80below.com

What's the first rule of election year politics?
Don't mention your opponents name more than your own

posted at: 21:29 | path: /Rants | permanent link to this entry

So, I just finished the Fireweed 200.
7th place, in 11:50.36
Pictures from the race.

posted at: 21:40 | path: /Random | permanent link to this entry

Sometimes, life gives you lemons.
You're supposed to make lemonade.

Or, not.
You can always just eat the lemon and move on, right?
Right?

posted at: 07:05 | path: /Random | permanent link to this entry

If there's one thing that's universally true, it's that Americans are fucking stupid.
This weekend, I heard a group of 5 active duty military boys discussing world policy and politics.
The bravado, stupidity, and testosterone that dripped off of them was shocking. I had to remind myself that I was there to relax in the hot springs, so I didn't say anything.
In talking with the people that I was with, I realized these kids don't know any better. They've been force fed rhetoric and propaganda since they were 12 or 13 years old. One of their comments was something akin to: "Everybody in the US wanted retribution against 'ragheaded sand niggers', and if they didn't they were just as bad as them."

I'm sorry, what? I know I must have misheard you. Really. Not only do I not like what you just said, you've also proven yourself to be an idiot.
Make yourself smart.
Read this.

(postscript)
Megan says: "I think it sucks that they are our "ambassadors" to the world. No wonder the world hates us!"

posted at: 22:10 | path: /Rants | permanent link to this entry

So, if you're a regular reader, you're probably pretty smart.

Prove it. Take 40 minutes and listen to all of this.

He's right.
You don't have to agree with him on the rest of his politics, but he is right about this issue. This is one of the very few times that someone is *honest* about the situation.
My grandmother would have called him a "darkie". That time is over.
For that, I am thankful.
I am also so very thankful that someone has the balls to stand up and say what he says.
So, agree or not agree, it doesnt' matter. But the man should *move* you.

posted at: 05:26 | path: /Random | permanent link to this entry

I see dumb people, and they live in Oklahoma.
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/03/09/oklahoma-one-step-from-doom/
I don't get the people that say the earth is 6000 years old.
I think they're whacky. But, whatever. Think what you want, just don't invade my reality.

But, ummm...wait a second. What I _REALLY_ don't get is the geologist who says that the earth is only 6000 years old.
I work with at least one.
Wow.
Here's the amazing thing:
The people I work with understand, use, and write about radiometric dating and geochronology. How can you produce scientific studies based on Argon-argon dating, wherein you say that the rocks are 350 million years old, but teach your children that the planet was formed in 6 days and is only 6000 years old?

eee-deee-odds.

posted at: 01:33 | path: /Rants | permanent link to this entry

Yeah, that's right. My slow ass made the fuckin' cover.
Click for more detail.

The cover picture (on the right) was taken while Rocky was taking the picture on the left.
More pictures from this trip are in the gallery

posted at: 01:48 | path: /Random | permanent link to this entry

If you think any of the preceding facts can falsify global warming, you're hopelessly naive. Nothing creates cognitive dissonance in the mind of a true believer.

posted at: 00:00 | path: /Alaska | permanent link to this entry

So I got a cell phone. blah. I'm working on deluding myself into thinking that I can use it as a mp3 player, so it's worth it.
Shutup.
(907)978-3974

posted at: 00:22 | path: /Random | permanent link to this entry

I've been keeping a cycling log since November 5th. It's been interesting to see how much co2 I've NOT been spewing.
The averages really aren't all that impressive until you realize that it's winter.
In Fairbanks
Alaska.

Try riding a bike when it's 15 below zero..it ain't easy.

posted at: 19:32 | path: /Random | permanent link to this entry

The significant issue for the West here is not Buddhas and lamas, but what we mean when we refer to "culture."
Continue reading here.

posted at: 22:58 | path: /Rants | permanent link to this entry

So, Michael Vick got busted for dogfighting. Yah, yah. Big news.....this week.
But it's not the story that I'm finding interesting as much as these two pictures:


They appear to be taken on opposite sides of the same street.
Literally and figuratively.
(Yes, I know, I don't often post pictures. This was just too good to pass up)

posted at: 22:22 | path: /Rants | permanent link to this entry

http://80below.com/gallery/v/HallowBayBears/

posted at: 01:10 | path: /Alaska | permanent link to this entry

Welcome to all of you coming over from Pen Kapps.
It'd be really cool to pretend you were from Bic and call Ken and leave a voicemail inquiring about his willingness to sell penkapp.com
OK, that wouldn't be all that funny if he reads this. But if you do it before he reads this, it's be really hilarous.
Perhaps one could tell him that the Bic companies were also impressed with his thesaurus-ing.

If you want to read just one entry, (or two, counting this one), I ask that you read this one. Without all the hokie bullshit, a change in the world only requires a slight shift in thought.

posted at: 02:22 | path: /Rants | permanent link to this entry

So, there are a couple of people here in Fairbanks that are, for lack of a better description, fucking crazy.
Not the typical, "Oh, I'm Alaskan anti-establishment" type crazy.
Oh no. Those people are somewhat normal.
I'm talking about the really whacky ones.......

Like those that ride their bike 350 miles across the tundra.
In the middle of winter.

Or ride 400 miles from Sheep Mountain to Valdez.....and back.
In 22 hours.

Or go for a "little walk" that takes 3 days.
And covers 100 miles.

Yes, indeed, those people are crazy.
So really, I wasn't surprised when this crazy friend of mine asked me to come pick he and his brother up at Atigun Pass after they'd hiked...
....150 miles through the Brooks Range...
...where there is no trail.
I'm leaving REALLY fucking early tmmrw morning for the 10 hour, one-way, drive. I'm going to park at the base of Atigun, hike over one of the saddles there and out to the Chandlar River to meet them.

posted at: 02:06 | path: /Rants | permanent link to this entry

Is there any relationship between this and this?
Read the entire thing for an extra special kick at the end.

posted at: 11:31 | path: /Random | permanent link to this entry

I'm sure most of you know that Sean Penn was here in Alaska last summer filming the movie "Into the Wild", based on Jon Krakauer's book.

I've read the book several times. Each time, it aggravates me. Not 'cause of what happens to McCandless, but because Krackbaby depicts such a super-romanticized view of the situation from beginning to end. It also aggravates me that people flock to the bus, as if it's some manner of shrine to poor decisions.

That or I'm being xenophobic. I dunno.

Either way, whatever your thoughts on McCandless's survival skills, mental stability, decision making abilities, or philosophy and life choices, (or Krakhead's interpretations and "literary" license) it's still a story that's going to explode (again) when the movie's released.

http://www.frankenhost.com/intothewild/

posted at: 12:40 | path: /Alaska | permanent link to this entry

Most people don't get this, unless you've lived here in Alaska.
Even visiting isn't enough. As a tourist, you don't have the time to fully acclimate to 24 hours of daylight.

	
	June 21, 2007
	Sunrise		Sunset
	2:57 AM AKDT 	12:49 AM AKDT
Length Of Visible Light: 	24h 00m
Length of Day: 			21h 51m
Tomorrow will be 0m 20s shorter.

So, that means that the Sun rose at 2:57am on Wednesday morning. It didn't set until 12:49 on Thursday morning. For those of you with good math skills you already know that means that there's really only 2 hours when the sun is down. But, the thing is, it's not dark. Ever. While the sun is technically below the horizon, it's not dark.... It's nice.

posted at: 11:06 | path: /Alaska | permanent link to this entry

Every once in a while, there's a person that does good.
I respect this man, for so many reasons....
For the fact that he found beauty in a number, whatever the meaning.
For the fact that everybody loved him.
For the fact that he had his stolen car returned.
For the fact that he has an main belt asteroid named after him.
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/5943?rss

posted at: 22:08 | path: /Random | permanent link to this entry

So, last night I was at the Ice Park watching Lars turn a giant block of ice into....something. A chime sort of thing, we think.
Whatever it turns out to be, it's sure to be interesting.

The point is that I was around people that I didn't know.
One of them was a photographer from NYC who was there to document the event. In the course of our conversation, he asked me:

So, what is it that you do here that you can't do anyplace else?

[blink][blink] huh?

I don't remember how I answered the question, or his impetus behind it. It didn't strike me as an odd question until several hours later.
On the surface, it could be interpreted that the question was derogatory, snide, or insulting. I cannot stress enough that I don't think it was intended as such. I think the question he was really trying to ask was either "Why do you like it here?" or "Can you tell me what makes you move from DC to Fairbanks?

However, I've been thinking about his question as asked. I haven't gotten very far, to be honest. I'm a little stuck on why people do the things they do and why they make the choices they do. What is the driver behind ambition and motivation?

I'm stuck on the fact that my most of motivation isn't extrinsic, either tangible or intangible. People require motivation to perform any action that isn't purely physiological. It seems to be that there are far too few people who do things (or don't do things) just for the sake of doing (or not doing) them. It's easy to answer the question "why do you work?" with "to eat."

But mostly, I'm stuck with the nature of time, space and reality.
Is the only dynamism in doing anything provided by the objects involved? Are space amd time the logical consequences of non-imaginary mathematical truth?
Is what you do governed by your reality? That sounds a little matrix-ish, but why not? If you're limited it thought to what you think could exist, then why do you exist? Is life, all life, carbon based? What happens if our ruleset behind defining life is incorrect?
*sigh*
No point, really. Not one I'm able to get reach, anyhow.
Everything, science, space, change, structure, physics, cosmology, cosmogony and everything are all limited by the epistemological constraints of mathematics.


So, to answer the question? I'm not limited by the lack of a theory that defines quantum gravity.

posted at: 04:11 | path: /Alaska | permanent link to this entry

To make my entry below even eaiser to understand, I'll summarize it by saying this: Zero does not have a multiplicative inverse.
It's ALWAYS true that 0x = 0. There's a bunch of crap on ring theory that proves this, but people are saying that my example below is too complex.

So..yeah, we won't go into ring theory.
The multiplicative inverse of a number x is the number which when muliplied by x, equals 1.
So, for example, if X equals 5, the multiplicative inverse is 1/5. 5 * (1/5) = 1.

That doesn't work with zero.
Nullity is crap.

posted at: 21:00 | path: /Rants | permanent link to this entry

First off, I recognize that Antea professed that thinking outside the normals is what's required to move on.
Not only do I recognize it, I rather enjoy looking at the world from an ever-so-slight skewed perspective.

However, this guy is a moron.

As most of the universe falls under non-euclidean space, it could be, if you were a crackhead, argued that his theory could (possibly) be applied to non-eucliden space, as 1+1 != 2. (cos^ -1 (x*y/||x|| ||y||), and all that), but even still, he can't provide a proof for either hyperbolic or elliptic space.

How do people progress this far is their careers by professing whacked shit like this? Here's a simple (read high school level) proof that he's not right.
Take, f(x)=(sin x)/x. As x gets closer to zero, sin x also gets closer to zero. When x=0, sin x = 0. However, as sin x = x - x^3/3! + x^5/5! + ...., when x is very small, you can say that (with very small error) sin x = x; so, (sin x)/x when x is very small is 1, no matter what is the value of x. So, f(0) = (sin 0)/0 "=" 0/0 = 1.

Now, g(x)=(1 - cos x)/x. As x gets closer to zero, cos x gets closer to 1, so (1 - cos x) gets closer to zero. Etc, etc; but cos x = 1 - x^2/2! + x^4/4! + ...., so when x is very small, you can say that (with very small error) cos x = (1 - x^2/2), so (1 - cos x) = x^2/2. So, for very small x, g(x) = (x^2/2)/x, or g(x)=x/2. So, g(0) = (1 - cos 0)/0 "=" 0/0 = 0.

If he defines 0/0 = something, then 0 = 1. 0/0 can be defined as a limit of whatever function you use, but it changes for each function.

Making shit up and giving it a name doesn't serve any purpose.

This is not a beautiful miracle.

posted at: 21:31 | path: /Rants | permanent link to this entry

People ask me what kind of hard drives they should buy.
For the most part, it's become a religious battle akin to Ford vs Chevy.
However, after reading this I'm going to start telling people to buy Seagates.

posted at: 00:59 | path: /Geek | permanent link to this entry

There are few things that aggravate me more than the people at Sams Club that ask to see my receipt. When I'm alone, I normally ignore them and walk out. When I'm with Megan, we have to stop because I don't want to make a scene.
In any case....

There were about a dozen customers in line for "receipt review" at the exit. That represented about six extra minutes that I wasn.t being paid for, and so I rolled toward freedom. The employee "reviewing" receipts left the line and cheerfully said, "I.m going to have to see your receipt first."

Adopting her happy demeanor, I replied, "And you are going to have to chase me in order to do so." Sometimes it.s worth being an ass just to see the response on people.s faces. Not only was the receipt lady registering total bewilderment, but several customers in line for the same hassle appeared equally baffled. One woman glanced at me with what looked like total contempt. Her response was invigorating, although I.m not sure why. I continued toward my vehicle, where I was greeted by a man who looked and sounded like "security."

"Was there a problem at the checkout, sir?" he asked.
"No, actually, checkout was great," I said. "Very efficient. But leaving the store was a little shaky. In fact, there.s definitely a problem there."
"What.s wrong?"
"Well, for openers, I don.t like being treated like a shoplifter."
"Sir," he solemnly stated, "No one is treating you like a shoplifter."
"Really? Then why, exactly, am I having a conversation with store security, who just happened to reach my vehicle at the same time I did?"

Minutes seemed to pass. I thought I noticed a funnel cloud moving toward Vestavia. A faint aroma of cotton candy was in the air. The forty-ish woman loading her purchase into a car two spaces down was wearing tight-fitting, corduroy jeans. She looked amazing. Finally the security guy responded. "Sir, our people checking receipts are doing their jobs. It.s a store policy that we inspect receipts. We.re trying to make sure you paid the right price."

We get served a lob like that only so many times, and I wasn.t letting this one go. My research was finally paying off. I chose to be polite, because the security guy was actually quite calm and friendly about the whole incident. "This is a warehouse," I replied. "There are no prices on those items in my cart, so how would they know if I were overcharged? Never mind, here.s another thing you should know. In my last five visits here, I allowed your staff to see my receipts, and they instantly marked them without so much as glancing at the totals. They were simply making certain that I had paid for something, and that I could not come back and use that receipt at a later date. In other words, to stop my attempts, present and future, at theft.you know, as though I were a potential shoplifter. Your sign with the message about ensuring that I wasn.t overcharged is what shoppers like me sometimes call bullshit. That.s Home Depot behind us. I spent a few hundred dollars there last year. Just to our right is Sears. I spent almost that much there last Christmas. No one reviewed my receipts at either store. Please tell me what I.m doing wrong."

The security guy walked away...

Continues here...

posted at: 23:28 | path: /Rants | permanent link to this entry

My friend Justin works at a motorcycle dealership. He encounters very strange people. Here's one of them.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [cbr] Christmas shoppers (long)
Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2006 17:29:33 -0500
From: Justin 
To: cbr@cbrlist.com

I need to vent... (Btw, I went through this post after it was written to break it into paragraphs, just for Jeffy)

And so it's begun. Christmas season is upon us. This transforms the type of stupidity I have to deal with. See, I'm building up a tolerance to stupid. Things that most of you would see, then run home to tell the list about, I don't even notice anymore because I'm exposed to such a mass dose of concentrated stupid every day. But now, before the high holiday, it's a whole new stupid. See, what I deal with now isn't just run of the mill, motorcyclist stupid, now, I also have ignorant, never even sat on a motorcycle stupid. Mixed with demanding, accustomed to shopping at Target, stupid. I can excuse ignorant. Ignorant just means having never been exposed to something. But what I call "shopper stupid" is unforgivable. See, "shoppers" are used to going into Wal-Mart, or Target or where ever, and just finding any old body in an appropriate colored smock, then barking orders at that person. Not only does this not go over well with anyone who isn't used to being a soccer mom whipping boy, it also doesn't mix well with any actual bikers that happen to be around.

See, after leaving the Super Wal-Mart, one may come to the conclusion that anything you want, must be in the store somewhere. Ask a blue smock guy, and he'll tell you what isle anything is in. Do this enough times, and you'll soon feel entitled to that information. Eventually, you don't really ask for information anymore, you sort of start ordering the information. You get huffy if the information doesn't come instantly, or with 100% accuracy. And since every retailer everywhere is willing to do ANYTHING to make an angry customer happy, you also have this feeling that if you bitch enough, anything will be done to accommodate you. Ever stand near the Wal-Mart return line for a few minutes? Is anyone else as amazed as I am by not only what they will take back, but what reasons for returns they're willing to accept? And the few times they are confronted with an item they aren't supposed to take back, watch at the customer shows even the slightest sign of dissatisfaction, and a manager appears from nowhere and quickly authorizes the return, for full refund. This lesson will serve you fine as long as you never leave the comfy confines of Sam Walton's utopia. Take this shopping style to other places though, and cultures will clash....

For instance, not every store employee is a clone who makes X amount per hour to do whatever personal shopping you need done. Some folks (like me fer instance) don't make a liveable wage unless you're buying something. That doesn't mean these people won't be civil and helpful. It does mean that barking orders at them or demanding things won't get you far. And thats where my story begins. It's funny, but that preamble to my story is longer than the story itself.

So I'm in the showroom. Doing bored salesman stuff, dusting bikes, chatting with shoppers, that sort of thing. Lady comes in, sort of in a hurry. As she's walking past me, she asks, without stopping "Where do you keep your go-karts?" I say, "We don't sell go-karts" and go back to dusting. She stops, a good 20-30 feet away. She says "I beg your pardon?"

I have to stop here to explain something. That phrase could mean "Excuse me, I didn't hear what you said" So just saying she said that, in written form, doesn't convey her tone. That isn't how she said it. She said it, like a guy in the bar would say it after you insulted his mother. She said "I beg your pardon" in a way that didn't mean she didn't hear me. She said it like someone who just wanted to see if I had the balls to repeat myself. Picture Chuck Zito saying "I beg your pardon", after being called a wop motherfucker. Thats how she said it. She was clearly not happy that the store she walked into didn't sell go-karts. Anyhow...

In response to "I beg your pardon", I restated "We don't sell go-karts here" and added "Sorry. But we have small motorcycles and ATV's" She gave me a funny look. I don't know what she was thinking or what the look meant. If I were making that face it would mean "Fuk you, I don't want an ATV or motorcycle" but I can't say what she was thinking. I suppose it was entirely possible her look meant "Thanks for the help." Keep in mind, she's still 20 or so feet away. I didn't rate high enough to stop to talk to, and she was only talking to me because the information stopped her in her tracks. I go back to dusting bikes, and she dug a phone out of her purse and called I would guess her husband. I didn't listen to her conversation, but I got the gist. She said we didn't have go-karts and he said that they simply must have one or little Connor's (or Madison's) Christmas would be ruined. During her conversation she did that move you do when you're on the phone and want to talk to someone in the room. She kept the phone to her ear, but moved the mouthpiece down. Do you know what I mean? It's a real pretentious move. Anyhow, she did that and said "Hey, do you know anyone else who sells go-karts?" I told her I thought I saw some in front of Sam's Club or Tractor Supply. It was here that I paused to think how rude this woman was. She was, without a doubt, treating me like shit. Like a servant. Not calling me sir, or approaching me when she spoke, or even using a civil tone of voice. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to be called sir. But saying "Excuse me, do you know where they sell go-karts" would be perfectly acceptable. Hell, I would settle for exactly how she worded it if she had said it in a nice tone of voice. It was also here that I decided that this woman wasn't here to buy a motorcycle or ATV. I make my living off commission. Which means, if I'm not selling, I'm not making a livable wage. Which also means as a person not buying anything, I didn't have to help this lady. What all this means, to put it more bluntly, I'm not getting paid to take this lady's shit.

It was around this time, after I decided "fuck her" that she got even more rude. How is that possible you ask? She kept talking to her idiot husband, who I was beginning to feel sorry for. I'm guessing she must have relayed to him that last piece of meaningful information I gave her. That there were possibly 2 place to check for a go-kart. I'm guessing the conversation moved to something along the lines of "Well call those other places and ask them" I guess that because the lady did the pretentious phone thing again and said "Get me a phone book" I'm not making that up. Those were her excat words. There was no question mark when she said it either. My mind raced. I actually had enough time to think "She must be talking to the guy she's on the phone with, surely she couldn't rude enough to talk to a stranger like that." At the same time I was thinking that, I looked at a coworker who was close enough to hear this whole exchange. He said "Is she talking to you?!?" Before I could answer I heard "Hey, you, I need a phone book." I was livid, but at this point not really showing it. I'm not a run around town getting into fights type of guy. But if this lady had been a guy, theres a good chance he'd have left the dealership with a phone in his ass.

Luckily, I could hear my co-worker holding back laughter. Had it not been for that, I'd have stayed pissed. But hearing him laugh made me want to laugh. It then occurred to me, that NOT getting mad and telling this lady to fuck herself would probably infuriate her more. And be funny. So I just sort of glanced at the lady, started laughing a little, quietly, and kept dusting a bike. I'm so glad I made that choice. See, had I chosen to just tell her to fuck off, she could have countered and we would have just yelled at each other for a while. Later she could remember the situation that she had told ME off. As it was, I got to just dismiss her. And with one look, I let her know that not only wasn't she worth my time, but also that I thought her being pissed was funny.

The thing that shocked me was her response. I thought she'd go ballistic. (In which case I wouldn't have been able to control my laughter.) But she didn't. She sort of kept looking at me, looking at my friend, laughing at her. It was then that I think it may have sunk in, that she wasn't in Abercrombie and Fitch, and employees here aren't high school kids who have to cater to her every whim. She was in a motorcycle shop. Surrounded by motorcyclists, who didn't give a shit if she was happy or not. I'm not optimistic enough to think that she learned anything. I'm sure in her next encounter with a retail employee she will be just as rude. I can live with that. The look on her face as she left my store, still on the phone with her idiot husband was enough for me.

posted at: 00:14 | path: /Rants | permanent link to this entry

posted at: 22:55 | path: /Alaska | permanent link to this entry

posted at: 22:23 | path: /Geek | permanent link to this entry

So, I've been very lax in updating this, and was reminded thereof by someone actually _asking_ for the URL.

I don't know if my lack of things to post is a result of becoming ambivalent about my surroundings, nothing has really pissed me off to the point of being driven to ranting about it, or because I'm enjoying working again (and thus have other things occupying my mind and time)

On that note, there are several people at work who I consider to be, for lack of a better term, intellectually enlightened. By that I mean they've got some level of recognition of their own existence and how that existence has effect (butterly-ish) on their reality. I don't mean to say that at the exclusion of everyone in the building, nor to build some manner of elitist clique-ish group of "smart people". Anyway, in the interests of determining an answer to my ongoing question on defining "life", (for the purpose of working with the Drake Equation, in case anybody is wondering why I'm curious about such dry topics.) I've asked several of those people to offer their own definition of what classifies something as alive. One person, in particular, seemed intrigued by the fact that she couldn't offer an immediate answer. I cannot wait to get her answer--I'm sure it will be interesting.

Next step...what defines that life as intelligent?

posted at: 00:51 | path: /Random | permanent link to this entry

Much to my dismay, we've only got like 18 people of color here in Alaska.
It's sad, really, that the separation and subseqent racism still exists
But, by all means, let's exploit a failed campaign for our outgoing crooked fucked up governor by naming a day after a black man who got shot. Might as well name a day after one of them.
The fact that the guy is black and got shot and our very own dipshit rock-hard stupid motherfucker Murkowski is taking advantage of it pisses me off.
Whatever.
Frank, not only are you a fucking moron for sending out a 125K email to 10K people, but you're a racist fuckhead too.

posted at: 00:00 | path: /Alaska | permanent link to this entry

Didn't we learn anything from the movies? Jurrassic Park, Redux This is just a bad idea. Chuckie Darwin is rolling over in his grave.

posted at: 23:19 | path: /Random | permanent link to this entry

I mean, I jsut don't know what to say to this.
Wow.

OK, first off, let's ignore the scaleability problems.
Then let's ignore the structural problems associated therein.

We're still left with huge problems relating to basic high school physics regarding heat, pressure, and shit, for that matter, the four basic states of matter.

Wow.
One must have an interseting worldview to exist in such a state of delusion.

posted at: 04:32 | path: /Rants | permanent link to this entry

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Hello, my geek friends.
Date: Mon, 03 Jul 2006 18:38:33 -0800
From: Ken Woods 
To: Ken Woods 


As some of you know, I started to buy a new computer last fall.

In deliberation, I fell into a cyclical cycle of evaluating the 
materialism that's infected society, the static value of something that 
has inevitable obsolescence, and how quantum electrodynamics governs 
everything that happens in the universe.[1]

My conclusion, out of financial considerations and sheer disinterest in 
joining the new millennium, was to swear off most of technology and 
retreat in comfort with my Athlon 1000/128mb[2] to the year 1995, where 
text based web browsers and email clients were sufficiently fast.

7 months have now elapsed, and I've now come to the conclusion that, 
yeah, that being stuck in 1995 just isn't working for me. At all.

While this (semi)tongue-in-cheek comment won't surprise any of you, I 
was shocked to learn that one can listen to music AND browse the 
internet AND send an email, all at the same time?[3]
Multitasking isn't a myth!  It just requires some manner of hardware 
that will support it, and my shitty computer just doesn't.

So in the ongoing interests of buying something new, I've spent some 
time playing around at newegg.[4]  The results are listed here:

 http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/wishlist/PublicWishDetail.asp?WishListNumber=1748969

If you've gotten this email I want to hear your comments or because I 
thought it might make you laugh.  Or both.
Or neither, as there are 3 people copied that were in my addressbook 
that I simply do not recognize. (You're not one of them, by the way.)[5]

In any case, comment via return email or at newegg.

Without wax,[6]

Ken






[1]Has anyone ever noticed that the abbreviation for "quantum 
electrodynamics" is Q.E.D.?  Is there some manner of relationship in the 
universe between that and "quod erat demonstrandum" ?

[2]Yes, seriously. Sure, it's a got a 250gig RAID.  One needs that, 
however, when the computer crashes every day or so.

[3]I can do that now, as long as I don't mind......................
........listening to........music like...............
.........................this as the computer..........................
..............................swaps................
....in and out as it.......tries to send................................
..............the email.

[4]No, I'm not obsessed.  There's a difference between obsession and 
interest.  It's a very thin, fine line, and I enjoy skipping back and 
forth across it.

[5]Or maybe you are.  No way to tell, is there?

[6]I don't care what Oxford says. Their etymology is wrong.



  posted at: 06:20 | path: /Geek | permanent link to this entry

So, I'm listening to this podcast about firefox 2.0, and it occurs to me that there really aren't that many improvments over what I've got installed now. Then I got to looking at memory usage.

Between firefox 1.5, the google toolbar, and the google desktop thing, yeah, it's no wonder this machine is slow.

Anyhow, fireforx 2.0 should be out within a month or so.

posted at: 03:10 | path: /Geek | permanent link to this entry

Hopefully the bitch will starve to death.

posted at: 23:34 | path: /Rants | permanent link to this entry

This past weekend Tom and I went to "Chitna" to go dipnetting. The Richardson Highway was closed due to a mud/rock/rain-slide that buried the road, so we had to make 110 mile detour to Tok. We finally got down there and took a charter boat out to a postage stamp sized rock.

Yeah.

Anyhow, three hours later, we had hauled in 60 red salmon. Net catch was 142 lbs.

Friday:
1900 Left Fairbanks

Saturday
0230 Arrive Chitina
0300 Breakfast
0400 Get in line for the charter
0545 Boat leaves O'Brian Creek lot
0600 Tom and I get dropped off on Postage Stamp.
0900 We've caught our limit
0905 Beer.
1200 Charter picks us up
1300 Leave Chitina
1630 Naptime
1730 Driving again
2200 Arrive Home, make plans to clean fish on Sunday.

Sunday
1100 I wake up.
1500 Tom calls
1600 Start cleaning fish.

Monday
0030 Done cleaning fish.

Here are some of the highlights of the rest of the pictures

posted at: 20:22 | path: /Alaska | permanent link to this entry

Sure, my electric usage is higher than most of my friends and neighbors. I'm cool with that, as the computers and entertainment stuff eat power like it's going out of style. What I can't get used to is the fact that, unlike in any of the other places I've ever lived, I use more power in the winter than the summer. The climate here calls for a fan, not full-blown central air conditioning. Just one more reason.....

MONTH	KWH	DAYS	DailyUse
Jun-06	852	31	27
May-06	848	28	30
Apr-06	1,079	33	33
Mar-06	1,054	28	38
Feb-06	1,314	29	45
Jan-06	1,350	33	41
Dec-05	1,147	30	38
Nov-05	1,013	29	35
Oct-05	1,074	29	37
Sep-05	1,140	34	34
Aug-05	981	28	35
Jul-05	983	33	30
Jun-05	902	30	30



  posted at: 17:18 | path: /Alaska | permanent link to this entry

Given an interesting subject matter, with a specific curriculum, I'm a pretty good teacher. However, I wouldn't last very long, because I'd do stuff like this.

posted at: 12:16 | path: /Random | permanent link to this entry

I've warned you, and while the timeline isn't exactly correct, the idea is.

One would be very well advised to educate yourself and then begin your adaption now.
Your life is going to change and you're probably not going to like it.

So, you're thinking, "No way, he's just being a sensationalist. No way all of that stuff could happen!"

Right.

Care to take a look at this edit?The things that are already true are bolded.


For years and years people have feared a castastrophic meltdown of society due to nuclear war. The shortage of petroluem based fuels will be far worse. General society isn't prepared for the elimination of their comforts. If you're not scared, then you don't understand. Forget Hubbard, the downslope of his graph doesn't take into account the fact that economies will fail and people will start killing each other. And forget your cute little hydrogen car, too. Hydrogen doesn't exist on Earth. No, really, it doesn't. It's too light to stick around. So it needs to be made. That production consumes power. And here's the whopper. It takes a little more than 1.4 joules to make 1.0 joule of hydrogen. Yup. A net loss. So take your hydrogen car and shove it up your ass, you uneducated bunny-fucking hippy tree hugger. You're using more power than you're saving.

I cannot stress the following fact enough. The development and research of copper indium gallium selenide thin film solar and some manner of an efficient fully reversible fuel cell needs to happen. Now. Not next month, not next week, not next season. Rightthefucknow! Without it, global society is going to fall apart.

After we do that, it will buy enough time to perfect aneutronic fusion.
Then we should begin working on some manner of a Dyson sphere, but that will take much more than what I think human beings, as we exist now, are capable of. To suggest that we'd move on to another level of a Cardashev society is nieve and egocentric.

posted at: 19:15 | path: /Rants | permanent link to this entry

Here's a copy of an email that I just sent to a gubernatorial candidate that's too chicken to attend a public debate here in Fairbanks on natural resouce policy. My comments in the email stand: If he can't attend a meeting in his own hometown and garner the support needed to come of out that debate with good polling numbers, how then can he expect to be a successful governor?

Binkley, you're a tool.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: You've just lost a vote.
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 18:14:48 -0800
From: Ken Woods
To: john@binkleygovernor06.com,
curtis_thayer@binkleygovernor06.com,
bill_gordon@binkleygovernor06.com,
bob_jacobsen@binkleygovernor06.com

I'm from Fairbanks, and while I don't consider myself to be a greenie tree-hugger, I think environmental policy is an important issue, one worthy of discussion and public debate.
I just read an article in the Fairbanks News-Miner which said that Binkley has declined an invitation to debate natural resource policy at UAF. (text and URL included below)
It should be known that your decision to decline this debate has caused me to actively not support you for governor. Evidently, you don't think that this is an important enough issue to for you to discuss. Therefore, you're not my choice for this office.
The Rumor Mill has it that every time you give a speech (in public) or debate (in public), your polling numbers decline. If you're not able to benefit from attending a public meeting in your hometown, how do you expect to govern effectively from Juneau?
Ken Woods
(907)452-xxxx
Copy posted to http://www.80below.com

http://www.news-miner.com/Stories/0,1413,113~7244~3287698,00.html
Candidates to debate natural resource policy
Gubernatorial candidates are scheduled to debate natural resource policy issues Monday at University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Candidates Eric Croft, Ethan Berkowitz, Andrew Halcro and Sarah Palin have confirmed they will take part in the debate sponsored by the Resource Management Society student organization at UAF.
John Binkley declined the invitation, according to his campaign headquarters in Anchorage. Gov. Frank Murkowski was not invited because he not an active candidate or announced if he will run for re-election, according to the society's student director, Jason Mercer.
The debate is scheduled from 7:15 p.m. to 8:45 p.m. at Schaible Auditorium at UAF and is open to the public.
The Resource Management Society will provide about five questions to each candidate before the event that they will discuss as a panel at the event. After the formal question and response period, audience members are urged to ask candidates questions pertaining to natural resource management.

posted at: 18:20 | path: /Alaska | permanent link to this entry

She possessed remarkable artistic, as well as mathematical talents. She stared at the clear night sky through a large eastward window of the Albert Einstein Institute in Golm, near Potsdam. The Institute had been set up at the end of the 20th century, in proximity to where Einstein had once owned a holiday cottage. A good part of the research at the Institute was concerned with the problematical issue of "quantum gravity", which attempts to unify the principles underlying Einstein' general relativity with those of quantum mechanics --a mystery at the very basis of the laws of the world.

This was the direction of Antea's own research. But she was a newcomer; and she had some unorthodox, not yet fully formed ideas as to how to proceed, some of which were fundamentally at variance with those of her colleagues.

That night she had continued to work well into the small hours, in the Institute's upper library, at a time when all the others had long left for their beds. She had been studying some old research pertaining to gigantic energy emissions taking place at the centers of some galaxies. It is indeed fortunate, she thought to herself, that the Earth and the solar system are nowhere close to any of these, else they would be, in entirety, almost instantly vaporized. The established explanation of these stupendous explosions is that each is powered by a black hole of immense proportions.

Antea knew that a black hole is a spacetime region within whose interiors lies a structure known as a "spacetime singularity" -- whose scientific description is still profoundly elusive, and which depends upon the still missing theory of quantum gravity. But Antea's real interest was not so much galactic black holes as even more monstrous explosions. The explosion to end all explosions; or rather the one that began them all. The Big Bang. She mused that It was the origin of all things good, as well as of all things bad. Yet the spacetime singularity in the Big Bang provided mysteries even greater than those in black holes. Antea knew that at the root of these mysteries lay the secret of how to unite Einstein's large-scale theory of spacetime, and gravity, with the quantum-mechanical principles of physics.

It was a cold, yet peaceful, night; and the stars were unmistakably clear. For a while, Antea stood in a pensive state, her arms folded, resting on the balustrade over the staircase, and staring at the patterns of the stars through the large window -- she did not know for how long. She always felt awe as she contemplated, in that vast -- seeming hemispherical dome, the great distance of those tiny pinpricks of light, though it counted but little compared to the greater enormity of cosmological scales. Yet, she thought, if some cosmic explosion were to become visible to her now, no matter how far away, its little photons would have experienced no time at all in reaching her. The same could apply to the tiny gravitons produced in the explosion, which would be felt by the Institute's gravitational wave detector, some 250km away. She felt moved, chilled, by the thought that she would in effect be in immediate, direct contact with the explosive event.

As she stood there looking to the east, she was startled by a momentary and unexpected streak of green light, just as the dawn was about to come upon her, whereupon the deep red of the Sun broke through. While she knew the phenomenon of the "green flash" and its well-established physical explanation, she had never actually witnessed it before; and it created in her a strange emotional effect. This experience mingled with some puzzling mathematical concepts that had been troubling her throughout the night.

Then an odd thought overtook her:

"The most important single insight that has emerged from our journey is that there is a deep unity between certain areas of mathematics and the workings of the physical world. If the 'road to reality' eventually reaches its goal, then there will have to be a deep, underlying simplicity about that end point.

"There are two powerful driving forces that have strongly influenced technology yet usually go unmentioned in serious discussion, for fear, no doubt, that their influences may seem to have drifted too far from the strict rules of proper procedure. The first of these is beauty, or elegance. The second is something that can arise in development of technology and has a much more powerful impact than mere mathematical elegance, something referred to as a 'miracle'.

"The two are not unconnected, yet beauty is the most easily accepted. There is undoubtedly beauty in Euclidean geometry, which forms the basis of the most profoundly accurate physical theory, namely the theory of space as formulated by the ancient Greeks. Fifteen hundred years later came the extraordinary elegance of Newtonian dynamics, with its deep and beautiful underlying simplistic geometry structure.

"Yet miracles are doubted, as their inexplicable origins leave room, by definition, for disbelief. Numbers that previously seemed to have little to do with one another were found to be the same, as was the case when Candelas solved the equations leading to 317206375. It may be that Dirac's discovery that his relativistic wave equation automatically incorporated the electron's spin seemed like a miracle; as had Boer's use of angular momentum quantization to obtain the correct atomic spectrum of hydrogen; and likewise Einstein's realization that his approach to gravity through the curved space of general relativity actually gave the correct answer for the perihelion motion of Mercury.

"One thing is certain, however." she thought. "What's really going on is beautiful."

While Antea watched the Sun rise, she realized that a great many questions that had been profoundly puzzling and sometimes terrifying, even in modern times, had found answers.

She returned and covered her latest computations and notes with the large printed words, "beautiful miracles," then vowed to continue her work with a slightly shifted goal: understanding the crucial underlying factors that govern the mysterious relation between mathematics and the physical world.

It is within the discovered answers that we are now required to ask innovative questions. We need new, powerful ideas that will take us in directions significantly different than those currently being pursued. A slight shift is all that's required.

Beautiful miracles.

posted at: 00:00 | path: /Geek | permanent link to this entry