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01:36 am
[Link] |
Security: You're doing it wrong
One of the exterior doors to my office's building has been broken for about two months now - as in it sags open and cannot be shut all the way. Yet campus security dutifully comes by and locks up the one next to it, leaving would-be intruders with no other option than to ... open the broken door beside the locked one.
(Yes, I realize the problem is not that they continue to futilely lock the non-broken door but that they don't fix the broken door.)
Current Location: Safely back from Ireland
Current Music: Fan whirling
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10:58 pm
[Link] |
Coheney goodness
Video of the London performance. Link will only work for one week.
Current Music: Tindersticks - Until the morning comes
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12:13 am
[Link] |
Leonard Cohen US/CA tour dates announced
There will be special sales for all of the shows early next week. Limit 2 tickets/order, willcall only with photo ID and the credit card used to buy the tickets required for pickup (to cut down on scalpers). The presale will require a password for purchase. If you're interested, let me know ASAP.
( Dates behind the cut )
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12:03 am
[Link] |
Very well done stop motion video
Scintillation
Despite the title, safe for work. The video is made up of stop motion photography of objects that are being projected on.
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08:55 am
[Link] |
The stars are blazing like rebel diamonds
We still haven't gotten a decent snow in the Burg this year, but we did get an especially pretty one last night. There was just the right amount of ice crystals that it caught the light as you walked, glistening as if thousands of diamonds had been strewn across the ground.
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05:16 am
[Link] |
The things my parents fill their heads with
( Parents read the darndest things )
Current Music: Firewater
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02:19 pm
[Link] |
Patch your Windows computers
Microsoft released an emergency security patch today. It's likely to be exploited in the near future in very bad ways. Unless you have a good reason not to, I recommend downloading and installing it.
MS's bulletin on it
Current Music: Sky Cries Mary
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10:43 pm
[Link] | O-chem and premeds article from Saturday's lunch discussion. (Abstract for people not there: A Harvard Med school instructor argues that pre-meds taking two semesters of conventional o-chem is not beneficial.)
Current Music: Tindersticks
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04:14 pm
[Link] |
'Cause a I know a lot of zombie fans and postmodern geeks
Language is a virus. A zombie virus.
Current Music: Pentangle
Tags: zombies memetic
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12:23 am
[Link] |
Speed limit change on 460
As a note for folks who will be visiting Blacksburg, they have raised the speed limit on 460 to 65mph, dropping down to 55 just before the light to turn into campus. I don't know if this goes all the way out to 81 but I assume it does. They do love to speedtrap 460 so be careful where it changes.
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07:42 pm
[Link] |
No belfry, but halfway to the bats
The heat has finally arrive in the 'Burg. I'm trying to put off the AC for as long as possible, so I've been putting fans in strategic areas to bring airflow through as much of the house as possible. One of the locations I chose last night did not have a screen and the fan did not fill the entire space leaving a relatively small gap open to the outside, but all the lights upstairs were off so I figured a minimal amount of insects would get in as a result.
Some time later, I looked up from the computer and had a thought something along the lines of:
"That's funny, I don't remember having something large and black flying around the dining room before..."
Followed shortly thereafter by:
"Why do I have a bird in my dining room?"
And as it flew directly toward me:
"That's not a bird, that's a bat."
Thoughts of rabies shots floating through my mind as I headed for the front door and held it open. Whether by fluke or as an effect of their sonar, the bat shot through and flew off into the night moments later, bringing a thankfully short end to the evening's exercise in surrealism.
I wonder if he's friends with the stripey cat?
Current Music: Firewater
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07:54 pm
[Link] |
That sexual interest/friendliness study everyone's talking about
( My thoughts on the study... )
Current Music: Flogging Molly, Float
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12:04 am
[Link] |
Flogging Molly this Sunday
I have some extra tickets to Flogging Molly this Sunday night in Richmond. I know some folks are coming down from NOVA so ride sharing should be possible. Drop me a line if you're interested. I may be day tripping from Blacksburg so similar ride possibilities exist from here.
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09:04 pm
[Link] |
Yay for Burning Man tickets
I jumped into the electronic line for Burning Man tickets three hours after they went on sale. The first tier of 10,000 tickets had already sold out and there were 7,000 people in front of me. And the ticker was crawling down at about 12 people/minute. The decrease continued slowly until about 6:45, when it started dropping by several hundred every five to ten minutes, leaving me with two second tier tickets just after 7PM. Rah.
Tags: burning man
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02:33 am
[Link] |
Nooooo....
En route to the Viles' to escape the home football game this weekend, I heard the first Christmas carol on the radio. Can't we at least get closer to Thanksgiving? On a similar note, the local grocery stores stopped carrying the nominally Halloween related Pumpkin Ale well before Oct. 31 in order to make room for ... Winter beer. Sigh.
Current Music: 200 More Miles, Cowboy Junkies
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12:37 am
[Link] |
Those little priorities
Driving into work today, I channel surfed through the CBS radio news, and was struck by the fact that 3 US soldiers who were killed today in Iraq were given approximately six seconds of coverage (and no coverage of the 13+ Iraqis) while NFL player complaints on insufficient pensions received around thirty seconds (and a hearing in the Senate).
That and reading an article on the BBC which states, "Post-war austerity was characterised by outside lavatories, central heating was rare and many houses were without televisions or running water." (emphasis mine)
Oh dear, they really were without the essentials of life.
Current Music: Bill Laswell - Emerald Aether; Leonard Cohen - The Essential
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04:36 am
[Link] |
Late night (il)logic musings
( Death penalty thoughts within. )
Current Music: Beth Orton
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01:06 am
[Link] |
Aborted Memings, thoughts from the week, and Dropkick Murphys in Richmond
( Memes with b0rked logic )( jlfranklin and walkinthewilds visit town )( Drumming )( Another wine festival )( Dropkick Murphys play Richmond Saturday. Anyone interested? )
Current Music: A selection of Flogging Molly
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12:29 am
[Link] |
Burning Man 2007
Invitation to camp with the Cult of Levitating Plywood? Check.
Ticket to the event arranged? Check.
Airfare purchased? Check.
Permission to skip work take a vacation during the second week of classes? Check.
Things look good to go..
Current Music: Kathleen as peformed by Tindersticks live
Tags: burning man
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02:16 am
[Link] |
Here kitty kitty...
I was walking home from work last night by the Cage toward the horse barn (a secluded, semi-woodsy area for non-VT people) and saw the amber glow of little eyes and trotting feet of a cat coming down the road towards me. I began making the usual little friendly noises to see if it was one of the social strays.
And then had the following thoughts.
1. Most cats don't have a white stripe all the way down the middle of their back.
2. Perhaps I should move back in as non-threatening a manner as possible.
Current Music: Silver like mercury / nothing can hurt me
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