blivet radio
The Radio weblog of Hal Rager

Saturday, March 20, 2004

Best of Luck, Jeff! An extremely belated, but no less sincere congratulations to one of the original ETP group, Jeff Cheney, who is now working for the other Mothership, Userland. 2:49:35 PM    comment   trackback []

October Surprise: Iraq WMDs? Ugh. It seems all too likely in my book... These guys play dirty. [seen at Eliot's Follow Me Here] 2:37:47 PM    comment   trackback []

NASA Explains “Dust Bowl” Drought "NASA scientists have an explanation for one of the worst climatic events in the history of the United States, the "Dust Bowl" drought, which devastated the Great Plains and all but dried up an already depressed American economy in the 1930s." [NASA's Earth Observatory] 2:24:45 PM    comment   trackback []

Glacial Records Depict Ice Age Climate In Synch Worldwide "An answer to the long-standing riddle of whether the Earth's ice ages occurred simultaneously in both the Southern and Northern hemispheres is emerging from the glacial deposits found in the high desert east of the Andes. Using a new technique to gauge the effects of cosmic rays on minerals found in boulders carried by South American glaciers thousands of years ago, a group of scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison has demonstrated that the Earth's most recent ice ages were global events, likely driven by change in the atmosphere. The work, reported in the current (March/April) issue of the Geological Society of America Bulletin, a leading earth science journal, is important because it reveals that ice ages were global in nature, a fact scientists had trouble determining due to the difficulty of precisely dating the jumble of debris - sand, gravel, clay, boulders - that ice age glaciers leave in their wakes. The new work suggests that ice ages were worldwide phenomena due, in part, to the sluggish redistribution of solar energy through the world's oceans punctuated by repeated, rapid cooling of the Earth's atmosphere." [Science Daily] 2:03:21 PM    comment   trackback []

Testing... Just seeing if this still works... 1:54:34 PM    comment   trackback []

Saturday, August 30, 2003

XML and RDF Illustrated "Even I can understand the difference now!..." [Edward Bilodeau] Good pointer, thanks Ed. 10:37:06 PM    comment   trackback []

Plagiarism Ed has posted a link to 'what looks like a very comprehensive plagiarism resource.' I certainly agree. 9:58:17 PM    comment   trackback []

Robert Anton Wilson For Governor "Robert Anton Wilson is running for Governor of the Republic of California as the unofficial write-in candidate for the Guns and Dope Party ... And yes, I do own everything RAW's written, and I can't imagine what you mean when you say that that explains a lot." [Dori at Backup Brain] I love Dori's last line, perhaps because I have a whole shelf of Wilson. I have gotten several 'why am I not surprised...' comments over the years. 9:47:07 PM    comment   trackback []

Sunday, August 24, 2003

Warren Zevon on VH1 Tonight... "When singer/songwriter Warren Zevon was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a rare type of terminal lung cancer in August of 2002, his wish was to record an album dedicated to saying goodbye to the people he loved...." [more] [worth repeating from blivet] 2:13:46 AM    comment   trackback []

Software for the Paranoid Software for the Paranoid: because if you aren't paranoid these days, you just aren't paying attention.... [Backup Brain] 2:08:43 AM    comment   trackback []

Tuesday, August 5, 2003

147 SIMPLE STEPS to reinstall Windows XP I read DIM pretty regularly and i just thought this was hilarious. I know it has been linked to from all over already, but there you have it... 9:33:27 PM    comment   trackback []

Is This Why I'm An Archaeologist? "There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." Bertrand Russell. [Quotes of the Day] 9:11:14 PM    comment   trackback []

Duly noted "Never give a child a sword." Latin Proverb. [Motivational Quotes of the Day] 9:07:09 PM    comment   trackback []

Trackback enabled Now I just need to start using Radio again... 8:57:31 PM    comment   trackback []

Sunday, June 22, 2003

Mea culpa For those of you who actually do check this venue, let me apologize for letting it lie fallow for so long. It can be tough to post to a browser-based weblog with a shared computer, tougher if there is one more application to start up. 3:10:13 PM    comment   trackback []

Two From Craig Excellent rundown of Fox News "War as Entertainment" reporting  Fibbing it Up at Fox by Dale Steinreich Since the Iraq conflict began on March 20, Fox News has been on a mission to legitimize it. One problem for Fox's protracted apologia is that despite promises of evidence of current weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) by the Bush Administration, the evidence has been ambiguous at best. Unfortunately for the network, I've been keeping a scratch diary of their reports since the war began. Keep in mind that in the first three weeks of March, before the bombs started officially dropping, Fox was spreading all sorts of Pentagon propaganda. Iraq had "drones" that it could quickly dispatch to major U.S. metropolitan areas to spread biological agents. Saddam was handing out chemical weapons to the Republican guard to use against coalition troops in a last-ditch red-zone ring around Baghdad. Given what we now know about Iraq, these reports seem to be laughable fantasies, but they were effective in securing public backing for the war. The following is a short chronicle of lies, propagation of lies, exaggerations, distortions, spin, and conjecture presented as fact. My comments are in brackets [ ]s. (link via Cursor) I guess it's a soft-headed, lefty-rhetoric cliché to point out how shocking it is that a large percentage of Americans get the majority of their news from the mindless sinkhole known as Fox News. Since my family and I moved to San Marcos, we have not subscribed to cable, we don't have a satellite dish nor do we have an antenna for our television. We have not watched it, except for rented movies, for 10 months. I do believe we will keep it that way. We're all Republicans now!  Digby Phone Home (...) If you listen to Rush and his Boyz in the (wrinkle-free, 250 thread count percale) Hood, over time you will come to realize that there is no problem that will not instantly be solved on the day the last Democrat in America cries uncle and the Party ceases to exist. [more] Welcome back Digby, we missed ya. Note to BookNotes readers, you really owe it to yourself to check out Digby at Hullabaloo everyday. [Craig's BookNotes] 2:57:32 PM    comment   trackback []

Saturday, May 3, 2003

Yeah, that's it "Misquotation is, in fact, the pride and privilege of the learned. A widely- read man never quotes accurately, for the rather obvious reason that he has read too widely." Hesketh Pearson [Quotes of the Day] 1:23:17 PM    comment   trackback []

Thursday, May 1, 2003

Getting late I can hear Ian in his room. The thump of his leg hitting the mattress as he fights sleep makes me want to go in and pick him up and hold him so I can see that smile of his one more time before I lay down myself. Thump! He is still holding on by a slender thread after 45 minutes. Please go to sleep little guy! 8:39:32 PM    comment   trackback []