Durham Tornado pictures

I almost forgot - cell phone pictures of the August 27 Durham Tornado are up. Take a gander if you want. The rotation of the clouds and the impressions of said rotation upon lowly human witnesses cannot be communicated through still pictures. Sadly, no video of this event exists as I neglected to take my video camera to work even though I knew the chances of severe weather were very high. Be prepared. I was not. Worst yet I did not report this even to NC Skywarn. I'm still new to the HAM radio thing and was not sure of the proper reporting protocols. I should have just pressed the key and told Skywarn what I was seeing. Next time this happens I'll remember to bring my camera AND my confidence.

Call me crazy..

I used to have a vinyl copy of William Shatner's The Transformed Man back in the day (I now have this work of "art" on CD). Anybody that has ever heard Shatner on The Transformed Man, particularly Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds or Mr. Tambourine Man, has to have asked themselves "what in the HELL is THIS?" What the hell is it indeed. In fact I've always wondered if Shatner was recording himself as a joke or if he was indeed serious. I'm pretty sure he was playing a joke on everyone. I hope.

But then in 2004 Shatner released Has Been. The release of this CD escaped my attention when it was released but I heard a snippet of Shatner's version of the Pulp song Common People. I was shocked, SHOCKED I tell you! Shatner's version wasn't only listenable, it was GOOD! It's weird, kind of like Phish's version of Snoop Dog's Gin and Juice, but a very good performance.

Give it a listen if you can.

IPv6

The more I learn about IPv6 the more I know I need to keep learning about IPv6. There is an UNBELIEVABLE amount of features buried in IPv6 that makes me wonder why more people have not yet adopted v6 as the native transport for their networks.

This week I study. Next week I implement something very cool using store-bought hardware. I'll document all the necessary steps and post them once I have tested and verified everything to be fully functional.

I think you're going to like it.

Vows of Silence

Could a modern day Monk, Priest or Holy Person use modern communication methods under the conditions of a Vow of Silence? Even under such a Vow, in the past, Holy Persons could communicate through written letters. But today with SMS messages, Instant Messages, blogs, e-mail, and, heck, even Morse Code, where are the lines drawn? Does anyone know?

Stayed home and Roku'ed quite a bit this weekend

Yes! A Linux documentary! This was a good, well made documentary featuring interviews and footage of Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, Eric Raymond, Bruce Perens, and the list goes on and on. Even local Linux master Donnie Barnes was interviewed for the film. Cool stuff! One strange note: the song at the close of the show, penned by Stallman, was downright strange. Otherwise, good stuff!!

*** 1/2 out of *****

The Chicken vs. The Egg

I had a hard time falling asleep last night and I started to think about that age-old question "what came first, the chicken or the egg?" It seems obvious that the egg predates the chicken. Why? The first animals to pull themselves up onto the land reproduced with eggs. Birds lay eggs and they must have developed after the first amphibians. Ergo the egg must have predated the first chicken, which likely developed from a cross-species hybrid or simply mutated from the Grey Junglefowl to form a distinct species of bird.

If you go the religious route chickens were created on day five.

So either way chickens predate eggs.

Wait, what? This is what happens when you blog and talk on the phone at the same time. If chickens evolved the egg predates the chicken. Under creationism chickens would predate eggs (as eggs of any animal are not specifically mentioned as being created at the same time in Genesis).

Louis Vuitton weathers the storm

Why is it that most riders of Harley Davidsons you see wear wallets attached to their belts? (this is gross generalization, but please work with me) Yesterday I found out when I elected to drive my scooter to the local Chinese resturant for some delicious food. The ride to the store was uneventful. I paid for my food then realized I had not placed the "basket" on the rear "bed" of the scooter, hence no place to place the food. After some ingenious stuffing of the to-go bag I was off. About 1/2 way home I felt something slip and immediatly I knew I had not taken the greatest care in tucking my wallent in my pocket. I pulled off the road and a nice semaratin told me that my wallet had fallen out. I thanked her and made a U-turn.

Contents of my wallet were everywhere. In the street, in the ditches on both sides, you name it, something inside my wallet was in one of these places. The wallet itself had skidded to a stop in the street directly in the slightly depressed "tire ditch" you only notice when riding on two wheels. "KA-FLAP" was the sound my wallet made after being run over by three seperate vehciles. I won't reprint the sound I made after my wallet was driven over.

I collected my credit cards and other stuff and then my wallet which, by this point, had been shot to the side of the road and was sitting in some grass very close to a fine mountain of horse poo. I figured the wallet would have been torn asunder but no! Not only did my wallet weather the storm there is nary a scratch on it - anywhere! Well, that's not really true. There is a scratch in the fold of the wallet on the outside, but it's not noticiable unless you are inspecting it under very good light.

Looking back to the more-than-slightly-buzzed condition when I purchased my wallet during a trip to Belgium I could have not possibly thought the wallet, even as well made as it is, could have taken such a beating. In fact had Kelly and I not been out tasting fine Belgium beers that say and had the rain not started right when we were in front of the store perhaps I'd still have my OP wallet, or whatever it was I used to carry my belongings in.