We had a special homeowners association meeting this evening, because $2419.35 was budgeted for snow removal for January-March, and the actual expenses were a little higher.

1339.5% higher, to be precise.  $32,407.15 over budget.

Since those bills were paid, the HOA is now desperately short on funds to pay our other bills, and tonight’s meeting was supposedly for the purpose of hearing suggestions from the homeowners on ways to deal with the problem without a special assessment.

I suggested that we offer incentives for homeowners to prepay their HOA fees in order to eliminate the current cash flow problem, and then find ways to save money over the rest of the year.

Other homeowners suggested fundraising ideas, but I quickly got the impression that while some of the board members really seemed to be interested in avoiding a special assessment, the majority just wanted to pass a special assessment and were only holding the meeting for show.

After hearing comments from many people and not bothering to take time to study them at all, the board passed a special assessment of $120 per unit.

*Note to humor-impaired liberals: I am not actually suggesting that increasing global warming in order to reduce my HOA fees is a good idea.

I have been very remiss in my book reviewing duties. Summer of the Apocalypse, by my friend James Van Pelt, came out in 2006.  I got a copy at MileHiCon that year, and read it that night.

There were two reasons why I was anxious to read the novel.  First, I’ve been a fan of Jim’s writing since I first heard him read his short story "Once They Were Monarchs" at CONduit in 2005.  Jim’s one of the best short story writers out there, and I highly recommend his collection The Last Of The O-Forms & Other Stories.

Second, at CONduit in 2006, Jim had read from Summer of the Apocalypse, so I’d already had a taste of the book and wanted more.

The basic plot of the book follows a character named Eric, but I think you’ll like the book even if you don’t share a name with the protagonist.  The novel alternates between Eric as a 15-year-old boy trying to survive as most of Earth’s population is wiped out by a plague, and Eric as a 75-year-old man trying to make sure the knowledge of civilization isn’t lost forever.

The novel is tensely paced, the characters are well-drawn, and the story is memorable and thought-provoking.  That’s why I can recommend it to you almost a year and a half after reading it.  I’m just sorry I didn’t get around to reviewing it sooner.

I just watched a very interesting video from 60 Minutes about the Active Denial System, a non-lethal weapon being developed by our military.

Basically, it’s a system that shoots microwaves at people up to half a mile away, causing them pain as long as they remain in the beam, but doing no lasting harm.

Such a non-lethal weapon seems like a better option than using lethal force in many situations, and I would like to see this weapon deployed.

However, the video points out some problems, and I’d like to comment on a couple of others.

First, they envision using the ADS for crowd control.  It certainly could be useful for that–as long as the crowd is not so dense that the people caught by the beam are unable to flee from it.  If the people in front are being swept forward by the push of the crowd, they may end up acting as human shields for those behind them.

Second, in the wrong hands, the ADS could be used as an instrument of torture on people who are immobilized so they can’t move out of the beam.  (Such a possibility was anticipated by Gregory Benford in his short story "The Pain Gun.")

I don’t think these are sufficient reasons to stop development and deployment of the weapon, but I do think there need to be very strict guidelines regarding its use.

You know how some CDs have secret bonus tracks that aren’t listed?

The May issue of Analog has a secret bonus story that’s not listed in the table of contents.  If you turn to page 60, however, you’ll find "The Ashes of His Fathers," by yours truly.

Obviously I didn’t because I don’t live in a state that was voting today.

If I did, though, I would have been tempted to vote for her, and not because I’m a Republican mischief-maker.

I’m definitely Republican, and I’ll be voting for Senator McCain in November.  But I would rather have Senator Clinton as the Democratic nominee than Senator Obama.  There are some Republicans who say that because they think Clinton will be easier to defeat.  Given her perseverance when everything seemed to have turned against her in the Democratic race, I wouldn’t be so sure.

Whether or not that’s true doesn’t matter to me.  What matters is that if a Democrat does win the White House this fall, it should be the candidate who is better prepared to lead our country in a time of war.  For all her faults, I see Hillary Clinton as someone strong, determined, and above all pragmatic.  And I believe she understands that as America’s first female President, she cannot afford to be seen as weak in exercising American power.

In Barack Obama I see someone who is both squishy and inexperienced on foreign policy, and I fear he’s the second coming of Jimmy Carter.

Who do I want answering that phone at 3am?  John McCain.  But if it’s going to be a Democrat, I want it to be Hillary Clinton.

Here’s a list of the most common fonts installed on Windows computers.  The first surprise for me was that 4.49% don’t have Arial, and an even bigger surprise was that 16.8% don’t have Times New Roman.  I thought those two were pretty much universal.

Warning: extreme science nerdiness follows.

One of the proofs of relativity is what happens to a particle called a muon.  Muons are created in our atmosphere by cosmic rays.  The half-life of a muon is only 2.2 1.56 microseconds (which means if you have a certain number of muons, every 2.2 1.56 microseconds you will have only half as many.)  Even though the muons are traveling at near the speed of light, without relativity, very few of the muons generated high in the atmosphere are able to travel far enough to reach the earth’s surface.

However, according to the theory of relativity, when an object travels at close to the speed of light, a stationary observer sees time slow down for that object–that’s known as time dilation.  Also, from the point of view of the object, distances along its path of travel get shorter–that’s known as length contraction.

Read More »