Saturday night, my friend Nick Merryman graciously invited me to hang out with him, his fiancee, and their friends. This resulted in eating Mediterranean food, drinking tequila from several establishments, dancing in a nearly vacant underground disco, and smoking a hookah. I sneakily managed to hold a pull for the duration of a hookah cycle and exhaled just as the last person exhaled; this made for some surprises. Nick managed to handwhistle with smoke which was pretty amusing.
I need to figure out how to smuggle a portable whiteboard into bars. It would make discussions easier, and we wouldn't have to busily scribble illustrative plots onto napkins.
Nick reported he just sent a PCB out for fabrication which is pretty impressive. I've never done any *real* RF circuit design and consider that to be fairly hardcore. His board, among other things, has pinouts for a 320-pin FPGA.
--
I also need to arrange a rotisserie over a woodgrill in our backyard. My roommate seems to have cooking inclinations, so one weekend we should roast a large pile of meat.
--
On the GPU front, I got TRAC installed and am using it now. Someone at GTRI is using GPU VSIPL which is interesting.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Thursday, June 26, 2008
DC v Heller
DC v Heller
Well done.
Update (June 30)
I was going to put this in the comments but I figure it's better if more public.
What firearms can you register in DC now?
Semiautomatic handguns are not registered
No weapon can shoot more
than one shot by a single function of the trigger,
or semi-automatically shoot more than 12 shots
without manual reloading or be readily converted
or restored to do so.
I mention this just so people realize that Heller only labels broad and general bans as unconstitutional. Neither the courts nor legislatures have received much guidance by this decision to determine what other types of restrictions might also be unconstitutional. Clearly, it helps to establish the individual right to keep and bear arms and to clarify the self-defense purpose inherent in the 2nd Amendment. It is also helpful to state that "handguns" cannot be prohibited.
It has been observed that the ruling was close. This matters to an extent, but I don't think the narrow outcome is going to be the most significant source of legal activity to follow, at least in the next few years. District v Heller acknowledges the validity of some restrictions and does not go into detail about what those might be limited to. The laws are in a flux now, and both sides see plenty of opportunity to go forward.
With regard to "no semiautomatics," the 'readily converted or restored to' clause covers any weapon for which a >12 round magazine exists by my interpretation. You can buy a 45 round drum for 1911s on GunBroker for $60 or so. Everyone but Nic recognizes the world of difference between semiautomatics and manually fed weapons. This new kind of ban is going to be the new language and style of the debate.
Amusingly, it is not contradictory to support the Heller decision and yet defend the semiautomatic ban. Watch for that from both presidential candidates as they can easily appear to appease both sides. Terms like "common sense" will fly out of mouths as effortlessly as hot air.
Held:
1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.
Pp. 2–53.
(a) The Amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clause’s text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms. Pp. 2–22.
Well done.
Update (June 30)
I was going to put this in the comments but I figure it's better if more public.
What firearms can you register in DC now?
Semiautomatic handguns are not registered
No weapon can shoot more
than one shot by a single function of the trigger,
or semi-automatically shoot more than 12 shots
without manual reloading or be readily converted
or restored to do so.
I mention this just so people realize that Heller only labels broad and general bans as unconstitutional. Neither the courts nor legislatures have received much guidance by this decision to determine what other types of restrictions might also be unconstitutional. Clearly, it helps to establish the individual right to keep and bear arms and to clarify the self-defense purpose inherent in the 2nd Amendment. It is also helpful to state that "handguns" cannot be prohibited.
It has been observed that the ruling was close. This matters to an extent, but I don't think the narrow outcome is going to be the most significant source of legal activity to follow, at least in the next few years. District v Heller acknowledges the validity of some restrictions and does not go into detail about what those might be limited to. The laws are in a flux now, and both sides see plenty of opportunity to go forward.
With regard to "no semiautomatics," the 'readily converted or restored to' clause covers any weapon for which a >12 round magazine exists by my interpretation. You can buy a 45 round drum for 1911s on GunBroker for $60 or so. Everyone but Nic recognizes the world of difference between semiautomatics and manually fed weapons. This new kind of ban is going to be the new language and style of the debate.
Amusingly, it is not contradictory to support the Heller decision and yet defend the semiautomatic ban. Watch for that from both presidential candidates as they can easily appear to appease both sides. Terms like "common sense" will fly out of mouths as effortlessly as hot air.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Condition 1
While simulating, I read a short piece on 'condition one' carrying of a 1911. I didn't exactly learn anything I didn't already agree with. In fact, at the end, the author suggested an experiment I've already performed to relieve my own anguish.
To get over whatever fears you may have of carrying a 1911 in condition one, cock and lock it with an empty chamber and carry as you normally do. When undressing and disarming, take note for yourself the position of the hammer and see that the weapon does not in fact fire itself. Repeat until you're finally brave enough to rack one in as it were before holstering.
You have been carrying, right?
To get over whatever fears you may have of carrying a 1911 in condition one, cock and lock it with an empty chamber and carry as you normally do. When undressing and disarming, take note for yourself the position of the hammer and see that the weapon does not in fact fire itself. Repeat until you're finally brave enough to rack one in as it were before holstering.
You have been carrying, right?
Survival Instinct
If [the levee outside St. Charles, MO] breaches, the river will swamp 100 homes in east Winfield, as well as 3,000 acres of farm fields, several businesses and a city ballpark. A muskrat that burrowed a hole in the soft ground released a geyser of water, and officials said it took nearly six hours Monday to choke off the leak.
Bastard muskrats. With the nearby water table literally above your head, you shouldn't make holes in the ground no matter your species.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Talking to the Police
The reader(s) of this blog tend to tread the same grounds, but I thought I'd point out that I finally watched
Talking with the Police
It's pretty amusing and paints an idyllic portrait of law school. Prof. James Duane cites eight good reasons why talking to the police has no upside and plenty of downside.
8.) No matter how careful you are, even if you're completely innocent and do not implicate yourself in any way, the mere act of making a statement opens yourself up to problems if someone else bears false witness against you (perhaps by mistake and police later convince them their vague feeling is in fact a solid recollection). That's bad.
That said, in November 2006 I was more or less suspected of fraud. Someone (not me) used my name and whatever information that is available about me in the Real White Pages to make an online purchase with a stolen credit card. I agreed to help the police and by the end of the interview was permitted to use the investigating officer's computer for research to save everyone time.
I haven't heard about it since, but I wonder what direction he would have taken the investigation had I refused to say anything... as I understand it, search warrants aren't all that challenging to get if you ask the right court. That alone would have been a major pain in the ass to have my computer seized shortly before Deadweek.
Did performing the opposite of Prof. Duane's advice save me some trouble? His lecture suggests that the only reason things went as well for me as they did is because the officer didn't think I was responsible to begin with. "Have you ever had your mind changed by talking to a suspect, Officer Invited Guest? No?"
Comments or analysis?
Talking with the Police
It's pretty amusing and paints an idyllic portrait of law school. Prof. James Duane cites eight good reasons why talking to the police has no upside and plenty of downside.
8.) No matter how careful you are, even if you're completely innocent and do not implicate yourself in any way, the mere act of making a statement opens yourself up to problems if someone else bears false witness against you (perhaps by mistake and police later convince them their vague feeling is in fact a solid recollection). That's bad.
That said, in November 2006 I was more or less suspected of fraud. Someone (not me) used my name and whatever information that is available about me in the Real White Pages to make an online purchase with a stolen credit card. I agreed to help the police and by the end of the interview was permitted to use the investigating officer's computer for research to save everyone time.
I haven't heard about it since, but I wonder what direction he would have taken the investigation had I refused to say anything... as I understand it, search warrants aren't all that challenging to get if you ask the right court. That alone would have been a major pain in the ass to have my computer seized shortly before Deadweek.
Did performing the opposite of Prof. Duane's advice save me some trouble? His lecture suggests that the only reason things went as well for me as they did is because the officer didn't think I was responsible to begin with. "Have you ever had your mind changed by talking to a suspect, Officer Invited Guest? No?"
Comments or analysis?
South Carolina, Georgia Reciprocity
The South Carolina House recently approved a bill establishing reciprocity for CCW permits issued by other states.
Alive
I'm alive. My phone has been in quiet-and-ignored mode since Emma got here, and my laptop has been off. This was meant to be no slight to anyone. I simply wanted to prioritize my focus, and it was refreshing. I'll start returning calls and texts during my lunchbreak today.
We ate at El Ranchero, an Italian restaurant, Nathans (in Georgetown), P.F. Changs, and Andy's Bed and Breakfast. These are places in which dining alone would be somewhat awkward, but with Emma they couldn't have been better.
Emma seemed to get a kick out of Georgetown. It's a scenic area with plenty of interesting shops and well-dressed and exciting passers by. We stopped in at a few and thoroughly soaked up the atmosphere. Since we drove, we took an evening motor tour of the District passing by the Whitehouse, the Supreme Court, the Capitol, a brief and not necessarily planned excursion by the FDR Memorial, the Pentagon, the Air Force Memorial, and an inventive detour through west Arlington.
Then we drank whiskey that we finally managed to procure from the state-run Alcohol Beverage Control stores. It is located half a block from my workplace and closes early, so I prognosticate some lunchbreak liquor runs when I run low in the coming months; I can only hope I run into my colleagues while I'm there.
During our visit to the National Mall, we managed to cover the Hirshhorn Museum of Modern Art and then the National Gallery. We saw a variety of cool pieces at the Hirshhorn though were occasionally faced with the typical dilemma of modern art appreciation: are you looking at a work of art or a fire code regulation? We made sort of a whirlwind tour of the National Gallery seeing several rather old busts of important people (Washing-ton, for example) and a few positively grand paintings (Lake Lucerne being my favorite).
The Spy Museum and the Newseum are planned for the next trip.
Emma has photos, and she left me her pink point-and-shoot camera (the one that has incriminated so many of us on Facebook). I'll take higher resolution photos from now on.
It was a fun visit and I can't wait to fly her back here sometime soon. Now that she's back in ATL, your lives can go back to being interesting again.
Heh. You know you like abuse, gentle reader.
We ate at El Ranchero, an Italian restaurant, Nathans (in Georgetown), P.F. Changs, and Andy's Bed and Breakfast. These are places in which dining alone would be somewhat awkward, but with Emma they couldn't have been better.
Emma seemed to get a kick out of Georgetown. It's a scenic area with plenty of interesting shops and well-dressed and exciting passers by. We stopped in at a few and thoroughly soaked up the atmosphere. Since we drove, we took an evening motor tour of the District passing by the Whitehouse, the Supreme Court, the Capitol, a brief and not necessarily planned excursion by the FDR Memorial, the Pentagon, the Air Force Memorial, and an inventive detour through west Arlington.
Then we drank whiskey that we finally managed to procure from the state-run Alcohol Beverage Control stores. It is located half a block from my workplace and closes early, so I prognosticate some lunchbreak liquor runs when I run low in the coming months; I can only hope I run into my colleagues while I'm there.
During our visit to the National Mall, we managed to cover the Hirshhorn Museum of Modern Art and then the National Gallery. We saw a variety of cool pieces at the Hirshhorn though were occasionally faced with the typical dilemma of modern art appreciation: are you looking at a work of art or a fire code regulation? We made sort of a whirlwind tour of the National Gallery seeing several rather old busts of important people (Washing-ton, for example) and a few positively grand paintings (Lake Lucerne being my favorite).
The Spy Museum and the Newseum are planned for the next trip.
Emma has photos, and she left me her pink point-and-shoot camera (the one that has incriminated so many of us on Facebook). I'll take higher resolution photos from now on.
It was a fun visit and I can't wait to fly her back here sometime soon. Now that she's back in ATL, your lives can go back to being interesting again.
Heh. You know you like abuse, gentle reader.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Bright Side
The heartwrenching Flood '08 disaster is still on-going, but I just received a bit of good news.
Both abstracts were accepted by the HPEC Workshop. This would be a good thing, only they're both talks instead of posters, and one is in the awards session. Moreover, there's only the month of August to plan the talks and prepare. I feel like Faust somehow, though I don't remember signing anything.
But enough about the world's events: Emma's coming to town!
Both abstracts were accepted by the HPEC Workshop. This would be a good thing, only they're both talks instead of posters, and one is in the awards session. Moreover, there's only the month of August to plan the talks and prepare. I feel like Faust somehow, though I don't remember signing anything.
But enough about the world's events: Emma's coming to town!
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Directly Hit
Here's an aerial shot of the levee breach. That's the farm right there, and the water currents are intense. The machine shop doesn't even appear to be there producing a wake. Formerly, it was just south of the west (left) silo. This is unreal.
Update
There is a video of the "South Indian Grave Levee" here. I was trying to figure out the velocity of the water at the surface to determine how much force due to dynamic pressure of the water the barn was withstanding. I'm estimating about 3 m/s.
Apparently yesterday morning, the barn collapsed and the debris washed away. It's like turning a firehose onto a model railroad. The only structure remaining is the house my mom grew up in, cleverly located on the top of a small man-made hill in the cluster of trees north of the tall silo.
Unfortunately, the cleanup effort will involve removing hundreds of tons of sand so the soil next to the levee breach can be farmed again.
Update
There is a video of the "South Indian Grave Levee" here. I was trying to figure out the velocity of the water at the surface to determine how much force due to dynamic pressure of the water the barn was withstanding. I'm estimating about 3 m/s.
Apparently yesterday morning, the barn collapsed and the debris washed away. It's like turning a firehose onto a model railroad. The only structure remaining is the house my mom grew up in, cleverly located on the top of a small man-made hill in the cluster of trees north of the tall silo.
Unfortunately, the cleanup effort will involve removing hundreds of tons of sand so the soil next to the levee breach can be farmed again.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Rivers and Farms
My grandparents operate a 426 acre farm along the Mississippi River north of the town of Quincy. I've loved going there and my earliest and fondest memories are at the farm visiting Annie and Duke (grandparents). For someone who likes to build things and see how things work, farms are great. The machine shop is full of welders, lathes, machinery, large engines in various states of disassembly. Tractors and interesting work abounds.
Uniquely Joe and I would like access to a farm for a variety of reasons. My grandfather tells a story about a time an ultralight pilot landed in one of his fields. After Duke welded a strut affiliated with the planes landing gear, the guy took off again. UAV research would be pretty much unobstructed.
Here is a Google Maps view of the farm.
In 1993, the levees broke up and down the river. You can see the foundations of several buildings on the farm demolished during that flood on Google Maps.
It's late June, and the river is up again. Visit this plot of the observed and predicted River stage for the next few days.
The river stage is predicted to crest slightly higher than the record, which occurred the day after the levees broke in that area during the 1993 flood.
Let's hope they're stronger now.
If they don't get any rain, they might just last.
Update
The district Indian Grave is the one. Looks like flooding is happening although it's not clear where.
Update
The whole district is flooded. The levees weren't high enough and water flowed over the top quickly eroding the rest and flooding the entire area. It's going to be a while before the flood waters recede. The rather neat barn and shop will be subjected to windstorms and floating debris (trees, houses, etc). Hopefully, they'll withstand the torrents well enough. They're really priceless structures I'd rather be able to see and visit. I think my sister has a few photos on Facebook.
This barn is visible in the upper right corner in the background of this image:
The shed I built last summer when I was there was recently seen floating north, away from the farm. I wouldn't call it priceless, but it'd be nice if they could retrieve it eventually.
Uniquely Joe and I would like access to a farm for a variety of reasons. My grandfather tells a story about a time an ultralight pilot landed in one of his fields. After Duke welded a strut affiliated with the planes landing gear, the guy took off again. UAV research would be pretty much unobstructed.
Here is a Google Maps view of the farm.
In 1993, the levees broke up and down the river. You can see the foundations of several buildings on the farm demolished during that flood on Google Maps.
It's late June, and the river is up again. Visit this plot of the observed and predicted River stage for the next few days.
The river stage is predicted to crest slightly higher than the record, which occurred the day after the levees broke in that area during the 1993 flood.
Let's hope they're stronger now.
If they don't get any rain, they might just last.
Update
The district Indian Grave is the one. Looks like flooding is happening although it's not clear where.
Update
The whole district is flooded. The levees weren't high enough and water flowed over the top quickly eroding the rest and flooding the entire area. It's going to be a while before the flood waters recede. The rather neat barn and shop will be subjected to windstorms and floating debris (trees, houses, etc). Hopefully, they'll withstand the torrents well enough. They're really priceless structures I'd rather be able to see and visit. I think my sister has a few photos on Facebook.
This barn is visible in the upper right corner in the background of this image:
The shed I built last summer when I was there was recently seen floating north, away from the farm. I wouldn't call it priceless, but it'd be nice if they could retrieve it eventually.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Range Report
I took the new .308 to the 50 yard indoor range at the NRA headquarters in Fairfax. Their range includes an automated target positioning system letting the user select a range for their target via a keypad. A button press places the target, recalls the target, and then replaces it at the last entered range. This is useful because you can devote your attention to other things while the target is headed out like loading the next magazine or cleaning. This also facilitates close inspections of each group before the next is fired. Without feedback and an honest assessment of achieved performance, it's rather difficult to improve.
I ran a dry patch through the bore between every two rounds for the first 20 to perform barrel "break-in." No solvents were permitted on the range.
The weapon was fairly easy to zero requiring only windage adjustments. My two- and three- shot groups landed within 4cm circles which is encouraging. I surely need to practice with this trigger a bit. There is in fact some slack that needs to be taken up that I didn't really notice earlier. Things to eventually buy: a bipod I can mount to the rails, optics.
I fired several rounds from a standing position with the sling. It's fairly natural, though the ribbed quad-rail handguard can be rough on hands. Operators wear gloves, and I probably should too. In 35 rounds, the bore never got particularly dirty. There were no failures to speak of by the rifle system, though presumably reliability problems by direct-impingement gas systems aren't likely to surface in fewer than several hundred dirty rounds fired on the field of battle. Recoil is what you would expect from a .308: neither punishing nor ignorable.
I didn't do any 1911 work though probably should have. Though I spent the whole hour on the rifle, they didn't seem too concerned with time on the range.
Post shooting, I bought some CLP and deposited the rifle in the vehicle. The NRA has a museum featuring a variety of arms from the last three hundred years or so. I paid particular attention to the M14s, Garands, and M1903s on display. I discovered a 1911 with a scope [mounted to a riser bolted to the left side of the recevier; couldn't see how that interfered with the safety or mag release]. Charles Manson's shotgun was on display as well as a "zip gun manufactured in a prison cell."
Some gentlemen were walking and talking. Their discussion was the M14/M16 debate, so naturally I piped up. With regard to calibers, I commented that the 6.5 Grendel has the potential to answer the intermediate rifle cartridge question if only the obstacles were strictly engineering.
Other notable arms on display:
* M24 SWS
* M40A1
* SVD Dragunov
* MG42 mock-up
* M82 Barret .50
No crew-fed weapons were apparently on display, so I didn't see any M2s. They did a decent job covering the relationship between firearms and the defense of liberty, though presumably any mention of that topic is preaching to an attentive choir.
And now, I nap. It's been a good day.
I ran a dry patch through the bore between every two rounds for the first 20 to perform barrel "break-in." No solvents were permitted on the range.
The weapon was fairly easy to zero requiring only windage adjustments. My two- and three- shot groups landed within 4cm circles which is encouraging. I surely need to practice with this trigger a bit. There is in fact some slack that needs to be taken up that I didn't really notice earlier. Things to eventually buy: a bipod I can mount to the rails, optics.
I fired several rounds from a standing position with the sling. It's fairly natural, though the ribbed quad-rail handguard can be rough on hands. Operators wear gloves, and I probably should too. In 35 rounds, the bore never got particularly dirty. There were no failures to speak of by the rifle system, though presumably reliability problems by direct-impingement gas systems aren't likely to surface in fewer than several hundred dirty rounds fired on the field of battle. Recoil is what you would expect from a .308: neither punishing nor ignorable.
I didn't do any 1911 work though probably should have. Though I spent the whole hour on the rifle, they didn't seem too concerned with time on the range.
Post shooting, I bought some CLP and deposited the rifle in the vehicle. The NRA has a museum featuring a variety of arms from the last three hundred years or so. I paid particular attention to the M14s, Garands, and M1903s on display. I discovered a 1911 with a scope [mounted to a riser bolted to the left side of the recevier; couldn't see how that interfered with the safety or mag release]. Charles Manson's shotgun was on display as well as a "zip gun manufactured in a prison cell."
Some gentlemen were walking and talking. Their discussion was the M14/M16 debate, so naturally I piped up. With regard to calibers, I commented that the 6.5 Grendel has the potential to answer the intermediate rifle cartridge question if only the obstacles were strictly engineering.
Other notable arms on display:
* M24 SWS
* M40A1
* SVD Dragunov
* MG42 mock-up
* M82 Barret .50
No crew-fed weapons were apparently on display, so I didn't see any M2s. They did a decent job covering the relationship between firearms and the defense of liberty, though presumably any mention of that topic is preaching to an attentive choir.
And now, I nap. It's been a good day.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Rollin', Rollin', Rollin'
Acquired a book on rotations and quaternions. At last, the parametric ball will be mine to toy with, bitches. Expect some kind of demo to come of this.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Happy Birthday, Sara
Happy Birthday, Sara! Need birthday blog posts. Sorry everyone went out of town just in time for it.
Sprezzatura
You would probably like to know this word.
Sprezzatura: a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it
Whether this involves being an asshole about it is a decision left to the courtier.
Sprezzatura: a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it
Whether this involves being an asshole about it is a decision left to the courtier.
Working in the Dark
I'm using slides as a primary resource to assemble my own presentation. Reading the slides has raised questions, and I have no direct way of answering them. I'm beginning to detect the faint aroma of Engineering by PowerPoint.
--
comp.lang.c++ occasionally poses C++ questions I haven't been able to answer. This is concerning.
I suppose I consciously avoid facing some of these issues by my design and development style. I cite this phenomenon as the big reason why C++ amateurs stay amateurs and don't necessarily realize it. That said, I've never worked on a "big" C++ project that required things like overriding new and delete operators, passing custom allocators to STL objects, or doing anything that really required virtual base classes and multiple inheritance. Having never faced those issues, I haven't been exposed to the sort of deep and nuanced language and implementation issues, and haven't received the educational benefit of trying to solve them.
--
I want to setup an installation of TRAC or some similar bug tracking resource. It'd be a good way to organize thoughts and fix other people's bugs. Ahem.
--
Whatever happened to Linkwell?
--
comp.lang.c++ occasionally poses C++ questions I haven't been able to answer. This is concerning.
I suppose I consciously avoid facing some of these issues by my design and development style. I cite this phenomenon as the big reason why C++ amateurs stay amateurs and don't necessarily realize it. That said, I've never worked on a "big" C++ project that required things like overriding new and delete operators, passing custom allocators to STL objects, or doing anything that really required virtual base classes and multiple inheritance. Having never faced those issues, I haven't been exposed to the sort of deep and nuanced language and implementation issues, and haven't received the educational benefit of trying to solve them.
--
I want to setup an installation of TRAC or some similar bug tracking resource. It'd be a good way to organize thoughts and fix other people's bugs. Ahem.
--
Whatever happened to Linkwell?
Inappropriate at Any Speed
AndyKerr on academic compilers during today's project-wide meeting:
"That depends on how pluggable their backends are . . . so to speak."
In other news, Shooter's sound effects were totally better than The Bourne Supremacy's. I don't know how the Academy passed it over.
"That depends on how pluggable their backends are . . . so to speak."
In other news, Shooter's sound effects were totally better than The Bourne Supremacy's. I don't know how the Academy passed it over.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Newsgroup fun
From comp.lang.c:
No requirement at all.
> Why should it? There is no requirement anywhere
> (afaik) to have a fully comforting compiler.
Even though it's only May, I'm already putting that in the running for Best Typo of the Year.
No requirement at all.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Random DC Photos
Here is a selection of images taken with my 640x480 camera phone since my arrival. I apologize for their quality. I didn't spend a lot of time formatting things, so you may have to right-click on each image and select 'View Image' to get the right most columns of pixels.
My house.
My desk.
Steps of the Jefferson Memorial.
Jefferson himself. He owns joo metaphorically, and, in the case of his slaves, quite literally.
My glorious steed parked near the steps of the Capitol. Together, we are like one, impatient spirit.
The Capitol, workplace of our country's most collectively despised and yet honored citizens.
The Supreme Court. Chief Justice Roberts was clearly not in the house this day, for it is not overflowing with dancing hoes and playas eager to sip Tanqueray with the man.
Pro-life douches. Some might say it's noble and brave that they're standing up for what they believe. To these I say that no one gets commendation for being a strong-willed dumbass. To earn praise, you also have to be right. If these assholes really wanted to reduce the number of abortions that took place in this country, they'd be lobbying for subsidized birth control and sex education that acknowledges the possibility of sex. Assholes. Oh man.
A Lunar Module in the National Air & Space Museum. This is a genuine flight article that would have been flown on one of the later Apollo lunar missions. These missions were canceled to save money and a Saturn V to launch Skylab.
This is the camera from Surveyor 3. Surveyor 3 was an unmanned spacecraft that landed softly on the Ocean of Storms (a lava flow on the Moon) in 1967. It took photographs and scraped the surface with a retractable robotic arm (not unlike Mars Phoenix is doing now a bit further from Earth). In 1969, the crew of Apollo 12 landed several hundred yards away, approached it, took photographs of the occasion, and removed the camera mounted on the top surface of the lander. It now sits on display in the Air&Space Museum facing ugly tourists instead of an incredible panorama of Surveyor Crater on the surface of the Moon.
Iwo Jima Memorial. This is on my route to the Memorial Bridge between downtown Arlington and Arlington National Cemetery, so I get to see it a lot. I always stop to gaze for a minute. It's a pretty powerful monument and something large and imposing to live up to.
--
There are additional images in this directory that I didn't believe my captions could do justice. Four photos contain the text on the walls of the Jefferson Memorial which you can read and obtain context from the wikipedia article.
--
Update
Inside of the original propeller spinner for the Spirit of St. Louis. The first part of Lindbergh's flight was to fly from San Diego, California, to Long Island, New York. From there he would fly to Le Borget Field in Paris. When he landed in Long Island, cracks in the propeller spinner (above) were discovered, and a new one was quickly manufactured. Since this one was intended to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, people involved with the project [construction of the plane, fund raising, flight planning, etc] signed their names to the inside. The swastika in the center surely receives much attention, but in fact it has no relation to the Nazi emblem. It's simply a symbol that has been around for thousands of years meant to convey good luck. This version differs from what later became the official Nazi insignia in two distinct ways: it is not rotated 45 degrees, and the arms of the swastika are oriented in the opposite direction. Clearly, I took a photo of it anyway because everyone loves the hint of a good scandal.
/Update
My house.
My desk.
Steps of the Jefferson Memorial.
Jefferson himself. He owns joo metaphorically, and, in the case of his slaves, quite literally.
My glorious steed parked near the steps of the Capitol. Together, we are like one, impatient spirit.
The Capitol, workplace of our country's most collectively despised and yet honored citizens.
The Supreme Court. Chief Justice Roberts was clearly not in the house this day, for it is not overflowing with dancing hoes and playas eager to sip Tanqueray with the man.
Pro-life douches. Some might say it's noble and brave that they're standing up for what they believe. To these I say that no one gets commendation for being a strong-willed dumbass. To earn praise, you also have to be right. If these assholes really wanted to reduce the number of abortions that took place in this country, they'd be lobbying for subsidized birth control and sex education that acknowledges the possibility of sex. Assholes. Oh man.
A Lunar Module in the National Air & Space Museum. This is a genuine flight article that would have been flown on one of the later Apollo lunar missions. These missions were canceled to save money and a Saturn V to launch Skylab.
This is the camera from Surveyor 3. Surveyor 3 was an unmanned spacecraft that landed softly on the Ocean of Storms (a lava flow on the Moon) in 1967. It took photographs and scraped the surface with a retractable robotic arm (not unlike Mars Phoenix is doing now a bit further from Earth). In 1969, the crew of Apollo 12 landed several hundred yards away, approached it, took photographs of the occasion, and removed the camera mounted on the top surface of the lander. It now sits on display in the Air&Space Museum facing ugly tourists instead of an incredible panorama of Surveyor Crater on the surface of the Moon.
Iwo Jima Memorial. This is on my route to the Memorial Bridge between downtown Arlington and Arlington National Cemetery, so I get to see it a lot. I always stop to gaze for a minute. It's a pretty powerful monument and something large and imposing to live up to.
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There are additional images in this directory that I didn't believe my captions could do justice. Four photos contain the text on the walls of the Jefferson Memorial which you can read and obtain context from the wikipedia article.
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Update
Inside of the original propeller spinner for the Spirit of St. Louis. The first part of Lindbergh's flight was to fly from San Diego, California, to Long Island, New York. From there he would fly to Le Borget Field in Paris. When he landed in Long Island, cracks in the propeller spinner (above) were discovered, and a new one was quickly manufactured. Since this one was intended to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, people involved with the project [construction of the plane, fund raising, flight planning, etc] signed their names to the inside. The swastika in the center surely receives much attention, but in fact it has no relation to the Nazi emblem. It's simply a symbol that has been around for thousands of years meant to convey good luck. This version differs from what later became the official Nazi insignia in two distinct ways: it is not rotated 45 degrees, and the arms of the swastika are oriented in the opposite direction. Clearly, I took a photo of it anyway because everyone loves the hint of a good scandal.
/Update
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