I had a feeling that we'd be in for a bad one today - yesterday afternoon felt and smelled like snow and the air was crisp and cold. Last night I wasn't sure at first if it was raining or snowing. By the time I went to bed there was no question about which it was, though I must confess a little shock this morning when I discovered that the snow/sleet/rain last night had turned into a quarter inch thick rime of ice coating everything outside, from the bannister and front steps of my apartment building to the parking …

The saga of Dr. Peter Watts continues. He's crossed the US border a couple of times for hearings since his arrest in December of 2009, ostensibly for attacking a US border guard while trying to return to Canada. It's a given that he's going to go up on trial for real. However, it appears that he is now considered a fugitive from the law because he failed to show up in court on Friday, 5 March 2009. It is standard operating procedure that the defense and counsel are informed of their court dates in advance, but this time it seems …

Note: additions are being made after the cut and edits are stricken.

If you're not familiar with the work of Dr. Peter Watts, you really should be. His degrees in marine ecophysiology aside, he is also a sci-fi author of some talent and is best known for releasing his novels under a Creative Commons license in addition to having them published through Tor, among them Starfish and the mind-bending transhumanist novel Blindsight, which will certainly make you reconsider what you think about how you think. His work is well known by the science fiction fandom for taking hard SF in …

It would appear that the confiscation and analysis of personal electronics at the US border is intensifiying and that people are starting to get up in arms about it. It's more than just laptops that US ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) are spiriting away (for up to two weeks at a time, which defeats the purpose of trying to fly anywhere): Cellular phones are being meddled with and sometimes data is erased (for one reason or another; I tend to lean toward Hanlon's Razor to explain this), corporate laptops are being taken away from travelers unless the log into the …

It's the last day of the common year 2007, and between the rain and low temperatures (hovering near but not quite at the freezing point as of 0730 EST5EDT) roadways in the DC metroplex are, in short, treacherous. I nearly slipped walking down the steps from my apartment building, and my car was limned with a thin sheet of frost that had to be melted away before I was going anywhere. After getting underway, however, I discovered much to my chagrin that patches of Lee Highway in northern Virginia were sheets of ice that gave the ol' anti-lock brakes a …

I knew that something was going to happen when I spoke to my mom, and she mentioned getting ready for an ice storm in Pittsburgh on Saturday night.

That meant only one thing: It was headed toward DC.

Early this morning, I was awakened by the sound of snowflakes merrily ticking against the window above the bed that Lyssa and I share. Some time after we went to bed last night, the ice storm arrived in DC and the snow began to fall.

And fall.

And fall.

The local weather report says that we're looking and three to six inches …

As one would surmise, it's Valentine's Day, so Lyssa and I had planned to go to a local restaurant (the Sweetwater Tavern) for dinner to celebrate after work tonight. Little did we realise that it would turn into something of an adventure right from the outset.

As I wrote earlier today, DC was hit by what was considered a major ice storm last night, and temperatures continue to fall. Not only does this mean that roadways transformed into ice skating rinks (which eventually caused the shutdown of part of the outer loop of the beltway today due to a multi-car …

Around 0000 EST/EDT today (just before going to bed) we lost power for a couple of minutes. The UPSes in the apartment took up the slack, but it's always worrisome when it's cold as all get out and the power dies. It came back on a few minutes later but not everyone was so lucky around here - over 120,000 homes are still without power due to the ice storm last night. MAT (Maryland Authority Transit) has shut down for the day due to the ice.

I can see out of my office window that at least one school …