Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Happiness is free ice cream

Ben & Jerry's, that bastion of liberal ice cream, has its free cone day today. I will wait until Courtney comes home from work (she gets off early today), and we will head down there. What a great way to mark the start of spring, and ice cream-eating weather. What is your favorite flavor? Mine is "Everything but the...".

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

New home network

My best friend is building his house. Actually, his father is building his house, because his father is a builder. I have said that I would like to help out with networking connectivity. I can tell him what to put into the house now, while it is being built, so that he can have good connectivity later. I think a cat-5 connection is pretty important in all the rooms, especially near the television. It seems to me that this is a good idea because physical connections will always be faster than wireless ones, and with all the streaming (music, video) that is likely going to take place in a house, gigabit ethernet will be essential. I am going to spec everything out, so that he can see what it will all cost. I know this is a pretty boring post for most people, but this is the most excited I have been about a project in days.

Friday, April 14, 2006

Real page-turner

I have made a lot of progress on my astronomy paper. Courtney went through it last night and made a lot of excellent suggestions, so it should flow at least a little better now (how ever well a paper about fractal Monte Carlo-based atmospheric simulations can really flow). If anyone actually reads through it, I will give you a prize. And that prize is knowledge. Knowledge about extrasolar planetary atmospheric simulations. Actually, it would scare me if anyone actually got through it.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

How awesome is Google Analytics?

The other day someone mentioned how easy it was to know the geographic location of visitors to his website. The key is Google Analytics. I am sure there are lots of other analytics programs, but Google, with it's excellent track record with free, well-executed web tools makes me very happy. With their website, I just put a little piece of code into my webpages, and then viola, I can see where everyone is coming from to read my weblog. It is a huge trip, to see people from Germany or Brazil or Nebraska reading DCDork. I am sure it is great for people who want to make money from their website, but for me, it is all ego.

Monday, April 10, 2006

Nuclear power

I think that the liberal tone of the New York Times is pretty apparent in this article about nuclear power coming to a small town in South Carolina. The author seems to start with the suggestion that nuclear power should be distrusted. He makes the story into "Golly-Gee, these people seem to welcome their nuclear overlords! What is wrong with them?" On this issue, it upsets me. Though I am liberal, I am a staunch advocate of nuclear power, so I resent the author's suggestion that it is unsafe. Within the first three paragraphs he had mentioned Three-mile Island and Chernobyl. What of the horrible consequences of coal-burning or oil refineries? Shame on him.

Sunday, April 09, 2006

Yesterday: WOW. Today: CA

Yesterday we spent the entire day "working on wedding" (WOW). Wow is right. We lined envelopes, traced vellum, printed card stock, and in general did a bunch of things that were keeping Courtney up at night. She has been pretty calm about things up until now, but in the last few days has been getting more antsy. So, I tried very hard to get everything done that she wanted done. I still need to buy a tuxedo, so I called the Ralph Lauren store yesterday in Georgetown, but I haven't gotten a chance to go, yet.


Today, on the other hand, is cleaning apartment day. We have let things go a little bit, so we are picking up and getting everything in the right place. Yesterday we went to Costco and bought 4 pounds of jelly belly jelly beans, so if we work hard, we will have a little treat in the end.

Friday, April 07, 2006

Creationists take a blow

Well, creationism took another blow today, when scientists discovered an fossil which shows features of both fish and land animals. The article takes a very nice line from a creationism website:
For example, not a single fossil with part fins, part feet has been found. And this is true between every major plant and animal kind.
Creationists need to be careful to choose their words. If they don't choose carefully, then they will be left with nothing as the march of science fills in all the gaps which they use to defend their creationism doctrine.

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

A cold day in Hell

Well, Apple just announced that they will provide software to allow their computers to run windows. The gloves have come off, and Apple is fighting hard for the desktop. I love Phil Schiller's comment:
Many customers have expressed their interest to run Windows on Apple’s superior hardware.

Let the games begin.

Welcome to the party, Iran

Hope you enjoy the view.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Cherry Blossoms

Courtney and I headed down to the tidal basin on Friday to see the cherry blossoms. It was fantastic. We were there at day break, so there weren't many people (though a lot more than I expected). I put up some of the pictures, if you want to see. This past weekend was much excitement at the fruit stand. We sold a bunch of fruit, and there was much rejoicing. Now, I am hunkering down for some astronomy. I will let you know when the paper is up.