The End of Race as We Know It

http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i07/07b01101.htm

Darfur: the dangers of celebrity imperialism

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/reviewofbooks_article/5852

Every day when my wife gets home, she runs down a checklists of questions that unanswered would result in the implosion of our home and the breakdown of western society. Any attempt to blow off these questions or provide stock answers is emphatically discouraged. This is all despite the fact that the daycare sends home a manifest of every poop or nosewiping that occurred through the 6 hours or so that the girls are there.

To streamline this handoff process, I have created a form of my own, with a variety of blanks, boxes, and multiple choice fields that I can use for briefing my wife each evening.

this afternoon, Eleanor refused to pick up a bunch of cheerios she spilled in the living room floor. I gave her a couple of chances to comply, then things got ugly and I took her to room to reflect on her insolence.

unfortunately, I did not think to take away the black magic marker she was holding.

Later, I taught her how to paint with interior eggshell latex.

Biscuit Joinery

A little while back I blew all my birthday loot on a biscuit jointer. there have been many times where I wished I'd had one, to keep stuff in place while I was gluing it. Now I see why people like these things so much. I used to wonder why, when there were so many other ways to joint two pieces of wood together, were these little footballs used so often. Why wouldn't you just screw stuff together? Or drill a hole and put in a dowel?

Here is a table I made for the shop, so that I would stop trying to build things on top of my table saw all the time. Its a new saw but the top has already got gouges in from screws coming out the backside of something into the table, and its covered with glue. 

The legs are made out of 1/2" plywood that I have a huge stack of after tearing out some shelving in the room I use as a shop. The design I stole (from the new yankee worksop) called for 3/4 plywood, but I didn't want to spend any money building this thing. The legs, as you may be able to see, are like angle iron. Its just two lengths of plywood joined along one edge at 90 degrees. The plywood is not great, its full of voids and warped from years of sagging. If I tried to glue and screw the edges, the screws would blow out the cut edge of the plywood. If I glued and nailed it, it would be harder than hell to keep the pieces clamped together while shooting the nails. The biscuits are absolutely perfect. You clamp the piece down flat, cut the slots, then when you assemble it, all the warp disappears. You can clamp the bujesus out of it and nothing moves, and you don't need to screw it or nail it. Its a lot of slot cutting and glue smearing but its so easy its worth it.

The only fault I can point out is that the biscuit machine generates the most impressive stream of high speed wood chips of any machine I have owned, and no matter how I hold it, I wind up getting covered.  I know I can hook it up to a dust machine, which I have avoided purchasing out of shame and guilt for having bought so many tools over the past few years, but the number of hours I spend sweeping probably makes it worthwhile.

Credit default swaps

Found this very enlightening.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94686428

Why I can't vote for John McCain

Years ago, what was perhaps my favorite technology company of all time, Digital Equipment Corp, was purchased by Compaq.

I never understood it. Digital's PC business was so-so, but they had killer server and storage hardware. I hated Compaq's servers, so I felt like the only hope was that Richie Lary would be made Chief Technical Bigshot and turn Compaq into a legitimate research company.

The Compaq debacle went on for a little while. As far as I could tell all Compaq ever did with DEC was to put new graphic art on all the packaging, and to make the new DEC branded product offerings boring.

Then came Carly Fiorina and HP. She drug HP kicking and screaming into a merger with Compaq. The talent fled. Fiorina sold off all the interesting parts of the company, ran the rest into the ground, and then got fired.

Therefore, I hold Carly Fiorina personally responsible for the demise of my favorite technology company and microprocessor architecture. Although it was doomed to fail eventually anyway, there were many fates for DEC more dignified than being butchered up by an overblown inkjet printer cartridge business, being run by some horse-faced donkey without a trace of respect for the community of engineers and programmers who had built a livelihood around DEC's technology. Fortunately, HP had the good sense to send Fiorina packing, which is great because I like their printers and I didn't want to have to boycott them forever (the only other company I have officially boycotted is U-Haul).

This morning on news radio I hear Fiorina referred to as "McCain's Economic Advisor". In all seriousness; in a time when our economy is struggling, where are work force is antsy, is this the kind of history you want to read about a candidates Economic Advisor? And she's claiming that McCain wouldn't do well as a CEO? This is not the kind of person I want offering economic advice to the President of the United States. First thing you know, she'll be offering to sell Alaska to the Russians.

Because I have officially boycotted Carly Fiorina and John McCain has evidentally slated her for some kind of position of national influence, I cannot possibly vote for John McCain. Until this morning, I was undecided, but it looks like I'll be voting democrat in 08.