Helpful Household Hints...

Via my lovely bride (click to enlarge):

Coyote Hunting...

Via reader Jim M.:

The Sierra Club and the U. S. Forest Service were presenting an alternative to the Wyoming ranchers for controlling the coyote population. It seems that after years of the ranchers using the tried and true method of shooting or trapping the predators, the Sierra Club had a "more humane" solution to this issue.

What they were proposing was for the animals to be captured alive. The males would then be castrated and let loose again.

All of the ranchers thought about this amazing idea for a couple of minutes. Finally an old fellow wearing a big cowboy hat in the back of the conference room stood up, tipped his hat back and said ... "Son, I don't think you understand our problem here. These coyotes ain't fuckin' our sheep...they're eatin' 'em!"

The meeting never really got back to order.

I'll bet!

Elmer...

Via reader Jim M.:

A guy stopped at a local gas station, and after filling his tank, he paid the bill and bought a soft drink. He stood by his car to drink his cola and watched a couple of men working along the roadside. One man would dig a hole two or three feet deep and then move on. The other man came along behind him and filled in the hole. While one was digging a new hole, the other was 25 feet behind filling in the hole. The men worked right past the guy with the soft drink and went on down the road.

"I can't stand this," said the man tossing the can into a trash container and headed down the road toward the men.

"Hold it, hold it," he said to the men. "Can you tell me what's going on here with all this digging and refilling?"

"Well, we work for the government and we're just doing our job," one of the men said.

"But one of you is digging a hole and the other fills it up. You're not accomplishing anything. Aren't you wasting the taxpayers' money?"

"You don't understand, Mister," one of the men said, leaning on his shovel and wiping his brow. "Normally there's three of us: Me, Elmer and Leroy. I dig the hole, Elmer sticks in the tree, and Leroy here puts the dirt back. Elmer's job's been cut...so now it's just Me and Leroy.

The really sad part is that this story is completely plausible.  Might even be true...

Swedish Goose Hunting Story...

Via my mom.  Yes, I grew up in this sort of home...

Ole was hunting geese up in the Varden Lake region of Sweden. He leaned the old 16 gauge against the corner of the blind to take a leak. As luck would have it, his foolish dog Gnarff knocked the gun over. It went off and Ole took most of an ounce of #4 in the groin.

Several hours later, lying in a Stockholm hospital bed, he came to...and there was his doctor, Sven.

"Vell Ole, I got some good news and some bad news. Da good news is dat you are going to be OK. Da damage vas local to your groin, dere was very little internal damage, and I vas able to remove all of da buckshot."

"What's the bad news?", asks Ole.

"The bad news is dat dere vas some pretty extensive buckshot damage done to your pecker. I'm going to have to refer you to my sister, Lena."

"Well, I guess that isn't too bad," says Ole. "Is your sister a plastic surgeon?"

"Not exactly," Sven says. "She's a flute player in da Swedish Symphony Orchestra. She's going to teach you vhere to put your fingers, so you don't piss in your eye."

Modern Dog...

Via my lovely bride (and fellow dog lover):

I'm a Sick Old Man...

Via my lovely bride:

I am a sick old man!

I was sick and in the hospital. There was one nurse that just drove me crazy. Every time she came in, she would talk to me like I was a little child. She would say in a patronizing tone of voice, 'And how are we doing this morning?' or 'Are we ready for a bath?', or 'Are we hungry?' I had had enough of this particular nurse.

One day, at breakfast, I took the apple juice off the tray and put it in my bed side stand. Later, I was given a urine bottle to fill for testing. So you know where the juice went!

The nurse came in a little later, picked up the urine bottle and looked at it.  'My, it seems we are a little cloudy today.'

At this, I snatched the bottle out of her hand, popped off the top, and drank it down, saying, 'Well, I'll run it through again. Maybe I can filter it better this time.'

The nurse fainted...and I just smiled.

Winter in San Diego...

Just a random collection of photos from today's travels, mainly on the western face and North Peak of Cuyamaca Mountain.  I'll bet that these don't comport with most people's notion of winter in San Diego :)

Just One Comment...

I laughed my ass off!

Curiosity: A Hole on Mars...

I just like this photo:

RIP John Karlin – the First UX Guy...

For the non-geeks amongst my readers: “UX” is the currently popular abbreviation for “User Experience”, and denotes an engineer whose focus is on the human factors of a system's user.  UX engineers are most often thought of as part of software development teams, but in fact they're also often part of hardware teams.

John Karlin was arguably the first UX guy, and he was focused on telephone design...

Curiosity Discovers Something Odd on Mars...

What is it?  It looks metallic.  The mission scientists don't know yet what it is, other than weird.  But they're working on it...

Prepare Carefully Before Viewing This Video...

I suggest something soft and cushiony directly under your jaw, to catch it when it drops:


The product's web site...

Well, That Didn't Last Long...

The lead on this WSJ ($) article pretty much sums it up:

Well, that didn't take long. The pension reforms that California Governor Jerry Brown signed in September have been in effect for all of a month, and Democrats are already seeking a partial annulment. The Kim Kardashian-Kris Humphries marriage had more staying power.

State assemblyman Luis Alejo (D., Teamsters) wants to exempt some 20,000 mass transit workers on the pretext that the new pension law violates the 1964 Urban Mass Transportation Act...

California – a shining example of how socialism (in the guise of “progressivism”) can reduce a vibrant symbol of human success to a smoldering economic ruin.  Quickly, too.

Doom...

Oops: Sunspot Count Lower than Projected - Unexpectedly!

If you've been tracking the debate on the sun's influence on climate, then you know that (somewhat counter-intuitively) the sun's luminosity (energy output) increases when there are more sunspots (see here for an explanation).  For years, climate scientists left solar luminosity variation out of their models, and denied that it had any significant effect on weather or climate.  Skeptics of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) have long been pointing to the high sunspot counts (and therefore high solar luminosity) of the last solar cycle as a likely cause of the global warming observed in the '90s and early '00s.  Over the past couple of years, even the mainstream climate scientists are changing their position on this, as more and more observational evidence comes in that the skeptics were right.

Meanwhile, over at NOAA they've been trying to predict what the current solar cycle's sunspot count will be, and they keep getting surprised – by how low the count is  (see chart below, sourced here).  At the same time, all observational evidence of continued global warming has come to a halt – temperatures have been flat for over five years now.  AGW skeptics point to this as evidence that the solar luminosity is causing global warming, but really all they have so far is a good correlation; causation has yet to be established.  But...some mainstream climate scientists are now pursuing observations aimed to establishing that causation (see, for example, the recent observations showing that solar luminosity variation in the ultraviolet spectrum is far higher than it is in optical – and the energy output of the sun is much higher in that spectral region than it is in the optical region).

Military Dogs: Photos of the Year...

Go see...

So God Made a Liberal...

A take-off on the Paul Harvey SuperBowl ad:

Weather...

My readers on the East Coast or in colder regions of the world should feel perfectly free to laugh at us.  But...we're having a rare episode of frozen precipitation here.  Not snow, but hail – lots and lots of slushy hail, about the size of corn kernels.  Overnight we have a few places where this mixture has accumulated to over an inch (2 cm) deep.  The ground is not frozen, and the air temperature never reached freezing, so these accumulations are all on objects that provide good insulation from the ground (some photos later).

Meanwhile, we also got three quarters of an inch (about 1.5 cm) of rain.  After a parched January we're under average rainfall for the season, so every little bit of additional precipitation is quite welcome.

Debbie and I are headed off to our local mountains for some sight-seeing later.  I'm bringing my camera, so if we see anything interesting there will be photos!

Free Science Fiction eBooks...

...from the Gutenberg Project...

Geography Puzzle...

Here's a very nice puzzle that is more challenging (at least to me!) that it might seem – because it exploits the size/shape distortions of Mercator projections as latitude changes.

The premise of the puzzle is simple: you start with a Google Maps world projection, with 15 country outlines in red misplaced (see below).  All you have to do is drag them to where they belong.  If you're a bit of a geography nerd, this sounds like it should be easy – especially because most of the puzzle pieces are well-known and fairly large countries, and none of them are the little tiny countries you might expect them to throw at you.  As you drag the outlines to various latitudes, you can see the shape and size change, dramatically (this is of course the result of the Mercator projection). 

It took me just over 9 minutes to complete this, with one country in particular (and one that I'm very familiar with, having traveled extensively in it!) took me almost three minutes to find...

Optical Illusions...

A great collection, with some that are new to me (like the one below).

Another Step Backwards...

Every year we need fewer farmers and more engineers.  This is a natural consequence of the world's economy evolving toward mechanization and automation.  The jobs available in the evolving economy are more intellectual, less manual.  So naturally, our schools need to better prepare students for this new world, by equipping them with the skills to get jobs in it.  Right?

Wrong.  California has decided that math needs less emphasis.

Doom...

Curiosity: Self-Portrait 2...

There Must Be...

...an interesting story behind this change...

Blog Post of the Day...

This one is somewhat recursive – it's from Rachel Lucas, who is herself blogging about a (great!) post from Jeff Goldstein:

There is no point to the GOP anymore. They are about as much of a counterweight to the liberal Democrats and Obama as a dingleberry is on Primo’s ass when he wants to run like the wind.

He doesn’t like it, and he might slow down for a second to rub his butt in the grass, but then off he goes again to his desired destination, undeterred.

There's no substantive difference in behavior between the Democrats and the Republicans, taken as a whole.  I agree.  It's a problem.  One that smells of doom...

Things Confucius Did Not Say...

Via reader Simi L.:

Man who wants pretty nurse, must be patient.

Passionate kiss, like spider web, leads to undoing of fly.

Better to be pissed off than pissed on.

Lady who goes camping must beware of evil intent.

Squirrel who runs up woman's leg will not find nuts.

Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.

Man who eats many prunes get good run for money.

War does not determine who is right, it determines who is left.

Man who fight with wife all day, get no piece at night.

It takes many nails to build a crib, but only one screw to fill it.

Man who drives like hell is bound to get there.

Man who stands on toilet is high on pot.

Man who live in glass house should change clothes in basement..

Man who fish in other man's well often catch crabs.

Finally Confucius also didn't say: A lion will not cheat on his wife, but a Tiger Wood!

What is This?

Why, it's a close-up of a hole drilled into a rock.  A Martian rock.  By Curiosity, of course...

State and City Pension Fund Reform...

Carl DeMaio is a local politician and a Reason fellow.  He's got a piece in today's WSJ ($) on the need for reform of state and city pension funds (and the pension system in general) and some specifics of what he believes are needed.

I don't disagree with him on either the problem or the need for reform.  I'm not so sure about the specifics he proposes; my own inclinations would be for something much more dramatic.  I'd be especially interested in reform that put a stop to the politician's ability (or willingness) to spend the public's future money...

What's Wrong With this Graph?

There's a serious flaw with this infographic – a flaw that creates a false impression in just about every viewer.  Can you find it?  Here's the answer (a classic Megan McArdle takedown)...

Aw, Go Fly a Kite!

But do it like this, please...

New Record for Largest Prime...

It's a Mersenne prime, naturally: (2^57,885,161)-1.

Forget Due Process?

Reader Larry E. writes in with this regarding the leaked memo detailing the Obama administration's justification of targeted killings of Americans:

This is a sad, scary thing.

Seems all it takes to have you killed in the US is for some official to say you might be dangerous.

How we got to this point, from constitutional protections from unwarranted search, innocent until proven guilty, to no knock search warrants, secret courts, CIA prisons, actively mining all data flowing in the US for any evidence of wrong doing, to justifying murdering US citizens on US soil. Amazing.

Here's the actual memo.

This is disturbing, no doubt about it.  The opportunities for abuse are obvious, and if there's any lesson from history it is that any possible abuse will become an actual abuse. 

Also disturbing is the obvious alternative: American Taliban (or the equivalent) untouchable by U.S. military action because of legal restrictions.

I much prefer to err on the same side that our jury system errs on: I'll gladly take a small risk to my country (an American Taliban run amok) to keep the due process protection afforded (or so I thought) by our Constitution.

But little by little, bit by bit, our Constitutional protections have been eroded over the years.  This is not a recent phenomenon; it started a long, long time ago.  The examples are everywhere: illegal drugs and building codes are two noxious examples that are long-standing and have widespread public support.  With this memo, Obama is just participating in an old and well-practiced political sport...

Why...

(Geek Alert): Why does Google prepend while(1); to all of its JSON API reponses?

Short answer:it prevents cross-site request forgeries.

You learn something new every day :)

It's Official: Mach 1.25...

That's how fast Felix Baumgartner fell in his record-setting jump...

Quantum-Resistant Encryption (UPDATED)...

If you posit the existence of a quantum computer (either now, tucked away in a government agency, or in the future when scientists figure out how to do it), then the cryptosystems in general use today can be trivially broken.  In plain English: anybody with a quantum computer can read all of your encrypted messages, including any secure web sessions (HTTPS via SSL).

I just stumbled across a cryptosystem that doesn't have any known attack via quantum computer, and is available today.  It's called NTRU, and it's an asymmetric key system with fairly high performance (especially compared with conventional asymmetric cryptosystems).  It's available in a Java library from the creators, and it's now part of Bouncy Castle.

I just barely understand the math behind conventional cryptosystems.  I haven't (yet) tried to understand this one, but I'm very curious to see how its mathematical properties make it immune to the quantum attacks that would work against conventional cryptosystems.  Perhaps one of my readers understands and can illuminate the topic for us?

Update 2/5:  Reader and friend Doug W. writes to say:

Color me very skeptical. I have no problem with quantum computing as an interesting basic research topic, but many folks, both in the field and in the press, seem to believe that we’re just a few years away from something practical. My suspicion is that it’s more like nuclear fusion power, which has been a constant 10-20 years away from practicality for over sixty years. In fact, I’m far more optimistic about fusion power than quantum computers, which isn’t saying much.

It’s possible – in some very strange theoretical sense – for a quantum computer to factor large numbers used in RSA crypto, assuming you could even convince the quantum device to do big integer math, though that alone seems unlikely to me. However, my gut says that the thermal noise in any system, even near absolute zero, dwarfs the energy difference between that many superimposed quantum states by many orders of magnitude (dozens? hundreds?). Thus, I find it difficult to believe that such a system would be stable long enough to be useful. I could certainly be wrong, but I’m not holding my breath. Right now, quantum computers can factor the number 15, and they’ve been stuck there for a good while -- it’s a long way from 2**4 to 2**1024. Just saying…

And don’t get me started about quantum cryptography. As Paul Kocher (a very well known and respected crypto researcher) said in 2003:

To me, quantum cryptography is useless. It purports to solve a problem that’s already solved. It is an interesting research problem, though. But, you’re not going to see quantum computers showing up to do useful things probably in my lifetime and possibly never. But it is the most interesting problem in computing in the last 30 years. It’s absolutely fascinating. But, of all the things that keep us awake at night, that’s way down there with alien invasions.

I’ve heard lots of talks on quantum crypto at cryptography conferences over the past 15 years, and most of the cryptographers I know just roll their eyes. It is, however, a great research area if you are looking to get research grant money.

Also, fwiw, NTRU has been around quite a while and is at best a niche technology. Lattice cryptography has a bit of a funky reputation (not all due to NTRU), due to lots of claims which have been repeatedly broken. The NTRU folks are nice guys and very bright, but I don’t see it getting wide deployment anytime soon.

[Full disclosure: I have an applied physics degree from Caltech, and I do cryptography for a living]

We're Playing Defense – and That's the Problem...

Peter Munson is a Marine officer who recently returned from a tour in Afghanistan.  He's written a very thoughtful piece, the heart of which starts with this:

Since I returned home, a darkness has grown in me as both I and our nation have failed to live up to the sacrifices of these young men and women. I had no expectation of “victory” in Afghanistan or Iraq, whatever that would mean. Nor did I expect some epiphany of strategic insight or remorse from the nation’s brain trust.

I just found that I could not square the negativity, pettiness and paranoia in the discourse of our country’s elders with the nobility and dedication of the men and women I had seen and served with in Afghanistan.

Over time, as I listened to the squabbling, I realized that about the only thing Americans agree on these days is gratitude bordering on reverence for our military. It troubled me that the sum total of consensus in our discourse is deference toward the defenders of our nation. 

Please read the whole thing...

Chasing Ice...

The largest glacier calving ever captured in images.  Awesome...

Tour of the ISS...

Via my mom.  I have mixed feelings viewing this.  There is a lot of cool, advanced technology on display; fun stuff for any geek.  On the other hand, the video showcases the stuff we've spent a vast amount of money on, with negligible returns.  Sigh.

So God Made a Farmer...

I'm not a fan of Dodge Ram trucks, but I sure do like their SuperBowl ad:

Jerker Line Systems...

Power distribution.  When we think of that term today, what comes right to mind is electricity.  If we think a little harder, we might also think of the petroleum industry as a power distribution system.  Most of us would not think of “jerker line systems”, if for no other reason than we never heard of them.

In the early '60s, my dad, my brother and I took a trip out to the Western U.S. (from New Jersey) in my dad's beat-up 1948 Dodge.  We visited the oil fields of Texas and Oklahoma, and somewhere in those fields we saw several of these jerker line systems in action.  At the time we had no idea what they were called, but it was obvious how they worked: the back-and-forth action of the steel cables, often slithering along the ground, were operating oil pumps.  The motion of the cables made a distinctive sound.  We followed a cable from one of the pumps back to the electric motor that ran it (much like the one pictured here).  In the case of the one we followed, the motor was perhaps 500 yards from the pump – and that single motor was running three pumps.

We thought it was quite ingenious at the time.  It was most definitely low tech; a guy with a monkey wrench and some oil could maintain the entire thing, and it was obvious how it worked.

I wonder how they do this today?  Probably an electric motor in each pump, I'm guessing.  The advent of horizontal drilling has probably greatly reduced the number of well sites, too...

Reality Smacks Lefty Upside His Pointed Little Head...

On Friday, Matt Yglesias published a short article detailing how the tentacles of government bureaucracy made it crazy difficult to start his own small business.  If you recognize his name, you're probably chuckling already – because Yglesias is a well-known lefty blogger and commentator, one who can be relied on to support everything that smacks of big government.

As you might expect, the “rightosphere” has been having a lot of fun with this.  At The Spirit of Enterprise, for example, we have this:

I love when progressive dudes in designer glasses actually have to deal with the government in order to do something and are blown away by the stupidity, waste, and burden of it all. It is as if they have only read journal articles about the theory of regulators and never encountered them in the wild.

More such reactions in these search results...

Shadow Government Statistics...

John Williams has an interesting web site called Shadow Government Statistics, wherein he exposes flaws in the way government presents and analyzes economic and finance statistics.  Here's a good example using unemployment statistics.  Williams includes (in the blue line) long term “discouraged” workers which have been left out of all U.S. government statistics since 1994 (a piece of Bill Clinton legerdemain designed to make the economic picture look better than it actually was).  With those “discouraged” workers back in the stats, the current unemployment rate is really about 23%, not the much rosier 7.9% released as the official number...

English King Richard III Found...

His remains, that is.  Richard III was killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, but his remains had been lost.  This skeleton was found last fall under a parking lot; scientists used DNA to positively identify it as Richard III.

Namibian Nights...

Awesome time-lapse video of the night sky in Namibia.  Via APOD, of course...

Life Found Deep Below the Antarctic Ice...

Most Antarctic biologists were expecting this, and now it's confirmed.  An underwater lake deep under the Antarctic ice has been cut off from the rest of the world for at least 100,000 years.  Nonetheless, life still thrives there.  It will be interesting to see how the life forms discovered obtain their energy in that cold, lightless environment...

Macaulay Library is Online...

In the bad old days (before yesterday), if you wanted to listen to the Macaulay sound library (a huge archive of the sounds of nature: animals and birds, especially birds) you had to purchase expensive CDs.  Now they've gone and put it online – the whole library – complete with a nifty search capability that lets you search by either common name or Latin name.  I just spent a happy half hour listening to great recordings of all sorts of familiar animals and birds.

Now all we need is a way to search for sounds that we record, to identify the animal or bird by searching the library!

RIP Barney...

Barney, First Dog during George W. Bush's two terms, passed away yesterday at the age of 12.  The Bushs released this statement:

Laura and I are sad to announce that our Scottish Terrier, Barney, has passed away. The little fellow had been suffering from lymphoma and after twelve and a half years of life, his body could not fight off the illness.

Barney and I enjoyed the outdoors. He loved to accompany me when I fished for bass at the ranch. He was a fierce armadillo hunter. At Camp David, his favorite activity was chasing golf balls on the chipping green.

Barney guarded the South Lawn entrance of the White House as if he were a Secret Service agent. He wandered the halls of the West Wing looking for treats from his many friends. He starred in Barney Cam and gave the American people Christmas tours of the White House. Barney greeted Queens, Heads of State, and Prime Ministers. He was always polite and never jumped in their laps.

Barney was by my side during our eight years in the White House. He never discussed politics and was always a faithful friend. Laura and I will miss our pal.

I really, really miss having a class act in the White House...

Update 2/3/2013: Did you know that G.W. has taken up oil painting?  The Bushes released this painting yesterday (check out the signature)...

Killer Showers...

Taking a shower is dangerous?  Yes, it is, for people of a certain age (which I'm approaching!).  Why?  Because of the risk of falling.  Huh?  It's a small risk, but you (we hope) take a lot of showers – a small risk taken often can become a large risk overall.  Jared Diamond (author of Guns, Germs, and Steel and more) explains...

My Kind of Animated Short...

This Oscar-nominated animation just hit the web (it was originally released as part of Wreck-It Ralph).  It was nominated for an Oscar because of its innovative combination of hand-drawing and computer animation.  It's gorgeous, and as the linked article says, may well be a peek at the future of animation...

Carjacking Fails!

Oh, my, the times they are a-changing.  Two would-be carjackers attempted to steal a 2002 Corvette – but were foiled by the complexities of operating the car.  Specifically, the stick shift (manual transmission) and clutch.  Even after the terrified owner tried to teach them.

The carjackers gave up and fled...

Your Morning Palate Cleanser...

Is this little guy cute, or what?  Many more photos of him here...

Icon Fonts...

How (and why!) you can use an icon font on your own web site.  This is a nice tutorial from the folks at Fog Creek, who used an icon font as part of their Trello site (one of my favorite tools)...

Beautiful Glass...

My sister's photos from the Dale Chihully Glass Exhibit at the Richmond (Virginia) Museum of Fine Arts:

Wonderfully Evocative Photo...

Here's a great example of the artistry a great photographer can add.  It isn't all about the film, lens, and camera.  The simplicity and lack of distractions inherent the in the black & white medium greatly adds to the impact of this photo.  From Shorpy..

A Parable...

From Edsger Dijkstra, circa 1973 (don't miss Dijkstra's comment at the end!):

Years ago a railway company was erected and one of its directors -- probably the commercial bloke -- discovered that the initial investments could be reduced significantly if only fifty percent of the cars would be equipped with a toilet, and, therefore, so was decided.

Shortly after the company had started its operations, however, complaints about the toilets came pouring in. An investigation was carried out and revealed that the obvious thing had happened: despite its youth the company was already suffering from internal communication problems, for the director's decision on the toilets had not been transmitted to the shunting yard, where all cars were treated as equivalent, and, as a result, sometimes trains were composed with hardly any toilets at all.

In order to solve the problem, a bit of information was associated with each car, telling whether it was a car with or without a toilet, and the shunting yard was instructed to compose trains with the numbers of cars of both types as equal as possible. It was a complication for the shunting yard, but, once it had been solved, the people responsible for the shunting procedures were quite proud that they could manage it.

When the new shunting procedures had been made effective, however, complaints about the toilets continued. A new investigation was carried out and then it transpired that, although in each train about half the cars had indeed toilets, sometimes trains were composed with nearly all toilets in one half of the train. In order to remedy the situation, new instructions were issued, prescribing that cars with and cars without toilets should alternate. This was a move severe complication for the shunting people, but after some initial grumbling, eventually they managed.

Complaints, however, continued and the reason turned out to be that, as the cars with toilets had their toilet at one of their ends, the distance between two successive toilets in the train could still be nearly three car lengths, and for mothers with children in urgent need -- and perhaps even luggage piled up in the corridors -- this still could lead to disasters. As a result, the cars with toilets got another bit of information attached to them, making them into directed objects, and the new instructions were, that in each train the cars with toilets should have the same orientation. This time, the new instructions for the shunting yard were received with less than enthusiasm, for the number of turntables was hardly sufficient; to be quite fair to the shunting people we must even admit that according to all reasonable standards, the number of turntables was insufficient, and it was only by virtue of the most cunning ingenuity, that they could just manage.

With all toilets equally spaced along the train the company felt confident that now everything was alright, but passengers continued to complain: although no passenger was more than a car length away from the nearest toilet, passengers (in urgent need) did not know in which direction to start their stumbling itinerary along the corridor! To solve this problem, arrows saying "TOILET" were fixed in all corridors, thereby also making the other half of the cars into directed objects that should be properly oriented by the shunting procedure.

When the new instruction reached the shunting yard, they created an atmosphere ranging from despair to revolt: it just couldn't be done! At that critical moment a man whose name has been forgotten and shall never be traced, made the following observation. When each car with a toilet was coupled, from now until eternity, at its toileted end with a car without a toilet, from then onwards the shunting yard, instead of dealing with N directed cars of two types, could deal with N/2 identical units that, to all intents and purposes, could be regarded as symmetrical. And this observation solved all shunting problems at the modest price of, firstly sticking to trains with an even number of cars only -- the few additional cars needed for that could be paid out of the initial savings effected by the commercial bloke! -- and, secondly, slightly cheating with regard to the equal spacing of the toilets. But, after all, who cares about the last three feet?

Although at the time that this story took place, mankind was not blessed yet with automatic computers, our anonymous man who found this solution deserves to be called the world's first competent programmer.


I have told the above story to different audiences. Programmers, as a rule, are delighted by it, and managers, invariably, get more and more annoyed as the story progresses; true mathematicians, however, fail to see the point.

The Sound of a 56k Modem Connecting...

If you're of a certain age (translation: if you're an old fart like me) and you used computers in the '80s and '90s, then the sound of a 56k modem connecting (generally to your dial-up ISP) is one that's probably burned into your little grey cells.  While those noises are familiar, most likely you have no idea what they all meant.  Here's a nice explanation, complete with graphic...digital archaeology :)

Best Fonts for Programming?

Anonymous Pro wins the vote...

Euphorbia punicea

Common name “Jamaican poinsettia”.  From BPOD, of course...

Awesome...

Proclaims my mom, about this:

Americas More Civilized Than We'd Thought...

Not now, but a long time ago – in the period before 1492...

Over the past ten years or so, scientists have made a number of discoveries about the broader extent and higher population than previously believed in “pre-historic” Americas.  Many of these discoveries have been in South America, particularly in Amazonia.  Here's one that is in the United States, giving strong evidence for a civilization there about 3,200 years ago that was capable of mustering thousands of workers to build a large earthworks.

It fascinates me that the evidence of human activity is so difficult to find and interpret, just a few thousand years after the fact.  I wonder what people a few thousand years from now will think about, say, the human occupation of Southern California?  Our artifacts look so permanent – especially on the time scale of a single human life – but clearly they are not...

The Spread of Religions...

I've long been surprised just how ignorant most people (from anywhere) are about religions – especially about religions other than their own (or the one most familiar to them).  Prominent amongst the topics of ignorance: any sense of the historical context of religions.  So...I predict that this infographic will have many surprises for people:

Cats vs. Birds...

The birds are losing, more dramatically than anyone knew.  It's mostly feral cats causing the problem:

America’s cats, including housecats that adventure outdoors and feral cats, kill between 1.4 billion and 3.7 billion birds in a year, says Peter Marra of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Washington, D.C., who led the team that performed the analysis. Previous estimates of bird kills have varied, he says, but “500 million is a number that has been thrown around a lot.”

For wild mammals, the annual toll lies between 6.9 billion and 20.7 billion, Marra and his colleagues report along with the bird numbers January 29 in Nature Communications. The majority of these doomed mammals and birds fall into the jaws of cats that live outdoors full-time with or without food supplements from people.

“The results are remarkable, not only for the big number, but also for the proportion of deaths from feral cats,” says Gary M. Langham, chief scientist for the National Audubon Society. The study assigns 952 million to 3.1 billion bird deaths a year to these wild cats. “These numbers really elevate this threat to a new level.” 

Felines are land sharks...

Potential Downfall of American Society...

Summary: A student's grandmother is far more likely to die suddenly just before the student takes an exam, than at any other time of year.

Isolated for Forty Years...

A Russian family, afraid of what the Soviets would do to them because of their religion, lives in Siberia cut off from the rest of the world (their cabin is at right) for over 40 years.

Amazing!

Transparency...

Back in the early '80s I worked for a company with what seemed to me a radical policy with respect to employee compensation: everyone's compensation was posted so that all could see.  This had all sorts of repercussions, most of them, I have to say, quite good.  Everybody knew exactly where they stood; there was no worrying about whether you'd negotiated the right salary for yourself.  It made questions about compensation very easy to raise.  Most of all, it made it impossible for the company to sustain any sort of compensation that didn't match the merit. 

I suspect this particular company maintained this unusual level of transparency because there were several relatives and close friends of the founder employed there.  By being completely transparent about compensation, many potentially destructive rumors were quashed.

This morning I read that there's a detectable trend toward such transparency, and more...

Oh, Yeah, I'd Say I Was Fine, Too!

Via Jim M.:

A Wisconsin farmer named Olie (Olav) had a car accident. He was hit by a truck owned by the Eversweet Company, a Harley Westover Company.

In court, the Eversweet Company's hot-shot attorney questioned him thus:

'Didn't you say to the state trooper at the scene of the accident, 'I'm fine?"

Olie responded: 'vell, I'lla tell you vat happened dere. I'd yust loaded my fav'rit cow, Bessie, into da... '

'I didn't ask for any details', the lawyer interrupted. 'Just answer the question. Did you not say, at the scene of the accident, 'I'm fine!'?'

Olie said, 'vell, I'd yust got Bessie into da trailer and I vas drivin' down da road.... '

The lawyer interrupted again and said, 'Your Honor, I am trying to establish the fact that, at the scene of the accident, this man told the police on the scene that he was fine. Now several weeks after the accident, he is trying to sue my client. I believe he is a fraud. Please tell him to simply answer the question.

By this time, the Judge was fairly interested in Olie’s answer and said to the attorney: 'I'd like to hear what he has to say about his favorite cow, Bessie'.

Olie said: 'Tank you' and proceeded. 'vell as I vas saying, I had yust loaded Bessie, my fav'rit cow, into de trailer and was drivin' her down de road vin dis huge Eversweet truck and trailer came tundering tru a stop sign and hit my trailer right in da side by golly. I was trown into one ditch and Bessie was trown into da udder ditch.

By yimminy yahosaphat I vas hurt, purty durn bad, and didn't vant to move. An even vurse dan dat, I could hear old Bessie a moanin' and a groanin'. I knew she vas in terrible pain yust by her groans.

Shortly after da accident, a policeman on a motorbike turned up. He could hear Bessie a moanin' and a groanin' too, so he vent over to her. After he looked at her, and saw her condition, he took out his gun and shot her right between the eyes.

Den da policeman came across de road, gun still in hand, looked at me, and said, 'How are you feelin'?'

'Now wot da fock vud you say?'

Take That!

There are petty thieves in almost every workplace.  They drive their fellow workers crazy by stealing drinks and food that belong to others, usually from the refrigerator.

Whoever posted the sign at right has secured revenge for all of us :)

Cisco Sells Off Linksys...to Belkin???

Cisco appears to have completely given up on its various forays into consumer electronics, selling off the profitable Linksys line to Belkin.  I have no idea whether those forays actually made good business sense, but what is clear is that Cisco has been punished by investors for having done so.  The Flip video fiasco actually impacted us personally – we owned one of those things.  This sale won't impact us directly, but it saddens me.  Linksys is a solid brand, with good-to-great products at very fair prices.  Belkin is a schlocky brand, known (quite justifiably, in my own experience) for iffy products and high prices.  I suppose its possible that Belkin could leverage this acquisition to push their own reputation uphill, but somehow I suspect that the opposite is more likely.  I fully expect to see “Linksys” slapped onto Belkin's existing networking products – the electronics equivalent of lipstick on a pig...

Women in Combat...

Some interesting thoughts from a female veteran, and this post has links to three other excellent articles, all thought-provoking.

If politics weren't part of the mix, I'd say there was a chance (albeit a small chance) that the military could figure out how to do this right.  Throw politics into it, though, and I think it becomes impossible.  And of course politics is in the mix, inevitably so, as Congress controls the military's purse strings...

Photos from 2012...

A collection of beautiful and fascinating photos taken in 2012, like the photo below of Mt. Rainier (in Washington State) casting a shadow up onto the cloud bottoms...

That's It, the Internet is Finished!

I Miss Estonia...

It's been eight years or so since I last visited this little country.  I ran across this beautiful photo taken yesterday near Suurupi, Estonia, and it reminded me of my own delighted treks through the forests and backcountry of Estonia...

Drama...

Another in a series of similar ads.  Each of these makes me wonder how I'd react were I to witness this...

Scottish Ponies...

Awww...  Isn't that cute?

Our Future, on Display in the U.K...

Danny and Gina articulate the reasons why it makes no sense for them to work – and makes great sense for them to  stay on welfare.  They're young (21 and 18, respectively) and have a kid.  They live in a nice apartment, they have a big TV, they can afford their main vice (smoking), and they feel no guilt about sponging off the taxpayers (check out their reasoning).  If they were to take a job (which they admit would be easy for them to do, even though neither of them has any notable skills), their take-home income would actually go down (because their income would be taxed and their eligibility for welfare reduced).  Their reasoning is impeccable.  They are absolutely correct – they're better off on welfare than working.

Now of course they could undertake to get the education required to get a better job, and then go compete in the marketplace.  Many people (hopefully, most people) would do exactly that.  But that's all such a terribly large effort, fraught with the possibility of failure.  If, instead, they can just sit at home and rake in the welfare checks – that's ever so much less work and has no risk to themselves at all.

The important elements of this situation are already in place in the U.S., most especially in our large cities.  The progressive agenda keeps putting more pieces in place (Obamacare is a huge example).  During Clinton's administration significant welfare reform took a big step in the right direction, but the Obama administration and the predominantly Democratic administrations of most of our large cities are rapidly undoing those changes.  On our current trajectory, I'd estimate that the U.K. is only 5 to 10 years ahead of us.  So we can look forward to our own millions of Danny and Gina, whom the rest of us will support by having the fruits of our own labor stolen from us by “progressive” politicians.

Oh, goody.

Doom...

Some More Smiles...

...from reader Simi L. (who is himself a doctor):