All posts by Jack

fandom, General, golf, travel

Updated Scottish Trip

I have set up the Photo Galleries to segment the trip into different galleries per sector rather than trying to cram them all into one gallery. So, I have the: St Andrews-Touristy stuff, St Andrews- golf, London, Glasgow, Worldcon, and Scotland.

Next I will put all the links into an html page and link to it on the side bar. As I go through the different galleries, I see that I may want to distribute the pictures better so I don’t have 70 pictures in one section and only one section in the gallery.

General

Compassionate Conservatism

American Red Cross
The Red Cross notes that they are not in New Orleans after Katrina at the request of the state Homeland Security Department.

And there are other reports that people are not being allowed to leave New Orleans on foot. No resources going in and no people going out. That sounds compassionate and conservative.

I was listening to an interview on NPR the other day with the author of a book on the Mississippi 1927 flood (or maybe it was this one). On one of the bluffs outside a Mississipppi town, everyone, black and white, gathered high and dry to await rescue. When it came time to evacuate, the whites were taken and the blacks were left. Evidently, the plantation owners were afraid if the sharecroppers were evacuated they would never come back and they would lose their labor force.

I wonder if that sort of thought is going on now.

General, Politics

Government Saw Flood Risk but Not Levee Failure

Government Saw Flood Risk but Not Levee Failure – New York Times

One line jumped out at me here: Under the circumstances, Mr. Becker said, the government response “has been nothing short of heroic.” I think they need to find a new definition of ‘heroic’. Mr. Becker is with the Red Cross.

It looks like there was enough incompetence all around in this fiasco. The local and state officials need to take the brunt of the blame since it was their city under siege. They shouldn’t be counting on the Feds to do all, or any, of the immediate relief work. If they can’t even take care of their own citizens then they shouldn’t be in office.

The Feds should help support the aftermath, the clean-up, not the immediate crisis. But, it is New Orleans, The Big Easy.

Geek Stuff

Lessons Learned

I think I am in the process of learning a lesson with Web Gallery. Rather than putting the entire trip into one gallery, I should have divided it up into St Andrews-tourist, St Andrews-Golf, London, Worldcon, and Scotland-non-Worldcon. The time it takes to update the entire Gallery when I make changes to just a bit is very long. I think it is examining every single page whether it has new content or not.

I think the next lesson I learn will be that I can’t split an existing gallery in 5-6 smaller ones. I will look into that when the latest changes have finished publishing.

General, Politics

Teaching of Creationism Is Endorsed in New Survey

Teaching of Creationism Is Endorsed in New Survey – New York Times

And we should be teaching Astrology in school because so many Americans read their daily horoscopes in the paper (or online).

What are these people thinking? Science is not based on a belief system. You don’t teach some scientific theory because you believe it to be true. You teach it because you are able to construct a logical thesis based on empirical evidence that has been tested and re-tested and reviewed by the community to reach the conclusions that are reached.

K-12 is not a proving ground for teaching hypotheses. Theories should be taught in K-12, not hypotheses. There is a difference between the two and if you don’t know what it is, look it up.

Why don’t we make π = 3? That will certainly simplify a lot of calculations.