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?