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Sunday, November 03, 2002 |
Edward Emerson Barnard
Timothy Ferris tells the amazing story of Edward Emerson Barnard in a couple pages of Seeing in the Dark. Barnard grew up in incredible poverty in Nashville just after the Civil War. Uneducated, then self-taught in astronomy, he became one of the great observational astronomers in history.
9:36:47 PM Permalink
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Stand Down
From Textism, a link to this site which is billed as a "left-right blog for opposing the invasion of Iraq." There's lots of good stuff here. To listen to the mainstream media, especially the loudmouth talking heads in the opinion-industrial complex , you'd think that points of view about the coming war divide along party or political lines. Part of that is Republicans trying to make hay before these elections. But that ain't the case, and this site is more proof of it. Good reading.
6:34:22 PM Permalink
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Vote
I was talking to a friend the other day, and during the course of our conversation, he admitted to me that he doesn't vote. My reply to him was that my estimation of him immediately tumbled a substantial amount. This is a smart person in a lot of ways, but for some reason has decided to take himself out of the process. I just told him that in future discussions, his opinion of any political issues didn't matter to me, as they obviously didn't matter to him enough for him to express them.
Not voting really presses my buttons. I mean, it's not hard to do; it's kind of a minimal necessity for being a citizen. I guess those that don't vote sort of think that those in the past who fought and died for voting rights were kind of fools. Or that if we lived under a government where we were not allowed to vote, that would be OK. I remember one twit once saying that he didn't vote because there were other things you could do that would make a much bigger difference. Fine, do those things, too. But do vote.
On the other hand, choosing not to vote shows me the kind of logical reasoning, or lack thereof, that tells me these people probably shouldn't be voting -- they can't be trusted with the decision.
3:43:28 PM Permalink
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Townshend on Cobain
Pete Townshend reviews Kurt Cobain's diaries.
What follows appear to be the scribblings of a crazed and depressed drug-addict in the midst of what those of us who have been through drug rehab describe as 'stinking thinking'. That is, the resentful, childish, petulant and selfish desire to accuse, blame and berate the world for all its wrongs, to wish to escape, or overcome and, finally, to take no responsibility for any part of the ultimate downfall. Me? An expert? Of course. Been there, done that. Back to the academy.
Read this book to see that the human spirit, even at its most sublime, can effect monumental damage on itself and its fellow souls if addiction enters the story. I mourn for Kurt. A once beautiful, then pathetic, lost and heroically stupid boy. Hard rock indeed.
3:35:07 PM Permalink
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iData Pro
I've been looking for a note-taking utility for a while, some place where I can just stash text as I need it. Sometimes this is notes, sometimes URLs, sometimes chunks of SQL or Perl or other script. I use Radio UserLand's outliner a lot, it's very nice, and it's also easy to render the outline in HTML. But the outliner is kind of problematic. For one, having the hierarchy means that I have to think about where in it I'm going to put the note I'm taking, which slows me down from taking the note. Also, I've never been too satisified with searching in an outline. I used to use HyperCard, of course, for this kind of thing.
Lately I've been using iData Pro from Casady & Greene. It's basically a small filing program that works with small databases. The databases can be traditional, meaning that there are specific fields, or it can be free-form, meaning that they're just repositories of text. Kind of like a card program. Casady & Greene are the developers of the old QuickDex program on the Mac which is an old favorite among these types of programs (the first I used was on an old Apple II).
So far, iData Pro works pretty nicely. I have lots of SQL in it, some quotes from web pages, and the like. I don't have enough stuff in there to test its searching yet so can't really comment on it. I do have a small list of complaints I'm going to get together (I'll use Radio Userland, because outlines are very good for this sort of thing). The program's cheap -- I got a deal with copies for both OSX and Windows for $49, and definitely easy to use.
3:29:14 PM Permalink
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California Costline
Lots of pictures -- over 6900 -- taken up and down the California Coast, easily accessible by map. A very nice use of web technology, and a great resource, not to mention loads of fun.
3:10:29 PM Permalink
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© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.
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Verbatim's new CD-R blanks looks like old 45s. [via 
