I saw this new Amazon internet search engine at SFSignal today and naturally had to search "TexasBestGrok."

I was highly gratified to see my blog come up first. And, like the guys at SFSignal, I found the linked images feature pretty cool, too.

Along with the traditional search results on the left, a sidebar on the right was populated with images ranging from the Texas Republic circa 1845, to SpaceShipOne, to the appealing ladies of Buck Rogers in the 25th century.

Posted by: JohnL at 06:27 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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MSNBC and the Desert News report that Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites will be responsible for carrying the X-37 technology demonstrator to altitude for test drops.

Contrary to the first report in the Desert News, Scaled has not yet confirmed whether the White Knight will be the ship that carries the X-37, as it does SpaceShipOne.

I find this very interesting, given Rutan's recent statements about developing an orbital analogue of SpaceShipOne as the next step in his business plan. I also find it interesting that the program has been transferred from NASA to an "unnamed government agency."

This is one to watch, folks.

Update: According to Keith Cowing's source, the "unnamed agency" is DARPA.

Update: And here's more from Space.com on the X-37 program and its transfer to DARPA.

Posted by: JohnL at 10:21 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I've been tracking this story since last Thursday morning, but haven't felt compelled to write anything about it, given the excellent efforts of Little Green Footballs (start here and scroll to the present), PowerLine (start here and scroll), Ace (again, here and scroll), and the Creator of Worlds (here), among many others.

This animated GIF, created by Charles Johnson (of LGF) is an overlay of the alleged 1973 memo to file with the same memo typed in Word 97 with default margins and 12 point Times New Roman Font. This really is all I needed to see to settle my opinion, and I would argue it is all any open-minded person would need to see:

Contrast that with Charles' efforts to overlay a reproduction of a real typewritten memo from the era:

Here's the original memo without overlay:

And here's another overlay, debunking the notion put forward by Edward Mendelson at PC Magazine that an expensive IBM typesetting maching (the Selectric Composer) would have produced an identical document:

Other good links here and here.

Update: Ouch. That's gotta hurt. Certainly nobody can accuse the Washington Post of partisan bias in favor of the President. (Link via Instapundit).

Posted by: JohnL at 10:46 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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This is one cool machine.

Language geek aside: This site appears to be in Finnish. How do I know that? It looks like Tolkien's Elvish.

Via Utterly Boring.

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Donald J. Leslie, the man who invented the organ amplifier that bears his name, passed away last week at the age of 93.

If you like classic rock, gospel, or jazz, some of your favorite songs were most likely enhanced by a Leslie amplifier, which gave the Hammond organ its most recognized voice.

Leslie's invention was ingenious.

His amps typically contain a crossover that splits the audio signal, directing bass frequencies to a 15" speaker aimed down and the treble frequencies to a small driver facing up. Positioned below the bass speaker is a rotating drum (originally made out of plywood) and above the treble driver is a counterweighted horn. The drum and horn deflect the audio signal out through the louvres in the cabinet.

When set at slow speed (Chorale), the lower drum would rotate slowly and the horn not at all. But when switched to high speed (Tremolo), the top horn would rotate at up to 400 RPM. This produced the distinctive doppler-shifting vibrato that many associate with the classic Hammond sound.

I didn't know that Don Leslie was still alive as of last week, as he was not a major public figure. But as the proud owner of a Leslie 147 amp, I am thankful for his invention. You can read some of his obituaries here, here, and here. (Use Bugmenot for the registration-required sites).

Posted by: JohnL at 10:04 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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While I've been slacking off for the last few weeks, tweaking the templates and stylesheets of my site, Alan Brain has been posting a terrific variety of articles on subjects ranging from Iran's missile program and the US/Israeli ABM response to it, to a tale of two very cool naval vessels (including the Australian role in the high-tech design of each), to coverage of the Beslan terrorist atrocity.

I hit his tipjar tonight, and encourage you to do the same.

Posted by: JohnL at 10:40 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Sorry for the lack of content recently. I've been struggling with getting a stable 3-column css layout that doesn't look too busy.

The middle column still needs some work, I think, but I wanted to go ahead and throw this out there for feedback from my few regular readers.

Please email or comment with feedback on the new look.

Thanks!

Update: Make that 99.9% complete! Thanks for the feedback and compliments. Especially thanks to Madfish Willie for some solid, constructive criticism. I got rid of the dotted line under the banner, as well as the link-underlining in the sidebars. I also moved the sitemeter and scripts down to the bottom right, so that they would load last; I noticed they were keeping the right bar from loading quickly. Any other comments still welcome!

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. . . In Australia, that is, according to this quiz.

Of course, their "liberal Democrats" are quite a bit different from ours. . .

HT: Yobbo.

Update: Prompted by Yobbo's comment, my scores were 17 for Economic Freedom and 15 for Social Freedom.

Posted by: JohnL at 12:14 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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