To Emma,

I'll see your cat wig, and raise you a...

DOG WIG.


UPDATE:
An anonymous friend comments that the wig's haircut might look a bit like his dad's haircut. YOU BE THE JUDGE.

more lasers

I just wanted to write this down so that I won't forget.

They have plans for an amplifier for a 1.5 MW average power FEL laser in infrared (1.045, 1.625, 2.141 micrometer) wavelengths. The peak power was 1 GW, 1kA current, 81 MeV kinetic energy of the electron beam. (for naval reasons)

See Defense Tech Briefs December 2007.

No more treaties

The Lakota have decided to leave the United States.

I am sure that we do not want any bloodshed.

I am also fairly certain that we are not going to support a complete break off.

It should be interesting to watch, and hopefully it turns out so that both parties are happy.

When you take a step back and look at it, a nation-state only exists because people say that it does. Once everyone else agrees that you exist, then you do. I am thinking that these people will not be successful, but who knows. Kosovo is also something to watch that is a completely different situation, but also deals with new nations.

Hello world

I was thinking, figuring out how to load and store csv's in a new language are my "hello world".

Over the next few days I'll figure it out for lisp. (and post it)

I have some code for the updated battery monitor for wmii. It shows the percentage left, the estimated time left, and if it is discharging.


Commenters (if you exist)
what is the right way to make an acronym plural? csvs? CSVs? csv's?

Lead Systems Integrators

LSI's in trouble...

So, Congress finally listened to me and decided to try and stop any new LSIs past 2010. Also, any LSI things that aren't in low rate initial production would be renegotiated.

Its like if you paid someone to tell you what you should buy, and also paid that same person to make you the things you were told to buy. Do you think that would end well for you?

Outside my office

So we got this email today:

Campus Community,

I wanted to inform you of recent criminal activity on the Georgia Tech campus.
On Saturday at approximately 4:30 p.m. a female student was the victim of an
armed robbery. The victim was walking to her car on Cherry Street between the
Guggenheim Building and the Engineering Science Building. The perpetrators were
in a blue, 4-door Honda Accord that was reported stolen near the Love Building
earlier in the day. The vehicle, which has since been recovered, is also
reported to have been involved in another incident in the Atlanta area. No arrests
have been made.

The suspect was described as a dark-skinned black male, approximately 5'5" and
in his early 20s. He has a slim build, dark brown eyes and an afro-style
haircut. He was wearing a dark colored, zip-up, hooded sweatshirt. There is no
description of the second suspect because he did not get out of the car.

Please notify the Georgia Tech Police Department at 404-894-2500 if you have any
information about criminal activity on campus. Individuals may also submit crime
tips anonymously through the GTPD Web site: www.police.gatech.edu.

Today's incident is another reminder that everyone should remain vigilant, be
aware of their surroundings and take every precaution to prevent becoming a
victim. For more information about crime prevention, visit the GTPD Web site.

John Stein
Dean of Students

Too bad certain precautions are illegal on campus. The same person about 100ft to the south would have more options. Probably wouldn't have helped in this case (rifle/shotgun to the face... probably want to comply...), but its something to ponder.

Good thing finals hadn't started, the girl might have just said "You can't scare me with that gun, I have one of the four horsemen for calculus... "

It seems that crime has gone up since we expanded into centennial park. Could be that I am paying more attention. It probably is more related to the economy than the expansion of the university.

Squirrel Armor

So i found this.

they are going to need it.

COIN Aircraft... someone finally figures it out...

I have been saying this for about 2 years. We need a low speed turboprop COIN type aircraft that is cheap and rugged. It needs to be easy to manufacture and exportable. The technologies need to be simple.

The Airforce is buying some of those type of aircraft the the Iraqi Military.

An F-35 can not do COIN.

Winds shifting on Iran (I hope)

Today this article came out.

"Tehran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005," states the unclassified summary of the secret report, released Monday.

Is the important part. Hopefully this is a softening of the government's position. For a while, it looked like we were going to try and use Iran's nuclear activities to justify war.

It is also good that people are realizing that not everything needs to be classified.

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell decided last month that the key judgments of NIEs should as a rule not be declassified and released. The intelligence officials said an exception was made in this case because the last assessment of Iran's nuclear program in 2005 has been influential in public debate about U.S. policy toward Iran, and needed to be updated to reflect the latest findings.

These matters need to stay in public debate so that the reasons for going to war are known and the public is not told "its in your best interests based on data I can't tell you, so just quiet down and go spend money on a credit card"

They also learned from the mistake with Iraq,

This national intelligence estimate was originally due in the spring of 2007 but was delayed because the agencies wanted more confidence their findings were accurate, given the problems with a 2002 intelligence estimate of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program.

which is promising.

a recent long term thinko

so.. I was making a table in latex today, and i realized something...

YOU DON'T HAVE TO PUT ALL OF THE DATA IN ONE CELL!

before, i was having a lot of trouble to get really long cells to word wrap and look right.

... why not just use two rows but make it look like one row? ... !!

you have to word wrap by hand, but you basically do that when you resize cells anyway.

China - Japan Part 2.

So you get your ships in each others ports.. what happens next.

This is what happens next. A regional free trade zone is in the works, and protection of intellectual property rights (which China makes a living exploiting).

This article also mentions the start of an alternative to the Kyoto Protocol. I believe that once Asia gets all together behind this new one, we (the United States) will join in.