Saturday, October 25, 2014

Nano-pad...

Nano-pad...  I ordered one of these some time ago, curious to see how well it would work.  Answer: it works very well indeed!  The claim is that it works via “gecko-like nano-suction”, allowing one to stick things together that wouldn't ordinarily do so – and then to be able to pull them apart again.  What the photo shows is entirely realistic – despite finished wood not being a perfectly smooth surface, the nano-pad sticks to it quite nicely.

So that got me curious, of course.  Just what is this “gecko-like nano-suction”, anyway?  I envisioned a perfect array of thousands upon thousands of little tiny suction cups, but that's not how it works at all.  Instead, the surface is pocked by thousands of randomly shaped and placed little microscopic pockets, as you can see below.  The silver arc is the edge of a dime, to give you some scale.  The photo is at 60x magnification.  You can see dozens of oddly shaped little squiggles here; those are the little pockets that act like suction cups.  Some of them, if you look closely, are filled with dirt – which will wash right out, making it good as new. 

I had a heck of a time getting that dime off there when I finished taking this photo :)


Castro helped us get the Hubble Space Telescope...

Castro helped us get the Hubble Space Telescope...  I knew this general story, but this article has lots of details new to me...

It never ceases to amaze me...

It never ceases to amaze me ... how many things that feel intrinsic are actually cultural.  I've traveled quite a bit around the world, and have encountered numerous examples before – but they're still hard to absorb.  Sex (long necks, anyone?) and food (locust stew - yum!) are the two most common sources for these, followed closely by aesthetics (check out that purple and green house!).  It's one of the big challenges for me in understanding other cultures – those things that make my head explode...

The more we learn about genetics...

The more we learn about genetics ... the closer we'll get to something akin to eugenics.  Lots of interesting ponders on this subject!

If we lived for 1,000 years...

If we lived for 1,000 years ... our notions of economics would be upended.  A political science student takes a whack at the implications.  Science fiction authors have been thinking about this for decades, and have come up with many, many more possibilities.  The compound interest scenario is a favorite of stories about both long lifespans and time travel...

I share her pain...

I share her pain ... but I would have cried even harder when offered a consolation meeting with Obama :)  Via Idaho mogul-of-everything, friend, reader, and former colleague Doug S., who says “We all have those tears :)” ..

World's most beautiful cemeteries...

World's most beautiful cemeteries...  A collection from Smithsonian.  I've visited several of these, and they are all beautiful places.  But there's one I've visited that I thought was more beautiful than any in this collection: a tiny cemetery near the little town of Kasti, on the island of Saaremaa, in Estonia.

I don't have any photos of it, unfortunately.  What made it so beautiful to me was the way that the locals had so carefully maintained this cemetery over several hundred years.  The oldest gravestones I found dated to the 1600s; the newest ones were very recent.  All were simple and plain – and all, even the oldest, had fresh flowers on them.  The lawn and plants were immaculately maintained, and the surrounding and overhanging forest had irrigation ditches to keep the trees watered and healthy.  The atmosphere was somber, dignified, and peaceful.

I have fond memories of something that happened there, as well.  As I was walking around, a local family – husband, wife, two young kids – came in bearing flowers.  The kids were happy and full of energy; they immediately went bounding off to play amongst the tombstones.  The couple went over to a grave near one corner, cleared the older flowers away and set a new bouquet down.  The husband took out some hand shears and started clipping the grass around the grave, and pulling a few weeds.  The wife stood silently, crying a little.  I felt like an intruder on this scene, and quietly walked out.

I started to get into my rental car when I saw the husband walking toward me with a friendly expression.  He waved and greeted me, in Estonian, which I don't know a word of.  I asked if he spoke English, and he replied that he did – but just a little.  He said that he and his wife were afraid that they had intruded on my solitude, and that they didn't want me to think I had to leave because they had come in.  We laughed together when I told him that I'd had the same feeling about them.  He assumed I had a relative buried here, but I told him I was just sightseeing, and had been struck by the beauty of this little cemetery as I drove by.  He dragged me back in to meet his wife, whom he said spoke perfect English.

Well, it wasn't so perfect :)  But it was, truly, much better than his.  Both of them were very warm and friendly to this strange American tourist (this was back in 1993 or 1994, and foreign tourists were very unusual at that time).  She told me that the grave they were visiting was for her father, who had died about 15 years earlier.  What made her sad today was that he had not lived to see the end of the Soviet occupation (1991).  That would have filled him with joy, she said, and that's easy to believe.  The three of us talked for about an hour – me with lots of questions about what it was like to live on Saaremaa, them with lots of questions about America.  Like so many other Estonians back then, when they heard I lived in California, they assumed I was on a first name basis with every Hollywood star :)

Our conversation was intermittently in English, and intermittently in Estonian as the husband and wife came up with things they wanted to ask, or talked about something I'd said.  After one of these Estonian interludes, the woman asked me if I'd join them for dinner, at their home, just a couple of miles away.  I jumped on that opportunity!

The conversation continued before, during, and after the dinner.  The kids about 12 or 13 years old) joined in, too, with lots of questions of their own.  The dinner itself was simple fare: a little pea-and-carrot salad, something I'd call roast pork, with a savory sauce, and boiled potatoes with (the inevitable) dill.  There was a slightly sweet cold soup, tomato-based, again with dill.  There was beer to drink (including for the kids), a local brew.  I'm not a beer fan, and I didn't particularly like theirs, but I drank it anyway :).  It was well after dark when I finally took my leave, with lots of smiles, good cheer, and waves goodbye.  I had a standing invitation to visit the next time I came to Saaremaa.

A couple of years later, I did just that – but when I drove up to the house and knocked on the door, an unfamiliar face greeted me.  When we found someone who spoke English, I found out that the family I knew had moved away – the husband had found good work in Poland, and they all moved there.  I think of them, now and then, and hope that they're doing well.  The Smithsonian cemetery story brought them to mind once again...

Looks like old sol needs a little Clearasil...

Looks like old sol needs a little Clearasil...  Via APOD, of course...

Abe's whiskers...

Abe's whiskers...  Those are whiskers, not a beard.  I've read a lot about Abe Lincoln, but this was entirely new to me...

Where does one even start with this?

Where does one even start with this?  If you can stand it, play the clip at right.  It's a segment of a speech Hillary Clinton gave yesterday at a campaign rally for Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Martha Coakley.

There are several things in this clip that should raise the hackles of anyone who isn't avowedly socialist.  One of them stands out.  Says Hillary:
“Don't let anybody tell you that it's corporations and businesses that create jobs.” 
That's the language of socialism, in all its many guises, pure and straightforward.  Governments create jobs, not private industry, say those true believers.  And, to my great distress, a plurality of Americans today agree with that.

This is the candidate who – according to virtually every poll – currently would beat any conceivable candidate that the Republicans could field against her, including Mitt Romney version 3.

This is your cup of morning doom.  You're welcome...

Well, that didn't take long!

Well, that didn't take long!  Alan Eustace has broken Felix Baumgartner's recent record for high-altitude skydiving.  Eustace is a Google executive, and funded his jump himself...

“...you grandiloquent twonk.”

“...you grandiloquent twonk.”  I have no idea who Katy Perry or Russell Brand is, but I gather they're some sort of celebrities.  One thing I am very clear on, though: James Delingpole really, really doesn't like Russell Brand!  The intro to the linked article:
Russell Brand - soap-dodger, lech, former husband of the infinitely more talented Katy Perry - is the most irritating person on earth. This much we knew. But I don't think any of us realised just HOW irritating till his most recent appearance on BBC Newsnight last night in which, besides revealing himself to be a 9/11 Truther, he also emerged as a preening, ignorant, manipulative bully with disturbing communist and Islamist tendencies.

Russell Brand - soap-dodger, lech, former husband of the infinitely more talented Katy Perry - is the most irritating person on earth. This much we knew. But I don't think any of us realised just HOW irritating till his most recent appearance on BBC Newsnight last night in which, besides revealing himself to be a 9/11 Truther, he also emerged as a preening, ignorant, manipulative bully with disturbing communist and Islamist tendencies.
“soap-dodger” :)  I love James Delingpole's rants...

Adventures in electricity...

Adventures in electricity...  A few months ago the painters removed all the switch and outlet covers in the house, and I took advantage of that to do some random inspection of the electrical work.  After seeing some obvious problems and some shoddy work, along with some not-so-good components, I decided to replace all the switches and outlets in the house with quality new components – and to fix all the problems I found along the way.

Yesterday I inventoried all the parts I'd need, and made an epic purchase at Lowe's.  My entire shopping cart was filled to the brim with large quantities of parts.  The checkout clerk thought I was an electrician stocking up for the month.  Just to give you a flavor: I bought 84 switches.  This sort of thing comes along with a 4,800 sq. ft. house, I suppose.  That pile of components is intimidating :)

When I got home, I broke out my tools and went to work in the living room.  My first effort was to figure out why one switch, placed as if it were a light switch, didn't work.  After some effort, I determined that it was supposed to control the top outlets on three separate dual outlets scattered around the room.  The reason it didn't work?  Somebody who didn't understand these things had replaced two of the dual outlets, and had not removed the “shorting bar” that allowed the upper and lower outlet to be controlled separately.  I fixed that.  Then I discovered one outlet with a missing ground wire – that's actually dangerous.  I fixed that.  The next outlet had the “hot” and neutral wires reversed – also potentially dangerous.  I fixed that.  I've only redone half of one room, and I've already found three errors, two of them potentially dangerous.  I'm a little surprised the former owners survived!

Watch those tires, Curiosity!

Watch those tires, Curiosity!  Rough road ahead...

Amazon vs. Hachette...

Amazon vs. Hachette...  I've commented on this briefly before.  To me, the whole kerfuffle seems grossly overblown.  Amazon's efforts are entirely consistent with the disintermediation that the web brought to many industries.  Hachette is acting like the buggy whip manufacturers when cars first came out.  Hachette will lose in the end – it's just a matter of when – and consumers and authors will win, along with Amazon.

I've felt a little lonely in this opinion.  The lamestream media absolutely delighted in the “feud”, and coverage has been overwhelmingly pro-Hachette.  Yesterday, though, I ran across a couple of articles by people who share my perspective, and have some interesting points to make: CoyoteBlog and Megan McArdleReason has been taking the same position since the news broke.  You might note a pattern there: all three sources lean libertarian (Reason rather overtly so).  The dominant ideologies (progressive and conservative) tend to support Hachette's position, for different reasons, with a few exceptions on the conservative side.  There really aren't all that many issues where the libertarians stick out quite so much (drug legalization is another), so it's interesting to see that this is one.  Probably it just boils down to the libertarian notion that it's best to keep government out of things, whereas both progressives and conservatives (these days) seem to agree that BIG BAD GOVERNMENT is a good thing...