I stumbled upon Mark's Daily Apple, the blog of "Primal Blueprint" author Mark Sisson. It presents his take on the paleolithic/evolutionary fitness and diet lifestyle. In a nutshell:

• Primal Blueprint Law #1: Eat Lots of Plants and Animals
• Primal Blueprint Law #2: Avoid Poisonous Things
• Primal Blueprint Law #3: Move Frequently at a Slow Pace
• Primal Blueprint Law #4: Lift Heavy Things
• Primal Blueprint Law #5: Sprint Once in a While
• Primal Blueprint Law #6: Get Adequate Sleep
• Primal Blueprint Law #7: Play
• Primal Blueprint Law #8: Get Adequate Sunlight
• Primal Blueprint Law #9: Avoid Stupid Mistakes
• Primal Blueprint Law #10: Use Your Brain

One could do worse.

After taking another look at JavaScript, I'm still not inclined to use it for server side or command line scripting. When I do need to use it, I'll keep JavaScript: The Good Parts handy. This slim volume tells you what you really need to know to write good programs with the language. In addition to showing you how to use the good parts of JavaScript, it provides guidance for avoiding or working around the bad parts. Since JavaScript has more than its share of warts, this is invaluable.

I've dabbled a bit with JavaScript in the past, but never seriously. It may be time to revisit it. Some of the reasons:

• It's the only language that you can expect to be supported on modern web browsers, so it's the first choice for interactive web interfaces.
• There's a healthy competition to produce the fastest JavaScript engine. Contenders include the V8 engine from Google and TraceMonkey from Mozilla.
• It integrates well with Java and C/C++. While object oriented, it supports functional programming.
• Server-side scripting with JavaScript is resurgent, partly because this allows functionality to be moved between client and server as needed.
• The CommonJS effort is providing a standard module system and standard libraries for common tasks not covered by the ECMA standard, improving portability.
• Node.js provides event driven I/O.
• CouchDB, a robust, distributed database uses JavaScript as a query language.
• Palm's WebOS uses JavaScript as it's primary application development language.

On the day before Christmas, we had a snow storm and the Senate put a lump of coal in our stockings. We can hope that they'll fail to reach an accomodation with the House on Health care, but I'm not optimistic. We'll probably be living with this abominable piece of legislation for some time. More positively, we attended the Christmas Eve candlelight service at St. Stephen's with my wife playing bells and myself standing in as usher. We also opened Christmas presents.

On the first day of Christmas, while it was quite white and gray,

we were nice and cozy,

and had a splendid Christmas feast.

I often work out in Vibram Five Fingers and have been looking for something with a similar feel for every day wear. I bought a pair of driving shoes at a Red Wing outlet store which work pretty well, though I can only wear them with thin socks and they're not well suited to winter.

I just got a pair of Vivo Barefoot Karibas which fit the bill. I wore them to work today and they did fine in our current snow storm, like house slippers that keep your feet dry. Not as close to bare feet as the Five Fingers, but better than the Red Wings and close enough for me, and I like the look.

"Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that we lie here true, even to the death to our Spartan way of life." -- Simonides

This epitath at the pass of Thermopylae comes to mind when I think of the Spartans, the Highland Scots, or the Vikings. We've gained a lot from modern civilization, but we've lost something too.

The Libertarian party is 38 years old today. Happy Birthday!

Virgin Galactic's Space Ship Two has been publicly unveiled. It will begin flight tests next year and begin commercial service in 2011.

Orson Scott Card published an essay a couple of months ago on Why Union Leaders Are Trying to Destroy Themselves. He's a union member who gratefully recognizes the good that has come from the union movement, but is concerned that overreaching union leaders and their political allies will cause a backlash that destroys some of the gains that have been made.

The unions won decades ago but the leadership has kept pushing to maintain and extend their power, often at the expense of the workers they are supposed to represent. Organizations tend to take on a life of their own and attract leaders who like running the organization. After the original objectives are accomplished the leaders tend to keep pushing the movement to justify their positions of privilege and power. The "Card Check" bill may be the last straw with its blatant attempt to take away workers' freedom of choice. A backlash could reverse the good work that the unions have accomplished.

Can the overreaching by successful movements and subsequent backlash be avoided? The founders of the United States set up various checks and balances to limit overreach by one part of government, separating the national government into the three branches and leaving the states and citizens with considerable autonomy. This system has been compromised somewhat over the years, but still works pretty well. Is there a way to provide checks and balances to prevent successful movements from going too far, or are they doomed to be victims of their own success?

Went on a toy run for children of Colorado National Guard troops deployed to Iraq. There was too much ice and snow on the roads here to ride the bike, so I drove the S2000, top down despite the snow. It's the next best thing to a motorcycle. After the run from Frederick to Longmont, we had lunch at the Armory provided by the American Legion. All in all, a good time for a good cause.

Tonight we had our annual Lyons holiday fireworks display. It's beginning to feel like Christmas.

Got home from our Thanksgiving trip to Houston yesterday and mostly chilled out today, though I did take care of a couple of chores. Looks like iffy riding weather for about the next week, so I took a quick ride to Rabbit Mountain on the Lightning to clear the cobwebs out.

MMy VFR 800 was a very nice bike, but the Lightning makes me want to ride more. It's not as refined, but a lot more fun for me. A review of the 2007 model puts it well. There’s little to take your attention away from the motor, which isn’t a bad thing, since the big V-twin is charismatically torque-happy. When riding the Buell Lightning Long, there is no doubt that you are on a MOTOR-cycle. I like Honda's VTEC engines, but the Thunderstorm engine form Buell is getting into my blood.

Visiting my mother in Houston and took her on a drive to Galveston to see how it's recovering from Hurricane Ike. We had lunch at Fisherman's Wharf where our table had a nice view of the Elissa.

After lunch we took the ferry over to Port Bolivar and drove up the peninsula. Fourteen months after Hurricane Ike most of the debris has been cleared, but only a modest amount of rebuilding has occurred. It was a gloomy, overcast day, but we did find these colorful flowers near the edge of the beach to brighten up the day.

A less direct, but more efficient biofuel production process is being used by starup ZeaChem to yield 135 gallons of ethanol per ton of cellulose feedstock compared to 100 gallons for more conventional methods. After converting cellulose to sugars with acid, their process uses bacterial from termite guts to transform the sugar to acetic acid which is combined with hydrogen to produce ethanol. ZeaChem is preparing to scale up from laboratory scale production to a 250,000 gallon per year pilot plant.

In Small Worlds: The Dynamics of Networks between Order and Randomness Duncan Watts explores the effects of network connections on system behavior. Network effects are evident in the spread of epidemics, the function of the brain, the adoption of new technologies, and other disparate areas.

Small World networks are non-random and sparsely connected. They tend to contain clusters of closely connected notes with a few shortcuts to distant ones. The "six degrees of separation" from urban lore is an example of the small world phenomenon. Watts raises more questions than he answers concerning this emerging research topic.

More snow! Getting the mileage in to get the first service before the worst of the winter may be a challenge.

Some thoughts from Armed Liberal on what it means to be a patriot. Patriots come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Being human, they've made mistakes, but they've left us a legacy of peace, prosperity, and freedom. We should honor their memory today, forgive their mistakes, and do our best to enrich their legacy and pass it on to those who follow us.

I couldn't resist the fire sale on Buells since Harley-Davidson announced that they were shutting down the marque. I've been thinking of one to replace my VFR 800 and decided to take advantage of the opportunity. Last night I picked up a 2009 XB12Ss (aka Lightning Long) in Cherry Bomb Red from High Country HD

It's a hoot to ride.

I received my acceptance note from the program committee, and I'll be speaking on "Agent Based Modeling and Simulation in Python" at PyCon 2010 in Atlanta next February. I've got a half hour session and will probably set up an open space meeting as well. From the reviewer feedback, I should focus more on the "why Python" section and the example.

After a few light snows earlier in the month, we have our first real storm. It looks like it'll be a long winter.

Yesterday Buell riders from all around the country made one last ride to the Buell factory in East Troy, Wisconsin to pay tribute to a unique marque as it nears its end. The last Buell is scheduled to roll off the assembly line Friday and 180 workers will be out of a job on December 18th. Hat tip to Black on Bad Web.