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If I had all the time in the world, I could lose days of my life at the
new-to-me NASA History Homepage.
They've assembled not just the technical details but information on
the people, the management of the program, and the politics involved,
so you can get a number of perspectives if you poke around enough.
I loved looking at the
technical diagrams
of the various spacecraft, even if I don't really understand them.
And they've put tons of their
books,
reports, and other publications on-line as well. I just wish more of
the content was in downloadable pdf (as well as the nicely searchable
html) so one could flip through entire documents with more ease.
[12.20.02] Of course I saw The Two Towers tonight, and of course it was wonderful, and I could blather about what I liked and what could have been done better and what adjustments they made to the book. But what I did not expect was the audience composition at the 3:45pm showing I attended. Sure, there were the hardcore geek fans with their cloaks and scruffy beards. But the most significant, and certainly the loudest, group was the early-adolescent girls with "I [heart] Frodo" painted on their face and pictures of Elijah Wood pinned to their shirt, who serenaded Orlando Bloom with shrieks and hoots when he appeared on the screen or did something exciting. Lord of the Rings has become a teen heartthrob movie, and a corner of me suspects that market segment is how a particularly out-of-character and out-of-genre scene for Bloom came about. The phenomenon is utterly bizarre, and I feel as if these girls are missing the point of the movie. They don't seem to want to be Arwin or Eowyn, or join in the fantasy or Tolkien's world. They were the crowd that wasn't comparing the movie to the book afterwards, though they were fans enough to buy tickets for a show that sold out days ago.
And there is the
odd way in which the teenaged girls latched on to the most genderless of
the men in the movie. Even as the hero, Viggo got no cheers as
his name appeared in the credits -- have these girls no eyes????
It's so easy to forget the appeal of the non-threatening, cute male
to an adolescent girl. But then why the lack of love for my favorite
hobbit, Sam? He's sweet and strong and faithful and absolutely
adorable to boot. Those girls puzzle me greatly, but at least they
are helping support some movies I love for a change.
Anyway, back to this sweater, it was surprisingly easy to make. Zimmerman
suggests knitting two colors by holding a color in each hand and alternating
which you use to knit with on the fly. It sounds horrible, but it's really
very easy after the first dozen or so stitches. Her pattern is also knit
entirely in the round for the entire body and arms, and they you cut slits
in the sides to place the armholes. This was the only part that went
slightly awry. She assures readers that if you sew a basting seam next to
the slit before you but with your sewing machine set on the shortest
stitch length nothing will unravel, but she is wrong. My first armhole
had strands popping out all over the place. The solution was to not only
make a close seam before cutting, but then do a zig-zag stich up the cut
edge afterwards to really tightly seal off the ends. I'm not convinced
I wouldn't prefer a more complicated pattern that didn't require this step,
but on the positive side, you don't have to ensure that your knit-only
in the round looks the same as alterating knit and purl back and forth
(it never does for me). All said, I love the sweater, and it was quick to
make and easy to shape to fit me.
The combination of watching Nemesis and waiting eagerly for
The Two Towers reminded me of the highly bizarre
"Two
Sides of Leonard Nimoy" album with the surreal and 70's-rific
Ballad of Biblo Baggins, complete with
music video. An
absolute classic!
I can't resist a Star Trek movie, no matter how much I know I should, so I
saw Nemesis this evening.
Full review of Star Trek: Nemesis here,
but it really is as bad as you might fear from the previews. Taking a
darker tone this time around really didn't help. I'm a bit sorry I bothered
to go see it, though I know that no number of bad reviews would really
allow me to skip a Trek movie. I'm glad this is supposed to be the last
one and I hope they stick with that promise.
A wide review of alternative medical
treatments for cancer recently came out of Harvard, indicating that
some of these treatments do help, while others don't have evidence for
their efficacy. Also important, the review seems to look at how these
treatments interact with traditional cancer treatments. I can't find the
study itself, unfortunately.
I'm swiping this directly from Allen
but he is very correct in reminding researchers than without dated research
notes you may be undermining your ability to receive patents. With so
many of us keeping our records electronically,
Stamper, a free PGP
Digital Timestamping service, is a very useful resource. Thanks for finding
this, Allen!
One of those "making the rounds" stories that I enjoyed a lot:
"The Case of the
500-mile Email". Probably one of the funniest sysadmin stories
I've heard - it's told well here.
[via Mr. Barrett]
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"When the world was young, and the woods were wide and wild, the Ents and
the Entwives -- and there were Entmaidens then: ah! the loveliness of
Fimbrethil, of Wandlimb the lightfooted, in the days of our youth! --
they walked together and they housed together. But our hearts did not go
on growing in the same way: the Ents gave their love to things that they
met in the world, and the Entwives gave their thought to other things, for
the Ents loved the great trees, and the wild woods, and the slopes of the
high hills; and they drank of the mountain-streams, and ate only such fruit
as the trees let fall in their path; and they learned of the Elves and
spoke with the Trees. But the Entwives gave their minds to the lesser trees,
and to the meads in the sunshine beyond the feet of the forests; and
they saw the sloe in the thicket, and the wild apple and the cherry
blossoming in spring, and the green herbs in the waterlands in summer, and
the seeding grasses in the autumn fields. They did not desire to speak with
these things; but they wished them to hear and obey what was said to them.
The Entwives ordered them to grow according to their wishes, and bear
leaf and fruit to their liking; for the Entwives desired order, and
plenty, and peace (by which they meant that things should remain where
they had set them). So the Entwives made gardens to live in. But we Ents
went on wandering, and we only came to the gardens now and again. Then
when the Darkness came in the North, the Entwives crossed the Great
River, and made new gardens, and tilled new fields, and we saw them more
seldom. After the Darkness was overthrown the land of the Entwives
blossomed richly, and their fields were full of corn. Many men learned
the crafts of the Entwives and honored them greatly; but we were only a
legend to them, a secret in the heart of the forest. Yet here we still are,
while all the gardens of the Entwives are wasted: Men call them the
Brown Lands now." The Two Towers, J.R.R. Tolkien
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To borrow a phrase from a friend of mine, I am insufferably proud of my
latest craft achievment. I've been on a bit of a knitting kick after
discovering Elizabeth Zimmerman's books and falling in love with them,
and I just finished my first sweater. It's the "Ski Sweater in Color
Patterns" from Zimmerman's book Knitting Without Tears, which I
would recommend to anyone looking to get beyond scarves and learn some
intuition for garment design (the third word in the title lays the
stress on the "e" rather than the "a", in case you're a smart alec
like my brother and were going to ask...). I made the sweater with
Lion Brand Wool-Ease in Ranch Red and Black; I think it took five
skeins of red and four of black. I love working with Wool-Ease, and for
a first sweater I wanted something cheaper than the expensive boutique
yarns (and Wool-Ease isn't too much more than a nice acrylic) but
a nice enough yarn I would really wear the sweater. The 15% wool makes
the texture nice, and it's a fairly thin yarn so the sweater didn't
turn out too bulky - particularly nice since there's always an extra
strand being carried along the backside. I just noticed their coming
out with Wool-Ease Sport and I'm planning on grabbing a couple of balls
to make socks (I've had my eye on the Highland knee sock pattern in
Folk Solks but am a bit intimidated).
