Glorious Church noise issue in committee

Raleigh’s Law and Public Safety committee met at 3 PM today with the Glorious Church noise complaints on its agenda. I attended the meeting, not as a community leader but more as an interested party as the church is in my neighborhood. Before I could declare my neutral position, chairperson Mary Ann Baldwin was meeting with me and fellow neighbor John Seitz to “hash out the ground rules.”

Both John and Bishop Spain are neighbors of mine, so I sympathize with both sides. John has a right to enjoy his home in peace and Bishop Spain and his churchgoers have a right to worship any way they’d like. The only way I can see both of these rights being fulfilled is for the church to accept the neighborhood’s offer to raise money to upgrade the church’s windows. With some soundproofing in place everyone can be happy. If the soundproofing includes new windows the church will undoubtedly save money on its heating and cooling bills, too.

The upshot of today’s meeting is that the community and church agree to meet again within two weeks to plot next steps. Though I just expected to sit quietly on the sidelines today I wound up being asked by Councilor Baldwin to help set this up, so now its time for me to pull the resources together. It’s not the role I expected to be playing in this situation but I’m honored that Councilor Baldwin and the various parties involved think enough of me to ask for my help in brokering a solution.

Parking Permit Process for Pullen Aquatic Center and Pullen Community Center

In my guise as Raleigh parks board chair, I had a concerned citizen call me two weeks ago asking if there was anything that I could do about the lack of parking around Pullen Aquatic Center. She had witnessed handicapped pool patrons turning away when all the pool’s handicapped spaces were full.

I told her that I would bring it up at this month’s Parks board meeting and that’s what I did. Fortunately, the Parks staff has already been working on a solution: a parking pass system will be give pool users exclusive access to the Pullen Aquatic Center parking lot.

This isn’t the only remedy being considered but it’s one that might offer immediate relief to the pool parking issues brought on by the wildly-popular Pullen Park.

Pullen Aquatic Center and Pullen Community Center will now be using a parking permit process to ensure patron access to the facilities. Parking permits will be issued to Community Center and Aquatics participants for the duration of their class, program, pass or rental.

Permits will be required during normal operating hours and for all after hour events at each facility. Signs will be placed at the entrance of each parking lot indicating that a permit is required. You may obtain your permit from Pullen Aquatics front desk for aquatic participation and from Pullen Community Center for community center participation.

via Parking Permit Process for Pullen Aquatic Center and Pullen Community Center – The Official City of Raleigh Portal.

Shaffer: How much does your soul weigh?

The N&O’s Josh Shaffer takes a look at the upcoming experiments at the Rhine Center in Durham, attempting to weigh the soul. Shaffer calls it an “oddball” branch of science, but I prefer to call it “offbeat,” myself. It is science and no one knows what the experiments will find until they’ve been tried.

I look forward to the results!

DURHAM — For at least 100 years, the more oddball branches of science have struggled to answer this metaphysical head-scratcher: How much does the human soul weigh?

In 1907, a Massachusetts doctor named Duncan MacDougall settled on the figure of 21 grams – the average weight loss experienced by six terminal tuberculosis patients he strapped to a scale at the moment of death.

A dozen years ago, an Oregon rancher named Lew Hollander tried to measure the souls of one ram, seven ewes, three lambs and a goat. His findings: The animals actually gained weight as they shook off this mortal coil – anywhere from 18 to 780 grams.

Now this summer, the Rhine Research Center in Durham will host the latest experiment aimed at nailing down the intangible essence of mankind.

The method: 1.) Stand on a scale. 2.) Have an out-of-body experience. 3.) Record weight.

via Shaffer: How much does your soul weigh? – Shaffer – NewsObserver.com.

Scientists crack RSA SecurID 800 tokens

Remember when I said we are living in a world without secrets? The security tokens that provide two-factor authentication for a number of companies and organizations have been broken. Instantly, countless confidential files became unprotected.

In the age of globally-distributed mathematic expertise, high-speed computers, and Internet collaboration, codes and ciphers that once looked impenetrable now fall on a weekly basis.

Scientists have devised an attack that takes only minutes to steal the sensitive cryptographic keys stored on a raft of hardened security devices that corporations and government organizations use to access networks, encrypt hard drives, and digitally sign e-mails.

The exploit, described in a paper to be presented at the CRYPTO 2012 conference in August, requires just 13 minutes to extract a secret key from RSA’s SecurID 800, which company marketers hold out as a secure way for employees to store credentials needed to access confidential virtual private networks, corporate domains, and other sensitive environments. The attack also works against other widely used devices, including the electronic identification cards the government of Estonia requires all citizens 15 years or older to carry, as well as tokens made by a variety of other companies.

via Scientists crack RSA SecurID 800 tokens, steal cryptographic keys | Ars Technica.

Haves and haves-not

I learned two things this weekend:

  1. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison spent over $500 million buying himself a Hawaiian island, the island of Lanai.
  2. Only 0.58 percent of Liberians have electric service to their homes. The hydroelectric dam needed to increase supply needs $165 million in repairs.

I went to bed last night wondering how someone like Larry Ellison can purchase such a luxury when there are people in the world who consider electricity a luxury. Malcolm Gladwell said that 50 years from now no one will remember Steve Jobs but they will remember Bill Gates, because Gates’s wealth is being put to good use in charities working to improve health, among other things. Looks like people will be saying “Ellison who?” in the future as well.

Cheap Thoughts: Solar roads

How long do you think it will be before someone invents a way to easily coat roads with photovoltaic cells so that they generate electricity? Think of how much power that would generate!

Roads and silicon cells are both made of sand, so why not combine them?

Garage door resonance


I was coming inside after watering some plants when I noticed the 3 qt. plastic container in my hand was strongly vibrating. I then realized that it was resonating almost perfectly with the sound my garage door opener was making!

That makes me think that if my garage is resonating with my opener it could be amplifying the noise the opener makes. A little creative adjustment to the position of the garage door opener might greatly dampen the noise created from my opener.

Tough RCAC meeting

When I woke up this morning, I could feel a disturbance in the Force. My chi was simply all wrong. I felt unease most of the day and wondered what big challenge would present itself today. I knew one would, though.

That challenge came in the form of tonight’s RCAC meeting, where I expected the board to read and accept updated bylaws that have been worked on for weeks by the board’s bylaws committee. Instead there was instant suspicion on the part of some members, and I and the other bylaws committee members were put in the defensive early on. When the committee finally was able to explain the proposed changes and pointed out that these were minor edits of the same documents we’ve been staring at for the better part of a year, resistance softened quite a bit. We had a good conversation about it and lots of feedback was collected but ultimately no vote was taken.
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The need for probation reform

After digging up some info on the two suspects in my neighbor’s burglary, I found out even more distressing information. Edwards had been arrested March 30th for the very same charge, Breaking and Entering, skipped bail and missed court date, which apparently resulted in his Failure To Appear charge. This is of course all after he was convicted in December of multiple property crimes. I haven’t found out yet what Enyinnaya’s story is but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a similar one.

Where was his probation officer? Who knows? Edwards got a suspended sentence and probation for his December thefts but felt confident enough that he wouldn’t get caught to bust into more homes three months later.
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