Category: learning from my mistakes

The Seattle Times: Local News: Move it or lose it, city says of historic ship:

Move it by Sept. 30, or we’ll have it demolished.

That’s the ultimatum from the city of Seattle to owners of the historic schooner Wawona, long a fixture at South Lake Union Park.

Northwest Seaport, the nonprofit organization that owns the 165-foot ship, was notified of the city’s plans in a letter from Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis earlier this month. For Wawona supporters, who are used to working long hours to raise scarce funds and clean and fix the dilapidated vessel, it was one more setback in trying to save history.

Since the whole redevelopment of south Lake Union is driven by Paul Allen’s biotech ambitions, perhaps he could help preserve this bit of local — very local — history. Of course, he’d probably want his name on it . . .

BBC NEWS | Americas | Guantanamo suicides ‘acts of war’:

Rear Adm Harris said he did not believe the men had killed themselves out of despair.

“They are smart. They are creative, they are committed,” he said.

“They have no regard for life, either ours or their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.”

I wish I could link to the clip from Hearts and Minds [amazon | netflix](how many times have I referenced that movie?) where Gen Westmoreland is being interviewed and expresses how the Vietnamese place no value on human life, interspersed with footage of a Vietnamese mother’s anguish at her son’s military funeral, as she tries to jump into the grave.

Of course, fafblog has the best take on this:

Run for your lives – America is under attack! Just days ago three prisoners at Guantanamo Bay committed suicide in a savage assault on America’s freedom to not care about prisoner suicides! Oh sure, the “Blame Atrocities First” crowd will tell you these prisoners were “driven to despair,” that they “had no rights,” that they were “held and tortured without due process or judicial oversight in a nightmarish mockery of justice.” But what they won’t tell you is that they only committed suicide as part of a diabolical ruse to trick the world into thinking our secret torture camp is the kind of secret torture camp that drives its prisoners to commit suicide!

Going through a lot of old pictures with the Young Uns tonight, I realized a lot of my more esoteric, ie non-obvious pictures were in the family album. So I hooked up FlickrExport and squandered the rest of my monthly bandwidth allotment on a bunch of new uploads.

Enjoy!

“Media Matters” by Jamison Foser:

The defining issue of our time is not the Iraq war. It is not the “global war on terror.” It is not our inability (or unwillingness) to ensure that all Americans have access to affordable health care. Nor is it immigration, outsourcing, or growing income inequity. It is not education, it is not global warming, and it is not Social Security.

The defining issue of our time is the media.

The dominant political force of our time is not Karl Rove or the Christian Right or Bill Clinton. It is not the ruthlessness or the tactical and strategic superiority of the Republicans, and it is not your favorite theory about what is wrong with the Democrats.

The dominant political force of our time is the media.

Worth reading in full, if you can stand it. I found it pretty maddening, but not surprising at all.

Sunset Road / Béla Fleck & The Flecktones / Live Art (Disc 2)
Hollow Inside / The Buzzcocks / A Different Kind of Tension
Speed Of Life / David Bowie / Low
Svefn-G-Englar / Sigur Rós / Ágætis Byrjun
Coal Train Robberies (Demo) / Elvis Costello / Spike Bonus Disc
Vous et Moi / Django Reinhardt / Verve Jazz Masters 38: Django Reinhardt
The Right Profile / The Clash / London Calling
1_III. Scherzo. Allegro / Sir Colin Davis & the Boston Symphony Orchestra / The Complete Symphonies 1 (Disc 1) / Colin Davis & the Boston Symphony Orchestra
Hackensack / Fountains Of Wayne / Welcome Interstate Managers
Distant Sun / Crowded House / Recurring Dream
Mazurka in F-sharp Minor, No. 1 / Béla Fleck / Perpetual Motion

Bonus: Reflecting Pool / Let’s Active / Big Plans for Everybody

The services of ladybugs are required at Thistle Dew, so I obtained a quantity — 1500 or so — and turned them loose this evening.

Also purchased additional packets of seeds, as my earlier experiments — carrots and some salad greens — have failed to yield much and the plot looks barren. Potatoes are doing well, as are collard greens and spinach.

Carrots are tricky, for me anyway. Slow to germinate and from all accounts, inconsistent. Who needs that? So we’ll do some more greens, some broccoli and spinach, and some cabbage. Leafy greens. Tomatoes are coming along, as is basil. So we’ll have a few fresh items from the garden this summer.

One lesson I learned is that irrigation systems for small plots like mine are more trouble than they’re worth. If you water everywhere, you’re liable to get weeds everywhere. But if you water just the veggies you are about, everything else withers away. Drip systems are all very well, but who wants to run a line to each head of romaine or bunch of spinach? Easier to carry a can of captured rainwater out there and walk the rows. You can see what’s going on and deal with it at the time.

My oldest will be in 4th grade next year, and this means he’ll be going to a week-long camping trip with his classmates (and the 5th graders).

I have been thinking about a few ways to help them make it more memorable, more permanent, and photography comes to mind. How about:

• a single use camera for each kid: they take home prints and the CD of pictures
• a pinhole camera for each kid: same deal with the stuff they bring home
• iPhoto picture books as keepsakes

I have found these books to be great gifts: people I have shown them to/given them to love them. I expect the ones available through Flickr are just as nice.

I think the book is a given: it will be a nice thing to have for the parents to see and for the school to show as part of the program. I like the single use camera but how predictable? They know how to use one and they won’t see anything unexpected. But a pinhole camera is a different animal. I feel pretty confident they won’t get what they expect.

Thoughts?
Some good ideas here.

I never saw this when it was the talk of the Internets.

Discourse.net: What if Microsoft Had Designed the iPod Box?:

The most amazing thing about this video, though, is who made it: according to the Wall Street Journal, “it was produced by designers at Microsoft, in a spirit of self-criticism. It’s as if they know the sort of great design they ought to be doing, but are too smothered by a corporate culture to deliver it.”

If they know better, does that make them any more likable?

It’s funnier than I expected and if you have ever worked with ex-Softies, it’ll be just that little bit more pungent.

It’s a good design discussion in and of itself: if you look at good products and the design philosophy they share, simplicity is a common theme, from cars to appliances to clothes. A company as well-known as MSFT shouldn’t feel compelled to over-inform as the box video demonstrates, but their well-known inferiority complex gets in the way. Apple, Volvo, Lexus, Mercedes, SubZero . . . . they don’t struggle with that.

San Diego Serenade: Friday Charts – 5/19/06:

I saw the above image* on BoingBoing today. I’m not sure what it was specifically referencing, but it made me think about the recent lawsuit filed by the RIAA against XM radio. It’s broken down very well here, but basically the RIAA has decided to sue XM for making devices like the XM radio I have, that essentially act as Tivo’s for your radio, allowing you to record 5 hours of music. You can’t take the music off, you can’t give it to a friend, five hours is a pretty short amount of music to record, and it’s not CD quality. But that doesn’t stop the RIAA, whose next logical plan would have to be to seek out and sue all the widows of Gulf War veterans, just in case there are people out there who they haven’t alienated yet.

* The “Your Failed Business Model” image . . .

One of my neighbors has “Make bread” listed as one of her 43 things and I realized when I read it that I have been remiss in posting some bread recipes I’ve used.

I mentioned sourdough starter a while back. I’m now on my third one of these, since the first got contaminated and the second one never really took. I used it the other night to make a couple of loaves of sourdough baguettes and they are among the best bread I have ever made.

Continue reading “the staff of life”