Deep sleep:
Here's everything you don't care about and wished you didn't know about how to wake up in the morning.
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October 25, 2005
Last resort:
No doubt, photos from 911 have spurred sales of the Executive Chute. But, as the CSM article notes, there are many other high-tech high-price high-rise survival gadgets on the market.
Here are a few unusual products available from the survivalists at Contamination Radio (where they say they can help you survive the new world order.)
Understanding information:
It's the information age. So why do most of our problems have to do with information? A new book tries to remedy that.
Citizen's arrest:
Speaking of volunteers of America, the Minutemen are heading to the north border. They better bring their mukluks and their attorneys.
So glad we made it:
Joan Andleman reviews the Cream reunion at Madison Square Garden. The aging band reminds me of the Spencer Davis Group and Jefferson Airplane songs, once rebellious and revolutionary, now soundtracks for TV commercials for financial services companies.
The use of a cut from the Airplane's Volunteers album in particular for a corporate theme, seems almost sacrilegious to people who remember the political and cultural turmoil of the time. But the sixties are over and nothing's sacred. Time to move on.
Cure thyself:
Scott Lehigh thinks Sal DiMasi should crack down on lazy and incompetent legislators, starting with, well, Sal DiMasi.
Icon:
Rosa Parks has died.
Jane who?
It seems like a long time ago that Jane Swift was acting governor for a short time. But in deference to posterity she's returned to unveil her portrait and to donate her papers. She was not really very effective as governor but still, I kind of liked Swift, so you can insert your own joke about her legacy here.
October 24, 2005
Wilma Update:
From the Marco Island News:
Power is out throughout the island and we do not have an estimated time that it will be restored. Traffic lights are out and other signage may be down. Due care must be used when driving. Stop or yield at all intersections.The water and wastewater system may be functioning at a reduced capacity or not functioning at all.
Businesses are closed and services are not available.
Landfall:
Wilma came ashore on Marco Island as a strong Cat 3. That's Marco, somewhere under the middle red stripe.
The graphic is from a local TV station. Winds may be more like 120, according to StormTrack. I can't find any live local coverage but there are a couple of blogs, this one from NBC 2 and this from a Naples News correspondent on Marco Island. As the storm moves across the state, here's weblog coverage on the East Coast.
The sun isn't up yet, but it looks like power is still on. Here are the links to the beach cameras: south looking north, Resident's Beach and Snook Inn. (MORE from earlier)
And what happens next? More from The StormTrack's Brian Woods:
The real fun with this storm is going to be off the coast of New England and Nova Scotia. All of the model guidance suggests that Wilma is going to interact with an oncoming mid-lattitude system and create quite a storm. The GFDL, among others, is forecasting Wilma to morph into a double barreled monster with winds up the Category 3 over the Grand Banks.
This is by no means unheard of. In 1991, what was left of Hurricane Grace approached the New England coast and interacted with a mid-lattitude storm, creating the great Halloween Storm of 1991. Once off Nova Scotia, the storm developed an eye with temperatures 4 degrees C warmer than those outside the eye, proving it had tropical characteristics. The result storm was the basis for the famous book and later movie, "The Perfect Storm."
I am not expecting a Category 3 hurricane to strike Nova Scotia, but I think we could see one hell of a storm in the coming days. I just think are are in store for a good show to come.
Hmmm.
The smell of napalm in the morning:
First Melvin Laird pops up. Now enemy body counts are back. This is beginning to feel like deja vu all over again.
Blog wars:
Cathy Young confuses "damage" with analysis. Michelle Malkin and her crowd are simply giving their take. There's no real harm in that, even if they do get it wrong.
Opportunity knocks:
Kids selling software to other kids? It like a co-op course for the Microsoft sales department.
(Actually, I've used OneNote on a tablet computer. It's very cool software, but when it comes to taking notes, paper works best.)
Cash cow:
Michelle McPhee hits a home-run with her opinion piece on public money for Fenway area upgrades.
The Senate slid through the $55 million package the Red Sox lobbied for, while Sen. Jarrett T. Barrios had to wrestle lawmakers into earmarking $11 million for anti-gang initiatives.
The disparity led one lawmaker to remark, ``You have to pick your battles. The Red Sox have powerful lobbyists.''
Who could they mean by powerful lobbyists?
October 23, 2005
Hurricane fatigue:
It's all-Wilma-all-the-time on the news channels but the bottom line is that Wilma is picking up strength and speed as it heads towards Florida. Storm surge is a real concern. Here's Jeff Master's take on his blog at Weather Underground:
Wilma has entered a slow intensification phase the past three hours. The pressure has fallen from 963 mb to 959 mb, the eye has shrunk in diameter from 60 nm to 45 nm, and satellite imagery shows cooling cloud tops in the eyewall region--all signs of an ongoing intensification cycle. In response to this intensification cycle, the Hurricane Center has now upped their forecast of the maximum storm surge from 13 feet to 17 feet over southwest Florida. At the current rate of intensification, Wilma could become a Category 3 hurricane with 115 mph winds by midnight.
This intensification phase should slow down or reverse by midnight, since shear is now increasing over the storm. Shear is now about 15 knots, up from 10 knots this morning. The hurricane hunters noted that strong westerly winds aloft have pushed the top of the storm eastward, so that the area of calm in the eye at 10,000 feet is about ten miles east of the surface calm area. This stretching is also beginning to be evident on satellite images, with the shape of the hurricane appearing less circular. Assuming that the shear begins weakening the hurricane at midnight, only six or eight hours remain for the shear to weaken the hurricane before landfall at 6 am or 8 am Monday morning.
There's been quite a bit of focus on Key West but the storm should hit well north, just over Marco Island (where I was relaxing on the beach about a week ago.)
There are a couple of Marco webcams (updated every minute) that might be interesting to check tomorrow if the power doesn't cut out: Looking north from the south end of the beach and looking out over the resident's beach. Both are situated high on condo towers along the beach. There's also a live cam at the Snook Inn that sweeps around the Marco River.
Most of Marco is only about ten feet above sea level and the storm surge could be ten feet or more. If the storm hits to the north of Marco the surge would be worse; south, not as bad. High tide tomorrow at about 6 AM will, unfortunately, coincide with the storm's landfall. Click the extended entry for more on the surge potential.
Brian Woods at Storm Track notes an interesting situation as Wilma and Alpha merge off the east coast of Florida and head north, possibly combining into a Cat 2 storm off Cape Cod Tuesday.
More on the storm surge potential in SW Florida:
[C]oastlines such as those along Florida's Gulf coast and the Florida Keys have long, gently sloping shelves and shallow water depths. The 180 meter (600-foot) depth contour followed southward from Palm Beach County lies more than 30 km to the east of the upper Keys. On the Gulf side of Florida, the edge of the Floridian Plateau (91 meter depth) lies more than 160 km offshore of Marco Island in Collier County. Florida Bay, lying between the Florida Keys and the mainland, is very shallow; depths typically vary between 0.3 and 2 meters (Lane, 1981). These areas are subject to higher storm surge, but smaller waves. Palm trees in Islamorada The Florida Keys is an archipelago or cluster of about 1700 islands in the extreme southeast of the United States. ... Collier County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. ... Florida Bay is the shallow bay located between the southern end of the Florida mainland (the Florida Everglades) and the Florida Keys. ...
This difference is because in deeper water, a surge can be dispersed down and away from the hurricane. However, upon entering the shallow, gently sloping shelf, the surge can not be dispersed away, but is driven ashore by the wind stresses of the hurricane. Topography of the land surface is an important element in storm surge extent. Areas such as those seen in southern Florida where the land lies less than a few meters above sea level are at particular risk from storm surge inundation.
October 21, 2005
Body count:
A cheap cigar smells better than what the DC Natural Death Squad usually gets a whiff of. But things could be worse.
October 20, 2005
Net worth:
Thirteen grand? Even I wouldn't pay that much for this blog.
And I couldn't begin to think about being able to afford Instapundit.
Copy right:
Well, a number of major publishers are taking Google to court over the book scanning project. The lawsuit does raise some interesting questions and I'd love to hear the arguments on both sides.
Yawnfest 2005:
The Mayor and mayoral challenger square off over dinner. Here are excerpts from the Globe coverage.
The mayor peeled off his jacket and took his seat next to Hennigan. When lunch arrived, he ate about half his fish, tore off a slice of flatbread from a communal plate, and later picked at his sliced carrots with his fingers.
Fascinating.
Hennigan sat ramrod straight, never touched her scrod, and only took a few spoonfuls of bisque toward the end of the hour.
Insightful.
To be fair, these probably were the most exciting things that happened during the debate.
Spreading fear:
Yesterday, a Spanish agricultural minister called the threat of the avian flu "science fiction." But the bird flu is spreading, infecting birds in Moscow, humans in Thailand and is expected to erupt in East Africa.
In Europe, they're developing plans on how to deal with a pandemic, including stocking up on vaccinations is the UK.
Which leads to confusion about the threat. Is it a bird flu or a human flu?
The disease is spreading wildly now only among birds. It can leap to humans, occasionally killing them, but it doesn't currently spread among humans.
That could change if, in a random infected person, it mingles and mutates with a human version of influenza that does spread in humans. Only then will it spread and infect us with the same speed and deadliness it now does in birds. The results would be devastating.
That might never happen, as some, like the Spanish minister believe, but it's a question of odds and as the number of infected birds grows the odds get better for that jump to spreading among humans.
An article in today's Washington Post indicates that the most likely place that this will happen is in Indonesia, and that they are not working very hard to prevent it.
Competitive edge:
Remember those "boring broadsheet" bombs the Herald used to drop on the Globe? Well, they clipped off "broadsheet" but couldn't resist a slight kick with the headline to this story on circulation numbers being down.
October 19, 2005
Wilma advisory:
Here's a good overview of the potential effects that Wilma could bring to southwest Florida. If it tacks south of Marco Island, the wind and storm surge would be worst in mostly undevoped costal areas near Everglades City.
If it comes in between Marco and Naples it will not be good news for Marco, with high winds and a possible 15 foot storm surge.
Voluntary evacuations are in effect and mandatory evacuations are expected in costal areas, including Marco Island, by Thursday. Once the wind starts, the bridges will be dangerous to cross, although there are no plans to close them.
But as the advisory notes, despite the consistency of the computer models, dramatic changes could take place and hopefully, Wilma will stall out and weaken in the Gulf.
Here's more from The Storm Track site.
Light reading:
A couple of Roths, a couple of Bellows, only one Updike. There are some interesting selections in Time Magazine's top all time novel list. There are also some horrible choices.
The question is, with all those great novels to read, why is anyone bothering with Time Magazine? (Or this blog, I suppose.)
Life imitates advertisement:
If you thought the prices at the Chapter 11 Bookstore were so low, they must be going bankrupt, well you'd be right.
Quality assurance:
When you're paying big bucks at a fancy hotel, you shouldn't have to worry that the housekeeping staff will pocket items left behind. That's true even when you forget to take your favorite pistol when you check out.
Political currency:
Forget Miers, this appointment really bears watching. USA Today has a list of potential Greenspan replacements.
Thin slice:
First gift certificates that shrink in value over time. Now Pizzagate. Steve Bailey finds more bad behavior by Simon Properties.
Pizza (like Chinese food) has resisted the trend towards national chains. Pizza Hut, Dominos, Little Caesar et al, just don't measure up to regional taste standards and the corner pizzeria is alive and well.
That hasn't stopped Simon from plotting to evict local favorite Pizzeria Regina from area malls, replacing them with a national lowest-common-denominator pizza chain.
Been there, done that:
Interesting, politically if not militarily: Melvin Laird calls for a phased withdrawal from Iraq.
Conspiracy theory:
There's good news and bad news. The good news is, if you're convinced The Government and Big Business are keeping big secrets, at least you can rest assured that they're not very good at keeping them for very long.
The bad news is that they tried.
WilMA!
Cat 5, heading right towards Marco. I don't like the looks of this.
October 18, 2005
Stereo:
Leave it to an engineer to suggest this.
Last emperor:
A new book on Mao, reviewed in the CSM, doesn't paint a pretty picture, even for those who knew how much damage he did.
"There are 2.7 billion people in the world," he once calculated at a world summit with other Communist leaders. "One-third could be lost; or a little more, it could be half ... I say that, taking the extreme situation half dies, half lives, but imperialism would be razed to the ground and the whole world would become socialist."
I guess that by his own standards he was a failure. Rather than murdering half the world's population he only managed to kill about 70 million. And to add insult to injury, China is now becoming a capitalist powerhouse.
No accounting for taste:
A Times article takes an elitist viewpoint as it looks at plans to rebuild New Orleans.
Traditional streetlights are somehow sinister. Distance between homes for driveways is a bad thing, it "suggests wariness." Please. You can't rebuild an old city new again. You can only do the best you can.
Humanitarian aid:
Maybe the lap dances will help ease the psychological impact of being displaced. Yeah, that's the ticket.
Zeroing in:
Opportunity, and now motive. It looks like someone in Cheney's office is in Fitzgerald's cross-hairs.
October 17, 2005
Personal TV:
Apple is distributing TV shows that you can watch on the computer at your leisure. Hmmm. Remember when people asked, Why would anyone want to listen to music on the computer?
At a buck ninety-nine, videos might work. (I didn't see old Green Acres episodes available for sale yet, though. I'll be waiting.)
The new Powerbooks will feature high density displays. And the new iMacs are becoming videocentric. I see something happening here and it looks like a pretty good plan.
Short memories:
After Katrina, many people noticed that we had a poverty problem in this country. But, as Cathy Young writes, even though the discussion on poverty has faded away, poverty hasn't.
The good old days:
Untreated sewage released into Quincy Bay? Reminds me of childhood afternoons at Wollaston Beach.
Creativity and good will:
One group of scientists, understanding the incredible potential of stem cell research, are bristling over government restrictions based on ethical concerns, and they want to force the issue. But there's another group working on solutions that might negate those ethical concerns.
Interestingly, the former are upset at the latter who, they insist, will delay the confrontation by holding out promise for a compromise.
It's a tough one, but I come down with the confrontation crowd. As they say, a decent plan now is better than a perfect plan someday.
Softening:
It was beginning to seem that home prices were impervious to ordinarily market forces. Then the price of oil went up.
Costs for shipping and manufacture of construction materials are being pushed up and, as Jay Fitzgerald writes, that's having an impact. Throw in the increased commute associated with most new home purchases and buyers may be thinking twice.
Off the hook:
Insurance companies won't be paying out as much as people thought in New Orleans. It turns out that despite the fact that the neighborhood is surrounded on three sides by high water held back by walls, the Lower Ninth wasn't designated a flood zone for insurance requirement purposes.
October 11, 2005
Quiet time:
The vacation continues...
Internet access is intermittent here, but I discovered that the Herald has a great PDA page. Quick, well organized, no unnecessary graphics. All unlike the Globe's offering: slow, hard to navigate... pretty useless.
October 7, 2005
Google office?
There's interesting speculation about a new competitive threat to Microsoft.
Fore!
Want to improve your golf game? Broaden your horizons through travel? Then, aspire to become Speaker of the House.
Scott Lehigh doesn't pull any punches in his assessment of Sal DiMasi's tenure.
October 6, 2005
A lack of social intelligence:
A women insists it's her constitutional right to wear a t-shirt with the f-bomb printed on it on a Southwest flight. The airline disagrees and after giving her the option to cover it up, gives her the boot.
It's neither a freedom of speech issue, as the women insists, nor a safety concern as the airline asserts. It's simply a matter of common courtesy in a confined environment with people of varying sensibilities.
In any case, the women made it clear that she won't be flying Southwest any time soon (certainly not with that shirt on.) So much for the ignoramus demographic.
Selectivity:
This take on Times Select at the Washington Post site, caught my eye.
Ham sandwich:
Not a big Tom Delay fan, but I also don't put much stake in the "if at first you don't succeed" tactics of the prosecutor who indicted him.
As anyone who know anything about how grand juries work will tell you, an unsuccessful indictment attempt says much more about the evidence than a successful one.
Cheesy:
I hate to admit it, but on this one, I have to say I agree with the corporate line.
Sure, kids shouldn't eat junk food in schools, but restricting their access to junk food in school will have little to do with how they eat in general. As a grocery industry representative said, "Restrictions do not educate."
They may, in fact, make that after-school junk food even more desirable.
Giving up:
I have a number of email accounts, and for a variety of reasons (yeah, this is just what I need, 30 GB of mail storage) I'm way behind in reading email.
Anyway, one that I missed a while back was from my web host about spam-bots invading my comment script, generating some suspicious traffic. The short version is that they had functionally disabled the comments.
So it looks like I'm going to go without comments. This is the second time I've had bad comment spam problems and it just isn't worth the effort.
Hold short:
In another life, I did some ground control and as I read the facts in this case, the pilot of the taxiing aircraft was the one in error. It doesn't hurt, though, to get a read-back acknowledgment, which obviously did not happen here.
I like the idea of using those spike sticks that rent-a-car companies use on their lots to stop cars from being stolen to prevent aircraft from entering a runway on which another plane had been cleared.
October 5, 2005
Nanotech:
After a couple of weeks of use, I've decided that the iPod Nano is just about the ideal music player.
Four GB is plenty for a carry-around collection of music. Flash memory storage eliminates drive hiccups, especially when running, etc.
The physical form factor is as small as it could be (well maybe the length could be slightly reduced) and still be reasonably durable and to have control and display usability.
I like the shuffle, but the lack of display and reduced playback controls puts in a different league.
So I give Apple high marks for the Nano. Apparently I'm not the only one.
And next in line: video pods.
Profit neutrality:
I'm not sure what to make of this clause that Carnival Cruise Lines added to it's contract with the government to provide shelter for Katrina evacuees and rescue workers: the company insists that it not make any profit above and beyond what it would with normal operations.
It's great PR, but if I were the cynical type, I might be suspicious.
Then again, I'm pretty sure that the oil companies don't have anything similar in their contracts.
Fool me twice:
City Councilor Marion Barry under investigation? Who wouda' thought.
The incredible shrinking city:
Almost half of all municipal employees in New Orleans are getting pink slips. How this will impact the rebuilding of the city is unclear, but it can't be a great encouragement to those thinking about going back.
Walking in Memphis:
Unless you're quick on your feet, I'd advise against it.
Tale of two cities:
Crime is a big deal when it comes to mayoral elections. In New York, Bloomberg has lots of money to spend on crime-fighting and here in Boston, Menino is strapped for cash. The Times and Globe take a look at how things worked out in their respective cities.
(Note: in the Globe article, Suzanne Smalley uses the results of an old survey to make a critical point. It's a minor thing, but shouldn't the results of a 2003 survey be referred to in the past tense rather than the present tense?)