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.