Diary of a Wolfeman

From CNN.com:

HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania (AP) — “Intelligent design” cannot be mentioned in biology classes in a Pennsylvania public school district, a federal judge said Tuesday, ruling in one of the biggest courtroom clashes on evolution since the 1925 Scopes trial.

Dover Area School Board members violated the Constitution when they ordered that its biology curriculum must include the notion that life on Earth was produced by an unidentified intelligent cause, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III said.

Several members repeatedly lied to cover their motives even while professing religious beliefs, he said.

That’s right, folks, the Judge caught the proponents of ID outright lying to him in an effort to prove their case any way they could. Here’s a hint: if you have to lie to change someone’s mind, then chances are you’re WRONG!

And don’t go off about how the Judge made a snap decision based on his own beliefs or something – the man sat down and wrote a 139-page dissertation on his legal opinion.

Bye-bye, thanks for playing.

David Weber started a series of books many years ago based on the life and career of one Honor Harrington, in what later become known as the “Honorverse”. The title character starts out as a Captain in the Royal Manticoran Navy, and the series itself is best described as “hard military sci-fi”.

Thankfully, the author takes pains to understand that not all of his readers may truly appreciate the extent of his math skills, and puts the hardest part of the science in easily spotted paragraphs that can be basically ignored, allowing the reader to concentrate on the story elements and character interaction.

In what appears to be the final book of the series, At All Costs centers on the events following the Republic of Haven’s resumption of the war between itself and the Manticoran Alliance. Haven begins to suspect that they have been manipulated by one of their own politicians into resuming the war, and are desperately trying to find a way out of it while at the same time persuing the conflict.

Meanwhile, back on Manticore, they’ve managed to kick the High Ridge government out and are working towards putting another kick-ass fleet together – with Admiral Honor Harrington at the helm, of course.

Considering the vast distances involved in this sort of interstellar conflict, there is ample time for a few sub-plots to crop up or carry over from previous installments. This book also references events that have taken place in other ‘sidebar’ books, so if you haven’t read every book out in the “Honorverse”, you may have to muddle along in some parts. It doesn’t really affect the total book, but it does leave you wondering on occasion. As another good point, Baen Books included another CD with the rest of the series. So if you don’t mind reading on your computer, you can go back and catch up on any books you missed.

Other points, both good and bad (and spoiler warning): Read the rest of this entry »

…you make and ass out of ‘you’ and ‘umption’.

Started off the day with our “Lead Tech” calling in sick, so I had to pick up some of his workload. This turned out to be a good thing and a bad thing. Good for the client, bad for me.

The task was to re-locate an office network one floor down. Three companies used to share a building in NW Industrial, but one company moved out. Company B opted to expand into the vacant space. It’s an older building, but it has been pretty thoroughly wired-up over the years, so no real problem, right? Ha.

Assumption: All three companies were sharing out a T1 for internet access. Therefore all we really need to do is swap out the old hub for a shiny new switch and maybe supply a couple of new patch cables.

Reality: Two of the three companies were sharing out the T1, Company C actually had their own little wiring closet with a DSL link. Funny how Mr. Lead Tech failed to notice this when he did notice the hub – which is in the little closet.

So, there I am, without any of my tracing tools trying to figure out why in hell I can’t get a signal no matter what I do with the wiring. After 1.5 hours of head-wall-interfacing, I finally got their other phone tech on the line and he told me about the DSL. No fucking wonder I couldn’t get an IP. Ok, new office network needs to connect to old router…hmm. Router is already full, and all of the old jacks will be used by Company A’s expansion. Lines 1,2, and 3 are labeled, but where does 4 go?

Through the wall, around the corner, up the next wall to the roof, along that rafter there, where it…disappears into the insulation. Crappity. Well, I’ve traced out (the hard way) every other line in this bloody place, I’ll just unplug it and see who complains. Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?

Ok, test a few stations – they’ve all got network access. Maybe it wasn’t in use. Maybe I’m done. Cool! Wait – is that copier networked?

Yup.

On a home-run to the router. Instead of the switch across the room. Of course there aren’t any other outlets on that wall, and the bloody thing can’t be moved. Hmm…there’s about 100′ of wire over in that corner they aren’t using, and that wall doesn’t go all the way to the roof; if I drape that line over that rafter there, and tape it to the top of the false wall…

Got a ladder?

Ten minutes later of me doing my squirrel impression, and the copier is back on the network, Company B is live, and their voicemail server even works. Total time: 2.75 hours.

Estimated time if (A) Mr. Bonehead Lead Tech had asked the right people and / or actually looked at things or (B) I had had my network tool kit with me: 0.5 hours.

Okay sure, we got to charge more this way, but it also made one part of my company look damned stupid to a long-term customer. Not necesarilly a good thing.

From CNN.com:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate on Friday refused to reauthorize major portions of the USA Patriot Act after critics complained they infringed too much on Americans’ privacy and liberty, dealing a huge defeat to the Bush administration and Republican leaders.

This debate has been going back-and-forth for some time now, with fervent opinion from both sides. For example:

“The time for Democrats to stop standing in the way has come.” –White House press secretary Scott McClellan.

Funy, here’s what one of the Republican nay-sayers had to say:

“Those that would give up essential liberties in pursuit in a little temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security,” –Sen. John Sununu, R-New Hampshire

You tell ’em, Johnny!

You can fin a list of the dying provisions here.

We have terrible news from the home front. Some time in the wee hours night before last, Tweaker, our Resident Rodent, passed into the great Hamster Heaven.

He was found on his wheel, with no apparent cause of death. He was in excellent shape for a hamster, well-fed and he got plenty of exercise spinning that wheel at all hours of the night. I myself saw him running that night before I went to bed, and he seemed fine.

Foul play is not suspected – his habitat has not been tampered with, and the two primary suspects for foul play would have been our feline masters Zoe and Trouble. Zoe has been a housecat for too long to care about any food that doesn’t come from my hands, and Trouble is just too stupid. (Honestly – I have seen this cat stare at tuna in his dish with that “what the hell is this?” look on his face while Zoe is inhaling her share.)

I think it was just his time.

Please take a moment to dig through your MP3 collection for the bagpipe version of “Amazing Grace” and play it in his honor. I think he would have loved to hear cats being tortured.

Feeling the urge to scribble, but nothing recent worth scribbling about, so here’s this instead:

Many years ago, sometime around the time I was three and my brother was six and starting school, I proudly announced to Mom that my invisible friend and I were enrolling in Sword School. Mom, being the understanding soul she is, took it in stride. She was not surprised, however, when I later found and joined the Society for Creative Anachronism.

Lucky Dog Dave, a friend of mine in high school shared a French class with me. I had a knack for the language and Dave had a knack for hearing my nearly-inaudible whispered hints, so were fast friends. (He got the name from a dog food commercial he could immitate to hilarious extent.)

Anywho, a few weeks into the class he suggested I come down to the Rennaisance Faire that was to be held soon and check out the club he was in. He described it as “D&D-like” and thought I’d get a kick out of it. Sounded like fun to me, so I went.

My hometown of Grants Pass (knowne in the SCA as Myrtleholt) is a small shire, and there were only a dozen or so folks hanging around, but it was a good bit of fun. People walking around in funny clothes, speaking in funny accents, and actually putting on armor and beating on each other. I was wearing a loaner tunic and doing my best (horrible) King’s English accent in minutes.

Later, Dave and some others dragged me to the after-revel at the Seneschal’s house. (A Seneschal is a government official in the SCA.) Then they truly sunk the hook in my cheek: they had sexy bellydancers, and one of them was my age!

Within the next two years, … Read the rest of this entry »

Google, the penultimate search engine, has been dipping it’s toes in many varied waters recently, as you all know. One of the more useful to me has been Google Maps, which I use every day to find where many of my customers live. Today, they released the beta for Google Transit, a service to help you plot a path on public transport to your destination.

This is really a happy mash-up between Maps and your local transit provider’s schedules and route maps. Enter a starting point and destination, it gives you a route and several time options. Add an ETA to your query, and it will give you more narrow results based on that. A truly nifty idea.

The best part is that our beloved Portland is the first city to get the service. Go Portland! I’m guessing this is primarily because our transit system rocketh mightily, and Tri-Met already had a ton of info available on the ‘Net.

Of course, there is going to be the oddball thing showing up. In looking up Tri-Met’s website just now, I find the following:

It all started on the bus

Fifty years ago, Rosa Parks (1913–2005) was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. TriMet is commemorating this historic event and Rosa Parks’ legacy.

Bus service changes effective Dec. 4

Schedules were adjusted on 8 bus lines as of Sunday, December 4. Line 83-Park Blocks was discontinued.

Whoops!

Ok, this is obviously just one of those unhappy coincidences – line 83 wasn’t getting enough riders to justify the expense, and it just happens to go through the Park Blocks, and Rosa’s last name just happens to be Parks.

Timing is everything.

There’s been alot of action lately on the topic of disappearing fuel-tax dollars as fuel-efficient vehicles become more prevalent, and what the government is going to do about it. Here’s the recap:

The State governments tax fuel sales, and put this money toward road maintenance. A sensible plan, since you can easily derive the average fuel-efficiency of the automobile, and tax per gallon accordingly. Sure, some cars are better than others, but all-in-all, every driver will pay their fair share for the public roads. But what happens when all the cars start getting better fuel economy? Fuel-tax dollars shrink, and soon there isn’t enough money to pave the roads. So what do you do?

Well, the obvious answer is to either monitor each vehicle’s mileage and charge individually or enact toll roads. Each have their problems.

Toll roads I have talked about before, but only as a method of reducing traffic. In this instance, every driver would be charged for crossing a certain stretch of road. These fees may even be based on a sliding scale, with rush-hour fees higher than off-hour fees. I can see the potential for alot of user uproar with this idea, as well as an infra-structural nightmare: cars being forced to stop at several points on their route, dragging traffic to a standstill. Rush-hour traffic is already a nightmare, and I can’t see this helping it any.

On the plus side of things, though, it maximizes privacy, especially if the toll can be paid with cash.

Monitoring mileage is a simple idea at first, until you remember that you can only charge for the miles driven in the state of residence. In a city like Portland, where Washington is only a few miles away, a significant portion of your driving may be done across state lines, and it would be illegal to tax you for them at the State level. The most-pushed solution idea at this time is to install a GPS tracking device into each vehicle, and monitor their mileage that way. Simple idea, yes?

No.
Here’s why: privacy. If the GPS monitors your driving at all times, that means a detailed map of your travels can be put together to show where you’ve been – and all the talkers to this point have neglected any sort of plan to make those records private in any way.

Now, legally there is precedent that you can have no expectation of privacy while driving, and any eyewitness testimony or camera footage is admissable in a court of law without a warrant. By and large this isn’t an issue, since most folks don’t care where I’ve been. But what if I have some personal and perfectly legal reason to want to remain anonymous? Should any Tom, Dick or Harry have the ability to point a scanner at my car and get my car’s exact whereabouts for the past week? Should advertising executives be able to pull my car’s records to find out where I have been shopping?

A loud and resounding NO! fills the air.

So, we’re back to where we started – tax revenues will eventually dry up, leaving our roads in disrepair. I can’t see toll roads doing anything other than slowing traffic down, and I certainly don’t want anyone knowing exactly where I am or have been at any given moment. So what do we do?

Variation on a theme. Install the GPS units, but tie them to the odometer in such a fashion that they only count the miles while inside the State borders. It is very easy to define those borders into the software, and then the state gets to tax for the actual miles driven while I retain the fiction of privacy.

Another option is to simply move the taxes into the Federal realm, and have the money distributed on the basis of registered vehicles per state. To make it easier on the taxpayer, you still install an odometer monitor in each vehicle, but you license filling stations to read the meter. The driver merely has to stop in at the pumps once a month for their reading. The taxpayer would still pay the same taxes as now, just more formally.

As always, write your Rep and let them know how you feel.

I’ve been a little remiss in not posting this sooner, but I’ve been a trifle busy.

Last Wednesday, the WBGF once again proved her greatness by getting us tickets to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra show for the third year running.

In previous years, we have been seated both stage-left and -right, but this year she decided we needed to see the show from down in the floor seats, which was tremendously cool. It’s actually the closest I have ever been to the stage at a large show. I didn’t think it would really make all that much of a difference, since there isn’t a difference in the sound really, but it was great to actually be able to see their faces for once.

As always, the show rocked mightily. How could it not? Where else are you going to hear Bethoven, Liszt and other greats performed not only by a truly good orchestra, but by a heavy-metal band, with fireballs blasting away like a war zone?

The show may be the same album every year, but they keep adding other elements to keep the folks coming back. Take Anna Phoebe, the string maestro for example: the first year I saw the show, she was not your mild-mannered violinist, often roaming around the stage as she got into particular bits. The second year, she took a more dominant stance, seeming more a member of the rock band than the symphony. This year, she was a full-on rock goddess, with all the attitude of an axe-slinging metal-head – never mind that her ‘axe’ is a vibrant pink electric violin.

They ended the show with both Angus and Anna running through the crowd and onto a cherry-picker, where they were hoisted 20 feet into the air during “Christmas Eve in Sarejevo” – neither one of them missed a note.

Speaking of axe-work, Angus Clark has been taking pages from Al Pitrelli’s style by incorporating more elements of other great players into the live show. Now I’m not talking about lifting sections of work from other players; I mean they have learned to play the style of guys like Eddie Van Halen, Jimmy Page, and I think even a little Satriani. This is hard to do, folks. Any good technical guitarist can play another man’s work, but to play an original piece as if the other man’s fingers were on the frets takes talent. What I would love to hear them do next time is expand John Lee Middleton’s bass part – the show only has a few places where his work stands out from the rest.

I really can go on and on about these artists, but I’ll try and move along here.

Vocals: I don’t have the words, so I’ll use the words of Tommy Farese (a damn good singer himself): “Michael Lanning is the most Soulful White man on the planet.” Guy LeMonnier is a joy to the ears, and I wish he had a larger part in the show. Jill Gioia has the largest voice ever packed into so small a person, and Kristin Gorman can hit notes so perfectly it’s amazing – all while bouncing around the stage the same way Angus and Anna do.

TSO also has the blessing of having not one, but TWO of the best keyboard players in the world: Jane Mangini and Carmine Giglio. The dueling they do before “Christmas Liszt” is phenomenal. It’s truly a shame that touring is too hard on pianos; I’d love to hear them on a couple of full Grands. Since the piano is really a percussion instrument, I’ll segue here into John O. Reilly’s drum work – outstanding. As one man, he does what takes most orchestras 4 individual musicians.

Okay, I think I’ve praised them all enough, now for the bitching: When do we get another tour?!? Yes, we love the Christmas show – but we all know you guys have more than one album. Get it out on the road already!!

As I sit here listenning to my nipples freezing up and cracking, I have to wonder: who the fuck authorized all this cold weather? I didn’t vet this. Clerk!!

Of course, it doesn’t help me any that Ratboy is of the firm belief that his comfort is paramount to everyone else’s. Since he runs warmer than the rest of us, this is a problem – I’ve caught him twice this week with a fan in his window letting out all my expensive heat. His response? “Well, turn the thermostat down to 60 so I’m comfortable.”

Can’t. Strangle. Children.

I spent the first 18 years of my life in homes with wood heat, which means that it was always cold in the mornings. To hell with that – I will keep my house to a temperature where it is not unreasonable to walk around the house barefoot.

In other news, tommorow night is the annual Trans-Siberian Orchestra show, and I am again looking forward to it. Yeah, it will probably be the same show as the last two years – so what? How many people see the Nutcracker every year? I can’t stand ballet (unless it’s my daughter.)

Yup, outta steam again…
Read the rest of this entry »