brainwagon

The great legend of cuisine, Julia Child, passed away today in her sleep. She was three days short of her 91st birthday. In the last half century, it would be hard to pick anyone who has had a greater influence on cooking and food than Julia. Her book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking introducted […]

Reuters is reporting that the FCC has granted approval to Tivo for their scheme to allow people to share Tivo’d shows with their friends. The NFL opposed such a notion, since they can obviously charge relatively large fees for the showing of games which are normally not available in different markets. Ironically, the FCC said […]

The Arizona Daily Star reports that: A rally organizer for the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign asked Teri Hayt, the Star’s managing editor, to disclose the journalist’s race on Friday. After Hayt refused, the organizer called back and said the journalist probably would be allowed to photograph the vice president.

Francis Crick, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962 for his work with James Watson, is dead. You can get JPEGS of their 1953 paper from the Smithsonian Institute. It’s hard to quantify just how important a role that this discovery has played in the fields of biology and medicine. It’s also fun to […]

Today is brainwagon’s 2nd anniversary. Over the last two years I’ve made 403 posts, which I hope that some people have found entertaining. Wherever you are, have a slice of cake, or if you are trying to lose weight like me, perhaps some extra carrot sticks. I am actually looking to boost my readership, so […]

Wildfires near the Mount Graham International Observatory in Arizona are threatening the as yet uncompleted Large Binocular Telescope. The area immediately surrounding the complex has been evacuated. The flames are about three miles away. CNN.com – Firefighters defend $120 million telescope – Jul 5, 2004

If you use Internet Explorer, the terrorists have already won! The Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team touched off a storm this week when it recommended for security reasons using browsers other than Microsoft Corp.’s Internet Explorer. Apparently this has touched off a run on Mozilla/Firefox, which are being downloaded at greatly […]

Sorry to my two or three readers, who undoubtably were devastated to find brainwagon off the air earlier today. I had a brief outage while my domains were shifted to GoDaddy and the name serves were updated. All should be well now.

The Supreme Court handed down its rulings on rights of detainees. You can listen to some commentary on NPR if you are streaming enabled. The basics of the decision as I absorb them now is that the court found that Bush’s claim the he could classify people as enemy combatants and hold them indefinitely without […]

CERT has suggested that users stop using IE because of a serious conjuction of two security flaws: one in IE, another in IIS. If there weren’t enough reasons to hate IE, try searching Google to find some more. Me, I just hate it because of all the bugs in their CSS implementation. Some people want […]

Well, I bailed on the six hour drive down to Mojave to see the launch of SpaceShipOne, but somehow they’ve managed to muddle along without me, and I’m currently watching footage on the major networks. Best wishes to all involved in the project, and I’ll post updates here as the day goes on. SpaceShipOne is […]

On May 6th, 1937, the German airship Hindenburg had just completed its 21st crossing of the Atlantic. While approaching it’s landing field in Lakehurst, New Jersey, it burst into flames and crashed, killing 35 people aboard. Ironically, 33 of the victims died from injuries sustained while jumping from the airship, not from the resulting fire. […]

This picture served as the basis for a fark Photoshop contest, but I think it stands on its own. It’s good to see that our politicians now clearly express their view of people from other countries and cultures.

Soren Ragsdale apparently got himself a press pass and recorded his impressions of the event on his weblog.

Charles Darwin was born February 12, 1809 in Shrewsbury England. In addition to being the world’s greatest barnacle expert of his time, he also took time out to write the rather famous On the Origin of Species, which laid out his theory of evolution. I think strong arguments can be made is history’s single most […]