Beutelevision

Edward Tufte’s article on sparklines:http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0001OR&topic_id=1&topic=

Here is a wonderful fossil of an ichthyosaur that was found in black shale – an oxygen poor environment that prevented decay of the soft parts of the animal. This is part of the collection of the Natural History Museum in Stuttgart Germany

With Qwest as the lone holdout in the NSA records sweep, I’m curious to know if their stance will lead to more customers. I certainly looked them up and was disappointed to see that they do not have services in California (other than phone cards and such). I would consider switching from AT&T if I had the chance.A quick look at their stock price [google.com] seems to indicate that they did not get a bump from investors, but that may have more to do with the overall down market. Let’s see what happens in the coming weeks and months.

Mantua locomotives are among my favorites. These locos were first produced in the 1940’s and 50’s and are tough and reliable. Here are a couple resources for locos and parts.

Loco kits – http://www.jaystrains.com/HO-HOn3/Locomotives/hosteam.htm

Parts and remotoring – http://yardbirdtrains.com/index.htm

Remotoring – http://www.ablehobby.com/Alliance%20repower%20Parts.htm

Here is my article on fishing from a houseboat on Lake Shasta – http://www.beutelevision.com/thomas/shasta/

I want to give a quick promotion for a coach with whom I’ve worked for over two years now – Mark F. Nida, CPCC. http://nidacoach.comI can positively recommend coaching for those of you who are solopreneurs like me – coaching helps me focus on what’s important for my business, and it provides me with a great sounding board for my ideas. I can also positively recommend Mark as a coach – he is creative and holds my feet to the fire so that I follow through with my promises to myself. Bravo Mark!

I haven’t tried it yet – just saving a link:http://www.tts.co.uk/software/products/

The Monterey County Herald talks about Jobs’ conversation at the shareholders meeting. This nugget piqued my interest:He hinted that the company may soon introduce a comprehensive home entertainment device that would combine the features of a PC with television, audio systems and other components.And, he said, some of the products on the drawing board at Apple could be the best the company ever invented and ”among the best I’ve ever seen in my life.” He declined to give specifics.Personally, I’m hoping for a plasma TV with a built-in Mini. It’s got to have a PVR function though – the few paltry offerings on iTunes aren’t enough, and never will be.

And what will it take for progessives to regain majorities at the federal level? The American Prospect answers these questions in a really interesting four-part series titled The Politics of Definition. I highly recommend reading all four parts:Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

I had this one disc of a home movie that I created and burned onto one those cheapo unmarked DVD+R disc – you know the kind that you get at CompUSA in a 100-pack for nothing. Well I discovered that the old adage is true – you get what you paid for. The disc was corrupted in several places, making it unplayable in DVD players and on all the computers that I tried. And I discovered this after I erased my movie project.After casting about for a solution, I was able to find a set of programs that allowed me to save this disc: MacTheRipper to copy the disc, DVD Imager to create a UDF image, and Apple’s Disk Utility to burn the image.MacTheRipper has the ability to rip the data from DVD, even if it has really bad corruption. I was able to save my disk, even though it now has a few spots where the video skips – this is much preferable to not being able to play the DVD at all.