follow that qar !

Somethin' fishy's goin' on aroun' here

2006-08-02T20:51:00.000-04:00

I feel like I'm missing a post or two. A week or so ago, I couldn't reach blogger at all. Next time I look, I'm back in the middle May. I can't remember what I might have written, but feel like there must have been something.

Meanwhile, semi-abandonment of Textpattern and tentative adoption of Drupal draw me back to Aves Specta. I could wrestle xots.blogspot.com into an import filter, but feel like it'll be easier to move these few posts by cut and paste.

Dunno if I'll quit blogger. If I do, chances are you'll find me here.

Mother's Day Flood of 2006

2006-05-17T21:32:00.000-04:00

The week of rain, according to the electronic rain gauge in our yard, went like this:

May 10-11 = 1 inch

May 12 = 0.5 inch

May 13 = 4.7 inches

May 14 = 2.5 inches

May 15 = 2.1 inches

May 16 = 0.8 inches

Not quite a foot, but the monthly total is close to 14 inches and we have more on the way.

Home impacts have been minimal. Work has been disrupted for both of us, but is approaching normalcy.

C&A walked to the (closed) bridge on Monday to see the Salmon Falls River way higher than we've seen it.

Bird Migration Under Way in Earnest

2006-05-05T13:22:00.000-04:00

What a difference a day makes.

Wood Thrush, Nashville Warbler, Yellow-rumped Warbler, and Ovenbird were great to hear this morning in Berwick. My five stolen minutes were just enough to whet my appetite for more. Looking skyward, I saw many birds moving, not as high as I usually see migrants, but when a heron flew over low and against the grain I knew I was seeing today's bonus bird.

It wasn't a great blue. It was a smaller one. I'm inclined to think it was a bittern, but it could have been a large green. How often is either one of those a flyover? In my experience, almost never. Just a reminder to review the books before the mystery bird appears. No matter what, it's hard to be prepared for every interesting thing migration might throw at you.

More advice: Never set your binoculars aside just moments before a mystery bird is going to wing past.

Pee Wee Russell and Who?

2006-04-15T22:05:00.000-04:00

On Friday the 13th of January 1950, Dad was sketching jazzmen at the Central Plaza in NYC. This is his Pee Wee Russell.

He did another caricature in the same style, but didn't get it signed. Who it is is a mystery.

The post card advertising the event listed these other musicians:
Wingy Manone • photo here
Buster Bailey
Benny Morton
Sam Price
Wilmer Jones
Max Kaminsky
Pee Wee Russell
Sandy Williams
James P. Johnson
Kansas Fields
& the guest of honor
Chauncey Morehouse

Quite a collection. But a Google Images search across the field turned up no hot leads. Without the other illustration in front of me, Wingy Manone seems a possibility.

That post card, by the way, has Dad's address as 422 E 11TH ST APT 14.
422. Nothing about 5/8.

ARRLWeb: RadiosOnline -- Ads

2006-03-30T19:52:00.000-05:00

Put up my first ARRLWeb classified last night:

[29-Mar-2006] COLLINS 75S-1 #3069 FOR SALE: $250 plus shipping. Worked great when last used for several years pre-1980. Powered up once about 5 years ago, but not tested. Always stored indoors in smoke-free environments. Knobs/ feet/ power cord original. No known modifications. No crystals for top end of 10m. No manual. Needs a good cleaning. Sold as is. Sentimental value waning... needs a new life. Email N1AIA [at] ARRL [dot] NET.

First response within the hour.
End of an era.
Update: First "buyer" backs out (you did read the ad, didn't you?). Second buyer steps up, steps back. Third buyer makes an offer I can refuse. Fourth buyer whisks the deal along. Era ends. 4/15.

Milbert's Tortoiseshell in York County, Maine

2006-03-27T14:37:00.000-05:00

Today -- yes, during the last week of March -- I saw my first butterfly of 2006 while walking up the trail from Laudholm Beach at the Wells Reserve. As I climbed the incline through a patch of woods, I spotted it flitting between cobbles on the wide path. I was able to approach it closely as it held its wings out in a patch of full sun.

It looked like no butterfly I had seen before. Its most striking feature was a rich orange U-shaped band forming a wingtip-to-wingtip semicircle against wings of deep velvet brown. On the leading edge of each forewing were four patches. The innermost two were squares of the same orange, the next was a similar hue but washed out, and the last was whitish. The outer two patches merged somewhat with the band.

It had a sturdy-looking brown body, alert antennae, and a glossiness that shone like armor. I figured it was just about 2 inches across, maybe slightly more. Its flights were brisk and brief; it skipped purposefully ahead of me, moving from rock to rock, as I attempted to pass.

After several yards, it landed trailside among grass and downed twigs and I went ahead to the farmhouse. No bookshelf references showed me what I was looking for, so I went to the web. Once, again, the USGS NPWRC Butterflies of North America site, or more specifically its Butterflies of Maine listing, was a terrific resource.

Scrolling down the list of names, it was easy to reject most, but I linked to a few to "ground" myself. I went to the Mourning Cloak account half expecting to find my animal there, but no: That was not it. I was looking for orange, not yellow, and a smaller insect. I've seen Mourning Cloaks and this didn't look like one.

But maybe it was a close relative. I went to Compton Tortoiseshell -- not a chance. Then I went to Milbert's Tortoiseshell and found my match.

But the map shows no records for York County, confirmed, unconfirmed, or dubious.

I grabbed the camera and went back out, but of course the nymph was gone. That makes this an unconfirmed or, egad, a dubious report.

Great way to start spring, though!

Not intermediate, but cattle?

2006-03-09T21:52:00.000-05:00

I've just found the Editors' Notebook from a 2004 issue of North American Birds, where Edward S. Brinkley writes:

We intend to revisit an older article on Intermediate Egret on Midway Atoll, Hawaii (N. A. B. 53: 441-443), which may pertain to an "Eastern Cattle-Egret" rather than an Intermediate Egret (have we piqued the reader's interest?).

As the author of the article in question, I am eager to see the clarification, which is apparently approaching a draft stage now. Ever since I was informed that the American Ornithologists' Union check-list committee passed over the "intermediate" egret report in its 45^th supplement, I have hoped to read a well documented alternative view. I expect to be presumed mistaken and am comfortable with that. It's just hard to be wrong so publicly.

It happens, though; I am not alone. After recounting a handful of other questioned identifications recorded in NAB, Brinkley goes on to write:

It is remarkable, and very humbling to one's own grasp of bird identification, to receive opposing opinions from experts in their fields!

Genealogy Online

2006-02-10T19:27:00.000-05:00

To the phpgedview question: Yes.

It was a smooth install and the learning curve has been pretty shallow, so it's up and running with data exported from the on-again-off-again Family Tree Maker file. Here's hoping it lives up to its potential.

PhpGedView News - Online genealogy at its best

2006-02-02T21:50:00.000-05:00

Is PhpGedView the next install?

Newsweek Interactive: The Autism Quotient

2006-01-14T21:51:00.000-05:00

Prompted again by admit-one, I've determined my Autism Spectrum Quotient is 31. That's "above average," with 32 being "very high." I'm not reading much into the results, even though most men score about 17 and most people with Asperger Syndrome or high functioning autism score 35. Want to try it? See if Newsweek Interactive: The Autism Quotient is still a live link.

The Elusive Subja Seed

2006-01-04T20:02:00.000-05:00

Why am I so captivated by the idea of drinking tasteless, slippery, crunchy-kerneled seeds? Because subja seeds sound like fun. I first learned of them by browsing The Indian Spice Kitchen, where Monisha Bharadwaj describes them, but Osimum basilicum seeds seem impossible to find.

I made a special trip to Seattle's Uwajimaya to track them down, but came up empty. I stopped at Market Spice at Pike Street, where they hadn't heard of them (but they suggested another shop down the street). I went into Souk, where the gentleman understood what I was looking for only after I described it; he knew the seeds by a different name, which he couldn't remember, and said his sister gets them at a shop (the name not in his memory) on Roosevelt Avenue. But I was out of time in the city and couldn't follow up. (But before I took more than a few steps out Souk's door, the proprietor called me back in, because he had asked his arriving friend what those seeds were called. Tukmaria, he said. Tukmaria.)

I'll try falooda and raat ki rani one day, but as my online searches supplied only frustration it may be a while. Sometime, somewhere around Boston, I assume I'll find a spot for subja seeds. And maybe they'll have candied anise, too.

Healthy Appetite

2005-12-17T15:18:00.000-05:00

Cute Overload offering, prompted by admit-one.

Mainer maps fate of Louisiana coast

2005-11-28T20:40:00.000-05:00

Today's Portland Press Herald features Joe Kelley, a Maine geologist who is serving on a National Research Council (National Academies) panel advising federal and local officials on restoring and protecting coastal Louisiana. Their work was completed this summer, but they reconvened in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Kelley has had considerable positive influence on the management of Maine beaches, and I have found him to be straightforward and enviably objective. So, having made statements here and here about addressing the devastation, I now wish to share excerpts that will further refine my position...

In an interview this week, Kelley said federal and local officials have unrealistic expectations. ... Kelley believes officials should abandon some areas of the delta with a policy of "managed retreat" and focus on projects that are more important to the nation's economic interests.

This fits my view well. I will need to alter my mindset, though, to accept another Kelley statement that has drawn criticism from environmentalists. He was quoted in the New York Times (requires payment) as saying that healthy marshes would not have protected New Orleans. As paraphrased in the PPH:

People interested in restoring marshes have used storm protection as a rationale to gain funding for their projects, he said, but the role marshes play as a storm buffer may be overrated. [emphasis added]

Until we can accurately forecast the degree of flood protection offered by salt marshes (not likely), we should err on the side of protecting and restoring them.

Why Supporting Feral Cat Colonies is Wrong

2005-11-27T11:06:00.000-05:00

On the front page of its latest newsletter, Another Chance Animal Rescue proudly described its activities supporting a feral cat colony in southern Maine. While those involved must be good-hearted people, their actions can have severe negative consequences for wild birds and other animals.

Cats hunt small mammals like mice, voles, shrews, moles, and chipmunks. Cats hunt birds like warblers, wrens, chickadees, sparrows, and cardinals. By killing small animals, cats are reducing biodiversity, sometimes virtually eliminating native species. By removing small animals from natural environments, they are also removing a prey base for naturally occurring predators like hawks, owls, and foxes.

Domestic felines should be just that: house cats.

Incidentally, the Another Chance Animal Rescue Mission Statement suggests that supporting feral cat colonies is outside their intended purpose. The organization's board ought to examine this activity and withdraw its support.

one red paperclip

2005-11-26T21:51:00.000-05:00

Watching what it might be worth one day:

Thanksgiving Snowman

2005-11-24T22:15:00.000-05:00

Our Thanksgiving Snowman, bridging fall and winter, thanks to C & A, who proved an inch of snow can be enough.

Liz Carroll and John Doyle set lists

2005-11-19T23:41:00.000-05:00

A warm, relaxed, highly satisfactory evening at the Center for Cultural Exchange in Portland, Maine, with Liz Carroll (fiddle) and John Doyle (guitar and vocals). It would seem we benefited by being the last date on their tour, and of 2005 -- they were loose and congenial, though perhaps that is normal for them.

Thankful to be there, right up front, absorbing. The following is likely riddled with errors, but is based on notes taken during the performance. Corrections appreciated.

Fremont Center

The "Vornado"

Minutemen

Dennehy Dancers

McSweeney's Side

A Pound of Rye

Ronan Boys

Ralph's 2-3-5

Hanley's House of Happiness

The Apprentice Boy

2 unidentified reels

Kieran's Polka

County Cahill

[magical hare]

unidentified John Doyle jig, jig, reel

Jack Dolan (Wild Colonial Boy)

Old Bush

Expect the Unexpected

The Island of Woods

Bitter the Parting

unidentified 2 with Ellen Gawler

The Tractor Driver

A Tune for the Girls

I Know My Love

3 unidentified reels

Wild Mountain Thyme

Old Maid of Galway / Lizzy in the Lowground

The Standoff

2005-11-10T15:59:00.000-05:00

Originally posted to MAINE-BIRDS...

This morning: "Our pheasant is back!"
Fifteen seconds later: "There's another one!"

And within a minute we were watching five of them, two cocks and three hens, from the dining room window. They gathered under the burning bush and wandered a bit. They were unfazed by cars passing 20 feet away.

Getting ready for work took precedence over pheasant watching, but during one pass by the window I noticed they were looking pretty skittish. A neighbor across the street? No. Nothing out of the ordinary until... "Hey, Scott, there's a hawk out there."

Indeed there was. Perched in the burning bush, less than a meter away from the five prospective breakfasts, was a large accipiter. For the next ten minutes, I watched a fascinating game of cat and mouse, as the hawk tried to catch one of the pheasants.

The accipiter flew around the bush, but the pheasants kept moving to the opposite side. The hawk tried catching them on foot (first time I've seen a hawk "run" like that), but the prey were too quick. One cock pheasant made a break across the yard, but the hawk was unable to snag it before it reached the blackberry hedge.

Finally, a hen got separated from the group and the hawk made its move. But she turned on him, spread herself out, and the hawk stopped in its tracks. They froze like that for a tense twenty seconds before the hawk decided it didn't know how to finish the job. It flew off into nearby trees, then flushed out of the yard when the neighbor kid went to catch the school bus.

It was a hatch-year accipiter far too big to be a sharpshin. My impression of size put it in the overlap zone of Cooper's and Goshawk. Book illustrations suggest it had the face of a goshawk and the tail of a Cooper's. Even with all that time staring at it, I don't feel confident pinning it down to species. Would a Cooper's Hawk go after a pheasant?

Systems test results

2005-11-04T21:31:00.000-05:00

GuppY's out. Too-frequent updates, language barrier, some question about branding, uncertainty about strength and flexibility.

Joomla's out. Too difficult. Too much rigidity in templates. Overkill?

WordPress sidelined.

Blogger holding its own, despite its shortcomings. For "personal" effort, it will do. Plenty of learning to do elsewhere.

Textpattern building steam. Highly approachable. Textcentricity appeals.

Static is still straightforward. And familiar.

Jury's still out.

FCC input: Futile effort?

2005-10-29T22:53:00.000-04:00

FCC comment submission form. Use it before October 31 on 05-235.

Thanks ARRL for heads up.

[Edit]
My minutes-before-deadline, groggy-headed comment (no. 20051031740215).

Keep the code.
Licensed radio amateurs at every level should know Morse code, allowing them to operate the simplest kind of radio equipment, which is for continuous wave communication. Solid capabilities at a basic level should be a fundamental expectation for every licensed radio amateur.

Oh, no! Web 2.0

2005-10-26T09:56:00.000-04:00

Always wanting to be at least semi-aware of what's coming down the pike in technology, I was drawn to TechSoup's "event" this week (a hosted forum discussion with special guests) promising to "demystify Web 2.0 technologies and illustrate how using new socially oriented technological innovations can help the nonprofit community."

First off, I'm so semi-unaware lately that I thought they were going to be addressing Internet 2. Just as well I was wrong.

To wiki or not to wiki? To start syndication really simply? To tag, make social bookmarks, et cetera... these are the questions.

Nothing "new," really. Just the current wave of actualized concepts being ridden by the tech-savvy (and some not-so-savvy) into the inevitable evolution of the web.

So I got thinking about my own foundering blog, static websites, aborted forays into 2.0 technologies. It's easy to get excited about the potential of these new technologies, but it's another to commit to learning, developing, and introducing them to audiences not ready to embrace them.

Despite my pessimism, I spent an afternoon reviewing free open source content management systems. I found the CMS Matrix to be quite useful, allowing me to compare features among dozens of systems (in a broad sense). (I picked Drupal, Joomla!, Etomite, Serendipity, WordPress, GuppY, Nucleus, and PHP-Nuke.) The nifty try-before-you-install interface at OpenSourceCMS helped me to narrow my scope for populating the matrix.

Of course, nothing is a perfect fit. So I'll adopt something to try it out and hope the shoehorn doesn't break, hope the limitations are surmountable, hope I don't spend more time figuring out the system than using it, and so on.

Will it be bye-bye Blogger, hello WordPress? Welcome to Joomla!? Sink or swim with GuppY? Hope for Serendipity?

Time will tell, 2.0.

Adventure Gamers : Alex Louie

2005-10-16T21:51:00.000-04:00

We got Bad Mojo when it came out. Late 90s were our computer gaming years. Matt introduced us to Myst and off we went... Zork Nemesis, Qin, You Don't Know Jack, Toonstruck, Grim Fandango, The Longest Journey, and a few others that never gained our full attention.
These days, looking for exceptional games for Pocket PC, Bad Mojo popped out as a benchmark. Wacky and clever, reasonably puzzling, well rendered -- something like that would be a welcome amusement.
I'm still looking for the ideal Axim game, but I enjoyed this Alex Louie interview from Adventure Gamers and hope the redux is doing well.

Edit: Toonstruck purchase was June 1998.

UNC Bld-201 NDT server

2005-09-26T19:03:00.000-04:00

TCP/Web100 Network Diagnostic Tool v5.2.1e
running 10s outbound test (client to server) . . . . . 375.97Kb/s
running 10s inbound test (server to client) . . . . . . 3.50Mb/s
running 10s outbound test (client to server) . . . . . 375.97Kb/s
running 10s inbound test (server to client) . . . . . . 3.74Mb/s

For the record, abridged results of two tests of our Comcast throughput on a Monday evening, thanks to the University of North Carolina.

Regenerative Receiver -- Before

2005-09-16T14:53:00.000-04:00

I wanted to build N1BYT's Wheatstone Bridge Regenerative receiver into a tea tin and for the most part I was successful. But mounting the board on the underside of the lid and several bits of hardware on the tin's body caused wires to break when I needed to tweak and adjust the receiver. So I'm switching enclosures. These photos simply record the cute approach. Maybe someday it'll be back in here.

More info on regen receivers: AA3SJ | AA5TB | WD4NKA | N1TEV via VK2TIP

This receiver design was published in QST in August 2001.

Wetlands Protect Coastal Communities

2005-09-09T15:19:00.000-04:00

From the Society of Wetland Scientists

The impact of the hurricane would have been reduced if Louisiana had not lost so many of its coastal wetlands. A map summarizing wetland loss in Louisiana from 1932-2000 is posted on the web site of the National Wetlands Research Center (NWRC) (http://www.nwrc.usgs.gov/). Note the particularly heavy loss south, southwest, and southeast of New Orleans.

The ocean is strong, but natural coastal systems are good at cushioning the impact of massive amounts of rushing water.

Marshes and dunes are not preferred for permanent human habitation, however, so we destroy them and build walls to prevent flooding. It works well, by and large, but Mother Nature can do wonders.

Arguing that New Orleans would have been spared if the Corps of Engineers got the money to bolster dikes misses the point: Living in flood zones is risky. Choosing to take that risk means accepting the consequences. Low-probability events are not no-probability events.

(Earthquakes, tsunamis, unprecedented cold snaps and dry spells, tornados, et cetera... You could say Living is risky.)

Hastert questions how to rebuild New Orleans

2005-09-02T13:53:00.000-04:00

From CNN:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- It makes no sense to spend billions of dollars to rebuild a city that's seven feet under sea level, House Speaker Dennis Hastert said of federal assistance for hurricane-devastated New Orleans.

Excellent point, if ill-timed. But the backlash -- oh, my! How can anyone already be so certain about the efficacy of rebuilding in an automatic deep-flood zone? Go ahead, but let the investment dollars come from the locals, not the feds.

Let's hope I don't make a habit of agreeing with Hastert, though.

Getting it Right

2005-08-24T21:58:00.000-04:00

Greg Writes, thank goodness. I need fine examples and his is one.

I'm especially pleased to have taken the path to CNN from his August 22 entry on X.

...and just how did he get into that dugout?

Morse Code - Another 173 Years?

2005-08-11T22:40:00.000-04:00

Stop the presses - we have arrived! On page 41 of the August issue of Wired magazine:
Wired: Morse code
Tired: texting
Expired: shorthand
(Thanks, Steve, KI0KY)

-- From the Contester's Rate Sheet (ARRL) of 10 August 2005, edited by Ward Silver N0AX.

A quick googling (wired morse code) took me to the premonitive wired/tired title from larry borsato. He's referencing a Times Online article telling of an Australian nonagenerian and his buddy using the code to whip some cell toting whippersnappers in a communications contest.

A similar competition was ably staged later on Leno.

The morse rally is building. Hurrah!

Hams speak an esoteric language, a mix of radio slang and callsigns, and they like to talk about the enduring virtues of Morse code

That's Mark Baard, 3 months before page 41 above, writing in Wired itself. The quote's actually from the second page.

Samuel F.B. Morse's code dates to 1832.

I've known Morse code since 1972. My Quite Happy Grandfather taught me. I've used it often since summer '73.

I love its rhythm, cw dx, and the mystery message within another sender's signals.

The FCC plans to eliminate Morse code as a requirement for all amateur radio license classes. A sad decision, but the code will stick around regardless. Till 2178? Sure. And beyond.

The ARRL, which advocates retaining a test for extra class licenses only, reported the FCC's notice of proposed rule making.

Keep testing on the books, I say. No time to say exactly why right now, though.

cul

dah-dah-di-di-dit
di-di-di-dah-dah

TrackSat Update

2005-08-09T21:21:00.000-04:00

The eVB runtime and TrackSat installed smoothly and the application looks cool. Even gracefully downloaded up-to-date keps. Frequent errors, though, re: division by zero. Not jumping at the chance to register for $19 quite yet.

Jawbreaker milestone

2005-08-08T20:05:00.000-04:00

Finally broke 1000 in Jawbreaker. It was my 100th game.

Would have been nice if the oopdreams Bubblets name was left alone.

EDIT: Broke 500 average barrier at game 226.

Why TrackSat caused me to begin a blog

2005-08-06T20:54:00.000-04:00

TrackSat/CE is satellite tracking software I intend to use on a Dell Axim X30 running Windows Mobile 2003. It's a ZL3AD program I saw listed at AMSAT. I downloaded version 2.20. At the download, the author linked to a required Microsoft file: evb.mspx (?). That link was broken, but I was directed to msvbppc.armv4.cab, which I downloaded. I hope this works in place of eVB dot whatever.

The "future" does not seem bright for eVB if this Microsoft chat was on track.

Native Code Application Development for Windows Embedded Platforms.
Posted March 4, 2003
Chat Date: February 5, 2003
From Host Zoran Galovic, Embedded MVP
Q: Have any decision been made concerning the future of eVB, of any? [sic X 2]
A: eVB is going to disappear. Everything is moving towards VB .NET and eVC is an interim solution.

I'll install the two files in a couple of days.

N7WSB gave TrackSat a decent review for an earlier release at eham.net.

* * * * * * * * * *

It's that quote that caused me to start a blog. Blogger can be a convenient place to collect clips and questions.

It's always best to start at the beginning...

2005-08-06T15:05:00.000-04:00

...then you quickly google "yellow brick road" for images and find Maquilas Que Matan's blog right away. Whatever we may find at the end of the road, it seems an auspicious start.