Archive for March, 2013

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Which would you rather have?

Sunday, March 24th, 2013

A firetruck? Or a zoo?

I’m on the firetruck side. Along I-35, in the general area of Round Rock, there are two places that appear to have used fire trucks for sale. I haven’t actually checked out either one, because I didn’t know what to look for in a used fire truck and I wasn’t sure I could afford one anyway. So this article delights me. Key points:

  • Used firetrucks can be very cheap. Like almost couch change cheap.
  • “…buy a truck from an active fire department (as opposed to a private owner) because many older private firetrucks have been neglected and no longer have functioning pumps.”
  • Buying a used firetruck is another instance where it is a good idea to buy local. I would not have thought of this, and did not realize this, but: “firetrucks aren’t built to drive highway miles or drive at highway speeds”. This does make sense, but it leaves you with a problem; if you don’t buy local, how do you get it home? (In the author’s case, by truck from Ohio to Montana, and it cost more to transport the truck than he paid for it.)
  • It is worth the time to research local laws.
  • It is also worth the time to think about where you’re going to park your fire truck. Not just at home (will it fit in the garage?) but when you go to the store to get butter and cheese.

I do wonder what an auto liability policy on a used firetruck runs per year, but I’m not going to ask: the author’s blog uses the Gawker comments system, which I refuse to register for.

Posted in Clippings | Comments Closed

Face Palm Sunday.

Sunday, March 24th, 2013

If Jesus were prosecuted today under Texas law, what would we do?
Would we sentence him to a life behind bars, or would we sentence him to death?

Gee, wouldn’t that depend on what charges Jesus was being prosecuted under, and whether any of those charges are capital crimes?

In the live, unscripted mock trial, Mark Osler, a former federal prosecutor and now a law professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, plays the prosecutor. Jeanne Bishop, a Chicago public defender who teaches law at Northwestern University, plays Jesus’ attorney. Both are against the death penalty, and though they hope that support for abolishing capital punishment can rise from faith communities, they emphasize that there is no argument for or against it during the presentation. “This is not an anti-death penalty diatribe,” Bishop said.

Mmmmm-hmmmm.

Christians seem to make a distinction between Jesus’ wrongful execution and the execution of criminals, in part, Osler said, “because Christians tend to see Christ as unimaginably good and capital defendants as unimaginably bad. (But) Jesus taught that, ‘When you visit someone in prison, you visit me.’ He didn’t say when you visit the innocent person.”

And maybe Christians make this distinction because Jesus didn’t kill his eight-year-old son for insurance money. Maybe Christians make this distinction because Jesus didn’t rape an 11-year-old girl and her mother and set their house on fire. Just saying.

In the enactment, Jesus has already been convicted of blasphemy. After witnesses are called and attorneys give closing arguments, audience members break up into juries of 12 and have two questions to decide. First, is there a probability that, if not executed, Jesus would commit criminal acts that would constitute a continuing threat to society?

I am not a lawyer, but to the best of my knowledge:

  • The state of Texas does not have a blasphemy law.
  • If the state does have a blasphemy law, it probably would not pass constitutional muster and could not be enforced.
  • If the state of Texas did have a blasphemy law, and if such a law did pass constitutional muster, I seriously doubt that it would carry the death penalty, and if it did, that also probably would not pass constitutional muster. If the Supreme Court is unwilling to allow the death penalty for raping a minor, how likely would they be to allow it for “blasphemy”?

I think it is worth having a discussion about the death penalty. I know I keep threatening to do this, but I still want to write an essay about the death penalty, my qualms about it, and why I still believe it should be an option.

Osler, the author of “Jesus on Death Row: The Trial of Jesus and American Capital Punishment,” said the presentation is only meant to challenge Christians to think about the death penalty in the context of their faith. “For Christians, part of that context is the trial and execution of Jesus,” Osler said.

And part of that context is that horrible people do horrible things to other people, and forfeit their right to be a part of society. It is worth debating whether that forfeit should be a lifetime behind bars, or a needle in the arm. But by framing this in the context of “would we do this to Jesus?” without considering that Jesus committed no crime under Texas law – indeed, rigging the game so that Jesus has already been convicted of a non-crime, and the jury is only supposed to consider punishment – well, my feeling is that Osler and Bishop are framing their challenge in a dishonest way.

Jesus taught that, ‘When you visit someone in prison, you visit me.’ He didn’t say when you visit the innocent person.”

Jesus taught a lot of other stuff, too. Like

It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.

and

Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.

If ministers want to visit prisons and provide religious council to the inmates, even the ones on death row, that’s awesome. More power to them. But their dominion is the heavens, not Earth. As a friend of mine used to say about some folks, “Jesus may love you, but I think you’re s–t wrapped in skin.”

Edited to add: Mike the Musicologist made a good point, which I am ashamed to admit I missed. This whole debate is stupid for another reason: Christ’s sacrifice on the cross to redeem mankind’s sins is the central concept of the Christian religion.

You can sit there and debate whether Christ should or should not have gotten the death penalty. But without the crucifixion of Christ, you don’t have the redemption of mankind from sin. Without Christ getting the death penalty, you don’t have Christianity (or Catholicism). At best, what you’ve got is Judaism where Christ is an important prophet of the Second Coming.

Christ has to die. That’s the entire plan. And this debate ignores that point.

(Mike’s point reminds me of another one I’ve been thinking about for a while. Namely, Judas gets a bum rap, and is probably sitting on God’s right hand in heaven. Without the betrayal by Judas, there’s no trial, there’s no crucifixion, there’s no resurrection, and again there’s no Christianity. All Judas did was set in motion the plan that had been in the works for thousands of years. Judas was doing what he had to do to fulfill the plan; blaming him is like blaming the last snowflake in an avalanche.)

Edited to add 2: You know, I bet the idea that “Judas got a bum rap” is probably one of the many heresies (like the Manichaean heresy) that existed in the early church. But I have yet to find an example of it in practice, or even a name for it.

Posted in Clippings, Law, Stupid | 2 Comments »

Bicycle, bicycle…

Sunday, March 24th, 2013

My great and good friend Joe D. left a long comment on last night’s cycling post. Because I believe in rewarding hard work, I’m promoting his comment to a post. (That also gives me a chance to do some annotation.)

You could bike to work. If you do that, they let you use the showers in the fitness center for free. You’ll need to bring your own towel, though.

Yeah, I could bike to work, if I was working. I did give some thought to trying that, just as an experiment, when I was still working for Four Letter Computer Company. Google Maps has the distance as about 14 miles and 90 minutes.

I did the bike-to-work thing pretty much daily for 6 years. 8 miles each way. Saved a buttload of gas, got in shape, etc. But since they made me start working from home, I haven’t been biking nearly as much. I miss it.

I’m not exactly basing my employment decisions on the ability to bike to work, but I’ve seen some jobs that look promising and might allow for a more reasonable bike commute.

I only recently got a cellphone. If I’d had one when I was commuting, I’d have used it to do all my trip logging. I did install MyTracks, though. It seems to work well. I rode for a couple of hours last weekend, and it didn’t seem to affect the battery life that much. Even if it did, I bought myself a http://kiwichoice.com/portable-chargers/kiwi-u-powered for my birthday. It should more than double my battery life.

That Kiwi looks nice. I have a couple of USB batteries that should work if I need more cellphone power: I used to use those to run the USB Christmas lights at 4LCC, since we couldn’t have plug-in lights. If I were employed, though, I’d give serious thought to the Kiwi as a backup/bug-out/prepper device.

Oh yeah. Speaking of cellphone, the one I get was with Republic Wireless. You have to buy the phone for $250, but it’s $20/month for unlimited talk/text/data thereafter. The phone (Motorola Defy XT) is a couple of years behind the curve, but works well enough. I wish it had a bigger screen, but other than that, it’s fine. The reason it’s so cheap is that if you’re connected to a wifi network, it will make all the phone calls via voip over wifi. Otherwise, it uses the cell network.

My current service is with Sprint, but I’m off contract and will be considering a phone upgrade and/or provider change once I’m employed again. Republic sounds worthy of consideration.

If you’re looking for panniers, get yourself a this: http://www.topeak.com/products/Bags/MTXTrunkBagDXP

Oh, I am delighted to hear you say this, Joe. I have actually been seriously considering both the Topeak MTX Trunk Bag EXP as well as the MTX Trunk Bag DXP. I will probably pick up one of those once I’m employed. From what I’ve seen at REI, the DXP is about $30 more, but has a larger capacity than the EXP.

I keep a spare tube, tools, and such in the center compartment, and if I need more storage, the sides unzip and fold out into saddlebags. There’s enough room to hold a laptop and a complete change of clothes, including shoes and a towel. Best of all, it unhooks from the rack with the push of a button allowing you to carry it in with you.

Yeah. Currently, I have an under-seat bag that holds tools and spares, but it doesn’t fit with the current rack, so I’ve sort of South Austin engineered it onto that rack. I like the large central compartment of the Topeak bags very much. The one minor problem I see with the DXP and EXP is that I’ll probably want to change out the current rear rack for a Topeak compatible one; that’s not a deal breaker, though I am a little confused as to exactly which rack I need to use with the DXP/EXP.

One additional point in the cellphone vs. dedicated computer debate that I didn’t think of last night: a cellphone, at least in theory (we’ll see how this works out) offers you audio capability as well.

Some people I know believe that the only sound you should care about when riding is the ambient sound around you. Other people like to listen to music to pump themselves up, or perhaps podcasts as a diversion. I don’t fall on either side; I have iPods, but those require headphones or ear buds, and I find the idea of plugging one’s ears while riding an evolutionarily BAD idea. I kind of like listening to the ambient sounds around me, but if I can add the soothing sounds of Siracusa or squirrels, that would be a big win.

Or, of course, I could just play some appropriate music to get myself pumped up for those hills…



Posted in Cycling | 1 Comment »

Firing watch.

Sunday, March 24th, 2013

Sources are reporting that Ben Howland is going to be fired from his position as men’s basketball coach at UCLA.

Howland has a 233-107 record in 10 seasons at UCLA. He took the Bruins to three Final Fours and won four conference championships.

The team went 25-10 this year, and lost on Friday to Minnesota.

The Tampa Bay Lightning (wait, they play hockey in Florida?) fired coach Guy Boucher.

Boucher, who led the Lightning to the Eastern Conference final in 2010-11, his first season, is 84-62-19 in two-plus seasons behind the bench. Tampa Bay, which seems as if it will miss the playoffs for a second straight season, is on a 7-16-1 skid this season after a 6-1-0 start.

Posted in Clippings, Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

Gonzaga?

Sunday, March 24th, 2013

What is wrong with you people?

You go in as a #1 seed, and you lose this early to Wichita State?

You’ve cheated me out of my $5 worth of entertainment, and now I have to pay off my bet to Lawrence.

See if I bet on you next year.

Posted in Clippings, Sports, Wagers | Comments Closed

There’s a word for this.

Saturday, March 23rd, 2013

My sister and her family (who I love dearly) gave me this shirt for Christmas.

I was wearing it this afternoon when I went to REI, as I also planned to wear it to the blogmeet as a recognition signal. Anyway, I’m standing in the checkout line at REI, not even thinking about the shirt, when one of the clerks looks at me…

…and says, “Hey! I have that shirt at home!”

Not what I expected at REI, but between that and clerks at B&N who want to discuss how GD dumb the proposed assault weapons ban is, I believe that word is: Winning!

Posted in Clothing, Guns, Politics, Shirts | Comments Closed

You don’t say?

Saturday, March 23rd, 2013

Boris Berezovsky, 67, an exiled Russian ex-tycoon who played a key role in bringing Vladimir Putin to power, only to have a bitter falling out, has died in Britain, according to his family and Russian media reports.

The LAT goes on to report that

…there were conflicting reports Saturday about the circumstances of his death.
Rossiya 24, a Russian television news channel, reported that he was found dead in the bathroom of his London home. Other reports said he died at his home in the county of Surrey in the south of England. Well-known Russian lawyer Alexander Dobrovinsky said he learned from a close friend of Berezovsky that he had committed suicide.

Since the UK has strict gun control laws, I feel certain that Mr. Berezovsky probably did not commit suicide by shooting himself in the chest five times with a bolt-action .22 rifle. But that’s probably the only thing that can be said for sure.

Posted in Clippings, Obits | 1 Comment »

Night thoughts.

Saturday, March 23rd, 2013

Some folks may have noticed that I haven’t been doing as much bread blogging recently. That’s because I haven’t been baking as much bread; I’ve been a little tied up with some family things. Nothing serious, nothing health related, and things are winding down. But it has distracted me a little from the bread machine. I’m going to try to do another one of Laurence Simon’s recipes this week, but I’m not sure which one.

In other news, I’m trying to get back on my bike. I have a Trek 7500 that I bought several years ago, and which sat idle pretty much the entire time I was going to St. Ed’s. I took it in last week and had it cleaned, lubed, and tuned; now I just have a series of petty annoyances I’m working my way through. (I couldn’t find my water bottles, so I bought replacements. You can’t have too many water bottles, anyway. Then I couldn’t find my bike shoes: I can ride the Trek in my normal sort of half-boot half-sneaker shoes, but it isn’t as efficient. REI had some Shimano SH-MT33L shoes on the clearance rack at an incredibly low price, so I grabbed a pair of those.)

(Side note: I bought my bike at Freewheeling Bicycles. Why? Lawrence bought his there. I’m happy I followed his lead. The total bill to get my bike out of hock last week was about $104. That price included $8 for a rear tube, and another $45 for a rear bike rack. I want to start making grocery store trips on the bike, rather than the car, so I bought the rack and plan to sling some panniers over it at some point. Since I bought the bike there, Freewheeling gave me a 25% discount on labor, so the whole thing ended up being much more reasonable than I expected. Consider this an endorsement of Freewheeling.)

(Side note 2: F–k Sun and Ski Sports, the horse they rode in on, and any horse that looks anything like the horse they rode in on.)

As a geek, one of the things I’ve always wanted to when I was riding was to log and track my rides. I have a cheap-ass bike computer with basic functionality: current and average speed, distance on current ride, odometer, and clock. But I’ve always wanted to be able to overlay my ride log onto a map and see where I’ve ridden, as well as getting elevation data. My feeling is that being able to do that gives me a tangible sense of progress, which gives me more motivation to ride. But those capabilities require GPS.

I’m still looking for work so I can’t (and don’t want to) spend $330 on a Garmin Edge 510 or $479 on a Garmin Edge 810. (“Social network sharing”?) If Garmin, or one of my readers sent me one, I’d certainly use it, but I don’t want anyone to do that (even as a birthday present). That kind of money will buy you a decent to nice Smith & Wesson, depending on what part of the country you’re in and what you’re looking at.

Here’s the thing: I’m smart. S-M-R-T. Smart. And not only am I smart, but! I have a smartphone! That has a GPS built in! And that runs apps! And, yes, there are cycling apps available! The big ones on Android seem to be MapMyRide and Strava, but I’ve also seen people say that MyTracks works quite well for cycling applications. And I already have MyTracks installed. And I already take my cellphone with me when I ride anyway, in case of emergency. Now all I have to do is get it properly rigged and I should have almost everything I need. (The last remaining piece is some cycling shorts with pockets. I’ve blown out the waistband on the one pair I have; whenever I put them on, they slide off my ass. This is not good for cycling purposes, or for staying off the sex offender registry purposes.)

(I got into a discussion with a friend of mine about Android/iPhone cycling apps. My friend’s position is that the dedicated cycling computers like the Garmin Edge line are preferable to using your phone for this purpose. His feeling is that running the GPS on the phone and logging data eats battery power, and your phone may run out of juice before you finish the ride. My feeling is: I’m not a high-speed low-drag road biker. I’m usually not out for more than an hour or two. If I start out with a fully charged battery, I feel like I should be able to run MyTracks for at least two hours without worry. We’ll test this theory once I get everything rigged for silent running. If I was doing the kind of thing he talks about doing, such as riding the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route 12 hours a day for ten weeks, I’d reconsider my position.)

Thinking about this some more, I wonder what the market for higher-end bike and running computers like the Garmins is today. Let’s see: I can pay $330 for the Edge 500. Or I can pay $196 for a HTC EVO V 4G Android phone pre-paid (no contract) from Virgin Mobile, get one of those cycling apps, and have two cameras and cell phone service. Or I could buy a cheap-ass used phone with no carrier off of eBay, run the same apps, do everything using WiFi, and not have to worry about breaking my good phone. All cell phones sold in the US are required to connect you with 911 even if you don’t have a service contract, so you’re covered in the event of a real emergency. And if you have a good cell phone you want to take riding with you, mounting brackets are a dime a dozen. Plus, I understand some newer Android phones support ANT+, so you can get cadence sensors and heart-rate monitors that will work directly with Strava or MapMyRide on your phone. No dedicated computer needed, so, again, what’s the market for that $479 Garmin Edge 810? (You can probably even do “social network sharing” from the phone, if that’s your cup of Gatorade.) Yes, you have to purchase the cadence sensor and heart rate monitor separately, but you also have to purchase those separately with the Edge 810: that $479 price does not include either sensor. If you have an iPhone, ANT+ isn’t directly supported, but Garmin will happily sell you an ANT+ adapter for a mere $50, or $40.73 from Amazon..

If any of my readers have experience with cycling apps like the ones I’ve mentioned (or others: I’m still running an Android phone, but iPhone users are welcome too) please feel free to leave a comment, or drop me an email if you’d prefer. Contact information is in the place where it says “Contact”.

Posted in Admin, Android, Apple, Bread, Clothing, Cycling, Endorsements, Food, Geek, GPS, Guns, Shirts | 3 Comments »

Star Trekkin’, across the universe…

Friday, March 22nd, 2013

The Internal Revenue Service says it was a mistake for employees to use an agency studio in Maryland to film a parody of the TV show “Star Trek.”

More:

The IRS says the video, along with a training video that parodied the TV show “Gilligan’s Island,” cost about $60,000.

This is a story I am not proud of. In my defense, I was younger and dumber at the time.

A long time ago, I worked for the IRS; I was a “data transcriber”, which meant I typed in information from tax forms.

One day, they called all of the employees in the Austin service center together for a special assembly. It turned out the purpose of this assembly was to sell us on purchasing US Savings Bonds…and the powers that be had decided the best way to do this was to show us a “special episode” of “The Golden Girls” that had the characters explaining how wonderful savings bonds were. I don’t believe this was ever broadcast; I think it was something the government commissioned from the producers of “The Golden Girls”. I am willing to bet everyone got paid for their work, and I am also willing to bet that it was more than $60,000 even in 1986 dollars.

Posted in Clippings, Stupid, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: March 22, 2013.

Friday, March 22nd, 2013

Chinua Achebe, noted Nigerian writer perhaps most famous for his novel Things Fall Apart. NYT. A/V Club.

Achebe’s name was frequently tossed around as a likely candidate for the Nobel Prize, but he had to content himself with winning pretty much everything else, including the Booker Prize in 2007. But in his final years, he twice rejected honors from the Nigerian government, rather than be seen as complicit in what he called “a small clique of renegades” who had transformed “my homeland into a bankrupt and lawless fiefdom.” He reserved perhaps his greatest impatience for those who accused him of blaming colonialism for all of Africa’s woes. “Some people think,” he told a Paris Review interviewer in 1993, “’Well, what he’s saying is we must praise his people.’ For God’s sake! Go and read my books.”

And:

Mr. Achebe’s political thinking evolved from blaming colonial rule for Africa’s woes to frank criticism of African rulers and the African citizens who tolerated their corruption and violence. Indeed, it was Nigeria’s civil war in the 1960s and then its military dictatorship in the 1980s and ‘90s that forced Mr. Achebe abroad.

Posted in Books, Obits | Comments Closed

Quiz show.

Friday, March 22nd, 2013

Harvard Quiz Bowl teams that won four championships between 2009 and 2011 have had those wins vacated because of a cheating scandal involving one student.

…

Two other students from Quiz Bowl teams at The Charter School of Wilmington, a high school in Delaware, and the University of Michigan were accused of similar breaches, though only Harvard had multiple national championship titles vacated.

Posted in Clippings, Stupid | Comments Closed

Posting the bans.

Friday, March 22nd, 2013

Looking back, I find it has been a little more than a month since I installed WP-Ban.

In that time, it has blocked 30,257 spam attempts. That’s 30,257 spam comments I haven’t had to delete.

Where are these coming from? I thought it might be interesting to post a Top Twenty list of IP addresses.

IPs Attempts % Country ISP
94.23.60.124 2,214 7.32% France OVH Systems
200.220.196.23 1,862 6.15% Brazil Nelson Quintas Telecom
192.74.228.193 1,083 3.58% United States Peg Tech
192.74.228.145 770 2.54% United States Peg Tech
192.74.248.161 650 2.15% United States Peg Tech
96.47.225.66 551 1.82% United States IPTelligent LLC
96.47.225.82 550 1.82% United States IPTelligent LLC
142.4.116.58 548 1.81% United States Peg Tech
96.47.225.74 548 1.81% United States IPTelligent LLC
192.74.236.165 546 1.80% United States Peg Tech
142.4.98.226 513 1.70% United States Peg Tech
117.21.226.205 503 1.66% China Chinanet Jiangxi
142.0.133.89 496 1.64% United States Peg Tech
117.21.225.25 381 1.26% China Chinanet Jiangxi
117.21.225.42 374 1.24% China Chinanet Jiangxi
142.4.119.170 356 1.18% United States Chinanet Jiangxi
142.4.98.210 354 1.17% United States Peg Tech
5.9.7.208 351 1.16% Germany Hetzner Online
192.74.230.69 339 1.12% United States Peg Tech
117.21.227.47 330 1.09% China Chinanet Jiangxi
44.02%

The percentage figures are based on the number of spam attempts coming from each IP address, as a percentage of the total spam attempts. So, for example, a little over 7% of the total spam attempts to my blog came from one IP address, 94.23.60.124, which is located in a block of IP addresses assigned to France (according to the Country IP Block database).

What conclusions can we draw from this? Blocking certain IP address ranges can be a big win if you don’t want to spend time mucking out Akismet. Specifically:

  • 94.23.0.0 – 94.23.255.255
  • 200.220.192.0 – 200.220.207.255
  • 192.74.224.0 – 192.74.255.255
  • 96.47.224.0 – 96.47.239.255
  • 142.4.96.0 – 142.4.127.255
  • 117.21.0.0 – 117.21.255.255
  • 142.0.128.0 – 142.0.143.255
  • 5.9.0.0 – 5.9.255.255

I am a little surprised at the number of spam attempts coming from IP addresses in the United States. My impression before I started using WP-Ban was that most of my spam was coming from China and countries in Latin America. My reading of the stats indicates that I do get a lot of spam from those sources, but larger percentages come from the United States and various countries in Europe (France, Germany, the United Kingdom, etc.)

For the record, I have yet to get any email from anyone in an IP range I’ve blocked requesting that I make an exception. I am happy to do so for any legitimate readers of my blog who are blocked: my email address is displayed on the page informing users they are banned.

Edited to add: Mike the Musicologist asked an interesting question: had I tried to associate the spam IP addresses with specific providers? The answer: no. I’ve gone back and attempted to add provider information based on what I’m finding at CQCounter.com.

However, I’m finding some issues between CIPB and CQCounter. For example, CIPB shows 142.0.133.89 as a United States IP block: CQCounter shows it as a Chinese block with Peg Tech as the ISP. I’d like to do some more work on this; if anyone has any suggestions, or especially if anyone has any information on Peg Tech, please feel free to leave it in the comments.

Posted in Admin | 2 Comments »

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