Loner Updates

Sorry for all the light blogging - I've been in a frenzy building the new company/web application. I also installed (with a friend) a new carrying beam in the basement - the house is far more stable and level now.

In the meantime - check out the following links

• British Health Services uses private doctors for their own people. It's a lot like American public school teachers sending their own kids to private school. It's a dramatic lack of faith in the system, but I suppose the government knows best, just like they say.
• In Nebraska, the safe haven laws, usually intended for infants, can be used for children up to age 18. People have been coming in from out of state to abandon their teenagers.
  

Home is where they feed me

Assuming no one calls from the found dog signs I'll be putting up tomorrow, it looks like Drex has a new playmate. Her name is tentatively Frida. I think someone abandoned her today. She's very sweet and submissive and gets along surprisingly well with Drex. They both seem to have agreed that he is the Alpha of the two. Beyond that he doesn't really care. Hopefully she can stop him from freaking out during thunderstorms.

A tree grows at the Freedom House

I just planted a Royal Empress sapling; it's currently about one handspan tall. We'll see if it grows as fast as the experts say.

Incidentally, I got it over the internet, which makes everything available online these days...

I haven't been blogging much, but not much has been going on besides work these days.

Saturday rapid fire

• Dean Kamen's Robot Arm - simply incredible. Why Kamen isn't America's most highly regarded public citizen is a mystery.
• The liberal media follows me around an takes notes - I had this conversation with some friends last week, it's an odd coincidence. I don't cry at movies but my the movies that come closes are The Virgin Spring and On The Beach.
• More HDR Photography
• Groupware is bad
• Russia's Hypermortality -

  Moreover, a large proportion of the Russian workforce may be too drunk to function. Almost one male death in three is alcohol-related. “The increase of alcohol consumption from 10 to 15 liters and an almost simultaneous increase in mortality suggests the central role played by alcohol to mortality, in average up to 426,000 per year in 1980-2001. Alcohol-related deaths total 29.6 percent of total mortality for men and 17.0 percent for women,” the report says.

• My next project is going to be something like this
  

Update on the two murders across the street

A news update here. It seems that there were two killers, and also that they planned to torch the house when they were done. Scary business.

For your viewing pleasure

Just fyi - still no real word on the double murder across the street.

To make everyone feel better, check out this Craig Shirky talk on the internet

Meeting the trouble halfway

So now it seems that the "incident", which is to say, two murders, that happened 100 feet away from my house was a drug deal gone sour, and not a home invasion. That does make me feel a bit better. The shooter(s) being caught would seal the day nicely.

More info on the blue lights

Here is the article. Scary business. The article does describe the neighborhood as "Upscale".

The night the blue lights kept the neighbors up

The street is taped off in front of my house, there are three police cars to the left and right of my house, and the church parking lot across the street is cordoned off with yellow police tape. A news van was here too (they left after about an hour). I've heard something of what happened, but I'll link to the news story when it comes out in the morning.

The Freedom House sessions

Yesterday marked the first of what will hopefully be many Freedom House sessions, this time with Rocksploitation. Recordings will be available soon.

The bookcase is nearly done

I still need to come up with the footer, but here it is, it's eight feet tall by four feet wide.