Month: August 2005

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Sunny Siberia

Speaking of methane, the UK Guardian reports frightening data on the thawing of Siberia.

The area, which covers the entire sub-Arctic region of western Siberia, is the world’s largest frozen peat bog and scientists fear that as it thaws, it will release billions of tonnes of methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere.

The thaw may represent a “tipping point” of global warming both because of its scale and because of its role as part of a vicious cycle. The thawing is “undoubtedly” caused by human-driven global warming. But once triggered, the thawing itself spawns further warming.

“When you start messing around with these natural systems, you can end up in situations where it’s unstoppable. There are no brakes you can apply,” said David Viner, a senior scientist at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

So while humans take warming risks by scrambling to mine methane for energy from the briny depths, nature’s methane stock may release itself uncontrollably… as a result of other human energy production activities. A spiral reactor.

Via Weblogsky

Music: Steve Turre :: Andromeda
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Jack Shows Meg His Tesla Coil

Coffeeandcigarettes Got partway through Jim Jarmusch’s Coffee and Cigarettes tonight. Brief vignettes of people sitting around drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes, talking, being awkward, uncomfortable, going nowhere, living. Tom Waits and Iggy Pop (priceless meeting – who knew Iggy could be so sweet?), Steven Wright, Bill Murray, Steve Buscemi… everybody fits. In one scene, Jack White of the White Stripes is sitting in a cafe’ with ex-wife Meg (who is commonly thought of as his sister), homemade Tesla Coil sitting in a little red wagon beside him. Meg wants to know more. Won’t give away the rest. Cinematography is gorgeous, dialog typically Jarmusch. Boring and enthralling and totally beautiful.

Music: Buzzcocks :: Choices
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Turntable Invention

Turntable Invention Constructed with assistance, but the idea was Miles’, wanting to put together toys from different toy microcosms (QuickTime). Starting to show lots of mechanical interest. Has a take-apart plastic airplane with big plastic screws, bolts, nuts and a power drill with removable attachment heads. Within a week learned to swap out the attachments, remember which way to flip the switch to screw screws either in or out, and to take apart the whole thing; can almost put it all together again by himself. He’s been a big help with the bathroom remodel too – sticks screwdrivers down the toilet drain hole, munges walls with a putty knife, sweeps up… couldn’t get the job done without him.

Music: Roland Kirk :: Sweet Fire
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Triceradon

Miles-Triceradon Miles starts mixing up dinosaur names to keep himself entertained, playing with words. “Daddy, my favorite dinosaur is Triceradon!” Google Images to the rescue. We quickly pull down images of Triceratops and Pteranodon, collage them together into the beastie pictured. Miles is strangely unimpressed. The ability to Rip, Mix, Burn is neither novel nor amazing to him. It’s just The Way Life Is.

Music: Curtis Mayfield :: Now You’re Gone
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Blogs and Mainstream Media

David Sifry posts an interesting chart comparing the number of inbound links (which are a strong measure of influence) to top blog and non-blog sites. Only Boing-Boing makes it into the top 10, but that puts it ahead of USA Today, Fox News, Reuters, SF Gate, Salon, and MTV. Other popular blogs are interleaved on the curve of influence with well-funded, heavily staffed, traditionally journalistic sites. Power to the people, or the death of journalism? Fascinating either way.

Music: Os Mutantes :: El Justiciero
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Messing with .ics

Preparing OS X master disk images for student/staff/faculty Macs for the upcoming school year, decided it would be cool to give them some starter RSS and iCal subscriptions. I wrote an RSS generator for our events database quite a while ago, and realized it wouldn’t be too hard to modify the same PHP script to also spit out .ics with the same data. Used Apple’s Developer Connection page on writing to the .ics format and filled in a few blanks with the IETF’s documentation.

Hit a roadblock when iCal refused to subscribe my initial feed attempts, then realized they’re very serious about .ics having CRLF line endings. Tweaked that and it worked neatly.

Mac users click here for instant subscription. Other .ics users can subscribe manually via http://journalism.berkeley.edu/events/jschool_events.ics . (Note you currently have to go back to May to see any content; that will change as the next event cycle begins in September).

Music: Arturo Sandoval :: Sureña
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Flammable Ice

Looks like the next big energy growth industry is in extracting methane hydrates from oceanic deposits. “Scientists reckon there could be more valuable carbon fuel stored in the vast methane hydrate deposits scattered under the world’s seabed and Arctic permafrost than in all of the known reserves of coal, oil and gas put together.” That is, if you don’t mind the slight downsides:

“There are legitimate concerns that attempts to tap into these reserves could cause very widespread destabilisation of the seabed and damage to ecosystems,” he said. Methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, he said, and any released during production would make global warming worse.

Humans, please leave this stuff in the ocean. Fuels that increase global warming should not even be under consideration right now. Bushco, if you want to ban a science, leave stem cell research alone and ban extraction of methane hydrates instead.

Music: The Mountain Goats :: Song For Dennis Brown
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LBJ Invented the Internet

Move over Al Gore – Lyndon B Johnson assumes the rightful mantle as Inventor of the Internet. In 1967, LBJ gave a speech accompanying the signing of the Public Broadcasting Act:

I believe the time has come to stake another claim in the name of all the people, stake a claim based upon the combined resources of communications. I believe the time has come to enlist the computer and the satellite, as well as television and radio, and to enlist them in the cause of education….

So I think we must consider new ways to build a great network for knowledge-not just a broadcast system, but one that employs every means of sending and of storing information that the individual can rise. Think of the lives that this would change:

  • the student in a small college could tap the resources of a great university….
  • the country doctor getting help from a distant laboratory or a teaching hospital;
  • a scholar in Atlanta might draw instantly on a library in New York;
  • a famous teacher could reach with ideas and inspirations into some far-off classroom, so that no child need be neglected. Eventually, I think this electronic knowledge bank could be as valuable as the Federal Reserve Bank.

And such a system could involve other nations, too–it could involve them in a partnership to share knowledge and to thus enrich all mankind.

A wild and visionary idea? Not at all. Yesterday’s strangest dreams are today’s headlines and change is getting swifter every moment.

I have already asked my advisers to begin to explore the possibility of a network for knowledge–and then to draw up a suggested blueprint for it.

Via Buzzmachine and elsewhere. Thanks baald.

Music: Michael Nyman :: Synchronising
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Remodel Status #2

Hextile Took off work Friday to finish spackling/sanding (lather, rinse, repeat) the walls to baby-hiney perfection. Finished masking and priming, applied two coats of Rainwashed Mmmmm… creamy marine! (Compare to destructo image. Note, this bathroom is very difficult to photograph — hard to get a decent angle or lighting. Looks much better IRL!)

Dad arrived Saturday with tile saw, trowels, sponges. Intended to lay tile Saturday and grout Sunday, but took all day to measure and cut. Nooks and crannies are killers. Hex tile comes in 12″ x 18″ sheets, tiles bound lightly together with small rubber dots. Big areas easy, but spaces around tub, corners, heating register, etc. tedious. Tile saw too small for our sheet size, lots of jimmying to make things work. Once layed in, marked hexes for removal where accent tiles would go, then moved all to living room floor in exact layout. Removed marked hexes to make way for accent tiles.

Sunday started early arranging and cutting coving. Getting the corner cuts right super tricky (not mitered, just nicked corners off at 45 degrees, still very hard to get right, but think we nailed it). Started smearing mortar by early afternoon. One row at a time, replicating yesterday’s arrangement: smear even, comb, pound in with beater block, lay in accent tiles, last-minute adjustment cuts (no amount of planning accounts for the ragged reality of real life). Idea is to get angle of notched trowel just right so that no mortar oozes up between cracks but you still get 95% coverage on tile backs; took some practice. Dropped in the accents, dug extra mortar out with penny nail, sponged excess out to perfection. Finished up by 6:30, fried, back sore, knees cramped, but the results are gorgeous so far. In a couple of days, will be able to grout the gaps, install coving, and apply sealant. After weeks in stasis, it’s all starting to come together.

Closed my eyes on the couch and head filled with visions of oozing mortar, hex webs falling apart in my hands.

Music: Philipps Frazier :: Come Ethiopians
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Kill ‘Em All

From Think Progress (no comment, this speaks for itself):

The United States is holding more than 500 foreign detainees at the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. These men have been deprived of basic legal and civil rights, and reports of abuse, torture and grotesque mistreatment are rampant. Many, if not most, of the detainees have been there nearly four years, yet in all that time, only four have been accused of any crime. And even then, military prosecutors recently charged the military trials against those four have been rigged.

So what would Fox’s Bill O’Reilly do to fix the problem? Kill ‘em all:
O’REILLY: I don’t give them any protection. I don’t feel sorry for them. In fact, I probably would have ordered their execution if I had the power. (Listen to O’Reilly here.)

Music: Black Cat Orchestra :: Chase