Flying on Three of Four Engines Across the North Atlantic.

There was an article in the Wall Street Journal two Fridays ago about a British Airways Boeing 747 plane that, after departing Los Angeles, had a flame shoot out of one of its four engines. The engine then stopped working. I am not an airplane pilot, but I think this is a Bad Thing. If I were the pilot, I would have turned around and returned to Los Angeles. Instead, the pilot decided (after consulting with British Airways) to continue on, across the continental US, and then onward across the North Atlantic to Heathrow. Apparently British Airways did not want to dump fuel in order to land the plane safely in Los Angeles. There was also some concern that they would have to compensate passengers for failing to get them to their destination on time. I think that they should have landed in Los Angeles. So did the air traffic controllers, they said: ""If you would have saw what we saw out the window, you'd be amazed at that."
The passengers were delayed anyway when the plane had to land in Manchester instead of Heathrow because the crew did not know how to manage the fuel so that it was spread evenly across the aircraft. The Wall Street Journal charges to access its archives, the BBC does not, so I am posting a link to a BBC article which summarizes it.
It was not just as safe to continue on three engines, because if a second engine on the same wing failed, the plane would still be able to fly, but would have to use its rudder to steer. A rudder creates drag, and the plane might not have been able to reach an airport safely if an engine had failed while they were over the middle of the North Atlantic. It also has to fly lower if it has fewer engines, and so cannot cruise as efficiently because the air is denser. In any case, here is a link to the report, published by the United Kingdom's Department for Transport, Air Accidents Investigation Branch. There is a brief one page summary, and if you would like to read the whole thing in all its detail, there is a PDF of it which you can download from that page as well.

A New Driver License

New York State sent me a new driver's license the other day (even though my old one is still valid). They are changing their driver licenses to make them more secure. These new licenses have a wavy line that goes across the whole license that appears to float above the picture. If you are under twenty-five, they are mailing you new driver licenses even if your old one has not expired yet. I guess they want to make it more difficult for people who are underage to get alcohol. I actually like the new one better. The old ones had pink as their predominant colour. If you're curious, you can see the old ones and the new ones here. The old one is at the bottom of the page in the fan of licenses. And speaking of old licenses, this new license still has my picture from my sixteenth birthday on it, so don't worry if you are worried you won't be able to see that picture again.

India Bans Rickshaws, London Licences Them

I was listening to the BBC last night and heard a piece about how New Delhi is banning rickshaws from certain areas because they slow down the traffic. The people who use these rickshaws for their livelihood are (justifiably) upset. On the other hand, London is licencing rickshaws. This link has information for it. I wonder if they will make the pedicab drivers take the Knowledge.

Some Free British Folk Music

I found a website (owned by an artist) that has some free music by him on it. It's British folk music from the 1960s, but the quality is decent. The link is:
http://www.andyirvine.com/disc/sweeney-disc.html

I think the song is older than the 1960s. I suggest Raynard Fox and Sally Brown if you're going to download either of them.

Fresh bagels at Weiss Market

So, unlike Giant, Weiss in Chambersburg says that their bagels are baked fresh in the store. That makes it pretty clear that they are not frozen bagels.

I'm going to post about the Facebook controversy. I think it is a bit creepy to have all of this information so readily available. Before, it is true, as this Facebook blog entry points out, that all of this information is visible to a person viewing the profile of the person that it is reporting. The big difference, though, is that now the user does not have to make any effort, the information is sitting there in front of him or her. It makes it a bit too easy to find out information about people, in my opinion.

A trip to Ikea

My new apartment does not have overhead lighting. So, yesterday I went to Ikea and picked up two Basisks for it. I got a floor uplight and a table lamp. The only problem with them is that they have glass shades, which will make them difficult to transport if I move. Otherwise, they are very nice.
The only thing I don't like about Ikea is that sometimes they only stock things for a little while. For example, I have a case that I use for my CDs called a Brana, but they don't make it anymore. It's a fabric case that is rigide which opens so you can use it to hold CDs but also zippers for easy transport (like if I move)
I really like Ikea, because many of their items are priced cheaply. I also enjoy assembling the products I get from them.

It's that time of year again...

It's the Jewish holidays again, and that means that, as far as Giant is concerned, everything that is Jewish is on sale. Matzah? On sale. Gefilte fish? On sale. I don't eat matzah for Rosh Hashana, and you're not supposed to eat anything on Yom Kippur. Both matzah and gefilte fish are for Passover.
I do like that they have Kedem chocolate tea crackers on sale though...they're good, and low in calories, sixteen calories each.
I'd by matzah ball soup mix (it's on sale too), but I have about five boxes of it in my cabinet right now, so I don't think I need any right now.

Monarch Butterflies

Another picture of a Monarch Butterfly
Originally uploaded by djboorstein.

This summer I've seen a lot of monarch butterflies, including this one in a garden outside the Assemblee Nationale in Quebec City. I looked, and according to this website, http://www.monarchwatch.org/index.html , this has been a big year for monarch butterflies. This has more information than you would probably ever want to see about Monarch butteflies.

PMBR Found Liable for Copyright Infringement

Disclaimer
This post has something to do with the bar exam.

PMBR was sued in the Eastern District Court of Philadelphia for copyright infringement. The judge (in a non-jury trial) found them liable for copyright infringement.
http://www.paed.uscourts.gov/documents/opinions/06D1065P.pdf
The judge says that: "This is the rare case in which there is direct evidence that [PMBR] copied [the National Conference of Bar Examiners]'s work.
And no, I am not so geeky as to surf around the Eastern District Court's website looking for opinions. I saw an AP posting on the New York Times's website, found the opinion online, and then decided to blog about it. The opinion is actually interesting reading, although it does contain at least one multiple choice question, so for people who want to avoid flashbacks to the bar exam, this might not be a good thing to read.

Writely - A Useful On-The-Go Word Processor

I'm typing this post on Writely, at www.writely.com. Writely is an online word processor that is pretty cool. Google bought the company a few months back. It is open to anyone that wants to sign up, and will allow me to post directly to Blogger from within Writely. It is useful because Blogger sets the time as when I first start working on the post, which means that if I want to draft the post later on, I have to reset the post. It's a slick interface. Not as slick as Gmail, but still pretty slick. I wouldn't use Writely for my resume, but for text documents, and even minimally formatted text, it is pretty good. You can download files as a PDF (readable in Acrobat, or, of course, a Word file, among other formats).

NPR Stories

The first story is about Geico's advertising campaign. There was an actors' strike when they were first starting the ad campaign, and so they decided to use the Gecko, and the rest is history. There have been a series of ads on Geico's motorcycle insurance which I've found funny recently.
The second is about a water rescue, and is sad, but very powerful.

I Hope You Had The Time Of Your Life

For the last week I was hanging out -- for the last time for a long time -- with people from the law school. As we were leaving the bar on Friday I heard the song Time Of Your Life by Greenday. That song is a really cool song, particularly for ending phases of my life. At Binghamton during orientation someone quoted that song for us. They played it at my senior dinner when I graduated college, and now, again, on the last night of hanging out with people in Hyannis, I heard it again. Music can be really powerful sometimes.
Thanks, John, for hosting us.

Bar Exam in less than 24 hours

Here we go, less than twenty-four hours to go. Good luck to everyone reading this blog. Hopefully I know enough to pass.

Recipe for Sour Cucumber

Here is a recipe for sour cucumber, which is actually my grandmother's. It's easy.

The ingredients are: one cucumber, half an onion, and vinegar to taste. My grandmother adds a little bit of sugar, I don't. You'll also need a jar to put the finished product in. I use a salsa jar and a peanut butter jar, but you can also use tupperware.

1. Peel the cucumber and slice it thinly.
2. Peel the outer layers off the onion (I presume you start with a whole onion), and cut off the ends. Slice the onion in half, and then cut it lengthwise and cross-wise.
3. Put the cucumber and onion into the jar, and fill it about 1/8 of the way up with vinegar.
4. Fill the rest of the jar with tap water.
5. Seal the jar tightly and shake it to mix the water and vinegar together.
6. Taste the water/vinegar mixture and see if you think it is sour enough. If it is, reseal it and put it in the refrigerator and leave it there for a day. If not, add more vinegar (or if it is too sour add water), seal it and shake it again and taste it.

Maple Leaf Cookies

I was at Deal$ yesterday (the dollar/discount store near OfficeMax) and discovered, much to my surprise, that they were selling maple creme cookies (sandwich cookies with creme inside that is made in part from maple syrup). Normally you can only buy these in Canada, so I was pleased to see them here. I bought one package, even though the cookies are absolutely horrible for me, they have 100 calories for each cookie, plus a lot of fat. I'm limiting myself to two cookies per day.

Fate and the Music I Listen To

The other day I realized that a lot of the music I have in my collection is not the result of listening to it on mainstream radio. Instead, it is dependent on fate and also my listening to music that was not on
I'm sure that I would have encountered Irish music even had I not gone to Newfoundland in 1997, and had my brother Thomas not found a CD of Newfoundland music. However, I don't think that I would have approached it in the same way or gotten CDs of the same bands that I have today.
I have a CD by a Quebecois band, Mes Aieux, which I discovered entirely by chance.
We were in Quebec City, and it just so happened that they were playing at a festival in a park, and I liked their music (even though I did not understand the words) and when I got back home, ordered a CD by them. I can't really describe their music, other than to say that it might be a cross between old Quebecois music and modern pop music, but that's not really doing it justice.
I have other music that I encountered through non-mainstream radio, like either an Australian Country Music station or a folk show I listen to on the BBC, for example. The only problem with non-mainstream music is that sometimes I have to order the music from overseas, which ends up being somewhat more expensive, especially because of the shipping.

Mount Everest and Ethics

This apparently must be the climbing season for Mt. Everest. My understanding is that it is rather short, because once the monsoons come in, you cannot climb anymore.
In any case, climbers have been leaving their fellow climbers to die as they ascend to the top.
This article from the New Zealand talks about one climber who was passed by forty people on their way to the top (and I presume, also, on their way back from the top).
On the other hand, this article from the CBC describes a climber who aborted his ascent to help them.
I understand from reading Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air (an excellent book by the way) that the less time you spend at the higher altitudes, the better off you are, but this definitely raises moral questions. I think they probably ought to have stopped and helped this man.

Cleveland Rapid Transit Brochure

I was looking at a Cleveland Rapid Transit Brochure that I found lying around my house. It's also online, here:

http://riderta.com/howtoride_bus.asp

It has step by step instructions for riding the bus (or train, if you click the link at the top) including:
going to your bus, waiting for your bus at the stop, getting onto your bus, and then getting off your bus (I suppose this last step is pretty important), but it really makes people from Cleveland look pretty stupid (and I am sure they are not), if they cannot figure out how to ride a bus.

Jane Jacobs

Jane Jacobs, author of "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" died today. She was eighty-nine years old. This book, which I highly recommend as summer reading, was about her solutions for the cities in the United States, and how she thought that cities should be developed.
She writes about the neighborhood around Columbia, and, even today, I can still see precisely what she is talking about.
Lest you think it is just me that likes her writing, my brother made a point of calling me today to tell me about this.
Her obituary is here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/26/books/26jacobs.html?pagewanted=print
The New York Times has their original book review of it here (it is a PDF):
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/books/jacobs-cities.pdf
If I had to guess, I would imagine that the PDF of it will stay posted longer than the obituary, but I don't know for sure.

Anzac Day

Yesterday, 25 April, was Anzac Day. Anzac means the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, who had their first offensive against the Ottoman Empire. Although they had expected it to go quickly, it went on for months, and 8,000 Australians lost their lives. There is a considerable amount of information on it here:
http://www.awm.gov.au/commemoration/anzac/anzac_tradition.htm
It's a very important holiday in Australia.

Dandelion Recipe

So I am subscribed to an e-mail list that talks about environmental happenings on the Hudson River. One person posted a recipe for dandelions, and I post it here:

"4/1 - Croton-on-Hudson, HRM 35: I took advantage of the balmy weather to harvest a great crop of dandelion crowns. One of our favorite salad ingredients and a sure spring tonic, we hope they will be served with the first herring roe of the season.
Recipe: Search out a patch of dandelions in an areas not frequented by automobiles, pet walkers, or other obvious sources of contamination. With a sharp knife, sever the root beneath the ground, under the green crown. (Harvest before the plant blooms if possible.) Trim the root at the base of the crown and trim back the leaves about an inch and a half. Drop the crown in a bucket of water; the crowns will be washed as you wander in search of more. They are wonderful as a sauteed vegetable or raw as salad.
- Christopher Letts"

I'll comment that I do not think it would be prudent to pick dandelion plants around Carlisle, as there are too many people/dogs, and even if there are not people (like a unfrequented park), weedkiller/fertilizer would probably not be healthy to eat.

HRM 35, incidentally, refers to Hudson River Mile thirty-five, or thirty-five miles upstream from the Battery (the southern tip of Manhattan, where one would catch the ferry for the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island). An interesting factoid is that the Hudson is still affected by tides all the way up to a dam at Troy, New York, 153 miles north of New York City. This is north of Albany, NY (which is at HRM 145).
I am posting the subscription information in case anyone is interested in subscribing. Most of it is about wildlife sightings, but it is pleasant reading nonetheless.
To subscribe, just send an email to hrep at gw dot dec dot state dot ny dot us with E-almanac in the subject line. (where it says dot, just put in a period, and for at put in an @ sign)

Edit: Said Statute of Liberty instead of Statue of Liberty. I suppose this may mean I have been in law school too long.

Dueling Google Talkabout Posts

I read the following two posts on Google's Talkabout blog. Both are pretty interesting, they talk about Google Talk and why they do not have it set, by default, to pop up a message telling you when a friend is available you can do this in Settings|Notifications
I've actually set this up so that it will not tell me if I have any new messages. I'd like to see a feature that allows you to do a buddy alert -- once -- for a specific friend when he or she signs on/changes their away message/becomes not idle.
Added: One thing that I like about Google Talk is that it does pop-up notifications with IM messages, which is good because I don't have to interrupt what I am doing to dismiss the window.

Taps were early tonight at the War College

Today I heard them play taps at the War College. They were early, by the official clock at www.time.gov, they were playing taps at 10:58:48 p.m., not at 11:00 p.m. It's a good thing that I don't set my watch by them.

National Anthems Online Free

Although I talked about the Star Spangled Banner a long time ago, here is a link to lots of National Anthems from around the world. The link also has ceremonial music, so if you ever would like to hear what bugle calls sounds like, just click on ceremonial music and then click on bugle calls. Or, if you would like to hear taps and you live in Carlisle, just go outside and face towards the War College at 11:00 p.m., and you can hear it.

Did you ever read about Ramona, Henry, and Beezus?

NPR did an interview last Sunday with Beverly Cleary (who is age ninety) about her books. I thought it was kind of neat to hear the voice of an author whose books I read when I was much younger.
Here is a link.
My favorite book when I was younger was The Sign of the Beaver, by Elizabeth George Speare. Another favorite book of mine was Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls, which my teacher read to us in grade five. Hopefully, in between studying for the bar exam, I'll get some reading for pleasure done over the summer.

New Links on the Blog

Google Reader recently came out with a new feature that allows me to share certain blog entries that I find interesting with other people. First, I can share by publishing a link to view it. But second, I can share by setting up a dynamically updating box on a website which will update based on what I add to it. So, on the right hand side, I have added a new set of links for blog items that I think are interesting. You can click "Read in Google Reader" (or on the link above) to open a session of Google Reader (you will not need to logon) which will allow you to view all of the entries on one page.
Sometimes I may just add these links without posting a blog entry, but other times I will post a blog entry with a small blurb about them.
Today, I'll type a short blurb about the links that I've just posted. First is a link about the upcoming security updates to Windows. The person in this entry, who is a vice president in charge of security at Microsoft (or something to that effect) posted his email address publicly but also talks frankly about how Microsoft develops patches for Windows. In any case, The Microsoft Security Response Center blog is really well done, they talk frankly about security updates for Windows there. Sometimes it gets kind of technical, but I think it is worth reading. Second is a funny video of a deposition, which was done by a lawyer we learned about in Advocacy. Last but not least is a blog entry about someone teaching about Firefox to fourth graders in California; the fourth graders made some funny comments about Firefox.

Flying Southwest Airlines

So I flew Southwest airlines for the first time last weekend, and they were pretty nice. I discovered, though, that key to flying Southwest is to print out your boarding pass as soon as possible before you fly, that is, 24 hours before you fly. This is because Southwest does what could be called "Stampede Boarding," but they call it free seating. Instead of being assigned a seat, you are assigned a group letter to board in -- A, B, or C. A goes first and gets their choice of seats. B goes second, and then C goes last. If you are in group C, you could end up with a middle seat, which is no fun. And lest you think that I am the only person who is geeky enough to care about this, I overheard two other people talking about how they were always in Group C when they returned home because they had not printed out their boarding pass the night before on the Internet, but had just printed it off shortly before their flight. Overall, I was impressed with Southwest, my flight out departed five minutes late, but it only took them ten minutes or so to board the plane. My flight back departed five minutes early. My only complaint about Southwest is that they do not have video or audio entertainment. I like to watch the map to know where we are flying over, although I suppose with my short flight from Baltimore to Providence, it did not really matter anyway. I liked them otherwise, and would definitely be "free to move about the country" with them again.

The College Board and the SAT

So, the College Board, as you probably know, has had problems scoring the SAT. I'm several years away from the SAT by now, but I still think that it is really scary that it took a student's complaint to raise red flags regarding incorrect scoring of the SAT. Today, the College Board explained that they were going to raise the scores of 375 more students. By now, high school seniors have had their applications read by the schools that they are applying for. A lot of schools plan to release admissions decisions on 1 April. That means that there is a very short time period to reevaluate any students that were affected. I'm not sure what I would do if I were an admissions officer, but I think it might be fair, if possible, to postpone the admission decision by a week or so.

Domain Name Suggestions

So I signed up for Office Live Beta, and as a result get to pick a domain name. Does anyone have any suggestions? If you do, please post them in the comments.

Windows Live Mail Beta

So I signed up for Windows Live Mail beta (the successor to Hotmail) a few weeks ago, and if I liked Outlook, I would really like it. It is certainly better than Yahoo! Mail (plain), and looks and acts like Outlook, you can right-click on a message and bring up a pop-up menu to forward, reply, reply, all to a message, just like Outlook or Outlook Express can. They also have a really good blog which does not appear to be as subject to the censors at Microsoft as Google's blog is subject to the censors at Google. Microsoft bloggers, in general, post pretty freely (while I'm sure they can't say totally negative things about the company, they do explain their rationale for why they do things. For example, on the Windows Live Mail blog, here, they post actual problems that they are having with the service and say when they plan to fix them. Google (Gmail), on the other hand, never says when they are having problems or what they plan to fix. I like Gmail otherwise (it is fast and efficient), but the fact that they never post when they are planning (or having) an outage annoys me. Yes, I know it's free, but I still think they should say something when they know it is broken (or going to be broken)
Windows Live Mail not as fast as Gmail is though. Plus, it only saves sent messages for thirty days. Gmail saves messages forever, which is much better.
I'm still waiting for an opportunity to try Yahoo! Mail beta, which I signed up for last fall. They sent me an email in December saying that I was on their list of people waiting to test it, and that I should be patient. I think I've been pretty patient by waiting three months.

Google Pages

So I set up Google Pages the other day, and created a small website. It is here.

It's ok, but there are a number of faults with it, when I have more time I will talk about them.

NBC and Journalistic Integrity

So, there has been some controversy regarding doping at the Olympics, in particular, the Austrian biathlon/cross-country ski teams. I have not seen NBC mention this at all on their Olympic broadcasts. NBC has a history of not reporting negative news. During the Thanksgiving Day Parade last November, they did not report that a balloon had hit a lampost and caused an injury. Although I cannot be absolutely sure that NBC has failed to report this, if they did not, they are violating, once again, the public trust. While reporting on the Olympics, NBC has an obligation to report on the bad things that happen at the Olympics, not all the good things. NBC should not have its head in a bubble.
As a side note, I do not have much sympathy for athletes who complain that they are getting jail sentences for doping. I imagine Italy has a fair judicial system, so they will get a fair trial. Doping is cheating. Period. If the enhanced penalties deter an athlete from cheating, then that's a good thing, as far as I'm concerned. Although I am not an expert on Italian doping law, I imagine that accidentally cheating would not get you prosecuted. (Under Olympic rules, if you have an illegal substance in you, you can get in trouble regardless of how it got there, even if you did not know that a drug you were taking contained it)
Besides, as they say, when in Rome (or I suppose in this case Torino)....

Published in The New York Times

So, last Sunday, I was reading this article, about a man who decided to jump down to the subway tracks to retrieve his iPod. I thought that this was really foolish, and decided it merited a letter to the editor. Sunday night, I wrote an email and sent it off to The New York Times Letters Department, never expecting to hear back again from them. Instead, I got an email from them on Wednesay at 5:30 p.m. telling me that they planned to publish my letter Sunday. True to their word, my letter was published today.

Snowboard Trick Costs Jacobellis A Gold Medal

I will preface this by saying that I cannot even snowboard. Last night I watched the Olympics, and saw Lindsey Jacobellis snowboarding in the snowboard cross. She was very good. However, at the end of her run, when she had apparently clinched the gold medal, she decided to a do a trick -- (called a "Method") on her snowboard. As she was doing this trick, she lost her balance and fell, and a Swiss snowboarder flew by her to claim the gold medal. I think doing a trick -- that costs you time -- while you are in an Olympic competition is in poor taste. (Doing high jumps, necessary to do tricks cost you time in snowboard cross, you need to stay on the snow as much as possible) It's as if your opponents are so bad that even if you slow yourself up by doing a trick, they cannot catch you. It's one thing to raise your hands in victory after the race is over, but quite another to do something during the race. And, the Swiss snowboarder proved to Ms. Jacobellis that, actually, she could catch her, and not only that, but pass her to with the gold! Besides, until she fell and people started analyzing the jump, no one even noticed the trick. The announcers on NBC watched her fall, but it wasn't until they watched the replay in slow motion -- twice -- that they realized that she had done a trick.

Reviews of New Things Google

So, last week, Google came out with two new items: Desktop Version 3, and Google Talk embedded within Gmail. Google Desktop is nice, I installed the Calendar plugin, which is useful, not so much for scheduling -- it doesn't do that too well -- but if i need to look at a calendar quickly, it's handy. (I know you can double-click on the clock in Windows, but I'm always afraid I'm going to accidentally set my clock to the wrong day when I'm skipping around looking at the calendar.) So far, at least, Google Desktop Version 3 does not have the charming habit of crashing when I expand it to the sidebar and losing all my panel settings.
Google Talk is also nice. Unfortunately for Google, though, I think they are going to have a hard time converting people to it. Almost everyone I know uses AOL Instant Messenger (although a group of people here at the law school have started switching to Gtalk, at least as a secondary client). While with email, Google was able to get a following by having such a huge amount of storage, with Google Talk, that's not going to be so easy, because the only thing most people want to use chat for is, well, to chat. Maybe they want to transfer a file or two. AIM does all those things quite well, and, right now at least, GTalk is not anywhere as sophisticated as AIM (it doesn't transfer files for one thing). On the other hand, Gtalk is much smaller than AIM -- 900k vs. some huge amount for AOL Instant Messsenger. Plus, it's a slicker interface than AIM. Last, it embeds itself into your email when you sign onto Gmail on the web, so that, in a pinch, you can chat with someone even if you can't install programs/don't want to bother downloading AIM Express. Plus, Google Talk shows you precisely how much time you wasted chatting with someone online.

New Figureskating Scoring System is Problematic

A statistics professor at Yale University has done a statistical analysis and determined that the new figureskating scoring system is problematic. Under the new scoring system, there are twelve judges. Nine of those judges are randomly selected as scores that will count. The high and low scores are discarded, leaving seven judges, whose scores are added. If the computer randomly picks scores that add to a different aggregate, the skater could lose or win simply because the computer picked a different group of judges. See this link, which has more information on it, and a graph showing how the results of the European Figure Skating championship could have differed. To view the graph, it looks like you need to use Internet Explorer. What I don't understand is how the figure skating assocation missed this, because even I could see that when different scores were used because of random selection, the results could differ.

Update on Sonnet USB Adapter

Sonnet Fed Exed me a new USB adapter, it does the exact same thing. They also Fed Exed it to Douglas (without my last name) at the law school. Luckily, the mail room people figured out who it belonged to.
It still seems to charge the shuffle, so I'm going to keep it, even though it has this problem. By the time I ship it back to Buy.com and get a refund, it's not worth it. Plus, it comes with an iPod USB cable which costs $19.99 from Apple.

Be careful how you shush someone in a movie theatre

After reading A Glance Askance's post, I saw the following article in the Daily Telegraph. Apparently, an Australian, after shushing a woman who was talking on a mobile phone during a movie, decided to touch her with three or four fingers on her arm. Mobile Woman didn't end her call, and the Australian tapped her again. Then, Mobile Woman screamed profanities at her and then left the theatre in a huff. Mobile Woman then apparently called the police and accused the Australian of assault. The police tried to dissuade Mobile Woman from pressing charges, because they would charge her with disorderly conduct and using a profanity. Mobile Woman could not be dissuaded, the Australian is now facing an (apparently) minor charge, and Mobile Woman is facing charges as well. According to the article, the Australian will not be deported, nor will this affect the Australians ability to enter the United States in the future. I certainly hope not, as, frankly, I think this woman should get a free ticket to see the movie again and a medal. I think that tapping a cell phone user on the arm in a movie theatre does not constitute a crime that should be grounds for denial of re-entry into the United States. Maybe the Australian government sould put Mobile Woman on their list of people banned from entry to Australia. That would teach her to talk on the phone in movie theatres! (Yes, I realize that is perhaps a bit harsh)

One gets what one pays for

So, after looking online, I found an alternative charger for an iPod Shuffle (and regular iPod) by Sonnet Technologies that cost about $15 less than Apple's charger, and also included a USB cable with it. I ordered it, but it did not work properly, because it lit a red light while charging and continued to light the red light charge even when the charge was complete (it is supposed to change from orange to green). So I had to ship it back to them, which cost $4.00 or so. By the time I got done with shipping , as well as the time spent on the phone with them and at the post office, I think it may have been worth just getting the regular iPod charger direct from Apple. I also think Apple's is higher quality generally.
To Sonnet's credit, the phone call (while long distance to Irvine, California) put me through to a system that did not require me to navigate through voice menus at all. I was immediately placed in a call queue, and was put through to someone pretty quickly on both occasions when I called them. If they send me back a charger that works properly, I suppose I'll be satisfied.

More Mine Stories

So, in Canada last week, a group of miners survived a fire in their mine, by going into an airtight emergency room. I think the US ought to have something like that safety regulation, as it makes sense, and could save miner's lives.
According to today's Times, the Governor Joe Manchin III of West Virginia has asked coal companies to cease operations, because two more miners were killed in separate accidents yesterday.
There was a story on PBS's News Hour yesterday evening. In it, they said that the Bush administration discarded seventeen safety initiatives, including one that would have provided for nonflammable conveyor belts, which might have stopped the disaster in the Alma mine (where two miners were killed).

Consumer Council of Norway Complains about iTunes

So the Consumer Council of Norway complained about iTunes to the Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman, alleging that they violated (what I gather is the Norwegian) Marketing Control Act. They say that first, the contract can be changed by Apple after you have downloaded the music, which they say violates a basic principle of contract law. This is true for the United States terms as well. See paragraph 9(c) which says that "Apple reserves the right to modify the Usage Rules at any time." The Usage Rules include things like how many computers can be authorized to play a song, how many times you can burn a cd, etc.
Next, they make a Conflicts of Law argument saying that they cannot use English law because the iTunes song uses the Norwegian currency and you have to be from Norway to use it. Therefore, one cannot apply English law.
I had actually noticed the ability of Apple to change the terms whenever they want to, but I didn't care about it, because I decided to risk it and assume that Apple would not change the terms. So far, it looks like I have been right.
Disclaimer: My interpretation of Apple's contract is not intended to be legal advice. You should consult a lawyer for legal advice. You do not form an attorney-client relationship with me by reading this information on my blog or if I respond to your comment on my blog.

New Google Toolbar

Google came out with a new version of their toolbar today. Unfortunately, it only works in Internet Explorer, which means that although I have installed it, I won't be using it, since I do not use Internet Explorer as my browser. Once they come out with a Firefox version, I'll use it.
Since a technically inclined person is more likely to be using the Google Toolbar (particularly the advanced features in this version) (you can program buttons on it), and since a technically inclined person is more likely to be using Firefox, I'm a bit surprised they don't have a Firefox version ready already. If they did, I'd install it. However, as of right now, I'm stuck with an older version of the Toolbar which doesn't do the neat things that the IE version does. I suppose its better than no toolbar at all though.

Happy Birthday René

Happy Birthday to René, of The Sweetest Things, a fellow law student.

Mozart or Not?

Mozart or not?
The BBC posted a quiz where you can decide whether or not a song is Mozart's or not. This procastination moment was brought to you by the letters A and M, for Amadeus Mozart.

Why I will never look at TV the same

I was watching an episode of The Simpsons where Manjula is thinking of divorcing Apu. At one point in the episode, she hands him divorce papers and says, "consider yourself served." In Pennsylvania, that would not be proper service. Under Pa.. R.Civ. P. 1930.4, service in person must be made by a competent adult. (in Domestic Relations cases, there are other ways to serve people than in person) A competent adult is defined by Pa. R. Civ. P. 76, as "an individual ... who is neither a party to the action nor an employee or relative of a party." So, since Manjula is a party to the action, she cannot serve Apu in person.

Edit: This is not intended to be legal advice, nor do I form an attorney-client relationship with you by you reading my blog. If you want to get a divorce or otherwise do something legal-related, you should consult an attorney.

Update on the Mine Story

So the West Virginia Legislature passed a bill that provides:

• For a new system of caches of self-contained rescue devices (which sound like air masks) inside the mine.
• A wireless communication system so that people can communicate with the surface.
• That the mine companies not drag their feet about contacting the authorities after an accident, and that they do so within fifteen minutes after they hear about an accident.

There are other provisions as well, if you want to read the whole bill. I'm sure more can be done, but this looks to be a decent start.

Fresh (pre-frozen) Bagels

So I was at Giant today, and they were out of sesame bagels in the bakery section. I asked the clerk whether they had any more. She said, "I can check, but they'd be frozen. " In the course of the conversation with her, I learned that this is how all their bagels arrive. They are all frozen and then defrosted and sold as "fresh" bagels. I think this is deceptive. I think that if something says "fresh," that means that it was not frozen.

Miners in West Virginia

Two more miners have been killed in a mine in West Virginia, after a fire in a mine in West Virginia. A group that I listen to, Solas, has a song, "A Miner's Life," whose lyrics are very apt.

The beginning stanzas of it are:

A miner's life is like a sailor's
Board a ship to cross the waves
Every day his life's in danger
Many ventures being braved
Watch the rocks they're falling daily
Careless miners always fail
Keep your hand upon your wages
And your eye upon the scale

And the chorus is:
Union miners stand together
Do not heed the Coal Board's tale
Keep your hand upon your wages
And your eye upon the scale.

The song is a union song, but definitely conveys how dangerous mining is.

According to the article in the New York Times on 21 January, the mine had been cited twelve times for safety violations regarding fires since June. And, on 23 December, a miner told a supervisor about a fire on the same conveyor belt (when the fire suppression system didn't work) His supervisor ignored his complaint. If his supervisor had listened, then maybe these lives could have been saved.

Silas
Sol as
Sol-as
Sols
Salas
Edit...
Ignore all
Add to dictionary

Microsoft's Rationale for Security Updates

So I discovered a blog operated by the Microsoft Security Response Center, which is the branch of Microsoft responsible for dealing with viruses and such. The corporate vice president responsible for security posted an interesting entry that talks about the process Microsoft goes through for releasing a security update. It's very tricky, because they of course do not want to release an update that crashes lots of people's computers, so they have to move slowly but carefully.
Here' s the link to the blog.
If you use blog reading software, it is probably worth subscribing. They don't post that often, and when they do, it's usually interesting reading.

Weird Signs on the Interstate

As I was driving back to Carlisle on Friday, I noticed some interesting signs on the Interstate. First was one of these portable construction signs that that said "Live EZ-Passes" would be available on January 13 from 7:30 a.m. until some other time at the PA Welcome Center. I think the use of the word "live" was odd. I mean, what were they going to sell? Dead EZ-Passes?! Maybe they meant that you could get your EZ-Pass on the spot, rather than waiting for it in the mail.
Another sign was a sign featuring Shrek, saying "Be an Ogre Achiever," and then "Pass it On." I could not see who was sponsoring it, although there was a sign that said "brought to you by..." I couldn't read it, and it was in extremely small type. My other favorite sign is one that says "Burgers Fit for a King, not a Clown"

Roller Skating Kids

So, over break, I went to the New York Historical Society and saw this kid, probably about ten or eleven or so, using these new shoes which have a wheel on the bottom of them, so that he could skate around the museum. While I definitely think the shoes were neat, I also don't think that it was entirely appropriate for him to go skating around a museum where there are irreplaceable historical objects. I mean, you would never allow someone to go roller skating in a museum, so why should he be allowed to use these quasi-rollerskates which do the same thing? I think his parents should have been exercising more control over him. I'm not being a spoilsport here, if the kid wanted to go rollerskating on a sidewalk, I'd have no problem with that, so long as he did not pose an unreasonable hazard to other pedestrians.

Trip to the Palisades

ThomasontheCliff
Originally uploaded by djboorstein.

So, yesterday we went to the Palisades, where I took this picture of my brother. We went for a walk with my grandmother, my father, and my mother. It was a nice walk, a bit cold, but still pleasant.

Harry Potter and Emergency Room Visits

Harry Potter releases caused a drop-off in visits to a hospital emergency room in Britain. In John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, (in the UK) doctors noticed that there were significantly less visits by children for musculoskeletal injuries on the weekends that Harry Potter was released. It's a short article, worth reading. It is also worth viewing the text below the heading "contributors," the writers apparently had a sense of humour.

To New York City

Yesterday I went into New York City, and saw a New York Historical Society exhibit on slavery in NYC. It was ok. I had actually learned something about slavery in my History of the City of New York class in college, so I already knew something about it. We took the train in, and the subway around. The subway had $1.00 fares because of the holiday special, which was nice. Lunch in Chinatown, and I got sweet Sennheiser headphones from B and H for my iPod. They're nice because although they are not noise-cancelling, they still seal out a lot of noise so I don't have to turn the music up quite so loud.

My rather smart cat

Recently, my cat has taken to using her paw to take food from her food bowl and put it into her water dish. She then eats it after it has been dunked in water. I guess she must like the food softer. However, I think it is pretty smart that she has ascertained that water will tend to make food softer. I'm pretty impressed.

More about Boston, Something about Waterbury

For those of you who know Boston and are curious as to where I went, I took the T to Haymarket, and got off the train and walked from there through the North End to Old North Church, and then across the Charles and along the Freedom Trail to see the U.S.S. Constitution. I then walked back, and had lunch in an italian restaurant -- La Famiglia Giorgio in the North End. I though the North End was a neat neighborhood. I could see that it had not changed that much in years.
Jane Jacobs wrote about how the North End was a good neighborhood in her book, the Death and Life of Great American Cities. Even though the book is old now, a lot of the neighborhoods she talks about are still there, and if you have ever been to the neighborhood, it is neat to see her analysis in action.
It was also nice to be in a place where the subway only cost $1.25 (as opposed to the $2.00 that it costs in New York City)
Waterbury, where I went the next day, was nowhere near as interesting as Boston. It is an old mill town, they used to have brass manufacturing and clocks there, but now there doesn't seem to be much of anything going on, it seemed a bit depressed. I didn't like the hills there, with the manual transmission car I was driving, it was difficult to get the car started on the hills. There was a nice museum there, but once I had walked around the town once and seen the museum, there really was not much else to do in town.
They apparently took lessons from Carlisle on snow-plowing though, a lot of the streets did not have all the snow removed, so that I had to park the car on top of a snow bank.

In Boston

PC200075
Originally uploaded by djboorstein.

I went to Boston today and yesterday. It was nice to walk around and see some of the different sites. Although I did not get to go aboard the U.S.S. Constitution (it was closed), I did visit a museum next door (which was free), but good, and told about a battle the U.S.S. Constitution was involved in at Tripoli. There are more pictures if you go here.

My two cents about Gmail's Recent Upgrades

So, I'm going to post my comments about Gmail's upgrades.
I like how they allow you to have group lists in Gmail. This will come in handy for when I need to send groups of people email but don't have them set up as a Google Group.
Sending an automated vacation message is also neat.
Although I like the idea of the RSS feeds in Gmail, I don't like how they implement ads with it. I am fine with the ads while reading the email, they are always off to the right and I can ignore them if I want to. However, I end up reading the ads when I am looking to see what RSS feed Gmail is offering me.
Instead, I have set up NPR and the BBC as live bookmarks on Mozilla Firefox. Just as nice, and no ads. Yet another reason why I think downloading Firefox is a good idea.
The virus scanning that they just set up is obviously good.

Cleaning the apartment

So, I finally stopped stalling and cleaned the apartment. Mind you, it is not spotless, but it doesn't look like quite the disaster area it did earlier. I'd like to do some more cleaning before I go home for winter break. The apartment tends to get away from me during finals, so I'm glad that I made it look somewhat nicer.

Done with Finals

So, I'm done with finals for this semester. It's nice. Now, I have time to do some free reading, which is something I don't really have time to do during the school year. I love just going to the library and perusing through the shelves and picking some book that seems interesting to me to read. Right now, I'm reading True Grizz (and I don't have the author in front of me). It's about grizzly bears, and so far seems good. Anyone else have any suggestions for books to read? Anything law-related is probably out, unless it's really good...but I'm open otherwise (fiction/non-fiction, etc.)

Added an Add to Google Button

Those of you who are observant may have noticed that I added an "Add to Google" button to my blog. This will enable you, if you are signed up for Google Reader/Google's Personalized Home Page, to add my site to it, so that you can view it more easily. I like Google Reader quite a bit, it has a pretty slick interface, and lets me view a lot of blogs in a quick manner, and also is independent of what computer I am using.

Retro-Computing on an NEC Powermate 2

So, , while I was at home I turned on my NEC Powermate 2+ (which was purchased in 1987 and has an Intel 80286 processor running at 10 Mhz) It runs WordPerfect 5.1, and used to be able to run Windows 3.1 The reason I say "used to" is because of a fire inside the computer which killed the extended memory card.
The story is:
I was looking up the stairs in my house, and noticed my cat staring upstairs into my room, which was unusual. I decided it might be worth investigating, and walked upstairs to discover a cloud of smoke coming from the computer, along with a strong smell of burnt electronics. The extended memory card had shorted and caught fire. That was the end of the extended memory card, and the end of Windows 3.1 on that computer (which requires extended memory to run). Now it runs DOS 5.0.
Anyway, I played some retro games on the computer, including Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego, and a game called Intel Memory Hog Hunter. Intel Memory Hog Hunter is essentially like Pac-Man, only Pac-Man is an Intel circuit board, and the ghosts are hogs. The object is to try to catch the hogs and keep them away from the memory chips, you "win" software, it's neat to see the ancient designs for Software (Windows 286, WordPerfect, Lotus 123, etc.) Eventually the game starts to get very slooowwww because it can't handle moving all the hogs around.

Unintentional work of art

Old West Hall on Dickinson College's campus has what I think is an unintentional work of art. As you walk to Old West at night from High Street, you can see in almost all of the windows (and there are probably between ten and twenty of these) three candles lit for the holidays. In one, though, there is a menorah. It would actually make for a nice picture if I could somehow take a detailed enough photograph at night.

Berenstain Bears Author Dies

Stan Berenstain, the author of the Berenstain Bears books, died on 24 November. NPR had an interview with this bookstore owner, Peter Glassman. Mr. Glassman criticized the Berenstains for rushing out their books, and said that the books had forced morals and were therefore not as good. Honestly, I think many children's books have morals in them. I really enjoyed the Berenstain Bear books as I was growing up, even if they did have morals in them.
My favorite books growing up, though, were probably Robert McCloskey's books, not Make Way for Ducklings, but Blueberries for Sal, One Morning in Maine, and Time of Wonder. I used to go on vacation near the locale of these books when I was younger, and it was fun to read about places that I actually was (or could go visit) in the books. There actually really is a Condon's Garage (If you read One Morning in Maine, you'll know what I mean)

Firefox -- Why You Should Download It

So, the latest version of Firefox is out (Version 1.5) I use Firefox as my primary browser, and hardly ever use Internet Explorer anymore. Why should you?
It has tabbed browsing (so instead of switching from window to window, you can just click a tab at the top of your browser to switch to another web-page session)
It's very fast, and can be customized with lots of different extensions that will enhance it, much more so than Internet Explorer.
It's less prone to viruses than Internet Explorer is and is really easy to configure.

Musical Comments

On 18 November, I was listening to Dickinson College's radio station, WDCV, and was surprised to find out that they were offering a free CD if you wanted it, you just had to call up and ask for it (you did not have to be the 51st caller or whatever. I called up, and gave them my address, and after I got back from Thanksgiving, the CD (Return to Cold Mountain) was waiting for me.
I haven't listened to the whole thing, but for now I will say that I am glad I did not pay for it. It's ok, but so far I have not fallen in love with any of the songs on it.
Besides this, I was pretty surprised awhile ago to find Alison Krauss and Union Station's "The Lucky One" and "Every Time You Say Goodbye" downloadable for free on Amazon. If you'd like to download them, just type in the song title and Alison Krauss, and it will allow you to download it. You will need an Amazon account to download it, but they don't charge you. Both of these songs are really good, and Alison Krauss has an awesome voice.
As long as we're on the subject of free music downloads, check out:
Crooked Still. I like Look on and Cry, but Darling Corey is also a free download.

And on the preventing music downloads front...

I think Sony BMG may have gotten itself into a heap of trouble with their digital rights management software. If you did not hear, Sony BMG basically sold CDs which had software on them to prevent you from turning them into MP3s, or listening to it on your computer without using their software. However, their software makes computers vulnerable to viruses and also hides itself, so it cannot easily be removed.
Because of this, Sony is replacing all of the CDs with this software free of charge (and paying shipping costs both ways), and according to their website, is, ironically, offering MP3 downloads to anyone who submits their CD.
The State of Texas has sued them (at $100,000 each incident) because they think that the software is spyware , and so have others. The link I provide above goes to Texas' lawsuit against Sony BMG, which actually has a very clear (and relatively non-technical) explanation of how the software worked, and why it was so horrible.

Think Twice Before Using a Pit Bull in your Advertising

The Florida Supreme Court publicly reprimanded two attorneys and sent them to the Florida Bar Advertising Workshop because they used a pit bull in their law firm's advertising. The attorneys claimed that it was indicative of their tenacity, but the court felt that using a pit bull was inappropriate. The opinion is a PDF, docket number 04-40 on the Florida Supreme Court's website. I actually learned a bit about pit bulls from reading it.

This year's way to avoid studying for finals

After going to this link, click on the left arrow, go out the door, and then click on the penguin. Thanks Caley of The Sweetest Things for this link.

Song I heard on the BBC on iTunes

So, I was listening to Mike Harding's Show on the BBC the other day, and heard a song I liked. Mike Harding's Show is a folk music show. The song was a Steve Earl/Shannon Sharon with Galway Girl. Usually I have little luck finding these songs on iTunes, since many of them are
by independent artists and therefore Apple may not have negotiated whatever agreement with them. I was able to find the song, and download it, without having to buy the whole album. Here's a link to it on iTunes, if you are interested. Note that you will need iTunes to view the link.

Weekend Events

Sarah's birthday was this weekend, and she wanted to see Trick Pony at a free concert that we saw in Harrisburg, at the Hardware Bar. They were pretty good, I was impressed with Heidi Newfield's harmonica skills. I was a bit surprised by how few people were there (pleasantly surprised (because I we were able to get pretty close to the band), mind you, but still surprised. It was nice to get out of Carlisle, which is somewhat necessary to retain one's sanity.

Gmail Tip

If you want to add someone's address to your contacts in Gmail as you send them a message (like if you just looked them up in the Penn State directory and were typing the message to them), just type in the "To" field as shown in the comments to this entry.
(the quotation marks around the name are needed for this trick to work, and there should not be spaces between the email address and the "<" and ">" signs) Once you do this, whoever you are emailing will be added to your contacts list.
To post this and prevent Blogger from interpreting the "<" and ">"as HTML, I had to put the spaces in and post the actual address in the comments section.

Yahoo! Maps vs. Google Maps

As much of a fan of Gmail that I am, I must admit that Yahoo! Maps is better than Google Maps. Even before Yahoo! Maps got its facelift, it was better. The test that I use for any mapping service is to ask it to plot a route from my house in New York to a place that I used to go on vacation in rural Maine. Sometimes mapping services have tried to plot me a route across the water on this route, but not this time. While I think both of them take me along the same route, Google Maps refers to the roads by name, rather than state road number (as Yahoo! Maps does in addition to calling it by name) It makes it much easier to spot the road if you have the road number, since you see a junction and a large sign with the road number, as opposed to just a little tiny green sign with the name, which is not easy to spot if you're moving at a good clip. Plus, Yahoo! Maps remembers previous addresses I have looked up, Google Maps does not.
Yahoo! also has a new mail service, which I'd like to try, but right now it looks like it is still in Beta and unavailable to most people.

Virgin Records Sins

So I went to New York on Friday, and when I was in Philadelphia's 30th Street Station, I noticed that there was a Virgin Records store there. (It's a modest store, not like a Virgin Megastore that you might be picturing) However, it gave me something to do while Amtrak switched engines. In any case, I noticed that, among the things they were selling, were coasters made from the center portion of records (where the track listings are, along with the hole to put the record onto the spindle for the record player) To do this, I imagine that Virgin had to destroy the record, and I think this is a sin. There was at least one artist that I recognized, and even though I did not recognize it, I'm sure that someone might really want a record by an artist, and now, because Virgin must have gone through its inventory and destroyed a whole bunch of records, they'll never be able to get one again. It's really a sin to do that.

Technological Musings

Google came out with a version of their toolbar which is compatible with Mozilla Firefox Beta, which is really nice, because that was holding me back on upgrading. I like the spell checking option of it especially, since if I am filling out a webform (as at the New York Times to send an article to someone), I like to check my spelling.

Apple's new iPod Video is nice, but I'm not about to run out and buy one. I usually like to listen to music while I study, and so the video portion of it would not be useful. I guess it might be useful if I was taking a long airplane flight or something, but for that I might as well buy a portable DVD player, which I would imagine are at least somewhat comparably priced.

Google came out with a new blog reader, reader.google.com It's nice because I can get to blogs that I am intersted in watching for new postings from any computer.

New Orleans

There is a post on Ernie The Attorney's Blog about his return to New Orleans, I think it is really well written.
http://www.ernietheattorney.net/ernie_the_attorney/2005/10/new_orleans_ret.html

Cold Case Music

Cold Case is my favorite show to watch on TV right now. What I really like about it is not only the story lines, but the music that goes along with it. Whoever picks the music for it does an excellent job, because they pick songs that toally mesh with the plot. They're picking songs from whatever era the show is set in. Last Sunday they had, as the ending song, Sarah McLachlan's Fallen, which was really appropriate for last Sunday's show.
Although, as I was watching it on Sunday, I called out "Seized!" when the police officers restrained someone from leaving that they wanted to question. Sigh. I suppose I've been in law school too long.

Rules for Shotgun

I'm going to link to Will Huynh's blog, he has a really clever post on his blog for how to determine who will ride shotgun.

Apple Computer vs. the Record Companies

There's been a series of articles where Apple and the record companies (some of them) have been disputing the amount of money that Apple charges for songs that are downloaded from iTunes. Basically, some of the record companies want to raise the price that Apple charges for songs. I think that the record companies need to read Aesop's Fables. In particular, the fable of the Golden Goose. (One sentence synopsis of the Golden Goose: Goose lays one golden egg a day, farmer likes this, and wants more, so he kills the golden goose to get all the eggs out of her, but there are no more left, and he is left with a dead golden goose)
According to this article in Time magazine:
http://www.time.com/time/2003/inventions/invmusic.html
the record companies get 65 cents per song that they sell on iTunes. This is pure profit for them. They did not have to manufacture the CD, ship the CD to the record store, or produce the plastic needed for the case/CD, or produce the album art (other than to transmit to Apple
a computer file that has the image of the cover on it) They want to raise the price for some songs, and claim that they will lower the prices for others. I'll believe the lower prices when I see them. My big concern is that I think that the record companies make too much money as it is. I think that it is important to reward artists, but the problem is that much of the money does not go to artists, but goes to the record companies.
See:
http://www.ascap.com/musicbiz/money-recording.html
for information on this.
I think that the record companies should leave iTunes alone.

Car Talk

Here is a funny story I found about how Supreme Court decisions are like Stump The Chumps on Car Talk, but you'll need to have listened to Car Talk to appreciate it.
Car Talk Stump The Chumps

Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?

NPR ended Weekend Edition Sunday with a piece about Fats Domino, who was reported missing in New Orleans, but was found alive in Baton Rouge. The song (Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans) is really good, and I'd suggest listening to it. You can hear the whole thing (with a bit of commentary at the beginning), here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4832037

Also, for those of you reading from Penn State Dickinson, please see this blog for information on a mass fundraiser which will be starting at the school, I presume this week.

New Orleans

First, I sympathize with the people of New Orleans and Biloxi, Mississippi. I was watching the News Hour on PBS tonight, and even the governor of Louisiana was at a loss for words and was nearly breaking down. It's rare that I see a politician at a loss for words or breaking down.
They also had a man describing how his wife (who has not been seen since) told him to let go of her hand during the flood and tend to their children. Very sad.
There is an interesting article which foretells this sort of thing here:
http://www.colorado.edu/hazards/o/nov04/nov04c.html
There is also an article from the Times, which struck me when I read it years ago, and now is particularly relevant. It is a back issue, so you will need access to ProQuest to find it (Penn State people can use Lias to get to it), but the article title is: Nothing's Easy for New Orleans Flood Control by Jon Nordheimer, published on April 30, 2002, page F1. (I'm not posting it here because I don't want to be sued for copyright infringement)

Google Desktop and Google Talk

I'm going to make a quick comment about Google Desktop and Google Talk.
Google Desktop is a really neat program...it indexes your whole computer, so if I am studying for my final exam and need to find something quickly in my notes, I just type in whatever I want, and in seconds it displays the file that has the information I want in it. It can do the same thing with emails. It also has a neat feature which as part of the new Sidebar which has a To-Do List. It also will keep track of RSS feeds (blogs). However, on two occasions, the To-Do-List items along with other features of the Sidebar, have crashed, and all of my To-Do-List items along with my customized blogs have been lost. So, the Sidebar feature is somewhat useless right now.
I'm honestly not sure what Google is thinking with Google Talk though. Aol Instant Messenger has such a huge market share, and Google Talk really does not offer anything new. Google Talk, for all its hype, is a very barebones instant messenger client. You can only communicate with Google Talk users (no one I know is a Google Talk user), and you can't do file transfers at all, and although you can have voice chat with your computer, a cell phone will do the same thing, and is much more convenient to use. If they can persuade AOL Instant Messenger to work with Google Talk, then I might consider using it, but until then, I think Google Talk will get nowhere, because it does not do anything new.

Back in School

So, I'm back in school again, after a summer that went all too quickly. Over the last two weeks of vacation, I went on vacation with my family, including places like St. Louis and Kansas City, Missouri. I had the not-too-unusual experience of watching the KC Royals get slaughtered.
I think the score was eleven to one. However, the traffic leaving the game was absolutely nothing compared to a traffic jam leaving a NYC game, and the weather was very nice.
I also got to visit Mammoth Cave National Park, which is amazing. The cave is the longest in the world, at 365 miles, but they are still trying to connect other caves up to it.
There was even a court case on a (currently unconnected to Mammoth) cave that I learned about on one of the tours.
A cave entrance was on one person's land, but the cave extended into another person's land, and that person sued for damages for trespass.
I also got to see Clinton's Library in Little Rock, and Little Rock Central High School (which is still a functioning high school). I also got to see a Harley Davidson factory (Kansas City), a Corvette Factory (Bowling Green, KY), and a Miller brewery (Memphis) (where I learned that Blue Moon "Belgian" beer is actually brewed not in Belgium but in Memphis)
I eventually plan to post pictures from this vacation, once I get them developed.

AIM Fights

AOL Instant Messenger has a new thing to play with, www.aimfight.com
You can see how your popularity compares to other AOL Instant Messenger users.
The explanation for it was also written with a sense of humor.
http://www.aimfight.com/whatisaimfight.html

Scottish Music as a Podcast

Podcasts, in case you don't know, are downloads that are often listened to on an iPod, they are usually sent out as an MP3 file. I say "often listened to" because any MP3 player will do, whether on your computer or another MP3 player)
One of the problems with putting music out as a podcast is the copyright problem (since anytime you make an MP3 file available it can be listened to forever, and if you let someone have a music file forever, you don't give them any reason to buy a CD.)
Anyway. This guy, Mark Hunter, has managed to persuade various Scottish artists (who are unsigned) to allow him to put their music out as a Podcast. Because they're unsigned, there is no copyright concern to worry about.
If you have read this far, you're probably thinking that the music is going to be bagpipe music and thus uninteresting. While I cannot guarantee that you'll like it, the music is not bagpipe music. The show that I listened to, Spotlight Show 6, Ally Kerr, had music that is pop music..
I think it's worth listening to, particularly if you have a high-speed connection, since the files are a decent size (16 MB or so).
http://tartan.podshow.com/
If you have Itunes 4.9, select:
Advanced|Subscribe to Podcast...
and type in this URL in the resulting dialog box.
http://tartanpodcast.libsyn.com/rss
Otherwise you can manually download the MP3s off the first URL and put them into the MP3 player of your choice.

Seeing Dervish

I went to see this group called Dervish in Lancaster last Sunday evening. It was really hot, but worth it. The concert was free, part of the Longs Park Concert Series.
They ony played one or two songs (out of probably ten or fifteen) from their new album. Personally, I like their new album less than their older ones. While there, I got one of their CDs and had it autographed by the whole band. The one flaw in the concert is that when Cathy Jordan (the lead singer) picked a song to get the crowd to sing along to, she picked one that has a moderately difficult melody, as opposed to something easy.

HOV Lanes on the Long Island Expressway

So...
After years of construction, there are now HOV lanes on the
section of the Long Island Expressway that I travel on. They
are in the left-most lane, and if you are not traveling on
them during rush hour, you can be in them even if you are not
a carpool.
Does this mean that if I choose to travel in them, I have to
travel at the super high speed that Long Island speed-demons
would have me go? (You cannot switch in and out of them at
will, like some HOV lanes, you can only enter/exit them at
certain stretches) Therefore I don't think that the HOV lane
can be considered a passing lane. Comments?

Pete Seeger on NPR

Pete Seeger was on NPR on Saturday.

NPR did an interview with him where they discussed some of the folk songs he had been involved with, including "This land is your land" As a note, Woody Guthrie (the composer of this song) originally had the final words of the chorus be "God blessed America for me." as opposed to the familiar words "This land was made for you and me" I think the latter is better.

Some books I've read/am reading

So...
Some books that I've been reading lately include:
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
This is a book about an autistic boy in England who discovers
a dead dog and the results of his detective work. (Thanks Ben
W. for suggesting this book)
Courtroom 302 by Steve Bogira
A reporter spends one year in a courtroom in the Chicago
criminal courthouse.
Disclaimer: If you're sick of lawschool and don't want to read
any books that are law-related, this is not a book for you.

The latest news on NPR

So...
Here are some more interesting stories that I heard on NPR the
other day...
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4695553
and
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4697054
In one town, an island town is weighing secession from the
(larger) mainland town because they do not want to lose their
school to the mainland.
In another town, taxes have become so expensive that they are
being forced to deincorporate. It would be interesting to do
some sociological study to see why this is occurring.

Musical Plagiarism

Again, an interesting discussion on NPR (this time on All Things Considered). This time, it is a discussion of Yershulayim Shel Zahav (or in English, Jerusalem of Gold)
This song was used in Schindler's List, at the very end of the movie, as the credits are being played. If you still dont' remember it, the audio that you can link to if you listen to the story includes a short clip of it. Anyhow, I think it does sound somewhat similar. At the same time, Hatikvah (or The Hope) (Israel's national anthem), has the same theme as the Moldau by Smetana. But the United States' Star Spangled Banner is based on a drinking song, To Anacreon in Heaven. The Smithsonian talks about this, with a link to a recording of it. Check out the recording of the Star Spangled Banner as well. Although I thought that people improvise too much based on the Star Spangled Banner now, they still did so in 1853. (and I think the 1853 version sounds quite fine, actually)

Mount St. Helens Erupted 25 years ago today

Mount St. Helens erupted 25 years ago today. There was an article on
NPR Morning Edition today, they talked about tourists visiting the
Johnston Ridge observatory. I've been there, and if anyone was ever in
the area, I'd definitely suggest going to it. Although Johnston Ridge
is a few miles away, it looks much closer than it is, and even today,
you can still see the impact of the eruption.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4656182

Canadian Parliament Could Fall

In Canada, it looks like Parliament might fall, and there might be a new election.  What I find interesting is that the Liberals seem to be trying to to say that various measures which, to me, look like lack of confidence measures are not really lack of confidence measures.  I think it's a little bit weird that they are doing this, but since I do not consider myself an expert on Canadian politics, perhaps I'm wrong, and maybe they are fully within their rights to be doing this.  In any case, here is the link.
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/05/09/confidence-government050509.html

Kermit The Frog Here

I love listening to NPR in the morning, you hear all sorts of random stories, like this one:
Kermit the Frog turns 50 today.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4635468

Sigh...
I suppose I should get back to Evidence, but this studying distraction was brought you by the letters K, and F, and by the numbers five and zero.

Cool bluegrass music

I happenned upon a bluegrass concert last Monday afternoon at Dickinson College. The group was Special Consensus, and they have a website, in case anyone is interested, here. I was quite impressed with them, and bought a CD of theirs and I'm probably going to buy some more of their music over the summer. I think that while there are a few good country music songs these days, much of the music is uncomplicated and is not particularly complex to sing. It is thus uninteresting, and I think that country music has been moving closer and closer to being just like pop music. If you're interested in hearing good (at least in my opinion) country music and you're not quite ready to make the jump to straight bluegrass, the "O' Brother Where Art Thou" CD is a really good idea.

One Month Old Ipod

So, I've now had an Ipod (Click Wheel) for a month. For the most part, I like it, it's nice to be able to carry my whole collection of songs around with me, rather than having to switch CDs all the time. There are, though, one or two things that I do not like. If you do not use the Ipod for awhile, usually about a day and a half, it goes into what Apple calls "Deep Sleep" mode. According to Apple, this saves battery power. That's great, except when I turn it back on, it has forgotten all of my settings except for the clock. It still has my music on it (and the music is accessible). Losing my music would be a much bigger deal.
While I was looking around for information on this, I came across this website:
http://www.vsa.cape.com/~danh/ipod.htm
which has information on the Ipod's battery. I think its worth a read if you have an IPod.
The other thing that I don't like is how it forgets how to play songs that I have downloaded from Itunes, requiring it to be reset, losing all my settings (yet again). So far, it has done this twice. But overall, I think it is a really nice device, and it's great to be able to have my music whenever I want to.

Ivory-billed Woodpecker

Had to edit this post to make the links actually work....

An interesting story that has been bouncing around the news recently. They found an Ivory-billed woodpecker, long thought to be extinct, in the swamps of Arkansas last year, and kept it secret until now.
I'm just posting one link here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4622633
but there are other things about this on NPR's website.
Check out:
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/programs/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/
which talks about many different birds, and has pictures/recordings of sounds, and is generally pretty neat.
On another, less happy note, I also heard a piece about smoking and how its deleterious effects on your health take years to go away.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4622813

Back and forth to Long Island

Driving home takes such a long time. I have, though, discovered construction zones which cause traffic jams, and side roads that I can take to avoid them. I'm always hesitant as to whether to take these roads, because there's always a chance that there will not be a traffic jam. However, ever since I got caught in an hour long traffic jam on I-78 approaching I-81, I have often taken these alternate roads. It involves taking US 22 between I-81 and I-78, and then taking exit 40 on I-78 down to a small state road that parallels I-78, and I then take that east all the way into Allentown.
The other thing that Pennsylvania does is ask that you use both lanes to the merge point. In other states, they tell you well in advance which lane is closed so that you have time to move over. They do not do this in Pennsylvania. In fact, often, to make sure that you use both lanes to the merge point, they keep which lane is closed a surprise until you actually get to the merge point. On the one hand I think this is good, since it maximizes use of the road to the merge point. However, I still wonder if it does anything, because if you have cars merging in gradually as you approach the lane closure, as opposed to one exact point, wouldn't it work better, since the effect of the lane closure would not be as concentrated?
Of course, if they did not have one of those signs instructing people to use both lanes, and someone tried to merge in at the merge point, I probably would not let them in, because they would be cutting the line. I imagine if this idea of using both lanes was so good, other states would use it, and I have not seen this outside of Pennsylvania, so maybe it is not such a good idea.

The Semester Winds Down

The Semester is winding down here, and oddly I am not that concerned about finals. I am looking forward to Passover this year, it's the one time of the year where I get to see my extended family.
Tomorrow (Wednesday) there is this karaoke thing at Market Cross, which I'm thinking of going to. You may have a rare opportunity (although I use opportunity loosely) to see me sing! I make no promises however.
So, Carlisle, in yet another one of its brilliant moves, decided to drain the fire hydrant near my apartment. This stirred up sediment in the pipes, turning my water a nice appetizing brown color. Gotta love the Borough of Carlisle. That and its snow removal policy, which I call "Wait For The Snow To Melt". This as opposed to a normal town where they actually -- get this Carlisle -- plow the snow!