Nintendo Wii

Many years back, I was one of the chosen few who suffered the harsh reality of the Nintendo Power Glove. It was a concept far ahead of its time, and was quite out of place back then. This anachronistic idea garnered frustration and loathing, albeit it was pretty awesome looking in sixth grade. However, with the advent of the Nintendo Wii, the idea has come full circle. The Nintendo Wii is a gaming revolution. It presents the ideas of the power glove, and trumps them fully with an array of today's technologies. All that is needed now is a suite of wonderful Nintendo games to compliment such a fun gaming console. And Nintendo is apparently hard at work bringing the games of the past and future to the Wii.

Windows Vista: Event Horizon

Microsoft recently released their long awaited edition of the Windows operating system, Vista; coming in at least nine different flavors. To coincide with this event there seems to have been some horn blowing in the camp of the Mighty Blue Apple (see Mactopia fanaticism). It's fun to see how people can be so passionate about their computers. It's amusing that I have no idea what brand of hammer I own, or what type of tires my Explorer has. Though perhaps the inlaid hammers of craftsmen are a thing of the past, blended into mass produced and indistinguishable quantities of disposable tools. And in the end, that is what an operating system is: a tool.

Bruneau Hot Springs

Went to Bruneau hot Springs yesterday, it was an excellent trip, seeing several of the area's hotsprings, or lack thereof. Took the explorer four wheeling, and it was good times.

Idaho Hot Springs and GoogleEarth

Several years back I found a list of Idaho Hot Springs from the USGS, or such. A few months ago, I chopped off the bottom of the list (hot springs instead of warm springs) and formatted it for my GPS. In the mean time, I'd tried GoogleEarth when it was released, but did not have a GPS at the time. Since then I've acquired another GPS and signed up for GoogleEarthPlus to be able to import GPS data. If you have GoogleEarth, attached to this story is a file with the majority of Idaho's hotsprings (you can use the file with the free version of GoogleEarth). And here is a page about U.S. geothermal Activity. And here is a website dedicated to Idaho Geothermal activity.

Hot Springs Ahoy!

The second day of January consisted of a trip to the hot springs above Arrowrock reservoir. I stopped at Arrowrock and ran around for a little. The lack of water made it nice to play where there would usually be 60 feet of water. The road past the reservoir is winding, making for slow going. After the reservoir, the first springs is Twin Springs, a commercial outfit. Next is Smiths Cabin Hot Springs, having pools on both sides of the river. After a bridge or two, there is the Loftus hot spring. This is probably the nicest of the lot, with cemented walls, and a gravel bottom and waterfall. Then there is Vaugn Hot Springs, conveniently located on the wrong side of the river. Then there is Around the Bend hot springs and Ninemeyer hot springs. Both of these springs are also on the other side of the river. Then there is Pool Creek, which isn't really a hot springs, but more of a hillside. On the way back, I ran into a herd of Elk!

The Song of Reading

     I recently read through the Song of Roland. It's an early French poem about the knights of Charlemagne, betrayal, loyalty, honor, revenge, and justice. All in a courtly setting of the Eighth century France and Spain.
     I just recieved in the mail today The Existence of God and The Coherence of Theism, by Richard Swinburne. I attended a debate with Swinburne at the 2003 Society of Biblical Literature yearly conference in Atlanta. I really enjoyed Professor Swinburne's application of logic to arguments. Specifically using Baye's theorem for possibility and probability.
     I also picked up the Memoirs of William Tecumseh Sherman. Sherman has often been thought of as the first General of Modern warfare. I've heard his Memoirs are a good balance of charisma and fact, so it should be an enjoyable read.

iPod Video

Along with the new vehicle and stereo, came a new iPod. I previously had a iPod nano. Ipods are nice mp3 players, with good audio fidelity (similar in quality to software players utilizing floating point calculations). They lack some basic mp3 player functions, such as nested playlists, changeable batteries. However, after my nano survived a whole lap in a pool in Africa, they have achieved my approval. They are rather trendy in their minimalistic lines silly and candy flavors. Making my glovebox an excellent place for them. Apple only sells the nano, shuffle, or the video versions now, so I opted for the video. In looking for a good transcoder for video, that runs on windows, I found several medium priced products. I think that they were actually just the same product with different skins. After a little hunting, I found a great freeware one called videora, that worked very well.