Jim, of Physics is Phun, pointed me in the direction of a site that allows you to track your mileage along the route of the Fellowship of the Ring, from Hobbinton to Rivendell and onward. Side trips are included such as the ride of Gandalf and Pippin from Isengard to Minas Tirith. Everything a Tolkien geek and runner needs.
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Quote of the Day
Found on David Louis Edelman’s blog:
…if the Antichrist has an MP3 player, it’s a Zune.
From a business perspective, how do you market to the Antichrist? Hmm…
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Busy Weekend
This is more of a livejournal posting, but as I only use livejournal to keep up with what my friends are doing, voila!
Saturday I spent all day working on the AT with the Georgia Appalachian Trail Club. It was supposed to be the “District Maintenance Month” wherein all the section overseers (I have section 3.8; 1.2 miles of fairly level stuff) of a particular district get together and fix anything big that needs fixing. Unfortunately, we only had three people for our district, so we ended up hauling wood chips in to the Stover Creek Privy. After that, I drove back over to Justus Creek and joined the rest of the club who were working on a trail relocation. This involves much digging/chopping/cutting/bending/working and I was exhausted when I got home. But! We had friends coming over, so no sleepy for Billy, instead stayed up ’til 11:30 or so.
Sunday, I was the trip organizer for an ITE whitewater rafting trip. I wish I could post pictures, but I had to use one of those disposable waterproof cameras, and it’s being developed right now. We rafted the middle Ocoee in Tennessee with the Ocoee Adventure Center rafting guides. We had a blast, and now I’m doubly tired. Work will be very early tomorrow morning.
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The Children of Men
I finally slogged my way through The Children of Men by P.D. James. You may recall that there was a movie out last spring which was much hyped. It came to my attention through science fiction circles that this was based off of a science fiction book. I am opposed to seeing movies without first reading the book, so I picked it up.
Slow-forward about 5 months. I tried twice to read this thing. The third time I finally finished it. Summary: I did not like the book. Blah blah blah blah blah, and so forth for 250 pages. The ideas are interesting such as: the psychological impact of having the entire human race unable to conceive children; the necessary preparations for the last people on Earth; the eventual breakdown of law and order. However, there was an overriding Goddidit theme in this book that annoyed the hell out of me. Warning, spoilers follow (more…)
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80/20 Rule
There’s a rule called the 80/20 rule. It states that 80% of the gain comes from 20% time/effort/clients/etc. This is frequently mentioned with respect to my work because about 20% of our clients pay 80% of our fee.
I like that thought.
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This Week in Traffic…
…is no more. Make sure you check over at the sister blog TalkingTraffic.org for the traffic item tidbits. There were some interesting ones this week.
Also, I think I’ve settled on a once-every-two-weeks podcast distribution schedule. That should work out fairly well with the rest of the things I’ve got going on. I could do it faster (in fact, episode 2 could have gone up two days ago) but I’ll stick to a regular posting, which should keep me on track. Look for them on Mondays, over at Talking Traffic, or on Itunes. -
Favorite Photo of the Week
John dropped in to Atlanta for a quick flyby. We went to the Marietta Pizza Kitchen on The Square for dinner.
That photo of John was a close winner over this image of the parking garage stairwell next to the courthouse in Marietta. I’m not sure why I like this image, but I do.
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Star Wars Arcade Game (in my basement!)
where would I be without SF Signal!
Do you want to own a classic 1980’s vector-graphic Star Wars Arcade game? Hell yeah! That would totally rock.
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Stardust
We went to see the movie Stardust last night, starring Claire Danes, Charlie Cox, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Robert DeNiro, among others. It was written by Neil Gaiman, and is possible the best movie I’ve seen in the last five years. Way better than the Lord of the Rings or Narnia or any other of the big-budget fantasy movies that have come out recently. It has a complicated but tightly written plot with excellent storytelling and character development. There are comedic moments that don’t feel like they’ve been injected just to get the audience to laugh, but instead flow with the narrative. It’s all quite good, and if you don’t go see it while it’s in the theaters, you’ll regret it.
Go. Tonight. See the movie!
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Pluto, We Hardly Knew Thee
A year ago, Pluto was declassified as Planet and shunted into the category of Dwarf Planet by the International Astronomical Union. This was accomplished through a series of three qualities that a ‘planet’ must possess, according to the IAU:
- A planet must orbit its star, not another body
- A planet must have achieved hydrostatic equilibrium, i.e. be a sphere
- A planet must have “cleared its neighborhood” of other bodies or debris
In case you’ve forgotten the ruckus from last year, Pluto fails the third item. In addition to its moon, Charon, there are several other small bodies that are orbiting Charon, and in the same basic orbit as Pluto. Therefore, it hasn’t cleared its neighborhood.
There are several discussions concerning this topic over at Bad Astronomy, but I’d like to reiterate my opinion that this whole thing was, and still is, very silly. Whether or not Pluto is considered a Planet, or a Dwarf Planet, or a Plutino, or a Kuiper Belt Object (KBO), is entirely immaterial to Pluto. It will continue to orbit the sun, most of the time at a distance greater than Neptune, and be the 9th Planet in the minds of a whole lot of people. The definitions of planet are arbitrary and difficult to quantify. For example, how spherical does a body really need to be to be in hydrostatic equilibrium? Saturn has a large ellipsoidal eccentricity caused by its fast rotation (although I’m not arguing that it’s not in hydrostatic equilbirum). If we find a star with one lone pile of rocks orbiting it, with a shape close to spherical, is that a planet?
I continue to paraphrase the opinion that “I don’t know what a planet is, but I know one when I see one.” I think that Pluto should have been grand-planeted into the family of planets, and all other KBO’s arbitrarily excluded. It has come to light since last year that Eris, formerly known as 2003 UB313 and/or Xena, is actually larger than Pluto, which would have made it a better candidate for Planethood. Again, my feeling is, “too bad, Eris. You’re too late,” and allowed Pluto to maintain its title.
So long, poor Pluto. It’s too bad you were demoted, but we won’t forget you.
The Evil Eyebrow
There is no knowing the Evil Eyebrow
Twenty Twenty-Five
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