Main page
« June 2006
August 2006 »

July 31, 2006

AC, finally; 'Escape route' from global warming? Men who don't work (?)

Bought an air conditioner today. It's not in, not until we get brackets to spare the storm sash in the morning. We'll head into the cool cave by nightfall, if all goes well. ("Uncle!") This did it:

.Forecast discussion, National Weather Service..HIGH CONFIDENCE FOR TWO DAYS OF DANGEROUS HEAT AND HUMIDITY AND EXCESSIVE HEAT WARNING POSTED FOR MOST OF AREA TUE THRU WED WITH INCREASING LIKLIHOOD OF HEAVY OR EXCESSIVE RAINS PARTS OF REGION MASS PIKE SOUTHWARD THU INTO EARLY FRI...

Scientist publishes 'escape route' from global warming

A Nobel Prize-winning scientist has drawn up an emergency plan to save the world from global warming, by altering the chemical makeup of Earth's upper atmosphere. Professor Paul Crutzen, who won a Nobel Prize in 1995 for his work on the hole in the ozone layer, believes that political attempts to limit man-made greenhouse gases are so pitiful that a radical contingency plan is needed.

In a polemical scientific essay to be published in the August issue of the journal Climate Change, he says that an "escape route" is needed if global warming begins to run out of control.

Professor Crutzen has proposed a method of artificially cooling the global climate by releasing particles of sulphur in the upper atmosphere, which would reflect sunlight and heat back into space. The controversial proposal is being taken seriously by scientists because Professor Crutzen has a proven track record in atmospheric research.

Nature seems to have shown us this idea:

His plan is modelled partly on the Mount Pinatubo volcanic eruption in 1991, when thousands of tons of sulphur were ejected into the atmosphere causing global temperatures to fall.

Pinatubo generated sulphate aerosols in the atmosphere which cooled the Earth by 0.5C on average in the following year. The sulphate particles did this by acting like tiny mirrors, preventing a portion of incoming sunlight from reaching the ground.

Professor Crutzen calculated that a relatively small amount of sulphur could cause similar cooling if it was released at high enough altitudes into the stratosphere, rather than at the lower altitude of the troposphere. Weather balloons or even artillery shells could be used to carry the sulphur.

Men Not Working, and Not Wanting Just Any Job: Talk shows will be all over this one, I bet. It begins,

ROCK FALLS, Ill. — Alan Beggerow has stopped looking for work. Laid off as a steelworker at 48, he taught math for a while at a community college. But when that ended, he could not find a job that, in his view, was neither demeaning nor underpaid.

So instead of heading to work, Mr. Beggerow, now 53, fills his days with diversions: playing the piano, reading histories and biographies, writing unpublished Western potboilers in the Louis L’Amour style — all activities once relegated to spare time. He often stays up late and sleeps until 11 a.m.

“I have come to realize that my free time is worth a lot to me,” he said....

Well, yeah.

The next wave of trophy wives: Working wives.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 10:57 PM | Permalink

July 29, 2006

Times endorses Lamont, not Lieberman; Grow a chair; BlogHer

It just shouldn't be 82 degrees in New England near 11 o'clock at night. Yuck.

NYT endorses Ned Lamont over Sen. Joe Lieberman in the Aug. 8 Democratic primary in Conn. A Senate Race in Connecticut is tough, and blunt. After documenting Sen. Lieberman's recent public stands, the paper concludes,

There is no use having a senator famous for getting along with Republicans if he never challenges them on issues of profound importance.

If Mr. Lieberman had once stood up and taken the lead in saying that there were some places a president had no right to take his country even during a time of war, neither he nor this page would be where we are today. But by suggesting that there is no principled space for that kind of opposition, he has forfeited his role as a conscience of his party, and has forfeited our support.

Therefore,

We endorse Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary for Senate in Connecticut.

This may be a watershed moment, especially for the Times.

Related: After Sluggish Start, Lieberman Heeds Alarms

Trunk topiary : How To Grow A Chair: An Interview with Richard Reames. The art of training tree trunks while young.

You're the pros: This essay in Esquire by Chuck Klosterman is actually about a movie: The "Snakes on a Plane" Problem: The tragedy of the best titled movie in the history of film. But...

I worked in newspapers for eight years, right when that industry was starting to disintegrate. As such, we spent a lot of time talking with focus groups, forever trying to figure out what readers wanted. And here is what they wanted: everything. They wanted shorter stories, but also longer stories. They wanted more international news, but also more local news. And more in-depth reporting. And more playful arts coverage. And less sports. And more sports. And maybe some sports on the front page.

When it comes to mass media, it's useless to ask people what they want; nobody knows what they want until they have it.

You have to make your ideas, and hope some people will respond to them.

Portal:
Jeneane Sessum is all over BlogHer, the West Coast gathering of women bloggers going on right now.

See Liz Henry's running notes at HuffPost, too. The "get naked" post is women talking about the blog voices we put out there.

Happy birthday, Doc Searls! In Miles to Go he looks (briefly) at life and death, and moves on. We were born 27 days apart; I'm older. Sunday's his day.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 8:43 PM | Permalink | Comments 2

July 28, 2006

Make your own 'Coke,' with recipe; Advice blog is out there

A couple of quick links for a busy Friday morning here. We're rolling out a new publishing system today which will eventual replace our 1972 Atex mainframe system, so there's lots to do, even though only one section is tiptoeing into the future.

Male your own Coca-Cola. Guardian (U.K.) story includes a recipe for 54 liters. Not as easy as blueberry muffins.

Advice blog by an astrologer: Elsa Elsa not only tells the lovelorn what to do, she also tells them why.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 11:44 AM | Permalink

July 27, 2006

Cindy Sheehan buys land in Crawford, Tx.; Sunflower in your face; Dylan, Newport, 1965; Ode to YouTube

10:56 a.m.
Sheehan buys plot in Crawford with son's insurance money, the Fort Worth Star Telegram reports:

...The Gold Star Families for Peace says on its Web site that its members will again flock to Crawford in August to protest Bush's wartime decisions. Leader Cindy Sheehan is again demanding to meet with the president -- a replay of a year ago -- garnering worldwide attention and making Sheehan, the mother of a fallen soldier, the most familiar face of anti-war protesters.

But Sheehan and Mark Mattlage, owner of the 1-acre property where protesters have been allowed to gather, have had a falling out over scheduling and increased costs for liability insurance.

So, Sheehan has purchased a 5-acre plot in Crawford, saying she did so with some of the insurance money she received after her son, Casey Sheehan, was killed in Iraq....

Paul Bourgeois, one of the paper's bloggers (Startle Grams), reacts to the news of her purchase of five acres in President Bush's vacation spot (There goes the neighborhood):

...It intrigues how and why she was transformed from a grieving mama to an anti-war icon. I suspect she's become the tool of a movement.

And to think, all this could have been avoided had George, rather than shunning her, offered a hug and a sympathetic ear to a mother who just lost her boy...

Who's tooling whom?

5:03 a.m.

My own Fibonacci sunflower. Check out the spirals:

For some, mathematics is a language; they're fluent, can converse in it. While equations don't speak to me, the sunflower shows me the math in the structure of nature. My right brain gets it.

Related: Guggenheim Study Suggests Arts Education Benefits Literacy Skills.

Electric chords: As the Newport Folk Festival looms again (Aug. 4-6), I overhead yet another conversation yesterday about What Dylan Did in 1965. I was there, standing on a chair, dancing to Maggie's Farm.

You can see more of this night here on YouTube.

The YouTube Devolution: Tom Scocca in the New York Observer. The old TV shows didn't die, they hung on waiting for the Web.

Video had always been more elusive. It defeated secondhand reports; a critic might describe a scene, but the moving image was unquotable. There was no way to share that passing experience. All you could do was write about it or talk about it. The original moment was transformed by the telling into something else—probably something funnier or more original or more shocking. But now the moments—all the moments, even the ones thought lost—have begun looping back around for public inspection.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 10:56 AM | Permalink

July 26, 2006

Dispatches from Beirut; Neocons want (dove?) Condi dumped

In this hot, busy summer, I've been ducking the chaos called Middle East news. Thanks to the tireless wood s lot (Canadian Mark Woods), I've found a way into some understanding of this.

He points to London Review of Books, which provides three Dispatches from Beirut in its current online edition.

In Siege Notes, Rasha Salti writes from Internet cafes.

...This is all bringing back memories of 1982. It was summer then as well. The Israeli army marched through the south and besieged Beirut. For three months, the US administration kept urging the Israeli military to act with restraint. And the Israelis assured them they were doing so. The PLO command was in West Beirut then. I felt safe with the handsome fighters. How I miss them. Between Hizbullah and the Lebanese army I don’t feel safe. We are exposed, defenceless, pathetic. And I am older, more aware of danger. I am 37 years old and scared. The sound of the warplanes frightens me. There is no more fight left in me. And there is no solidarity, no real cause.

I am also pissed off because no one realises how hard the postwar reconstruction was. Hariri did not work miracles. Every single bridge and tunnel and highway, the airport runways, all of these things were built at three times their real cost, because of kickbacks. We accepted this just to get things done. We wanted only to have a society which stood on its feet, more or less. A thriving Arab civil society. Schools were sacrificed for roads to service neglected rural areas or so that Syrian officers could get richer, and we accepted that the road was desperately needed, and that there was the ‘precarious national consensus’ to protect. Social safety nets were given up, as was universal healthcare, unions were broken and co-opted, public spaces taken over, and we bowed our heads and acquiesced. Palestinian refugees were hidden from sight, and we accepted it. In exchange we had a secular country where Hizbullah and the Lebanese forces could coexist and fight their fights in parliament, not with bullets. We bit our tongues, we protested and were defeated, we took to the streets, defied curfews, time after time, to protect that modicum of civil rights, that semblance of democracy. And it takes just one air raid for the fruits of all our sacrifices to be blown to smithereens.

Do I see or do I remember? Elias Khoury writes about the Israeli invasions of Lebanon

In the 1980s, the Americans encouraged Iraq to contain Iran by means of a crushing war, just as they gave Syria the task of imposing peace on Lebanon. The fear now is that the US has given Israel a green light to destroy Lebanon. The Iranians adopted sensible policies in Afghanistan and Iraq, and have been the sole beneficiaries of the turmoil of the American war. Iraq has more or less collapsed into their hands: with the withdrawal of the US and British armies it will become a civil war zone directed by Tehran. Afghanistan is permanently on the edge of an abyss. Iran exploits this by trying to destabilise America’s allies in the region. The way the United States and Iran behave on the battlefront in Lebanon will decide the fate not just of Lebanon, but of the whole of the Middle East.

It has been clear during the first days of the confrontation that Hizbullah has prepared for conflict in a manner that has aroused admiration in a region where wars with Israel have resulted only in frustration. It is clear that Hizbullah’s weapons are not only intended for the defence of Lebanon but are being held in reserve for a greater battle, a battle to defend Iranian nuclear weapons.

From Karim Makdisi, How the War Will End

There is a huge gap between Arab rulers and the people they govern. Islamists have understood this; Western governments have not. The neo-cons in the US have joined Israel in actively promoting sectarian conflict in the Arab world, frightening the ruling Sunni factions in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan into further repression of their own citizens in the name of ‘combating terrorism’. These Sunni leaders fear the ‘Shia crescent’, but what they fear most is any challenge to their unpopular and illegitimate rule.

The Israeli war on Lebanon will probably end in one of two ways, neither of them promising for the hawks. The first possibility is that a stalemate will be reached, after Israel realises that it cannot destroy Hizbullah because Hizbullah has support not only from the Shia but from many others across Lebanon’s sectarian spectrum. The international community will step in, making appropriate noises about the need for a ‘buffer zone’ and kick-starting the ‘peace process’ yet again. The Arab League will rubber-stamp whatever the Great Powers tell it to. Civilian deaths will be described as unfortunate collateral damage, and members of the EU will pledge technical assistance to repair damaged infrastructure. The status quo will be reimposed until the next conflict, and Israel will escape unpunished and free to continue its occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Or there is a more optimistic scenario. The US will realise that the best way to protect its people is to pursue a multilateral approach that seeks a just and equitable resolution both to this war and the larger question of Palestine. It will stop making a mockery of international law and the UN, abandon its failed ‘war on terror’ which has led only to the destruction of its credibility in the region; and use its influence to support real democracy and the rule of law. The US has a choice to make. For the Lebanese, there is no choice but to resist.

Finally, out of right field (the conservative Insight Magazine), the baffling news that neoconservatives, including likely presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, are howling for the removal of Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, apparently for not going along with their plans to attack Iran (and maybe North Korea).

Dump Condi: Foreign policy conservatives charge State Dept. has hijacked Bush agenda begins,

Conservative national security allies of President Bush are in revolt against Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, saying that she is incompetent and has reversed the administration’s national security and foreign policy agenda.

She isn't hawkish enough for them.

"North Korea firing missiles," Mr. Gingrich said. "You say there will be consequences. There are none. We are in the early stages of World War III. Our bureaucracies are not responding fast enough. We don't have the right attitude."

China and Russia may have tempered that rush to World War III -- a term Gingrich alone seems to be pushing, and eagerly. The article continues,

The critics said Miss Rice has adopted the approach of Mr. Burns and the State Department bureaucracy that most—if not all—problems in the Middle East can be eased by applying pressure on Israel. They said even as Hezbollah was raining rockets on Israeli cities and communities, Miss Rice was on the phone nearly every day demanding that the Israeli government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert exercise restraint.

"Rice attempted to increase pressure on Israel to stand down and to demonstrate restraint," said Stephen Clemons, director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. "The rumor is that she was told flatly by the prime minister's office to back off."

The critics within the administration expect a backlash against Miss Rice that could lead to her transfer in wake of the congressional elections in 2006. They said by that time even Mr. Bush will recognize the failure of relying solely on diplomacy in the face of Iran's nuclear weapons program.

I never thought I'd see Condi as the last woman standing against those who would blow up the world.

The pointer came from Raw Story.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 9:54 AM | Permalink

July 25, 2006

Strange statues; Tax map; Nader scolds Bush; Rick Danko unplugged

Hard art: Strange statues around the world. Public art that would stop you in your tracks. It seems these photos were first published without captions, and some were added as readers supplied identifications in comments.

$$$,$$$: Zillow.com says it hasn't gotten around to mapping Providence real estate yet, but if you point it to an address and zoom all the way in you'll see that it has mapped the tax assessor's valuations for each house.

Ralph...: Nader: Here's How to Halt This Horror. Ralph Nader lectures George Bush, starting with,

You have been a weak president, despite your strutting and barking, when it comes to doing the right things for the American people within the Constitution and its rule of law...

This is the same Ralph Nader, you may recall, who in 2000 called Bush and Gore "Tweedledum and Tweedledee" and took 97,000 votes in Florida, leading Queen's College/CUNY sociologist Harry G. Levine to write in the Village Voice (Ralph Nader, Suicide Bomber) that

Ralph Nader had strapped political dynamite onto himself and walked into one of the closest elections in American history hoping to blow it up.

In this rant -- which oddly appears in Counterpunch, where the link is broken at the moment, and in The Palestine Chronicle --- Nader makes no mention of his part in bringing about this era.

Vaguely related: Molly Ivins wants Democrats to run Bill Moyers for president.

Water writer: Device uses waves to “print” on water surface:

The device consists of 50 water wave generators encircling a cylindrical tank 1.6 meters in diameter and 30 cm deep (about the size of a backyard kiddie pool). The wave generators move up and down in controlled motions to simultaneously produce a number of cylindrical waves that act as pixels. The pixels, which measure 10 cm in diameter and 4 cm in height, are combined to form lines and shapes. The device is capable of spelling out the entire roman alphabet, as well as some simple kanji characters. Each letter or picture remains on the water surface only for a moment, but they can be produced in succession on the surface every 3 seconds.

Missed: (The late) Rick Danko of The Band plays When You Awake on acoustic guitar. (via Robot Wisdom)

People's canon:
"Please tell me a book you think everyone should read and why." At Ask Metafilter, aptly subtitled, "Querying the hive mind." The hive complies, and the result may expand your reading list. This being the male tech Web, nobody names Emily Dickinson, of course. (via Hanan Levin's Grow-A-Brain. Hanan's plan to move to New Zealand looks more appealing every day.)

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 7:00 AM | Permalink

July 24, 2006

Jon Stewart on stem-cell contradictions; longtime L.A. Times rock critic looks back

Kicking off Monday, slowly...
Jon Stewart on stem cell veto

A Backstage Pass to Intimate Moments in Rock's Odyssey: L.A. Times rock critic Robert Hilburn looks back.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 8:13 AM | Permalink

July 21, 2006

Another pack of garden blogs

Added, as always, to the top of the long-running Garden Blogs list. I'm backed up with new blogs lined up for a spot here. If you've emailed and haven't heard from me, or haven't seen your blog show up here, please bear with me. There'll be more coming next week.

My California Garden in Zone 23: I didn't know there was a zone 23, but these Western Climate Zones document microclimates. The gardener known only as LimaBean grows offers large photos of mushrooms, tree bark, tomatoes and that emerging eggplant at right. Don't miss the video of the tomato hornworm!

Two Gardens: Max writes,

The concept of my blog was to compare my experience gardening in California with my friend's in Brooklyn. It's a pretty dramatic contrast. But she has gone electronically AWOL (she is known to do this every now and then), so it's mostly a California garden blog right now, like we need more of those. Still, I think you'll find the plants interesting (because I grew up in New England, and I do).

So Two Gardens is about one garden, one to drool for, of course, since it's got all that sunshine and no snow ever. Pomegranate flowers? I've never seen one.

Flatbush Gardener: A garden grows in Brooklyn: "Adventures in Neo-Victorian, Wild, Shade, Organic and Native Plant Gardening, Garden Design, and Garden Restoration"

And gardener Xris has some news:

This past Monday, July 17, the USDA Forest Service launched a new section on their Web site:

Celebrating Wildflowers is a season-long series of events for people of all ages who love our native plants. Activities include wildflower walks, talks, festivals, slide programs, coloring contests, planting events, and seminars that emphasize the values and conservation of native plants. - Home Page

Gabriola Garden: I love these photos, grouped so they form aMy name is Tim and my wife, Sara, and I do our gardening on one of the Gulf Islands off the coast of British Columbia, Canada. We have two kids and assorted pets and Sara tends the flowers, while I look after the vegetables. Our zucchinis sometimes win ribbons in the zucchini races at the local fair.
Here's to Tim and his speedy zucchinis.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 6:39 PM | Permalink

Games for a rainy weekend, tunes too

Rainy weekend, indoor playtime. Over at Jay Is Games, there's a backlog of unplayed games: I've played a little of Super Serif Bros., and it's the most fun you can have with just the keys on the keyboard. If you're a graphics snob, here's what Jay says about this one:

Remember the Hapland games? Yeah, well this is from one and the same, Rob Allen.

The objective is fairly simple: using the arrow keys for movement, navigate the player character (I) through each level to collect all of the gold (£) and then make it to the exit (E) safely. Along the way you will find a multitude of characters with special behaviors, such as elevators ("), conveyor belts (()), moving platforms (T), activation switches (~), and the like. There is even an occasional enemy thrown in that will give you chase, or fall on you.

With 13 14 levels to play, and probably more on the way, Super Serif Bros. will turn you inside out by the time you make it through and beat the game.

(News: "Hapland by Robin Allen wins the first prize of a top-of-the-range PC and monitor courtesy of PC World plus an additional cash prize of £1,000 to spend as he chooses. Here is the breakdown of the winners in full..." Three other games to poke at, too.)

And,

Grow Nano is another fantastic release from On at Eyezmaze, creator of the unforgettable Grow series of flash games.

But this is the one I'm gearing up to: Chiko: Accidental Alien.

Chiko: Accidental Alien is an exceptionally gorgeous and well-produced Flash adventure game that will keep you busy for hours.

Help Chiko return to Earth after being swept away on a stray rocket shuttle found in a museum's basement. From there Chiko is taken to Squerx, the biggest fun park in the galaxy, where he embarks on a journey that spans three (3) delightful episodes.

The game is huge, with lots of quests, items to collect, and mini-games galore.

Meanwhile, you might want to listen to David Crosby :: 1970 Session Outtakes at Aquarium Drunkard. Lots more notable tunes -- 17 volumes worth -- at Jefitoblog. Volume 17 of the "great performances recorded right in Boulder at KBCO Studio C" begins below the Michael Bolton dreck. Keep cruising backwards.

Or you could go look at anti-war art if it makes you feel better.

More garden blogs later in the day.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 9:55 AM | Permalink

July 20, 2006

New camera in the garden; The silent majority, Arab-style; Mali music

Morning glories -- pink buds open blue.

There's a psychedelic bug on my sunflower. Below, just the bug.

(What is it?) My colleague Paula Constantine, the garden editor, found a photo of it in a fat bug book that called it a sharphooter leaf hopper. Further research reveals it's a red-banded leafhopper. U. of Vermont Extension describes it as, "A colorful magenta and blue-green LH common on many garden flowers. Injury seldom serious." I'm glad I let it live.

I especially like the image stabilization for shaky hands with this little camera. It's a Panasonic Lumix. My old Nikon Coolpix 950 was great when I remembered all the right settings -- hard to do if I didn't use it often -- but too many great moments were blurry or badly exposed. This Lumix seems to correct for me.

Seen around the Web:

Arab Majority May Not Stay Forever Silent by Youssef Ibrahim in the New York Sun:

Yes, world, there is a silent Arab majority that believes that seventh-century Islam is not fit for 21st-century challenges. That women do not have to look like walking black tents. That men do not have to wear beards and robes, act like lunatics, and run around blowing themselves up in order to enjoy 72 virgins in paradise. And that secular laws, not Islamic Shariah, should rule our day-to-day lives.

And yes, we, the silent Arab majority, do not believe that writers, secular or otherwise, should be killed or banned for expressing their views. Or that the rest of our creative elite - from moviemakers to playwrights, actors, painters, sculptors, and fashion models - should be vetted by Neanderthal Muslim imams who have never read a book in their dim, miserable lives.

Nor do we believe that little men with head wraps and disheveled beards can run amok in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq making decisions on our behalf, dragging us to war whenever they please, confiscating our rights to be adults, and flogging us for not praying five times a day or even for not believing in God.

More important, we are not silent any longer.

Rarely have I seen such an uprising, indeed an intifada, against those little turbaned, bearded men across the Muslim landscape as the one that took place last week. The leader of Hezbollah, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, received a resounding "no" to pulling 350 million Arabs into a war with Israel on his clerical coattails.

The collective "nyet" was spoken by presidents, emirs, and kings at the highest level of government in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan, Morocco, and at the Arab League's meeting of 22 foreign ministers in Cairo on Saturday. But it was even louder from pundits and ordinary people....

This is USAToday's tagline for the author: "Youssef Ibrahim, a former Middle East correspondent for The New York Times and energy editor for The Wall Street Journal, is a freelance writer and political-risk consultant based in the United Arab Emirates and New York."
Listening to... Issa Bagayogo, from Mali. Check out Numu here, from the Tassoumakan CD.

Kindred spirit Shelley Powers -- who used to blog as Burningbird till she dropped out to write a tech book and do a contract job -- is back at Just Shelley. In St. Louis it's more than hot, fierce thunderstorms took out power for many. Before she ran for her life from vicious winds, Shelley laid out a brave new Business Model.

Jeopardy! questions, archived. Stage your own reruns.

Map of myths and fairies: Looks like a game, begs for a story.

Why it's a bad idea to send Microsoft Word documents

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 6:56 AM | Permalink

July 18, 2006

Image Zoom: Firefox extension enlarges images in pages as you browse

Before I point to the next bunch of garden blogs for the list, I want to point out a tool that may enhance your enjoyment of them: The Image Zoom extension for the Mozilla Firefox browser.

After you install it, if your mouse has a scroll wheel you simply hold down the right button and scroll the wheel back and forth to change the size of the image right where it is on the page -- no need to save it, open an image viewer and blow it up. (No mouse wheel? Right click will bring up a context menu to click; the default enlargement is 200 percent.) See the walkthrough for more info.

You may also simultaneously enlarge all images on a page.

Typically, the image will get blurrier as it enlarges, but that might not be true forever. Widespread use of this extension may cause sites to reconsider how they process images for publishing. Hailing back to the days of slow dialup modems, images are reduced in size and in resolution (usually to 72 dots per inch) so they won't add to the weight of a page. In modem terms, size determines download time.

But if zooming catches on, sites may decide that enough of us use broadband now to ignore weight. Page design may still limit the size of the images displayed on the page, but if they're at higher resolution, the detail will remain if you zoom them.

Go try Image Zoom. It's more than handy.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 5:45 PM | Permalink

July 17, 2006

Garden blogs: Hot everywhere

Vacation was wonderful, thanks. More about that later, though. I'm plowing through two weeks of email and some site updates on features sections here, but the pressing need is to acknowledge and pass on to you the work of the garden bloggers I've neglected.

These will all be posted to the ever-growing Garden Blogs list.

Here are the first few from the latest crop, which is so large I'll be spreading them over several posts.

ToyTrains1’s Garden Journal is all about roses, and lilies, in Central New Jersey. That perfect bloom at right is a Queen Elizabeth.

Yard Piddling: A delightful note from gardener Gary Johnsey introduces this blog:

I enjoy your Subterranean Homepage News and really like visiting the sites you highlight. I have decided to ask you to take a look at my blog: http://yard.piddling.info
I live in Hattiesburg, Mississippi and am a professor at the Univ of So Ms. I expect to retire in 2 years and then spend lots more time in my yard and in the woods. I like to move plants back and forth and study their progress with camera in hand. I have been blogging almost a year now and am starting to hit my stride.
We have something else in common. For years now my students have called me Projo, a contraction for Professor Johnsey. I managed to register projo.ws which I use in support of my courses. (Someone else beat me to all the other projo names. I wonder who. Ha.)

At Welcome to My Garden, the grass is brown from drought in Minnesota, where it was 101 degrees Saturday. It won't always be this way, and Kathi's blog is more than that sad patch. She writes, "Gardening is my relaxation as well as my tie to my late parents. I learned gardening from my parents at a very young age and I am now passing that knowledge down to my son."
 
Garden Rant: Earthworm fan Amy Stewart, whose other garden blog is called Dirt, writes,

I'm blogging on a new group blog with with two very opinionated and outspoken garden bloggers, Susan Harris of Takoma Gardener and Michele Owens of Sign of the Shovel. It's called GardenRant and you can find it here: www.gardenrant.com
You'll see that in order to set the tone for the blog, we wrote a manifesto. Some of the highlights:
--We are bored with perfect magazine gardens.
--We are suspicious of the "horticultural industry."
--We are delighted by people with a passion for plants.

Yes...
Amy's current post there begins, "Has anyone noticed that the articles in Sunset magazine have started to read like press releases from the big ass nursery companies?"

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 7:34 PM | Permalink

July 3, 2006

Happy birthday to me...

Today is my birthday. And I'm on vacation.

I'm going to do nothing till I wear that out, and then I'll be back here.

"Do nothing" means sit on the back screen porch, listening to the birds and plowing through a stack of mystery and spy novels, courtesy of the Providence Public Library.

So far, so good:

Legends: A Novel of Dissimulation, by Robert Littell (Grumpy Old Bookman, NYT reviews)
Bangkok 8 by John Burdett (epinions review)
The Last Blue Plate Special, by Abigail Padgett (Amazon reviews)
Death Al Dente, Peter King (epinions review)

Thanks for celebrating with me tonight. I especially love all the fireworks.

And thanks for coming by. This gif's for you:

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments 4