Walk or Run?

If you get caught in the rain without an umbrella, is it better to walk or run to a dry place?

This is a surprisingly difficult question to answer – but physicists have finally done it.

It's About Time!

It looks like scientific publishing is about to undergo a revolution, and it will probably look a lot like what arXiv has done to physics...

Starting Early...

One of the Cornett boys, from Leatherwood, Kentucky in 1964. 

One hopes this is not happening today, especially in America...

Via Shorpy...

I Built This...

I don't think Obama has heard the end of this...

Just Sayin'...

Woman.

Driving.

New Jersey.

Just sayin'...

Apollo 11 in Photos...

Those of us who have reached a certain age are likely to remember one thing about the eventful summer of 1969 above all others: Apollo 11.

I was nearly 17 that summer, and for the days (which seemed like months!) of the mission, I was completely consumed with it.  There was no Internet back then, and the TV news only had an hour or so per day of actual content.  My best source was the BBC News from London, which I picked up on a ham radio receiver.  The BBC had a flock of reporters on the story, all over the world; they did an amazing job of in-depth reporting, making the American news look just plain amateur by comparison.

For me, the most tension-filled moment of the mission is the one captured in the image above: the Lunar Module's ascent and rendezvous with the Command Module in lunar orbit.  Three men, a quarter million miles from home, meeting up in the unbelievable vastness of outer space.  It seemed such an unlikely feat, and yet they not only pulled it off, they made it look easy.

By the way, there was a slide rule along on that mission – and it was used :-)

The Atlantic has a nice collection of Apollo 11 photos...

Hoorah!

Via reader and colleague Doug S., this little story about the Marine Corps' response to PETA demonstrations outside the Marine base at Camp Pendleton (just north of San Diego).  PETA is protesting the Marine's use of the terms “leatherneck” and “wooly-pully”.  Most of us would just shake our heads in amusement at PETA's antics – and hope the demonstration would escalate to one of PETA's trademark nude protests.  The Marines, however, responded in a slightly different manner:

PETA protesters turned to what they called their only defense. Using out-of-tune acoustic guitars, the crowd sang songs of animal triumph over human oppression.

Both civilian and military police worked together to break up the melee because no one could stand the horrible PETA music any longer.

Peace talks have started, with top Marine brass explaining that leather hasn’t been used around the neck of a Marines uniform since long before PETA existed. Former CENTCOM Commander General James Mattis also joined in the discussion, saying that the protestors “should just go fuck themselves.”

We San Diegans are very fond of our Marines, for many reasons. One of those reasons is the Marines propensity for straight talking.

You tell 'em, General Mattis!

Fire Information – UPDATED...

It's time for my annual fire information page update.

Cameras are a primary source for ground truth when there's a local and active fire.  We learned the hard way in 2007 that local news sources are, for the most part, completely useless for “tactical” needs – if you're trying to find out about current fire location, current road closures, current escape routes, etc., these sources are just too slow.  Fortunately for us here in San Diego County, UCSD's HPWREN system has a network of cameras at over a dozen sites.  The images from these cameras are updated every two minutes, and they've got date/time stamps right in them – so you can be certain that the information you're viewing is current.  The main HPWREN camera site and a mirror site are both available.  I recommend getting familiar with the cameras most relevant to your location (for example, for us it's the cameras on Lyons Peak), and familiar with tools like Google Earth that will help you identify the landmarks you see in the HPWREN images.  During the 2007 fires, we found these cameras to be the single best tool available to us – we used them to plan our evacuation route, and we used them to track the fire's approach to our home (which, thankfully, it never reached).

There are other very useful web sites as well.  Here are three that I found useful during the 2007 fires:

California Department of Forestry: CAL FIRE Incidents

U.S. Deparment of the Interior/Department of Agriculture: GeoMAC

U.S. Department of Agriculture: Fire Data Web Services

If any of you know about other useful web sites, tools, or information sources, please let me know about them so I can share them with everyone...

UPDATED: There's a small fire (at least for now) over near Sycuan Casino, last reported at 20 acres and good progress being made controlling it.  In the course of researching this, I came across a new resource:

CAL FIRE twitter  (who knew?)

Also, here's the CAL FIRE San Diego County fire information number (only active duing major incidents): 619/590-3160

The IRS and the Black Market...

Suppose you inherited something that was once worth a lot of money, but now cannot be legally sold.  How should the IRS assess inheritance tax on that?

Well, the new owners say (of course!) that since it cannot be sold, it's fair market value is zero, so there is no tax.

The IRS says “Give us $29 million, right now!”

The whole story...

This is going to court, of course.  Care to bet on who wins?

I think most people would agree that here is a clear-cut case of theft (well, attempted theft, for the moment) disguised as taxes.  So far as I'm concerned, all taxation is theft if I didn't agree to it, but when I say things like that people just look at me like I'm crazy :-)

The Two-Egg Problem...

Examined in detail in a most geekly fashion.  Great geekly stuff!

Don't Take That Tone With Me, Fat Boy...

It's really, really hard to excerpt one of Iowahawk's satirical masterpieces.  This one – You Didn't Build That – is easier than most:

Then the economy heard the sound of the Lord Govt returning from vay-cay with the demigovts Osha and Tarp and Irs. It was the cool of the day, and they were hiding their profits from the Lord Govt among the trees of the garden. 26 But the Lord Govt called to the manufacturer, “Where are you?”

He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid, so I sought a tax shelter.”

And Govt said, “Who told you that your profits were yours? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from? ”

The man said, “The retailer made me —she has a thing for serpents.”

Then the Lord Govt said to the retailer, “What is this you have done?”

And she said to the Lord Govt, “Don't take that tone with me, fat boy. And why should I give you my profits?”

Iowahawk made my morning. Go read the whole thing; it's not that long...

Explaining Physics to Turnips...

The inimitable Rachel Lucas, on the Italian press' reaction to the Aurora shootings.  Great stuff, as always...

I Certainly Could Do That...

Today's Dilbert strip is one that just about any corporate software developer will find wryly amusing:

My search for relevance marches on...

Amongst Scott Adams many talents is a gift for staying in touch with the geekdom he no longer is immersed in...

I'll Bet He's Still Laughing!

A Parable...

Via my mom:

Once there was a little boy who lived in the country.

The family had to use an outhouse, and the little boy hated it because it was so hot in the summer and freezing cold in the winter and stank all the time.

The outhouse was sitting on the bank of a creek and the boy was determined that one day he would push that old outhouse straight into the creek.

One day after a spring rain, the creek was swollen so the little boy decided today was the day to push the outhouse into the creek.

He found a large stick and started pushing. Finally, the outhouse toppled into the creek and floated away.

That night his dad told him they were going to the woodshed after supper. Knowing that meant a spanking, the little boy asked why. The dad replied, "Someone pushed the outhouse into the creek today.It was you, wasn't it son?" The boy answered it was.

Then he thought a moment and said, "Dad, I read in school today that George Washington chopped down a cherry tree and didn't get into trouble because he told the truth."

The dad replied, "Well, son, George Washington's father wasn't in the cherry tree..."

Well, That's Different...

Opening scene from HBO's new series The Newsroom. It's not exactly parroting the usual “Progressive” narrative:

Even Worse Than We Thought...

Many California state parks were permanently closed this year because there was no money in the budget to fund them.  Really what that means is that some politician decided that other things (say, the high-speed train to nowhere) was a more important priority.  This kind of brain-diseased budget prioritization is reason enough to leave California for some saner locale.

But today we learned that it's even worse than we thought.  The state parks system was sitting on $54 million in surplus funds while they were closing parks.  We also learned that they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a secret vacation buyout program.

Bureaucrats.
Tree.
Rope.
Some assembly required.

Self-Extincting Ideologies...

I have nothing to add to the discussion on the terribly sad events in Aurora, Colorado yesterday.  I will make one observation, though, on a related phenomenon that just floors me.  Every time there is an act of mass violence carried out using guns, there are (loud) cries from the Progressives of the world (Mayor “Nanny” Bloomberg, I'm looking at you!) for gun control.  Usually they mean that in an absolutist sense: they would like to completely remove the right of U.S. citizens to bear arms.  In other words, their reaction to the illegal use of guns is to outlaw guns altogether.

There are two parts of this reaction that I have trouble wrapping my brain around.

The first part is this: if someone is already willing to do something as vile (not to mention illegal) as murder, why on earth does anyone in their right mind think that making the purchase of guns illegal would deter them?  There is much evidence that it would not, starting with the many murders with guns committed in areas where guns are illegal (both in the U.S. and outside the U.S.).

The second part is this: how could anyone believe that we're better off – by any measure at all – having our citizens be disarmed in the face of those willing to commit violence? 

Ideologies that promote gun control are, I think, self-extincting.  If they ever come to power, those with (illegal) guns will make sure that doesn't last long...

The Gathering Storm...

Feral Communists...

Another excellent Afterburner from Bill Whittle.  It contains the phrase in the title, which tickled my fancy :-)