August 8, 2006

There were 4 posts published on August 8, 2006 (this is page 1 of 1).

Plensa Art

After last night’s demonstration of Plensa’s art for Fayetteville Street (or “F Street” for the hip), I have to admit that I’m starting to warm up to the idea. I’m not gung-ho for it, but I’m not as resistant as I was. Call me neutral. There are plenty of issues still to be worked out, but I think they’ll be ironed out to everyone’s satisfaction. If local community icon Jim Goodman still wants to bankroll most of the cost, I suppose I can keep an open mind about it. He’s putting an awful lot of money where his mouth is.

Today the city council voted to send the project through the Arts Commission. I took this as a supportive sign for the project, as I believe a vote by the council itself likely would’ve been negative at this stage.

I think Plensa needs to take a look at the finished F Street and see how much it differs from his earlier view of it. If he can bring his vision in line with ours on our new main street, I believe we may have something to really be proud about.

Do It Yourself Meter Reading

I wonder if the new electric meter that we got is hackable? Not to adjust the power readings or anything illegal, but to remotely read the power load at any time?

Progress Energy provides a handy graph with each power bill, showing power use on a monthly basis. I’d like to monitor the load on a hourly basis (or better) by querying the power meter from my computer.

Anyone know of anything that does this?

Product Warning Message Of The Year

I’m looking to replace the backlight in one of my laptops. JKL Components makes replacement backlights.

I got a kick out of what they say on their warning page:

The inverter is a high voltage electrical source and will give you a substantial shock, which could be dangerous if you have a pacemaker or are in any other way cybernetically modified.

Heh.

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Landis Aftermath

Sunday brought the news that Tour De France winner Floyd Landis had been dreading: his B-sample test came back positive for testosterone. The lab that did the testing is not without suspicion itself, having claimed unsuccessfully that Lance Armstrong was doping. If it were a case of Landis alone triggering doping allegations, I might be inclined to believe he cheated. However, this same lab went round and round with Lance in what could very well be called a smear campaign. Suspicions are raised about the lab’s motives when it blatantly leaks (ha!) testing information to the press before the backup sample has even been tested. The athlete confidentiality rules somehow have gone out the window.

The climb Landis has to regain his credibility is taller than any peak he’s faced in the Alps. Yet he may be telling the truth. From what I understand about testosterone doping, he would have had to have done it far longer than one stage alone in order to gain any benefit from it. He was tested multiple times before Stage 17 and multiple times afterward yet only one sample tested positive. If he was doping it should have been readily apparent long before the first allegation. He’s either telling the truth or he’s incredibly inept at doping. Frankly, I have a harder time believing he could be that stupid.

In spite of this week’s sanctions against Landis, and until he says it himself, I’m still not ready to call him a cheat.