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August 29, 2005
Thinking of Bodega Head
This photo captures the vision in my mind's eye of Bodega. Reminds me of a lot of trips here alone and with friends/family/new family. We may be going here instead of Albee Creek for Labor Day.
Posted by cystdog at 11:54 PM | TrackBack
And you thought the $300 toilet seat was bad, get a load of this..
Xtreme Defense
Lightning guns, heat rays, weapons that can make you hear the voice of God. This is what happens when the war on terror meets the entrepreneurial spirit
By Sharon Weinberger
Sunday, August 28, 2005; Page W18
"This is very clandestine," Pete Bitar whispered, as his red Dodge Caravan idled in the parking lot of a Burger King near Fort Belvoir. "They called last week, and they wanted delivery this week."It did feel a little clandestine, if a bit unlikely. Yet there, in the Burger King parking lot, a small transaction in America's war on terror was about to take place. In the minivan were Bitar, the president and founder of Xtreme Alternative Defense Systems (XADS), Edward Fry, the company's research coordinator, and George Gibbs, of Marine Corps Systems Command, who two years ago plucked Bitar's obscure company out of its paper existence and provided it with more than half a million dollars in Pentagon funding.
XADS President Pete Bitar with his
XADS President Pete Bitar with his "dazzler" laser. The Pentagon has bought 13 of the nonlethal weapons, which temporarily blind an enemy, for use by troops in Iraq. (Chris Hartlove)They were waiting for Superman.
Bitar had battled start-up disappointments and even ridicule -- not to mention January cold and Beltway rush-hour traffic -- to seal his first Pentagon deal. The procurement order had gone through so quickly that the Indiana-based Bitar, who was in town for a conference, agreed to make his final delivery at the Burger King to avoid the hassle of getting onto the Virginia Army base.
Bitar flipped open a case containing his first sale: the "dazzler," one in a line of about a half-dozen "nonlethal" weapons that XADS is marketing to the military. It looked like an executive pen: slick, green and flecked with gold. But the pen was really a green laser designed to disorient and temporarily blind an enemy. Sale price: $1,100 apiece.
It looked, to use one of Bitar's favorite phrases, really cool.
Bitar glanced up. "There's Superman."
Sure enough, a broad-shouldered man materialized in front of the Caravan. He was wearing a leather jacket embroidered with the familiar "S" emblem and a matching tie.
Superman stuck out his hand and introduced himself: Shane Gilmore. Pentagon folks seem especially fond of quirky nicknames and are not above cultivating that mystique. Asked about the Kryptonian symbols, he'd say only, "I'm Superman." But today he wasn't saving the world, just trying to protect it as part of an Army task force buying equipment for troops in Iraq. They had placed an order for 13 of Bitar's dazzlers. Supercharged versions of commercial laser pointers, dazzlers are the lowest-tech of Bitar's weapons, and they're not what initially caught the Pentagon's eye. Rather, it was his concept for a gun that could shoot bolts of artificial lightning to paralyze, but not kill, an enemy, like a "Star Trek" phaser set on stun.
After handing over the goods, Bitar explained his unusual entry into the high-tech weapons market as he headed into Arlington for dinner. The lightning gun began, literally, as a daydream when Bitar was running a Styrofoam recycling business in the early 1990s. Watching the machinery that cut up the used material, he noticed sparks shooting into the air. He began to wonder, at first idly and then more intensely, if there was a way to extend the sparks' range.
But he had no engineering or technical expertise, and his speculation went nowhere.
Complete article (you have to endure this, I promise you won't regret it)
Xtreme Defense
Posted by cystdog at 11:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Leo Laporte and podcasting featured in the Press Democrat
Sonoma County podcasters find niche with online chats on technology, sports
Sunday, August 28, 2005
Santa Rosa Press democrat
It's 11 minutes and 52 seconds into the conversation as Leo Laporte talks over the Internet to Irvine-based security expert Steve Gibson, recording the interview for his weekly "Security Now" podcast. Laporte has one of the most popular podcasts in the country.
Posted by cystdog at 11:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 19, 2005
RC General Plan Safety Element Policy SA.1.33 - Pray
Policy SA.1.33 - Plan and develop law enforcement programs with a perspective toward reducing as well as controlling crime.
Posted by cystdog at 01:26 AM | TrackBack
August 13, 2005
Old Man Atom
Old Man Atom by Sons of the Pioneers
Well, I'm gonna preach you a sermon 'bout Old Man Atom,
I don't mean the Adam in the Bible datum.
I don't mean the Adam that Mother Eve mated,
I mean that thing that science liberated.
Einstein says he's scared,
And when Einstein's scared, I'm scared.
Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Alamogordo, Bikini...
Here's my moral, plain as day,
Old Man Atom is here to stay.
He's gonna hang around, it's plain to see,
But, ah, my dearly beloved, are we?
We hold these truths to be self-evident
All men may be cremated equal.
Hiroshima, Nagasaki -- here's my text
Hiroshima, Nagasaki -- Lordy, who'll be next.
The science guys, from every clime,
They all pitched in with overtime.
Before they knew it, the job was done;
They'd hitched up the power of the gosh-darn sun,
They put a harness on Old Sol,
Splittin' atoms, while the diplomats was splittin' hairs . . .
Hiroshima, Nagasaki -- what'll we do?
Hiroshima, Nagasaki -- they both went up the blue.
Then the cartel crowd put on a show
To turn back the clock on the UNO,
To get a corner on atoms and maybe extinguish
Every darned atom that can't speak English.
Down with foreign-born atoms!
Yes, Sir!
Hiroshima, Nagasaki...
But the atom's international, in spite of hysteria,
Flourishes in Utah, also Siberia.
And whether you're white, black, red or brown,
The question is this, when you boil it down:
To be or not to be!
That is the question. . .
Atoms to atoms, and dust to dust,
If the world makes A-bombs, something's bound to bust.
Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Alamogordo, Bikini...
No, the answer to it all isn't military datum,
Like "Who gets there fustest with the mostest atoms,"
But the people of the world must decide their fate,
We got to stick together or disintegrate.
World peace and the atomic golden age or a push-button war,
Mass cooperation or mass annihilation,
Civilian international control of the atom -- one world or none.
If you're gonna split atoms, well, you can't split ranks.
Hiroshima, Nagasaki...
It's up to the people, cause the atom don't care,
You can't fence him in, he's just like air.
He doesn't give a darn about politics
Or who got who into whatever fix --
All he wants to do is sit around and have his nucleus bombarded by neutrons.
Hiroshima, Nagasaki...
So if you're scared of the A-bomb, I'll tell you what to do:
You got to get with all the people in the world with you.
You got to get together and let out a yell,
Or the first thing you know we'll blow this world to...
Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Moscow, too,
New York, London, Timbuktu,
Shanghai, Paris, up the flue,
Hiroshima, Nagasaki...
We must choose between
The brotherhood of man or smithereens.
The people of the world must pick out a thesis:
"Peace in the world, or the world in pieces!"
Whoosh...
Posted by cystdog at 06:45 AM | TrackBack
August 11, 2005
Save the Hollywood Studios-Do your part
The media have been running stories about how this year's film earnings are in a slump; that Americans are turning away from the movies and instead seeking their jollies on the internet, buying dvds, and God knows what else. It's total crap. It's just an ad campaign to boost box office numbers, the latest "screenplay" out of Hollywood :"Save the Holywood Studios".
My annoyance of this was confirmed by some facts pointed out on What's in Rebecca's Pocket. We are coming off a historic boom in box office numbers. The market is correcting itself, returning to pre-jihad sales.
This isn't the first time I noticed this fact being reported on or mentioned, but it got me today, as I KEEP hearing about how much they are hurting. it's as though they have written a screenplay for the ad campaign called "Save the Hollywood Studios" like the studios, their management and the "stars" are wounded Manatee lining the Florida coast after being run over by big, mean motor boats driven by bootleg downloaders, or visions of seal pups enveloped in petroleum after the Valdez spil being strangled to death by the viscous, evil internet. The poor movie moguls, what are you going to do to save them?
Posted by cystdog at 01:04 PM | TrackBack
August 08, 2005
Historic Chinese Mine near Folsom Outlets
Hotel plan challenged in Folsom
Proximity to historic site and loss of oak trees irk some residents.
By Jim Downing -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PDT Thursday, May 12, 2005
Accord uproots hotel's design
Folsom council backs effort to save more oaks in project's path.
By Jim Downing -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PDT Sunday, July 3, 2005
Posted by cystdog at 06:37 PM | TrackBack
Duel II - Vengeance
