Last week I had the exciting opportunity to fly out to Wichita, Kansas for three nights. The first thing I noticed while getting off the plane was how flat the terrain was all around me, with not a single hill anywhere in sight, and, of course, how windy it was as a result. The hotel I stayed at was fairly nice, with approximately eleven floors, three dining areas, and a number of interesting guest services. My room was also nice and very comfortable.

On my first night, I dined in one of the hotel eateries where I ate a delicious rib eye steak, my favorite cut of meat. The steak was perfectly prepared naked, medium-rare, and thick-cut (over one inch thick). Cut from Midwestern Aberdeen Angus (Black Angus), fresh and never frozen, it was the best rib eye I have ever eaten. In addition to being freshly cut, its succulent tastiness was helped by the fact that Midwestern cattle consume different minerals as they graze than Northeastern cattle do, which produces a flavor that some people prefer. Kansas definitely knows its beef.

On my second night I went out for fantastic barbecue with those that I was meeting in Wichita. We went to Two Brothers Barbecue, where I ordered a combination dinner that included shredded loin, Kansas City-style burnt tips, and pulled pork. It was a great taste of the best of barbecue from three different regions–Southern, Midwestern, and Northeastern styles, respectively. The meat was delicately smoked very well, and several different barbecue sauce condiments were available.

On my final night, I ate in the hotel’s sports bar eatery where I had a strip steak. It was also cut from Midwestern Aberdeen Angus and was very flavorful and tender, and fairly juicy, the way strip steak should be, and much unlike the average strip steak in the Northeast nowadays. Apparently, strip steaks used to be much better in our region back in the old days, but for some reason or another tend to be dryer and less appetizing these days.

My flights all ran very smoothly, and getting through security at the airports was so easy I cannot imagine why people are always complaining about it. It seemed that there were plenty of checkpoint aisles and personnel  to handle all the travelers in a timely manner, but maybe that is a more recent achievement at airports than it was in the past. One thing to note is that there are two airports in Chicago, and one is a lot nicer to have a long layover in than the other (one has sit-down restaurants, small shops, and entertainment opportunities, while the other has only small shops, McDonald’s, and a bar). I was offered a free round-trip flight if I volunteered to take a later flight and give up my seat on my way back, but because my ride had already left to meet me at the airport, I decided I couldn’t take it. Maybe next time.

Our new book, Running Xen: A Hands-On Guide to the Art of Virtualization (Prentice Hall, April 2008), had a very nice review posted on Slashdot today!

Following this posting, by 11:59 PM our book’s sales rank on Amazon.com peaked at number 3 in the top 100 books sold in the “Operating Systems” category and number 747 in all books sold on Amazon.com, which was a significant increase from our previous best rank of number 6772 in all books sold on Amazon.com.

Our book’s official website: http://runningxen.com

This was indeed a very pleasant surprise today! As always, to Him be all glory.

Here’s a plug for the Firefox 3 Download Day:

Click the image, below, and pledge to download Firefox 3 on its release date! By entering your e-mail address, you will receive a notification instructing you to download Firefox 3 once it is released.

I was browsing the Internet this morning and came across a rather interesting article.  Apparently an eight year-old girl thought her Magnetix toy set looked like candy.

“On the front of the container is a large warning stating, ‘CHOKING HAZARD – Small parts. Toy contains a small bar. Not for children under 3 years.’ Another label on the container states, ‘CAUTION: Do not ingest or inhale magnets. Attraction of magnets in the body may cause serious injury and require immediate medical care.’”

Now, the family is seeking legal counsel to initiate a lawsuit against the toy manufacturer.  I recommend reading the complete article here:

http://www.gopusa.com/theloft/?p=725

As my grandfather used to always say…

Grandfather: “The early bird calls the kettle black.”

As my grandfather used to always say…

Grandfather: “Birds of a feather put their eggs in one basket.”

As my grandfather used to always say…

Grandfather: “A rolling stone leads to Rome.”

Here’s an interesting article about a substance that is widely found as a natural and artificial byproduct, and yet kills thousands of people every year:

“BAN DIHYDROGEN MONOXIDE – THE INVISIBLE KILLER!
Dihydrogen monoxide is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and kills uncounted thousands of people every year.
What are the dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide?
Most of these deaths are caused by accidental inhalation of DHMO, but the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide do not end there. Prolonged exposure to its solid form causes severe tissue damage. Symptoms of DHMO ingestion can include excessive sweating and urination, and possibly a bloated feeling, nausea, vomiting and body electrolyte imbalance. For those who have become dependent, DHMO withdrawal means certain death.
Dihydrogen Monoxide Facts
Dihydrogen monoxide:

* is also known as hydric acid, and is the major component of acid rain.
* contributes to the Greenhouse Effect.
* may cause severe burns.
* contributes to the erosion of our natural landscape.
* accelerates corrosion and rusting of many metals.
* may cause electrical failures and decreased effectiveness of automobile brakes.
* has been found in excised tumors of terminal cancer patients.

Dihydrogen Monoxide Alerts
Contamination is reaching epidemic proportions!

Quantities of dihydrogen monoxide have been found in almost every stream, lake, and reservoir in America today. But the pollution is global, and the contaminant has even been found in Antarctic ice. In the midwest alone DHMO has caused millions of dollars of property damage.
Dihydrogen Monoxide Uses
Despite the danger, dihydrogen monoxide is often used:

* as an industrial solvent and coolant.
* in nuclear power plants.
* in the production of styrofoam.
* as a fire retardant.
* in many forms of cruel animal research.
* in the distribution of pesticides. Even after washing, produce remains contaminated by this chemical.
* as an additive in certain junk-foods and other food products.

Stop the horror – Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide
Companies dump waste DHMO into rivers and the ocean, and nothing can be done to stop them because this practice is still legal. The impact on wildlife is extreme, and we cannot afford to ignore it any longer!

THE HORROR MUST BE STOPPED!

The American government has refused to ban the production, distribution, or use of this damaging chemical due to its importance to the economic health of this nation. In fact, the navy and other military organizations are conducting experiments with DHMO, and designing multi-billion dollar devices to control and utilize it during warfare situations. Hundreds of military research facilities receive tons of it through a highly sophisticated underground distribution network. Many store large quantities for later use.

IT’S NOT TOO LATE!

Act NOW to prevent further contamination. Find out more about this dangerous chemical. What you don’t know CAN hurt you and others throughout the world.” –http://www.dhmo.org

Stanley Kubrick’s classic, Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, is a suspenseful cold war comedy that is also spiked with a realistic representation of the danger of anyone having control of too much potentially devastating power, and a representation of the possibly very grim outcome from adherence to the theory of mutually assured destruction. In Dr. Strangelove, a high-ranked U.S. military official–who is annoyed with the longevity of the cold war without any actual fighting and who is impatient with Washington–decides to take matters into his own hands by instructing bombers to nuke the Soviet Union in a way that they cannot be called back and stopped. Ironically, the military official’s plan to stage a preemptive strike to save the U.S. actually destroys the world, as the Soviet Union had recently completed building an unstoppable, automatic retaliatory device (the “Doomsday Machine”) with the hopes of thwarting such an attack, and his attack preempted their warning to the U.S. of its completion.

This film is definitely a must-see for everyone. But, did you know that at the very same time that Kubrick was working on this film, a device very similar to the “Doomsday Machine” was in the works? The diabolical development of a retaliatory device was not the brainchild of Moscow, but was actually being researched in the United States. This weapon, known as the Supersonic Low Altitude Missile, once reaching its predetermined destination, would drop small nuclear bombs on predetermined targets while venting radiation and killing life all along its path.

From Wikipedia (Supersonic_Low_Altitude_Missile):

“The Supersonic Low Altitude Missile or SLAM (not to be confused with the U.S. Navy’s current Standoff Land Attack Missile) was a cancelled U.S. Air Force project conceived around 1955; the height of the cold war. Although it never proceeded beyond the initial design and testing phase before being declared obsolete, it represented several radical innovations in tactical aircraft, some of which are now considered at the cutting edge of military technology. It was nicknamed The Flying Crowbar for its conceptual simplicity and structural strength.

The SLAM was designed to complement the doctrine of mutually assured destruction, and as a possible replacement for or augment to the Strategic Air Command system. In the event of nuclear war it was intended to fly below the cover of enemy radar at supersonic speeds, and deliver thermonuclear warheads to roughly 26 targets.

The primary innovation was the engine of the aircraft, which was developed under the aegis of a separate project code-named Pluto, after the Roman god of the underworld. It was a ramjet that used nuclear fission to superheat incoming air instead of chemical fuel. Project Pluto produced two working prototypes of this engine, the Tory-IIA and the Tory-IIC, which were successfully tested in the Nevada desert. Special ceramics had to be developed to meet the stringent weight and tremendous heat tolerances demanded of the SLAM’s reactor. These were developed by the Coors company, which was then in the business of fabricating porcelain. The reactor itself was designed at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory.

The use of a nuclear engine in the airframe gave the missile an unprecedented range, estimated to be roughly one hundred and thirteen thousand miles (almost 182000 km or over four and a half times the equatorial circumference of the earth). It also acted as a secondary weapon for the missile: the stream of fallout left in its wake would poison enemy territory, and when its fuel was spent it would severely contaminate its strategically-selected crash site. In addition, the sonic waves given off by its passage would damage ground installations.”

An interesting piece of trivia about the SLAM is that its development ended in the same year that Kubrick’s movie was released. Did Dr. Strangelove help shape policy? Not really. The development project for the SLAM was ended before any were fully produced because they were deemed too expensive, to difficult to test safely (and without extensive testing would not be trustworthy), and obsolete with the advancement of ICBMs.

From Wikipedia (Supersonic_Low_Altitude_Missile):

“The SLAM program was scrapped on July 1, 1964. By this time serious questions about its safety had been raised (how does one test a device that spews radioactive fumes from its totally unshielded reactor core as it flies and turns its landing area into a radioactive contamination zone?), as well as its efficacy and cost. ICBMs promised swifter delivery to targets, and because of their speed (the Thor traveled at roughly Mach 12) and trajectory were considered virtually unstoppable. The SLAM was also being outpaced by advances in defensive ground radar, which threatened to render its stratagem of low-altitude evasion ineffective.”

Is the man with the biggest guns the one who always wins, or simply the one who can keep fighting the longest?

As my grandfather always used to say…

Grandfather: “Remember, the man with the biggest guns is always the last man standing!”