Sunday, August 14, 2005

Lunasee

Went out on West Camino Cielo last night with the museum's astronomy club, and had a great time looking up at the Milky Way, digging the stars in a clear sky above the fogged-in valleys below, and waiting for the moon to set so we could watch the Perseid meteor shower in earnest.

I shot the above trough the eyepiece of one guy's excellent Dobsonian telescope. Amazed it came out.

Here's the original.

Good Buddy

Sheila Lennon reviews Buddy, a movie about Providence's notorious former mayor, Vincent A. Clanci Jr., who missed the gala premiere because, as the movie says, he's in prison. Sheila:

The power of primary sources drives this film. Told chronologically, largely through old footage and news clippings, Buddy's story proceeds through the years. To Arnold's credit, she included grainy, out-of-focus footage when its news value trumped its lack of quality. Sometimes, as in the arrival of Mayor and Mrs. Cianci to an inaugural gala, the blurry footage aptly turns it into a dream sequence.

The narration by actor James Woods, a Warwick native, is wonderfully unobtrusive.

Kinda doubt it'll show in Santa Barbara, but I'll be watching for it.

Poddery class

Thanks to Mary Hodder, Dean Landsman and Dave Slusher, I finally have my second podcast up. (Here's the file.) It was recorded on July 23, but took a loooong time to edit. A less-long explanation is over at the podblog.

While that one was fun, there's more nutritive value for your brain in another podcast that Richard Querin calls one of the most entertaining podcasts I've come across in some time, and like Ralph Kramden having an argument with Bob Newhart.

I'm not sure who plays whom, but the actors are Steve Gillmor and yours truly, on the latest Gillmor Daily.

The topics on this 'cast are all over a map I'll fill in with posts at Linux Journal and IT Garage, later. Meanwhile, there's this from Steve.

Money where due

Bruce Schneier:

I want "The Devil's Infosec Dictionary" to be funnier. And I wish the entry that mentions me -- "Cryptography: The science of applying a complex set of mathematical algorithms to sensitive data with the aim of making Bruce Schneier exceedingly rich" -- were more true.