Tragic Boating Accident

shown at, among other places, Gizmodo (Alan Parsons Project soundtrack FTW!), the Microdrone.

Go to their videos page (it’s also the end of the Gizmodo vid) and tell me that you hadn’t already thought of the 4th one down, you cheeky monkey.

(I want a human-carrying one of these to take me to work, George Jetson-style.)

Conversation with a friend in the hospital:

Q: How are you doing?
A: I’m on MOOOORRRPHINE!111ONE1!1!

I only have to fight my way past the ever mounting Starbucks cup pile to post my stuff. This guy (and others like him) are out there living it and risking their lives.

On a similar note, you remember the great Interdictor blog posts - live - from Katrina? Start here and keep hitting next page to relive it. This was ALL KINDS of better journalism than any news organization was doing.

Wish I had more time to read more people’s stuff. I can barely keep up with the few on my blogroll.

have you ever read the Fed district court opinion in U.S. v. Masoud Khan? Here it is, a 2.89MB .PDF file.

If’n you don’t want to read a lot about paintball (if you are a gun enthusiast, you should read it all), roll on down to P. 39 to the paragraph that starts with “On March 27, 2002, ….” and read down to about P. 42.

Everyone wants to have an eye in the sky, it seems.

Chicago, famous for totalitarian flights of fancy regarding firearms*, now is working on “what officials say could be the most advanced video security network in any U.S. city.”

I’ve had the pleasure(?) of sitting behind the controls of a similar, albeit much smaller scale, setup. Even with cameras that do visible-light only (i.e., no IR or NV), it’s a voyeur’s dream. The operator can tilt, pan & zoom, and oh, baby, can you zoom; even with a mid-grade camera, you can tell what brand of shoes someone is wearing from many blocks away. With all the back-end hardware (sounds like neural net processing on the recognition part) they will need for this system, I’m betting that the CHI setup will go all-out and will have outside-the-visible-spectrum input capabilities as well. If you’ve never used that stuff in real life… well, unlike your boots of escaping, it’s like magic that actually works. (Any sufficiently advanced technology….)

This is OK with people now? And, as for “watching the watchers,” well, it’s turtles ALL THE WAY DOWN.

*When I was looking for a link to some ridiculous Chicago gun story, I literally found too many to pick a single one to link. They have moved beyond the merely silly into the realm of the absurd.

Thank you, Mr. Windows-Down Lincoln Continental Guy, for leaving this earworm with me. I’m going to share it with the world in hopes that somehow, I can stop singing “It’s alright, aaaaallllriiiiight!”

Let’s Groove by Earth, Wind & Fire:

Intro:
We can boogie down, down, c’mon down
To boogie down, down, c’mon down
To boogie down, down, c’mon down
To boogie down, down, …
(Repeats underneath first verse)

Let’s groove tonight
Share the spice of life
By slice it right
We’re gonna groove tonight

Let this groove, get you to move,
It’s alright, alright, alright
Let this groove, set in your shoes,
So stand up, alright, alright

Gonna tell ya what you can do,
With my love, alright
Let you know girl you’re looking good
You’re outta sight, alright

Just move yourself and glide like a 747
And lose yourself in the sky among the clouds in the heaven cause

Let this groove, light up your fuse, its alright, alright, alright, oh oh
Let this groove, set in your shoes so stand up alright, alright

Let me tell ya what you can do
With my love, alright
Gotta let you know girl you’re looking good
You’re outta sight, alright

Just tell the DJ
To play your favorite tune
Then you know it’s okay
What you found is happening now, oh

Let this groove, light up your fuse, its alright, alright, alright
Let this groove, set in your shoes, so stand up, stand up, alright
Let this groove, get you to move, its alright, alright, alright, yeah
Let this groove set in your shoes, so stand up, alright, alright

You will find peace of mind on the floor
Take a little time, come and see, you and me
Give a little sign, I’ll be there after a while
If you want my love

We can boogie on down, down
Boogie on down, down
We boogie on down, down
We boogie on down, on down (boogie!)

Let’s groove tonight
Share the spice of life
Baby slice it right
We’re gonna groove tonight

Let this groove, [hey hey!] light up your fuse, its alright, alright, alright, oh oh
Let this groove set in your shoes, so stand up, alright, alright
[We're gunna groove tonight]
Let this groove, get you to move, its alright, alright, alright, oh oh
[Share the spice of life]
[Baby slice it right]
Let this groove set in your shoes, so stand up, alright, alright
[Just gunna groove tonight]

You just move yourself, move yourself
You just move yourself, mmmmmm

Groove tonight, huh
Share the spice of life
Baby slice it right
We gunna groove tonight, oh yeah

You just move yourself, mmmmmm
You just move yourself
Just move, yeah

Hey, alright

Let’s groove, let’s groove, let’s groove, let’s groove, let’s groove tonight
Let’s groove, let’s groove, let’s groove tonight, let’s groove tonight…

a gizmo that attaches to any camera that I might have with me and that can then attach (Bluetooth?) to my cell phone and email pictures to whatever email address I might select.

It probably exists but costs a zillion $.

I take a LOT of pictures but usually only post from my camera phone b/c that’s the most convenient source; connectivity and space issues on all my computers are holdin’ me down. In particular, the office comp just WILL NOT play nice with a USB memory card adapter; I have to manually reassign drive letters to the adapter(s) in order for the computer to see them and they will not stay reassigned. The reason for that is another piece of not-so-well-engineered enterprise software that I have no control over. The home comp issues (Drive C is about 98% full on everything) were nearly solved last week, but the way cool hardware that I bought to fix it was DOA, and my post about that is on hold until I can get the pictures into the comp, which I can’t do until… sigh.

So, I need a portable universal email server. Any Windows Smartphones out there that play nice with Canon DSLRs?

ETA, on Engadget today - This (”a cellphone-to-web gateway device aimed at letting users easily and instantly upload camera-phone photos to the web”) is pretty neat right here. About $1,240.

Eye doc visit this morning has left me temporarily incapacitated. I’ve got this comp’s screen turned way down & it’s still painful. Aaaahhh!

And Brown Santa is bringing my (other, the one I’m going to play, not my unopened Legendary Ed that I got yesterday) copy of Halo 3 any minute now. Jeez.

According to the MIT student newspaper, The Tech:

In recognition of the release of Halo 3, a highly anticipated video game by Microsoft and Bungie, MIT hackers adorned the John P. Harvard statue, in Harvard Yard, with a Spartan helmet. The back of the helmet, which is worn by the protagonist of the game, Master Chief, was labeled with “Master Chief in Training.” The statue was decorated with an assault rifle (bullet count of 2E), as well as a Beaver emblem on the right shoulder.

Sick yesterday, (somewhat) better today.

Anyway, today’s the day. I felt too bad to stay up ’til midnight, so I run by this morning:

Inside that unmanned and all-too-well-locked store is my Red Ryder carbine-action, two hundred shot Range Model air rifle BB gun with a compass in the stock and a thing which tells time sweet sweet Legendary Edition of Halo 3. You can see the detritus from nerds more stalwart than I, and the familiar lovely aroma of stale Dominos Pizza still pervades the air. Others, more fortunate than I, are finishing the fight even as I type. Sigh.