Month: May 2004

Dinosaur Flambe

Here’s an interesting theory: What if it didn’t take months of impact-caused “nuclear” winter to kill off all the dinosaurs? A new report suggests that the impact itself would have released so much heat, it would have flash-burned all life on land within hours. Only those animals protected by, say, the ocean (fish), or rivers (crocodiles), or underground burrows (small mammals) would have survived.

It doesn’t explain the death of aquatic dinosaurs, or (to my mind) the survival of birds, but it’s at least interesting. (As with all fly-in-the-face-of-accepted-theory theories, some skepticism is required. But hey, people used to think that the idea of asteroid-impact extinction was far-fetched.)

It’s a scary idea. Most disaster epics are at least in part about what comes after the disaster. Who lives, what they have to face, how they go on. From Noah to the Day After Tomorrow. Human beings can survive a nuclear winter. Not in as large numbers, not necessarily with civilization intact, but it’s at least possible. If you’ve got only minutes to hours, you’d better have Jor-el and a rocket – or a hell of a lot of bomb shelters – because the world is going bye-bye.

Oh, if you have a chance (and can turn on the sound), check out the DAT link: NPR did a review, but they decided it would be more fun to send their science correspondent than a movie critic!

Current Mood: 🤔contemplative
Current Music: ROTK soundtrack

Sick

Sick + behind schedule = sick at work.

Incidentally, does anyone know of something as effective as NyQuil that lasts 6-8 hours instead of 4-5? It works great, but I always wake up as soon as it wears off.

Current Mood: 🤒sick

I should probably point out…

… that the “accomplished” mood in my last post had nothing to do with the quiz, but rather with having resolved the really annoying network problem on the new PowerBook. Or rather, affecting the PowerBook.

You see, last night everything worked fine (mostly I spent it bringing both OSes up to date), but this morning when I wanted to bring something up quickly, the ethernet connection wouldn’t work. Eventually I tracked it down to a problem on the hub.

Checklist

LiveJournal back up? Check.
Phone line back up? Check.
DSL connection stable? Check.
Fixed Ticketmaster order? Mostly.
Pick up PowerBook? ….

Well, I figured UPS would drop by in the early afternoon, so my original plan was to come home for lunch and hope they showed up while I was here. When the phone crapped out and I needed to schedule an SBC tech to come out, I figured 1-5 was a good idea for the same reason. Of course, UPS got here at 11:30, long before I did. So now I’m trying to arrange to pick it up, but because it’s still in the truck, I have to wait until 8:00 before I can get it.

I’m beginning to think I should have just signed for it, only I didn’t want to leave a $1600 computer sitting outside the front door. I suppose I could still just go in at lunch tomorrow.

Back to Ticketmaster: Aimee Mann concert in Anaheim on June 12. Somehow ended up with tickets to her concert in Atlanta on June 16. Last night they told me my order had gotten switched with someone else’s, but today they said I had confirmed it that way on the website. I suppose it’s possible, since I was rushing through the order the night before the wedding, but still… Atlanta? Anyway, even though they say no refunds or exchanges, they will make exceptions in extreme circumstances (like tickets to the right show on the wrong side of the country!), so I have 10 days to send the wrong tickets back.

Anyway, now that the phone line’s working again, it’s time to head back to work.

Current Mood: 😡frustrated

An interesting angle on the Iraqi prison abuse scandal

Abuse less shocking in light of history

The author compares it to things that have happened in other wars, and looks at it in terms of psychology and sociology research, including our old friend Milgram.

The conclusion seems to be that someone should have seen this coming and put measures in place (clearer orders, stronger accountability, better supervision & training, etc.) to prevent it.

Thoughts?

Current Mood: 🙁pessimistic

Giving Blood

In the past several years, I’ve gotten mosquito bites in exactly two places:

1. The Foster Botanical Garden in Honolulu. The first day we were in Hawaii, it seemed like I was bitten by every mosquito in the park. The rest of the bugs on the island must have decided I’d been tapped out, because no new bites appeared all week. Of course, the ones I had stayed with me for about a month.

2. Outside alenxa’s parents’ house. Repeatedly.

Maybe it’s just that I don’t spend a lot of time standing around in shorts outside at night. (With three cats in the house, I basically can’t stay inside for more than a few minutes without breaking out the Benadryl.) Or maybe they really do have more mosquitoes there than we do. But lately it seems that every time we go over there, I come back with bug bites. That. Won’t. Stop. Itching.

You know, this might actually be a use for emergency pants. Or just bug repellent.

SNAFU Resolved

Bleah. Yesterday we got a letter from the county clerk-recorder warning us that they hadn’t received our signed marriage license yet, that it had to be in within 10 days of the ceremony, and that there were only 30 days left before it would expire if unused. (We picked it up at the beginning of March.)

So there were phone calls, voice mails and emails to determine who had it at the end of the day. There was web searching to find out what to do next. It turns out that the California family code explicitly states what needs to be done if a marriage license is lost after the ceremony but before it’s recorded… but it says nothing about what happens if you miss that 10-day deadline.

And this morning, I called the county to see if they had received it since printing the letter. It turned out they had. I only got part way through spelling my name before they finished it and said “It’s right here.” I didn’t ask any more – if they had it today, it was at least postmarked within 10 days, and that qualifies.

Current Mood: 🙂relieved