Category Archives: GeekWorld

GeekWorld

Violent and Elegant

Leave a comment

73  bar steady 29.86  0mph NNE dew-point 68  sunrise 5:50 Sunset 8:49  Summer

Last Quarter of the Thunder Moon

Ever wonder about people who spend $2 apiece on those little bottles of Evian water?  Try spelling Evian backwards.  George Carlin, RIP.

Ancientrails will go dark for two days, Friday and Saturday, with a probable posting late Sunday.  Unless, that is, I find a spare computer in Texas and get a chance to post, but I’m not counting on it.

The reason?  No computer on this trip.  Three days away, minimal luggage with the fees for checking baggage, and the old laptop we have is too heavy.  Also, the time frame makes for a compressed week-end with family, the focus.

A Few Seconds of Panic by Stefan Fastis recounts a sportswriters time as a walk-on place kicker for the Denver Broncos.  This book at least seems to present a detailed picture of what life is like for the players.  It is a hard life, filled with psychological and mental challenges as well as physical ones.  It is also well-remunerated if you can make it into a starting role and addictive emotionally.

Football and I have a strange relationship.  On the one hand I want to understand it, understand it as the intellectual, chess-like strategy game it is for those who manage it; on the other hand, I feel weird about liking football, as if I violate the intellectual’s code of honor (necessary to staying in the secret club) by my interest. I know, this is my problem for sure.

The players also fascinate me, violent and elegant, they have an archetypal presence, athletes who risk it all each week for as long as they play. They are, too, spoiled children, at least by report, dependent on a phalanx of specialists who handle everything from dalliances to drug charges for them.  There is, also, the often hidden, but apparently real, physical downsides of life after football: early dementia, constant pain, physically abusive behavior and sometimes drug dependency.

With the trades the Vikings have made in the offseason at least 13 Sunday afternoons will have a familiar activity.  God, I’m glad we bought that big TV.

See you on the Sunday flipside.

Cinema and Television, GeekWorld

Sweet, Honest, Funny, Heartbreaking

Leave a comment

65  bar steady 29.75  2mph NW dew-point 62  Summer night

First Quarter of the Thunder Moon

Peanut butter.  Never thought of it as a problem food, but it seems to have entered that category for me.  Makes my tummy hurt.  Darn it.

The slippery slope of cell phone life.  Tonight I entered the phone numbers of all the Woolly Mammoths into my cell phone.  They are the first non-family numbers.  Each day I draw closer and closer to becoming a cell phone user.  Since it has not yet become the electronic leash I did not want, I don’t mind, but I have this sneaking suspicion that as it becomes more of a common place in my life, it will move in that direction.

Watched Stranger Than Fiction over the last two days.  This is a trippy movie.  It is meta-fiction, a story about fiction intruding on reality and fiction in turn altering reality.  If you’ve seen it, you’ll know what I mean.  Like Existenz, which I mentioned a couple of days ago, it plays with epistemology and, in a strange (trippy) way with ontology.  The Truman Show, even the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Vanilla sky dance on the same floor.  Will Ferrel was brilliant, I thought he gave an Oscar worthy performance, sweet, honest, funny, heartbreaking.

Faith and Spirituality, GeekWorld, Great Work, Weather +Climate

Say a Little Prayer for the Miracle of Mother Earth

Leave a comment

70  bar steep fall 29.80  6mph NW  Dew-point 62   Summer, a thunder storm watch until 6PM.  One’s already rolled through our area.

First Quarter of the Thunder Moon

The Thunder Moon has seen its first storm even before it became gibbous.   When I went downstairs today to shut off and unplug the computer, as I always do before a storm, it made me think.

In cities it is possible to live a life pretty isolated from the natural world.  Yes, you get wet when it rains if you can’t drive from covered parking to covered parking, but it’s usually a short term experience.  Out of the car.  Dash across the parking lot or sidewalk into the shelter of a building.  Yes, up here in the northland you can’t avoid the snow and the cold, but there again, unless you go outside with snowshoes or hiking boots, your exposure does not interrupt your day very much.

Out here in the exurbs, where the cities reach has become tenuous, houses have 2 acres, 5 acres, 10 acres between them.  When the thunderstorm looms, it looms over you.  A lightning strike on or near the house would send a surge throughout our circuitry blowing out sensitive devices.  The computer holds so much of my life and work that I protect it.  But, from what?

Yes.  Mother nature.  She’s whimsical and unpredictable.  No matter what we do somewhere the river rises.  Electricity coming in a storm carries a voltage of 100 million to 1 billion volts.  It can reach 50,000 degrees fahrenheit.   Four times as hot as the sun’s surface.  A hurricane generates unbelievable power and as they intensify they endanger increasing amounts of our wealth and health as a country.

Just think back over the last couple of months.  The cyclone in Burma.  The earthquakes in China.  The worst natural disaster in our history, Katrina, was not long ago.  These events kill and or disrupt the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.  The earthquake in Pakistan or the Kobe earthquake in Japan.  Huge, nation altering events.  The tsunami in the Indian Ocean.  We remember these not only for their human suffering and property loss, but because they remind us that we are not in control of the planet.

Our own little apocalypse, death, comes from the evolution of life.  Life comes with a sell-by date.  We are not in control even of our own lives.  This is either frightening or invigorating.

I choose invigoration, so when I head downstairs to shut off the computer I say a little prayer of thanks for the miracle of mother earth and my chance for a brief stay here.

Family, Friends, GeekWorld

The Printing Press Today

Leave a comment

83  bar steady 29.68 1mph SE  dew-point 67  Summer, hot and clear

Waxing Crescent of the Thunder Moon

“What is life but the angle of vision? A man is measured by the angle at which he looks at objects. What is life but what a man is thinking of all day? This is his fate and his employer. Knowing is the measure of the man. By how much we know, so much we are.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Another late milestone here.  Kate has lunch tomorrow with an old friend she hasn’t seen in a while.  She asked me to print some grandchild pictures.  In the process I selected several photos, including some of her.  The milestone is this.  They came out printed on our Canon Pixma.  The first color work I’ve ever done.  We’ve had many computers over the last 18 years, but only one printer, the HP Laserjet 4.  It has served me very well and still does.  Like the red car I can’t imagine daily life without it.

We bought the Canon as a copier and fax machine, but it also has the capacity to print photographs and other color images.  I got out the manual, the paper and cracked open the usb cord I bought for it January before last when I purchased it.  Worked like a charm.  Technology amazes me and delights me.

Off to feed the dogs and read through the Sierra Club material.

Family, Friends, GeekWorld, Writing

Back In Its Own Stall

Leave a comment

79  bar falls 29.84 1mph ENE dew-point 61   Summer, hot, moving toward muggy

Waxing Crescent of the Thunder Moon

The cracks in the red car’s head were tiny.  I saw them.  They ran, in one instance, down the threads that hold the spark plug in place.  While threading in a spark plug or under pressure, these cracks could have broken loose and allowed oil and exhaust gases to invade the spark plug and generally foul things up.  Carlson was thoughtful in showing them to me.

We’ve sunk almost $5,000 in this car this year.   That’s almost a year’s car payments.  Even so, we could put in the same amount next year and still be ahead of the game.  It runs quite well now, though there is that piece that fell off on the way home.  No kidding.  A big chunk of something fell off.  I’m going to take it back and ask them about it, but not today.  It looks like a shield or rock barrier, not metal, rather some kind of composite, tarpaper like material.

It’s 31-32 miles per gallon on the highway alone justifies keeping it in our two vehicle collection.  The pick-up we’ll park for the most part in the not too distant future.  $90 a tank to fill it up.  Ouch.  And it sucks the gas down, too, with its v-8.  What were we thinking?  It is, though, a useful vehicle for errands and landscape chores.  Another advantage is its four-wheel drive.  (Oh, come to think of it, that’s what we were thinking.  In 1999, when we bought it, Kate still had call and  hospital duty.  She had to be able to get to where she was needed.) That makes it potentially important in a severe winter situation.  Besides, pick-ups and SUV’s have lost significant value.  We could get nowhere the value it is to us.  So, it will stay, too.

Our neighbor went to bed apparently healthy, then woke up the next day with MS.  A striking and sudden life change.  It has occasioned a major alteration in their lives.  They went from the salary of a 58 year old career civil servant at the peak of  his career to a fixed income household.  This was six months ago.

How it will affect their family dynamics over the long haul is an open question.  The prednisone  makes  him cranky.  He’s gone from an active guy who built his own observatory and sailed Lake Superior to a wobbly man who can no longer read.  His mental acumen seems fine, but for now he wanders, lost in the bewilderment of this rapid change, as well he might be.

Today is an inside day.  I’m going to write on Superior Wolf, get ready for my research on Unitarian Universalism in the Twin Cities and, maybe, crack the case and clean off my cooling fan.

Family, GeekWorld

Ethics Escaped Their Heads Long Ago

Leave a comment

73  bar falls 30.07  1mh ENE  dew-point 48  Sunny, pleasant

New Moon (Thunder Moon)

The little red car has its new head.  Phhew!  Even so, new heads require inspection to be sure their connections are good, so it won’t come home  until Saturday.  Too bad we don’t inspect the heads of decision makers as well.  Say, hmmm.  Bush. Cheney.  Rumsfeld. Each one of this trinity of corruption and incompetence has a bad leak somewhere, for sure all their ethics escaped their heads long ago.

Kate and I had lunch at Saji-ya in St. Paul.  This is an old hangout for me, but I hadn’t been there in several years.  They had redecorated.  When I mentioned it to the host, he said, “Oh, 3-4 years ago.” Sashimi is a great lunch, light and healthy.  Kate had her usual tempura.

We both agreed that if we ever moved back to an urban area that it would be St. Paul.  It has leafy streets, older homes, distinct neighborhoods and a generally laid back approach to urban living.  The main large avenue, Summit Avenue, has a long, relatively intact stand of Victorian homes, many large enough to qualify as mansions.  Rice Creek Park, which has the Ordway Center (music and performing arts center), the central Public Library, the James J. Hill Library, the St. Paul Hotel and the Landmark Center (former federal building) remains my favorite urban space.  The center city is compact and contains many buildings from the turn of the century (the last century) so modernism has not stained its skyline as it has Minneapolis.

The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra plays the kind of classical music I love.  The state capitol and the main government offices are just up the hill from downtown.  The Mississippi river winds through its heart and, as a result, the street system has a charming eccentricity.  Many people from Minneapolis claim they can’t drive in St. Paul.  Too confusing.  I have the same problem in the western suburbs.

We’ve had another money meeting with the woman I think of as our financial strategist.  She helps us with the practical side of money management and she is very good.  After a period of lackadaisal attention to the financial aspect of our life, we have developed a steady routine, a consistency that has allowed us to build up cash reserves, save plenty of money for retirement and still enjoy travel, taking care of our family and our home.

Garden, GeekWorld, Woolly Mammoths, Writing

Will I Build A Computer?

Leave a comment

76  bar rises 29.76 6mph NW dew-point 51  Summer, pleasant and warm

New Moon (Thunder Moon)

A new head has been found for the red car.  Hopefully it will get placed on its automotive neck tomorrow and we will go back to two vehicles.  This is important with the rise of gas prices since our Tundra has a V-8 (may be an antique walking) whereas the Celica averaged 30-31 mph on the Alabama trip.  Co-ordination is not such a big deal for us, though that can matter.

The computer has shut down on its own, without warning, twice already today. I bought the tools to crack the case, get inside and clean out the cooling fan, but I’ve hesitated due to a hyperactive June.  Now available time and increased urgency have moved closer to taking the step.  In the back of my mind, the fantasy part, I see myself building a computer from parts.  The tools I bought would serve that purpose as well.

Ate lunch with Stefan at the Modern Cafe.  I had a lamburger and Stefan had a smorbord, pickled herring and beets.  Both were tasty.  We discussed his poetry and he feels I’m helping, so I’ll keep at it.

He wants to start a support group for children of successful parents.   My hunch is it would be big hit.

On the way home from the Modern (it’s in NE Minneapolis) I drove north of Anoka (really, west) to Anoka Feed and Seed where I picked up four bales of bedding straw.  I’ll use it to mulch the garden over the next few days.

Now, a nap.

Cinema and Television, GeekWorld

A New Creature under the Small Screen Sun

Leave a comment

75  bar rises 29.89 10mph NNW dew-point 51  Summer, sunny and hot

Waning Crescent of the Flower Moon

The finest TV show I can recall has only ten episodes more.  Battlestar Galactica will end.  I mentioned this in another post, but its significance is big.  With the closure of a plot and its disparate story lines the writers and actors and producers of Battlestar Galactica invite comparison to the novel.  In this instance Battlestar Galactica can be considered as a work of art, that is, it can be seen whole and assessed as a complete aesthetic endeavor.  Did its plot lines make sense?  Was there a believable, but profound developmental arc for the major characters?  Did the whole break any new ground it is medium?  Was it entertaining?  Did it have a sub-text that added depth?  In my opinion the answer to all these questions is yes.

If the mini-series is a novella, then Battlestar Galactica is a multi-volume epic.  It will repay those who return to it, who decide to see it in sequence without commercial interruptions.

Is it an instant classic?  See last night’s post.  Who knows?  In my opinion it is a new creature under the small screen sun and as such I hope it breeds more like it.  If that happens, then the first may pale in comparison to others who use the same canvas for a different aesthetic purpose.  I hope this happens.  It will require courage, patience and above all imagination.  As does all good art.

GeekWorld, Travel, Weather +Climate

240,000 Miles and Still Happy

Leave a comment

58  bar falls 29.74  10mph E  dew-point 56  Beltane, cloudy and raining

                         First Quarter of the Flower Moon

Since this has been and will be a traveling month, I’ve been attentive to weather nation-wide.  It’s amazing to sit here looking outside at my garden where the vegetables are slow to mature because of cool weather while the east, south and southwest have had hot hot hot.  The red looked like a child had decided to color the U.S. by starting down the eastern seaboard and then moving along the bottom of the map, went up a state or two, then went on west.  Red all the way.

The automobile is my primary mode of transportation.  Train second.  Air a distant third and then only for speed or an impossible distance.  The former is the reason for air to Texas in July, the latter found me in a plane for Hawai’i. 

When I travel by car, I pay attention to the Weather Channel like a pilot watches the isobars.  It looks like my luck will be good.  The very hot weather system seems ready to break up into more seasonal summer temps.  I’m glad.

Took the little red car into the dealer today for an oil change (they like me, they really really like me) and discovered that the head gasket seep has become a full fledged leak.  That means a head gasket and head grinding when I return plus I have to check the oil every other gas stop.  Even though I repaired my air conditioning after 5 years without it (kept thinking I’d get rid of the Celica, but it kept working.), the heat still makes travel uncomfortable and it does reduce gas mileage. 

I  told Scott at Carlson Toyota I don’t begrudge the Celica few repairs at 240,000 miles.  Still a hell of a lot cheaper than a new car and I get 30-32 mpg on the road.

While we’re on the subject of mechanical devices, my computer now makes a reluctant noise when I boot up, as if it doesn’t want to get up yet.  At first it made me think:  Hard drive!  Bad.  Even though I back-up daily.  Then, on the web I found that it’s probably not the hard drive, but the cooling system.  Time for a little fresh air in the old computer case.  I like this machine.  It’s just right for my needs even though it is now 3 years old.  Like the Celica I feel I may have it a while.

GeekWorld, News of the Strange

Exaflops, Zettaflops, Yottaflops and the Xeraflop

3 Comments

72  bar steady 29.65 1mph SSW dew-point 53  Beltane, sunny and warm

             First Quarter of the Flower Moon

Sometimes the language surprises even those of who try to keep up with technological innovation.

“An American military supercomputer, assembled from components originally designed for video game machines, has reached a long-sought-after computing milestone by processing more than 1.026 quadrillion calculations per second.

The high-performance computing goal, known as a petaflop — one thousand trillion calculations per second — has long been viewed as a crucial milestone by military, technical and scientific organizations in the United States.

“The next thousandfold goal is the exaflop, which is a quintillion calculations per second, followed by the zettaflop, the yottaflop and the xeraflop…”