blivet radio
The Radio weblog of Hal Rager

Wednesday, March 13, 2002

Vellum beats Silicon "There's a sick irony in that cuneiform and manuscripts are more durable than digital media. But digital decay and technical obsolescence are real problems, problems we've known about for years." [Digital Medievalist] 8:37:50 PM    comment   trackback []

Frank Lloyd Wright. "The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his client to plant vines - so they should go as far as possible from home to build their first buildings." [Motivational Quotes of the Day] 8:31:15 PM    comment   trackback []

'Afghan Girl' Mystery Solved "After 17 years of looking, photographer Steve McCurry has finally relocated the subject of his most famous photo: the young Afghan girl whose green eyes stared out from the cover of National Geographic.(...) The story of McCurry's search for Gula will be featured in the April issue of National Geographic and is the subject of a National Geographic EXPLORER documentary on MSNBC Friday at 9 p.m. ET." [Alex Chadwick on NPR's Morning Edition] [via blivet] 8:23:30 PM    comment   trackback []

That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it Henrik Tikkanen. "Truly great madness cannot be achieved without significant intelligence." [Quotes of the Day] 8:14:07 PM    comment   trackback []

Natural Hazards: "Bull's Eye" — The Richat Structure, Mauritania. This prominent circular feature in the Sahara desert of Mauretania has attracted attention since the earliest space missions. [NASA's Earth Observatory] I remember noticing this feature, I think in a National Geographic pictorial abou;the Apollo 8 mission. I hadn't thought about it in years and years. 8:10:29 PM    comment   trackback []

If it walks like a Duck... Richter cartoon caption. "Orthodox medicine has not found an answer to your complaint. However, luckily for you, I happen to be a quack." [Quotes of the Day] 7:56:59 PM    comment   trackback []

Something in the Air The wind is blowing at a steady 25 - 30 mph with gusts to 45. Something seems to happen to a significant fraction of the commuting population when the wind blows steadily - they get short tempered and a bit agitated. OK, more than a bit agitated, which makes the community of drivers relying on fairly predictable behavior from the other drivers to get home safely a little edgy. Las Vegans get frantic when the pavement is wet, so I shouldn't be surprised when a little wind causes the accident rate to spike. Despite this, Ian and I made it home safely to Mom. I felt like a fisherman outside a busy harbor in a little green boat with a 5 horse outboard motor. rrrreeeee (that's the sound of the motor, humor me) Huge gaudy yachts dripping with faux-Admiral caricatures in double-breasted Navy Blue blazers with bikini clad trophy girls sunning themselves on the deck plowed in front of my little green boat, oblivious of their wake. Testosterone crazed youths drunk with visions of their immortality blasted by on personal watercraft. Other seemingly normal folk suddenly veered on unexpected tangents which then cascaded into chains of boats running aground. rrrreeeee I sat in the stern and just kept the little boat pointed upwind with my hand on the till. I had one eye on that swaddled youngin' up there between the thwarts and with the other I watched the chaos unfold around me. Evey so often I would say something like, "don't ever do that Ian, that was dumb." rrrreeeee I shouldn't say chaos, because there was a perverse sense of symmetry as things unfolded. After a bit, you could sense which of your fellow travellers were going to turn feral and lurch their oversized Lincoln Realtormobiles into the rocks. Despite the gross tonnage and draft of these beasts, the miracle of power steering allows the average idiot to maneuver into certain harm and property damage with ease, thus avoiding the necessity of loosing their grip on their god damn cell phone. rrrreeeee I kept my little boat's nose into the wind. The horse could smell the port, er... stable. We were going home, so we could get out of that boat, go inside, and be out of the wind. And be with Mom. That was going to be the best part. 6:46:20 PM    comment   trackback []