.
Filed under General.
Posted by eric at 10:25 PM | Comments (0)
November 07, 2005
Large Scale Bioluminescence
NPR reports (NPR : “NPR : Satellite Spots ‘Glowing’ Ocean”) on large areas of bioluminescent bacteria. Descriptions of ghostly glowing waters go way back in the literature of sailing but apparently they've been taken seriously, until recently, only by the Fortean community and groups even further afringe. Seems odd that with so many examples of bioluminescent phenomena, scientists remaind so skeptical for so long.
Filed under General.
Posted by eric at 03:33 PM | Comments (0)
November 06, 2005
The Management Secrets of Howard Carter
We’re spending this evening watching the second installment of BBC1’s “Egypt” series. This week’s episode continues the story of the career of Howard Carter, discoverer of Tutankhamun’s tomb. It’s quite well done actually. Well acted, with instructive bits of flashback to 3500 years ago. I particularly like the actors who played Carter and his patron Lord Carnarvon. Unfortunately, IMDB has failed me utterly; it claims that this series in pre-production, due to be released in 2006, and provides no cast details.
If one learns nothing else from the first two entries in this six part docu-drama, it’s that Carter’s management techniques are probably not the best models for an up and coming group or team leader. He appears to have been more than ordinarily good at making enemies and anlienating friends.
Filed under General, TV, Documentary, Egypt.
Posted by eric at 09:22 PM | Comments (0)
August 08, 2005
Michael Cain, Noel Coward and Benny Hill in One Movie?
Yep, oddly enough all three of these personalities can be found in the same movie; it’s the original version of “The Italian Job” from 1969. (For another surprise Benny Hill appearance, check out “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”, he’s the toy maker). I remember seeing bits of this movie on television a couple of years after it first came out. I remembered the darkly comic beginning and the odd, unsatisfying ending but virtually nothing in between (I was probably sent out of the room because of all the scantily clad women surrounding Michael Cain). Having seen it again now, I can say that while all of the principles do a fine job and while the car chase is indeed very well done, the more recent version is a better movie.
It’s pretty clear that not very much time, energy, thought, or money went into any aspect of the 1969 version other than the car chase. That part is perfectly executed and comes across very well. The rest of the film tends to keep coming unglued, threatening to bog down or go off on some irrelevancy. None of the three main players has more than a couple of scenes with any of the others so it almost seems like a couple of independent stories cut together.
Still, Noel Coward is lots of fun even if he’s ‘phoning it in and Michael Cain does the best he can with what he’s given which, as usual with him, is more that might be expected. Worth a look if only for them and the car chase. The ending still sucks though.
Filed under General and Movies.
Posted by eric at 04:38 PM | Comments (0)
June 08, 2005
Time to Punt on Cingular
I recently received a missive from our less than customer friendly — absurdly complex bills, Byzantine voice mail system, woefully poor web site, pissy late notices despite years of being a good customer — cellular telephone company Cingular. It looks like the rate plan presently associated with my ’phone isn´t making them enough filthy lucre so they´re discontinuing it. If I do nothing I´ll be automatically “upgraded” to a 50% more expensive plan that provides lots of services and minutes I won´t use in places I won´t be; another $120/yr for nuthn´. No thanks.
We´re going to be out of the country for extensive periods of time for the next couple of years so a monthly fee based plan makes no sense anyway. Had a look at Cingular´s pay-as-you-go plans, read the fine print and go somewhere else. The minutes on a $25 card go piff in 30 days while those on a $75 card last all of 90 days. Again, no thanks
F**K ´em.
Filed under General ’cause I don´t have a category for shameless weasels.
Posted by eric at 12:12 AM | Comments (0)
June 05, 2005
A Stop in Roanoke
We were out of town visiting the southwest Virginia highlands this weekend. Driving back today we were making quite good time so we decided to give the tot a treat and stop in Roanoke to visit the Virginia Transportation Museum. Exhibits there run from ancient cars through early aircraft and on to a small rocket standing out back but what we´re really here for are the locomotives.
The offspring´s just mad about trains and locomotives lately and we thought he might enjoy a close up look at some of the larger specimens. We weren´t disappointed. He had a great time running around goggling at the vast stretches of boiler, drive wheels and push rods. Of particular interest were the museum´s show pieces: The Norfolk & Western J class number 611 and A class number 1218. Also of note, to the little one at least, is a miniature hood diesel standing on the loading doc near the end.
Definitely a worthwhile stop if you, or somebody in your car, cares at all about rail transport history. The rest of the museum’s exhibits are a bit iffy but for trains, they´re quite good.
Filed under General.
Posted by eric at 10:20 PM | Comments (0)
May 25, 2005
Boing Boing: Morse coders faster than SMSers
Boing Boing: Morse coders faster than SMSers
Very fun clip: 170 year old technology beats the champion SMS text messager and it isn't even close; it's just sad. In fairness, the SMS champeen hasn't had the 43 years of practice as the Morse sender has.
Posted by eric at 08:49 PM | Comments (0)
Loose Nets 'Round the Neighborhood
Having dragged the first 802.11 enabled device home yesterday (a new laptop from work), I finally had an opportunity to see what sort of waves have been traveling through my house lately. There are routinely two or three networks available from my third floor office. One of these, SSID of "cj", is at least minimally secured but there are usually a couple of others that are wide open. It's hardly surprising that the SSIDs are "MSHOME" and "linksys".
Isn't packaging this stuff so that when the naïve end user pulls it out of the box and sets it up, it's open to any passer by just a little irresponsible? Isn't it the net equivalent of passing out gasoline and lighters in a middle school cafeteria on Halloween? I suppose the manufacturers would say that they're trying to keep things simple for non-technical people to set up wireless networks. Well, how would that scheme work if we applied it to new houses? Here's your brand new home. Note that there aren't any locks on any of the doors; they'd probably be too difficult for you to use. In fact, we've left most of the doors off since we thought that they'd only get in your way.
Here's a whacky idea, instead of simplifying things by eliminating even the most basic security systems, why not come up with a simple way for the non-geek to set them up.
Filed under: General and Wi-Fi
Posted by eric at 12:04 AM | Comments (0)
May 18, 2005
Lost in the Move
From: 
To: 
So where have all of the entries been the last N weeks? I've been caught up in moving from a house where my family and I have resided for some sixteen years (the "From" house above) to a new house (yes, that would be the "To" house above) about twenty miles north of the old one. Even in a relatively small house of some 1,700 square feet, one can accumulate an astonishing amount of stuff – as our movers found to their discomfort. We've been drowning in stuff, packing and unpacking, for about a month.
We'll we're in our new place now, for the moment (that's another story), and we're unpacked enough to function. The new abode weighs in at about 2,700 square feet but even so it's still wall-to-wall boxes. But, the DSL is on-line, the cable is hooked up (too many trees for a satellite signal... sniff.) and I've enough time to squeeze out the odd note or two. I'll probably post a few back-dated entries on the move process itself by way of a diary for my own reference.
Posted by eric at 02:49 PM | Comments (0)
May 15, 2005
We're Out!
Just moved the last item we had remaining at our old address, consequently getting in the new owners' faces. I drove down, collected the slowly corroding metal shelving unit from the old place, shoved it in the truck and we were at that moment officially, completely, totally out of our old house. I had begun to fear it would never happen.
None of this is to imply that we're anything like moved in at our new location. It's pretty much still wall-to-wall boxes but we're getting there. We have a kitchen we can use, the offspring's room is put back together, and our bedroom is setup. This last involved an extensive hunt for some of the curious bits of hardware required to put our Danish made bed back together. Some of the smaller pieces which yours truly had thought were well attached weren't and they dropped off somewhere during the move.
To rectify the situation, the spouse made a valiant search through many boxes, bags, tubs and other containers with no luck. She then paid a visit to a local Scandinavian furniture dealer who very helpfully pointed her to a hardware store that caries some of the odd parts we required. Result, we've a place to sleep in some comfort again.
Posted by eric at 04:00 PM | Comments (0)
May 14, 2005
The Asymptotic Move
We're really very nearly completely moved out of our old house now. All that remains is a corroded old shelving unit that I couldn't fit in the truck without damaging other more valuable cargo. One more trip should do it.
Much of this morning was spent updating addresses with some of our financial institutions. The good thing is that all of the work could be done on-line. On the other hand, I'm a bit put off by the variety of security procedures. Some sites balked at pass phrases longer than 12 characters. Some compromised the security of the pass phrase by demanding that I select a security question and provide a response. The correct answers to nearly every question they present are already public information. Even if I make up answers, which I always do, I'm still introducing another route beyond my pass phrase to gain access to the account. These security questions really annoy me. I don't forget passwords. I should be able to opt out of the scheme.
One institution, which shall remain nameless if for no other reason than I'm so chary about account security that I won't even reveal with whom I have accounts, didn't permit alphabetic characters in the user ID; passwords yes but not the ID. Go figure. I suppose this stems in part from some lingering touch tone controlled system. Whatever. At least they permitted long IDs. Nobody's likely to guess the one I chose but it's going to be a bit of a job to enter it.
Posted by eric at 11:32 PM | Comments (0)
May 03, 2005
We're On-line!
While we planned ahead well enough for most of our services at the new address and most everything like electricity and water were working fine, we did run into a bit of a glitch in getting telephone service set up. From when we walked in the door on Friday afternoon to around 11:30 Monday morning, we had no dial tone on our lines.
Naturally, one of the first things I wanted to know was whether the trouble was in our lines or with the BellSouth. So out I went to the service connect on the south side of the house. I pulled open the box and to my amazement was not presented with RJ-11 jacks and modular connections but a leaf from a forgotten tail: an old four post screw terminal block. Wow! I don't think I've seen one of these since I moved out of my parents' house back in the early 80's.
To be fair, part of the reason this has gone on all weekend is that I've had no time to call BellSouth about the trouble before yesterday morning. After I was able to call them; they tried selling me an inside wiring maintenance plan for $6.00/month, I politely refused, they ran a trouble check on the line, came up with a rather non-specific diagnosis of trouble "which we can't tell is inside or outside the house" and "would you like to sign up for our inside wiring maintenance plan for $6.00?".
After my second refusal of a maintenance plan that I can not see doing me an ounce of good, it took less than an hour for the 'phone to be on line. This whole incident would have been much more annoying fifteen or twenty years ago or so when cellular telephones were still uncommon. As it is, the only real pinch was not getting the DSL service set up until just a couple of hours ago.
Posted by eric at 10:12 PM | Comments (0)
March 01, 2005
Some More Scribling Re: More than a Carpenter
It's taken me quite a while to collect, boil down, and post my notes on reading Chapter 4 of "More than a Carpenter". Part of the problem is that this lengthy chapter represents a more than usually appalling agglomeration of sloppy thinking and poor argument. Even now I've still got a couple of references to track down; not sure when I'll get around to that. The point of Chapter 4, I suppose, is that I come out convinced that the canonical gospels were written directly by apostles and prior to the end of the second temple period. I'm afraid that I've come through with my opinions on neither of these issues changed.
Posted by eric at 12:53 PM | Comments (0)
February 20, 2005
George Washington and American Ignorance
Had another "five minutes with the average voter" moment this morning. NPR ran an article about a poll by a researcher at, appropriately enough, Washington College in Maryland on modern Americans' opinions of George Washington. Perhaps the most appalling result is that a majority of Republicans would vote for our current president over our first one were it a head-to-head race. Are Republicans really so desperate to convince themselves that W. is something other than a poster child for the sad decline in the species of the American President or are they really that clueless about what sort of man was the first example of the type.
Other results in the poll support the latter; of those polled only some 46% were aware that the continental army was led to victory against the British by George Washington. (I would imagine that a vastly smaller number are aware that it was done with no insubstantial help from the French.) Who, I wonder, do the 54% think was in charge? Sadly they probably think it was Grant or Lincoln. I wonder what it must be like to wobble through life in such fantastic ignorance. Guess I’m just being elitist – to bad, deal with it.
For the benefit of those to whom our first chief executive is little more than a cipher whose face adorns some of our currency, I suggest:
- Clark, Harrison, "All Cloudless Glory" Vols. 1 & 2, 1998, Regnery Publishing, Inc.
- Smith, Richard Norton, "Partriarch", 1996, Houghton Mifflin Company
Posted by eric at 12:15 PM | Comments (0)
February 13, 2005
Harry Homeowner Day
Not that we actually own the home you understand; bank still has a substantial, if diminishing interest in the place. As part of our continuing effort to move our interior space into alignment with what western civilization expects, the great bulk of the day went to cleaning, organizing, and wallpaper stripping (a nasty, horrible job… Laura did it). Our moment of relaxation of the day was a family outing to Gypsy’s Shiny Diner for dinner.
Posted by eric at 11:04 PM | Comments (0)
February 12, 2005
Lite Shopping Day
Took the offspring off on a shopping expedition around lunchtime. As we're trying to get the house at least semi-respectable for show, a couple of de-cluttering appliances are indicated which I found at the local Space Savers; a proper cloths hamper to clear up that shambling heap in front of the master bedroom closets and a small set of shelves to organize the gaggle of shoes that clusters around my side of the room.
After that, we drove off to Barnes & Noble, primarily for the offspring's benefit. He's been after a globe of his own for some time having seen one of his favorite characters, Wallace in "A Grand Day Out" using one on T.V. I can only hope his heart's desires remain so educationally sound. He's also become fascinated with the idea of caterpillars turning into butterflies so, as he's one of the few toddlers in the nation that hasn't got a copy yet, I thought he might like to have "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" to read of a bed time.
Both globe and book were procured in short order and we sat down to a coffee (for me, lemonaid for the offspring) and scone at the café. The little vacuum snatched up fully two thirds of my pastry! I'll have to order a couple of scones from now on.
Posted by eric at 10:33 PM | Comments (0)
February 11, 2005
Save the Tree Octopus!
A friend passed along a link to the home page of this important effort. Frankly, I was unaware that there were such things as arboreal cephalopods. But, now that I'm aware of them I'm all for taking necessary measures to ensure their continued survival.
Posted by eric at 11:28 PM | Comments (0)
February 10, 2005
The House Hunt Begins
Now that we have three people, one of whom keeps getting bigger (well OK, may be more than one but only one is getting taller), three cats, a couple of computers, a server, and enough toys to fill any space that might remain, it's time to start looking for more room. So we've overcome our, or my, extreme reticence to consider moving and have begun looking for a new home.
This afternoon we and the realtor all bundled into the SUV and toured a few possibilities. The problem is that we like contemporary houses [a find if opulent example]. We live in one now, albeit a small one. Nobody builds contemporaries anymore; haven't for a decade or so. As close as you get these days is some creature called a transitional which feels contemporary on the inside but still manages to match the rest of the insipid colonials on the block on the outside. This search could go on a while.
Posted by eric at 08:55 PM | Comments (0)
February 08, 2005
Excellent NPR Article on Bebe and Louis Barron
Morning Edition yesterday aired a great piece on Bebe and Louis Barron, the husband and wife team who's longest lived claim to fame is that they constructed the first all electronic film score for "Forbidden Planet". Bebe provided interesting insights into how sounds were selected and queues created to create the right mood for the film. One particularly fascinating bit was that the very intense queue for Morbius' death was itself produced by a circuit that was starting to send up smoke signals.
Very worth a look and listen as well is the edit from the experimental film "Bells of Atlantis". For 1952, this must have been way out there.
Posted by eric at 09:05 AM | Comments (0)
February 07, 2005
They Call Me Baby Driver
A nice quiet day here abouts. All there is to do is add to the echo chamber on the news about the four year old who decided to take a drive, that's right a drive, down to the video store -- at one thirty in the morning. So, it's not just me getting older. Other drivers are getting younger. And apparently I shouldn't be surprised when commuters on I-40 drive like six year olds, they may not even be that old.
Posted by eric at 08:27 PM | Comments (0)
January 30, 2005
Yet Another Winter Storm
Every week whether we need it or not. We were planning on driving up to the Baltimore area last weekend but thought better of it as an appalling snow and ice storm (pictures from the Baltimore Sun) bore down on the mid-Atlantic region. This weekend looked only slightly better but we went for it anyway. The snow caught up with us in between Catonsville [very dry site] and Columbia [site too cheesy to link] MD on Saturday evening. Continuing off and on all night, enough snow fell for the offspring to enjoy his first real, if diminutive, snowman (pictured).
Fortunately, this weekend's storm was much less intense than the previous week's. The road crews were able to keep up and by the time we were homeward bound, all of the major roads were quite clear. Better still, most potential travelers seem to have been cowed by the forecasts and even I-95 between Baltimore and Woodbridge, which drive is often an experience well calculated to produce a stream of invective to which the offspring should probably not be exposed, was remarkably clear.
Posted by eric at 11:26 PM | Comments (0)
January 29, 2005
A Visit to the B&O Rail Museum
We visited with the father-in-law today. He suggested that we might just have time to scoot into downtown Baltimore and take in the B&O Railroad Museum. That turned out to be a great idea. The offspring couldn't have been more pleased taking in the locomotives big and small ("daddy" and "baby" trains) and watching the model trains. We arrived just in time for the last train ride apparently until April. It's just ten minutes up and back but the toddler couldn't have been more pleased. (Any longer and he might have become a bit bored.) This is a great stop for any toddler old enough to have developed a proper fascination with trains.
Posted by eric at 11:06 PM | Comments (0)
January 27, 2005
A Quiet Day for a Change
Today has been a nice, quiet, productive day working out of the house, all of which makes for dull entries but here we go anyway. Took a break after lunch to talk with a couple of real estate agents as we're thinking of trading up to a larger domicile. (In fact we're pretty much certain to do so but presently it feels better if we just say that we're "thinking" about it.)
Just after wrapping up work for today, and while the offspring was still engaged in his somewhat late nap, I managed to make use of one of my more prized Christmas gifts and catch up on my "West Wing" viewing.
Posted by eric at 10:53 PM | Comments (0)
January 26, 2005
Kicking off a New Year for the Capital Group
Quite a long day; stopped at Starbucks for "dinner", if capuchino and a crumb cake can be considered dinner, on the way from the office into Raleigh for the first full meeting of 2005 of the Capital Group Sierra Club. Fortunately we had a pretty good crowd and it looks like there are a few members who might be willing to help out on the political and conservation committees, both of which could use more members.
The current goals for the group were presented at the meeting. We’ll be trying to unify the efforts of all branches of the group; political committee, conservation committee, outings, outreach, communications, heck even singles toward the goal of obtaining a protection bill for the Falls Lake area. Naturally many details remain to be worked out but there seems to be some enthusiasm for this goal and the hope is that it will turn to involvement on the part of more members.
Live in the Raleigh area? Want to help, visit the Capital Group web site and find out how.
Posted by eric at 11:04 PM | Comments (0)
January 22, 2005
One Year Gone
Tonight's drink is in memoriam: friend, guide, mentor, example, parent, and father. Perhaps the least of the things you taught me was how to appreciate a fine Manhattan. So here's to one of the best friends I ever had. I only wish, having found the perfect recipe, that I'd mixed more of them for you.
Posted by eric at 09:11 PM | Comments (0)
January 20, 2005
Dulce Et Decorum Est
I really can't say why on this inauguration day my mind has turned to the works of Wilfred Owen. Perhaps the swearing in of our fearless leader for four more years of callus indifference to the costs his whims have inflicted on the men who have fought to realize them has brought back to mind the deep disillusionment expressed in "Dulce Et Decorum Est", one of Owen's most powerful works.
I, like fearless leader, have never been in combat. However, by trying to hear what writers who have confronted war in both its most personal and impersonal manifestations – Remarque and Owen being just a couple of the best -- have to say I hope to have gathered just a little appreciation of how to count the cost. So, I can only hope that our new used commander-in-chief might end his day by reading a selection from Owen's small oeuvre, and thinking about our troops in Iraq and Afganistan.
Posted by eric at 11:19 PM | Comments (0)
January 19, 2005
Winter Returns to NC
Well we got a bit of a surprise today. Gone indeed is our false spring with its 70+ degree days in the middle of January. Winter has most assuredly returned with two nights in the teens and this afternoon, when mere flurries were predicted, a slight but very effective snowfall. The downtown Durham roads consisted mostly of powdery snow over ice.
The local school systems, government offices, and many businesses shutdown simultaneously at the peak of the storm dumping huge numbers of escaping commuters and students on to the roads while they were at their worst. The results were predictable. Downtown intersections quickly clogged and I-40 turned to worms in an instant. I left at about 16:00 by which time I'd decided that things were unlikely to get better before they got worse. Fortunately, my favored bat exit from Durham, NC 751, was almost completely vacant; got home in no time compared to those who chose I-40 who, for all I know, are still there now.
Sadly, I'd left the real camera at home and all I have to capture the great event is this ratty webcam snap taken with an ancient little camera from the early days of USB.
UPDATE
Apparently I was very lucky. I have reports from coworkers, with commutes of lengths similar to my own, of drives home varying from 3.5 to 5 hours. Things apparently got so bad that many school busses were unable to even begin to make their runs so upward of 2,800 kids, in Wake Co. alone, were stranded in their schools overnight. Story from Raleigh News and Observer.
Posted by eric at 09:22 PM | Comments (0)
January 17, 2005
Busy at Home Lately
It's been awful quiet here of late. Much to be done on the domestic front which has left but little time to catch up with e-mail let alone research, work, play, or scribbling random notes about any of these.
We went out to Amedeo's this evening for a bit of a break. For those who might find themselves in Raleigh, NC and who do not know about Amedeo's, it's easily the best Italian food for your eating dollar that you're likely to find in the area. I particularly recommend the eggplant parmesan.
The toddler was pretty well behaved, particularly after dad sliced up his spaghetti and fed it to him in bits. He really should be able to handle this himself at this stage, after the slicing up at any rate, but is too fastidious.
Posted by eric at 09:36 PM | Comments (0)
January 11, 2005
Can't Help Myself, the Scribling Continues
I managed to wade through all four pages of Chapter 3 of Josh McDowell's "More than a Carpenter". It took far more time to take note of all of the rhetorical missteps and vast gaps in the author's knowledge of the scientific process than it did to actually read the tiny chapter. Wow! The number and scope of the errors and ignorance displayed in these few short pages is just beyond belief. I could have written quite an opus in response to just this one chapter but, in the interest of time and having a life, have confined my self to these brief notes.
Posted by eric at 11:06 PM | Comments (0)
January 08, 2005
How to End a Long Day
It's been quite a long day today; up with the dawn, on a Saturday which would be against my religion if I had one, to get ready for the annual planning meeting of the local Sierra Club group. The goal of the meeting, that I believe was met, was to identify some issue that we can use to bring together all of the presently disparate elements of our local group.
In the midst of all of this discussion it struck me that most outsiders probably imagine organizations like the Sierra Club as being constellations of warrens of busy little activists coast-to-coast all working tirelessly to save the planet or subvert the virtuous course of unrestrained capitalism, as one's own politics might have it. The truth is that nearly everybody involved has a job, a family, and a life to live outside of these groups and the all work very hard to scrape together a few hours a week to do what needs to be done.
When one considers that those on the opposing side of most environmental issues are represented by battalions, almost literally, of well paid lobbyists, it's a wonder that there's a square inch of unpaved ground remaining, that Draino isn't pouring straight out of our taps, and that we're not eating fish full of mercury. (OK, we actually are eating fish full of mercury but two out of three ain't bad.)
I guess if there's a point to this screed, it's this: if you’re on occasion generous enough to cut a check or two some group like the Sierra Club, US-PIRG, or even The Nature Conservancy in so far as they have any credibility left, you might also consider donating a couple of hours a month or so to help out. There's always something you can do.
In any case, following the meeting and dinner with the mother in law, it's now time for a, purely medicinal martini. Ahhhhh.
Posted by eric at 08:59 PM | Comments (0)
You Might Fire Me But I Won't Quit
Or how Apple got something for nothing from the developers of the graphing calculator. A friend sent me a link to the story of how the authors of the Mac OS graphing calculator flew below the corporate radar, going so far as to keep working at Apple even after they'd been let go, to produce their product. Amusing reading. Link.
Posted by eric at 05:38 PM | Comments (0)
January 07, 2005
More Scribling
On to Chapter 2 of Josh McDowell's "More than a Carpenter". Read through it yesterday afternoon and made a few notes on it. Thus far, the fundamental problem is that he keeps hoping that the skeptical reader, who is his intended audience, shares his acceptance of the Gospels as fact. Regrettably, I am not so inclined. But he hopes to change my mind on this point in Chapter 4 so I'll wait with interest. Personally, this belief is so pervasively key to his position that I would in his place have put this right up front, not the fourth chapter in.
Posted by eric at 09:24 PM | Comments (0)
The Rooftops of Durham
It was a fine morning with good light and I had the camera with me so I tried, and failed, to take a nice arty picture or two from the top of the service stair at the office. So here's downtown Durham, NC on the morning of January 7th, 2005. Unfortunately the view is up hill. Low evening light would have been better but by this evening the clouds had returned. C'est la vie.
Posted by eric at 08:36 PM | Comments (0)
January 05, 2005
Doing a little scribling this evening
Some long time ago, a friend decided that I might find Josh McDowell's "More than a Carpenter" convincing. Of late I've finally gotten around to finding out just how convincing it is and have begun posting my notes on my experience. Tonight's entry on Chapter 1 illustrates that Mr. McDowell has a long row to hoe with this particular skeptic.
Posted by eric at 08:15 PM | Comments (0)