SETI@home

I have not thought about seti@home since I was at IBM. I put the new engine up on my machine, but, unfortunately, the servers aren't sending out work today.

If you have a decent machine, you can use it to search for extraterrestrial Intelligence in its spare time. It automatically stops while you are actually doing something, so it is not going to effect your computing life.
SETI@home:

What is SETI@home?
SETI@home is a scientific experiment that uses Internet-connected computers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). You can participate by running a free program that downloads and analyzes radio telescope data.

Variable Star: Robert A. Heinlein,Spider Robinson

Spider Robinson has delivered the book he wrote based on Heinlein's notes from 1955. Spider writes very much like Heinlein so this should be an interesting read. I have pre-ordered it at Amazon. Variable Star: Robert A. Heinlein,Spider Robinson

"The Telling" rejected again

It's not all bad news. This is a difficult story based on Whittier's Telling the Bees poem.

And the song she was singing ever since
In my ear sounds on:--
"Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence!
Mistress Mary is dead and gone!"

There was some good new, though. Joy Marchand, the editor of Shimmer Magazine, said:

...there is a lot in this story that thrills us... We loved the alien environment and thought the premise was wonderful...

but---

They would like revisions. Well, I guess it's time to start chopping at the story. I sent them back a thank you, asking for what they had in mind.

Happy Birthday Erica!

Happy Birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!

Walking around Rockland Lake on Sunday

The first robin that I've seen even looks a little pregnant. My Mom's been seeing robins for two weeks, but this is my first robin sighting of the year.

This picture of a ducks on sunny water. I will be using the full size version as my new computer wallpaper. (click on most of these pictures to see the big version.)

Here is experimented with light and water and the things floating in the water. This might make it to wallpaper status.

The mother swan is sitting on her nest again. I hope that she has better luck than last year.

There was a thing in the water. I looked like a small beaver, but it is probably a water rat.

A Turkey Buzzard flew right over me.

These Pussy Willows are looking good. I think that park goers will be cutting them soon, but right now they are beautiful.

12 or 13?

Count the men - 12 before the move and 13 afterwards. Huh????

This image has been bothering me. I can usually find the secret in these tricks and optical illusions.

This one is not so easy. Where does the 13th man come from.
Here is a another image with color to show the parts .

Britney Naked

A good chunk of my traffic comes from my spoof pages. I have 3 pages on every website that have links with the words Britney Nude Video or something like that. I scattered the links around my websites. Of course the links go to my harmonica sites or one of the others. (see menu on left).

I get about 2,000 hits a day from people looking for naked Britney videos.

I don't know if I make any money doing this, but it sure is intersting.

Maybe I'll pick up a science fiction writer or a harp player or a cat lover this way. It gives me more hits than Google AdWords by a factor of 1000, so if 3 or 4 stop to surf, I am ahead of the game.

Cool Honda Commercial

Jim sent me this originally. The rehersal video is actually better than the film. Honda (UK) - Civic

Too Many Damn Cats

Too Many Damn Cats: "Justine doesn't think that I post enough about my cats. I think that I have too many of them right now. I made a blog where I can post news about cats, either my own news or news from around the world."

Messing with blog look and feel

I changed things again. The left and right side menus are smaller and should float. Let me know if you can't see anything right.

Blue Pics

Justine demanded pictoral proof that Blue is OK. He came out to scratch on the roap scratcher. He is all fluffy from when the vet wiped him down with some fur treatment. He is still very very wary of me and leaves the room if I stand up.
It's hard to take a picture of him because his eyes catch the flash.

Video on India and Outsourcing

If you have broadband, check out this abc news video about India and outsourcing. It is scary.

Blue Update part deux

Blue came out for food and Erica petted him. He seemed glad to see her and trusts her a little again. He is licking his sore places, but is not in any distress.

Blue has never really warmed to me, and I don't thing that aiding and abetting in the loss of his tomcat parts will help our relationship. He has to go back for a checkup in three weeks and I will try to be the bad guy in that brouhaha.

I think that a tall man may have abused him at one point. The neighbors throw things at cats that come into their yard. He may associate me and my big feet and loud voice with danger. I hope that soon he will associate me with kibble.

Technical Stuff

I updated my technical blog with details on how to separate content from presentation using .htaccess and PHP. This is for very nerdy people only.

Blue Update

My blog is now getting twice as many hits as normal. I guess everyone is waiting to see how Blue is doing.

Last night he hid under the couch and then went upstairs to hide in the bedroom. He fled when we came up. This morning he was not at his place at the food bowl. He's hiding under the couch again. The poor guy is quite traumatized. Erica is worried about him, but this is to be expected. He is a wild cat and not socialized, yet. He doesn't trust us and doesn't understand.

He will get over it. I am sure that by tonight he will be queuing up for kibble. By the weekend, he will mostly have forgotten the incident.

In a month or so, the hormones will be out of his system. This will help him to socialize. He won't be at odds with the other cats and will not be as aggressive. His urine spraying behavior will hopefully disappear. He might let me pet him in a couple of weeks.

I predict that by Memorial Day (if not sooner) he will be sleeping on the bed.

Domestic cats must become kittens again. A cat who has learned adult behavior must unlearn this, and learn to be a child. He must see the other cats as his litter mates and not rivals. He has to learn that Erica and are his parents and we will provide all the food and affection that he needs. Adjusting is a long process for a feral cat who is used to fending for himself. He doesn't know that petting is a good thing. He doesn't believe that the food will always be there.

Being a pet is a learned behavior.

Blue is home

Blue came home at 4:30. He's healthy but very unhappy. The vet gave him his shots. He tested negative for AIDS and Feline Leukemia. The vet says he is a very healthy year and a half year old, but very big for his age.
Blue is hiding under the couch. He hasn't eaten today, so he'll be out for food as soon as the drugs wear off.

Crisis in West Nyack

Blue

This morning, Erica pushed Blue into a cat carrier, and we took him to the vet.

Blue is an unaltered male. He is generally a nice cat, but , like all unaltered males, (myself included) he tends to show agressive behavior and marks his territory with very smelly urine. A male cat who is not neutered in his first year will run off after the smell of she-cats as soon as he gets a chance and will never return. When Blue came to us he was starving and freezing. We fed him for a month before Erica was able to get him into the house.

Blue knocks around the other cats. Saturday he bit Faffrd on the leg and there was blood everywhere. He likes Erica to pet him, but will swipe her with a sharp paw if she does it too long or touches something that bothers him. He has hair trigger reflexes and will freak out if he feels threatened. He only comes near me when I am feeding other cats, and if I try to touch him, he looks at me as though I was trying to kill him.

We got up this morning and didn't feed any cats. Blue came up to the bedroom and cried with a pitiful small meow that is very meek and mild compared to his size and strength. Erica and I got dressed and she went into the kitchen. The cat carrier had been next to the food bowls for a few days and I had sprayed it with cat face pheromone analog. This is a calming agent and smells to a cat like the pheromone that the glands on their cheeks produces. They use this to mark their favorite places.

Blue went right in the carrier without argument. This was a big surprise. He was obviously once a show quality cat who had escaped and maybe was used to the carrier.

I put the carrier in the car and drove him to the vet. On monday mornings you don't need an appointment to alter cats. Blue never complained. He seem at home in the carrier. Our other cats scream bloody murder when we try to take them to the vet.

We'll get a special discount on the procedure because he's a stray. We also get a Multi-Cat discount (to my eternal embarassment).

Jim Macdonald in rare form

I just read this over at Making Light. Jim Macdonald tears up a piece of conservative propaganda. Pass This On To All Your E-Mail Friends.....

The trouble with it is that most people feel that the political spam that he dissects is absolutely right and that the real wingnut is Macdonald. He makes perfect sense, but people like my friend Skip will think that Jim is nuts and a seriously insane liberal.

It has been shown that this kind of discourse does nothing. People believe very deeply, even in the face of strong logical counter arguments.

There is a saying that you can't talk someone out of something that they haven't been talked into.

Talk ain't going to do it. I think someone is going to start shooting.

Lunacon 2006

Went down to check out the Lunacon. OK, now I know better. I don't have to do that again. SciFi conventions seem to more about dressing up as your favorite character from Zena than reading Science Fiction. I got the feel that it was more about creepy clothing fetishism than anything to do with literary SF. I was fooled because they had a real author as a guest of honor.
I have to take a shower now.
I took some pictures, but I think that I should just reformat the camera's memory card and think about something else.

Fantastic Five Facts

Fantastic Five Facts

I am reading The John W. Campbell Letters. In a letter from 1953 to Ray Jones (fan and sf writer), Campbell outlined the following interesting things about the number 5.

1. Atomic mass-numbers run over 240. In the whole range from 1 to 240-plus, there is one and only one vacant mass number. No atom has a mass of 5.
2. Crystallographers say that no crystal can have five-sided symmetry.
3. Topologists find that no plane or spherical map needs more than 4 colors.
4. Two soap bubbles intersect to form a plane interaction zone. Three intersect in a line. Four meet in a point. But five can’t meet.
5. According to Bode’s law there should be a planet between Mars, the fourth planet, and Jupiter, the fifth. There’s shattered debris instead.
6. But a star fish has pentagonal symmetry. Primitive land-life started with pentagonal pes and manus. Man retained these. We have a pentagonal design.
7. Life is distinguished from the non-living by existing only so long as it is unstable.
8. Magic, down the ages, held the pentagon and the pentacle (five-pointed star) to have mystic powers.
9. Question: What’s with the peculiar number Five?

The Zen Pen

I sent a story off to Carina Gonzalez to take advantage of her free critique. The Zen Pen. I sent her a complexly dark and humorous story about a drug addict who emulates Wile E. Coyote. She didn't like the humorous element and thought that it would work better as a dark horror. She suggested I take out the cartoon element.

I don't write dark horror, so that's out. Without the Road Runner references, the story is just another bad horror yarn.

Basically her advice on how to fix the story was that I should write a different story.

On the plus side, she corrected some typos.

It is one of my favorites and I'll find it a home eventually.

Story Rejection

I've had this story, The Telling, much longer than I thought that I would. I assumed a no from Neometropolis when I didn't appear in the March issue, so I sent it out to Neo-Opsis (where I meant to send it in the first place). Four hours later Stephanie Ann Johanson said: I enjoyed the alien life in "The Telling". The story has a lot of emotion to it, but it still feels like it is missing something. She also found three bad typos in the text. It was well worth submitting to them, even if I did get another tick in the "R" column. (Up to 8 now on this one.)

I sent it out to Baen right away, but I'll have to find some place more apt to take it. Paula returns in a day or so, and she works weekends. I'll need a place to send it by Monday.

I received my autographed book - The John W. Cambell Letters. It is full of ideas that he suggested to his writers. One idea, at least, I will try to outline tomorrow. If JWC thought is was a good idea, maybe I can make something of it. I have read most of the stories by the author that he sent it to, so I think it was never written.

Antiques Roadshow/2006 Tour/Online Ticketing

I sent my application in for Antiques Road Show. There is an up and coming Philly show. I'll bring an old Microphone, or maybe Erica has something cool. Maybe Larry has an old Guitar that will get me on TV.
Antiques Roadshow/2006 Tour/Online Ticketing

William Gibson

William Gibson has a kind of a cool entry on his blog this month.

Lunacon 2006

Finally, a SpecFic show near enough for me to easily drop by. I should have contacted the people I know who want to sell stuff and registered as a vendor, but it's too late now.
Saturday is $40 at the door, so I'm going to try and stop by. If the weather is good and I don't have anything important planned, I'll spend an hour or two wandering through and looking for name tags that I might recognize.

Lunacon 2006 Home

Early Signs of Spring

This little crocus was the first out. It is too early and we will have at lease one more snow storm before April 15th.


Whenever there is an unexpected thaw and especially on foggy nights, there is a smell of perfume that wafts up from the cemetery next door. Last night, when I went out to get some wood for the fire, I noticed the sweet flowery fragrance. I think that there is a ghost of an elegant lady from the early 19th century who strolls around. Her strong perfume can be smelled only on damp warm nights.

Corinna and Peter at Casa Del Sol

I went down to Casa Del Sol in Nyack to watch my brother's band. I was pleased to find cousin Corinna with Peter and her daughter there. Smile Peter!

Another picture of Fafhrd

This is a picture of Fafhrd (just called Furry now). The picture below did not really give you an idea of just how big a cat he is. Erica took this picture of me holding him to show scale. He didn't want me to hold him this way and I got a good scratch.

Cat Inventory

Justine complained that she doesn't have a reference chart for all the cats. I went around and took pictures for her.

First, here is the new cat who comes to visit. I took this picture this morning. She is a dark tourtoise shell and black, but you can't see the color in this picture.


Blue is the next newest cat. He's feral - wild - and won't let us near him. We are trying to socialize him enough so that we can get him fixed.


Willie is the oldest cat. He's 12. He is very fat and spends his time under the coffee table or stealing the other cat's food.


Furry is a Main Coone Cat with the sweetest personality. He came one day and never left. He's huge!


Max is another stray. He is very sick and we have to give him medication every few hours.


Ollie was very sick when we adopted him from the pound. He's got a really strange personality and wants to spend all of his time on my lap.


Gracie was blinded in one eye when she was hit by a car. She's a tiny cat, but she's the boss of the house.

Ebb and Flow

I have been in a mood to reduce things in my life. I am going to put a bunch of stuff on eBay. I have shut down several websites. I listed a dozen domain names with auction houses. I have an offer to buy smeerp.com from a writing magazine. Simplify!

This is at a time when the local stray cat population is doubling every few days. There was another stray cat begging at our door this morning. It is a miserable black kitten that won't let us approach her. This weekend I will try to take some pictures of our newest visitors.

I have been formatting a short novel for a writer that I know. I hope that it will be done by tomorrow and I can email it to India. I am having fun with artistic aspects of the layout. In six to eight weeks I hope to have the results in hand.

Del Ray and Steve James this Sunday.

Del Ray and Steve James are coming to The Turning Point in Piermont, NY on Sunday March 12th. The show is at 7 pm which is quite early for blues. Larry and I hung out with Steve at Blues Week about 12 years ago. I'm sure that he doesn't remember us. He drank most of the beer that we brought.
I am going to be there and I hope Larry comes. The poker boys said they'd show up.
It's my Birthday! I hope to see you there!

KELLY FREAS ART

Kelley Freas was one of my favorite SF artists. His estate is selling off a huge number of books posters prints and one of kind items. I just bought $50 worth and I wish that I had more cash to spend.
eBay Store - KELLY FREAS ART AND GIFT STORE: PULPS MAGAZINES, ORIGINAL ART DRAWINGS, ETC., BOOKS
(Good for birthday presents - March 14 is coming up fast. They take "buy it now")

A few photos

I'm cleaning out the camera again. Here a couple of shots from down at the Turning Point cafe. Johnny Winter played a couple of weeks ago, but I couldn't afford the $125 to see him. Jim and I waited outside to try and get an autograph, but it was bitter cold and Johnny hadn't left his van by 10pm so we went home. I took pictures of my friends Jim Callan and Charlie Daniels. Click on them to see the big pictures. (Why do my friends all have white beards?)

I also have some shots of various harp players and the band at Pete's Saloon I took last month.

Click to see album.

Larry in Florida

My brother Larry called me from Florida. Thursday, he flew down with my mother and her friend BJ to visit my Aunt Ethel. I was wondering what Larry was going to do with a gaggle of old ladies, but today I found out.

He called me from a garage sale. A retired Science Fiction fan was selling off his collection of magazines. 10 cents each or $10 for the lot. I told Larry to go for it.

Larry bought 50 pounds of magazines dating from the 1940s to the 1960s for $10. He went to the dollar store and got tape for the boxes. Monday he's going to the post office to send them off the West Nyack.

I wonder what else he found down there? He collects guitars. I hope that he found something good for himself.

Space Memories with Dad

I am listening to a book on tape: "The Century" with Peter Jennings. It is generally a simple retrospective of popular history, but the tapes on the 1950s and 1960s keep evoking memories. Here's one of them.

When I was six and a half years old , Dad brought me down the cellar one night and we tuned in the old short wave radio. It was a console model with a dozen bands. It had once belonged to my father's Uncle Joe in the 1930s. The newspapers had published the frequency and schedule for the transmission from Sputnik. Dad tuned it in and we heard the beeping noise.

This was the first satellite in space. I remember having a very science fictional experience about it, and I was not alarmed or upset that the Russians had beaten us in the space race until later. I had an image of people going into space. It was a cool thing, and I wasn't really thinking about who had done it first. I have the distinct memory of that beep, and a young Dad in his 30s telling me to remember.

I treasure this experience of a moment in history and I'm glad that my Dad was a techo-geek, albeit a vacuum tube one, back in 1957. It is no coincidence that I grew up a technical boy, with a penchant for obsolete equipment.

Mangled translation

People want to sell on eBay. What do you do if you can't speak English? Well translation programs have come a long way. Here's one Eric Parker sent me from an eBay auction for a Les Paul Guitar:

You know I am discuss.....All cloths living the chicken tail wine Les to protect is a good guitar, but can tell you come from with me in plain terms empirical of this....BE not all of them are good guitars... type you can't let go of until come from you of reduction and hope earnestly the blood of the finger is running down fretboard! this...BE one of those guitars...before you will sell, you will become the hunger conservancy, and become a homeless type

Look at the auction

AudioCD.com -Forum

I put a discussion forum up at AudioCD.com.

AudioCD.com - Forum

Astounding Tales

Last night Arthur quit. I shut down AstoundingTales. I take the blame for it.
The site had turned into an embarrassment. It's best to end it quickly.