2020 Hindsight

Copenhagen

Copenhagen: What *did* those two talk about, really? Last night I saw Copenhagen, the PBS movie adaptation of the Michael Frayn play of the same name. It's about the 1941 meeting between physicists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. Bohr and Heisenberg had collaborated together in earlier years. But my 1941, they were on opposite sides: Heisenberg was in (and part of, tho how much he sympathized with The Third Reich is unknown) Hitler's Germany, and Bohr's Denmark was occupied by the Nazis. Bohr (half-Jewish) later escaped Denmark and made his way briefly to Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project.

If I hadn't visited Ground Zero (that's the Trinity Test site of July 16, 1945, the first Ground Zero, not the one in Manhattan NY of just over a year ago) and read Richard Rhodes' authoritative tome, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, I'd've found the movie more confusing.

The play inspired the Bohr family to release from its archives Bohr's drafts of a letter to Heisenberg about the meeting.

The play itself? Fascinating. I'd like to see it again (yay for VCRs!); it explores and enacts the uncertaintly principle, especially in the relationships among humans.

More fire news Again, Mary Lu Wehmeier has good updates on the Williams fire (Angeles Forest). I've been blessing the colder, overcast skies and the bit of rain on Saturday night. This image is pretty close to what I saw a week ago Monday morning (fire started Sunday; it was still young then).

Red Planet Home

Contortionist's Handbook Congratulations to Craig Clevenger, whose debut novel, Contortionist's Handbook is published today (the web site says publication date is 26 September!)

Radio Report from the Road I heard two things on the radio yesterday—both intriguing.

Airwars One was an NPR All Things Considered story on the history of airplane flight and how the Wright brothers tried to keep their invention a secret until they'd done further development and patenting of their airplane invention. Bad patent fights ensued. Government steps in, pays of both feuding parties and tells everyone to get back to work (there was a war on) An interesting look at patents and their role in the common welfare (or not)

Valley Writers Read The Inland Valley NPR station has a weekly program. Last night Janet Nichols Lynch read a memoir story, "Confronting my Father's Ghost." A story remembering the influence of a recently-deceased father while cleaning up the lake cabin she inherited from him. What a treat for the drive!

Red Planet HomeMonday morning I awoke to copper-colored sunlight from the Williams Fire (the one in the Angeles National Forest). Looked up and saw the plume of smoke—it's close, oh so close! Flakes of ashes fell on my newly-washed car. But my plans had me driving north to a quick jaunt to the Bay Area, so north I went. When I crossed the San Mateo bridge from east bay, I looked south and saw the smoke from a fire. That was 3 hours into the Morgan Hill fire.

Called back down south during my brief stint in N. Ca. "It's like Mars here; totally surreal" is the report.

Drove back home yesterday. The moon went from white to orange the closer I got to home. This morning, the smell of smoke creeps in the windows.

The Williams Fire is about 15 miles to the east of me. (I may be close, but Mary Lu Wehmeier is closer—4 miles; they're helping feed firefighters. See pictures there, too.)

The news stories on it: An Inferno in the Mountains threatens Mt. Baldy Village, thousands of homes. I know one person with a home there.

30,000 acres as of last night.

Air Quality Management District says "watch your outdoor activities" since the air is so unhealthy right now.

The Forest is off limits until fire season ends.

Mars Rover Mission

Today's the first day of autumn. For the last day of summer, I attended the JPL family day. Cool. First time I've been on the lab in eons, and first time seeing all the way cool jazzy stuff they put on display for visiting family and friends of staff.

Lots of Mars stuff was featured. And yes, I took pictures.

The Mars Rover. These are for the MER —Mars Exploration Rover mission taking place next year. Two rockets will launch (May and July of next year) two rovers to land at two different sites in January 2004.

Here the MER arrives on mars using bouncing ball technology, for a safe and happy landing

Once the balls are deflated (see bottom), the petals of the MER open up...

...and the rover will roll out...

...and roam all over the red rocked planet.

The red-rocks you see here are part of the Mars Lab, where the rover is tested for maneuvering and to calibrate motions and camera images and such. (the red rocks are from Arizona, not the red planet!)

BTW, when these rovers land on Mars, there'll be no "self-portrait" images of the rovers themselves. What lands on Mars is the petal-shaped enclosure that is wholly occupied by the Rover. The camera and means of communication with earth are all onboard, so unless they can do a fancy maneuver to flap up the solar panel to get a reflection and take a picture, all we'll see is 'outward.'

Okay... now that you've got an idea from seeing all these Mars Rover prototypes, how about a look at the real thing?

We also visited the Spacecraft Assembly Facility, where the two rovers were being built!

Overlooking half of the Spacecraft Assembly Facility, where two sets of crews were working on the Cruise module (lower left), and the actual Mars Rover (upper right).

The Cruise module crew works on the star tracker (conical shape).

This crew installs the air bags on the outside (underside) of the petals of the Mars Rover.

Just remember... what you see in these pictures above is going to cross a great chasm and go visit our neighbor planet!!! Cool, eh?

We also went to the Machine shop where various parts of the spacecraft are manufactured.

This rover wheel is constructed from a single slug of aluminum. (For its size, it's pretty light; that's my shoulder and forearm you see, and fingers peeking through the center.) Cost of wheel: $5000.

Inside the Machine Shop all all manner of devices; this big beige one lifts and can tilt seven different ways to hold spacecraft parts at any angle.

Here a machinist guides a young apprentice through the steps to bore precise channels out of metal.

Mars Art photos of Mars, from the Mars Orbiter Camera

End of the Picture hiatus

hiatus end one It's been eons since I posted pictures here. I was going through some from earlier this year as a favor to someone, and came across some from a wine tasting in mid-April. So here is a view of a wine tasting, before and after.

hiatus end two Heh. Today marks the end of another hiatus, too. The Patient, whose major surgery was exactly 12 weeks ago, celebrated this milestone by commuting to work by bicycle (the patient loves cycling and missed it terribly during recovery). Woo hoo!!! Something to celebrate. With single malt scotch. Or champagne. Or wine. See images above. ; )

Spike Jones

Spike Jones Last night I thought of that song —the William Tell Overture—it's about a horse race (It's Beetlebaum!). Who did that? Oh yeah, Spike Jones. Music Depreciation: A Spike Jones Anthology is a Rhino Records offering; the page has lots of samples, both real audio and QuickTime. (note: the QuickTime samples are scrambled. Clicking the link for one song plays a different song). A biography called Spike Jones Off the Record. Thomas Pynchon wrote the liner notes to another Spike Jones CD.

Welcome, music lovers, to the cheerfully deranged world of Spike Jones and his City Slickers. There's gunshots and cowbells aplenty, not to mention class hostility, first-rate musicianship, subverted expectations, hair-trigger timing, and more than enough material for that interesting subset of folks looking to be offended....

"My band's got rhythm," Spike said once, "and to it we add a guffaw."

Kunstbar

No paper shredders? The list of Enron items up for Auction includes the Enron E, lotsa monitors, printers, electronics, Aeron Chairs, a box of hackeysack balls and tons of other promotional items (online bids start at $200 per lot.. for printers, monitors and chairs, okay, but for Hackeysack balls?!), but I didn't see any paper shredders on the list. [via Nick Denton]

Melancholy Elephants a story by Spider Robinson. Referenced by Larry Lessig in his announcement that he finished his brief in the Eldred vs. Ashcroft case challenging the constitutionality of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.

you heard it here first (or second, or third, or...) James Lileks is having issues with weaning!

Kunstbar is Wunderbar! A must-see Flash animated movie: Kunstbar. Hint: Kunst is the German word for Art.

on the tome again OC Register: On the tome trail Visiting the topshelf bookstores in the western U.S. I've been to the ones in Denver, Seattle, West Hollywood and (of course!) Pasadena (Vroman's, my local, oft-visited fave.). Gotta check out the San Fran and Berkeley bookstores next time I'm up there. Plus, Another stack to browse through, more independent bookstores (and a remembrance of Santa Barbara's Earthling Bookstore, put outta business by the big chains.)

Ozone Hole Closing (slowly) Antarctic Ozone Hole Could Close by 2050-Scientist. I saw mention of this (the closure, not this particular article) in a friend's geo-science journal. Wanted to blog it, but there was no link. Now there is.

post Fray day

eeek! ouch! this Wired story about a Linux worm is alarming. If you upgraded to the latest OpenSSL patch (0.9.6g) you should be okay. (my Qube, which is Linux/Apache based, doesn't even have openssl. Whew.)

A worm that attacks Linux servers is being used to create a peer-to-peer network of infected computers that can be remotely controlled by the worm's creator.

The "Linux.Slapper.Worm" targets Linux servers running Apache Web server software along with an encryption technology known as "Secure Sockets Layer," the typical method for protecting data in transit over the Web.

[...]On Sunday evening, Slapper had been in circulation for less than 40 hours and had infected over 6,000 servers, according to Mikko Hypponen, manager of antivirus research at F-Secure.

By Monday morning, Slapper had infected 11,249 machines.

"For reference, Code Red -- which is known as the worst Web worm so far -- managed to infect only a couple of hundred servers within a similar time frame," Hypponen said.

{ frayday LA } I went to the LA frayday last night. Good stories. I even read one of my own in the open mike session. It was held at a nice little intimate theatre in North Hollywood.

One of the featured storytellers was Steven-Elliot Altman, who created a sci-fi literary anthology — a WRITE AID charity benefit for AIDS and Cancer... called The Touch. The premise is that there's a pandemic going around... once you're infected, you lose one of your senses. He got a whole bunch of sci-fi writers on board, in order to re-create the myriad voices that would go into a pandemic (everyone is affected and many are infected). Once he began soliciting the writers, stories showed up. Last night, he used his time onstage to tell how all of this came about; I was very inspired by it. (here's an interview with him that covers similar territory) If you order The Touch from his site, more of the monies will go to the charities.

Sattiday Septembiday

I wish I lived on the westside it'd be easier to get to this film festival at the Nuart — films from '62

Martha Martha Martha (no George, and no, not Stewart) I saw Mostly Martha last night. German movie about an uptight chef whose orphaned niece lives with her after her mother's death, and how the chef (Martha) loosens up and the niece eventually warm ups her. Very enjoyable film, highly recommended!

email from a schicksa to a schicksa (and I prolly spelt schicksa wrong, too. Goy vey!)

I got this in email. Hope you find it amusing:

On the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, there is a ceremony called

Tashlich. Jews traditionally go to the ocean or a stream or river to

pray and throw bread crumbs into the water. Symbolically the fish

devour their sins.

Occasionally, people ask what kind of bread crumbs should be thrown

Here are suggestions for breads which may be most appropriate for

specific sins and misbehaviors

For ordinary sins..................White Bread

For erotic sins....................French Bread

For particularly dark sins.........Pumpernickel

For complex sins...................Multigrain

For twisted sins...................Pretzels

For tasteless sins.................Rice Cakes

For sins of indecision.............Waffles

For sins committed in haste........Matzoh

For sins of chutzpah...............Fresh Bread

For substance abuse................Stoned Wheat

For use of heavy drugs.............Poppy Seed

For petty larceny..................Stollen

For committing auto theft..........Caraway

For timidity/cowardice.............Milk Toast

For ill-temperedness...............Sourdough

For silliness, eccentricity........Nut Bread

For not giving full value..........Shortbread

For jingoism, chauvinism...........Yankee Doodles

For excessive irony................Rye Bread

For unnecessary chances............Hero Bread

For war-mongering..................Kaiser Rolls

For dressing immodestly............Tarts

For causing injury to others.......Tortes

For lechery and promiscuity........Hot Buns

For promiscuity with gentiles......Hot Cross Buns

For racist attitudes...............Crackers

For sophisticated racism...........Ritz Crackers

For being holier than thou.........Bagels

For abrasiveness...................Grits

For dropping in without notice.....Popovers

For overeating.....................Stuffing

For impetuosity....................Quick Bread

For indecent photography...........Cheesecake

For raising your voice too often...Challah

For pride and egotism..............Puff Pastry

For being overly smothering........Angel Food Cake

For laziness.......................Any long loaf

For trashing the environment.......Dumplings ...

and

For telling bad jokes/puns........Corn Bread.

Note: If you're forgoing bread because you're on a low-Carb Adtkins diet, what kind of bread do you use? Some sort of soy isolate protein powder thingie that sticks to the back of your mouth? sigh.

Thursday, 12 September

so *that's* what happened Wired: Daypop's on a break Daypop's developer and curator is outta town until tomorrow.

Daypop's one-man staff, Los Angeles programmer Daniel Chan, posted a note to his personal site last week saying he's just on vacation.

nineeleven, a year later

9.11 blog (a year later) by John Paczkowski who does Good Morning Silicon Valley

Bill Biggart's Final Exposures taken from a digital camera by Bill Biggart, who died when the second tower fell.

Mac Moss, College campus principal in Gander, Newfoundland, remembers the day a year ago when a small town hosted 6,700 stranded passengers en route to the U.S. that day. (this is part of The Guardian's interviews with over 100 people worldwide on Sept 11 and the year following)

Dave Barry on Flight 93

Aviation Week: F-16 Pilots considered ramming Flight 93 3rd in a series (found the links to part one and part two) on how the miliatary responded to terrorist attacks. Part 3 is on the Washington area Air National Guard.

Why my interest in this? Last week I was sent a link to this timeline of 9/11, which asks questions like, "how come it took so long to scramble the jets?" and a friend of mine has created a flash movie Requiem for America, highlighting where Bush was that morning until 9:30 and why did he stay in the classroom so long?

---

I remember.

It's hard to know what to say here; I'd been dreading this day. Oh, I thought, as the day approached, there'll be articles everywhere, stuff on TV, it'll be all over the place. Somewhere last week or so, that dread ceased, replaced by the same kind of will toward tolerance I had a year ago. I thought, So many people are going to react in their own ways; I hope we're big and generous enough to allow for contrary ways.

I've been surfing all over, reading different things (reading's easier than listening to radio; if you get overwhelmed, it's easier to limit it than with audio, for some reason). Read good, worthwhile things, but haven't had the heart to point them out here, really.

I feel as though whatever I type here is just drivel, is just nothing. Nothing I say here can possibly address the enormity of it all.

A year ago I got my information about the attacks online, responded a lot online. These days I've been avoiding the ether (at least as far as expression goes; web surfing habit is as compulsive as ever).