I am thoroughly enjoying Steven Brust's "Agyar" now and learned a lot from Jim Webb's "Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America" (recently finished). I am also very happy the Ariens MiniZoom was fixed by Lawn & Leisure and is once again helping me keep the septic field from becoming a jungle. I am still using our old Brill Luxus 38 push reel mower to mow the yard inside the back fence because I like the way it cuts better.

A new hot tub cover is installed, and a cover lift is added to make opening and closing the thing easier. I am refilling the tub now (periodic replacement of water), and changed the filters. It will be a guessing game to set the temperature as the LCD panel has stopped working... sigh.

I count Microsoft's deliberate incompatibility between Excel 2007/2008 files and Excel 2003/2004 to be extortion. Criminal charges and boycott are the correct answer. It is a blatant and rude attempt to generate revenue by introducing an artificial need to upgrade to their newest versions even when you don't really need to.

I have always been fascinated by aerostats, particularly rigid airships such as those manufactured by Zeppelin. Robotics has also been an interest too; and that makes these videos of Festo AG's floating art particularly riveting.




Air Penguins

Air Ray

Air Jellyfish

Hat tip to Will for pointing these mesmerizing videos out.

Some have suggested that the recent discovery that both South Carolina Republican Governor Mark Sanford and Nevada Republican Senator John Ensign were having extra-marital affairs would be schadenfreude (joy at the suffering of others), and I have to disagree. Likewise, the exposure of New York Democratic Governor Elliot Spitzer's visits with prostitutes is no cause for schadenfreude either.

There is no joy in the broken hearts and damaged relationships. No joy in the dishonesty, the deceit, the contempt, the lack of respect for their partners and voters. No joy in the hypocrisy that both of these Republicans pilloried then Democratic President Bill Clinton when he was caught having an affair in the 1990s, and now both have participated in the very same activity that they themselves claimed was reprehensible and grounds for impeachment.

I think we are being unreasonable as a society to expect everyone to lead perfect lives with no mistakes and no loves outside of the one sanctioned by some very narrow definitions founded a century ago. Monogamy is not the natural order of things, and limiting ourselves to just one love denies the fact that we love our children, all of them, even when we have more than one child. We love our parents even after we get married. We can certainly fall in love with more than one adult and be attracted to more than one person at a time; it is not a weakness as some in the media present. It is natural.

What is reprehensible are the lies about it. The lack of honesty within their families. The lack of honesty within their support staffs. The fact that they pilloried Bill Clinton for his affair and for his lack of honesty (and I agree with them on his lack of honesty), but then proceeded to do exactly the same thing they sought power trying to stamp out. Spitzer's crime was that he engaged in the same activity he ran against. Kettle; calling the pot black is perhaps a little silly.

For me, I don't really care how many consenting adults of whatever sex are cavorting with our elected leaders, so long as they are honest and open about it (so they are not vulnerable to blackmail), their partners and families are ok with it (so trust is not violated), and they are clear with their staff so that emergency contacts can be made and duties fulfilled (an affair should not interfere with the job).

Schadenfreude? No, it is very sad that our society prosecutes people for the affairs and not for lies and neglect of responsibility.

By Crom that John Hodgman is a funny guy!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW7OPByRGDY

Hat tip to mindflayer... perhaps it's Obama's geek credentials that attracted my sysadmin friends to his campaign....

Tickets appear to be sold out, but if you already have tickets, and want to carpool (parking at Arlington Cinema 'N Drafthouse is very tight). The event begins Saturday, June 27th at 1pm; but the doors open at noon, and I suspect the local Browncoats will make it fun.

Thanks and hat tip to castalusoria for the idea of carpooling to the event.

We've had and heavily used a Garmin StreetPilot 2620 for years and years, and it has usually worked very well. It is frustrating that this old model only syncs to Windows computers for Map Updates and Waypoint/Route planning. Sometimes the touch screen calibration gets so far off that it seems unresponsive. It has certainly been well worth the big bucks we spent on it years ago.

This weekend it went through a very frustrating fit of telling us it could not re-calculate a route we needed because "Route Calculation Error: Not enough memory available." would pop up on the screen after calculating for minutes (by modern standards it is pretty old). Short routes could still be calculated on the fly, but long routes (we were on a long trip) were simply not working. I poked and prodded it for quite some time, resetting the device a dozen times. Finally I figured out an erroneous setting that used up all the memory in the little device... It was set to record our tracks. I am not sure what that is, but as soon as I turned off that feature, and purged the recorded tracks, route calculation - even for long trips - went back to normal.

I am only publishing this in case anyone else out there sees the same error - check to make sure you are not "recording tracks" and if you are, stop doing that and you may find you have plenty of memory again.

Hope this helps.

This essay/posting by Andrew Sullivan is a must read on why the events happening in Iran right now are so important to the whole world:

andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish

It is worth reading in it's entirety. Freedom is not a gift that can be given and democracy is not something that can be forced on someone. Both have to be desired, fought for, earned, and one by the people who want democracy. Furthermore it is a grave responsibility and requires ongoing vigilance to keep the freedoms we cherish.

This makes what is happening in Iran so special, so amazing. The Iranian people are earning their freedom with incredible courage against a pretty formidable and scary deck of cards stacked against them. They are literally putting their lives on the line. I admire them for it and hope we can live up to that example.

Hustler Turf have come out with an all-electric zero-turn riding mower! At approximately $6500 it is a bit out of my price range, but it's still amazing and gives me hope for things to come in the future. Hustler has a sterling reputation for making some of the finest lawn mowers in the world, and some of the toughest. 80 minutes on a 16 hour charge is more than enough to do an acre per charge.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54XESusg8H8

I am not even a car buff, and I love the show Top Gear... it's entertainment the way Car Talk is for radio... you don't even have to like cars.



In case embedded does not show up for you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_KIqdS1SO0

As the current regime in Iran tries to shutdown the internet and new media methods of communication, it has been very impressive just how difficult it is to silence the people. The internet, even in a centralized theocracy, is profoundly resilient and able to work around various specific links being cut. The people are being forced to resort to all sorts of challenging work-around solutions, but the word is getting out and the resistance is being planned and coordinated.

Pretty impressive design. Hats off to the cold war era packet messaging system designers from the 1960s.

I am hoping the resistance continues to be non-violent; though with the current government's crackdown, it is unlikely to be completely peaceful.

Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish continues to be an excellent source for news about the current revolution in Iran.

So Iran's election appears to be rigged. It looks like Mousavi won by a very large margin, and that Ahmadinejad came in a very distant third place (eg: only 5.69 million votes to over 19 million for Mousavi and well over 13 million for Karoubi); and that despite the obviously clear to the public victory for Mousavi, the military theocracy declared Ahmadinejad the winner without even bothering to count most of the votes. Furthermore, they audaciously proclaimed the alleged Ahmadinejad victory to be a mandate of nearly 2/3 of all votes; something that was so clearly wrong that Tehran and many other cities in Iran are in open rebellion now.

The mainstream media fail is that over 36 hours later, only the BBC has any real coverage of the revolution happening in Iran. You have to get this information from bloggers and twitterers if you want it. Guess the revolution is not being televised after all.

• andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com


• hoosierinva.blogspot.com


• talkingpointsmemo.com


• bbc.co.uk


• blacknell.net


• tehranlive.org (Wow, this is an incredible site!!!)


• Update: JuanCole.com

Water is clear enough that I can read small labels at the bottom of our 8.5' deep pool.

• Chlorine is between 2-3 ppm (a little high, but will burn off with sunlight)


• pH is 7.2 (a little low). The test kit I have suggests adding two pounds of pH up (Alkali).


• Total alkalinity is between 90-100 ppm (pretty much ideal).

With all the slightly acid rain we have been getting I am not surprised the pH is a bit low, so I need to add some pH up and let the chlorine burn off a little and we should be good to go. Looking forward to getting wet.

I hereby declare Virginia has resorted to monarchy because of extreme apathy of it's voters.
No one votes, so now there will no longer be a vote.
Scott Nolan has hereby declared the former commonwealth of Virginia a monarchy and himself it's king!

All hail Scott.

First Edict of the new monarch: "We feel oppressed by the heat and humidity and would be pleased if all our loyal subjects stripped down to bathing attire or skivvies and plunged into the nearest pool or swimming hole until sufficiently refreshed so they can once again partake in the welfare of the realm."

Once refreshed, subjects are to hail their benevolent king, and lament the passing of their former rights as apathetic and negligent voters.

Ministers, titles, and offices will be handed out subject to the monarch's whim over the next few days. Supplicants welcomed by the new monarch forthwith... Bribes are welcome, lions would please the new king most of all.

That is tomorrow folks, if you are registered to vote, go vote.

I keep seeing commercial advertising promoting Bob McDonnell's candidacy as Virginia's "Jobs Governor" - which is ludicrous in the extreme. Bob McDonnell, who has been running for governor for about two years has done a lot of work to make himself look more moderate, but do NOT be fooled. McDonnell is no moderate. He is a Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcast Network University (now Regent University) alumni with ties to Pat Robertson who has given over $80,000 to McDonnell over his political career. His moniker only two years ago was "Taliban Bob" and though that same moniker was also given to his buddy in the legislature, Bob Marshall, it was well earned as both Bobs (Marshall and McDonnell) get their political positions directly from their God (not from yours or mine). Their God is a vengeful one, who hates gays, unmarried pregnancy, and equality for women.

Bob McDonnell used to be the lawyer for the so called "Faith and Family Alliance" and his current campaign manager also heads that organization, an organization dedicated to stripping the rights of women away and keeping them in the home, subservient to their husbands.

Sadly, Rick Howell's blog is gone, but the google cache still has some of the pertinent old posts about theocratic Bob McDonnell: google cache of rickhowellspeaks post (from 2007).

A more current site, that I have not been able to evaluate is The Real Bob McDonnell.

It is clear that in this odd year, where there are relatively few political elections in the nation, the money machines for both parties want to make examples of New Jersey and Virginia. It will be interesting to see how many fiscal conservatives support "Taliban Bob" despite his extreme views and record. So far his money has been from the extreme right, religious conservatives, and corporate lobbies.

I am disgusted by the attempt to repaint McDonnell as a moderate, and wish he'd run on his own record and agenda. I am also disgusted by Democrats who misrepresent as well, and in this race for the Governorship I think we have one candidate attempting to secure the Democratic nomination who is almost as misleading in his ads, but even that nominee is not has bad a choice for democracy as Bob McDonnell.

Doctor Weaver did a thorough diagnosis and proscribed some cough syrup that helped me actually lie down for a good night's sleep last night. I napped for four hours yesterday, and slept nine more hours last night and woke up feeling better than I have felt in a week. Yay! Ugh... Now I have the mental faculties to realize all those things I needed to do this past week that I completely forgot. Must get busy.

Finally got to see the DVD version of Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog and the musical commentary and the applications for the Evil League of Evil... fell asleep scheming up evil characters and their applications to the League...

Pho is your friend when you have a sore throat. Trust me on this one!

I love this song, it is hauntingly beautiful, and the video that goes with this version is poignant too...



For those who can't see embedded videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWGmN_x00hg

I have many close personal friends who happen to be gay and happen to be in life-long relationships. They deserve the exact same treatment that I enjoy with my partner today. Some of them even get credit for counseling my partner and I through difficult times. Our marriage is stronger because of them.

Woke up with a really sore throat, and there is a spectacular storm hitting our area right now. Crash, rattle, flash, boom, rain, rain, rain.

Hopped online for a few to catch up as I crashed early this evening, and as the thunder and lightning continues, and the broadband cable connection drops in and out it hit me: a few years ago I'd run around the house physically unplugging the computers to keep them as electrically far away from deadly lighting strikes as possible. These days because of laptop batteries and wifi/airport connectivity; my computer is safely disconnected from any physical wiring and pretty safe to use in the house during a storm. I did not even think about it until a particularly loud crash startled the cats.

I still have a healthy respect for storms and the power of lightning, and tornadoes (as the one natural disaster that is both hard to predict and hard to do much of anything about) scare the heck out of me... but I certainly don't miss the need to disconnect the world anymore. The cost of the wireless access point, cable modem, and home router is trivial ($145 together) when compared to the cost of just a modem in 1990 ($999 for a Courier HST 14,400 baud; or $1400 for a Telebit Trailblazer 19,200 baud).

When friends all went as a group to see "You've Got Mail" we laughed about how unrealistic it was to show them connected all the time with no cables; and that has certainly changed.

Many things have dramatically improved.