ZAB Escapee

Writer's Block: Big Debates

2009-03-16T18:38:40Z

Do you think stem cell research is good, bad, or dangerous? Should it be funded by the government?

No research leads to anything purely good, bad or dangerous. The same expertise that landed rockets in British population centers during the Second World War led to manned exploration of the moon. The use of science is what lends it whatever moral dimension it has, and that is more a political or legal question than a scientific one.

As something which has the potential to improve the quality of life of Americans generally, stem cell research should be funded.

Pop culture note no one but me is likely to care about

2009-02-28T17:52:38Z

In 1974, there was a movie called The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, about four armed men who hijack a subway train in New York, demanding one million dollars for every hostage aboard. There were lots of wide ties, topiary-like sideburns and racial stereotypes. It came down to a battle of wits between two incredible character actors: Walter Matthau as the transit cop, and Robert Shaw (the gangster from The Sting and the shark-hunter from Jaws) as the senior hijacker. If you've never seen it, you'll realize where Tarantino got his names from, in Reservoir Dogs.

They remade it in 1998, with Edward James Olmos in the Matthau-analogue role, pitted against Vincent D'Onofrio. This summer, it'll be Denzel Washington against John Travolta, directed by Tony Scott and written for the screen by Brian Helgeland.

This is absolutely one of my favorite set-piece thriller movies. I can't wait to see what gets done with it.

McCain's most enthusiastic supporter

2008-09-02T17:49:46Z

The comments manage to improve on the hilarity.

Oh, this is rich

2008-09-01T22:02:10Z

Bristol Palin's pregnancy is of equal importance to stories such as 'Gustav: Live Updates,' 'U.S. Returns Control of Anbar,' and 'Fossils Shed Light on Genes,', if font size on the Post's website is indicative of a headline's relative value.

I love seeing articles like this, wherein the author rightly points out that this is a struggle for many middle-class (read: 'white') families in America, and hopefully everyone (read: 'Democrat operatives who will burn the midnight oil trying to sow discord between McCain and the fundies who still don't embrace him') will have the grace to let this go.

Honestly, I don't care, except that the noise of this overwhelms whatever signal strength the McCain campaign has in, you know, actually sharing its plans to deal with American problems. Problems massively more significant than a previously unknown 17-year-old conceiving out of wedlock.

But it's curious to see a party, which collectively made such a big deal ten years ago out of a sitting President's sexual contact with a willing adult female, go to such lengths to explain this little boo-boo as being something to forgive, and much more importantly, forget soon.

Pardon me for laughing as I watch the election machinery of this same party try desperately to make this a non-issue for a large segment of its own base.

Writer's Block: Checklist for Eternity

2008-09-01T13:25:11Z

If you could live forever how would you spend your time?

View 501 Answers

If I'm living forever, it depends somewhat on how, right? If I'm a wrinkly, feeble thing whose legs failed him decades before, then I'll be in bed thinking my great thoughts for the stenographers' benefit, and waiting for the nurse to change my bedpan.

More likely, if it occurs, it'll be because Kurzweil was right. My brain, such as it is, will have been captured as a disk image by some machine not yet invented, and long after my mortal body is gone, I'll be alive in the RAM of some repository of human minds. It may even provide some sort of virtual sensory experience to benefit me during the seconds in any year when my mind isn't being harnessed with millions of others to work on solutions to some problem or issue, out in the world of the living.

Of course, this would put me in a terrible position to negotiate with my employer for anything, but if I'm a ghost lingering in electronic storage, I guess my needs will be small.

This isn't abridging civil liberties at all

2008-08-31T19:37:19Z

This sheriff's deputies and this chief's officers are there to make sure that the Fourth Amendment doesn't get in the way of a good time, in St. Paul this week.

Read more here. It's amazing how ordinary police procedure - you know, knock on the door and show your badge at the same time as your warrant - just doesn't get it done in America any more.

Fall in love with my adopted home as I have, LiveJournal

2008-08-27T00:28:44Z

PITTSBURGH -- A Pennsylvania medical student told a classmate he was trying to recruit a New Zealand woman and her 4-year-old daughter to start a society of sex slaves that would live on a farm or island, the FBI said.

The FBI said in an affidavit filed Aug. 13 that it began investigating Jeremy Noyes, 30, of Erie, after someone tipped them off about his efforts to recruit the New Zealand woman and girl to come to the United States. They said he also possessed child pornography.

The tipster, using a pseudonym, submitted a complaint on an FBI Web page in June in which she wrote, "Noyes has threatened to kill me and my family ... (and) will not rest until we are dead. All the evidence you need is in his computer and that little girl's mind. Please save her."

Investigators got warrants to search Noyes' two e-mail accounts and found "images of prepubescent minors engaged in sexually explicit activity," the FBI wrote in the affidavit.

Learn the rest after the jump.

The cover of this month's Wired

2008-08-26T00:02:43Z

Shai Agassi and his company are the key forces behind Israel and Denmark getting entirely off oil in their non-aviation transportation sectors within ten years.

Click on the first embedded video and listen to his plan.

If it costs twice as much as he says, it's still a bargain.

First day findings

2008-08-25T19:11:14Z

For one, I neither needed nor wanted my laptop. That saves about seven pounds, including the case.

My father wrote all his notes while reading down one side of a sheet of 8.5' x 14' paper, with almost half the page left open for annotations during class or rereading stints. I've done sorta the same thing, only with a Pages document because I really can't write for extended periods any more.

For another, I didn't feel that confused or lost, in discussions of the subject matter. I could sense the direction in which the professor was trying to take us, and even if I wasn't always ready to blurt out an answer, I had already pulled most of the substance from the assigned reading.

I decided to postpone getting my license and registration transferred until Friday, the logic being that (a) I have a week's worth of work ahead of me and (b) fewer people will ruin their Friday afternoons at the DMV than their Monday afternoons.

Writer's Block: Your Favorite Series: One Last Go Round

2008-08-21T23:36:29Z

If you could pick any TV show that has been off the air to come back for one more season, which show would you pick and why?

Submitted By idle_kid_city

View 502 Answers

Hands down, it would have to be Firefly. Somebody should scan the entries to see what percentage chose that, because I see a lot of wistful Browncoats at a glance.

It's not likely that it will happen, because the movie didn't break even until DVD sales were considered, but the direct sales model of webisodes (e.g., Gemini Division, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog) might point the way towards that.

It might be that the viewer base is too diffuse and atypical to make advertisers happy - yes, more than 50% of the show's viewership are women, but can we sell them protective undergarments and weight-loss regimens? - but the direct sales model sidesteps that. Either a show has what it takes from week to week and makes its money back, or it doesn't.

I hope to be proven wrong about what Fox will do with Dollhouse this spring, but the pessimistic half (okay, nine-tenths) of my brain prognosticates much better than the optimistic half.

Consider me oriented

2008-08-21T21:54:35Z

The day went well, and in a related story, I didn't do much mingling.

I did meet some nice people whose names I am likely to forget by tomorrow. I think I saw someone who looks like laura7715's userpic across the room in my section. strawberry04 is harder to identify, because she has chosen a brontosaurus as hers.

I found out that my small section is B2, which is awesome primarily for the fact of my Mondays ending by 1 p.m and my Thursdays ending by 3:30 p.m.

I feel rewarded in my choice to attend law school at the University of Pittsburgh, and I guess that's what matters most.

On a soapbox for just a few minutes, feel free to disregard

2008-08-19T21:20:56Z

John McCain explains with bright, shiny code words why I am loath ever to return to federal service.

I am so sick of being characterized as lazy by elected officials, of one party primarily.

Every time John McCain or anyone from the Arizona delegation has flown back home from anywhere in the world, someone like me at my former facility did his or her best to make sure they didn't hit another airplane or a mountain, while doing everything possible to expedite their arrival.

On my last PHX push, there was a Southwest departing ABQ in the middle of the stream. I had the option to take the airplane over Drake, Arizona, if my sequence didn't permit the inclusion of another airplane. Four or five turns later, I integrated the arrival into a pack of seven or eight others within forty miles, causing minimal delay for all concerned. For whatever reason, the TMU supervisor came into the area and told me that I had been mentioned on the teleconference for the PHX sequence that day, and the Southwest representative said that I had saved them almost $1,000 of gas by doing what I did. It didn't change my pay, and I didn't get any time off for that, but my facility manager decided to change out almost a ton of ordinary gravel in the front of the building with a reddish-hued gravel because it flattered the bricks more.

You want to make government better? I like one respondent's idea:

Fire anyone who says words like "stakeholder," "lifecycle," or "resource traceability matrix" with a straight face.

Promote people who refuse to attend meetings.

A small gift to myself

2008-08-19T11:34:18Z

I wanted a soft skin for the back of my Mac, and I think that's a winner. Their artists' work is amazing, and I like that the FAQ features a question answered with "You betcha!"

The skins for the iPods are very cool also, but I have an ugly, thick yellow polyurethane shell for mine because I drop it too much to opt for a purely decorative casing.

State of the Monday Address

2008-08-19T01:02:34Z

Orientation is Thursday.

Tomorrow, I will (a) run, around 8 a.m.; (b) get my textbooks, around 10 a.m.; (c) get my driver's license and registration, around 1 p.m.; (d) organize my file folders, around 4 p.m.; (e) grill out with neighbors John and Meredith, around 7 p.m.

It all seems so simple and easily executed once written down, doesn't it?

My God

2008-08-15T13:25:55Z

Not good in many ways.

Since something this important appears on most online newspages as 6-pitch font beneath Michael Phelps' six gold medals and John Edwards' bastard child, I thought I'd pass it along.

We don't know how many future generations we can count on until the Lord gives up on humanity and starts over with the bees or the cockroaches.

What Ethiopian food is

2008-08-14T02:33:13Z

Tonight I ate at Abay. We spotted this place on the first day and made some ethnically insensitive comments about menus listing water and dirt. Afterwards, we ate pizza and felt good about ourselves.

As it turns out, Ethiopian food isn't too different from a lot of Mediterranean cuisines - think north African. My meal came on a gray pancake, and consisted of chicken breast meat in cumin and harissa, yellow split peas in some kind of savory sauce, collard greens with bits of goat cheese, and some kind of carrot-green bean mix in garlic.

What made this experience different was the lack of utensils. Thank God I ate alone, facing a wall. The ideal is that you tear off a section of gray pancake with entree on top, make a mini-burrito of it, and consume it gracefully. In practice, I found that the pancake isn't all that stable unless you tear out an entire quadrant, and the result was that I ended up with 25-50% of any food left behind in the palm of my hand. My fine cloth napkin essentially became a diaper for my face.

Thereafter, I went to Borders and picked up three books I've always wanted to read: Metamorphosis and Trial by Kafka, and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Solzhenitsyn. They also had a new paperback version of Darkness at Noon by Koestler, which I read during my month in Korea but lost in the airport returning to Japan.

This unemployment stuff's not so terrible.

That's certainly one way to view the climate-change debate

2008-08-13T13:16:39Z

Environmentalists may close up shop, because their work has already been done for them.

Umm.

lowapproach @ 2008-08-11T16:18:00

2008-08-11T20:18:57Z

You have no idea how Internet-dependent you are until you go without.

Lessons learned from moving

2008-08-06T16:44:34Z

Suzanne logged significant times on our journey to Pittsburgh, but the key point to take away from moving with a car lashed to the back of a truck is that you cannot move nearly as fast as you would like. On average, we spent seven hours sleeping at our daily destinations before showering, eating and starting out again. Altogether, it was about thirty-six hours inside a truck cab together, and we still talk to one another.

Even if the engine has the power, the dolly precludes moving faster than 55 mph if you want to find a car attached to it upon arriving at your destination. In fact, we made a habit of looking back as we exited the highway for signs of a vehicle, as we pulled into whichever gas station.

I spent $478 on gas between there and here. I have a lot of bicycling ahead to expiate my sins against the atmosphere.

I didn't realize how little space I'd have for the truck going up the driveway into my apartment building. We found a synagogue, with an extremely helpful custodian who allowed us to ditch the dolly behind the building until the wedding anniversary celebration dispersed some hours later. Minus some truly vexed attendees who told me again and again, "You can't park here," it was a good experience and I plan to send a card showing my appreciation. If I ever convert to Judaism, it will happen at the Tree of Life on Wilkins Avenue.

Putting heavy things in small boxes and light things in large boxes was one of my few flashes of inspiration. It took maybe an hour and fifteen minutes to unload a 16' truck, with four people helping to varied extents. Thank you, radfemgoddess and fiancé, and thank you, divinecellodiva.

Note the new and improved journal title

2008-07-28T23:37:50Z

As of 3 p.m. today, I no longer work for the Federal Aviation Administration.

They gave me a T-shirt with the words "willchaseambulancesforfood@" above "IleftATCforthis.com." The personal farewells of my crewmates were touching and unexpected, especially the girl who told me that my balls were huge and that she would miss them.

I have a little more than 72 hours left in the greater Albuquerque area, he suddenly realized.

Last Friday

2008-07-25T18:06:12Z

This is my last Friday in the Federal Aviation Administration. Deliverance is mine. Minus the banjos.

These kids with their fast Internet and loud rock and roll music have made all the administrivia associated with university learning very, very easy. Yesterday I reserved my books online for pickup on the twentieth of August. I know what my classes are and who teaches them, if not the exact times. For those of you who went to school in the dark days when physically standing in line at the Financial Aid office was necessary, you will be thrilled to learn that (a) direct electronic disbursement is now possible and (b) online verification of tuition and fees paid is likewise possible.

My going-away lunch with the non-FAA'ers will commence in ten minutes. Goodbye for now, LiveJournal.

Using this post as a checklist of things done

2008-07-19T01:23:09Z

One of those nights where I am reminded why I will not miss this place during thunderstorm season. For anyone trying to enter my airspace from the west, northern New Mexico is effectively thirty miles wide for over a hundred miles inbound. After two hours of airplanes deviating in similar ways around an almost stationary mass of precipitation, I would have thought the confederacy of dunces to the southeast would pick up on what is being put down. But I'm not sure I'll have the pleasure of watching mediocrity being defined downward by people making $30,000 or more than me, for the same work or less, once I'm in law school. So I'll savor these moments as they occur. (/bitter)

The first month's rent arrived yesterday. Electricity; check. Gas; check. Water; check. DSL; check. Everything should work from the moment I walk in the door on August 1.

Almost everything I intend to move is in a box. The remainder is either furniture or items that collectively will take less than one hour to put in boxes.

My property management representative's father is having surgery of some kind on the weekend I move, so she may not be able to greet me in person on arrival. If not, she will FedEx the key to me next week.

Fuel stops are planned.

My bike is getting its warranty maintenance at REI, and I'll have it back on the 22nd.

My attachment style, thanks Carrie

2008-07-13T02:37:01Z

My movie analog for commitment is Han Solo. You never realize what you have, until you're frozen in carbonite.

Your result for The Attachment Style Test...

The Free Agent

You like to be independent, to play by your own rules. You're not terribly interested in finding a partner and settling down, and it makes you nervous to imagine that someone might depend on you for anything. Were you to find the right partner--someone as independent as you, probably--you'd not be too put out about sharing your adventures with him/her.

Fictional characters with whom you might identify: Han Solo (Star Wars), Beatrice ("Much Ado About Nothing")

Other Attachment Types:
Secure:	The Unicorn	\|	The Cuddleslut	\|	The Free Agent
Preoccupied:	The Cling Wrap	\|	The Squid	\|	The Insect
Fearful:	The Doormat	\|	The Leper	\|	The Exile
Dismissing:	The Hermit	\|	The Stone	\|	The Player
Confused:	The Waffler

Take The Attachment Style Test at HelloQuizzy

The near-hit at JFK

2008-07-10T13:49:08Z

This story has come up in the national media's consciousness, in large part because of the union and its friends at New York City television stations. Unfortunately, it comes out as he said-the FAA said, because they haven't really taken the time to tell you more than the distance between the two airplanes, and that the National Transportation Safety Board is investigating.

About 20-25% of the way through, you'll hear the incident in question between LAN Chile 533 and Cayman 792.

Runways are named for the magnetic headings to which they most closely correspond. The Cayman flight is landing Runway 22 left, heading southwest, while the LAN Chile flight was departing Runway 13 right, heading southeast. The logic is that the arrival will commit to the landing and turn off the runway, as the departure on the crossing runway passes harmlessly overhead. This works, until the arrival goes around after the departure has already left the runway, and at that point, you have the problem you hear on the radio.

The controller is babbling a little - I don't blame him, because he probably thought he was going to see a midair collision. Again, knowing their magnetic headings as above, the controller turns the Cayman to a zero-nine-zero, or basically due east, and the LAN Chile to a one-seven-zero, basically due south.

Those are forty-degree turns, and you don't issue a forty-degree turn to separate airplanes unless something has gone really wrong. A standard rate of turn is 3 degrees per second, meaning a wait of 13 seconds for the new heading under normal circumstances. Both of these pilots had to hear the panic in the Kennedy controller's voice, and may even have seen the lights on the opposite runway, so they probably exceeded the standard rate of turn in order to make this work. At the closest point, the union estimates a half-mile and 100 feet, based on a combination of the local controller's recall and the radar data. FAA's figures are somewhat larger, as much as 500 feet, but the point remains that this was a barely controlled incident. The controller made two really quick calls, and the pilots acted equally quickly to gain separation between themselves, but if someone else had tied up the frequency by calling the tower (he had several airplanes lined up for takeoff, on his frequency) or if he hadn't heard the Cayman pilot call his go-around. . .it would have been entirely in God's hands, instead of just mostly in God's hands. Traffic collision avoidance systems on these airplanes have only a vertical component, i.e., climb or descent, and there wasn't a lot of room between these airplanes and the ground for that to work on its own.

Of course, JFK's not the only airport in the country with simultaneous operations on intersecting runways. Memphis International, home of Federal Express, also has this issue, and in the last year, have seen a situation like this one. As with JFK, though, not permitting simultaneous operations would cripple the airport. If they all had to line up for takeoff and landing to the same set of runways, capacity for both departures and arrivals would drop by half, and the peak delays would go through the roof. Even if they waited until the aircraft reported wheels on the runway before clearing the departure, that's a loss of valuable time. Small wonder they went after Pete Nesbitt when he filed NASA safety paperwork on MEM's procedure. You can bet that they'll go after anyone at JFK who raises a complaint through official safety channels also.

22 days, 21 hours, 4 minutes and 45 seconds

2008-07-08T22:13:36Z

The Plan.

I work my last day as an air traffic controller on July 28 (19 days, 22 hours, 4 minutes and 45 seconds). At around 2 p.m. that day, I'll turn in my headset and my ID, and demonstrate the cleanliness and fine working order of my mailbox and locker before I go.

At 8:30 a.m. on July 29, I'll be going to American Self-Storage on Indian School Road to pick up my rental truck and car dolly. I imagine it will probably take the better part of the day to box up my kitchen materials, pack essential items for my carry-on, move furniture, and everything else. Following a shower and a change of clothes, I think I'll probably have a going-away party at Two Fools Tavern on Central Avenue, beginning with shepherd's pie and ending with vomit.

By 1:30 p.m. on July 31, I'll be leaving with Suzanne for Pittsburgh. Sometime around midnight, we will arrive in Oklahoma City. I'm assuming around 12 hours of driving for the next two days, ending in Springfield, Illinois and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania respectively.

By 12:00 p.m. on August 3, Jenny (radfemgoddess), her fiancé Andy and my brother Mark should all arrive in town to help me unload. After what is hopefully a mercifully short process, we will lay out sleeping arrangements and visit a Peruvian restaurant that Jenny has recommended.

By 3:30 p.m. on August 5, I will have taken Suzanne to the airport to catch a flight in time for the beginning of school the next day.

Sometime August 25, my school starts.