Family Ties

This morning I was minding my own business, googling for my grandparents' cookbook, when I was reminded of a web of family ties.

My dad used to play in a country band in Columbus, Ohio. His musical talent was part of the reason he met and married my mom, whose parents were Smiley and Dallas Burnette.



My brother and I grew up in New Albany, Ohio. In the summers we used to spend a lot of time at Uncle Hank and Aunt Donna's house, which was next to their pizza place.

Uncle Hank and his brothers had once played as Hank Newman and The Georgia Crackers. His musical talent played a part in his meeting and marrying Donna, who was born Donna Albanese.

The Georgia Crackers -- The Newman brothers are the three in back. Left to right: Uncle Slim, Bob, Uncle Hank.

The Georgia Crackers had long since disbanded by the time I showed up. The only time I remember hearing them play was one night at Veteran's Memorial Hall, when I was maybe five years old. The high points of the evening for me were getting to stay up really late, seeing Uncle Hank and his brothers on stage (I'd never met Bob before, but it was funny when he picked up that huge bass violin and "threatened" to leave the stage), and Tex Ritter and his amazing blue cowboy outfit, studded with rhinestones. I never got to say a word to Mr. Ritter but remember staring, mesmerized, at the back of his jacket as he sat at the bar in Uncle Hank's den after the show.

[So much for memory. Dad says it was Uncle Slim who was fiddling with the bass.]

The Newmans had met Grandpa in the late forties, on the set of one of the Durango Kid movies. I guess they'd long been established in Columbus by that time.

Mom met Dad in Columbus, while she was driving Grandpa around the country on one of his road tours.

The mesh ties together. That's how my brother and I came to spend our summers with Uncle Hank and Aunt Donna.

Century of Country

Other references to the Georgia crackers are here and here.

Google's Singularity machine

Epeus' epigone - Kevin Marks weblog, on Google's Singularity Machine


Map/Reduce

"Map/Reduce" evokes The Connection Machine and Star-Lisp. (Danny Hillis wrote a beautifully clear book about the CM architecture in the late 1980s.) Would there were time enough in the day to get hands-on with parallel and distributed algorithms.

Ceviche

What is ceviche?

Sadly, this reminds me of my neighbor across the hall at Los Piñones apartments. He was not much older than me, in his early 40s I think. He was fond of seafood. In late summer of 2003, when my job and the health of my parents both took bad turns, he began to lose his life.

Suddenly taken ill, my neighbor was hospitalized with what was, for the first month, an unknown but deadly serious infection. The hospital staff in Albuquerque did what they could. Finally one doctor, after a flash of insight, walked in and bluntly asked whether my neighbor had recently eaten seafood.

From that point it was clear how to treat him, but it was too late. The infection had done too much damage. I can't remember all of the complications he suffered; I believe pneumonia and kidney failure were among them. Just before Thanksgiving, he died.

The restaurant was not shut down. As far as I know, they didn't even remove uncooked seafood from their menu, or add any cautions to it. Granted that would have been bad for business. And life is full of risk anyway. But some indication of regret would have been nice.

What's up with Red Hat?

First this:

A Microsoft-Red Hat warming trend? | CNET News.com

then this:

Michael Dell slips $100m into Red Hat

Coincidence? Probably. Still an odd juxtaposition.

Wired News: Ethanol Grows as Gas Alternative

This article --

Wired News: Ethanol Grows as Gas Alternative

-- raises a few questions. It describes a process by which ethanol can be converted to hydrogen; and, separately, the current use of ethanol as a gasoline additive.

The most obvious question: what, if any, relationship exists between the conversion processes described in the article, and this research by Penn State researchers?

Is the hydrogen conversion technology being considered for use in cars, e.g. in fuel-cell vehicles? Or is it only for use in hydrogen "refineries"?

How does the carbon-dioxide by-product of the process affect the total environmental cost of hydrogen as a fuel?

Ethanol is made from grain crops, and the existence of the "corn belt" in which those crops is grown depends on certain climate conditions. Ongoing changes in global climate mean that the corn belt may move or disappear altogether.

It's easy to imagine a world in which we've become dependent on grain crops for both fuel and food (directly and indirectly, through consumption of meat and poultry). And it's slightly amusing to imagine a world in which, due to climate change, the "corn belt" has moved to Canada.

Much less amusing is a world in which that belt has disappeared.

Not to dismiss ethanol/hydrogen for the sake of an unlikely eventuality, but how likely is it that a drastic change in the grain supply will happen?

How likely is it to happen within the next 100 years? After all, you don't need to solve your problems once, for all. You need to solve them just long enough to buy time to find a better solution.

How long is long enough? Gasoline-powered vehicles have solved so many problems of transportation that we now have trouble replacing the extensive infrastructure which has grown up around them.

Ethanol/hydrogen is interesting as a possible fuel source. It's maybe more interesting for the questions it raises about climate and politics.