Habari Xenu

What is Habari Xenu?
Habari Xenu is a News Aggregator that is built on top of the powerful Mozilla web platform. It runs on Mozilla and Firefox web browsers.

No, no in fact, Habari Xenu is not a News Aggregator. You want to know why? Because it doesn’t aggregate. For fuck’s sake people, this is simple. To aggregate, one must take from multiple sources and turn them into a single item. My lj “friends” list is a better rss aggregator than most of the ones available for mac. And if there are any it’s not better than, I’d have to pay to find out. Blow me. Why am I not running FreeBSD for real? Oh yeah, I like video games. *sigh*

Serenity Review

I saw Serenity last night with Ross, ‘s officemate, and sorta with and . See, I ended up sticking around campus to hitch a ride with Ross. He had some stuff to take care of, so we rushed across town at the last minute in his SUV, and through a couple of errors I got in just in time to see the THX sound thing go across the screen as I walked in. I spotted Brian and James on the other side of the theater, but having been requested by Ross (who did give me a ride there after all) to grab a seat in the front row, I took a nearby seat and sat down to enjoy the movie.

It’s a good movie, and I haven’t seen Firefly, though it might be cool to now. I could also see watching the movie again in a month or so, though I doubt I will until it hits dvd. It’s mystery, action, tough little guys in a big dangerous world, character transformation, going from the struggle to survive into changing the rules of the game. It has commonalities with The Matrix (I) (which leaves me with a foreboding chill at the notion of sequels). It beats The Matrix hands down in several ways. It also has spectacular graphics and great dialogue. I likes it. I recommend it. Go forth and enjoy.

Science Fiction and Environmental Classics

The overpopulation concerns mentioned in Ehrlich’s “The Population Bomb” in 1959(?) (and by Malthus, to be fair) were repackaged in interesting popular forms in “The Mote in God’s Eye” by Niven and Pournell in 1974 and in “Tuf Voyaging” by George R R Martin in 1986, by which time Ehrlich’s predictions had been proven drastically wrong in timing if not in substance. Interestingly, the Green Revolution, which Ehrlich explicitly dismissed, and which has succeeded in feeding the growing population of the planet, may be represented, discussed and discredited in both these books. In both books, technology is seen as being in a race with the nature of the overbreeding populations: the amazingly technologically advanced aliens which developed independently from humanity in “The Mote in God’s Eye” and a particular planet’s human derived colonist population with a devout belief system that adheres centrally to their own right to breed in “Tuf Voyaging”. In neither case is technology ultimately sufficient to the task, even though both societies are presented as extremely technologically advanced. Thus reiterating the point from “The Tragedy of the Commons” by Hardin, a technological solution is insufficient to the problem of overpopulation.

One wonders if these novels extract the points purely for entertainment value, or if they are attempting to spread the beliefs to a different audience.

Slash in the Chicago Reader, with Art

The Chicago Reader has put Hobbit Porn on its cover (porn is an overstatement, but there’s shirtlessness, cuddling and bare butts in soft focus). And on its pages. And the story that goes with it is also disturbing and yet weirdly uplifting. This lady who hits bottom on self-prescribed meds then pulls herself out of it through her Lord of the Rings fixation, and is now writing publishable fiction. But the other thing that struck me was that she saw Fellowship of the Ring 5 times per week for two months.

I feel much better about having seen Jurrasic Park 7 times (at the dollar theater, I was in high school. I really liked the Ian Malcolm character. I don’t have a problem, no I’m not obsessive, quit looking at me like that.)

[ETA: Oh yeah, that picture of Legolas, in the please-do-me-now pose straddling a log?] note, this may disturb the squeamish, hence the cut

Behind in the classes

I have 4 (or 5) classes at present. 1 I’m quite enthusiastic about, that would be environmental classics. 1 that seems to be very low effort, that would be Science and State. 1 I’m unofficially auditing, terrestrial ecology. And 2 that seem to be more work, in which I am behind on a paper proposal. Those would be community Economic Development and Resource and Environmental Economics. I have ideas. For Community Economic Development, I want to do something of a feasibility study for biodiesel in MN. How much could be produced. What would the price be, how much would be produced. How would it be produced, etc. For Resource and Environmental Economics, I’m thinking something about soil fertility management with a cost benefit analysis comparing organic farming, heavy fertilizer use, and some intermediate solution, with short and long term windows, including environmental costs such as watershed nutrient poisoning.

Interestingly, there may be an interaction between the two, given a proposal to grow high oil algaes for making biodiesel in agricultural runoff holding ponds, but that would require a great deal of research on my part.

In other notes from recent life, my bike is in the shop for a much needed tune up, and Scott is on his way to Germany.

In Oakland for the Creating Change Conference

I’ll be in oakland, maybe staying with Simon in berkeley, Nov 10-13 for the NGLTF Creating Change conference.

Flight details follow:

November 10, 2005 – MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL, MN to SAN FRANCISCO, CA
Depart 08:35 PM Arrive 10:40 PM

November 13, 2005 – SAN FRANCISCO, CA to MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL, MN
Depart 11:35 PM Arrive 05:00 AM