The Things He Carried - The Atlantic (November 2008)

This is what I've long thought about "security" at airports now, that it's just for show and does nothing for true security. All the current TSA guidelines do is make life harder for the average and even not-so-average travelers. Real terrorists, however, will always find a way.

The Things He Carried - The Atlantic (November 2008)

We only attack what's been done in the past (like the whole liquids brought on board thing, which seems more about raising the economic status of terminal shops than anything to do with security), and we do nothing about prevention/detection.

Our solution most likely will be further harassment of grandmothers and children.

Writing

So far this year, I have not managed to write a great deal on this blog. Nothing much to say, I suppose, other than it's just been a way tough year for me, possibly the hardest one ever, and I just haven't felt like writing a whole bunch. And not being around a computer to type up the things that do pop into my mind.

Driving to work this morning, I was thinking about National Novel Writing Month (affectionately "shortened" to NaNoWriMo) starting up Nov. 1, and how I'll be either driving to VA or in VA for the first few days, but I should write anywhere I can, not just in TX. Then I thought that I should get some voice recognition software for my laptop. Fifteen hundred words a day is a whole lot of typing; dictation is faster-- even with corrections. I'm a decent typist, but not that fast, about 40-50 words a minute (if I know what I'm typing). I also thought about getting one of those digital voice recorders that will transcribe into your computer using voice recognition software (kind of cool and geeky). So many decisions.

I also don't currently have the discipline of writing daily, so I thought I would at least blog every day to help inspire that. We'll see how that goes. I'm also thinking about cheating on my novel-writing by starting it now, just so it's not quite so ambitious a task, as I will give up rather easily. At the very least, I can start planning it now, characters, settings, situations, plot, etc. All in concert to produce my first unreadable writing for fun. Oh yeah, this is for fun. Again, check the "we'll see" column for that one.

Well, it's late or early, depending upon how you look at it. Rather than look, I should just close my eyes and go to sleep. I will after I post and put my laptop out of my bed.

So, we don't know science

Got this clip from failblog.org.



While there might be things to wonder about in our water, that it creates rainbows when the light hits it is something that should reassure us, not cause us alarm.