Today a bunch of "Islamic fascists" were arrested in London for plotting to blow up 10 transatlantic flights using liquid bombs. My parents are currently in Wales, and I think they were planning on returning in a little over a week. Who knows if their flight might have been targeted? It's unlikely, but there was (and still is, I suppose) a non-zero probability of something happening to any flight.

After watching the evening news tonight on several networks, I've come up with some comments on airport security guidelines & related topics:

• On both networks I watched (CBS, NBC) there were dozens of clips of passengers throwing their liquid items into the trash, and then airport workers collecting huge bags full of discarded items & throwing them into dumpsters. If liqud bombs were a real concern, wouldn't the contents of the trash be treated with more respect than that?
• I subscribe to the Crypto-Gram newsletter written by Bruce Schneier. One of the things he's written about over the last few years is airport security. Specifically, how they (being the "experts" at DHS/TSA) react to security threats. Usually, they act after the threat has been identified, or sometimes, after the second time. Responding after the threat is identified is like taking a final exam a second time, except people die. What's needed is more comprehensive security that responds to a broad range of threats, not silly movie plot scenarios.
• I can't resist. Here's my movie plot scenario: If a terrorist is willing to die, surely they're willing to undergo some elective surgery. I don't think it would be impossible to implant some explosive device inside a human body. It would not be very comfortable, and would probably lead to infections after a while, but the bomber needs only to be able to tolerate it long enough to get on the airplane. Right now (and until someone attempts this) people are only put through the metal detector. Careful engineering could certainly prevent any kind of detection by that crude device.
• Airline perks are going to make a comeback. Now that you can't take anything onto the airplane, the airline will have to supply diversions and food, or else they face very bored & unhappy passengers. The alternative is to start filling the cabin with N₂O.
• A coworker today theorized that the endgame in all of this is a plane full of passengers in hospital-like paper gowns handcuffed to the seats. Passengers will be supplied with absorbent underwear for the longer flights. Children will be put in cages. Do you think this can't happen?

Every year in May UCSD hosts the Sun God Festival, which for most students is an excuse to get drunk and skip class. It is held on the lawn surrounding the Sun God, a large bird-like statue in the middle of campus. There are many student organizations that set up tables & other activities, such as inflatable sumo wrestling or pixie bike jumping. Usually, the controversial student publication, The Koala, has some kind of water-based activity. One year ago it was a slip-n-slide, and this year it was a slip-n-side too, but this time with a chute off a small embankment.

All of this, I suppose, is in tribute to, or because of the statue for which the festival is named. After all, the artist who made it was French, until 2002, when she died.

What's not to like about this entry in the Stuart Collection? It was the first item in the collection. It's colorful, simple, vibrant, and not hard to interpret. Perhaps out of all the items in the collection, this is the one UCSD students actually pay attention to most. And that's saying something, if you've ever met an UCSD undergraduate.

I've been riding bikes for so long that it's unusual that I learn something new. The last couple weeks I've started learning how to do the madison, easily the most insane event on the track. The madison, named after the arena in New York City, is a team event with two riders per team. One rider is racing, while one rests. In the multi-day race events, often one rider will ride for hours, and then switch off to the other teammate.

In shorter events, both riders are on the velodrome at once. The one who is resting either rides very slowly or holds onto the railing. When the racing team member wishes to be relieved, usually after a lap or two, the resting rider meets the racer, and they exchange momentum via a hand-sling.

The thing that makes this event so darned exciting is the sheer number of things going on at once. Firstly, of course, there's a race going on. Then, you've got riders coming in & out of the event. Sometimes multiple riders are coming into the race at the same time, so positioning and timing is very important. Since it is a race where you're only going one or two laps, essentially a racer goes nearly all out, followed by a short rest.

Do you want to help me get my PhD faster? If so, go on over to this website and buy me one Zenview six screen multidisplay. I'd also like you to buy me a computer capable of running all the monitors.

It's only your money. We're talking about my education here!

UNDA, by Ian Hamilton Finlay (1987) is in the vein of the La Jolla Project, another Stuart Collection item. This time, the stone blocks are smaller and fewer in number. These stones are English limestone and have the latin word for "wave" carved into them, unda. To be more precise, the letters are carved out of order with a s-like shape included which transposes the letters to put them back in order to spell unda. According to the official page on this item (linked above) the wave moves through the letters like the waves in the nearby ocean, making a literary "wave" or something.

It seems to me that since the La Jolla Project had been installed three years before this item, putting plain blocks out on a lawn would have been plagiarism. Finlay probably thought to himself, "I've got all these bloody blocks of limestone, but some other bloke already did art with stone blocks. Let's put some latin on them -- and perhaps put it in the wrong order, like the word has been hit by a wave. No! Wait! I've got it!" And the result is what we see today.

This entry in the Stuart Collection is a good one, not a great one nor a poor one. I'm always skeptical of art that I feel is forced (waves upon waves upon undas, bah!) but this is okay despite that. The stone has a nice texture which I'm sure changes by the year due to weathering. The stones were cut roughly so they aren't square and perfect like the La Jolla Project. The stone has character which the unda doesn't ruin. It's worth your time to see.

Seven months ago I wrote a post covering my likes and dislikes (mainly dislikes) of Yahoo! Mail beta. It's time to revisit it and see if Yahoo! has done anything in that time. I had five points of contention:

1. Fixed-width fonts. There is still no option for showing/composing messages in fixed-width font. Starting off weakly, Yahoo!

   

2. Message replying format. It still puts my signature at the top of the message. Again, they should provide the option of putting it where I want it. Uh oh, another red x.

   

3. Message quoting. This also has not been fixed yet. Since I use good email etiquette, having no differentiation between what I'm replying to and writing is not an option.

   

4. Signature new lines. Finally, something they've fixed. Of course, without fixed-width font, my signature still looks wrong.

   

5. Bugs. Perhaps there are other bugs that have gone unfixed, but the one I identified in the previous post has been fixed. So you get a green check, Yahoo!

   

In sum total Yahoo! is batting .400, which is an excellent baseball average, but it is a poor average for things so simple to fix. Moreover, the list is in roughly descending order of importance to me. Therefore, Yahoo! is batting more like .150, having tackled none of the things crucial to me.

I've tried to tell Yahoo! about these shortcomings. I've submitted feature requests to the appropriate place several times over the last seven months. I can't believe I'm the only one with these concerns. But since nothing has changed, perhaps I am.

In my opinion, Two Running Violet V Forms by Robert Irwin (1983), is the most easily describable entry in the Stuart Collection. Put simply, it is blue chain link fence raised thirty feet off the ground, arranged in two V shapes, set in the eucalyptus grove in the middle of campus. There's really not much more to say about it.

Um, wait it also has -- nope, um -- uh, yeah. That's really all there is to this art.

Really.

Oh, okay, I do have something to say about this "art." A couple things. First, this is another entry in the list of Stuart Collection art I could have done myself. That's not a good thing. Second, at least this art is easily avoidable, being in a part of campus I rarely go. If I do go there, I just have to keep my eyes low and I go right through it unmolested. Save your time and see something else while on campus. Third, while describing it is easy, understanding it isn't. Do you understand it? If so, can you help a brother out?

I promise that upcoming Stuart Collection posts will be more interesting!

I managed to go by Something Pacific (by Nam June Paik in 1986) numerous times before I ever noticed it. In fact, the first time I expressly looked for it, I couldn't find it. Its entirety is a few foot-high statues watching concrete-filled 1950s televisions, placed in on a lawn. It is a fairly unimpressive work, considering that the artist was a video artist. The televisions don't function. Anyone can put televisions out on a lawn. I'm serious about this. A video artist is worthy due to what s/he has the televisions show. Using the standards of this work, I could be a paint artist by putting empty cans of paint out in the middle of a lawn. See! Paint cans! On a lawn! I'm a painter!

Perhaps the only redeeming quality of this art is that you actually have to slow down to notice it. Overall, this is a sub-par entry in the Stuart Collection, in my opinion.

(p.s. If you go to the official page for this item you'll see that in the lobby of the Media Center there are some functional televisions. This doesn't excuse the lameness of the outdoor part.)

This is the most useful of all the Stuart Collection items. Yes, it's just a drinking fountain. Actually, it's a refrigerated drinking fountain, and it's by Michael Asher, done in 1991. The fountain is made of two kinds of granite, and looks exactly like the fountain you'd find in many buildings. I guess there's supposed to be some kind of symbolism in this, with grass surrounding the fountain, & the history of the site as an Army shooting range. However, it feels kind of stretched in my opinion. The irony here isn't very strong. In the end, it's just a drinking fountain, one that's perhaps more interesting than most.

Here are some photos of a "Bike RV" that my father took in Northern California a few days ago. Notice in the middle photograph that there are at least three derailleurs! Here's what my father wrote:

Found parked alongside US101 on the way to Eureka. He lives in it, has pedalled it all around the US, has been doing this for years. The vehicle weighs 600 lbs or so. The panel above the seat is just a sun/rain shade, not a solar panel. The mechanical details were nicely done but I think the aerodynamics could be improved. On the other hand it's geared low and likely never goes very fast. Small bike wheel in front, fat rubber-tired go-kart wheel in back. I didn't look to see what kind of brakes. All in all it's pretty amazing that the guy could live in and pedal the thing around. I talked to him a bit, and as you might guess he seemed mildly unhinged.

My question is how does he get the thing started? Getting 600 pounds moving is no small task. And going uphill? He appears to have at least three levels of down-gearing. How does he go fast enough to not fall over? Maybe he has to spin the pedals at 120 RPM to even go anywhere. I also don't think the sun/rain shade could be that effective. To me, if I wanted to protect myself against the elements, I would get some kind of acryllic shell to go over the rider's position. It would also be much more aero.

Maybe I'm just more sane that this guy, but if I were to do this sort of thing, I'd get a bike trailer to load all my stuff behind a normal bike. Then I could ride a normal unhindered bike if I wished, leaving the trailer at the campsite. I'd have to sleep in a tent, but that's okay.

Just a few days ago, I replaced my four year old white 500 Mhz G3 iBook with a shiny widescreen white 1.83 Ghz Intel Core Duo MacBook (the black one seemed altogether silly to spend extra money on). The laptop is a very nice machine. My home machine is a 20" iMac G5 with a widescreen, and I've gotten used to the extra real estate, so I like the fact that the MacBook has one too. Really, the main reason I bought it is because my iBook had decayed to the point that it was only good for websurfing. I wanted a machine I could use at school, and the iBook just couldn't cut it (I definitely tried to make the iBook work!).

Since Apple is switching to Intel chips, the world of Windows is now available using either Boot Camp or Parallels. I have a copy of Windows 2000, and since I believe that Boot Camp only works with Windows XP, I am not going to try that out. Also, Boot Camp makes your machine dual-boot, which means only one OS at a time and no interaction between the two. Parallels is the more attractive option, it allows you to run Windows along with Mac OS X. The Windows world lives inside of an application that runs on Mac OS X. Choosing to interact with Windows is no more difficult that switching applications. Also, Parallels works with basically any Intel-compatible operating system, so I could use my Win2000 install disk.

After much trial and tribulation (mainly related to the fact that my Win2000 is an upgrade version, not full install) I got Win2000 installed using Parallels on my MacBook. After installing the myriad of security updates, I installed the softwares for my Garmin Forerunner 301. You see, Garmin (right now) only makes software for their gadgets for Windows. They've promised to make a Mac OS X verison of the software I use by Spring 2006 (they have two and a half weeks). Obviously, waiting around for that to be relased will just waste my time, so I was hoping that I could use this whole setup to run the Windows software on my MacBook to talk to my GPS. However, sadly, it doesn't work. It's clear it almost works, since Win2000 notices when I plug in the GPS, but the Garmin stuff can't quite talk to the GPS. The situation seems exactly the same as when I tried using Virtual PC on my G5 over a year ago.

All in all, I like the laptop, I like Parallels, and I'm displeased with Garmin. I'm using a beta 30-day activation key with Parallels, and I'm unsure if I'll buy the full version ($40 for pre-ordering). I really try to stay away from Windows applications. Right now the only app I do want to run is the Garmin stuff, and it doesn't look like that's going to work.

Today Melissa and I went down to Balboa Park to spend a very nice day outside. We went to the rose garden, the desert garden, and walked through the museum area. We also walked to an off-park deli (therefore it didn't cost too much), and had a bit of a picnic under a tree. Mainly I took lots of pictures of the roses.

About a month ago I received my iPod settlement gift certificate worth $50. The money was only good at the Apple store. As you can find out for yourself, there's not much for $50 on the Apple store, save for a few iPod accessories. I didn't really want any iPod accessories, and besides, most wouldn't fit my second generation iPod. Of course Apple was hoping that I'd just go ahead and use the $50 as an excuse to by a quad-G5 desktop system for $3,300 (make that $3,250).

Look for the one-way streets, wide boulevards, and train tracks.

Above the iPod accessories, the lowest price items are software titles. I browsed through them and discovered that there was a Mac OS X version of Sim City 4. I've always liked the Sim City series, starting with the orginal Sim City. I like the planning of a citys infrastructure. As the "mayor" of the city, the player has to lay roads, freeways, railways, subways, power lines and water pipes. The mayor has to also balance a budget of expedatures and taxes (more on that later). The goal of the game can be as simple as building the largest city possible, or the most asthetically pleasing, or one with the "happiest" residents, or one with the best finances. My goal has usually been to have a high population combined with a happy population.

Look for the railroad crossing guards, various species of trees and the accurate railroad "Y".

The newest version has many improvements over the previous versions, Sim City 2000 and Sim City 3000. For one, this version supports regions, whereby you can build dozens of cities that are neighbors on one big map. Each city is independent in that you can only edit one at a time, but cities influence neighbors by way of jobs & trade. One of the biggest improvements has been in the graphics. This new game has beautiful graphics with very high level of detail. There are something like six levels of zoom. The closest one is so close you can see individual "sims" (people) on the streets (look for them on the above image of the train station).

See if you can find the county fair & golf course.

One of the keys to a well-functioning city is the transportation system. Sims are very touchy about how long it takes to drive to their job. Sim City 4 introduces a very useful tool that allows you to see what kind of traffic goes where through your transportation system. In the picture linked on the right, you can see all the commute traffic that goes through a train station in the center of town (in the lower-left of the picture). You can trace foot traffic onto a passenger train, which gets off at a different station and walks to a jobsite.

I must admit that one key element of Sim City, collecting taxes and balancing a budget, I've never really liked. I either cheat to get the cash to run the town, or find some other way to make money, like building a magic building found on the internet. I'm no libertarian -- I just don't really care too much about the fiscal part of the game. If I were really going to play the game for real, I would not cheat. But I don't want to play it for real, so I feel no guilt.

One nice thing about this game is there is no death & violence, no princess to save, and I can stop the game at any time without losing my progress.

Continuing my Stuart Collection, err, collection, I've posted photos of Snake Path (1992) by Alexis Smith. Snake Path is located on a hillside just east of Giesel Library. It's made up of hundreds of shaped pieces of various kinds of stone.

The snake loops over itself and inside the loop there is a bench with a quote from Milton's Paradise Lost. The biblical touches nonwithstanding, I like the path. It begs you to walk its full length like a British garden maze. The path has a definite central crown, like a road, which emphasizes that a real snake is three dimensional. It makes the walk down the hill slighty precarious, making the walk a bit more like an adventure.

This is less of an executive order and more of a rant, really. Over the weekend I listened to a segment of On the Media in which they discussed HD Radio. It is a new technology that allows stations to broadcast up to three free digital channels (two CD-quality, one voice-quality) in the space of one analog station. And the broadcast is backwards comptatible so old radios still work. A really excellent thing is in order to entice people to buy radios the stations are broadcasting without commercials until 2007.

All of these things got me interested enough to investigate this. The first thing I checked out was the list of local stations that offer HD radio. As you can see below, only three stations in San Diego have adopted this technology. Fresno has six. America's Finest City beat out by Fresno. Excellent.

I also checked out the various HD radios available for purchase. The radios are expensive and small in variety. If I could find one for around $100 would consider one, but the cheapest ones are $300 and the shelf-type. I'm looking for a component-type since I already have a set of nice speakers and an amplifier.

A bigger and better-known problem like this is the implementation of HD TV services. And, surprise, San Diego lags behind there, too. San Diego has six HD broadcast stations, while Fresno has 11. San Diego is the 28th largest market in the US, while Fresno is the 58th. Ron Burgundy would be ashamed.

Why do I compare San Diego with Fresno? Have you been to Fresno? I guess it's more natural that Fresno has better radio and TV, what else is there to do there? Seriously, San Diego better get it's act together, or else I'm really gonna have to issue an excecutive order. I want my HD services.