The Iris Lady's Babies

Well, the irises are blooming all over the place now, so Dara has also been out with her camera. The set I posted to Flickr contains mostly Pacific Coast irises, with some water irises and some Douglas and Dutch irises mixed in, I think. I tried to just post one picture of each, and I'm sure we'll have more before long.

Mushroom Memory

For some reason today I had occasion to tell someone about the giant mushroom that grew in what must have been the crawl space of the house in District Heights. Does anyone else remember the thing? I seem to remember you would walk down the steps to the basement, and there was a little door to the crawl space that you could open, and there it was. To me the thing always seemed large enough to sit on. What do you say, Harrises. Is this some imaginary thing on my part, or was it real? If so, just how big do you suppose it was? Maybe it was peyote.

Planet Earth

I just watched the first couple episodes of a new Discovery Channel mini-series called Planet Earth. I've been seeing the ads for it for months now and the previews had some spectacular footage so I thought I'd check it out. Each "episode" focuses on a certain type of geographical feature or category (i.e. "Mountains", "The Ocean", etc) and the images they've captured are just spectacular. It took them five years to film and put this thing together and it's well worth checking out. Especially interesting is the little bit at the end of each episode where they go into what it took to get some of the shots they did, most of them being stuff that's never been captured on film before. The series just started this Sunday and I think they're rerunning last week's episodes this Sunday afternoon if you're interested.

Jesus Camp

After enjoying Fog of War via NetFlix, I thought we should check out some other documentaries. Next up, Jesus Camp. The documentary follows a set of children age 9-14 who attend an evangelical camp that is the Christian equivalent of a Madrassa summer camp. One of the most bizarre parts is that while I'm sitting there with my mouth open in disbelieving disbelief, I am sure that the parents of these kids probably thought it was a great way to advertise and get the good word out. Depressing and scary on oh-so-many levels.

Dan the Waterman

Every year as the ice receeds a couple of fishnets end up on either end of our point. We've never actually seen anyone put the the nets in, take them out, or maintain them, but they are here every spring without fail. While poking around in the garden just before we left for Aruba, the fishermen showed up. He pulled up and chatted a while after cleaning his nets. He had fish sorted in large bins. There were yellow perch, white perch, channel cats, shad of various kinds, and some sucker fish and a couple of other fish we've never seen before. Turns out we've got a channel cat hot-spot on our point. Anyway, Dan was a great guy and has spent his life on the Chespeake. A vanishing breed. He works 5 rivers and has 25 nets in the early spring and battles at the state capital for fishermen's rights in his free time. He said, "If there's room for gays and lesbians in this world, you'd think there's be room for the fishermen." Guess it's all in the lobbying. While we talked, Dan and his boy Brandon even cleaned and filled 5 white perch while we sat there. I fried them up in butter and flour just like we were having breakfast on Jasmine.

Easy, Breezy Aruba

We're home from our pefectly timed annual Aruban pilgramage with no pictures to show for our minimal efforts of eating, drinking, and golfing. - emphasis on eating. This is the first of 3 years that I decided I was just too scared to kite board. It's less about the brutalizing kite board learning curve than it is that about ending up alone at the 2-mile marker between Aruba & Venezuala with the Jaws anthem rolling around in my head. There's an old addage about the ocean being so great and your boat being so small - well trust me, the kite board is even smaller. The final seal on the to-kitesurf-or-not-to-kitesurf conundrum came when Mike & Tom went fishing and Tom caught a 6' great white shark. Hey - we all know they're out there and the chances are slim but... This time, I couldn't get past the image of just how much I must look a lot like a wounded fish when I'm tired, I've rubbed my tricep raw on my life vest trying to pull the line just right to bring my kite back up in the air (which works great while standing in 3' of water but not so great in 100' of water with 2' waves while being dragged) all while sweating the facts that I'm being constantly dragged closer and closer to "our friends in Venezuala" and all alone in the deep blue sea with no help in sight. The comfort of my chaise lounge beach/poolside just seemed too good to pass up.

Genetically Modified Mosquito

I'm kind of a middle grounder, I suppose, on the subject of improving life through genetic modification (GM). GM food sources are a bit scary, less for me because of what happens when you ingest them, but because of the unknowns of what might happen in the surrounding ecosystem when you grow them. This article about a GM mosquito falls in that disturbing camp.

Scientists in America have engineered a species of mosquito which is resistant to the malaria infection. Its ability to block the infection suggests that it could come to dominate mosquito populations if released into the wild.

More interesting, and much more appealing, however, is the competitor's approach:

A different approach has been adopted by a British team, led by Andrea Cristiani, of Imperial College, London. His team has developed a GM mosquito in which the males have fluorescent testicles, allowing them to be easily identified and sterilised.

Now there's some technology that might have some crossover potential for sex offender treatment programs.

Canine Houdini

D'Or has always been an escape artist. Still, with our ongoing fence and gate replacement work, she has reached a new peak in her abilities. Knowing that we would be without a proper fence for some indeterminate period of time, Dara constructed a temporary barrier to keep the dogs on the back deck, with access to the wild nether regions of the back yard. She used some cheap plastic temporary fencing, connecting it from the house out to the back and side fence. A few strategically placed temporary posts, a copious amount of staples from the good old staple gun, and we were set. Not.

We have witnessed D'Or clawing down the plastic fencing, and we added more posts. We have witnessed her go under, and we added tent stakes to hold it down. We have witnessed her climb a tree to jump over, and we added another level to it to block the way. We have witnessed her wedge herself between the places where we had to connect things together, and we put down objects ranging from chairs to umbrellas to block her access. We figured if she could not see through it, she would not want to escape, so we draped tarps over it. Part of the barrier is a folding metal dog fence from our puppy foster parenting days, which she managed to push past part of the deck so she could duck under it. More staples, more nails. She has probably escaped 50 times by now, and we may have another month of adventures ahead. She always comes back. Why wouldn't she? Where else is she going to find such fun?

Fortran Inventor RIP

The passing of John Backus is to programmers what the passing of the guy who invented the claw hammer would be to carpenters. Depending on your age, if you're a programmer, you generally cut your eye teeth on Fortran like I did. You also learned it in some field other than Computer Science.

Shortly before he graduated [in 1950], Mr. Backus wandered by the I.B.M. headquarters on Madison Avenue in New York, where one of its room-size electronic calculators was on display.

When a tour guide inquired, Mr. Backus mentioned that he was a graduate student in math; he was whisked upstairs and asked a series of questions Mr. Backus described as math “brain teasers.” It was an informal oral exam, with no recorded score.

He was hired on the spot. As what? “As a programmer,” Mr. Backus replied, shrugging. “That was the way it was done in those days.”

Back then, there was no field of computer science, no courses or schools. The first written reference to “software” as a computer term, as something distinct from hardware, did not come until 1958.

In spite of all the new languages and techniques developed over the years, Fortran is still going strong. We will now return to our regularly scheduled non-techno-weepy blog postings.

Blogs and Newspapers, Again

This LATimes article is the subject of a lot of lefty blog navel gazing this morning. The US attorney firing, er, surge was in large part brought to the attention of what bloggers refer to as the mainstream media (aka MSM) by the efforts of Talking Points Memo. I've read the site for years, and it started out as just another blog with an occasional jaunt into in-depth MSM-style coverage. Over time, while it still has the breezy blog style, it's pushed much more into the realm of real reporting rather than rumor mongering and snide remarks. The article is interesting and does a good job of capturing some of the issues surrounding the changes that are taking place in newspapers and blogs.

More Books

The list was longer than I thought...

The Devil's Feather by Minette Walters. I like Minette Walters' books in general. They're not really whodunnits, they're usually howdeydunnits or whydeydunnits that are heavy on the psychological side of things. This one is no exception and is pretty good. It revolves around a female war correspondent who has a run-in with a wacko soldier of fortune. She escapes to the Dorset countryside trying to recover, and ends up having to deal with him after all.

Slipstream by Leslie Larson. Interesting story of many characters: an ex-con father and his daughter, an aircraft cleaning person who gets laid off and goes bonkers, and his Filipino housewife who is trying to get away from him by selling Avon products on a bicycle. There's also the ex-con's brother who tends bar at the airport and is trying to figure out if he's going to commit to his relationship with his now-pregnant girlfriend. Everyone is messed up and struggling, and there are some casualties along the way, but some good comes out of it and it was worthwhile reading for me anyway.

The Night Watch by Sarah Waters. The story takes place during the London blitz, intertwining the view from multiple characters whose lives intersect in ways I can't remember at this point. I suppose that says something about the book, because looking at the back of it now, I have some vague memory of an abortion and an affair and lesbians, but if that's the best I can come up with a few months after reading it, it must not have been very good. I liked some of Sarah Waters' other books, which is why I got this one. She always has some lesbian love story running through the book, and I wouldn't mind something in the heterosexual realm just for variety's sake.

Blow the House Down by Robert Baer. Robert Baer was a real CIA agent, running the Beirut office during some of the worst times in the Mideast. So, he has a lot of experience to draw in when writing fiction. Unfortunately, I didn't think the depth managed to compensate enough to pull this book above the mild disappointment level. It's one of those stories where inexplicable things happen only to find out later it was because someone else was pulling strings behind the scenes. The story required too many cases of "I did X knowing that you would react by doing Y" to hold together for me to be able to buy into it in the end.

Alligator by Lisa Moore. This is one of those award winning Canadian books that takes place mainly in St. John's, Newfoundland. I liked this offbeat story quite a bit, as the main teenage girl character and the people around her struggle with the aftermath of her stepfather's death. It's done with a good sense of humor, complex characters, and a good storyline.

The People's Act of Love by James Meek. I got suckered into this book by all the glowing reviews: "Heart-pounding action and jaw-dropping revelations," "Breathtaking," and the list goes on. Um, no. More like: "Boring," "No characters you can identify with," and "Weird Russian mystical shit." I gave up on it after about 150 pages.

The Places in Between by Rory Stewart. This is the non-fiction story of a guy's trek on foot across Afghanistan right after the Taliban were defeated. I was picturing a kind of Bill Bryson with AK-47's, but I was disappointed. Not much humor, and not much insight to be drawn from it. You would think that anyone crazy enough to embark on such an adventure would be able to crank out something entertaining, but I for one was very glad when he made it back home and the story was over.

Eat the Document by Dana Spiotta. Somewhat reminiscent of the recent arrest and conviction of infamous SLA member Emily Harris, this fiction book follows the life and undercover living of a 70's radical whose passions ended up killing someone. It has some deeper messages, as you might expect, about the price that has to be paid in the end, and the impact of choices made when you're young. I enjoyed it.

Beautiful Lies by Lisa Unger. Fast paced fiction with one of those spunky young female lead characters. Ridley Jones, living in Manhattan, manages to save a kid from being run over by a bus, and ends up on the news. Someone recognizes her as a long-lost child, eventually uncovering a shady operation in which "at risk" children were placed in well off homes. Various NY power brokers are implicated, and it all gets quite ugly before everyone can live happily ever after. I enjoyed it in spite of my cynicism.

Field Notes from a Catastophe by Elizabeth Kolbert. I figured I owed it to myself to read something non-fiction on the issue of global warming, and this was what I picked up. Very approachable, not overly laden with scientific obscurity but with enough to give it some meat. She reports on her investigation and travels around global warming, including trips to the Greenland ice cap where they take ice cores, and elbow-rubbing with scientists who develop climate models. I decided a while back that global warming wasn't going to fall under the no-politics rule of the blog. Still, one of the more entertaining and sad parts of the book was her interview with Paula Dobrianski, the State Department spokesperson who has the unenviable job of defending US policy. You'll just have to read it to believe it.

The Diezmo by Rick Bass. This book is a fictionalized account of an actual incident that occurred just after Texas became a republic. A shady bunch of adventure seekers gather together an army and invade Mexico, holding people for ransom, and eventually getting captured. The Diezmo refers to a tradition wherein they choose one out of every ten people to be put to death. The rest were put in a Mexican prison and eventually released after some help from the US ambassador (even though Texas was not a state). The book was okay, but not outstanding.

Arthur and George by Julian Barnes. I have had pretty spotty success with fiction based on historical figures and real events. This book is a major winner in that category, though. Arthur is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and George is George Edalji. We all know Doyle of Sherlock Holmes fame, but Edalji was the straitlaced son of an Indian minister and Scottish mother who was convicted of killing animals in the farm district he lived in with his parents. In a life-imitates-art kind of way, Doyle takes up the banner of clearing Edalji's name. It's all based on real-life events. The story was terrific, and the characters were flawless.

The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan. A National Book Award winner, this is the story of the dust bowl and the people who lived through it. Unlike the Grapes of Wrath, which is fiction surrounding people leaving the dust bowl, this is non-fiction that tells of the promise of riches through wheat farming that brought people into the area, and the devastation of the depression and incredible hardship of the dust bowl years. Great book, riveting story, probably the book I enjoyed most of this list. I almost didn't get this book because I figured it would just be depressing and dated. It was neither.

The Lost Painting by Jonathan Harr. I loved Jonathan Harr's A Civil Action when it came out years ago. It led me to look for and read more highly readable well-paced non-fiction on obscure topics. Eight years later Harr finally produced another book. It follows the discovery of a lost masterpiece painting by Caravaggio. It is a fascinating story through the world of obsessed art historians and collectors, complete with bitter rivalries and intrigue. I'd rank A Civil Action much higher on the list of great non-fiction, but I liked this one a lot, too.

The Boys of Everest by Clint Willis. This is the non-fiction book Mom and Dad sent for Christmas. It centers around Chris Bonington, who was the leader of the next generation of British climbers after the big Edmund Hillary style assaults on Everest. He and others bring back alpine-style technical climbing as a goal, and it seems like with every summit they pay the price of one or more friends biting the dust (or maybe it's eating the snow, I'm not sure). Still, they keep on going because they can't stop. It was an interesting and informative story, but the author has an annoying habit of crawling inside of peoples' heads and guessing what they're thinking, while at the same time documenting every piton position and bowel movement encountered along the way. During one descent, a guy swung wildly on a rappel and ended up breaking both legs while above 25,000 feet. Reading about his crawl back down was enough to make you take a beach vacation.

Ig Nobel Tour

I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to hear the presentations at the Ig Nobel Tour, but if it makes it here to the US, I'll be trying. Nothing like sick science humor done by great presenters.

The speakers were given strict 5-minute slots to tell their stories, and I for one was glad of the time limit during the first talk, by an energetic Chris MacManus (left). He'd won his Ig Nobel for his seminal paper "Scrotal asymmetry in man and in ancient sculpture".

And Dara, longstanding fan of all foods crunchy would have appreciated the talk by...

Oxford University's Charles Spence, on the effect of crunchy-food-sounds on our appreciation of said food. We discovered that if you capture the sound a Pringle potato chip makes when you crunch it, and enhance certain frequencies, you enjoy them even more.

Maybe we'll get to see it on the Discovery Channel sometime.

Denialist's Deck of Cards

A while back I read a book about the abolition of the slave trade, Bury the Chains. One of the interesting things about the book was that the movement to abolish the slave trade was one of the earliest popular social movements, and it established the kind of approaches still used today to gain popular support for social causes. It also established some of the basic techniques used to fight back. My personal favorite: those slave ships are like a cruise vacation!!!

My old friend Hal pointed me at a recent paper called the Denialist Deck of Cards.

denialism is the use of rhetorical techniques and predictable tactics to erect barriers to debate and consideration of any type of reform, regardless of the facts.

It's interesting to compare this compilation of tactics to what you see today on many issues. The most obvious one that comes to mind is global warming. Check out the tactics, map to your observations of what's gone on for the last 10 years. I think we're closing in on the Aces, but maybe we're just into the face cards.

Mercer Museum

Mike & I tend to be a little slow on the uptake when it comes to visiting museums. We just don't make the time, though we are surrounded by fabulous institutions up and down the East coast. A couple of years ago some one told me about the Mercer Museum . I knew instantly this would be Mike's kind of museum. Last weekend we finally decided to go.

It turns out Henry C. Mercer decided to collect "Tools of Trade" - any and every trade - that represented the industries of his time, the turn of the 20th century. Mercer collected so much stuff that he designed and built an incredible castle shaped building out of reinforced concrete to house everything. The result is this is a little known gem that's well worth the visit. Even stoic and usually unimpressible Mike was really impressed. If you're ever in the North Philly area looking for something to do, we recommend the Mercer. The collections run from things like every tool it takes to be a tailor, a miner, a whaler, a weaver, a potter, a stage coach maker, a apple cider maker, a clock maker, a basket maker, a miller, a cooper... It's a great collection of collections from a forward thinking, eccentric, rich guy.

She Does Tulips Too

In case you thought we weren't adhering to the federal floral diversity guidelines.

$3.15/Gallon Whine

I know our gas is more expensive out here, but I was pretty shocked to find myself charging $52 worth to fill up the van this morning, coming in at $3.15/gallon for regular. It reminded me of the spike a while back when a local Menlo Park gas station owner posted the gas prices in the picture above. I guess it's two arms and a leg now, though, because $2.27/gallon would sure be a relief.

Yosemite & Mammoth Lakes Ride

After last year's outstanding adventure circumnavigating Glacier National Park and Waterton (Montana, Alberta, & Brittish Columbia), I've signed up to ride with Team Ohio again this July. We'll be riding the Yosemite & Mammoth Lakes ride. Total Miles: 458 Total Elevation Gain: 25,000' Daily Avg = 75. I've been poking away at my spring exercise program myself and therefore my slight weight loss in preparation. We start at 5000' ASL and go to 8750' ASL within the first 80 miles. The thought of dragging my fat ass up those hills is pretty motivating. Besides, I've taken everything I can off the bike. Good thing I have my "Wide Load" patch for my bike shorts. If all else fails I'll be able to forewarn the cars and cyclists alike.

Metal Cowboy

I was given 2 books by Joe Karmanski for Christmas, "Metal Cowboy" and "The Road Less Pedaled." They are similar in style and subject to Bill Bryson's "A Walk In The Woods." Joe K. has ridden his bicycle to the ends of the earth - litterally. He does a great job with both books but Metal Cowboy was better. I found myself cracking up at the characters he runs into and the off the wall situations he finds himself in. Even if you don't ride bikes it's a very entertaining quick read. There's nothing like a book that can make you laugh out loud.

Spring exercise program

I always feel a little better when I have some sort of exercise program going on and after a winter of eating I have decided its time to get off my ass and do something. Running always seems like the most convienient thing since all you need is some decent shoes. I went into it last year about the same time and quickly worked my way up to 10 miles then lost interest after my used up knees started giving me trouble. This time I am going to be a little more calculating about it and avoid minor aches and paines by using a training guide and set some not so lofty goals. Untill my training guide arrives I will keep it short and stay on decent pavement. Who knows I may be able to hang with Mom next time I see her. I've been 3 times so far probably about 2-3 miles each time without much problem.

Review of Book Reviews

I always read the book review sections on Sunday. Still, being an avid reader, I seldom find anything in it that appeals to me. I like to see the difference between the SF Bay Area bestseller list compared to the NYTimes one, but both are generally populated with stuff I don't want to read. It always seems like a club of the same old tired popular writers, with an occasional upstart. Furthermore, the books they usually choose to review seem to be on either end of the spectrum. They're either from that clubby bunch, or they're from a set that appeals to snooty book reviewers but not to me. Is there some kind of snootiness initiation rite you go through when you get an MFA degree and qualify as a book reviewer or something?

You now see why I was interested to read this article in the SFChronicle about the LATimes planning to shut down their standalone book review section. You Washington Post types get a book section on Sunday, so maybe you were unaware that it's very unusual. Over time, almost all papers that had one have cut back on the amount of content and folded book reviews in with other stuff. That's the way the SJMercury has done it for as long as I can remember. The Chronicle went that route a few years back, and it caused such an uproar they reverted to the standalone section. At this point it's pretty silly, since they cut back on content to where it's only a few pages anyway. Still, a book section is a coveted thing for book lovers, and probably even more coveted by the diminishing ranks of newspaper readers. Losing one gets people worked up. In the end, though, it's all about money -- in this case advertising.

"If Barnes & Noble took out full-page ads every week, there would be more book review sections," said David Cole, publisher of News Inc., a weekly newsletter tracking the industry.

The Chronicle's Bronstein agrees, saying that if book publishers advertised, "it would send a very good signal that they believe in their product."

Paul Bogaards, director of publicity at Alfred A. Knopf book publishers, sees it differently.

"Where are the ads in the sports section?" he asked. "If you put out a great newspaper or a great magazine, the readers will come. Consumers want credible reporting on books in newspapers."

Yep.

Real-life CSI

My friend sent me this article about a reporter going to the AAFS (American Academy of Forensic Sciences) as a CSI-groupie and being terribly disappointed at the reality of forensic science. It's pretty amusing and nothing new to us forensics grad students (we're told repeatedly that "no, it's not like you see on TV"). Of course the most depressing note is that "there just aren’t enough jobs for the hundreds of fresh faces graduating every year"... of course I suppose that's why I'm busy pursuing a master's and why I thank my lucky stars daily that I got the job I have. Hopefully someone will want to employ me when I graduate and I won't already be obsolete thanks to technology!