February 2005

Wonderful new gift to the William S. Boyd School of Law

Today is another monumental day in the short history of the William S. Boyd School of Law. The school's namesake today pledged an additional $25 million gift to the school. The gift brings current pledges to the law school to $75 million. The school will complete it's seventh year this spring. In less than a decade the generosity of Boyd and others has made it possible for a top-100 law school to be created in a state that previously didn't have a law school. It also sets the bar even higher for what people can strive for in public-private partnerships to make our educational institutions world class.

Army Aviator

Well, I graduated today. The ceremony took about 45 minutes. My Dad pinned my shiny new silver wings on my chest. (My Mom pinned on Warrant Officer rank back in March of last year). I am proud of the accomplishment and ready to move on to the next stage of my Army career. Needless to say, I am also a little bit anxious about the next stage of my journey in the "real" Army. I will continue to keep you all up to date.

Goodbye trackback spam

Regular readers may have noticed a plethora of trackback spam over the past few days. The flow should be stemmed and all back to normal. There is no need to have trackbacks per se but I like it. The problem lies in the trackback module's implementation of trackbacks as comments. They are automatically put in as published comments regardless of other settings (including the excellent spam system). By changing line 26 from:

$cid, $node->nid, 0, 0, $subject, $trackback->excerpt, variable_get('filter_default_format', 1), getenv("REMOTE_ADDR"), time(), 0, 0, '', $thread, $trackback_author, $trackback->url);

to:

$cid, $node->nid, 0, 0, $subject, $trackback->excerpt, variable_get('filter_default_format', 1), getenv("REMOTE_ADDR"), time(), 1, 0, '', $thread, $trackback_author, $trackback->url);

(It is the change of the 0 following time() to a 1 that does the trick. All trackbacks will now be put in moderation and only those you choose to publish will appear.)

Modern mythology

Jim Dalrymple comments on the Megapixel Myth joining the "Megahertz Myth" as technology folklore. As the article points out a four megapixel camera will produce 4 x 6-inch prints as well as five or seven megapixel cameras. As with purchasing faster computers consumers believe they are getting something for the extra megapixels - and they are - a need for more storage, slower downloads, more expensive memory cards. Unfortunately these are likely not what they want.

On The Media on blog swarms

WNYC's On The Media covers blog swarms. They start by talking to Wall Street Journal editorial board member Brett Stevens who was in the audience for the statements made by Eason Jordan. Asked about leaving the story to blog space Stevens made all kinds of excuses and failed to even discuss the fact that by the very nature of being off the record it is a matter of professional credibility not to jump into the fray.

A perfect opportunity to focus the debate on the right way to share information and the personal responsibility of those involved to be honorable. Instead it was used as a puff piece for blogging. Even in the discussion with Rony Abovitz, the blogger who originally posted the blog comment from the off-the-record-session, he was never asked about writing about something that was clearly off the record. He also furthers the myth that Jordan could have had the tape released by placing a call to the World Economic Forum.

Desert rain

Dawn was nearly clear. A few puffy clouds spotted the edges of the valley. By mid-morning the cloud cover had become pretty solid. Hours later, the density of the cloud cover convinced the dusk-dawn timer on the outside lights that dusk arrived at 2:00 pm.

When the rain comes it often is in waves. A few minutes of light sprinkle proceeds sheets coming in succession. As quickly as it began calm is once again restored until the next sprinkle begins the cycle again.

It's been a busy year. Exactly 366 days ago (leap-year and all) I took an early morning flight back to Colorado. I wrote "I've been out of the loop a bit this week." That was really code for I've been out of state interviewing and found the job I really want. Now, a year later I sit watching the sun set on the beautiful western skies. A handful of leaves hang on from last season, but the trees are about to replace them with this year's crop. In a few weeks the arena fence will no longer be visible from the office window - replaced by a sea of spring time green.

Aviation Field Exercise

I returned yesterday from my first aviation field exercise. We were in the woods from Tuesday morning until Friday. This was the last training exercise of my flight school career. I will turn in my gear next week and graduate.

The aviation community is replete with stories about how cushy field exercises can be, especially compared to those experienced by soliders in the infantry and other branches. I had heard tales of Chinook pilots wheeling refrigerators out of the back of their helicopters to plug into the ever present generator. Coolers of steak and soda, tables, chairs, and barbeque grills were all common items seen when aviators were in the field. After all, pilots are limited by what we can carry in our helicopters, not by what we can carry on our backs.

The stories appear to be true. The intent of the field exercise was for us to plan missions in a field environment and then fly them in the AVCATT simulator. This, however, did not take up most or even the majority of the time for most of the students. Those without leadership roles, in particular, had a lot of free time. We all spent a lot of time in our 30 person tent sitting on our cots or in chairs, playing cards, listening to music, eating junk food, telling stories, and generally acting like high school kids at a sleep over party. We even ordered pizza to be delivered to the tents one night and then burned to boxes to keep our instructor from learning our dirty little secret when he came to check on us in the morning.

It was not all fun and games, however. Despite my best efforts I wound up with a leadership role. I was the flight lead for the third mission. The Air Mission Commander chose me because I am a flight school XXI student and had more experience in the aircraft than a lot of ther other students. Though I did not want the job it appears that the army has some rules about Warrant Officers doing what they are told to do by more senior officers. Go figure.

Napster - a tax on people who failed math

In the hallway at the math department at Colorado State University there was a bumper sticker stating that a lottery is a tax on people who failed math. When I stop laughing histerically at the positioning by the folks at Napster that's the feeling I'm left with. Napster is a tax on people who failed math. It reminds me of the time last month when Creative and Dell's folks were disparaging the iPod shuffle. They have grown very quiet as the sales of the tiny player have soared.

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