Jeff's Lunchbreak

Well, to start easing back into blogging after my vacation, I'll start off with a short little rant, that actually is relevant to trip I just took. In short, I really, really dislike the TSA. (I know the title of this post says that I hate the TSA, but that's a little stronger feeling that I actually have. However, "I Really, Really Dislike the TSA" just doesn't have the same ring to it as a headline.) I have written a bit about this before, but that article was more about the restrictions on general aviation.

It's not that the TSA did anything uniquely annoying during this trip. It's just that every time I have to go through the security checkpoints and jump through hoops that do practically nothing to actually increase security, I get just a little more pissed off. This trip, I was so busy unpacking the laptop, loading up all our bags onto the belt (we had more carry-ons this time now that the airlines are charging for checked luggage), and taking off my shoes, that I forget to empty out my pockets and take off my belt. That's probably enough metal that it would have set off the metal detector even back in the good old days, but when you're already irritated with an organization, it makes you that much more irritated. Plus, thanks to actually doing good on my diet the past few weeks, taking off my belt meant holding my pants up the whole time. I started grumbling once I got through the checkpoint and was getting dressed again, when my wife told me to just be quiet so that we could enjoy our vacation.

I recall hearing a joke one time, and I can't remember where I first heard it now, but this blog has a similar joke in the comments.

First the terrorsits tried to sneak bomb onto a plane using their shoes, so they made us take off our shoes.

Then the terrorists tried to use liquid explosives, so they made us give up our drinks and toothpaste.

The day they realize that a terrorist could try to smuggle a bomb up his ass is the day I quit flying.

But when you stop to think, how much indignity are we willing to take in the name of safety (assuming, of course, that the TSA is increasing safety, which I'll get to in a minute)? We already have to go barefoot through the metal detectors, and take off our belts and hold up our pants. If you take a carry on, you see the inspectors rifling through all your personal belongings. A few years ago when my wife, my daughter and I flew up north to visit the rest of my family for Christmas, presents already wrapped, the TSA didn't just take them out of the wrapping paper - they unpacked everything completely, down to removing the toys from the plastic and twist ties that held them in place (I guess I could be thanking them, since everyone knows what a pain it can be to get toys out of their packaging sometimes).

To point out just one more pet peeve - why can't people that aren't flying wait with you at the gate anymore, or come meet you at the gate when you arrive? I know the current policy does nothing to keep out anybody determined enough to sneak in. The fact that all it takes is a computer printout of your itinerary or tickets to get it, means that anybody with a computer and any type of ingenuity can print out counterfeit tickets or itineraries. They probably wouldn't work to get them on the plane, but they'd certainly get the people into the gate area. Perhaps the point is to reduce the number of people in the gate area, to make observation and surveillance easier. I still don't like it.

Okay, you get it - I think the TSA's annoying. But have they actually done anything to increase security? In anticipation of anybody that's going to say that we haven't had a terrorist attack since 9/11, therefore the TSA must be working, I have a tiger repelling rock I'd like to sell you. I've had this rock for years, and haven't seen a tiger the entire time, so it must work, right?. (Realizing that Simpsons episode was from way back in 1996, it's eerie how well it predicted the country's reaction to 9/11 - do anything, even if there's no evidence it works, just so it seems like we're doing something.)

I've got a little experience "smuggling" things past the TSA myself. As I mentioned in the essay I linked to up top, I've forgotten about one of my pocket knives a few times. It's a small little knife that looks like a key, and goes on my key ring. The blade's only about 2", but that's exactly the type of thing the TSA was supposed to be keeping off planes. And I managed to get by security with it once during the highest threat level. (The knife actually has some sentimental value to me, so I've since taken it off my key ring, just to make sure I don't ever forget about it when flying and find that one TSA agent who notices it.)

What about more serious threats, besides pocket knives that probably aren't going to be worth much of anything, anymore? Well, there's this case where, "Investigators with bomb-making components in their luggage and on their person were able to pass through security checkpoints at 19 U.S. airports without detection." And what about the student who smuggled bleach, matches, box cutters, and clay that resembled plasic explosives, onto multiple airplanes, told the TSA about it, and some of the items still weren't found for over a month.

Or, just read these articles, from the column, Ask the Pilot on Salon.com. It's written by an airline pilot, Patrick Smith, who doesn't like the TSA all that much, either. He describes all types of silly regulations the TSA follows, including not letting him get through security because he was carrying the exact same knife that the airline gives out to passengers aboard the plane, not to mention that most airport personnel who aren't seen by passengers have very lax security regulations. He also has a good article on the N.Y. Times site.

I understand that we probably do need security. I just don't like seeing an organization that does very little good. At best, it's a minor convenience. At worst, it's a false sense of security, and a waste of resources that could be better applied elsewhere.

Posted by Jeff on Friday, Jul 25 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I have a goal of posting an entry on this blog at least once per week. I missed last week, for which I apologize. We had an issue at work where I spent my lunch breaks working, and didn't much feel like working on this website once I got home. Then, with the 4th of July, and a few get togethers I had to go to, I didn't have time to blog over the weekend. Anyway, I'll try make up for it with at least two entries this week.

Posted by Jeff on Monday, Jul 7 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I've stated several times that my goal for this blog is to make at least one good substantive post per week, or to at least make an update to the regular part of this website. Well, I've spent my lunch breaks this week typing up a response to two comments left on one of my older blog entries, Problems With Day-Age Interpretation of Genesis. Basically, I expanded on the original essay with a few more issues. My main problem with a day-age interpretation is that it's still not consistent with the actual history of the universe and our planet. But I pretty much didn't address that in my response, to concentrate on two issues that I thought were most troubling even ignoring actual history - what does the wording in the second day even mean? And how could plants have survived without the sun and without pollinators? If that's the type of thing that interests you, you may want to go check it out.

Posted by Jeff on Friday, Jun 13 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, since I'm not making any good original blog posts this week, I figured I'd post this picture just for the hell of it. This is me, sitting in the prototype we're developing where I work.

Posted by Jeff on Friday, Apr 11 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is a very frivolous post, but...

I grew up in the '80s, when handheld electronic gadgets meant blinking LED lights and dedicated buttons. (Yeah, as I got older, the GameBoy and Lynx were introduced, but those were way out of the price range I could afford with my allowance). So, to get a mini hand-held computer, I had to do this:

Just this week, thanks to a sale on Amazon (prices had already gone back up before it was even delivered), I got this:

And, just to compare them side by side:

My new computer may be a little bulkier than the one I had as a kid, and the index card version could do a heck of a lot more (like spy on the Russians and give me intel on the new kid across the street), but the new one actually works to show to other people, not just in my head.

It took 20 years, but reality has finally caught up to at least one aspect of my childhood imagination. Now, I just need to wait for those Moon bases and terraforming Mars (I read a lot of Odysssey when I was a kid.)

Posted by Jeff on Friday, Apr 4 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I will never again get a loan through Wells Fargo (at least not until all the other banks have similarly pissed me off and I have nowhere else to go).

When my wife divorced her ex-husband, she got full ownership of the house. The divorce papers stated so. She and her ex-husband signed a Special Warranty Deed, stating in detail that the house was hers, along with the loan, and all other monies (escrows, deposits) associated with the house. The deed was signed by a notary, and filed at the county courthouse. Everything was nice and official and legal.

Because of the fees that Wells Fargo would have charged to change the loan to her name, and because her ex-husband was renting and having the loan in his name wasn't doing him any harm, my wife didn't make it a top priority to get the loan in her name. However, when we decided to move last summer and put the house up on the market, we decided that we ought to get it done so that there weren't any problems when it came time to close on the house. Well, my wife talked to one of the loan officers at Wells Fargo, showed him the Special Warranty Deed, and he told her not to worry about it. He said the deed was official enough, and there was no reason to pay the fees since we were just going to to be selling the house, anyway. We thought we were in good shape, and figured everything would go smoothly when we finally sold the house. We were wrong.

Continue reading "!@#%!#$^%!# Wells Fargo" »

Posted by Jeff on Friday, Mar 21 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's a short entry for today. I'm probably one of the last people on the Internet to find this, but I thought I'd put it here on my blog for those people I know that don't frequent nerd sites very often (by find, I mean actually going to the site and reading through it - I'd already seen a few of the comics on other blogs before).

To get to the point, there's a very good web comic called xkcd (which apparently doesn't stand for anything in particular), which according to the site itself, is all about "romance, sarcasm, math, and language." He probably should have mentioned science, too. It's pretty funny, with a few random, interesting sketches thrown in, as well. I've put a handful of my favorites below the fold to give a taste of what it has, or you could just head on over there to check it out yourself. Don't forget to let your mouse hover over the images to read his comments.

One note before you click through to below the fold - one comic drops the f-bomb, so you've been warned. Also, before you go to his site, here's the warning he has, "this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)."

Continue reading "XKCD" »

Posted by Jeff on Friday, Mar 14 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

A very short entry for today (hopefully I'll get a real entry out later this week). Today is the day for the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test, better known as the TAKS test. These tests are very high stakes for elementary school students - the children must pass this one test today in order to graduate to the next grade level. If they bomb it, they're doomed to repeat their grade, no matter how good they might do in school otherwise. (update 2008-03-05- Actually, the students get 3 chances to pass.) My daughter and one of her cousins are taking the test this year, and they're both fretting over it. 3rd graders, almost as nervous as college students at finals time. There's also the major concern that with the importance of this single test, teachers focus on teaching their students how to do well on it, instead of trying to give them a more general quality education.

Anyway, I found a good blog from a Texas teacher discussing this, Education in Texas. Take a look specifically at this entry,
Time For Some State Sponsored Torture of 8 Year Olds. He also has a few others dealing with this issue.

Posted by Jeff on Wednesday, Mar 5 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Argh. I can't believe I forgot this until now. This year, I was planning on making this post a day early, so people would have some warning and be able to get the recipe to make the fastnachts in time. As it is, with me having been sick, I completely forgot about Fastnacht Day this year, and didn't even make any myself. And actually, even though I'm starting to feel better, I still don't think I'm quite up to eating fried goodies, so I think I might skip making fastnachts this year. Anyay, here's my standard blog entry, explaining what fastnachts are, and what Fastnacht Day is all about.

Depending on where you are in the world, you may call today something else, like Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Day. But from where I'm from in Pennsylvania, today's called Fastnacht Day. Traditionally, you make potato based donuts, called fastnachts, supposedly as a way to empty your larder of all the fatty, sugary foods in preparation for the Lenten fast. My elementary school even used to give out donuts with the lunches on this day. So, in celebration of today, here's a recipe on my main site on how to make fastnachts, and a link to the (not so thorough) Wikipedia article.

I know it's a little late, since you should have made them either last night or early this morning, so that you could eat them throughout the day, but better late than never. Oh well, maybe next year I'll remember to do this post on time.

Doughnut Picture from Wikimedia Commons

Posted by Jeff on Tuesday, Feb 5 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I have no energy this week to get worked up over the things I normally write about on this blog. I just got some sad news. A friend of our family has been diagnosed with advanced liver cancer, and has only a few weeks left to live, at the most. He wasn't a super close friend, which is why we didn't find out until now - the last we saw him in person was over the summer, but my wife had been keeping in touch with his wife through e-mail every couple months or so, and we always had fun every time we got together. It was the type of situation where you always said that you needed to get together more often, but somehow never found the time to do so.

He had just retired a few years ago, and his wife was getting ready to retire this year. Their house was paid off and they were getting their back yard all in order for their kids and grand kids to visit; they'd just recently gotten horses for each of them to ride; they'd already planned a Hawaiin cruise this summer that they'd been putting off for years. Now, they don't get to do any of that. I feel so sorry for him and his wife, and their kids.

It's probably a bit cliche at times like this, but never forget how precious life is. You're only here for a time, and then it's all over. Make the most of it. Enjoy yourself, and enjoy the time you have with the ones you love.

Posted by Jeff on Thursday, Jan 10 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, with The Golden Compass movie being released this week, I figured I'd make a little entry for it. I've already posted my review of the books (in short, I liked them, but didn't think they were great), so I won't cover that here. Instead, I'll cover a bit of the hoopla surrounding these books being atheistic, and a bit of the silly rationale I've seen from people trying to claim otherwise.

MILD SPOILERS AHEAD - DON'T READ THIS IF YOU WANT DON'T WANT TO KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE STORY

To be blunt, yes, the books are based on an atheistic worldview. I don't think this gives away too much of the plot, since it's revealed about midway through the second book, but in this story, God is not the creator of the universe, but instead the first conscious being to have developed. He's neither omnipotent nor omniscient. He's basically tricked much of the universe into thinking that he was the creator.

Now, I've seen in some reviews of the book, and in some blog comments, people who claim that the books aren't atheistic, because they're about a war on this character claiming to be God, but who wasn't really the Creator. I think those people are missing something - the character in this book that claims to be God, is (in the book) the same character that Christians worship. In other words, the books show a world where Yahweh is not a god. Now, I guess that strictly speaking, these books don't deny the possibility of some type of a god/gods, but there aren't any gods in these books, in the sense that most people would define a god, and the only character claiming to be a god, isn't.

But, just because the books are based on an atheistic worldview, does it mean that they promote atheism? If we accept what Pullman himself said in an interview, no.

As for the atheism, it doesn't matter to me whether people believe in God or not, so I'm not promoting anything of that sort. What I do care about is whether people are cruel or whether they're kind, whether they act for democracy or for tyranny, whether they believe in open-minded enquiry or in shutting the freedom of thought and expression. Good things have been done in the name of religion, and so have bad things; and both good things and bad things have been done with no religion at all. What I care about is the good, wherever it comes from.

There's another way to look at it - the books are fantasy. I'm pretty sure that even Pullman doesn't believe in the universe he created, so it seems a bit silly to claim that he's trying to promote it. It would be like trying to claim that J.K. Rowling was promoting magic in her Harry Potter books (I realize a few people did claim this, but there are also still people who think the earth is flat - some people are just a few cards shy of a full deck). Pullman's universe is just a way to get people thinking about one of the main themes of the books, questioning authority and orthodoxy. What better way is there to illustrate that than to question the ultimate authority?

One other topic I wanted to touch on was the hypocrisy of the people denouncing The Golden Compass for indoctrinating children, but who had no problem with The Chronicles of Narnia. What's the difference? Perhaps I shouldn't be so quick to sling around the term, hypocrite - maybe some of those people do recognize Narnia as indoctrinating children into a Christian worldview, and wouldn't have any problems with people of other religions (or no religion) not letting their children read those books or see the movies based on them.

So, to get to the important question, should you let the atheistic worldview of The Golden Compass influence your decision to watch the movie, or to allow your children to watch the movie? Well, I guess if you're the type of person who avoided Clash of the Titans, because it promoted ancient Greek religion, and you didn't let your children watch it because you were afraid they might start worshipping Zeus, well then, The Golden Compass probably isn't for you. But, if you can enjoy it for what it is, and assuming that the movie adaptation turns out okay (and so far, according to IMDB, it appears to be doing pretty well), then it's probably a movie worth seeing.

Note: Wording in closing paragraph has been slightly modified from original posting, but nothing that changes the overall meaning.

Posted by Jeff on Tuesday, Dec 4 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The other day, I got an e-mail titled, "Statistics on Military Deaths," claiming to put into perspective the deaths caused by the Iraq War. It examines total military fatalities since 1980, showing that there were actually higher fatalities in the 80's than there are now, during the war. Since the information came in an e-mail forward, I was skeptical right off the bat, and decided to research it a little. The total death statistic is accurate, however, it's misleading in a number of ways - ignoring the causes of deaths, and ignoring the total number of people in the military over that time span. So, for anyone who's gotten this chain e-mail, I'm posting the reply I wrote to clarify it.

Continue reading "Iraq Death Toll - Rebuttal to a Chain E-mail" »

Posted by Jeff on Tuesday, Nov 20 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If anybody looks around this blog and my main website, they may notice that I've begun putting more links to Amazon. Yes, I will earn a bit of money if you buy something after clicking on those links. I debated putting the links up, because it seemed an awful lot like advertising which would cheapen this site. But, I figured that since I'm only linking to books that I'd normally be writing about, anyway, that it's not so bad. I could look at it as providing a service, offering people a way to buy the books, instead of having to go search through Amazon on their own. It's not like I'm using Google AdSense or something obnoxious like that. So, I feel justified in putting those links on my site.

If anyone's curious, I've always had a small link at the bottom of my Autogyros page. I think in all the years that I've had my website, I've earned enough comission to buy two books from Amazon, so it's not exactly a huge profit making enterprise. I'm hoping that putting more links on my blog might get me a little more, maybe enough to buy a book per year, if I'm lucky. But it's certainly not anywhere near enough to pay the Web Hosting company that serves this site, or the yearly fee for my domain name, so my website's still a net loss, financially (but definitely worth the cost, as a fun hobby).

Posted by Jeff on Monday, Oct 29 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last week, I had my 9 seconds of fame. Carter Aviation Technologies was featured in a segment of Modern Marvels on the History Channel, and they actually used some of the footage they shot that had me in it. Between one scene talking to my boss, and another looking past the back of my head to see what was on my computer screen, I was on screen for about 9 seconds all together.

So, now that I've been on TV, and my boss has been in several documentaries, I can count my degrees to Kevin Bacon (technically, I was very briefly in another documentary a few years ago, but it was so brief you had to pause the video to make me out). Anyway, here goes:

Jeff Lewis -> Jay Carter, Modern Marvels
Jay Carter -> Bob Simon, 60 Minutes
Bob Simon -> Larry King, Larry King Live
Larry King -> David Hayman, The Jackal
David Hayman -> Kevin Bacon, Where the Truth Lies

So, I've got a Bacon number of 5. (Yeah, I realize documentaries and news aren't exactly the kosher way to do it, but that's the only way I can.)

Added 2007-10-01: Well, I was in a hurry when I wrote this entry originally, and there are two things I'd like to add. First, I wasn't the only one to get some screen time. A few other co-workers who aren't normally in documentaries also got their chance to call up relatives about being on TV. (That shot where they're all walking out of the trailer took 3 takes to get it just right.)

I also wanted to add that we all thought the documentary was very good. Carter Aviation Technologies has been in other documentaries before. Sometimes it's such a short mention that it's hardly worth it, and sometimes the documentary makers just get things wrong. But Modern Marvels did a very good job of explaining our concept.

Posted by Jeff on Wednesday, Sep 26 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, once again I've been so busy responding to comments in previous entries, that I haven't had time to make a new standalone entry this week. But, I think my two responses in those threads are pretty good, so read them if you're interested.

I've decided to slightly modify my update per week goal. I will still try to post an update per week, but if I make a change to my main website, the entry where I describe that will count towards meeting my goal (I used to not count the Website Updates as a real blog entry towards my goal). It's all to do with the limited amount of time I have to work on this - it's mostly during lunch breaks at work, after all. So, if I take the time to modify my main site, I figure that's enough effort put toward the online world for that week. And hey, it's still new content that I've come up with being advertised on the blog. It's better than simply posting links to other people's web pages.

Posted by Jeff on Friday, Sep 14 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Imitation may be the highest form of flattery, but plagiarism irks me a little bit. Look at these pages:

aerodynamics of the autogyro
how autogyros work

Now, look at my autogyro page:
Autogyro History and Theory

Notice anything familiar? (Hint, hint: look at the diagrams that somebody must have spent hours creating, and the text that somebody wrote to explain them.)

Why do people do that? I mean, all they have to do is ask. I've never told anybody that they couldn't use any of the information from this site, just that they give me credit for it and a link. It especially irks me that that the second of those pages is copyrighted. Don't go around copyrighting plagiarism!

Oh well, I sent them an e-mail. Hopefully my name and a link to my site will show up there pretty soon.

Update 2007-08-30
Well, the problem's been taken care of. There's now a note at the top of each of those pages, giving me credit and linking to my site. In response to my original e-mail, I received a reply from someone named John, telling me that a lot of the work on those sites was done as student projects. The students were warned not to plagiarize, but, alas, this seems to have snuck through. I can't say it's the first time. I've run across websites plagiarizing me before, and it usually turns out to be student projects. I wonder, just what type of software is out there for professors to detect plagiarism. Actually, a quick Google search found TurnItIn.com. I guess the challenge now is getting more professors to use it.

Posted by Jeff on Tuesday, Aug 28 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I've often longed to be able to travel through time. There are so many things I want to know, so many things I want to see. I mean, can you imagine seeing a real live Tyrannosaurus? How about a pterodactyl? But sometimes, I just look around me at the world, and we've got plenty to marvel at now.

I mean, sure, I may never see an allosaurus attacking a brontosaurus (yes, I know, apatosaurs is the proper scientific name, but it'll always be a brontosaurus to me), but I can still watch a group of 7 ton predators attacking 100 ton prey (actually, blue whales can get up to 180 tons, but I'm not sure if orcas will still go after one that big). And I can see various flying animals that spend months, or even years, in the air without ever coming down to land. And how about an animal with a proboscis so well developed that it has around 40,000 individual muscles, sensitive enough to pluck a single blade of grass, but strong enough to rip apart trees.

My longing to visit the past isn't just about natural wonders - there are plenty of human accomplishments I'd like to see, too, like the Hanging Gardens, or to be alive during the golden age of aviation, and to think how exciting it must have been to see that revolutionary technology developing in front of my eyes. But you know what, we have some pretty damned good engineering marvels in the modern world, like the Sydney Opera House, or the Chunnel, or even just about any major sports stadium. I mean, not that I'm a big Dallas fan, but take a look at the new Cowboys Stadium. And you want to talk about living through the emergence of a radical technology - just look at computers and the Internet. When I was a kid, I was shocked to learn that my grandmother grew up without electricity. My grand kids will be just as shocked to learn that I can remember my family's first computer, and that it was years after that before we got Internet (and by modem!). When you look at it that way, these are exciting times we're living in.

And as much as I'd like to travel into the past to learn things, I'd just as much like to go to the future, to learn the answers to the questions I know won't be answered in my lifetime, like if there's any other life out there, and what it might be like. But we know a lot right now. I've read Darwin's Origin of Species, and I'm currently reading The Voyage of the Beagle. And one of the things I think is so fascinating, is to see the questions people had then, the things they would have wanted to travel to the future to learn, and to know that I'm living in the age when they've been answered. Like genetics - Darwin and Mendel knew that there had to be something that passed on traits from organisms to their offspring, but they had no idea what it was. You can tell by reading Origin that Darwin was really groping around in the dark on this. But we've discovered DNA. We know what it is, and the basics of how it works. And every day, we're learning more and more about it. And plate tectonics! That's another one that jumped out at me reading the Voyage of the Beagle. Darwin discussed how he found fossilized sea creatures on land, and how it indicated how the land must have been moving, but he had couldn't have known how it all happened. Now we do.

One of the biggest reasons I'd like to be in the future is space travel. I would absolutely love to be in zero gravity, to see the Earth from that far away, to travel to other planets, but I know it's something that realistically won't happen in my lifetime. But, just 150 years ago, people thought the same thing about flying. I know flying has become so commonplace today, that most people aren't too excited by it, and some people fly so often they even get downright annoyed. But just think about how amazing it is. For thousands of years, probably at least tens of thousands of years, and maybe even hundreds of thousands of thousands of years if earlier hominids were creative enough, we have looked to the skies and dreamt of flying like the birds, to have the freedom to go wherever we wanted. It's been in legends, myths, da Vinci's notebooks, but we'd never been able to accomplish it until just about 100 years ago. And now, I can go to the airport, rent a plane, and for a few hours live out the dreams of all of those ancestors, soar like a bird, and look down at the Earth from above the clouds.

So while I'll keep on wondering about all those things from the past that have been forever lost to time, and dreaming about the future and all the possibilities, I can't help but be awestruck by the world around me in the present, and be happy to be when I am.

Posted by Jeff on Friday, Aug 24 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Another short entry today, but this makes two entries for this week, which makes up for me not posting anything last week...

Anyway, I was hooking up a computer today, so I had to do something which always irritates me. Usually, whoever's around me when I'm hooking up the computer has to listen to me bitch about this, but I figured with a blog, I can bitch to the whole world. The problem is figuring out which damn plug goes to the speakers, and which is for the microphone, and this computer only had a line-in and line-out. Now, I don't know if I'm the only one that gets bothered by this, but tell me, how am I supposed to figure out what these symbols mean:

I'm guessing the curves are supposed to represent sound waves, or the microphone or speaker, but what about the arrow? Does it also represent the sound waves, and whether they're going in/out of the computer? Or does it represent the signal wire? To me, that first symbol could be either a speaker with the signal wire running into it, or a microphone with sound going into it. Just like the second could be a microphone with the signal running out of it and back to the computer, or it could be a speaker with the sound going out into the world. Well, since I had to look up this issue to download those symbols, I've learned that the arrow represents sound, not signal cable, so the first image is line-in and the second is line-out (maybe I'll still remember that by the next time I hook up a computer). But seriously, what a completely non-intuitive couple of symbols. I can't imagine how those became the standard that get put on the back of every computer.

Okay, I'm done complaining.

Posted by Jeff on Thursday, Jul 19 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Just a short entry for today, but it's something I wanted to get off my chest.

I mentioned that we recently moved. Well, we just got an offer on our old house. Being kind of curious, as I'd imagine most sellers are, we asked our real estate agent about the potential buyers. Turns out it's an Iranian couple.

Well, we've told a few people about getting the offer, and they're curious, too, so they've asked us about the potential buyers, so of course we end up telling them that it's an Iranian couple. But I've been shocked by the number of people who have responded negatively, like, "Oh, you're not going to sell to those people, are you," or assuming that they're terrorists. Come on, people, I find your casual racism pretty disturbing. Sure, there are terrorists in the Middle East, but to assume that all MIddle Eastern people are terrorists because of the acts of a handful of people just doesn't make sense. Are all Italians mobsters? Are all Irish and English soccer hooligans? Are all Americans religious cult members? And you know what, there are terrorists right here at home, too. In fact, prior to the September 11th attacks, the "deadliest act of terrorism on U.S. soil" (Wikipedia) was the Oklahoma City bombing, carried out by a couple of white Americans. They'd even served in the Army. Does that mean I should be distrustful of all veterans?

So people, please stop telling me that the couple that may be buying my house are going to use it as a front to bring in a bomb. If you can't help being a racist, at least keep it to yourselves.

note: a few minor edits were made to this entry on 2007-07-17, but nothing that substantially changed the meaning.

Posted by Jeff on Monday, Jul 16 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, I mentioned in a post a little while ago that I was moving. Now, thanks to all the rain we've been getting, this is what my back yard looks like just two weeks after we moved in. The water's about 4 or 5 feet up the trunk of that tree.

Don't worry too much about me and my family, though. Our backyard has a pretty good slope to it, and that tree's right at the back edge. The water still had a good 5 feet to go before it got to our house. But other people weren't so lucky. Here's the street a few blocks from our house.

And that picture was taken before the water had crested. It got another foot or so higher. Other neighborhoods got hit even worse. Houses in the Wranglers Retreat neighborhood were underwater up to their roofs, and several houses in the downtown area had several inches to several feet of water. There are a few pictures on the City of Wichita Falls website, some more good pictures in some articles written by the local paper, the Times Record News: Rising water forces residents to retreat and Flooding overtakes East Side, forcing evacuations, and many more on a slideshow put together by the paper, but the slideshow isn't as good as the other photos.

So, it looks like this was the highest flood ever recorded for Wichita Falls, the river reaching at least 24.31 ft (the highest reported depth I could find, and probably pretty close to as deep as it got.) That's about 3 3/4" deeper than the previous record of 24 ft set way back in 1941. At least the river's been going down since Saturday. As long as we don't get too much more heavy rain, it looks like this is going to clear up. Hopefully the other parts of the country that got hit harder will start to recover, too.

Posted by Jeff on Tuesday, Jul 3 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Wow, write an essay criticizing a well-known creationist organization, get it included in a blog carnival on a popular science blog, and watch the comments keep flooding in over a month after it was originally posted. Specifically, it was my entry, Creation Museum/Creationist Rule of Thumb with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, written to coincide with the opening of Answers in Genesis's new Creation Science Museum, criticizing AiG's use of the Second Law of Thermodynamics to try to refute evolution. The blog carnival was The Creation Museum and was hosted on Pharyngula. And to be honest, it wasn't exactly a flood of comments, but it is more comments than any other post I've written has generated.

Anyway, I ended up putting a good deal of effort into the response I wrote to the latest comment on there. It's not quite as big as the original entry, but it's certainly more substantial than some of the other stand-alone blog entries I've written. Which means, once again, that I haven't had time to write a good, stand-alone entry for this week. I may post something short later this afternoon, but if you really want to read something I wrote this week, go check out the comments to Creation Museum/Creationist Rule of Thumb with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.

Posted by Jeff on Friday, Jun 29 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, I didn't make any posts last week, and so far this week, I only posted a link to another site. Well, I don't have anything better for today. I've just been so busy recently with personal affairs, that I haven't had much time for working on this blog. (I guess I can go ahead and say what the personal business is - my family's moving to a new house. Still in the same city, just a little roomier with a little more land. But it means we've been busy, staying up late working getting the old house ready to sell, and moving into the new house (now I know how those people on HGTV feel). So, I've been pretty tired and haven't felt much like working on this blog. Plus, I've been having to run errands during my lunch breaks, which completely eats into the time I have to write here.)

Anyway, I have put just about as much effort into responses in the comment thread on my entry on the Creation Museum and the Second Law of Thermodynamics as I normally would into a new post (which is kind of a big deal, since I normally get zero feedback to my entries). So, if you want to read something that I wrote this week, go take a look at the comments to that entry.

I do have a new, real entry in the works, that I just haven't had a chance to finish yet. Hopefully I'll get it done next week.

Posted by Jeff on Friday, Jun 15 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, I don't think I have any regular readers, but I'm making this apology, anyway. Just a few weeks after I announced that I was going to try to post at least once per week, I didn't make any posts last week. So, to make up for it, I'm going to try to make at least two posts this week, not counting this one (but I'm not promising anthing). I'm going to be lazy on the first post, and just copy verbatim somebody else's e-mail. But I figure, heck, it was an e-mail forum. Putting it on a public web page, even if it's an unpopular one, at least gives it the potential to be seen by more people. Plus, he gave permission for people to publish it. I'll try to think up a more thoughtful post for later in the week.

Posted by Jeff on Monday, May 21 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, this isn't the type of thing I would normally write about, and I'm not trying to become a Microsoft fanboy, but I recently read something that does tie in pretty well to that post I made earlier this month about Macs vs PCs. A lot of the anti-Microsoft comments I've read are about security. People point out how many viruses, worms, trojans, and other security threats are aimed at Microsoft products, mostly Windows and Internet Explorer. True enough, that's the case, but I'd always wondered if the main reason for that wasn't inferior security in MS products, but rather just because they're the biggest target. I mean, at one point, IE controlled something like 95% of the browser market, and I'm sure Windows has a similar advantage in the OS market. If you're a hacker writing a program to, say, try to steal bank account information, what programs are you going to focus your efforts on looking for security loopholes? If it takes a similar amount of time to find loopholes and write a program to exploit them, why waste time on programs that are going to give you far less results? I think another contributing factor may be that people that use alternate OSs/browsers tend to be composed more of computer nerds, who are going to be using better practices, anyway.

Well, I recently came across an article that may confirm this idea, Report Says Windows Gets The Fastest Repairs. Here are the opening paragraphs from that article (with links removed - go to the original article if you want the links):

Microsoft is frequently dinged for having insecure products, with security holes and vulnerabilities. But Symantec (Quote), no friend of Microsoft, said in its latest research report that when it comes to widely-used operating systems, Microsoft is doing better overall than its leading commercial competitors.

The information was a part of Symantec's 11th Internet Security Threat Report. The report, released this week, covered a huge range of security and vulnerability issues over the last six months of 2006, including operating systems.

The report found that Microsoft (Quote) Windows had the fewest number of patches and the shortest average patch development time of the five operating systems it monitored in the last six months of 2006.

and then the closing paragraphs:

Analyst Charles King with Pund-IT said Microsoft has had to be aggressive about dealing with security issues because it's such a big target. In that regard, the company has met the challenge.

"I think in a way that a culture of having been under attack for a decade or more has led to the company taking a very proactive approach to fixing those problems," he told internetnews.com. "In the last 24 months, they've taken a very aggressive stance toward the security of their system. In review after review of Vista, despite its faults, the security of the system has been considerably better than XP."

By contrast, King said there have been complaints in the past about Apple's lack of response to security issues. But as the Mac and Linux gain marketshare, they will have to respond much quicker.

"Are the old models of response to security issues going to be able to fly or will those companies start to take some serious publicity hits from these increasing vulnerabilities and a relatively lackadaisical response to fixing those vulnerabilities?" he asked.

Anyway, I found it interesting. One thing it does mention is that even though MS had less updates overall, more of them were high priority or severe. So, that may indicate that MS actually is worse at security than other companies, but I still think the reputation they've gotten has been overblown, and that lots of people ignore what a big target they are.

Posted by Jeff on Friday, Apr 20 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, it's been a little while since I've done one of these meta posts, but here goes...

Let's see, my first blog post ever was back in December of 2005. Not too long after, towards the end of March 2006, I realized I wasn't keeping up with the blog as much as I'd have liked, but I still liked the idea of having a blog, so I resolved to make a good post at least once per month, and, for the most part, I was able to keep up with it.

Towards the end of this past January, I made a new resolution to make a post at least once per week. I never announced it before, just in case I wasn't able to keep up with it, but I have been doing pretty good at it. I actually got a boost in motivation when PZ Myers of Pharyngula announced a Blogroll Open Enrollment Day. I hesitated to submit my name at first, since I have such a mediocre blog compared to others, but after seeing how many other people were submitting their own personal blogs, I thought, what the hell, the worst that can happen is that I don't get added. He ended up adding everyone that submitted a blog, but with a few warnings, including that many would probably be deleted once he had a chance to review them, and that he would definitely remove blogs that hadn't been updated within the past 30 days. Well, luckily for me, he hasn't gone through and purged the blogs he doesn't read, yet, so I'm still on there (I'm guessing it's only a matter of time, though). And the warning about the 30 day post or purge deadline has kept me motivated to keep my post per week goal.

As long as I'm talking about Pharyngula, I guess I'll point out something else interesting. Way back in February of 2006, I posted a trackback to Pharyngula for an entry about What Is the Value of Algebra. That entry got me a trackback and two comments. On that Blogroll Open Enrollment Day post on Pharyngula, just by having a link to my blog in his comments (and there were over 150 comments in that thread), I got a noticeable increase in traffic, and a comment to one of my posts. Considering that I normally get zero feedback, I think it's interesting that just posting a comment on Pharyngula and feeding on his scraps gets me an infinity percent increase in comments/trackbacks.

Speaking of blogrolls, I recently got added to Matt's blogroll over on Pooflinger's Anonymous (which, by the way, is one of the three blogs I check on a daily basis, the other two being Pharyngula and Confessions of an Anonymous Coward; in other words, it's a good blog and you should check it out if you haven't, yet). It was a similar situation to Pharyngula, where Matt posted that he was getting ready to update his blogroll, and told people to leave a comment if they wanted to be considered. And once again, I shamelessly plugged my own blog, and was lucky enough to be added. And again, it's given me more motivation to try to make good weekly posts.

In both of the above cases, it felt very awkward asking to be added to their blogrolls. I really get kind of self conscious advertising for my blog. I feel that if I've got good content, people will just find me. I mean, I never advertised my French Polynesia Photos page on my main site, but if you Google "bora bora photos," I'm on the first page of results (currently eighth). And if you Google "autogyros" or "autogyro history," my Autogyro History and Theory page is the first or second result (damn you Wikipedia</Charlton Heston voice>). So posting comments on other people's blogs, asking them to add me to their blogrolls, seems a bit pathetic too me; it almost felt like begging. Oh well - I'm on the blogrolls, now, so I might as well just do my best to make good posts.

Something else I felt like talking about in this entry was what I plan on writing about on this blog in the future. I started this blog "pre-Dover," when Intelligent Design was making the "real" news on a regular basis. It was also around the time I first discovered that nearly half of Americans believe humans were specially created. I guess I'd been naive before, believing that it was only the loonies that still doubted evolution. The history of life on this planet has always been a topic I've been really interested in even before I knew there was this controversy, so getting such a wake up call made me start to look at the issue more. It also lead me to take more note of the religious fundamentalism in this society, that I guess I'd been kind of sheltered from before, and realize that it wasn't just a fringe element of society, either. So, when I started this blog, those were the main topics I wrote about. Well, it's been over a couple years now since I started following this controversy, and while creationists certainly haven't gone away, I can sense my interest in the topic waning. It's partly a conscious effort, as well - my wife told me I was becoming too obsessed, so I've been trying to think about other things. So, to get back to the point of this paragraph, I doubt I'll ever stop writing about the science/religion/creationism issue entirely (especially in the narrower field of evolution), and for the time being, the majority of my posts will probably still be about this issue, but I plan on writing more entries on other topics.

One last thing - I had been considering using this post to announce that I was going to disable trackbacks. You wouldn't believe the number of spam trackbacks my filter catches (well, maybe you would if you have your own blog). But, I decided against it. I figure that if something I write inspires somebody else to write something, I'd like to know about it.

Posted by Jeff on Friday, Apr 20 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I wanted to write this up on Monday, but at least I'm getting to it before the end of the week...

My daughter had a revelation over the weekend. She realized the Easter Bunny isn't real. It happened on Saturday night. She asked my wife and I if we thought the Easter Bunny was going to come and hide our eggs. My wife's reply was to ask her if she still believed in the Easter Bunny (which maybe wasn't the best response, but oh well). My daughter said yes, but I guess it got her to thinking, and a few minutes later, she asked me if I believed in him. I hate lying to her, so whenever Easter Bunny and Santa Claus questions have come up in the past, I've always evaded the question, or told her she could still believe if she wanted to. She wasn't taking that this time, though, so I just flat out told her that I wasn't going to tell her if I believed or not. And when she pressed about if I hid the eggs, I told her that I didn't know. Well, she's too smart to not realize that I must know whether or not I'm the one hiding the eggs, so she had it pretty much figured out. I guess I was smiling a bit, too, which was the giveaway to her, and she went off crying to my wife who'd left the room by then. And the thing my daughter was most upset about, wasn't that there was no Easter Bunny, but that it meant my wife and I had been lying to her her whole life. We did our best to explain it to her, though, and by Easter morning she was happy looking for eggs that she knew I'd hidden.

So, this whole episode got me to thinking - why do we as a society continue to perpetuate the myths about the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and all those other make-believe holiday characters. When I told my parents about it, they told me that I wasn't "lying," I was "pretending." I don't buy that. Pretending is when both parties involved know what's going on. My daughter and I pretend together all the time. One party pretending something so the other party can believe it doesn't seem very honest to me.

My parents also told me, as have many others, that pretending in these things for the kids makes the holidays more fun for them. I don't know about that one. My daughter had plenty of fun looking for eggs knowing that I'm the one that hid them, and I don't think she'll turn her nose up at Christmas presents this year, either. Plus, kids have plenty of fun pretending in things that they know are fake, just for the sake of playing. So, do kids really have that much more fun around the holidays believing in false ideas than they would without them, and is it worth lying to kids to give them that fun?

I also find it interesting the reactions we've gotten from people when we've told them that our daughter figured out about the Easter Bunny. Most people feel bad for her, that she doesn't have the Easter Bunny to believe in any more. One of our friends was even upset with us for letting her figure it out. I don't understand why so many people have those reactions; I'm actually relieved that she figured it out - no more deception, no more tip-toeing around the issue trying to figure out ways to not directly lie to her, plus I always enjoy watching her grow and learn more about the real world.

I never really had a good reason to carry on the myth with my daughter in the first place. I did it just because I went along with everybody else. My parents did it with me; she gets it from school and daycare; our friends with kids do it with their children. I guess I didn't want to seem like a kill-joy. Looking at it now, though, I wish I could go back and tell myself to just be straight with her. She would have had fun around the holidays with or without actually believing in the fairy tales, so why lie to her in the first place.

Posted by Jeff on Thursday, Apr 12 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Mac vs. PC arguments are kind of like the nerd equivalent of Ford vs. Chevy pissing contests. They spring up all over the place on the Internet, and a couple of them happened to catch my eye recently on forums that I read regularly. So, I decided to send a reply to one of them, the Ercoupe Mailing List, that I decided to copy on this blog to get it off my chest to a wider audience.

Okay, I'll add my two cents on the Mac/PC discussion, and I'll even get it back to being aviation related, for those getting tired of a pure computer discussion. One of my responsibities where I work is taking care of our flight simulator (http://www.cartercopters.com/cctd_simulator.html - there's a picture of the sim at the bottom of the page). The program we use for the simulator is X-Plane (www.x-plane.com) We used to use an old Mac running OS 9. As newer versions of X-Plane came out with new features that we wanted to run, we needed to get a more powerful computer to run them. I thought about replacing it with another Mac just so I could get a chance to play around with OSX, but when I got to pricing the computers, I just couldn't believe the price difference between Macs and PCs for comparable hardware, so I went with the PC.

Between our old simulator and a computer lab back when I was in school, I got a fair amount of experience using OS 9, and I never really thought it was all that much different than Windows - certainly not head and shoulders better like all the Mac fans would have lead you to believe. I've never used OSX, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it's overrated, too.

So, maybe OSX is a superior operating system, and maybe if price were no object, a Mac would be my next computer. But unfortunately for me, price is an object, so I'll probably stick with PCs for the forseeable future. Then again, if all you need is a home computer where just about you'll do is browse the Internet and send a few e-mails, the supposedly superior Mac OS might be a better choice.

The other argument that caught my attention was from a comment thread over at Pharyngula, How Not to Teach Biology. Myers discussed a teacher using PowerPoint presentations during a biology class, and made the comment, "Aficionados of both bad creationism and bad PowerPoint will savor these." And obviously, that drew a few of the inevitable PowerPoint & Microsoft bashing comments. In defense of Microsoft, I've used PowerPoint quite a bit, and don't have any problems with it. Yes, I've seen horrible PowerPoint presentations - but it's the fault of the people creating the presentations. I've seen some pretty bad presentations running off of Macs, too, that weren't PowerPoint based, with annoying animations every time a slide changed.

I'm not trying to defend everything Microsoft's done. They've certainly had some stinkers. I just recently wrote a blog entry complaining about IE7. And where I work, the guy that maintained the website before me had used FrontPage, and it took me a couple months to go through all the websites with Notepad to fix the horrible code that Frontpage had generated. All I'm saying is, I'm tired of people assuming a program's bad just because it came from Microsoft, or that a different program's good just because it comes from one of Microsoft's competitors.

Posted by Jeff on Wednesday, Apr 4 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The other day I took the plunge and upgraded to the latest version of Internet Explorer, IE7. Less than 24 hours later, it was deleted off my computer.

I didn't research it much before I installed it. I'd read a few things about it, how it had better printing support, some cool new features, and was supposedly more secure than IE6. I figured I'd install it for the extra security, and that I probably wouldn't notice that much difference in actually using it. Boy was I wrong. Microsoft completely overhauled the user interface (UI), and they didn't do a good job at it at all.

Continue reading "Internet Explorer 7 Sucks" »

Posted by Jeff on Tuesday, Feb 27 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Depending on where you are in the world, you may call today something else, like Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Day. But from where I'm from in Pennsylvania, today's called Fastnacht Day. Traditionally, you make potato based donuts, called fastnachts, supposedly as a way to empty your larder of all the fatty, sugary foods in preparation for the Lenten fast. My elementary school even used to give out donuts with the lunches on this day. So, in celebration of today, here's a recipe on my main site on how to make fastnachts, and a link to the (not so thorough) Wikipedia article. (I know it's a little late, since you should have made them either last night or early this morning, so that you could eat them throughout the day, but better late than never. And yeah, I just cut and pasted this entry from last year's Fastnacht Day entry, but really - what's the point to writing something original for an entry like this? Maybe next year I'll remember to make this post the day before Fastnacht Day.)

Posted by Jeff on Tuesday, Feb 20 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was watching one of the CSI's the other night with my wife (she had the remote, or it would have been something "educational.") I remember one scene, where they had an eyepiece from some binoculars they'd found at a crime scene (the eyepiece, not the binoculars), threw the eyepiece into their fancy lab machine, and a few mintues later, the machine beeped at them to let it know that it had found DNA on the eyepiece. Not just that, but it had already analyzed the DNA, determined who it belonged to, and had that man's file ready and waiting on the computer screen. That was a little too much, and I voiced my opinion out loud. Well, a few scenes later and after a few more spoken opinions, my wife told me to shut up so that she could enjoy the show.

This is pretty common. I know a thing or two about science and technology, and while I won't recognize every mistake I ever see in a TV show or movie, and many are small enough that it's easy to "suspend my disbelief," many movies have enough glaring mistakes that it actually makes it hard to enjoy what I'm watching. Let me put it in perspective for people that don't know as much about science. Suppose you were watching a mov