Hot Llama

We hear a lot about hot llamas at our house. Now, given that this photograph represents my overall opinion of the attractiveness of llamas, I find it hard to believe that outside of llama circles (except for maybe the occasional alpaca) that anyone would regard llamas in general as hot. But so it is.

The kids talk about hot llamas a lot. They mean hot lava, but since they teach phonetics in school, it comes out hot llama. "Be careful, Dad," they'll shout as they're playing some arcane game. "You just stepped in the hot llama."

Honestly, I don't know what to say. But I did introduce them to the llama song. Maybe it'll finally get "Grandma Got Run Over by A Reindeer" out of their heads. But I doubt it.

Momentous Announcement No. 2 . . .

. . . has been delayed due to technical difficulties. Stay tuned.

Momentous Announcement No. 1

Two momentous annoucements today. First:

Mister Fweem's Blog is officially one year old. Yes, one year ago today you began to be regaled by my boring insights, technical communicator ramblings, thoughts on Second Life, everything and anything to do with Uncharted, politics, squirrel reporting and, now, an Ernest video with an annoying watermark. Everything useless and mundane that you'd ever want to learn from me, all here in a one-stop shopping format. Hope you enjoy it, because I plan on many, many happy years to come. Unless I get hit by a meteor or something.

Personally, I like to think this video sums up the reaction of most people who visit Mr. Fweem's Blog. The crown and fanfare come when I make some grand announcement or post something I think is really nifty. Then Ernest's confused look at the end reflects that of the reader, who is wondering why they bothered to listen to my blather in the first place.

Remember, though. I do this for you.

Obama’s Presumed Pick for Energy Sec’y Bodes Well for Energy, Idaho

If President-Elect (my wife hates that phrase, but so it is) Obama follows through in selecting Steven Chu as his Secretary of Energy, the White House will gain a strong advocate for alternative energy that includes a ringing endorsement for nuclear power and nuclear fuel recycling, two bits of information that bode well for eastern Idaho’s nuclear industry.

Chu, a physicist and currently head of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, looks to be a good fit for the post, given his background in research into alternative energy, specifically solar and biofuels from waste products rather than food products.

This is what Chu had to say about nuclear power and fuel recycling in 2005 (yes, it’s old, but still heartening; red the entire article here):

Q: Should fission-based nuclear power plants be made a bigger part of the
energy-producing portfolio?

A: Absolutely. Right now about 20 percent of our power comes from
nuclear; there have been no new nuclear plants built since the early '70s. The
real rational fears against nuclear power are about the long-term waste problem
and [nuclear] proliferation. The technology of separating [used fuel from
still-viable fuel] and putting the good stuff back in to the reactor can also be
used to make bomb material.

And then there's the waste problem: with future nuclear power plants,
we've got to recycle the waste. Why? Because if you take all the waste we have
now from our civilian and military nuclear operations, we'd fill up Yucca
Mountain. [Yucca Mountain, which sits on federal land in Nevada , is under
consideration as a long-term storage facility for spent nuclear fuel.] So we
need three or four Yucca Mountains. Well, we don't have three or four Yucca
Mountains. The other thing is that storing the fuel at Yucca Mountain is
supposed to be safe for 10,000 years. But the current best estimates - and these
are really estimates, the Lab's in fact - is that the metal casings [containing
the waste] will probably fail on a scale of 5,000 years, plus or minus 2. That's
still a long time, and then after that the idea was that the very dense rock,
very far away from the water table will contain it, so that by the time it
finally leaks down to the water table and gets out the radioactivity will have
mostly decayed.

Suppose instead that we can reduce the lifetime of the
radioactive waste by a factor of 1,000. So it goes from a
couple-hundred-thousand-year problem to a thousand-year problem. At a thousand
years, even though that's still a long time, it's in the realm that we can
monitor - we don't need Yucca Mountain.

I like his dual approach – fuel recycling, which reduces the amount of waste, and then research into cutting down the radioactivity. I believe it can be done, if we can get past the political obstacles. Chu’s interest in nuclear should keep that avenue open in the White House, as long as Obama is willing to listen to those he’s appointed, rather than the chicken littles in the Democratic party who would rather see Ed Begley-inspired alternative energy rather than nuclear. And though Republicans might grumble that Chu is a believer in global warming, I say at this point that global warming deniers in the party need to set those political prejudices aside and figure out that the Drill Baby Drill attitude is, at best, a short-term, short-sighted fix to our energy dependence on other nations. Let’s find out what we can do here to produce the energy we need – and find ways to do so not at the expense of the environment.

Chu’s stance on biofuel research also bodes well for states like Idaho, where there are ample supplies of crop waste products (anything from corn stalks to wheat stalks to grasses) that could be converted into biofuels.

Some in political circles grumble that Chu is politically inexperienced, and that a politically-savvy person, like Colin Powell or (heaven forbid) Arnold Schwarzenegger should be Obama’s pick for Energy Secretary instead. Color me funny, but I think the top nob in Washington concerned with energy ought to be someone who knows about energy. Powell has lots of good going for him politically, but I don’t know that he’s all that knowledgeable on energy. And then there’s Scwarzenegger. Do we really want Ah-nold in the Cabinet? Sure, he’s promoted alternative energy in California, but every time I listen to him talk about it I’m reminded of Ratbert the consultant making up for his lack of knowledge about computers by being exuberant. Could Scwarzenegger do anything than dart about shouting “Alternative energy! Wahoo!” We need someone who understands this stuff, can talk with others who understands this stuff and can leave the politicking to others. We don’t need a cheerleader.

I Want A Chair Like This

Every man alive needs a chair like this. And, every once and a while, to take someone literally. Like this.

Blanch

(Pictured here are Pete Conrad (left) Buzz Aldrin, Blanch Lovell, Barbara Lovell, Jefferey Lovell, Marilyn Lovell, Susan Lovell and Neil Armstrong (standing in the background). Photo by Bill Eppridge/LIFE Magazine (C) Time Warner.)

It seems, once again, I have been deceived.

Spent some time this week reading Lost Moon, by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger, the book on which Ron Howard based his film Apollo 13. One of my favorite aspects of the film -- and one with which I have teased one of my nephews mercilessly with -- has to do with Blanch Lovell, Jim Lovell's mother. You remember her -- she's the dotty old lady who said, famously, in the film "that if they could get a warshing machine to fly, my Jimmy could land it," and uttered the immortal "They said he was" when she was told that Jim would not land on the moon due to the accident in space.

If I'm reading Lost Moon correctly, neither of these exchanges ever happened, as they are not mentioned in the book. Now, perhaps, they did indeed happen (as well as Blanch's question to Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong when they arrived to watch the television with her: "Are you boys in the space program too?") but I'm just not confident. Many other lines that William Broyles, Jr., used in his script -- notably Marilyn Lovell's diatribe against the news media -- "And if they don't like that, they can take it up with my husband. He'll be home on Friday" -- are in the book. So is Blanch Lovell's loquacity the truth, or does it represent Broyles' poetic license.

The book makes it clear that Marilyn Lovell never told Blanch that there was any trouble with Apollo 13 -- she didn't want to upset her mother-in-law, who had recently suffered a stroke. Blanch did indeed watch TV reports of the mission with Aldrin and Armstrong, but if such exchanges took place between them and her, or if the "warshing machine" quote had been uttered, I feel confident Lowell and Kluger would have included them in the book, as they are details that any journalist worth his salt, as I assume Kluger is, would include without hesitation. So I must come to the unfortunate conclusion that Blanch Lovell's dottiness is indeed license practiced by Broyles, Howard or someone else connected to the film. Given the other poetic and cinematic licenses taken in converting the book to a film, I have to come to this conclusion. Which is unfortunate. Because Blanch's lines are so memorable. They should have been said. But, alas, all the wishing in the world won't make it so.

This doesn't mean, of course, that I will stop saying "They said he was" in an old lady voice to my nephew Ben every time I can. Sorry, buddy.

I'm Famous! On The Internet. Which Means Nothing.

It's entirely juvenile, but I'm proud to say I finally got a submission approved at fark.com. Monday, Dec. 8, will be a day I long remember when I recall the posting of this link to this funny news agglomerator:

"Obama talks, stocks up 300 points." Wait 'til he farts. (In the screen grab here, it's the first one down with the CNN logo.)

I did mention it's juvenile, right? Should I be proud that I've connected with the juvenile Internet meme? Probably not. But for all those people who have tried 60, 70, 100 times without getting a submission accepted, I can go even further down the juvenile path: Neener neener. This was but my fourth submission.

Fark.com for the uninitiated, by the way, is a place where people go to post eye-rolling examples of the "best" in journalism, society, commentary, technology, and whatnot. It's a great place to visit.

Liberal Weiner Whine-Fest Begins

(Photo stolen from unclejayexplains.com.)

Oh, the liberal Democrats are a funny bunch.

So eager are they to be rid of everything Bush – which to them represents the extreme right of the Republican Party – they’re criticizing President-Elect Obama for not immediately swinging the entire country to the extreme left which, in their eyes, is the best thing to do, even though, ahem, it might be a little extreme. They’re so eager for Obama to blunder into extreme politics that they don’t see they’re trying to push him down the same slippery slope they accuse Bush of sliding down gleefully over the past eight years.

I’m getting this reading “Liberals Voice Concerns About Obama” from CBS News this morning. Some of them look at Obama’s cabinet picks – about the biggest thing he’s been able to do since Nov. 4 – and see nothing but doom, gloom, and other words that end in “oom.”

“There don't seem to be any liberals in Obama's cabinet,” writes John
Aravosis, the editor of Americablog.com. “What does all of this mean for Obama's
policies, and just as important, Obama Supreme Court announcements?”

“Actually, it reminds me a bit of the campaign, at least the beginning and
the middle, when the Obama campaign didn't seem particularly interested in
reaching out to progressives,” Aravosis continues. “Once they realized that in
order to win they needed to marshal everyone on their side, the reaching out
began. I hope we're not seeing a similar ‘we can do it alone’ approach in the
transition team.”

I’ve got to say, props to the Obama team, which is trying, coyly, to tell the far liberal wing of the party that what they see as “going it alone” is actually an attempt at finding the right people for the right job, even if they don’t kowtow to that extreme liberal line.

“I think that when you ultimately look at what this advisory board looks like,
you'll say this is a cross-section of opinion that in some ways reinforces
conventional wisdom, in some ways breaks with orthodoxy in all sorts of way,”
Obama recently said in response to questions about his appointments during a
news conference on the economy.

What is even funnier is that they seem shocked, SHOCKED, that Obama is (whisper) a politician. They’re concerned he’s pulled away from promises or statements or hand gestures or whatever he made during the campaign to tell them in so many ways that the instant he was in the Oval Office, the Roto Rooters would follow. It’s as if they think extreme politics from the left is the best answer to extreme politics from the right, rather than trying a more commonsensical approach. But neither the extreme right nor the extreme left are known for their common sense. Both, rather, are known for an uncommon sense of entitlement, selfishness, entitlement and entitlement.

The central premise of the left’s criticism is direct - don’t bite the hand that
feeds, Mr. President-elect. The Internet that helped him so much during the
election is lighting up with irritation and critiques.

So, if I understand correctly, the Internet, which is a haven for pornographers, file-stealers, babbling, know-nothing bloggers (myself included), people who advocate the shaving of public hair on or before Jan. 20 to celebrate the disappearance of George W. Bush from the White House, and (say it in your best Gollum voice) lists, lists, lists, is where Barack Obama should look for continued wisdom, support, validation and the pulse of the coming generation.

If so, save us from the pulse of the coming generation. Don’t trust anyone under 30.

It’s good to see, however, that there is some hand-wringing going on, and that there may be a few on the far left willing to give their new hope a chance to actually get into office before they start complaining that they didn’t get what they wanted for Christmas:

“It's complicated,” said [Johnathan] Tasini [of workinglife.org], who
challenged Clinton for Senate in 2006. “On the one hand, the guy hasn't even
taken office yet so it's a little hasty to be criticizing him. On the other
hand, there is legitimate cause for concern. I think people are still waiting
but there is some edginess about this.”

That’s a view that seems to have kept some progressive leaders holding
their fire. There are signs of a struggle within the left wing of the Democratic
Party about whether it’s just too soon to criticize Obama -- and if there’s
really anything to complain about just yet.

Both the far right and the far left would do good to examine themselves for self-righteousness and, for the sake of the rest of us, learn to tone the bile and gleeful angst down a bit. And, certainly, keep their advocacy for pubic hair shaving in private, where it should be.

Chunking in Reverse

For the past semester, we’ve talked about the good and bad of chunking when it comes to creating digital documents in the digital media class I'm taking at Utah State. We’ve taken the tack that when writing from another medium is used on the Web, one needs to be careful that the text not be chunked wholesale from one medium to the other, because the web media may support different uses, users and such than the former media.

I absolutely agree with that.

I also agree with the opposite – that when texts are taken from the Web and are put into other media, they cannot be chunked wholesale. I’m finding this out as we at Uncharted work to take some of our web content – this is stuff that was originally written for the web – and begin working it into a printed book, a project we need to complete in the next few months to protect our broad copyright interests.

Chunking from Web to print isn’t just a matter of tweaking the text so what hyperlinks are there are omitted and the text augmented to explain what the hyperlinks offered. There are other matters to consider as well, including a lot of editing of the text to make it more palatable to a print audience. We know that the audience that buys books regards printed matter as much more “permanent” than text that exist on the Web, so as we look to move our texts from Web to print, we have to consider factors that affect a text’s permanence. So often in a web text, we refer readers to other websites, saying, “go here for the most current information.” We can’t do that in print. In print, with the audience we’re considering, we have to concentrate more on evocative, storytelling text than we do information on trip planning, because the printed version will be permanent, but static – frozen in time. The web content can be constantly updated at little to no cost. Not so with a book. So it’s been interesting to see how this works out.

In taking Web to print, we also have to consider how much Uncharted context to bring over. With the web site, if people want to know who we are, they can click on the “who we are” link and probably find too much information. We have to economize that kind of information in printed form. The Web site will have the context of many explorers sharing their photos, stories and adventures. The book, given its geologic proximity in Idaho, and the fact that only two authors, not many, are contributing, will paint a different picture of Uncharted if we do not consider how much context to bring over.

Firewood Bailout

Banks got a bailout. Wall Street firms got a bailout. Now the automobile industry wants a bailout.

I think it’s about time I got one.

But I don’t want money. I want firewood.

In years past, we’ve purchased our firewood from a log home manufacturer in Rigby for $15 a cord. We buy the oddball scraps that they’d otherwise pile up in their yard and burn. For years, the system worked well. We hauled about $50 worth of that wood a year home, and what we hauled was usually more than enough to get us through the winter.

Then last winter came. Long. Long. Long. First snows were in early October, and even by June the weather was still cold enough we couldn’t plant the garden. We used every bit of wood we had.

Then the economic downturn came. The log home place in Rigby slowed down on the number of log homes they were building – which meant the scrap wood we usually bought by the trailer load was much harder to come by. We got desperate, even hauling home tree branches they’d tossed onto their pile, and the debris from what looked like an office remodel. Then in August they put up a sign in front of their store: No more firewood until spring. Our wood pile wasn’t even half as big as it was last year. Help.

We did get some help. Because I was willing to manhandle about a cord and a half of firewood out of a basement in Driggs, the wood was ours. But it still makes for a rather pitiable pile next to the tool shed. For next winter, we may push ahead plans to remodel the deck on the back of the house, partly because it’s falling apart and partly because we could use its wood to feed next year’s fires.

Now, we’re not dependent on the wood stove for heat. We do have a gas furnace. But the wood is such an inexpensive fuel (and would be burned anyway by the log home folks) so it might as well get burned where the heat can do me some good.

So I’ll ask the Feds for a firewood bailout. They do own the national forests, after all.