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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Terry Karney's LiveJournal:
| Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 | |
| 1:16 pm | What's younger than John McCain? Damn near Everything. For some highlights... The Chocolate Chip Cookie, McDonalds, Mt. Rushmore and (my personal favorite) both of Barack Obama's parents. Couple that to the Republican's new slogan, The Change You Deserve, and one is just croggled. Then again, they are selling McCain (who's been in office since before I was a freshman in high school) as a maverick, so the self-delusion isn't ending; even as they try to distance themselves from Bush. |
| Monday, May 12th, 2008 | |
| 3:43 pm | Republicans Vote Against Moms; No Word Yet on Puppies, Kittens Of course, as Milbank points out; they voted for them before they voted against them. It's more of the obstructionist trickery they've been doing, and which, in the senate, I wish Reid had the balls to make them really stand up and do.... No need to close the Senate down for good on one issue, I think that would be counterproductive, but everytime they threaten a filibuster, make 'em do it for 24 hours. Then bring the next piece of legislation they want to kill to the floor, and make 'em do it again. Every couple of weeks, hold the session open into the weekend. Giving them weapons ("look at how they can't get any laws passed) is stupid. But know we know where the party of, "Family Values" stands on Mom... she's just another conventiant prop to be used for petty positional posturing. |
| Thursday, May 8th, 2008 | |
| 9:12 pm | Memento Mori Back in March Maia and I went up to SLO. I took a lot of pictures. This was one of them.  It's best viewed at full size. |
| 12:07 pm | It seems the struggle never ends Another California school has fired a Quaker for not being willing to swear the 1952 Oath of More amusing (for certain values of amusing) it's another CalState school which should have bee prevented with the resolution after the brouhaha from the last firing. But CSFullerton don't play that way. It's a flip way to describe it; then again, they made the "bridge" argument about fairly applying the law ("The Law, in its majesty forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges"): California State University officials say they were simply following the law and did not discriminate against Gonaver because all employees are required to sign the oath. Clara Potes-Fellow, a Cal State spokeswoman, said the university does not permit employees to submit personal statements with the oath. But the opinions of the State AG, and the Courts seem to be that it's not. After a version of the oath was added to the state Constitution, courts eventually struck down its harshest elements but let stand the requirement of defending the constitutions. In one court test, personal statements accompanying the oath were deemed constitutional as long as they did not nullify the meaning of the oath. Of course the real question is more often, who can afford to fight the system. An employer offers you a job. You come out from Pennsylvania (I'm making a slight inference, she is described as being from Penn., I am assuming it wasn't years ago) and then they say, Oops... you didn't play the game right; your principles aren't in keeping with what we insist you do, bye." Doesn't really matter much that they are in the legal wrong; how are you going to pay to keep body and soul together, much less pay the lawyers. Unless someone makes a stink, you never hear about it. Here's what the school says about it: Potes-Fellow, the Cal State spokeswoman, said the university stands by its stricter interpretation of the requirement and is not affected by how UC or other public institutions handle the oath. "The university concluded that state law did not allow her to attach her addendum," Potes-Fellow said. The attorney general's statement that Kearney-Brown was allowed to attach her oath did not violate Cal State's policy because it was not an addendum, Potes-Fellow said. "We think the circumstances are different in both cases," she said. I haven't read the addendum, but it seems a distinction without difference. As I said before, loyalty oaths are an abomination; they only punish those who think about them, and are loyal. The "disloyal" will simply lie. If they are disloyal in the service of some cause they think worthy such a lie might been seen as a needful duty, in the service of the higher good (would a requirement to swear an oath not to place bombs in trucks have stopped Mcveigh?). All the points I made last time around are still valid. It was stupid then, and it's stupid now. |
| 12:15 am | Some photos I've played with a few more. I've got a copy of Nik Color Filters 3.0, for review. The first thing I did with it was more clever than useful.  The desaturation in the center was done with a brush, and the filter set to convert to IR. You can compare it to the original:  A better use was this one:  Where I had the wrong setting on the camera, (actually, the only way I could have gotten it close would be to have the things set to automatically set the white balance, and I'm leery of that), so the application is more akin to using a color correcting filter when one has the wrong film stock in thne camera. So I used a skylight filter. I did a little localised correction in the center (on Pat and the horse) and then did a secondary one on everything. One of the things I like about flickr is that one can plot the photos on a map. That map can be either drawn, or satellite, or a mix of both. So this photo:  Was taken a couple of years ago, when I was in Ukraine. It's an artillery piece on the entry lawn of the Ukrainian Military Acadamy. When I was trying to plot it to the map I managed to plot it exactly. In fact, it's presently misplotted by about 10 meters,because the marker was completely hiding it; so if one goes to the map link on the right hand side of the page one can see the satellite image of it, both in place, and in detail . |
| Monday, May 5th, 2008 | |
| 11:32 am | Just wonderful They say that sports are a microcosm of the world. That by watching them we get to see the possible, and that we can be uplifted by that. Well, they are right. I am overwhelmed, and to be honest, grateful to the ump who made the wrong call. |
| Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 | |
| 9:27 pm | SonofaBITCH I was walking with Justin ( ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} skeetermonkey's son) this morning.It was a beautiful say, scattered clouds, perfect temps, flowers and the trill of birds. A baby in the sling on my chest and a cool breeze to keep me from overheating. As I was walking I saw a house with a Marine Corps flag. I like the Corps (my father was in it, and for a while, when he was in the reserves, he was the senior PFC for the entire USMC). I don't mind that the flag was faded; lots of Marines are a little shopworn too. Then I saw the storm flag, and the little flag above it; the sort one spends hours placing at headstones on Memorial Day. The storm flag was a little faded too. I thought about going up and leaving a note on the door, about seeing to it the flag flying over the porch ought to be servicable and this one was coming close to needing replacement. Then I saw the flag in the window. A simple rectangle, white with a red border and a Gold Star. |
| Monday, April 28th, 2008 | |
| 8:02 pm | What people look for.... One of the reasons I bought a "Pro" account at flickr was to be able to get stats. One of the stats they give you is referrers. By and large I don't get many. Google comes in third (with a whopping 2 percent/79 incoming links) after this account and flickr itself. But I also get the search strings, Some of them are funny. "enormous fish photos" gets two hits. "close picture of horse hide" and "horsehide what is" each get one. The picture most seen from google hits, Sweat Bee with two separate searches each of which has 11 hits. Yesterday was a record. Of the 139 hits I got, 8 were from Google, Half of those were for Sweat Bees. The other four were schevchenko, poppy seedling picture, butterfly scales macro, and panzer ivb. |
| Saturday, April 26th, 2008 | |
| 9:39 pm | The world is full of wonders The Film, "Expelled" which alleges that Intelligent Design is a "scientific theory" and distorts the interviews done with scientist and evolutionary biologists to make it seem they agree with this; ignoring that science doesn't address issues of abiogenesis, came out last week. So the internets are abuzz with people trying to score points against those of us who happen to undestand; and therefore agree with, evolution. Over at Making Light a two year old thread got a couple of non-drive-by posters; who managed to not only be the usual run of tired half-truths and misrepresentations, but actually offensive. One of them got personally offensive to me to the point I was viscious in response, and abi told them to take a hike. So, in the way that only Divinity can make the world amusing, 1: The Darwin Online Project went live with Darwin's papers, and got hammered. The servers were crashed with 7 milions hits on the first day of that. Something like a quarter of a million downloads of Origin of Species in three days. 2: A new lizard was proven to have evolved on an island off Croatia. The lizard was introduced 39 years ago, five pairs. Then a minor little war got in the way of monitoring them. They have increased to 5,000+, have larger heads, a different social pattern; and eat plants instead of insects. They've modified thier guts to slow passage of the vegetable matter and make it a useful food source. Irony, where is thy sting? |
| 8:05 pm | Life is Teresa Nielsen Hayden explains it all for you Seriously, it's powerful stuff on the human condition. I'd quote the line I really, really, like (right up there with Mike Ford's "Say what you mean, bear witness, iterate" as a rule for living life), but that would be a spoiler. |
| Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 | |
| 3:23 pm | |
| 8:11 am | Today is Billy the Shake's Birthday Sonnet CIV To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I eyed, Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold Have from the forests shook three summers' pride, Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd In process of the seasons have I seen, Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd, Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green. Ah! yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand, Steal from his figure and no pace perceived; So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand, Hath motion and mine eye may be deceived: For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred; Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead. |
| Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 | |
| 4:36 pm | Horn tooting, in awe and wonder I take pictures. I happen to think some of them are pretty good. But thinking one's own work is decent isn't hard to do. Harder is to figure out what other people will like. I think this  is a pretty good picture. Based on other people's reactions, I'm wrong; it's a damned good picture. On the other hand, some of the things I think are outstanding, e.g.  don't seem to resonate with people. So, yesterday I got a comment on this picture, telling me the detail was really good.  I got it from, of all places, the National Museum of Wales It took a little time for me to realise this was the actual flickr account for the Museum of Wales (why shouldn't they have one, the US Library of Congress has one). I don't know who manages the account. I don't know what criteria that person (or people) use to decide what to look at, much less what to praise. I do know the various photos they have (at the museum's flickr account, and at the actual museum pages) include some nice macro, to include some wing scale details. So I'm feeling tolerably pleased with myself. Current Music: Dodger game (vs Reds) |
| Saturday, April 19th, 2008 | |
| 7:50 am | Man shoots himself in the head, twice: Police call it suicide I wish the story were as funny as the header. Body of man, bound with duct tape, washes ashore The police are tending to call it a suicide, saying he could have done it himself. Austin police said Thursday that they are leaning toward a ruling of suicide in the death of a middle school teacher and activist whose body was found Wednesday in Lady Bird Lake with his hands and legs bound and tape over his eyes. Right... because it's typical for those who drown themselves to put tape over their eyes and bind their hands and legs with tape before they jump into the water. There are other things which raise my sense of suspicion. The guy was an activist, the FBI had been looking into him; though they said he wasn't any sort of trouble, FBI questioned his neighbors, and he implied that someone was interfering with what he did. I hate that I think the reason this is being so quickly glossed over is that he was helping Palastinians. He was arab, and the evidence on the ground, per the APD is thin (they said in the notice of preliminary determination that there was no evidence of another person at his car. I hate that I think a similar event, were it someone sending similar types of aid to Christians in Saudi Arabia, would get a lot more attention, even if it was a suicide. |
| Friday, April 11th, 2008 | |
| 12:38 pm | Some food porn (with pictures; since so many have asked) So, doing research on pancakes I decided to make a "baked pancake".  Mostly it's a way to save effort, because it's not a time saver (and for a small enough one, as I made yesterday, it's a net loss on time).  First, we bought some apples at the Pasadena Farmer's Market Short story: Make a batch of batter, pour it into a pan, bake at 350F until done (between 30-50 minutes, depending on the size of the pan). So you don't have to spend time flipping them in the pan. On the other hand, that's a pretty boring thing to be eating. Pancakes, by themselves, aren't the most exciting of foods. So you play with it. I took some apples, and sautéed them in butter, with a bit of cinnamon, until the crisp was just gone. When that was done, I layered them into a pie pan (a large one, 13" across, or so). Then I added a bunch of poppy seeds to the dry ingredients, then I added some honey to the mix (because I don't want to have the cake be so dry, and unsweet, that it has to be drowned in some outside agent, much as I like molasses, maple syrup and sorghum). I love poppy seeds. I love the way they taste, the way the crunch and the way a large quanity of them, as in a palacsinta (an Hungarian dessert crêon;pe), yields, and resists the tooth. Back when I was commuting regularly I used to keep a jar in the car to bite down on when I was stuck in traffic). A couple of years ago I bought a half lb. of them. Maia mocked me. Then I started cooking with them. Pour the batter over the apples (use more, of whatever you have on the bottom, than you think you need), pop them into a preheated oven, and bake.  If you look at the base, you can see where the apples weren't sufficient to balance out the cake itself. It looked fine when the batter was poured in, but the rise completely overwhelmed the fruit.  They rise much higher than one expects. I did one yesterday, with bannanas and cinnamon. I thought I'd sliced enough bannanas. I was wrong, they reduced more in the oven. On the other hand, I used a small cast iron skilled to to the baking (cook the inclusion, and then just pour the batter over it. This has the advantage, if you have the timing right [or a partner] of using the heat in the pan to start the intial spring of heat from the double-acting baking-powder). Prep: Apples: Peel and core some apples; slice into wedges. In a skillet drop a pat of butter, when it's melted add the apples. Season to taste (cinnamon, but tarragon wouldn't be bad, also nutmeg, allspice or cardamom. Depends on what you want). Add poppyseed to the dry ingredients of a standard pancake recipe. To the wet ingredients, add an extra egg and some honey (to give a bit more color, and moisten the crumb). Mix well (more thoroughly than you normally would. In the first place, the batter won't sit, so the dry ingredients won't have time to wet as completely as they do by the end stages of flipping pancakes, and the in the second case you want a finer crumb for this, it's more cakelike than flapjacks). While the batter is resting, layer the apples in the bottom of a pie plate. You can reserve some of them to make a layer in the middle of the cake as well, if so use another apple. For the bannanas. Slice some bananna. In skillet heat some butter. When the banannas are starting to soften, add a splash of calvados. Layer the banannas into the pie pan, and dust with cinnamon. As with the apples, if you want to make the Baking Pour the batter over the fruit, and place into a 350F oven until done (this will depend on the pan, the oven and the size. Much more than enough to make about 2 dz 4" pancakes is probably too much). Not less than 30 minutes, nor more than an hour. Test with a toothpick, or skewer; when it comes out clean, the beast is done. Serving Let it rest for 10-15 minutes, cut into wedges. Dress with butter, powdered sugar, jams, or syrups to taste. |
| 12:32 pm | Padlock, Upland Santa Cruz We were walking back from a trip up to the lava tubes in the highlands of Santa Cruz. We took a cab up, and walked back. It's an exercise in how the camera can lie. What does the entire gate look like? What's the gate protecting? Ignoring the, apparent, condition of the wood (which is at a moderate premium on the islands) how secure is the area behind the gate? The answers are: the gate is low (not quite four feet, as I recall), what's behind it is a yard, with some children's toys. Just down the way was an entrance to the yard, with no gate. But it's still a nice photograph. I particularly like the way the wear from the chain is apparent |
| Saturday, April 5th, 2008 | |
| 7:24 pm | Marting Luther King Jr. I'm late, but it was 40 years ago he was gunned down. To borrow a quotation from someone else who was killed early, and turned into a plaster saint, or straw man villian, and to apply them both to the present day. "To stand in silence when they should be protesting makes cowards out of men" - Abraham Lincoln |
| Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008 | |
| 8:07 am | |
| Sunday, March 30th, 2008 | |
| 4:36 pm | Other words One of the things I wish Lj did better is building community. It's not that I dilike what Lj is, the ability to have, essentially, a news feed of people I like to read, and not have to open dozens of windows, hack my own code, etc. is wonderful. It's very good at fostering relationships, but they tend to be either didactic, or a set of overlapping groups. There are some 400 people who read this. There are, at any given time, about a dozen who comment. No, there are more than that, but it's rare for more than a dozen to chime in on something, and the conversations are (as a rule) short exchanges, without a whole lot of side-chatter elaboration. On Lj, one; generally, speaks to the author, and that's about it. There is something to be said for that (and I think the threading functions are a part of that). There are other blogs I like, which have a different dynamic, one which has some sense of inclusion: Orcinus, Pandagon, Slackitivist. Boing-Boing is starting to build that. There's been a lot of tension about it; because part of the reason is the tragedy of the commons. Usenet has become a swamp. A vast bastion of Libertarianism. A place where a lot of people are offended that they can't do anything they want. Boing-Boing suffered from that. They used to have comments, but the trolls came, and stank up the joint. So they hired tnh to practice her moderation-fu. I've been watching her style for a long time, because her blog, Making Light, has a wonderful community. It has community because it has rules (I have rules, because I watched Usenet go from fun, to toxic sludge, and I watched some of the folks I liked to spend time with move to Making Light, and keep the parts I liked, and I took the ideas I saw implemented there, and tailored them to my sense of order).The proof of the pudding is how the hot-button topics get handled. Anyplace can be swell to hang out when no one is stepping on your corns. It's when oxen are being gored the community comes into play. Making Light is the best, online example I can find (I think the folks here have done all right, but there have only been a few tests of the concept). Is it perfect? No. As with any other such place, being new can be hard (esp. if one is used to other fora; or comes in with a far outlying minority position). It keeps to its nature, even though the people change (in the course of the six, maybe seven years I've been something of a regular, a lot of active members have come and gone). But (and this is the meat of the matter), there have been some real furballs, the sort which I've seen destroy other places, maintain a fair amount of civlility. They can be prickly, brash, blunt, even rude. As a rule, they aren't offensive. The best example I can give is one on Ron Paul, which ended up drifting to abortion: how it went. What I saw (and for reasons hard to explain, I went and re-read it all again today, because I was thinking about community, and how it works) was everyone (even when pisssed off) who was taking part being (as a rule) civil. I saw people reminding them that civil matters. The members take it upon themselves to keep the place the sort of place they want it to be. It spills over, I've seen the ML regulars in other venue (some are known to comment here). They can be prickly, brash, even rude. As a rule they aren't offensive. It's not a bad way to be seen. |
| 1:46 pm | What it's all about Chris Clarke (of Creek Running North), has a recently published piece (which you can see here). It's about a lot of things, but there was a passage in the middle which I wanted to share, in particular.  That sums up a lot of why I write, of why I do photography, certainly of why I noodle at music. If you don't do it for you; whatever it is, you can't ever be able to do it for others. That bleeds over to whatever else you do. (p.s. while you're over there, you should look at the rest of his photos, most are far more; visually, entertaining than this one). |
