Where are the photos of the takedown?

It's interesting; the video of the shoes being thrown at Bush clearly shows photographers snapping shots of the takedown of the thrower (they were in a press room after all) - although I can't find a single one of those photos to confirm or deny the stories that the thrower was injured somewhat severely during the takedown. Methinks there was some over-compensation; he fired *both* shoes!

And why the postponement of his court appearance?

Personally, while I don't condone an actual physical attack, I'll be making the same gesture.

Update: Danziger weighs in.

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

A fantastic book; highly recommended. Tight writing, extremely engaging, great character development. And bone deep. I suppose I'll see the movie too now; I really hope they did it justice.

Terry Pratchett's "Turntables of the Night"

A fairly early short story by Terry Pratchett, renowned author of the Discworld series among others. The man is amazing; one of the most talented authors of this era.

Tor is publishing free Sci-Fi e-books

Register at the new Tor site, sign up for their email list and you'll get an email every few weeks for a new free e-book (PDF, mobi, etc) download (free of DRM too) - check it out!

I'm a free agent!

Well, after just over 8 years at JDK, I'm a free agent again! It's a scary time to be without the (small) bit of certainty a "full-time" job brings, though I have to say I'm excited too - onward!

I can't wait for the election to be over

Why? Because that's when the real work begins - and either way, we've got a LOT of work to do.

liberals conservatives and independents (oh my!)

conservatives believe they're right and this means anything they do is not only right, but required. nothing gets in the way of their actions, not even info to the contrary.

liberals believe they're right and so they need to convince you of that. nothing gets in the way of their arguments, not even a failure to sway you.

independents are the poor saps in the middle, hoping the radicals will stop screaming at each other enough so we can all have a productive conversation.

Privacy vs. Power - Guess who wins?

As usual, Schneier hits the nail on the head, in a clear way, on a critically important topic:

I am regularly confronted with the mutual disclosure argument...: In a world of ubiquitous surveillance, you'll know all about me, but I will also know all about you. The government will be watching us, but we'll also be watching the government...

This ... could easily be mistaken for a way out of the problem of technology's continuing erosion of privacy. Except it doesn't work, because it ignores the crucial dissimilarity of power.

...this mechanism fails utterly if you and I have different power levels to begin with.

An example will make this clearer. You're stopped by a police officer, who demands to see identification. Divulging your identity will give the officer enormous power over you: He or she can search police databases using the information on your ID; he or she can create a police record attached to your name; he or she can put you on this or that secret terrorist watch list. Asking to see the officer's ID in return gives you no comparable power over him or her...

Another example: When your doctor says "take off your clothes," it makes no sense for you to say, "You first, doc." The two of you are not engaging in an interaction of equals...

Please read the whole thing - and at the bottom, click through to Brin's rebuttal, in which he does not address Schneier's central idea (power) and does write rather snarkily, degrading his own position.

Improvements in cool-climate wine grapes?

Interesting...

For those of us making wine "up north", the choices are tough: buy grapes trucked across country, buy juice or use grapes that grow in these climates.

The last choice can yield interesting wines, though they are in a different class than the Merlots, Cabernets, Zinfandels, etc.

However, much research is being done to enable growing grapes more of the latter types, further north. (Aside from the effects of global climate change. :/)

And as it turns out, there's a new vineyard just down the road from me - Lincoln Peak Vineyard - that's using a new and very promising grape called Marquette.

At least that's the one that strikes my fancy; click through to find out more about Marquette and several others.

Very interesting indeed...