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Satellite Technology Is Amazing!

If google and other services can provide such detailed satellite imagery, can you imagine what the government can do? I bet the NSA can read your newspaper at the breakfast table! From Google Maps you can see the transformer that blew out yesterday giving us a few hours of no electricity. That white line running over the road and over the blue car is the powerline. Yes! A satellite took a photograph that picked up a cable that must be no larger in diameter than a roll of film. That white dot in the trees just left of the blue car is one transformer (it’s blown out twice in 8 years) and if you continue to follow the line left (West) to the end of the street you can find the transformer that blew yesterday. Granted, it had the aid of a tree. What is remarkable is this photo has to be several years old because we have since had a new roof put on the house.

I wonder what kind of lists you get put on when the NSA sees your website in their referral logs.

UPDATE: I’ve had it explained to me that this level of photography is done by plane not satellite. Btw, apparently the link doesn’t bring you in at the maximum zoom level. So zoom in as much as you can.

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Hours in my day

For health, 8 hours sleep
I should keep two fulltime projects running at all times. Let us assume one of those is a regular job with a required 1 hour break. That would be 9 hours. The other one can be 8.
Blogging (reading, writing, researching), 2 3 4 hours (this one was for humor sake but we’ll leave them in anyway)
Driving kids around town and other errands: 2 hours
The 3 s’s (bathroom stuff): 45 minutes
Cooking/eating: 1 hour 15 minutes
Quality time with the kids: 2 hours
Phone calls: 1 hour
Television: 1-2 hours

Total thus far: 38 hours in my day

Of course, I left out things like email, billing, finances, marketing, exercise (yeah,right)….

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The frustrating part of working from home – addendum

Concerning my earlier post: But I love it! I take on this stressful, risky lifestyle not for riches of money but for the riches of time well spent with the children. It means I work late at night and get up early and work on the weekends but I get quality time with the kids that I love. The frustrating part is when exhaustion, procrastination, self-indulgence, or lack of focus cause me to miss some of those late night or weekend hours.

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The frustrating part of working from home

I’ve hit that frustrating part of the day. I’m trying desperately to please a client and am literally a few lines of code away from accomplishing it but the needs of the dog and of the toddler won’t let me finish so I’ll receive a scathing phone call while I’m driving her to school. My self-esteem will take another hit. I can’t even finish this paragraph. I’m being paged to the toddler’s aid.

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House of Reps Banned from Wikipedia

Looks like the House overstepped its bounds.

The staff of U.S. Rep Marty Meehan wiped out references to his broken term-limits pledge as well as information about his huge campaign war chest in an independent biography of the Lowell Democrat on [Wikipedia]…

Matt Vogel, Meehan’s chief of staff, said he authorized an intern in July to replace existing Wikipedia content with a staff-written biography of the lawmaker.

Looks like it becomes a question of ethics particularly considering that the logs show vandalic changes to other political profiles coming from the House ip addresses.

the sheer breadth of changes emanating from the House reflects an abuse of public time and equipment, said Stephen Potts, former director of the federal Office of Government Ethics, now chairman of the Ethics Resource Center.

When will integrity return to politics?

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Tagged by Julie with Romantic Desires

I forgot to cry “no tag backs” so Julie got me with “8 things that appeal to me, that I would desire in an intimate/romantic partner”:

  1. Early 20s
  2. Dirty blonde
  3. Dumb as a rock
  4. Doesn’t know the word “No”
  5. Strong distaste for clothing
  6. Adventurous
  7. Doesn’t know where I live
  8. Has a twin sister

Ok. Now the real answer:

  1. A listening ear
  2. A smile and a giggle
  3. Trust
  4. Spontaneity
  5. Self-confidence
  6. Hugs and hand holding
  7. Honesty
  8. Everything Cathy

Is that sufficient to get me in trouble until the summer?

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Like freedom? It’s going away.

Here’s a must read article by Tennessee Guerilla Women discussing Bush’s censorship of NASA’s leading climate scientist.

In several interviews with The New York Times in recent days, Dr. Hansen said it would be irresponsible not to speak out, particularly because NASA’s mission statement includes the phrase “to understand and protect our home planet.”

After speaking that significant cuts in emissions, particulars motor vehicles must be made or “climate change would eventually leave the earth ‘a different planet.'” Dr. Hansen received phone calls warning that there would be “dire consequences” if such statements continued. So this is what it was like under McCarthy!

UPDATE: MSNBC reports “Some scientist worry it’s too late to reverse climate change.

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More on Firefly Season 2

Joss Whedon has never heard of Ace Underhill.

Underhill said in an interview: “If [Joss] contacts me and says, ‘Hey, we’re not interested in Firefly anymore’ or ‘I’m not interested in Firefly anymore,’ then I will abandon the project

Underhill wants to do a pay per view model. That would be downloads to video ipod, pay per view television, etc. That model concerns me that the success would be limited.

Underhill added that he has contacted members of the Firefly/Serenity cast and had received a few rate quotes from agents, but he declined to say who. He acknowledged that he had not yet heard from Firefly/Serenity star Nathan Fillion.

The Browncoats have a discussion on this topic. Could be Underhill is just trying, and successfully, to get press for his company. I mentioned Underhill’s effort on Jan 23. See other Firefly posts.

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Which way did he go? Following Lost (Jorge Garcia)

I was tickled to see Hurley (Jorge Garcia) on Becker last night! On Becker he played Hector Lopez (2003-2004).

Looks like he’s scored himself a movie for 2006! Sweetzer is a comedy that was in post-production on Sept 7 2005. Jorge gets third billing as the character Sergio.

Wow! Lost has done him well for the talk show scene.

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