Saturday, May 10, 2003

NASA Gets a New Shuttle Chief. NASA appoints William Parsons to head up the shuttle program to replace Ron Dittemore, who announced his resignation in April. Parsons will have a tough road ahead, with the shuttle fleet grounded as the investigation into the fatal Columbia tragedy proceeds. [Wired News] 10:01:35 PM

We spent the day planting a pink dogwood tree bought for my wife for Mother's Day, and helping my mother clean out some stuff from their house. It always amazes me how mothers are such keepers of memories and things that remind them of their kids and the things they've done with them. We had a good time, but some of that old furniture was very heavy. 9:56:18 PM

	Thursday, May 01, 2003

so this is pretty good - is the American programmer in danger of extinction? The global advantage. With U.S. enterprises increasingly looking to offshore talent to reduce costs, the American programmer has become, in bottom-line speak, a fungible asset. As the globalization of software development unfolds all around us, it's clear that dollars-per-line-of-code is but one of the equation's variables. Other factors influencing this view include time to market, the speed with which project teams and resources can be assembled, and the rate at which tools and techniques can be transferred between offshore outfits and U.S and European companies. [Full story at InfoWorld.com] ... [Jon's Radio] 8:02:53 PM

A wacky day at work - life is very busy right now. Besides the work load at work, there's the three-ring circus at home. I've got six wonderful kids and I'm proud of each one. 7:54:53 PM

	Saturday, April 05, 2003

A quiet day at home - trying to finish the taxes. Every year at this time I become a libertarian.... It just amazes me regarding the complexity of the tax code. Why do they need to ask 100 million people if they work in the lobster industry, because if they did, they'd get a special tax break? 10:03:10 PM

	Wednesday, March 19, 2003

"Our policy is simple: We are not going to betray our friends, reward the enemies of freedom, or permit fear and retreat to become American policies. ... None of the four wars in my lifetime came about because we were too strong. It is weakness ... that invites adventurous adversaries to make mistaken judgments." -- former President Ronald Reagan 9:58:41 PM

On the eve of war - waiting for the other shoe to drop. I've been doing some reading and comparing notes on Bluetooth and 802.11b .. it sounds like Bluetooth is a way of connecting devices together without wires, whereas 802.11b is a wireless LAN technology. I'm using wireless in the house now, and really like the mobility of taking the laptop anywhere in the house (or even outside) without worrying about LAN cables. It will be interesting to see what technology has done to the art of warfare in the 21st Century.... 8:25:05 PM

	Sunday, February 02, 2003

This is an example of what I was talking about yesterday .... the author says that humans are only needed rarely in space, and that robot tugs can do most of the work. Humans, and particularly Americans, are an adventuresome lot - we belong in the space frontier. To say that we don't is to deny who we are. If we stop going to space because its not safe, we'll be giving up an essential part of who we are. 6:08:57 PM

This story shows how starved NASA has been for money needed to run the program safely.... if we're going to be a space-faring nation, we need to spend the money to do it right. 3:09:44 PM

Dave W. has some good stuff on the shuttle: Rogers Cadenhead shares a couple of links. Try this one. Beam Me Out Of This Death Trap, Scotty. He's talking about the Columbia. Another one. "It would never occur to a baby-boomer that anything associated with the shuttle could have historical significance." Great stuff. [Scripting News] 2:04:00 PM

	Saturday, February 01, 2003

This is an interesting article ... people in California were seeing material coming off of the orbiter as it passed over. 7:18:03 PM

Isn't this special ....The Iraqis call the disaster God's judgement. It's amazing that people can rejoice in a tragedy such as this. 7:11:50 PM

If you know me, you know that I wanted to be an astronaut when I was growing up. Back in the days when I would wake up at 4 am on the West Coast to watch Gemini and Apollo launches, it was generally accepted that the astronauts were taking risks, especially after the fire on Apollo 1. As everyone has been saying, we tend to treat the Shuttle system like a UPS truck - of course it will return safely. These people that died today gave their lives doing cutting edge pioneering on the frontiers of space, and like many pioneers before them, paid the ultimate price for the things we learn when we push the envelope. The main thing I hate to see will be the questions that the Luddites will raise questioning why we are in space in the first place - "Why spend all of this money putting people in danger when we could spend that money reducing human suffering?" and so forth. If we stop reaching out into the unknown, a part of us dies. We will always have human problems here on earth - from what I understand, Health and Human Services spends the equivalent of the annual NASA budget in a matter of days. 6:28:12 PM

This is a weather radar image that shows the debris shower from the breakup of the orbiter Columbia. 6:11:55 PM

A good discussion of the risks. We've got to remember that anytime you move something through the air at mach 18, you've got a risk of problems. 6:07:02 PM

Lots of data, but no clear answers... 6:03:59 PM

A tragic day for the United States and its space program. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the crew of STS-107. 3:38:54 PM

	Wednesday, January 22, 2003

A few days ago I got the notion to replace the OS running on the home server, which was running Windows NT 4.0. You know, run Linux, Samba, update the software, do something new. In the process of the Linux install, it didn't recognize the hard drives in the server. Several hours later, the hard drives were formatted and empty, and I couldn't get anything to install properly. Not even Windows NT 4.0...... This was bad because the box acted as the proxy to the Internet, and now the whole house was off the Net. I broke down yesterday and bought a Linksys wireless router, hooked up the DSL, got it configured, and voila, the house is back in the 21st century. Today I bought a wifi card, and I'm now updating my blog from the comfort of the living room. Cozy fire in the fireplace, etc....  really cool. Isn't technology wonderful?  ;-)   10:52:54 PM