Dan Birchall

This evening, I learned that   one meter equals 39.3700787 inches . While this may come as no surprise to   some  people, it was one to me - for years, I had mistakenly believed a meter was 39.77 inches, and now I know it's basically 39.37. Of course, I'm not alone in my confusion. A bit of research on Google revealed quite a few different conversions from meters to inches. Here are   some   of them: 38 inches according to a page at  Arkansas State University  and another at  Microflex Technologies . 38.16 inches according to a rounding-happy math teacher at  Norfolk Collegiate School  in Virginia. 38.37 inches according to Honeywell's  Sensotec  folks. 38.8 inches according to some  numerological babble 39 inches according to  Fife Products  and some  folks who sell quilting products . 39.14 inches according to the specifications on a  measuring wheel  for engineers. (uh-oh!) 39.15 inches according to an October 30 2002 entry in a  blog . 39.21 inches according

While skindiving, I noticed a nice red pencil urchin by a head of coral. Swimming closer, I discovered that there was also a Puhi Paka (Yellowmargin Moray,  Gymnothorax flavimarginatus ) "guarding" that particular area. Given that morays tend to have quite a lot of needle-sharp teeth, I decided to not get  too  close. Canon PowerShot S20, Ewa-Marine D-MM enclosure, 3-4 meters depth. I took several shots and chose this one. At first, it looks like it's just a photo of some coral and underwater scenery... surprise, it's not!

  Apple got a lot of buzz for their  Power Mac G5  in 2003, as did IBM for the  PowerPC 970  chip inside it, made using a 130nm process in a shiny new highly automated fabrication facility. There was also a lot of buzz about the  Xserve G5 in early 2004, which took a while to actually start shipping due to difficulty getting enough functional PowerPC 970FX chips, made by IBM using a new 90nm process. Now there's buzz about the iMac G5, which had originally been planned for the "back to school" summer buying season, but is now expected to launch at the end of August and ship in mid-September. And of course there will be buzz about the inevitable PowerBook G5, at least until Apple announces and ships one. Anyway, a  lot  of the buzz is  along the lines of  "G5 chips dissipate so much heat that it's hard to fit them into small spaces like 1U rackmount servers, iMacs and PowerBooks." Compared to G4 chips, this was certainly true of the original 130

I took this photo just after sunset, from the top of a cinder cone on Mauna Kea. This is the Visitor Information Station at the Onizuka Center for International Astronomy, located at 9,300 feet elevation. Yes, it's on (more than a bit of) a hill. Inside the building are a whole bunch of exhibits, computers, a video projection area with seating, and of course a gift shop that sells all kinds of nifty stuff. Outside on the patio and in the parking lot, a half-dozen telescopes are set up for the evening stargazing program. They are, from left to right: Orion 8-inch newtonian reflector on a dobsonian mount. Orion 4.5-inch newtonian reflector on a dobsonian mount (behind the 8-inch). Orion 6-inch newtonian reflector on a dobsonian mount. Meade 16-inch LX200GPS cassegrain reflector on an alt-azimuth fork mount. Celestron 14-inch cassegrain reflector on a Losmandy equatorial mount. Televue 102mm apochromatic refractor on an Astro-Physics equatorial mount. The Meade, Cel

During a quick dip in the ocean the other day, two Honu (Green Turtle,  Chelonia mydas ) swam past me. I squeezed off a bunch of shots, but only one caught a turtle far enough from the camera for its entire body to be in the frame - they get close, sometimes! Canon PowerShot S20, Ewa-Marine D-MM enclosure, 2-3 meters depth.

I've mentioned before that I volunteer at the Visitor Information Station of the Onizuka Center for International Astronomy. To call Onizuka a "world-class" facility would not be exaggerating, at all - more than ten nations on 5 continents are involved in it, and the 12 observatories it supports include four of the ten largest optical telescopes in the world, as well as the largest dedicated infrared and submillimeter-band telescopes. The telescopes are among the highest terrestrial telescopes. A 1998   article   in   Outside   magazine by Richard Panek gives some idea of just how extreme this all is.   Even the   VIS   is pretty extreme - there aren't a lot of places in Hawaii you'll see tour buses and vans discharging hordes of tourists... in arctic-style parkas! On a clear night, the temperature drops to about 40 F (that's under 5 C), and there might be a good stiff breeze to contend with as well. But a clear night at 9,300 feet, with a dark sk

Remember the strong-willed camera I was ranting about before? Well, it wound up working! Working, that is, as long as the person accessing it is on, or VPN'ed into, its local LAN. Great. Just... great. Now I know what brand of web camera   not   to buy.

  The folks at  Apple  have a reputation for cranking out well-designed, well-integrated products, and generally marketing them in a way that's pleasing to the eye and all that. An example of this integration is the Apple Display Connector, which carries a DVI signal, USB channel and power from my  Power Mac  to my Apple  Cinema  display. There's only one cable coming out of the display, which cuts down nicely on clutter. Like all of us, though, Apple marketers sometimes have a bad day. And when that happens, look out! Several of my acquaintances and colleagues have been discussing the fact that  PowerBooks  include a mini-DVI port, and an assortment of adapters to connect that port to various things, but  not  an adapter to connect it to any of Apple's line of flat-panel LCD displays, which all use ADC. Apple  does  offer a $99  DVI to ADC adapter , which takes DVI and USB from a computer (be it a PowerBook, the secondary DVI port on a Power Mac, or indeed any