December 2008
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Month December 2008

Entries 10 Total

Bookmarks for December 18th

Dec 18, ’08 9:54 AM
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A Closer Inspection

Dec 17, ’08 2:36 PM

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“The light was blinding. There was a great whistle and chatter — as though a hundred steam engines were running fast and close — and the floor seemed to tremble beneath his feet.”

Update: It just struck me that today’s dramatic sketch unintentionally mirrors religious imagery depicting a divine being’s interaction with — or focus on — earth-bound mortals. (In the west, at least, there’s a near-reflexive tendency to read the top of a vertically-oriented image as “up” or “sky” and the bottom as “down” or “ground” — I imagine the same holds true wherever gravity is practiced).

(It’s not an entirely inappropriate association in this case. If you’re a child obsessed with engineering and machinery and you encounter an ancient entity exhibiting some sign of these practices, how else would a first encounter appear?)

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Where Are You?

Dec 16, ’08 1:17 PM

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“Call… Callie? Is that you?”

(Frankly, I am a little surprised the kid is still waiting amid all the pipes and strange machinery. Calliope isn’t exactly known for scouting things out and coming back… at least, not right away. For all he knows, she is enjoying a delicious tuna sandwich back at the homestead.)

My most recent audiobook — Spycraft — was written by Robert Wallace and H. Keith Melton. From what I gather, the book concerns itself with the history of the most interesting aspect of the CIA — the gadgets — and their impact on The New Great Game. Thus far, it’s interesting, but quite dry.

After falling asleep with the audio running last night, I dreamed of making a dead drop somewhere in Russia with KGB agents right on my trail. They caught me, of course. They had dogs. Thankfully, I woke before they left me to the tender mercies of Lubyanka.

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Bookmarks for December 15th

Dec 16, ’08 9:03 AM
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The Dream of Flight

Dec 15, ’08 1:30 PM

"She flew endlessly over a spoken sea of secret language..."

“She flew endlessly over a spoken sea of secret language…”

This is the kind of thing that occurs when you jump into a flying cube. Let that be a lesson to you, Calliope.

Meanwhile, I am struggling to decide whether I want to purchase a new Canon Pixma Pro 9000… or some other printer which is fairly durable, produces high-quality output, and doesn’t suffer from clogging issues. According to the Amazon reviews, the only major downside to the Pro 9000 are Canon’s typically half-baked drivers — which apparently prevent it from handling custom paper sizes, provide misleading ink level information, and disallow borderless output on some types of paper.

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Thumbnail and Sidebar

Dec 15, ’08 9:32 AM

I updated the site code over the weekend. WordPress 2.7 is less annoying than I recall — in fact, it seems to have resolved my previous issue with thumbnail creation.

On the site proper, I’ve moved the sidebar to the right-hand side of the page in an effort to make navigation easier and improve the site’s appearance to search engines. We’ll see how that works out.

If you run into any problems, please leave a comment.

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Bookmarks for December 15th

Dec 15, ’08 9:21 AM
  • Pixel Blocks – Pixel Blocks resemble a cross between Litebrite pegs and legos. I'd kind of like to play around with a set.
  • Обложки журнала “Агитатор” 1971-1984 – A striking collection of vintage CCCP propaganda posters created at the height of the Cold War.
  • Doki and Nabi – Can a rabbit and a cat ever find happiness? Hilarious animated series with a _rocking_ soundtrack… but keep your handkerchief handy. :’(
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Catching the Light

Dec 12, ’08 12:51 PM

“Close enough to catch!”

Time to upgrade WordPress — again. The updates are coming so fast that I’m considering putting the whole site into git and automating updates through Capistrano. The amount of time saved could be quite significant — which becomes ever more important as the end of the year approaches.

With respect to Calliope’s Book: Being an amateur story-teller, I possess only a rough idea of where the current situation is headed. Engaging in inexpensive exploration — like sketching — seems a good way to feel things out, but requires the audience to accept the possibility of changes along the way. I like Linus Pauling’s viewpoint in these matters: “The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.” I hope that’s agreeable.

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Bookmarks for December 12th

Dec 12, ’08 8:45 AM
  • The Donnell Library Center: A Eulogy In Pictures – “A few months ago the [Donnell] Library closed its doors. Since [1955] the library on 53rd street has been a New York landmark. It stood across from MOMA and had one of the best film libraries in the city. Unfortunately, the City Of New York thought it would better serve the public as another midtown luxury hotel. Due to the bylaws establishing the library that space HAS to have a library, but due to loop holes, they are tearing it down, building the hotel and then shoving the library into the basement.”
  • Atoms, Motion and the Void – “Atoms, Motion & the Void” has been named “Best Podcast in New Hampshire for 2007″ by New Hampshire Magazine. I haven’t listened to any of the shows yet, but anything with these descriptions — “In which Sherwin’s insomnia leads to a late night voyage up into the sky…” — _has_ to be good. Sherwin Sleeves is creation and alter-ego of Sean Hurley, a regular contributor to New Hampshire Public Radio.
  • Source Of Geysers On Saturn’s Moon Enceladus May Be Underground Water – “There are only three places in the solar system we know or suspect to have liquid water near the surface,” [University of Colorado Assistant Professor Joshua] Colwell said. “Earth, Jupiter’s moon Europa and now Saturn’s Enceladus. Water is a basic ingredient for life, and there are certainly implications there. If we find that the tidal heating that we believe causes these geysers is a common planetary systems phenomenon, then it gets really interesting.”
  • A Review of Criticality Accidents – A comprehensive report from the Los Alamos National Laboratory documenting sixty separate accidents involving fissile material which resulted in prompt power excursions. Required reading if you’re handling such materials, I would imagine. The report is formatted as a PDF.

Update: More insight into the Donnell library closing — and 11 libraries closing in Philadelphia — at MetaFilter.

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Ever Closer

Dec 11, ’08 1:18 PM

“The cube seemed to float ever closer…”

While sorting awful attic books the other day, I kept myself sane by listening to Vernor Vinge’s Fast Times at Fairmont High. This neat little story takes place in the same setting and parallel to the events in Rainbow’s End. On reflection, it may even reveal the cause of some of the events in the latter novel.

If you’d like to sample some of Vinge’s ideas, I recommend that you listen to the speech he gave last year as part of The Long Now Foundation’s Seminars About Long-term Thinking. The speech centers on the concept of ‘failed singularities’ but goes into some of the details of the afore-mentioned books, as well. As usual for Vinge, the ideas are gargantuan and wonderfully compelling.

A recording is available in MP3 or Ogg Vorbis format.

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