Deep
July 8, 2009 at 9:58 am | In Mountains, Skiing | Leave a CommentPowderwhore makes films by and for backcountry addicts. The trailer for their new film pseudo-accidentally wound up on the web before they were ready. I won’t link to it, since they don’t want it out there yet (though it’s probably trivial to find), but it made for fine morning motivation.
Last Winter’s turns.
Escape
June 27, 2009 at 6:28 pm | In Mountains, Skiing | Leave a CommentLea says it better than I’ve ever seen it written:
It is an escape, if only for a little while and hard to say from what.
And, for a sprinkle of something new, Dan H. posted a video worth embedding:
Mmm. Thousands of feet of moderately steep ripper corn.
Hope the Sage is down there doing the same thing these days. And no, I’m not wallowing in ankle-driven sorrow, I’m getting stoked for Spring 2010 (and winter….).
Pacer
June 27, 2009 at 2:25 pm | In Uncategorized | Leave a CommentHere’s hoping that more than a week of twelve hour days tromping about in the Nevada desert has proven ample preparation for 40 miles of overnight running in California! Go go go! 
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Neda Agha-Soltan/Soltani
June 22, 2009 at 1:05 am | In Government | Leave a CommentShe was born in 1982.
Wikipedia’s thoughts are here.
Summer
June 21, 2009 at 4:42 pm | In Mountains | Leave a CommentParadise is welcoming summer in its own special way:
MM/DD Hour Temp RH Wind Wind Wind Hour Total 24 Hr Total
PST F % Avg Max Dir Prec. Prec. Snow Snow
5550' 5550' 5500' 5500' 5500' 5550' 5550' 5550' 5550'
------------------------------------------------------------------
6 20 1600 38 97 7 11 261 0 0 -0 66
6 20 1700 37 98 7 11 265 0 0 -0 66
6 20 1800 37 98 7 11 259 0 0 0 66
6 20 1900 36 99 5 9 261 0 0 -0 66
6 20 2000 36 98 2 6 256 0 0 -0 66
6 20 2100 36 98 1 3 261 0 0 -0 293
6 20 2200 36 99 2 6 276 0 0 -0 293
6 20 2300 35 99 1 4 306 0 0 0 293
6 21 0 36 98 0 2 278 0 0 0 293
6 21 100 35 99 1 4 197 0 0 0 293
6 21 200 35 98 0 1 234 .01 .01 0 293
6 21 300 35 99 0 1 323 .03 .04 -0 293
6 21 400 34 98 0 3 338 .06 .1 0 293
6 21 500 34 100 2 6 249 .01 .11 -0 293
Can’t beat that with a beatin’ stick. Webcam looks wet for the tourists though 
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Sober
June 20, 2009 at 11:52 pm | In Government | Leave a CommentThe internet is a tool for many things. Tonight, it’s a way for information to make it into and out of Iran.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/opinion/21tehran.html
Youtube is what television will never be – anyone can be its editor, so long as those with the servers choose not to edit. A new generation of people who choose to look will see a protesting civilian bleed out as their friends try in vain to plug a hole that’s far too deep to plug.
The protest in Iran seems too disjoint to evolve into a full-bore revolution – Moussavi doesn’t appear to have planned such a spirited response. He is as caught up in events as his followers. I can only hope that the status quo of non-violent resistance remains intact – the loose collaboration of protesters should preserve that for another couple of days. There is a time for violent resistance, it arrives at about the time that police start shooting unarmed civilians, but once that door is opened, it’s not easily closed. It is so much harder to shoot a neighbor than a rebel.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/2009/06/the_chemistry_of_revolution.cfm?source=hptextfeature
May the Iranians exit this conflict with a government that represents them and as many of their friends, family, and neighbors as possible.
My thoughts tonight dwell in the desert.
Vectorization
June 9, 2009 at 7:29 pm | In Gravity, Physics | Leave a CommentWhen your mommy tells you that you should vectorize Octave/MATLAB code, she means it. A couple hours spent neatly vectorizing a short but important piece of simulation code yielded, perhaps unsurprisingly, a 3+ order of magnitude speedup.
The unvectorized code needed to produce this plot is still running – has been since mid-afternoon. It’s now 40% done at 8:30 pm.
The vectorized code produced this higher resolution and wider ranged result in about a minute, using only half the chip.
Yes, Virginia, the plots look really boring. That’s actually good.
Ankles
June 8, 2009 at 10:56 pm | In Government | Leave a CommentI’m not yet sure where I stand on Sotomayor’s jurisprudence, but I certainly feel a kind of kinship with her. She apparently broke her ankle in an airport today, but managed to catch her flight as scheduled to Washington. I’ll spare repeating the AP photos, but she looks a lot like she’d much rather avail herself of pain meds than rooms full of Senators.
Very best wishes for a quick recovery. She probably belongs horizontal, not crutching her way through the halls of the Capitol and preparing for a life-baring series of hearings….
Risk
June 7, 2009 at 2:22 pm | In Life, Mountains | Leave a CommentWhile waiting for simulations to run, I found myself wandering through Lowell’s page on paragliding. His collection of short treatises contains gems.
In closing I will simply observe that stepping into the sky, just once, is an unbelievable privilege. If we have sorta forgotten this, our friends and family haven’t. — Pete Reagan
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