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Actually, at the camp I work at, they're building a big new building and wiring it all for internet access. My first response would be go wireless, but since that isn 't always feasible, I'd just say go the simple and tried and true route w/ cat 5. I mean...come on, can you go wrong with cat5?

I've often thought about how many products use simple programs and stuff to run correctly...like traffic light systems...right now they work pretty well and everything goes together properly. However, the day that cities decide to have a central server run the traffic lights so they can...say, control traffic around accident areas...things will go wrong. The "foolproof" software will cause all sorts of problems.

I don't see this so much as software causing problems as much as the tendency we have to make what used to be simple things really complicated. One example I have in my life is a train system that runs around inside a building by the ceiling at a camp I work at. The system looks really nice..and it could work well. However, having a couple of electrical engineers volunteer their time to make the system made it very different. Now, what could have been a simple on off switch is a whole panel with an LCD display and all sorts of error lights and little IR detectors on the track to make sure the train is in the right place. It is a geek paradise...but the train NEVER works. Despite all the fancy assembly code they have running the whole thing, it doesn't work. An on/off switch would have worked..I'm certain of it!

As we complicate more and more appliances with complex software, there are going to be more problems. Heck..what's gonna happen next time your toaster oven timer crashes...you could burn down a house!

The caveman had something going for them...

I watched the meteor shower last year (which was incredible btw..) from the village of Trout Run, PA. Trout Run is in north central PA, about 20 miles from Williamsport (the closest town of any size). Trout Run has a gas station and a restaraunt that are open 24 hours a day, so they have normal "gas station" type lights. However, I was watching the meteor shower from camp susque which is about 4 miles down the valley, and it isn't a straight valley either...anyhow, we took a lot of pictures and in several of them, there is a SIGNIFICANT glow from the SINGLE gas station that is over 4 MILES away and partially obscured by mountains! It blew my mind..I didn't realize how bad light pollution was until then...I don't think there is any place in the US where you can get a truly dark sky.

I saw the shower last year and it was incredible. We saw hundreds if not thousands of meteors. At some points, you couldn't look anywhere in the sky and *not* see a meteor. It was truly amazing. If this year is half as good as last year, it should be pretty cool.

However, no matter how many meteors there are and how often they come, it seems to be VERY difficult to capture them on film. Using an SLR camera with a cable release and a tripod, a friend and I used something like 5 rolls of films and probably only got 15-20 usable pictures that had meteors in. (You can check them out here at peterswift.org. And they weren't joking about light pollution either! We were pretty far out in the country in North Central PA at Camp Susque, but even the lights from a tiny town with one gas station and a restaraunt really made a lot of the pictures have big bright spots (and the town/village was about 3-4 miles away!).

Yeah, I'm from north central PA (near williamsport..though I'm attending PSU in january...)...and the view from Camp Susque was incredible. We're shielded from light pollutions by mountains (though it does slightly limit your field of vision), but it was still incredible. We took a lot of pictures, and a lot of them turned out spectactular (we have some pictures of both the meteor, and the reflection of the meteor in our pond..along with the camp's observatory in the background. I'll have a bunch of the pictures we took up on my website (They were mostly taken by a friend..not me) sometime this evening, so make sure you check out peterswift.org sometime this evening for the pictures.

Yeah, I'm from north central PA (near williamsport..though I'm attending PSU in january...)...and the view from Camp Susque was incredible. We're shielded from light pollutions by mountains (though it does slightly limit your field of vision), but it was still incredible. We took a lot of pictures, and a lot of them turned out spectactular (we have some pictures of both the meteor, and the reflection of the meteor in our pond..along with the camp's observatory in the background. I'll have a bunch of the pictures we took up on my website (They were mostly taken by a friend..not me) sometime this evening, so make sure you check out peterswift.org sometime this evening for the pictures.

last year it was over 40/minute at times. I saw it at Camp Susque, which is sorrounded by mountains (which means not too much light pollution...but..you also have limited viewing). We got some great pictures of them too..check my webpage later this evening and a lot of them will be posted...Last year was incredible..best I've ever seen it....we couldn't look anywhere and *not* see meteors at its peak (and several fireballs!). I plan on going out again this year....if it is half as good as last year, it will be mighty impressive.

I used to teach an activity class at Camp Susque called "The Wonder of it All" which was basically neat science expirements with the explanations. To begin every week, all the counselors would do a short skit to excite the campers about the activities. I did a skit called "red eye." I'm not sure who had the idea originally, I sure didn't make it up, but the skit was always incredible and wowed the kids.

Here's the synopsis of the skit, I'll explain how it works afterwords:

Sitting at a table is a bartender...washing his glasses. A rough looking character walks in and demands a glass of redeye (pink lemonade works better and is more funny). The bartender grabs a pitcher full of clear liquid and pours it into an empty glass. The glass fills up with a red/pinkish liquid. Another guy walks in, a city slicker, and asks for some water. The bartender, pouring from the same pitcher, pours a glass of "water" into an empty glass. The rough looking guy laughs at the city slicker and tells him he should try the lemonade, and that he'd pay for a new round. The bartender grabs both glasses, pours them into the pitcher (the liquid turns pink), and the bartender pours out two glasses of the pink liquid. At this point, a sheriff walks in and asks for some water. The bartender pours the pink liquid into an empty glass and the liquid instantly turns clear as it is poured in. (A lot of wows from the audience at this time). Here's the big finally: The sheriff says that lemonade is bad for you and that the two guys should try some water. The guys (strangely) agree and give their glasses of pink liquid to the bartender. The sheriff also hands his glass to the bartender and says he'll pay for the round of waters. The bartender pours the sheriff's "water" back in the pitcher which instantly turns into a clear liquid. After that, the bartender (slowly because it looks so cool) pours the pink liquids into the container (so you see a pink liquid pouring in and it becomes clear the instant it touches the water...looks very cool). The bartender then pours out a round of "water" to the three customers. *curtain* *Applause*

The effect of this trick is pretty dramatic (without blowing anything up!), and it is QUITE simple with no special chemicals needed. The only things you need are ExLax, rubbing alcohol, and white vinegar, ammonia and water. To prepare, I would take and exlax pill and grind it up and mix it in a quarter cup of alcohol. This would provide enough solution for 10-20 skits. The mixture you just created is poor-man's phenolphthalein, a chemical that detects acid and turns red when it finds it.

Prep: Get three clear glasses and a pitcher. Take the phenolphthalein and put a few drops (10-15) in the bottom of a clear glass (the ruffian's glass). Put about twice that much ammonia in the bottom of the sheriff's glass. Leave the cityslicker's glass empty and unchanged. In the pitcher, add a few drops of white vinegar to about a quart of water.

How it works: when you pour the vinegar water into the ruffians glass, the phenolphthalein makes it turn a bright pink/red. When you pour it back into the pitcher (before pouring the lemonade for both the cityslicker and the ruffian), it will turn the entire pitcher to a bright pink. When you pour the vinegar/phenolphthalein water into the sheriff's glass, the ammonia (a basic substance) neutralizes the acid and the phenolphthalein will no longer be red...so the sheriff will have clear water. When you pour the sheriff's "water" back into the pitcher, any remaining pink water turns clear and as you pour the other two glasses of pink water in, they will be neutralized. Leaving you with a clear neutralized liquid.

Again, the skit works great and it is a lot of fun...however, a few things to remember: practise it a couple of times to get the amounts down right (I always estimated with the amounts, so I'm not sure if my drops and measurements are right), and DON'T DRINK THE LIQUIDS! Ammonia is not good for you and vinegar is nasty. One more thing..I know ex-lax was taken off the market for a while because it was supposedly carcinegenic. I think the chemical that was problematic was phenolphthalein....so, I don't know if exlax can make poor-man's phenolphthalein anymore. Try it out (even w/o phenolphthalein, the replacement might do the trick), and if it doesn't work, just buy some regular phenolphthalein from a pharmacy or chemical supply house (it isn't uncommon...I remember using it in 7th grade chemistry).

Another couple of cool hand's on expirements we did in the class were simple bakingsoda/vinegar expirements using film canisters (make sure they are the lids that pop into the container, not that ones that have the lid that goes on the outside)...add a bit of vinegar in the container, put some baking soda in the lid, pop the lid on, shake it, throw it...BOOM!

Other expirements included balloon rockets, water rockets (with an air pump and 2 liter soda bottles...you could get the suckers to shoot REALLY high!), polymers (magician's slush powder makes it even better) that soak up 100 times their weight in water, cornstarch and water (makes a pseudo solid...hard under pressure but liquid when released), making huge epson salt crystals on pipe cleaners, etc...etc. I'll think of some more, but if any of those expirements sound like fun and you need more info on them, shoot me an email [peter@peterswift.nospam.org] and I can give you detailed instructions on each one.

Still anything with explosions, dry ice, liquid nitrogen etc still seem to be crowd favorites.

Another crowd pleased is covering your arm with rubbing alcohol and igniting it and running around screaming then say it didn't hurt at all (make SURE YOU SHAVE YOUR ARM FIRST! ARM HAIR BURNS AND HURTS A LOT...not speaking from experience or anything *cough*).

Tent - For one/two people, maybe 100$...for a family? At least 2-300

Backpacks- Again...one backpack...maybe 100 bucks (for a decent camping internal/external frame pack). To outfit the family? Several hundred.

Hiking boots, not a necessity, but awfully nice....buy some for the family? Expensive and new shoe sizes every year.

Water filters - expensive...looking around 100 bucks if you want a decent pump style filter.

Sleeping bags...for a decent hiking mummy bag, looking around 100 bucks.

Sleeping pad...cheap, but costs more when outfitting the family.

Camping stoves/fuel...

Food....if you're packing for camping...look into freeze dried or dehydrated...purchasing it costs a lot..dehydrating your own costs money to buy a dehydrator...enough food for a week is an awful lot of money

Camping permits/reservations etc...you can't just go out in the woods anymore...at least, not if you want a decent area to be in

Rope, knifes, tarps, bottles, pans etc

A family that will put up with being taken out in the wilderness for a week w/o TV, Radio, email, etc...priceless.

Even if you can salvage some of these items from year to year, camping is NOT a cheap activity (you will ruin most of your stuff on the first trip). Also, simply hiking and camping isn't all that much fun either, canoe trips are great (buying canoes for the family or renting is not cheap). Also...you're probably not lucky enough to live right in the adirondacks or the place that you want to camp (why would you want to hike and camp in familiar territory anyhow?), so driving/flying to the location is going to cost money as well. So will the marriage counseling afterwards.

Don't get me wrong, I love camping (I'm a "medic" on the treks at susque) and I hope to do it with my family, but it isn't as cheap or easy as it sounds.

Tent - For one/two people, maybe 100$...for a family? At least 2-300

Backpacks- Again...one backpack...maybe 100 bucks (for a decent camping internal/external frame pack). To outfit the family? Several hundred.

Hiking boots, not a necessity, but awfully nice....buy some for the family? Expensive and new shoe sizes every year.

Water filters - expensive...looking around 100 bucks if you want a decent pump style filter.

Sleeping bags...for a decent hiking mummy bag, looking around 100 bucks.

Sleeping pad...cheap, but costs more when outfitting the family.

Camping stoves/fuel...

Food....if you're packing for camping...look into freeze dried or dehydrated...purchasing it costs a lot..dehydrating your own costs money to buy a dehydrator...enough food for a week is an awful lot of money

Camping permits/reservations etc...you can't just go out in the woods anymore...at least, not if you want a decent area to be in

Rope, knifes, tarps, bottles, pans etc

A family that will put up with being taken out in the wilderness for a week w/o TV, Radio, email, etc...priceless.

Even if you can salvage some of these items from year to year, camping is NOT a cheap activity (you will ruin most of your stuff on the first trip). Also, simply hiking and camping isn't all that much fun either, canoe trips are great (buying canoes for the family or renting is not cheap). Also...you're probably not lucky enough to live right in the adirondacks or the place that you want to camp (why would you want to hike and camp in familiar territory anyhow?), so driving/flying to the location is going to cost money as well. So will the marriage counseling afterwards.

Don't get me wrong, I love camping (I'm a "medic" on the treks at susque) and I hope to do it with my family, but it isn't as cheap or easy as it sounds.

I am definitely from one of those "smaller towns" in PA. Trout Run is technically a village (by population) CNN is now running another story about the whole deal. Tis located here . About 15 or so staff members at Camp Susque (the place where I work), saw it as well. (it freaked out the girls campers. :) I was lucky enough to witness the flash travelling for about 5 seconds. It left an incredible tail, even in broad daylight (the sun was still above the mountains and incredibly bright at the time...it was QUITE bright out right then) and was absolutely huge. Almost everyone else thought that it was only a hundred feet up in the air because of its size (which is ridiculous because it flew over some nearby mountains).

About 4 minutes or so later. I have heard sonic booms before, when I was hiking and the area got buzzed by some kind of jet, and this was nothing like that. The initial sound was like a massive explosion, and it reverberated down the valley for a good ten seconds or so. It was headed northwest, but appearently a chunk of it hit about 15 miles from Trout Run in Northern Williamsport. The reports say that it scorched a cornfield, but there was no impact or craters. The local radio station claims to have many pictures of some actual impact sites from wellsboro, but I have been all over their site ( wksb.com and I haven't found anything. If anyone has any pictures, please reply.

Herm....I think the easiest thing would be to have several game pads and several different hands. Several heads would also help so you could independently deal with each hand....

Actually, I had a concept a while ago about a multiple player game with all the players controlling one person, but just different aspects of the person. One person could deal with inventory, and another with strength etc...there could be struggles between the different parts of the person, which would make it slightly competitive between the players playing the game. This probably makes no sense to anyone else, but it makes perfect sense in my brain. :)

ps- working at Camp Susque really takes time away from cruising /. I haven't posted in over a month. :( This also means that my .sig is outdated because I haven't really updated my site since may.