Sharing photos, videos, vintage images I've discovered, and -- occasionally -- commentary and thoughts from retired life and travels.

commentary

Climategate update

November 22, 2009

image

Click on any of the images to go to the associated webpage.

image

image

image

image

image

3JM4CMZFEP5W

734PJM5ANRMR

While I have spent a bit of time reading some of the emails that were leaked earlier the week, I simply do not have the time – or desire – to delve deeply into the files.  There are many others around the world digging into this.

I think that there have been serious consequences that have resulted from the actions of some of the scientists whose correspondence has been leaked.  In their zeal to “prove” — at all costs — CO2 as the cause of anthropogenic global warming, other potential causes have been marginalized.  Evidence is mounting that changes in land use may have a significantly greater impact on climate change than rising CO2.  If true, mitigation and adaptation to successfully address human impacts on climate could be done at a fraction of the cost of  the drastic actions and expenses that are being called for today.  It may be that efforts could have been started a decade ago, but for an obsession on CO2 as the global warming culprit.

On Examiner.com, Thomas Fuller is writing a series of articles regarding the actions and communications of a group of climate scientists and paleoclimatologists known as The Team. Click here to read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 , Part 6, and Part 7.

My first post on this was Climategate.

image

image

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Climategate

November 21, 2009

image

While I haven’t blogged about it for a while, I read material related to global warming climate change every day, so it was with great interest yesterday morning that I read of the release of allegedly stolen anthropogenic global warming climate change correspondence.

I had woken early for some reason and was unable to get back to sleep.  By 4:30, I was up and checking email, blogs and the news-feeds that I subscribe to.

A little over an hour later, I was downloading the files.

It’s going to be interesting to see where this is going to end up.  Articles are already appearing in the mainstream media.

See new article: Climategate update.

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

image

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

What’s a blog?

November 14, 2009

About our blogs

I’ve been blogging for several years now and currently have 3 active blogs.

I post to Exit78 the most, sharing some of my photos, vintage images I’ve discovered, and — occasionally — commentary and thoughts from retired life.

Haw Creek Out ‘n About is images and information about places — where we are, where we’ve been, and where we’d like to go, while Haw Creek is intended to be primarily related to information on recreational vehicles.

I publish posts on our travels simultaneously on Exit78 and Haw Creek Out ‘n About.

Karen’s blog, Quilts….etc., as the title implies, is mostly about her quilting, but she also chats about a lot of other things that interest her.

We both have regular readers, though I think Karen has more than I do, and we both read a number of other blogs.

There are several different, though similar, definitions of the word, “blog.”

The word “blog” is a contraction of the term “weblog” or “web log.”

The term actually originated from online diarists. Early web diaries (c. 1994) evolved into web journals, then web logs, and, today, blogs.

Capture A blog is a type of website where material is published on some periodic basis in reverse chronological order through “entries” or posts.  In other words, for readers, the most recent post comes first.

image Though blogs are most commonly used for personal online journals, blogs are used in wide variety of ways.  Types of blogs include business blogs, political blogs, news blog, travel blogs, fashion blogs, project blogs, education blogs, niche blogs, music blogs of all varieties, and much, much more.

image Most bloggers are hobbyists motivated by self-expression and sharing expertise.  Contrary to the common perception of bloggers being controversial, snide, sarcastic, or pompous, most bloggers feel that their blogging style is sincere, conversational, or expert.

While many hobby bloggers enjoy blogging and stick with it, most blogs actually die quite quickly.  Other blogs die a slow death, with irregular, hit-and-miss posting, and then… nothing.  Last year, I took a look back at the blogs I had been reading a year earlier.  Less than a quarter of them were still active.

For more information on blogs and blogging see Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere – 2009 or Wikipedia’s article, Blog.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Windows 7 isn’t bad at all

November 8, 2009

windows7

So far, my experience with Windows 7 has been positive.

All of my files on the old computer, including images, copied over to the new computer painlessly through a wireless connection using the “Windows Easy Transfer” wizard.  Of course, most of my files are on three external hard drives – photography files replicated on each of the three –, so there was no need to transfer most of them.

Still, there was 13 gigabytes to transfer wirelessly, and that took several hours.  I spent that time reading, watching TV, and sleeping, since it wasn’t done by bedtime.

There are a number of ways that Windows 7 is significantly different from XP.  It’s going to take a while to get used to some of the ones I’ll be using.

I realize, of course, that most of the features of Windows 7 first appeared in Vista.  In fact, one article I read complained that Windows 7 was little more than a service pack for Vista.  The argument was that, for the price of Windows 7,  there was no reason to upgrade Vista to Windows 7 and that the only good reason to go to Windows 7  was if you were buying a new computer.

However, going from Windows XP to Windows 7, many Windows features are very new to me.

The biggest change is the way the task bar at the bottom of the screen is used.

I usually have a lot of windows open at one time.  In XP, I would have the entire bar filled with  application icons and I would use the bar to navigate between them.

In Windows 7, a newly open application’s icon will appear on the task bar if it’s not already there. In this instance, when you close the application, its icon also closes.

One of the features that I like is that you can “pin” useful applications to the task bar.  Then, to open the application, all you have to do is click on it’s icon on the task bar.

When there are multiple windows of an application open, holding the mouse’s pointer over the application’s icon in the task bar displays all of the open windows for that application, as shown in the image below, which shows 7 open Firefox windows .

windows7-2

Microsoft has had some real flops over the years and I understand how a lot of IT professionals are going to be hesitant to move to Windows 7.

Large companies, though, are often slow to adopt new platforms.  The company I worked for had only just moved to XP about the time that Vista was coming out.

I still have not loaded Office on to my new machine, though I probably will install Office 2003.  I have installed Open Office and want to play with that for a while before I decide.

This blog post  my first WordPress post written using Windows Live Writer.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

What was she thinking?

November 6, 2009

Click on any of the images to view a larger version.

What was she thinking?

footwear-2

footwear-3

exit-2

Commentary and images from the road

image and information from September 13, 2009

This post is being simultaneously published
on Exit78 and Haw Creek Out ‘n About

Mesa Verde National Park, September 13, 2009

I figure she was just thinking about seeing the cliff dwellings up close and personal.

It was obvious, though, to us, that she’s not a regular on trails.

The shoulder bag is a dead giveaway.

Generally, the only places we ever see women with purses on trails are relatively short trails that go to gotta-see sights.

Cliff Palace, cliff dwelling at Mesa Verde National Park

Cliff Palace is certainly a gotta-see, but really….

And the footwear.

Granted, we did see a lot of people wearing sandals and flip-flops, but, again, I doubt that many of them are out on trails of any kind on a regular basis — I think her flip-flops were to show off her pretty red toe-nails.

the way out

But the real question was the skirt.

I doubt that she was thinking about the climb up out of the canyon — or maybe didn’t know, until it was too late.

The way out was very steep — and included near-vertical ladders.

___________

The image on the right was taken from across the canyon.  I processed it on my computer to lighten it so that the dark crack in the rocks where the exit climb was could be seen.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

I really have intended to work my way through the photos from our September trip. However, I have managed to find other activities to keep me from that goal.  I do, however, have a new photo gallery for Day 3 of Rocky Mountain National Park.

This new notebook sure is small compared to her old one.

Check out Day 3 of Rocky Mountain National Park and my other Haw Creek photo galleries.

Work, of course, takes a huge chunk of time and my time is shifted since the simulator is primarily available for the students in the evening. While I was planning for the contract to be over at the end of 2009, there is a distinct possibility that I will be there until the second week of March.

Karen has a new notebook computer. I spent the better part of a day installing all of her old programs and transferring files.  The notebook runs on Windows 7.

I’m going to also be moving from XP to Windows 7.  After restoring my laptop to near original configuration, there are still times where I am waiting an excessive time  for processes to finish.  My new laptop is on order and will be assembled and shipped next week.

Early this year, I rediscovered a love for reading.  I used to read three or more novels a week on a regular basis.  After many years of only a few books a year, I’m now reading at least a couple of books a week.

This has been the wettest year of all the years we have lived in Arkansas.  Much of the state is well over 20″ over the normal rainfall amounts for the year to date.  This is already about the 12th or 13th wettest year on record for Little Rock.  From what I understand, the wettest year on record was in the 1880s, and there was a little more than ten inches more than what Little Rock has already so far this year — and there is still two more months of 2009 to go.

I’m going to be concentrating on posting the rest of the material from our September trip and building photo galleries. I’ll post on other topics as I have the time and the inclination.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }