This is a surprise to meApparently as a result of hacking attempts originating in China and seeking to pry into gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists, Google will no longer censor search results as demanded by the Chinese government. They announced that they will close their Chinese operations completely if forced to do so. All I have to ( Read more... )

Coming home from the supermarket, just after dusk, a red fox ran across the road in front of my car. Fortunately, we hadn't yet started getting any of the snow predicted for the overnight hours. The pavement was dry, and I was able to brake without losing control or skidding. The fox was carrying some sort of prey animal, though I'm not sure what ( Read more... )

It was a bad day. I know that because I was the first one into the library (not all that unusual) and yet didn't get to my own desk to do anything until 11 am. There I found a stack of 20 or so new books waiting to be cataloged, in addition to the network technical stuff that I'd left over from Friday ( Read more... )

It's Wednesday. It's exceedingly hot for so early in the year. The air conditioning at work is flaky and randomly variable. Boo ( Read more... )

Lessee, what happened today ( Read more... )

I can't remember when the last time I ate at a Chinese restaurant was. More than ten years, for sure. I sometimes react pretty strongly to MSG, and that made it sort of like a dice roll or Russian roulette. Too bad, because I do like a lot of Chinese style dishes. I was aware of a place in Woodstock, but have become quite wary. We finally decided ( Read more... )

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Spent the entire day, from 7 am to 7:45 pm, counting birds. We saw parts of McHenry County that I didn't even know existed, and bird species I'd never seen (or in some cases, heard of) before. We had a special permission to enter conservation district land that is normally closed to the public, which gave me a chance to see some beautiful settings ( Read more... )

Just came in from walking out back with Gary because he thought he heard a fox and wanted to make sure it wasn't in his live trap by the burrow under the arena. It wasn't ( Read more... )

Buzzy. Bumble bees. Noticed this last summer, noticing it more now. Most of you have probably heard that there's some as yet uncertain problem that is affecting honeybee populations seriously. It's worst in the US and apparently Canada, but has been observed in Europe as well and I'm not sure where else. The official name for it is CCD, or colony ( Read more... )