At Moonshine

At Moonshine
Originally uploaded by kcsporttour

Made it to Casey, Il without any trouble. Routed over to Mississippi and up to Illinois - missed all the weather. Met Jeff at the hotel. Tomorrow we go for the world famous Moon Burger!

--
will england, mobile
sent with a palm centro

WxExW Auto Audio Blog #16

Gabcast! WxExW Auto Audio Blog #16

Hail forcast

Hail forcast
Originally uploaded by kcsporttour

Bob Chappawas (sp?), Louisiana state director, looks on at the bikes under cover against a forcasted Texas hailstorm tonight.

--
will england, mobile
sent with a palm centro

WxExW Auto Audio Blog #15

Gabcast! WxExW Auto Audio Blog #15

STAR breakfast

STAR breakfast
Originally uploaded by kcsporttour

leadership, new members and Fred Rau.

--
will england, mobile
sent with a palm centro

Bikes at STAR

Bikes at STAR
Originally uploaded by kcsporttour

bit damp this morning

--
will england, mobile
sent with a palm centro

WxExW Auto Audio Blog #14

Gabcast! WxExW Auto Audio Blog #14

Easter Eggs after Cats

Easter Eggs after Cats
Originally uploaded by kcsporttour

Alec still has his face paint on after the Cats musical

Google, Garmin link up for GPS trip info | Crave : The gadget blog

Google, Garmin link up for GPS trip info | Crave : The gadget blog: "people using Google Maps to plan trips will be able to send location data to their Garmin GPS systems, the companies announced on Monday. The feature, called 'Send-to-Garmin', will eliminate the need to re-key route information into GPS devices."

Pulling my Hair Out

Pulling my Hair Out
Originally uploaded by kcsporttour

Sprint Picturemail is fine, but you still have to go back to the post
later and add the new full size image behind it.
So, I've been looking for a solution to post the 1.2 and 2.0
megapixel photos from my phone by email. You can't do it! You
cannot post photos by email to Blogger. You can do nicely formatted
HTML email, but not photos. Bother.

Flickr to the rescue! You can email photos to Flicker and have them
tagged and added to your Blogger blog automatically. Easy, simple
and fast. It'll even take the text I'm sending here and stuff it
into the blog post body. Strips all the HTML formatting - but so what?

Flickr rules.

Alec at second karate tournament

10 minutes in and he already has a trophy!

Alec at Cats

Alec and Tyson

Xyzzy Pronouncable Password Generator

Xyzzy Product Page: "Xyzzy is a pronounceable password generator. It is useful for network or server administrators that find themselves creating new user accounts on a regular basis and need to come up with passwords for them."

Clean Guinea

Guniea Pig was getting a bit stuffy smelling, so a bath was in order.

Photo taken with HTC Touch phone. Not terribly bad...

Sunshine makes a happy kitty

Father of Space Opera Free Online

Browse By Author: S - Project Gutenberg E.E. "Doc" Smith was the 'father' of Space Opera, writing some of the first science fiction themes that would appear in more modern Sci Fi.

Some of the stories available include 'Triplanetary' and 'The Vortex Blaster', the first and last books in the Lensman series (Hugo Award runner up for best all-time series, beating out Lord of the Rings). Finally - a good reason to get an Amazon Kindle!

More about E.E. "Doc" Smith from Wikipedia

GoDaddy and 'cannot log into the MySQL server'

GoDaddy and MySQL access - Helmut Granda: "This is the first hit for “GoDaddy cannot log in to the MySQL server” in Google, so here’s the answer:

GoDaddy is using old password hashing, so passwords longer than 14 characters are truncated to the first 14 characters. Use the first 14 characters of the password you entered and it will log in successfully."

I had this problem, using a 20 char. password. I just used the first 14 chars and it worked. So much for 'strong passwords'.

Auto Audio Blog!

Gabcast! Blogger #7

Unbelievable. Inconceivable, even! 9 hours ago I decided I needed an audio blogging solution. Spent a half an hour, and I have one. 5 minutes to search in the Blogger Help pages, and I found Gabcast. 25 minutes setting up the account, learning how to insert a pause into a saved number on my Palm Centro, and figuring out how to integrate Gabcast and Blogger. (tip - click the button. It 'just works'. Don't overthink it.)

To listen to the audio blog posts, just click the 'play' button up there in the blue widget. If I really like this I may pay for a premium account and get a better looking widget.

Bicycle Time

Today was an unusually warm day for March, although windy.  The next door neighbors came over and asked if Alec and I would like to go for a bike ride - great idea, except for one problem.  Alec doesn't have a bike!  I've been putting off getting him a new 16" bike since he outgrew his 12" preschool bike.  Well, the kind neighbors had a great solution - they gave Alec a new bike!  Ok, not new, but one of their kids bikes that they'd outgrown:

A few minutes work and we had training wheels installed, and went for a great ride around the neighborhood.  We ended up at Taco Bell for a re-fueling stop, then made it home before the rain came in.   What a nice afternoon...

Hello to my new readers. Just making sure blogging via text messaging still works.

I need to find a working audioblog solution...

Guinea Pig Care and Health Information

Guinea Pig Care and Health Information-- lots of good information, tips and even sound recordings of their squeaks.  Neat stuff.

(Alec just got a Guinea about a month ago, and we're still trying to figure out how it works. )

Missile Silo links

Back in the cold war, Kansas had lots of nuclear missile silos. They've all since been filled and plowed under, but some still have some concrete blocks on the top as reminders of what once stood there. You may have even driven by them at some point. Some of the oldest Atlas missile sites have been converted into homes or even a highschool.



The following sites have a ton of information about the old silos - 'jimkirk' has a huge reference site, including links to Atlas, Titan I and Titan II silo sites.  The Kansas sites were Atlas sites associated with Forbes AFB out of Topeka and Titan II sites associated with McConnell AFB out of Wichita.  Siloworld has a list of basically all the silo sites, with links to Yahoo! sat. maps.

A few local ones:
Near 160 and Cowley 1

US400 just East of Beaumont

US54/77 just North of the 54/400 curve

US77 just North of the turnpike

Side note:  Yahoo has better, more up to date imagery than Google does for these rural locations.  Nice interface, too...

Our reputation for flakiness is at stake - 02/17/2008 - MiamiHerald.com

Our reputation for flakiness is at stake - 02/17/2008 - MiamiHerald.com: "In a move that could endanger Florida's flaky backwater reputation, the state Board of Education is poised to endorse the teaching of evolution as a science.

This is a dangerous idea -- not the presentation of Darwinism in schools, but the presentation of Florida as a place of progressive scientific thought.

Over the years the Legislature has worked tirelessly to keep our kids academically stuck in the mid-1950s. This has been achieved by overcrowding their classrooms, underpaying their teachers and letting their school buildings fall apart."

You could pretty well substitute Kansas for Florida and have the same article...

Obama on the 'Gun Crisis' in the US

From his Senate Page: "'There is no crisis,' Obama said. 'Guns are plentiful. We have multiple guns for every man, woman and child in this country.'"

Heh, heh. I like him. :-)

Block Posters - Create large wall posters from any image for free!

Block Posters - Create large wall posters from any image for free!: "Upload an image from your computer and choose how many sheets wide
you would like your poster to be once printed"

Southwest plans high-speed Internet trials

Southwest plans high-speed Internet trials | Geek Gestalt - A blog by Daniel Terdiman - CNET News.com: "Southwest Airlines announced Wednesday that it plans to begin trials of satellite-to-airplane broadband Internet service sometime this summer."

That's all well and good but for two things -- you can barely use a Palm Treo in the cramped seats on Southwest, and they provide no power outlets for your computer onboard.  I cannot imagine trying to weasel your 15" MacPro out from under the seat in front of you and unfold it on the 9" x 7" 'tray table'.  

Maybe this is going to drive adoption of the micro- miniature EEE PC ($300) or OQO ($2500) hand-top computers?

Illegal to watch the Superbowl?

According to US Copyright law, it is an infringement on broadcast copyrights to use an AV device with a screen greater than 55", or in the case of an audio only broadcast, to use more than 6 speakers.   

Sorry, folks - those home theaters you have spent so much money on for your Superbowl party?  They are illegal.  Have a nice day.  Best government money can buy.

Think I'm full of it?

The NFL has sent cease-and-desist letters to several private groups that used to have Superbowl parties - churches, mainly:

• Techdirt
  
• Washington Post
  

Continuing the long tradition of Christian civil disobedience, the Indianapolis Second Baptist Church will risk the wrath of Federal Law and NFL Lawyers by illegally re-broadcasting the superbowl for their youth group this weeekend, using a weapon of mass communication, a projector and screen bigger than 55". Will Homeland Security conduct a copyright raid searching for these weapons of mass communication?

Comfy

Comfy cat seems to have moved in.

lolcat hat

moar funny pictures

Clive Thompson on Why Sci-Fi Is the Last Bastion of Philosophical Writing

Clive Thompson on Why Sci-Fi Is the Last Bastion of Philosophical Writing: "If you want to read books that tackle profound philosophical questions, then the best — and perhaps only — place to turn these days is sci-fi. Science fiction is the last great literature of ideas."

Storytime

Alec at Wonderscope

They have a special MLK presentation today...

Cub scout pack

Hackito Ergo Sum: The Library Problem

Hackito Ergo Sum: The Library Problem: "The problem was that we had no idea what books we had or where any of them were. We lost books all the time, cursed late into the night digging through piles for that one book we knew must be there, and even bought books only to find that we already owned them. There were books on random shelves, books on the floor, we were tripping over books when we walked up and down the stairs. In short, we had a mess. We needed to get organized. "

Kansas City School Closings and Delays, Missouri Business Closings from KMBC

Kansas City School Closings and Delays, Missouri Business Closings from KMBC: "KANSAS CITY SCHOOL CLOSINGS"

Cubscout caroling

New law requires complete recording of all 'net activity

Some sites are reporting that HR 3791 EH, the "SAFE Act of 2007" only applies to open commercial WiFi access points - not so. The SAFE Act requires reporting and full binary logging of every communication that has "child pornography, meaning photographs and videos of children being molested. But it also includes photographs of fully clothed minors in overly "lascivious" poses, and certain obscene visual depictions including a "drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting.

No, it does not say "WiFi". It says "electronic communication service". Which means:

any service which


provides to users thereof the ability to send or receive wire or


electronic communications;

What are Wire or Electronic Communications?

any transfer of signs,


signals, writing, images, sounds, data, or intelligence of any


nature transmitted in whole or in part by a wire, radio,


electromagnetic, photoelectronic or photooptical system,

OR

means any aural transfer made in whole


or in part through the use of facilities for the transmission of


communications by the aid of wire, cable, or other like


connection between the point of origin and the point of reception


(including the use of such connection in a switching station)


furnished or operated by any person engaged in providing or


operating such facilities

There, in part two (wire communications) you get the WiFi access point. BUT, the 'Electronic Communications' means any method of transmitting any kind of encoded signal. ALL ISP's, email providers, website providers, web forum providers, AND Ham Radio repeater operators, would be required to report this, and maintain full binary logs of the entire transmission.

If you don't log your systems, then you are immune.

But what ISP doesn't log their systems? By running normal syslog and weblogs, they open themselves up to $300,000 USD fines per occurrence. Thus, they have to keep full binary logs of everything transmitted across the wire, wireless, etc. Everyone. Absolutely every single access point to the Internet. Because if you don't log it, and don't report it, then you are liable. $300,000 per image. Per frame. Per incident. Not even Google can afford that risk.

Or stop offering "Electronic Communication".

Johnson County Radio Amateurs Club Home Page

Johnson County Radio Amateurs Club Home Page: "Johnson County Radio Amateurs Club" Also known as the JOCORAC, they offer lots of HAM radio services, including W5YI Testing for your amateur radio license.

New glasses

The origins of 'robots.txt'

From, of all places, a Slashdot comment.

"it was written to keep this rather simplistic and brain-dead perl n00b from pillaging Martin's bandwidth."

(Read more at Slashdot.org . . . )

Drive Space...

It wasn't too long ago that 30 Gig of disk space was more than you'd ever need.  But today, I'm working on some random video projects and I'm tearing up 30 gig just for scratch space.  I have to delete and archive stuff between every disc!

Time for a new external drive I think...

Blue Man Group

Nice floor seats - the show begins: (uploaded live at 8:45PM from my Palm Centro)

And the obligatory audience walk: (horrid video from my Palm Centro)

More Photos from the show (flickr slideshow in Flash), again from the Palm.  Not a bad camera, OK video.  Great show!

Baseball!

Arrived in atlanta

Me at the CNN Center

Alec working on pinecar

Alec is painting his pinecar derby car for cubscouts

Someone else likes IBM keyboards...

Walter Jon Williams, author of Hardwired, Aristoi, and other great cyberpunk / near future fiction, is another fan of the IBM Model M keyboard (clickey-board).  

(I have too much time on my hands...)

Boom!

The Space Shuttle just passed overhead.  Got to hear the sonic boom! 

Now I can go to work. . .

Will

Alec at skate party

Doing a drawing for door prizes

Make that TWO teeth

Alec won some taffy at the skating party tonight, and welllll...  That second front tooth just popped right out!  He was a real trouper, though - just a little weirded out by the blood.  Now he has TWO teeth for the tooth fairy tonight!

Alec lost a tooth

He lost one of his front teeth today!

Karate Match

Alec at karate match

Alec is competing in his first Karate match today

Nice College Football

Never seen anything like this before:

Courtesy ESPN.  

chiefs game

split lip rayfield

Coffee a top source of healthy antioxidants -

Coffee a top source of healthy antioxidants - Fitness - MSNBC.com : "Coffee not only helps clear the mind and perk up the energy, it also provides more healthful antioxidants than any other food or beverage in the American diet, according to a study released Sunday"

Hah!  I knew it was good for someting.

Decisions, decisions...

I'm about done with my bachelors at Park. Whee! Now, what to do next?

Park requires me to take Econ 101 and 102 before I can apply for the MBA program. WTF? Stupid requirements. So, that leads me to look elsewhere.

KU has an evening professional degree program, just down the road, too! But, what to take?

The classic MBA? Moo.

Or something actually fun? Take a look at the course descriptions. Sounds like what I read for fun. . . (security risks, encryption and cryptography, viruses, firewalls, viruses, worm attack, Trojan horses, password security, secure multicast ) and stuff I've been wanting to learn for a while now (design and analysis of approximation algorithms; lower bound theory; polynomial transformation and the theory of NP-completeness...)

Maybe I'll do the fun one first, then if I'm still in the mood (MOO) for crap, I'll do the MBA. I can apply either or both to what I do at Sprint . . . (and have them pay for it too...)

Besides, the MS in IS is only 24 hours and a thesis. You mean I *have* to write about computers. Shucks. :-)

podcasting from Joomla

mini-Tutorial for LeBlanc's Podcast Suite v1.1: "a number of folks (besides me!) have been interested in podcasting from Joomla sites and have had some trouble getting started, so I thought I'd try to do a little tutorial on LeBlanc's podcast component"

I wonder if this works any better - I'm 6 hours deep in the code right now trying to make the default install work for simple podcasting at buzzaboutwireless.com

will england :: Wills Work Webcam

will england :: Wills Work Webcam: "Got bored. Installed webcam. Instead of working. Wait for a refresh, or hit reload. 10 seconds. "

Giant Interstellar Void

Giant Interstellar Void: "stuff that astronomers think exists, but hasn't actually been found anywhere, isn't there, either"

Mmmkay??

Me? I'm going to go look at a total eclipse of the moon at 5:30 AM Central...

W

alec at wonderscope

mt vernon il

front royal virginia

Buzz About Wireless - First bill from an iPhone

Buzz About Wireless - First bill from an iPhone: "ATT and the iPhone - this user received his first bill at 15 (!) pages, totalling over $240 for his '$120' monthly shared plan."

Fancy.  How's your iPhone first bill been?

Route to Arlington

Going to Arlington VA one of these days - and I'm taking I-64 again. I must be a glutton for punnishment. The other (shortest) alternative was to run through Indianapolis, Dayton, etc. Tour the great industrial wrecks of america! Not.

SO, here is the google map for my route - click and check it out.

Fee you on the Slip Side...

W.


.

Buzz About Wireless - EVDO at 120KPH?

Buzz About Wireless - EVDO at 120KPH?: "Using the RevA network, Cheung was able to play World of Warcraft, download videos from Youtube at 120KPH and use Skype to place phone calls. "

Cult of Personality

Kung Fu Monkey: "Mm-hmm. Mmm-hmm.": "This woman's just been caught out admitting she doesn't understand her oath of office to the people of the United States and that she's misplaced her priorities in a cult of politicized hero-worship ...and she's treating it like Myra from HR is harassing her about the damn TPS forms again."

Check out the video.  This is lovely...

U.S. Will Allow Most Types of Lighters on Planes - New York Times

U.S. Will Allow Most Types of Lighters on Planes - New York Times: "Federal aviation authorities have decided to stop enforcing a two-year-old rule against taking cigarette lighters on airplanes, concluding that it was a waste of time to search for them before passengers boarded."

OMG - The terrirsts have w0n!  

alec and gramma

alec

Creative Profanity

So, here I was rockin back from Chicago this weekend, and I had an idea for a weekly recurring feature for this blog: Creative Profanity.

We all have the usual motherfucker or craptastic swearwords; what we need is some new, unique and inventive swearwords and phrases.

To start: "Mudsucking Shitfoot". I know I've read that somewhere in a pulp sci-fi book, but I find no reference to it on Google. Daffynition to come once I think of one. . .

Any ideas?

Omaha Was Bombed During WWII - Omaha's 150th Birthday News Story - KETV Omaha

Omaha Was Bombed During WWII - Omaha's 150th Birthday News Story - KETV Omaha: "OMAHA, Neb. -- The year was 1945 and the United States was in the middle of World War II. Omaha seemed relatively safe until one night in April when a Japanese bomb dropped in Dundee."

Visual Hub, High Motion and H.264

Just a tip - on Visual Hub for the Mac, when encoding an MP4 file with lots of motion - my example was a series of photos at 15 frames per photo (2 per second) - it fails miserably even at high quality settings.  The fast frame changes just disintegrated into macroblock noise.

However, if I go into Advanced Settings, and check '2-pass' encoding, it clears right up, at the cost of 50% more encoding time.  (2 minutes to 3 minutes for a 2:10 video clip on the 2.33 MacBook Pro)

Another note - at the same settings, without the 2-pass encoding, the AVI Simple profile appears to deliver similarly excellent results.  Not sure what codec is used - Xvid / DivX I assume via FFMPEG.  Also a smaller file size and greater compatibility between Windows, Mac and Linux.

The AVI files can be seen at my KS HSTA site (no, not the UTube, below that!).

W.

fell asleep reading

fell asleep reading
Originally uploaded by kcsporttour

Boy chose this book to read and ended up falling asleep. Too sweet. (he's still six isn't he?!?)

Safari 3.0 works with Blogger!

Finally!  The Rich Text editor works in Safari.  Now I can:

1. Stop using Firefox for blog posts 
2. Show my mom how to set up a blog

I've been running the new Safari 3.0 for, um, 90 seconds now and haven't found any bugs.  Nice.  Other neat thing - the built in spellchecker checks spelling in the 'edit html' view on Blogger.  

How to kill brown recluse spiders

Great publication on how to kill brown recluse spiders from the University of Tenn. Even names specific product names - Demon and Tempo are the highest recommended products.

However, the University of Kansas has found that nothing really works as well as good old fashioned glue traps - they use Catchmaster brand.

Gut Rumbles

Gut Rumbles : "If my blog does not meet your standards, then LOWER YOUR STANDARDS. Who the hell do you think you are, anyway?"
Backwoods hill-scoggin who has a down-home folksy style of writing. Fairly offensive, but still a good read.

More photos from New Mexico

Welcome, eh?
Originally uploaded by kcsporttour

I added some more photos from the Memorial Weekend trip to New Mexico - click the picture to the right, check the 'motorcycle touring' set. Enjoy!

W.

Photohosting, blogging

Funny bits - Picasa from Google now offers integrated tools to upload photos from your Mac, even directly in iPhoto. Very nice, very easy. But! There is no way to create a blog post from a photo in the Picasa web interface. Last time I czeched, Picasa and Blogger were owned by the same company.

However, Flickr by Yahoo! (a direct competitor to Google) makes it bog simple to post a photo, caption, story etc to Blogger from any image - yours or other peoples!

Just one of those odd things I've noticed...

The Interstate Highway System: Road to the Future or Innocence Lost?

The Interstate Highway System: Road to the Future or Innocence Lost?: "Missouri was the first state to start interstate construction, with groundbreaking for I-70 in St. Charles County on August 2, 1956. Less than two months later, on September 26, eight miles of U.S. 40 near Topeka, Kansas, became the first interstate highway project completed."

They'll finance anyone these days!

Me and my 2007 Subaru Forester
Originally uploaded by kcsporttour

After nearly 80,000 miles the Isuzu was a bit creaky around the edges - starting to leak from the steering rack ($1500), the front differential ($500) and the shocks were worn ($800). And, my divorce decree mandated that I close out the loan on the truck no later than the end of this month.

I thought about going to a finance company to re-write the loan, but decided a better way to clear out the loan was to trade in the Isuzu, and it's loan, for something smaller, more efficient, and cooler.

So, overloaded credit and all, Olathe Subaru managed to set up a relatively nice loan on this new (10 miles on it) 2007 Subaru Forester X. With a sunroof. w00t! Quite a bit nicer than the Isuzu that it's replacing, and nearly double the gas mileage! (and SMILEage!)

Now, where to go for the first roadtrip?

How the other half lives

Had a meeting today in the 'Executive" building where I work. I snuck off for a minute and saw their reception room:

Quartz Composer iSight Prank - O'Reilly Mac DevCenter Blog

Quartz Composer iSight Prank - O'Reilly Mac DevCenter Blog

Capulin Volcano at sunset

Capulin Volcano at sunset
Originally uploaded by kcsporttour

Rode out to New Mexico over Memorial Day weekend. As usual for a motorcycle trip, it rained. And rained. And rained some more. I finally broke out of the rain just over the NM border on US64. The sun was just setting behind the Cauplin Volcano and I snapped a few shots before heading on into Raton to meet the rest of the HSTA crew.

Trying new photo hosting

I've set up a Flickr account for some of my 'best' photos - I'll still do dumps of all the photos to the classic gallery.

Check out the new Flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kcsporttour/

(update) Wow - Flickr completely fails to suck. Flash-based slideshows. Notes on the photos. Geo-location for photos (put them on a map). Fast simple template-based posting of photos to this blog. (see above).

That sucks so much less than my Gallery software...

Map of internet connections

AT&T map from 2000 - I can't imagine what it'd look like now...


And an un-dated Quest network map...

Damn Im bored

My sweet Alec