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| Monday, November 24, 2003 |
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Orbit achieved 
My fingers are still tired
| | Linus & the Lunatics Part I is the first of three postings of talks by Linus Torvalds and friends on the recent Linux Lunacy Geek Cruise. All transcribed by yours truly. |
Tis the Season
Have a deep time
| | The cliffs at the beach here are filled with fossils and the remains of animals that lived and died in Miocene muck twenty million years ago. |
| | That seems like a long time ago, but on a human scale. To a geologist, 20 million years ago is last week. Perhaps unfortunately for us here on the South Coast, there's nothing within sight that's much more than 60 million years old. Everything for many miles in all directions, including all the mountains, are former ocean floor, pushed up by the crunch of the Pacific Plate against the North American plate, at the westward bend in the San Andreas Fault. |
| | There are some old basement rocks above Los Angeles, but for the most part the geology of Southern California is almost entirely of recent provenance. |
| | Not so at Elephant Rocks in Missouri, where Shelley went yesterday. These things date back 1.5 billion years, when our ancestors were slime. Here's some of her commentary on perspective: |
| | It was when you round a corner and look up and see the big rocks, the rocks that led to the name of the park that you're left breathless. The Elephant Rock, prosaically named "Dumbo" sits on top of a knoll isolated from the other rocks and framed by the valley and mountains beyond. |
| | Inscribed into Dumbo's surface are the names and dates from the quarry workers over the years, including one from a guy called Murray in 1885. Nothing more than faint irritations by insignificant beasts happening in a split second of time. |
| | Whitman wrote, I know the amplitude of time. |
| | Did he? Does anybody? Can anybody? Can a note know a symphony? |
| | The older I get, the more obsessed I become with geology. I don't know why. I suspect it has to do with a hunger to know amplitude. Perhaps it's because life offers so much, yet so little, of it. |
CluePod
| | Intresting thread at Metafilter on the iPod battery replacement issue. Thanks to Rex for the pointer. |
Are we building or burning bridges?
| | Let's say, as many of us do, that the U.S. occupation of Iraq is a necessary stage in a war of liberation, that the regime change we pursue has noble goals, and that getting tough with the opposition involves some regretable but necessary attacks against civilian communities (including the blowing up of homes) where we're reasonably confident that bad guys are hiding out. You still can't read Riverbend writing about Difficult Days in Baghdad Burning and not wonder if there isn't a better way... |
| | They've been bombing houses in Tikrit and other areas! Unbelievable... I'm so angry it makes me want to break something!!!! What the hell is going on?! What do the Americans think Tikrit is?! Some sort of city of monsters or beasts? The people there are simple people. Most of them make a living off of their land and their livestock- the rest are teachers, professors and merchants- they have lives and families... Tikrit is nothing more than a bunch of low buildings and a palace that was as inaccessible to the Tikritis as it was to everyone else! |
| | People in Al Awja suffered as much as anyone, if not more- they weren't all related to Saddam and even those who were, suffered under his direct relatives. Granted, his bodyguards and others close to him were from Tikrit, but they aren't currently in Tikrit- the majority have struck up deals with the CPA and are bargaining for their safety and the safety of their families with information. The people currently in Tikrit are just ordinary people whose homes and children are as precious to them as American homes and children are precious to Americans! This is contemptible and everyone thinks so- Sunnis and Shi'a alike are shaking their heads incredulously. |
| | And NO- I'm not Tikriti- I'm not even from the 'triangle'- but I know simple, decent people who ARE from there and just the thought that this is being done is so outrageous it makes me want to scream. How can that ass of a president say things are getting better in Iraq when his troops have stooped to destroying homes?! Is that a sign that things are getting better? When you destroy someone's home and detain their family, why would they want to go on with life? Why wouldn't they want to lob a bomb at some 19-year-old soldier from Missouri?! |
| | The troops were pushing women and children shivering with fear out the door in the middle of the night. What do you think these children think to themselves- being dragged out of their homes, having their possessions and houses damaged and burned?! Who do you think is creating the 'terrorists'?!! Do you think these kids think to themselves, "Oh well- we learned our lesson. That's that. Yay troops!" It's like a vicious, moronic circle and people are outraged... |
| | The troops are claiming that the attacks originate from these areas- the people in the areas claim the attacks are coming from somewhere elseŠ I really am frightened of what this is going to turn into. People seem to think that Iraq is broken into zones and areas- ethnically and religiously divided. That's just not true- the majority of people have relatives all over Iraq. My relatives extend from Mosul, all the way down to Basrah- we all feel for each other and it makes decent people crazy to see this happening... |
| | No one knows why the electricity is out- there are murmurings of storms and damage to generators and sabotage and punishmentŠ no one knows exactly what's going on. There are explosions everywhere. Yesterday it was especially heavy. Today there was a huge explosion that felt like it was nearby but we can't really tell. How do you define a war? This sure as hell feels like war to meŠ no electricity, water at a trickle, planes, helicopters and explosions. |
| | We didn't send the kids to school today. My cousin's wife spent last night talking about horrible premonitions and it didn't take much to convince my cousin that they would be better off at home. |
| | It's hard for adults without electricity, but it's a torment for the kids. They refuse to leave the little pool of light provided by the kerosene lamps. We watch them nervously as they flit from candlelight to lamplight, trying to avoid the dark as much as possible. I have flashes of the children knocking down a candle, hot, burning wax, flames... I asked the 7-year-old the other night if she was afraid of 'monsters' when she shied away from a dark room. She looked at me like I was crazy- monsters are for losers who don't need to fear war, abductions and explosions. |
Walking his talk
| | I like this proof that indeed we no longer need to number our worlds: |
| | The ancient Cambodian passport gods have bestowed their blessings upon me and my lost passport -- complete with the crucial visa to get out of the country -- is back in my possession. |
| | The story is a fine example of the power of the internet. The cleaner in a cafe I visited last weekend picked up the passport -- it must have fallen out of my back pocket while my rear end was exploding like a landmine. |
| | She gave it to the western owner of the restaurant....who wasn't sure how to contact me to give it back. He put my name into Google, found the blog, matched the picture on the passport to the pictures on the site and BINGO!! -- he was able to e-mail me and let me know it was safe. |
| | Bonus link: Radio BNI, Stuart's online radio station. |
By George
| | Chris Lydon has an excellent interview (here's part one and here's part two) with George Lakoff, who has done perhaps more than any one man to change our understanding of understanding — not only of the subject itself, through his pioneering and leading work in cognitive linguistics, but of morality and politics. For example, if you want to know why Dean and Schwarzenegger have been winning lately, George has the reasons you never heard before but make deep sense once you've heard them. |
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