tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1800691846264648682024-02-21T00:32:25.244-05:00Angular Unconformities"The cultural record is constantly being deposited and eroded." ~David BearmanUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger834125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-180069184626464868.post-41407872831335631112012-11-03T16:43:00.000-04:002012-11-03T16:43:00.856-04:00Mittens Impossible<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio9UhfOpzx59sOe1O0ltfLlgYjj6sOz-Ov845c-gnby78_Stt1wROx_FUR0QcrWxBXE23fykqolZwD89hpb3GBC7X5IbjCcvGmOg29HcglFFOVUmrUNXvmVxidKRxnwNqqwhseOgnO13Lw/s1600/Romney_Impossible.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="198" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio9UhfOpzx59sOe1O0ltfLlgYjj6sOz-Ov845c-gnby78_Stt1wROx_FUR0QcrWxBXE23fykqolZwD89hpb3GBC7X5IbjCcvGmOg29HcglFFOVUmrUNXvmVxidKRxnwNqqwhseOgnO13Lw/s320/Romney_Impossible.jpg" /></a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-180069184626464868.post-87534027498596389482011-10-21T12:20:00.003-04:002011-10-21T12:45:24.308-04:00Friday photo<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsEg1qLotumPnhuHezvkZPGx3a-V_edNAYsWfszfcO-D-syjc7jBYrwabgVsZQutd9OpRQyziS-bcpd3OpiDEvJjtJa1xyKHSDx8GM0IM3CInkNayphEPNa51N-Azhewb_D1QEdzp6UkFe/s1600/Au-Sable-2011-001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img style="border: 5px double #997344;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsEg1qLotumPnhuHezvkZPGx3a-V_edNAYsWfszfcO-D-syjc7jBYrwabgVsZQutd9OpRQyziS-bcpd3OpiDEvJjtJa1xyKHSDx8GM0IM3CInkNayphEPNa51N-Azhewb_D1QEdzp6UkFe/s320/Au-Sable-2011-001.jpg" width="420" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Au Sable River, Huron National Forest, Michigan. October 2011.</span><br /></div><br />Here's another photo from my Au Sable trip. I thought I should offer up a nice colorful-trees image, while we're still in autumn.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.usgwarchives.org/mi/iosco/postcards/lummem.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 225px; height: 339px;" src="http://www.usgwarchives.org/mi/iosco/postcards/lummem.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>The raft is a replica <span style="font-style: italic;">wanigan</span>, a floating kitchen and supply store for lumbermen who worked in the deep woods, far from the main camp. Up the hill from this spot is the Lumberman's Monument, a celebration of those 19th Century men who supplied the nation with timber and stripped the Michigan landscape of its native cover. As you can see from this older image, they were effective at their jobs. The statue today is surrounded by second-growth trees.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-180069184626464868.post-48465619889530640852011-10-14T11:28:00.001-04:002011-10-14T11:28:00.367-04:00Friday photo<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6179/6242395529_b07396edbe.jpg"><img style="border: 5px double #6688aa;display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 425px;" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6179/6242395529_b07396edbe.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">Grass stalks reflected in the Au Sable River. Huron National Forest, Michigan, October 2011.</span><br /></div><br />I just loved the feeling of geometry here.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-180069184626464868.post-40710201242126432492011-10-06T18:36:00.001-04:002011-10-06T18:41:14.691-04:00Who's Who<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://dailydish.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451c45669e2014e8c043270970d-800wi"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 425px;" src="http://dailydish.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451c45669e2014e8c043270970d-800wi" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">[via <a href="http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/10/can-occupy-wall-street-boost-obama.html" target="blank">Daily Dish</a>]</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-180069184626464868.post-87351760873935737792011-09-18T11:27:00.001-04:002011-09-18T11:30:00.277-04:00My country descends<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://cdn.svcs.c2.uclick.com/c2/58e4de20c361012e2f9000163e41dd5b"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 600px; height: 394px;" src="http://cdn.svcs.c2.uclick.com/c2/58e4de20c361012e2f9000163e41dd5b" alt="" border="0" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-180069184626464868.post-82376374879265453772011-09-09T21:09:00.002-04:002011-09-09T21:15:24.605-04:00Friday photo<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJvmiCeghMBVMDbYsAqDkIRhJgIsuYfBikWUnvtW28PtV8XLdYuZQvySryPZ4JqwAAbG7O_KSEdgeXXrq6fJBZSP5EmmzAuWO7Sx1IVnhD6oLJJ0DCtaH826kjwPTfDU1-mztRVwf4jtuN/s1600/P7140230.jpg"><img style="border:5px double #6d8643;display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 279px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJvmiCeghMBVMDbYsAqDkIRhJgIsuYfBikWUnvtW28PtV8XLdYuZQvySryPZ4JqwAAbG7O_KSEdgeXXrq6fJBZSP5EmmzAuWO7Sx1IVnhD6oLJJ0DCtaH826kjwPTfDU1-mztRVwf4jtuN/s400/P7140230.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5650531843766419442" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">Sugar Creek. Turkey Run State Park, Parke County, Indiana, July 2007.<br /></span></div><br />Morning along the river. The early bird gets the gnats.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-180069184626464868.post-64107661685077937302011-09-02T18:56:00.007-04:002011-09-02T20:57:16.030-04:00Friday photo<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5dqom30LJASH7_hVNr0J2eBnVvkpfkg5KK8SahvhpMInIxIpip2HibBn42mYcyj_hx3C8mpBgVCFnpSeOI0m0FKJQbnKvU72tKLBw5EmktZeA4lh_5kMYdcbplLdMY5W9QBMAnR3Tr36V/s1600/P2270115.jpg"><img style="border: 5px double #ad7548;display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 241px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5dqom30LJASH7_hVNr0J2eBnVvkpfkg5KK8SahvhpMInIxIpip2HibBn42mYcyj_hx3C8mpBgVCFnpSeOI0m0FKJQbnKvU72tKLBw5EmktZeA4lh_5kMYdcbplLdMY5W9QBMAnR3Tr36V/s400/P2270115.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647900171322358002" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">Washington Monument. Washington, DC, February 2007.</span>
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<br />Today's image features our National Phallus, the venerable Washington Monument. Begun in 1848, but not completed until 1884.<sup>1</sup> It's the usual project, overly ambitious and poorly-administered, soon running over budget and sitting half-completed for a generation before someone decided to just finish the damned thing. Which they finally did, after they gave up the plan for the Greek temple surround the base. And it wasn't even a government project.<sup>2</sup>
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<br />The Monument has been in the news lately, of course, because of cracks discovered after the recent East Coast earthquake; more have been <a href="http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44345306/ns/today-today_news/t/irene-reveals-more-cracks-washington-monument/" target="blank">discovered in the wake of Hurricane Irene</a>. Reportedly, the Monument is sound and not about to fall over, but that hasn't stopped our modern-day Jeremiahs from <a href="http://www.christianpost.com/news/washington-monument-crack-a-sign-to-believers-first-and-foremost-54949/" target="blank">discerning God's wrath</a> in natural phenomena. Pat Robertson begins with "I don’t want to get weird on this, but," and realizing it's already too late for that, continues, "it seems to me the Washington Monument is a symbol of America’s power. It has been the symbol of our great nation. We look at the monument and we say this is one nation under God. Now there’s a crack in it. Is that a sign from the Lord?” Not to be outdone, a certain <a href="http://www.seu.edu/faculty/rcrosby.php" target="blank">Professor of Practical Theology<sup>3</sup> at Southeastern University</a> speculates on what message God might be sending, asking, "If the crack in the monument is, in fact, a God-sent ‘sign’ for the moment, then what might God be saying? And to whom is He speaking?"
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<br />I sometimes think God is just some great, vaporous infant. He cries every time He's unhappy, which is most of the time, but He can't tell you exactly what the problem is.
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<br />Perhaps He's just gotten around to noticing that the founder of His Own Country was honored by constructing a pagan edifice. The Washington Monument is an <span style="font-style:italic;">obelisk</span>, a style of monument that first adorned Egyptian temples and has no Christian connotations whatsoever -- although the things are so cool that even the Vatican still keeps <a href="http://saintpetersbasilica.org/Exterior/Obelisk/Obelisk.htm" target="blank">one that was erected by the beloved Emperor Caligula</a>.
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<br />We needn't be surprised at this. Who can't admire the architecture of the Classical Age? If you look around Washington, DC, you'll see a lot more <a href="http://unconformities.blogspot.com/2010/03/friday-photo_26.html" target="blank">references to classical Rome and Greece</a> than you do to Christian sources, and the buildings all resemble Greek temples more than Christian cathedrals. Both Rome and Greece also copied the Egyptians' obelisks. The Romans not only built their own, but they plundered them from Egypt, too, long before Napoleon began the modern tradition of collection development, so that today only half of all surviving Egyptian obelisks are still found in Egypt.
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<br />Frankly, I don't mind a bit that, in honoring our primary Founding Father, Americans also honored one of the most accomplished cultures of the ancient world.
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<br /><span style="font-size:85%;">1. Which makes me think of Orwell's 1984, which was published in 1948 and gained its title by reversing that last two digits. But I can't quite make any other connections, so I guess I'll have to drop the whole thing.
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<br />2. If you look closely at the photo, even though it's backlit, you can see the difference in color between the marble in the original base and that used to complete the monument.
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<br />3. It's hard to even <span style="font-style: italic;">type</span> that without giggling, isn't it?</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-180069184626464868.post-48264785406959952472011-08-27T18:54:00.000-04:002011-08-27T19:10:00.195-04:00Book review: AD 381A couple years ago I wrote a <a href="http://unconformities.blogspot.com/2008/11/book-review.html" target='blank'>post about Charles Freeman's book <span style="font-style: italic;">The Closing of the Western Mind</span></a>, which argues, in a nutshell, that the triumph of Christianity in late Antiquity truly did usher in an intellectual Dark Age, wherein philosophical and scientific questions (and there was not yet a distinction between the two) were settled by theological arguments from authority and free inquiry was discouraged. In<span style="font-style: italic;"> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/D-381-Heretics-Pagans-Monotheistic/dp/1590202872/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1314482224&sr=1-1" target='blank'>A.D. 381</a></span>, Freeman continues his argument, exploring in more detail how the late Roman emperors injected themselves and the state into theological disputes.
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<br />Several reviewer of the book have complained that Freeman in simply updating Edward Gibbon and blaming Christianity for the fall of Rome. This is not how I read Freeman. He blames Christianity – or, to be more precise, certain later Christians and Roman emperors, and the precedent they established – for killing off a great and ancient Greek tradition of free inquiry. But he does not blame Christianity for bringing down the Empire itself.
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<br />By the end of the 4<sup>th</sup> century, while Christianity was growing but did not yet dominate, the Empire was barely maintaining itself. Grown too large for its own governance, it had split into two coeval sections, with capitals at both Rome and Constantinople governing the West and East. The powerful Persian Empire threatened the East, numerous Germanic tribes were invading from the North, and Roman armies were spread across borders that had grown too long and too distant to be efficiently defended. With the military removed so far from the core of the empire, the interior trade routes were less well-guarded and commerce became more difficult and expensive.
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<br />Although the East retained a cohesive state for another thousand years, the West disintegrated both politically and economically. After 400, trade all but disappeared in Western Europe. Cities became small towns; the money economy disappeared; well-manufactured goods, once common in even a peasant household, disappear from the archaeological record. Rome's famous aqueducts went dry for a millennium, and even the lead and copper pollution levels recorded in ice cores testify today to the demise of manufacturing during the Medieval Period.
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<br />None of this does Freeman blame on Christianity. Given the entirely worldly difficulties that Rome faced, it should be no surprise if the Empire failed to overcome them all. As I read Freeman, he would instead blame the fall of Rome for the intellectually authoritarian turn that Christianity took following the 4<sup>th</sup> Century. Throughout the Roman world, the scholarly decline was almost comparable to the economic and political collapse. According to Freeman's account, even the renowned Medieval scholars are recognized to have written poorly and less grammatically than their predecessors; where a rich Roman citizen could possess a library with thousands of works, medieval monasteries would be considered impressive if they contained a few hundred. Theology replaced naturalistic inquiry. A Christian mob probably destroyed the remnants of the Great Library at Alexandria<sup>1</sup> in 391, and in AD 529, Plato's Academy was shut down after 900 years of free inquiry. Had the Christian authorities not been so hostile to non-Christian literature, more would likely have survived to the present day.
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<br />What happened? By Freeman's reckoning, the emperors meddled in theology and set a precedent of resolving scholarly disputes through authority instead of inquiry. As the Empire's organization became ever less adequate to meet external threats, the later emperors were prone to blaming their ineffectiveness on a lack of internal unity. And as Christianity absorbed more and more of the Empire's inhabitants, the emperors began to see the divisiveness of the Church as a principle weakness of the empire. In the centuries after Jesus's death, Christian clergy had taken the Greek practice of philosophical disputation, applied it to theology, and then – disastrously – made it a matter of eternal life or death to declare and defend a single position. “I don't know” was not an acceptable answer, even though it would have been the best answer to questions which were essentially unknowable.
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<br />One of the major, unknowable, questions concerned the exact nature of Christ – was he fully human, or fully divine? Maybe he was a human who was temporarily occupied by God? Or was he entirely God all along and only appeared human? However you answer the question, some unpleasant consequences seem to follow. If he was human, then why should we be worshiping him? Or if he wasn't human, then he could hardly have suffered through his crucifixion, in which case his great sacrifice would seem to be greatly overtouted. According to the disputants, immortal souls were at stake, although a cynic might notice that the emperors' habit of extending patronage to certain churches meant there was a lot of money and status at stake in elevating one's own views and disparaging a rival's.
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<br />The emperors began to take sides in these disputes, something that had never happened with philosophy or pagan religion. In AD 381, the emperor Theodosius issued an edict declaring the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_versions_of_the_Nicene_Creed_in_current_use" target='blank'>Nicene faith</a> – an incoherent declaration that Jesus was simultaneously fully God and fully human, and you could conveniently flip from one to another whenever you needed to dodge a contradiction<sup>2</sup> – was orthodox and that all other views were heretical. Clergy with contrary views were disfranchised and their churches closed. A decade later, Theodosius banned pagan rituals and sacrifices altogether.
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<br />Theodosius's efforts did not succeed in solving theological questions; all he managed to do was thoroughly politicize these disputes and cement the role of the state in establishing religious orthodoxy. Through the following century, Christians continued to gain strength and began to suppress pagan practices even more thoroughly than had been Christianity in earlier eras.<sup>3</sup> Curiously, the disputatious eastern empire survived as the Byzantine Empire until 1453; it was the western empire, where theological questions seemed less urgent and there was no such thing yet as “papal authority,” that thoroughly fell apart.
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<br />As for the promises of orthodoxy … Freeman tells this story. In AD 428 the bishop of Constantinople, Nestorius, put the case as baldly and boldly as could be: “Give me, king, the earth purged of heretics, and I will give you heaven in return. Aid me in destroying heretics and I will assist you in vanquishing the Persians.” A few years later, Nestorius himelf was condemned for portraying Jesus as too human. Not that he had adopted any known heresy; he just wasn't orthodox <span style="font-style: italic;">enough</span>. Thus the promise of fundamentalism; thus the all-too-often-delivered reality.
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<br /><span style="font-size:85%;">1. The case is ambiguous and disputed. It seems likely that the Library suffered several episodes of destruction after its zenith in the last couple centuries BC. It's not clear how much was left to be destroyed by the mob in 391, but they did destroy what they found.
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<br />2. Yes, that's my own definition.
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<br />3. It comes as a surprise today to be told that the Romans were religiously tolerant, but it's fairly true to say they were. In conquered territories, they did their best to amalgamate local religion with their own, while polytheism would naturally tolerate anyone's decision to choose a certain god as his particular patron. An upstanding citizen would be expected to make a show of honoring a city's gods, just to keep them happy, but this didn't require him to reject any other gods. Jews refused to adopt polytheism, but they were never upstanding citizens (generally not legal citizens at all). I'm not well-studied enough to say this with confidence, but I suspect Christians would never have suffered persecution if the religion had remained confined to the lower classes; their religious views wouldn't have mattered to anyone.
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<br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-180069184626464868.post-28984061247709942022011-08-26T13:08:00.001-04:002011-08-26T13:08:01.346-04:00Friday photo<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9v50wmsihZ5YZ4x8578nExrHkkQEj5qv9qjB8CbV1aMUMWdhBwJRW2HqttWZ_F2KZ9o5jhtL_N0fe4S-M9nUcpc6P0QIGkqXzDpRFtlLYi7Zrpk6MnhFDG3vvokA6wis7SMLb5KSikV5t/s1600/P6214350.jpg"><img style="border: 5px double #78a06a;display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 299px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9v50wmsihZ5YZ4x8578nExrHkkQEj5qv9qjB8CbV1aMUMWdhBwJRW2HqttWZ_F2KZ9o5jhtL_N0fe4S-M9nUcpc6P0QIGkqXzDpRFtlLYi7Zrpk6MnhFDG3vvokA6wis7SMLb5KSikV5t/s400/P6214350.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5645181852795785730" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">Golden Spike National Historic Site, Promontory, Utah. June 2005.
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<br />Did you know it could have been "Golden Rail National Historic Site"? Alas, a certain San Francisco booster discovered <a href="http://www.nps.gov/gosp/historyculture/upload/Spikes.pdf" target="blank">there wasn't enough enthusiasm for donating that much gold</a>, so he settled for a golden spike instead. Nevada also offered a silver spike (from the Silver State, of course), while Arizona produced a silver spike with a golden head and a San Francisco newspaper gave a second golden spike. At the famous completion ceremony, these were (gently) tapped into place with a special silver-plated maul and then immediately pulled out again so that real spikes could be put in their place. Railroad magnates Leland Stanford and Thomas Durant tried to drive the iron Last Spike into place, but made a hash of the job; a real rail worker had to finish. The precious spikes were dispersed to various repositories and none resides at Promontory today*.
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<br />As a matter of fact, neither does the transcontinental railroad. The site was forced as a huge and inconvenient detour around the Great Salt Lake and, even today, it's almost 150 miles of vacant desert and single-lane road from Brigham City. Fortunately, the Salt Lake is quite shallow and crossing it with a trestle was well within 19th Century engineering capabilities. The Southern Pacific Railroad** completed such a cutoff in 1904 and, except for tourists visiting the National Historic Site, no one has seen much need to travel around the north side of the lake ever since.
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<br /><a href="http://unconformities.blogspot.com/2010/01/friday-photo_29.html" target="blank">A previous post on the financing of the transcontinental railroad </a>
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<br /><span style="font-size:85%;">* The second golden spike has since been lost, perhaps in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire
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<br />**Not part of the original transcontinental railroad, which was built by the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads.</span>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-180069184626464868.post-75401509288917074862011-08-25T21:32:00.002-04:002011-08-25T21:34:22.901-04:00Action-adventure gamesI want <a href="http://www.excalibur-publishing.co.uk/streetcleaning.htm" target='blank'>this game</a>.
<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.excalibur-publishing.co.uk/streetcleaning.htm"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 286px;" src="http://www.excalibur-publishing.co.uk/StreetCleaningSimulator/StreetCleaningSimulator_inlay200.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-180069184626464868.post-51597359319766940532011-08-24T17:29:00.003-04:002011-08-24T18:02:32.227-04:00Forever and ever, amenIt's always amusing to hear people intone that God is the same today as he was yesterday, and will be the same tomorrow. It clearly contradicts all historical experience -- just pick any period in history, examine the teachings and behaviors of any Church, and ask yourself if there have been no changes from then until now. It also contradicts Scripture itself, at least as God was portrayed in some of the early books of the Bible.*
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<br />So it's hard to resist poking fun as someone who says, "God wants me to do X," and when he changes his mind, breezily announces that "God wants me to do Y." <a href="http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/-A-vision-from-God-led-Lache-Seastrunk-to-Orego?urn=ncaaf-wp5384">Matt Hinton pokes a little fun</a> at Oregon football player Lache Seastrunk, a highly-recruited player who has just transferred to Baylor in search of playing time. When he first went to Oregon, Seastrunk told reporters, ""I just really leaned on God and asked Him where I really need to be."
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<br />Now that he's going elsewhere, it's "When I first intentionally went there, I felt like God wanted to be there. But God also does things — God also pulls you out of the storm before it happens. So I felt like something was about to go down and God just wanted me to get up out of there." So nice of God to pull you out of a storm you wouldn't be in if you hadn't listened to Him in the first place. He can be just swell that way.
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<br />In the <a href="http://mrdeity.com/">Mr. Deity</a> world, I imagine the following conversation:
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<br />Larry: "We totally punked him! Oh, I know! Now tell him you want him to go to Alaska-Fairbanks!"
<br />Mr. Deity: "That'd be awesome! He's from Texas; Alaska would just kill him!"
<br />Larry: "Plus, they don't even have a football team!"
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<br />* My favorite example: when the Israelites worshiped the golden calf at Sinai, God told Moses that he was going to destroy them all and offered to make Moses's own descendents become the great nation of sycophants that He longed for. Apparently six or seven centuries is plenty of time for even God to forget that He had made the same solemn promise to Abraham. Fortunately, Moses was a far more forgiving and compassionate person than Yahweh and talked Him into changing His mind back again.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-180069184626464868.post-52095737932455519592011-08-16T10:57:00.009-04:002011-08-17T14:59:30.399-04:00Fun with PhotoshopI missed the Indycar race Sunday. Hate to do that, but my sister-in-law was appearing in an excellent performance of "Singing in the Rain" and, if I skipped that, there wouldn't be any YouTube highlights to tell me what I missed.
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<br />What I did miss was a major executive-decision screwup: with 5 laps left and the cars running under caution due to rain, the race was restarted even though it was clearly still too wet to race safely. Unnecessary mayhem ensued and Will Power, never the shrinking violet, let Race Control know what he thought of their decision:
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<br /><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ScDjyS7SYZU" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="349" width="560"></iframe>
<br />(And no, that wasn't ABC that put Power's fingers on a loop)
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<br />At <a href="http://iracing.com/" target="blank">iRacing</a>, someone suggested that this was a great topic for Photoshop and I agree. Here are my submissions.
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<br />Will Power, the movie actor:
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<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiayFxl5FPOOGklCXEebRDcvmGOlmvq7jsnqL8iDPW3wDsPmvKmVS52LNmZrmoEnq47CorbYr1AJn17jV4liyvGPiirJxKUdmoZko2cTlADb2tRVsv22PG3XKqB9zaooRsQHUw5Tf8MB5zJ/s1600/Power-Platoon.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 266px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiayFxl5FPOOGklCXEebRDcvmGOlmvq7jsnqL8iDPW3wDsPmvKmVS52LNmZrmoEnq47CorbYr1AJn17jV4liyvGPiirJxKUdmoZko2cTlADb2tRVsv22PG3XKqB9zaooRsQHUw5Tf8MB5zJ/s400/Power-Platoon.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5641495167912819170" /></a>
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<br />Will Power at the center of historic events:
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<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7n2gFanHORMi0USPFtXc_ddMEtvJMJxtW9V_utiIhSe9UMc0bH7DjEfNuKO7u-KiMeb4r8CBR-9PkC_x_GhjhhRFXdvZDjMQb_scWzZ8mvB85G3o0bfc89ZJ24nksUiBu2-9xGXPQETtE/s1600/Power-Oswald.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 353px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7n2gFanHORMi0USPFtXc_ddMEtvJMJxtW9V_utiIhSe9UMc0bH7DjEfNuKO7u-KiMeb4r8CBR-9PkC_x_GhjhhRFXdvZDjMQb_scWzZ8mvB85G3o0bfc89ZJ24nksUiBu2-9xGXPQETtE/s400/Power-Oswald.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5641470055909293874" border="0" /></a>
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<br />Will Power vacations in Scotland:
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<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsouMci-9dpCibK5-5SCTXmJktnu1jRR48OjrgQ36AOAUNrWEFvnOMjs2Peca-kDn7w0qxIQ5UJmvbJ_CkTlAkxn2163jjBuiVbqff5a-KOJw3_a7JoNZ1au1593xbWG6407bPBPP6q2kk/s1600/Power-Loch-Ness.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 278px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsouMci-9dpCibK5-5SCTXmJktnu1jRR48OjrgQ36AOAUNrWEFvnOMjs2Peca-kDn7w0qxIQ5UJmvbJ_CkTlAkxn2163jjBuiVbqff5a-KOJw3_a7JoNZ1au1593xbWG6407bPBPP6q2kk/s400/Power-Loch-Ness.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5641470182591690690" border="0" /></a>
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<br /><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/103831576363204474349/WillPowerPhotoshops" target="blank">More here</a>
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<br />More. This is fun!
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<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjIS_-uLKnvi7QE2zHQhy6OsyQF4UfNcO4FrBu5__-4MVH8cRggVP7n1XUH4Mz4T3Galv3opJ50452Qd7bHZtP9QLTFWTP7X5fY2UcZRulL8M1nFCBntNMZxM8xwXakH92cOjSNnF3rgcn/s1600/Power-Bond.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 259px; height: 194px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjIS_-uLKnvi7QE2zHQhy6OsyQF4UfNcO4FrBu5__-4MVH8cRggVP7n1XUH4Mz4T3Galv3opJ50452Qd7bHZtP9QLTFWTP7X5fY2UcZRulL8M1nFCBntNMZxM8xwXakH92cOjSNnF3rgcn/s400/Power-Bond.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5641901306243686194" /></a>
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<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXKNhtMuHXr5hJSlfhfL6WhFWplSP3NRRyOVDlX5__k29LO_B92gBAjfa9N19sUL_Bg6zQLe3AlMeQYY3Uuiv33o_dBNc4j5U9o-CJFpVRp9B1H4xvwRpF9fGH7W9PJGAf6rZJvomAgoU4/s1600/Power-Black-Knight.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 220px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXKNhtMuHXr5hJSlfhfL6WhFWplSP3NRRyOVDlX5__k29LO_B92gBAjfa9N19sUL_Bg6zQLe3AlMeQYY3Uuiv33o_dBNc4j5U9o-CJFpVRp9B1H4xvwRpF9fGH7W9PJGAf6rZJvomAgoU4/s400/Power-Black-Knight.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5641901369311848050" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-180069184626464868.post-87636414060328086172011-08-12T11:08:00.004-04:002011-08-12T11:14:29.270-04:00Friday photo<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIR-NGu9pvsXqbKPEkOLr6zFIKhyuOfSGzQWCwl5XMHP4dFgwyX4tCWZfYc8wte8FRR-kSUi1vJcB_JB8y3rGTOQh00b70x7no03GVw8mQMn4gc8jyJRhCC5lEpc54NLlpvbAOXKgi9-k4/s1600/IMG_0736.jpg"><img style="border: 5px double #785900; display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 315px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIR-NGu9pvsXqbKPEkOLr6zFIKhyuOfSGzQWCwl5XMHP4dFgwyX4tCWZfYc8wte8FRR-kSUi1vJcB_JB8y3rGTOQh00b70x7no03GVw8mQMn4gc8jyJRhCC5lEpc54NLlpvbAOXKgi9-k4/s400/IMG_0736.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5639986662398565986" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">Wet cat. Monroeville, Indiana, August 2011.</span>
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<br />This may be the most bizarre thing I've ever seen: a cat sitting in a puddle of water. Surely it's a sign of the apocalypse; can Republicans embracing tax hikes, or Richard Dawkins joining the Southern Baptist Convention, be far behind?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-180069184626464868.post-35946365066426863962011-08-03T14:31:00.003-04:002011-08-03T14:41:10.852-04:00(Bear) death in YellowstoneA month ago <a href="http://unconformities.blogspot.com/2011/07/death-in-yellowstone.html" target='blank'>a hiker was killed by a grizzly bear</a> in Yellowstone; nothing was done against the bear. Monday the <a href="http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/outdoors/52312533-117/grizzly-yellowstone-park-bear.html.csp" target='blank'>Park Service killed a different grizzly bear</a> that had charged a man and taken the food in his backpack.<br /><br />The difference? The first bear appears to have been doing nothing but protecting her cubs (a misjudgment, but an understandable one). That sort of behavior doesn't indicate that the bear is any more likely to attack another hiker than any other bear.<br /><br />The second one, however, seems to have figured out that hikers carry food and that you can get it from them (rather easily, in fact, if you're a bear). Its chances of challenging the next hiker he comes across, and even seeking out the trails where hikers can be found? They might be rather high, which makes this bear far more dangerous than the iconic "mama grizzly." So the bear was destroyed, even though no one had been killed -- yet. Thus confirming the dictum that "a fed bear is a dead bear."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-180069184626464868.post-14828271364194596992011-08-02T18:45:00.003-04:002011-08-02T18:52:56.097-04:00Buyers, bewareI don't know eBay rules, or even if the seller is serious. But surely this sale will not go through?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://cgi.ebay.com/iPad-2-32GB-Box-Perfect-Condition-/280717242259#ht_499wt_1416"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 260px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqLD7H8hckcCVlILpqcYbdZ1kW9GVB3E-YJXH5AUDHpPCFn8yd6D92qxuy7bP-zRSZDWvH91V8Z6rQNjzsn7pY9tKBENnqj-Wix6RKq3fpLZxSVRBA5AqJjk0lscm5vWZHxpyktBzNA5w2/s400/ipadbox.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5636393571979382578" border="0" /></a><br /><br />$430 bid for the box an iPad came in. On the one hand, the ad clearly says, "the ipad 2 box does not come with ipad 2 or any accessories.this auction is for the box only.it's for someone whom are trying to get the box to make their ipad 2 complete."<br /><br />On the other hand, the box is also described as having "Connectivity: Wi-Fi + 3G" and "Storage Capacity: 32 GB." I'll bet it doesn't.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-180069184626464868.post-55414369429668536772011-07-29T13:13:00.000-04:002011-07-29T13:13:00.919-04:00Friday photo<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP7-47s2k9DYUsNJ-kmEa7N0A-EMo9Qt6nZ3FM6ro5QdTjIogQGDDCow80uYXjePWPCCUloUMwKDlA50tRDhOlgR0cey71rexytbZZzzrAitCY1Vra1Z9s5wJzH2iDJO6O8hHqKX9PktsC/s1600/P6254517.jpg"><img style="border: 5px double #798868; display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 307px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP7-47s2k9DYUsNJ-kmEa7N0A-EMo9Qt6nZ3FM6ro5QdTjIogQGDDCow80uYXjePWPCCUloUMwKDlA50tRDhOlgR0cey71rexytbZZzzrAitCY1Vra1Z9s5wJzH2iDJO6O8hHqKX9PktsC/s400/P6254517.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5634777419244576818" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">Giant Forest. Sequoia National Park, June 2005<br /></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-180069184626464868.post-53684372779837393252011-07-28T13:00:00.003-04:002011-07-28T13:11:16.317-04:00DisasterDisaster can strike with so little warning. For example, one day long ago, my younger brother needed to back up my car in the driveway so that he would have room to shoot a little hoops. He touched the gas a little too hard, had to jump on the brake, and skidded through the gravel to a halt just inches short of our oldest brother's truck. Yes, he'd just come within an ace of damaging <span style="font-style:italic;">both</span> of his older brothers' cars! He'd probably have fled to California years earlier than he actually did.<br /><br />He got lucky, but <a href="http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/43926079/ns/world_news-europe/" target="blank">this poor driver did not</a>:<br /><blockquote><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://msnbcmedia1.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/110728-luxury-car-crash.grid-7x2.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 225px;" src="http://msnbcmedia1.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/110728-luxury-car-crash.grid-7x2.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>The wealthy French Riviera city state of Monaco was the scene of a pileup involving five luxury cars with an estimated value of more than $1.1 million.<br /><br />The collision, involving a Bentley Azure (worth an estimated $400,000), a Mercedes S Class ($120,000), a Ferrari F430 ($230,000), an Aston Martin Rapide ($230,000) and a Porsche 911 ($130,000), occurred in front of Monaco's Place du Casino</blockquote><br />So do you call Flo, the gecko, or just sing the State Farm jingle?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-180069184626464868.post-40155376745693034472011-07-23T20:13:00.004-04:002011-07-23T20:21:04.077-04:00"In Jesus' name, boogity boogity boogity amen!"This was the prayer before the NASCAR Nationwide Series race this evening:<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="275" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/rwaJj_vYGXM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br />Yep, that's why Jesus died for you, Southern style.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-180069184626464868.post-70215100188247645042011-07-22T12:49:00.007-04:002011-07-23T00:08:39.569-04:00Friday photo<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3KktCTneF3KT_T-q5kNz8OWi0u0haNBn7BA-XsqtTlcU92MECZf7F27eJfjaGS-s8dvQjFuWceIjuJD-LGwLsBXAyzHfAechoUQNOBGDn9qCGBKfIs_9tO9XuuCB9aynZI8g0LWZ8qeFu/s1600/IMG_0530.jpg"><img style="border: 5px double #3993c3;display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 253px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3KktCTneF3KT_T-q5kNz8OWi0u0haNBn7BA-XsqtTlcU92MECZf7F27eJfjaGS-s8dvQjFuWceIjuJD-LGwLsBXAyzHfAechoUQNOBGDn9qCGBKfIs_9tO9XuuCB9aynZI8g0LWZ8qeFu/s400/IMG_0530.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5631941532352515890" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">Swimmer. Adrian, Michigan, July 2011.</span><br /></div><br />I took my camera to the Ohio-Michigan Summer Swim League meet in Adrian this week and this was my favorite shot of the day, with my brother's youngest daughter performing the <strike>breast</strike> butterfly stroke. It's a good action shot, one that manages to freeze the action without destroying the impression of motion.<br /><br />I've done a modest amount of sports photography, mostly of amateur events, and it's amazing how many shots taken at the peak of the action don't make good action shots. Just freezing an instant (in this case, about 1/1000 of a second) usually catches the athlete in an awkward-looking moment, with an arm half-cocked, or the leg one-quarter lifted, or some such thing. If you read up about action photography, they'll tell you to look for the right moment, and give you some hints as to when that's likely to occur. For example, in basketball, the peak of a jump shot is likely to be the "right" moment.<br /><br />But I haven't seen anyone discuss why, during the right moment, <span style="font-style: italic;">this</span> instant looks right and the instant before just looks clumsy, awkward, and unnatural. I don't have the answer, either, but I suspect that there's something about finding a sort of peak of the motion while avoiding the middle. For example, a tennis player's serve would look good with the ball in the air and the player preparing for the smash, or on the follow-through. But the instant just before the ball is hit would likely appear clumsy and (paradoxically) more frozen, ruining the sense of action.<br /><br />In the photo above, it seems to make all the difference that the swimmer is caught with arms fully extended and not, say, three-quarters extended. Just to throw out a hypothesis, I suspect that motion is generally seen as movement from point to point (or from position to position) and we like an image that conforms to the way we see it; that is, we want to see those destination points, not the instants in between. Arms fully extended, or arms swept all the way back, look good and action-packed -- but in between is less pleasing. What happens in between is too rapid for our eyes to see properly and looks unfamiliar when it's frozen at 1/1000 of a second.* Perhaps we just prefer those ever-so-slightly-slower moments that our eye can detect in real time, that remain recognizable when they're captured in a still photograph.<br /><br />One more stroke of luck in this photo's favor: good sports photos need faces and emotion in them and the splash has just the proper break to show at least some of the face, the eyes especially. Even with the swim goggles, an impression of determination and concentration comes through.<br /><br /><br />_______________________________________<br /><span style="font-size:85%;">* Bearing in mind that cinema needs only 24 frames per second to give a convincing illusion of motion.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-180069184626464868.post-8017272103912041362011-07-20T19:46:00.002-04:002011-07-20T19:51:57.647-04:00The language bobbiesThe BBC lists <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14201796" target='blank'>50 of the most hated Americanisms</a>, as nominated by their readers. Some of them are current business jargon, such as "24/7" and "deliverables." Others have been around quite awhile. One person disparages "expiration date" and wonders what ever happened to "expiry." Truth is, that one expired on this side of the Atlantic some tim before I ever started listening to English. In general, it's the usual collection of pointless peeves that language mavens (including myself, at times) always whine about.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-180069184626464868.post-13556281353902636642011-07-18T16:34:00.003-04:002011-07-18T16:47:50.947-04:00Google plays hardballLast May <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-05-06/google-loses-copyright-appeal-over-links-to-belgian-newspapers.html" target='blank'>Google lost a lawsuit</a> to the Belgian newspaper consortium, CopiePresse, over Google News linking to their newspaper stories without permission or compensation. Today they're firing back in a big way - by <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jj9ad340cxT7i1ADyPk_ksWRtLgQ?docId=79891bacb5a84c068862fba59868b1d6" target='blank'>blocking all search results</a> to the newspapers in question altogether.<br /><br />Google claims they're only complying with a court order. CopiePresse claims they have no objection to having their stories referenced in <span style="font-style: italic;">search results</span>; they only object to some of the content appearing in the Google News results and that Google is deliberately obscuring the difference between search results and copying content.<br /><br />That's probably true, so some extent. But I've never found that Google News provides me with much more than the headline anyway; if I'm interested in a story, I still have to click through to read more than a sentence or two. So I've never understood the absolutist position that some newspapers take on this issue. It's free advertising! Imagine if movie studios tried to claim that tv stations should pay them for showing movie trailers? No, the fiscal incentives run the other way; studios pay tv to advertise their movies. Google is trying to prove to CopiePresse that the incentives do indeed run the other way and, because they're complaining about it, CopiePresse seems to secretly agree.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-180069184626464868.post-11589797337716914802011-07-16T17:37:00.006-04:002011-07-16T19:22:35.640-04:00A lesson in incentivesBecause I have far more im<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhso2KhBoVRgnytPOtpD-QhEWM-hHPtrKk-rWGEjyezPpVNWJdwKVthBnFvfR6Dn7pfEGhJckMR6JfUUMcylphQLDoYe9XB-lDLekiNaluW1DiEhhIlBVAq_uWy5rwPiD7I8N_f3muJuLT1/s1600/iRacingSim-2011-07-16-17-34.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 255px; height: 143px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhso2KhBoVRgnytPOtpD-QhEWM-hHPtrKk-rWGEjyezPpVNWJdwKVthBnFvfR6Dn7pfEGhJckMR6JfUUMcylphQLDoYe9XB-lDLekiNaluW1DiEhhIlBVAq_uWy5rwPiD7I8N_f3muJuLT1/s1600/iRacingSim-2011-07-16-17-34.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>portant things to do, I've been spending a lot of time lately on <a href="http://iracing.com/" target="blank">iRacing</a>, an online auto racing simulation with some 25,000 subscribers who can run practice sessions or race other members in any of two dozen cars on four dozen different tracks (each of which has been laser-scanned for accuracy to the nearest millimeter). It is, too understate the matter, addictive.<br /><br />As I usually do when I start in with a new activity or a new system, I've been busy exploring the rules and culture by reading every manual they have and exploring the forums for information on how this all works. And the most interesting thing I have found so far is iRacing's approach to encouraging safe driving.<br /><br />The problem is simple: you've attracted a bunch of people who aren't professional race drivers, but would like to drive as aggressively as professional race drivers, and you want to encourage them to keep a lid on it and stay within their limits. Somehow, you have to create a system of incentives that will discourage poor driving, reward safe driving, and be self-enforcing -- with 25,000 drivers, there's no way to have an impartial judge watching every race.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5NmZIPOjbBPjeZQivx-5U7XH9PNNkmGG6fS5kRSbfbNHzvIPeJwBP60it5wUTO7JFTfpgtJxcDa4gVgpCmlH7nFcFXbQlyoZ56CwTSiGONQvtRS3UHb5WTG90vFrkVhIBWgsya8DNcPXX/s1600/iRacingSim-2011-07-16-18-08.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 133px; height: 74px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5NmZIPOjbBPjeZQivx-5U7XH9PNNkmGG6fS5kRSbfbNHzvIPeJwBP60it5wUTO7JFTfpgtJxcDa4gVgpCmlH7nFcFXbQlyoZ56CwTSiGONQvtRS3UHb5WTG90vFrkVhIBWgsya8DNcPXX/s400/iRacingSim-2011-07-16-18-08.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5630076030703194226" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5gq4fok8jxMD7yarZAjINbmnL7grNi7ffYu37NDU28Ain7L8XiYfJIq6dKc89SeDhAxNPWasVmQzliXANreW1YoEZwynnuVLjj0QIlay_55CtsbC2b1RCqLri4J5OvIfJChayZvrnF1Ad/s1600/iRacingSim-2011-07-16-17-55.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 133px; height: 74px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5gq4fok8jxMD7yarZAjINbmnL7grNi7ffYu37NDU28Ain7L8XiYfJIq6dKc89SeDhAxNPWasVmQzliXANreW1YoEZwynnuVLjj0QIlay_55CtsbC2b1RCqLri4J5OvIfJChayZvrnF1Ad/s400/iRacingSim-2011-07-16-17-55.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5630075929376209122" border="0" /></a>To that end, the system automatically monitors "incidents" and awards "incident points" based on the severity. Going off the track is 1 point. Spinning around or making contact with another car is 2 points. Especially hard contact is awarded 4 points. Based on a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_average#Weighted_moving_average" target="blank">weighted moving average</a> of "incidents per corner," a safety rating (SR) is awarded and continually updated. You need to maintain an adequate SR in order to advance your license, which you need if you want to race in advanced series with faster and more powerful cars. Don't take care of your SR and you'll be stuck racing the rookie series with the clueless noobs forever.<br /><br />The controversial part is this: the SR is based on a no-fault system. If you and I make contact, we both accrue incident points. It makes no difference whether I hit you, you hit me, or we were both being too aggressive ... none of that matters. We both get points and, if we accumulate too many, our SR's suffer. That pisses people off. The forums at iRacing are filled with bitter complaints from drivers who've accumulated points and can't raise their SR's high enough to get our of the Rookie class, because all those other dolts keep crashing them out of races. Why does the service tolerate all those bad drivers who are holding me back?<br /><br />And more experienced, wiser drivers will reply that the system is working exactly as it's supposed to work. When the complainer posts replays of the incident, as often as not they'll point out that the driver himself was often at fault, not holding his line as well as he thought, or getting impatient and trying a high-risk passing maneuver. Most of the time, you can examine the guy's record and discover that doesn't have nearly as much control of his car as he thinks he has. Usually he has some sort of expectation that he should be able to drive the same line in traffic that he does in practice and everyone else should just get out of his way.*<br /><br />More importantly, though, they'll try to impress a driver with the necessity of thinking safety first. In real life, if your race car gets crashed, you suffer the injuries and you pay for the repairs, no matter how it happened. You don't rush into a dicey situation thinking, "If there's a crash, at least it won't be my fault." You suffer the same as if it had been your fault. And that makes you more cautious. In a no-fault system -- and God himself runs a no-fault universe -- it's <span style="font-style: italic;">always</span> your responsibility to avoid trouble. You do that by being patient, by watching to see if your opponent is driving steadily or erratically, and by taking the approach that it's more important to finish the race than it is to get to the front.<br /><br />This seems to be a hard lesson for some to learn. If you're constantly getting involved incidents that don't seem to be your fault, the first step is to examine replays and see if you aren't really more at fault than you thought (often you are). But the next step is to ask yourself, "Am I putting myself in dangerous situations too often? Am I taking risks that, even if I keep it together myself, have a high chance of ending badly?" 'Cause if you are, then you're not a safe driver, regardless of whose fault the final incident turns out to be.<br /><br />That's the beauty of the no-fault system: you can never avoid the consequences and so you can never shirk responsibility. If you want to advance very far in iRacing, you have to temper your aggression and learn at least a modicum** of good judgment. It's all about the incentives.*** The drivers who complain about the system would generally like to do what they do and make everyone else responsible for the outcome. The no-fault system does exactly the opposite by making it always <span style="font-style: italic;">your</span> responsibility, no matter how bad the drivers are around you. Just like it is out on the street.<br /><br /><br /><br />____________________________________________<br /><span style="font-size:85%;">* I came across this attitude back in my undergrad days playing pickup basketball. Quite a few guys were of the opinion that once they had begun a drive to the basket, it was some sort of violation if the other team still tried to defend it. In fact, I find a lot of the same attitudes at iRacing that I did on the basketball court -- the inflated egos and sense of entitlement, the win-at-all-cost attitudes conflicting with the let's-just-have-fun approach, and the mildly inverse relationship between whining and talent.<br /><br />** You don't necessarily need much more than a modicum. The SR system is pretty generous and drivers who are conscientious, but unskilled, can still do pretty well. And even the upper level series contain a pretty fair amount of trouble. But then, have you watched a NASCAR race lately?<br /><br />*** When the developers put the system together, they actually <a href="http://www.iracing.com/safety-ratings-a-cure-for-the-mayhem-in-online-racing-games/" target="blank">considered charging small amounts of money for excessive incidents</a>. They decided against it, probably wisely.<br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-180069184626464868.post-42220016284624329352011-07-15T13:45:00.002-04:002011-07-16T16:24:52.585-04:00Friday photo<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimo_LJsaV9y5lBb0PcmuYqvxfuidrtvhkN2xpYfcUTVkwzkxTfgeHzNAPkoI5LNNV73AT13wHIHZakp3XtVbp7DfZAKyY4o2RBm8TNKGJbSS3qHrzRAt8P-ACoQAw_sl2D6Qzn6hoGjEM7/s1600/P3020161X.jpg"><img style="border: 5px double #444444; display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 282px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimo_LJsaV9y5lBb0PcmuYqvxfuidrtvhkN2xpYfcUTVkwzkxTfgeHzNAPkoI5LNNV73AT13wHIHZakp3XtVbp7DfZAKyY4o2RBm8TNKGJbSS3qHrzRAt8P-ACoQAw_sl2D6Qzn6hoGjEM7/s400/P3020161X.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5629049221800376818" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">George Gordon Meade Memorial. Washington, D.C., March 2007<br /></span></div><br />Friday photo, public softcore edition. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Meade">George Meade</a>, of course, was a Union general of the Civil War who took command of the Army of the Potomac and, in his first battle, decisively defeated Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg, crippling the Confederate army and and earning a statue of a naked woman ministering to him. If he was awarded the real thing, it has gone discretely unrecorded<br /><br />According to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gordon_Meade_Memorial">description on Wikipedia</a>, that's Chivalry to Meade's left, accepting the offer of a coat she obviously needs a hell of a lot more than he does. The dude copping a feel from behind her is Progress; it's not clear whether he's progressing upwards or downwards.<br /><br />It might only be my inner sixth-grader that gets so amused by this statue, but it also amuses me to see how dramatically cultural tastes and norms change from generation to generation. The 1860's were a pretty religious and typically prudish age, but even the genteel classes saw no embarrassment in adding a naked figure to a statue of a hero and putting it up in the nation's capital, for all to see. I'm guessing this is because they still admired the art and literature of Classical Greece and Rome, whose statuary features plenty of nude figures. I'm not an art historian, but I would hazard a guess that any nude in a 19th Century statue almost certainly represented one of the ancient gods or was the personification of some abstract virtue. Nudity in the 19th Century was not about sensuality; it demonstrated your good taste and your classical education.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-180069184626464868.post-73131586816896341482011-07-11T19:07:00.005-04:002011-07-16T19:25:51.369-04:00HeroicsIt's hard for me to fathom, but there are still a lot of people out there - not all of them men - who dismiss women's sports as some sort inferior endeavor. Slower, weaker, less athletic, less skilled. Less deserving of attention. What nonsense. Two of the most dramatic, clutch, courageous, even heroic athletic performances I've ever seen were performed by women.<br /><br />Here is one, which fifteen years later still puts a lump in my throat:<br /><br /><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/fFn47a_Ny0Y" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="349" width="425"></iframe><br /><br />And yesterday was another that I shall never, ever, ever forget:<br /><br /><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/JOAJn8h6VAI" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="349" width="425"></iframe><br /><br />[UPDATE: Dammit! Video pulled because of a copyright claim by FIFA! What sort of idiots try to quash free advertising? Most sorts, it seems.]Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-180069184626464868.post-69775684842888165632011-07-08T17:06:00.001-04:002011-07-08T17:32:41.062-04:00Friday photo<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWTEnNKxRHaodApp3G0-YdXF477Ut8pAb-25M7dCYabzML-eQJiUcnhloj0yZYkwGXfhtMpmvu024j_B_aAr1xuK8_IcnuQw951twfCFvdA0ZPJ6UvI7lf5qYU4dCtMb47QQMKUr56WxSV/s1600/A04L2451.jpg"><img style="border: 5px double #9fc2d9;display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 272px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWTEnNKxRHaodApp3G0-YdXF477Ut8pAb-25M7dCYabzML-eQJiUcnhloj0yZYkwGXfhtMpmvu024j_B_aAr1xuK8_IcnuQw951twfCFvdA0ZPJ6UvI7lf5qYU4dCtMb47QQMKUr56WxSV/s400/A04L2451.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626812589544783554" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">Devils Tower, Wyoming. December 2004.<br /></span></div><br />I consider this the most perfect photo of Wyoming that I've ever taken. Geology and culture blended seamlessly. Perhaps it would be even more perfect if the grazing animal were a cow rather than a horse, but that's a pretty close call. After all, one could hardly have run cattle without horses. Either way, this is iconic Wyoming.<br /><br />And Devil's Tower, that magnificent, 867' tall, exposed igneous intrusion. That is, it was a plume of magma that forced its way into the surrounding rock before cooling some 40,000,000 years ago. That seems ancient, but geologically I suppose that counts as recent history. The rock one finds on the surface today is 200,000,000 years old, five times older than the Tower itself. The ground used to be a lot higher than it is today, but that's all gone now, softer sandstone that's been eroded away over the ages, leaving the harder, granite-like plug standing in place, with nothing left to plug but the sky.<br /><br />When I first visited Devils Tower, perhaps in 1978, <span style="font-style: italic;">Close Encounters of the Third Kind</span> had recently made the site known to the rest of the world and the Visitor Center bookshop was selling <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Close-Encounters-Third-Kind-Diary/dp/0880641827/ref=sr_1_2" target="blank">Bob Balaban's diary</a> of the filming of the movie (Balaban played François Truffaut's interpreter and had the honor of being the only actor in the movie to utter the phrase, "close encounter"). I no longer have the book, but I recall his account of being driven to the location. Like most of us at the time, Balaban had never heard of Devils Tower and had no idea what he was going to see, just that there was some sort of Point of Interest. His account of the drive went something like this:<br /><br /><blockquote>Balaban: "Is that it?"<br /><br />Driver. "You'll know it when you see it."<br /><br />Balaban: "Is <span style="font-style: italic;">that</span> it?"<br /><br />Driver. "You'll know it when you see it."<br /><br />Balaban: "Is <span style="font-style: italic;">that</span> it?"<br /><br />Driver. "You'll know it when you see it."</blockquote><br />Finally they drove around a bend in the road ... and he knew it when he saw it.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0