I’m going camping for a week so there won’t be updates until friday. Have fun, change the world.
Cool words I learned from William Faulkner
I’m struggling my way through William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom and I discovered early on that there were quite a few words that I didn’t know. So, instead of interrupting the story, I began writing all the words down on index cards that I keep in the inside cover of the book. Here are some fun ones:
- Peripatetic — adj. traveling from place to place, esp. working or based in various places for relatively short periods.
- Voluble — adj. speaking or spoken incessantly and fluently.
- Abrogate — verb. repeal or do away with.
- Bivouac — noun. a temporary camp without tents or cover, used esp. by soldiers or mountaineers.
This American Life on Showtime Tomorrow
The radio show This American Life is making its television debut tomorrow at 10:30 Eastern/Pacific time on Showtime. If the cartoon posted on boingboing yesterday is any indication, the show looks like it will be really good. I don’t have Showtime though… dangit!
Wars end, killing goes on.
In the final episode of the HBO miniseries “Band of Brothers“, World War II had ended and the men of the 101st airborne were trying to figure out how to pass the time. Sadly, the official peace declarations did not put an end to the death in the 101st. People were still being reckless and held grudges resulting in the deaths of a few people.
As I was reading Philip Gourevitch’s “We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families” this evening, I couldn’t help but realize that a similar type thing happened after the genocide in Rwanda. About a year after the genocide, there was a large refugee camp in a town in southern Rwanda called Kibeho that held a couple hundred thousand misplaced persons. In one night, 2000 to 3000 people were killed in this camp. Mind you, this was after the genocide had ended. This was a camp that was supposed to be peaceful and safe for refugees.
Both Band of Brothers and the killings in Kibeho got me thinking about the ends of wars. Has there ever been a war that has ended “cleanly”? For the United States, once we pull out of a country there is no more killing of our soldiers but the people in the occupied contries still kill each other. If there is never a clean ending, shouldn’t we think of the signing of treaties more as the beginning of the end than the clear cut ending?
I guess history needs a set date for posterity’s sake but I think the end of the war should be marked in the history books as the date of the last official death of a soldier that is deployed during the war. This would be more respectful and honorable to those who gave their lives to serve their cause, even after the goal has been “accomplished”.
Technorati Tags: war
Environmentally Friendly Surfboard Blanks
Two of my passions are surfing and saving the world. Sadly, these two do not always go together very well because of the nature of the chemicals used to produce surfboards. Luckily, a company called Homeblown US has developed what they call the first “green” surfboard blanks.
According to the company, about 50% of the ingredients in these blanks, called Biofoam, are made from agricultural products. “A life cycle analysis of Biofoam indicates that its production results in 36% less global warming emissions and a 61% reduction in non-renewable energy use.” The company also says that Biofoam is as good as any other foam blank when it comes to weight, strength, and ability to shape.
This is definitely good news for the surfing industry. Surfing charities could totally jump on something like this and encourage their members to switch over. Price may be an issue though, the article doesn’t talk about production cost though I would imagine it to be more expensive than the more traditional blanks.
Technorati Tags: environment, global-warming, surfing
Bible Survey
With all of the recent news about religious illiteracy in the United States, I got to wondering not just how well people know the stories in the bible but if people even know which books belong in which testament of the bible. So I put together a little survey.
The idea is simple. Just match the books of the bible to their corresponding testament. You don’t even have to read the bible to know this stuff. I’m trying to get a lot of people to do this of various backgrounds so please send it to your friends.
Sinkpositive recycles Handwash Water for Toilet
Sinkpositive is a cool idea for an environmentally friendly sink and toilet combination. What it does is takes the water you use to wash your hands after using the bathroom and uses it the next time you flush your toilet. This is cool for a couple reasons. First it gets you to wash your hands because doing so helps more than hygiene. Second, it saves water. Right now the contraption looks kind of ugly, it would be cool to get an integrated system working with a detached sink. Via TreeHugger.
Technorati Tags: conservation, environment, globalwarming
New York Times Opens Pay Wall for Students
According to Editor and Publisher, the New York Times is going to open up it’s TimesSelect paywall for students and teachers permanently on March 13. This is awesome because there are some cool things behind the wall but sad at the same time. The way that you receive your free subscription is with a .edu email and high schools are not worthy of such a prestigious TLD. This means I’ll still have to pay.
Technorati Tags: nytimes
Conservapedia is Dangerous and Needs to be Stopped
When I first saw Conservapedia a few days ago, I didn’t think much of it. Another Wikipedia clone, nothing really to set it apart from the rest. It wasn’t until my way home today that I realized how dangerous this site actually is. In an interview by Robert Siefel, Conservapedia founder Andrew Schlafly discusses a few of the differences between Conservapedia and Wikipedia (which he claims is 6 times more biased than the American public).
For example, the interview brought up the Conservapedia article on Kangaroos, specifically their origins. In the article, it states:
According to the origins theory model used by creation scientists, modern kangaroos, like all modern animals, originated in the Middle East and are the descendants of the two founding members of the modern kangaroo baramin that were taken aboard Noah’s Ark prior to the Great Flood.
300 Fever
My school has definitely caught the “300 Fever“. I have not yet seen the movie (I’m going tonight) but one of my teachers was just going around today yelling “This is Sparta!” I hope kicks as much as everybody says it does but seriously, how can you go wrong with severed heads?
Edwards and Obama Embrace Social Networking
Social networking is definitely the buzzword leading into the 2008 campaign cycle and the Democrats seem to be all over it. It started with Howard Dean in 2004 and Joe Trippi’s book “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” explained how well it worked.
Following the footsteps of the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and John Edwards have definitely embraced the social networks. John Edwards first started on this when Kevin Marks and Danah Boyd (correct me if I am wrong on this one) convinced him to sign up for an account on Myspace.
A few months ago, Barack Obama launched his own social network for campaigning, my.barackobama.com. This site encourages users to blog and set fundraising goals for Mr. Obama’s campaign.
Now, Edwards has an account on Twitter. I don’t know if it is ghostwritten but this sort of thing definitely makes a politician seem more personable. I guess it could be like the modern equivalent of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s fireside chats.
At the same time, Redstate.com is using social networking sites to show things former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani has said in the past regarding abortion. It will be interesting to see if this type of thing will actually make that big of a difference with social conservatives.
Fear and Loathing in Salton City
Highway S22 goes through Borrego Springs in San Diego County and on through Anza Borrego Desert State Park until it reaches the Salton Sea. On Saturday, my brother decided to take the long way to Palm Desert and head out this leisurely to see what he could find. I tagged along with my other brother.
Before even reaching Borrego Springs, my older brother had decided to go on a hike into “Hell Hole Canyon”. He heard that it was the only place you could actually see bighorn sheep in San Diego. It wasn’t a bad hike and there was actually a small creek that ran through part of the canyon which was pretty cool.
Starbucks to Start Record Label
Apparently selling espresso machines, chocolate, travel mugs and CDs (as well as coffee) isn’t enough for Starbucks. The New York Post is reporting that an announcement could come as early as this week about their newest venture, a record label. Starbucks Records would be different than their current music venture because they would actually sign artists rather than just licensing their work. The rumor is the first album will be by Paul McCartney.
I propose that (if this does indeed happen) that we remove the word “coffee” from the Starbucks logo. What it should be replaced with has yet to be determined but the word “Coffee” will soon be obsolete.
Technorati Tags: music, recordlabel, starbucks
New New Yorker Website
The New Yorker magazine has come out with a new website. This new one is cleaner and brighter than the old one. Kottke is not sure if he likes it but I think it’s cool. The old New Yorker site was in dire need of an update. The new site looks like it is not quite done because they don’t have all the articles up.
Technorati Tags: thenewyorker
Let he who has not sinned…
In an interview with Focus on the Family’s founder James Dobson, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich admitted to an extramarital affair during the Clinton impeachment in 1998. It is true that Mr. Clinton was not on trial for his affair but instead lying under oath about it. This is what separates he and Mr. Gingrich.
What Gingrich did do though was rationalize it to himself. The way he saw it, the worst he would get was embarrassed and I highly doubt he would make the same mistake as the President by lying about it. According to an old article from Salon said that Gingrich was subdued during the impeachment, mostly because of his own past sexual misconduct. Gingrich is not a saint but as the title starts to say, “Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone.”
Technorati Tags: newtgingrich, clinton