Passaggio del Terrore

Monday, October 31, 2011

The first night of Halloween at Borgo a Mozzano (it is a 3 night extravaganza here), we visited the famous Passaggio del Terrore. The highlight was seeing the owner of our local hardware store as a crazed psychopath.

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Posted at 17:40:44 GMT-0700

Category: EventsphotoPlacesTravel

beepocalypse

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Arriving in Italy we found our apartment had been squatted in by a swarm of hornets, probably through the chimney. It appeared they’d recently had a massive party and most, but not all had died.

We started a fire to clear the chimney and dispose of the corpses, which given how gigantic they were, was a lot of burning. By a lot, I mean dustpans full of hornets, some still crawling, at a time.

They could have been European Hornets, but the largest were closer to 5cm or so, fairly large even for European Hornets.

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Posted at 02:05:58 GMT-0700

Category: GeopostphotoTravel

Fight ProtectIP/SOPA

Thursday, October 27, 2011

I am a constituent and I urge you to reject the Internet Blacklist Bills (PROTECT IP Act in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House).

This bill is deeply, deeply flawed and fails completely to live up to the fundamental constitutional basis for copyright: “to promote the progress of science and the useful arts.”

I am deeply concerned by the danger these bills pose to Internet security, free speech online, and innovation. The Internet Blacklist Legislation is dangerous and short-sighted, and I urge you to join Senator Wyden and other members of Congress in opposing it.

If this bill passes, those entire “middle class” of moderately successful collaborative and user-generated sites will be driven out of the internet. The 1% sites like Google or Facebook can afford tier one lawyers to protect themselves from the prima facia unconstitutionality of this absurdly ill-considered bill, but the vast 99% can’t afford the legal resources or the infrastructure resources this bill mandates and they will vanish, hobbling the internet as the most fruitful incubator of science and the useful arts so far created.

Promote science and the useful arts by blocking ProtectIP/SOPA.

Posted at 16:19:49 GMT-0700

Category: NegativePolitics

Google Maps, now with billboards

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

This is the first I’ve noticed location-specific ads being inserted into a google search. It makes sense that their map becomes a revenue source. If the ads don’t work, the the map will go away. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.

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ah… this
Posted at 15:05:25 GMT-0700

Category: Technology

Rebuilding is Complete

Thursday, October 20, 2011

I wish to thank everyone for their support in this brief moment of crisis.

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Posted at 14:59:07 GMT-0700

Category: FunnyGeopostOddphoto

I WILL rebuild

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Earthquake damage

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Posted at 14:53:00 GMT-0700

Category: FunnyGeopostOddphoto

Scrapper

Thursday, October 20, 2011

I went to see Scrapper, the documentary by Stephen Wassmann, that was showing as part of the SF Documentary Film Festival. It is the story of the people who live between the Salton Sea and the Chocolate Mountain Bombing Range and make a living gathering scrap metal off the range between bombing runs.

It’s quite a frank and intimate portrayal of some extremely eccentric characters. They spend their time divided between driving around the range gently prying the aluminum tail fins off unexploded ordinance, heating the booty over open fires to loosen the scrap-value-reducing steel rivets, and doing crystal meth and drinking, though the last activity isn’t so much divided from the former two.

The most entertaining character is an old guy who set up camp on the isolated East side of the range, far from humanity, and cruises around the range in a highly modified VW bug living a life pretty much straight out of the Road Warrior.

It is definitely a movie where every moment seems to balance precariously on the edge of a ravine or on a delicate trip wire on a 2,000# bomb that failed to release when it buried itself fins-deep in the desert sand.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/11457549[/vimeo]

Posted at 04:18:18 GMT-0700

Category: FilmsGeopostPositiveReviewsvideo

Superconducter B-Field Locking

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws6AAhTw7RA

This is super cool. It is very tempting to imagine magnetic field lines as being physical wires, the superconductor being a semi-permeable substance through which the mathematical wires can be forced, but not so heavy as to drag itself through them, even flying around the track.

Posted at 03:02:03 GMT-0700

Category: Technologyvideo

Playing Cat and Mouse Games

Friday, October 14, 2011

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Posted at 16:37:34 GMT-0700

Category: CatsFunnyphoto

Good Kitty

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

This morning Kitty brought a live mouse into the house. They seemed to be enjoying staring at each other, so I let them play. Looks like kitty got tired of playing.

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Posted at 13:04:23 GMT-0700

Category: CatsFunnyphoto