Jim Rittenhouse's semidaily journal of news, commentary and reports
Meredith and Eric took first place at the National Championships with a flawless, beautiful performance… stunned the people online and the commentators with **OMG WHO ARE THESE GUYS!!!** reactions. They can’t go to World Championships until the elder is 14, which is next year. But my god, they were the best I’ve ever seen them, [...]
I’ve been asked to speak at a Wright State University forum; their Honors Institute is having a symposium on Chinese-American relations called “Connecting With China”, and I’m to talk on “Exploring Issues in Cross-Cultural Adoptions” from 2-4 pm, February 17th. The event is free to the public, but you have to register in advance to [...]
Couple makes ‘wedding trailer’ as an announcement of their upcoming wedding for family and friends: it’s VERY funny. Helps if you’re some kind of film buff….watch for 2012, Matrix, Bruce Lee and other references in the video. Look for the Vietnamese subtitles…
The Bruce Schneier Action Figure! At $100, it’s a steal! Be the first on your block! Now, i’m just waiting for the RJ Johnson and Bill Roper Auctioneer Action figures…
Christmas Eve is usually the day we spend with Susan’s aunt and mom at Susan’s aunt’s house in the northwestern suburbs of Chicago; dinner is followed by passing out the presents (a small child is usually too excited to sit through dinner in any sort of relaxed fashion, and is the elf who supervises the [...]
http://www.newsweek.com/id/225492/page/1 The Power of Two: http://www.newsweek.com/id/225098 Photo gallery of the kids, etc. The Intro picture is particularly stunning. This has been in the works since spring. Newsweek came in with a Pulitzer-award winning photographer who was fresh from covering the White House and Obama and Bush to do the shots. The interviews mostly were around [...]
At her Livejournal, Maia Cowan has a VERY cool and nice set of photos of an art installation in Toronto called Long Wave that is a approximation of a radio wave going through the air….highly recommended as radio geek fodder and as art.
April 25th, a 1/10th scale model Saturn V with a cubed crudload of rocket engine punch is ready to take off and become the largest ‘model’ rocket ever flown… Placed together side by side in the aft end of the forty-inch wide rocket, the motor tubes that will house all of these rocket engines look [...]
On a personal basis, over the last few years due to the Magic Of The Internet, I’ve become re-knowledgeable about the activities of people I hadn’t heard from in a LONG time. This has very much been a good thing from several standpoints: one gets to hear The Rest Of the Story, so to speak, [...]
The fake West Wing opening scene and the real West Wing opening scene – er, something like that. (video)
One of my great questions: how the heck do they draw stuff like lines *under* players on a football field or flags *under* speed skating racers on an Olympic track? Well, the answer is: tech magic, explained here.
The complete set is here at Flickr. A sample after the cut:
No, really. This is. A web friend who adopted a young girl from China who is deaf (but has cochlear implants) posted this on her blog, and it took my breath away. It’s the story of a deaf girl who wants to learn how to play the violin…watch it. it is about four minutes long, [...]
…goes to Paul Krugman, of Princeton and the New York Times. Timely, that. I read his and Robert Reich’s stuff on economics avidly.
Photos from the hot-air ballooning at this weekend’s Eyes to the Skies event in my town of Lisle, Illinois. Here’s an example: