This may or may not turn out to be a permanent state of affairs. Every liquid and certain solid components in this helicopter are known to be carcinogenic. The IPs strongly recommend that we bring a pair of work gloves, distinct from our flight gloves, for use in pre- and post-flight inspections. They also recommend that we carry a spare flight suit in the trunk of our cars on a permanent basis: if our flight suits are splashed with any helicopter fluid, we are not allowed to fly in that suit ever again. Instead, we are required to bring it into central distribution and exchange it for a new one. If we have a spare on hand, we can at least continue with the day’s flight.

Today was the first time in my life I have touched a Black Hawk. Tomorrow I will fly one. It is a heady feeling.

I have to laugh at parts of the release document. For example, the claim that programming languages started simple and easy to learn, and that the high-level concepts of modern languages discourage people from learning to code. “Hello World” is a one-liner only in a high-level language; it’ll take a beginner a few days of work and tons of documentation to accomplish in assembly. I also loved the section titled “Rules for naming Variables”: “[TODO]”

In general, this looks like a rehash of QBasic, of which all the warts are still present. The language lesson introduces GOTO long before talking about subroutines. Subs (not functions) access and modify global variables, and are limited to the current file’s scope. The major differences seem to be that most of the library functions have been rewritten in an object-oriented style and additional libraries for GUI stuff and Turtle programming have been added. Even though the library uses objects, the user has no way of writing their own.

I can see some junior coder at Microsoft doing this as a project for promotion points. It very much feels like a student project. However, I can’t see any programmer using it to actually teach programming. Small Basic might be useful if your ambition is to one day work up to Visual Basic as an enterprise programming language, but people interested in learning modern programming techniques would be better advised to look elsewhere for their first language.

So far, though, things are going pretty well.

I can’t help but be disappointed that it looks like Proposition 8 seems to have passed. I know that I’ve never lived in or near California, but that state often seems a bellweather of attitudes across the country. When will people finally learn that people are people, regardless? It doesn’t matter their sexual orientation, their gender, their skin color–they deserve equal rights.

People often seem astonished that Obama won, being black. I suppose it is a historic accomplishment, but for me at least, race really wasn’t a factor this election. I just can’t summon that feeling of amazement. The civil rights movement was history before I was born; it succeeded.

What would really impress me as a sign that America is ready to elect a person on policy instead of photos: the election of an Arab, openly Muslim president. I am betting I will not see that within my lifetime.

I voted for Obama. (Not today. Earlier. Absentee ballot.) I think you should too. Even if you disagree, though, vote. I’d rather live in a country with a population engaged in their democracy who generally disagreed with me than one full of people who thought like me but never bothered to exercise their franchise.

But Stephen Green of pressure group Christian Voice said: “Bendy-buses, like atheism, are a danger to the public at large.”

Not too far out of context, though.

It was a deal too good to refuse.

There are some hassles associated with motorcycle ownership, at least around Fort Rucker. Every month or two, there is a mandatory motorcycle inspection; you have to spend an hour for someone to look over the thing, dip the oil stick, measure the tread depth, then send you on your way. I’ll probably have to retake the Motorcycle Safety Foundation basic riding course, as I have no idea where the certificate is from the first time I took it. Base policy requires that I wear a reflective belt over my reflective motorcycle jacket; otherwise in the event I am injured riding they may make me pay for any resultant medical care.

Even so, there are also advantages: the military gives motorcycles better parking spaces than even handicapped people get, and commanders all up the chain officially support motorcycle use: last month, my company commander gave anyone with a motorcycle a Friday off in order to participate in an organized ride. Beyond that, it is nice to have to fill up the tank only every second week, and then to spend only $10 on it.

The best reason is the simplest, though: motorcycles are fun.

For those interested in the bike itself, it is a 2007 Buell XB9R Firebolt.

Sorry about the lack of updates recently; there has just not been a whole lot going on in my life. If you have a topic, I can write about it. Right now, I’ve got nothing.

I love the weapons that each person has chosen. The naked man has a brick. The ranking officer has his trusty riot shield. One of the on-call officers has an actual person catcher: a tool designed specifically for handling people who you don’t want to touch. The other has a flimsy plastic traffic control device; its normal function is to sit between two traffic cones to direct pedestrian traffic. He is not afraid to use it.

The full article is here.

I know I stole it directly from BoingBoing, but this is too funny not to repost.