UnSpace

Newsweek has a story "What Makes a High School Great?" that includes a list of the top 1,000 schools.¹

The list measures only one index, the ratio of the number of students taking AP and/or IB tests to the number of graduating seniors. Magnet and charter schools are not included. Some schools may not have had their information included. The list may change as schools submit information. Notice that there are extreme regional differences. Pennsylvania has 14 schools, which times 51 only gives a number of 714 — we're below average.² California, Florida, and Texas appear over-represented.

There are faults, but the list is sitll interesting. Upper St. Clair, for example, is noted for offering both Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate.³ The latter program was killed and resurrected recently.

As the author points out in the FAQ, any school listed is a good school.

0164 Conestoga
0396 Lower Moreland
0463 Quaker Valley
0747 Wyomissing
0763 Unionville
0777 Harriton (Both IB and AP)
0903 Lower Merion
0912 Wissahickon
0930 Upper St. Clair (Both IB and AP)
0967 Fox Chapel
0987 Mt. Lebanon
1096 Allderdice
1106 Central Bucks East
1122 Hershey

1. The list actually goes up to 1138. [back]
2. In my cursory skimming, I only saw states and D.C. listed — BTW: #264 and # 857 have typos, and for crying out loud, next year use the frackin' standard postal abbreviations for states! I've got a frackin' headache to the frackin' point I'm using frackin' Battlestar Frackin' Galactica frackin' pseudo-frackin' profanifrackin'ty. Frack! [back]
3. Note the nonsense perpetrated in an article in the Pittsburgh Trib and in a second article that promotes tyrany of mediocraty. [back]

Back when I was in 4th grade, I designed and tried to build a time machine. Was I actually on the right track?

I got beat up a lot in grade school. let's face it: I was weird. Nowhere did that weirdness show up more than in 3rd grade. Mrs. Brodo gave us a reading lesson about Joan of Arc. The Maid of Orleans was the woman of my dreams! She was tough enough to make it in a man's world but (as the painting in the World Book Encyclopedia proved) beautiful enough to win a young boy's heart.

There were was a big problem, though. The Catholic church had murdered her about 536 years earlier. Twenty years after that, the church declared "Oopsie!" We goofed!" and in 1920 gave her a consolation prize by making her a saint.¹

After watching Tony Newman and Doug Phillips get bounced around once too many times in the past, I realized I had the perfect solution: I would create a time machine! I could go back and rescue her and bring her back to the present and get married and have kids and live happily ever after.

Of course, there would be a problem with preventing a disruption in time. I figured I could switch her with Bishop Pierre Cauchon and let him burn to death instead.²"

The Time Tunnel on the TV show looked like a decent time machine, but there was no way those little bars that popped out would actually work. Come on — that was just TV. So instead, I thought about ways of tearing the space-time continuum.³ Finally, I decided that powerful laser beams passing by each other at the speed of light, might just do the trick.

The preliminary design involved 6 ruby lasers arranged in a hexagon inside a coffee can. The lasers at 12, 4, and 8 would go one way, the lasers at 2, 6, and 10 the opposite.⁴ Objects placed in the center would be able to be moved in space time. By adjusting the power of the lasers, the object could be steered through space-time, although that only gave me control in 2 dimensions. Overall power controlled the time displacement, but that 3rd dimension was a worry. The coffee can was obviously only a test bed. I'd work the rest out later. Apparently I was a natural engineer: I solved one problem at a time.

Fourth grade consisted of me trying to find some way to manufacture rubies. Rubies are made of aluminum oxide doped with chromium. I had a ready chrome source sitting in the garage, but the aluminum oxide was a problem. Scraping aluminum oxide off the kitchen screen door took to long, and I couldn't get aluminum cans to burn properly. So I learned to start growing crystals. I got real good with copper sulfate, but I could never figure out how to machine the ends of the crystals and mirror them. Then, I realized that I'd have to be able to understand molecular orbitals so that I could get the crystals to lase. A few more years of school would be necessary. Somewhere along the line, I began to appreciate the power requirements, especially to send myself 538+ years in the past and bring someone else back. I think my parents might have objected to that electric bill.

Eventually, I quit daydreaming about rescuing Jehanne d'Arc. Too many problems were in the que that needed solving that I couldn't figure out. The countercurrent laser beam idea sounded lamer and lamer the older I got. Somewhere along the line, I started dating a brunette with a pageboy haircut who was born May 30th, studied French, and looked like the gal in the paintings. I didn't notice that until long after we broke up, which was certainly in everyone's best interest.⁵

Then along comes Ronald Mallett's idea for a time machine. He's going to use a laser beam to "swirl" space. Subatomic particles injected into the time machine should appear an infintesimal bit in the future — possibly too small to notice.

If I can dig up any of those 3rd and 4th grade drawings of my time machine, do you think I can claim prior art and patent it?

1. There was no chance I would ever become Catholic, was there? [back]
2. Yeah, I know, this still causes a time anomaly. I figured by the time I built a time machine, I'd work it out. The revenge part was too good to pass up. Waiting also solved the problem of an 8 or 9 year old boy trying to ask a 19 year old out on a date. On the other hand, "I was glad to save you from being burned at the stake. Would you like to go to a movie?" stands as one of the all-time sure-fire (hmm…bad choice of words) great pick-up lines. [back]
3. As I sit here and type this, I can't help but think "How did "tearing the space-time continuum sound like a good idea?" Rotating in 4 dimensions sounds a lot safer. [back]
4. No provision was made to catch, reuse, or even stop the laser beams from destroying the house. Had I actually built it, I hope I'd have noticed this design flaw. [back]
5. There was a drawing of an angel in the piano carol book we had, and in 1st grade, I developed a crush on her. Nancy could have been the model for that drawing. By the time I noticed that similarity I'd already asked Nancy to marry me a dozen times or more — with literally hundreds yet to go before I'd finally hear a second "yes." [back]

I couldn't believe the tale I read at Fox News about a police department that entrapped a man and then shot him to death before they even tried to arrest him.

The undercover cops in Fairfax, Virginia kept upshing Salvatore Culosi, a 37 year old optometrist, into making bigger and bigger bets. Finally, after much prompting, they got him to make a $2000 bet. $2K happens to be the lower limit for the charge of running an illegal gambling operation.

The police sent the SWAT team to execute a search warrant on the man they'd set up. While waiting for the search warrant to go down, Deval Bullock of the SWAT team pointed his gun at their "suspect" and accidentally pulled the trigger, killing Culosi. The police prevented Culosi's family from being notified. ¹ They refused to release the body for several days. Whether the follow-up phone calls to the still grieving family really part of an investigation or harassment and attempted intimidation to prevent the inevitable wrongful death lawsuit is open to question.

Shortly thereafter, the Fairfax police issued a press release titled "Illegal Gambling Not Worth the Risk."

This sounds like a bad joke or a far-fetched TV show. Unfortunately for the people of Fairfax, Virginia, this is their life.

Tomato 7 has several good blog articles with important links on this issue. As a fellow gun owner, he's as disturbed at this incident as I am.

1. According to the Fox News article, this denied the family the chance to have last rites administered. The man died instantly from a bullet that tore up his heart — could extreme unction still be given if someone is "that" dead? [back]

In an MSNBC article on the four air packs that failed in the Sago mine, there's a quote that indicts our government:

Tell me, what's more important? Avoiding another "wardrobe malfunction" or saving lives? The wardrobe malfunction was an embarassment that never would have recurred, even without legislation. The death of the miners is an event that will reoccur without legislation. The Janet Jackson legislation was the politicians pandering to a sheep-like constituency. The lack of legislation is the politicians pandering to the lobbyists and the corporations who own them.¹

The Bush administration has worked hard at gutting mine safety to the benefit of the corporations. Will they finally do something, or will it take regime change before we get a government that values people more than money?

1. Yes, grammatically, the "they" is ambiguous — do the corporations own the lobbyists or the politicians? Since it's probably both, I didn't bother correcting the sentence. [back]

It's No Accident has a link to Nuestro Himno that is both beautiful and brings back memories.

So many years ago that I forget who the child was, a friend's youngster was at Three Rivers Stadium (that long ago!) as part of a group singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" in American Sign Language.

This was not "Signed English" the children sang in — it was American Sign Language, a far different language with a grammar reminiscent of French. Back then, I was far more fluent in ASL, and I could follow most of the translated lyrics. Thinking about watching those children sing our National Anthem in a language that, to most Americans is foreign, still chokes me up.

President Bush thinks "The Star-Spangled Banner" should be sung only in English. Someone pointed out that the French would have a meltdown if someone sang "La Marseillaise" in English. This is entirely correct. The French would be highly offended.¹ I believe this is a perfect example of why our National Anthem should be sung in English, American Sign Language, Spanish, French, German, Polish, Hungarian, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Portuguese, Hebrew, Arabic, Tagalog and Fortran!

Let freedom ring!

1. In honor of the French, here's the lyrics to "La Marseillaise." Truthfully, I liked their song better when I didn't understand it. Now I'm sort of repulsed. [back]

This morning, I got up and took the nuclear stress test.

Once they had me on the treadmill at a decent pace, my heart was fine. My maximal heart rate was 179, which is a few points lower than I've seen in training. Given that I've been feeling like crap, I'll take it. I cranked out a 12 METS, which is equivalent to about 42 ml O2/min/kg — higher than I would have expected given my age and weight and training. I'm thrilled with that.

I couldn't see the nuclear images, and I've no idea how to interpret them, so I can't give you my ejection fraction or stuff like that. What happened before the treadmill test began…I don't understand. I'll have to wait a week for results, but they didn't ship me off to get a bypass or what.

For now, that will have to do. And no, I don't glow in the dark, despite the Tech 99. No superpowers either. Darn.

Thanks to everyone who was praying for me.

Lately, Cirrus the African grey parrot's favorite phrase has been "What does that birdie want?" We ask her "Want nut (peanut)? Want Seed (sunflower)? Want Kibble (protein thingie in the parrot mix — she's a protein fiend)?"

"Find out what that birdie wants!"

We have never said that. Even more amazing, notice the change of "want" to "wants." She did that, not us.

Very interesting! I'm still waiting for her to tell us what she wants. I think we need to do a little "rival model" work with her.

Movie producers are concerned about their movies being illegally recorded. It's bad enough that someone sneaks a movie camera into the theater and records the film at a strange angle to be posted on the Internet or sold out of the back of strange vans. But that's not the biggest offender. What is? You'd be surprised:

The human brain.

Think back to the last movie you saw. You remember it! You can probably replay segments fairly accurately. If the movie was good, you might see it once or twice more — ten if it's Blazing Saddles — but that's it. If it's bad, not only would you never see the movie again — unless it's PLan 9 From Outer Space — but you would also tell your friends.

Clearly, this costs the Motion Picture Association of America and their supporters great amounts of money. If your brain didn't record the movie, you'd be willing to see the movie again and again! You certainly couldn't tell your friends the movie stank if you didn't remember.

Fortunately, there is a solution: Rohypnol. Flunitrazepam, a benzodiazapene, is a drug similar to valium, but it causes the brain to not transfer things from short-term to long-term memory. Administered to movie goers at the proper time, they would remember the previews and advertisements but have no knowledge of the movie they saw. This prevents the illegal theft of intellectual property that has become so casually acceptable to movie goers.

There are, of course, some problems with the use of rohypnol. The drug may interfere with the ability of people to follow complicated plots. Fortunately, unless it's a Spike Lee movie, this shouldn't be a problem. Theatergoers would have to be checked as they left the movie theater to make sure they didn't manage to scribble any notes or carve "This movie sucks!" into their flesh.

With rohypnol, moive goers will have an enjoyable movie experience, ensured by the drug's presence. They will not remember the movie afterward, enabling them to see the movie again and again, even if it is complete and utter dreck.

Unfortunately, there's no known way to use this drug to benefit political campaigns. A Presidential, Senate, or even House term is simply too long to have someone on rohypnol. Politicians will have to wait for Digital Rights Management-enabled computer chips to be implanted in the brain, enabling voters to forget things like weapons of mass destruction, FEMA, support then rejection of Intelligent Design or the racist utterings of Tony Snow.

The use of rohypnol at movie theaters is a practical way to enforce digital rights management in the human brain!

During the Presidential Election of 2000, George W. Bush had one good thing to say about the Clinton Administration:

Clinton took FEMA¹, which had been a patronage do-nothing job under Reagan and G.H.W. Bush, and turned it into an incredible success story. When disasters were too big for local governments, FEMA stepped in with professionalism and experience and performed the seeming oxymoron of managing a crisis.

FEMA was so good under Clinton that it was the favorite subject of paranoid fantasies. Seriously — every tinfoil scheme bandied about where the Constitution would be suspended and the country taken over started with FEMA and the black helicopters. NSA? A bunch of pantywaists in comparison.²

Under George W. Bush, FEMA first went back to being a patronage job. Bush replaced Witt with Bush's campaign manager, Joe Allbaugh. Albaugh got out when he saw the writing on the wall, giving the job to his friend³, Michael Brown. At least Allbaugh had experience running a political campaign. FEMA got sucked into the Homeland Security bureaucratic clot, further diminishing it's effectiveness.

Well, it's now 2006 and the best thing that can be done with FEMA?

Throw it out and start over again.

The official start of Hurricane Season is June, and we're already in Terrorist Season.

1. FEMA was created in 1979, during the waning days of the Carter administration. Pretty much anything after 1977 was the waning days — and I'm a Carter fan. [back]
2. Note to NSA agent who will invariably read this: I'm not saying you're not bad-@$$ and haven't always been. I give you your props, but back then, you didn't have the P.R. and Bill Gates hadn't made nerds frightening yet. [back]
3. Some friend. [back]

I know I'm delusional. In some way or another, we all are. We need to be, to make it through the day . Me? I believe that an individual can make a difference in the world. I know this isn't true, at least not for the vast majority of us, myself included. This delusion is what comes from reading too many comic books. I choose this delusion because I find it comforting, especially when I have to do something that is both right and guaranteed to screw up my life. Been there, done that, got so many t-shirts, I had a wall quilt made.

The question of the week, though, is "Am I paranoid, or are some people as unreasonable as I think they are?" Alas, I'm not paranoid. People out there as self-righteous and cruel as I anticipated. In at least this case, the typing, grammar and spelling were even worse than I feared.

One of yesterday's posts and comments was an experiment that psychologists might call a "reality check." Will the "bad thing" really happen?

In a private e-mail, my suspicions were confirmed. I'd publish the e-mail here, but the person did not give me permission to do so. Asking "May I publish this e-mail to show people just how deranged some folks are?" might not have been the best strategy. Usually, I'm sneakier and more manipulative than that, but I let my emotions get away from me and hit the "Enter" key before I calmed down.

From now on, any e-mail received at "unspace" at "unspace" dot "you know what" will be received by me with the understanding that the author agrees beforehand to being published and either complimented, commented on or ridiculed. I've updated the "Contact Rob" page to reflect this new policy.

I'd take down the "Beds Banned in the South?" post, except someone found something that might be helpful to them as a result. Knowing that some good came out of personal pain brings a sardonic smile to my face. Helping others is important to me.

On the other hand, even Spider-Man throws his costume in the trash now and again. For a while at least, UnSpace will be a stress-free zone. With a Nuclear Cardiac Stress Test coming up on Friday that might well have some serious consequences for me, I think a break is reasonable. I'm more than a bit scared — not that I'd admit that in public. The rest of you are going to have to save the world on your own. I'm on vacation.

I'm not sure if I can really make UnSpace totally stress-free.¹ For example, I'm interested in writing a nifty article about the superfluid nature of quark-gluon plasma (in strange color, literally!) which, if anyone actually understands², they'll realize is incidentally a refutation of some of the arguments of the Young Earthers. I'm not trying to pick a fight. I'm just being a nerd.

A while ago, I found out why one of my best friends doesn't read this blog too often. That person finds this blog disturbing — after a few articles, needs a break. Now, if anyone else said that, I'd take it as a compliment. I like messing with people's heads — it's part of that whole "save the world" routine and it's entertaining to boot! But when the people who mean most to you can only take you in small doses, maybe it's time to try to change some things.

We'll see what happens.

1. Ok, that's hysterical. How about "as stress free as possible"? [back]
2. I'm not sure even I'm going to understand the article I'm writing. [back]

There's been a lot of talk on the net about how efficient black holes are. They're so incredibly efficient, folks are calling them green: environmentally friendly. I'm not so sure.

Well, of course they're efficient. For just about any black hole we can see the effects of, the effective temperature of the black hole is so low, it's not absolute zero only by a teeny tiny technicality. Now, if you remember from thermodynamics, if your heat sink is near absolute zero, your engine's efficiency goes way up. Not only can they extract heat work from the background 3K radiation of the universe, but black holes can convert matter into energy.¹ As the article from Space.com points out:

"If you could make a car engine that was as efficient as one of these black holes, you could get about a billion miles out of a gallon of gas," said study team leader Steve Allen of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at Stanford University.

But are black holes really green? Nuclear power isn't considered green because a mistake can destroy a large chunk of the environment! There are two possible goofs with a black hole. One, if the black hole is large enough, it will eat the Earth. Now, I have this sneaking suspicion that causing the extinction of every species on Earth is not environmentally sound. Maybe that's me. I'm in a weird mood today. Another scenario, using a teeny tiny black hole, finds that if you don't keep feeding the black hole, it's temperature suddenly shoots up to some extremely hot amount and it vaporizes everything nearby — including itself. A black hole's temperature is inversely proportional to the 4th power of the radius — normal black holes are very cold, and teeny tiny ones are very, very hot. We're talking "go stick your hand in the sun to cool down" hot. I don't feel like doing the math, so I'm not sure if by "nearby" we mean "Mars, PA, USA" or "Mars, the Planet." Based on the Wikipedia article on Hawking radiation, for a black hole that evaportes in 1 sec., it's 10⁶ megatons of TNT, which is only about 5,000 decent nuclear bombs. So it's just "Mars, PA, USA" and a bit more — nowhere near "Mars, the Planet." Still, this doesn't strike me as particularly green.

If you're going to use a black hole as a power source, use one far from inhabited planets. The one at the center of the Milky Way galaxy is far enough away, but the sucker spews out more radiation than I think you can deal with. A quiet one with no accretion disk is your best bet — pick one that drifted in between two stellar arms. Build a Dyson sphere around the black hole to collect up your energy as you throw garbage slowly and carefully into the thing, and charge up your rechargable batteries.

This is probably a good place to put your time machine, too. Time machines are notorious energy hogs, and if you work things out right, the black hole might be the heart of the time machine anyway. If you're building a superduper particle accelerator, this is also a good place to put it. Better yet, skip the superduper particle accelerator and just watch things go "boom" as you throw them into the black hole. It's just as good and takes a lot less work.

But please do not power your Prius with a black hole. Black holes aren't green: they're black or white.

1. Ok, yeah, matter is energy. But it's energy in a form we can't use to power stuff. So maybe I should have written "…black holes can convert energy in a non-useful form into energy in a useful form." but then no one would understand but you. Anyway… [back]

There appear to be many stories in the news today that leave me amazed and befuddled. The most extreme is this one from 2 Political Junkies, who got it from Dare Generation Diary who got it from Boing Boing who got it from Anderson Independent Mail who got it from the Associated Press who got it from Seanna Adcox. I don't know where Seanna Adcox got it from.

Anyway, it appears that South Carolina is planning on banning beds.

Lucy’s Love Shop employee Wanda Gillespie said she was flabbergasted that South Carolina’s Legislature is considering outlawing sex toys. But banning the sale of sex toys is actually quite common in some Southern states.

Now, some might argue that beds are also used for sleeping, but for most people, that's what the chair in front of the computer, the couch in front of the computer, those too-comfortable seats in the planetarium, and the seat in front of the steering wheel are for. The bed is, believe it or not, used mainly for sex.

Now, most people prefer to have sex in the normal places: the floor, the bathtub, various places in or on the car, swingsets, gazebos, the vegetable garden, that retaining wall that's just the right height, the stretcher in the back of an out-of-service ambulance, the driveway at 3 a.m. when everyone else in the neighborhood is either asleep or similarly involved, that isolated cliff at the Grand Canyon (with caution — it's a long drop), on the steps, at the top of the stairwells at certain CMU concrete monstrosities, on the washer with an unbalanced load of towels on the spin cycle, in front of the fireplace, in front of the TV, and of course the kitchen table (please remember to wash the table afterward, folks!), and of course, the beach.

But some people choose an alterantive lifestyle and have sex on the bed. For women who have difficulty achieving satisfaction, the softness of the mattress and the availability of pillows can be quite helpful. Psychiatrists who prescribe antidepressants often suggest using a bed as a way to help with the common side-effects of these drugs. For heart patients or people with other medical conditions, the bed provides a soft place to land should the patient go into cardiac arrest.¹

Studies in human sexuality have shown that the bed is almost universally preferred as a sexual aid by arthritis patients, and that by the time most couples reach their ninetieth birthday, the bed has become their only place for lovemaking.

The Presbyterian Church, being a liberal organization, does not take a stand on its members having sex in bed, although it's not something one should bring up during prayer requests. I'm not sure about the Roman Catholic church's position on this parphilia.

Some people will object because the use of the bed in sex comes from the gay and lesbian community and is often seen in pornography. Some people need to get a life.

I would hope the legislators in South Carolina realize that many Americans use the bed as a "marital aid" and it enhances their marriage. The bed has been known to keep marriages together. I hesitate to mention this, but in one case, a wife insisted on having sex on the dining room table or in the outfield seats at Pirates games (perhaps the most private place in all of Pittsburgh) and other locations. Her husband, seeking novelty, wound up having an affair with a woman who was willing to have sex in a bed. The marriage broke up, which proved to be devastating to the children.

If we are going to hold the family together, initiatives like this ill-conceived (no pun intended) law must be stopped now.

1. Remember, folks, always perform CPR on the floor. The flexibility of the bed reduces the effectiveness of compressions. [back]

Nancy and I are very impressed:

Parrot Wins Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League Dixie Division Tournament

Alex the African grey parrot can count to six, recognizes shapes and colors, knows and can properly use the words "like" and "different," understands a concept similar to the human "zero," and is learning to associate phonemes with shapes. But Boater Mike has demonstrated human-level abilities, to the point where he won a fishing contest:

Boater Mike Parrot of Alexander City, Ala., earned $5,366 Saturday as winner of the Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League Dixie Division event on Lake Eufaula. The tournament was the third of five regular-season Dixie Division events and featured 168 boaters vying for the win, which earned Parrot 200 points in the Boater Division.

Parrots winning catch of five bass weighed 16 pounds, 1 ounce. He was throwing a jig deep around the north end of the lake.

Now, Chauncey, our Moluccan cockatoo, has shown that he can use simple tools. He can tie knots, fasten and unfasten locking D rings, and once stole a screwdriver in an attempt to escape from his cage. But Chauncey isn't really that smart. He stole a Phillips head screwdriver, and all the interior screws on his cage are slot-heads.

Cirrus, though far more verbally astute than Chauncey, has shown much less interest in tools. The only tool use we have observed is her that she will swing her cage door to get to some place she is not permitted. Throwing bowls of food on the floor to display displeasure or throwing French's French-Fried Onions on the floor to teach a dog "Come Here" don't really count as tools. She does think the concept of a dog obeying her is hysterical, though.

It occurs to me that Boater Mike may have had an advantage over the other contestants. The article says he was "throwing a jig." A jig is a type of fishing lure, and a flighted parrot could "throw a jig" far more accurately than any human. With the greater eyesight, they may even be able to spot fish in the water that humans cannot.

Congratulations to Boater Mike on winning the fishing tornament.

According to New Scientist, imperfections in a digital camera's charge-coupling device (CCD), the chip that turns light into the zeros and ones for the camera, cause a camera to have a statistical "fingerprint."

If you think about it, this makes sense. The CCD chips are rather small. Think how many megapixels there are for even a one megapixel phone camera.¹ Even with the best etching and layering techniques, slight imperfections will arise in the chip. One sensor will be a little more sensitive than another.²

The result is a bit more subtle than the watermark used to identify photographs. Standard digital manipulations won't remove the signature, although anyone used to dealing with digital images can think of a number of ways of overcoming this. Before this can be used in court, though, further studies need to be done to define how specific this information is. How many digital cameras out there have a particular digital "fingerprint"? How much of an image do you need to do a match?

How much you want to bet Grissom uses this next season? The New York CSIs have too many dead bodies to worry about this and the science is so terrible down at the Miami CSI that they'd just screw it up.

The first real-world use will almost certainly be in prosecuting child pornography photographers. High-resolution digital cameras are used to enhance quality and avoid the problems caused by processing film, making these slimeballs both obvious and perfect targets for this technique.

1. One million pixels, in case you're not familiar with SI prefixes. [back]
2. For my astrophotography, I'm actually supposed to attempt to compensate for this by taking a photograph with the lens cap on and XORing the picture. So far I haven't, although I should. I wonder how much improvement I would get… [back]

According to Deutsche Welle, "One year after the election of Pope Benedict XVI, the Vatican, in a reversal of church doctrine, is prepared to allow the use of condoms to combat AIDS." Thank God!

The Vatican appears to be "leaking" this information in advance of the official announcement worse than the Bush administration with classified information. The logic behind the change appears twofold: One, if an innocent woman lives in a culture where she cannot refuse the advances of her HIV husband, she should not be forced to risk her life and to endanger the welfare of her children. Two, AIDS is a worldwide disaster and while the church cannot advocate condom usage, they can point out that causing the death of another is a worse sin than condom usage.

For those of us who are not Catholic, this change is a bare minimum. Having grown up in the Catholic church, though, I understand that this is a giant leap for them. Pope Bendict XVI dare not make much more change at one time, even if he were so inclined (which I doubt).

There will be problems for the Catholic Church, especially among the hard-liners in America. Condom failure rates have been exaggerated to the point where the quoted odds of contracting HIV with condom usage are an order of magnitude greater than without condom usage! There seems to be an approach among Christians to controlling teenage sexuality by equating sex with death. I keep trying to point out that when people find out they've been lied to, the results aren't good. One cannot serve the Truth by making common cause with the Father of Lies.

I guess to me, the issue of using condoms to prevent transmitting HIV is rather personal. Years ago, I was attacked by a confused HIV+ patient and severely exposed to the AIDS virus. Life was interesting enough without having to worry about theological questions like this.

I, for one, welcome the Catholic Church's change in their stance on using condoms to protect people from HIV. I wish the change would go further, but I'm also a realist.

And if the Vatican announcement comes out contradicting Cardinal Martini and other sources…well, let's all pray that doesn't happen.

Usually, The Carbolic Smoke Ball is a humor site, posting faux news stories that look at current events in a humorous light. Why Judge Rufus Peckham decided to publish a serious story, I do not know, but "BUSH APOLOGIZES PROFUSELY TO BRUTAL DICTATOR FOR AMERICA'S EXCESSIVE FREE SPEECH" is still worth reading.

You can subscribe to UnSpace. The question is, will you?

Subscription is straightforward. You submit your e-mail address, Feedburner sends you an e-mail to see if you really want to subscribe, and if you click the confirmation e-mail, you're subscribed!

What do you get for subscribing? Well, I susbcribed myself to my own blog yesterday, and today, I got an e-mail with my RSS feed for my last 10 posts. I think that, should I go a day or more without posting, I wouldn't get an e-mail on the following days.

Is it worth it? I'm not sure. Since it's merely sending an e-mail form of the RSS feed, you're better off if you subscribe to my RSS feed. You'll be notified whenever there are new UnSpace posts when you open up your RSS reader and ask it to refresh. You won't have to wait a day to get a message in your e-mail.

So tell me, is it worth the effort? Is anyone going to subscribe to UnSpace via e-mail? Or should I scrap it and put up a post explaining what an RSS feed is and how to use either Feedreader or Sage (with the Firefox browser)?

Any opinions out there?

While the previous flowers are the standouts this time of year at Piney Fork in Jefferson Hills, PA, there are numerous other flowers that have a charm all their own.

Besides the purple and yellow violets, there are also white violets, although we have not seen any yet this year. Spring beauty has been open for several weeks, but the wild phlox has opened only recently. The plentiful garlic mustard makes an interesting addition to a salad and, if cultivated without insecticides, a favorite parrot food. The cut-leaf toothwort has pale pink stripes. The last two species, coltsfoot and vinca are introduced species that have found a niche in the new world botanical order.

Purple violet

Yellow violet

Spring beauty

Wild phlox

Garlic mustard

Cut-leaf toothwort

Coltsfoot: introduced species

Vinca: introduced species

Of all the flowers at Piney Fork in Jefferson Hills, PA, perhaps none are more beautiful than the trout lilies, dephiniums, and the trilliums.

Trout Lily as normally seen

Trout Lily underside

The trout lily (Erythronium americanum) is a stunning flower that hides from the casual observer. If you look at the first photograph, you'll see the flower's nodding appearance. Often, people notice the leaves first, which sort of resemble a trout's skin, giving this plant it's name. The flower may blend in with last year's leaves. By getting down on your hands and knees, you can peak underneath and see the beauty of the trout lily's bloom.

Violet Spring Larkspur

Delphinium tricorne, also known as the Spring Larkspur, appears in either purple or blue in Piney Fork. The plants are short for larkspur, ranging between 4 and 24 inches.

White Trillium

Purple Trillium

Red Trillium

If you visit Piney Fork, you can see three different kinds of trillium:

Trillium grandiflorum: the white trillium, also known as the large-flowered trillium. The white trillium covers hillsides this time of year in Western Pennsylvania. The white blooms can often be seen dotting east or west-facing wooded hillsides as you drive along. Like all trillium, the plant may die if a part is picked. White trillium bulbs are easily available at garden stores for fall planting.

Trillium erectum: the purple trillium, also known as stinking Benjamin. The purple trillium is reported to have a terrible smell, but neither Nancy nor I could smell anything unusual. The flower nods, like the trout lily; Nancy gently propped the flower up for the photograph.

Trillium sessile: the red trillium, also known as toadshade. Red trillium is a closed flower. Notice that the flower is very close to the leaves, with no stalk, unlike the purple trillium. Again reported to smell like carion, we smelled nothing on the day we were there. This flower will not open much more than you see here.

For Earth Day, I've decided to post some recent photos from walks Nancy and I have taken at Piney Fork in Jefferson Hills, PA. These first two are the only ones ready right now, but I hope to have a wonderful selection of flowers and animals later today or tomorrow.

The Piney Fork stream

Someone fishing at Piney Fork