Laws of Nature...

Via my lovely bride:

Law of Mechanical Repair - After your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch and you'll have to pee.

Law of Gravity - Any tool, nut, bolt, screw, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible corner.

Law of Probability - The probability of being watched is directly proportional to the stupidity of your act.

Law of Random Numbers - If you dial a wrong number, you never get a busy signal and someone always answers.

Supermarket Law - As soon as you get in the smallest line, the cashier will have to call for help.

Variation Law - If you change lines (or traffic lanes), the one you were in will always move faster than the one you are in now.

Law of the Bath - When the body is fully immersed in water, the telephone rings.

Law of Close Encounters - The probability of meeting someone you know increases dramatically when you are with someone you don't want to be seen with.

Law of the Result - When you try to prove to someone that a machine won't work, it will.

Law of Biomechanics - The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.

Law of the Theater & Hockey Arena - At any event, the people whose seats are furthest from the aisle, always arrive last. They are the ones who will leave their seats several times to go for food, beer, or the toilet and who leave early before the end of the performance or the game is over. The folks in the aisle seats come early, never move once, have long gangly legs or big bellies and stay to the bitter end of the performance. The aisle people also are very surly folk.

The Coffee Law - As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your boss will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold.

Murphy's Law of Lockers - If there are only 2 people in a locker room, they will have adjacent lockers.

Law of Physical Surfaces - The chances of an open-faced jam sandwich landing face down on a floor, are directly correlated to the newness and cost of the carpet or rug.

Law of Logical Argument - Anything is possible if you don't know what you are talking about.

Brown's Law of Physical Appearance - If the clothes fit, they're ugly.

Oliver's Law of Public Speaking - A closed mouth gathers no feet.

Wilson's Law of Commercial Marketing Strategy - As soon as you find a product that you really like, they will stop making it.

Doctors' Law - If you don't feel well, make an appointment to go to the doctor, by the time you get there you'll feel better... But don't make an appointment, and you'll stay sick. This has been proven over and over with taking children to the pediatrician.

Long experience shows that these laws are absolutes...

Lyman Filament Extruder II...

Inventors rule!

Most low-cost 3D printers use ABS plastic filament as the raw material from which they produce objects.  This raw material costs ten times what ABS costs in its more common form: pellets.  So Inventables sponsored a contest, with a $40,000 prize, for a low-cost machine that would turn ABS pellets into ABS filament.  Hugh Lyman won the contest with his Lyman Filament Extruder II, at right.

Awesome!

Yet Another Reason to Leave Southern California...

We're living in a fourth amendment exclusion zone...

RAW Image File Processing – in JavaScript

Nothing special about this package that I can see except for the fact that it's running in your browser.  Despite the fact that I've been working with web apps for over 10 years now, I'm still blown away that they can do compute-intensive things like image processing and cryptography, in an interpreted language like JavaScript...

Flat UI Toolkit...

Yup, yet another web UI toolkit.  This one is for the trendy new “flat UI” – which looks just like the very first UIs I ever saw on a color screen, way back in the early '80s.  Everything old is new again...

Oh, Please! Pretty Please with Sugar On It!!!

Oh, please let this work!

Superconducting Gets Better...

Mainly in the sense of larger current capacity through engineered materials (versus homogenous superconducting material).  Engineered materials of all kinds have been revolutionizing all sorts of things in the past 50 years or so, from lumber (plywood, engineered composite beams) to electronics (integrated circuits, printed circuit boards)...

Which Hurts More?

Giving birth or getting kicked in the balls?  The age-old question has been settled:

Women always say that giving birth is much more painful than a guy getting kicked in the cojones.

They are wrong, and here's the proof.

A year or so after giving birth, a woman will often say, "It might be nice to have another child."

You never, ever hear a guy say, "You know, I think I would like another kick in the cojones."

Fly Like a Bird...

Well, more like a brick with fins.  Reader Simi L. passed this along, saying “This certainly fits into my definition of insanity!  Question: I wonder why they wear helmets?  I guess they are to hold their video cameras...”

Simi says insane.  I say: that looks like fun!  Debbie says: No!

DTrace...

A nice resource for using DTrace on Macs, BSD, or Solaris.  DTrace can be used for many things, but I know it mainly for performance troubleshooting...

Palate Cleanser for This Morning...

This story is wonderful from the perspective of both participants...

Solving a Rubik's Cube the Hard Way...

While juggling:

Meet Slightly Loony, Nickname “Sly”...

Not me (also known as “Slightly Loony”, or “Utterly Loony” to my lovely bride); this time we're talking about our new offroading chariot: our brand-spanking-new 2013 Toyota FJ Cruiser.  I took this picture today, before the first of many modifications we're planning to make.  Miki (our youngest field spaniel) believes he owns this new vehicle, which he has approved of after his first ride in it.  He and Race (our border collie) will be going with us on our first big adventure in this thing, in July – we'll be heading out to see the wildflowers in the San Juan Mountains of southeastern Colorado.

I'll post here from time to time describing the modifications I'm making to Sly.

The first modification will be a very simple one: I'm going to find a place to mount our PLB (personal locator beacon), shown at left.  If you're not familiar with these devices, you can read all about them at the preceding link.  Basically they allow you to broadcast a distress signal from anywhere on the planet.  This signal is relayed to the appropriate search and rescue organizations, and they will (we sincerely hope!) respond.  We offroad in places where cell phones don't work.  That leaves us with just a few alternatives: ham radio, satellite phone, and PLB.  The PLBs have several advantages, including:

• (relatively) low cost, one time (no subscription like satellite phones)
• reliability and testability (you can be sure the device works)
• truly global coverage, 24 x 7 (ham radio is shaky on this front)
• small, portable devices (this one is 6" x 2.5" x 1.5", and weighs a few ounces)
• direct relay of distress calls to responders (with ham radio and satellite phones, you have to call someone and have them relay your issue to the search and rescue folks - which they have to locate
• direct relay of your location to the search and rescue responders (the device has a GPS to locate you, and it broadcasts your position to the satellite)

We found these advantages compelling, and decided to go the PLB route.  After some research on the web, I chose the PLB-350C  “SARLink”, made by ACR Electronics.  We received it a couple of days ago.  It took an hour or so to register the device with the NOAA (the government agency that routes distress calls), and ran an end-to-end test on it, which passed with flying colors.  The device has a “self-test” button that runs a diagnostic and then sends a test message to the satellite.  This test message is recorded on a web site (so I can verify the results), and optionally it can be configured to send an SMS or email message to let me know the test passed.

Something to know if you're considering a PLB: these devices are for use in extremis – not for running out of gas, or even for a run-of-the-mill mechanical breakdown.  You use a PLB only when you believe you are in mortal danger.  This could happen because of (say) a transmission problem that leaves you stranded at high altitude, and you don't have survival gear to make it through an Arctic-like night.  It could also happen because you're injured, and can't walk out of the back-country.  But if you use the PLB to summon a cup of coffee, some fuel, or because you're lonely – be aware that the search and rescue organizations would be most seriously displeased with you, and are quite likely to send you a bill with 5 or 6 significant digits in the dollar value!

On past trips, including to the San Juan Mountains, I've been extremely careful to not do anything at all risky when on a road or trail not often traveled.  The older we've gotten, the more I apply this policy – as we're less able, with age, to extricate ourselves from some hairy situation.  The PLB addresses one aspect of this: if we ever get into serious trouble, this device could save our bacon.  Other modifications we're planning will address other aspects: making Sly more rugged and resistant to the hazards of the back-country, and improving our ability to get ourselves unstuck (always a hazard on the rough sorts of “roads” we like to go on).  All of these things put together will increase our confidence that we can safely venture to the wild, remote places that we love to go to...

Fast Solution for Graph Laplacians...

I first ran across graph Laplacians way back in the '70s when I was trying (and failing!) to build an electronics simulator.  This was long before SPICE was available on microprocessors.  The algorithms I read about back then for solving graph Laplacians were far more complicated than this new algorithm...

Inefficient Rulers...

Golomb Rulers and Costas Arrays – two notions completely new to me, but fun (in a geekly, mathematical sort of way)...

Big Meteorite Found in Antarctica...

The biggest one in over 25 years.  Scientists have been scouring Antarctica for meteorites for years, taking advantage of the easy spotting (black meteorite on white snow) and pristine condition.  Most of Antarctica is not only uninhabited, it's also unvisited – the most remote areas of Earth are there...

Even I Can Understand This...

If you know me, then you know that I am not at all interested in sports.  Any sport.  I know so little about sports that I can't even identify most sports when I see them being played.

But I understand this:


On rare occasions these days, I feel some hope for the survival of the human species.  Watching this brought that hope back, at least for a few minutes until I watched a video of Obama declaring that he wasn't a dictator.  I should make a page with a bunch of these on it, to help me regain my spirits on such occasions...

Map of National (and Some States/Provinces) Wealth...

Wealth of a country (or other geopolitical entity) is a notoriously slippery datum to measure.  It isn't enough to convert per capita income to a common currency and compare them, because the cost of living varies tremendously from place to place.  Furthermore, in some political systems (I'm looking at you, Mother Russia, Mexico, China, Nigeria, India, et al), pervasive corruption means that significant fractions of their economies are underground and therefore not even in the official per capita income data.  What's a poor statistician to do?

One possibility is to find a proxy for that which you're trying to measure.  Ideally the proxy would be perfectly proportional to the value you actually want to measure, and could be measured without perturbing the value you're trying to measure.  In the case of the wealth of countries, some scientists have proposed the prevalence of outdoor artificial lighting at night as a proxy.  Their thinking is that the wealthier any country is, the more outdoor artificial lighting they'll use.  And very conveniently, outdoor lighting levels can be easily measured by existing satellites, hundreds of which image the surface of the earth every day.

The map below is the result of an attempt to make exactly this measurement.  As I cast my eye over the map, relatively few of the results look unexpected to me.  For instance, I wouldn't have guessed Greenland was so prosperous, nor Paraguay so poor.

Visualization: Migration Between Countries...

Peoplemovin is a well-done interactive visualization that lets you see migration to or from any given country.  For instance, in the clip below I've clicked on the Phillipines on the right, to see where people migrate to the Philippines from. 

There were lots of surprises for me as I browsed around this visualization.  In the example case, I never would have guessed that the top three sources for immigrants to the Philippines were the U.S., China, and the U.K.  I spent about nine months (in several stretches) in the Philippines when I was in the U.S. Navy, way back in the '70s, and I did run into quite a few U.S. military retirees.  I wonder if that's where most of these immigrants come from?

Publicly-Avaliable Data Sources...

A nice, partially organized collection of free datasets, publicly available on the Internet (either via download or API).  The sources include private companies, educational organizations, non-governmental organizations, and governments.  There's a lot of interesting stuff in here on a wide variety of subjects...

Zopfli Compression...

A new open source, Apache licensed general purpose Deflate-compatible compression algorithm.  This one consumes more CPU time to get a little better compression; it's aimed mostly at web sites delivering a large amount of static content.

Sinkhole Swallows a Man in His Bed...

This is a frightening scenario that actually happened last night.  You're asleep in bed, and all of a sudden an enormous sinkhole opens up underneath your bedroom.  Your entire bedroom – including you! – is swallowed up.  You scream for help, and it arrives – but they can find no sign that you ever existed. 

Definitely the stuff of nightmares...

Science Fiction Becoming Reality...

Direct connections between brains and computers are getting ever closer...

Court of Public Opinion...

I recently blogged about the spat between Elon Musk (of Tesla Motors) and the New York Times.  Musk was convinced that the Times was lying about the results of a test drive they made in a Tesla car, smearing the company's good name and reputation in the process.  Instead of suing the Times through our court system, Musk appealed to the “court of public opinion” by publishing an open letter to the public.  His letter was publicized by hundreds of news sites, newspapers, and blogs.  In the resulting kerfuffle, the New York Times reconsidered its stance and reversed its previous support for their reporter, withdrawing the story.  Elon Musk won that “case” in a manner far more convincing to the public than anything I can imagine emerging from a case pursued in the traditional courts.

I thought that case was interesting, which is why I blogged about it.  Security expert and cryptographer Bruce Schneier saw it as one example of a pattern of behaviors enabled by the Internet.  It's part of the rise of an alternative system of jurisprudence.  An excerpt from his recent article on Wired:

The court of public opinion is an alternative system of justice. It’s very different from the traditional court system: This court is based on reputation, revenge, public shaming, and the whims of the crowd. Having a good story is more important than having the law on your side. Being a sympathetic underdog is more important than being fair. Facts matter, but there are no standards of accuracy. The speed of the internet exacerbates this; a good story spreads faster than a bunch of facts.

...

The court of public opinion has significant limitations. It works better for revenge and justice than for dispute resolution. It can punish a company for unfairly firing one of its employees or lying in an automobile test drive, but it’s less effective at unraveling a complicated patent litigation or navigating a bankruptcy proceeding.

Mr. Schneier is onto something here.  I found myself thinking along these lines recently, as I'm currently in a dispute with a large environmentalist organization.  Seeking justice in a court of law is an intimidating, expensive, and very uncertain proposition.  Seeking justice in the court of public opinion just might be a better alternative – though not one that occurred to me immediately.  Apparently I'm more of a hidebound traditionalist than I thought I was :)

Cat Troubles...in the 1400s...

At right is a 15th century manuscript with unmistakeable feline paw prints on it, in ink.  The cat must have walked over the page while the ink was still wet, no doubt frustrating the heck out of the scribe.

Below is another example of cats messing with scribe's heads – and this one decided to curse the cat in writing (translated from the original Latin):

Here is nothing missing, but a cat urinated on this during a certain night. Cursed be the pesty cat that urinated over this book during the night in Deventer and because of it many others [other cats] too. And beware well not to leave open books at night where cats can come.

All cat lovers will instantly identify with these :)  Owning cats most definitely has its rewards, but not all is purring and affection...

Death to the Patent Trolls?

The advent of “patent troll” companies has seriously perverted the already-perverted world of intellectual property law.  These companies acquire portfolios of patents (or the rights to those patents) with the intent to prosecute companies alleged to be infringing them.  The key word there is “alleged”.  Patent trolls are frequently accused (almost certainly accurately) of bringing actions that they are sure to lose – because they know that the accused companies will often (most of the time, in fact) pay a settlement just to make the lawsuit go away.

Many have noted that the patent trolls are enabled by a feature of American law: that the winner of a lawsuit like this still pays their own legal expenses.  Under English law, the loser pays for both sides legal expenses.  This “loser pays” system greatly discourages frivolous lawsuits, as the side with a good defense is willing to pay for that defense, knowing that if they win the other side is going to pay the entire expense.

Now that same “loser pays” system is being proposed for the U.S. – but only for suits brought by patent trolls.  Defining a patent troll is trickier than it might appear.  Here's an article about the proposed bill, and here's the EFF's statement of support for it...

Visualizing Formerly Invisible Motion (and More)...

Through a technique dubbed “Eulerian magnification”, computer scientists are getting better at producing stunning, informative visualizations.  The video tells the story, and there are more details in the accompanying story.  This search will show you many more videos produced via Eulerian magnification.  What an awesome new tool!

World's Nerdiest Marriage Proposal?

I was skeptical until I read it.  This is one physicist's written marriage proposal to another physicist.  Partial clip below; click on the link to read the whole thing.  Awesome!

Changes...

For nearly 20 years now, “Siggy” (more formally, “Eight Sigmas”) has been a big part of our life.  We purchased this stock '96 Toyota LandCruiser in 1995 using some of the money we made from our stock options after Stac's IPO.  We had to order it (and wait several months to get it!) because we wanted the four-wheeling features that were then available (most especially the differential locks) from Toyota. 

Siggy was our ride on many adventures throughout the Western U.S.  It took us in safety and comfort on freeways and on extremely rugged back-country roads.  Perhaps the most challenging thing we ever did with Siggy was a wonderful vacation in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado (where we're going again this summer).  With Debbie, my dad, and two dogs (Mo'i and Lea) we roamed all over those mountains – never meeting a trail we couldn't take, and never feeling the least at risk.

But poor Siggy is now too old and decrepit to safely take us into the back-country any more.  With nearly 300,000 miles on it (with never a major repair!), the engine is now on its last legs.  Replacing the engine would be quite expensive, and the rest of the vehicle is worn as well.  Really the entire drive train should be replaced, and that just didn't seem practical.  So last week we researched all our options and chose a new ride: a 2013 Toyota FJ Cruiser, bright orange and white.  This time we're not going to keep it a stock vehicle – we bought a very basic model (just the off-roading package) and we're going to add aftermarket gear to make it a really capable and safe off-road vehicle.

I drove Siggy to the dealer (in El Cajon) to meet its fate as a trade-in.  It was a sad drive; Siggy is just chock full of wonderful memories for us.  I shed a few tears, and at one point almost turned around to take it back home.  But what would we do with an old, beat-up LandCruiser?  In the end, I decided I'd hope that somebody on a tight budget would buy Siggy and fix it all up in a labor of love.  I hope that's what happens, anyway...

Asperatus Clouds...

...over New Zealand.  Via APOD, of course.

Economics 101, with Humor...

A good primer on the absurdities of the sequestration hysteria:

Challenging Authorities...

Very interesting montage of individual Americans challenging checkpoint authorities...

Coronal Rain on the Sun...

The Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the photos used to make this movie last summer.  When you play the video below, you're seeing things about 360 times faster than they actually occurred – ten hours of actual events seen in about four minutes.  Via APOD, of course...

Do-It-Yourself Weapons of the Syrian Rebels...

This web site has a lot of photos like the one at right, showing the surprisingly sophisticated improvised weapons being put together by the Syrian rebels.  Armored vehicles, artillery shells, rockets, remote-controlled machine guns, “technicals”, and more – somehow not what came to mind when I saw the title.  I'll have to revise my preconceived notions of the capabilities of your average Syrian young man...

Cool Stop-Motion Short Film...

Very cool little film.  Watching this reminded me of the old Nick Park flicks (esp. Wallace and Grommit).  On this one, I wonder how they managed to keep all those positions so accurately...

Hmmm... Looks Like We're Not Running Out of Oil...

Every year a new round of hydrocarbon doomsayers predicts the imminent exhaustion of the planet's supply of crude oil – and the U.S. supply even earlier.  Every year reality proves them wrong.  Someday, of course, the doomsayers will be right – but it looks like someday is a good many years away...

Awesome Castings of Ant Nests...

Retired entomologist Walter Tschinkel from Florida makes these ant casts from aluminum.  See video below for details on how he does it.  Awesome!

RightPosters...

John L. runs a site called RightPosters, featuring lots of posters designed to appeal (so far as I can tell:) to anyone who is not a liberal or progressive.  The example at right combines one of my favorite Churchill quotes with a great photo of him.  John wrote me to ask if I'd consider linking to him, and after looking over his offerings I'm more than happy to do so.  I haven't purchased anything from his site, so if any of my readers happen to have experience with it, please let me know...

Diaphananthe pellucida...

This African orchid via BPOD, of course...

M51...

M51, the “Whirlpool Galaxy”, as seen by the Hubble Telescope.  Full resolution version here.  Via APOD, of course...

20 Reasons for Democrats to be Embarrassed...

This list of epic fails by the Democratic Party and its members is good fodder for anyone who isn't a liberal or progressive.  An example:

The American Protective League and The Palmer Raids (1919-1921): Under the leadership of Woodrow Wilson, criticizing the government became a crime and a fascist organization, the American Protective League was formed to spy on and even arrest fellow Americans for being insufficiently loyal to the government. More than 100,000 Americans were arrested, with less than 1% of them ever being found guilty of any kind of crime. 

On the other hand, coming up with an equivalently damning list of epic fails for the Republicans shouldn't be very difficult, either.  Neither party has the epic fail monopoly.

Can anyone imagine a list of “epic successes” for either party?  I think it would be quite difficult to get 20 serious candidates for such a list...

Earthquake!

Well, yesterday, a little teensy one, and quite a long way away.  What makes this one interesting is that the seismometer in our house captured it (see below).

USGS says that the earthquake occurred on 2/23 at 04:40:14 UTC.  Our seismometer shows the first burst of primary wave at 04:40:33 – 19 seconds later.  The location of the earthquake (USGS) is 109 kilometers from our house, yielding an average primary wave speed of 5.75 km/s, well within norms for primary waves.  By collecting lots of data like this, for many earthquakes and from many locations, USGS is building up a huge dataset that will let them learn a great deal about the composition of the earth's crust in the areas where they have good coverage (Southern California is one of them)...

Results: Oh-Oh...

Reader Simi L. sent me a link to a brand-new episode of Roadrunner vs. Wile E. Coyote, with modern computer graphics.  That led me to several others, and a few good laughs this morning:

Political Correctness in Our Military...

Reader and friend Doug S. (who is a U.S. Air Force veteran) passed this link along.  This is the sort of thing that started the German military along the path to its current “toothless tiger” status.  It's also what happens when an entrenched bureaucracy tackles a problem: common sense and pragmatism are thrown out the window; mindless rules and perverse incentives rule.

I hear the drums of doom.  They don't sound so very far away...

Retronaut...

Retronaut is a fascinating site full of old things, like the British WWII recruiting poster at right...

Interpolation Tricks...

Some of these are new to me, though I was well aware of the peculiar usefulness of the range 0..1.  I particularly like “smoothstep”...

Flying Pigs Moment...

A famous report, the darling of the progressive obliviots, employee of a famously left-wing newspaper, writes an article declaring straight up that Obama is lying about the origins of sequestration.

Bob Woodward in the Washington Post.

What the hell is going on?

Graph of Doom...

Alternative title: Graph of Greece-in-the-Making.

Many surveys and polls have shown that a majority of the U.S. voters believe that the federal government should cut spending.  The Pew Research Center decided to do a survey to see what specific kinds of spending the voters would support cutting.

Answer: none.

Lemme get this straight: the voters want to cut spending generally, but there are no specific kinds of spending – not even one category – that a majority of voters agree should be cut.

Mind you, this is mathematically possible.  If every voter only supported cuts in a single expense category, then if 5% of voters supported cuts in any given category we'd get results like this.  So it's not necessarily the case that any (much less all) voters are being insincere here.  It could be, and likely is, simply that we all have different ideas about where the cuts should occur.

I can only think of one solution for that: cut everything.  Hey...doesn't that sound a lot like the (to be dreaded) sequestration?

The real problem caused by this phenomenon is political: any politician driven primarily by self-interest (that would be all of them) is going to find it very hard to support real cuts in (say) agriculture – because most of his or her voters are going to think that's wrong, and remember that at the next election.  Consensus fails in this situation; ideology and leadership are needed.  I don't know where we're going to find them...

Thatcher Quotes...

Here's a nice collection of Margaret Thatcher quotes.  Like the Reagan quotes I linked a few days ago, this one also contains several I'd not seen before, including this gem on political consensus:

To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects.

Oh, Maggie, that's exactly what's wrong with political consensus, in just a few words.  Perfect...

And here's one of my all-time favorite Thatcher quotes, which I've heard many times before:

We should back the workers, not the shirkers.

You hear that, CongressCritters?

World's Cutest Frog...

Via Althouse:

The Pick Up...

Via my lovely bride, who got it from her friend Marsha Y.:

Fidelity.com – Password Fail...

You'd think a financial institution that managed billions of dollars of its customers' money would pay especially good attention to online security.

You would be wrong, at least in the case of Fidelity.com.

My ex-employer set up Fidelity accounts for employees to handle things like stock options, employee stock purchase plans (ESPP), 401(k) plans, etc.  It's a nice benefit.  But I ran into something there that is a great example of a really bad password implementation.

When you create a password at Fidelity.com, the site will tell you that it must meet these criteria:

• Use 6 to 12 letters and/or numbers
• Do not use one entire piece of personally identifiable information such as your Social Security number, telephone number, or date of birth. Instead, alter or disguise it (e.g., Jane212Smith)
• Do not use more than 5 instances of a single number or letter, or easily recognized sequences (e.g., 12345 or 11111)
• Do not use symbols, punctuation marks, or spaces (e.g., #,@, /, *, -.)

This is already much weaker than one would expect of such an institution.  The first and last rules are enforced.  The second rule clearly cannot be automatically enforced.  I'm not sure if the third rule is enforced, though it could be.

These rules make it sound as though there are 62 possible characters (a-z, A-Z, and 0-9) for each password character position.  With a 6 to 12 character password allowable, there would be 62^6 + 62^7 + ... 62^12 possible passwords, which works out to about 3.3 x 10^21 (or smaller if the third rule is enforced).  That's a big number, but it could be much larger, if only Fidelity.com would eliminate the last rule.

However, I discovered today that the situation is actually far worse than it looks.  Fidelity.com asks for your password if you call them – they have you enter it via the touch-tone keypad on your phone.  That means, for example, that if your password's first character is "5", "j", "J", "k", "K", "l", or "L", you press the "5" key.  That means that Fidelity.com's passwords are really composed of nothing but the digits 0-9.

I have verified this.  My actual Fidelity.com password is comprised of both letters and numbers.  I converted all the letters to the touch-tone keypad equivalent digit, and entered my password as all numbers – and it worked just fine.

That means that the number of possible passwords is much smaller than even Fidelity.com's inadequate password criteria would suggest: 10^6 + 10^7 + .. + 10^12, which works out to about 1.1 x 10^11.  For the math-challenged amongst my readers, that's over 10 billion times weaker.

Epic fail, Fidelity.com.  Epic fail.  Shame should be upon your countenance...

Whose Side Are You On?

Evan Todd is a survivor of the Columbine massacre, and he objects to Obama's gun control initiatives.  In an open letter to Obama, he asks: “Whose side are you on?” Here's the letter in its entirety:

Mr. President,

As a student who was shot and wounded during the Columbine massacre, I have a few thoughts on the current gun debate. In regards to your gun control initiatives:

Universal Background Checks

First, a universal background check will have many devastating effects. It will arguably have the opposite impact of what you propose. If adopted, criminals will know that they can not pass a background check legally, so they will resort to other avenues. With the conditions being set by this initiative, it will create a large black market for weapons and will support more criminal activity and funnel additional money into the hands of thugs, criminals, and people who will do harm to American citizens.

Second, universal background checks will create a huge bureaucracy that will cost an enormous amount of tax payers dollars and will straddle us with more debt. We cannot afford it now, let alone create another function of government that will have a huge monthly bill attached to it.

Third, is a universal background check system possible without universal gun registration? If so, please define it for us. Universal registration can easily be used for universal confiscation. I am not at all implying that you, sir, would try such a measure, but we do need to think about our actions through the lens of time.

It is not impossible to think that a tyrant, to the likes of Mao, Castro, Che, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, and others, could possibly rise to power in America. It could be five, ten, twenty, or one hundred years from now — but future generations have the natural right to protect themselves from tyrannical government just as much as we currently do. It is safe to assume that this liberty that our forefathers secured has been a thorn in the side of would-be tyrants ever since the Second Amendment was adopted.

Ban on Military-Style Assault Weapons

The evidence is very clear pertaining to the inadequacies of the assault weapons ban. It had little to no effect when it was in place from 1994 until 2004. It was during this time that I personally witnessed two fellow students murder twelve of my classmates and one teacher. The assault weapons ban did not deter these two murderers, nor did the other thirty-something laws that they broke.

Gun ownership is at an all time high. And although tragedies like Columbine and Newtown are exploited by ideologues and special-interest lobbying groups, crime is at an all time low. The people have spoken. Gun store shelves have been emptied. Gun shows are breaking attendance records. Gun manufacturers are sold out and back ordered. Shortages on ammo and firearms are countrywide. The American people have spoken and are telling you that our Second Amendment shall not be infringed.

10-Round Limit for Magazines

Virginia Tech was the site of the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history. Seung-Hui Cho used two of the smallest caliber hand guns manufactured and a handful of ten round magazines. There are no substantial facts that prove that limited magazines would make any difference at all.
Second, this is just another law that endangers law-abiding citizens. I’ve heard you ask, “why does someone need 30 bullets to kill a deer?”

Let me ask you this: Why would you prefer criminals to have the ability to out-gun law-abiding citizens? Under this policy, criminals will still have their 30-round magazines, but the average American will not. Whose side are you on?

Lastly, when did they government get into the business of regulating “needs?” This is yet another example of government overreaching and straying from its intended purpose.

Selling to Criminals

Mr. President, these are your words: “And finally, Congress needs to help, rather than hinder, law enforcement as it does its job. We should get tougher on people who buy guns with the express purpose of turning around and selling them to criminals. And we should severely punish anybody who helps them do this.”

Why don’t we start with Eric Holder and thoroughly investigate the Fast and Furious program?

Furthermore, the vast majority of these mass murderers bought their weapons legally and jumped through all the hoops — because they were determined to murder. Adding more hoops and red tape will not stop these types of people. It doesn’t now — so what makes you think it will in the future? Criminals who cannot buy guns legally just resort to the black market.

Criminals and murderers will always find a way.

Critical Examination

Mr. President, in theory, your initiatives and proposals sound warm and fuzzy — but in reality they are far from what we need. Your initiatives seem to punish law-abiding American citizens and enable the murderers, thugs, and other lowlifes who wish to do harm to others.

Let me be clear: These ideas are the worst possible initiatives if you seriously care about saving lives and also upholding your oath of office. There is no dictate, law, or regulation that will stop bad things from happening — and you know that. Yet you continue to push the rhetoric. Why?

You said, “If we can save just one person it is worth it.” Well here are a few ideas that will save more that one individual:

First, forget all of your current initiatives and 23 purposed executive orders. They will do nothing more than impede law-abiding citizens and breach the intent of the Constitution. Each initiative steals freedom, grants more power to an already-overreaching government, and empowers and enables criminals to run amok.

Second, press Congress to repeal the “Gun Free Zone Act.” Don’t allow America’s teachers and students to be endangered one-day more. These parents and teachers have the natural right to defend themselves and not be looked at as criminals. There is no reason teachers must disarm themselves to perform their jobs. There is also no reason a parent or volunteer should be disarmed when they cross the school line.

This is your chance to correct history and restore liberty. This simple act of restoring freedom will deter would-be murderers and for those who try, they will be met with resistance.

Mr. President, do the right thing, restore freedom, and save lives. Show the American people that you stand with them and not with thugs and criminals.

Respectfully,

Severely Concerned Citizen, Evan M. Todd

The End Times Are Nigh, Part 99,232...

In a single story, we get several pieces of evidence:

• Today's college students apparently need instruction on ... masturbation.
• Allegheny College (a liberal arts school in Meadville, Pennsylvania) is stepping up to solve the problem.
• The course is being conducted in the college's chapel.

You just can't make this stuff up...

Corruption, California-Style...

Via CoyoteBlog, this post from SLO Leaks:

Like me, [Steve Blank] is in the high tech industry. Like me, he has started several high tech companies....

After Steve sold his last startup company he applied for a permit to build a house in the California Coastal Zone in 2000. And, just like me, Steve’s land use permit was appealed to the California Coastal Commission. The reason for the appeal was “sensitive habitat” issues. (I don’t have any sensitive habitat issues because my proposed house is in the middle of a field of non-native weeds.)

Unlike me, Steve’s appeal to the Coastal Commission went pretty smoothly. He had his hearing in only 8 months – start to finish. It has taken me a year and a half, after waiting a year and a half for SLO County to issue the permit in the first place. And there were no onerous “Special Conditions” imposed on Steve by either San Mateo County or the Coastal Commission.

Here is the list of “Special Conditions” that the Coastal staff wants to impose on me.

Superficially Steve’s house and my house are similar. I have a main house and a barn on 37 acres, Steve has a main house, two barns, and a farm labor house. But Steve’s house is 15,780 sq. ft., with a swimming pool, and a 2,500 sq. ft. barn, and another 3,040 sq. ft. barn 31 ft. high, and a 1240 sq. ft. farm labor house all on 261 acres. So Steve’s house is around 3 times larger than my proposed house (and much taller). Steve also got to have a fence and there was no requirement for public access. And Steve was able to build his house to look anyway he wanted. No “rural agricultural theme” architecture for Steve, that’s for sure. Steve can also plant in his yard pretty much any damn thing he wants.

Steve is pretty proud of his house. A picture of his house is the banner to his web page, which ishere. You can see the front gate of his house here. And this is an overhead view.

Steve Blank is one of the current California Coastal Commissioners.

This is the sort of thing one expects in a third-world country, or Russia, or Chicago.  Not here.

Forbidden History of Taxes...

Excellent.

Internet Jukebox...

Via my mom, this delightful site.  Debbie and I spent a happy hour just listening to the songs we remember from our teenage years, and with some amusement to many of the earlier songs that we'd never heard before...

A Reader's Suggestion...

Larry E. suggests this as a way to celebrate this blog's sixth anniversary:

Now what do you suppose he's trying to tell me?

We Broke the Tomato...

Now they tell us!  Actually, anyone who's tasted a tomato more than thirty years or so ago has long known that tomatoes are “broken” – they used to taste wonderful, now they taste like unflavored polystyrene foam.

But with the scientists' official recognition of the tomato being “broken”, they're going to work on fixing it.

Faster, please.  I would dearly love to be able to buy a tasty tomato in the grocery store!

Yet Another Reason...

...to admire Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

A Rain of Spiders...

For real, in Brazil.  I know quite a few people who would find this phenomenon...less than pleasant.

Candid Animal Photos...

Recent technological advances have made it entirely practical to put up “trap cameras” – automatic cameras that take pictures when they sense an animal is in range.  These digital cameras can be in very remote areas, and store the photos – sometimes for months – before the scientists collect them.  Scientists have been deluged with far more photographs than they've ever had before, leading to all sorts of research opportunities.  Some of them get turned into animated GIFs, like the one at right.  Here are many more...

Oops, Part 3942...

Seems the scientific consensus isn't quite as previously advertised:

Don’t look now, but maybe a scientific consensus exists concerning global warming after all. Only 36 percent of geoscientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a global warming crisis, according to a survey reported in the peer-reviewed Organization Studies. By contrast, a strong majority of the 1,077 respondents believe that nature is the primary cause of recent global warming and/or that future global warming will not be a very serious problem.

That's from an article in Forbes, which by and large has been credulous about anthropogenic global warming.  Read the whole thing...

Abraham Lincoln...

Lincoln is perhaps our most quotable President, and I thought I had read most of the interesting ones.  But here's a site with a lot of Lincoln quotes I had not seen before, such as this gem:

We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name – liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names – liberty and tyranny.

The Crazy Jeep Dealer...

Our ancient LandCruiser (a '93 with almost 300,000 miles on it) has reached the point where we're afraid to take it on a “serious” four-wheeling expedition.  Our mechanic tells us the engine or transmission could conk out at any moment.  So we're looking around for a new four-wheeling vehicle.

One of the models we decided to look at was the Grand Cherokee Trailhawk, which we'd read some good things about.  Only one dealer in San Diego County had any in stock, a dealer in Poway.  So we went up there to see them. 

The sales guy (a very nice young man named Dwight) really couldn't answer any of my questions about it.  Mainly this was because neither he nor anyone else there knows anything at all about four-wheeling :)  We're not their normal sort of customer.  So I told them, jokingly, that they could answer all my questions if they'd just let me take one of their inventory out four-wheeling on a local road.  I never imagined they'd say “sure” – but they did!

So off we went in a brand-new Trailhawk, with permission to take it off-road.  We went up through Julian (which had about a foot of snow) and down to Banner, then onto the Oriflamme Canyon Road.  We know that road well, and after the rains the day before, it was good and muddy.  We gave that vehicle a very good test :)  When we brought it back to the dealer, it was still all in one piece, but it was no longer clean and shiny :)

We really liked the Trailhawk, and we sat down to talk with the dealer about buying one.  But right away we were stymied.  We insisted on ordering the vehicle configured exactly the way we wanted it – and they insisted on selling us one out of inventory (another dealer's inventory, not theirs).  The one they wanted to sell us wasn't an exact match to what we wanted, so we said “no”, we want to order the right.  Then they told us that the 2013 Trailhawks could no longer be ordered, and that there would be no 2014 Trailhawks.  So we just said “no thanks”, and now we're back to square one on our search.

But we still can scarcely believe that the dealer was crazy enough to let us take their brand-new vehicle out four-wheeling!

That Had to Hurt...

Update: The New York Times reverses itself, in a vindication for Tesla motors.  Kudos to Elon Musk for standing up to the bully!

Original post: John Broder is a New York Times reporter who recently penned a scathing review of a Tesla electric car.  Elon Musk, founder and chairman of Tesla Motors, knew that Broder was lying in his review – because Tesla carefully logged everything Broder did during his test drive.  What Broder actually did, and the results he actually got, don't match the data recorded.  He's lying.

And Elon Musk wants you to know every last detail.

Assuming this is not an elaborate hoax on Tesla's part (and that seems quite unlikely), it's good to see someone stand up to the lamestream media bullies.  I'm unsurprised to discover that the NYT is ok with fabricating a story to make it more sensational – but I suspect a lot of people will be surprised...

Snow...Not...

The NOAA forecast for last night (as of the time we went to bed) included 1 to 3 inches of snow at our altitude.  Never happened.  However, we did get close to an inch of rain (about 0.87 inches, to be precise) and a bit of corn kernel sized hail. 

The latter let to an amusing incident on our morning dog walk, which was just at daybreak, during a lull in the rain.  I took all four dogs out on leashes, and is their want in such situations we arrived at a point where two of the dogs (Mo'i and Racer) were synchro-pooping.  There they were, in that awkward-looking dog squat, when suddenly the heavens started dropping that corn kernel sized hail on us.  I had my Aussie bush hat on, so it didn't bother me.  Mo'i never noticed it (this is quite typical of the placid Mr. Mo'i).  But Racer – he was annoyed.  The hail was bouncing off his nose in a way that he didn't appreciate at all, and given his, er, activity he couldn't very well duck his head to avoid it.  So he voiced his displeasure with a few growls, and then started snapping at the descending hail.  He's a very fast dog, so he may well have caught a view hailstones :)

As You Slide Down the Bannister of Life, Remember:

Via my mom, these words of wisdom from Maxine:

1. Jim Baker and Jimmy Swaggert have written an impressive new book. It's called .... 'Ministers Do More Than Lay People'

2. Transvestite: A guy who likes to eat, drink and be Mary.

3. The difference between the Pope and your boss, the Pope only expects you to kiss his ring.

4. My mind works like lightning, one brilliant Flash and it is gone.

5. The only time the world beats a path to Your door is if you're in the bathroom.

6. I hate sex in the movies. Tried it once. The seat folded up, the drink spilled and that ice, well, it really chilled the mood.

7. It used to be only death and taxes.  Now, of course, there's shipping and handling, too.

8. A husband is someone who, after taking the trash out, gives the impression that he just cleaned the whole house.

9. My next house will have no kitchen - just vending machines and a large trash can.

10. Definition of a teenager? God's punishment ... for enjoying sex.

Crime Watch...

Passed along by friend, former colleague, and reader Doug S.  I think we can guess where he stands on gun control:

Six Years...

Today is my blog's sixth anniversary - six years ago today I started contributing my fair share of junk, chaos, cat videos, and political hand-wringing to the web.

Feels a bit like I should celebrate, but how exactly does one celebrate a “bloggiversary”?

A Legal Question...

Via my lovely bride, who asks:

Is this statuetory rape?  Or just a moosdemeanor?

The Ten Guiltiest Dogs on the Internet...

Via my lovely bride:

British Mini-Cooper Ad...

Via my mom:

I'm Going to Try for a Fifth Time...

One of the things on my retirement to-do list is to try (for the fifth time) to learn to play a musical interest.  I love to listen to music, and have always envied those who could create it.  Starting when I was quite young I've tried a recorder, a harmonica, a flute, and a guitar.  To call my attempts disastrous would be overly kind.  I never even learned how to read music. 

Now I have (or will have :) the time to devote to this.  Once again I'm looking around to choose an instrument.  Purely accidentally last night I ran into a video of an instrument that I had never seen or heard of before: an ocarina, which comes in many varieties.  As I read about them, they look like a good choice for a beginner – and they sound a lot like one of my favorite of all instruments, the flute.  Here are a couple of videos of ocarina music I ran across (there are many more on YouTube):

Alcohol Consumption Around the Globe...

Click on the map at right to see a larger one, or here to see the full-sized original version.  I would only have guessed one of the worst guzzlers: Ireland.  The other three bad boys: Hungary, Moldova, and Uganda.  On the other end of the spectrum (low consumption) was another big surprise for me: Ecuador.  That's so surprising that it makes me wonder if the data has a problem.  Vietnam is also very low, which I also find surprising.  Europe in general drinks much more than Japan, the U.S., or China; no surprise for me there :)

A Harmonica at Carnegie Hall...

Via my mom:

A Handy Method...

A Romanian auto body mechanic at work:


Translated, the video's uploader said:

A handy method, which does not know any difference between the original and new paint.

All righty then...

Proof Positive...

Californians elected Nancy Pelosi to the House of Representatives multiple times, continuously since 1987.  Most recently, 85.1% of her district voted for her.

Frequently Ms. Pelosi does something to add to my sense of wonder at her election.  The fact that Californians (in San Francisco) continue to elect Ms. Pelosi is proof positive of something.  I'm not entirely sure what it's proving, but I'm absolutely positive it's something bad.

Now she's done it again.  Consider this statement she made on Valentine's Day, on the subject of a proposed cut in Congressional pay:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that she opposes a cut in congressional pay because it would diminish the dignity of lawmakers' jobs.

"I don't think we should do it; I think we should respect the work we do," Pelosi told reporters in the Capitol. "I think it's necessary for us to have the dignity of the job that we have rewarded."

You likely already know that Ms. Pelosi is one of the wealthiest members of Congress (her net worth is about $58 million, primarily through her husband).  She keeps getting re-elected.  She was the House Majority leader, and is now the House Minority leader.  You'd be forgiven for thinking “She must have something on the ball!”

Then you read her statement.

You try to parse her statement.

You try to figure out what it's even attempting to say.

You have to conclude she's an idiot.

What else could explain her apparently belief in the dignity of a member of Congress – the most despised politicians in America? 

Or her belief (if my attempt to parse her sentence is on the mark) that members of Congress deserve some kind of reward?

She's an embarrassing idiot, or better, an obliviot.  And my fellow Californians keep re-electing her, every two years.  That definitely proves something.  And reinforces my already firmly settled inclination to get the hell out of Dodge...

Another Benefit of Growing Up on a Farm?

A few years ago scientists observed something interesting: people who grew up on a farm had a much lower incidence of allergies and asthma.  They speculated that rolling around in the dirt, exposure to animals, etc. exercised the farm kid's immune systems from an early age, and that delivered a lifelong benefit.  Back in the '80s, scientists discovered (to their vast surprise!) that peptic ulcers weren't primarily caused by stress, but rather by a bacterial infection of the stomach.  However, most people carrying this bacteria don't develop ulcers; their immune systems fight it off.

Now scientists have discovered a link (not proved causal yet) between the lack of certain “good” intestinal bacteria and autism.  We get “infected” with these intestinal bacteria through things we ingest (eat).  We like to think that we ingest only our food, but any parent can tell you that kids will ingest all sorts of non-food items.  For farm kids, that includes things of a much wider variety than the typical city kid.  Scientists studying autism have noted that the incidence amongst farm kids is significant lower.  Which leads me, naturally, to speculate that the farm kids' wider, er, ingestive range increases the chances that they'll be infected with the good intestinal bacteria – and therefore have a lower propensity to autism.

Wouldn't that be interesting if autism turned out to be as easy to deal with as peptic ulcers turned out to be?

Russian Dash-Cams...

When the meter flashed across Russian skies yesterday, its passage was captured by dozens of dashboard cameras (dash-cams) mounted in the cars of ordinary citizens.  If that meteor had flashed across American skies, I doubt there would be even one such video – I don't believe I know anyone with a dash-cam.  So why are they so apparently common in Russia?

One search on Google and I had the answer.  In a word: evidence.  An excerpt:

In Russia, everyone should have a camera on their dashboard. It’s better than keeping a lead pipe under your seat for protection (but you might still want that lead pipe).

The conditions of Russian roads are perilous, with insane gridlock in cities and gigantic ditches, endless swamps and severe wintry emptiness on the backroads and highways. Then there are large, lawless areas you don’t just ride into, the police with a penchant for extortion and deeply frustrated drivers who want to smash your face.

Psychopaths are abundant on Russian roads. You best not cut anyone off or undertake some other type of maneuver that might inconvenience the 200-pound, six-foot-five brawling children you see on YouTube hopping out of their SUVs with their dukes up. They will go ballistic in a snap, drive in front of you, brake suddenly, block you off, jump out and run towards your vehicle. Next thing you start getting punches in your face because your didn’t roll up your windows, or getting pulled out of the car and beaten because you didn’t lock the doors.

These fights happen all the time and you can’t really press charges. Point to your broken nose or smashed windows all you want. The Russian courts don’t like verbal claims. They do, however, like to send people to jail for battery and property destruction if there’s definite video proof. That is why there’s a new, growing crop of dash-cam videos featuring would-be face-beaters backing away to the shouts of “You’re on camera, fucker! I’m calling the cops!”

Dash-cam footage is the only real way to substantiate your claims in the court of law. Forget witnesses. Hit and runs are very common and insurance companies notoriously specialize in denying claims. Two-way insurance coverage is very expensive and almost completely unavailable for vehicles over ten years old–the drivers can only get basic liability. Get into a minor or major accident and expect the other party to lie to the police or better yet, flee after rear-ending you. Since your insurance won’t pay unless the offender is found and sued, you’ll see dash-cam videos of post hit and run pursuits for plate numbers.

I've visited Russia dozens of times on work-related trips, but somehow I'd never run across this little facet.  Perhaps its a very recent development, though, as the cost of dash-cams has come down a lot in the past few years (there are many under $100 on Amazon now).  Knowing Russia reasonably well, I can confidently predict that there is a thriving market in fake dash-cams there :)

Floating Hell?

The news this morning is full of stories like this one, with passengers on the Carnival Triumph calling it a “floating hell” over the past five days since a fire disabled the ship.  One passenger (as of this morning) has already filed a lawsuit over the experience.

I read three or four stories in an attempt to understand exactly what was so “hellish” about this cruise.  It appears to me that at their very worst, conditions on the Carnival Triumph were considerably better than conditions at their very best on the USS Long Beach, the U.S. Navy ship that I served four years on.

Now mind you, I'm not saying that I think the Carnival cruise lines are blameless (on this question I really have no idea).  I believe those passengers are fully entitled to compensation for their ruined vacations.

But “hell ship”?

Please.

If conditions had really been as awful as the news reports of returning passengers imply, then there would be numerous passengers in the hospital (or the morgue).  Instead, the passengers are going home, safe and sound.  Uncomfortable?  I'm sure.  Unpleasant?  Quite likely.  Hellish?  I don't think so.

Buck up, Americans.  You're making us look like coddled sissies to the rest of the world...

UPDATED: Meteorite Over Russia...

Update: video of the meteorite crater, via reader and friend Doug S.:


Original post:

Early this morning (our time), a meteorite fell to Earth near Chelyabinsk, Russia:


View Larger Map
News reports are conflicting, with some saying it's entirely a natural phenomenon and others saying the meteorite was struck by a defensive anti-missile missile.  I'm a little skeptical of the latter, based on nothing more than my personal observations about the general state of readiness of the Russian military (poor would be an upgrade).

Many Russians have dashboard cameras running all the time in their cars, and some of these captured interesting views of the phenomenon.  Also, as usual, surveillance cameras also caught some views.  Here are three compilations I found on YouTube:

The Doorbell...

Via my lovely bride.  This video won $2,000 in a contest sponsored by PowerLine blog back in August of 2011.  They chose it as the best short video dramatizing the federal debt crisis.  It's just as valid a warning today, given that the electorate last year decided four more years of BHO was what the doctor ordered...

The Centrifuge Brain Project...

I bring you the strange:

How to Be Happy While the World Goes to Hell...

Ran across this yesterday; listened to it this morning.  It's nearly an hour long, and is an interesting rant by a conservative.  I learned several things while listening.  Probably the most striking thing I heard was a conservative advising you to live in the now – don't bother saving for retirement, because the government is going to take it anyway.  Not the usual advice from a financial conservative :)

Some rude language (not very much, actually)...

Saying Goodbye to Mother...

Via my lovely bride:

We were dressed and ready to go out for the New Years Eve Party. We turned on a night light, turned the answering machine on, covered our pet parakeet, and put the cat in the backyard.

We phoned the local cab company and requested a taxi. The taxi arrived, and we opened the front door to leave the house.

As we walked out the door, the cat we had put out in the yard, scoots back into the house. We didn't want the cat shut in the house because she always tries to eat the bird.

My wife goes on out to the taxi, while I went back inside to get the cat. The cat runs upstairs, with me in hot pursuit. Waiting in the cab, my wife doesn't want the driver to know that the house will be empty for the night. So, she explains to the taxi driver that I will be out soon, “He's just going upstairs to say goodbye to my mother.”

A few minutes later, I get into the cab. “Sorry I took so long,” I said, as we drove away. “That stupid bitch was hiding under the bed. I had to poke her ass with a coat hanger to get her to come out! She tried to take off, so I grabbed her by the neck. Then, I had to wrap her in a blanket to keep her from scratching me. But it worked! I hauled her fat ass downstairs and threw her out into the back yard!”

The cab driver hit a parked car.

This Works...

A few days ago I posted this helpful hint, along with a bunch of others.  I decided to try this one myself, as I'd fought our kitchen garbage bag a few thousand times before.

I didn't drill holes, but rather cut triangular holes with my pocket knife.  Took all of 15 or 20 seconds. 

Worked like a champ!  The bag comes right out now, no battling at all...

Why Does This Sound So Plausible?

Via my mom:

An engineer dies and reports to hell.

Pretty soon, the engineer gets dissatisfied with the level of comfort in hell, and starts designing and building improvements. After a while, they've got air conditioning and flushing toilets and escalators, and the engineer is a pretty popular guy.

One day God calls Satan up on the telephone and says with a sneer, "So, how's it going down there in hell?"

Satan replies, "Hey things are going great. We've got air conditioning and flushing toilets and escalators, and there's no telling what this engineer is going to come up with next."

God replies, "What??? You've got an engineer? That's a mistake -- he should never have gotten down there; send him up here."

Satan says, "No way. I like having an engineer on the staff, and I'm keeping him."

God says, "Send him back up here or I'll sue."

Satan laughs uproariously and answers, "Yeah, right. And just where are you going to get a lawyer?"

Conservatives, Liberals – They Really Are Different...

An excerpt from this ScienceDaily article:

In a prior experiment, participants had their brain activity measured as they played a simple gambling game. Dr. Schreiber and his UC San Diego collaborators were able to look up the political party registration of the participants in public records. Using this new analysis of 82 people who performed the gambling task, the academics showed that Republicans and Democrats do not differ in the risks they take. However, there were striking differences in the participants' brain activity during the risk-taking task.

Democrats showed significantly greater activity in the left insula, a region associated with social and self-awareness. Meanwhile Republicans showed significantly greater activity in the right amygdala, a region involved in the body's fight-or-flight system. These results suggest that liberals and conservatives engage different cognitive processes when they think about risk.

In fact, brain activity in these two regions alone can be used to predict whether a person is a Democrat or Republican with 82.9% accuracy. By comparison, the longstanding traditional model in political science, which uses the party affiliation of a person's mother and father to predict the child's affiliation, is only accurate about 69.5% of the time. And another model based on the differences in brain structure distinguishes liberals from conservatives with only 71.6% accuracy.

I wonder how libertarians and other politically independent people measure up in this regard?

And am I the only one who finds this sort of investigation reminiscent of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four or Asimov's psychohistory?

UI Widgets...

...for visualizing time series data...

Trash Problems...

In Antarctica and on Mt. Everest.  There are times when I don't care for my fellow humans very much.

At least on Mt. Everest they're attempting to do something about it.  There's still a lot more that needs to be done, though...

Disposable Penis...

I find this...disturbing...on several levels...

BUG-A-SALT...

I haven't actually tried one of these, but I think I'm going to.  In the summer it's fairly common for us to have yellow-jacket wasps sneak into the house.  This thing looks like it would be ideal for combating those, and easy for Debbie to use (she's a good shot!)...

Orion's Great Nebula – in Infrared...

Image captured by the WISE satellite.  Via APOD, of course.  Full resolution here.

Passwords Are Not the Bottleneck...

Fascinating paper by a pair of Microsoft researchers, arguing that the poor technical merits of passwords on web-based financial accounts really aren't the problem to tackle.  I learned all sorts of things about the “business” of stealing passwords on reading this paper...

Cappottino...

Rachel Lucas, on Primo and his new jacket.  A snippet from His shivers broke my will:

He’s a dog, and thus he went nuts for the snow. He snorkled it like I’ve never seen a dog do before, I mean he shoved his snout through it while running and then flung it from the top if his snout into the air and then made a freaky laughing kind of sound. It was like he was on acid at Woodstock. He frolicked and pranced and had an especially good time kicking it up behind him after pooping, such a good time that he then wandered around the park kicking it up even though he hadn’t pooped further. Times like these I really wish I had a newer iPhone so I could take video.

Oh and yes, I did pop the collar on his little jacket. Don’t judge me. It was snowing and his neck needed extra coverage, and also, it makes me laugh.

My mornings just wouldn't be the same without a dose of Rachel Lucas. I sure am glad she's started blogging again...

I Can't Help Myself...

I was raised to believe it is wrong to laugh at the misfortunes of others (even while they laughed at ours).  But watching this video...I just can't help myself.

I also can't help thinking that I'm probably seeing evolution in action: