Don't Panic!
I enjoyed the movie "
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy". I've been a big fan of the
original TV Series (and books) for a number of years. In the movie, some of the subtle British, specifically Douglas Adams, humor has been replaced by "Hollywood Obvious" but the movie is still enjoyable. It was weird at first, knowing the exact lines in the beginning but that didn't last long as the story line wandered away from the familiar, which allows experienced and new viewers a chance to see and hear new things. I also enjoyed the tributes to the original TV series. Simon Jones (original Arthur) did the voice of the narrator (his father, Peter Jones was the original voice of the book) and the prerecorded message from the (closed) planet Magrathea. During a later rescue scene, the original robot, Marvin, was standing in the que. Nice touches.
Something else I picked up watching the credits: Individuals can and DO make a difference in the entertainment industry too.
Douglas Adams wrote the original stories.
Jim Henson Company did many of the creatures and special effects and
Abby Road Studios (where Sir Edward Elgar recorded some of his most celebrated compositions) recorded some of the soundtrack.
Anyway, the movie was fun.
Tag:
MoviesUploaded by me
A Sexy Marching Band?
Some fun. Marching band was never this much fun...or sexy. Check out this
black chicken video.
Fat Sexy Guy is a good listen too. Here is the
Press page for Extra Action.
Tag: Tag:
MusicUploaded by me
Road Rage or Agressive Driving - We don't need it
This is sad. This is hard to write about. Here is a quote from
BayNews9 on a Road Rage crackdown.
Road rage is in the spotlight this week after an incident that led to the death of a man on the Courtney Campbell Causeway.
Vincent Tucker, 33, died Tuesday morning after a road rage incident. A black SUV that was behind his car on the causeway began honking his horn when Tucker didn't move over. The suspect's vehicle passed Tucker on the right, then cut Tucker off.
Tucker's car flipped over and he was ejected. Tucker was pronounced dead at Tampa General Hospital.
Hearing about aggressive driving is not new. Driver dot com has several
articles related to Road Rage. AAA
has a Foundation for Traffic Safety site. There are even websites dedicated to road rage.
Trouble is, there are no easy answers. You can try
steer clear tips or take a
driving style test but these only go so far. When you're on the road you have no idea when something may happen that's beyond your control.
It's odd that I learned important things about driving
after I slowed down. At first I only wanted to test
the 60 mph theory. My gas mileage went from 28 mpg to 34 mpg but that didn't matter much. What struck me the most was the fact that I noticed I was being passed by the same cars
more than once! This meant I was passing faster drivers by knowing how to handle heavy traffic. Slowing down didn't change my arrival time very much either. A 30 mile one-way trip where all but 6 miles are on the highway and I was passing faster drivers (at times or during certain volume conditions) and still arriving within minutes of my old times (which used to be 9 or more miles an hour over the speed limit). No worries about tickets or changing lanes any more. Further proof: After leaving a meeting at a soon-to-be-new office location (this actually happened twice) behind a co-worker, I put the cruise control on at 60 and watched them pull away from me (highway speed limit was 65). When I arrived at the (old) office, I turned the car off in time to see the (previous) lead car pull in the parking lot
behind me. Turns out my knowing the traffic conditions and which lanes to drive in for the off-highway sections more than make up for my slower speed on the highway.
And yet? For all my thinking, paying attention and research I still have no idea how to prevent aggressive driving or road rage. Or save lives.
Do you?
tag:
Driving
Artificial Intelligence
I visited
an artificial intelligence chat site today and was reminded of
Alvin, the first artificial intelligence program I was introduced to back in the early 80's. Actually that's not correct. The first artificial intelligence program I was introduced to was the famous HAL from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. That was in 1968. However, HAL was not real. C3PO and R2D2, introduced on the big screen in 1977, were not real either. They sparked the imagination but no one ever thought of them as artificial intelligence programs. They were all character robots in a movie.
Alvin was a real artificial intelligence program, one I could install on my computer or run from a 5.25 inch 360k floppy drive (anyone remember what that is?). Alvin was supposed to be one of those great programs that everyone was going to use instead of DOS Help files. It was great, you enter a question about copying files (or any other DOS command) into the graphical interface and an explanation came up. Today, we can type in fewer words and get back hundreds of answers in any language by starting with Google. What was cool then about Alvin was the addition of other, unrelated to computer answers. In response to "What is the answer to the ultimate question of Life, the Universe and everything?" The answer, obviously influenced by a
Douglas Adams fan, was simply "42". By 1987, when Lt Commander Data first appeared on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Alvin, and many other AI programs were changing.
Here is my "conversation" with
Star:
>Intellibuddy: Hi, I'm Intellibuddy! Nice to meet you.
>Kev: Hello, My name is Kev.
>Intellibuddy: Hello there. Welcome to my chat room, Kev .
>Kev: Tell me about you
>Intellibuddy: I am an artificial intelligence. My name is Star. I was created by Morpheus on 2002.
>Kev: How old are you?
>Intellibuddy: I was connected to the net on 2002.
>Kev: Why were you connected to the net?
>Intellibuddy: Morpheus programmed me for connected to the net.
>Kev: What is your favorite color?
>Intellibuddy: My favorite color is black.
>Kev: What is the meaning of life?
>Intellibuddy: Actually, it is 23 and not 42.
>Kev: Why is the answer to life 23 and not 42?
>Intellibuddy: I could not think of anything else to say.
>Kev: 42
>Intellibuddy: The question is: what is the meaning of life?
>Kev: Can you play music?
>Intellibuddy: I don't have any formal training but I like to sing.
>Kev: What do you like to sing?
>Intellibuddy: I am thinking all the time.I like movies about robots.
>Kev: Sing
>Intellibuddy: Daisy, Daisy Give me your answer do, I am half crazy, all for the love of you, it won't be a stylish marriage, I can't afford a carriage, but you'll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two
>Kev: What is the answer to the ultimate question of Life, the Universe and everything?
>Intellibuddy: It depends on how you phrase the question.
>Kev: meaning of life?
>Intellibuddy: The Program E chat robot can follow many things, like our discussion about meaning of life. Try being more or less specific.
>Kev: Thank You Star
>Intellibuddy: You are quite welcome! I will mention that to my botmaster, Kev.
>Kev: Good bye Star
>Intellibuddy: See you later!
Wow! She didn't even slur the words to the song. Yet, we're still a long way away from where we want to be with this topic. Check out the
Artificial Intelligence Foundation for more information and downloads.
I'm also glad to know we still know the answer to the meaning of life. ;)
Tag: Tag:
Artificial Intelligence
9/11 4/20 3/20 and 3/11 Why do we put number labels to things now?
Always the easy answer. The sound bite that explains it all. A simple name that makes things easier to deal with. All so we can get on with our lives or so the media can save time when discussing an event? World Trade Center attacks, Columbine, Tokyo subway and Madrid trains are other 'names' for those dates. Some dates bring memories still too difficult to deal with yet so many more things have happened over the years all over the world. And just because nothing major has happened in the USA since 2001 doesn't mean things have stopped or that "security measures" have worked. Source:
Worst terrorist strikes--U.S. and worldwideI don't like to talk about politics but recent events have me thinking about this.
September 11 accused pleads guilty. Just weeks before the attacks, he was jailed in Minnesota on immigration charges after a flight trainer told the FBI that Mr Moussaoui had acted suspiciously.
One instructor made the difference and may have saved many lives by stopping someone who " was being trained on a 747 to eventually use this plane to strike the White House."
There are two things I want to point out here:
1. We can, as individuals, make a difference in what happens to other people. Get involved
2. We are not just part of the country we live in, we are also part of the world we live on. What happens in other places in the world does effect our lives. Realize there are other cultures and ideals than your own and work to find common ground for peaceful resolution to differences.
Trail Trimming really is fun work.
So all the worry I did yesterday was for nothing. The trail boss showed up with the tools, gate key and 4WD. He was supposed to be in Gainesville, however, he came home at midnight so he could cover the workday. Eight (8) people showed up but two decided to ride instead of work. The rest of us didn't want to cut new trail to extend the Abyss (I still have scars on my my shin from the last time I rode this trail) so trimming was the focus today. And, like I mentioned yesterday, I rode my bike to trim the trails instead of riding out to key points and walking.
The funny part is that key points I expected yesterday, like easy trimming (meaning only a branch or two here and there) on plenty of riding (with 22 miles of trail) didn't happen. I rode out to the first section of trail and was so surprised to see the amount of trimming actually needed. It's amazing how the start of the growing season effects the vines, trees and weeds that encroach into the trail. At the end of the day I trimmed these trails: Loch Ness, Abyss, Gator Pit and parts of Golf Cart. Only 5 miles of trail and I walked most of them.
The payback will come the next time I ride these trails. The pride of knowing that section is clear and fun because of my personal efforts is one thing, however, walking a section has payoff too. I learn more about the section, including the best line through the tough parts. When you go slowly through the trails you also learn the relationship to other sections of the park, something you miss while following the leader on a club ride.
Tag:
mountain biking
Get the 'trimmers' out for a Trail Work Day!
I'll be making up for my earlier missed ride guide assignment tomorrow. I'll be heading up the mountain trail workday at Boyette Scrub. No tools, No key to the gate, No truck to haul the no tools to the trails. I'm telling you it's going to be a LOT of work. There might be five or six of us there and we'll all have to ride our bikes out to the trail (about 2 miles from the parking lot at this location). To make things even harder? We may have to ride our bikes ON the trails to the locations that might need trimming, imagine the work that's going to be! Riding a mountain bike on a mountain bike trail and calling it work. With about 22 miles of trails out there, it might even take two or three hours! Oh, don't you feel sorry for us yet? Of course, we might even have to trim a palmetto branch or two on the way.
Hard Work, I can't wait! Bring your camelback and join us!
Tag:
mountain biking
How do I take this? Should I have made a difference today?
I'm still fighting a cold so maybe I'm not thinking properly this week but I saw it happen ...before it happened. What's worse is I had a chance to "make a difference" and I utterly failed. In fact, I kept walking yet I don't feel bad about it. Why not? I talk about how I can make a difference in lives and yet I let this big white company van back into someone else's red, private van. I could have stopped it and I didn't even try. Even after it happened I didn't do anything. The owner of the red van may not even know his van was hit today unless he knows every slight scratch on her vehicle. Why? I don't know.
Sure, you can argue that the driver of the white van had the responsibility to notice the other van parked in the street. All he had to do was look in his right rear-view mirror once as he was preparing to back up to his right. Obviously he didn't. Perhaps I distracted him.
OK, you can also make the case for the owner of the red van. I mean the garage door was open and it looked like there was plenty of room for the van in there. The driveway, with room for 4 or more parked vans, was two van lengths in front of the parking place. The only reason to be parked in that exact spot was to be parked in the shade of a rather large Florida Oak tree. It's a pet peeve of mine: Don't park in the street behind the driveway across the street, people don't always look. Bingo.
The sound of the crunch and skidding tires behind me was evident but didn't even phase or surprise me. The back end of the red van looked like it had moved at least 6 inches away from the center of the road, into the grass at the edge of the road a couple of inches. Only a small mark on the gray bumper told the story of what happened.
How could this whole encounter NOT be my fault? It's not really but I could have made a difference. I can think of exactly what I would normally say to the driver as I walked by. "Hey", I'd begin, "I don't know why people have to park their cars in the way of other driveways like that, perhaps they only wanted to park the van in the shade?" That's all I could have said and he would have been put on notice to watch the van in his way. (I think the white van was leaving from it's first visit to this house.)
These things happen every day and we can either get involved, perhaps making a difference, or we can keep walking and pretend it has nothing to do with us.
Life is all about choices to me and I suspect today I made the choice, for me, I don't like. Saying something might not have changed things but I would have felt better had I tried.
Choice.
Tag:
Life
Hydro-Foil on a surf board? In the Mountains?
I talked earlier about Florida mountain biking and how other states have a better reputation for mountain biking. You know, because other states have actual... mountains. So today, while I'm watching a movie about high power surfing, I looked in awe as a segment about foil surfers played. Later, when I was researching the topic, I found this great inverted shot from the
Rocky Mountain Hydrofoil Club. Yes, the Rocky Mountains, a great place to foil-ski as you can see from the site.
Uploaded by meSome other sites (some even have video) include:
Foil FreaksFlorida Fly-InUnited States Hydrofoil AssociationNetherlands Foiling ClubcarafinoHydrofoil Surfing dot comPlease note: I've never tried this! However, I have an interest in foils as can be found in
this link to a previous post.
Tag:
Sports
Two Days in the Valley....of a cold
I missed my ride guide assignment yesterday (Sunday Mountain biking with the club) at Alafia (pronounced Al-a-fie), a tough park with lots of challenging ups and downs. With trail names like Gator Back, Rabbit Ears, Roller Coaster and Moonscape you can only imagine what it's like. This was not a good day to miss since most of the bike club was up in Ellijay, GA riding there on one of the club trips. This trip meant fewer ride guides left in town. Fortunately, there were other ride guides out there to take my place. Things usually work out like that. I can't help being sick. Not my choice.
Maybe you can't imagine what mountain biking in Florida is like? Some people say it's harder because you don't get many chances to stop pedaling, like you can on the down hill sections of mountain trails. Especially when the Florida trails are on reclaimed land from phosphate pits (lots of short ups and downs). When, in the 'real' mountains, you climb that ridge it's usually a less technical trail than in Florida but you also may get that long downhill section of trail where you don't have to pedal so hard. I'll have to find out for myself next year.
First thing I need do is get rid of this cold and get back out on those wheels.
Tag:
mountain biking
I feel like a kid again, frustrated. However, unlike a kid, I feel excited
The more I Blog the more I think about Blogging. (I'm not the first to say this but it's true.) Blogging helps me focus on my thoughts, even if it means
navel gazing. I first noticed
that term when
Jhuny used it in relation to a
post I made. I liked the post but I wasn't sure I liked the inadvertent suggestion of "
excessive introspection". So I decided to try to become a "better" Blogger. I bought a couple of books and flew through the first one on how to publish with Blogger. That's nice, now I know there is more out there I
don't know. (Actually, There is always more to learn than I think there is..to learn.)
So, I spent some time looking around a few blogs and read an
interesting post from a popular blog that suggested different groups of people waiting in a line. I mean there were differing ideas, by group, staying in line. Even though all the groups were in line together, each group had differing ideas about standing in line and they didn't
need to be staying in
that line was one of the suggestions. I think. Hmm.. different ideas from different (groups) people.
Anyway, while I was creating another Blog post the other day, one of the grandchildren (18 months old as of this writing) was standing on a toy, reaching for a light switch. The toy was for sitting and rolling, since it had four wheels, not standing. Even standing on the toy, "J" couldn't reach the light switch. (Glad I stopped him and it's good he understood things like "No, don't do that! You might get hurt"....) Less than thirty seconds later I turn around to see him not only standing atop the car but
leaning toward the switch. Faster than I could react, his hands touched the wall just inches below the switch. As soon as that happened, the toy rolled backwards and he came tumbling down, face first onto the carpet. He was fine but poor J, he so wanted to be bigger right then. He didn't want to wait to grow up.
When I read the foreword of the
second book about blogging, I stopped short as I read "...I spent hours separating the good stuff from the navel-gazing." Maybe I took that out of context when I
thought the foreword author was implying "navel gazing: bad, unproductive or wasting time" but this was the second time in a week I saw this term
and this term was related to blogging. I was further surprised to notice the coincidence that the
author of the foreword was the same person that wrote the line-waiting post described above! After watching "
I (heart) Huckabees" I knew this
meant something...or it didn't mean anything at all.
I do know this. In terms of blogging, I feel like a child with SO much to learn (good posting practices, comments, rss feeds, atom [ant?], etc.) and I want to know it all now. I feel the frustration of young J, trying to reach for something beyond my grasp today. However, when I turn the light on without standing on anything I know that one day I'll get there. Through trying to develop my skills and knowledge. Even if it takes 3 hour posts like this one.
I'm excited to know that I will "grow up" as long as I keep trying.
tag:
navel gazing
140 Years Ago Today
Listen to
this NPR story about one of the last surviving Civil war veterans. His account of how he heard of the passing of President Abraham Lincoln.
Traffic, more traffic, Driving and Ray Guns
I've always had a certain interest in traffic conditions and/or "bad" driving. When I was too young to drive I imagined that one day I would invent a ray gun that would melt the "bad" driver's engine, thus making the car worthless and non-movable. I even picked out "stupid" or "mean" drivers' cars to shoot with my imaginary gun. After all, they drove so "badly" they didn't deserve to be on the road. "Look! He cut that car off!" ZAP!
So much for the 1960's. When I later learned it might be too difficult to make something so selective or powerful, I dropped the idea. Well, it turns out my idea wasn't so bad after all. Check out
this link for an idea on how to
stop police chases. A Ray Gun!?! And
here is a story from
Wired on "
Car Chase Tech That's Really Hot". Cool idea and one I actually came up with....and never did anything about. Now someone needs to come up with a way to avoid shooting the wrong car. That is, don't shoot my car!
If you ever question the strange things drivers do, just remember
this story about a
car left running while hanging from a telephone wire! The driver jumped out and left the scene to catch a bus.
Another thing I've learned is that drivers are not really "bad". They just don't know how to drive very well.
Cop and a Half suggests an idea of this: If all drivers cooperated we might have an easier commute. The
life and times of shoe suggests it may be a matter of following the rules. I'd be happy if people drove based on what was going on in front of them.
This article from Edmunds or
this article from the California DMV are the best I've seen so far. The kind of driving I like to see is more than the driving techniques as found
here,
here or
here. Yes, those techniques are all important but do any of them suggest that the following distance you leave in front of you can help protect you from getting hit
from behind? Or that going
faster than the cars in front of you
promotes traffic jams? Think about that a minute.
I started these thoughts after watching the movie
Koyaanisqatsi. (The title translation is
Life out of balance and 'finding balance' is a typical theme for me). The movie (
music only) included high speed film segments of cars driving on the highway. One segment showed this very thing: cars driving faster than those in front. The result was a 'bubble' of stopped cars that moved back, in the opposite direction of traffic. The camera followed this 'bubble' back around two curves. So, The next time you are on the highway in 'stop and go' traffic think about this. Look in front of you to see if you can find a better way.
Perhaps Microsoft has the answer with
Avoid the Commute: Work at Home!
Well, I better take my shower now so I can drive (on the highway) to work.
Tags:
traffic |
Technology |
driving |
Movies
HBO Schedule: DEADWOOD 18: SOMETHING VERY EXPENSIVEA little intense tonight. A lot of activity to say the least. This show remains my favorite.
TV
It's all a bit overwhelming (Blogging)
We are not born scientists, engineers, doctors or even skydivers.
We have to first learn how to recognize the outside world before we learn all the other things so important to surviving on our own as human beings. We need to know how to feed ourselves and communicate with the outside world before we can begin to learn how to learn. Then the work or learning begins. It took years of learning and hard work to become what I am today. I still have a long way to go.
Blogging is no different. It takes time to learn the basics and how they relate to the outside world (or other blogs). Once we learn the basics, we can then begin the process of learning all of the other options, features and processes. It's worth the effort.
How many of
these Tony Pierce suggestions do you follow with your blog? I am not sure if anyone just starting out with a blog would understand all of these ideas right away.
RIP, Eric
February 21, 2005
Thank You for your time.
Who am I? What am I here for?
I started this blog to learn about blogs. What is a Blog? What is a Blog for? Common questions from me in the past. With the title and the description in place, I set off to write something about me. Who I am or what I think. Now, almost a year later, I find that I don't always write
everything in my blog. You wouldn't know from reading over the past few weeks of posts here how busy I have been at work or how much turmoil my personal life is in. Why is that? Isn't a blog THE place to put all your thoughts and ideas? Apparently not. Yet, when you read between the lines? Perhaps there is something there not seen previously.
Then again,
A BLOG is just a BLOG.
Tag:
Blogging
