tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108639172009-06-16T23:34:19.631+04:30Is what is fair what is right?Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.comBlogger198125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-37636443665424802972009-06-07T10:34:00.006+04:302009-06-07T10:53:50.677+04:30

The Tikit tricked me again - I went out for a short ride and wound up up on Anklam Road and El Camino de la Oeste.It's wily that way.It knew I would have a good time.It was right.15.4 miles, I have no idea how long.BTW, this is a trend - the other day, the weather was blustery, and the Tikit lured me out for a ride in the flood control area down by the Kino Sports Park (I'd just gone out to

Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-69209771657029394242009-05-31T05:01:00.002+04:302009-05-31T05:12:24.705+04:30

We drove out to DM today, and so the Tikit was in the back of the Prius. I didn't have to pack it as tightly as I did last weekend, so it looks pretty relaxed in the trunk, and I though to take some pictures.Of course, the Tikit was just sitting there eyeing me coyly, as if to say "you know you want to go for a ride, big boy." What was I going to do? So I took it out and rode it up to Fort

Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-88553500454331538262009-05-29T07:59:00.008+04:302009-05-30T04:59:51.486+04:30

I went up Gates Pass. Again. Today it was partly cloudy, and the clouds were in the west, so I left well before sunset and did most of the ride in sunlight. I did get zapped for about fifteen minutes when the clouds broke briefly, but mostly it worked out. The big plus to going so early is that it's much, much prettier.This is looking east along Kinney from the first place I stopped in the

Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-70763855218866547292009-05-22T05:02:00.005+04:302009-05-22T06:02:05.149+04:30

I'm a little bored with Gates Pass for the moment, so last night I decided to try a run down to Mission San Xavier del Bac and back. This is about a third of the famous Shootout ride, and in fact reading about the Shootout is what gave me the idea.The bad news is that the mission is really not very far out of town, so most of the ride is in town, just getting there. I decided to do a straight

Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-88407245924944593372009-05-21T02:33:00.003+04:302009-05-21T02:56:54.438+04:30

...it turns out that there is now a place in Tucson where you can get genuinely exquisite coffee. There's this guy with a trailer that's outfitted as a coffee brewing station. Hey, it's Tucson! Much of the best food in Tucson is served out of trailers, or so I suspect. I passed a tamale trailer on the way to Gates Pass the other day that looked like the place to be; I almost stopped, but

Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-64381243260804857132009-05-20T03:36:00.003+04:302009-05-20T11:15:47.002+04:30

I went up Gates Pass again last night. My Saturday night ride over the pass took a lot out of me, so this time I decided to use an electrolyte supplement. Back when I was riding in the Bay Area, I used to use a really yummy sweetened sports drink mix when I rode, and it worked pretty well, but I wanted to see how much difference the sugars made in the ride, and so this time I just used a

Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-24892547296812031502009-05-17T08:54:00.006+04:302009-05-17T09:41:21.448+04:30

I wasn't going to do it before I scoped it out a bit, but it looked so good on the map. I had to try it. So I did Gates Pass tonight. I left before the sun set, because I had decided to go up Ajo Highway, and I wanted some light for that. This turned out to be a good choice, although I think next time I do this ride I will detour south to Irvington and see if that's any better.The stretch

Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-60644341598218841602009-05-17T03:24:00.008+04:302009-05-17T04:50:42.422+04:30

Andrea and I have been living in Tucson since summer of 2004. Our first summer in Tucson was mostly nice - Tucson is a bit of a ghost town in the summer, and so we got to watch a lot of tumbleweeds blow. Everybody has different ways of getting exercise; my two favorite ways turned out to work very badly in Tucson. I tried, really I did, but never got into the swing of either bicycling or

Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-64299522796259930582009-03-06T10:17:00.004+03:302009-03-06T10:48:37.987+03:30

Okay, so a couple of weeks ago I was whining about bicycle seats, and about this new bicycle seat I'd gotten called the Spongy Wonder. After I posted that entry, I got some advice from friends of mine who are serious bicyclists. Jym accused me of not getting my science right; I'm not entirely convinced that he has his right either, but be that as it may, I think his basic observation that I

Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-43882401812899313772009-02-24T22:22:00.016+03:302009-02-26T03:02:29.833+03:30

This time it's an article in The Atlantic in which a breast cancer survivor talks about how the drug that she hopes has eliminated her cancer would not have been covered in New Zealand. The basic thrust of the article is that the author—Virginia Postrel—survived as a consequence of spending $60,000 on a drug called Herceptin, which is very effective for certain cancers when taken early; she

Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-9182598646616050032009-02-23T23:23:00.002+03:302009-02-23T23:25:44.942+03:30

Charlie Stross blogged a better than average roving questionnaire (please don't call it a "meme") today. I answered on his blog, but the process was interesting enough that I thought I'd share it here. The question is, what technology has changed your life, and when did you first meet it? I didn't have time to really do it justice, but I had a lot of fun answering it anyway.Electronics lab

Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-4652758922421297872009-02-14T05:03:00.005+03:302009-02-14T05:17:24.339+03:30

I noticed something going around on Facebook - a questionnaire (I hate to call it a meme, because meme actually means something different that's quite important) that asks you to make up a bunch of names for yourself. It seems like great fun on the surface, but the instructions it gives for making up names actually looks like a con.Here are the questions:YOUR SPY NAME (middle name and current

Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-36073834456174971242009-02-13T04:32:00.011+03:302009-02-13T05:24:39.064+03:30

Wow, when I look back at my recent blog entries, it's a weird combination of sensible things and extremist things. I call on people to be reasonable, and in the next sentence I talk about how awful some group of people is, or call our former president a robot. Sigh.But that's not what I'm here to talk about today. Ever since a bit before I broke my wrist, I've been getting worse and worse

Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-84102517016292592762009-01-14T22:39:00.004+03:302009-01-14T22:49:38.814+03:30

The New York Times yesterday published an article on the risks children face on the internet. Quoting from the article:A task force created by 49 state attorneys general to look into the problem of sexual solicitation of children online has concluded that there really is not a significant problem.Further:Not everyone was happy with the conclusions. Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut attorney

Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-64978746933273392752009-01-13T02:22:00.007+03:302009-01-13T23:03:27.852+03:30

Now that something like 70% of Americans have decided that they like the idea of universal health care and elected a president and congress that might take steps in that direction, the Christian Science Monitor has come out with a new and pernicious attack on the idea of universal health care. The idea is that because health care costs money, if you put the government in charge of health care,

Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-944728412057088182008-12-21T21:38:00.004+03:302008-12-21T22:02:29.413+03:30

Over the years of the Bush presidency, and the Clinton presidency, a certain stridency gained power in our political world. Particularly in the Bush years, people who believe in personal freedom, tolerance, personal responsibility, genuine conservatism, and all those other good American values, despaired. Bush's complete refusal to engage with reality - to do what made sense, what was right -

Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-88908616017298616732008-11-06T22:17:00.006+03:302008-11-06T22:54:50.140+03:30

I've been in a meeting all morning, and I heard something in the meeting that really pissed me off. It's a common meme in our society right now. The meme is that child pornography is a really serious social problem, which justifies extraordinary measures to combat.What are the extraordinary measures? Well, basically, censorship infrastructure on the Internet, plus mandatory sentencing, plus

Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-51316502269354788222008-11-05T21:07:00.000+03:302008-11-05T21:11:49.024+03:30

It was really sweet to watch all the happy faces in the airport last night when my flight landed. It seems like there's a lot of joy about Obama's landslide victory in this election. I'm certainly very happy about it. It was also kind of cool to hear Robot George telling us that Obama's election means we have formed a more perfect union.Of course, as Senator Obama reminded us very nicely in

Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-26876075237560643712008-10-30T21:17:00.000+03:302008-10-30T21:21:03.261+03:30

...that it's been a week since my dad had his triple bypass. I was reminded just now that I have left a bit of a cliffhanger on my blog. So here's a little update. He came through the surgery fine. The folks at the hospital refer to it as their "big save," which is kind of sobering, but who can argue with outcomes. They say there was no damage to the heart muscle, and he should be

Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-14323559967072187732008-10-24T06:23:00.002+03:302008-10-24T06:43:58.006+03:30

This is going to sound really maudlin when my dad reads it in the morning. But that'll be okay, because then he'll make fun of me. I feel like I spend a lot of my life firmly insulated from the truth. What's going on, how I actually feel about what's going on, like that.Right now my dad is in an operating room having a triple bypass. And so the last time I talked to him, earlier today,

Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-17119125818946706902008-08-09T06:43:00.000+04:302008-08-09T07:08:53.463+04:30

Andrea and I are out at DM today.   There was a thunderstorm.   I took some fairly decent pictures, considering that the only camera I had with was the iPhone.   This one is looking up toward Fort Bowie - as you can see, the fort is completely inundated.This is looking to the north.   Nice rainbow.   You get a lot of these in the desert in Arizona during monsoon.   Would have liked a longer lens

Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-80592014800896122772008-08-03T03:44:00.002+04:302008-08-08T01:33:30.600+04:30

I know. I never call. I never write. You probably didn't even know I was in Ireland in the first place. Sigh. I wish I could promise to change, but I don't want to make a promise and then break it.Anyay, as it turns out, I was in Ireland - the summer IETF was at a golf hotel about 45 minutes outside of Dubin this time. Ireland was really great. Kind of trippy. I stayed at a place

Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-15171052722063284952008-06-23T05:10:00.001+04:302008-06-23T05:22:16.159+04:30

When I was a kid, probably ten or so, my parents would take me in to Greenfield, the nearest decent-sized town, to go to the library and check out books. I can remember a lot of books from that time vaguely, very few clearly.One of my favorite authors, whose books I do remember clearly, was Eleanor Cameron. She wrote about a boy my age who constructed a rocket ship and flew to a secret moon

Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-47761921148784302792008-06-18T00:57:00.000+04:302008-06-18T01:00:14.219+04:30

The summer solstice sun hits the south wall at a very oblique angle. I don't think it's imparting very much energy to the wall; when I put my hand on the wall just now (1:30pm), it wasn't unpleasantly hot, although I singed my feet on the relatively light stone walkway. Earlier and later in the year we'll get more energy from the sun on the wall. So it seems like the main thing is to keep

Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10863917.post-39601411155772330262008-06-17T00:47:00.001+04:302008-06-17T00:54:51.371+04:30

Okay, the deal is that the sun rises in the northeast, peaks at 8.5 degrees south of vertical at noon, and sets in the southwest, on the summer solstice in Tucson. At the equinoxes, it rises and sets due east and west, and is to the south all day. At the winter solstice it rises in the southeast and sets in the southwest, and peaks at just over 55 degrees south of vertical at solar noon.Some

Ted Lemonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16951216043358903560noreply@blogger.com0