2020 Hindsight

Who says it's still winter?

Aaah, California. Nice warm weather. Shorts. Full moon. Stuff like that.

Did we get enough rain for good wildflowers? Are the wildflowers out yet?

California Wildflower Status Report

Desert Wildflower Watch has reports for Arizona, California, Nevada and Utah, New Mexico, and Texas

Hrm. Looks like we need more rain in order to get wildflowers. A little more winter would be a good thing! Forecast: sunny and warm for the next several days.

Flip flap flop flip flip flip

Okay, I flipped the page. The other day I posted a bunch of stuff and my browser crashed in the middle of it and I got disgusted (and otherwise preoccupied) and turned my attentions elsewhere. But I've been around. Sort of.

Beautiful springie warm weather in these parts. The convertible's top is down. Moon's getting full; driving at night under all that moonlight is a good thing, a Very Good Thing.

There's a riot of yellow and orange wildflowers along the path where I go rollerblading. Maybe there'll be a poppy or two or three before too long.

Other than that there's nothing to say here. Move along, move along.

Wednesday's Full Moon will be the brightest one this year

This week's Sky At A Glance. What's going on up there?

Village Voice Ten Questions the media can't answer [via Barista]

This ain't your Olympic flame. At all. Garret points out the Santa Fe New Mexican story: The flame from the original Hiroshima bomb has been kept alive, and is now back in the U.S. In "the 2002 Hiroshima Flame Interfaith Pilgrimage, a flame from that fire has crossed the Pacific and is now making a trek from Seattle to New York City." This week: New Mexico. Dharmawalk.org is the web site about the peace walk; there is a page with the walk's schedule.

SF Gate: Adobe and Apple [via Lockergnome]

Jaw-dropping

Sarah made my jaw drop. I watched the end of the women's figure skating. I'd learned of the outcome on the web before getting myself to a TV and actually seeing it, so I watched to learn how it fell out how it did. What a program Sarah skated! And to do it with nothing to lose, purely for the love of skating... I so admire that.

A behind-the-scenes look by Mary Wehmeier , one of "the posse" which, as she says, "is made up�of former world class�Olympic levels�skaters." Wow.

L.A. Times: High-school kid restores joy to the Games

Garret notes that today is national slacker day. How was I so in tune with the zeitgeist? I began the day with a bout of slack, unaware that it was prescribed all across England. Slack time's over; gotta go.

Radio Links

Rest in Peace, Daniel Pearl The state department confirms that Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl is dead. Stories: AP, MSNBC.

LA Times: U.S. Retools Kidnapping Response "After lengthy internal debate, the Bush administration Wednesday adopted a more vigorous policy on Americans kidnapped overseas that calls for the government to review every case to decide whether to take an active role."

I prolly have a sorta fuzzy idea of the role of journalists in wartime: they're neutral, and, in some/many cases, they are respected; they're seen as the mouthpiece of those who've grievances (tell *our* story, too, Mr. or Ms. Reporter!); they put their lives at risk by going where they go to cover what they cover in the name of informing the larger public.

At the risk of mindlessly parroting the words of our commander-in-chief talking about the response to the terrorist attacks, this is no war like we've seen before. If you want publicity, attack institutions and buildings that have enormous visibility, and select targets the destruction of which will have devastating emotional impact. Whoever's been behind the anthrax attacks, their chosen targets were the media and congress. Attacking the media ensures that the story gets coverage. Am I shortsighted here (not remembering similar events in the past), or is this kidnap and killing of a journalist a shift toward treating journalists as yet a different kind of soldier against whom to fight? ..a journalist soldier, if brought down, focuses the nation's attention in a way that the killing of a military soldier will not?

Radio Links No, I'm not talking about Radio Userland or my radio site, but about interesting links I learned of from listening to the local radio station.

LA Radio, where they have a where are they now? page. (Links by alphabet letter so it's not easy to browse)

Taking care of your loved ones. Sigh. Why is it that the phrase "your loved ones" sounds so.. so... peecee-speak? As if speaking of "your family" implies that you don't love them? Anyway, right now on NPR's Talk of the Nation, they're talking about funeral planning and cremation. One of the speakers is Thomas Lynch, author of a book called The Undertaking: Life Stories from the Dismal Trade. Also there was a reference to the Internet Cremation Society.

Welcome to the Internet Cremation Society, the number one visited cremation site in the world. Our cremation portal will help you find just what you are looking for, whether it be a low cost cremation provider, a specialty urn company, a unique scattering service, an on-line obituary site or just general information about cremation. We do not sell any of the products or services listed on the site. Rather, we provide you with carefully researched links to over five hundred companies offering cremation-related items

Calamari Fritti Trader Joes has some nice frozen calamari rings; last night I experimented with a very plain calamari fritti method; now I'm searching the web for more ways to prepare it:

• Marcella Hazan, and Calamari according to Pacific Northwest Magazine

• Calamari Fritti from the Preserving our Italian Heritage cookbook, published by Sons of Italy. mama mia!

• Calamari Fritti according to Cooking with Patti

• Lotsa calamari recipes from the Italian Seafood Gourmet

Two Live Cool

20:02 20-02, 2002 (7:31 PM) In a little over a half an hour here, it will be twenty-oh two thrice. 20:02 (24 hour clock) 20-02 (today's date, marked up European style) 2002 (the year.) Cool. glad I learned of it a half an hour before rather than after. Will I still be thinking of it a half an hour from now? who knows?

Blogchat!! Following a link from Doc, I rambled on over to Brent Ashley's blog and started chatting with him in real time. What an incredibly wonderful way to waste tim-- -- - uh, I mean, great way to get to know other bloggers and blog readers!!

How about making it available on this site? It's a possibillygoat, that's for sure... Brent's providing the source to his app, Blahg, and he says that a computer running Mac OS X can run it, as well as Windows iis/apache. (Anything that can run php and mySql) If I install the right things on my lil' Qube I can run it from there. An idea, definitely an idea.....

Folds, Creases and Spaces Origami Astronomy: The Art and Science of a Giant Folding Space Telescope [SPACE.com]

In engineering circles, Lang is known as a guy who can figure the best way to stow a car's airbag.

With a sheet of paper and techniques of the ancient Japanese art of origami, Lang can solve just about any problem with a few creases. Folding together his artistic skill, a Ph.D. in applied physics and a background at NASA, he also dabbles in how to take a telescope the size of a football field and stuff it inside a rocket.

BioRhythms

More aphorisms!

BioRhythms I gotta write a bio. Why is it that bio writing is the hardest writing to do?

Maybe I'll include this in the bio: "If she had to do it all over again, she woulda left home at a young and limber age and run away and joined Cirque du Soleil. Other than that, she likes how everything turned out just fine."

On other types of writing:

"Whenever I am asked what kind of writing is the most lucrative,

I have to say, ransom notes."

--H. N. Swanson, Literary agent, Hollywood

(from "Ross Macdonald, A Biography" by Tom Nolan)

an interesting quote from an obituary of Hildegard Knef (about whom I know nearly nothing, save for this quote):

"Success is greatly overrated. Failure, too, but it gives you a whole lot more to talk about."

Global News; Newsal Globe The Guardian has a country-by-country directory of online news sources. Click once for region, click again to see one of the major sources, or click one of the countries listed to see sources for that particular country.

Aphorisms and Quips

Heartfelt sigh of relief Remember all the heart research that I did about angiograms, angioplasties and stents? Well, Friday was a day that focused on matters of the heart. My mother's heart, specifically. She underwent an angiogram and was told that her arteries looked fine, great, smooth and all that. The doctor said, "I wish my arteries looked as good as yours!"

(these images courtesy of The Acme Heartmaker)

Incidentally, Friday, February 15th is a good day for things like that, especially when the outcome is good. Then happy children who stop by the grocery store on the way home from the hospital buy flower bouquets with little sparkly hearts and pay deeply discounted prices, this being the day after Valentine's Day. The Heart Theme is right on topic.

My mother shared a couple of quips us. She turned post-procedure discussion of a little, er, clutter around the house into the following:

The doctor said, "I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that the walls of your arteries are smooth. The bad news is that the hallways in your house are lined with placque."

and also this, quoting someone (maybe the writer Wallace Stegner?) What is a family? "Mutual ownership of closeted skeletons."

---

cunning linguists The Economist: The elements of style Using a zip program to conduct linguistic research.

ZIPPING, as any computer buff knows, enables you to compress a file so that it can be stored efficiently, or sent quickly over the Internet. But Emanuele Caglioti and his colleagues at the University of Rome-La Sapienza have found a more esoteric use for it. Using zipped files, they can identify the authors of documents and reconstruct the family trees of languages.

scathing and delicious: EnronOwnsTheGOP.com [via Daypop Top 40]

(license plate courtesy of Acme License Maker another while-away-a-few-hours Acme offering)

Fax blasts for a good political cause, or Christian Love-Bombs Enron $380,000 pitch to Enron Bush campaign aide devised lobby plan [via MoreLikeThis]

ust before the last presidential election, Bush campaign adviser Ralph Reed offered to help Enron Corp. deregulate the electricity industry by working his "good friends" in Washington and by mobilizing religious leaders and pro-family groups for the cause.

For a $380,000 fee, the conservative political strategist proposed a broad lobbying plan that included using major campaign contributors, conservative talk shows and nonprofit organizations to press Congress for favorable legislation.

The Feast of Saint Valentine

Happy Valentine's Day!

Love to make a fuss over patents and other legal snafus. Wired News tells how

[Bob] Bemer, 82, isn't just taking a political stance against the recent legal filing by British Telecom that claims the company owns a patent on hyperlink technology. In 1960, Bemer -- whose coding contributions form the foundation of many modern computer systems -- came up with a critical coding concept that is now used in hyperlinks.

So, he figures his claim is at least as good as British Telecom's, and some legal and computer experts agree with him.

Geek Love Commander Taco proposes on slash dot.

Love Songs Craig at Booknotes has a list of Valentine Songs

Paris Love "I'm a frog. You're a princess."

The top gift book for Valentine's day this year, however, was the recently published letters of the late lamented Ms Piaf and her boxer husband, Marcel Cerdan. I haven't in fact read them, but everyone says they amount to about the most passionate epistolary exchange since the poet Apollinaire wrote in torment to his lover: "Four days, my love, and not a single letter from you ..."

Loving a Ghost "I believed that if I could get through the trifecta of holidays after Sept. 11 without Eddie, I could get to the finish line of my grief. But I'd forgotten about Valentine's Day."

Ash Wednesday, MMII

Today's Ash Wednesday.

I want to give up spam for Lent. Receiving it, that is. Remember that you are an email address, and spam shall be sent to to that address in turn.

I'm getting my feet back in Radio-land. Been finding great stories via the news aggregator.

I get it now! Why Syndic8 is so wonderful. You get Feed URLS that you can plunk into your Radio subscription list.

TIMED Satellite is ready to collect data. TIMED is one of the two satellites I saw launched into orbit last December—along with Jason.

Angular Momentum ...or something like that. The physics behind figure skating jumps.

Collaterial Damage in Afghanistan. What happens to the Afghani civilians upon whom bombs fall? First of three reports, according to Paul Boutin.

The neighbour, Muhammad Sarwar, 50, lost his wife Aziza and seven other family members. "Maybe he wasn't a very good pilot," he murmurs. "We like the Americans."

Caught in Love's Net An internet love story told in words, choice words, about words. I gotta admit, I've swooned a bit over Textism/Cardigan's Dean Allen. Call it a textual crush. Call it linguistic love. His words are dazzling.

Good Table Talk on Scripting News. HTML, Tables and CSS. Lotsa people contributing to the discussion.

Guardian News Weblog has lots of worthwhile things to read....or skim ; )

The Atlantic: Security versus Civil Liberties A retrospective discussion of several articles on the topic that have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly.

Lincoln's Birthday and Fat Tuesday

193 years ago today, Abraham Lincoln was born.

It's Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday. The last day before Lent begins. Chuck Taggart of Looka has some mouth-watering descriptions of traditional Nawlins' eating and traditions for Mardi Gras.

And.... I overlooked this one, but no more. It's Chinese New Year, too.

Back from Las Vegas for a big family do—niece's baptism and birthday party celebration. Hal and Audrey and Ian came, too, and got to meet many in the clan!

Sunday was a full day, beginning with church and baptism, followed by a party, followed by a scrumptious many-course dinner and culminating in seeing Cirque du Soleil's O. Oh! Eau. Oh. my. god. I need to find a new vocabulary of superlatives, all my current adjectives are flabby, tired and have ring around the collar.