It occurred to me that I just crossed over 4,000 posts not too long ago. Here are some other milestones of the past few years.
Post number 100
Post number 1000
Post number 2000
Post number 3000
Post number 4000
Month: December 2006
numbers
I’m making good progress toward coming up with a plan that we think will help us achieve our objective. As I think about this plan I’m always — have our troops in mind. There’s nobody more important in this global war on terror than the men and women who wear the uniform, and their families.
Read that again: he’s making progress toward coming up with a plan that they think will help us achieve our objective.
Terry adds:
Time it took for Bush’s adventure in Iraq to kill 1,000 American service members:17 months, 15 days.
Time it took for another 1,000 to die: 13 months, 19 days.
Today we hit the 3,000 mark, 14 months, 5 days after the last such mark.
I wonder how important they feel, given how much more efficiently they’re being killed, the longer they stay in Iraq. What will the US toll be at the end? 5,000? 10,000?
retrospective on Flickr, updated
two three Explore-worthy images, both of which precede my getting a “pro” account (and before I have 200 images). Looks like one got added late and I missed it.
The black-and-white image drops in and out, but the cyanotype seems to have stayed in continuously. if I knew what I did, I’d do it again š
dunno if I woulda told that
I’ve have almost no knowledge whatsoever of things that would, in another time and place, be considered fundamental parts of a basic education: I’ve read almost none of the classics of English literature, I’ve never knowingly read a poem, I know very little about art history, and I’ve never opened the Bible.
Seriously, I don’t know that — at the age of 40 or thereabouts — I would admit this. It just seems like an admission of something I can’t put my finger on at the moment.
ripply
Took some pictures with the digital instamatic as well today: these racked sailboats caught my eye, more the reflections than the boats themselves.
Spiderman, eh?
The one about the push-up bra was perhaps the easiest question to answer.
Your results:
You are Spider-Man
|
You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.  |
looks like the terrorists have won
Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall December 30, 2006 08:10 AM:
Looking at the photo the NYT is leading with on its homepage, I am struck by the motley bunch of executioners. Hooded to protect their identities, they look like a gang of toughs from a B movie–or, on further reflection, like the hooded terrorists who in the earlier days of our occupation were murdering hostages like Nick Berg, on camera, for maximum shock value.
Amazing. 3000 US soldiers dead, thousands more wounded, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed and wounded, all so some guys in hoods and masks could make someone’s revenge fantasy come true. Rule of Law, my sweet bippy.
links for 2006-12-30
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“So this execution, ironically and pathetically, becomes a stand-in for the failures, incompetence and general betrayal of country on every other front that President Bush has brought us.”
project: a vacuum easel
Getting to some serious thinking about photo printing here and one thing that has always fascinated me is borderless prints, with the image right up to the edge. For that, you need a vacuum easel to hold the paper flat (glass will detract from the image, so laying a plate of glass over the paper won’t work as well as you might like).
But they’re not inexpensive and they aren’t all that widely available. But as it happens, ol’ Santa Claus dropped something in the whole present stack that might even my dim bulb glimmer: an air hockey table. I see plans to make vacuum easels with shop-vacs or household vacuum cleaners: can you think of anything less conducive to quiet contemplation than a shop-vac running in a small darkroom? Even in a nearby room, since one usually seals a darkroom for light, not sound?
But an air hockey table uses a pretty small fan, very quiet and though I haven’t tested it, I suspect it offers enough pressure differential to hold a piece of printing paper in place. Consider the table is something like 24″x48″ and I would be looking at 16×20 at most, I think this might work just fine. And yet another use for my drill press, to make all those regular holes.
A shallow box, 20 x 24, with a small box fan in the bottom, and the top peppered with small holes: not to hard to make. We would need a way of admitting some air so the fan doesn’t burn out in case it’s more efficient than I expect, so some kind of pressure-sensitive vent (a flap with a rubber-band?) would probably do it. Ah, here’s some prior art. Doesn’t look like he got very far on it. The Shop-Vac-based ones just seem crazy to me, way overkill.
So this is something to think about — after I make a box for my cyanotype printing rig (a wooden box with a removable lid that has UV/blacklight bulbs attached) and a carrying case for my 4×5 so I can take it and the accessories it requires (filmholders, for now) in as few trips as possible.
breathing new life into the Polar A5, updated
I have Polar A5Ć¢āĀ¢ heartrate monitor that has died from lack of use š [they only last about 2 years, and it’s been at least that long since I used it].
To get it working again will require me to send it to one of their service centers and pay $$$ to have them change the battery. Or I could do it myself. A set of jeweler’s/technician’s screwdrivers and a little elbow grease and the back comes off, no gasket or seal. I guess the rubbery casing is supposed to serve as a gasket and the cover. The battery is a standard CR2023 3v button battery, available everywhere.
I’ll see if I can get one tomorrow and find out if this thing works. Watching the steady increase in table muscle over the past couple of weeks has gotten pretty alarming: something’s gotta give, besides my waistband.
Continue reading “breathing new life into the Polar A5, updated”