Wednesday, 28 September, 2005. 10:16:43 PM

Dasypygal - having a hairy ass. /n

Wednesday, 28 September, 2005. 12:01:22 AM

From USA Today:

The space shuttle and International Space Station nearly the whole of the U.S. manned space program for the past three decades were mistakes, NASA chief Michael Griffin said Tuesday.

I have thought this for many years now. I am shocked that someone who is in charge has figured this out. /n

Tuesday, 27 September, 2005. 09:38:45 AM

We haven't heard too much about the FEMA screwups in the wake of Rita, but they are happening. Bush made a nice photo-op appearance in Austin and San Antonio last week before the hurricane, but now he's gone, and the 100,000 people still in shelters from Hurrican Rita are getting the shaft. A judge in Beaumont TX was so frustrated with FEMA that he authorized the sheriff to seize FEMA material.

County Judge Carl Griffith said today he has become so frustrated with the federal relief effort that he has instructed all local officials to use police force if they have to to take supplies from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"If you have enough policemen to take it from them, take it," Griffith said.

Bush's incompetent crony-based administration hasn't improved at all. Is it time to impeach this guy yet? If not, why not? /n

Sunday, 25 September, 2005. 09:37:41 PM

The hurricane completely missed Austin, except for the breeze at its furthest extent. Saturday in Austin was completely sunny, not a drop of rain. /n

Thursday, 22 September, 2005. 11:42:08 AM

The track for Hurricane Rita has been revised to a path through East Texas, at least 200 miles from Austin. We should only get some strong breezes and heavy rain at my house. /n

Wednesday, 21 September, 2005. 10:25:57 PM

Wednesday, 21 September, 2005. 09:50:26 PM

Looks like the hurricane will pass 100 miles east of Austin, which will be a comfortable distance away. /n

Wednesday, 21 September, 2005. 08:57:07 PM

Alex and I are thinking about getting out of town instead of sticking around for the hurricane. I'm going to watch the storm track predictions, and check with American Airlines to see if I should return home tomorrow instead of Friday, and where would be the best place to drive to in case we want to miss the storm. /n

Wednesday, 21 September, 2005. 08:09:16 PM

The weather forecast for Hurricane Rita is that it will still be a hurricane as it moves near Austin, not a tropical storm. /n

Wednesday, 21 September, 2005. 03:33:03 PM

Correction, Rita is now a Category 5 hurricane, the strongest category. /n

Wednesday, 21 September, 2005. 03:30:26 PM

Hurricane Rita is currently at category 4, headed straight for Houston. The problem with that is once it passes over Houston, if it doesn't turn sharply it will also pass over Austin. Austin is about 3 hours inland from Houston, so the power of the hurricane will be greatly diminished, but could be pretty big storm as it passes. /n

Tuesday, 20 September, 2005. 02:54:38 AM

The very best seat in American Airlines' Super 80 Economy Class is seat 21F. It's the second exit row, so unlike the first exit row (row 20) the seat reclines, you have as much leg room as a first class seat, and you can jump out the exit quickly if you have to. It's on the right side of the plane by the window, so you have a nice view and a decent chance of having an empty seat between you and the person in 21D. There's also power outlet under the seat, if the jet has been equipped with power. No other seat on the plane has all these things in its favor. The only other seat on the plane with the possibly empty middle seat, window view, legroom, full seat recline, and power under the seat is seat 7F, and that is missing the access to the exit, though the front door is right past first class. The big problem with seat 7F is that there isn't any seat in front of it to put your bag underneath. Your bag has to go in the overhead bin where it's not as accessible during the flight. /n

Tuesday, 20 September, 2005. 02:45:48 AM

American Airlines has power outlets under some of their seats. Before they bought TWA, all AA jets were equipped with power outlets. The TWA jets didn't have power outlets, and I don't know if they were ever retrofitted. My guess is that they are not, since AA has been in financial trouble since the acquisition. The rows on an American Airlines Super 80 equipped with power outlets are all of first class, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23. I don't know if these row numbers are consistent on all American Super 80's, but they probably are. I could not see further back than row 23 on the flight up, so I'll have to record those later on a different flight. /n

Tuesday, 20 September, 2005. 01:41:45 AM

From time to time Alex and I get airline tickets on Northwest, and I always remind her that Northwest is my least favorite airline. /n

Monday, 19 September, 2005. 03:56:56 PM

Air America podcast feeds: http://www.podcastingcouch.com/air_america/podcast_feeds/ /n

Tuesday, 13 September, 2005. 10:11:32 PM

The latest updates from Debian include the X.org X server. I'm upgrading it right now. Hopefully it will be easier to configure X acceleration for the ATI video chipset in my laptop. /n

Sunday, 11 September, 2005. 11:18:12 PM

In row 31, just ahead of me, there's a mom travelling with her two year old daughter. The mom fell asleep and the little girl came back to sit with me, so I showed her a few pictures of Kristiana to entertain her. The mom just woke up so I can get back to work now. /n

Sunday, 11 September, 2005. 10:52:39 PM

I'm flying back up to Detroit right now, in seat 32F. The engines on a Super 80 are on the tail of the plane, and my seat is right next to the right engine. My Bose noise cancelling headphones cut the noise down an amazing amount. Without the headphones it's uncomfortably loud, but when they are on I can listen to my podcasts at a normal volume without any trouble. /n

Friday, 09 September, 2005. 02:50:19 PM

From KOS:

Kyra Phillips, the White House toady who berated Nancy Pelosi online and inserted her own personal opinion during the interview, was just on reviewing the controversy.

After running a clip of the controversy she began reading some of the emails. One, from a Marina, (I believe from New Paltz, N.Y.) said CNN should get rid of Kyra or lose her as a viewer.

Kyra's terse response: Goodbye Marina.

I wrote this note to Kyra Phillips:

Kyra: Goodby Marina

ME: Goodbye Kyra and CNN. Seriously. There is plenty of other news to watch and read. I've had it with CNN's lousy reporting, and the free pass given to a government based on cronyism.

Thursday, 08 September, 2005. 05:22:52 PM

These congressmen, all Republicans, just voted against the $51 billion aid package for Hurricane Katrina relief:

Rep. Joe Barton - TX
Jeff Flake - AZ
Virginia Foxx - NC
Scott Garrett - NJ
John Hostettler - IN
Steve King - IA
Butch Otter - ID
Ron Paul - TX
James Sensenbrenner - WI
Tom Tancredo - CO
Lynn Westmoreland - GA
/n

Thursday, 08 September, 2005. 12:49:55 PM

Snippet from a KOS story:
-------------------------

I'm not kidding you. In Mississippi, during a press conference, after telling the press that what needs to be done, gets done. A resident walked up to the gaggle and said this:

"Go fuck yourself, Mr. Cheney!! Go fuck yourself!!!

Cheney looked pissed. Really pissed.

A reporter then asked him, "Do you get that a lot, Mr. Cheney?"

He replied, "That's the first time I've heard it. Must be a friend of John er.. uh.. never mind."
/n

Tuesday, 06 September, 2005. 07:48:07 PM

Free Speech. This is the best art installation I've heard of in a long time. /n

Tuesday, 06 September, 2005. 06:34:59 PM

BATON ROUGE, La. In the chaos that was Causeway Boulevard, this group of refugees stood out: a 6-year-old boy walking down the road, holding a 5-month-old, surrounded by five toddlers who followed him around as if he were their leader. They were holding hands. Three of the children were about 2 years old, and one was wearing only diapers. A 3-year-old girl, who wore colorful barrettes on the ends of her braids, had her 14-month-old brother in tow. The 6-year-old spoke for all of them, and he told rescuers his name was Deamonte Love.

This toddler and six other children were found roaming New Orleans. (Mark Boster / LAT)

Friday, 02 September, 2005. 12:49:47 AM

I'm flying back to Austin tomorrow. Just 7 more weeks of this left. I did get to visit my parents and Sean and his fiance, which was really nice. Kristiana is getting just old enough to want to talk to me on the phone, but she doesn't say much other than 'Hi Daddy' and 'Bye Daddy'. /n

Wednesday, 31 August, 2005. 11:30:19 PM

This script can be used to find all the subnets used by any country. Useful for spam blocking.

#!/usr/bin/perl
#
# Find all subnets used by a given country.

$ctry = shift || 'cn';
$_ = `GET http://www.apnic.net/apnic-bin/ipv4-by-country.pl?country=$ctry`;
print join "\n", /([0-9]+\.[0-9\.]+\/[0-9]+)/g;