Nebula Update: A Time of Changes by Robert Silverberg

A Time of Changes by Robert Silverberg

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book won the 1971 Nebula award for Best Novel, so I read it as part of my project to read all such award winners. I vaguely recalled starting to read it before and never being able to make it through.

Well, I got to the end, and then remembered reading the whole thing. Can't remember when -- 5 years ago or 20?

The middle is very nice -- pure Silverberg world-building in the style of Lord Valentine's Castle (aside: this book won the Nebula, and none of the Majipoor books was nominated??!). The beginning and end are weaker, dealing with two peculiarities of the work -- the world's insistence that individuals hide their individuality (the word "I" is considered an obscenity), and the narrator's attempt to overcome that through the use of drugs.

At times, these themes seem very dated -- rooted in the 1960s/1970s. Silverberg handles them well, though, showing the downfall of the narrator in fairly subtle terms. On the one hand, since he's fighting for individuality, we're inclined to root for him. On the other hand, his insistence that he's got this wonderful drug with no side effects (despite all evidence to the contrary) seems a little familiar and turns him into a pathetic figure.

I'm now up to having read 31 of 45 Nebula winners. This one was harder to find, so I bought it used off Amazon. That worked pretty well, since I was under no pressure to return in to the library. I could read it a few chapters at a time, as parenting permitted. As it turned out, I finished the second half on a fairly empty flight back from New Orleans, as we were able to spread out and both kids slept most of the flight.



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The Decline and Fall of the Android's Dungeon

Here's a graph of the number of posts to this blog by year.  As I commented in one of my (rare) posts last year, over time, there's been more non-blog outlets for my random thoughts.  21 is pretty low, though, even given the significant life disruptions of 2010.  I'll try to do better this year, even if it means including goofy, "meta" posts like this one.

Thanks to the Department of Education for helping me create this graph.  Your tax dollars at work!

World Heritage: 2010 in Review

Last year, I said

"I don't anticipate a big haul next year, but one conference near an iconic World Heritage Site (on the level of Stonehenge) intrigues me. Stay tuned..."

Well, the conference originally was supposed to be near the Pyramids, then got moved thousands of miles away. To top it off, it didn't look interesting enough to go, and it was too close to the boys' birth for me to travel.

So the lack of a big haul was prescient. My two trips out of the country, to Montreal and Singapore, were not sufficiently close to the locations of any World Heritage Site. So I didn't visit any new sites this year.

But that doesn't leave me empty handed. On further review, the inscription of Jeju Volcanic Island and Lava Tubes in 2007 appears more interesting. It consists of three sites: Geomunoreum, Seongsan and Mount Halla. Digging through my photos from my first trip to Jeju, in 2001, turns up one labeled, "Me, on top of Sunrise Peak". A little searching leads me to the discovery that "Sunrise Peak" is the English name for Seongsan.

With the new sites inscribed this past summer (none of which I've visited), my total is now 47 out of 911, or 5.2%. It's a rounding error away from last year's percentage (which should have included Jeju, but didn't).

What does 2011 hold? The most promising item is a return trip to Korea, where two World Heritage sites look to be within public transportation of the conference site.  There's also the possibility of picking up one in Hungary, if a conference there turns out to be worth the trip.

Where's Jon? Singapore Edition

It's time for the slightly less exciting version of "Where's Waldo?" in which I try to find myself in pictures that people have posted of conferences I've attended. (I've labeled similar posts so you can view all of them here.)  The clearest shot (reproduced above) is here.  I'm also on the right in this picture from the rump session.

I have no idea who any of these other people are.  Also, I don't like fisheye lenses because they make people (in particular me) look like they have hunchbacks.

Maybe There's a Third of a Century Club I Could Aim for?

In 2003, I posted about the Traveler's Century Club (and updated in 2006).  Basically, it's an organization of people who have visited at least 100 countries (and have a pretty loose definition of what constitutes a country).  Since 2006, I have visited 8 more:

1. Bahamas
2. Estonia
3. Japan 
4. Netherlands
5. Sarawak
6. Singapore
7. Spain
8. Turkey in Europe (Istanbul)

Also,  Jeju Island (South Korea) was added to the list this year, so I have a total of 31.

My pace of two a year was helped by the fact that I attend two particular conferences every year, one of which rotates around Europe and the other around Asia. Each, however, rotates entirely among countries I've already visited for the next two years. This year, though I missed the European one, it repeated also, so I visited no new countries this year for the first time since 1999. I might go to one in Hungary next year, so there's always the chance to add to the total through other conferences.

930 Places Left to See

 In 2004, I posted a list of the 49 places from the book 1000 Places to See Before you Die that I had seen.

Here are the places I've seen since then:

• Blenheim Palace, which we visited in 2005.
• Vienna, which I visited in 2007.
• Paris, which we visited in 2005.
• Place Stanislas, which I visited in 2008.
• The Rhine Valley, which I first visited in 2006.
• Cologne's Cathedral Quarter, which I visited on the same trip.
• La Sagrada Familia, which I visited in 2007.
• Museu Picasso, which I visited on the same trip to Barcelona and found a bit disappointing.
• The Hermitage, which I visited in 2006.
• The Park Hyatt Tokyo, which I walked by last year.
• Tsukiji Fish Market, which I ate at last year.
• Hagia Sophia, which I visited in 2008.
• Topkapi Palace, which I visited on the same trip.
• Headhunter's Trail, which I visited in 2007
• Raffles Hotel, which I visited earlier this week.
• Singapore's Street Food, which I also sampled this week.
• The Great Ocean Road, which we drove in 2008.
• Hotel Del Coronado, which we first visited in 2008.
• Museum Mile, which I visited in 2008.
• Graceland, which we visited in 2005.
• Old San Juan, which we visited in 2005.

That's 21 more, for a total of 70.

What prompted me to revisit the list?  I wrote a review of this book for the site Goodreads.  Goodreads offered to let me post the review to my blog.  In order to have the content in a more open place (and to provide more content for this blog), I've decided to start doing that with some of the reviews.  (I'm also posting some to Amazon.)

1000 Places to See Before you Die by Patricia Schultz

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


It's an intriguing concept, and kinda fun to page through, but way too heavy on $300/night hotels, spas, etc. Let's say I'm going to Dublin (to open to a section at random). She recommends a festival, the Book of Kells and the pubs (possibly in conjunction with St. Patrick's Day). All good. But she also recommends a $65/plate restaurant and a $300/night hotel. I could forgive the restaurant if there was less of that kind of stuff.

I prefer to use the almost-1000-long World Heritage List. Maybe it's just as arbitrary in its own way, but at least it's the product of a consensus, and it's heavier on cultural and natural must-sees.



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Pictures from Singapore

Perhaps you can view this as a sequel to this post and this one from 2007.  Then I had two layovers comprising about 30 hours in Singapore.  This time Singapore was my actual destination, and I had about 80 hours total.  Of course, this time much of that was taken up by the conference, so I feel like I didn't do as much, oddly enough.

I did throw back a Singapore Sling at the Long Bar at Raffles Hotel, visit the National Museum of Singapore, and enjoy some chili crab at a place called Gluttons Bay.  Pictures of these and more are shown in the album below.

Singapore 2010

Two More Geocaches

I've found two more geocaches this month, bringing my total for the year to 3.  Not too impressive, but it matches my total from 2009.  (Of course, last year, I did them in three consecutive days in two countries, which was a bit cooler.)

On Veterans Day, I took a bike ride around my usual 8.5-mile loop of the immediate area.  There are at least 4 geocaches on that loop, one of which was the first of my 2009 finds.  With the aid of a USB charger that takes AA batteries, I powered my phone for the drive and took off after one of these caches.  It was a nice combination of having my Garmin GPS receiver loaded with the coordinates and being able to use the Android phone app to get details once I got to the cache.  As much as I'd like an "all-in-one" solution, this method works pretty darn well.

Spoiler alert: the cache was located just off the trail in the tree stump pictured.  I dropped off Free State Generic #3, my latest geocoin and picked up Montana Plata, a similarly state-themed trackable.


Yesterday, while on my way to pick up our Thanksgiving Turkey from a Frederick County farm, I had a rare opportunity to add a new Maryland county to my list.  There is a virtual geocache in Mount Airy, based around the town 9/11 memorial.  Below is a picture of the memorial plaque, cropped to remove the information needed to log the cache. 

Mount Airy is in Carroll County, which gives me my 9th Maryland county, as shown on the map below.  In July 2008, I noted that I had 122 virtuals (and similar) within 70 miles of home left to find.  Mainly due to the addition of earthcaches, that number is now up to 137.  I may have to reconsider my goal, given my reduced time for traveling up to 70 miles and the news that virtual geocaches may be reintroduced in some form.

Slicing and Dicing the Geocaching Numbers

Well, now that I'm back geocaching, I wanted to return to one of my favorite secondary activities -- slicing and dicing the statistics about the geocaches I've found.  I had previously sung the praises of the "It's Not About the Numbers" web site.  Here's a county-by-county map of Maryland I generated in June 2008 using that site.

Unfortunately, INATN shut down in June of 2010.  So with my renewed interest in geocaching, I had to find a new way of getting my map/stats fix.

After reading the geocaching forums, my best option seemed to be downloading the GSAK (Geocaching Swiss Army Knife) program.  Someone even posted the approximate INATN color scheme, which I plugged in to get a similar map.

I don't think the map looks as nice (and I'm irritated by the labeling of St. Mary's County as "Mary's"), but it'll have to do. I'll probably pay to register the program, since I was willing to contribute a few bucks to keep INATN alive a few years ago.

The difference in the two maps from a content perspective is the second cache I found in Frederick County in July 2008.

I have to amend my praise for the geocaching Android application a little bit since the last post. While on a break during a conference in North Carolina last weekend, I attempted to find a cache that would allow me to color in NC on the national map. The GPS receiver on the phone wasn't all that accurate, and it killed my battery. The one I found it Maryland was great because looking at the satellite view in Google Maps was good enough. For future use, though, I think I'll carry my Garmin receiver in addition to the phone, so I can punch in the coordinates for more accuracy (and battery life).

Return to Geocaching

My last post inspired me to get ready to do some more geocaching, so I could release more geocoins into the world.  I found the time to activate the Free State Generic #3 coin.  (#4 and #5 are sitting right next to it, but I haven't gotten good pictures of them yet.)

I decided to see what was new in the world of geocaching. First of all, there is now a geocaching app for Android phones. Awesome. Previously there was a lot of prep work to do in deciding what caches to look for, downloading them to my GPS receiver, and downloading descriptions to my smart phone.  The descriptions could get out of date, and didn't have the full logs of others who had found the cache.

With the Android application, as long as I have mobile service or access to WiFi, I can get cache information -- which I can download for offline use, if necessary.  I get to see photos people have posted, and I can plot the cache location on Google Maps.  Definitely worth the $9.99 if I'm planning to do some caching.

Christina and I took the boys on a walk to get some dinner (for us), and on the way back, I got to test it out.  I found my first cache in almost a year and a half.  Granted, it was hidden in a lamppost, which is generally regarded as the lamest type of cache.  Also, it was too small for me to put a geocoin in.  But, still  -- I'm back in the game!

Another Geocoin Update

After April's update, I did in fact send e-mails to the last known possessor of all of my geocoins (except Free State Generic #1, pictured above, which was moving along at a healthy clip).  Not only did I not hear back from anyone (either via e-mail or by having them loosen their grip on the coins), Free State Generic #1, after being placed in Alabama and picked up, also went off the grid.

Until last Sunday.  At that point, someone retroactively recorded that they had dropped it off on July 22...0.85 miles from its previous location.  Ah, well.  At least it's still "alive".

This just makes me want to dig out the ones I have upstairs and launch some new coins.  Now that the weather has cooled down, I know a nice place where there's a cache near a bike trail.  As soon as the kids give us a moment of rest, maybe I'll try to find the time to get them set up and dropped off.

Biking into DC

I had taken this approximate route as far as Peirce Mill in Rock Creek Park before. This time, I decided to keep going and hop on the Metro when I was done. I took the path as far as the Potomac, and I was prepared to finish at the Foggy Bottom Metro. But, hey, I was in DC by the monuments, why not ride around? So I headed up Constitution, past everybody who had gotten into town early for Rolling Thunder, and then to the Archives/Navy Memorial Station. That allowed more sight-seeing, a delicious frozen mango treat, and a straight shot home on the Green Line. A version of this trip is also available at Everytrail.

Bike to Work Day

Yesterday was Bike to Work Day, and I achieved a goal I've had for the past year of actually biking to work.  I ended up biking 20 miles in about 2.5 hours.  If you don't count the stops, I averaged 9.5 mph, which is pretty good.

(Note: a version of this post with cooler maps is available at the Everytrail site.  I am, however, trying to make sure that I have versions of things I carry about on my blog, since Blogger makes it easy for me to download a backup of my entire blog.  With other sites (I'm looking at you, Facebook), I feel like my history is out of my control.)


I left home around 7:30 and swung by the College Park Bike to Work pit stop.  I got my free t-shirt, and I won some arm warmers in a raffle.  Well, I won a choice of items, and I already had the other items.  I think there's a reason I didn't already have arm warmers -- it's called a long-sleeved shirt.  I munched on a free bagel, and then I had the guy from REI check out my bike (it was fine) while I digested the bagel.

I cut back to the Trolley Trail to Paint Branch Parkway, which became Good Luck Road.  I was on Good Luck Road for a large portion of the total trip.  I passed a bunch of NASA test facilities, which I think finally revealed to me the origins of the name of the road.  I didn't have too much trouble finding my way on the part of the trip that I hadn't done before, but I got in a little bit of trouble trying to find a shortcut from Old Town Bowie to 197...I ended up by some very nice horse farms with a "No Tresspassing" sign that seemed to block my way to the WB&A Trail.  The total distance for the detour wasn't too bad, but the hill was.

After a couple of miles on 197, I was on the mean streets of Bowie, which provided a very pleasant ride on suburban residential streets.  It was exhilarating knowing how close I was to my goal.  Finally, I pulled up to work, loaded my bike on my pre-positioned car, then went into my office, grabbed the clothes I had left there, showered, and did some work.  Can't wait 'til next year!

Nebula Update

The Nebula awards were announced last night.  I actually had taken it upon myself to start reading the best novel nominees.  Life is somewhat hectic these days, but I managed to get through 3 of the 6.  They were

• The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi 
• Flesh and Fire, Laura Anne Gilman  
• The City & The City, China Miéville 

Of the three, I preferred that The Windup Girl win.  Flesh and Fire was a good book, but it was pretty much standard fantasy fare, with the unique characteristic that spells were cast using wine.  A nice theme, but not spectacular enough to win the genre's top award.  The City & The City was a very interesting book, but it was barely science fiction.  Kudos to Miéville for creating something that defies categorization, but I feel like the award should be for a book more clearly in the genre.  The Windup Girl was not entirely to my tastes -- I found some of the dystopian aspects of it weird and unrealistic -- but I felt like it contained enough good writing and interesting ideas to beat out the other two.

I'm pleased to say that The Windup Girl won.  Partially because it means I don't have to read the other three. 

I haven't read any of the older ones since my last update, so I've now read 30 out of 45.  I have not yet read last year's winner.  Since I like to read all of the preceding books in the series, I now have a trilogy on my hands.  Since it's Ursula K. LeGuin, I'm looking forward to it.  First I have to finish Connie Willis' Blackout, which I suspect will be one of the 2010 nominees.

Once I get to the LeGuin book, I'll have read all of the winners 1992-2009, so I can start working my way back again.  (Or forward, if I don't have enough time to get to that trilogy in the next year...)

Waymarking Bingo Update

Last February, I mentioned my goal of getting a waymarking bingo, defined as 20 categories of waymarks in a row on the grid.  At the time I had 6 in a row (up from 4 in a row in 2008).  Today I made it to...8.

From H9 diagonally to O2, you see 8 icons fulfilled.  They are:

1. H9: Curling Clubs - Potomac Curling Club in Laurel, MD, visited 9/27/2008.
2. I8: Peace Poles - Standley Park Peace Pole in San Diego, MD, visited 7/20/2008. (And 4 others.)
3. J7: Butterfly Houses - Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History in Santa Barbara, CA, visited 8/18/2008.
4. K6: Octagon Buildings - "Circus House" Antique Shop in Homer, NY, visited 4/11/2010.
5. L5: Minor League Baseball Stadiums - Prince George's Stadium in Bowie, MD, visited 8/22/2008.
6. M4: Time Capsules - Bicentennial Time Capsule in Cornwall, ON, visited 4/17/2010.
7. N3: Pubs and Inns - The Hole in the Wall in Bristol, UK, visited 9/19/2008.
8. O2: Insect Sculptures - Beetle in Bristol, UK, visited 9/15/2008.

Here are some of the images from these visits.  (I didn't save two of the less memorable images.)

Unfortunately, this doesn't hold out much hope for expansion. P1 is "Free Overnight RV Parking Locations". There are 40 existing waymarks in that category, and since you don't actually need an RV, it probably wouldn't be too hard to create another. On the other hand, I10 is "Remote Backcountry Shelters", which would require me to go to the remote backcountry. Moreover, even if I broke through that barrier, because of the placement of the diagonal, I could only expand this run to 16, not to the 20 required for a full-fledged bingo. Still, it's progress, and other runs will start coming together soon.

How am I doing on other counts? Last February, I had 202/874 categories, now I have 289/940. My rate has climbed from 23.1% to 30.7%. My number of missing categories has dropped from 672 to 651, even as they add categories.

I have at least three more categories I'm planning to add in the next few days, but those require me to create the waymarks, so it will take a little more time.

Geocoin Update

 A visitor to my blog yesterday commented that it had been a while since my last update.  When I started this blog 10+ years ago, it was my primary means of inflicting my thoughts on the World Wide Web.  Now, there are too many places for me to share my musings -- Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Google Buzz...  This blog has suffered from a little bit of neglect.  So what can I mention here that wouldn't be more appropriate somewhere else?

It's been almost two years since I last updated the status of my geocoins.  To recap, geocoins are trackable items you place in geocaches, which are hidden all over the world.  You then leave some instructions with them (or available on-line).  I thought it would be neat to drop some of them around the world and see if I could get people to return them to Maryland.  I did that with three of them.  I also dropped off a couple of Maryland-themed ones and let them roam.

I figured even if I got bored with geocaching (I did), I could still continue to enjoy tracking the coins around the world.  What I didn't count on was other people picking up the coins and then getting bored with geocaching themselves.  All of my coins are in other people's hands (as opposed to inside of a geocache), and only one of them has been logged this year.  Here is a recap, from longest-missing, to most-recently-moved.

• Free State Mover #2. I dropped it off in Vienna in September 2007.  A few days later, it got moved north to Slovakia, where it has stayed, except when it took a brief excursion to Kazakhstan.   In June 2008, someone took this picture: In June 2008, "glottis512" picked it up, and it hasn't been seen since.
• Free State Mover #1. I also dropped it off in September 2007, this time in Bristol, England. It spent the next year or so traveling around south-west England and Wales before heading to Florida in September 2008. In October, it headed to Georgia, but returned to Florida in January 2009 where "thedubmaster" grabbed it, and it hasn't been seen since.
• Free State Generic #2.  I dropped this guy off in Virginia in February 2008.  In April, it ended up in China, then went on to Barcelona.  A guy there picked it up and carried around Europe until November, when I sent him a message asking him to give someone else a chance.  In April 2009, it arrived in Germany.  "Widowmaker7th" got in in July, and it hasn't been seen since.  "Widowmaker7th" is the only one who has one of my coins and hasn't logged in this year, so there may be the least amount of hope to see this one again.
• Free State Mover #3.  I released this one in Banff, Canada in May 2008.  By June it was in Sweden, by July Germany, and then in September it made it back to western Canada (British Columbia).  Later that month, it made it into the states (Washington state).  In February 2009, it got to Washington, then Utah in March.  In April, it appears from the notes it made it to Virginia, although nobody logged it into a geocache after this point.  The last it was seen was in September, when "toxikgumbo" picked it up and promised "Will move along soon !"
• Free State Generic #1. My success story! I dropped it off in Maryland on my birthday in January 2008 (while waiting for the MVA to call my number). A year later (after spending 9 months in one person's hands), it made it to Virginia, then Tennessee in February 2009. By April it was back in Virginia, then it returned to Tennessee in May before heading to Florida. In August, it reached the beaches of South Carolina, where it stayed until a week ago. At that point, it moved to an Interstate 10 rest stop, where "TeamCarraway" picked it up yesterday with the note "Will be traveling to Alabama on Thursday." I look forward to following this guy in the coming months.

Putting together this post has inspired me to contact the people who have had my coins (for more than a day) and ask them if they still have them. Maybe it'll inspire me to release the ones I have at home in a box so I can track them in the coming years...

Still Not Irish

Last year, after noting the lack of Irish ancestry in my family tree, I noted:

None of this is too important, but if I find any Irish ancestry by next St. Patrick's Day, I promise to put on a silly leprechaun hat and celebrate to make up for previous days gone unobserved.

Well as I sit here a year later sans leprechaun hat, what have I learned?

 First, we have my great⁶-grandfather, Martin DeLong.  (For any relatives reading this, it's my Grandpa Cairns' ancestor.)  Based on his mother, Anna Wiltsie, and his paternal grandparents, Jan De Lange and Martjie Van Schaick, I'm going to count him as Dutch.  That bumps me up to about 2.7% known Dutch ancestry.

Next, we have my great⁴-grandmother, Martha Salley (again, Grandpa Cairns' ancestor, but this time on his mother's side). I had previously only known that she had gotten married in 1819 in Kentucky. In the past year, however, I discovered that she came from a family of Huguenots who settled in Virginia.  So, yep, that gives me around 1.6% known French ancestry.  (So, you see, my use of the word sans was foreshadowing...)

So I'm still not celebrating St. Patrick's Day (though I probably won't wear an orange t-shirt this year).  I would start celebrating Bastille Day, but I'm pretty sure the Salles, Perraults, Givaudans and the rest of my Huguenot ancestors left France about 100 years before the Bastille was stormed.  Hmm, wonder if there are any good Dutch holidays...  Guess that orange t-shirt will come in handy after all...

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And now it's been 10 years...

Ten years ago today, I started this blog. In honor of this momentous occasion, I bring you one memorable (?) post from each calendar year.

• Things get off to a good start in 2000 as I explain why Bush will not win the presidency.
  
• Here are my posts from England the week of 9/11.
  
• Here are some pictures from our wedding in 2002.
  
  
• Here is a genealogy post, in which I reveal that my one direct ancestor who fought in the Civil War suffered not only from hemorrhoids, but also diarrhea and rheumatism.
  
• Here are some pictures from our 2004 trip to Berne, Switzerland.
  
• Here, we are preparing for my 2005 cross-country drive.
  
• In 2006, a picture of me playing go appeared in a local paper.
  
  
• In 2007, Teddy celebrated his 15th birthday.
  
• In 2008, we had a fun Thanksgiving in Australia.
  
• In 2009, we celebrated Christina's birthday with a long bike ride.
• Earlier this year, I made my radio debut as "Dr. Snowpanic."
  

Snow plow panic

I'm having trouble following the news here without Internet access, but I just read our town e-mail list. Someone was asking if the whole town was without power. Thankfully, I knew that we're not, but apparently a tree fell down on a nearby street, taking out a power line and trapping the town snow plow.
Great.
In other news, I dug out far enough to see the giant block of ice hanging from our cable TV line -- that probably explains why the Internet is out.

My radio appearance

Here's the audio file from my appearance today on the Colin McEnroe Show. (You can go to the public radio website to hear the whole show.)

Radio Days

What do I have in common with two Connecticut TV weathermen? The three of us will be guests on Connecticut Public Radio's The Colin McEnroe Show today -- me in my capacity as Dr. Snowpanic. The producer told me that my segment will appear around 1:40 PM EST.

How I Became Mayor of Noodles & Company

I like playing with new web concepts when I come across them. Sometimes they take off -- Blogger, Facebook. Sometimes they don't -- Movielens and Wikitravel Extra are two that come to mind.

I read an article about Foursquare and decided to give it a try. It's sort of...I don't know, a cross between Facebook and Waymarking? When you travel to actual locations (for example, bars and restaurants), you use your smartphone to "check in", and Foursquare will tell you which of your friends are nearby. Furthermore, you earn "points" for checking in, and you earn "badges" for certain types of check-ins. Also, if you're the person who checks in the most at a particular location, you are declared "mayor" of that location.

Fortunately, this impulse to try Foursquare coincided with our kitchen renovation, so I have lots of reasons to go out to get food and "check in".

So what are my impressions?

• Advantage 1: It's social networking that involves getting off your butt and in front of the computer. Instead of sitting at home and posting Facebook updates, Foursquare actually encourages you to get out of the house and do things.
  
• Disadvantage 1: Advantage 1 is completely negated, if, like me, none of your friends are on Foursquare.
  
• Disadvantage 2: Even if they were, none of us are in the "Hey, let's head out on the town and see who we run into" phase of our lives. I could see this being pretty neat 15 years ago in grad school. But then again, none of us would probably have been able to afford smartphones.
  
• Advantage 2: It's a game, but one that rewards you for getting out of the house. If I'm willing to sit at home and click away to earn virtual achievements in Farmville and Mafia Wars, why wouldn't I be willing to "check in" four days in a row to earn the "Bender" badge? (How far I fall from the target demographic is summarized by the message: "Bender That's 4+ nights in a row for you! Unlocked by Jon G. on Sun Jan 17, 2010 at 10:54 AM @ Bagel Place - College Park in College Park.")
  
• Disadvantage 3: It's not a particularly well-developed game. As far as I tell, you can achieve three things in the game. First, you can get the aforementioned badges (apparently, there are some more specialized ones, such as "gym rat" for visiting gyms a lot). Second, you can become mayor. (The only place I've "checked in" more than once is Noodles & Co., hence my possession of the mayoralty there.) Finally, you get "points" every week. There's a leaderboard, which I seem only to access from the mobile web site. I am #1 among my friends (since nobody else uses foursquare), and not in the top #100 in the DC metro area. Yay?
  
• Disadvantage 4: It's pretty easy to cheat. While I appreciate the fact that I can check in via the web from my 2007 vintage, non-location-aware smartphone, foursquare should probably eventually move towards something better locked down. Why would someone want to cheat at foursquare? I don't know, but sadly, every pointless web-based game I've ever seen has drawn some people who want to cheat for whatever reason.
  

In conclusion, the game is sort of interesting, but they probably need to spruce it up a little bit if it's going to have any staying power. The interaction of the virtual world and the real world is promising, but I'm not sure if they're poised to take advantage of it. Maybe someone else will do a better job and create something that's a better fit.

I'll probably keep "playing" at least until I earn the superuser badge -- that's 30 checkins in one month. At that point, I'll be able to point out duplicate listings -- it's kind of driving me crazy that one neighborhood restaurant appears four times. I'm not sure that's enough incentive to keep me sticking with it a month from now.

World Heritage: 2009 in Review

Well, this year I made it to two World Heritage sites, the lowest total since 2001. I sort of saw that coming, given the location of this year's conferences. Still, I was happy to make it to these two sites:

1. Augustusburg Castle in May
   
2. The Lavaux Vineyards in September
   

The list is up to 890. I didn't pick up any from new inscriptions again this year. My 46 out of 890 gives me 5.2%, marginally up over last year's 5.0%. I don't anticipate a big haul next year, but one conference near an iconic World Heritage Site (on the level of Stonehenge) intrigues me. Stay tuned...

FIFA 10

I've been playing with my new FIFA 10 game for the PS3. I'm not very good at it, but you wouldn't know by this goal I scored on a free kick.

EA Sports: Cheltenham Town 1 - 6 Sochaux

snowpanic.com

In an attempt to monetize the coming snowpocalypse, I've created snowpanic.com, where I'm tracking the impending doom coming our way.

Pillars of the Earth at Euro Quest 2009

Euro Quest 2009
Originally uploaded by Eric E Haas

Christina, Martin, Ben and I played "Pillars of the Earth" Saturday afternoon at the EuroQuest gaming convention. Two nice gentlemen had taught Christina and me to play it on Friday, and then we played again on Saturday with friends. It was a pretty fun game, though I had never read the novel on which it was based.

Race for the Galaxy at Euro Quest 2009

Euro Quest 2009
Originally uploaded by Eric E Haas

Martin, Ben and I kicked off yesterday morning at EuroQuest with a couple of games of Race for the Galaxy. It was fun switching to casual gaming after more than a day of tournaments.

Playing Dominion at Euro Quest 2009

Euro Quest 2009
Originally uploaded by Eric E Haas

I came in a close second. Then, this morning, I came in a close third. (I would have won if I had one more turn.) I'll need to win in the third heat to have a chance of advancing.

New Sign at Trolley Trail/Paint Branch Crossing

New Sign at Trolley Trail/Paint Branch Crossing
Originally uploaded by jongrantham

This morning I noticed some new signs at the long-problematic crosswalk where the Paint Branch Parkway meets the College Park Trolley Trail. Despite the button-activated flashing lights, there have been a number of accidents at the crosswalk. Various solutions -- a stoplight, speed cameras -- have been proposed, but instead we get this sign (and another one on the other side attached to the flashing lights).

Three things occur to me about these signs.

1. The advice is probably sound.
   
2. That's not how a crosswalk is supposed to work.
   
3. They provide a way of blaming the next pedestrian or cyclist who is hit by a car. "Clearly, he didn't wait for the vehicle to stop, or he wouldn't have been hit."
   

Halfway to France (and Back)

Last month, I told you about biking halfway to Mexico. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of biking halfway to France. I borrowed a bike from Lausanne's free bike rental program and headed along the lake to Vevey, about 10-12 miles away. It looks like if I had continued around the circumference of the lake, another 10-12 miles would have put me in France. I suppose biking all the way around the lake would make a good vacation, but since all I had was a free day after four days of conferences, this trip was a nice diversion.



For a more detailed analysis of my route, you can check out my Everytrail post. Here's what I had to say about the ride there:

I should have taken the Metro to the Ouchy station near the lakefront, but I let the guy talk me into riding my bike. Of course, I couldn't understand his directions in broken English and ended up riding all over the place before getting out of town.

Once I got out of town, however, the ride was great. There is a main road near the lake, which has bike lanes most of the way, but occasionally there were detours. At one point, I rode through a medieval town center, and at another point, the route rose through the terraced vineyards that hug the coast. I could have reached out and grabbed the grapes. (I didn't.)

When I got to Vevey, I visited the tourist information center, ditched the bike, and headed out. The woman in the information center claimed that there was nowhere to lock my bike, but that I didn't need to. She also sent me to a mall when I asked about souvenirs, so I'm not sure of the quality of her advice. I locked the bike to a sign, which seemed to work. I had lunch at a Thai restaurant, bought some postcards and visited Charlie Chaplin's grave. All in all, a successful visit.

On the ride back, I tried to minimize my detours, not entirely successfully. I had an idea of leaving my bike at Ouchy, then returning for it via Metro after rush hour was over. I really wish I had done that; I meandered all over town trying to find a good route back to Roule Lausanne. Eventually, I did and left tired after my longest bike ride yet.

I should note that both the tourist information center and Chaplin's graves are waymarks, which allowed me to find them more easily. I now have the "grave of a famous person" category. While that doesn't help me with waymarking bingo, it does bring me up to 251 waymarks.

Also, the Lavaux vineyard terraces are a World Heritage Site, which makes them the 46th that I have visited, and the 2nd for 2009.

Finally, here is a link to a Picasa album I made up with some selected pictures from my trip. Now it's off to change my remaining Swiss Francs into British Pounds and find the gate for my plane...

Switzerland

In Search of the Northwest Passage

 

I've been trying to find a good bike shortcut to Takoma Park and Silver Spring. Driving, we have a more-or-less straight shot up East-West Highway, but that isn't suitable for driving. And once I get close, the Sligo Creek Trail and various on-road bike routes make things easy. But it's tricky handling the distance between home and where the East-West Highway hits Sligo Creek Trail.

Fortunately, I collect lots of data about my rides, so I can make both an objective and a subjective comparison.

My first attempts (red path) were done by going south through Hyattsville and Magruder Park and taking the Northwest Branch Trail to the Sligo Creek Trail. It's somewhat roundabout, but it's all easy biking on either residential streets or a scenic set of trails. Time: 31 minutes. Distance: 4.6 miles.

From the first time I looked at the map, I had my eye on a route via residential streets to the west of home (green path). Christina and I explored the route via Wells Parkway and Wells Boulevard to a park we call "Stolen Mulch Park". (The first time we drove by, we saw some women helping themselves to some mulch that had been clearly placed for park use.) One day I decided to push through along the route marked on my bike map. Unfortunately, this route involves crossing Riggs Road, but not at a crosswalk. Riggs Road is fairly busy and doesn't feature many lights or crosswalks. It does have a median, so I did eventually get across, but it was not fun. The only thing this route has to recommend it is that it is the shortest-distance one I tried. Time: 25 minutes. Distance: 2.9 miles.

When I looked at the map again, I saw Queens Chapel Road marked as a bike route (blue path). I had been fairly skeptical, because I know Queens Chapel is fairly busy outside of University Park. When I rode down it, however, I realized it has a nice, wide shoulder. Except for a small segment where people park cars on weekends, it's fairly easy to avoid most traffic before picking up the Northwest Branch Trail. It's a bit hillier than other routes, and not as scenic as going via Magruder Park, but it's the fastest route, and it doesn't involve any scary intersections. If I'm trying to make it farther into Montgomery County, I'll definitely take this path; if I'm looking for a more leisurely ride, I'll probably go via Magruder Park. Time: 22 minutes. Distance: 3.6 miles.

This analysis may seem like overkill for differences of at most 9 minutes or 1.7 miles. But those differences are doubled for a round trip and definitely make a difference between a reasonable ride and one that leaves me feeling wiped out. So, until the county wises up and builds a better path, I think I have the information I need.

Google Books, genealogy and the Metcalfs

I was reading an article about Google scanning books and putting them on-line, and I decided to see if I could use some of these books to help me with genealogy research. I found out that one of the books scanned was "Metcalf Genealogy", published in 1898. As it turns out, my great-great-great aunt married a Metcalf...

This snippet was of some interest:

Ann Elisabeth Howes, born March 31, 1847; lived,
after her parents' death, with Clark Eldred, Elyria;
taught school many years in Lorain County, O., and Grant
Co., Wis.; married, October, 1879, to Alexander Cairns,
of Bloomington and Mt. Hope, Wis. One son, Earl
Cairns, born Aug. 9, 1880.

(Earl Cairns was my great-grandfather.)

My great-great grandmother Ann Elizabeth Howes was born in Northampton, England. Her parents, William and Elizabeth Howes, came to Ohio from England some time between 1850 (when their 5th child was born) and 1852 (when their 6th child was born). Not long after that, they got sick and died. Their children were adopted out to six different families in Elyria, Ohio. Ann's two oldest brothers fought in the Civil War; both died, although one of them, a doctor, survived with his wounds until 1874. Two other siblings married their adoptive siblings (ewww). (The remaining sister was the one who married a Metcalf.)

Of Ann's parents, the book says this:

William Elliot Howes, born March 22, 1818; married
Elisabeth West, who was born Sept. 27, 1817, at Gaton-
wood House, Northampton, Eng., where the family had
lived for three hundred years. Elisabeth West's father,
Thomas West, was born March 23, 1785; died Jan. 3,
1828. His wife, Ann Fairbrother West, was born June
18, 1785. After her husband's death she managed the
great Gatonwood Farm herself for nearly forty years, dy-
ing Jan. 29, 1866.

Gaytonwood Farm appears to be a campground now; here is a picture.

This book contains a lot more information about this branch of the family than had before. I have now added a lot of information about Ann Elizabeth Howes and her family to my database. Learning from past mistakes, I have footnoted it carefully with the source. Google Books gets a thumbs-up for its treatment of out-of-copyright books. (I am taking no position on their handling of in-copyright works.)

Grantham's Problem

(Cross-posted from my math blog, which I'm pretty sure nobody reads.)

While reviewing the referee's 44 (sigh) suggested changes to my paper, I came across an article published last November entitled "Inefficacious Conditions of the Frobenius Primality Test and Grantham's Problem".

I have a problem named after me!

So the next time someone asks me, "What's your problem?" I can say, "Are there any composite numbers n ≡ ±2 (mod 5) such that x^(n+1) ≡ 5 (mod(n, x^2 + 5x + 5))?"