http://www.markcarey.com/me/ en-us 2006-04-10T08:43:05-05:00 http://www.markcarey.com/me/discuss-new-site-for-greeting-cards.html If you are looking for unique greeting cards, take a look at the new Greeting Cards House site. This site has just been launched by my mother-in-law. The cards look great, I have seen them! The web site is still a bit of a work in progress, as she will be making some adjustments and additions to it. But if you are interested in buying some greeting cards, or even if you have a request for a certain type of photo or image, use the "contact us" link on the site.... Home Mark 2006-04-10T08:43:05-05:00 http://www.markcarey.com/me/discuss-memorial-web-site.html My father recently passed away. His pain has ended, and he is resting peacefully. More information at the memorial web site for Ted Carey (http://www.tedcarey.com).... Home Mark 2006-03-23T18:04:07-05:00 http://www.markcarey.com/me/discuss-new-photo-blog.html I recently launched my first photo blog, Extra Sensory Exposure. It is powered by Movable Type, Flickr, and listed on Photoblogs.org. I am going to try to post a photo a day, but I have been known to get busy at times...... Home Mark 2004-12-14T16:18:24-05:00 http://www.markcarey.com/me/discuss-caffeine-break.html I finally did it. It used to be that every year I would take a week off coffee, consume no caffeine for a full week - just to show that I could. About 4 years ago I tried this for the first time in a few years, and failed. On day two, I felt really sick. To the point that I had to go home from work. Later that day I had a coffee. Perhaps it was just coincidence, perhaps I was getting sick anyway - but it took four years for me to try it again. This time I decided to do things gradually, rather than cold turkey. Over a span of the past 3 months, I gradually reduced my coffee intake from 4 cups a day to 3 cups a day and then to two cups a day. After that, I reduced it to one cup in the moring and a cup of Yerba Mate tea in the afternoon (Yerba Mate is an organic tea that contains some naturally occuring caffeine - not a lot - and 149 nutrients). Finally, 3 weeks ago, I eliminated the coffee altogther, having Yerba Mate in the morning and afternoon. A week later, it was only one cup of Yerba Mate, in the afternoon. Then finally last week zero caffeine for the entire seven days. I had some minor headaches, but nothing too bad, since I stepped things down slowly. I am now drinking my first coffee in three weeks. Going forward, I am still going to drink coffee, of course, but probably not as much. :)... Home Mark 2004-08-30T08:28:18-05:00 http://www.markcarey.com/me/discuss-smells-like-sour-11-is-here.html Smells Like Sour 11 is here. This release has been one of the toughest selection processes yet, with so many decent songs being releases in the past 6 months. The song line-up is as follows: Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out Modest Mouse - Float On Velvet Revolver - Slither The Strokes - Reptilia The Killers - Somebody Told Me Incubus - Megalomaniac Brand New - Sic Transit Gloria...Glory Fades Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps Billy Talent - The Ex Metric - Combat Baby Slipknot - Duality Korn - Y'all Want a Single Audioslave - What You Are Linkin Park - Lying From You The Vines - Ride Beastie Boys - Ch-Check It Out The Distillers - Beat Your Heart Out The Tragically Hip - Vaccination Scar Broken Social Scene - Cause=Time Probot - Shake Your Blood Jet - Cold Hard Bitch The Offspring - Can't Get My Head Around You The White Stripes - I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself For more info and commentary, see Mike's comments in the new Smells Like Sour Blog.... Home Mark 2004-07-11T10:09:20-05:00 http://www.markcarey.com/me/discuss-suvs-suck.html SUVs Suck Bumper Sticker... Home Mark 2004-03-23T18:17:07-05:00 http://www.markcarey.com/me/discuss-water-ice-detected-at-mars-south-pole.html As published by MSNBC.com: Water ice detected at Mars’ south pole Europe’s Mars Express finds H2O in unexpected areas MSNBC staff and news service reports Updated: 11:46 a.m. ET March 18, 2004 LONDON - Spectral images from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter show that there is plenty of water ice at the southern pole of Mars, French scientists said Wednesday. Weeks after NASA’s Mars rovers uncovered geologic evidence that liquid water existed on ancient Mars, images from the OMEGA instrument aboard the Mars Express indicate its southern pole has three distinct areas containing water ice. “We present the first direct identification and mapping of both carbon dioxide and water ice in the Martian high southern latitudes,” Jean-Pierre Bibring of the Institut d’Astrophique Spatiale in Orsay, France, said in a report published online by the science journal Nature. Farther from the pole The images were taken at the end of the summer on Mars, so they show that the ice is present all year. Bibring and his colleagues also observed exposed water ice in a region farther from the southern cap, where a large amount of water ice is thought to be buried. The scientists deciphered the chemical makeup of the pole by studying the amounts of light and heat reflected from the area, allowing them to distinguish between dust, carbon dioxide and water ice. “All the previous instruments did not have this capability of identifying all the components of what was observed,” Bibring said in a telephone interview. The scientists will also be analyzing data from the northern pole of Mars, where water ice was previously known to exist. “We will be in the process in the coming months of evaluating the global surface of water and CO2 (on Mars),” Bibring added. Following the water The latest evidence, combined with findings from NASA’s rovers, gives scientists more information about whether the conditions to sustain life existed on Mars in the past and if the planet could support life in the future. “The answers depend on understanding the past and present distribution of both water and CO2,” Timothy Titus of the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Ariz., said in a commentary on the research. Water would be needed to support a human mission to the planet. Determining how much and where the water is located is also necessary to understand Martian climates. “Human exploration, and ultimate colonization, of Mars depend on accessibility to one resource — water,” said Titus. “Martian water is necessary not only for human consumption, but is also the key to making breathable air and fuel for the return trip to Earth. For life on Mars, water is the elixir,” he added. Rover update Meanwhile, NASA's Spirit rover spent Wednesday studying a drift of windblown Martian sand or dust on the rim of the Bonneville crater. The golfcart-sized probe used one of its six wheels to "scuff" the surface of the drift, revealing the material beneath the surface. It then made observations of the scuffed area... News I've Read Mark 2004-03-18T16:14:10-05:00 http://www.markcarey.com/me/discuss-rough-ride-for-robots-but-humans-smiling.html As published by MSNBC.com: Rough ride for robots, but humans smiling $1 million race ends without winners, but not without success By Alan Boyle Science editor MSNBC Updated: 10:32 p.m. ET March 14, 2004PRIMM, Nev. - Based on the numbers, the Pentagon’s first-ever robotic road race looks like a bust: No one won the $1 million offered as a prize. In fact, every one of the 15 autonomous vehicles broke down or withdrew within the first four hours of what was expected to be a 10-hour race. The hardiest robot made it through only 7.4 miles of the 142-mile course. But most of the competitors, as well as the government agency that paid for the DARPA Grand Challenge, hailed Saturday’s event as a success. “We came this far — we’ve won,” said 17-year-old Chris Seide, a member of the Palos Verdes High School Road Warriors, whose converted SUV crashed into the starting chute’s barriers twice during the morning. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has already gotten a fourfold or fivefold return on its $13 million investment in the yearlong process, said Anthony Tether, DARPA’s director. He said the innovations demonstrated over the past week would help the U.S. military push toward its goal of having a third of its vehicles operate autonomously by 2015. “We did what we wanted to do,” Tether told journalists in Primm, the intended endpoint of the race, “but that doesn't mean that we aren't going to keep coming back and keep doing this until somebody picks up that million-dollar check.” Sandstorm, the converted Humvee military vehicle entered by Carnegie Mellon University’s Red Team, was the favorite in the race — and it ended up going the farthest, racking up 7.4 miles. The vehicle, which had suffered a rollover during a practice session last week, hit a couple of posts early on Saturday’s course, and spun out several miles later as it was climbing a rugged switchback. The failing might have been the result of a sensor glitch that went uncorrected after the earlier rollover, or damage done during the crash on the course, or merely a turn of bad luck. DARPA’s Tether told journalists that if Sandstorm had driven just 6 inches closer to the inboard side of the switchback, it might have kept on going. Red Whittaker, a Carnegie Mellon robotics professor and the Red Team’s leader, took the apparent mechanical failure in stride. “If you haven’t done everything, you haven’t done anything,” he told MSNBC.com. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a flipped bit, or a bad sensor, or a lug nut. They’re really all the same.” He said Sandstorm’s performance showed that the machine had “as much heart as the team.” “Sandstorm will ride again,” he declared. The day promised to be a marathon: At 3:20 a.m. PT Saturday, competitors received 229,000 GPS coordinates defining the course between the makeshift starting-line arena in the Mojave Desert, outside Barstow, Calif., and the finish line at Primm, about 35 miles south of Las Vegas.... News I've Read Mark 2004-03-18T16:11:53-05:00 http://www.markcarey.com/me/discuss-small-asteroid-zooming-past-earth.html As published by MSNBC.com: Small asteroid zooming past Earth Space rock spotted Monday; no threat of collision By Robert Roy Britt Senior Science Writer Updated: 11:39 a.m. ET March 18, 2004An asteroid will pass closer to Earth than ever recorded at 5:08 p.m. ET Thursday, NASA scientists announced. The planet is not at risk, they said. The space rock is about 100 feet (30 meters) wide. It will pass just 26,500 miles (43,000 kilometers) over the southern Atlantic Ocean. That's about 3.4 times Earth's diameter. It's also just beyond geostationary weather satellites, which orbit at an altitude of 22,300 miles (35,700 kilometers). Scientist said experienced backyard stargazers should be able to see it with binoculars or small telescopes from much of Asia, Europe and the Southern Hemisphere if skies are clear. The object, named 2004 FH, was detected Monday. "It's a guaranteed miss," astronomer Paul Chodas, of the Near Earth Object Program office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said Wednesday. As it flies past Earth, the path of 2004 FH will be bent about 15 degrees by Earth's gravity. It will zoom from one side of the moon's orbit to the other in 31 hours. Astronomers are swinging telescopes toward the newfound object in what they consider an unprecedented opportunity to study a space rock up close. An object of this size, were it to take direct aim, would likely break apart or explode in the atmosphere, astronomers say. The result could cause local damage. Something just slightly larger could survive to the surface and destroy a city. Out there Most asteroids reside in a belt between Mars and Jupiter, orbiting the sun for eons without leaving that general region. But gravitational interactions kick some inward. It is not uncommon for asteroids to pass near the Earth. It is uncommon to spot them. Prior to this event, the closest known asteroid flyby was on Sept. 27 last year, when another smallish rock named 2003 SQ222 came within 54,700 miles (88,000 kilometers) of Earth. It was not detected until after it hurtled by. Experts say other similarly sized space rocks pass close about once every two years but go undetected. Smaller boulders routinely plunge into the atmosphere and vaporize or explode, sometimes dropping fragments to the surface and igniting fires and fears. Earlier this month, astronomers gathered to pondered the risk of small space rocks that typically are not spotted until they are within hours of possible impacts. Asteroid detections have skyrocketed in recent years, meanwhile, as new electronic cameras increase sensitivity and automated telescopes scan the skies for anything that moves in relation to background stars. Researchers say significant new spending would be required to purposely find and track asteroids smaller than 0.6 miles (1 kilometer). Meanwhile, asteroid hunters have for the past decade or so focused on finding the larger asteroids, those that could cause global damage. They are not set up to spot all of the smaller objects that inhabit the same general space as Earth. There could... News I've Read Mark 2004-03-18T13:33:24-05:00 http://www.markcarey.com/me/discuss-scientists-find-new-breed-of-distant-ice-world.html As published by MSNBC.com: Scientists find new breed of distant ice world Planetoid orbits at the edge of our solar system By Alan Boyle Science editor MSNBC Updated: 6:41 p.m. ET March 15, 2004Scientists say they have found the first example of a new breed in the solar system's menagerie: a planetoid that spends all its time far beyond Pluto, in a chilly region that was once thought to be empty. The object could be three-quarters the size of Pluto — leading to speculation in early news reports that it represented a "10th planet" in our solar system. But the head of the discovery team, astronomer Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology, told journalists Monday that he wouldn't consider the newfound mini-world to be a planet. Then again, he doesn't consider Pluto to be a major planet either. Size and distance The planetoid has not yet been given an official name by the International Astronomical Union, only a number: 2003 VB12. However, Brown and his colleagues have provisionally named it Sedna, after the goddess in Inuit mythology who created sea creatures. Sedna is thought to be 800 to 1,100 miles (1,200 to 1,700 kilometers) in diameter. That would make it one of the largest objects found in the solar system since Pluto was first spotted in 1930. What's most distinctive about Sedna, however, is its distance. "There's absolutely nothing else like it known in the solar system," Brown said. The mini-planet has an eccentric 10,500-year orbit that ranges between 8 billion and 84 billion miles (12.8 billion and 134 billion kilometers), which is much farther away than the planets and an outlying ring of frozen cosmic leftovers known as the Kuiper Belt. This led Brown and his colleagues to conclude that Sedna is the first object ever observed in the Oort Cloud, a zone of comets that stretches halfway to the next star. "If this object were to come into the inner solar system, we would classify it as a comet, and it would be the most spectacular comet anyone had ever seen in their life," he said. "But because it never comes into the inner solar system, it's in that region where comets live before they become comets. That's what the Oort Cloud is." Puzzling cloud As far away as Sedna is, scientists didn't expect that anything in the Oort Cloud would be nearly that close to the inner solar system — and that may require a change in theories about the origin of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago, Brown said. He speculated that the sun was created within a star cluster, and that the gravitational effects of the other stars knocked Sedna and other infant worlds out of their original orbits. Today, that star cluster has dispersed, leaving the Oort Cloud as the result of all that ancient interaction. “Very little has happened to this object since the beginning of the solar system.” Brown said. Thus, Sedna could open "a new fossil window into... News I've Read Mark 2004-03-16T09:35:25-05:00 http://www.markcarey.com/me/discuss-aunties-and-uncles-restaurant.html We went for brunch at Aunties and Uncles restaurant yesterday. The place was a bit of a hole-in-the-wall: a small narrow house turned into a restaurant at Lipincott and College. But that gave it some character. The decor was mismatched, with most coming from the 60s and 70s. The food was good, I had "Breakfast Pocket" on Focaccia bread.... Restaurants I've been to Mark 2004-03-14T09:13:34-05:00 http://www.markcarey.com/me/discuss-incentive-reward-games-insult-adults.html As published by The Globe and Mail: Incentive reward games insult adults We've been reduced to nothing more than consumers and nobody seems to object. By GWEN RIVERS Wednesday, March 10, 2004 - Page A22 E-mail this Article Print this Article I still remember my mother's sudden outburst as she suddenly stopped sticking Pinky Stamps into a book and hurled the thing across the room shouting, "Enough's enough!" While I was momentarily taken aback by this show of anger, I can't say I was totally surprised. I had been hearing for some time her complaints about the "infantilization" of adults by some mindless and faceless fools whose useless job was to sell unwanted goods to a captive clientele. When the Pinky Stamp idiocy first started, Mother refused to go along. "I am NOT sitting around pasting little pink stamps into little books!" Most of her friends agreed at first, but after a while, one by one, they caved in. "We're paying for this, after all," they said. "Nothing is free. So we might as well get what we've paid for." Reluctantly, Mother followed suit. She'd go off to the grocery store and come back with a trunk full of bags -- and a purse full of the hated stamps. They would pile up until she couldn't stand it any more. Sometimes she'd ask my father and me to help and a few times we did but that seemed to annoy her even more. "Great. A whole family licking stamps," she'd mutter. Eventually the little books piled up enough that she could redeem the stamps for something. If I remember correctly it was CorningWare of some sort, or something that looked like it. That didn't make her feel better. She'd only grumble, "Am I ever lucky. Now I have pots I didn't need and would never have bought." Finally the whole thing went beyond her level of tolerance. She picked up the stamp books and the stamps still not pasted, stuffed them into a paper bag and marched purposefully out of the house. When she came back she looked decidedly more cheerful. That evening at dinner, Dad and I got the whole story. It went something like this: She demanded to see the grocery-store manager, who listened patiently while she explained to him that the stamps were an insult and that she had better things to do with her time. He replied, in an unctuously patronizing manner, that she doesn't have to take them but that, of course, most people are pleased to get the bonuses. She then informed him, and by this time a few people had gathered around, that the stuff was not a "bonus," that it was all factored into the price, and that it was only a way of selling more merchandise to an unsuspecting public. She suggested that he should do all the licking and pasting since he profits from it and his customers don't. Well, she lost that battle, but she did have the satisfaction... News I've Read Mark 2004-03-10T10:53:51-05:00 http://www.markcarey.com/me/discuss-lord-of-the-ring.html What do they call is Lord of the Rings? I've seen all three movies. There's only one ring. Why isn't it called "The Lord of Ring"? Is it just me?... Home Mark 2004-03-10T08:38:10-05:00 http://www.markcarey.com/me/discuss-stewart-jurors-begin-second-day-of-talks.html As published by MSNBC.com: Stewart jurors begin second day of talks Deliberations delayed one hour following subway accident The Associated Press Updated: 11:48 a.m. ET March 04, 2004 NEW YORK - Jurors began their second day of deliberations in the trial of Martha Stewart on Thursday after an hour Shortly after 11 a.m., four late jurors arrived at the federal courthouse and deliberations for the 12-member panel were once again under way, marshals said. Subway service had been disrupted after a train at a lower Manhattan station hit a person about 9:10 a.m.; the person survived. When all the jurors were assembled, they planned to use a laptop computer to replay part of the testimony of Stewart’s stockbroker before the Securities and Exchange Commission in February 2002, the judge said. On Wednesday, its first day of talks, the jury asked to review a considerable amount of evidence, including the testimony of the brokerage assistant who handled Stewart’s sale of ImClone Systems stock. The jury also asked for another look at a portfolio worksheet that the government claims was doctored by broker Peter Bacanovic to make it appear he and Stewart had agreed to sell ImClone at a certain price. Whether the price agreement — to sell the ImClone stock at $60 per share — ever existed is central to what the jury must decide: Did Stewart and Bacanovic lie to investigators about the circumstances of the sale? The government claims Stewart was actually tipped just hours before she sold the stock on Dec. 27, 2001, that ImClone CEO Sam Waksal was unloading his shares in the company. Stewart’s lawyer concedes she was tipped but claims the $60 agreement was the central reason she sold. He also claims Stewart was telling the truth when she told investigators in April 2002 she had no memory of the Waksal tip. Jurors deliberated for about four hours Wednesday. They were to return Thursday to study the evidence they requested. In a note less than two hours after deliberations began, jurors asked to review testimony by Douglas Faneuil, the former Merrill Lynch & Co. assistant who claims Bacanovic ordered him to tip Stewart about Waksal. Jurors specifically asked for what Faneuil said about his conversations with Bacanovic and Stewart that day. Lawyers spent the afternoon going through stacks of transcripts before settling on what the jury would review. Faneuil claims he first told Bacanovic on the morning of Dec. 27 about the Waksal family trying to get out of ImClone stock. He claims Bacanovic told him, “Oh, my God, get Martha on the phone.” Faneuil testified he alerted Stewart later that day about the Waksal selling. He said Stewart asked him twice for a quote on ImClone’s stock price, then ordered him to sell her shares. The jury seemed to hint in a second note that it was focusing on one particular specification in the indictment — that Bacanovic was deliberately lying when he told investigators he personally handled Stewart’s stock sale. Faneuil actually handled... News I've Read Mark 2004-03-04T12:18:45-05:00 http://www.markcarey.com/me/discuss-computer-worms-overwhelm-inboxes.html As published by MSNBC.com: Computer worms overwhelm inboxes Flood of viruses keep antivirus firms working round-the-clock By Bob Sullivan Technology correspondent MSNBC Updated: 7:00 p.m. ET March 01, 2004 Finnish virus researcher Mikko Hypponen had simply had enough on Saturday, and set about lighting the wood to heat the water in his sauna. A relentless stream of new viruses was taking its toll on him and his team, which has been working weekends and late nights for weeks now. Since the discovery of the Mydoom virus in late January, virus writers have been releasing malicious programs at a furious rate. There are some 15 variations of the Mydoom, Netsky, and Bagle viruses still making the rounds, and taken collectively, virus researchers say our e-mail might be more clogged than ever before. Inboxes around the world are teeming with cryptic notes that have simple messages like "Here is the file," or "I want a reply." When antivirus companies give names to malicious programs, they add letters to virus names as a way of indicating variants, with NetSky.A being the initial version, NetSky.B the second variation, NetSky.C the third, etc. On Monday, researchers were up to NetSky.E, Bagle.H, and Mydoom.H. With all the variants running around, it's nearly impossible for consumers to know what they are dealing with. And since most of the viruses come with a randomized file names and included text, it is impossible to tell consumers how to spot the malicious programs with the naked eye. Hypponen, who works for Finland-based F-Secure Corp., has spent the past month trying to plug up the leaky dam that is the Internet, full of malicious programs. It's a cat and mouse game. He and his team scramble to detect new worms soon after they are released, and then update antivirus software around the world before a new virus has a chance get momentum. It's a battle the antivirus industry certainly isn't winning, and recently, it might be generous to describe the situation as a stand-off. On Saturday, Hypponen was determined to grab himself a few moments of peace, and things seemed to have calmed for the moment. But just as the water in his sauna reached soothing temperatures, he received another urgent message. A new version of the Bagle virus was spreading. He had to go to work, again. "I never got to go in the sauna. That really hurts," Hypponen said. "If you look at the whole last month, it's been bad." Meanwhile, it's Internet users who find themselves in hot water, trying to sidestep the tiny electronic bombs that keep landing in their inboxes. New Netsky will play annoying sounds By Monday, the new version of Bagle wasn't Hypponen's biggest concern any more -- a new version of NetSky, the fourth, called NetSky.D, had become the biggest pest of the day. That virus, discovered on Monday, probably wins for most annoying feature. It instructs infected machines to play a cryptic audio file for three hours on Tuesday morning -- one... News I've Read Mark 2004-03-02T13:11:44-05:00