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

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.