Moore Musings

Virtual Sight-Seeing

Interested in seeing the sights of the world? Don't have the cash to travel internationally? Google Streetview is the solution. Avoid the smells and airsickness, all while enjoying the views and avoiding the traffic!

See the magnificent Eiffel Tower!
Marvel at the seat of efficient politics in Washington DC.
View the fantastic architecture of the Sydney Opera House.
Stop by Britain to see the punctual Big Ben, or the oldest computer, Stonehenge.

Are there any significant and iconic images in Japan or southern China? I can't get close enough to Mount Fuji, and I don't know what to look for in China.

News and News

Sharon and I are avidly house-hunting, with varying degrees of success.
I'll post again soon on that, for now I shall leave you with this interesting article link.

Jurisprudence Fetishest gets off on Technicality

2010 State of the Union Address Synopsis

President Obama's 2010 State of the Union address had the usual components. There was a mix of rhetoric, patriotic fervor, and announcement of policies he plans to enact. Having listened to the speech, I took notes and will here attempt to condense all points related to actual policy.
While I am happy to discuss and present my opinions on the speech, I want to first establish what he said.

1) Bank fees to recover monies lent to bail-out banks
2) A New Jobs bill which gives tax credits to small businesses and reduces capital gains tax for small businesses. Also, provides incentives to businesses of all sizes to make capital investments.
3) New jobs developing national infrastructure.
4) Tax breaks for local jobs, rather then overseas jobs.
5) New and clean nuclear energy plants.
6) Closer look at offshore drilling (implying more drilling)
7) Energy and Climate bill to make clean energy “profitable”
8) Increase exports by adjusting export regulation and providing incentives
9) New trade agreements
10) 10K tax credit for 4 year college students
11) 10% income cap on student loan repayment
12) School debts forgiven after 20 years, 10 years for those in public service jobs
13) Retirement accounts available to all Americans
14) Health Insurance reform, not just health care.
15) An insurance market preserving competition, saving 1 trillion over 20 years, and preserving your current Doctor and plan if desired
16) In 2000, there was a 200 billion government surplus. By 2008, there was a 1 trillion deficit, due to recession aid, prescription drug program, 2 wars, and lowering of taxes
17) Starting in 2011, he will freeze all government spending for 3 years except for national security, medicare, medicade, and social security (according to Wikipedia, in 2009 these 4 expenses totaled 60% of the government budget)
18) Eliminate tax cuts for those making 250K+, and various large companies
19) A government finance commission was blocked by the Senate, so he has established it by Executive Order
20) Address the ruling by the Supreme Court allowing no spending or source limit on elections
21) Require online publishing of all bill earmarks in Congress pre-vote
22) Currently increasing Afghan troop presence, but will have them home in 2011
23) All “combat troops” out of Iraq by August 2010
24) Secure all nuclear weapons in the world (with help of other nations) and establish and enforce restrictions on nonconforming nations
25) Repeal “don't ask don't tell”
26) Fix immigration problems
27) Fix gender job pay discrimination

What are your thoughts on his policies and goals?

Over Edited

I am always amused when I see an article that has apparently been edited to the point of failure. See this example:

She had been lying in the snow for over two hours before the rescue team arrived on Monday night after injuring her leg.

On the behalf or Randy and Wilson, I pray for editors everywhere.

Another Reason to Love Linux

Where else can you get error messages like this?

I'm still watching for the "Delete Whatsoever" command.

Football Simplified

Sharon has convinced me to watch some football, and I've come to enjoy it.

However, I found that keeping track of all the team names was too difficult. So, I've taken to using more familiar terms to identify the teams based on their jersey colors.

Ohio State has red-white jerseys, so they are Boros.
Oregon is green-white, so they are Selesnya.

Sunny Milwaukee

It has become my habit to check the weather before bed. This enables basic plans about what to wear and what activities will be possible the next day.

Of course, here in Milwaukee the weather doesn't always allow for anything outside.
Behold, our weather forecast for tomorrow morning!

Anyone need a programmer in Florida?

In other news, we stayed inside and made gingerbread cookies last night. I have created an army of small men to do my bidding. Finally, I created one giant man to rule them all! You can see the pictures below the fold.

Future Plans

After some advice from a doctor, it appears I shan't be driving until mid February.

While Sharon will be driving for our adventures to both Chicago and Indiana for Christmas, I can't in good conscience ask her to drive to Iowa as well during break.

Thus we sadly will not be able to head out Ioway. We will miss very much seeing all you folks who congregate there, and hope to have a chance again later when I am able to drive.

Feeling Better

So I'm feeling much better today. The muscle soreness continues, and I have some minor unsteadiness from the meds they gave me last night. However, I was able to get to Church this morning.

Our church is very wonderful: not only did the Fathers come by last night to help and give us rides, but everyone seems to know and asked kindly about me. Moreover, our head priest and 3 or 4 other members of the church have epilepsy, and are familiar with the challenges, as are their families in helping those who have had a seizure.

Looking back in my history, it appears my last seizure was May 18, 2006. I really am well off if these things are going to be that spread out. We speculate it may have been set off by my cold/flu last week as well.

In any event, I'm feeling much better and am thankful for your thoughts and prayers.

Shaking it Up

I shan't go into detail here, but I had a similar seizure to a few years ago. I'm fine, I was able to know it was coming and get down on the floor, but it shook myself and Sharon up a good bit.

Our priests came by the hospital and gave us a ride home too. All in all, things went smoothly after the episode. Now I get to take pills indefinitely!

Playing Catch

Have you ever wondered how much damage an asteroid could cause? Wonder no more! The Impact Effects Calculator from our good friends at the University of Arizona can take all the guesswork out of your doomsday theories.

How much damage can we get out of a VW Golf hurtling from space? Let's find out!

Its 1080 kg, and roughly a 2 meter diameter (compressed). That gives it roughly 45 kg per cubic meter of density. We'll bring it in at 90 degrees into sedimentary rock. Let's see what sort of damage we can cause with an 11 km/s speed (the minimum impact velocity).

The projectile bursts into a cloud of fragments at an altitude of 82500 meters = 270000 ft

Ok, that's too slow. Let's speed it up to 17 km/s.

The projectile bursts into a cloud of fragments at an altitude of 84200 meters = 276000 ft

We did worse! I'm guessing we're just too light. Let's make it entirely iron. New density: 8000 kg per cubic meter.

The projectile bursts into a cloud of fragments at an altitude of 9630 meters = 31600 ft.
Large fragments strike the surface and may create a crater strewn field.

That's better, but if we are going to bean the earth with a VW, we want a real impact. Let's try adding some antimatter and moving up to the max speed for something orbiting the sun. New density: 100,000 kg/m^3. New speed: 72 km/s.

The projectile lands intact, with a velocity 67.8 km/s = 42.1 miles/s.

That's more like it! Isn't astronomical physics fun?

In to Fall

After a tumultuous September and October, I have safely landed in November.

The craziness began with a fine wedding in Iowa, where I witnessed Ardith fulfill the promise of last year's bouquet catch. It was a great time filled with the joy of seeing old friends and the happiness of sharing in her special day. High points included SC hangouts at the Scholl's, seeing the awesome Scott twins rumbling around, and enjoying some very excellent cake.

The very next weekend I was off to southern California for another happy event: Ziggy's wedding. I had never been to California before, and really enjoyed not only the main event, but also the weather and scenery. I particularly enjoyed getting to know Ziggy's family better, and seeing this amazing woman who had captured (I dare not say tamed) my old room-mate's heart. High points included morning pictures on the beach, swords in the ceremony, and late nights talking with his brothers and friends.

After one weekend 'off', the next event rolled around: birthday season at the Amelio's. I had a wonderful time seeing Sharon's brothers, one of whom is now in college. They have grown in wisdom and accomplishment each time I see them. As always, the hospitality (and particularly food) was exceptional.

One more week of downtime followed, and then we were off to see my own parents. The blue VW Golf many of you may remember had been my companion here in Milwaukee for a year or so, but due to its classic age (1985 model year) and lack of garage or tools, I had trouble keeping it running. We decided to take it home where my brothers would obtain more use and maintain it more easily. Of course, that entailed getting it on a U-Haul trailer when it wouldn't start. Let's just say this is something I would rather not ever do again. In the end, we had a safe trip down, and thoroughly enjoyed seeing many brothers and nieces.

November looks to be a stay-home month, and other then some manner of Thanksgiving expedition, we plan to be home until Christmas. We're hoping to see the Iowa crew again then if all goes well.

Pictures to follow (unless I'm a slacker) below the break.

Code Gems

Here is a blogworthy example of my life at work:

~$ grep -r "sendmsg returned an error"
/src/scomm.c: biteMe("sendmsg returned an error");
/src/.svn/text-base/scomm.c.svn-base: biteMe("sendmsg returned an error");

Let it never be said that coding isn't an expression of art!

Passing Summer

Here we are in mid-July, and I find my summer has been flying by. It started innocently enough: shifting schedules around to spend more time out of the apartment and doing stuff. Soon weeknights filled up, weekends filled up, and I found myself wishing for a vacation from my own self-imposed schedule.

Most weeks ran something like this:
Sunday - Arrive home in the evening from some trip or another
Monday - Single Guys night: Sharon makes food or we go to Pizza Shuttle. Clean the apartment before folks arrive!
Tuesday - Night Off. Probably watch shows on Hulu or play a game.
Wednesday - Eat dinner at church, chase kids or clean stuff.
Thursday - Jazz in the Park! Stay out late and come back only partly deaf (but happy).
Friday - Game night at the mall. Dinner at 10:30 at Taco Bell.
Saturday - Head out early for some adventure or another.

Of particular note were the following events:
- Vacation in the Wisconsin Dells: a blast of fun hiking, camping, relaxing, and go-karting. Highly recommended.
- Visiting friends in Iowa: also totally awesome, including 3 am Highlander games.
- Camping with brothers over July 4th weekend: fires + talking for half the night = good.
- Having a 1st Wedding Anniversary: also highly recommended, although no more then once.

In the upcoming month we'll be heading into family-visiting season, which will again lay siege to our weekends. While life may be hectic, I am happy to be surrounded by family and friends who insure it is never boring.

What are your plans for the rest of the summer?