Ken Martin's Blog

German scientists have discovered a new source of methane, a greenhouse gas that is second only to carbon dioxide in its impact on climate change.

The culprits are plants.

From here. It makes me think we should maybe just slow down and keep improving our data before we go making any big changes. Besides, even if global warming really hits, it seems we have a good chance of making it another 55 million years. That's not too bad. :)

Today local talk radio host Joe Soucheray got his hair cut by a friend of ours, Veronica. He discussed it on-air.

Here is the mp3. Here's the wav file, for those not in this century.

If you have trouble with the mp3 link:

• Mac users, control-click and choose "Open in iTunes"
• PC users, right-click and choose "Save to Disk"

Note to self: It looks like WebStar messes up the mime when serving mp3s. Mimes of the world, revolt!

I had to get this "out there". Everyone figures on seeing an Intel-based machine - maybe a laptop. And a more media-center-ish Mac. I'm throwing a Bluetooth-enable iPod in the mix, too. Seems like a no-brainer.

UPDATE: Shows what I know. :)

Grrr. Where is the Media Mac?! Well, anyway, check out the newest if you're interested. Nice to see things get faster, but in general... I dunno... yawn.

All great change in America begins at the dinner table.

As much as I like to play with technology, I often feel like I belong to a different era. I'm sure that's in part because I only have a limited and overly positive view of times past, but I think there's something else to it, too. A few days ago, I went to work with one of my clients. He's an older man who's on the tail end of a successful career, still ambitious enough to be developing a small but growing internet business. "Ken, my boy!" he greeted me. We worked on a number of issues and improvements concerning his web site. No stress. We were working together. I made money; he got what he needed; everyone came out better. Afterward we went out to lunch across the street at a small restaurant and antique store. The ladies' Red Hat Club was there chattering away. It's a small town. Everyone seems to know, and be on good terms with, everyone else.

Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.

An Advent calendar for web programming geeks.

Well, it turns out this page was crashing for my mom and Helen; both on Mac OS 10.3 using Safari. I thought it might be the Greek text via Unicode below, but it turns out it was the graphic of Jack (below) which I'd saved from Apple's Preview! Bad JPEG. Hmph. Well, it's fixed now. FYI.

My mom is cool. For Christmas, she donated a dairy goat in our name via Samaritan's Purse. It will supply milk, butter, and cheese, and the "surplus can be sold to pay for other essentials like medicine and schooling". Very cool.

Helen and I got a rare movie date, and went to see King Kong. One of us wanted to; the other kindly agreed. We both left impressed. Very well done. Stunning visually. Sometimes a bit much on the modern gooey/buggy creepiness for me, but that's just the way things are done nowadays for some reason, and it wasn't too bad. There was definitely a Lord of the Rings feel to parts of it, visually.

We saw it on a super-mega-deluxe-biggie-sized screen. We were up a little closer than usual to the screen, which I normally wouldn't like, but in this case I did. The screen was so big I had to turn my head to see different things, like really being outside. They also had the super-wizza sound system, but the whole surround sound thing just doesn't add to the picture in general for me. Except for the very deep bass, which isn't directional and adds a lot, most of it is just distracting to me; like it's trying so hard to seem real that it screams fake. (My apologies to all you aspiring soundscape artists out there.)

Casting and acting was brilliant. The filling out of the story was very good. My arm will bear the bruises of Helen's anxiety for a while.