In lieu of the fact that the LHC is about to conduct its first round-the-ring test of the beams, I went to the CERN website to see if I could keep an eye on accelerator conditions in real time [1]. On the front page of the site, I was pleased […]
To be complete, I also analyzed the “Wills/Bys” in the McCain and Obama acceptance speeches, to teach out the content of their words on the issues important to them. I find the substance quotient, SQ = 1/2 * (N_wills + N_bys)/N_issues to be: McCain: 0.45 Obama: 0.82 I had to […]
There’s been a lot of crap flying in the Presidential campaign this year. Fact checking was important in the ’04 election, and the lack of it led to the term “Swift-boating”. I started browsing fact-checking websites [1] to see what I could find from people with more resources than I […]
Update: we **think** we’ve got our internet/phone problem solved. Over the weekend, we discovered that when Comcast reconnected our phone two weeks ago, they did so only to one jack in our four-phone-jack cottage. This jack was one we never used before, and AT&T thinks the wiring is dicey in […]
For those of you who’ve been interacting with us face-to-face this past week, you know that the server hosting this domain has been experiencing all kinds of trouble. AT&T sent a line tech out on Wednesday to fix it, and for two days all was well. AS of yesterday, the […]
After posting my thoughts on the VP speeches [1], with my personal reaction to Gov. Palin’s “Read’em their Rights” remark at the end of my post, I came to realize that the contradiction in her speech was deeper than I had originally appreciated. When a friend of mine e-mailed me […]
After watching key parts of the DNCC and RNCC these past few weeks, including the big speeches by substantial figures like McCain, Obama, Palin, and Biden, and important secondary figures like Gore and Lieberman, I’ve had some personal reactions to some of the speeches. The most interesting contrast to me […]
Unlike the Olympics, the global games, and the DNCC, the convention for the party of inclusiveness, the GOP has gone with ustream.tv to distribute live and canned video from the GOPC. I went online tonight and found out immediately that I could watch all the (very limited) events from today’s […]
This picture is a bleak reminder of 2005 [1]: My thoughts continue to be with all residents of the Caribbean and Florida as they recover from Gustav, and with residents of the Gulf coast as they prepare for the worst and hope for the best. [1] http://www.cooleysekula.net/blogs/steve/taomph/2005/08/29/test-415/
Something on the Sunday talk show, “Meet the Press”, caught my attention. Today’s show was hosted by Tom Brokaw, a favorite of mine in the news business. He interviewed Gov. Tom Pawlenty of Minnesota, Co-chair of the RNC convention in the Twin Cities. Gov. Pawlenty was acting as a “Vox […]
At breakfast today, a friend of mine informed me that Obama had finally responded to the 14 science policy questions sent to the candidates months ago [1]. These questions arose from the “Science Debate 2008” grass-roots effort, an effort supported by 38,000 signers to get the presidential candidates to engage […]
I found out on Friday that I am not the only one sending letters to the DNC about their choice to shut out the Linux community. A friend of mine told me she also sent a letter, and it sounded like it was a much more pointed statement than mine. […]