Author: shacker

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Wow, this just stopped me cold

In July 2010 I posted a writeup of my family’s experience in Kauai, which I found physically and spiritually cleansing (linked below). Tonight, I received the following comment, and am just not sure how to respond. It’s a bit racist, and full of obviously gross generalizations. But there’s a part of me that understands where this is coming from – a heart that just wants the old ways back, wants Hawaii back.

“Your race is a pestilence to my people, our culture and OUR way of life. Your stench has been filling our nostrils since the arrival of your kind. Your exploitation, your perversion and your robbery of our history and our land makes me sick. IÊ»m glad you had a nice time galavanting around the land of my fathers and mothers, IÊ»m glad you had fun seeing our wonderful island in all its beauty and thinking you have a right to even look upon it. I shall remember your trip, and your pictures, and when you return, for scourge always does, you will get no respect, no hospitality from me or my ohana, who outnumber all the citizens of KauaÊ»i.”

Kauai 2010 | scot hacker’s foobar blog
It’s sometimes said that Kauai is the last remaining vestige of “the old Hawaii” or “the real Hawaii” – the last bastion of island life as it was before much of it was taken over by hotel chains a…

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Man Walks For Hours to Create Spectacular Snow Patterns

Reshared post from +Morgan ABBOU

Man Walks For Hours to Create Spectacular Snow Patterns

Artist Simon Beck must really love the cold weather! Along the frozen lakes of Savoie, France, he spends days plodding through the snow in raquettes (snowshoes), creating these sensational patterns of snow art. Working for 5-9 hours a day, each final piece is typically the size of three soccer fields! The geometric forms range in mathematical patterns and shapes that create stunning, sometimes 3D, designs when viewed from higher levels.

How long these magnificent geometric forms survive is completely dependent on the weather. Beck designs and redesigns the patterns as new snow falls, sometimes unable to finish a piece due to significant overnight accumulations. Interestingly enough, he said, The main reason for making them was because I can no longer run properly due to problems with my feet, so plodding about on level snow is the least painful way of getting exercise. Gradually, the reason has become photographing them, and I am considering buying a better camera.

Spectacular art for the sake of exercise!

source: inHabitat ~ goo.gl/3NSYz

In album Spectacular Snow Patterns (5 photos)

Spectacular Snow Patterns

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The Smart Idiot Effect

Salon on the “smart idiot” effect – why more education amongst conservatives leads to more firmly believing the opposite of the facts. Interestingly, the “smart idiot” effect does not seem to hold amongst liberals, for whom learning more may actually get them to change their views.

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The ugly delusions of the educated conservative
Better-educated Republicans are more likely to doubt global warming and believe Obama’s a Muslim. Here’s why

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Cracked Rib

Spent the weekend in Pioneer, near Tahoe CA – just me and the boy at my parent’s house. On Sunday, M took a snowboard lesson and I took off into the hills. Three rides in, coming off a lift at the top of Cornice, a skiier turned left across my board, knocking me down. A not-uncommon thing, but I landed just … wrong and heard a rib crack. Feeling woozy, but had to traverse hard left across the mountain to meet M at the end of his lesson. Realized I could still ride if I stayed upright, didn’t jolt too much, and didn’t bend over, so went for it.

Unfortunately, the long traverse took me into some deep forest. Low snow cover meant lots of exposed logs and rocks, plus it was mogul territory and the afternoon ice didn’t make things any easier. Turned into a 15-minute trip of pain. By the time I got to the bottom it was aching like a mother.

24 hours later it’s starting to feel a bit better, but still can’t bend over to do anything (like tie shoes) and sitting down is horrible (the temporary strain of muscles pulling at the ribs). Decided not to see a doctor – they can’t do anything for cracked ribs but tell you to take it easy and maybe prescribe meds. Will have to tough this one out.

Still, a great weekend, and I’m jazzed that M enjoyed his snowboard lesson – said he liked it way better than skis! We’re destined to ride together.

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The Fireplace Delusion

The Fireplace Delusion – Fascinating as a piece of science, and also as a metaphor for considering what we grapple with when contemplating religion.

Reshared post from +John Poteet

Normally I think Sam Harris is an asshole; except sometime he nails it.

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The Fireplace Delusion :
Sam Harris
Sam Harris, neuroscientist and author of the New York Times bestsellers, The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, and The Moral Landscape.

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Building LED Flashlights in Altoids Tins

I spent a couple of hours with my son’s fourth/fifth grade classroom today, teaching them to build LED flashlights in Altoids tins. This project was both simpler and more complicated than last year’s Bristlebots project – fewer parts to manage, but we went deeper into electrical and electronics concepts. The students learned about voltage, insulators, conductors, circuit load, diodes, polarity, and various types of switches. And had a great time! Every single kid finished with a working flashlight. Some even enjoyed the process so much they stayed after school to build a second one.

I started with this recipe from Instructables.com, but modified it a bit (we used a single LED and battery to reduce wiring and to eliminate the need for resistors, though we did talk about resistance).

One of the biggest challenges for me was figuring out how to drill clean holes in aluminum – every attempt with a punch or standard drill bit resulted in sharp, ragged, non-round holes. Finally figured out that what I needed was a “graduated” drill bit. Happily, I found one from the 1940s in a toolchest that I had inherited from my grandfather. So not only was the bit we used ~70 years old, but I later learned that my grandfather made all his own bits! He would have been proud to see us using his tools this way.

Sorry I didn’t get more photos of the process – no shots here of drilling or soldering, or of the kids playing with their finished flashlights in a dimmed room,  but was bit busy…

View the Flickr set with captions, or check the slideshow version below.

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Roger Oh Double Oh Forty Oh

Just rediscovered this after a decade, thought I’d post so there’s a record of it before it’s lost to history. This was before I switched to ukulele. And when I had more hair. Roger’s 50th just rolled around, and a different group of guys got together to do a different song for his half-century. Unfortunately, we had a few technical difficulties, and don’t have good video to show for that effort. So let’s just relive the past.

Sadly, Matthew Sperry (shown here on bass and singing with gleeful abandon) died tragically in a car-on-bike accident a couple of years later. He is memorialized at matthewsperry.org.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgkkjNGdBjY&list=UUO3IR9VRRYVdnIvYDTztZow&index=1&feature=plcp

Continue reading “Roger Oh Double Oh Forty Oh”

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FreeDive – Searchable Web DBs for Journalists

Problem: Journalists often don’t have access to programmers who can help them build searchable web databases, and are often stuck behind inflexible CMSs.

Solution: +Len De Groot and I built FreeDive, a CMS-independent web-based tool that lets journalists transform Google Spreadsheets into sortable, searchable modules that can be dropped into any web page.

FreeDive was the last big project I worked on at KDMC before moving on – incredibly proud to see its official launch today!

http://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/tools/freedive/