Administrative

Woohoo!

The power just came on, for the first time in five days.

Just in time to be knocked out by Ivan on Monday…

Time to shut down this jury-rigged laptop/car-battery setup and get the network back up.

[Update a few minutes later]

Good news: we have power.

Bad news: the air conditioner isn’t coming on. I’ve checked the breaker, and it’s closed. Any ideas?

[Update at 5:30 PM EDT[

Since the AC was working before the storm, and we turned it off before it hit, while we still had electricity, I’m guessing that there’s nothing wrong with it. My working hypothesis right now, based on other flaky behavior of other appliances (I still can’t work the internet off the house power–I’m plugged back into the car again), is low voltage. I measured out at the fuses of the air conditioner, and it was lower there than it was one of the 110 sockets in the house (I think that it’s supposed to be 240). The neighbors are having similar brownout issues. It may be that we’re only getting voltage on half the line.

At least we have light now, and ceiling fans. We’ll see if the fridges get cold.

Science And Society

Really Bad Timing

For my move to Florida, if this article is correct.

Scientists say we are in a period of enhanced hurricane activity that could last for decades, ending a 24-year period of below average activity. They also say the law of averages has caught up with Florida, with a change in atmospheric steering currents turning the state into a hurricane magnet.

Great.

Ivan probably won’t be the last storm to have us in its boresight this year.

It makes me start to wonder how big, or how many nukes it would take to disrupt these damned things, or if that’s even feasible (ignoring, of course, the radiation issues)?

[Update a minute or so later]

As if they didn’t have enough to deal with, with a Category 5 hurricane bearing down on them, the Caymans and Jamaica just had a Richter 6 earthquake.

I, of course, blame George Bush.

Political Commentary

He’s Slipped His Straight Jacket Again

Al Gore, that is.

His latest rant is stunning in its chutzpah:

“The claim by Bush and Cheney that the American people must give them four more years in office or else be ‘hit hard’ by another terrorist attack is a sleazy and despicable effort to blackmail voters with fear,” Gore said.

“They are going back to the ugliest page in the Republican playbook: fear,” he said. “They’re not even really trying to convince you to vote for George Bush. Their only hope, they’ve decided, is to try and make you too afraid to vote for John Kerry. It’s the lowest sort of politics imaginable. It is not worthy of a presidential candidate.”

This from a man who, in 1996, bellowed at the nation that if the Evil Republicans retained Congress, that they would poison the air and water, starve schoolchildren, and force old folks to eat kibbles and bits, before throwing them out of their homes. This from a man whose party ran radio ads in St. Louis claiming that “more black churches would burn” in the event of a Republican victory.

This only elicits one more sigh of relief that he didn’t win in 2000.

Political Commentary

He’s Slipped His Straight Jacket Again

Al Gore, that is.

His latest rant is stunning in its chutzpah:

“The claim by Bush and Cheney that the American people must give them four more years in office or else be ‘hit hard’ by another terrorist attack is a sleazy and despicable effort to blackmail voters with fear,” Gore said.

“They are going back to the ugliest page in the Republican playbook: fear,” he said. “They’re not even really trying to convince you to vote for George Bush. Their only hope, they’ve decided, is to try and make you too afraid to vote for John Kerry. It’s the lowest sort of politics imaginable. It is not worthy of a presidential candidate.”

This from a man who, in 1996, bellowed at the nation that if the Evil Republicans retained Congress, that they would poison the air and water, starve schoolchildren, and force old folks to eat kibbles and bits, before throwing them out of their homes. This from a man whose party ran radio ads in St. Louis claiming that “more black churches would burn” in the event of a Republican victory.

This only elicits one more sigh of relief that he didn’t win in 2000.

Political Commentary

He’s Slipped His Straight Jacket Again

Al Gore, that is.

His latest rant is stunning in its chutzpah:

“The claim by Bush and Cheney that the American people must give them four more years in office or else be ‘hit hard’ by another terrorist attack is a sleazy and despicable effort to blackmail voters with fear,” Gore said.

“They are going back to the ugliest page in the Republican playbook: fear,” he said. “They’re not even really trying to convince you to vote for George Bush. Their only hope, they’ve decided, is to try and make you too afraid to vote for John Kerry. It’s the lowest sort of politics imaginable. It is not worthy of a presidential candidate.”

This from a man who, in 1996, bellowed at the nation that if the Evil Republicans retained Congress, that they would poison the air and water, starve schoolchildren, and force old folks to eat kibbles and bits, before throwing them out of their homes. This from a man whose party ran radio ads in St. Louis claiming that “more black churches would burn” in the event of a Republican victory.

This only elicits one more sigh of relief that he didn’t win in 2000.

Space & Campaign 2004

Still Wishful Thinking

Here’s the web site of a group that claims to want to influence Senator Kerry’s space policy. I don’t really know what they have to say, though, since they make one fill out a form to even look at their site. It turned me off, and I suspect I’m not alone.

Dumb.

Keith Cowing has further thoughts on their apparent ignorance of (or indifference to) campaign finance laws. Of course, to be fair, many Democrats seem to think that such things only apply to the other side. You know, free speech for me, but not for thee.

Space

The Path Not Taken

The post title is the title of my (long) essay on space policy, that’s finally appeared on line in this quarter’s issue of The New Atlantis. It’s a survey of the myths of the old space age, and will probably form the basis for a book on which I’m working, between hurricanes, still moving into the new house, and trying to make a living.

And no, before anyone asks, I don’t in fact know why it’s right justified, and ragged left. Go ask the folks at The New Atlantis.

[Update a few minutes later]

The ragged left problem seems to be the use of non-standard HTML. It looks OK in Explorer–it’s only weird in Mozilla.

[Update on Thursday morning]

The justification problem has been fixed by the good folks at The New Atlantis (a publication that I highly endorse, and recommend that folks get a dead-tree subscription to, so you can get it early and often).

Administrative

Checking In, Tentatively

OK, I’m blogging from the house now. I’ve got a power converter plugged into the cigarette lighter of the car, and am running my laptop, DSL modem and wireless router off it. I’ll have to go out periodically to start the car to keep its battery charged.

It turns out that I could have done this yesterday (and Monday, too), but when I tried it then, I couldn’t get a DSL connection. Today it occurred to me that in an attempt to get phone service, someone may have plugged in a phone that didn’t require AC power, and forgot to use a microfilter. Sure enough, that was the problem. Once I fixed it, I got a steady light on the DSL.

Anyway, I’m sort of back in business, with a telecon this afternoon for some consulting, and I have a computer again, for now. There’s no word on when we’ll get power back here, but with our recent luck, I suspect that it will be just in time to knocked out by Ivan (the Terrible?) this weekend.

Time to go out and restock the water supply.

Administrative

Checking In, Temporarily

Thanks to Bill for updating all y’all yesterday (see, I’m starting to pick up the local lingo here, except that it should actually be New Yorkese, not redneck).

I’ve a lot to tell, but not a lot of time to tell it, because we still don’t have power, or internet. I’m posting this from Patricia’s trailer at the Tri-Rail project, which obviously had higher priority for power restoration. Much of Boca Raton remains without electricity. As Bill said, the house is fine. We have telephone and water, but no power. I hooked up a power converter from the car to the DSL modem, and we don’t have connectivity to the net, else I’d be blogging from home via the car battery.

We lucked out, because the storm both weakened and hit north of us, eliminating any risk of flooding from the surge. We have a few shrubs broken, but are otherwise unscathed. However, we will keep most of the shutters and plywood up until we see what the ultimate disposition of Ivan will be.

In short, we dodged a bullet, but we may not be so lucky next time, and our hearts go out to those who were hit much harder to the north.

Much more when we get power and bandwidth.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!