Teleidoscope

Fri, Oct 31, 2008

Prices

Posted at 9:17 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

I made a Costco run today and bought a 1 Terabyte external drive to use while I try to get my server working again. It cost less than 200 dollars. The first hard drive I ever bought was 20 Megabytes and cost around 300 dollars. And dollars bought more in those days... except in the area of electronics.

I also topped up my truck with gas, in case prices go back up after election day. 12.5 gallons for just under $30. Even though it was only 2/3 of a tank, it's been a long time since I was able to spend so little on filling up the truck.

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Thu, Oct 30, 2008

Autumn Couscous

Posted at 12:05 pm MDT to Technology

At this time of year the Whole Foods deli sells Autumn Couscous: Israeli-style couscous, butternut squash, dried cranberries, currants, canola oil, fennel, shallots, sherry vinegar, apple juice, parsley, sage, salt and pepper. (Israeli-style couscous is the BB-size kind.)

It's delicious, and I keep meaning to try to make something similar, but just buying it is easier. At least now I have a list of the ingredients where I won't lose it.

I've got bread rising in the oven's bread-proofing cycle, and this evening I'm going to make a batch of chicken and mushroom risotto.

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Tue, Oct 28, 2008

Entropy

Posted at 2:31 pm MDT to Technology

"Things fall apart, the center does not hold..."

My oven has now been fixed (and sealed so that it won't drown and short out again). And the little doorstop plate on my refrigerator has now been moved to the side where it may actually make a difference -- the installers had left it on the wrong side when they swapped the sides of the handle and hinges.

Maybe I'll bake a meatloaf or something to celebrate. That may involve shopping, since I didn't expect to have a usable oven this soon and have been avoiding ingredients that needbaking.

Unfortunately, the net amount of working equipment in my life has not really improved. Yesterday I updated the OS on my server and the RAID config tables got stepped on somehow: I can see all the data in rescue mode, but the machine won't boot until I can find out how to regenerate the configuration data. Which I don't really have time to do at the moment because I am testing our product for the official release.

The test environment is taking a lot of handholding at the moment, too. The Primary Domain Controller keeps flaking out on me to the point where I had to power-cycle the whole test environment a couple of times and bring things back up in different orders to get everything talking again.

Gah.

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Sun, Oct 26, 2008

Chard Noodles

Posted at 6:52 pm MDT to Technology

I need to remember this one. It turned out well.

Take a small bunch of chard, remove the stems, chop them up and start softening them in a couple of teaspoons of bacon grease.

Chop and salad spin the greens, add to the stems. When they have wilted, stir in a small can of sliced mushrooms.

Cook one cup of elbow noodles al dente. Stir into the chard/mushroom mixture with about 1/2 tablespoon of Dijon mustard and half a package of Chevrie soft goat cheese.

Season with salt and fresh ground pepper.

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New Bed

Posted at 3:29 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

The new mattress arrived and got plunked into the waterbed frame. I sprayed it with the fabric protector stuff and let it dry for an hour, then added the poofy mattress pad and made up the bed with clean linens.

I switched duvet covers, too, in honor of the new setup. I have two similar ones, so I can easily switch off to a clean one when the cat hair (or cat barf) gets annoying.

My bed was already tall, being a waterbed with a double underdresser, but the new mattress is what I think is called a European top, so it's a couple of inches higher than the frame is deep. With the duvet and poofy mattress pad the top of the bed is about waist high. I'll need to be careful getting out of bed until I'm used to the new height.

One of these years, I may need to pay someone to help me take the bed frame apart and remove one level of the underdresser.

I had wondered whether I should get some new padded side rails, since the vinyl on the old ones shows scars from 27 years of cats climbing onto them, but the new mattress sticks up far enough that I may not need them. I haven't put the old ones back on the bed yet, and making the bed with them in place might be a little tricky. I'll see how it goes -- Dinah would miss having them to perch on, I think, but having a solid mattress to walk on might make up for it.

I may end up investing in some new sheets though. My existing nice sheets that I bought when I got back from Minneapolis include deep pocket fitted sheets (so I have high-threadcount sheets that would stay on the water matteress) but they just barely fit on the deep Euro-topped mattress, with a lot of pulling. I don't think there is a risk of the sheet popping off, but I'm not sure how many times the fabric and elastic will survive being stretched that much.

The water mattress is out on the bedroom deck, still draining a little. I'll eventually haul it out to the dumpster.

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Sat, Oct 25, 2008

Drill Pump

Posted at 9:48 pm MDT to Technology

I couldn't get a siphon going from the waterbed, and all of my sinks are too far from the bedroom for the little plastic bernoulli pumps sold for draining waterbeds to work. Also my hoses have spent too long in high altitude sun and I don't particularly trust them for inside work.

I went over to Home Depot and got a couple of new hoses and a drill pump, which is a little pump that attaches to a power drill.

This is going to take a while: I checked online and a queen-sized waterbed has about 187 gallons of water. I think I've drained about 1/3 to 1/2 so far, in small bursts. I don't want to burn out the drill by running it too long at one time, and the vibration and noise get to me after a while.

The guys delivering the new conventional mattress are due between 11 and 1 tomorrow.

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Global Electoral College

Posted at 9:27 pm MDT to Current Events

The Economist has created a Global Electoral College map based on a poll of people from all over the world, with each country getting a certain number of electoral votes out of a total of 9875. (Every country get at least 3 votes, like the states.)

Their current projection is that McCain/Palin would get 278 electoral votes (Cuba, Macedonia, ex-Soviet Georgia, Iraq, Algeria, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo and Namibia).

Suriname, Papua New Guinea, Madagascar, Pacific Islands like Fiji, Yemen, Somalia, and some Saharan and West African countries are undecided.

Obama/Biden has 9009 electoral votes on their map.

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Fri, Oct 24, 2008

Gap

Posted at 10:15 pm MDT to Current Events

According to the evening news, a third of the Colorado electorate has already voted and Obama has a 13% lead in that portion of the voting. They say it is already unlikely that McCain can carry Colorado unless he can somehow manage a landslide among the remaining voters, which seems unlikely based on current opinion polls.

Mind you, the McCain campaign appears to have gone collectively insane at this point (the lynch mob behavior at their rallies and that twit who lied about being attacked by a black Obama supporter being cases in point).

I expect things to get even nastier over the next 10 days.

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Mon, Oct 20, 2008

Flu Shot and Eggs

Posted at 12:50 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

I went to my allergists office this morning to get my flu shot: they wanted to test my sensitivity before giving me the actual vaccine because of the egg allergy.

They did scratch tests that tested the actual vaccine and retested my reaction to whole eggs, egg yolks, egg whites, too. I did not react to any of the tests. Yay.

The allergic reaction to eggs in June was real, so I suspect I have a mild sensitivity that kicks in when my system is already under a heavy histamine load. I should probably continue to avoid actual meals of eggs (scrambled eggs, omelettes, custards...) especially during hayfever season. But individual whole eggs as components in larger recipes may be safe to experiment with.

This makes the coming holiday season look a lot less depressing. I'll need to stick to mulled cider instead of eggnog, and make my own bread for stuffing so I know what's in the flour. But the only dairy in my Mom's pie crust recipe is a tablespoon of milk, which can be goats' milk, so I can make pies that don't have eggs or dairy int he fillings. And it looks like my gingersnap recipe should be ok if I don't pig out on them.

The stollen recipe may need some thought.

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Sat, Oct 18, 2008

Denver Mattress

Posted at 6:46 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

Nanette did not go to the Farmers' Market today, she stayed at the farm to sell pumpkins and squaxsh at the farm stand (Rowan, who usually tends the stand, was taking part in the state finals with her billiards team). I went over and kept her company for a couple of hours, then dropped some stuff at the recycle center and did some shopping.

At McGuckins I bought mousetraps and kitchen gadgets, including bamboo spoons to replace some wooden ones that the dratted mice have chewed on. I may need a few more silicone spatulas, too. I think that even when they are clean, the spatulas and wooden spoons smell like food to the mice. Very annoying.

I stopped at Bed Bath and Beyond to get some new curtains for the bathroom window -- the existing ones are not going to survive washing. I got a new shower curtain last week, so the bathroom is now updated for the winter.

And I went back to McGuckins to get a waterbed drain and fill kit.

I stopped at the Denver Mattress store in the same shopping center as the Bed Bath and Beyond and found that (unlike the mattress store near the Costco) they are able to supply a regular mattress that is properly sized to fit int oa queen-sized waterbed. And at quite a reasonable price.

My waterbed mattress needs to either have a lot of water added to it, or it needs to be replaced. I am not sure it would survive having the water added: it is 27 years old and the vinyl may not be trustworthy. And the plastic valve where the water hose attaches to the mattress has gotten very stiff and may be getting brittle.

My new mattress will be delivered next Sunday. Getting the old mattress out of the bed is going to be ... interesting. This water mattress model has a fiber mat in it to reduce sloshing, and, like a sponge once it has been wetted, it is impossible to get all of the water out of it. At best you end up with something like a boneless corpse.

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Fri, Oct 17, 2008

Crusoe

Posted at 9:11 pm MDT to Media

Best. Treehouse. Ever.

I watched the new Crusoe TV show this evening on NBC. It's not bad, in a sort of McGyver/Pirates of the Carribean/Indiana Jones kind of way. Both the actor playing Crusoe (Philip Winchester) and the one playing Friday (Tongai Arnold Chirisa) are quite good (and decorative). Good guest stars, too: Sam Neill plays continuing character and Sean Bean played Crusoe's father in various flashbacks to England.

Lovely accents all around.

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Thu, Oct 16, 2008

Rabbit

Posted at 10:21 pm MDT to Technology

I think it was a fricasseein' rabbit.

I used a Mario Batali recipe for a rabbit cacchiatore, with white wine and orange juice and mushrooms in the sauce, with tomatoes and onions and one red Hatch chile. It came out quite well. Which is good, since I'll probably be eating it for the next week.

I'm sure Mario would have browned the rabbit more. He always says home cooks don't brown things as much as restaurant chefs.

And I need to remember to use the splatter screen next time I make it.

It makes a nice change from chicken and buffalo, though.

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Wed, Oct 15, 2008

Refrigerator

Posted at 9:37 pm MDT to Technology

My new refrigerator was delivered today, so now I have matching appliances in my kitchen.

The new fridge is much quieter than the old one -- it doesn't have any visible external coils to vibrate, which helps. According to the energy guide card, it is also very inexpensive to run.

It has the freezer on the bottom (with its own bright light in it), and the meat drawer at the bottom of the refrigerator (which is the recommended location). Then the two humidity-controlled crispers with the storage shelves above those.

I have a single door on the refrigerator part of mine, but it is also available (for more money) with French doors, and that shows in the internal organization: all of the adjustable shelves on the door and in the main compartment are half width.

I never realize how much a refrigerator holds until I have to empty one. I had coolers filled with frozen food and meat and dairy stuff, and my entire (fairly small) kitchen counter was covered with stuff that came out of the old refrigerator and (eventually) went back into the new one.

The owner's manual says not to trust the refrigerator and freezer to be at the correct temperature until it has been chilling for 24 hours, but the coolers kept the frozen food solid (I have some ice packs containing actual water ice that hadn't gotten soft at all in the coolers). The main refrigerator compartment may take a while to get down to the proper temperature (most of the stuff that went into it was at or near room temperature) but the frozen food is fine.

I aalso had a visit from the appliance repairman today. On Sunday I spilled some water on the top of my stove and it found a place where a gasket wasn't quite sealed properly and dripped inside and shorted out the electtronic control panel for my wonderful new oven. The repairman looked at it and called to order a replacement circuit board. He said it might be as much as ten days before the replacement part arrives, but he will do what he can to expedite things.

At least the cooktop burners still work. Since I can't play with the oven, I may get an actual round-bottomed wok at one of the asian stores in the area and experiment with the wok-burner feature of the stove. But tomorrow I need to do something with a rabbit that I have been defrosting. Time to google.

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Tue, Oct 14, 2008

Teddy Roosevelt Speech

Posted at 8:32 pm MDT to Current Events

On The Edge of the American West there is a great article about an assassination attempt on Teddy Roosevelt on this day in 1912.

The article's title is "I am all right, and you cannot escape listening to my speech either." That's a quote from TR's hour-long speech, which he made after being shot and before going for medical treatment: he showed off his bloody shirt.

In the speech, he said that the nastiness of the rhetoric in the current political campaign (he was a 3rd party candidate and that election was really nasty) was partly responsible for the assassination attempt,

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Mon, Oct 13, 2008

Two Years

Posted at 9:47 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

I posted the first articles on this blog on Oct 13, 2006, so I have been blogging for two years now. I haven't posted quite every day, but I have done enough extra posts that it averages out to about one per day.

I have spent most of these two years working from my own home (yay).

Today is a day for double celebration: I just delivered the feature-complete version of my software release to QA. Except for bugfixes and document revisions for things that come up during testing, it is done.

Now I can start ramping up for work on the new architecture.

And I was informed today that the new fridge, which had been back-ordered, has arrived in-state, and will be delivered on Wednesday.

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Sun, Oct 12, 2008

Homemade Breadcrumbs

Posted at 9:32 am MDT to Technology

I made another meatloaf yesterday, with homemade breadcrumbs (made from some of my previous batch of sourdough bread) and horseradish that ultimately came from Nanette's farm. Food processors are really handy for things like making breadcrumbs. I should remember to use mine more.

I do NOT have a cough, vicious sore throat or problems swallowing this morning, so it looks like the commercial breadcrumbs were the problem last Monday.

I need to remember that fresh ground pepper is stronger than the packaged pepper most recipes expect, though. And also to cut back the water when using fresh breadcrumbs.

A little Pam on the inside of the Roemertopf, and a little shorter cooking time, made it easier to get the meatloaf out of the pan intact.

While looking up something about my new stove (easier to google than to open the hardcopy manual) I realized that my new "Kitchenaid" are produced by Whirlpool. Both the oven and the dishwasher have more capacity than the old ones: the doors' hinges are much closer to the floor.

My new matching fridge should be showing up soon: the delivery paperwork for the appliances said that the delivery guys should expect to handle it sometime after October 15.

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Perl Modules

Posted at 9:31 am MDT to Technology

I've been reviewing the structure of the product I'm working on, to see whether it is feasible to transition to Perl 6 for the next major release, which is being massively re-architected. It looks like the answer is 'yes'.

Perl 6 is not quite complete yet, and doesn't have its own version of the CPAN module repository yet. But our product was originally written against IBM Rational ClearCase and ClearQuest 2002.05, which shipped with a version of perl that had a very limited set of modules and was locked down so it was very hard to add others.

Our whole product is written in core Perl 5, except that the CGI transport option uses the Socket module, the install/configuration tool uses Cwd and File::Copy, and we interface to the proprietary IBM Rational CQPerlExt.pm module. I will also want an XML parser (and DTD validator) for the new architecture, preferably with "tree" and "xpath" access modes, and it would be nice to do the CGI interface with CGI instead of Socket.

I may need to create some kind of wrapper to access CQPerlExt.pm: I suspect the same problems that kept us locked into the limited cqperl in 2002.05 will limit our ability to use the the perl6 "use perl5:Module" mechanism.

The non-proprietary modules should not be a problem: one of the design goals of Perl 6 is to support XML better than Perl 5 did, and the other modules should be straightforward to port if they haven't been ported already.

There are existing Perl 6 examples for CGI and a CGI.pm.

There are existing Perl 6 examples for XML and I see files in the source trees that mention xpath and reading and writing XML. I may need to contribute some work to get things cooked enough to be stable for production work. Not a problem: it would be good to have my name and the company's attached to some open-source work.

If Cwd and File::Copy are not ported yet, I'll do them. They are both pretty basic, and might be a good place to get my feet wet in Perl 6 -- both the programming language and the open source project.

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Sat, Oct 11, 2008

Brrrr

Posted at 10:54 am MDT to Weather

We haven't had the snow they were warning about yet, but this morning is cold -- just a lttle above freezing -- and rainy. It feels like New England weather, not Colorado.

I lasted only two hours at the farmers'market (instead of my usual 7-ish) because there were no customers to speak of and I wasn't wearing enough layers of clothing. Nanette said she was wearing 6 layers and I only had 3.

I also had only one glove (the other one may be in the truck somewhere) and the toes of my left foot, where the circulation is a little iffy, were going numb.

I did get some horseradish from the canning company that processed the horseradish from Nanette's farm, so I'm going to try meatloaf with functional horseradish and homemade breadcrumbs for supper.

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Tue, Oct 07, 2008

Election Ads

Posted at 8:44 pm MDT to Current Events

We're doing voting-by-mail in Colorado. I got my ballot on Saturday.

I filled out the ballot yesterday and dropped it off at the County Clerk's office today. So I have now voted, 4 weeks ahead of schedule. (I wasn't likely to change my mind about any of the candidates and issues.)

I'm finding that election ads are even more annoying now that I have already voted. It's hard to believe that is possible. I listen to the radio all day while I am working, so I hear a lot of them.

Man, there are some nasty campaigns this year.

I hope everyone else listening has their teeth set on edge as much as I do by the people doing the commercials against the repeal of the oil and gas subsidy. But I'm afraid that with the oil and gas companies pouring $25 million into the ads and mailings, I suspect it will probably fail.

After I dropped off the ballot and ran a couple of other errands, I spent some time walking on the Pearl Street Mall. The weather was beautiful --shirtsleeve weather -- and may be some of the last really nice weather for a while. They say we may have our first snow flurry of the season later this week.

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Mon, Oct 06, 2008

Evil Breadcrumbs

Posted at 12:12 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

For the past few months I have been very careful to avoid eating things I am allergic to. In the past week I have slipped up a couple of times and not read ingredients lists carefully enough, and it really makes a noticeable difference.

Last Friday I ate a packaged rice bowl for lunch that turned out to have green beans in it. The next morning I was coughing, and swallowing felt wrong.

Yesterday, without thinking, I used some commercial breadcrumbs from my cupboard in the meatloaf I made. Today I was coughing and swallowing was feeling wrong again. I checked the breadcrumb package and sure enough, it had malt flour in it. So much for meatloaf sandwiches for lunch this week. Drat. (I almost followed Mario Batali's recommendation to make homemade bread crumbs, but I thought I should use up the ones in the cupboard first...)

At least this answers the question of whether the fairly mild food allergies I tested with were really causing my problems last spring. And the answer is yes. A year ago, or even 6 months, I wouldn't have noticed the increased inflammation in my mouth and esophagus because it was so chronic: every meal and most snacks included one or more things that I'm mildly allergic to.

I guess it's good to know that these annoying dietary changes are really having a beneficial effect. And avoiding malt flour (which is a major nuisance) really makes a difference.

Enemies List

Lobster
Oysters
Green Beans
Cow and sheep's milk
Chicken egg yolks
Malt

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Sun, Oct 05, 2008

Meatloaf

Posted at 9:35 pm MDT to Technology

My new oven preheats and cooks faster than the old one did. When it cycles it makes a "snap-whoomp" sound. There is no pilot light. The snap is the sound of the elextronic lighter, and the whoomp if the gas catching fire.

The cooking speed is nice, actually. I'll just need to remember to make allowances.

So far I've made roast chicken with apricot/couscous stuffing, bread and meatloaf, and heated a frozen vegan apple pie.

Meatloaf

1 1/2 pounds ground buffalo
1 cup fine bread crumbs
2 lightly packed scoops dried goatmilk
1 cup water
3 Tbsp eggwhites
1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil 
2 Tbsp dried, minced onion
2 Tbsp tomato paste
1 Tbsp horseradish
1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 1/2 tsp pepper

Soak the Romertopf clay baker and it lid in cold water.

Whisk together the breadcrumbs and goatmilk powder. Add the other (non-meat) ingredients and whisk to blend well. Let sit for 10 to 15 minutes to let things hydrate.

Add the meat and form into a loaf. Place in pot and cover. Place pot in a cold oven and turn on at 450 degrees.

I checked at one hour and the center of the meatloaf was already over 180. It was nice and crusty but still moist inside. (One advantage of cooking in the Romertopf.)

I need to buy some of the horseradish from the canning booth at the Farmers' Market. What I had in the fridge (from the last time I made meatloaf, I don't remember how long ago) was badly faded.

I added the olive oil to the recipe because buffalo tends to be cut lean, and to compensate for the lack of richness from the egg yolk. A little more probably would not hurt.

And I need some new, heavier duty potholders. My old ones seem to be wimping out.

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Birdfeed

Posted at 4:57 pm MDT to Weather

I was cleaning out the pantry a few days ago and dumped some wild bird food from several years ago out onto the scraped-bare part of what used to be my lawn. I thought that if any of it evaded the wildlife it might either sprout or at least add some organic matter to that space.

It took a few days for the wildlife to notice, but they are really going to town now. A little while ago there was only one magpie walking around examining the situation, but he is gone now. Maybe ancient stale seeds are beneath him.

I just looked out and there were a half dozen pigeons and about a hundred small dark birds spread out over the lawn chowing down. When they fly, I can see that many of the smaller birds are redwinged blackbirds: their wing patches aren't noticeable when the wings are folded at this time of year.

There is also a squirrel with cheek-pouches so full his head is at least twice as wide as usual.

Oh well, maybe the critters will fertilise the soil a bit, before they leave. They are dining in the damp -- there was a huge long roll of thunder and a brief cloudburst (enough to leave puddles on the driveway) an hour ago, which is a little odd for this time of year. It may be the seeds were not noticeable or interesting to the birds until they got wet.

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Pulse

Posted at 4:54 pm MDT to Media

Last night was the first Boulder Philharmonic concert of the season. The theme was "Awakening the Pulse".

Maestro Butterman has a nice habit of talking to the audience for a few minutes before each piece describing aspects of the work or the performance that he thinks are cool. His enthusiasm is refreshing. And his themed concerts are fun.

Last night there were three pieces played and an encore.

The first piece, in honor of what would have been Leonard Bernstein's 90th birthday, was "Fancy Free", the ballet Bernstein wrote for Jerome Robbins that first made his reputation as a composer.

The second piece was "The Glory and the Grandeur" a conceto for orchestra and precussion trio by contempory composer Russell Peck. There were percussion instruments all across the front of the stage: marimbas and drums and xylophones and chimes and gongs and cymbals and rattles, and the players had to move from station to station as they played. (One of the precussionists was a woman who was a) tiny and b) 37 weeks pregnant. )

The third piece was Symphony #3 ("Organ Symphony") by Saint-Seans, another barn-burner. And I love organ music.

And after the symphony, the organist, Kenrick Mervine, played Bach's Toccatta and Fugue in D Minor. It's a cliche of organ music, but I don't think I have ever heard it performed live before, with the rumble of the big pipes (which can't be recorded) resonating in the room.

The people on each side of me left before the encore: too bad for them. They missed a treat, racing for their cars.

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Fri, Oct 03, 2008

Amendments 2008

Posted at 12:09 pm MDT to Current Events

Interesting. Business and labor organizations have joined forces to remove four proposed amnedments from the ballot in NOvember (they will still appear, but votes for them will be ignored). They are also allying to fight 3 others which are seen as both bad for unions and for the state economy.

The ones removed from the ballot are:

Amendment 53 A "corporate fraud" initiative that would have made an executive criminally liable for fraudulent activity they know about but fail to report within their businesses.

Amendment 55 A ban on firing employees without a specific reason and the ability for them to sue if they decide they've been improperly let go.

Amendment 56 A proposed requirement that employers with 20 or more employees pay for 80 percent of an individual's health care premiums or 70 percent of dependent coverage.

Amendment 57 A safe workplace measure that would have allowed injured employees to seek additional damages in court beyond workers compensation benefits. (Which kind of defeats to purpose of workmen's comp, which is to keep workers and employers out of court.)

The ones unions and business will fight together are:

Amendment 47 A "right-to-work" amendment messing with union vote procedures.

Amendment 49 Preventing governments in Colorado from taking union dues, etc. as part of the employees withholdings, which makes the employees pay their dues as a separate bill.

Amendment 54 A proposed ban on sole-source government contractors contributing to political candidates which apparently written to squelch contributions from unions with government contracts. Possibly union members, too?

That leaves us with 48, 50 and 58 that have been getting lots of radio ads.

Amendment 48 is stupid and evil. It defines fertilized eggs as human beings, effectively outlawing all abortions and many kinds of birth control. I haven't heard it mentioned, but this would logically also criminalize miscarriages. Including natural failures of the egg to implant, which are very, very common but not (currently) detectable.

Amendment 50 lets the gambling towns in the mountains raise their stakes limits in return for a cut of the take being given to community colleges. I will probably vote for that one.

Amendment 58 repeals tax breaks for oil and gas companies, in this time of record profits. The energy companies are fighting it tooth and nail, which leads me to believe that it is probably a good idea. About 60% of the money would be used for scholarships to state colleges and universities, and the rest is earmarked for clean energy projects and cleaning up environmental damage from previous oil and gas projects (especially ground water cleanup). I really think that's a better use for the money than shoring up the profits of out-of-state conglomerates.

The other items on the ballot don't seem to be controversial.

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Thu, Oct 02, 2008

Clathrates

Posted at 5:17 pm MDT to Weather

Clathrates are solid deposits of methane (methane ice, basically) that have been sealed under the permafrost and in the oceans since before the last ice age. Scientists have sailed the whole north coast of Siberia this year, and the news is not good. The warming of the Arctic Ocean has melted the permafrost on the Siberian continental shelf, and a lot of sea water is getting fizzy.

Methane is an even stronger greenhouse gas than CO2. As in 20 times stronger. So as the Arctic warms up, more methane gets into the air and things warm up even faster, releasing more methane faster. And so on.

Making Light had a link to a good overview -> here.

We are so screwed.

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