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Great piece on NPR this morning. German Fritz Haber invented a way to create fertilizer using nitrogen, which makes for much more productive farming. This was huge. Bigger, some argue, than the invention of electricity. But he had a strange, darker side. He was a Jew who converted to Christianity, and he was instrumental in the first use of poison gas during World War I. He was actually there to observe the first time the Germans deployed it. In one of those bizarre, ironic twists that only history can hand out, Haber ended up being run out of his job as World War II approached. Although he could have stuck around on the strength of his WWI service, he refused to fire Jews who worked for him, and resigned instead. Apparently, some of the gas technology he developed for Germany later was used to murder Jews in the concentration camps. He didn’t live to see it, but it is a hell of a story, and NPR did its usual outstanding job reporting it.

I went to the Knoxville Museum of Art today to check out their (relatively) new exhibit, “Lure of the West: Treasures from the Smithsonian’s Museum of American Art.” I was expecting the worst, propagandistic images of manifest destiny and odes to westward expansion. There was some of that. But there were also numerous paintings from the Taos School. Since I lived in New Mexico for several years, this was pretty cool and I liked it a lot. Some of the other parts of the exhibit also were very good, especially portraits of Indians.

I guess my one disappointment was the complete lack of Native American voices in the exhibit. I guess I understand why, but it felt somehow incomplete to see the west strictly through European eyes … But I guess that’s how we’ve been doing it for centuries.

The rest of the museum really is very good. Checked out an exhibit of abstract expressionist prints, and the permanent collection is interesting. They’ve chosen to focus on 20th century art, especially contemporary. It’s relatively small, but definitely worth checking out if you find yourself in KnoxVegas …

I recently purchased a ProGear from SonicBlue. Very cool toy. It’s a web tablet, basically. A small, flat computer (see photo) that has a built in wireless card. Overall, I’m impresssed. A few observations:

— Mine didn’t come with a USB keyboard, which you have to have to set it up. I went out and bought one from Happy Hacking to do the job.

— The screen is incredible. Very bright, easy to read.

— The computer is slow overall. Some of the forums I’m reading suggest downloading a product called PC Lite that removes a lot of the overhead that Windows 98 puts on the computer. I’m going to try that to see if it works. The Linux version might have been a better bet, but I’ve never mucked around with Linux and went for the Windows 98 version instead.

— Setup was easy, once I got the keyboard. I did have to poke around a bit to get the ProGear onto my wireless home network, but now that it’s there, it’s a breeze to use.

— Why buy it? It’s not really a substitute for a good laptop. I like to keep it around when I want to look something up on the Web quickly or if I just want to surf around. It’s convenient to use, and the touchscreen is pretty cool. It has a virtual keyboard that you can use to type text in (kinda cumbersome, but good for URLs, etc., and if I want to do more intensive typing, I can always plug in the USB keyboard. It’s a neat device to keep near the TV. If you are watching a movie and want details, just pick up the ProGear and search the Web for information.

A few forums with more details:

Yahoo forums

ProGear Hacking