Tom Gryn's musings

8:56am: "Baba Yetu" (Lord's Prayer in Swahili)
This is one of the best songs I've heard in a long time. Its a choral arrangement of The Lord's Prayer into Swahili.

It has a somewhat-interesting backstory: it was originally composed by Christopher Tan for Sid Meier's video game "Civilization IV" back in 2005, but it has expanded well beyond the video gaming audience into general choir use since then, if YouTube is any indication. I was introduced to it from a CD my brother gave me last Christmas titled "Video Games Live" (which is also interesting, as its a touring group and choir which does a whole show performing themes from popular video games, some of which like Baba Yetu are quite intricate.) The CD contains a suite from CivIV, including BY.

A few YouTube videos to give it a listen to. This one is translated with lyrics, so you can see how the translation works.
It also has very nice imagery to go with the song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmut6FBx4xk

My only complaint with that version is that the volume is a little too oversampled, espec. in the intro. These are "cleaner" versions,
but without the imagery and lyrics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5MEXAOZUeY
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qUYocB1Rxw
MP3 version:
http://www.civfanatics.net/downloads/civ4/music/BabaYetu.mp3

And, the full CivIV suite from the Video Games Live CD & show:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKk2CRmSHT4
live versions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ichj_91I3Ck
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jjAxt2Vreg
This is very short (1:00) but probably my favorite version of CivIV live by VGL, thanks to the energy and enthusiasm of the soloist:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEmd1N2FcFQ
The opening video displayed on the background screen in the life show can be found under "samples" at the composer's website, http://www.tinworksmusic.com/

composer's blog:
http://christophertin.com/blog/


sidenote: Youtube comments are a funny thing...for one of those videos, the whole thread is dominated by a discussion about whether non-native singers should be attempting to sign in Swahili at all, while another is a full-fledged flamefest between atheists about how difficult it is for them to appreciate the song once they know its translation, and Christians arguing back. Depressing, but not surprising; a video of a commercial I uploaded has over 12,000 hits, but also has attracted a lot of extremely misogynistic comments from viewers. sigh.

12:56pm: Justice, or show trials?
I disagree most of the time with Glenn Greenwald, but he made some valid points in his article on the planned trials of the 9-11 masterminds. Specifically: if the type of trial a person gets is dependent on how strong the evidence is against them, can this really be called "justice" or is it just what Glenn calls it, which is a show trial? On the other hand, it would be political suicide for whatever party happens to be in power were a terrorist like Kahlid Sheikh Mohommed to "pull an OJ" and wind up acquitted on a technicality (such as throwing out any evidence that may have been obtained under interrogation), or because they got a loopy jury that was sympathetic to their Islamist justifications for 9-11. OK, lets say that happens: if the plan is to not release them regardless of the trial's outcome, why bother going through the motions in the first place? Then there's the problem of having to produce much more evidence under the standards of a civilian court than a military tribunal, how sensitive intel will be handled, whether Miranda rights are applicable in a place like Afghanistan, etc. etc. Its a mess.

I think folks like Greenwald and Andrew Sullivan have it relatively easy: for Greenwald, there's no debate, every detainee should get a trial, and if they're acquitted, they must be released, period. For Sullivan, all coercive interrogation methods are wrong, regardless of circumstances, as they can't be reconciled easily with his desire for the U.S. to be seen as holding the moral highground among nations. The reality isn't nearly as clean-cut - like I said, the issue is a morass in terms of morality and ethics. I don't have the easy solutions they proport to have, but I also recognize that standing on these rhetorical islands of absolutes are easier than trying to navigate the choppy waters that first the Bush administration, and now the Obama administration, have had to deal with as far as administering justice to those who wish us harm. Of course, neither of the pundits are in danger of having to be actually responsible for the consequences of their stances, since neither are anywhere close to actually being in a position to make those decisions. I'm feeling some schadenfreude that Obama is having to deal with this, after during the campaign being pretty damning of Bush's handling of it, yet finding no easy answers himself. I suspect Obama has a much better appreciation of the pressures Bush was working under, now that he's the one responsible for making the decisions. POTUS is a tough job.

I believe that under our system the standards of justice for U.S. citizens should be somewhat higher than for non-citizens. In ancient Rome, Roman citizens had many more rights under their court system than non-citizens did, and in this respect our system of law is closer to the Roman than to the English system from which our legal system is generally descended. While noncitizens have certain unalienable rights under the Constitution, they are not members of "we the people" and as such there are certain legal rights to which they are not entitled, so I'm OK with not extending the full rights and privileges of the legal system to non-citizens, if that's where we eventually come down on. The obligation to defend a non-citizen's rights (beyond the unalienable ones mentioned in the Constitution) falls primarily to the nation of which they are citizens. There's human rights issues, to be sure (again, "inalienable rights"), but I'm not so certain that things such as full Miranda rights and complete legal representation should fall under that. So, when it comes to these morally murky corners such as how to give justice to Guantanamo detainees, that none (?) of them are U.S. citizens does enter into the equation, as far as I'm concerned.

Discussion on this topic at Winds of Change

6:14pm: Review: "5-Minute Fence Stain"



Recently, we had to get one of our side privacy fences replaced. We used McGee Fence and were very pleased with their work. The focus of this review is on a product called "Five Minute Fence Stain" (5MFS) which I used to stain the fence after it was installed.

After spending many hours this summer hand-staining the back fence when we'd had that replaced last year, I was looking around for a better solution. We did this side fence replacement in late October, and I knew there was no way I'd be able to get the fence stained before winter arrived if I did it by hand, and I didn't want to leave it exposed all winter. This is what led me to the 5MFS product. Basically, you attach the 5MFS bottle to a garden hose and it sprays the stain onto the fence. The online demo seemed pretty nifty, although some of the user reviews about the product gave me some concern. (for a more positive review, see this). Here's my experience with 5MFS:

Overall, I can see how this product can be very frustrating to use at first. Its a good concept, but needs improvements in a number of areas to reach its potential.

* One problem with the design is that the nozzle can't handle water streaming at high pressure, or for that matter even at "normal" garden hose pressure. This means you have to fiddle with the on-off switch to get a stream level that is high enough to push the water/stain mix onto the fence, but not so much that it overloads the nozzle which makes the whole thing shut off. To "reset" the nozzle, you have to turn the water off, then turn it slowly on again. I had to do this a number of times, especially at first until I figured out what the stream level had to be for it to work. I was fortunate that the hose I was using had an on-off toggle on the hose itself, it would have been much more troublesome if I had had to keep running back to the water outlet on the house to reactivate it.

* From looking at the part on the nozzle that switches it between water-only and "mix" (water + stain), it seems like it is supposed to allow the water from the hoze to stream into the stain bottle, and the pressure flowing through the stain in the container will force the now-mixed solution out of the nozzle and onto the fence. Unfortunately, because of the above problem with the nozzle being sensitive to water pressure, this doesn't work as planned. I think they need to add one line to their instructions, namely that to get the stain mix to work, you need to hold the container upside-down. This allows the stain in the container to flow downward, where it meets the stream from the hose and does mix.

* I seriously doubt this thing is environmentally friendly. Because the effect is basically splashing the stain onto the fence via a pressurized water-based mix, there's a lot of the stuff that will stream off onto the ground. Its one of the prices you pay for not putting the stain on by hand. I doubt many people will be growing vegetables along their fence, but if you are, this product is probably not a great idea.

* As other reviews have mentioned, this does apply the stain in a fairly messy way. You almost certainly will get stain onto your clothes and yourself, especially while you're learning how to use the thing, so plan accordingly. It doesn't apply smoothly - the effect is much more like taking a small bucket of stain and splashing it at the fence, rather than the smooth application their demo video shows. There is also considerable leakage from the bottle when it is tipped upside down to work: both bottles I used had the instructions on the back obliterated by leaking stain while in use.

I've put a couple of comparison pictures up at Flickr for you to look at, here and here (also shown above). Click on "All Sizes" to view them fullsize.

Overall, would I use this product again? Surprisingly, yes I would. It did not operate as advertised, but once I figured out how to get around its flaws, it did in fact stain the fence as it was supposed to. It did save a ton of time compared to hand-staining, and I would never have been able to apply the stain in the time I had before winter if 5MFS wasn't available.

8:33pm: Jason of Star Command (Jimmy Doohan, the post-Trek years)
Yes, I watched this show as a kid. Yes, I thought it was awesome at the time.

These are the highlights. Skip over the rest; you can't get that time back, believe me.

Episode 1
2:31 in the clip: Late 70s fashion statement AND ripping off the beginning of "Star Wars"
4:34: Jimmy Doohan sighting
7:50: Jimmy Doohan sighting AND defying the laws of nature. I don't think airless vacuum works like that...

Episode 2
0:15 mark: overdosing on Rogaine will do that...
0:48: Probably the best thing in the series: Sid Haig as Dragos, intro to the series here. Scene stealer extraordinare; nobody delivers over-the-top dialogue like Sid Haig did.
4:10: Jimmy Doohan sighting
5:30: Yes, Jason is a dumba$$. But at least he's able to state the obvious with gusto.
7:25: Another line that would have worked in "Trek" as well (presumably to Kirk)
7:55: Ooooo, evil Doohan sighting!
10:20: Sid Haig laugh.

Episode 3
0:32: Evil Doohan sighting!
0:54: Magical Doohan!
1:07: Dumba$$ Doohan sighting. Oh, well.
5:22: Which came first, these guys or "Shambling Mounds" in D&D (http://lastsource.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/shambling_mound-219x300.jpg)?
7:48: Magical Doohan, part II!

10:01am: LA trip
Have uploaded a bunch of photos from our LA trip to my flickr account. We attended our friend's daughter's wedding, visited Disneyland, saw the Dodgers play the Padres in San Diego, and just generally enjoyed being in SoCal again.

9:41pm: Mostly active these days over at http://www.facebook.com/tagryn , the shorter entries are easier to do than trying to find a large block of time during the day or after work to do the kind of larger entries that LJ is more suited for.

5:23pm: Pictures



* Uploaded 7 photos to my flickr account, including a few from our trip to the Charles County fair, a few from the garden, and a night picture of our cat Rascal.

10:38am: Airline snafu
I called American Airlines last night to check on the status of a reservation I made back in August for Donna and myself. Well, turns out Donna's reservation was fine, but mine had been canceled (!!!). I never received ANY communication from AA that this had happened, so it came as a very rude surprise. Fortunately the lady I was speaking to at AA was quite helpful and was able to rebook me on the same flights as Donna, so it all worked out, but I had a stressful half-hour or so while they figured out what had gone wrong and fixed it.

Now, should I be angry that they didn't bother to let me know in the first place, or pleased that they resolved the problem once I called to check on it? I mean, the most likely scenario was that I would have assumed everything was OK, since I had a confirmation number and itinerary already, and showed up at the airport with Donna only to be told I had no ticket and no options but to buy a full-fare ticket. That would have been A Bad Thing.

9:13pm: A smorgasbord of links and topics

We had a good harvest this weekend, I got 7-8 tomatoes off the plants, plus three green peppers and a couple jalapenos.

Google Maps has posted images of Disneyland Paris to their StreetView feature. From seeing them, I can already tell that seeing it in person is going to be a surreal experience. Its Disneyland in most details...but its not California. Other neat shots from DLP: Phantom Manor, Skull Rock.

Julia Ecklar has a new puppy!

I finally finished Zerg Mission 7 in Starcraft. That was hard. I found the solution somewhat unsatisfying, basically requiring a final banzai charge where you throw all your units at the final goal and hope the bad guys are so busy killing off all your remaining forces that your character can slip through, akin to in the DS9 episode Sacrifice of Angels where a lot of ships are sacrificed to create a small opening for the Defiant. I don't know if I want to invest much more time in this game, given that the remaining missions are supposed to be much harder than this. sigh.

Megan McArdle at Atlantic Monthly touches on whether portraying the protesters at the health care town hall meetings as insane is a useful strategy for the Democrats. I fully agree with one of her responses in the comments section:

If you've managed to convince yourself that the only opposition to your plan comes from crazy people, you are not going to communicate very effectively with those whom you wish to persuade.

Basically, its a lazy strategy of dismissing all critics as nuts, rather than doing the much harder work of crafting a message which can persuade those with concerns that reform is a worthy idea.

There's been an interesting cross-blog discussion going on regarding Catholic's beliefs on Communion and when it is appropriate to receive it. Rick of "Brutally Honest" decided to receive Communion after years of not attending Church and without going through the traditional preparation step of Confession, then returned the next week and also encouraged his (non-Catholic) wife to partake as well. He represents an 'ecumenical' viewpoint towards Communion, and his retort to critics has been "What would Jesus have done? Would Jesus have turned my wife and I away?" The Anchoress provides a 'traditionalist' answer to Rick's question. As with certain threads, the comments are really worthwhile to get a diversity of viewpoints on this.

I will say, if I don't get to Confession in the week before a Sunday, I don't receive Communion at that Mass. I'm not saying Confession is at all easy, not at all (1), but I think it is a necessary precursor for Communion to be received properly. I also think Rick is missing the larger statement that Communion makes, which is that one is by and large gemutlich/in accord with the beliefs of a particular faith, and that you are part of the body of believers that one is sharing Communion (and hence communion) with.

(1) - the only thing that makes Confession at all easier is for one to remind oneself that God already knows everything you confess, so the process of the sacrament is more for cleansing one's own being, rather than to make an admittance of guilt, which I think too many people tend to view it as.

10:27am: Gardening update
We're getting a steady flow of tomatoes out of our vegitable garden now - very glad I went for the fullsized versions more than the cherry tomatoes I did last year, the fullsize ones just taste better to me. Delicious on sandwiches for lunch! On the other hand, the green peppers aren't producing nearly as much as they did last year, only getting one or two medium-sized ones a week, if that. The jalapenos are doing better. The cucumbers and zucchini are struggling along, there's some fruit growing on them but its 50-50 whether they'll start rotting before they mature or not. I planted three zucchini seedlings a couple of weeks back, and they're gradually coming along.

7:43pm: Remembering Lenny Bias

Over lunch today I jogged to Lincoln Cemetery next door and located Len Bias' gravesite. Not much to it, really; just a simple marker set in the ground. It doesn't look like many people visit anymore. Bias' death was one of the big sports stories of '86, and marked the beginning of the end of the Bird/McHale/Parrish NBA Celtics dynasty. The Day Innocence Died Still Haunted by Len Bias 10 Years Later, Bias's Death Still Resonates Find A Grave: Len Bias Len's brother Jay is buried next to him, he was shot to death at age 20 in 1990: Bias II: There'll Be No More 'Wait for Jay'

4:14pm: Obesity: the next governmental "War on Drugs"-type crusade?
Megan McArdle over at the Atlantic Monthly has a series of four posts on the health-care campaign to combat obesity. It starts here, continues here (my favorite of the four, read this one if your time is limited) and here, and concludes here. They're long, but worth reading.

Some key points I came away with:
1) A person's weight is largely due to heredity.
2) Almost all diet programs which don't involve surgery usually fail to keep the weight off over the long run; this is probably related to point #1.
2a) Governmental programs to combat obesity are probably doomed to fail for the same reason.
3) There's no studies which connect increased food advertising with increases in weight. Its just assumed. (this is in the fourth post)

Personal story: I was in Home Depot over the weekend, looking at stepladders and setting up a couple to see how far they'd reach (answer: not far enough to get into our attic access). Another customer comes up to me and says "Hey, how much WEIGHT are you going to put on those? Heh, heh, heh." Now, OK, I'm above my optimal playing weight with a belly, I'm aware of that, but COME ON! I exercise regularly and don't indulge in Big Macs. The main problem is I'm not age 20 anymore: the metabolism doesn't burn up calories like it used to, very sorry about that, everyone.

The best part is the fellow was older and in worse shape than me. Guess he thought it was the funny thing to say.

10:45am: Magnetic field: Earth vs. Mars
This gives a good explanation why a weakening of the Earth's magnetic field would be disastrous, seeing as what it did to Mars: basically, the atmosphere of Mars is blown away by the solar wind, since there's no magnetic deflection of the solar wind as we have on Earth. The relative weakness of Mars' magnetosphere is also a major obstacle to terraforming Mars.

So, is this something to worry about. Well, as with much of science...the answer is "maybe". Such weakenings/reversals tend to be long-term processes that will affect none of us living today, assuming it isn't affecting things like global warming and other things which react to solar energy changes.

8:08am: American vacations vs. French vacations
I went looking for one of my favorite writers, William Langewiesche, after not seeing anything from him in Atlantic Monthly in a long time. Turns out he moved over to Vanity Fair, which has his articles for them online here.

I particularly liked this passage from an article on Somali piracy, on how American and French differ in how they approach "vacation" as a concept:

Many of the trips were full charters. Among the national groups, the French were the easiest to handle, if not necessarily to like. They slept late, savored the refined cuisine, and demanded little of an itinerary beyond the chance to lie in the sun. They could be imperious with the waiters and maids, but overall they were simple to satisfy. American passengers were different—individually more accessible than the French, but collectively exhausting. The problem seemed to stem from a lack of skepticism, or of philosophical distance from themselves. Certainly this was not true of all Americans, but it did seem to apply to the types who came to these cruises. They sincerely regarded traveling on the Ponant as an opportunity for self-improvement. They would read up beforehand (from recommended lists), and then appear for the trips with sunblock creams and special shoes, accompanied by lecturers who were expected to enrich their minds. They were nice people, but of the sort who go for swims wearing long-brimmed visors and drawstring hats. Rather than lingering late in the Ponant’s bar, they retired after dining because they wanted to be fresh for sunrise departures and goal-oriented hikes. They did not walk, but trekked. They did not like long lunches of nouvelle cuisine. Midday they preferred quick meals of barbecued burgers and New York cheesecake, or Caesar salad. They did not mean to offend. But their tastes were insulting to the chef, and upsetting by birthright to the crew.

9:46pm: The space program: where I'd like to see it go
On the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11, there's been a number of essays on the meaning of the lunar landings and where NASA should go from here. Not surprisingly, Mars has locked many people's gaze as the next logical step. Myself, I'm not so sure.

Mars has the psychological plus of being the next step up from the Moon, as the closest planet to Earth both in terms of distance (technically 2nd closest, behind Venus) and climate. That's not to be underestimated, especially if the political system for distribution of funds is one where the will of the people eventually has its say, as it does in the United States. Mars is considerably easier to capture the imagination of the public with than, say, just a return to the Moon. On the other hand, I think going down that path will likely lead to the same dead-end that Apollo ended on: the goal was achieved, and the program was abandoned, leaving little to build on.

I would like to see the space program focus on two main goals: terrestrial space-object-collision defense, and setting up an orbital infrastructure to permit exploitation of space-borne materials for both fuel and material. On the former, I recommend a very readable essay by Gregg Easterbrook in last year's Atlantic Monthly. As I see it, a major asteroid or meteor strike similar to that of Tunguska would be much more likely to be catastrophic today than before, simply because we as a species are so much more numerous than we were a hundred years ago: there's more area with a lot more people in it. More to the point, the concerns about global warming and the horror at the 2004 tsunami would be minor things compared to what a major terrestrial strike would be capable of. Yet, relative to the threat potential, there's relatively little being done to avert it.

On the second - exploitation of space - launching materials up the gravity well is a notoriously expensive proposition, with payload-to-propellant ratios making putting large amounts of material up into orbit prohibitive: note that its taken 22 shuttle flights to get the ISS to its current, still-not-fully-finished state. Until we figure out how to use material that is already up there, expanding out beyond low Earth orbit will continue to be a non-starter.

I do believe that manned spaceflight is fundamental to our continued long-term existence as a species. The Earth is a wondrously vibrant and rich planet, but keeping all of humanity's survival "eggs in one basket" is a bad idea. Eventually we'll either have a meteor strike, or a major natural disaster, or even just a simple mistake which sets off an unanticipated series of events, and we're done (which see: dinosaurs). I also think that the view that we are destined to always live in a closed-system which only has the resources on-planet to utilize tends to lead to a static-society solution which closes off too many needed avenues for continued human development, ultimately an undesirable outcome. I think that long-term there are some innovative solutions available via space resources for many of our problems on Earth, but they're not viable until we actually create the capacity to use off-Earth material. Without that, continuing the cycle of blasting satellites (and occasionally people) into near Earth orbit over and over doesn't really get us anywhere meaningful.

I'm sympathetic to the argument that we get much more bang-for-the-buck in terms of expanded scientific knowledge with unmanned probes such as those recently made to Mars. I think that's true, but ultimately this doesn't help solve the existential problems I mention above. I view the unmanned program's role as ultimately that of being a pathfinder for learning about places that we're* eventually planning to go. Otherwise, its just an academic exercise of no more import than reading a travel brochure for a neat place on the other side of the world that you're never going to visit - its the mistake of thinking that viewing photos on Flickr or visiting the Japan pavilion at EPCOT is the same thing as actually visiting the country itself. Its better than nothing, but in the end, robots are not us, anymore than if a disaster left nothing but operational machines and robots, I don't think anyone would say that we as a species survived in any meaningful way.

* - "we" in the larger human sense, since I doubt anyone reading this will live long enough to see even modest off-planet expansion.

8:25pm: Afghanistan
Peter Bergen urges the West to go all-in in Afghanistan:

Afghanistan will not be Obama’s Vietnam, nor will it be his Iraq. Rather, the renewed and better resourced American effort in Afghanistan will, in time, produce a relatively stable and prosperous Central Asian state...

I respect Bergen's experience, but in this case I think he's bending over backwards too hard to try and justify the expansion of Western commitment in Afghanistan because he really, really wants it to succeed (in part, I suspect, in order to allow a success-vs-failure/compare-and-contrast option for those who were vehemently against the Iraq effort and still view it as an ongoing catastrophe). To his credit he doesn't just ignore the skeptics points, but I think he's being way too optimistic the other way, though. I've written before about how Afghanistan is a more daunting task than Iraq because of its logistical challenges, something Bergen doesn't tackle. Also, while he's correct that the Taliban have always been a small force, historically the real domino that shifts who controls the country are the tribal and regional warlords. The Taliban didn't win control of Afghanistan until guys like Dostum shifted to what they perceived as the "winning side," and the Coalition and Northern Alliance couldn't have won against the Taliban if the warlords hadn't changed sides again once they saw staying with the Taliban as a worse option. The prevalence of the local warlords is also the reason the Coalition has had problems ramping up the Afghan armed forces, the best of Afghan fighters are more likely to be working for a warlord than the military, and the central government just isn't strong enough to make leaving the warlords a more lucrative opportunity than staying.

Frankly, his essay sounds eerily similar to some of the more rosy essays on how Iraq was going to become a beacon of democracy to the Middle East. Bergen doesn't go that far, but I think his prediction of a stable and prosperous Afghanistan anytime soon isn't reasonable, either.

9:09pm: July 4th trip to Gatlinburg TN, garden update, etc.



* Uploaded 11 photos from our trip to Gatlinburg TN, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and Cumberland Gap National Park over July 4th weekend to my flickr account. Also included are three pics of our garden, one with annotations.

* Gatlinburg was OK. We took the tram up to Ober Gatlinsburg. The trip up was fun, but the place itself was a tourist trap writ large - lots of shops selling crap-crap-crap and kitchy amusement-park rides you'd find at any state fair. We visited our main objective, Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies. That was OK, but not of the caliber of Monterey or Scripps. The highlight was a slow-moving path through a shark tunnel, I've uploaded the best movie I took of that here on YouTube.

We went over the mountains through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and stopped at Harrah's Cherokees. We did some mild gambling there and ate at their buffet. It was OK, but quite smoky. Definitely didn't compare to a Vegas strip casino or Mohegan Sun/Foxwoods in New England. At Cumberland Gap National Park, we drove to the Pinnacle over some very twisty hairpin curves, but the view from the top was well worth it.

Other notes:
* Avis rentals have XM radio, and it was a big hit. We were able to listen to the Dodgers and Phillies games while we were driving, and they have all-80s and all-70s stations as well. We also found it amusing to be able to hear the real-time traffic for LA/Vegas/Philly while we were driving around.
* I finished staining our back fence before our trip. A big job, finally finished.
* I called in a pothole at the end of our cul-de-sac that was partially filled by the time I got home, and fully repaired by the next day. Very impressed with our county road crews; such a response would have taken at least a couple weeks out in L.A., assuming it was responded to at all.

4:58pm: Geopolitics
Interesting & insightful discussion between Robert Kaplan and Michael Totten over at MJT's blog. RTWT.

1:16pm: Mad Social Scientist
Have to say, one of my favorite characters in Foglio's Girl Genius is becoming the Mad Social Scientist, here and in the most recent strip here.

8:34am: Gardening update
* Picked two zucchini yesterday while I was checking the garden. One was huge - they really do sneak up in size under the foliage.
* We have cucumbers, a few small tomatoes, and a green pepper growing on the plants, plus lots of zucchini. Most of that won't be ready for at least another week or so, but at least the garden is producing. We have one small strawberry plant with a few small fruits on them, as well.
* I did have to transplant the tomato plant that has the fruit on it already - it was just too close to the zucchini plants to get much sun. It has been wilted for the past few days, but was looking more normal this morning when I was doing watering.
* My parents and brother visited this weekend, and Mom put in a lot of flowers and other plants in our front garden, including some lilis (?) which were originally from my Grandmom's house down the Shore, and another hydrangea.

9:27pm: Skiing in August, Iran, Star Trek memorabilia
* Have always enjoyed the dichotomy of how winter in the Southern hemisphere is in August. Ski resorts in the Chilean Andes are opening this week. This one has a webcam and snow report. Here's a resort in Australia with a webcam and daily video report; here's other AU ski resorts. Bringing you the snow to your computer, in summer.

* Good analysis of the current situation in Iran.

* This seller on ebay is selling items from Joan Winston's estate. Worth checking out if you're a collector of ST items, there'll probably be some obscure items offered. I have a bid in on Foglio's "Capture Coloring Book", but considering the last one on ebay went for around $200, I probably have little shot at it.

1:40pm: The downside to Twitter as a primary news source
Andrew Sullivan's coverage of the Iranian protests has been heavily reliant on Twitter and other IM sources. That's good in terms of bipassing the censorship which the mullahs have put on the Web and blogs, but there is a downside: there's little to no editing or quality control, so a lot of "rumors" become "fact" without vetting as to their actual merit. I am reminded of this post that Den Beste made at the start of the Iraq war on the 'fog of war' phenomena which so often shrouds events as they're reported in real-time. Also, the research on 'eyewitness' accounts generally shows that even they are filtered through the viewer's own perceptions of what they are expecting to see.

So things like the police using electric batons, using acid in their water cannons, the police and basjibeing supplemented with Hezbollah/Arabs, etc? Its wise to be skeptical of the more out-there claims, even if the person Twittering them does believe them to be true.

11:06am: Do budget deficits matter?
Megan McArdle over at atlantic.com has a good writeup on whether budget deficits matter or not, and how each political side uses them for their own goals (which usually flip around depending on whether the party in question is in power or not). RTWT.

9:12am: Gardening/weekend update
* Did another session staining the fence, its getting there. Couple more weekends of work and it should be done.
* Found two HUGE zucchini on the plants Sunday, bringing the total for the season so far to four. As I said on Facebook, perhaps I've taken the recession gardening thing too far and created a monster by planting multiple z. plants?
* The cucumbers and tomatoes are showing blossoms as well, a good sign. The comfrey plant is huge again, and the flowers on it are attracting bees into the garden.
* Replaced the top of the birdbath last weekend, but not sure the birds have figured out that its there yet. Then again we're not in a drought, so they probably have other options right now.
* Trimmed the hedges by the kitchen window, also chopped down the weed trees that had grown by the screened-in patio. Definitely leaves in a lot more light, and there's actually planting space along that raised bed for a change.
* After living here for almost 2 years, I finally (I think) figured out what variety the apple trees in the backyard are - they're Mutsu (Crispin), a kind of Japanese apple variant. It fits the Japanese theme of the whole garden, which is understandable since the previous resident was from Japan, and she probably liked having trees and plants around to make it feel a little more like home.
* Unfortunately, a lot of the apples have started dropping off the tree and are littering the lawn under both trees, so I've had to sweep them up. This is not a particularly good sign, as the apples if they are Mutsu aren't supposed to ripen until early autumn, but I recall this happening in '07 when we moved into the house, so its probably par for the course.
* We went to see Up on Saturday. It was fun and quality, as we've come to expect from Pixar, but I also agree with some reviewers that its a fairly dark and adult film to take young kids too - more like Miyazaki's work than Saturday Morning cartoons.

11:31pm: Iranian elections: this makes sense
Here's a possibility: the results are a coup attempt by the Revolutionary Guards (Pasdaran) and basij to force the election to Ahmandinejad. Given the autonomous nature of the Guards outside the regular military, its possible the IRGC decided it was too important not to intervene with or without Khamenei's blessing.

That's actually a very scary proposition, as the IRGC are among the most hardline in the Iranian political spectrum, and them running the country without checks would go a long way towards destabilizing the region quickly. Quds Force is a section of the IRGC, for example. The Guards and basij also wouldn't have a problem with killing a lot of Iranians to stem unrest.