“We pointed the most powerful telescope ever built by human beings at absolutely nothing, just because we were curious, and discovered that we occupy a very tiny place in the heavens.”
Just because we were curious….
You’ll often hear people say that the size and complexity of the world and the universe around us makes our individual lives seem petty and unimportant by comparison. Yet I’ve always believed that the opposite is true….
If I said that the fact that you are one of the 6.7 billion people alive today, sharing in the legacy of the many more billions who have come before you, on a single planet among hundreds of billions of galaxies full of planets — is something that makes your life more significant, not less … would you understand what I mean by that?
IA-Forum: [Would] you please comment on the recent murder of Natalia Estemirova?
Mr. Satter: This is part of a whole string: Stanislav Markelov, Anna Politkovskaya… One of the signs of the cruelty or the lack of morality of the Putin regime is the fact that their protégé, Kadyrov, is really absolutely free to murder anyone he wants to, to torture, to kidnap with complete impunity; whether it’s in Chechnya, whether it’s in Russia, whether it’s in Vienna; as long as he keeps the situation under control for the leadership in Chechnya. This was a woman who was monitoring the human rights situation in Chechnya. She was a colleague of Markelov, who was a colleague of Politkovskaya. So who’s behind it? We know that Kadyrov said the people who are disappearing are being murdered. These are people who are his opponents and enemies.
And don’t expect any serious effort to investigate. When Markelov was killed along with Anastasia Barburova—in broad daylight near the Christ the Savior church on a crowded street—no one thought it worthy of comment until nine days later when Medvedev did an interview with Novaya Gazeta and said something. This shows the character of the regime. Bearing that in mind, an American president should not bend over backwards to praise Putin and to praise the Russian leaders. They are not deserving of that.
beth: you are my favorite photographer… I just love it when Tim tells me that you have some new shots on your website… BEAUTIFUL as always! have a gret day, Beth
Dawn LaPlante Recore: Hi Dale. Was searching Saranac alumni, and quite indirectly, I ended up at your blog. It’s fascinating. Good for you! Although it was a sad time when I saw you in September, it was never-the-less, good to see you. By...
Mary Holm: You’re doing exactly what I long to do–go back to school and get a history degree. I’ve always loved history but my degree’s in Radio/TV. I can’t think of anything better than having an excuse like that to...
Ron Coryer: Dale, I was sorry to hear of your father’s passing. I would like to express my condolences to you and you family. As I read your post on your website, I couldn’t help thinking back to the time I lost my dad and I had the...
Gary Coryer: Dale, So sorry to hear of the loss of your Dad. He was always nice to us as kids. Next time I am in Cadyville I will drop in to see your mom and express my condolences. Hope she is doing okay. I will send a note to my brother Ron with...
A u d e e: A deepest condolence to you Dale. Losing a parent is never easy. May Your Father rest in peace.
A u d e e: Hi Dale, It’s been a while since my last visit . I’m sorry to hear about plumbing problems at your house. I’m pretty sure that it is a quite distraction when you hope to be able to spend times on other interesting...
Daniel J. Pritchett: The Touch is great for surfing from the couch and while walking around indoors. Using mine quickly gave me an appreciation for mobile-optimized web sites. I use and recommend the “MobilePress” plugin for WordPress....
***Dave: The inability / unwillingness to back up external USB drives is what’s kept me from a few other very good products out there (Carbonite, Moby). I am definitely going to try Backblaze.
cooper: I am bad about this and have lost a lot of files, everything on my last computer as it conked out all of a sudden in February and tool most files with it as the only things I backed up were academic files. I’m going to check this out.
Jagad Guru Chris Butler: Hello Dale, thanks a lot for the info. I actually just ordered an external hard drive the other day for back up…but I’ll look into Backblaze as well as Synctoy and see if they’ll work for my needs.
Billy: Cool, Dale! Let us know if you have any more questions.
Dale: Billy, Just letting you know that I tried the restore several times again this evening, and it worked fine — the download had the correct extension. I’ve updated the post to remove references to the error. Thanks! Dale
Dale: Ann, Thank you very much; I’m glad my article was helpful. The new version of WordPress is so much better than 2.0.2 — and once you get beyond that first Yahoo! upgrade, subsequent upgrades go much more smoothly. It would have...
ann wood: Thank you- I needed to upgrade from 2.0.2 on yahoo as well and was terrified of the auto upgrade plugin but your info was great and I did it this morning with little difficulty.
Rod: No problem. That’s the downside of using plugins, I guess – they can interact in unforeseen ways. I don’t really have a take on the security angle at this point – it’s not something I’ve looked into....
Category: 
. I’m sorry to hear about plumbing problems at your house. I’m pretty sure that it is a quite distraction when you hope to be able to spend times on other interesting...