Sunday

+ Sunday: In English, Sunday gets its name from Sunna, or Sunne the Germanic sun goddess.

+ My only list for a long time on Amazon was Resources for Tolkien Purists . Last night I got inspired and added My favorite graphic novels . While we're delving into My Amazon pages, I'm outing myself as the guy who wrote this negative review of His Dark Materials and an anonymous review of DA Carson. Unfortunately, I don't see a way to change them from anonymous to public.

+ Tom says that part of the reason reconstruction went so poorly in Iraq is that State didn't want to pave the way to war. Nor should they. That's their role. They're the Department of Peace. But we need that kind of interagency stuff coordinated if we ever get into something like this again.

Saturday

(written on Saturday, but published a day late)

Good old Saturn. And a little bonus quote for you from that link:

Its name is unique among the names of days, in that it is derived from the Roman god Saturn, while the other six names are derived from Saxon gods.

+ My overwhelming impression following The Tour over the past 24 hours is that it's a challenge of how strong you are and how much pain you can inflict on yourself. Do you enjoy putting it onto others enough to outweigh the pain your enduring? And Lance does. Mighty Lance put almost a minute into his closest competitor, Basso dropped back a very little, and Ullrich more than that.

Friday

(Named for Frige)

+ This story blows my mind. Might as well just quote the whole thing from kottke:

Here's a story that mentions that Slashdot commenter that outsourced his job , By jkottke

 

"About a year ago I hired a developer in India to do my job. I pay him $12,000 out of the $67,000 I get. He's happy to have the work. I'm happy that I have to work only 90 minutes a day just supervising the code. My employer thinks I'm telecommuting. Now I'm considering getting a second job and doing the same thing."

+ I see the proliferation of Google Mapps related to earlier developments of the planetary chalkboard and GeoURL.

+ If you're interested in mashups at all, you should check out Good Blimey Tunes. He has an amazing array of mashups all in one place. Here's a strategy. Scroll through and look for a song you like. Intrigued by the mashup? Can you stand the vs. artist? Give it a try...

+ defective yeti humor tags: Google Earth Starbucks Seattle Hipster Density.

Thursday

+ So this one has to be for Thor, right?

+ Egypt asks UNESCO for help in securing return of Rosetta Stone, other precious artifacts . Sounds fair to me.

+ Have you ever followed the Tour minute by minute? It's fun to do sometimes. If you're doing that, you should compare the commentary with the stage map. To think, they break them out be how many inches they are behind the leader...

+ WOW!!! Want to see the future of keyboards? So majorly tech-lusting...

+ It's amazing how much less email I get (including spam) since I accidentally let my domain name lapse. Should clean things out good. If you want to get me, use seanmeade-at-gmail-dot-com.

Wed-nes-day

Such a funny way to spell what we pronounce. Didn't remember the name was for Woden.

Anyway, I see in my comments that ZenPundit is reading and has added me to his BlogRoll, which I consider a great honor. Thanks, Mark, and welcome.

I also see in comments that Macon is waiting to get his new DSL hooked up (well, actually I find that fleshed out over at Kith and Kin). I know what'cha mean, Macon. Being at my folks' for a week with Mac OS 9 and AOL dialup was no party (Intarweb-wise).

Back from vacation

Hello, all. I'm back from vacation and also trying to turn over a few new leaves, so I haven't dived right back into my previous web-surfing behavior. I'm waking up at 545 each day and exercising, trying to get my diet back under control (still working on the plan), and restarting 'The Artist's Way'. I'm hopeful that these will be good changes. Not sure what the long-term weblog effects will be, but I'll keep you posted.

This morning I give you Tom's interesting take on the CIA leak, which was a different one than I'd seen elsewhere, and not very sympathetic.

Thank God it's Friday

+ I'm syndicated! (even beyond RSS/atom) Some guys started a clearing house for weblogs by members of the Evangelical Covenant Chruch called Covenant Blogs. I asked them if they wanted me on the list, and they did, so there you have it. If you are coming over here from Covenant Blogs, welcome (welcome if you're not!).

+ Brooke Shields Fires Back at Tom Cruise. Tip: don't get your psychiatric advice from celebrities. I'm afraid that some people will.

+ A little light today, but I worked for a LONG time on a longer post that isn't ready for prime time yet. We leave for Iowa tomorrow, but I will try to polish it off while I am there. I know you're waiting with bated breath! ;-)

Thursday GoogleSat

+ Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong

+ The place where The Channel Tunnel trains go underground in England. MNot much to see from space, but the Wikipedia article was interesting.

+ Desert Farming in Libya with water from the Great Man Made River.

+ The British Territory of Gibraltar is a small place.

Thursday

+via B/t thought...
Ten years of chilled innovation. Stanford Law professor Lawrence Lessig weighs in on the Grokster ruling. [He argues 'activism', which seems to be the standard criticism of all judges these days, no matter what side you're on...]
RIAA sues 784 more file swappers. Meanwhile, the recording industry wastes no time firing off another round of lawsuits.

+ My opinion, in contrast with Judge Souter's, is that the RIAA and MPAA are greedy money-grubbers and I wish I were in a position to boycott them and encourage others to do so, but I'm not willing to forego all of the movies and music they control. You could conclude that the best way to fight them would be to steal and 'share' more. I can't get conclude that. Part of me wishes I could.

+ Cringely says the Sup Ct ruling isn't that bad. He's a little more sanguine than I am about the studios coming up with a decent  digital distribution method. He also predicts that the Web 2.0 will be about APIs: 'For example, Google Maps plus accident reports for insurance companies, or Amazon plus eBay plus Froogle for purchasing departments.' Not revolutionary. Probably right.

+ Remember I said I didn't care about Steve Job's Stanford speech? I still don't  Don't care about David Foster Wallace's Kenyon College soeech, either. However, this kottke post has links to some funny graduation speeches which I do care about:

Conan O'Brien's Harvard Class Day 2000 speech
Will Ferrell's Harvard Class Day 2003 speech
Jon Stewart's William and Mary 2004 commencement address

+ On a much more serious note, also via kottke, the Iraq War Casualties Map. I assume the desired effect is horror. Well, I resist that feeling, but the map can also be used to take stock of the price these young people have paid. An Iraq civilians casualty map would also be somber.

Wednesday

+ I stayed up too late flying around in Google Earth. Wow, that thing's cool. Mt St Helens in the Sightseeing folder was especially cool.

+ U.S. military says can defeat nuclear-armed N.Korea. OK. But here's a question for you: what does S.Korea want?

+ I got a hookup with some old Trip Shakespeare albums and man am I diggin' them! Remember when Josh in 'Clueless' wore one of their shirts? (bet it was Paul Rudd's) That was cool!

+ Proposal to build a hotel on Justice Souter's property. A little over the top, but pretty funny. Was it just me, or did the Supremes rule on Monday for for the establishment and against the little guy in every case on Monday? I disagreed with most of the rulings (though, I'm admittedly, not very knowledgeable, probably not even competent to judge, really, but, hey, I have an opinion... and a weblog!): against Grokster, against the reporters, for the cable companies,

I happen to agree with the Court's rulings on the Ten Commandments (context matters), and the right of cities to annex property (it's the one referenced in the link above.)

'Til Tuesday

+ Well, I finished 'Blink' last night and I'm not satisfied. It's too short by half! Some of it was really inspiring and I'd like more of that. From a Fast Company article:

The "useful" that Gladwell advocates in Blink is the idea that we can teach ourselves to sort through first impressions to "figure out which ones are important and which ones are screwing us up."

+ Hmm. Google says their personal search history will return better results over time. I believe them, but I am curious how they work it. I'm usually logged in to Gmail anyway, and I have search history turned on. I wonder if I'll see a difference...

+ Matthew has a funny gag ad combining Hummer and Abbey Road.

+ Google Earth is out! Stop reading this and run over there!

Monday, Monday

+ They're trending up... The Cubs beat the White Sox twice over the weekend. And Prior had a good day.

+ Whoa. I had such a long comment on Jaq's 'should I read Jane Austen?' post that I think I'll re-post (most of it) here:

as i was saying, i can answer you by editing your own words:

WHAT??!! Put down the worn copy of The Illuminatus! Trilogy and start reading her now, dummy! She's right up the alley of a romantically-inclined fellow like [your]self.

start with 'Pride and Prejudice'. if you want more, read 'Emma' and 'Persuasion'. 'Sense and Sensibility' would be next, though it's her 1st novel and a little flatter.

movie-wise the 5 hr BBC P&P is non pareil. 'Persuasion' and 'Sense and Sensibility' are both very good. neither recent version of 'Emma' is good (i'm comparing all of these to the books). 'Clueless', on the other hand, (which not many people know is an adaptation of 'Emma') is really smart and fun. in fact, we felt like the Paltrow 'Emma' was trying to be period 'Clueless' and didn't really succeed.

my favorite thing about Keira Knightley is that she looks like Natalie Portman (bet it's yours, too). she doesn't draw me to a movie.

on the other hand, i would like to see Bride and Prejudice, a Bollywood mashup. Incidentally, it has a Keira Knightley number of 1 because the director, Gurinder Chadha, also directed 'Bend It Like Beckham'.

Sorry for the long comment/post. You inspired me!

+ Dorothea has a post about life after academia. It could pretty easily be applied to 'what to do if your chosen career path comes to an abrupt end'. Makes me want to look up Herminia Ibarra's Working Identity (discussed briefly here ).

+ That BTK killer sure sounds sick. Chilling and gripping at once...

+ In light of the negative ruling today, EFF's ideas about P2P and artists making money. (via B/t thought...)

Everyday is like Sunday

+ States Bar Teen Drivers Using Cell Phones. I'll be surprised, given the statistics, if we don't see the driving age raised at least a year in the next 10 years.

+ Cubs Activate Mark Prior. With Prior and Wood getting healthy, the Cubs are in decent position to shoot for the postseason.

+ O'Neal Adds MBA to His NBA Title. As much as I dis O'Neal, props to him for getting his MBA.

+ Stoops Set to Get $3 Million Bonus in 2008. They love their football in OK. Stoops is a good coach and a great guy. Given the market, OU is doing the right thing.

+ New post on twinlog to warm up the Blogger Images rig. We've been creating super heroes on the UGO HeroMachine. Here's my contribution:


I came up with the idea for a big, bald, tough guy. Then I picked the kilt. Then Blackwatch Plaid. Then the name. Wil picked the wolf and his name. Who knows where our collaborations will go from here?

Saturday night's alright

+ I've seen the name Fischerspooner around, but never listened to their stuff. Saw this link for a video from the new album. I sure like it. Have to look into these guys... some more...

+ Equal time: Since I'm usually on the side of 'sharing' intellectual property more freely, here's a small balancing post: Tom writes about reasons why Brazil might not want to break AIDS drugs patents.

+ When preparing for a new Marriott hotel near Edgewater Park in Coralville (the growing up place of the inimitable Mr Jason Streed, they found a prehistoric (ca. 1800 BC) campsite.

Friday

+ Woo hoo! Blogger has integrated image posting now! This will be even better than Hello.

+ Jaq's got a point:

I think the real media bias is not to the liberal or to the conservative, but to the stupid.

  + Did you see that the Washington Post inadvertantly published some feeds of stories about Judge Rehnquist's (future) death?

Thursday's links, a little late

+ Alright, I'll link it: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes. Two of the top 3 by Brando. Dude could deliver a line. Plus, is it just me, or are most of the top lines delivered by men? Does that mean anything?

The kottke comments
The top 400

+ I'm not linking them all, but now that Google Sat has expanded, Google Sightseeing is posting lots of international sites - you know, Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids, the Forbidden City, stuff like that.

+ Google Wallet is coming, but it's not what they thought (that is, not a PayPal attack). (via kottke)

+ Loooong article on Hillary's chances to win the Democratic Presidential nomination and the ensuing race. A poll of Repub and Dem insiders with comments. The comments run the gamut, so you just have to pick who you think is right. I like Hillary fine, but I don't think she can be a centrist, 'it's the economy, stupid', I feel you pain and value your values (and, like you, don't live them out), (Bill) Clinton Democrat. Therefore, I think she might win the nomination, but I don't think she could win the presidency. And if the Democrats are serious about winning, they better someone else and line up behind him (I use that last masculine pronoun advisedly, though not preferentially).

Wednesday

+ Doggoneit. The solar sail crashed.

+ Iran/Watergate mashup by DJ Tom B (can't name it Iran-Gate for obvious reasons). Combining three of my current interests, a mashup of the election in Iran and the 1968 US presidential election by Tom.

+ Speaking of those interests, this quote from Tom in a subsequent post evokes Nixon in a frightful way:

And you see this in foreign affairs: the Bushies are simultaneously the realpolitik types who are unafraid to rely on dictators and the Wilsonian types lecturing the Egyptian and Saudi leaderships on becoming more democratic.

Tom goes on to say:

I honestly think ["Republican Carter" administration] captures what most Americans will vote for in 2008: not too aggressive, not so ambitious as Bush, but focused on encouraging positive change that's defensible on moral grounds. I don't see the Democratic contender yet who can deliver that, but I suspect there are several on the Republican side who will.

I think he's right on here, and you know I'm far from desiring another Republican administration. What I really want is a more competitive Democratic party, one that isn't reduced to the filibuster as their only weapon (though I don't begrudge them it, as I implied yesterday). Stronger Dems would improve the whole field, right?

+ Lord have mercy. Tom reviews Kristof's latest NYT op-ed on rape in Pakistan. To prove a rape a woman has to have four male witnesses. The chances of mustering four male witnesses asymptotically approaches zero. What a horrifying situation. And Pakistan is our (nominal) ally in the Middle East.

+ Ugh. I hate to read stuff like this:

The Old Core spends more than a quarter trillion on ag subsidies to its own farmers each year, more than three times the money it collectively provides the Gap in Official Developmental Aid (ODA). The World Bank estimates that if all such subsidies were removed and trade barriers eliminated, the in-kind transfer to the Gap would be in the range of $100 billion in income-just like that.

Who would you rather bet on? The corrupt governments of Africa or the farm households there? Which do you think will get you a middle class faster?

+ This is old, but I hadn't seen it before: Edward R. Tufte's "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint" Presented in the Form of a PowerPoint Presentation (includes line to the Gettysburg PowerPoint).

'Til Tuesday

+ Democrats playing politics with Bolton - W.House. This makes me furious. Like the President isn't playing politics with that statement, or by trying to ram through nominees. Heck, maybe the problem is he isn't playing politics enough - isn't willing to make compromises or try to work with the other party. He won't move. They ask to see memos. He won't budge. If he won't play ball, why should they? It makes me crazy...

+ Google May Expand Into Online Payments. I read about this somewhere yesterday. Something that isn't in this article is that Google already handles a small number of payments through its ad service. They might have a fair amount of infrastructure that they can (as usual over there) scale up.

+ Jaq's got a post taking Wal-Mart to task, which you know I have to link.

+ Google Sat expands:

Today Google quietly updated its map service to add high-resolution aerial photography for much more of the globe than the previous limited coverage of North America. New additions include Scotland, Iceland, Kuwait and many, many more.

+ Bill Gates is on a mission to build a Google killer
 

+ Question to myself: If you're so opposed to GTD, why are you so obsessed with it?

Answer to myself: Don't you think 'obsessed' is a little exaggerated?

Anyway, I did take some cues from Space-Age Wasteland on GTD with gmail (note: if you want or need a gmail account, just ask. I've got 50 invites.). What I needed, since I'm not messing with a calendaring program anymore, is a good tickler system. One of the readers of SAW (Stark Raving Calm), posted about using futuremail as a tickler. But you have to log into it separately (though he's supposed to be adding an email-only interface). So one of SRC's readers (Canadian Urban Eskimo) created an email-only tickler system. It's pretty easy. you could even just forward emails from Gmail (or any other system) to it with the proper scheduling code in the subject and it'll come back to you at the right time.

OK, it's all kind of arcane if you're not very interested. But if you ARE interested, it might be useful to you...

Today's links

A lot in here...catching up from a weekend of not bloglining.

+ Matt's got some great ideas about combining iTunes with podcasting and free download offers. I wish it would happen, but I doubt it'll be in this new version of iTunes.

+ Salaries of America's favorite TV dads (via B/t thought...via Fark)

+ 'The average American spends more on lottery tickets than on reading material or movie tickets.' (via Brad)

+ Matthew has another funny guide on how to skip parts of 'Attack of the Clones'. Contains this important criticism (which I'm sure Jaq has a way around, like Captain What's-his-face could have dismantled it):

Skipping this scene is also essential if you want to avoid entry #3 in the litany of Wrongheaded Star Wars Revisionism; namely R2-D2 CAN FLY WTF DON'T YOU THINK THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN USEFUL IN EPISODES 4-6??!!

+ It's time for the Summer Moon Illusion . 'The lowest-hanging full moon in 18 years is going to play tricks on you this week. .. Moons hanging low in the sky look unnaturally big. Cameras don't see it, but our eyes do. It's a real illusion.' (via kottke)

+ Today's sign that the Apocaplypse is upon us: you can get Spray-On Mud to give your SUV the rugged look.

+ I'm seeing Steve Jobs' Stanford Commencement Address linked everywhere today. I know I'm not the only one who doesn't care...

+ Getting Things Done is everywhere. I don't really want to get (much) more done. I want to simplify. I want to focus. Heck, while we're dreaming, i want to be passionate about something. I'm intrigued by the Sisyphean organziation of GTD et al (ie, I read the posts. eg, Here's some guys less-intense-but-still-very-organized implementation)(how many Latin abbreviations can I use in this sentence?). But I haven't really been tempted to try it. i've got issues that I need to deal with that are much more important than GTD.

(nb (ha! another one!): There is no implied criticism of you if you want to Get Things Done.)

+ Oh how I wish the radios in our cars had simple RCA audio in jacks. This would be really easy, right? Surely with all the iPods and flash players this will become a standard feature, right? I sure hope so. Anyway, this dude installed his own. Our 95 Prizm is essentially a Corolla rebadge, so maybe I could do the same thing (with a little help from someone a little more handy, like Brother Ryan or Dad).

+ Remember that Google News grid I posted the other day? Here's a similar deal with del.icio.us/popular that's really cool, too.

+ This dude took his laptop apart, mounted the screen in a picture frame and uses it to run slideshows-as-art on his wall.

+ Then I came across a piece by Matthew over at the Morning News that I hadn't seen before. Some funny moments. Can you name all of the games? Have you played them all?

Solar sail

Heard on NPR this morning that The Planetary Society is about ready to test their solar sail. It will launch tomorrow out of a Russian submarine in a converted ICBM.

Launch Time: June 21, 2005 19:46:09 UTC (GMT)

There are solar sail-like representations that you may have seen in 'Tron' (the Solar Sailer) and 'Star Wars: Attack of the Clones' (Count Dooku's ship).

Do you know that solar sails are pushed by photons? This test model will 'have a total surface area of 600 square meters (6500 square feet). This is about one and a half times the size of a basketball court.' Solar sails, in concept (since this is the first trial), accelerate VERY slowly, as you might imagine. 'a solar sail on an interplanetary mission would gain only 1 millimeter per second in speed every second.' But solar sails accelerate CONSTANTLY, carry no fuel, and:

can ultimately reach speeds much greater than those of a rocket-launched craft. At an acceleration rate of 1 millimeter per second per second (20 times  greater than the expected acceleration for Cosmos 1), a solar sail would increase its speed by approximately 310 kilometers per hour (195 mph) after one day, moving 7500 kilometers (4700 miles) in the process. After 12 days it will have increased its speed 3700 kilometers per hour (2300 mph)... Given time, however, with small but constant acceleration, a solar sail spacecraft can reach any desired [non-relativistic] speed.

Where does the coolness stop?!

'All the President's Men' - follow up

I was really impressed with how much leg work they did and how hard reporting was 30 years ago.

At the same time, I wonder if reporters work that hard anymore. Do we still get that kind of quality investigative, dogged reporting? I doubt it.

Are webloggers the new investigative reporters, the cutting edge of the Fourth Estate?

Watergate - Wow! Part 2

Well, I've just finished my Watergate investigation - just finished reading 'All the President's Men'. Great book. Very suspenseful. Watched the movie this week, too, which was just OK. I really should have gotten this post in yesterday, on the anniversary of the Watergate break-in. Part of the fascination of all of this for me is having been born just over 5 months before the Watergate break-in.

I have an 'older' friend who has said a couple of times since the Felt confession that Nixon will go down in history as a great president who basically would have been fine if he hadn't tried to cover-up the Watergate break-in.

I hope that's not true. I hope Nixon won't go down in history as a great president. On my reading, he shaded toward fascism - an arch-conservative who was extremely paranoid and used his power to try to insure its furtherance.

At a minimum, Nixon hired extremely shady people. the Nixon Administration was a culture of illeagality. Agnew was on the take. Kissinger approved wire taps of former aides. Mitchell was a crook. Stans was a crook. I'm a little surprised at how many people who worked with Nixon went on to political fame and fortune: George Shultz, Pat Buchannan, Caspar Weinberger, Alexander Haig. Bob Dole defended Nixon in speeches against the Washington Post.

After he knew about Watergate, he lied to try to cover it up. He never recanted, did he? The dude WAS a crook who tarnished the office of the President.

Chuck Colson has become a high-profile Evangelical. He often has good things to see and his Prison Fellowship ministries have been very important. But for him to come out and criticize Mark Felt for breaking the law in the midst of a 'legal' system that was totally subverted blows my mind. I understand he's concerned about utilitarianism, but I REALLY don't think he's the one to carry this message on this topic.

An interesting article: How Deep Throat Fooled the FBI

Recent comments by John Dean. His book, Worse than Watergate, has a distasteful title

Today's links

+ 'interact' correspondent Kurt Graves sends in this cool Google News visual presentation (warning: big. works best on broadband): the page cut up to represent the 'weight' of the news (# of articles), and you can customize it based on the news you want to see. Do you see anything interesting over there?

+ Participatory Culture wants to democrative video. They've made a Braodcast Machine (utilizing torrent technology) and are working on a Desktop Video Player. I don't watch much tv or video, but this could be interesting. I've got my eye on it.

+ We're #1! S.C. leads the nation in speed-related deaths

+ Cringely talks about Osborne and Kaypro this week. Former Kaypro users of the world, unite and take over!

+ John Hardy has a really funny post of a parody of a Chick Tract as sent by followers of HP Lovecraft.

Question: Did the parodier misspell the contraction for 'you are' on purpose as part of the parody or by accident?

Upon Googling I find that Hallis got 'cease and desist'ed. How can that be? You're allowed to parody stuff, right?

Woohoo!

Got my Odeo beta invite and I'm pretty stoked. They haven't rolled out the 'Create' tools yet, which I'm most excited about, but I look forward to nosing around over there. Fun email to get first thing this morning.

Tom

Tom really never cease to amaze me. The latest [source]:

On the second story, it's interesting that the U.S. favors Japan getting a UN Security Council permanent seat but not Germany. I mean, Germany comes totally clean on all its sins of WWII (the reason why it's not on), whereas Japan continues to whitewash its own far too much. Hmmm. Wonder if Germany's opposition to the Iraq War has anything to do with this, as in "forgive Russia, ignore Germany, punish France."

Very interesting.

He's also got an interesting post about world again, kicking off with Japan and 'elder sourcing'. If you're interested in the demographics and economic implications of aging in a global context, you should check it out.

Tomorrow's links today

This title worked so well before, I decided to bring it back ;-)

+ Matthew has a hilarious account of trying to entertain Internet friends (ie, not bosom buddies who knew you BC (before children)). I totally relate. At that age you try to get together with friends and you can't remember it afterwards. Matthew's crush on Mighty Girl goes forward unabated.

+ Have you seen Google Will Eat Itself?

We generate money by serving Google text advertisments on our website GWEI.org. With this money we automatically buy Google shares via our Swiss e-banking account. We buy Google via their own advertisment! Google eats itself - but in the end we will own it!

You know I love Google and will at least until the day they topple Micro$oft.

+ Interesting article in the Economist on Ashkenazai (European Diaspora) Jews: Has natural selection contributed to higher intelligence? (via kottke)

+ I really would like to have this keyboard with no labels. When I switched to Dvorak, I learned on a regular keyboard, which meant looking didn't help, and it REALLY helped my touch-typing. Someday, I plan to go back to no labels, at least, if not to Dvorak. And I'll certainly do it for my kids to teach them, when the times comes...

+ Interesting article on Google's 'war' on hierarchy. IMO, the diminishing returns on hierarchy make it a bad investment. If you can just do stuff and then find it later without filing it, or if you can quickly tag it and forget it and find it later, that's the best way to go by far.

So, how does this apply? There are three main places I store digital stuff: gmail, del.icio.us, and interact (here, in this weblog thingy). In addition, I store a few files on my computer (far fewer than I used to). I don't bookmark much anymore. What I need is one search of all of those places. Google Desktop Search is getting there with plugins. It automagically caches my surfing and gmail (including posts that I'm now sending through gmail (thought not for that reason)). There's probably a way to cobble this together now (eg, save all of my del.icio.us links and my weblog to my hard drive to GDS can catalog it), but I haven't really thought about it much, yet.

+ 'One Free Minute is a mobile sculpture designed to allow for instances of anonymous public speech. When you call the cellphone inside One Free Minute, you get connected for exactly a minute to a 200 watt amplifier and speaker. The speech produced by the speaker can be heard clearly more than 150 feet away from the sculpture.' Interesting.

Today's links: Google Sat edition

I'm torn: if you really wanted these links, you'd subscribe to/bookmark Google Sightseeing. On the other hand, I'm geeked out about it, and you might see something interesting.

+ Olivenhain Dam, San Diego County

The 308 by 2,400 foot Olivenhain Dam appears to be nearing completion in this photo, although it's still under construction (there's a yellow crane at the centre).

As part of San Diego County Water Authority's US$827 million Emergency Storage Project, the dam does not block a stream or river but instead boxes off a 200 acre man-made reservoir (to the north) which will be filled with 7.8 billion gallons of imported water. The project is expected to be completed in 2010 (more information).

+ Earle Naval Weapons Station

This 2.2 mile long trident off the Northern New Jersey shore is actually Earle Naval Weapons Station. Apparently the pier is capable of providing ammunition to nearly every class of ship operated by the United States Navy and Coast Guard and there's a few ships docked in this ground level shot.

+ Camp Pendleton, California

This is a US Navy hovercraft base at Camp Pendelton, California. You can see some of the hovercraft parked up, and there is a massive ramp that goes down to the beach for them to get straight out onto the water. The giant 'GO NAVY' slogan on the tarmac seems to be a common feature on lots of these bases. I found this article about the base complete with a cool photo of a few hovercraft on the tarmac.

+ Incredibly Long Trains

Looks like these trains are stopped at a level crossing on the Burlington Northern railroad track in Wyoming. The Northern one is chopped off by some low-res imagery, but scroll south to see just how incredibly long they are! Amazing.

In the comments, Eric Smith said:

These are unit coal trains, typically 100-115 cars long. These were probably going from/to the Powder River Basin in Wyoming, which is just north of the photo you found. Here is the loading loop, large enough to run one of these trains in a circle.

You can see that the image was taken just after the two ends of the train passed each other, as the black carts are fully loaded with coal.

+ Saint Lawrence Seaway

You don't often see a river running under a river ! This is the Welland Canal, a part of the Saint Lawrence Seaway which is the system of canals that permits ocean-going vessels to travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes as far as Lake Superior. You can see the size of of the ships a little further South at the edge of Lake Erie (thumbnail #2), and there's another to the North .

10 villages were submerged to allow the construction of the Saint Lawrence Seaway, and apparently a few remnants of sidewalks and building foundations can be still be seen under the water in some places!

+ Combine Harvesters

It's harvest time in the fields near Salinas and most farmers seem to have at least one combine working the land. In one of the fields you can see five combine harvesters.

(And that, my friends, drops my saved Bloglines links to 28. Bwa ha ha!)

Today's links

+ Malcolm Gladwell talks about his peripatetic writing (via kottke). Sounds like a good method...

+ U.S. Mayors Agree to Adhere to Kyoto Pact. I posted about this via Tom a while ago.

+ For the librarian/power library user in your life: Let ELF help you manage your library loans and holds.

+ Tom's latest newsletter is all Q&A. Might be a good entry point if you're interested. A few qutoes:

[Y]ou wage war on totalitarian states if they're weak enough to be had (otherwise you're stuck with containment, which is immoral if you can do better).

The dream would be that China and the United States start to recognize their complimentary regional security interests in Africa, with the U.S. playing more Leviathan when needed and China working more the SysAdmin angle. To me, that's an unbeatable combination of fire power and man power.

I fundamentally reject the conventional wisdom that says globalization diminishes the role of the state. Statistics are clear: the most globalized states features the most regulation, the most expansive welfare systems, and the biggest governments as a share of GDP.

I'm it: Books

Brad tagged me on this book survey.

Number of books I own: far, far too many. Just ask my inlaws, who have a bunch in their basement.

Last book I bought:
> Churches that Make a Difference: Reaching Your Community with Good News and Good Works by Ronald Sider, Philip N. Olson, and Heidi Rolland Unruh

Latest books I am reading:
All the President's Men. Fascinating!
The Letters of JRR Tolkien. I am a total Tolkien geek.
(Next) Blink

Last book I read (and have finished):
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. Very good.

Five Books that mean a lot to me:
The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. Non pareil
Bright Days, Dark Nights by Elizabeth Ruth Skoglund
Disappointment with God by Philip Yancey
The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller. I love comic books and this is my favorite by far.

Tag Five More:
Aaron
Jaq
Jason
Macon
Paul
Eric

Theology quiz

Brad's got this theology quiz. He and I came out pretty similarly, which is no surprise, since we're licensed/ordained in the same denomination.

Hmm, but it didn't translate very well, and I don't want to retake it. Let's see if I can strip this thing down to something usable...



You scored as Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan.
You are an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. You believe that God's grace enables you to choose to believe in him, even though you yourself are totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation, and he also enables you to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. You are influenced heavily by John Wesley and the Methodists.

What's your theological worldview?