Nothing to see here

So much for the blog. Not enough time, too little interest. I suppose some day I might start posting entries again, but I doubt it.

I've stopped posting new photos to my web gallery, too, instead putting all of them into my Flickr page. The Gallery software is extremely flexible, but it's really a giant pain in the ass, and Flickr is just more convenient.

I'll leave all the old pages up, at least for now.

Site Housekeeping, Redux

So I just looked at my site in Internet Explorer on a Mac and noticed that several of the little boxes are, um, off. Oddly, the boxes are not messed up in IE for Windows.

sigh...

Another bit to look into. This web publishing stuff can be a giant pain in the ass sometimes.

Site Housekeeping

I think I've pretty much fully migrated this site to HostGator. Still have some things to tidy up when I get a chance, which probably won't be until everyone in the house is healthy.

• I need to update the stylesheets for the main site. The colors are kind of out of whack, and many of them were just temporary placeholders any way.
• I need to update the stylesheets for the Gallery pages. I got Gallery installed, but haven't had a chance to tinker with the styles, so they're using the default templates. Ugly, ugly, very ugly.
• Comments are currently restricted to those with TypeKey accounts. I did this because my site was being overrun with comment spam, and it was increasingly difficult to keep up with it. I haven't decided if I'm going to re-enable comments, leave them the way they are, or disable comments altogether.
• There's other stuff to fix, like creating custom "404 Page Not Found" pages, etc. No idea when I'll get to those kinds of things.
• The archiving scheme for this site has changed as part of the move. Previously, individual archive pages were simply named with a number, something like 000114.html. Now they are named in a much more sensible manner. But this means that any existing links to individual pages are now broken.

Green Light of Death

Well, it finally happened.

I turned on my D70 on Christmas Day and it was unresponsive, with the green memory card access LED blinking steadily. My camera had succumbed to the dreaded Blinking Green Light Of Death (BGLOD).

Nikon D70 and D2H BGLOD

This, of course, is a giant pain in the ass. This is a documented issue with the early production runs of the D70. Nikon issued a service advisory to fix or replace any affected cameras. So, I sent my camera in to Nikon per the advisory. Nikon fixed the issue free of charge (except for the cost of shipping my camera to their repair facility in Melville, NY) and shipped my camera back to me.

B2
Service Repair Rank B2
Write Up
Repair SC 201759
RPL METERING FPC
ADJ AUTO FOCUS OPERATION
CLEAN CCD
GENERAL CHECK AND CLEAN
25212 SERIAL NO xxxxxxx
D70 DIGITAL SLR CAMERA SET

Repair Charges 0.00
Complimentary 0.00
Shipping and Handling 0.00
Total Amount 0.00

In addition to repairing the flaw in the circuit board (which causes the BGLOD), they adjusted the autofocus and cleaned the CCD and the exterior of the camera.

Cool.

I'd rather not have had my camera die on Christmas morning, but I'm happy it was fixed (for free) and sent back so quickly. Total turn-around from the day I shipped it to Nikon was about 8 days.

Felix Naviblock!

"But that doesn't mean anything!"

"Not to you, maybe, but to millions of Americans it means 'Merry Christmas' in Mexican!"

Merry Hannakwanzmas!

Dover, Dover, Dover

I don't really have anything to add about this that hasn't been said better by others smarter than me. Well, OK, that's not true. I have plenty to add. But for now, I'm just going to point to someone who's gone to a lot of effort to collect a whole bunch of information on the Dover Intelligent Design case.

It's The Kitzmiller Carnival at The Questionable Authority.

Maybe I'll have more to say later, but for now all I'll say is outstanding work by Judge Jones. I'm not an attorney, but that was the most fun I've ever had reading a judicial ruling.

Dammit

Jesus Christ, I can't believe how old I've gotten.

I screwed up my back. Again. By doing absolutely frickin nothing.

No idea what I did, but I woke up this morning with my back very sore, and it tightened up as the day went on. I've spent most of the day popping Advil and sitting on the sofa with a heating pad. I don't think it's as bad as last time, when I couldn't even stand in one spot without my lower back screaming at me, but we'll see.

I say again: dammit.

Almost back...

I got the photo gallery installed. It went pretty smoothly, although I still have the default styles applied, so I'll have to go back and upload all the old stylesheets. Or maybe I'll update those, too.

Next on the list is to install Gallery2, which is completely different from Gallery v1.5.

Update:

Wow, the skins that come with Gallery are ugly. U-G-L-Y. So, it's the default (bright) blue until I can hack the CSS until I find something acceptable.

Webhost change

I've changed webhosts, and the DNS update is propagating. Slowly.

For some reason, netbuie.net seems to resolve just fine, but www.netbuie.net does not. I assume that will sort itself out as the DNS records catch up. Once all the kinks are ironed out I'll post details on the switch.

I haven't installed Gallery yet, so any attempts to view the photo gallery will reach dead links. I hope to take care of that in the next few days.

So Sad

How depressing it is to look at the logs for this site and see that one of the most frequent referrals I get is from a Russian web site where hackers list the sites they've hacked.

Yes, my site has been hacked twice in the last month, really just somebody overwriting the index.html page with some garbage. Nothing else gets modified, but it's still a pain in the ass. And my webhost was not very pleased.

Anyway.

Probably going to be making some changes here in the next couple of months. The webhost I've used for the last 4 years was sold to another company, and in comparing what they offer to what's available with other hosts I've decided to consider switching. Switching will be painful, I'd have to move everything over, re-install Movable Type and Gallery, recreate all the Movable Type templates and Gallery templates, fix all the links in all the individual pages, update DNS, etc.

Not to mention the disruption to my email. It makes me tired just thinking about it all. Might be a good project for the end of year break coming up, but I'm not sure I want to spend my vacation sitting in front of a computer. That's how I spend my non-vacation time, as it is.

Most influential Sci-Fi films

Another list...

This one is a list of most influential science fiction films.

1. The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension!
2. Akira
3. Alien
4. Aliens
5. Alphaville
6. Back to the Future
7. Blade Runner
8. Brazil
9. Bride of Frankenstein
10. Brother From Another Planet
11. A Clockwork Orange
12. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
13. Contact
14. The Damned
15. Destination Moon
16. The Day The Earth Stood Still
17. Delicatessen
18. Escape From New York
19. ET: The Extraterrestrial
20. Flash Gordon: Space Soldiers (serial)
21. The Fly (1985 version)
22. Forbidden Planet
23. Ghost in the Shell
24. Gojira/Godzilla
25. The Incredibles
26. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 version)
27. Jurassic Park
28. Mad Max 2/The Road Warrior
29. The Matrix
30. Metropolis
31. On the Beach
32. Planet of the Apes (1968 version)
33. Robocop
34. Sleeper
35. Solaris (1972 version)
36. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
37. Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
38. Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
39. The Stepford Wives
40. Superman
41. Terminator 2: Judgement Day
42. The Thing From Another World
43. Things to Come
44. Tron
45. 12 Monkeys
46. 28 Days Later
47. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
48. 2001: A Space Odyssey
49. La Voyage Dans la Lune
50. War of the Worlds (1953 version)

Most-challenged books

Majikthise has started a "Most-challenged books meme". Look at the American Library Association's most challenged books list, and rattle off the ones you've already read.

1. Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
2. Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
8. Forever by Judy Blume
9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
10. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
11. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
12. My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
14. The Giver by Lois Lowry
15. It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
16. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
19. Sex by Madonna
20. Earth’s Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
21. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
24. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
25. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
26. The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
27. The Witches by Roald Dahl
28. The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
29. Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
30. The Goats by Brock Cole
31. Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
32. Blubber by Judy Blume
33. Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
34. Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
35. We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
36. Final Exit by Derek Humphry
37. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
38. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
39. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
40. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
42. Beloved by Toni Morrison
43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
45. Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
46. Deenie by Judy Blume
47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
48. Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
49. The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
50. Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
51. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
53. Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
54. Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
55. Cujo by Stephen King
56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
57. The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
58. Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
59. Ordinary People by Judith Guest
60. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
61. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madara
62. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
63. Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
64. Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
65. Fade by Robert Cormier
66. Guess What? by Mem Fox
67. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
68. The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
69. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
71. Native Son by Richard Wright
72. Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Fantasies by Nancy Friday
73. Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
74. Jack by A.M. Homes
75. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
76. Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
77. Carrie by Stephen King
78. Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
79. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
80. Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
81. Family Secrets by Norma Klein
82. Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
83. The Dead Zone by Stephen King
84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
85. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
86. Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
87. Private Parts by Howard Stern
88. Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford
89. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
90. Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
91. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
92. Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
93. Sex Education by Jenny Davis
94. The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
95. Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
97. View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
98. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
99. The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
100. Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

I've read 32 out of the 100, guess I need to get busy. Although I think some of these books are more significant than others. I mean come on, Cujo compared to To Kill a Mockingbird??

Google Blog search

I'm not surprised by this. I kind of wonder what took them so long.

Google blog search.

And it works, too!

To my sister

Fuck you.

No, really. Don't think I don't mean it.

Thank you so much for being so irresponsible that I wind up in court over your unpaid bills.

Theme switcher

Wierd.

I put in the code for switching stylesheets, and the first time the page loaded, it didn't load any of them. It was just a lot of unformatted text. Once I clicked on one, it worked fine after that. Wonder if it's because cookies are used to keep track of which one was selected...

Have to check on that.

Busy day in the battle against scientific illiteracy

So, let's see what we have here.

The History Channel has a new show, Ape to Man: The Evolution of Evolution. Ostensibly, it's about the history of research into human origins. I tivo'ed it last night, guess I'll watch it some time this week. PZ Myers has a long critique of it up on his site.

Anthropologist John Hawks has posted a review, as well.

And, of course, The History Channel's forum has been overrun with creationists as a result. I just can't bring myself to go there.

The cover of this week's Time Magazine is about "The Evolution Wars." Good grief. Sensationalize much? Guess I'll be reading that one some time this week. Time has gone downhill in recent years, so I'm not holding my breath expecting a good article...

The Seattle Times weighs in with an editorial on the "philosophy" of Intelligent Design.

Father Andrew Greely, described on his website as

One of the most influential Catholic thinkers and writers of our time, priest, sociologist, author and journalist Father Andrew M. Greeley has built an international assemblage of devout fans over a career that spans five decades. He is the author of over 50 best-selling novels and more than 100 works of non-fiction and his writing has been translated into 12 languages. A Professor of Sociology at the University of Arizona and a Research Associate with the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago, Father Greeley is a respected scholar whose current research focuses on the Sociology of Religion.

has a nicely written op-ed piece pleading for religion to stop meddling with science.

Last but not least, The London Times (free registration required) has the story of what's becoming a very public disagreement between Father George Coyne, an American Jesuit priest and a distinguished astronomy professor and Cardinal Christoph Shonborn over Intelligent Design. Some excerpts of Father Coyne's remarks (courtesy of Red State Rabble):

"God is working with the universe. The universe has a certain vitality of its own like a child does..."

(God) "... is not constantly intervening, but rather allows, participates, loves,"

"... [R]eligious believers must move away from the notion of a dictator or designer God, a Newtonian God who made the universe as a watch that ticks along regularly."

"Perhaps God should be seen more as a parent or as one who speaks encouraging and sustaining words."

"This view is compatible with the Bible, which gives God human characteristics and presents divinity as "a God who gets angry, who disciplines, a God who nurtures the universe, who empties himself in Christ the incarnate word."

According to the Catholic News Service, Father Coyne criticized Cardinal Schonborn for saying that the scientific processes of "chance" and "necessity" cannot explain the presence of purpose and design in nature. He gave the example of two hydrogen atoms meeting in the universe.

"By necessity (the laws of chemical combination) they are destined to become a hydrogen molecule. But by chance the temperature and pressure conditions at that moment are not correct for them to combine. And so they wander through the universe until they finally combine."

"By the interaction of chance and necessity, many hydrogen molecules are formed and eventually many of them combine with oxygen to make water, and so on, until we have very complex molecules and eventually the most complicated organism that science knows: the human brain."

"Chance" and "necessity" are continuously interacting and must be understood as being tied to the scientific process of "fertility" by which the universe is constantly generating matter, he said.

"The classical question as to whether the human being came about by chance, and so has no need of God, or by necessity, and so through the action of a designer God, is no longer valid," he said."The meaning of chance and necessity must be seen in the light of that fertility," he said.

The universe contains trillions of stars and they "release to the universe the chemical abundance of the elements necessary for life," he said.

"There is no other way, for instance, to have the abundance of carbon necessary to make a toenail than through the thermonuclear processes in stars. We are all literally born of stardust," he said.

Evolution is a continuous process and "has a certain intrinsic natural directionality in that the more complex an organism becomes the more determined is its future," he said.

"It is precisely the fertility of the universe and the interaction of chance and necessity in the universe which are responsible for the directionality," said Father Coyne.

Switchable color schemes

Like most every change I've made to this site, the next change arises from boredom. I've gotten bored with the way this site looks, so I decided to tinker with it. Some.

Many weblogs and photologs have user-switchable color schemes. Clicking one of the style links executes a javascript that forces the page to use a particular stylesheet. The script also sets a cookie, so once the stylesheet is changed, that change will persist when the visitor moves among other pages on the site.

It's actually quite simple; the instructions and the script can be found at A List Apart. What's not so simple is finding good color schemes that work well across platforms. Once I find some schemes I like, I'll implement the facility on this site, and probably on my photolog as well.

It does look like there are better ways to achieve this functionality. Guess I'll get around to trying it that way, eventually.

Teach Both Sides

I found this on Anne's Anti-Quackery & Science Blog:

Pretty funny.

No wonder I like Monty Python

Although I don't much like being compared to Woody Allen. Not at all.

the Wit (73% dark, 34% spontaneous, 22% vulgar)

your humor style: CLEAN | COMPLEX | DARK You like things edgy, subtle, and smart. I guess that means you're probably an intellectual, but don't take that to mean you're pretentious. You realize 'dumb' can be witty--after all isn't that the Simpsons' philosophy?--but rudeness for its own sake, 'gross-out' humor and most other things found in a fraternity leave you totally flat. I guess you just have a more cerebral approach than most. You have the perfect mindset for a joke writer or staff writer. Your sense of humor takes the most effort to appreciate, but it's also the best, in my opinion. Also, you probably loved the Office. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check it out here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/theoffice/. PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Jon Stewart - Woody Allen - Ricky Gervais

Congressional Intimidation

It appears as if the Republicans in Congress are spending their time wisely, attempting to intimidate and discredit several prominent climatologists because of their roles in the climate change debate. Judging by their responses, it does not appear that the scientists are particularly intimidated.

Rep. Joe Barton, Chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, recently sent letters requesting "information regarding global warming studies."

Responses have come fast and furious:

• A statement from the EGU


• The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)


• A Nature editorial


• A letter from US scientists


• A letter from the head of the National Academy of Sciences


• A commentary from Tom Crowley in EOS


• The House Committee on Science and Henry Waxman


• Response of Michael Mann


• Response of Ray Bradley


• Response of Malcolm Hughes

Full discussion of the matter can be found on RealClimate.org:

Many in the scientific community would welcome any genuine interest in climate change from the committee, but the tone and content of these letters have alarmed many scientists and their professional organisations. In the words of Alan Leshner, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Barton letters "give the impression of a search for some basis on which to discredit these particular scientists and findings, rather than a search for understanding."

-- from RealClimate.org