Palestinian Statehood!

I heard the news on the radio today.  The UN general assembly voted to recognize Palestine as a non-member state.  138 countries voted in favor and 9 opposed.  It's about time! 

Gaza Conflict

Reuters has posted that Egypt may be able to mediate and immediate end to the Gaza bombing (link).  I hope so.  This is a humanitarian crisis.  From the linked article, "some 115 Palestinians have died in a week of fighting, the majority of them civilians, including 27 children, hospital officials said."  

Below is a graph I made of the deaths in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from 2000 to 2011 (data from here).  Many Palestinians are being killed, many of them children, in the conflict over the future of Israel and Palestine. 

Every single death on either side is a tragedy.  These are people, like you and I, with friends and families.  However, the relative numbers show that the way this is often presented in the Western media (Palestinian militants firing rockets onto Israeli civilians) is not the complete picture, and this, especially the last six years, does not help convince us that Israel is practicing a great deal of humanitarian restraint. 

Modern Hobo Sign Code

I stumbled across a modern QR-code version of the classic North American hobo sign code (wikipedia).

Above are just some examples of the signs from here (http://www.worldpath.net/~minstrel/hobosign.htm). 

This "Free Art and Technology (F.A.T.)" site has designed QR versions of hobo-like codes. Here are some examples.

It seems that the warchalk symbols (which are like the hobo codes and used to communicate wireless wifi access) are being incorporated into the hobo QR codes, as in the "free wifi" code above. 

In the process I also found out about temporary, washable chalk spray as a non-permanent option for placing the QR codes from templates.

These codes might be modified with symbols in the middle to make both a human readable and scanable version like the hackaday.com logo above (here is a link to that article).  

Another thought, QR codes seem perfect for the small black and white mosaic tiles, like the ones on bathroom floors.  Secret messages could be worked into the tile pattern. 

40 years

No, this blog is not 40 years old.  However, next month, December 2012, is an important anniversary for humankind on this planet. 

December 1972 was the last time humans traveled to the moon.  Since then we have been limited to the Earth's surface or to low Earth orbit.  When are we going back? 

The baby is here!

K was born.  A little 9 pound boy! 

Election Day

Here the local candidates stand on the sides of the roads and wave to people as you drive by.  Above is Kymberly Pine (far left) who is running against Tom Berg for the Honolulu City Council.  They have been out on the roadsides for the last month.  Below is Sharon Har (far right) running for a State Representative seat.  In case anyone is interested the full list is here (link). 

I've been waving to the candidates as I go by but I can't vote in most of their districts.  I don't remember this kind of in-person roadside advertising anywhere else I've lived.  We've also received a lot of advertising in the mail but this is the first place where I've seen family history (when the great grandparents first moved to Hawai'i and where) for both the candidate and their spouse(!) listed foremost.  (Hawaiians are obsessed with who has been in the islands for longest to rank people.)  Other points that are also popular are military support and jobs for local people.  Also a couple candidates have made stopping the rail project their central issues.

I took the older kids and went to vote earlier today (after most people have already voted on the mainland because of the time difference).  Sure enough, I was registered and it went off without a hitch.  I took my cheat sheet of candidates names that I had settled on after looking up what their positions were and the ballot initiatives and filled out the ballot from that.  I was even asked to fill out a survey in an exit poll but they didn't have a check box to blame Bush for the economy. 

Afterward I took the kids by the grocery store.  Election day in Hawai'i is a state holiday and there is no public school.  There were adults and children lined up with placards at the intersection where the candidates had been with "honk to support education" on the signs.  I had not heard anyone honk--and it was a busy intersection.  I beeped three times going through and they put up a cheer!  It helped underscore how education had fell by the wayside in the candidates debates; where is the education candidate? 

Carving Pumpkins

Every year we have some fun carving faces on pumpkins and putting candles in them for Halloween.  I meant to also get a picture of the faces lit up but in a few days they slumped and molded--one of the hazards of fall in the tropics.