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Friday was the first rain we’d seen in over a month. By evening, the trailing edge of the storm was starting to cross central Orange County, and I actually drove back into the cloud cover to pick Katie up from work. We ended up stopping for dinner, and got back on the road around sunset.

Rainbow at sunset.At sunset, there were clouds above us, rain in the east, and clear skies to the west, showing a bright orange sun. We looked to the east, and saw a huge rainbow. It was extremely high—it looked like it ought to be an entire circle, even though I knew it couldn’t be more than a semicircle. That doesn’t come through in the one photo that came out, since it’s a matter of perception: neither of us had ever seen a rainbow centered at the horizon before. It was also faint (I had to increase the contrast on this photo), and very red.

Sunset behind a blimp hangar.

Google Images pulls up some nice pictures when you search for rainbow sunset. I particularly like this one at Flickr, which also shows spoke-like rays. Atmospheric Optics’ rainbow section is also worth a look, especially for some of the odd kinds of rainbows that aren’t often seen.

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Flock. One of the problems with the ubiquitous Get Firefox! Get Opera! etc. web buttons is that while they might encourage someone unfamiliar with the product to check it out, they’re kind of pointless to someone who already uses your preferred browser. Sure, there’s a sense of, “Hey, this author uses Opera too!” but that’s about all it can do.

To make these a little more useful, on my Flash site, I use JavaScript to switch the button if someone’s using Firefox, and instead promote the Spread Firefox site. I’ve written up a similar method for Opera, though it’s less clear where to send people.

I recently discovered that Flock has taken another approach to solving this problem. As you may recall, Flock is a browser based on Firefox, focusing on social networking. It integrates with blogging sites, photo-sharing sites, bookmark-sharing sites and so on.

The Flockstars Extension expands on this by converting the button into a mini-profile. You fill in information like an avatar, usernames at Flickr, YouTube, etc., and links to your website(s). It generates button code that acts like an ordinary Flock button, but contains all this extra information.

The extension reads this information. Visitors to your site who are using Flock and the extension will see an icon in the toolbar, which will pop up a short profile and a menu of all the facets of your online presence.

It’s a cool idea, and seems to fit perfectly with Flock’s target audience. But it only solves half the problem. The browser promo badge is still there, still taking up space. The fact that the profile data is in the button code doesn’t make a difference; it might as well be stored in a set of META tags in the page head.

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Flash poster by Alex RossDC Comics released their July solicitations today, along with some of the books due in August. They managed to say absolutely nothing informative (or, to be honest, particularly interesting) about Flash #14—just that it’s going to be big. C’mon, show, don’t tell!

On the plus side, we now have a cover and a confirmed date for Flash: The Greatest Stories Ever Told: August 15. The table of contents hasn’t changed from the initial announcement, so it sounds like it’s final. At least for promotion, they’re using Alex Ross’ portrait of the Flash.

Tangent ComicsOddly enough, the one thing on the list that actually got me excited was the first collection of Tangent Comics, due August 29. (Edit: I’ve updated the image at the left to the final cover. Originally, DC posted the cover from Tangent Comics: The Atom)

Tangent Comics was a fifth-week* event back in 1997 that built an entirely new fictional universe using only the names from DC’s stable of characters. The Atom became a nuclear-powered Superman type. Green Lantern became a mysterious figure whose lantern could bring souls back from the dead to complete unfinished business. The Flash was a human made of light. The event consisted of nine books, each designed as if it were the first issue of an ongoing series, and was successful enough that they followed it up with a second round in 1998. Continue reading →

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Someone walked into the restroom talking on a cell phone, explaining, “it’s going to sound really bad now, because I’m in the executive washroom.”

Executive washroom?

Sure, if by “executive washroom” you mean first-floor lobby restroom that’s available to anyone who walks into the building.

I couldn’t tell whether he was joking, or trying to impress the person on the other end of the call.

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It’s been a dry year for California. Water districts all over the state are geared up for drought conditions. The hills in the Orange County area are still golden-brown in mid-April. Last year at this time, they had finally turned green for spring.

Here’s a shot from the Irvine Spectrum area from April 6, 2006:

Street corner, facing a vacant lot covered with green grass, in front of green hills with a clutch of houses to the right.

That’s not a lawn behind that hedge, that’s a vacant lot. You can see it’s just as green as the strip of maintained grass along the sidewalk. Now here’s a picture taken about half a block away, taken last week, on April 6, 2007 (no, the timing was not intentional).

Same lot, from a different angle, all dry brown stubble. The hills in the background, a bit fuzzy, are also light brown.

This year, only a few weeds and flowers have managed to take hold in the vacant lot. Meanwhile, the hills are their usual golden brown. Somehow, I don’t think we’re going to see much in the way of wildflowers this year. Continue reading →