Fluid Flow

Please tell me that no one falls for these things anymore:

Dear Email User,

This is to officially inform you that we’re currently upgrading our database storage facilities and email security features without shutting down the old Server to a new and better Server hence, the reason for this notification.

The email service upgrade requires you to provide the following details as specified below:

1. Email Address:
2. Email ID/Username:
3. Email Password:
4. Confirm Email Password:

Once you have filled your email details, simply click on reply and send back to us.

Warning!!! Failure to update your email account by providing the above necessary details after reading this official Notification may automatically make your email account inactive on our new server in few days time.

We strongly apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, as we’re determined to serve you better. Thank you for patronizing our email service. Notification Code: BC1G47TRJ.

IT HelpDesk
Webmail Administrator.

You kind of have to marvel at the simplicity of the scam. But really, confirm a password by typing it twice in an email? That is a little over the top.

Confiscated weapons to be melted into rebar: Weapons were on display Monday at Los Angeles County Sheriff’s headquarters, where Sheriff Lee Baca announced the destruction of more than 8,300 weapons confiscated from criminals in Los Angeles County. The guns will be converted Tuesday morning into steel rebar as part of ‘Project Isaiah.’ Tamco Steel donates its furnace, equipment and personnel to convert the weapons into rebar, and will allocate the steel from the melted weapons to be used for upgrades to freeways and bridges in California, Nevada and Arizona.

(Via Los Angeles Times - Top News.)

Melt the guns
Melt the guns
Melt the guns
And never more to fire them
Melt the guns
Melt the guns
Melt the guns
And never more desire them
(XTC - Melt the Guns, 1982)

I hope the song blasting at the foundry tomorrow.

If you think that doesn’t sound good for the birds, you are right.

Early this morning a bobcat jumped to the first rock off the mainland at the the south end of Point Lobos invading a cormorant and gull rookery. Mayhem ensued. Dozens of birds, young and adult, were killed.

A sated bobcat spent the afternoon sleeping. I assume that it will wander off the rock tonight.

I am fully mixed here. A bobcat has to eat, that is a given. And we aren’t suffering any shortages of gulls and cormorants. But the carnage was a little more than appalling. And there is no way that that the cat can eat all of the birds it killed.

But, I won’t be calling for cat proofing the island. Nature is just a a little harsh sometimes.

These days, I am trclifton. I guess that I was a little late to sign up with Google and Facebook. Now, I don’t even try for anything simpler.

But that wasn’t always the case.

In 1994, I first logged in as tclifton. For years, it was easy to sign up for anything as tclifton. But that changed as the internet became more popular.

Yahoo was the first site I used where tclifton was already taken.

I kind of miss the days when I was the only tclifton around, but trclifton works fine for me too.

Lets start this at the beginning. After moving to San Jose, I discovered the San Jose Giants Minor League Baseball team. I fell in love.

In 2004, I purchased season tickets for the SJ Giants. The day after the season ended, I started SJ Giants Fans (http://www.sjgiantsfans.org/). 2005 was a great season. The website got a following and my photo graced the MiLB website when the SJ Giants won the Cal League.

Fast forward to September 2007. I’ve been promoting the SJ Giants for three years now. As a season ticket holder, I missed four games out of seventy in 2007.

But as we win the Cal League Championship again, the fans hear the that the front office is unhappy that season ticket holders aren’t showing up to games. Too many empty seats on the video feed.

Then came the letter. That was the first blog post where I criticized the front office. I also vented a bit in the comments.

I also commented that the City gave the SJ Giants Baseball Club a sweet deal. Though that was really more of a rant against the City.

And then the was the post that got me banned. I wrote about it on the site two weeks later..

So that’s the story. Two years later I am still banned from the ball park. It is a bother, because I miss the game and I miss my friends there. But it is what it is.

An early shot with the new camera.

I have charged the batteries and taken it outside for a few shots.

A few things that I have noticed. The camera is quieter, the mirror flicks are not as abrasive. The auto focus seems quicker and more accurate. It also shows you where it is focusing (I may find this distracting in the future or I may find it the best thing since sliced bread).

It captures a lot more data than my 20D, RAW files have jumped from 8 megs in size to over 24 megs. I am pretty certain that I can use the extra data, but it means the number of shots that I can take with my (aggregate) 8 gigs of card storage is a least halved.

Tomorrow, I will put it through its paces on the trail.

Possibly the last shot from my 20D

Is that they are electronic. Most of the mechanical gizmos have been replaced with electronics.

While this gives the cameras brains and ability to do things that your old cameras couldn’t, electronics often fail before mechanical systems.

Case in point, the shutter control went out on my Canon 20D. Put a battery into the camera, the shutter opens, the mirror raises multiple times. When you actually turn on the camera, this goes on incessantly.

Now, I am actually lucky. The 20D is over five years old and has probably taken more shots that it was rated for. It is over three generations old. Most of the online complaints about shutter malfunctions occurred with in a couple of years of purchase.

I might be able to get it repaired for a couple hundred bucks.

But I am thinking that it might be time just to replace it. Though I would like to think that I can get more than 5 years out of a camera.

In the past week, I have had two strange and not pleasant encounters with our six-legged friends. But both were firsts for me.

The first happened while driving north on 101. I hit a bee swarm. Within a second my windshield was covered with the remains of 50 to 100 dead bees. Not much you can do except say, “sorry I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Then two nights ago, a gnat climbed down my ear canal and got stuck in the wax. You don’t want to experience a gnat trying to free itself from inside your ear.

Over the years, insects and I have gotten along well. This past week, not so well.

X-51A races to hypersonic record: “The Air Force’s experimental, scramjet-powered Waverider makes a short but historic flight in a test range over the Pacific Ocean.”

(Via CNET News.com.)

And yes, this needs a mention too. I am not even going to try to think of the equations involved here.

Gulf Disaster Is Now Worst U.S. Offshore Oil Spill:

Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey say the flow rate from the blown-out well is at least twice as much and possibly five times as much as estimates cited by BP. The oil giant says engineers won’t know until at least Thursday afternoon whether the latest attempt to plug the leak is succeeding.

(Via NPR News: Top Stories.)

I have been remiss, any self respecting blog with a name like Fluid Flow should have a link to the oil (and now drilling mud) gushing out of the Gulf Coast seafloor. My apologies, you will have go to the NPR story to see/watch the feed.