Octopodial Chrome

I just discovered the web page of Kris Holm, a mountain unicyclist. This man is insane! But cool. In an insane way.

Just discovered Bookcrossing. The idea is that you label a book and release it into the wild—that is, leave it on a bench, or at a coffeeshop, or give it away. Then you can track its progress as different readers find it, read it and pass it on. Kinda cool little idea.

The Denver Post reports on the resurgence in cocktails. This can only be a good thing: a properly made cocktail inspires one to slow down, to appreciate the taste of one’s drink, and to cogitate on the world at large. While I am in many ways a beer geek, I’ve enjoyed many an excellent cocktail when the time was right.

I think that there must be an airshow going on today (although I can find nothing going on)—several flights of WWII-era aircraft just flew overhead towards the aeroport. Very cool, and very loud. I want one!

Makewavs will take old records and tapes, digitally record & process the sound (removing clicks, pops and so on) and create CDs with the music thereon, all for around $12-24/album (depending on amount of processing, options and so forth). They can also make MP3s, although honestly it’s so easy to do that from a CD that I’d not bother.

It’s with a heavy heart that I must report the closing of Wilkinson Sword after 233 years of service (the company was founded in 1772, before even the American Revolution). Apparently they weren’t able to survive in the limited modern sword market (which is odd, considering how many more excellent swordsmiths are making a profit these days; there’s a market, and with their name they should have been able to survive). Generations of young Englishmen went into battle armed with Wilkinson’s swords, and tens (hundreds?) of thousands of the Empire’s foes fell before them.

When my own brother graduated from the US Naval Academy in ’02, the other three of us boys got together and bought him a Wilkinson US Naval Officer’s sword. It’s a beauty, and much nicer than any other I’ve laid eyes upon.

The closing of Wilkinson is the end of an era, and a damned shame. Sic transit gloria mundi.

A women filed a complaint against her physician because he told her to lose weight, and the New Hampshire Attorney General is investigating. What in God’s name is the world coming to?!?

The Attorney General of Tennessee has asked a country singer to stop glamorising the use of chewing tobacco. Never mind that she’s free to speak her mind, and that it’s entirely inappropriate for the State to ask her to stop.

The song in question tells how she enjoys the taste of chaw on a man’s lips. An odd fetish, to be sure, but hardly one which is a legitimate State concern.

This is quite ludicrous: UT Austin is removing the books from its undergrad library. The space once filled with thousands of volumes of knowledge will instead feature a cafe, computers and comfy chairs. They seem to think that the net can provide enough information.

This is, quite frankly, pure & unadulterated poppycock. There are many more books in libraries than online, and many of them are excellent. I would never have read Esmé Wingfield-Stratford’s King Charles the Martyr online. I’d never have found The Pooh Perplex online. I’d never have been able to write my German history papers in college from online sources. Are von Tirpitz’s memoirs even available online?

Well, Google finally released their Jabber-based chat service. It looks like it could be a beautiful thing. I’m there as eadmund42 at gmail dot com; talk to me.

I recently discovered CAcert, a fine non-profit which issue free SSL certificates. Thawte, VeriSign & the rest charge hundreds of dollars; CAcert charge nothing at all. Now you can get a personal certificate for nothing; you can server certificates for nothing. It’s very cool.

Install CAcert’s root certificate today and then go check out Octopodial Chrome (HTTPS) for an encrypted, secure blogging experience.

Back in 1980, Gregg Easterbrook wrote Beam Me Out of This Death Trap, Scotty, a penetrating look into the idiocy of the shuttle programme. For a mere fraction of the cost of the shuttle, we could have developed better rockets; for that matter, we could have continued using the cheap rockets we already had. Instead, we went on with a programme which has lead to one astronaut dead for every eight flights.

Dr. Dorothy Robinson believes so:

…Dr. Dorothy Robinson’s concern, instead, is bicycle safety. She has just published a study in the Health Promotion Journal of Australia that is likely to send shock waves through Australian cycling communities with its claim that mandatory bicycle helmet laws increase rather than decrease the likelihood of injuries to cyclists.

Food for thought.

Today I rode from my home to my folks’ and back. Hard ride there (not helped by the weight of the change of clothes in my panniers); easy ride back. Now that I’ve done it and know I can, I’ll have to do it more often. Someday I’d like to start riding to church regularly.

Well, after a fair amount of deliberation we decided that there simply wasn’t sufficient evidence to convict the defendant of the charge against her. The case was a fairly simple one, but with some tangled bits.

A 15 year old girl, Jennifer Clayburn, overdosed on some prescription drug in an apparent suicide attempt in September of 2003. While at the hospital for observation, she told a counsellor that her attempt was due to distress over and event which had happened early that summer, when she was raped by her boyfriend Jeremy Gurley, a young man some four years her senior. Her story was that she & Jeremy (19) were at the home of their friend Jamie Davis (16), and that Jamie’s mom, Amber Irene Spaziano, had bought her Jägermeister and/or Rumplemintz, poured her Red Bull & Jäger shots and urged her to drink; later on, Jennifer, Jamie & Jeremy (way too many J-names… in this case) retired to Jamie’s bedroom, where Jamie proceeded to suggest a three-way kiss (a phrase of which we all grew quickly sick), and that Jennifer went along with it for awhile, tried to disengage and was then raped by Jeremy. Four months later, distraught over this incident, she tried to kill herself by taking too much of one of her meds. This, at least, was what she alleged.

Our job was to determine if the defendant, Mrs. Spaziano, had contributed to the delinquency of a minor by providing Jennifer with alcohol, as claimed in this story. The whole rape issue was really a red herring, an appeal to emotion. Our concern wasn’t to determine whether or not Jennifer had been raped, but whether Mrs. Spaziano had given her a drink.

As it turned out, the sole witness to this drink-giving was Miss Clayburn herself, and she wasn’t a very reliable witness. She was very out-of-sorts, as though on severe medication, and her testimony was itself unconvincing, although had it been corroborated may have been believable. The prosecution called four other witnesses: a former sheriff’s deputy, who had investigated the nearly five-month old charges in late October of ’03; Miss Clayburn’s parents, who had no actual evidence to provide (they were not there that night, and hence could not say whether or not Mrs. Spaziano had done anything at all); and Mr. Gurley, who stated under oath that he, Miss Davis and Miss Clayburn had taken some beer from the fridge when Mrs. Spaziano was out on her balcony having a smoke. One would think it unusual for a prosecution witness to undermine the prosecution’s case so directly.

As you can see, the prosecution didn’t have much of a case: one witness alleging a crime; one witness denying it took place; and three witnesses with no knowledge of anything relevant (that’s a slight exaggeration, as they had some information pertaining to the date of a tongue-piercing which helped place the day of the alleged incident). But what about the defence?

They called a Keith something-or-other, essentially a non-entity who had been there that evening, a friend of one of Mrs. Spazziano’s sons, who had nothing very substantive to add, save that he said she had never allowed children to drink in her home, and that he hadn’t seen them drinking. Then Jimmy Aragon, a friend of hers who was there that night, testified essentially the same thing: that he & she had been drinking, but that she never gave the kids anything, and that she never let kids drink anyway. Then her daughter testified the same thing, and finally the defendant herself took the stand and testified essentially the same thing.

When I write the same thing, the reader should know that what I mean is that the gist of the stories was the same; the actual stories differed in mostly non-important details. One person said that the beer had been in cans; another in bottles; another in cans first, but then bottles were purchased. Or one person spoke of Jägermeister and another of a clear bottle, when every elementary school student knows that Jägermeister comes in green bottles. But the fundamental elements were the same.

So as a jury we were faced with one spaced-out witness stating one thing, and five witnesses stating another thing. There were some ancillary matters, such as who had which motives, but that was the basic issue. Could we in good conscience hand down a felony conviction with such scant evidence?

Naturally, we could not. I can’t say that the defendant was innocent, but I don’t know that she was guilty. The State of Colorado failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she had, indeed, knowingly given minors alcohol, and so we had to find her not guilty. I must say that watching her reaction when the judge read the verdict made me feel quite glad for her sake, whether or not she was guilty.

Incidentally, my co-jurors initially asked me to be foreman, but I turned down the honour. I don’t think I should care for all eyes to be on me.

Well, yet more evidence for me being in God’s favour—either that, or obviously stupid. I was just selected for a jury, the second time in two summonses. It could be that I appear such a moron that lawyers want me on a jury ’case they believe that I’m easily persuadable (how little they know!), but I don’t think so. Random chance can’t explain being in the front portion of the line twice in a row; it can’t explain surviving the double-cut (used here in Colorado) twice. So I think that this must be proof that the Author of Creation wishes me to serve. Mostly this is because I really don’t wish to believe that all my life’s luck was rolled up into passing jury selection—I’d have much preferred, say, luck with girls or on the stock market.

Anyway, more on the case when it’s completed. For now, I am enjoined to keep my lips buttoned.

Some time ago I read about the Retirement InCome—for Everyone (RIC-E) Trust, and was intrigued by the idea (albeit chagrined at the ego of its creator, one Ric Edelman). Still, it’s interesting: for a $300 fee and $5,000 or more in cash, one can set up a tax-deferred trust for anyone. In return, the recipient receives an investment vehicle which is invisible for purposes of bankruptcy, divorce, federal student aid &c., and which guarantees that it will be used for retirement: the giver specifies the earliest age at which money may be withdrawn. The services of Edelman’s investment advice company are free, but if one wishes then one can use another firm instead. Moreover, anyone can add money to the trust in $500 increments—this means that the recipient can use it as a supplement to his 401(k) and IRAs. A trustee who is neither the recipient nor the giver (nor either’s spouse) must be named, but the recipient may replace the trustee at any time.

Certain of the advantages above make me wonder if it might not be worthwhile for my brothers & to set funds up for one another. I could create one for Thomas, and name Stephen the trustee; Thomas could create one for John, and name me the trustee; John could create one for Stephen, and name Thomas the trustee; and Stephen could create one for me, and name John the trustee (each giving equal amount, so in the end none would gain or lose). Then we’d each have an investment good for retirement or disability, provided with a highly-qualified investment advice, but otherwise under the radar for all other purposes, which would be quite valuable. We’d be protected, too, since if there were a falling-out between brothers then trustees could be changed.

The sole problem is that even for me $5,300 is a fair chunk of change to part with until I’m 59½. Still, it’s a pretty good idea.

I recently discovered Vintage Velos, a company which offer real wool cycling jerseys, shorts & socks, among other woollen cycling wear. I really want the Vittadello and Cinzano jerseys, and I’d love to be trim enough to get away with one of the Unis Sport after-race shirts. I’ve a feeling that I’ll be spending a very great deal of money with these folks in the future. But it’ll be worth it not to be wearing synthetic fibres.

Saw an interesting article in USA Today about the President and cycling. Apparently he took it up two years ago when he was forced to stop running, and has now gotten good enough that he outpaces many other folks. The man can hit 20 mph on a dirt flat, which is pretty amazing to me.

I recently discovered The Online Pipe Tobacco Cellar. Very cool idea: one enters info about one’s personal collection of tobaccos, and it tracks it.

I just discovered the alt.smokers.pipes Pay It Forward programme. It’s a means for a beginning pipe smoker to get his hands on a pipe and some decent tobacco completely free (although the hope is that he’ll return the favour someday). It’s not the cheapest hobby in the world to get started at (one needs 7x as many pipes as one smokes in a day, and a rack, and tampers, stands, ashtrays, tobacco jars and the like). In my youth I was helped out by several folks (a professor at college gave me a wonderful large Talamona, and the father of a good friend gave me his old rack & jar); maybe I’ll donate some cash to the programme in the hopes of paying my debt.

The Independent reports that roughly 1 out of 25 fathers is unknowingly raising a child not his own. How’s that for a sobering thought?

Apparently back in ’91 there was a fad for eating dishes made with tobacco. Naturally, this highly annoyed certain nattering nabobs of negativism. Interestingly, a Danish restaurant just had a tobacco dinner. I’d always figured that tobacco was too poisonous to eat, but I suppose it’s true that it’s the dose which makes the poison. I’ll have to try a very small pinch of ground baccy as a seasoning in my next soup or something—or maybe add a slight bit to some steak marinade.

According to a BBC article on cycling, there are 42 cycling deaths per billion kilometres. A British billion is 1,000,000,000,000; my daily commute is 4.7 miles; that means my chance of death is 3.1768451e-10 each day—or 1 in 3,147,777,100. I’m willing to take a 1 in 3 (American) billion chance. Granted, that’s 13½ times as likely as were I in a car. But I’m not too worried.

Have you ever had a cyclist claim that a helmet saved his life? Of course, that’s not necessarily the case: yes, he was wearing a helmet, and yes he hit his head—but did the helmet make a difference? Would he have crashed without a helmet (there’s evidence that helmet wearers take more risks)? Would he have hit his head without the helmet (there’s evidence that helmet-wearers are 7 times more likely to hit their heads)? Would he have died if he had hit his head (doubtful, since helmets provide such little protection).

I’ve fallen a few times, and as the link predicts, every one of my falls damaged my arms and hands, but never my head.

It appears that Cadillac are making bicycles now. Are bikes the next SUV?

Unfortunately these are massively over-priced and under-delivering, from what I can tell.

Today we’d a picnic at work—and got the entire rest of the afternoon off! Granted. by the time I got home it was 1600, but that’s still an hour I’d not have had otherwise. Free food is free food, and free time is free time. Woo-hoo!

I saw Sky High last week with my buddy Dean and his wife Chrisanne. My verdict? A surprisingly enjoyable bit of fluff. No, it’s not a classic for the ages, but it’s a decent way to spend an evening—and that’s really all I’m looking for in a film. It had some good clean laughs (if unbelievable: high schoolers don’t take over houses to throw parties with soda), and had some good humour for adults tossed in, as well as the great B-list talents of Bruce Campbell (Army of Darkness, The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.).

The stars are a bit too young for me to identify with, but they did a good job. The male lead, Michael Angarano, did his job—although as I noted it’s really hard to sympathise with someone playing high school frosh. Danielle Panabaker (playing the cute girl-next-door the hero somehow never notices, a common plot element which I’ve never been able to believe) is one to keep an eye out for in the future; in a few years she should be quite attractive and provided she makes some good career decisions should do well for herself.

The co-stars were great. Alongside the aforementioned Campbell (as the high school coach) were Kurt Russell as the gruff and loving dad and Kelly Preston as the mom. When, pray tell, did Kelly Preston get old enough to believably play the mother of a high schooler? Did I miss the memo?

All in all, lots of fun and worth seeing.

Therion is a really cool bit of free software for making maps of caves. I almost wish that I were a spelunker.

This Saturday I rode in my first cycling event, an extremely short (6 mi.) charity event for IOCC. It was fun enough, although I made two mistakes. One was due to my inexperience with cycling cleats: after a long smooth downhill I came to a very nice stop—the only problem was that I forget to unclip from my pedals, and hence suffered a nasty fall. Thankfully, due to my other mistake no-one saw me. Y’see, the guy leading the ride chose to travel at an infuriatingly slow rate (I was doing 70 rpm or so in my slowest normal gear), and so I chose to ride on ahead, asking first if the trail were marked out properly. Naturally, I was told that it was, and naturally it wasn’t (but I’ll admit of course the fault is mine for being impatient). But due to this little miscalculation the riders were all about a mile in another direction entirely when I’d my spill, so it all works out for the best.