Big Slushy Wet Snow Hits Northern Sierra; Some Folks Lose Internet

It's slushy at 4600 feet, anyway.

Our phone service--hence internet--is down, so I'm using a 1X Verizon connection. It's just a little slow!

I imagine there's a lot of snow at higher elevations, but the details of this storm are difficult to check out at 1X.

Bad Route

MOH sent this sign picture to me from eastern Montana, the sign being located on the eastbound lane of I-94 (Google Street View). I don't know if he visited the rest stop; other than that possibility, I know he didn't drive down the road to check it out. Bad Route Road may have been named after the nearby Bad Route Creek (which has a Bad Route Creek Bridge, and an East, West, and Middle Fork). There is also a Bad Route School.

As it turns out, this is the same sign that was used in the famous internet meme, "All Your Base are Belong to Us" (known as AYB or AYBABTU). The original shot of the sign, here, was turned into this sign, here.

All Your Base website [dead link].
All Your Base flash video.
All Your Base at Know Your Meme.
All Your Base at Uncyclopedia.
All Your Base video on YouTube:

I recommend watching the flash video, it seems a bit clearer.

The sign, and its partner on the westbound lane of I-94 (Google Street View), is also a bit of a meme in and of itself, having been posted on at least a couple blogs, and mentioned or linked to in threads about strange signs and strange placenames in the U.S. and around the world. Get your Bad Route Road e-card here!

LFD is Going Dark on January 18th

Looking for Detachment will be going dark tomorrow, January 18th, in solidarity with Reddit, Boing Boing, Wikipedia, and other sites protesting the SOPA and PIPA bills. Read more on my Stop Censorship Header | Stop SOPA post.

I will be doing this (provided it actually works) by changing my Blogger template in the following way. Just before the tag, which currently looks like this:
I will be adding this script:

<script>
       window.location = "http://sopa-blackout-template.blogspot.com/";
</script>

The template will then look like this:
I'm doing this rather than replacing my template with the blackout template, for simplicity's sake. I'll simply erase that bit of code from my template at the end of the protest. At LFD, this blackout will run for 24 hours beginning 05:00 UTC on Wednesday, January 18 (12:00 am January 18 EST or 9:00 pm January 17 PST), running until 0:50 UTC on Thursday, January 19 (12:00 am January 19 EST or 9:00 pm January 18 PST).

Thanks to Sara J Chipps (although I'm redirecting to a different URL), App, who created the SOPA blackout template, Robert David Graham at Errata Security, and Jae Kim at Future of Social Network.

Stop Censorship Header | Stop SOPA Links

|
|

A few links about SOPA and PIPA:

STOP SOPA, SAVE THE INTERNET - Boing Boing, 11Nov2011

Good Idea, Poor Follow-Through: Congress' Mistakes with SOPA - ACLU, 16Nov2011

Sandia Labs: SOPA will 'negatively impact' U.S. cybersecurity - CNET, 17Nov2011

Free Speech Takes a Beating - ACLU, 18Nov2011

What Can the Average Person Do to Stop SOPA? - Forbes, 18Nov2011

Stop #SOPA: Using the Internet to Save the Internet - The Huffington Post, 28Nov2011

How SOPA will hurt the free web and Wikipedia - Wikimedia blog, 13Dec2011

Stop SOPA - Dave Schumaker, 13Dec2011

Urge Congress to Stop SOPA! - ACLU, 14Dec2011

SOPA Fixes Isolate Opponents, especially Google - Forbes 14Dec2011

Dear Congress, It's No Longer OK To Not Know How The Internet Works - Motherboard, 16Dec2011

How SOPA Could Ruin My Life - Forbes, 16Dec2011

Why SOPA Could Kill the Open Education Resource Movement - GOOD, 16Dec2011

Stop Online Piracy Act Debate Highlights Congress' Ignorance - Truthout, 29Dec2011

Let's support Internet Blackout Day - Ontario Geofish, 4Jan2012

Latest revision of the bill shows that SOPA doesn't affect US (domestic) websites... - Reddit, 5Jan2012 (?)

With Congress on break, SOPA fight continues - CNN Tech, 6Jan2012

SOPA sponsor Rep. Lamar Smith to SOPA opponents: You don’t matter - Digital Trends, 6Jan2012

Eight Top Internet Firms Back Alternative To SOPA - ReadWriteWeb, 7Jan2012

What kind of country messes with Internet Freedoms? - Greg Laden's Blog, 7Jan2012

Congressman drops support for SOPA - Boing Boing, 9Jan2012

'Internet Censorship'? Would Websites Go Dark Battling Hollywood? - ABC, 9Jan2012

Stopped they must be; on this all depends. - Blog.Reddit, 10Jan2012

Lockdown: The coming war on general-purpose computing - Boing Boing, 10Jan2012 (?)

Help Stop SOPA/PIPA - WordPress, 10Jan2012

The Internet Strikes Back: Reddit Going Full Blackout to Protest SOPA Betabeat, 11Jan2012

Reddit's SOPA Blackout Admirable, But Google and Facebook Must Follow - Forbes, 11Jan2012

SOPA foes warn: Not much time left to act - CNET, 11Jan2012

SOPA fight in 'last rounds,' says senator at CES - Computerworld, 11Jan2012

If Facebook Won't Stop SOPA, We Can Do It For Them - Forbes, 12Jan2012

SOPA: Anonymous To Protest Anti-Piracy Bill On January 18 - The Huffington Post, 12Jan2012

SOPA: The gloves come off - Fortune Tech, CNNMoney, 12Jan2012

SOPA – yeah, not a good idea - Compound Eye at SciAm, 13Jan2012

Combating Online Piracy while Protecting an Open and Innovative Internet - The White House, 14Jan2012

Obama Administration responds to We the People petitions on SOPA and online piracy - The White House Blog, 14Jan2012

Obama administration joins the ranks of SOPA skeptics - Ars Technica, 14Jan2012

UPDATED: SOPA is DYING; its evil Senate twin, PIPA, lives on - Boing Boing, 16Jan2012

SOPA Dead (for now) But PIPA is Not - Greg Laden's Blog, 16Jan2012

In Protest Of Anti-Piracy Bill, Wikipedia To Go Dark - NPR, 16Jan2012

Wikipedia Going Dark to Protest SOPA - Mashable, 16Jan2012

It's Baaaaaaaaack: Lamar Smith Says SOPA Markup To Resume In February - Techdirt, 17Jan2012

LFD is Going Dark on January 18th - Looking for Detachment, 17Jan2012

In Protest Of SOPA And PIPA - Maitri's VatulBlog, 17Jan2012

Why SOPA is Dangerous - Mashable, 17Jan2012

Stop SOPA: What A Blacked Out Internet Looks Like - ReadWriteWeb, 18Jan2012

Which Anti-SOPA Protest Was More Effective, Wikipedia's or Google's? - The Atlantic, 18Jan2012

me too -- stop SOPA, PIPA - In the Company of Plants and Rocks, 18Jan2012

Content Blocked by SOPA/PIPA - Martian Chronicles, 18Jan2012

Blocked by SOPA/PIPA - Hudson Valley Geologist, 18Jan2012

SOPA/PIPA - GeoMika, 18Jan2012

Jean-Luc Picard on the dangers of limiting our liberties. - Emily L. Hauser—In My Head, 18Jan2012

apagón SOPA - eg, edgargonzales.com, 18Jan2012 (a list of #SOPAblackout sites)


The Day the LOLCats Died
h/t @Mashable

PIPA and SOPA Co-Sponsors Abandon Bills - Mashable, 19Jan2012

The Week That Killed SOPA: A Timeline - Mashable, 20Jan2012

MegaUpload case proves we don’t need SOPA or PIPA - GigaOM, 20Jan2012

SOPA and PIPA postponed indefinitely after protests - CNNMoney, 20Jan2012

---

Please note: This blog is fully copyright protected, and I am against illegal copyright infringement. I am, however, standing with the EFF and ACLU on this one.

UPDATE 15Jan2012: The banner/header no longer works as originally intended. It is attached to the page of this post, not to the entire blog, so can't be set to block out my blog header.

Last updated 22Jan2012 at 8:00 a.m. PST

A Little Bit Nerd

Hmm... that dorky? Saw this quiz over at Outside the Interzone. Had to take it!

And just for that, here's a real nerdy video.



It's all about sand, and a beach - or a sandy beach. A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You: a song by Neil Diamond, released by The Monkees in 1967.

Mining and Exploration News

Just a few summaries and links to mining and exploration stories out recently. Excuse some dorky titles. How can you tell which titles are dorky? Easy, the dorky ones are mine.


From Ron Schott's Geology Picks:
Not so Good Oil and Gas Exploration in Washington state

From Geology.com:
Surprise, surprise, there's a new gold rush in CA!
Internet Addiction - do YOU suffer from it? (Oops - not mining related unless you are reading this blog post over and over again!)

Also from Geology.com:
Geologists are needed in Australia

But in other reports (and comments), jobs aren't really available unless you KNOW SOMEONE.

Canada can't attract women into mining jobs according to this article - also from Geology News - although on my spring field trip, all the women geologists were Canadian, except for me.

Mining and petroleum-related jobs are still going strong - from Arizona Geology.
Space radar can be used to improve mine safety in underground mines, from EurekAlert!

I could find no reference in the above news release to open-pit mines - I guess we're on our own! Also, the news release mentioned driving the referenced new equipment through mineshafts. Mine shafts are vertical, and no underground trucks or truck drivers drive up and down through these things (shafts). The driving is done in mine tunnels or adits, and in declines or inclines. Declines are mine tunnels or adits that descend gradually as you walk into a mine (or drive - a geologist should be so lucky!); inclines are tunnels that go uphill at a very slight angle as you enter the mine, usually for drainage purposes. Also, the article speaks of the "roofs" of underground mines, a somewhat vague term that could refer to the rocks immediately overhead while underground, or possibly to surface rocks above the entire mine - I'm not really sure which, because if you are in an underground mine, the surface over your head is called the "back." And that's because when the old-timers made their tunnels, they were typically not very high, and the miners had to bend over to enter and walk through them, thus having their backs almost in contact with the "ceiling" of the mine adit.
Last but not least, lots of things have been happening in Arizona - as usual - see these articles and more at Arizona Geology:

• Vale do Rio Doce reported to be looking at Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold (as a takeover target)
• Freeport is the most likely takeover target
• Drilling is underway at Tombstone
• Why Are So Many Companies investing in Arizona Mines?
• White Cliffs diatomite and zeolites
• Arizona potash looking attractive
• Vale denies takeover plans

Arizona Geology shows a neat, colorful table comparing commodity prices over the past decade, described somewhat more fully at Pitpundit Blog.