Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

-- Robert F. Kennedy

Opening Words

I believe the earth
exists, and
in each minim mote
of its dust the holy
glow of thy candle.
Thou
unknown I know,
thou spirit,
giver,
lover of making, of the
wrought letter,
wrought flower,
iron, deed, dream.
Dust of the earth,
help thou my
unbelief. Drift
gray become gold, in the beam of
vision. I believe with
doubt. I doubt and
interrupt my doubt with belief. Be,
beloved, threatened world.
Each minim
mote.
Not the poisonous
luminescence forced
out of its privacy,
The sacred lock of its cell
broken. No,
the ordinary glow
of common dust in ancient sunlight.<
Be, that I may believe. Amen.

-- Denise Levertov

Buttons

I HAVE been watching the war map slammed up for

advertising in front of the newspaper office.

Buttons--red and yellow buttons--blue and black buttons--

are shoved back and forth across the map.

A laughing young man, sunny with freckles,

Climbs a ladder, yells a joke to somebody in the crowd,

And then fixes a yellow button one inch west

And follows the yellow button with a black button one

inch west.

(Ten thousand men and boys twist on their bodies in

a red soak along a river edge,

Gasping of wounds, calling for water, some rattling

death in their throats.)

Who would guess what it cost to move two buttons one

inch on the war map here in front of the newspaper

office where the freckle-faced young man is laughing

to us?

Carl Sandburg

Fun With Thermite

At work, a major project for the last year or so has been extracting dead drives from machines leaving campus, with the intent of finding a way to render them unreadable. Degaussing was impractical, so we settled on running a drill bit through the platters in a couple of locations.

Effective, but it left us with about 200 nonfunctional drives leaking shards of aluminum. To make a long story short, I've seen one too many episodes of Mythbusters, so I asked the Director of IT if some of us couldn't have the drives for what, because we're an academic institution, I'll call an "experiment." The purpose of the experiment? To make a big boom and set stuff on fire. We're guys...this should go without saying.

I ordered several tens of pounds of unmixed thermite from a guy on the Web (just google "thermite mix" and it'll be pretty clear). Raymond drilled the drives, and Barth provided the camera. Long story short, we set up a stack of 100 drives and burned them out using molten iron.

The results were pretty cool, though I have to say that unless you got a real bulk rate on thermite, it would be a pretty cost-ineffective (though completely destructive) way to ensure your data didn't get out of your hands. Also, if we do this again, we'll remove all plastics and PCBs from the drives. We pulled off the drive rails, but the PCBs and connectors burned out, leaving a pretty noxious soot. Live and learn.

Anyway, you can see a gallery of images or watch a shortened video of the goings on.

Words for the wise: As really dangerous chemical reactions go, thermite isn't a big deal. It's just very hot, and very energetic. As the video shows, it drips molten iron and throws burning iron powder for quite a distance. It's also kind of a pain to light. I'm not going to say don't play with it, but use common sense if you do, and don't do anything really stupid.

Once a thermite reaction starts, you cannot stop it. It will laugh at your pitiful fire extinguisher. Water will create an explosion, and burning metal shrugs off dry chemical. I repeat: Don't be stupid, stupid. I can do this because I'm an adult with insurance and a healthy sense of self-preservation. If you do this and burn down something important, give yourself third-degree burns, or set the back lot on fire, it's your own fault.

New specs for a new year

Clearly, Emma likes her new glasses! Best of all, they were super-cheap thanks to a gift certificate picked up at a silent auction for Speedway Children's Charities. Good thing, too...at their prices, Horizon Eye Care won't be getting repeat business.

Revising the gallery

Bad news: The gallery is going to be goofed up for a bit.

Good news: Newer pictures coming along shortly.

That is all.

UPDATE: Nine new and revised albums are available in the gallery.

Failing probability

I find this annoying.

Everyone on the "switch" side continues to assert that Monty's pick of the two doors you didn't choose somehow magically alters the probability of the remaining door you didn't choose being correct. But I can't see as that's possible.

Door 1: Goat
Door 2: Car
Door 3: Goat

I choose door 1. I'm getting a goat if I don't switch. Monty opens door three, revealing the second goat. Switchers say I now know something about door 2, but that's not the case. Door 2 could just as easily contain a goat, with me sitting on the car. Monty's revelation doesn't change anything, except that I now have a fifty-fifty chance of being right. The same chance I have had all along, because I know that no matter what door I pick, Monty is going to open one of the two goat doors. Saying that you magically get a transference of probability to one door or the other on the basis of his pick makes no sense to me.

Argh. Stuff like this probably explains why it took me two semesters to pass freshman calculus.

Regular-ish updates to resume shortly

I'm finally kicking myself into gear and revising some things that need it. I'll go back to updating when I'm finished with that.

Visiting San Francisco again

I'm in SF again leading up to this year's WWDC with a few days of vacation that I fancy I rather deserve. I'm more than a little disappointed not to have the family with me this year, but have soldiered on in the face of that fact (that's only marginally facetious...I really am bothered about it). Anyway, as promised to certain parties, images, video and linkage for the last couple of days.

First, the flight out. A big raspberry to USAir for not even bothering with a movie on a cross-country flight. :P In any case, here are the mountains and clouds Mom requested. After dealing with Enterprise (more expensive, but always more professional and quicker), I headed into town and went straight to Cha Cha Cha for sangria and dinner, followed by a lovely flán for dessert. Topped that off with a stroll down to Booksmith, where I had Cosmic Debris autograph a copy of Emily the Strange for Emma.

Friday morning, I bugged out for Davis at 6am to do this. After lunch in Woodland, I drove down to Cupertino for the traditional pilgrimage and a little geocaching. Afterward, I dropped in at the Burlingame PEZ Museum, sent Emma a postcard, then headed back to San Francisco in awful traffic. That evening, I visited Kamei Restaurant Supply (I'll be going back today for a more extensive appraisal), stopped in at Green Apple Books and found the first two books of The Dresden Files, then did some more caching at Fort Mason. You should see the community garden there! Amazing. It was dark, but I'll try to get back today for pics.

After that, back to the hotel, where getting parked took about 20 minutes (late arrivals for the weekend blocking the entire curb. Then posted up the pics and sacked out.

Today will be the Farmer's Market, a little shopping, some caching and a kayak trip!

When You see Millions of the Mouthless Dead

When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you'll remember. For you need not so.
Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this, 'They are dead.' Then add thereto,
'Yet many a better one has died before.'
Then, scanning all the o'ercrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all his for evermore.

Charles Sorley

With deepest respect for all who have served, and all who now stand to post.