Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Moonsilver's LiveJournal:

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Monday, February 8th, 2010
12:49 am	Good neighbor Do I get extra karma points for helping out someone who is almost too stupid to breathe? I went out to clear the rest of the driveway this afternoon. Unlike yesterday, quite a few people were out digging out their cars and driveways. I noticed when a car came in on the "main" road by our house (not our culdesac) and then was stopped, but wasn't immediately obvious that they were stuck. I shoveled for a bit, and then realized that three people were digging and pushing, and I went over to help. And thus I became involved in rescuing possibly the stupidest winter driver I have ever personally encountered. The stupidity was not immediately apparent. The driver had apparently been in Maryland during the storm and was trying to get home, and wasn't able to get through. Fair enough, I've been in that position myself, though I was luckier (and had planned that if the snow was too bad to get into the neightborhood, I would find a place to park and walk the rest of the way.) She had come down our street intending to go down the (somewhat steep) hill on the next block. The streets had been plowed on Friday, but not since then, and fifteen inches or so more snow had fallen. There was one track through the snow but it didn't go down the hill, so she had given up, tried to back up, and gotten stuck. When I got there one of my neighbors was helping, and another person who I suspect was a friend she had called, since he had a shovel but wasn't from one of the nearby houses. What followed was a lot of pushing, wheels spinning, digging out tires to get traction, lasting about an hour in large part because of this perfect storm of stupid. We pushed the car back about ten feet and then it got completely stuck. We figured out that snow was piling up behind the bumper cover, nearly pulling it off. Looking back, we could see the track the bumper had made through the snow on the way in, which made it clear that the car had nowhere near enough clearance to get through this. (Stupidity #1) We dug some of that out, and pushed some more, at which point Stupidity #2 became clear. We would tell her to keep going if we got her started, and almost every time she started moving, she would let off the gas and get stuck again. I don't know if she was just freaking out when she started moving or what (thinking about it, I suspect she was watching us and backing up looking in the mirror, rather than turning around), but no matter how many times we told her, she wouldn't stay on the gas. (She spun the wheels plenty when she was stuck, though.) Then we had Stupidity #3, which was her presumed friend. It quickly became apparent that he knew less what he was doing that either me or the other guy, but that didn't stop him from directing more and digging less than either of us. This included telling her to turn the wheel the wrong way and telling her to start once when I was still digging snow out from behind her drive wheel! When it became clear that the bumper cover was going to prevent the car from backing all the way out, we hit on the idea of getting her to turn around in my neighbor's driveway (which he had already cleared), and using traction from there to get going. Because of Stupidity #2, this took much longer than necessary, but eventually we did it. While she was in the driveway and we were getting the path out ready, I happened to talk with the driver briefly, and found out that her plan was to go a couple of blocks down and try to go down the hill there! And she was still thinking this after it had taken three people the better part of an hour to get her half a block. This was Stupidity #4, though I think it needs to be in a category of its own, perhaps a special gold oak leaf cluster for special achievement in the field of stupidity. I suppose I should have told her she really shouldn't do that, but I was just speechless. I should also point out that anywhere she might have been going in the neighborhood on these streets, it couldn't possibly have been more than two blocks' walk. When she got into the driveway, just because of the maneuvering we'd had to do, she was way over on the left side. To turn left out of the driveway and not hit the snowbank, it would be better to to be on the right, and there was easily enough room on the clear pavement to do a parallel-parking maneuver to move over. She started to do it, but then Stupidity #3 reared his ugly head again, as her apparent friend wandered into the driveway and got in the way. I got him to move on, but by that time she decided she had moved enough, and made the attempt to get out. She got mostly out and of course ended up against the snowbank on the left, though not in it. I don't remember if she let off the gas prematurely that time, but she was stuck again, and wedged up against the snowbank that made it tough to dig one wheel out. Stupidity #3 actually did some work and dug her wheel out of the snowbank while I cleared under the other drive wheel. We were getting pretty winded, but at that point three other neighbors arrived from various directions. After several more back-and-forths, we got her on her way. You'd think that would be the end of the story, right? But, no! She got about twenty feet down the street, ran into a snowbank, and got stuck again! And not a snowbank that was sticking out into the road, or one on the passenger side, a snowbank in line with all the others on the driver's side. Stupidity #5! Who knows, maybe she was waving thanks to us instead of keeping both hands on the wheel, or maybe it was just the wheel ruts or snow in the road. I was beyond caring, as was my neighbor (he was just trying to get her out from in front of his driveway, because he had to go to work at the airport later in the afternoon.) Her friend and the three fresh neighbors went down and got her going again. We watched as she drove to the corner, across the most-plowed street (the one that's a bus route when buses start running again), down another block, and turned left down the hill (Stupidity #6, a new record!) My neighbor and I looked at each other, shook our heads and said "not our problem any more" and went back to our own tasks. Now I am personally acquainted with one of the reasons why the phrase "do not drive with sun shade in place" was invented. Lucky me. Current Mood: tired (Comment on this)
Saturday, February 6th, 2010
4:31 pm	Snowpocalypse 2010! We went downtown to the hockey game last night, because we already had tickets and we are insane. It actually wasn't bad; no trouble at all getting there, and 395 wasn't too bad on the way home since almost everyone was taking it slow. There was a tree down that was hanging over our exit ramp, which was a bit exciting; there was a police cruiser there with a spotlight on it (so people would see it early and not slam on their brakes, I assume.) The only thing I was worried about was our neighborhood streets, but everything but our little street had actually been plowed at some point, and even that wasn't hard to get through. We've had an urchin #fail in the neighborhood; no knocks on the door this morning. During the big snow in December, the head urchin on our street came by offering to help when I was almost done shoveling the driveway; he'd gotten snowed in at a friend's house. But he said "you're our best customer!" Great, I'm the laziest person in our neighborhood. :-) But I'm actually happy to reward them if they want to work. But no luck today, so I shoveled out the front walk as far as the driveway earlier, and I'm going to go out again before it gets dark. Ooh, I feel so manly! Contrary to the weather reports, most of the snow isn't heavy and wet, and shoveling isn't bad. However, unlike December's, it is great snowball snow! Here's what the Snowpocalypse looks like from here (click for larger): It looks like we've lost one of the line of evergreen trees between our house and the next one, about 25 feet high. Luckily, it fell into the yard and didn't hit either house; I just hope it didn't damage our magnolia tree. Finally, the weather is supposed to clear tonight, so we may be able to see the last night launch of the space shuttle here. All I have to do is get up at 4:30am and go out when it's 14°, 1° with the wind chill. Did I mention that I'm insane? Current Mood: winded, but recovering (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, February 4th, 2010
4:58 pm	I'm glad I keep these 3-D glasses around This is really cool -- a region of Mars in 3-D. (Comment on this)
2:24 pm	Heh Sluggy Freelance on "Avatar" (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 24th, 2010
2:06 am	When Did the Future Happen? I went out tonight to watch the Internation Space Station go overhead. Think about that: I looked up to see our space station overhead, with my own eyes. That used to be something that practically defined "the future." The future has arrived, and mostly in better ways than the one noted in xkcd. We all have personal communicators that work almost anywhere. We have pocket computers if we want them, more powerful than a room-size computer from the 1960s. We can have our newspapers delivered to us electronically, and can access vast archives of information all over the world. None of these things happened in quite the way they were envisioned when I was growing up (they never do, but at least we've been spared having to all wear turtlenecks or silver jumpsuits all the time), but we're definitely in the future now. I think I like it here. ... Anyway, everyone should see the ISS. It's very bright now that it has all the solar panels, and quite easy to spot once you know what you're looking for. I've tried several times in the past unsuccessfully, but after discovering some new resources to help spot it, I saw it easily a couple of weeks ago, and again that same week; tonight was the third time. Start at NASA's guide to sightings by city. If you're on Twitter, you can get personalized alerts from @twisst. Choose a pass with a high maximum elevation, and the duration is 3-5 minutes (those tend to go together.) Then look for something that looks kind of like a plane, but with no blinking lights, and that fades into view in midair rather than coming over the horizon. I haven't gotten tired of looking at it yet. Living in the future is just so cool. Current Mood: excited Current Music: Music of the Spheres? (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, January 21st, 2010
9:40 am	Star Wars logic ( They've got a point... [cut for large image] ) Current Mood: sluggish (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, January 4th, 2010
12:44 pm	Walnut2 I installed the Walnut2 theme for Firefox, and now my browser has an elegant wood-paneled look. I generally don't bother much with "skins" and stuff for software, but this one amused me, and it's pretty nicely done. (Comment on this)
Sunday, December 20th, 2009
2:43 pm	Snowpocalypse I remembered to bring in the snow shovel from the shed before the snow started this time so I'm off to dig out from the snowpocalypse! Send a St. Bernard if I don't return! Current Mood: chipper (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
12:08 pm	Coolness This guy did a video of what it would look like from various places if Earth had rings proportionally the same size as Saturn: I have to agree with the first several comments on the YouTube page, we need to blow up the moon to make rings. Current Mood: space-geeky Current Music: The Planets Op.32 Saturn (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, November 9th, 2009
6:42 pm	Pterodactyl! I was determined to get out for a walk this afternoon, since it's the nicest day we're going to have in a while. I'm also trying to get back into my exercise routine after dropping the ball during the summer (when it's too hot to go for a walk from work without showers afterward) and a fall with a combination of campaign work and a crush at work. However, the task I was working on once again took longer than I expected, and I didn't want to break in the middle of it, so I finally managed to get out around 5, when it was starting to get dark, but still pleasant. I was rewarded with a great blue heron flying up along the drainage ditch, at about eye level and maybe ten feet away. I actually said "Whoah!" out loud. :-) Those guys are big, and though they don't quite set off the "bird of prey" instinct, they do have a distinct resemblence to a pterodactyl, which I think also triggers something deep in the mammalian brain. I've seen this one before; he's often in the artificial pond in front of the next building when I'm arriving at work, which is where he was headed when he passed me. I got to get a good look at him when I went by. The light wasn't good enough to see his colors very well, but it was still pretty cool. Current Mood: chipper (2 Comments |Comment on this)
1:28 pm	Yes I got this article in an email from a Tor Books mailing list I'm on, and it resonated, so I'm sharing it in its entirety. ( Follow your weird. ) Current Mood: busy (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 21st, 2009
2:58 pm	NASA tweetup At the tweetup at NASA HQ. They've provided Internet access, naturally. I feel properly geeky. Current Mood: geeky Current Music: chatter (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, July 17th, 2009
2:32 pm	How did I miss this? Dr. Demento has been nominated to the Radio Hall of Fame! Anyone can register to vote; let's put the good Doctor over the top! I only found out about this because WAMU is promoting the nomination of Ed Walker of "The Big Broadcast" vintage radio show (and radio partner of Willard Scott their early days.) They're in different categories, so you can vote for both. (Comment on this)
Thursday, July 16th, 2009
3:07 pm	We choose to go to the Moon... Forty years later, it still gives me chills... There are a lot of great photos, multimedia and websites available for the anniversary. Here are a few. Spectacular photos from the Boston Globe site. Restored high-definition video of the moon landing. "We Choose the Moon" interactive site with real-time-40-years-later continuous audio broadcast, as well as lots of other audio, video, photos, and other stuff to explore. (Note: this downloads a lot of stuff before it will go past the welcome screen, and doesn't really give any indication that it's doing that, so open another window and wait for it to finish -- you'll hear the sound of rocket engines start when it's loaded.) You can also get just the real-time radio broadcast here. And finally, you can follow the "real-time" mission in text format on Twitter through AP11_CAPCOM, AP11_SPACECRAFT, and (eventually) AP11_EAGLE. Current Mood: nostalgic Current Music: Real-time Apollo 11, naturally! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
4:13 pm	Cool stuff you should see No time to write clever text, but here are the various cool things I've collected over the past couple of weeks, so I can get my open browser windows down below 30... A flash thingie that lets you browse the first test image from the new LROC lunar probe, and zoom in on any part of it. It's just a random piece of the lunar surface, but it's still quite cool. You know how our historical documents broadcasts are going out into space, and the further you go, the older the signals they're picking up? Here is a map of various star systems and what they're seeing on TV now. (From here. Another awesome volcano satellite photo. ( Photo below the cut. ) And another one, not as visually spectacular, but showing both the plume from Kilauea and the steam where lava hits the ocean. Oh and a couple of potentially useful medical references, one about caring for people at home in the event that the flu pandemic (or another future one) is serious enough that hospitals are only taking the most seriously ill, and an article about how the vaccine-autism scare developed, the very real effects of communities having large numbers of unvaccinated people, and how scientists might best deal with similar situations in the future. Finally, some Twitter-sized words of wisdom from Stephen Colbert: @StephenAtHome: president obama named a surgeon general. so sad that he couldn't resolve the healthcare debate without resorting to military force @StephenAtHome: i believe michael jackson's moon-walking was faked on a soundstage in arizona (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
6:13 pm	Learn to be a bat! Hey, evcelt! Did you know humans can learn to echolocate? "Spanish scientists develop echo-location in humans" They see it first as something that would be useful for blind people (apparently a few blind people have taught themselves echolocation by trial and error), but that anyone should be able to learn it. A few choice bits: However, no special physical skills are required in order to develop this skill. "Two hours per day for a couple of weeks are enough to distinguish whether you have an object in front of you, and within another two weeks you can tell the difference between trees and a pavement" Another of the team's research areas involves establishing the biological limits of human echolocation ability, "and the first results indicate that detailed resolution using this method could even rival that of sight itself". In fact, the researchers started out by being able to tell if there was someone standing in front of them, but now can detect certain internal structures, such as bones, and even "certain objects inside a bag". Pretty wild! I'm not sure if I'm dedicated enough to do this, but it definitely sounds like a fine addition to "things that weird guy down the hall in college knew how to do." Current Mood: impressed Current Music: palate clicks ;-) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
12:02 pm	Medical advice from Stephen Colbert Stephen Colbert (via Twitter) has some advice for i_scribble: @StephenAtHome i forget - are you supposed to put heat on a bad back or fire? @StephenAtHome it was fire. back feeling better now, thanks to the distracting pain from 3rd degree fire wounds Best wishes for a quick recovery! Current Mood: silly Current Music: birds outside my window (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
3:13 pm	Negative information content So, there was a sign on the door to our building yesterday, reading something like: On Tuesday, June 23, we will be testing the fire alarm system from 8:30am to 2:30pm. This is a silent test, the alarm will not sound. What useful information does this convey? All I get from it is the idea that if the fire alarm goes off, it may be because they've screwed up the test, not because there's a fire. But since I don't know, the only reasonable response is to treat it exactly like a real fire alarm, which is what I would have done if they hadn't put up the sign. When they're doing audible fire alarm tests, they say "ignore the fire alarm, we'll come tell you if it's real," which may not be entirely safe, but at least it makes sense. Current Mood: restless (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 8th, 2009
4:11 pm	Virginia Democratic Primary tomorrow Hey, Virginia readers! In case the 200 robo-calls haven't made it clear enough, tomorrow is the Democratic primary in Virginia. If you're a Democrat, go vote -- with the tiny turnout that we have in primaries for state office, this may be the biggest influence you can have on your government. If you're a well-intentioned Republican, go ahead and vote, too, if you like -- we don't have party registration in Virginia, and only the Democrats are having a primary this year, so you won't be missing out on anything. (I don't think much of crossover voting to screw with the other party, but I don't think there's anything wrong with doing it to support the candidate who you think would be best, or least bad. The one time I seriously considered voting in the Republican primary was to vote against Oliver North, who I thought would be dreadful to have representing our state.) Personally, I'm supporting Brian Moran for governor and Jody Wagner for Lt. Governor, and Bob Hull for delegate in the 38th, my district. I'm also working for Mark Keam for delegate, who's running in the 35th District around Vienna (stretching from near Tyson's to near Fair Oaks.) I can't vote for him because I don't live in that district, but I got to know him on the Obama campaign and I think he'd be a fine addition to the legislature. If you're undecided and want to know more about why I favor these candidates, I'd be happy to tell you. But since most people probably don't care that much, the summary version is that for each of them, it's a large measure of who is most in line with my political views (both how the state should be run and bully-pulpit leadership issues) and what their bio and record say about their ability to succeed, and to a smaller degree, how effective they are at running a campaign, which indicates whether they'd be able to get elected and another indicator of how successful they might be at pushing their agenda. I'd be happy if you help get the nomination for my preferred candidates, but whoever you support, please come out and vote. Citizenship isn't something you are, it's something you do. Current Mood: patriotic and stuff Current Music: Green Day, "Know Your Enemy" (earworm) (Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009
3:57 pm	Unusual sighting I saw a Baltimore Oriole in our neighborhood as I was leaving for work. I've only seen one of those one other time in my entire life! Wow! Current Mood: pleased (7 Comments |Comment on this)