Musings

What threshold of scariness is it that we now have a terabyte drive among our “gear”?

Actual capacity: 931.39 GB

FYI: A terabyte is one trillion (short scale) bytes, or 1000 gigabytes.

[cough, cough]

Posted at 7:32 PM | Comments Off on Terabyte arrival

Melancholia by Narcissus Quagliata, made in 1981–1982. The backlight is terribly uneven both in this photo and when I viewed it, yet I still found this image compelling, although I can’t quite put my finger on the reason why. To me, the man seems disingenuous and somewhat arrogant, rather than reflective and thoughtful, as the Corning Museum’s guide to the collections suggests.

Released from the patterns imposed by travel, I have cast about for a topic for today’s entry. The photo part was easy; I have a huge backlog from our travels over the last month; a plethora of photos is one characteristic of our travel patterns….

Meanwhile, let me note that overnight we got a good rain, although it’s been and continues to be so windy that the air must be sucking the moisture right back up out of the soil and vegetation. Still, rain is rain, right? I’ve yet to encounter the news story alleging that last weekend’s prayers at the statehouse and elsewhere have paid off, but I’m sure it’s being written or edited or posted right now…. Oops, I spoke too soon.

Into the mix, I’ve got to note that one Cobb County residence managed to waste use a whopping, and actually I mean mega-whopping 14,700 gallons per day on average in September, for a staggering 440,000 for the whole month. BTW, the average Atlanta residential client uses a mere (and still reducible) 183 gallons per day.

Today’s entry

Okay, I have to report I still haven’t ordered the XO laptop, with the second one for charity. Have you? It’s still on my to-do list….

The other day John Hawks posted a blog entry with a link to this amazing graphic display of data by the notable Hans Rosling, and called the Trendalyzer project. The graphics program isn’t yet released, but I’ll wait around for it….

You also might want to check out this web page (thank you, KW), and generate a donation of rice to the United Nations World Food Programme with a vocabulary self-test. The WFP page says they’ve received over one billion grains of rice from freerice.com—enough to feed 50K people for one day. (I suspect the vocabulary is drawn more from British English than American.)

So, let’s get the rice statistic higher and the water use statistic lower, okay?

PS

Does this entry have too many links? Maybe I got carried away….

Posted at 5:32 PM | 4 Comments »

Today we cruised through an area in Ohio where Amish farmers continue the old labor-intensive ways. I had to search my memory for the name of these harvest constructions of corn stalks bound together to dry in the field. First I could only think of shucks, but that’s the name of the dried husks, sometimes used to wrap tamales. The word is similar, hence my confusion. It’s shocks.

Posted at 11:22 PM | Comments Off on Maize vocab

…in which a young drummer, having posted his first YouTube video adventure (and first video, period), seriously starts checking the view count!

Posted at 11:22 PM | Comments Off on Drummer Guy

Mostly when we’re on the road lately, we don’t have the chance to wend our way through small-town America, and miss the opportunities to discover the unexpected sometimes to be found there.

Today we managed to break the trend and as we entered the town center of Greensburg, Indiana, we could not help but spot a tree atop the courthouse tower. How odd!

So, of course, we angled to get a couple of shots of it. Which took us down a back street where we discovered the tree occupied a place of honor on the town’s logo.

So, even without Google, we discovered Greensburg’s claim to fame (including attention from Ripley’s Believe It or Not, reportedly) in a simple drive-by.

Googled information indicates there’ve been a series of trees (makes sense), and even multiple concurrent arboreal decorations over the last century, and, apparently multiple species.

The jokes are rampant. A town favorite: Where does the tree get its moisture from? The clock’s spring, of course!

We observed that it might be wise to revisit the old adage that the nut never falls far from the tree…

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Greensburg Indiana

Usually, I try to take a few minutes each day to peruse the news online, just to keep up with current events (as we were taught in junior high). Now, the WashPost reports there’s a web page, Brijit, that distills the best of the best (depending on your point of view) of the latest news stories. With their wee abstracts, they offer more than a simple RSS feed with a few lines of text.

The trouble, of course, is whether their idea of “good stuff” matches yours or not. And, I guess, how fast you can scan/speed read to discover what you think is important/relevant/interesting….

Roughly each week I consult Arts & Letters Daily, which also digests, but not the whole spectrum of topics….

Maybe if I augment my usual browse with ALD and Brijit I’ll stay current?

And remind me again why knowing current events are important? Why I shouldn’t do the ostrich thing?

Posted at 5:11 PM | 1 Comment »

…in which we discover that the fragile hard drive in my old machine yields most but not all of my files to the new machine.

…in which we discover work-arounds of one sort or another, and life returns to somewhat normal.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Stressful Sunday

…in which poor JCB had to take the “dead” (power supply problem) yet brand new iMac back to the Apple store to exchange for an undead one.

Now, silence ≠ dead, but a new super-quiet machine.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Reemergence

…in which a strong silent type followed us home today.

(See tomorrow.)

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Strong, silent

An actual chalkboard sign!

So, Google announces profits exceed expectations for this quarter.

I’m still trying to figure out how they’re making money from their free phone system—Grandcentral (as long as you can dial on-line). And, yes, even though we recently bought the iPhone, we also now have a Grandcentral number.

Like we’re addicted to phone-talk or something! (Not!)

Posted at 6:51 PM | Comments Off on Googling, broadly