2008-01-29 Flying with SA7AN!

How's this for an booking code...

2008-01-27 Seattle Sunset from the Air

Upon flying into Seattle, I was rewarded with a spectacular set of views of the evening sunset reflecting from the downtown skyline across the water.


The sunset was spectacular through the clouds.

2008-01-27 There's always a way...

Seamora and I were waiting for Seamora's flight back to L.A., and we heard an announcement that the flight to Phoenix at the gate next to ours was delayed. Upon looking closer, we noticed something interesting: It appears that the gate agents were unable to convince the computer that the flight was delayed, so it was displaying that that flight was "Final Boarding", despite the absence of an aircraft.

Of course, when things digital go wrong, there always is an analogue fix, so with a little tape and some baggage tags, they soon had worked around the problem.

2008-01-24 Winter's Frost

These delicate ice crystals are over five centimetres long, and have pushed up the surface of the ground as they grow. These often form on exposed dirt in the shade when it is above freezing during the day, and below freezing during the night. If you walk across dirt that has these crystals underneath them, you leave white footprints.

Does anyone know what the technical name for this type of frost is? I've been told that it is hoar frost, but this frost forms under the surface of the ground, and thus is unlikely to be the product of sublimation.

2008-01-22 Crater Lake from the Air

Our flight path crossed just to the east of Crater Lake, Oregon.


A zoom of Wizard Island can be seen in the rightmost photograph.

2008-01-22 Mt. Shasta from the Air

Mt. Shasta, California.


Mt. Shastina can just be seen poking out from behind Mt. Shasta.

2008-01-21 Misc Photographs

A Koi Reflection


We believe that this is a Monarch butterfly.

2008-01-20 Whittier Walk Weirdness

There was much weirdness on our walk today:


Yes — Please don't...


That it is...


Well, for one thing, he wouldn't put an image of himself (an idol) on your food...

2008-01-20 Verizon is EVIL

I was reading The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/), about the recent Boing 777 crash in Heathrow, when all of a sudden, instead of the link taking me to the next article, I was presented with the following screen:



This is outrageous. Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should the ISP ever proxy themselves between my web browser and the web server that I am trying to contact. In the security industry, this is called a man-in-the-middle attack, and it Verizon is TAMPERING with and ALTERING the information being provided to me by other entities on the Internet.

Upon further investigation, it appears that Verizon is doing this for DNS entries that do not resolve. But this is further an outrage given that I can ping and access the Guardian's web servers from another server, indicating that their systems are running.

Tomorrow, I shall phone their support line and explain that this behaviour is unacceptable, in violation of the fundamental protocols that define how Internet applications function, and that unless such behaviour is stopped, we shall be terminating our service with the company and recommending that all other people that we know do so as well.

Update

It appears that other people have been encountering this behaviour, abet just with incorrect DNS entries:

http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=1227
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070621-sitefinder-redux-verizon-tests-dns-redirect-service.html

This is completely unacceptable, and this needs to be stopped.

Update 2

I can't even view my own blog, because Verizon is no longer resolving seataf.blogspot.com. Yet, I can resolve this address without any problems from my other server, which is not connected to the Internet via Verizon. Time to call support...

Update 3

Support wasn't useful, except saying that they were doing some unspecified "maintenance" to their system.

I replaced the configured Verizon DNS servers with alternate ones, and things are at least working again.

I think a letter complaining about their unacceptable alteration of DNS responses is in order...

2008-01-14 Canada Line Photography - 300 Posts

As of today, there are now 300 posts on our Canada Line Photography blog.

Enjoy! ^_^

2008-01-14 LAX -> YVR

Power plant plume perforates poofy pillowy clouds.

2008-01-08 Teh Bible in Lolcat-Speak

Someone mentioned The Lolcat Bible to Tafyrn and myself earlier today, and of course, we had to share!

An example (2 Kings 7:10):

"So tehy wen back an tolled tewh gatekeepr kittehz taht teh Aramean kamp had gawn Bermuda Triangle on em: No Aramean soljah kittehs, jus ther horsees, odder animables, tentzes, bling an odder stuf."

It would seem that some folks have a lot of time on their hands. ^_^

2008-01-05 Cthulhu Pepper!

We found this miniature green pepper growing inside a larger green pepper. It even had tiny seeds inside it. It was very tasty, and was spicier than we expected.

2008-01-05 WARNING: MAY CONTAIN STONES!

An odd warning label seen on a couple dozen bins containing various types of beans at our local grocery store.

This brings to mind all sorts ideas for alternate stickers one could replace this with...

For the bin with the kidney beans:

"PRODUCT MAY CAUSE STONES"
"SCREAM and PASS AFTER USING"

Another good one is:

"PRODUCT MAY CONTAIN FOOD"

2008-01-05 Only in Vancouver...