Categories
Weather

Fill your tanks now

Fill your gas tanks now, because Gustav is coming to town.

According to Dr. Jeff Masters at Wunderground, Haiti is going to get hammered, and no matter what computer model wins out in the end, the oil and gas production in the Gulf Coast is going to get disrupted.

The especially worrisome part of Gustav is that a couple of the more reliable models show Gustav hitting between Houston and New Orleans as a strong, category 3+ hurricane. Just a guestimate at this time, we’ll probably know more in a couple of days. There’s also a chance it could go as far south as Mexico, though I think we’re better planning on it hitting the US.

Categories
Political

Upstaged by a hurricane

I’m not going to write much about politics. I know how I’m going to vote and if you live in the States, it’s unlikely I’ll change your mind about how you’ll vote. I will say, just once, that I was also a Hilary Clinton supporter; one who has gladly switched my vote to Obama, because I have no interest in four years with a hot headed, war mongering, corporate kiss butt, otherwise know as McCain. Good lord, this country can’t afford a man like McCain.

If you’re a Clinton supporter who is thinking of switching to McCain, in some kind of a snit, then I have to ask: do you even bother to read the platforms for both candidates? Or are you the type who votes based on hair style and personality, rather than issues? Because I can’t understand any Democrat having enough of a hissy fit to actually switch from Obama to McCain. Obama and Clinton were more alike than not. Obama and McCain are worlds apart.

Anyway, back to not writing about politics. One of the stories this week is about the Republicans rather sleazy approach to invading the Democratic convention. So much for McCain being a leader for “change”, eh? I find the whole thing tacky, as I find McCain reaching out to Clinton supporters to be rather sad. Is it a case of us white folks have to stick together, or something? Sure comes across that way.

However, what goes around comes around. If the sad, worst case scenario happens with Gustav next week, it will make landfall about the same time as the Republican convention starting, and will most likely re-awaken old angers about Katrina. Katrina, where the differences between white and black were never more apparent, or more devastating.

If Gustav does follow the worst case scenario, we don’t have to send Democrats to disrupt the Republican convention, because nature will do the job for us. Gustav is a reminder of the threats this country really faces, and how, a few years ago, Americans were let down by an Administration whose focus, then and today, rests thousands of miles away, rather than our own backyards. A timely reminder of what’s at stake for the Democrats, too. What’s at stake, and what’s important.

Categories
Technology

The Banana Test

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

From Chip’s Quips a test to see your programming language preference:

Here’s a quick and easy test to determine what programming language best suits your personality.

There’s a very tall palm tree, and four animals happen to pass by: a chimpanzee, a lion, a giraffe, and a squirrel.

They decide to have a competition to see who is the fastest one to get a banana off the tree.

Which one won? Think of your answer before you read on…

Actually, what you don’t see in the animal lineup that Sterling has provided, is a rhinoceros heading straight for the tree at full ramming speed. It skewers the lion with its horn, steps on and squishes the squirrel, pushes aside the giraffe, and knocks the chimp from the tree when it hits—the force of which also knocks the banana down.

Except that the rhino decided, right in the middle of its headlong run, that it really doesn’t like bananas. However, it had built up too much momentum to be able to stop in time to save the lion, the chimp, the squirrel, the giraffe, the banana, and the tree. Poor tree.

And that makes me JavaScript ECMAScript.

Categories
Places

Johnson’s Shut-Ins 2008

Johnson's Shut-Ins 2008

I visited Johnson’s Shut-Ins last week, before it closed for the season on the 24th. I hadn’t visited since 2006, and was very pleased to see how much progress has been made. The water quality is much improved, and most of the small particulate debris is gone. The Shut-Ins aren’t completely healed— you don’t heal from such a devastating flood in a couple of years— but both the DNR and Ameren have made significant inroads in correcting the damage.

The fens look nicely restored, and I could barely recognize the flood path, the green growth has done much to help it blend into the mountainside.

It does look like some of the boulders will be left in the restored park, which I think is a good thing. They won’t impact on the area, but will serve as a reminder, as well as historical marking.

I thought about doing a before/after/after slideshow, but I think I’ll wait on this until after the park is officially open, hopefully next May.

Categories
SVG

Planet SVG

I was asked for links to SVG resources, and my immediate thought was to look for a Planet SVG. Though I found a planetsvg.com, there’s no entry at the site, and I couldn’t find any elsewhere. I then decided to create a new Planet SVG, using Sam Ruby’s Venus adaption of the Planet software.

Of course, I use SVG in the background of the page, though I imagine most people would only be interested in the Atom-based syndication feed. I’ll play around with the design when I have more time, but for now, I just grabbed an old one that seemed to work.

I’ve populated the Planet with a few URLs, but I need more. Though there are quite a few people interested in SVG, I’m finding that most don’t seem to have a weblog. Or if they do, I can’t find it.

There is a weblog for the SVG Open conference next week, but the weblog doesn’t have any syndication feed I could find.

If you write about SVG, or have a weblogging category devoted to SVG, or vector graphics, or even the Canvas element, please email me your feed URL, or drop it into comments.