Posted 10:12 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: The Romance of Radar

What could equal the beauty of sunbeams illuminating a radar station?

UPDATE: See update at bottom.

Sunset with Radar, Haleakala
Nov. 2008

The thing on the right is a weather radar station, or so I'm told. What the thing on the left is, I don't know ("This End Up"?).

I was going to give you a completely different sunset (if you can imagine), but it required a lot of further "processing", so it'll have to wait. This picture is stunning as wallpaper for my big monitor at work, but it also shows I did just a tidge too much contrast fiddling to bring out the sunbeams. You can't really see it here, though.

It's not all sunsets around here; today I took pictures of the sunrise. Which, from a west-facing beach, is not all that exciting.

I measure the quality of my life in terms of rolls exposed. That is, the more rolls of film exposed, the better my life. 2008 weighed in at something like 16 or 17 (haven't sent it all off yet). This does not match the magic year of 1995 (34, I believe), but is much better than 2003 or 2004, when I had two Christmases on one roll.

I plan to keep Kodak and Fuji in business through 2009.

UPDATE 02/10/09: I have it on good authority that the thingy on the right which I was told was a radar station is actually a transmitter for the FAA. And the thingy on the left ("This End Up") is a GPS antenna.

Not changing the title though. "The Romance of FAA Transmitters" just doesn't soar, dammit.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 9:57 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: From Mees to You

(Yes, the title sucks. I have a headache. So deal.)

This is my favorite photo of the Mees:

Mees Solar Observatory, Maui
September 2008

By that you may infer that I have other pictures of the Mees, and, yes, you'll be seeing them.

I put a bunch of photos, including this one, on my computer at work today, and it looked fine. On my laptop screen it looks washed out, but I resisted the temptation to tart it up. While I was in Houston I spent hours adjusting the colors on my photos with our old Hitachi CRT monitor, so they ought to be pretty good.

The Mees is a wonderful old observatory in the classic style, smelling of machines, old books, dehydrating wood, and dust.

And it has a nice picture of Mees. Sadly, the International Photography Hall of Fame does not. (But here's one.)

The telescope was named after Mees because he donated a bunch of Kodak stock to get a satellite tracking station (and thus, astronomy) started on Haleakala. Note that the tracking station was completed (except for the camera) in early '57, whereas the surprise launch of Sputnik did not take place until October of that year. Hmmm.

Anyhow, here we come full circle, for the above photo was taken with my last (or next to last) roll of Kodachrome.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 10:00 PM by Angie Schultz

I, Like, Totally Pledge!

Oh. My. God. Take a gander at this, if you dare. Over four minutes of "celebrities" pledging to do various things, culminating in their mutal pledge to serve Obama. I'm not kidding. OBEY! Remember when dissent was the highest form of patriotism? Neither do they.

Iowahawk has an amusing post in which he tries to guess who everyone is. He did much better than I; as far as I'm concerned, about four of them were Looks Kinda Familiar. The others -- no clue.

I especially liked the part where they pledged to end Alzheimers and support stem cells and so forth. Not, clearly, by becoming brain surgeons. (Hey, here's an idea: let's pay stem cell researchers the kind of salary these muttonheads earn. We ought to have mortality licked by the end of the decade.)

And then there was the pledge to "keep the 200 year old promise to end slavery". I assume that's going to be accomplished by marching on countries where they don't have slavery but do have lattes and indoor plumbing. Rapid deployment of giant puppet heads and strategic chanting will shame the slave-owning countries out of their bad behavior, unless slave-owning is an Authentic Aspect of their Sacred Native Culture. Then it's cool.

And speaking of plumbing -- be sure and enjoy the fellow who pledges to flush only after a "deuce" and not a "single".

As for Obama: good luck, kid. You're going to need it. With friends like these...

I kiss my biceps in your direction!

Brought to you by the letter O and Tim Blair.

Posted 10:24 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Both Sides Now

Here you can look at clouds from both sides at once:

View from Haleakala, Oct. 2008

Click on the picture for a larger version, which I'm not sure will be much clearer. The bright thing on the lower left is the sun shining on Maalaea Bay. Next to it and extending to the right, under the clouds, are the West Maui Mountains. The green stuff is the central plain of Maui (sugar cane fields, mostly). You can see sunbeams shining on it. Behind the bright spot is the island of Lanai.

This was taken near sunset in the cattle range on the way up to Haleakala, from an altitude of 4500, maybe 5000 feet. Took it from a moving car, so it turned out pretty well, considering.

I am not running out of pictures for Foto Friday, but I am running out of topics. "Here's a sunset. Here's a rainbow. Here's a beach. Oh, look, another sunset! Here's a sunrise!" Etc.

Last week's lack of FF was entirely Niles's fault. I went to Houston for Christmas, and toward the end of my visit upgraded my OS to Suse 11.1. Well, I hated it. Many important things wouldn't work right, and the damn thing upgraded my Gimp to the new, pukier version -- contrary to my explicit instructions. After about a day I told him to restore the old version (we'd made a backup), because it just sucked so bad.

He kept telling me to keep working on it, until he finally gave in the day before I left. He started the restore about twelve hours before I had to leave.

It didn't get done.

When the time came to leave for the airport, I cancelled the restore and took the computer home all broken. I started it again the minute I got back home. It finally took at least fifteen hours, finishing while I was at work.

We decided that the problem was that he was using an old copy of Acronis which did not have new and fancy drivers for my newer version of USB. When making the backup, Acronis used new and shiny Windows drivers; but for the restore it used whatever cobwebby versions were contained within itself.

So the moral is: update your drivers. Or buy a new version of the software.

And don't hire cheap labor. (I'm quite capable of breaking my own computer, thank you. I don't need anyone to do it for me. Though as Niles points out, system administration is part of his job, which means he gets paid to fail, whereas I have to fail for free.)

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 8:30 AM by Angie Schultz

Revenge of the Petits Fours: Diagnosis: Gross

Words you don't want to hear from your doctor OR your petits fours:



Strange people with freakishly long memories will recall that the previous petits fours series closed out on a similar medical note.

Again, I'd like to thank the Swiss Colony for providing the petits fours -- "providing" in the sense that they sell them and we bought some. And, remember, this was all Niles's idea.

I'd like to reassure you that this won't ever happen again, since we've pretty much run out of alphabetic petits fours, but I found that the Internet Anagram Server doesn't include abbreviations like "Mr." "Mrs." or "Ms." unless specifically directed, leading to the awful possibility of a whole new series, with entries like "Mrs. Creamy Shirt". My threat to you.

Until then, may the Petty Force be with you!

Labels: Too Much Time on My Hands

Posted 12:00 PM by Angie Schultz

Revenge of the Petits Fours: Prepare for Battle!

This is my favorite.



Hummmmmmm!
Captain, the innuendo field is ineffective against this target.
Try the smirch maser!
Fweeep! Fweep!
No result, sir.
Damn! There's no choice, then...fire slander torpedoes!
But, sir...!
That's an order, mister!
Aye, aye, Captain.
KaaCHOW! KaaCHOW!
Report!
No effect, Captain. Enemy is undamaged!
Great Scott![*] We're doomed!

Seems kinda appropriate for this story. Or this one. Or this. Or, God knows, this one. Or...

[*]With a nod to Lileks.

Labels: Too Much Time on My Hands

Posted 8:21 PM by Angie Schultz

Revenge of the Petits Fours: The Misanthropes' Paradise

Hermits long for the empty red planet, not realizing there are no tiny delicious iced cakes there!

Labels: Too Much Time on My Hands

Posted 10:38 PM by Angie Schultz

Revenge of the Petits Fours: Second Verse, Same as the First

Let's see if I can recapture past inglories:

Labels: Too Much Time on My Hands

Posted 9:01 AM by Angie Schultz

Thanks, Helen!

It's always nice when someone demonstrates that he or she never need be taken seriously again, as Helen Thomas does in this column, supporting the appointment of Caroline Kennedy to Hilary Clinton's soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat. Among the few real supporting facts Thomas provides is:

Both Kennedy and Clinton have lived in the White House.

Wow! I'm convinced!

Thomas does point out that Hilary had a pretty thin resume when she began her Senate run. But Hilary did work on policy -- if only informally -- in Bill's administration, and she did actually have to compete for her Senate seat. (Hilary has always struck me as a woman who decided that no woman would be president in her lifetime, so she hitched her star to a man who could.)

Caroline Kennedy, on the other hand, has not displayed much of an interest in public life -- unlike many of her cousins -- and would be essentially handed the seat on a silver platter.

And that's just fine with Helen Thomas. Power to the People, Helen!

Labels: Fools of Our Planet

Posted 10:23 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Somewhere, Over the Rainbow...

Somewheeeeere, over the rainboooow
Theeeere's Laanaaaaii

Maalaea Bay, Maui, March 2008

The island of Lanai is on the other side of the rainbow, see. To the left.

This is why I always carry my camera with me. You never know when a rainbow or a sunset or the shade of Gandhi will suddenly appear.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii

Posted 5:25 PM by Angie Schultz

Revenge of the Petits Fours: What You See Is What You Get

That's what you get here at the Machinery of Night -- my assurance of quality to you.

(Technically, "bad" is also a quality.)

Labels: Too Much Time on My Hands

Posted 10:49 PM by Angie Schultz

Revenge of the Petits Fours: Your Choice of Theology

Bring your own preconceptions. I'm not touching it with mine.

Happy New Year to all! For those of you coming in late, the Revenge of the Petits Fours begins here, and who knows where it will end.

Labels: Too Much Time on My Hands