Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Electronic Simulation...
...right in your browser. CircuitLab does schematic capture, AC and DC simulation, and schematic sharing. Currently it is free, though the site gives notice that they may charge for “premium services” down the road. A news story recently cited them as having 70,000 active accounts, with a simulation running on average every six seconds. That's a lot of electronics!
Disinhibition...
A couple weeks ago, I didn't know this word. Now, thanks to some recent family events, I do. And it got me to thinking...
Inhibitions are actually really important; some kinds, anyway. Most of us have inhibitions about murdering random strangers, sexually attacking people, stealing, etc. These inhibitions make human societies work – without them we would live short, nasty lives under constant threat.
Mostly I think we take these inhibitions for granted. I know I do. I expect people to behave in an inhibited way. Whenever someone behaves in an uninhibited way, we find that shocking.
What is especially shocking is when someone you know, possibly even someone you love, exhibits uninhibited behavior after a lifetime of normal inhibited behavior. This is the essence of “disinhibition” – when someone loses the inhibitions they once had. There are several causes for this, but the most common is dementia or Alzheimer's. These patients aren't really aware of what's happening to them, but those around them certainly are.
Anyway, this just got me to thinking about how absolutely essential these “normal” inhibitions are. I never really thought about inhibitions as a positive thing before...
Inhibitions are actually really important; some kinds, anyway. Most of us have inhibitions about murdering random strangers, sexually attacking people, stealing, etc. These inhibitions make human societies work – without them we would live short, nasty lives under constant threat.
Mostly I think we take these inhibitions for granted. I know I do. I expect people to behave in an inhibited way. Whenever someone behaves in an uninhibited way, we find that shocking.
What is especially shocking is when someone you know, possibly even someone you love, exhibits uninhibited behavior after a lifetime of normal inhibited behavior. This is the essence of “disinhibition” – when someone loses the inhibitions they once had. There are several causes for this, but the most common is dementia or Alzheimer's. These patients aren't really aware of what's happening to them, but those around them certainly are.
Anyway, this just got me to thinking about how absolutely essential these “normal” inhibitions are. I never really thought about inhibitions as a positive thing before...
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Revelation...
Two young men watch a childbirth video for the first time. What could go wrong?
Warning: make sure your alimentary tract is clear of any obstructing liquids or solids before viewing. We'd had to see you spew your coffee all over your monitor!
Warning: make sure your alimentary tract is clear of any obstructing liquids or solids before viewing. We'd had to see you spew your coffee all over your monitor!
Changing Tunes...
The London Daily Mail has been a reliable podium for “warmists” (proponents of anthropogenic global warming) to shout their message to the unwashed masses. Over the past ten years, it has published thousands of articles sounding the alarm over AGW.
Now it is changing its tune, and rather abruptly.
Probably the publication's managers have just realized that the more sensational story is now the failure of the AGW proponent's models, and the belated justification of of the skeptics. In other words, stories about the failure of climate science will sell more newspapers than the AGW warnings.
Still, it's nice to see the lamestream media coming around...
Now it is changing its tune, and rather abruptly.
Probably the publication's managers have just realized that the more sensational story is now the failure of the AGW proponent's models, and the belated justification of of the skeptics. In other words, stories about the failure of climate science will sell more newspapers than the AGW warnings.
Still, it's nice to see the lamestream media coming around...
Light Echoes...
Remember V838 Monocerotis? It was a science sensation in 2002 when it was briefly the brightest star in the Milky Way galaxy. APOD is featuring a recent Hubble photo of it today, showing the dust clouds that are being lit by the (now) 11 year old sphere of light emitted by V838 Mono back in 2002. Full resolution version here...
Kids Are Learning to Program, Starting in Second Grade!
In Vietnam.
Any American who has looked at the educational systems in other countries is quite likely to be shocked by their evident superiority in preparing their students to work in the real world. I've had this experience personally when looking at the educational systems in the former Soviet Union (in particular, in Estonia and St. Petersburg).
Education isn't the only prerequisite to innovation, and America still has a leg up on some of the other requirements (in particular, access to capital). But all of the factors that once gave America an unbeatable edge are rapidly eroding here – and rapidly growing elsewhere. I can't help but come to the conclusion that in the not-too-distant future (say, 10 or 20 years), many other parts of the world will out-innovate the United States. It's hard to imagine how we could turn that around, especially with the ascendancy of “Progressive” politics in the past 20 years or so.
It's very sad for us, but very hopeful for the Vietnams of the world...
Any American who has looked at the educational systems in other countries is quite likely to be shocked by their evident superiority in preparing their students to work in the real world. I've had this experience personally when looking at the educational systems in the former Soviet Union (in particular, in Estonia and St. Petersburg).
Education isn't the only prerequisite to innovation, and America still has a leg up on some of the other requirements (in particular, access to capital). But all of the factors that once gave America an unbeatable edge are rapidly eroding here – and rapidly growing elsewhere. I can't help but come to the conclusion that in the not-too-distant future (say, 10 or 20 years), many other parts of the world will out-innovate the United States. It's hard to imagine how we could turn that around, especially with the ascendancy of “Progressive” politics in the past 20 years or so.
It's very sad for us, but very hopeful for the Vietnams of the world...
For All Those Who Think “It Can't Happen Here!”
How many of us have looked at history (say, of Germany in the 1930s) or recent events (say, of Hugo Chavez's systematic dismantling of representative democracy in Venezuela), and then comforted ourselves by saying “That can't happen here!” I know I'm guilty of that.
Read this story of government intimidation in Fresno, California.
This is how takeovers start, when the government starts placing itself above the people it governs, and (most especially) when those who are governing start treating themselves as above the law. When the powerful get away with intimidating the citizenry, it of course only encourages more of this. These small acts of intimidation are actually very important, much like the early stages of a bacterial infection are very important – they are a warning sign, which, if taken seriously, provide an opportunity to wipe out the infection before it gets completely out of control.
Debbie and I had a conversation yesterday on a related topic. She keeps reading about efforts to allow Obama to run for a third (and further) terms as president, by somehow repealing or getting around the 22nd Amendment. My response is two-fold: First, I don't think such a thing is very likely in the U.S. Second, if it did happen, that would be a clear signal to us to make our home somewhere else...
Read this story of government intimidation in Fresno, California.
This is how takeovers start, when the government starts placing itself above the people it governs, and (most especially) when those who are governing start treating themselves as above the law. When the powerful get away with intimidating the citizenry, it of course only encourages more of this. These small acts of intimidation are actually very important, much like the early stages of a bacterial infection are very important – they are a warning sign, which, if taken seriously, provide an opportunity to wipe out the infection before it gets completely out of control.
Debbie and I had a conversation yesterday on a related topic. She keeps reading about efforts to allow Obama to run for a third (and further) terms as president, by somehow repealing or getting around the 22nd Amendment. My response is two-fold: First, I don't think such a thing is very likely in the U.S. Second, if it did happen, that would be a clear signal to us to make our home somewhere else...
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Mt. Sharp, in Considerable Detail...
Mt. Sharp rises from the floor of Gale Crater on Mars, which is where Curiosity is busy exploring. NASA just released a panorama of Mt. Sharp, composed of many photos taken months ago. It shows the huge mountain in quite sharp detail. The version below (and the full resolution version here) are the color-corrected version, processed to look as though the scene were viewed on earth...
Steve McIntyre Is Back...
...and he's tearing into the ClimateGate 3.0 stuff. It's great to see him back “on the job!”
Greener, We Are...
Fascinating talk about the fact that the Earth is getting greener (more vegetation), and why...
Friday, March 15, 2013
Mystery Malware “Warhead”...
The Trojan named “Gauss” has a mysterious encrypted warhead whose purpose has not yet been deciphered. But security folks think it's likely something awesome – the cyber-spying equivalent of a nuke...
Non-Transitive Dice...
With ordinary cubic (six-sided) dice, each side has a different number of dots on it, from 1 to 6. If you roll two ordinary dice in competition, over the long term the two dice will be exactly tied.
But it is possible to construct dice with other numbers on them. For example, imagine three dice with numbers as follows:
Die A: 1:1:1:1:1:1
Die B: 2:2:2:2:2:2
Die C: 3:3:3:3:3:3
Now these would certainly be boring dice to play with! But consider this: if the dice A & B were competing, B would always win. If dice B & C were competing, C would always win. If dice A & C were competing, C would always win. These dice exhibit transitive behavior: B beats A, and C beats B, therefore C beats A.
Now consider this set of dice:
Die A: 3:3:3:3:3:6
Die B: 2:2:2:5:5:5
Die C: 1:4:4:4:4:4
In this case, A will beat B, and B will beat C. You might say to yourself “Therefore A will beat C” – but if you did, you would be wrong, because C will beat A!
Read all about this and other interesting properties of Grimes' Dice...
But it is possible to construct dice with other numbers on them. For example, imagine three dice with numbers as follows:
Die A: 1:1:1:1:1:1
Die B: 2:2:2:2:2:2
Die C: 3:3:3:3:3:3
Now these would certainly be boring dice to play with! But consider this: if the dice A & B were competing, B would always win. If dice B & C were competing, C would always win. If dice A & C were competing, C would always win. These dice exhibit transitive behavior: B beats A, and C beats B, therefore C beats A.
Now consider this set of dice:
Die A: 3:3:3:3:3:6
Die B: 2:2:2:5:5:5
Die C: 1:4:4:4:4:4
In this case, A will beat B, and B will beat C. You might say to yourself “Therefore A will beat C” – but if you did, you would be wrong, because C will beat A!
Read all about this and other interesting properties of Grimes' Dice...
Vannevar Bush's “Memex”...
Some historians credit Bush's Memex as the original idea that spawned the Internet's World Wide Web, and other computerized knowledge bases...
Kiiking...
Estonia has several interesting sports that either originated there, or were popularized there. Kiiking, for example (watch video below). Or wife carrying. Or sauna rallying. Or beer swilling. I could go on...
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Singing the MacBook Pro Blues...
Update:
Fixed (at least with initial tests). Apple has released an update that appears to fix the problem. It was a firmware issue in the System Management Controller (SMC).
Original Post:
Late last year, I purchased a shiny new 15" Retina MacBook Pro for my own personal use. I love this machine! It's very small and light, but has plenty of RAM, storage, CPU power, and battery life. It also connects (with just two cables, including power, thanks to Thunderbolt) to a suite of peripherals that would be part of a programmer's high-end desktop machine. It's a thing of geekly beauty.
But it has a flaw.
The MacBook Pros are usually completely silent, but it has somewhat noisy fans that will kick on when things get too warm internally. I've been using MacBook Pros for almost six years, and I'm very familiar with this phenomenon. In all my prior experience, the fans kicking in – especially if they kick in at high speed – has always meant the same thing: the CPU is working really hard, so the CPU chip got hot.
Not this time.
Debbie (who works in the same small office that I do) have often noticed the fans kicking up at very surprising times. Every single time that I've checked the CPU is almost unloaded, and the CPU temperature is near room temperature. I had no idea why the fans were kicking on.
Yesterday, out of idle curiosity, I googled the issue and immediately found this very active thread.
Oh, my.
I am not alone – lots of people are having this exact issue. Furthermore, one enterprising fellow found a completely repeatable diagnostic: if you play a particular song on iTunes, at about 2 minutes into the song the fans will kick up high, then drop slightly, then kick up high again and stay there.
So of course I ran this diagnostic on my machine. It matched the above observations precisely. How weird!
But it gets even better. With enough people reporting, a pattern becomes clear: only MacBook Pros made after late 2012 and equipped with a SanDisk SSD are having this problem. Those with a Samsung SSD do not.
As usual with any open forum on the Internet, the posters are a mixture of certifiably insane, over-the-top inflammatory, sensible, despondent, smart, idiotic, and amusing. Apple's response so far is distinctly unimpressive and very disappointing.
Here's hoping Apple gets their act together and fixes the problem, or otherwise makes it right...
Fixed (at least with initial tests). Apple has released an update that appears to fix the problem. It was a firmware issue in the System Management Controller (SMC).
Original Post:
Late last year, I purchased a shiny new 15" Retina MacBook Pro for my own personal use. I love this machine! It's very small and light, but has plenty of RAM, storage, CPU power, and battery life. It also connects (with just two cables, including power, thanks to Thunderbolt) to a suite of peripherals that would be part of a programmer's high-end desktop machine. It's a thing of geekly beauty.
But it has a flaw.
The MacBook Pros are usually completely silent, but it has somewhat noisy fans that will kick on when things get too warm internally. I've been using MacBook Pros for almost six years, and I'm very familiar with this phenomenon. In all my prior experience, the fans kicking in – especially if they kick in at high speed – has always meant the same thing: the CPU is working really hard, so the CPU chip got hot.
Not this time.
Debbie (who works in the same small office that I do) have often noticed the fans kicking up at very surprising times. Every single time that I've checked the CPU is almost unloaded, and the CPU temperature is near room temperature. I had no idea why the fans were kicking on.
Yesterday, out of idle curiosity, I googled the issue and immediately found this very active thread.
Oh, my.
I am not alone – lots of people are having this exact issue. Furthermore, one enterprising fellow found a completely repeatable diagnostic: if you play a particular song on iTunes, at about 2 minutes into the song the fans will kick up high, then drop slightly, then kick up high again and stay there.
So of course I ran this diagnostic on my machine. It matched the above observations precisely. How weird!
But it gets even better. With enough people reporting, a pattern becomes clear: only MacBook Pros made after late 2012 and equipped with a SanDisk SSD are having this problem. Those with a Samsung SSD do not.
As usual with any open forum on the Internet, the posters are a mixture of certifiably insane, over-the-top inflammatory, sensible, despondent, smart, idiotic, and amusing. Apple's response so far is distinctly unimpressive and very disappointing.
Here's hoping Apple gets their act together and fixes the problem, or otherwise makes it right...
Climategate 3.0...
Mr. FOIA (pseudonym of the person who released the original Climategate data dump) has dropped the other shoe – he (or she?) has released the password to the mysterious encrypted file included in the original Climategate dump. There has been much speculation about what's in the file; now we're all going to know. The password was released only to a group of people whom Mr. FOIA judged to be appropriate, for reasons only he (or she) knows. Here are some posts from various and sundry folks on the topic.
Anthony Watts
James Delingpole
Bishop Hill
Steve McIntyre
Jo Nova
The next few weeks ought to be interesting...
Anthony Watts
James Delingpole
Bishop Hill
Steve McIntyre
Jo Nova
The next few weeks ought to be interesting...
Education...
If you're a regular reader of this blog, you've heard me railing about the poor quality of our public education system. If this topic is of interest to you, you need to read Sarah Hoyt's story. Just go read it...
Rachel Takes Bloomberg to the Woodshed...
Ah, Rachel. She's not happy about Bloomberg's nanny-state silliness. Here's the beginning of her (patent pending) rant:
...The point is that you can’t demand we see you as a grown adult if you’re perfectly happy for low-IQ, power-hungry bureaucrats to tell you what to do, to help you protect you from yourself as though you are a 3-year-old who just shit himself and needs to run to the potty to change his Pull-Ups.You most definitely want to go read the whole thing...
Some questions you might want to let roll around in your mind between trips to the bathroom:
If the government is right to limit the size of certain sugary soft drinks that you may purchase – for your own good – why is it not right to limit the total amount of food you may purchase? Please be specific in your answer. Eating too much leads to obesity and its harmful effects just as well as drinking 20 ounces of Pepsi. Surely, then, you support a prohibition against consuming more than survival-level calories per day...
Chinese Traders in Africa...in the 1400s...
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Primo on Politics...
Rachel Lucas' new dog Primo comments on politics:
Rachel calls this “mellow” – I say “cogent commentary” :)
Rachel calls this “mellow” – I say “cogent commentary” :)
Breaking Up Is Hard To Do...
This article about breaking up with an old car instantly resonated with Debbie and I. We recently traded in our old '96 LandCruiser – which we named “Siggy” (after the “8SIGMAS” on its plate). So many wonderful memories in that car; so many hours of companionship provided...
How's That War on Drugs Going?
The green line shows what we're spending, per capita, on the war on drugs. The blue line shows the drug use, per capita, over the same period. Chart is by Matt Groff.
What a stunning success!
Yes, that was tongue-in-cheek. Sure wish we hadn't wasted those billions of dollars...
What a stunning success!
Yes, that was tongue-in-cheek. Sure wish we hadn't wasted those billions of dollars...
Curiosity: Life-Friendly Environment on Mars...
Curiosity has finished analyzing the rock powder its drill produced a few weeks ago. The results show that ancient Mars had all the right attributes to sustain life. They're not claiming (not yet, anyway) proof that life actually did exist there; just that it could have...
15:1 Server Reduction...
Applications running at any significant scale typically execute on clusters of servers. These clusters are composed, generally, from multiple similar servers. These servers share the overall load of the app, allowing many more concurrent users than could ever run on a single server. You could think of the clerks in the grocery store checkout as a human equivalent. Having multiple servers also provides an arbitrary degree of redundancy, so that if one or more servers fail for any reason, the working servers remaining can pick up the load. Building big clusters (if big enough, often called “server farms”) is the brute force way to scale up almost any modern web application. It's the standard, “out-of-the-box” way to scale up to large loads; it's what everybody does.
Well, almost everybody.
Depending on the business model of the application in question, the cost of the additional servers may be significant. In other words, if your application doesn't make a lot more money than the servers cost, you're going to care about that server cost. How can you reduce the number of servers required to handle the load?
The answer to that is very specific to the precise nature of each application. There are several general approaches one can take, ranging from the traditional iterative bottleneck identification-and-destruction technique to the raze-and-rebuild technique.
In the latter category is this: figuring out that you made a poor choice of programming language, and rewriting your entire application from scratch in a new language. In our real-world equivalent, it's as if you replaced the ordinary checkout clerks with supermen who worked many times more quickly. That's what these folks did, moving from Ruby to Go – and their reward was a reduction from 30 busy servers to 2 idling servers (and only 2 in order to provide redundancy!).
As one of the commenters points out, probably moving from Ruby is the important part of the exercise – most likely nearly any choice of a “normal” programming language (C, C++, Java, Erlang, etc.) would have achieved similar gains. The author, however, makes some interesting points about Go – to me, most especially concerning its support for concurrency...
Well, almost everybody.
Depending on the business model of the application in question, the cost of the additional servers may be significant. In other words, if your application doesn't make a lot more money than the servers cost, you're going to care about that server cost. How can you reduce the number of servers required to handle the load?
The answer to that is very specific to the precise nature of each application. There are several general approaches one can take, ranging from the traditional iterative bottleneck identification-and-destruction technique to the raze-and-rebuild technique.
In the latter category is this: figuring out that you made a poor choice of programming language, and rewriting your entire application from scratch in a new language. In our real-world equivalent, it's as if you replaced the ordinary checkout clerks with supermen who worked many times more quickly. That's what these folks did, moving from Ruby to Go – and their reward was a reduction from 30 busy servers to 2 idling servers (and only 2 in order to provide redundancy!).
As one of the commenters points out, probably moving from Ruby is the important part of the exercise – most likely nearly any choice of a “normal” programming language (C, C++, Java, Erlang, etc.) would have achieved similar gains. The author, however, makes some interesting points about Go – to me, most especially concerning its support for concurrency...
Cheap, Simple, Small, Safe Nuclear Power...
Molten-salt fission reactor technology sounds compelling to me, the more so every new time I read about it. In a rational world (that would be some other planet, most likely in some other space-time continuum), environmentalists would be demanding the use of technology like this in place of coal- or gas-fired electrical generation. I've only seen them railing in mostly mindless opposition, though...
Lakes Entertainment, Cleaning Up the Mess Edition...
Lakes Entertainment has posted its 2012 Q4 and Y results, which prominently features the wind-up of it's agreement with the Jamul Indian Tribe. There no real news here, just an opportunity for some schadenfreude and satisfaction...
How I Wish Congress (or Obama) Behaved...
This brilliant clip lampoons Congress and Obama for ratcheting up the national debt – and it does so in a way that absolutely anyone can comprehend. The facial expressions of the banker eloquently convey the reactions that any fiscal conservative would wish that Congress and the executive branch would have when asked to raise the debt limit. I know, I know, it isn't going to happen. But I can still hope, can't I?
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Quote of the Day...
From Mark Steyn, during his substitute stint on the Rush Limbaugh show yesterday. I didn't hear this, but I wish I had:
You’re doomed, America. You’re done for. No society can survive this level of stupidity. The school counselor is available to meet with any students who are traumatized by hearing reports of some guy four grades below them who nibbles a Pop Tart into a gun-like shape. I’ve never subscribed to this whole greatest generation thing, you know. But you look at those guys, they weren’t much older than the kids from the school. A lot of them were like 17, 18 years old. And they’re storming out of these transport ships in the churning waters of the English Channel and the North Sea, and they’re landing on the beaches of Normandy. And they're getting out of these, and they are storming up the beaches and they’re taking German gunfire and all the rest.I share Mr. Steyn's sense of foreboding, though I am somewhat consoled by the fact that our most excellent warriors in service today somehow managed to emerge from a situation not much better than the Pop Tart affair. The majority of our warriors come from the southern half of our country, where the culture hasn't deteriorated quite so much. At least in places...
Do you think if you raised people so that you make a school counselor to available to them in cased they’ve been traumatized by someone who was nibbled a Pop Tart into the shape of a gun — do you think if they’re ever called upon to get out those ships and the storm the beaches of Normandy, do you think they’re going to be up to that? ‘Oh no look, the Germans, they’re all holding Pop Tarts! AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!’ No society can survive this level of stupidity. These small things are not small. They tell you a lot about the institutionalized stupidity of our institutions.
Earthquake!
Yesterday at 9:56:06 Pacific time there was a magnitude 4.7 earthquake near Anza, California. There were also a number of smaller quakes both before and after the big one. I was outside walking our dogs when the shaking hit our house about 15 seconds later, and I never felt a thing (see seismograph below, from the seismometer in our house). I did hear a neighbor's dog start howling mournfully at exactly the time the quake hit us, no doubt reacting to it. The epicenter is about 77 km (44 miles) from our house, implying a seismic wave propagation speed of around 5 km/second, as expected.
Debbie was inside our house at the time, and she reports audible rumbling just before the main shock hit. That is exactly what the seismograph shows, with smaller accelerations for about 10 seconds before the “big” secondary wave hit us at 9:56:31 (note that the seismograph is in UTC time, 7 hours later than Pacific time).
Debbie was inside our house at the time, and she reports audible rumbling just before the main shock hit. That is exactly what the seismograph shows, with smaller accelerations for about 10 seconds before the “big” secondary wave hit us at 9:56:31 (note that the seismograph is in UTC time, 7 hours later than Pacific time).
Monday, March 11, 2013
Unhappy Collisions with Scientific Realities...
Sam Harris has an excellent piece about how it feels when a cherished belief collides with reality as understood by science. In particular he offers this up as a way for non-believers to understand how it feels to a religious person when science contradicts their faith. Even without that context, I think it's a great example for anyone who doesn't like (or doesn't believe) what science has discovered. Here's a snippet from his piece:
On a cold night, most people consider a well-tended fire to be one of the more wholesome pleasures that humanity has produced. A fire, burning safely within the confines of a fireplace or a woodstove, is a visible and tangible source of comfort to us. We love everything about it: the warmth, the beauty of its flames, and—unless one is allergic to smoke—the smell that it imparts to the surrounding air.Mr. Harris leaves unanswered a related question: how does one decide which science is valid, and should guide one's beliefs? It would be unscientific to accept all published science results on faith :) The best approach I know is to read and educate oneself about an area of science that is of interest, then make up your own mind based on the evidence you can see and judge. What most definitely doesn't work is to read the opinions of others and go with the majority...
I am sorry to say that if you feel this way about a wood fire, you are not only wrong but dangerously misguided. I mean to seriously convince you of this—so you can consider it in part a public service announcement—but please keep in mind that I am drawing an analogy. I want you to be sensitive to how you feel, and to notice the resistance you begin to muster as you consider what I have to say.
Because wood is among the most natural substances on earth, and its use as a fuel is universal, most people imagine that burning wood must be a perfectly benign thing to do. Breathing winter air scented by wood smoke seems utterly unlike puffing on a cigarette or inhaling the exhaust from a passing truck. But this is an illusion.
Here is what we know from a scientific point of view: There is no amount of wood smoke that is good to breathe. It is at least as bad for you as cigarette smoke, and probably much worse. (One study found it to be 30 times more potent a carcinogen.) The smoke from an ordinary wood fire contains hundreds of compounds known to be carcinogenic, mutagenic, teratogenic, and irritating to the respiratory system. Most of the particles generated by burning wood are smaller than one micron—a size believed to be most damaging to our lungs. In fact, these particles are so fine that they can evade our mucociliary defenses and travel directly into the bloodstream, posing a risk to the heart. Particles this size also resist gravitational settling, remaining airborne for weeks at a time.
Green Cars...
Many people are attracted to either all-electric or hybrid cars because they believe they are helping the environment by doing so – they are “green” cars. There are other reasons as well, but for many buyers of “green” cars, their green-ness is the major factor.
However, when you take into account the additional carbon footprint and other pollutants produced in the manufacture of both hybrid and all-electric cars, and the indirect carbon footprint and pollution increase from all-electric cars (because they're recharged with electricity produced most often in a non-nuclear power plant), then they don't look quite so green. Over the average lifetime of a green car, both the carbon footprint and the pollution are worse than the average gasoline-powered car – and there's nothing on the horizon that would change that. Massive conversion of power plants to nuclear or fusion power would help a lot, but that's not very likely. Massive conversion to wind or solar doesn't work because there is no known way to store power produced during the daytime for use at night. Lithium mining is notoriously polluting and energy intensive, but no replacement technology for lithium-ion batteries is even in the laboratory, much less in production.
None of this information is a secret, nor is it hidden or hard to access. Do a little googling and you can find all you want. Green cars are a myth (albeit a popular myth!). They really should be called brown cars.
Bjorn Lomberg (of The Skeptical Environmentalist fame) has a nice summary of this in today's Wall Street Journal)...
However, when you take into account the additional carbon footprint and other pollutants produced in the manufacture of both hybrid and all-electric cars, and the indirect carbon footprint and pollution increase from all-electric cars (because they're recharged with electricity produced most often in a non-nuclear power plant), then they don't look quite so green. Over the average lifetime of a green car, both the carbon footprint and the pollution are worse than the average gasoline-powered car – and there's nothing on the horizon that would change that. Massive conversion of power plants to nuclear or fusion power would help a lot, but that's not very likely. Massive conversion to wind or solar doesn't work because there is no known way to store power produced during the daytime for use at night. Lithium mining is notoriously polluting and energy intensive, but no replacement technology for lithium-ion batteries is even in the laboratory, much less in production.
None of this information is a secret, nor is it hidden or hard to access. Do a little googling and you can find all you want. Green cars are a myth (albeit a popular myth!). They really should be called brown cars.
Bjorn Lomberg (of The Skeptical Environmentalist fame) has a nice summary of this in today's Wall Street Journal)...
Sunday, March 10, 2013
A Triumph of Form Over Function...
With a little analysis, it's easy to see why. I won't bore you with the trigonometry, but...with the driver sitting 30" from the 5.5" wide left mirror, the field of vision is only about 10° wide. On our Tundras, with their 8.75" wide mirrors, it's about 17° wide – definitely a noticeable difference!
So today I installed some wide-angle “blind spot” mirrors on both sides of our FJ. These are from ICU, and they use mirrors made of glass (most of these sorts of mirrors are made either of plastic or polished metal, both of which get roughened surfaces quite quickly). A driver's-perspective view of the left mirror shows how much this improves the field of vision. My rough estimate is that I now have a 40° field of view, a vast improvement over 10°
If we drive with these for a while and still don't like them, I may commit FJ sacrilege: install big-rig style tripod mirrors on both sides. Those mirrors are hell on the drag coefficient, and would probably drop our highway mileage significantly, so I'm hoping I don't have to resort to that. One other possibility occurred to me: cameras installed on the mirror mount (perhaps on the bottom of them), displaying on screens over my head. That might work as well.
Why did the FJ designers make such a wacky choice for the mirrors? The only reason I can think of is that some designer thought the vertical mounting looked better, and didn't care what that choice did to the driver's visibility. We curse this designer daily...
Does Repitition on the Internet Make It True?
Via friend and reader Doug W., who points out, tongue-in-cheek, that “Of course, this kind of issue has no relation whatsoever to the climate change debate”...
Benjamin Franklin on Daylight Saving...
Nearly every time I read some of Benjamin Franklin's writings I am surprised by his wit and humor. I need to read more :)
Here's a snippet from a long letter he wrote advocating the adoption of Daylight Saving time:
Here's a snippet from a long letter he wrote advocating the adoption of Daylight Saving time:
An accidental sudden noise waked me about six in the morning, when I was surprised to find my room filled with light; and I imagined at first, that a number of those lamps had been brought into it; but, rubbing my eyes, I perceived the light came in at the windows. I got up and looked out to see what might be the occasion of it, when I saw the sun just rising above the horizon, from whence he poured his rays plentifully into my chamber, my domestic having negligently omitted, the preceding evening, to close the shutters.Do read the whole thing...
I looked at my watch, which goes very well, and found that it was but six o'clock; and still thinking it something extraordinary that the sun should rise so early, I looked into the almanac, where I found it to be the hour given for his rising on that day. I looked forward, too, and found he was to rise still earlier every day till towards the end of June; and that at no time in the year he retarded his rising so long as till eight o'clock. Your readers, who with me have never seen any signs of sunshine before noon, and seldom regard the astronomical part of the almanac, will be as much astonished as I was, when they hear of his rising so early; and especially when I assure them, that he gives light as soon as he rises. I am convinced of this. I am certain of my fact. One cannot be more certain of any fact. I saw it with my own eyes. And, having repeated this observation the three following mornings, I found always precisely the same result.
Yet it so happens, that when I speak of this discovery to others, I can easily perceive by their countenances, though they forbear expressing it in words, that they do not quite believe me. One, indeed, who is a learned natural philosopher, has assured me that I must certainly be mistaken as to the circumstance of the light coming into my room; for it being well known, as he says, that there could be no light abroad at that hour, it follows that none could enter from without; and that of consequence, my windows being accidentally left open, instead of letting in the light, had only served to let out the darkness; and he used many ingenious arguments to show me how I might, by that means, have been deceived. I owned that he puzzled me a little, but he did not satisfy me; and the subsequent observations I made, as above mentioned, confirmed me in my first opinion.
Karzai Accuses U.S. of Colluding with the Taliban...
This morning I read that Afghan President Karzai just accused the U.S. of colluding with Taliban ($WSJ) to persuade the Afghan public that they really needed foreign forces (which are, of course, primarily American) to stay past the announced withdrawal date in 2014. The specific accusation is that the U.S. “coordinated” the Taliban suicide bombings in Kabul yesterday.
I caught myself in a very uncomfortable moment as I read, when I realized that I was actually considering that Karzai was telling the truth. Ordinarily I'd have dismissed such as statement as the delusional ravings of a hard-pressed foreign politician frantically searching for a scapegoat. Not this time. I'm not saying that I believe Karzai is correct; in fact, I still think that's very unlikely. But...I'm keeping an open mind about it. Should some actual evidence surface, I'll be paying close attention.
Why this change in attitude? It's really very simple: I have absolutely zero faith that the Obama administration's actions are guided by America's interests. I am persuaded that only their own interests guide their actions. If they thought colluding with the Taliban would help them, I have no doubt they'd find a way to justify it to themselves.
I am saddened to find myself thinking this way...
I caught myself in a very uncomfortable moment as I read, when I realized that I was actually considering that Karzai was telling the truth. Ordinarily I'd have dismissed such as statement as the delusional ravings of a hard-pressed foreign politician frantically searching for a scapegoat. Not this time. I'm not saying that I believe Karzai is correct; in fact, I still think that's very unlikely. But...I'm keeping an open mind about it. Should some actual evidence surface, I'll be paying close attention.
Why this change in attitude? It's really very simple: I have absolutely zero faith that the Obama administration's actions are guided by America's interests. I am persuaded that only their own interests guide their actions. If they thought colluding with the Taliban would help them, I have no doubt they'd find a way to justify it to themselves.
I am saddened to find myself thinking this way...
The Greek Letter π and Gravity...
Consider the following formulae:
The two numbers are very close. I'd have dismissed this as pure coincidence, but in fact it is not. Fascinating!
Ï€2 ≈ 9.87The constant g is the gravitational constant, for the force of gravity at the Earth's surface.
g ≈ 9.81 N/k
The two numbers are very close. I'd have dismissed this as pure coincidence, but in fact it is not. Fascinating!
Saturday, March 9, 2013
The Phony Recovery...
Whenever a politician tells you that our economy is recovering, remember this graph. We won't have a real recovery until the employment-population ratio gets back up above 61% or so. Any politician who tells you otherwise is lying. Or as Mark Twain would say, they're opening their mouth (as the only thing likely to emerge is a lie)...
Chinese Junk Takes Out Russian Satellite...
Space junk, that is – not a ship. This prognosis pretty much sums it up:
It is not immediately clear whether the satellite is merely wounded or completely incapacitated.Oops...
Cows Are the Answer!?!
Via Watts Up With That, this awesome TED talk by Dr. Allan Savory. He shows how people on five continents have reversed desertification by increasing grazing – contra decades of “scientific” grasslands management...
His big insight was realizing the role that wild herds of grazing animals played in the ecology of natural grasslands. Their mechanical reduction (trampling) of grass provides mulch, fertilizer, and water – perfect conditions for the next generation of grass even during a dry season.
Awesome!
His big insight was realizing the role that wild herds of grazing animals played in the ecology of natural grasslands. Their mechanical reduction (trampling) of grass provides mulch, fertilizer, and water – perfect conditions for the next generation of grass even during a dry season.
Awesome!
Quote of the Day...
From Mark Steyn's current piece on the drone debate:
The guys with drones are losing to the guys with fertilizer — because they mean it, and we don’t.If the fertilizer reference escapes you, Mr. Steyn is referring to the Taliban's homemade bombs, which use ammonia-based fertilizers mixed with oil as their explosive...
Flying Pig Moment, Legal Department...
The Ninth Circuit Appeals Court, justifiably notorious for its progressive-leaning rulings, must have missed its meds: they've just ruled that agents at border crossings cannot search digital devices (such as phones, laptops, etc.) for no reason at all. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been asserting its right to do just that, leading many organizations to counsel that travelers not carry these devices with them. DHS has also cited, numerous times, that the mere existence of an encrypted file is suspicious – a plainly absurd assertion in this day and age.
Someone please hide those meds! This kind of Ninth Circuit I could learn to admire!
Someone please hide those meds! This kind of Ninth Circuit I could learn to admire!
Best Debugging Story Evah?
Well, a candidate, maybe. Awesome? You betcha. It involves Forth, TTL, microcode, and an oven. What could possibly go wrong? :)
(Many) More Solutions to the Three-Body Problem...
When I first read the title of this article, I thought it was referring to a different (though related) problem: computing the course of a satellite (one body) through a two-body system (such as the Earth and the Moon). When I was a kid first learning about space travel, this was a notoriously unsolved problem. Instead of the usual sort of mathematical solution to this problem, navigators at NASA resorted to finite state models to solve the problem. Later on (in the '70s, if memory serves me right), mathematicians did develop equations that solved that particular three-body problem, but systems with more bodies (like Jupiter and Saturn) remained challenging, and were still normally solved with finite state modeling.
But this article is about a different sort of three-body problem – stable orbits of three-body systems. Similar, and still interesting, though...
But this article is about a different sort of three-body problem – stable orbits of three-body systems. Similar, and still interesting, though...
Dark Corners of “C”
A presentation on some quirks of the C programming language. Very nicely done...
Of Course They Did...
As we explained a few days ago, of course the bureaucrats are going to first cut the services the public wants...
Friday, March 8, 2013
The Standing Joke...
For anyone who even halfway follows politics in America, the bureaucracy's response to a threatened budget cut is entirely predictable: they will say that the public's most cherished service provided by that bureaucracy will be cut. Hence when a politician dares to suggest that the San Diego City budget be cut, the first thing we hear from the bureaucracy is: fired cops, fired firemen, closed parks and libraries, etc. You absolutely never hear that the public art budget will be slashed, bureaucratic staff will be reduced, or pensions will be cut. Never. It's achieved the status of a standing joke amongst political insiders.
The really sad part is that it works, at least most of the time. It scares the politically unaware, or the parents with kids in school (when they threaten to fire teachers), or other similarly affected. Most of the time, the bureaucracy's budget is restored (or even increased!).
I think of this as a slightly subtle form of corruption, with the bureaucrats playing the voting public for the fools they unfortunately are...
Friend and reader Doug W. points out this editorial by one of my favorite writers, Thomas Sowell. It makes the same point more effectively. Here's the lead (with Doug's emphasis):
The really sad part is that it works, at least most of the time. It scares the politically unaware, or the parents with kids in school (when they threaten to fire teachers), or other similarly affected. Most of the time, the bureaucracy's budget is restored (or even increased!).
I think of this as a slightly subtle form of corruption, with the bureaucrats playing the voting public for the fools they unfortunately are...
Friend and reader Doug W. points out this editorial by one of my favorite writers, Thomas Sowell. It makes the same point more effectively. Here's the lead (with Doug's emphasis):
Back in my teaching days, many years ago, one of the things I liked to ask the class to consider was this: Imagine a government agency with only two tasks: (1) building statues of Benedict Arnold and (2) providing life-saving medications to children. If this agency's budget were cut, what would it do?Do read the whole thing...
The answer, of course, is that it would cut back on the medications for children. Why? Because that would be what was most likely to get the budget cuts restored. If they cut back on building statues of Benedict Arnold, people might ask why they were building statues of Benedict Arnold in the first place.
Surprised Me!
First, take a look at this short UFO clip, acknowledged to be a hoax:
Here's the surprise. I think most people, upon viewing this film and either assuming or being informed that it's a hoax, would believe that the perpetrators took a background video and superimposed the UFO on it through some clever “photoshopping”. But that's not how it was done!
Everything in the clip was created with photo-realistic computer generated graphics (CG). Awesome!
It also means that you really cannot trust video as a source of evidence – this is an instance proof that people-fooling video can be created to show anything at all...
Here's the surprise. I think most people, upon viewing this film and either assuming or being informed that it's a hoax, would believe that the perpetrators took a background video and superimposed the UFO on it through some clever “photoshopping”. But that's not how it was done!
Everything in the clip was created with photo-realistic computer generated graphics (CG). Awesome!
It also means that you really cannot trust video as a source of evidence – this is an instance proof that people-fooling video can be created to show anything at all...
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Curiosity Powers Down...
It's a precautionary measure, now that Curiosity is running on the alternate computer. They're taking the precaution because of a giant solar flare headed toward Mars...
So God Made a Dog...
This is a takeoff on Paul Harvey's famous piece “So God made a farmer”. Guaranteed to warm the heart of any dog lover, including the non-believers...
Mercury Map...
I remember Mariner 10, when it returned the first photos from Mercury – grainy, black-and-white, and seemingly miraculous. At right is an example of those first photos. Now we have this incredibly detailed image that's chock full of information encoded in those false colors, revealing the kinds of geology over the entire planet's surface.
What a Bug!
The programmer made a common error: converting a floating point “double” to a 16 bit signed integer (a “short”).
For my non-programmer readers, this is a little like trying to use a quart jar to store water, then transferring it to a drinking glass. It works fine if your quart jar only has a little water in it, but if the quart jar has more water in it, that water won't all fit in the drinking glass. In this case, it's the numeric value that won't fit. For example, if that double had the value 200,000 in it, the short would end up with something very different – the biggest number it can hold is 32,767 (don't ask why unless you really want to get into the weeds!).
So the programmer made this noobie error. Most of the time, the consequence of this sort of error is just a “Aw, crap!”, and the programmer fixes it. This time the consequence was the loss of $500 million dollars – because it blew up an Ariane 5 and its cargo.
Major bummer...
For my non-programmer readers, this is a little like trying to use a quart jar to store water, then transferring it to a drinking glass. It works fine if your quart jar only has a little water in it, but if the quart jar has more water in it, that water won't all fit in the drinking glass. In this case, it's the numeric value that won't fit. For example, if that double had the value 200,000 in it, the short would end up with something very different – the biggest number it can hold is 32,767 (don't ask why unless you really want to get into the weeds!).
So the programmer made this noobie error. Most of the time, the consequence of this sort of error is just a “Aw, crap!”, and the programmer fixes it. This time the consequence was the loss of $500 million dollars – because it blew up an Ariane 5 and its cargo.
Major bummer...
Whittle on Voter Fraud...
Bill Whittle has a knack for clearly articulating common sense political observations. I listen to him every time I see one of his videos published. This one is particularly biting, while nevertheless managing to sneak in some of his trademark humor along the way...
Giant Arapaima...
Awesome...
Layers of Fact-Checkers...
ABC News mis-labels Iraq on the map in this broadcast – as Iran. What exactly was your complaint with bloggers, again?
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
The Dog Poem...
Via my lovely bride:
Why own a dog? There's a danger you knowFor the record, we've curbed our addiction at four. We think...
You can't own just one, for the craving will grow.
There's no doubt they're addictive, wherein lies the danger.
While living with lots, you'll grow poorer and stranger.
One dog is no trouble, and two are so funny.
The third one is easy, the fourth one's a honey.
The fifth one's delightful, the sixth one's a breeze,
You find you can live with a houseful of ease.
So how 'bout another? Would you really dare?
They're really quite easy but, oh, Lord the hair!
With dogs on the sofa and dogs on the bed,
And crates in the kitchen, it's no bother, you've said.
They're really no trouble, their manners are great.
What's one more dog and just one more crate?
The sofa is hairy, the windows are crusty,
The floor is all footprints, the furniture dusty.
The housekeeping suffers, but what do you care?
Who minds a few noseprints and a little more hair?
So let's keep a puppy, you can always find room,
And a little more time for the dust cloth and broom.
There's hardly a limit to the dogs you can add,
The thought of a cutback sure makes you sad.
Each one is so special, so useful, so funny.
The vet and food bills grows larger, you owe BIG money.
Your folks never visit, few friends come to stay,
Except other "dog folks" who live the same way.
Your lawn has now died, and your shrubs are dead too,
But your weekends are busy, you're off with your crew.
There's dog food and vitamins, training and shots.
And entries and travel and motels which cost lots.
Is it worth it you wonder? Are you caught in a trap?
Then that favorite one comes and climbs in your lap.
His look says you're special and you know that you will
Keep all of the critters in spite of the bill.
Some just for showing and some just to breed.
And some just for loving, they all fill a need.
God, winter's a hassle, the dogs hate it too.
But they must have their walks though they're numb and your blue.
Late evening is awful, you scream and you shout
At the dogs on the sofa who refuse to go out.
The dogs and the dog shows, the travel, the thrills,
The work and the worry, the pressure, the bills.
The whole thing seems worth it, the dogs are your life.
They're charming and funny and offset the strife.
Your life-style has changed. Things won't be the same.
Yes, those dogs are addictive and so is the dog game.
American Eggs are Not the Same as British Eggs...
It would be illegal to sell American eggs in a British supermarket. It would also be illegal to sell British eggs in an American supermarket. How can this be?
Viking Navigation...
I've read several times speculation that the Vikings used polarized light to help navigate. They didn't know that's what they were doing, they just discovered “sunstones” – calcite crystals – that naturally polarized light and could be used to tell where the sun was even on a cloudy day, and before sunrise or after sunset.
Now it appears that scientists have actually found a sunstone in the wreck of a Viking ship.
Awesome dudes, those Vikings...
Now it appears that scientists have actually found a sunstone in the wreck of a Viking ship.
Awesome dudes, those Vikings...
We Had One of These...
We could never play the darned thing, because we didn't have any of the 16.66 RPM records for it. I don't even know if ours worked...
Criminal!
If this isn't a crime, it should be:
The Obama administration wants the sequestration to be as painful as possible, and as visible as possible, to further their political aims. The best interests of American citizens are not part of their calculus...
Rope.
Tree.
Obama official.
Some assembly required.
In the email sent Monday by Charles Brown, an official with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service office in Raleigh, N.C., Mr. Brown asked “if there was any latitude” in how to spread the sequester cuts across the region to lessen the impacts on fish inspections.Translation: A government official asks if he can spread the sequestration effects around so as to minimize the impact. Answer: not if doing so prevents the sequestration impacts we've been warning about.
He said he was discouraged by officials in Washington, who gave him this reply: “We have gone on record with a notification to Congress and whoever else that ‘APHIS would eliminate assistance to producers in 24 states in managing wildlife damage to the aquaculture industry, unless they provide funding to cover the costs.’ So it is our opinion that however you manage that reduction, you need to make sure you are not contradicting what we said the impact would be.”
The Obama administration wants the sequestration to be as painful as possible, and as visible as possible, to further their political aims. The best interests of American citizens are not part of their calculus...
Rope.
Tree.
Obama official.
Some assembly required.
An Interesting Correlation...
One of my favorite AGW skeptics is Warren Meyer, proprietor of CoyoteBlog. He's put together a presentation on AGW skepticism that includes the chart below. It shows that life expectancy in any given country is quite closely correlated with that country's CO2 emissions (which are themselves a good proxy for fossil fuel consumption). The more fossil fuels a country uses, the longer its citizens can expect to live.
He's not arguing that fossil fuel consumption directly causes longer lives, but rather that something(s) else is causing both the increase. He doesn't say what, but I'd offer up prosperity and accumulated wealth as those causes.
He's not arguing that fossil fuel consumption directly causes longer lives, but rather that something(s) else is causing both the increase. He doesn't say what, but I'd offer up prosperity and accumulated wealth as those causes.
A Tale of Two Dummys...
Via my mom:
I knew he reminded me of somebody famous...Nailed it.
On the left is the famous "Walter", Jeff Dunham's dummy.
The one on the right is Obama's dummy.
The “Smarty Pants” Test...
My lovely bride requested that I take this “Smart or Stoopid” test. I guess she's worried about my diminished mental capacity. I got a 28. I have no idea what it's actually measuring, though – certainly not IQ!
Categorical Thinking...and the Climate Debate...
Via reader and friend Doug W., an article by Craig Loehle exploring a notion that's new to me, though when I google the term I get a few bazillion hits. My engineer's brain translates that notion into “binary thinking” vs. “analog thinking”. Some might say “black and white thinking” vs. “more nuanced thinking”. What's new in this article is connecting categorical thinking to the way the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) debate is polarized. A key bit:
Categorical thinking is common in life. It is a critical mental shortcut that brings order to the chaos of sensory input—I do not claim it to be a defect. If someone lies to us once, they are now in the category of liar. This may work for judging likely human behavior but one hurricane is not a trend. If a person is in the clergy, we classify them as good. If they exhibit some defect such as shoplifting, we throw them down to the pits. They are either a saint or not a saint. We don’t say that a politician in the other party is misguided or has different goals from us, we call them evil (and they call each other evil). If some small thing goes wrong on a date or at a wedding, the event is “ruined”. In religion you are either “saved” or not, there is evidently no in-between category of semi-saved or saved part of the time or improved.Mr. Loehle's argument resonates with me, mostly in the way it helps explain the arguments of those credulous of AGW. It's a good read, and not very long...
This categorical thinking permeates the climate change debate. A premise in categorical thinking about the environment that goes back before the current debate is that natural is good and artificial is bad, where artificial means anything affected by humans. In the case of nature this means that wilderness is good and trees planted in rows are bad (though birds don’t necessarily mind the rows). The categorical mindset means that any touch by humans ruins the wilderness, so humans in the US are being progressively excluded from wilderness (roads closed, no snowmobiles, horses banned, etc.) from the wilderness that they are supposed to value so highly. In the climate debate, it goes like this: “There is no doubt that humans have caused warming over the past 50 years. Therefore we must act now.” The question is posed as whether the climate has change, a categorical question. And of course it has changed and of course humans have had some effect even if tiny. The fact that there is some influence of humans is taken to mean that all the bad things one can imagine will consequently follow. In real life no one imagines that if their stock portfolio is yielding 0.1% annually that they are making money and therefore they are going to become rich and therefore they are already rich, but this is how the climate debate plays out, perhaps because climate is not something anyone has direct experience of so it is an abstraction, a “thing” not a process or continuum.
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.Long experience shows that these laws are absolutes...
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.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Lyman Filament Extruder II...
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!
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...
Monday, March 4, 2013
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!
Simi says insane. I say: that looks like fun! Debbie says: No!
Sunday, March 3, 2013
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...
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