Policy Change

Sorry things have been quite around here for a few days - they haven't been quiet in real life - school starts tomorrow. At some point, I'll try to post some pictures of our visit to the Yolo County Fair this past Saturday.

School starts tomorrow and other teachers at this school encountered problems when students posted to their MySpace page.

As a result, I have changed the settings on my blog so that all comments are now moderated. Sorry. It's not a change I like and perhaps one day things will change, but for now, this is needed to keep me safe and fully employed.

Please keep commenting. I love comments! Just don't be hurt when the comments don't appear right away. Thanks for understanding.

Olive Cheese Crescents - First Draft

This occurred to me earlier today, so I tried it out tonight and it was a hit.

Slice some black olives.

Open a can of crescent rolls - I used garlic-flavored ones. Open them up and separate out into triangles as directed.

Spread them with cream cheese - as much as I like Garden Vegetable flavored, I used whipped regular cream cheese. It's the same price and it's easier to spread.

Arrange some olive slices on the cream cheese.

Roll up the crescent rolls as directed. Bake as directed.

Enjoy.
Like I said, they were a hit - but, to be honest, I was a little underwhelmed. Next time, I think I'll add some shredded Sargento Mexican Four Cheese Blend, and maybe some Italian seasoning. . .

I'll let you know how it turns out, but if you come up with an innovation, please do share.

Mule Racing in the Desert

*Sorry, if you're looking for news on the Democratic Primary or the California State Fair, this isn't it. Go back and refine your search.

The Pentagon is developing autonomous battlefield robots for combat.
I worry that
1. Americans will be over-eager to accept anything they think will diminish the need to put soldiers in harm's way.
2. Target designation is at least as significant stumbling-block as autonomous overland navigation.
3.Once technical difficulties are worked out, we will still face the moral and ethical difficulties of employing an expendable fighting force against human foes.

You have undoubtedly heard of the Pentagon-sponsored race in the desert where university researcher, gearheads, and hackers compete to get a car from point A to point B without driver or remote control over a designated route.

The idea is that the military wants an autonomous vehicle to navigate unknown terrain in battle. The races started in 2004, and for a while, no entrant managed to even finish the course. Some died of engine failure ten feet in and some wandered away from the course half-a-mile from the finish line. Eventually, though, some entrants did finish and it has since become a genuine race. Last year, five entrants crossed the finish line. This year, first place gets a US$2,000,000 prize. The top twenty (of thirty-six entrants) go on to compete again in November.

Turns out, the Pentagon is looking for urban navigation capabilities as well as desert.

The robotic vehicles will have to follow California traffic law while performing such tasks as merging into traffic, making sharp turns and avoiding obstacles such as utility poles, trees and parked cars -- without the help of humans or remote control.

At this point, maybe you're wondering where all this is headed - what the pentagon intends to do with the winners' technologies?

Meet MULE - (Multifunction Utility/Logistics and Equipment Vehicle) I found this on IGN, a gaming site. The Pentagon means to put robots in combat alongside conventional infantry. Some of you may have the initial reaction "Hurray! Robots can take the risk so our soldiers don't have to." Note, though, that these robots will be fighting alongside conventional soldiers.

These descendants of technology that was running off the road not so long ago are now being sized up to wear machine guns and anti-tank missiles. Friendly fire is already the biggest killer of our forces overseas and I worry that this technology may take a while to get the kinks worked out. Moreover, assuming that we can quickly develop a means to designate allied soldiers so that the MULE won't shoot them, how much longer will it take to teach them to differentiate between crazy old ladies with George Bush effigies and teenage boys with rocket-propelled grenade launchers?

Don't get me wrong - I'm in favor of technological development and in favor of military technology in general. I believe that the United States' absurdly overwhelming military might keeps us from having to wipe out unwitting followers of a bunch of dictators who might otherwise do dumb stuff they shouldn't. I even like that the Pentagon sponsored a contest and made a gameshow of military technology development. This will undoubtedly save us all some money.

I also feel though, that autonomous target designation is a scary bucket of worms. The robot must choose enemy combatants from an array of friendly forces, bystanders, enemy combatants, inanimate objects, and more. With the perennial uncertainty of cheap farm labor, robotics researchers have been working for years to develop a machine that can identify and harvest ripe apples without damaging them or picking green ones.

The problems are by no means insurmountable. We will put robots on the battlefield. There will be technical problems that cause unwanted deaths. We will overcome those technical problems. These are things I'm sure of.

When we've worked out all the kinks, though, I fear that we will have a fighting force we can quickly dispatch to any part of the world which will suppress resistance and allow us to impose our will on our neighbors without fear of losing U.S. lives. I fear that we are on our way to a guilt-free conquest force.

My reading of science-fiction literature has trained me to consider the moral and ethical implications of unlikely situations brought upon civilization by the advancement of technology. Now, the U.S. military is forcing me to apply that training.

I ask you to consider this: If we'd had MULEs in time for the first Gulf War, wouldn't we have used them? Would we have used them in Vietnam? How much sooner would we have entered World War II if we hadn't feared for American lives? The Spanish-American War? The Mexican-American "War?"

More importantly, what wars have we simply not fought because we couldn't afford the loss of life?

What wars might we fight in the future because - well, Hell - why not? We got the MULEs!

Battlefield robots will soon be a reality that some people will rejoice in and others will bemoan. Technical difficulties will arise and be overcome. Ethical concerns over their use will outlive all my readers.

*I made the disclaimer at the outset that this was not an article about the Democratic Primaries or the mule racing at the California State Fair. Likewise, if you were looking for stories about a (non-military) combative mule, you were probably looking for this.

Blogroll

If you've seen more than three blogs in your lifetime, you've seen a blog with a long list of hotlinks down one side - hotlinked words like "Blahg," and "Tootsie's Tongue-Tied Toaster," and "Buble-Gum." You've likely never followed any of these hyperlinks.

That's fine.

Don't feel bad.

I'm convinced that they're not meant to be followed. They're meant to be fallowed. These links are there to recognize friends, business partners, occasional unwanted acquaintances, and people whose blogs the blog author looked at one time. They're there to say "There, there. I'll post a link to your site. Who knows? Someone might read it."

In my quickly evaporating Summer vacation, I've been checking out the blogs in the blogrolls of blogs that I read, including 32 Flavors (a frightfully long bogroll) and mosker (a more reserved and believable one). (Sorry Suzanne and Mom - your lists are positively conservative - it's like you only listed those blogs you actually read regularly.)

Anywho, I've discovered several blogs this way:

Stainless Steel Droppings is written by a voracious reader who is also a thoughtful consumer and reviewer of film - and of the kind of books and film I tend to be interested in.

Bitch Phd. is funny, feminist, free-thinking, foul-mouthed, and lots of other good things that don't start with the letter f. Very thought-provoking.

Best of all, my current new favorite, Blogography. Good photos, funny comics, terrific rants, varied topics and milk-out-your-nose-funny observations. Well-written.

Dang I'm Hungry

And this looks good.
Oh, yeah, and Veggie Meal Plans has moved and spruced up. Your old bookmarks and links should still work, though, so no effort, just salivating.

Revision: I just realized as a looked at the published post, it actually looks kind of gross if you don't know that it's Black Bean Tostada with Mango Salsa and Fresh Veggies.

After After Patio Pictures

So you've already seen the before, during, and after pictures of the new patio, both here and on my Mom's blog, but now I have two more to show off:
We picked up the canopy at Wal-Mart yesterday for about $300.

My New Classroom

So, I met with one of my department heads this morning; got my class schedule; got a brief outline on the year plan for the department; got some helpful advice, and I got some time (And some help, thank you Mom) to put together my classroom. I'll have tables this year, and while that was less than a stellar success last year, I have higher hopes this time around.

I'm excited about this year for a number of reasons: I have my own classroom, and I have it before the kids show up. (Last year, for those who don't know, I didn't start until the second day of school.) I get to teach a whole curriculum this year, including literature, instead of just grammar, spelling and vocabulary. That's cool. I'll get to meet a whole new group of kids and work in an environment totally new to me, and in a way, that's nice, too.

I have a mix of Hispanic and Anglo kids - no Hmong this year unfortunately, but I'll have a mix of struggling kids and kids at grade level. I'll have mostly eighth-graders and one section of seventh-graders. Best of all, from all that I can tell, I'll have a group of co-workers genuinely committed to working together as a team. I saw last year just how effective that can be and I wouldn't want to have to be without it again - though, with a greater number of kids who are academically successful, I can only imagine the potential for terrific things.

It's an hour away, and that's already a drag since I'm not a fan of commuting, but maybe I'll try an audiobook or something. I look forward to a great year and I'll try to stay close enough to being on-schedule to give you an occasional update.

Stay Tuned

I'll try to post later today with new patio pictures and an update on the new school.

300

It's been almost a week since we saw this, and I just can't get it off my mind. I think that I'll have to watch it again. The action, while stylized, was mind-bogglingly impressive. The story was clear without being simplistic. The characters were engaging
- and beautiful. The theme (freedom good, tyranny bad) was familiar and delivered so convincingly that I mused to Shel that perhaps every Marine should be required to own a copy.

Oh, yeah, and while Rodrigo Santoro is only 6'2", Xerxes is terrifyingly large.

Cooler Weather

Some really good friends from Seattle just stopped by for a visit en route to Disneyland on Saturday. It was wonderful to get to catch up with them, since we don't get to see much of one another since they moved up there. They got to enjoy a bit of our California heat, which I'm told is a nice occasional treat.

Now, we get their weather, and I couldn't be happier. It's 60 degrees out and it's delightful. The AC is turned off. I'm really pleased. August is usually my least favorite time of year in the valley, despite vacation, because it's just so bleeding hot - usually.

I think I'll throw on a sweater and take the dogs for a walk.
Update: The sun came out :(
Oh well; it was nice while it lasted, and Winter will be here soon.

To Be Like Trixie

Trixie posted yet another personality test and multiple-intelligences profile.

So before you ask, yes, as a matter of fact, if Trixie jumped off a bridge, I think I might look into it too. Who knows? Maybe it's just underrated. As an aside, Shel's came out INFJ (Confidant) and it turns out, unsurprisingly, that she is a Bodily/Kinesthetic, Naturalistic, and Verbal/Linguistic learner.

Before and After Patio Pictures

Before. . .

And after. . .
This has taken all Summer (like as in March 31st through today), but I think it looks pretty good. Tomorrow, we begin looking for a patio cover.
Update: My mom scooped my story! Worse, her pictures look better than mine.

Selling my Body

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