Lady Duff Gordon (Lucie) traveled to Cape Town in the 1860s, and chronicled her trip with letters home, which are available from various sources as “Letters from the Cape.”
From that volume:
Daily Archives: April 22, 2010
BMG on AGW
OSSOUS computer code
This was expected:
THE US GOVERNMENT has released open source code that it has been working on.
In an unusual move for government transparency, the White House is letting developers get their mitts on its open source code. The US executive branch has been working on its custom code as part of its ongoing efforts to “develop an open platform for Whitehouse.gov.”
“This code is available for anyone to review, use, or modify. We’re excited to see how developers across the world put our work to good use in their own applications,” it announced.
H/T/ Virgil Samms
(That was Open Source Software of the United States)
The Plank’s Constant
In the US, political parties have what is called a “platform” which is a list of assertions … “we want this” and “we want that” sort of assertions. The “platform” is made up, quaintly, of “planks” with each plank being about one issue. Like for my local Democratic Farm Labor party unit, one of our Planks is to get the damn road fixed over at Devil’s Triangle, a particularly bad intersection down on Route 169. That’s a local plank, but if we go to a party event, and a gubernatorial candidate is answering questions, she or he is expected to know what the heck is being talked about if someone brings up “Devil’s Triangle.”
Arlo Guthrie Falls Through the Ice
So, it seems that Arlo Guthrie was hauling firewood or something with his tractor out on his place in western Mass, and he took the usual shortcut across the pond. The pond was too deep for the tractor to drive in unless, of course, it was frozen, as it always was in mid January. And, as Arlo drove his tractor across the pond, in mid January, the ice gave way bit by bit, in stages, and his tractor went in. Somewhat comically, or so he tells it.
Continue reading Arlo Guthrie Falls Through the Ice
Pete Seeger joins the Nature Conservation Club (NCC)
The flames were so hot that we could feel it on our faces over 300 feet away as we stood near the corner of Delaware and Whitehall avenues. At first we gawked at the burning factory from about 100 feet away, but a large explosion caused us all to turn and run. But not too far. While watching from some 200 feet away, the police came by and pushed us back to the 300 foot mark just before several explosions in a row came along. The stuff that came down on us out of the sky was cooled enough to not burn, and some of the bits were recognizable as small fragments of colored billiard balls.
Continue reading Pete Seeger joins the Nature Conservation Club (NCC)
Earth Day has special significance this year
The first Earth Day was a red letter day in the long, hard struggle to make being good to the environment … to the Earth … normal instead of a fringe idea held only by quirky college professors and stoned-out hippies. This year, the first significant health care insurance reform bill was passed and it will be a red letter event in a long, hard struggle to make universal quality heath coverage and care normal instead a fringe idea held only by Kenyan born socialist Negros from Chicago. Or whatever the teabaggers are calling it now. So today, at the beginning of a true change in how we do things, we can look back and reflect on another, similar (yet different) change in the way we do things.
Continue reading Earth Day has special significance this year