2.6
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Archive of entries posted on March 2004
Battling Comment Spam
Assuming the blog comment spammers are stupid, lazy or both (reasonable assumptions, at least for starters), I’ve added a simple hack to keep their automated instruments of vile torture at bay. We’ll see how long this works. (A thought: Is there any kind of torture that isn’t vile?)
The Race
I did some smart things, made a couple of big mistakes, and made, for about an hour and forty seven minutes, the hardest physical effort of my life. About an hour and a half into it, on a long gentle climb on a clean, clear road with the wind at my back, I had a …
Wish Me Luck
Lissa nailed it when she observed that I hate to go to parties where there are going to be a bunch of people I don’t know. Add to that the fact that I don’t have those cool wraparound sunglasses and you’ll understand why I woke up with a nervous stomach this morning, an hour before …
Jack Kelley’s Legacy
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Househenge
There was a moment Friday afternoon when the cosmos aligned with my pantry. Teetering on the edge of the equinox, the sun was setting perfectly due west. A broad shaft of light shot through the open back door, through the big family room and the open window between family room and kitchen, straight into the …
Why I Love Free Software, Pt. XCVI
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Extinction
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Water Vapor and Climate Change
More stuff I wrote elsewhere, from today’s Albuquerque Journal, one of those straightforward pieces of climate change research that has the potential to narrow the uncertainty in the models: A New Mexico researcher hunting for water vapor in the upper atmosphere has found less than expected, suggesting global warming may be less than some predictions. …
The Tenth Planet
NASA’s PR machine is gearing up to announce today the discovery of Sedna, a Pluto-like object way the hell out in the Kuiper belt, the farthest solar system object yet found, etc. This will of course spark the usual debates over whether Sedna is really a “planet”, whatever that means. The definitional problem, as expressed …