DVR

O'Reilly's Make tells all.

Veterinary standards ... only for dogs?

"Current practice for lethal injection for execution fails to meet veterinary standards" --Dr Leonardis Koniaris, University of Miami

According to a BBC Story...

Prisoners are 'aware' during executions

Prisoners are alone in the death chamber when they die

Prisoners executed by lethal injection in the US may have been aware of what was happening to them, researchers claim.

A team from the University of Miami looked at information on anaesthesia and awareness in prisoners.

They suggest some suffer unnecessarily, and claim standards do not meet those for putting animals down.

The researchers, writing in the Lancet, call for the use of lethal injection to cease to prevent "unnecessary cruelty".

Lichen, lichen, lichen & the occasional shrimp

Lichen and lichen; lichen and people; lichen and wildlife; more lichen.

Lichen and wildlife?

Bryoria fremontii

David Friesan, who lives with the Ulkatcho Indian Band in western British Columbia, recently decided to try Bryoria. He put some to soak in a lake overnight, and in the morning it was covered with freshwater shrimp. So he boiled the whole thing into a tasty soup.

The insulating qualities of Bryoria as fiber made it somewhat useful to the Lillooet and the Nlaka'pamux (Thompson Indians) in British Columbia, who twined it together into clothing when they couldn't get animal skins. It must have been scratchy when dry and soggy when wet.

Lichen and Slow Food?
An overnight soak qualifies.

Shuttle :: All Quiet on the Western Front

I just picked up & set up my new Shuttle. The scoop:

• I wanted a quiet machine
• I wanted a 64-bit AMD processor
• I wanted a small machine
• I wanted a near portable, but something something without all the compromises of a laptop -- especially support for a good monitor & keyboard; something suiable for taking to a conference or vacation
• I wanted great graphics --- perhaps for a game, but more likely for...
• rapid photo processing
• Revit use
• CAD/CAM use

I could have ordered the machine on line, but instead I spend a tiny bit more and had a local shop build it -- they build a lot of Shuttles for the gaming market. Good decision; they were fast & now I have some local experts who have a stake in keeping my machine happy.

Price is a fraction of the price of a comporable, but bigger and louder, machine from HP or (ugh) Dell. Better yet, all the components are name components & the system is designed as a system -- its not a bucket holding whatever components happend to have the best prices the week I ordered.

Of course, I'd not be quite so happy if I'd not also picked up a nice Eizo monitor to complement the Shuttle.

Lies, damn lies and salmon

The NYT has a disturbing, but predictable, story about fake wild salmon for sale in NYC.

"All wild salmon in Canada is farm raised"
??

Get Perpendicular

Hitachi is about to give us 10* storage on microdrives. They also are kind enough to provide a flash explanation of it all.

• Need 30,000 songs for your iPod?
• Bittorrent to the rescue!

20 gigs of video/photos on a microdrive. Better get a camera with serious mega pixels.

[Thanks to /.]

Tarrazu Peaberry :: Costa Rican

Roasted at the standard' Sweet Maria's settings for full city, this is a nice cup!
But, far from the best so far -- unfortunately my record keeping is deficient.
So far I'm not using a scale & I think the quantity was a bit small so it may have heated up a bit faster than idea. Or not. I'm not experienced with this bean, but the chaf quantity was small. Perhaps it never really got hot enough?

The nice folks at Peet's can still rest easy.

Satellite Images on Google Maps

Wonderful integration. Great demonstration of JavaScript remoting from google. More resolution please!

Outriggers for Kayaks

What we need for kiting.
Chesapeake Light Craft has them & sells rudder kits as well. Looks like good starting point.
410-267-0137
See Sea Kayaker April 2005 for review of other rigs, but these are all aimed at sails, not kites.

GQ Lupi, Welcome

...anybody there want to come out and play?