Mr Squid

Spinach, Basil, and Strawberry Salad

2009-06-25T18:18:00.002-04:00

The local farmers' market started up last month and I have been getting a fair amount of my food there. Here is a salad that I tried the other day, using only locally-grown produce. In general I am not a big fan of the localvore movement. Back in the days that people had no choice but to buy food that was grown within a day's travel of where they lived people used to die of deficiency diseases. Today, thanks in part to long-distance transport, deficiency diseases are something that most of use never even think about, let alone have to worry about. But I digress. Here is the salad.

Rinse and dry about 2 pounds of spinach. Tear into large bite-size pieces.
Add a handful lemon basil leaves and a few purple basil leaves.
Toss the leaves with about 1/3 cup vinaigrette.
Mix in 1/3 cup fresh strawberry, cut in pieces.

Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus

2009-05-26T17:34:00.003-04:00

It just does not get much better than this.

More NHL 2009 Playoff Predictions

2009-05-17T08:52:00.002-04:00

My predictions for the quarter-finals were about as wrong as they could have been. My only success was in predicting that the Chicago Blackhawks would defeat the Vancouver Canucks. In the three other series I was completely wrong. At least it took seven games to decide each of those three series, so I can claim that I was not completely out to lunch. However, that was then and this is now. So, here are my predictions for the two semi-final series.

Pittsburgh vs Carolina. There is no question where my loyalties lie here. I want Pittsburgh to win this. They have a strong team. They have just come out of a series with one of the best teams in the league. They want to make up for losing to Detroit in the finals last year. They have the potential to win the Stanley Cup this year. However, Carolina has consistently surprised everyone by winning games. They are this year's Cinderella team, and it never pays to bet against Cinderella teams. They make it to the finals more often than they should based on their records during the regular season. However, Carolina is just not that good a team. They have played well in the playoffs, and deserve to be where they are, but I have trouble seeing them get past the Penguins. So, I will bravely predict that Pittsburgh will win this series in a long, hard-fought series of battles.
Detroit vs Chicago. This is another Cinderella team playing a heavily-favoured team. Chicago is a team on the rise, and they will be a force to be reckoned with in a year or two, but Detroit is just too strong. Chicago is about to face reality and will probably be out fairly quickly. I predict that Detroit will have little trouble winning this

NHL Quarter Finals Predictions

2009-04-30T21:11:00.002-04:00

Here are my predictions for the second round of the 2009 NHL playoffs.

Boston vs Carolina -- Boston should not have too much trouble here. My only concern is that Boston may have become a bit rusty while they waited for Carolina to wear away at the Devils. However, Boston is a fundamentally strong team, while Caroline is a fundamentally average team that has been on a hot steak recently. I do not expect Carolina's streak to continue.
Washington vs Pittsburgh -- This is going to be a great series, and it could go either way. I am rooting for the Caps, so I am going to predict that they will win, but it will be a long, hard slog.
Detroit vs Anaheim -- Detroit is the heavy favourite here, but the Ducks will surprise everyone and knock them out.
Vancouver vs Chicago -- Vancouver has a history of falling apart when it matters. I am a little surprised that they have even made it this far, so I will be even more surprised if they get past Chicago. I predict that the Black Hawks will eventually win this series.

2009 NHL Playoff Predictions

2009-04-15T18:09:00.005-04:00

Here are my predictions for the first round of the 2009 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Boston vs Montréal -- Boston, but it will be a nail biter, and I will be rooting for Montréal.
Washington vs New York Rangers -- The Caps will win this one without too much difficulty.
New Jersey vs Carolina -- Carolina may pull off a surprise, but I predict that the Devils will ultimately win it. In a perfect world both teams would lose.
Philadelphia vs Pittsburgh -- Pittsburgh will discover that they actually have talent and pull off a win.

San Jose vs Anaheim -- This will be the big upset series. San Jose will lose, and probably lose convincingly.
Detroit vs Columbus -- Don't let the regular season fool you, Detroit will walk all over Columbus, much to my disappointment.
Vancouver vs St Louis -- Vancouver never fails to pull defeat from the jaws of victory. I do not expect this year to be any different. St Louis will win.
Calgary at Chicago -- Chicago is a team on the rise, but I do not think that this is the year that they rise out of the first round. Calgary will win.

So, Do yo agree with me? Let's see how well I do, and don't forget to visit my sponsors.

California Squidding

2009-04-06T19:04:00.004-04:00

I found this article about jumbo squid this evening. California may be losing its human population, but it is gaining in its squid population. This will make me think twice about trying surfing when I am in Pasadena in June.

Go Caps

2009-04-05T09:50:00.001-04:00

The Washington Capitals won their division yesterday, but they did it in a very unsatisfying way. They lost a game in an overtime shootout. The NHL awards one point to a team that loses a regular season game in overtime, so the Caps got one point. That unsatisfying point was enough to clinch the Southeast Division, which guarantees that the Caps will place at least third in the Eastern Conference. I would have liked to see them win the conference, but that is almost certainly impossible at this point. So, let's hope that they take the rest of this week to pull themselves together for a play-off run. I expect the Caps to make it to the quarter-finals, and perhaps even the semis, but I doubt that they will make it further than that. Their play has been off for the past few weeks, and they are going to be up against some stiff opposition. However, let's hope that I am wrong that that the Caps bring Lord Stanely's Cup to DC. Go Caps!

Octopus Escapes Aquarium

2009-02-14T12:16:00.003-05:00

Octopuses are notorious for being able to escape from almost any tank. The ability of an octopus to escape almost anything is only matched by backslashes in a unix tc shell. All it takes is an opening the size of the octopus's beak (which is usually rather small) and the octopus will be able to squeeze through. This is because octopuses have no bones, and no internal shell. The only solid part of an octopus is its beak. Here is an amusing story of an octopus that decided that it had had enough of life in a New Zealand aquarium. This octopus escape story also briefly mentioned the recently discovery that octopuses use two of their arms as legs. The article implies that this is true of all octopuses, but my understanding is that this behaviour has only been observed in two species, and octopus experts are uncertain if this is a general behaviour, or just an adaption by some species.

Pepsi Giant Squid Ad

2009-02-07T08:40:00.003-05:00

Pepsi has a new ad for Pepsi MAX, and it features a giant squid attacking a swimmer. It is nice to see giant squid being used in pop culture.

A Squidmas Carol

2008-12-13T17:44:00.001-05:00

On the first day of Christmas, 
my true love sent to me 
A squid in a pear tree. 

On the second day of Christmas, 
my true love sent to me 
Two turtle squid, 
And a squid in a pear tree. 

On the third day of Christmas, 
my true love sent to me 
Three French squid, 
Two turtle squid, 
And a squid in a pear tree. 

On the fourth day of Christmas, 
my true love sent to me 
Four calling squid, 
Three French squid, 
Two turtle squid, 
And a squid in a pear tree. 

On the fifth day of Christmas, 
my true love sent to me 
Five golden squid, 
Four calling squid, 
Three French squid, 
Two turtle squid, 
And a squid in a pear tree. 

On the sixth day of Christmas, 
my true love sent to me 
Six squid a-laying, 
Five golden squid, 
Four calling squid, 
Three French squid, 
Two turtle squid, 
And a squid in a pear tree. 

On the seventh day of Christmas, 
my true love sent to me 
Seven squid a-swimming, 
Six squid a-laying, 
Five golden squid, 
Four calling squid, 
Three French squid, 
Two turtle squid, 
And a squid in a pear tree. 

On the eighth day of Christmas, 
my true love sent to me 
Eight squid a-milking, 
Seven squid a-swimming, 
Six squid a-laying, 
Five golden squid, 
Four calling squid, 
Three French squid, 
Two turtle squid, 
And a squid in a pear tree. 

On the ninth day of Christmas, 
my true love sent to me 
Nine squid dancing, 
Eight squid a-milking, 
Seven squid a-swimming, 
Six squid a-laying, 
Five golden squid, 
Four calling squid, 
Three French squid, 
Two turtle squid, 
And a squid in a pear tree. 

On the tenth day of Christmas, 
my true love sent to me 
Ten squid a-leaping, 
Nine squid dancing, 
Eight squid a-milking, 
Seven squid a-swimming, 
Six squid a-laying, 
Five golden squid, 
Four calling squids, 
Three French squid, 
Two turtle squid, 
And a squid in a pear tree. 

On the eleventh day of Christmas, 
my true love sent to me 
Eleven squid piping, 
Ten squid a-leaping, 
Nine quids dancing, 
Eight quids a-milking, 
Seven squid a-swimming, 
Six squid a-laying, 
Five golden squid, 
Four calling squid, 
Three French squid, 
Two turtle squid, 
And a squid in a pear tree. 

On the twelfth day of Christmas, 
my true love sent to me 
Twelve squid drumming, 
Eleven squid piping, 
Ten squid a-leaping, 
Nine squid dancing, 
Eight squid a-milking, 
Seven squid a-swimming, 
Six squid a-laying, 
Five golden squid, 
Four calling squid, 
Three French squid, 
Two turtle squid, 
And a squid in a pear tree!

The NHL Shoot Out

2008-11-30T09:41:00.004-05:00

The Hockey News has a blog entry on the shoot out that nicely agrees with most of my thoughts on the NHL's shoot out. The shoot out was put in place after the Great Lock Out of 2005-2005. It was intended to be a way of ensuring that every game had a winner and a loser. There were two problems with this idea. The first was the assumption that the fans wanted a winner and a loser for every game. Many fans were quite happy to award a tie if the two teams both played well and deserved a tie. The second was the idea that shoot outs were a fair and exciting way of determining who won a close game. They are not fair. The odds of scoring in a one-on-goalie situation are about fifty-fifty. The goalie either guesses what the skater is going to do and stops the puck, or he does not. In many ways shoot outs are little more than a coin toss.

It is the exciting part that I want to type about today. The above-mentioned blog entry makes the point that fans love the shoot out. I hate to admit it, but that is true. And it is not just the NASCAR cross-over fans that love it, it is the life-long hockey fans who have have taken to it too. I realize that many fans still hate the shoot out. Some refuse to watch it. Others are waiting fot the day that Gary Bettman gets run over at a Zamboni crossing so that things can go back to the way that they were in the mythical glory days of hockey (which usually means when the speaker was ten years old). However, the reality is that the shoot out has proved to be popular amongst a wide swath of hockey fans. It is unlikely to go away, and people will miss it when it does. Even I have to admit that it is fun to watch.

I still dislike shoot outs. I would rather see regular season games that end in a tie after three periods be declared a tie. No five minute overtime. No shoot out. Play-off games should continue the way that the are with teams playing until someone scores the winning goal. However, if the shoot out does stay, I am not going to lose sleep over it.

My New Home

2008-11-01T09:25:00.005-04:00

It has been a busy couple of months, so I have let this blog fall by the wayside since August. In the last two months Joan and I bought a house and moved into it. It is a fairly large house in a nice neighbourhood in Greenbelt. It takes about fifteen minutes to walk to the centre of town, and about fifteen minutes in the other direction to walk to the elementary school. There is a bus stop about five minutes away where I can catch a bus to work, or to the local subway station. All in all the location is great. Greenbelt is one of the few places left in the US where it is possible to carry out everyday activities (like shopping and getting to work) without a car. It is amazing what a sense of freedom not needing a car gives one. The car is in the driveway for when I do need it, but knowing that I can just walk down to the store to pick up some milk and cigarettes is a very nice feeling. It makes Greenbelt (at least the part of Greenbelt that I live in) actually feel like a town instead of just a storage shed for people like so many suburbs do.

The down side to owning a house is that there is no landlord to ring up whenever something breaks. For the most part that is not a big deal. Most of the minor things that go wrong in a house are fairly easy to fix, but when something major happens it is nice to be able to off-load the problem onto someone else. Our new house needs a bit of work, but for the most part it is in fairly good shape, and nothing needs doing quickly. This means that we can do the repairs and upgrading on our schedule, which will probably take years.

And now, I need to walk down to the centre of town, get a haricut and some groceries, and then walk home and rake up the leaves.

The Olympics on Tv

2008-08-10T21:18:00.002-04:00

I have been watching the games of the 29^th Olympiad and I have been pleasantly surprised by NBC's coverage. The previous Olympic Games were almost unwatchable in the US. The tv coverage was awful. This time, however, the US networks seem to have gotten it right. I do wish that they would show more events where US athletes are not amongst the front-runners, but that is just US nationalism rearing its ugly head. Every nation showcases their own athletes, and the US is no different.

The 2008 Man-Booker Prize Longlist

2008-08-04T14:55:00.005-04:00

The longlist for the 2008 Man-Booker Prize has been announced. The full list is given below.

Title	Author
The White Tiger	Aravind Adiga
Girl in a Blue Dress	Gaynor Arnold
The Secret Scripture	Sebastian Barry
From A to X	John Berger
The Lost Dog	Michelle de Kretser
Sea of Poppies	Amitav Ghosh
The Clothes on their Backs	Linda Grant
A Case of Exploding Mangoes	Mohammed Hanif
The Northern Clemency	Philip Hensher
Netherland	Joseph O'Neill
The Enchantress of Florence	Salman Rushdie
Child 44	Tom Rob Smith
A Fraction of the Whole	Steve Toltz

I hate to admit it, but I only recognize one entry in this year's long list, and that is Salman Rushdie's The Enchantress of Florence. The other authors and books are unknown to me. This is a bit embarrassing, but in my defense I have not had a lot of time to read over the past year, and my local library does not carry most of these titles. Not having a lot of time to read is not a good excuse. The reality is that when I have sat down to read books I have tended to read pulp rubbish like Sandworms of Dune (yes, I am a Dune fan) or non-fiction. In fact, most of my recent reading has been non-fiction. I certainly could have made more of an effort to keep up with the literary world. The other reason, the lack of these titles in my local library, is hard to overcome. I get most of my reading material from my town's public library. It is cheap, it supports public libraries, and I usually have a good selection of books to choose from. The fact that they only carry five of the thirteen Man-Booker nominees is disturbing, but given that the Man-Booker prize is for fiction by a Commonwealth author, not a US author, that is not too surprising.

So, my goal for the next month is to plough through as many of the five titles that are in my local library as I can in the next month. I expect to get through two or three by the time that the short list is released. The short list will be announced on 9 September and the winner will be announced on 14 October.

Video of a Giant Squid being Dissected

2008-08-04T10:57:00.004-04:00

Here is an interesting video of scientists at Melbourne Museum in Australia dissecting a giant squid. This video is not for the squeamish, but if you do not mind seeing squishy internal organs flopping around, and various squid bodily fluids flowing, then it is a fascinating insight into how the anatomy of giant squid is studied. Unfortunately, I am a bit squeamish. I never liked the idea of dissecting things in high school, and for years I used to shoo flies out of the house instead of just swatting them (I have gotten over that now). Dissection was one of the things that kept me out of the biological sciences. It is partly responsible for me being an astronomer instead of a marine biologist. After seeing this video I do not regret my decision, even though it does mean that I will probably never get my name on a scientific paper about squid.

The Washington Capitals Need a New Logo

2008-08-03T17:55:00.004-04:00

The Hockey News has decided to rank the logos of the thirty NHL teams. The team logo ranks reflect only the opinions of The Hockey News editors, but it is an interesting list. The first thing that caught my eye is that The Washington Capitals rank 22^nd in a league of thirty teams. The reason give is

"Love the uniform, love the secondary eagle logo, but we need more than words for the primary."

After getting over the disappointment of my favourite team being ranked in the bottom half of the league I realized that The Hockey News was right (as they so often are). The Capital's logo is boring. A hockey stick stuck in the middle of the name of the team does not stir feelings of pride. In fact, I barely notice it. The classic logos, such at Montréal's and Boston's are emblematic. They have come to signify not just the team, but hockey itself. Now asking that The Washington Capitals be a team that is synonymous with hockey is asking a lot. In fact, given that most people in the DC area care more about bowling and poker than they do about hockey, it is even a bit silly. Still, the Caps have Alexander Ovechkin, who is perhaps the most recognizable name in hockey today, and he has signed on with the Caps for the long haul. Any attempt to build a fan base around Ovechkin is going to involve turning the Caps into one of the NHL's signature teams. To do that the Caps need a better logo. Come on fans, put on your thinking caps and let's see some ideas. After all, there is not much else to do sportswise in August.

Detroit and Octopus Abuse

2008-06-04T21:31:00.003-04:00

I am watching the Pittsburgh Penguins lose game six of the Stanley Cup Finals, and I am not happy about it. In general I do not care much for the Penguins. They have a silly name, and I do not consider Sidney Crosby to be the greatest thing to ever happen to hockey. He is a great player, and he is on track to become one of the game's superstars, but I am really tired of him being the face of hockey, and the saviour of the NHL. The NHL does not need a face, or a saviour. It needs to remember who its fans are and make sure that the games excite those fans. Hockey is not NASCAR. Hockey is not poker. Hockey is not the NBA. So stop trying to be. The fans of car racing, card games, and hardwood courts are not going to become fans of hockey. The sports are too different and appeal to very different demographics. The NHL needs to understand this. However, I doubt that that is going to happen while Gary Bettman is running the league.

Anyhow, enough about the state of the National Hockey League. What I really want to say is that I am feeling disappointed that Pittsburgh is probably going to lose to Detroit tonight, which will give Detroit the Stanley Cup. I really hate Detroit. This hatred dates back to when I was short and the Red Wings used to beat the Vancouver Canucks. In fact, in the 1970s, the Red Wings did not just defeat the Canucks, they humiliated them in almost every game that they played. Three decades have not healed those wounds. However, what really burns me up about Detroit is their blatant octopus abuse. It is a tradition in the motor city to toss an octopus onto the ice to celebrate goals, wins, and good fights. This is not acceptable. Octopuses are meant to be admired, either while diving, or at an aquarium. Octopuses are not meant to be sprawled across a sheet of ice. So, while I generally like the concept of traditions, this is one tradition that needs to end.

It's Time to Step Aside

2008-05-14T19:28:00.001-04:00

Please Hilary Clinton, for the good of the country, step aside.

Hockey Sadness

2008-05-04T22:36:00.002-04:00

The Washington Capitals are out. The New York Rangers are out. The Montréal Canadiens are out. The Vancouver Canucks did not even make it in. All of my favourite teams are being systematically eliminated in this year's Stanley Cup race. The only team left that I really care about is the Philadelphia Flyers. So far, they have done very well. The eliminated both Washington and Montréal, but I suspect that they are not going to be so lucky when they face off against Sidney Crosby and the streaking Pittsburgh Penguins later this week. The Flyers have gotten as far as they have by being a scrappy team, and by riding the outstanding goaltending of Martin Biron. However, they have also been lucky. They barely beat the Capitals in teh first round, and the Capitals only barely made the playoffs themselves. They also got lucky when they faced a Montréal team that played well below their capability in the quarter-finals. They will not be so luck against Pittsburgh. So, while I will be rooting for the Flyers, my prediction is that the Penguins will end up representing the East in the Stanley Cup finals.

The Capitals are in Trouble

2008-04-20T22:10:00.005-04:00

Well, what can I say about the Caps now? They barely staved off elimination on Saturday, and have generally played like a team that is looking forward to the golf course. The Philadelphia Flyers are a tough team, and were vastly underrated going into the playoffs, but the Capitals should have been able to make it a close series. But what have they done? They folded. They barely won the first game, and did not deserve to. Then they lost the next three, and deserved to. Now, they have managed to force a sixth game, but I am not optimistic that they can win it. The Flyers are hungry, and they are playing that way. The Capitals do not seem to have that hunger. I hope that I am wrong. Please Caps! Prove me wrong!

The Caps Did It!

2008-04-06T18:00:00.005-04:00

I got back from a week in Los Angeles on Friday evening. I was there for the High Energy Astrophysics Division meeting, a meeting of the US high-energy astronomy community, of which I have found myself a part for the past five years. All in all it was a good week, and I learned a lot there. Some of what I learned was scientific, and some of it was political. High-energy astronomers can be a self-absorbed group at times. This is not meant to be a knock at the people I work with, but a comment on how easy it is to forget that there is a bigger world out there than what we see on a day-to-day basis. And part of that bigger world has blossomed into the Washington Capitals making their first playoff run in several years!

Last night, while I was enjoying the best meatloaf that I have ever eaten, the Capitals defeated the Florida Panthers to secure first place in the NHL's southeast division. Now, being first in the NHL's southeast division is akin to being the smartest member of the US Republican party, but it does guarantee a berth in the playoffs. The NHL's odd seeding structure guarantees that a division winner gets one of the top three seeds in each conference. So, Washington won the third seed when, if they had had to compete based on points alone, they would have barely slunk into the eighth seed. But I am not complaining. The Caps are in the playoffs, and I spent all of today doing happy dances. I get to grow a playoff beard this year!

So, now that the Caps are in the playoffs, what are their chances? How far are they going to go? To be honest, I do not expect them to make it out of the first round. The Caps have a lot going for them. They are a young team with a lot of talent; they are on a roll, having won 11 of their last 12 games; and they are going to be playing the Philadelphia Flyers in the first round. However, many of those 11 victories where tough slogs where the Capitals barely won. They have often had to overcome poor playing early in the game. They will not have the luxury of doing this in the playoffs. The Caps have split the season series against the Flyers, and the Flyers have been fighting hard to make it into the playoffs themselves. Despite their recent problems, though, the boys from Philly have a fundamentally strong team that has the ability to defeat the Capitals. I suspect that they will. The season series looked like this.

Nov 2	Phi 3	at	Was 2	loss
Nov 23	Was 4	at	Phi 3	OT win
Jan 13	Phi 6	at	Was 4	loss
Feb 6	Was 4	at	Phi 3	win

There you have it. The Caps lost two games in regulation time, won one in regulation, and won one in overtime. That is not a record that inspires confidence. I hope that the Caps can pull it off. It would do wonders for the team to make it into the quarter-finals, and having Ovechkin playing for more than one round would be a publicity coup for the NHL. In a perfect world the Penguins and the Capitals will play in one of the rounds so that the world can see several games of Crosby vs Ovechkin. That would settle once and for all who is the better player. My money is on our favourite Russian.

So, bring on the first round!

Go Caps!

It's time for me to do another happy dance!

Arthur C. Clarke: 1917-2008

2008-03-18T19:47:00.001-04:00

Rest in peace.

Thanks for the inspiration.

We Need a New Squid Book

2008-03-17T19:33:00.002-04:00

There has not been much squid news over the past week or two, so I do not have much to write about tonight. I was down at my local library last night and I was a bit disappointed at the lack of material on cephalopods. Every book but one was aimed at children. The only book for grown-ups was Richard Ellis's The Search for the Giant Squid. This is not a bad book, but I read it long ago, and it is a bit dated. There have been some big breakthroughs in giant squid over the past couple of years. In particular, live giant squid have been filmed, Dr Steve O'Shea tried to rear larval giant squid in captivity, the existence of the colossal squid has been confirmed, and much has been learned about the behaviour of architeuthis dux. There is still a lot that we do not know, but I think that enough has happened recently that a new book on our favourite cephalopods is warranted. I wish that I had the time to write it.

Three Weeks and Three Points to Go

2008-03-16T19:35:00.002-04:00

The NHL season has three weeks to go, and the Capitals are still in the playoff race. Of course, they are barely in it, but there is still a chance that Ovechkin and Kozig and the boys can make it into the postseason. And once they get there anything can happen. The Caps won their game against Boston this afternoon by the score of 2 to 1 in the shootout. They are not play all that well, but they managed to pull off a win and get two points. Combined with the Fliers' disastrous performance against the Penguins earlier in the day the Caps are not only two points behind Philadelphia. That means that they only need to make up three points to secure the eight and final playoff spot in the East.

Can they do it? To be honest, I doubt it. The Fliers are in the middle of self-destructing, but they do have a fundamentally good team, so if they just rediscover that they can pull through. The Capitals are playing well, but they are still a weak team in some ways. They tend to choke, and they do not have any experience in desperate attempts to make it into the playoffs. I hope that I am wrong, but I am worried. So, it is going to be an exciting ride for the next three weeks. With luck, I will be growing a playoff beard this year.

Ode to an Octopus

2008-03-03T21:16:00.002-05:00

Octopus, octopus, I love you
Yes I do
I love you

Well, that was rather silly wasn't it.

A Short, Meaningless Note on the Capitals

2008-03-02T21:33:00.003-05:00

The Capitals have 16 games left, and they are three points out of first place in the anemic Southeast division. They have the talent and the ability to win the division, but I worry that they do not want it badly enough.

Yummy Yummy Sandwich

2008-01-31T17:23:00.001-05:00

I found an idea for a sandwich in a promotional calendar from my local grocery store. I eat a lot of sandwiches since they are about the only thing that I know how to make to put in my lunch bag for work, so I tend to get bored with my menu. When I saw this idea I decided to try it out. The first thing that I did was bake a loaf of bread. It was generic white bread except that I used half white flour and half semolina flour to insert a bit of variety into my life. Once the bread was made I made the sandwich by adding these ingredients onto a slice of the bread.

guacamole, spread reasonably generously
a couple of slices of smoked turkey
a layer of spinach leaves
a slice of havarti cheese
a sprinkling of fresh chopped dill weed, not too much
sliced cucumbers

That's it. I have been eating this for lunch all week, but now the turkey has run out so I need to think of something else for tomorrow's lunch.

Thoughts on the Florida Primary

2008-01-30T14:06:00.001-05:00

John McCain won the Florida Republican primary yesterday. For what its worth he seems to be the best of a bad lot, so I suppose that I am rooting for him to be the Republican presidential candidate this year. Not that I am rooting for the Republicans to win in November, but of all the Republican candidates he seems to be the sanest and has the most realistic world-view. His mindless support for the US war in Iraq is troubling, but let’s face it, there is no way that the US can pull its troops out of Iraq without that country, and perhaps that entire region, descending into chaos, so we really have no choice but to stay and help clean up the mess that the botched occupation made. John McCain has the military experience to realize that this will not be an easy job, which is better than some of the other Republican hopefuls who seem to have a bit of a Pollyanna view of the occupation. If we are going to stay in Iraq we may as well be realistic about it. We need to take on advisory and security roles and not try to impose a political or social system on the country. We also need to recognize that the country may not survive and prepare for that possibility. What we need to avoid is getting drawn into protracted combat operations where one faction in the country is attacking one of the other factions. We also need to recognize that we are there to keep the country, and region, stable. We are not there to promote democracy or export freedom, or fight terrorism. John McCain is the only Republican who appears to understand this.

On the Democratic side Florida was supposed to be a non-event. Florida lost its Democratic delegates because it held its primary earlier than the Democratic Party wanted, so all of the Democratic candidates had pledged not to campaign there. For the most part the candidates honoured that. The problem was that Hillary Clinton ran a ghost campaign that essentially said “I am not campaigning, but if I were then this is what I would be saying”. For the most part I think that Clinton would make a good president, and I would be happy to support her if she becomes the Democratic candidate, but things like this make me worry that she is not an honest person. She won in Florida with 50% of the vote. Obama got 33%, and the rest split the vote between them. What really worries me is that Clinton and Obama will battle this out to the bitter end, and that the battle will get more and more bitter as it goes on. This will benefit no-one except the Republicans. The increasingly nasty fighting between the two camps will just weaken the Democratic Party, disillusion their supporters, and provide ammunition for the the right when the presidential campaign starts. Please, Democrats, stop! Both of these people will make good presidents. Let the primary system do its job and stop slinging mud at each other. A Democratic victory in November is not a sure thing. In fact, it is quite possible that the Democrats will collapse on the campaign trail and the Republicans will win again.

2007-12-19T20:30:00.000-05:00

I saw this on a bumper sticker today.

A picture of Little Bush Intelligent Design, or Random Mutation

The Star Wars Christmas Special

2007-12-18T18:03:00.000-05:00

Here, for your viewing pleasure, is the Star Wars Christmas Special from 1978. Enjoy.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Wasn't that fun!

The Big Fight

2007-12-17T19:28:00.000-05:00

Here is a short video of a hypothetical battle between a sperm whale and a giant squid. One day, I hope that we will have film of the real thing.

Hockey without the Passion: What's the Point

2007-12-16T21:39:00.000-05:00

The November 2007 issue of Forbes Magazine has an article on the Toronto Maples Leafs, from the point of view of team valuation. I picked up the magazine and eagerly anticipated reading something about hockey. After all, hockey is the greatest sport in the world, and is very close to being the greatest thing in the world too. After reading the article I must say that Forbes managed to completely miss the point. Hockey is not about dollars and investments. Hockey is about passion and grit and the unique crunch of a well-delivered body check. The Forbes article managed to reduce the greatest game on Earth to something that made me yawn.

Forbes has a great Web site. It reports the daily news well. However, the magazine is a bore. I am truly regretting subscribing to it.

Big Cuddly Squid

2007-12-10T17:33:00.000-05:00

This is what I want for Christmas this year. It does cost $1800 however (the Web site does not say if that is Canadian dollars or not), which is a bit much, even for a hand-made giant squid.

What's with the Capitals?

2007-12-09T21:58:00.000-05:00

This has been a tough year to be a Washington Capitals fan. The team has not only stumbled badly, they have been boring to watch, and do not seem interested in playing the game. True, they have suffered from so many injuries since October that I have lost track, but their real problem seems to be that they have just lost interest in hockey. Watching a Capitals game is not fun, it is tedious. I wish that I had some good advice to give the team, but I do not. All that I can say to the players is to get out on the ice and play every shift as if it were the one that history will remember. If they play for the sheer joy of playing, and check their egos at the gate, they just may be able to recover something of this season. The Caps have the raw talent, they just need to learn to use it. I still have hope.

Beware the Kraken from the Deep

2007-11-26T20:54:00.000-05:00

Here is a nice article about squid and culture.

Fruit Cakes

2007-11-25T21:30:00.001-05:00

Today I made fruit cakes. It is the first time that I tried cooking fruit cakes and it went reasonably well. I got my Mother's recipe a few weeks ago and have been collecting the ingredients since then. The old family recipe calls for about US$100 of fruit, nuts, brandy, and the more usual cake ingredients such as eggs and flour. When I went looking for things like mixed peel, and candied cherries I found that none of the local supermarkets carried them. In fact, when I asked I got looked at as if I had asked for dried human flesh. Apparently the people of suburban Maryland do not do much Christmas baking. Anyhow, thanks to the Amazon.com gourmet food shop I was able to get everything that I needed.

I started the process at about 10:00 AM this morning, and I just finished it before sitting down to write this, at about 09:30 PM. The total fruit cake making time was about eleven and a half hours. About half of that time was spent with the cakes cooking, and most of the rest of it was waiting for them to cool down so that they could be wrapped and stored. Now I need to figure out how to ice them, and then the big challenge will be figuring out how to eat four large fruit cakes. In retrospect I should have made a half recipe.

Why did I make fruit cakes? Well, to start with I like them. Many people claim to hate them, but my Mom's fruit cake recipe is far superior to anything that I have ever bought. Secondly, I wanted to make sure that the recipe lives on. My Mom is getting on in years and probably does not have a lot of fruit cake making years left in her. I want to make sure that I learn how to cook them while I still have the chance. Finally, there is nothing quite like walking into a house that smells of Christmas baking.

So, if you are in Maryland near where 295 and 495 meet this Christmas season drop me an e-mail and come on over for a slice of fruit cake and perhaps some gløgg (assuming that I can figure out the spices). There is way more than Joan and I will ever be able to eat by ourselves.

Stir-Fried Tofu and Veggies

2007-10-18T18:29:00.000-04:00

I was thinking about tofu the other day. Generally I do not like tofu very much. It feels slick when I eat it, and it has no taste. There is not much to like about tofu. To make matters worse there is a small sub-population of vegetarians who have a rather holier-than-thou attitude towards tofu. If I never see or eat it again I doubt that I will miss it.

That said, the other day I was thinking about tofu and what can be done with it, and I realized that there is one tofu meal that I quite enjoy. Here is the recipe. Adjust the quantities to suit the number of people whom you want to feed.

Heat some oil in a wok. Add several drops of sesame oil. Cut some extra-firm tofu into dice-sized cubes and stir-fry it in the oil. Add red pepper flakes. When the tofu starts to turn golden brown add some chopped kale and cook until it is nicely wilted. In a separate pan stir-fry your favourite stir-fry vegetables. I suggest carrots, onions, and broccoli. When both pans are cooked mix the two together and enjoy. Serve with soy sauce and a nice red wine (or even sake if you have any).

Giuliani and the Aliens

2007-10-17T21:34:00.000-04:00

"If (there's) something living on another planet and it's bad and it comes over here, what would you do?"

This is the question that a boy in Exeter, New Hampshire asked Republican president candidate Rudy Giuliani at a town hall meeting. Mr Giuliani's response was interesting.

"Of all the things that can happen in this world, we'll be prepared for that, yes we will. We'll be prepared for anything that happens."

It makes one wonder just how Mr Giuliani intends to protect the Earth from alien invaders. The full story is here.

Anne Enright wins the Booker Prize

2007-10-16T20:39:00.000-04:00

The 2007 Man Booker prize was announced a couple of hours ago, and the winner was Ann Enright for her novel The Gathering. I admit that I have never heard of Anne Enright before she was put on the Booker long list a couple of months ago. Sadly, our local library does not have any of her books, which is disappointing. It says something about a library's acquisition policy when the library does not have books by the person who wins the Booker prize. Still, this is the US, where Tom Clancy's books are considered high art. So now it is time to make a trip to the book store and buy The Gathering. Since there are no bookstores near where I live (the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC are a complete wasteland in many ways) I will probably end up buying it off Amazon.com.

The Squid Shoppe

2007-10-15T21:53:00.000-04:00

Just a quick note today because I am in a rush. Get your giant squid stuff at the Cryptozoology Shop.

One can never have enough squid stuff.

An Iraq Vet Speaks

2007-10-12T17:11:00.000-04:00

Here an Iraq veteran who was nearly killed in the line of duty speaks about "phony soldiers".

Read the blog of an American veteran at Inside my Broken Skull

Indian Summer

2007-10-09T08:44:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, or Columbus Day as they call it in the United States. I had the day off work, but I spent most of the day working from home so that I can build up some time off to go to a wedding in New York City next month. Ordinarily, when I am at home in October the windows are closed and the fans are off. Yesterday, however, the windows were open and the fans were going full blast because the temperature outside was in the low 30s (that's about 90 F in Fahrenheit). This is not normal for Maryland. These temperatures are about 10 degrees (16 degrees F) hotter than normal for October in these part.

I miss having normal seasons. I miss Autumns that are cool, crisp, and pleasant. Thirty degrees is hot even for a Summer day, but in October 30 degrees feels oppressive. Is this a harbinger of global warming? Perhaps it is, but this is a la niña year, so the US mid-Atlantic region can expect a warmer than usual Autumn and Winter this year. The climate change that is predicted by most climate models, and most of the world's scientific community, may be contributing something to this heat, but it is not the only effect. Climate change is something that should be taken seriously. I am always amazed when people claim that it is a hoax. Do they really think that such a massive conspiracy could be kept secret for decades? Do they really think that the media would not have a field day blowing the lid of such a story? In my mind the hoax theory of global warming is about as plausible as the theory that governments are covering up wide-spread contact with aliens. The evidence that something is happening with Earth's climate is overwhelming. What is less certain is the details about what is driving those changes, and how those changes will play out over the next several decades.

Fortunately for me the weather forecast for the Washington, DC area says that temperatures are going to drop to about 20 degrees (70 F) in a few days. That will make me and my cat very happy.

International Cephalopod Awareness Day

2007-10-08T18:16:00.001-04:00

I learned today, thanks to Google Alerts, that October 8 is International Cephalopod Awareness Day. This is unofficial, but I see no reason not to treat it a a real day. It certainly makes more sense than Columbus Day does. Personally, I prefer to celebrate Octopus Day on 8 August, but I will raise a toast tonight to the wonderful class of animals called "cephalopodia". 'Twill be a glass of wine or beer though, not ink.

0.500 Hockey in the Preseason

2007-10-01T17:57:00.000-04:00

The Washington Capitals had a decent preseason this year, but it could have been better. They won three, lost three, and lost a fourth in overtime. Due to the NHL's slightly wacky point system losing in overtime is worth a single point in the standings, so overtime losses are tracked separately from losses in regulation time. Is this a good thing? I do not know. Personally I would have a point system where a loss is worth zero points, regardless of how the loss occurred. This would encourage teams to play for a win, or at least a tie. Under the present system there is less incentive for a team to play hard in overtime because the team is guaranteed at least one point regardless of what happens. However, I do not feel so strongly about it that I am going to let it ruin my enjoyment of overtime hockey.

The Caps' record in their 2007 preseason games is:

GP	W	L	OT	GF	GA	PTs	Pct
7	3	3	1	21	21	7	0.500

0.500 hockey is not a bad thing in the preseason. The object of these games is not to win points as much as it is to see how different players perform, and to experiment with different lines. From that point of view the Caps did not do too badly. Their games were:

Sep 30: Ott 2 at Was 1 Loss
Sep 28: Phi 5 at Was 7 Win
Sep 26: Was 1 at Phi 2 Loss
Sep 25: Car 2 at Was 3 Win
Sep 22: Was 2 at TB 1 Win
Sep 20: Was 4 at Ott 5 Loss
Sep 16: Was 3 at Car 4 OT Loss

Bring on the regular season!

+1 419-474-9385

2007-09-28T15:41:00.000-04:00

Have you been getting calls from +1 419-474-9385? Over the past three weeks or some I have been getting between five and ten calls a day from this number. When I answer the phone the caller immediately hangs up. When I let my machine answer the phone the caller does not leave a message. When I try to ring this number the telephone rings and rings and rings until I get bored. No one ever answers. And this has been going on for weeks. Fortunately whoever is calling only calls during the day, when I am usually not at home, so it has not been nearly as annoying as it could have been.

A Google search reveals that many people are experiencing the same thing, and no one knows what is going on. I am on the US Do Not Call List, so if this is a telemarketer or some other commercial outfit they are breaking the law. If it is a charity then they are not technically breaking the law, but the fact that they are ignoring the do not call list means that I will never donate anything to them. Perhaps it is just a person with a wrong number and absolutely no telephone manners. People like that are, sadly, rather common in the USA. All I could do was report this to the FTC , file a complaint, and hope that the calls would eventually stop.

Then something happened. A few days ago I decided to answer the phone, and there was a human being (sort of) on the other end of the line. "Hello, is Mr or Mrs Squid home?" the person asked. Instead of answering I said that if this person ever called me again I would report then to the police, the FBI, and the FCC. Then I hung up. I have not been called back since. In retrospect I regret not finding out who was calling me before I delivered my toothless ultimatum, but at least the calls have stopped. If anyone knows who is making these calls from this number please let me know.

RIP Ken Danby 1940-2007

2007-09-25T17:55:00.001-04:00

Ken Danby, who painted the iconic goalie shown above, has died.

Whale Eats Squid

2007-09-24T19:38:00.000-04:00

The Tenerife News the other day reported a story about a group of people who filmed a pilot whale eating a giant squid. The film is not available yet, but with luck it will show up on the InterNet before too long. The article says that this is the first time that such a feast has been caught on film. However, the good folk over at The Octopus News Magazine Online report that this is not actually the first film. They have a short, but interesting discussion of the film on their Web site.

This may not be the first actual footage of a whale snacking on Architeuthis dux, but they did get a nice picture, and their description is interesting. I hope that they release the film to the public soon. I wish that I had seen this when I was in the Canary Islands about ten years ago.

NHL 2008 Outdoor Game

2007-09-23T17:44:00.000-04:00

The NHL is going to hold an outdoor game in Buffalo on New Years Day 2008. The Buffalo Sabres and the Pittsburg Penguins will face off unprotected against the elements, which in Buffalo can be rather brutal in January. The is the second outdoor game that the NHL has held in the modern era. The first was in 2003 in Edmonton, and it is generally regarded as being a great success. The game sold out, tv rating were at an all-time high (at least in Canada), and the players enjoyed playing outdoors. So, it is not surprising that the NHL is doing it again. This time they have picked a safe American market to try and generate a bit of interest south of the border. Buffalo is a good choice because it is a true hockey town. The game sold out in less than half-an-hour, and it is already generating a buzz in the Buffalo media.

The idea of playing an outdoor game, and having it count in the standings, has proven to be a bit controversial. Some, such as the Toronto Star have claimed that an outdoor game is absurd. However, I suspect that this is partly a case of sour grapes because Toronto did not get the game. My opinion is that playing a game outside is a great idea. Yes, it is a gimmick. Yes, depending on the wind one team could be at a distinct disadvantage, and yes, fans may have to sit in sleet and snow to watch the game, but these are the things that make hockey games legendary. Does anyone remember any games from the 1975 Flyers--Sabres series other than the infamous "Fog Game"? How many games do you remember from 2003? I will bet that the outdoor game is one of them.

So, play a game outside. Have it count in the standings. Three points in January will not make a lot of difference. Give the fans in Buffalo something that they will remember for the rest of their lives. But sorry Buffalo, I will be rooting for the Penguins.

Fennel and Sausage Pasta

2007-09-21T16:54:00.000-04:00

Last night I decided to try something new for dinner. So, I looked through my recipes for something that I have never made before, or more accurately, something that I could not remember ever making before, and settled on this. It was not that hard to make, and it goes well with a robust red wine.

1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 lb sweet Italian sausage
1 med bulb fennel
1 med onion
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 lb ziti (or penne, or any other bite-sized pasta)
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

Boil several cups of salted water.
Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan. Crumble the sausage meat into the pan and brown it.
Chop the fennel bulb into matchstick sized bits. Do not make the bits too large. Save the fronds and cut them into inch-long sprigs. Chop the onion into small pieces.
When the sausage meat is brown add the red pepper and onions and cook until they are translucent. Add the fennel and cook until it goes a bit soft.
Add 1 1/2 cups of the boiling salted water to the mixture and simmer for 10 minutes.
While the mixture is simmering cook the pasta until it is not quite al dente.
Add the pasta and fennel fronds to the sausage mixture and cook for a few minutes. Add a bit of the pasta water if the mixture starts to dry out.
When the pasta is al dente remove from the heat and add the cheese. Serve immediately.

This is a fairly hearty dish and should be eaten with a salad of some kind. It worked out fairly well for me, but the fennel was a bit undercooked. I probably should have cut it into smaller pieces. Also, it needed a bit of black pepper added while I was eating it. Joan said that it also needed a bit of salt, but I was happy without that.

Meet the New Joe Camel

2007-09-18T20:37:00.000-04:00

Some pictures do not need captions.

Proust and the Squid

2007-09-17T21:16:00.000-04:00

It has been a slow week for squid news, so I thought that I would read something that is only tangentially related to cephalopods. The question this week is about reading. Proust and the Squid: the Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf examines the human tendency to read, and comes to some interesting conclusions. The basic argument of the book is that reading is not natural, and thus must be encouraged. With our society turning more and more digital, Wolf argues, reading becomes less and less important. Since reading is not instinctive our brains must rewire themselves to allow us to understand the printed word. It is an interesting book, although it is difficult to read, which struck me as a bit ironic. Personally, I am not worried that people are losing the ability to read. We will always need the printed word to tell us what is on tv.

First Loss of the Season

2007-09-16T20:59:00.000-04:00

The Washington Capitals lost their first game of the new season this afternoon. Admittedly, it was only a preseason game, but it was their first game since last April and if you are superstitious like me the first game played sets the stage for the rest of the year. Washington lost to Carolina 4-3 in overtime. The Caps played well for most of the game, but they fell apart when it counted: in sudden death. This is reminiscent of one of the Caps big problems last season, they lost games due to shoot-outs and sudden death. It was disappointing to see them still having the same problems this year. Still, Sunday's game was just an exhibition game. It counted for nothing, except perhaps karma. Washington was experimenting with their lines, and did not play some of their better players. The Hurricanes, on the other hand, did. So, pulling off a tie at the end of regulation is not a bad accomplishment.

Next up for the Capitals is a match against the Ottawa Senators in Ottawa. This will be a hard game to win if the Senators take the game seriously. The Senators have a strong team, and are quite capable of winning the East this season. The Caps will have their hands full with them. The game is on Thursday, 20 September in Ottawa at 1900 EDT. Sadly, it will not be on tv in the DC area.

The 2007 Booker Prize Short List

2007-09-13T19:48:00.000-04:00

Well, it has been a while since I have blogged anything. Life has been busy, work has been hectic, and I have been enjoying the last days of Summer here in Maryland. The Summer weather here is too hot and too humid, but in September things cool down a bit and we generally have a few weeks of truly pleasant temperatures. It was actually nice to walk to work this morning, and it has been nice to spend an evening without the drone of the air conditioner in the background.

As well as bringing cooler weather September brings the short list for the Man Booker prize. Here it is.

Darkmans by Nicola Barker
The Gathering by Anne Enright
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
Animal's People by Indra Sinha

I have read The Reluctant Fundamentalist and On Chesil Beach, but the local library system does not have any of the other shortlisted books, and I am too cheap to buy them. Perhaps I will break down and buy Animal's People this weekend, if I make it to a bookstore.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist is one of the best books that I have read in quite a while. It is the story of a young Pakistani man in the US before, during, and after the terrorist attacks of 11 Sep 2001. The book tells of how a person who genuinely liked America slowly became radicalized. The story is written from an interesting point of view that could easily have become tedious, but Mohsin Hamid pulls it off well. I highly recommend reading this book. It is short, thought-provoking, and a very strong candidate for winning this year.

On Chesil Beach is Ian McEwan's contribution to literature for 2007, and I was very disappointed with it. The nomination was controversial since the book is less than 200 pages long and thus technically a novella, not a novel. However, I do not think much of this objection. A book should be long enough to tell the story, and no longer. If On Chesil Beach weighs in a few pages short of being a formal novel then I do not think that that should be held against it. My complaint with On Chesil Beach is that the story did not grab me. It felt like a gimmick that had been dragged out far too long. The book should have been a short story. By about fifty pages in I was bored with the characters and their dilemma. It was obvious what was going to happen, and I spent the last three quarters of the book waiting for the punch line. I do not think that this book belongs on the short list.

Baby Giant Squid

2007-08-27T15:27:00.000-04:00

A fisherman caught a juvenile giant squid off the coast of Florida a few days ago. This is not the first immature giant squid that has been caught. Dr Steve O'Shea tried to rear giant squid larvae a few years ago. His creatures did not live long enough to grow into mature giant squid, which is probably good considering the size of tank that would be needed to hold them. However, the Florida find represents the first giant squid caught that is beyond the larval stage. Scientists estimate that it was about six months old when caught.

Are they Contenders?

2007-08-26T18:00:00.000-04:00

It is only about three weeks until training camps start across the NHL. Like most sane sports fans I can hardly wait. August is definitely the horse latitudes of professional sports. All that is happening in Canada and the US is baseball, and we all know how boring baseball games are to watch. Football fans have the NFL's preseason to savour, but personally I find the NFL to be even worse than baseball. I am probably the only person in North America who did not know about the Michael Vick Affair until a few days ago. I just have no interest in the North American version of football.

So, I spend my Augusts looking forward to the day that players across the continent don their skates and start the rituals of NHL training camp. And, like most sports fans, I dream about the local hockey team and fantasize about their chances at winning the Stanley Cup. The Washington Capitals are in the middle of a serious bout of rebuilding. They came out of the Great Lock-Out as the worst team in the league, and have been struggling to improve since then. Fortunately, the Caps has paid attention to the basics, such as building a strong farm system, drafting well, and developing young players, and now their patience over the past two years is about to pay off.

"We've got the makings of being a very good team for a long time," said goalie Olie Kolzag in an interview with the Washington Post a few days ago, and I tend to agree with him. The Caps have signed several free agents over the Summer who have the potential to fill some significant gaps in the Caps' line-up. Michael Nylander, Tom Poti, and Viktor Kozlov were signed over the past couple of months and should fit in well. All three bring strong records and strong work ethics to the team. In addition regulars like Olie Kolzig and Alexander Ovechkin will be around for 2007-2008. The Caps did well in the first half of last season before falling apart after Christmas. I do not think that this will happen this season. The younger players will have learned from experience to pace themselves, and the new veterans will have the experience to guide the team through any mid-season slump. I am not expecting the Caps to win the Cup this season, but I would not be at all surprised to see them make a strong play-off run this year.

My Shiny New Work Permit

2007-08-15T18:38:00.001-04:00

My work permit came through the other day. I now have unlimited permission to work in the USA. This means that I am no longer tied to my current job as a contractor to NASA. It took about nine months for the application to be processed, and several more months before that for me to gather all the information that I needed to make the application. So now, I can quit my job and look for something better, assuming that I wanted to. I enjoy my work. It gets a bit tedious sometimes, but astronomy still thrills me. I am one of the lucky few who get to work at something that I love. One day, the dream will end, but I hope that that day does not come for a long time.

The next step is to get my permanent residence permit: the coveted Green Card. The final paperwork will be submitted next week, and then it is just a matter of waiting several more months for the government to decide whether or not I get to live in the US for as long as I like. The process has taken years so far (with an interruption due to to my divorce). But now, the end is in sight, and that is a great relief. One way or the other, my future will be decided in the next few months.

Drinking

2007-08-11T22:34:00.000-04:00

I realized the other day that I have not had much to drink for the past month or so. This was not a conscious decision, but the result of a series of events that conspired to keep me away from alcohol. It is Summer, so I have been doing a lot more out of the house in the evening. Also, my children are visiting for the Summer, so I tend to be spending more of my evenings reading bedtime stories, which leaves less time for a glass of wine and a good book.

I have a bit of an ambivalent attitude towards alcohol. A few years ago, when I separated from my wife, I stopped drinking for several months, primarily because money was short and ten dollars a week for beer or wine was an unnecessary luxury. However, part of the reason was just to prove to myself that I could do it. My ex-wife was an alcoholic. She never admitted it when we were married, and I was living in denial of her problem too. However, when I moved out I realized that I had spent eight years with someone who's idea of an evening in was to disappear into the bedroom with a bottle of wine. I have heard that since the divorce she has joined AA, and has been sober for about a year and a half. This may even be true, although my ex has a tendency to stretch the truth, often beyond its breaking point.

After several months of self-imposed temperance I started having the occasional drink: a glass of wine on a date, a beer while watching a soccer game, the occasional drink in the evening. I found that I enjoyed those drinks, but had not missed them. Over the past two years I have probably averaged three drinks a week, and over the past month I have probably had no more than three drinks. Stopping and starting drinking is a matter of choice. Fortunately that is a choice that I seem to have no trouble making. For that, I am very grateful.

2007 Man Booker Prize Longlist

2007-08-09T19:31:00.001-04:00

The longlist for the 2007 Man Booker Prize has been released. Here it is.

Darkmans by Nicola Barker
Self Help by Edward Docx
The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng
The Gathering by Anne Enright
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
Gifted by Nikita Lalwani
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn
Consolation by Michael Redhill
Animal's People by Indra Sinha
Winnie & Wolf by A N Wilson

Nothing really jumps out at me on this list. There is the inevitable contribution from Ian McEwan. He seems to get nominated every year, even though he is a bit of an overrated author. Atonement was a good book, but most of his other recent efforts have been average. I have not read On Chesil Beach yet, so I will reserve judgement on whether or not Mr McEwan deserves his nomination this year.

Stay tuned to this space for reviews of the longlist books as I read them. Given my various Summer commitments I expect to make it through one or two of the nominees...

Octopus Day

2007-08-08T18:32:00.000-04:00

The eighth of August is Octopus Day. It started a few years ago, and has slowly been growing in popularity ever since. Today there must be at least five or six people who celebrate it, which is better than the four people who celebrated when it first started. Octopus Day is a day to appreciate octopuses. In a perfect world we would do this every day of the year, but in the real world mundane things like work, meals, and getting the car serviced tend to get in the way. On August 8, however, we should all take a break from the details of our lives and give thanks that such a perfect animal as the octopus happened to evolve at the same time that we are on this planet.

We celebrated Octopus Day in a relatively low-key way this year. There was the handing out of toy octopuses to the children, and then I slipped octopus-shaped cookies into their lunch bags. Both of them were ecstatic when I picked them up after work. It is amazing what a simple cookie can do to the mood of an eight-year-old, not to mention a four-year-old, particularly when it has an odd shape.

The Capitals Training Camp

2007-08-05T21:02:00.000-04:00

The Washington Capitals 2007 training camp is scheduled to open on 14 Sep 2007 at the brand new Kettler Capitals Iceplex. This is the Caps first year in their new training facility, and it will be interesting to see if it has any affect on the team. Training camps are usually rather boring for all but the most hardcore fans, but they are a critical part of the preparations for the new season. For a team training camp is a chance to evaluate new players (and the veterans), and to try out new lines, tactics, and strategies. For the fan training camp is a great opportunity to evaluate where individual players should rank in fantasy leagues.

Capitals training camp will be open to the public, and there will be no charge to get it. For those of you who, like me, are unfortunate enough to live in the Washington, DC area the Kettler Capitals Iceplex can be reached by Metro. Take the Orange Line to the Ballston-MU station. From there, one can walk to the complex. Exit the Ballston station and proceed straight ahead through the doors under the sign “Ballston Metro Center”. Stay right and go up the escalator. Go straight through the glass doors and across the covered bridge. Follow the signs to Ballston Common Mall and Regal Cinema. Stay right and go through the glass doors and across the second covered bridge. Enter Ballston Common Mall and proceed to the garage elevators. I'll see you there.

A Day at the Beach

2007-08-02T22:21:00.000-04:00

I just got back from two days at the beach with my children. We decided that, since I do not see enough of my children, we should make the most of our Summer together and drive to the beach for a couple of days. The time was mostly spent riding inner tubes in the ocean, watching my eldest daughter fearlessly leap into waves that were bigger than she is, and braving rides at the little fairground there. We also picked up some dresses for the girls. All in all, 'twas a great way to spend two hot Summer days, and a great excuse not to go to work.

Over the past two years I have been working on learning how to swim. Two and a half years ago I could barely swim from one side of a pool to the other--the short way. Now, I routinely do quarter-mile swims after work. On our little beach vacation I learned that I am now able to swim in the ocean when my feet can no longer touch the sand. My swimming has become strong enough that I can swim back to shore even when the undertow wants to drag me out and drown me like a kitten in a sack. To be realistic, it was not a strong undertow, but two years ago I would not have been willing to go in much above my knees. My transition from human to squid is proceeding ahead of schedule.

Off to the Beach

2007-08-01T09:02:00.000-04:00

This is just a brief post before I leave for the beach. I was originally planning to write something about the people who are vying to become the Democratic Party's presidential candidate in the 2008 US presidential election. However, when I started writing I realized that it would take me a while to organize what I want to say, so I will postpone that discussion until later. The grist of what I intended to say is that the Democratic slate of candidates is probably far weaker than most Democratic supporters realize, and that it is not obvious to me that the Republicans will not just walk all over whoever is eventually selected.

And now, off to the beach for a couple of days in the Sun. With luck, the weather will be nice and the water will be warm.

Are we Smarter than Our Parents?

2007-07-31T22:06:00.000-04:00

I have just finished reading the book Everything Bad is Good for You, a book that argues that modern pop culture has become so complex that it requires a good deal of intelligence to comprehend it. The basic idea is that today's tv shows, games, and culture are significantly more complex than their counterparts of a generation ago were, and therefore people need to put more brain power into understanding them than our parents did. The book makes a convincing case that this is so. Steven Johnson shows how, on average, popular culture is more complex than it used to be, and that that is driving intelligence to higher levels.

This got me thinking. Much of pop culture is a wasteland. There are some aspects of it that are challenging, complex, and require considerable smarts to decipher, but on the whole pop culture is a waste of time. On the other hand, there are two aspects of modern society that are rapidly becoming more complex, and that all of us have to deal with on a daily basis. Perhaps these, more than pop culture, are contributing to a general increase in some forms of intelligence.

The first is our jobs. Over the past two generations western society has moved from being based on manual labour to being based on highly-skilled labour. Sixty years ago anyone in good physical shape could find work as a labourer, and be reasonably well paid for it. Today one typically needs a skill to get even low-paying jobs, and those skills can take years to learn. Today white collar employees outnumber blue collar ones. A high school diploma is barely enough to get a job at a fast food joint. If we want a career we need to train, and often train hard. Then when we find work it often involves using a considerable amount of intelligence to do the job. This is not just true for white collar jobs. Working on a road crew, for example, requires learning how to use sophisticated machinery. Being a plumber involves learning byzantine regulations. Today's workplace tends to require far smarter employees than did yesterday's.

The second aspect is how we get to work. Two generations ago most people either walked or took public transportation. Today, almost everyone drives. Driving takes skill. Anyone can learn to operate a car in a few weeks. But it takes about twenty years for a person to become a really good driver, as evidenced by the fact that crash rates tend to plateau for drivers in their mid-thirties. A driver has to keep track of many things at once, and do a good job of predicting what other drivers will do. Failure to do this can result in death. Most people in the US and Canada spend at least an hour a day driving. And whether they realize it or not their brains are working in high gear while they do. Roads are far more crowded than they were two generations ago, and cars are faster. The complexity of driving has increased over the past sixty years, and so has the intelligence needed to drive.

So, the average person today faces far more mental challenges on a daily basis than the average person did thirty or sixty years ago. Does this mean that we are more intelligent than our parents or grandparents? In some sense yes, it does. It takes far more skill to earn a living today than it did in 1947. It takes far more skill to drive a car today than it did in 1947. Our problem solving and analytical skills probably are stronger than our parents' were. However, today we tend to live in smaller social units than our parents and grandparents did. Extended families today are people that we see for a few days a year. Sixty years ago they were people that we saw several times a week. When we drive to work we do not talk to the person next to us on the bus. In fact, it is easy today to go an entire day without talking to anyone outside of our homes or offices. Our social circles are smaller than they were a generation or two ago, and that can adversely affect our social intelligence. So, we gain one form of smarts at the cost of another form.

Giant Squid Music

2007-07-30T21:55:00.000-04:00

This is just a brief post about a band with a great name: Giant Squid. I am not a big fan of their music, but I think that we should all support any band that names itself after a cephalopod; so, please buy this album.

The Caps 2007 Preseason Schedule

2007-07-29T19:05:00.000-04:00

The Washington Capitals released their 2007 preseason schedule a couple of weeks ago. It is not a great line-up for the fans. The Caps will play seven preseason games. Four of them will be on the road, and only three of them will be at home. Those three home games are against Carolina, Ottawa, and Philadelphia. With the exception of Ottawa none of those teams are very good right now, and they certainly are not interesting to watch play. This will make it hard to generate any sort of preseason buzz in DC.

DC is not a good place to be an NHL hockey team. The local fan base is small, and consists mostly of expatriate Canadians, like me. The last time that I went to a Caps game I was cheering for their Canadian opponents, and sitting right behind me were several people who had just moved here from Vancouver, and were cheering for the Canadian team. Hockey just isn't on most people's radar in this town. Hockey isn't on the media's radar either. The two local daily papers (one of which is owned by the Moonies) give minimum coverage of hockey, and the local tv and radio virtually ignore it. There is one local channel that shows Caps games, but hardly anyone watches.

What the Capitals have done by having such a lame preseason schedule is ensure that there will be little or no media interest, or fan interest in the preseason games. Granted, preseason games are usually dull since teams use them to try out new players and experiment with lines that no sane coach would play in a game that mattered, but for fans these games are the first hockey that we see in months. They are the mouthful of water after crawling through the Summer desert. They are the eagerly awaited harbingers of the new season. We the fans want to see good hockey in September, not games against teams that simply don't matter.

The full preseason schedule for the Caps is

Date	Victim
Sun, 16 Sep, 1500	at Carolina
Thu, 20 Sep, 1900	at Ottawa
Sat, 22 Sep, 1930	at Tampa Bay
Tue, 25 Sep, 1900	Carolina
Wed, 26 Sep, 1900	at Philadelphia
Fri, 28 Sep, 1900	Philadelphia
Sun, 30 Sep, 1700	Ottawa

The Tour de France and Drugs

2007-07-28T17:11:00.000-04:00

So the Tour de France is having some serious drug problems. I imagine that there are perhaps ten other people in North America who care. Which is too bad because the Tour de France is perhaps the most gruelling sporting event on the planet. Anyone who thinks that that competitive cycling is easy simply has no credibility in my book. Competitive cycling, like most sports, has rampant abuse of steroids and other drugs. And this year the Tour organizers decided that they are going to take a hard line against anyone who is caught doping. They have already disqualified several riders, including Michael Rasmussen. If you don't know who he is you really have no right calling yourself a sports fan. Even if you are not a big cycling fan Rasmussen is one of the most recognizable athletes in the world. For him to be caught doping is a very big deal.

So, the Tour de France is having some serious drug problems. What is to be done about it. To start with the doping charges have cast a pretty long shadow over this year's race. How much does the race mean if some of the best cyclists in the world are disqualified? Perhaps it is time to stop worrying about athletes doping. It is, at some level, an admission of defeat, but it is also an acceptance of reality. Drugs are already a Neddy-No-No amongst sports regulators, and many athletes simply don't care. If anything, the use of performance enhancing substances is increasing. Allowing their use would simply be accepting the world as it really is. Athletes have always gone to extremes to gain a competitive edge. Runners are known to breathe pure oxygen before races. Some have gone as far as having blood transfusions when running at high altitude to increase the oxygen content in their blood. Special diets (of every imaginable type) are common amongst athletes. Vitamins and dietary supplements are widely used. Where does one draw the line between a legal and illegal substance?

Sooner or later the sporting community is going to have to have to deal with this issue. The current policy of zero tolerance, inspired largely by America's idiotic (and disastrous) war on drugs, is not working. Let's replace it with a use at your own risk policy. This is not an ideal solution, but would it be any worse than the mess that we are in now?

On My iPod

2006-04-25T20:39:00.000-04:00

Here is what I am listening to on my iPod right now.

The Arctic Monkeys
The Killers
The Bravery
Kaiser Chiefs
Snow Patrol
Great Big Sea
The Secret Machines

Squid Personality

2006-04-24T20:11:00.000-04:00

Squid Personality Researchers at the University of Tasmania have found that squid have personality. Not only that, squid personalities appear to be passed down from parent to offsprint, and can be modified by the environment that the squid live in. Squid and octoposes are the most intelligent molluscs, and the most intelligent of the invertebrates. It is nice to know that the more we learn about them the smarter they turn out to be. Then there is the Byers-Squid personality test.

NHL Predictions

2006-04-23T21:36:00.000-04:00

NHL Predictions Here are my predictions for the first round of the NHL playoffs. Ottawa will easily defeat Tampa Bay. Tonight's disappointment will probably not be repeated. Carolina will probably end up defeating Montréal, which is too bad because the Canadiens have tried so hard this year. New Jersey will have no trouble taking out the Rangers, and Buffalo will eventually overcome the Flyers. In the west Edmonton will surprise a lot of people and take out the Red Wings. Dallas will win over Colorado. Calgary will defeat the Mighty Ducks, although I am typing this as I watch the tragic first period of game 2, I still see Calgary as being the stronger team. Finally, San Jose is going to walk all over Nashville. Let's see how well I did in a couple of weeks.

Squidblog

2005-08-15T21:25:00.000-04:00

There is not much happening today. Work was uneventful. The drive home was routine. Dinner was a garbonzo and tuna pasta salad that has been sitting in the fridge since Saturday. All in all Tuesday, 15 August 2005 was not a day that I am likely to remember much beyond the end of this week. Usually on Mondays I try to post something about squid, or other cephalopodea. Today I want to point out Squidblog, a blog about "giant squid, colossal squid, any squid at all". It is not a bad blog, but it would be nice if it were updated a bit more often. The 15 July, 2005 entry describes the possible sighting of a live giant squid. If true this is the first time that a giant squid as ever been seen in its natural habitat. Unfortunately all we have is one person's description. There is no film or other physical evidence. Still, there is no reason not to believe this report, and even if John Howard did not see a giant squid, whatever it was was still big enough to eat him if it had wanted to.

The Caps are Going to be Big

2005-08-14T16:25:00.000-04:00

The Washington Capitals have been quietly putting together a new team over the past week. Louis Robitaille (F) and Matt Petinger (LW) will be back when the coming season opens on October 4. In addition the Caps have signed two free agents, Boyd Kane (LW) and Jamie Heward (D). They also obtained Bryan Muir (D) from Los Angeles for future considerations. The Muir trade is interesting. At 100 kg and 1.95 m Muir is a big defenceman. Add to this the signing on Wednesday of Ivan Majesky and Mathieu Miron, both of whom are even bigger than Muir, and the Capitols look like they are going to be a team that does its share of pushing other teams around.

2005 Booker Prize Longlist Announced

2005-08-13T12:25:00.000-04:00

The long list for the 2005 Mann-Booker prize was announced last Wednesday. The full list is

Aw, Tash - The Harmony Silk Factory
Banville, John - The Sea
Barnes, Julian - Arthur and George
Barry, Sebastian - A Long Long Way
Coetzee, J. M. - Slow Man
Cusk, Rachel - In the Fold
Ishiguro, Kazuo - Never Let Me Go
Jacobson, Dan - All for Love
Lewycka, Marina - A Short Histor of Tractors in Ukranian
McEwan, Ian - Saturday
Mantel, Hilary - Beyond Black
Meek, James - A Peoples' Act of Love
Rushdie, Salman - Shalimar the Clown
Smith, Ali - The Accidental
Smith, Zadie - On Beauty
Thompson, Harry - This Thing of Darkness
Wall, William - This Is the Country

The Prince George's County Memorial Library System only has two of these book, which is a little surprising considering that man of these books have been in print for much of the last year. Personally I find this a bit disappointing since one of the functions of a public library is to allow people to be exposed to new literature, and the Booker Prize nominees are generally considered to be among the best of the previous year's crop of English-language fiction. On thing to notice about this list is the large number of established authors, like Rushdie, McEwan, and Coetzee. I would prefer that the prize committee be a bit more adventurous in setting the long list. Rushdie, for example, is a highly over-rated writer, and Shalimar the Clown has not even been published yet! Why is it on the list? It would be rather sad if the Booker Prize became as irrelevant as the Nobel Prize in Literature. Watch this space on September 8 for the short list.

Sixty Days to Go

2005-08-07T19:46:00.000-04:00

There are only 60 days to go until the 2005-2006 NHL season starts. It is hard to imagine hockey in the depths of August, but hockey will soon be back in Washington, DC. The Washington Capitals have managed to sign Alexander Ovechkin to a three-year deal. Ovechkin, a Russian left-winger, is one of the most promising new players to enter the league this year. Forget all this talk about Sydney Crosby. I will be watching Ovechkin and the Caps.

Xtreme Sushi

2005-08-04T20:47:00.000-04:00

Here we have a blatent case of octopus abuse.

Deep Fried Live

2005-07-25T21:26:00.000-04:00

Some people say that British tv is far superior to American tv. My experience was that British tv, especially the BBC, was mostly awful. Most of it was so painfully bad that my wife and I ended up going out and socializing. There were a few exceptions to the general rule that British tv is far worse than US tv. A handful of comedies were brilliant, but the real gems were the cooking shows. Programming like Can't Cook, Won't Cook and Ready, Steady, Cook are entertaining, and taught people practical cooking. In contrast US cooking shows tend to resemble Xtreme sports events, or blood feuds. However, the other day I discovered the best North American cooking programme of them all, and it is only available over the Web. Deep Fried Live is all that a cooking show should be. Check out, for example, the episode about how to cook a steak. The show explains in a clear, entertaining way how to cook a steak with out the cow's sacrifice being in vain. And the host is cool.

The NHL's CBA Failure

2005-07-24T21:44:00.000-04:00

The NHL is back! As much as I hate to admit it I am glad the National Hockey League is playing again. I missed listening to Canucks games. I missed Yahoo's fantasy hockey. I missed watching the Capitals reach for the bottom of the barrel, and overshoot. Unfortunately the recent collective bargaining agreement between the league and the players' union has not solved the underlying problem with the sport: hockey is a regional sport. It is highly popular in Canada and parts of the US, but in much of America hockey is as popular as a squid in a bathtub. Adding shoot-outs is not going to make hockey pay in Florida. Until the NHL is willing to face reality (and the new CBA suggests that that is not going to happen for a while) and let teams like the Florida Panthers and Phoenix Coyotes go under the league is not going to be financially stable. The NHL needs to stop pretending that it is the NBA. There is simply no interest in hockey in some parts of the US, and manipulating the finances of the entire league to subsidize teams in cities where most people think that ice is found in a ring, not a rink, will just hurt the league in the long run. In a perfect world I would like the see the NHL in Florida, and North Carolina, and DC, and Arizona; but in the real world that is a pipe dream. My message to the NHL is to practice some tough love and let the 800 hockey fans in those states watch the game on tv instead of live.

Republicans Court Porn Stars

2005-07-06T20:07:00.000-04:00

At first I thought that this was a joke. President Bush and the Republican Party invite an adult film producer and and adult film star to a GOP fundraiser. But, it is true. The GOP invited adult film producer Mark Kulkis of Kick Ass Pictures (the Web link is link omitted in good taste, but a quick Google will find it for you if you want) to attend a $2500 a plate fund raiser in Washington, DC on Wednesday, June 15, 2005. Also on the guest list was porn star Mary Carey. President Bush was present at the fund raiser. Imagine if that had been a Democratic fund raiser. We would never have heard the end of it. Why is the right-wing media suddenly silent on this breach of good taste and family values? Where is the FOX News coverage? Where is the indignation from middle America? It is funny how right and wrong depend on who is involved.

Octopus Suicides

2005-07-04T17:28:00.000-04:00

Today is the 4th of July, so I did not have to go to work today. However, I ended up drawing the short straw and spening the day on call in case Swift detected a gamma-ray burst. That means that I am tied to my laptop and internet connection. To pass the time I did some research on octopuses. One of the more interesting things that I found is an article about the apparent suicides of some animals. It sometimes bothers me when people assume that animals, by definition, can not be conscious. No one really know what consciousness is, so it seems a bit arrogant to say that it is a purely human phenomenon. Probably the best approach is to say that animal consciousness is simply not understood.

Swimming

2005-06-19T20:48:00.000-04:00

Never mind swimming with the dolphins. For an Xtreme experience try swimming with the squid.

Lord Vader Knows All

2005-06-18T21:03:00.000-04:00

So you think that you are a real tough dude. So you think that you were born to be a Sith lord. Well, know you can challenge Lord Vader to a battle of wits to find out if you realy do belong at the Emporer's side. It is silly, but amusing.

Swimming in Greenbelt

2005-06-17T06:41:00.000-04:00

I went swimming yesterday after work. The local outdoor pool opened about three weeks ago and I have been trying to go two or three times a week. Splashing around in the water is one of the nicer ways to deal with 30 degree heat and 95% humidity. I can barely swim, so I tend to spend a lot of time sitting in the pool watching people, and I have come to the conclusion that thong swimwear for men should be banned. Greenbelt is not Rio de Janeiro, so why do some guys insist on dressing as if it was?

Star Trek: The New Voyages

2005-06-08T21:38:00.000-04:00

Now that Enterprise has died a long overdue death Star Trek has been delegated to the world of syndication and reruns, just like it was during that dark era known as the 1970s. Or has it been... A group of Star Trek fans has decided that the original Star Trek needs to be revived, but with new stories and new actors. The future of Star Trek may be on the InterNet in the form of Star Trek: New Voyages. New Voyages tells the stories of the fourth year of the Enterprise's five year mission. The creators have gone to considerable length to ensure that these new episodes capture the look and feel of the original series, and they succeed. Once I got past the fact that Kirk, Spock, Bones, and the rest are being portrayed by new actors I found myself caught up in the story. It made me feel like I was watching an episode of the original series. Star Trek, for me, is wrapped up in nostalgia. The original Star Trek was my first exposure to science fiction, and almost my first exposure to television. It was also one of the first things that I remember liking that my parents had no interest in. And I have not seen an episode of the original series in donkey's ages. This makes it hard for me to make an objective comparision between Star Trek, the original series, and Star Trek: New Voyages. Do I like the New Voyages because it has intrinsic merit, or do I like it because it reminds me of seeing an episode of the original series for the first time? I do not know, or care. Star Trek: New Voyages is worth watching. This may be the future of Star Trek: not as high-budget tv shows or movies, but as fan projects. The trekkies who created Star Trek: New Voyages were able to do something that no-one else has been able to do since the original series was cancelled: capture the feel of Star Trek. Check it out.

Giant Squid Recipe

2005-06-02T21:49:00.000-04:00

Here is a recipe for giant squid. I suspect that "begihaundi" is not really architeuthis dux.

A Day in the Life

2005-05-25T21:58:00.000-04:00

0730: Wake up and realise that I have overslept. Take a quick shower and run out the door to catch the bus.

0800: Catch the bus and doze off for fifteen minutes.

0820: Get to my office and realise that I forgot the keys at home. The next ten minutes is spent trying to find someone who has a master key.

0830: I finally get into my office. I spend the next half hour looking at the data from last night's big, bright, exciting gamma-ray burst.

0900: The dreaded Mission Operations Control daily teleconference. I waste an hour on the phone when I would much rather be looking at data, or even getting a root canal done.

1015: The weekly Swift/UVOT (UltraViolet/Optical Telescope) science teleconference takes place. Everyone is all atwitter about the big, bright, exciting gamma-ray burst that happened last night (and kept me up until one in the morning). We decide to write a paper on it and I get assigned the task of analysing the way that the optical and ultraviolet light faded.

1130: I spend the next hour and a half analysing the data and having a grand old time. This is the best part of my job.

1300: Buy a sandwich at the canteen and take it back to my desk. No lunch hour for the dedicated.

1315: Spend the next three hours or so working on the gamma-ray burst data. It looks good!

1600: Yet another teleconference. We prattle on to each other for about an hour and accomplish essentially nothing. I spend far to much of my time talking to people.

1700: Work on the gamma-ray burst data some more.

1740: Get a ride home with the person a couple of offices down.

1750: Arrive home, change my shoes, and go to T`ai Chi class.

1800: Spend two hours doing T`ai Chi. All stress seeps out of me and into the ground, where I never need to worry about it again.

2000: Go shopping for something for supper. I buy an ham steak, a quart of milk, a loaf of bread, some breakfast cereal, and a small box of cookies. Junk food rules.

2030: Arrive home and make supper. I make a rosti (potato pancake) and fry up half of the ham steak. Serve it with a green salad and drink a couple of glasses of water. For dessert I pig out on cookies.

2100: Socialize with my roommate for an hour or so, and learn more than I ever imagined about artificial legs.

2200: Write today's blog entry.

2230: Go to bed and read a chapter or two of Neverwhere (a great book).

2300: Go to sleep.

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Nerds

2005-05-21T20:38:00.000-04:00

Cool NASA Picture

2005-05-19T21:58:00.000-04:00

This is cool. One spacecraft takes pictures of spacecraft orbiting another planet.

BC Politics as Seen from Inside the Beltway

2005-05-19T20:15:00.000-04:00

This blog is probably the only coverage that the 2005 BC election will get in the DC area. I actually do not have much to say. The NDP got about 40% of the vote, just like they always do. The Green Party did not manage to elect anyone (as usual) and Social Credit (currently going under the name "Liberals") won with a little less than half of the vote. This is not much different than any other BC election in the past 52 years. At least the public-transit-hating NDP did not win the election. What is interesting about the election is that the voters soundly rejected the first-past-the-post voting system. Slightly more than 57% of the voters voted to replace it with a single transferable vote (STV) system that about 17 people on the planet understand. Unfortunately it needed to get 60% of the vote to be adopted for future elections. If the proposed new system was not so incredibly opaque it would have easily raced past that mark and BC would have an electoral system that actually produced results that match the way people vote. STV is a fundamentally good idea, but it is far too complex. Let's hope that the next step in BC is not the STV supporters trying to convince another 3% of the voters, but that the people who want electoral reform throw their enthusiasm behind a more intuitive system, such as the mixed proportional representation system that has worked so well in other parts of the world. Electoral reform can easily become a reality in BC, if the people who are working for it are willing to move on from the results of this election.

Coffee for Non-Snobs

2005-05-17T20:37:00.000-04:00

Coffee. It is what fuels western civilization. There are those who say that coffee in undrinkable unless if it is made with Kona beans, or Jamaica Blue Mountain, or something similarly expensive. There is some truth to this. However, most of the time the reason that a cup of coffee is undrinkable has nothing to do with the coffee. Here are three simple rules for making a decent cup of wake-up juice. They will not save coffee made with Safeway Bargain Blend, but failing to follow any one of these rules can make even the best beans taste like industrial sludge. First, use clean equipment. Nothing destroys the taste of coffee quite like yesterday's coffee does. Use hot water and mild soap to clean your equipment after each use. Do not let old coffee or grounds sit in the pot. Clean up immediately. Second, use water that tastes good. There is no need to go to extremes, like using distilled water, but if you don't like the taste of the water on its own, you will not like the taste of it in coffee. Third, use a china cup or ceramic mug. Never drink coffee from a paper, styrofoam, or metal cup, unless if you are in the mood for the taste of paper, styrofoam, or metal. One should taste the coffee, not the mug. That is it. Follow these three rules and most coffee will taste good.

All the Geeks Will Want One

2005-05-13T20:47:00.000-04:00

I think that I have found the perfect new computer for me. If only fish could live in mineral oil. My German is fairly useless, but as near as I can tell our hero got annoyed with the noise of the forced-air cooling in his computer so he simply dumped his entire motherboard into an aquarium filled with mineral oil. No modifications were necessary; he even left the fans running to keep the oil moving about. The only thing not submersed in oil is the hard disk.

Doctor Who. Where? When?

2005-05-11T09:44:00.000-04:00

I have found another problem with living in the USA. Don't get me wrong, I like it here. The USA has a lot going for it, even if people here do think that red is the colour of conservatism. The problem is that BBC's new Doctor Who series is not being shown here. The only way to see Doctor Who is to be lucky enough to live near enough to the Canadian border to get CBC tv. CBC, for those who live in the USA, is the Canadian Broadcasting Company and is widely recognized as one of the best publicly-owned tv networks on the planet. But most people in this country have never heard of it. This brings up a general problem with tv in the USA: almost all of it comes from inside the USA. To be fair there are networks like Telemundo that broadcast in Spanish, but they are still American stations. Unless if one lives in a border town it is very unlikely that the local cable company will carry any station that originates outside the USA. This means that Americans tend to be rather insulated from what the rest of the world thinks, which is never a good thing. There is a lot of good in American tv. The Simpsons, Battlestar Galactica, King of the Hill, and Smallville, to name but a few, demonstrate that television has finally become a medium that can tell stories as well as the best traditional literature does. We may be on the edge of a paradigm shift in the way that we tell stories thanks to American tv. However, I still regret that I can not see the new Doctor Who which, judging from some reports, belongs in the upper echelons of today's tv shows.

Life in the Fallout Zone

2005-05-05T20:31:00.000-04:00

Guess where I live. It is about where 495 and 295 intersect on the map. If the wind is from the southwest, and someone decides the set of a ten kiloton nuclear bomb next to the White House all that would be left for me to do is say good-bye to my spice rack. Living in the DC (well, okay, technically I am living in Maryland) is a bit like having a vineyard on the slopes of Mt Etna: know what is going to happen, you just hope that it happens when you are somewhere else. Fortunately, there are too many good things in life to spend much time worrying about what might happen. I am at much greater risk when I cross the street to get to work each morning than I am from an atomic attack. The odds of me dying of food poisoning dwarf the odds of me dying from biological weapons. The most dangerous chemical threat in my life is the cat's litter box. I do want to live forever, but I do not want to spend that eternity worried about what I can not control. This map was intended to scare me, but in the end it just reassured me.

Time and Squid Wait for No Man

2005-05-02T20:52:00.000-04:00

Today's Globe and Mail has a nice article about a man who caught a jumbo squid off the B.C. coast. These squid are perhaps the most viscous mollusks in the oceans. As the Globe and Mail writes:

Imagine Todd Bertuzzi with bulging eyes, eight arms, two tentacles, three hearts, a beak for a mouth, a brain wrapped around his esophagus and gullet with a willingness -- nay, eagerness -- to dine on his own kind every other meal, and you get a sense of how the squid has earned such a fearsome reputation.

If squid jigging isn't your thing there is a convention at MIT on Saturday, May 7, 2005 for time travellers. I have a T'ai Chi class that day, but perhaps I will go last year.

Red or Blue

2005-05-01T21:51:00.000-04:00

One can usually tell whether a US baby boomer votes red or blue from whether or not they got laid during the Summer of Love.

What Use is a Newspaper?

2005-04-30T16:25:00.000-04:00

I sat down today, like I do most days, to read the Washington Post. It is not one of the best newspapers in the US, but it is the best daily in DC, and I am old enough to have been conditioned to think that one should read the local papers. As I finished I realized that I had skimmed through the front section without reading any of the articles. Thinking about this for a minute or two I realized that that is what I usually do: skim the headlines and ignore the articles. This is not true for the business, sports, entertainment, and other sections; those I usually read in detail. The news sections, however, I tended to ignore. Newspapers, for me, have stopped being about news. Over the past year or two I have been getting almost all of my news from the internet. Google's excellent news site allows me to keep up with breaking news several times a day. Several stories about an event are only a click away. By the time that the morning paper arrives the "news" stories seem hopelessly out of date. For example, today's Washington Post contained an article about a Florida woman who had been kidnapped from her own wedding. However, before my paper even made it to the breakfast table I had read an on-line article about how she had faked her own kidnapping in a case cold feet. The "news" in the newspaper was worse than old, it was obsolete. The rôle of the print media is no longer to provide news. It is to provide the in-depth information that I do not have the time to read during my daily Web surfing. If newspapers are to survive they are going to need to provide content that can not be delivered to my laptop over the home WiFi network. Headlines, the score of last night's Capitals-Canucks game, and stock quotes are not relevant to modern newspapers. In-depth articles about what is happening in the world, opinion pieces, detailed analyses of DC United's chances this summer, and comprehensive reviews of local events and offerings are. In other words, I want my newspaper to provide timely information that is not easy to get online. If my local newspaper does not do this, I probably will not buy it--or miss it.