Meanwhile, Down Under...

This beast, dubbed “SkyWhale”, is about to take flight.  Tim Blair says: “The perfect symbol of our capital city – a bloated, gaseous, multi-breasted monster feeding those who dwell in its poisonous shadow while leeching off the rest of us”.

Study it a bit, and try to imagine what the artist is trying to convey.

I have no idea.  None at all.  But I'm now newly worried about my friends who hail from the land down under...

Quote of the Day...

Said by my mom, upon reading that 78,000 people have volunteered for a one-way mission to Mars:

It's my fervent hope that all 78,000 that want to settle on Mars are politicians!

Oh, yes.  Let's certainly hope so.  And let's also hope that there isn't some galactic environmental protection agency that will punish us for polluting the now-pristine Mars...

FJ Cruiser: Shakedown Cruise...

Yesterday morning I finished putting on the last of the skid plates (the four lower link skids).  The FJ's “armor” is complete!  And that meant it was time for a shakedown cruise to test all this stuff and work out any rattles, loose bolts, etc.

I decided to start out with a route we know well: entering near Banner, we made a loop of the Rodriguez Canyon road and Oriflamme Canyon road.  In past years, the Rodriguez Canyon road was by far the more rugged – but this year, extensive erosion on the lower reaches of Oriflamme Canyon road gives that route the edge.  No matter, the FJ took it all in stride with ease and equanimity.  We scraped a skid just twice, showing off the FJ's high clearance.  We had a chance to exercise crawl mode, the A-Trac positive traction system, the rear differential lock, and of course basic four wheel drive; all performed flawlessly. 

Today I get to crawl under the FJ and see what needs tightening, and maybe do a little touch-up painting.  Oh, what fun :)

Along the way we saw a few wildflowers, actually unexpected at this late date.  Some of these were quite beautiful.  The tiny little blue ones were my favorite; they covered the ground in a few places like a blue gas hugging the ground.  As always, click to enlarge.  BTW, these were taken with my iPhone – that's an amazingly nice camera for its size...

Dancing Granny...

Via Rachel Lucas, this is a slightly different version of a video I've posted before.  But what the hell, it's still wonderful :)

Consumer Reports Really, Really Likes the Tesla Model S...

They note with some regret the 200 mile limitation, but otherwise they make the Tesla Model S sound like basically the perfect car:

Math-for-Programming Primers...

Here's a nice collection of very terse math primers on a bunch of different math topics that are frequently used in programming...

Benghazi...

Several readers have emailed to ask me why I'm not commenting on this story.  Mainly it's because there's nothing for me to add.  The entire disgusting, sickening story is now emerging.  I still have no intuition whether the main culprits (Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, in my view) will be held to account.  I certainly hope so, but I can't say I'm optimistic about that.  But even that emotion is completely dwarfed by something else I'm feeling: an overwhelming sense of despair and resignation about politics sublimating everything good about my country.  It's getting to the point where it's difficult to imagine anything short of a revolution effecting a cure.  Another Thatcher or Reagan, perhaps...though I don't see anyone like that emerging.

Peggy Noonan has a good piece in today's Wall Street Journal discussing Benghazi.  Here's her summary of the affair:

The Obama White House sees every event as a political event. Really, every event, even an attack on a consulate and the killing of an ambassador.

Because of that, it could not tolerate the idea that the armed assault on the Benghazi consulate was a premeditated act of Islamist terrorism. That would carry a whole world of unhappy political implications, and demand certain actions. And the American presidential election was only eight weeks away. They wanted this problem to go away, or at least to bleed the meaning from it.

Because the White House could not tolerate the idea of Benghazi as a planned and deliberate terrorist assault, it had to be made into something else. So they said it was a spontaneous street demonstration over an anti-Muhammad YouTube video made by a nutty California con man. After all, that had happened earlier in the day, in Cairo. It sounded plausible. And maybe they believed it at first. Maybe they wanted to believe it. But the message was out: Provocative video plus primitive street Arabs equals sparky explosion. Not our fault. Blame the producer! Who was promptly jailed.

If what happened in Benghazi was not a planned and prolonged terrorist assault, if it was merely a street demonstration gone bad, the administration could not take military action to protect Americans there. You take military action in response to a planned and coordinated attack by armed combatants. You don't if it's an essentially meaningless street demonstration that came and went.

The rest of her piece is interesting as well.

The current Crowder (with a guest appearance by Andrew Klavan) is also an effective summary.


You know this all means we need:

   Rope (lots of it).
   Trees (an entire forest full of them).
   Bureaucrats and their leaders (an administration full of them).
   Some assembly required.

Oh, That's Gonna Leave a Mark!

Let's say that you're a big government organization.  Let's say that you have an application where your computers really, really need to be reliable.  Like, say, NASA's computers on the International Space Station.  What's the absolute last operating system you would choose for those computers?

Everyone I know in IT or programming would instantly say “Windows!”.  Naturally, NASA chose Windows.  Windows XP, to be precise.

But...even NASA eventually got tired of crashing, virus-vulnerable computers.  They just switched to Linux (Debian 6). 

Somewhere a Microsoft salesperson is being boiled in oil while Bill Gates stirs and Steve Ballmer piles on the coal...

The True Culprit...

Megan McArdle does what she does best: a merciless beating applied to a government agency.  A sample:

Central States is in particularly bad shape, but it's far from alone.  A whole lot of the big union pension plans are in trouble.  This is usually cited as an example of The Trouble With Unions, or alternatively, The Scandalous Underregulation of the Private Sector.  As I dug into the details though, I found out something that surprised me: this wasn't just a story about union mismanagement.  And it wasn't a story about deregulation, either.  Oh, to be sure, the funds could have managed things better (more about that in a little while).  But the reason that they're in such deep trouble now is neither bad management, nor inadequate regulation.  In fact, the opposite is true: managers wanted to do a better job, and the government actively stopped them.  Meet the true culprit behind the crisis in union pension plans: the friendly folks at the IRS.  

You really should read the whole thing...

I Don't Need Any Reinforcement...

I don't need any reinforcement of the disdain I have for our president, Barack Hussein Obama.  But just in case you do, go read this.

As Simon says, the expression on Buzz Aldrin's face says it all...

Evolution Often Got There First...

Stealth aircraft and ships are a response to radar and sonar; they make the targets hard to find.  Electronic counter-warfare (ECW) kicks it up a notch: ECW systems actively fool radar or sonar, either by jamming them so they can't receive a signal, or by deliberately tricking them into thinking their target is somewhere it isn't.

Evolution produced all of these defenses (against the echo-location, or sonar, of bats) long before humans ever did so...

In Praise of CO2...

Harrison Schmitt (of Apollo fame) and William Happer have an interesting article in today's WSJ.  The lead:

Of all of the world's chemical compounds, none has a worse reputation than carbon dioxide. Thanks to the single-minded demonization of this natural and essential atmospheric gas by advocates of government control of energy production, the conventional wisdom about carbon dioxide is that it is a dangerous pollutant. That's simply not the case. Contrary to what some would have us believe, increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will benefit the increasing population on the planet by increasing agricultural productivity.

Read the whole thing...

Older Programmers Are Hard to Find...

I've noticed this phenomenon myself: there aren't enough 50+ year old programmers.  What do I mean by “not enough”?  Take me as an example.  I turned 60 years old last year, and was still gainfully employed as a programmer.  If I had followed a normal career progression (I didn't, but never mind that), I'd have graduated from college in about 1974 or so.  There was a cohort of engineers who became programmers who graduated in that same year.  Where are they?  There aren't enough 60 year old programmers this year to account for that cohort.

This article explores this phenomenon with some actual data (Stack Overflow membership).  I must point out, though, that the Stack Overflow data could easily be systematically biased.  I'm not a member, for example – and it could easily be the case that older programmers are generally less interested in things like Stack Overflow...

The Hazards of p-Values...

The p-values of statistical analysis get people in trouble all the time.  Here's a great explanation of how they do it...

Almaleea subumbellata...

Common name wiry bushpea, native to Australia and Tasmania.  Via BPOD, of course:

Good Doggie!

Watch:


I can't find the origin of this, but what it appears to be is a video of someone firing his gun at police, then being taken down by a dog (presumably a police dog) that jumps right over the car to get him.  The police then approach, guns pointed at him.

Good doggie!  Lots of treats for him that night, I'll bet...

FJ Cruiser: Rear Differential Skid...

Late yesterday afternoon, Federal Express delivered a heavy box to us, containing the Boztec rear differential skid I'd ordered.  This thing is a single piece of quarter inch thick steel, cut, formed, and welded to form a protective cover for the rear differential housing (which is a relatively fragile casting). At right is what the parts looked like after I laid them out as I started installing it.

The big part is the skid itself, seen from the top.  It's a beautifully fabricated piece of metal.  The two “wings” sticking out left and right mate up with the bottom of the rear axle housing.  The 3/4" thick bracket visible at the bottom is the bottom half of the bracket connecting around the differential housing where the drive shaft enters (the front side); the odd-shaped bracket (top center) is the top half of that bracket.  The U-bolts go around the rear axle housing, and hold the axle housing wings in place.

At left you can see what it looks like after installation, as seen from below the rear of the FJ.  It's like a steel hand wrapped around the differential housing.  I think I'd have to try really, really hard to hurt the differential now that this thing is in place!

Installing it was very straightforward.  I just held it roughly in place with my left hand while loosely installing and putting the nuts on the U-bolts with my right hand.  Then I rotated the skid until the bracket clanked into place, and loosely installed the hex-head bolts onto the top half of its bracket.  Then I did a little pounding (rubber mallet and a hardwood dowel) to get the U-bolts rotated so that the top brackets were level.  There's a hard brake line running just behind those brackets once they're installed; those were a little too close to the brackets for my liking, so I bent them slightly to move them away.  The trickiest part of the entire installation was figuring out how to get my socket wrench and Allen wrench into a position where I could put enough torque on all the nuts and bolts.  The entire process was just under an hour, front-to-back.  I wish the other skids had been so easy!

European Drums of Doom...

Bureaucracy run amok, coming here soon, I'm sure:

A new law proposed by the European Commission would make it illegal to "grow, reproduce or trade" any vegetable seeds that have not been "tested, approved and accepted" by a new EU bureaucracy named the "EU Plant Variety Agency."

It's called the Plant Reproductive Material Law, and it attempts to put the government in charge of virtually all plants and seeds. Home gardeners who grow their own plants from non-regulated seeds would be considered criminals under this law.

Don't Mess With the Old Dogs...

Via my lovely bride, this parable of age vs. youth:

One day an old German Shepherd starts chasing rabbits and before long, discovers that he's lost. Wandering about, he notices a panther heading rapidly in his direction with the intention of having lunch.

The old German Shepherd thinks, "Oh, oh! I'm in deep weeds now!"

Noticing some bones on the ground close by, he immediately settles down to chew on the bones with his back to the approaching cat. Just as the panther is about to leap, the old German Shepherd exclaims loudly, "Boy, that was one delicious panther! I wonder, if there are any more around here?"

Hearing this, the young panther halts his attack in mid-strike, a look of terror comes over him and he slinks away into the trees.

"Whew!," says the panther, "That was close! That old German Shepherd nearly had me!"

Meanwhile, a squirrel who had been watching the whole scene from a nearby tree, figures he can put this knowledge to good use and trade it for protection from the panther. So, off he goes.

The squirrel soon catches up with the panther, spills the beans and strikes a deal for himself with the panther.

The young panther is furious at being made a fool of and says, "Here, squirrel, hop on my back and see what's going to happen to that conniving canine!"

Now, the old German Shepherd sees the panther coming with the squirrel on his back and thinks, "What am I going to do now?," but instead of running, the dog sits down with his back to his attackers, pretending he hasn't seen them yet, and just when they get close enough to hear, the old German Shepherd says "Where's that squirrel? I sent him off an hour ago to bring me another panther!"

The moral of this story: Don't mess with the old dogs - experience and skill will always overcome youth and treachery!

The Drums of Doom Beat Ever Closer...

In California they do.  We're raising a generation on notions like this one: that a Swiss Army knife is an evil weapon:

A fifth-grader in Cupertino, California was suspended and threatened with expulsion for bringing a small Swiss Army knife on a school-sponsored, science-oriented camping trip.

We have got to get out of here...

A Beautiful Piece of Code...

Not only is this beautiful code, but it involves regular expressions, was written by Rob Pike, and is explained by Brian Kernighan (two of my heroes while learning to program).  Awesome geekery!

Would You Fly With This Man?

Via my mom:

Geek One-Liners...

Via reader Simi L.:

• I used to work in a fire hydrant factory. You couldn't park anywhere near the place.
• Last week, I went to a furniture store to look for a decaffeinated coffee table. They couldn't help me.
• What's another word for "thesaurus"?
• When I get real bored, I like to drive downtown and get a great parking spot, then sit in my car and count how many people ask if I'm leaving.
• When I was a kid, we had a quicksand box in the backyard. I was an only child . . . eventually.
• I bought some batteries, but they weren't included. So I had to buy them again.
• For my birthday I got a humidifier and a dehumidifier. I put them in the same room and let them fight it out.
• I have a switch in my apartment that doesn't do anything. Every once in a while I turn it on and off. One day I got a call from a guy in France who said, "Cut it out!"
• I replaced the headlights on my car with strobe lights. Now it looks like I'm the only one moving.
• I wrote a song, but I can't read music. Every time I hear a new song on the radio, I think "Hey, maybe I wrote that."
• I got my driver's license photo taken out of focus on purpose. Now when I get pulled over the cop looks at it (moving it nearer and farther, trying to see it clearly)... and says, "Here, you can go."
• I went to a general store, but they wouldn't let me buy anything specific.
• I turned my air conditioner the other way around, and it got cold out. The weatherman said, "I don't understand it. It was supposed to be 80 degrees out today." I said "Oops . . ."
• I put contact lenses in my dog's eyes. They had little pictures of cats on them. Then I took one out and he ran around in circles.
• I spilled Spot remover on my dog. Now he's gone.
• My neighbor has a circular driveway. He can't get out.
• I bought some powdered water, but I didn't know what to add.
• I put instant coffee in a microwave and almost went back in time.
• I have an answering machine in my car. It says, "I'm home now, but leave a message and I'll call when I'm out."
• I bought a house on a one-way dead-end road. I don't know how I got there.
• I have a hobby. I have the world's largest collection of sea shells. I keep it scattered on beaches all over the world. Maybe you've seen some of it.
• I Xeroxed a mirror. Now I have an extra Xerox machine.
• Last week I forgot how to ride a bicycle.
• My school colors were clear.
• I stayed in a really old hotel last night. They sent me a wakeup letter.
• I'm taking La maze classes. I'm not having a baby, I'm just having trouble breathing.
• When I was in high school, I got in trouble with my girlfriend's Dad. He said, "I want my daughter back by 8:15." I said, "The middle of August? Cool!"
• My girlfriend's weird. One day she asked me, "If you could know how and when you were going to die, would you want to know?" I said, "No." She said, "Okay, forget it."
• I went for a walk last night and she asked me how long I was going to be gone. I said, "The whole time."
• My buddy got busted for counterfeiting. He was making pennies. They caught him because he was putting the heads and tails on the wrong sides.
• He's in a minimum security prison now; he's on a whiffle-ball and chain.
• Hermits have no peer pressure.
• Whenever I think of the past, it brings back so many memories .
• There's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot.
• How much deeper would the ocean be if sponges didn't live there?
• Did Washington just flash a quarter for his ID?
• I just got skylights put in my place. The people who live above me are furious.
• Imagine if birds were tickled by feathers.
• I remember when the candle shop burned down. Everyone stood around singing "Happy Birthday".
• I accidentally installed the deer whistles on my car backwards. Now everywhere I go, I'm chased by a herd of deer.
• I got stopped by a cop the other day. He said, "Why'd you run that stop sign?" I said, "Because I don't believe everything I read."
• It doesn't matter what temperature a room is, it's always room temperature.
• Yesterday, my eyeglass prescription ran out.
• I'm a peripheral visionary.
• I make my own water - two glasses of H, one glass of O.
• Ballerinas are always on their toes. Why don't they just get taller ballerinas?
• The other day, I went to a tourist information booth and asked, "Tell me about some of the people who were here last year."
• Why in a country of free speech, are there phone bills?

I Could Hang With This Guy...

More on his web site...

Sulfur Hexafluoride...

The London Cabbie...

Via my lovely bride:

A devout Arab Muslim entered a black cab in London . He curtly asked the cabbie to turn off the radio because as decreed by his religious teaching, he must not listen to music because "in the time of the prophet there was no music, especially Western music which is the music of the infidel."

The cab driver politely switched off the radio, stopped the cab and opened the door. The Arab Muslim asked him, "What are you doing?"

The cabbie answered, "In the time of the prophet there were no taxis, so get out and wait for a camel!"

Bidding on the Impossible Job...

I ran across this funny story about someone advertising a request for bids on an impossible programming job – and then getting (apparently) serious responses!

After I was done laughing, though, I started thinking about my very first programming job (that is, programming I did for money).  It happened much as in this story, except that it was before the Internet, so it all happened by snail mail.  Here's the outline:

The year was 1976.  Don Tarbell (founder of the then-famous Tarbell Electronics) had some very successful S100 boards, most especially his floppy disk interface.  He wanted a low cost Basic interpreter that he could sell along with his floppy boards; something that would compete with the dominant Microsoft Basic.  So he placed an ad in a computer hobbyist magazine (probably either TCH or Byte, but I've forgotten) asking for a quote on a Basic interpreter, written using “structured programming” techniques.  The ad was short, and very light on details; I'm sure Don was expecting it to be a catalyst for a more detailed discussion.

At that point I was still enlisted in the U.S. Navy.  Someone pointed out the ad to me, and suggested that I respond.  Those who know me will have trouble understanding just how incredibly naive I was back then about the ways of business.  Well, maybe they'll have trouble :)  Anyway, there were several very good reasons why my responding was completely crazy.

For starters, I had no idea what Basic was.  I'd never seen Basic, never written any Basic programs.  In fact, I'd never used a high level language of any kind.  My entire programming experience at that point was in machine code and assembly language (which, to me, was a high level language - macros!).

Then there was the niggling little detail that I didn't have any kind of programming environment.  I owned a 4MHz Z80 computer that I'd built from a kit, with 64 KB of RAM (woo hoo!).  The 5V linear power supply on that thing weighed about 50 pounds, and the computer put out enough heat to warm up a good sized room.  But there was no mass storage on it, and I didn't even have an assembler program.

Another challenge was that I didn't actually have a business yet, and I knew utterly nothing about contracts.  I also knew absolutely nothing about negotiations, or licensing, or anything else that smacked of business.

What I did know how to do was to write assembly language programs.  I figured that nothing else really mattered much.

So I wrote Don Tarbell a letter.  It was hand-printed in ink on Teletype roll paper, which is what I had at hand.  I wish I had a copy of that letter, but I don't.  It wasn't very long, and I can relate the important details from memory: I told Don that I'd write that Basic interpreter for $2,000, and that I'd deliver it in four months.  I dropped it in the post and forgot about it.

A few weeks later, I got a letter back from Don, telling me that if I could deliver that interpreter by the agreed date, he'd buy it from me.  As I recall, he had just one specific request: he wanted it to eliminate line numbers.  I agreed to his conditions and got to work.

Much later I had a conversation with Don wherein he told me that he had received several bids.  Most of them were for well over $100,000.  The bid closest to mine was for about $50,000.  The fastest delivery time quoted was close to a year, and a couple of them were for well over a year.  These bids were all from companies that routinely did programming jobs.  Don could tell from my letter (posted from the U.S.S. Long Beach!) that I was absolutely an amateur.  He judged it quite unlikely that I could deliver a usable product in the time given, but he also figured the risk to him was zero – so why not give me a chance?  That's the only reason I got the contract.

But back to my project.  The first thing I had to do was to get some kind of mass storage on my system – so I bought a couple floppy disk drives and a floppy interface card from Don.  Then I had to get an assembler.  I found a complete code listing for one in a magazine, typed it all in, got it to work, and then modified the crap out of it.  I added capability for “long” symbols (more than 6 characters!) and lots of debugger enhancements.  All this preparation took about a month of my four months, so I had just three months left.

I got to work.  I got a bootleg copy of Microsoft Basic and just played with it until had learned what the Basic language was all about.  I had no idea how to write an interpreter, and I had no reference material to work from.  There was no Internet for me to Google.  So I just thought about how to make one, and started writing code.  All my assembly language experience served me well during this work.  I understood a lot about how to write compact and efficient code, and I understood the capabilities and limitations of the Z-80 (that was my target machine) very well.  Interpreters for a simple language like Basic are actually quite straightforward beasts.  You don't have to worry about concurrency, for example.  The challenges were mainly in getting the code small enough to fit easily in 16 kb or less of RAM while still be fast enough to be useful. 

As things turned out, I spent most of my development time in two areas: the floating point math package, and the string package.  I probably spent two solid weeks simply on printing a formatted number.  Those areas were really the only parts that turned out to be difficult to write.

I wish I'd kept the notes and “design documents” for all that work, just to amuse myself (and perhaps others).  The designs were all done in my own made-up pseudocode, in pencil on scratch paper.  The pseudocode mostly made it into the assembly language comments, which helped when debugging.  I made liberal use of macros for some of the common structured programming constructs (such as  a “while” loop). 

Don would call me every few weeks, I suspect just to see if I'd given up yet.  As the delivery date approached, Don started to sound a little excited – the list of remaining Basic commands to implement started getting quite short.  In fact, I finished them all by about three weeks before the delivery deadline – but of course I had numerous bugs, some of them quite nasty “crashers” that would take out the entire system.  For that last three weeks or so, all I did was test, debug, and fix, in a cycle that seemed to repeat endlessly.

Just a couple of days before the deadline, I started to gain some confidence that I had built something deliverable.  My test programs were largely working.  There were some performance issues (especially with transcendental functions, like sines or logarithms), but in general my interpreter was faster than Microsoft Basic.  That really isn't an apples-and-apples comparison, as the Microsoft interpreter worked on 8080 machines (which the Z80 was compatible with, but extended).  I took advantage of the extra power of the Z80, which by that time dominated the personal computer scene.  But still...to beat Microsoft at that game felt pretty good.

I didn't sleep at all for the two days prior to the deadline.  I spent that entire time polishing every little thing I could.  Then I climbed into my beater of a car and made the drive up to Carson, California (a hundred miles or so north of where I lived at the time) to deliver it to Don.

When I walked into his shop I was  entranced.  Hardware was everywhere, and there were dozens of floppy systems set up for assembly or testing.  Don dropped everything else and we sat down together to install and demonstrate the interpreter on his system.  We had no trouble at all, really. He typed in a few short test programs, and got a big grin as they all worked just like he expected.  He then told me he had a “test suite” (something I'd never heard of at the time :) that he'd written and wrung out on Microsoft Basic, and he wanted to try it on mine.

That was a terrifying moment for me.  Once he'd explained what the test suite was, I instantly saw both the utility of it and the nearly infinite possibilities it provided for failure.  I was agonizing about this as he loaded up that test suite and kicked it off.  It printed out its progress as things went along, with the name of a test followed by “OK”, “Error”, or “Delta”. after it.  The “Delta” meant the result was different than Microsoft Basic, but not necessarily wrong.  As I recall, his test suite had about 200 tests in it, and the results were about 150 OK, 10 Error, and the rest Delta.  I was behind Don as he ran this, so I didn't know how he was reacting until he turned around.  He had an ear-to-ear grin, stuck out his hand for a handshake, and said “Accepted!”  Later he told me that he expected it to crash on his test suite, and that he was astonished to find it in such close correspondence to Microsoft Basic.  Whew!

Don handed me a check for $2,000 and took me out to lunch.  He then asked if I'd be willing to contract with him for enhancements and bug fixes.  My assumption was that the bug fixes were my responsibility, so when he said he was willing to pay for them I was very happily surprised :)  That started a collaboration that lasted several years.  Don kept coming up with ideas for enhancements, and we constantly nibbled away at performance issues.  He was delighted to be able to boast that Tarbell Basic (as he named it) was faster than Microsoft Basic, even though that wasn't one of the initial requirements.  That collaboration is what got me started on a career in software.  What a start!

Tarbell Basic never was a big commercial success for Don.  I know he got some satisfaction from it, though, and he did more than recover his costs.  After Don was done with enhancements, another company (the now-defunct NH Research) decided to use it for their line of automated power supply testers, based on the IEEE-488 bus.  They wanted some enhancements specific to their needs, and they contracted me to provide them.  So that project provided me with much-needed income even after Don was done with it, into the early '80s.

For years afterward, I assumed I'd never hear about Tarbell Basic again.  But then came the Internet, and some (crazy!) people who decided it would be a good idea to write simulators for Z80s and CP/M that ran on modern computers, and to curate all this ancient software.  There's a sizable community of these folks, and they've collected a large number of software packages – including Tarbell Basic (Don eventually put the source code for it in the public domain).  My name is all over the source code, and my name is easy to Google – and it wasn't long after that that I started getting queries from these new/old hobbyists.  Probably I've averaged two or three queries a year since about 1996; the last one was just last week.  Sometimes the queries are questions, sometimes requests for enhancements or bug fixes, and sometimes angry accusations about my incompetence (that's what the most recent one was :). 


I don't have any interest in running that old code myself.  But I sure wish I had those old notes!

Spider Termination...

Governor Awesome squashed a spider in front of some school kids the other day.  They applauded (see video below).  PETA calls it a “thoughtless act”.

Hmm...  Seems quite thoughtful to me!

Somehow when I think about PETA, the drums of doom start playing in the background...

The Wisdom of Humorist Steven Wright...

Via my cousin Mike D.:

• I woke up one morning, and all of my stuff had been stolen and replaced by exact duplicates.
• I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.
• Borrow money from pessimists -- they don't expect it back.
• Half the people you know are below average.
• 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.
• 82.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
• A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
• If you want the rainbow, you got to put up with the rain.
• All those who believe in psycho kinesis, raise my hand.
• The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
• I almost had a psychic girlfriend, But she left me before we met.
• OK, so what's the speed of dark?
• How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?
• If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
• Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
• When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
• Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.
• Hard work pays off in the future; laziness pays off now.
• I intend to live forever. So far, so good.
• If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?
• Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
• What happens if you get scared to death twice?
• My mechanic told me, "I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder."
• Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?
• If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
• A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.
• Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
• The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.
• To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.
• The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.
• The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up.
• The colder the x-ray table, the more of your body is required to be on it.
• Everyone has a photographic memory; some just don't have film.
• If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
• If your car could travel at the speed of light, would your headlights work?

FJ Cruiser: Skids...

I purchased All-Pro's series of skid plates last month, including the transfer case/exhaust skid plate.  With some help from All-Pro a week or so ago, I got the front suspension skid installed.  I needed their help because the front-most holes in the skid weren't in the right place, or so I thought.  The real problem turned out to be some new parts (new for the 2013 model year) that All-Pro had never seen before.  These were small formed brackets.  When these brackets were removed, the front suspension skid fit just fine.  I was able to get the transmission skid plate in by myself; everything fit fine on it.

But then when I went to install the transfer case/exhaust skid, I ran into several fitment issues.  The worst one was that (again!) the front-most holes were in the wrong place.  This time there were no extra parts for me to remove, so I was stuck again.

I'm very impressed with the design and build quality of All-Pro's parts – but what has even that beat is their service.  These folks know they're dealing with a noob when they work with me, but they didn't hesitate to offer their help whenever I asked.  This time was no exception.  I drove up to Perris with my transfer case/exhaust skid, and Nick went to work on my truck.  To my great relief, he ran into the same issues I did – so it wasn't something completely dumb that I was doing.  It took him almost three hours, but he eventually got my skid installed.  He had to modify it slightly (drilling out those front-most holes to a larger diameter), but mostly what he did was to put things together in the right order and then pry, knock, bump, and cajole the parts into place so they could be bolted in.  I learned a great deal about the art of fitment in the face of annoyingly loose Toyota tolerances.  In fact, if I had any idea what I was doing I could have done all the things Nick did with my tools at home – but there is that pesky problem that I don't know what I'm doing :)

Bottom line: if you need armor for your FJ Cruiser, I recommend All-Pro without reservation.  Great products, service, and people!

In the end, I drove home with all three of the main skid plates installed.  The bottom of our FJ is now armored quite nicely; we'll have to try very hard to damage anything.  I still have a little more armor to install: the lower links for the rear suspension have their own cute little skids (four of them, one for each joint), and I have a rear differential skid on the way here.  After that, we're “armored up” and ready for bear...

The Kid and the Camel...

These two get along very well...


Sorry about the no blogging yesterday - I was on the road to Perris, California to get my transfer case/exhaust skid modified and installed...

Smithsonian Photo Contest Winners...

Seven beautiful images.  Here's one taken by Bjorn Olesen in Borneo:

Thunderstorm Over Montana...

Via APOD:

This Is How To Apologize...

Niall Ferguson is a historian and author who has written several books I've greatly enjoyed (especially his The Ascent of Money).  Apparently he made some comments about John Maynard Keynes a few days ago that greatly offended some people, and he has apologized publicly for them.  I haven't heard or read the remarks, so I don't know what the kerfuffle is all about.  The apology, however, stands out from the usual for what it doesn't have: any attempt to evade responsibility.

Our politicians could learn a few lessons from Mr. Ferguson.  Sanford, Weiner, Bloomberg, et al – I'm looking at you!

Geek Humor...

Passed along by friend and reader Simon M.:

House Finch Babies...

Captured a few minutes ago...


We can see four little beaks in here. Either one of the five eggs didn't make it, or one baby is buried!

90 Year-Old Does a Double Backflip...

...and friend, former colleague, and reader Doug S. is very impressed:

An Old-Fashioned Self-Reliant American Speaks...

...from New Jersey, where they are an endangered species (here in California, they are almost extinct).

What Makes People Think He's Smart?

Yesterday Obama gave a speech in Mexico in which he said:

“Drug-fueled violence in Mexico is not entirely the fault of the Mexican people, he said. Instead, the United States shares the blame because much of the violence is centered around the Americans’ demand for illegal drugs and the fact that guns are smuggled into Mexico from the United States.”

Is Obama even aware of Fast & Furious?  Does he have any clue at all just how tone-deaf that sounds to any American familiar with the news?  Yeah, there were a bunch of guns smuggled from the U.S. into Mexico, all right – by a U.S. government sponsored program - run by the Obama administrations very own Eric Holder!

Good grief.

He's lame, all right...

A Governor Who Shoots Semi-Automatic Rifles...

Now what state do you suppose he's from?  I'll give you one guess, and the first two don't count:

Quote of the Day...

By Peggy Noonan, writing about President Obama:

He's not a lame duck, he's just lame.

Women of the NRA...

“Fiendish” Cipher from WWII...

Via Bruce Schneier, this fascinating story of a POW sending coded messages in his letters to his family...

DIP...

“DIP” (or Dependency Inversion Principle) sounds very odd to me...

FJ Cruiser: Rear Bumper Complete...

Here's the promised photo of the completed rear bumper.  Debbie found an awesome hitch receiver cover that hasn't arrived yet (a milled copy of the “Don't Tread On Me” flag) which will provide the finishing touch.

The orange arrow points out the rear quarter panel plastic that I worked so hard to preserve (much hand sawing was involved with this!).

The blue arrow points out the backup lights.  I've physically installed them, but have not yet wired them up (that's a job for tomorrow).  These are 55 watt halogen bulbs that are used as the headlights in many cars – should light up the world behind me quite nicely when I'm backing this thing up!

The green arrow points out the hitch receiver (2" Class IV). 

The yellow arrow points out the D-ring hard points.  These are on both the front and rear of the vehicle, and provide a very convenient attachment point for winch lines (if someone else is pulling us out of trouble).  All of these can hold the entire vehicle weight.  With these plus the rock rails, we've now got great attachment points all the way around the vehicle.  In addition, both the bumpers and the rock rails make fine places for the hi-lift jack to get under.

I'm headed up to All-Pro (in Perris, California) on Monday to get their help with the transfer case/exhaust skid plate.  They don't know any reason why it won't fit other than some design change to the 2013 FJ model.  I'm the very first customer of theirs to attempt fitting all this stuff to a 2013, so I'm the one running into the fitment issues.  There have only been a couple issues so far, and in both cases the fine folks at All-Pro have committed to me that they would make it right.  For instance, in the current case of the transfer case/exhaust skid plate – they've told me that if they can't make the standard one fit, they'll make one for me that does fit.  Can't really ask for more than that!

I Shouldn't Be Surprised...

California's current political context, with Democratic super-majorities in both Houses and a leftist, progressive (Democratic, of course) governor, means that it's possible for California to advance outrageously crazy bills and get them signed by the governor.  For some reason, I keep getting surprised when they do so.

Here's another one in the works – it hasn't passed yet, but the oracles are predicting that it will.

The problem his new bill is addressing is one of those features of ObamaCare with supposedly unforeseen consequences – that were actually completely foreseen by many critics: the “employer mandate” that requires any employer of more than 50 full-time workers.  Many employers in the service sector (restaurants, movie theaters, hotels, etc.) will simply move as many employees as possible from full time to part time.  If you're running a business, this is an obvious tactic to avoid the (large) additional expenses of ObamaCare.  Of course they're going to move those workers to part time – and they should, in order to keep their prices low and competitive.  Any business that didn't would instantly become less efficient and less competitive than it should be.

So imagine you're a California legislator.  What do you do in the face of this?  Well, of course what you do is outlaw moving workers to part time!  Make it illegal for a business to run efficiently, or to compete effectively – yeah, that's the ticket!

The drums of doom beat ever closer.  Especially in California...

Baby House Finches...

Asleep (at 6:45 am):

FJ Cruiser: Rear Bumper...

I'm currently working on the rear bumper and some additional lighting (more on that in a later post).  At right is what the back of the FJ looked like after I finished disassembling the factory rear bumper.  The blue arrow points out the steel core that's hidden deep inside the plastic cover (purely cosmetic) of the factory bumper.  That steel is quite sturdy, unlike the plastic cover.  The red arrow shows the rear quarter panel with the pretty plastic removed.

The challenge for All-Pro (the maker of my new bumper) was that the pretty plastic for the rear quarter panels needed to remain intact - but that plastic is made out of a single piece that incorporates both rear quarter panels and the plastic cover of the bumper itself.  In the photo below you can see this piece as it looks when removed from the vehicle, at a point when I'm about halfway through the modifications - modifications that involve drilling and sawing the plastic!

The red arrow points out the hand saw I used to make most of the modifications (the use of this kind of saw was recommended by All-Pro).  The saw has a yellow-and-black handle, and the blade is pointed away from the camera.  If you look closely you can see the kerf of the cut I've already made across over half the width of the bumper plastic.  The blue arrows point out areas that are now open, but used to be solid plastic – these I removed by drilling a hole to allow the saw to start, then sawing all around the edges.  Finally, the yellow arrow points out the left rear quarter panel's pretty plastic – salvaging this is the entire point of the modification exercise.

Hacking away at the plastic of my brandy-new FJ was a little wierd :)

At this point the new bumper is mounted, though a few little details remain.  I am waiting for some lights to arrive so I can install them in the provided holes for the bumper.  We've also ordered a nice hitch receiver cover that I'll install, as it will be a while before we actually use that hitch receiver for anything.  I've also got a few details left, like re-mounting the mud flaps.  When that's all finished, I'll post a photo of it.

Debbie took a close look at the new bumper yesterday and pronounced it “studly”.  I think she's convinced that even i cannot hurt our new FJ now...

The armor on the bottom is about half finished.  The front suspension skid is completely installed, as is the transmission skid.  The transfer case/exhaust skid has a fitment problem which All-Pro is investigating for me.  I've installed one of the four lower link skids; I got stopped by nuts torqued on so hard I simply could not remove them with tools in hand.  However, I've now got a 24" breaker bar, and that will hopefully do the trick!

How A Democrat Thinks...

First, make sure that no one you care about can see or hear you.  Then imagine you're a prominent Democrat.  Pause here to take a stiff drink if necessary; you may want to book a therapy session now if you're so inclined.

Ok, now consider how you should react to your colleague Senator Max Baucus' statement the other day – he said that the implementation of your beloved ObamaCare by the Obama administration was a “train wreck”.  Should you berate him for breaking ranks and sounding like a (gasp) Republican?  That's tempting, but in a moment you'll see that that would be an amateur response.  Should you ignore him?  Nope, better not, as this is starting to get some media attention.  Should you attempt to refute him?  No, no, that just won't do.  First of all, Senator Baucus, most unfortunately (from your Democratic perspective) has the facts on his side.  Even worse, the low-information sheep-like voters that you depend on won't understand the argument, as it would inevitably contain words with more than two syllables and would require an actual understanding of how government and economics work.  Nope, none of these options are good.

So, Mr. Prominent Democrat - what should you do?

Here's where you have a chance to display your mastery of what passes for political discourse in this country.  Here's where you turn what looks like a colleague's defection into a stellar opportunity.

How?

Why, you agree with Senator Baucus, of course.  The Obama administration's implementation of ObamaCare is a train wreck - because we're not spending enough money on it!  Those nasty Republicans are causing problems for ObamaCare by refusing to sink even more money into it!

There, now, see how it's done?  You've just applied political jujitsu to a nasty situation, and turned it to your advantage.  Way to go, Senator Reid!

Of course, the real problem here is that the citizens of Nevada keep re-electing this piece of buzzard excrement.  Why?  You'll have to ask them.  I'm afraid I just cannot fathom it...

Even After He's Dead...

Via my lovely bride:

Quote of the Day...

By Lew Rockwell:

Sadly, we have been conditioned to believe that the job of the government is to keep us safe, but in reality the job of the government is to protect our liberties. Once the government decides that its role is to keep us safe, whether economically or physically, they can only do so by taking away our liberties. That is what happened in Boston.

Exactly.

Old Programmers Don't Just Fade Away...

The software development world (it's management, anyway) in general has a bias against older programmers.  Back in the bad old days when I was part of management, I heard this expressed directly and forcefully, all the way up to the Board level.  The assumption is that older brains are slower brains, and that the extra experience of the older programmers was more than offset by the energy and freshness of the younger folks.  Recruiting in most software companies is (whether subtly or overtly) oriented more toward younger programmers than older.

This study says that bias is wrong...

Sage Advice...

Via my mom:

In a convent in Ireland , the 98-year-old Mother Superior lay dying. The nuns gathered around her bed trying to make her last journey comfortable. They tried giving her warm milk to drink but she refused it.

One of the nuns took the glass back to the kitchen. Then, remembering a bottle of Irish Whiskey that had been received as a gift the previous Christmas, she opened it and poured a generous amount into the warm milk.

Back at Mother Superior's bed, they held the glass to her lips. The frail nun drank a little, then a little more and before they knew it, she had finished the whole glass down to the last drop.

As her eyes brightened, the nuns thought it would be a good opportunity to have one last talk with their spiritual leader.."Mother," the nuns asked earnestly, "Please give us some of your wisdom before you leave us." She raised herself up in bed on one elbow, looked at them and said: "

"DON'T SELL THAT COW."

Hurricane on Saturn...

NASA is calling it “The Rose”.  I'll call it awesome:

Climate Change Causes Prostitution...

I'll bet you didn't know that!  But several CongressCritters have said so, therefore it must be true.  Right?

Well, wait a second.  First, all thirteen of the CongressCritters making this assertion happen to be Democrats.  That's either a pattern or a one-in-8192 coincidence.  I'm going with pattern.

Then the sponsor is Representative Barbara Lee.  That certainly sets off the alarm bells, as Ms. Lee is a veritable poster child for radical progressivism in the U.S.  You'll not be surprised to hear that she's represented a San Francisco Bay district for the past 15 years.

So let's tote this up:
– bill is sponsored by Barbara Lee
– Barbara Lee is from California, San Francisco Bay area
– bill is supported by 13 Democrats
– bill blames climate change

I think we could make an a priori case for the premise being false.  I'm going to go out on a limb and say that climate change does not cause prostitution.

I'm having trouble laughing about this.  Crying seems more appropriate...

Monday Morning Palate Cleanser...

Quote of the Day...

Mark Steyn:

There is a stupidity to this, but also a kind of decadence. Until the 1960s, it was assumed by all sovereign states that they had the right to choose which non-nationals were admitted within their borders. Now, to suggest such a thing risks the charge of “nativism” and to propose that, say, Swedes are easier to assimilate than Chechens is to invite cries of “Racist!” So, when the morgues and emergency rooms are piled high, the only discussion acceptable in polite society is to wonder whether those legless Bostonians should have agitated more forcefully for federally mandated after-school assimilationist basketball programs.

Read the whole thing...

Llama and Goat Update...

Several readers wrote wondering what happened with the llama and goats that showed up at our place earlier this week.  Well, thanks to one of our neighbors (Mike S.) we discovered that the owner was another neighbor (Mike W., about a half mile away) who had recently acquired this animals.  Mike W. came over on Thursday and we roped a couple of the goats, and he took them home.  The llama (named “Katie”) wasn't willing to be captured, so we just left our gate open.  Sometime on Saturday, she apparently started missing her little goat-buddies, and she took off back home.

We are now a llama- and goat-free zone again!  We suffered a little bit of damage to some of our trees (especially, of all things, the palo verde tree).  Worse, one of the damned goats chewed the starter cord for my lawnmower in half, so now I have to fix that thing...

A Close Encounter...

Yesterday afternoon I had a close encounter of the rattlesnake kind, in our yard.  This is a routine summer occurrence out here, but this was the first of this calendar year.

I had all four dogs on leashes, and was walking past our pines, when I heard a fuss, a hiss, and lots of bird squawking.  Just to my right, about six feet away, a pair of tiny canyon wrens was doing battle with a fairly large western diamondback rattlesnake.  The wrens almost certainly have a nest in the vicinity, and were being good bird parents, getting that snake out of the area.  The snake was quite unhappy at the unwanted attention it was getting, and was striking repeatedly at the wrens – but they were too quick for him to ever actually hit them.

I hustled the dogs back into the house, and got our snake stick (a roughly six foot long stick with a pair of tongs operated by a handle – lets me safely pick up snakes).  Debbie got an empty five gallon plastic tub.  When I grabbed that snake and picked it up, we got a good look at its size – about four feet long and roughly 3.5" in diameter in the middle.  A big 'un!

Into the tub he went, and I bungeed down the top.  I hauled him off to a remote area and released him, far from any homes or domestic animals.  Usually when I release rattlesnakes, they sort of slowly slink away.  This guy was still really upset, and he came straight for me, striking at the toe of my (heavy work) boot.  No damage done, but certainly got my heart rate up!

Reader Recommendation: General Contractor, Jamul Area...

Reader Steve K. (who lives “down the hill” in Jamul town) asked me to pass along his recommendation for a general contractor based in Jamul.  Gladly!  Says Steve:

I love getting first hand recommendations for products and services and I‘ve gotten several from you and your readers over the years via your blog. Now I’d like to return the favor. I recently completed a large project at my house that involved grading, foundation, concrete, framing, electrical, and plumbing work. Initially I was shopping around for individual contractors that worked in these various trades, but it began to occur to me that there were going to be things that fell in the gaps between the trades, and I was going to have to handle them.

Then I found Custom Construction Company right here in Jamul – a general contractor. The wonderful thing, in my experience, about using a general contractor is that they can bridge the gaps between the trades, and for things they don’t do (e.g. insulation and drywall in my case) they have trusted subcontractors that they’ve developed a close relationship with over many years.

This is a family business (3 generations) and the owner (Darren) is very patient, easy to communicate with, incredibly knowledgeable, and very fair. Because of his years of experience, he also has great ideas in the design department. The 2 things I want to emphasize about my experience are the integrity and comfortable style that Darren brings to his work and the incredibly high quality of the work Darren and his son Jason provide. Their attention to detail is unbelievable. I actually used another company (that I’d already signed a contract with before I found them) for a part of my project and the contrast between the two companies was striking. The other company was what I seem to find more and more these days – guys with almost no experience and little skill working as “installers” or “technicians”. The folks at Custom Construction Company are true craftsmen and I can’t recommend them highly enough. You can reach them at 619-669-6339.

The True History of Grits...

Via cousin Mike D.:

The True History Of GRITS


What Are Grits?

Nobody knows. Some folks believe grits are grown on bushes and are harvested by midgets by shaking the bushes after spreading sheets around them. Many people feel that grits are made from ground up bits of white corn.

These are obviously lies spread by Communists and terrorists. Nothing as good as Grits can be made from corn. The most recent research suggests that the mysterious Manna that God rained down upon the Israelites during their time in the Sinai Desert was most likely Grits. Critics disagree, stating that there is no record of biscuits, butter, salt, and red eye gravy raining down from the sky, and that God would not punish his people by forcing them to eat Grits without these key ingredients.


How Grits Are Formed:

Grits are formed deep underground under intense heat and pressure. It takes over 1000 years to form a single Grit. Most of the world's grit mines are in the South, and are guarded day and night by armed guards and pit bull dogs. Harvesting the Grit is a dangerous occupation, and many Grit miners lose their lives each year so that Grits can continue to be served morning after morning for breakfast (not that having Grits for dinner and supper is out of the question).

Yankees have attempted to create synthetic Grits. They call it Cream of Wheat. As far as we can tell, the key ingredients of Cream of Wheat are Elmer's Glue and shredded Styrofoam. These synthetic grits have also been shown to cause nausea, and may leave you unable to have children.


Historical Grits:

As we mentioned earlier, the first known mention of Grits was by the Ancient Israelites in the Sinai Desert . After that, Grits were not heard from for another 1000 years. Experts feel that Grits were used during this time only during secret religious ceremonies, and were kept from the public due to their rarity.

The next mention of Grits was found amidst the ruins of the ancient city of Pompeii in a woman's personal diary. The woman's name was Herculaneum Jemimaneus (Aunt Jemima to her friends.)

The 10 Commandments of Grits
I. Thou shalt not put syrup on thy Grits
II. Thou shalt not eat thy Grits with a spoon or knife
III. Thou shalt not eat Cream of Wheat and call it Grits, for this is blasphemy ..
IV. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's Grits.
V. Thou shalt use only salt, butter, and red-eye gravy as toppings for thy Grits.
VI Thou shalt not eat Instant Grits.
VII. Thou shalt not put ketchup on thy Grits.
VIII. Thou shalt not put margarine on thy Grits.
IX. Thou shalt not eat toast with thy Grits, only biscuits made from scratch.
X. Thou shalt eat grits on the Sabbath for this is manna from heaven.


How to Cook Grits:

For one serving of Grits:
Boil 1.5 cups of water with salt and a little butter. [Use milk and they are creamier!)
Add 5 Tbsps. of Grits.
Reduce to a simmer and allow the Grits to soak up all the water.
When a pencil stuck into the grits stands alone, it is done. That's all there is to cooking grits.

How to make red eye gravy
Fry salt cured country ham in cast iron pan. Remove the ham when done and add coffee to the gravy and simmer for several minutes. Great on grits and biscuits.


How to Eat Grits:

Immediately after removing your grits from the stove top, add a generous portion of butter or red eye gravy (WARNING: Do NOT use low-fat butter.) The butter should cause the Grits to turn a wondrous shade of yellow. (Hold a banana or a yellow rain slicker next to your Grits; if the colors match, you have the correct amount of butter.)

In lieu of butter, pour a generous helping of red eye gravy on your grits. Be sure to pour enough to have some left for sopping up with your biscuits. Never, ever substitute canned or store bought biscuits for the real thing because they cause cancer, rotten teeth and impotence.

Next, add salt. (NOTICE: The correct ration of Grit to Salt is 10:1 Therefore, for every 10 grits, you should have 1 grain of salt.)

Now begin eating your grits. Always use a fork, never a spoon. Your grits should be thick enough so they do not run through the tines of the fork.

The correct beverages to serve with Grits is black coffee. (DO NOT use cream or, heaven forbid, Skim Milk) Your grits should never be eaten in a bowl because Yankees will think it's cream of wheat.


Ways to Eat Leftover Grits:

(Leftover grits are extremely rare)
Spread them in the bottom of a casserole dish,
Cover and place them in the refrigerator overnight.
The Grits will congeal into a gelatinous mass.
Next morning, slice the Grits into squares and fry them in 1/2" of cooking oil and butter until they turn a golden brown.
Many people are tempted to pour syrup onto Grits served this way. This is, of course, unacceptable.


BLESSING BEFORE EATING GRITS

May the Lord bless these grits,
May no Yankee ever get the recipe,
May I eat grits every day while living,
And may I die while eating grits.

AMEN

Limnanthes douglasii

Common name “poached egg plant” or “yellow and white Douglas' meadowfoam”.  Native to northern California and Oregon, and occasionally further south.  My dad and I saw this in Lassen National Park about six years ago, before the big fires there.  Via BPOD, of course...

Bad News About Grandpa...

Via reader Simi L.:

An elderly man had a massive stroke and the family drove him to the emergency room.

After a while, the ER doctor appeared wearing a long face.

“I'm afraid Grandpa is brain-dead, but his heart is still beating.”

“Oh, dear God,” cried his wife.  “We've never had a liberal in the family before!”

Now We Know...

Now we know what Alexander Graham Bell actually sounded like...

Obamacare is for the Little People...

The little people like you and me.  Our betters don't want it, that's for sure.  Will they have the gall to pull this off?  Wouldn't surprise me one bit.

Note that both parties are talking about this.

Rope.
Tree.
Congresscritters.
Some assembly required.
Speed may be of the essence.

Parable of the Stones...

Here's a story about Steve Jobs that I hadn't heard before.  Read through the italicized part for the parable.

That parable resonates strongly with me.  Ideas are worth very little by themselves, and they're not the hard part of creating a product.  It's the execution that's hard – all the myriad of things that have to happen for a great product to be shipped.  Generally speaking, when you look back at the totality of what it took to ship a great product, the original idea for the product will seem like an insignificant part of the overall effort.  The parable is about the team that takes an idea to a beautifully executed product...

Out of Your Password Minder...

This is very funny, and though it's about a technical subject, it's presented in a way that would make sense to anyone.  Via Bruce Schneier...


She says that Password Minder is a real product, but I couldn't find it for sale online. I did, however, find an obsolete link for a product named "Password Minder" to a page on the TeleBrands site, so I suspect they've pulled the product after they realized what a dumb idea it was...

17 Shakespearian Insults...

Keep this list handy; it will be useful anytime you need to communicate with a politician or a bureaucrat.  My favorite is at right...

Boston Marathon Bombers' Mother...

First, listen to this interview with her:


Then read Rachel Lucas' reaction. She says it ever so much better than I could.

And yes, my hand did involuntarily levitate...

Three Years of the Sun...

...in just three minutes!

You Just Never Know...

You just never know what might happen out in our corner of Lawson Valley.

Yesterday I was working under our offroad vehicle (an FJ Cruiser), installing some protective metal (a “lower link skid” over a vulnerable part of the rear suspension.  On my back, on the ground, wrenches in hand and working over my head, I heard an unlikely munching sound – much louder than I'd expect to hear from a rabbit or ground squirrel.  So I squirmed around until I could look in the direction of the munching, and what do I see?  Three goats and a llama, calmly munching away on one of our shrubs, not 20' away from me.

Good grief!

These animals weren't familiar to us, though we do know about one place about a mile away that has llamas and sheep, and maybe goats.  No tags were to be found, though the larger nanny goat had a fancy spiked collar that could have had a tag.  So I left a note in the mailbox of the known llama-keeper, and I put up a sign ("Found: 1 llama and 3 goats") at the intersection of Lawson Valley Road and Rudnick Road.  As of this morning, we got one call from someone whose pygmy goat was lost a couple months ago.  She was disappointed to hear that we didn't have her pygmy goat, but she offered to take these guys off our hands if we couldn't find the owner.  If the owner doesn't contact us by this afternoon, she and her kids are going to suddenly have an abundance of ornery animals!

Just When...

Just when you feel like it's time to give up on humanity (or maybe just Americans), along comes a story like this.

I feel better now...

Beautiful Nature Photos...

Via my mom (one sample below, see the rest here):

KFPS Royal Friesian Horses...

Via my mom, the KFPS Royal Friesian Horse:

Shameless...

The little people in California are being screwed again.  No surprise there, really, though this is a little more blatant than usual.  Consider:

– California, under Jerry Brown's “leadership,” decides to build a high-speed railroad.  Not between two cities that could conceivably need such a thing, as California has no such pair of cities.  Not even between two large cities, as we can't possibly raise the gargantuan sums required to do this.  No, instead we're building a high-speed “demonstration” railroad that has no intent of actually making sense.  It's just a way to muster the political will to get this turkey started.

– The job is put out for bid under a set of rules designed to balance technical merit and price.  Fair enough.  But the initial set of rules would have eliminated the California-based firm Tutor Perini, along with a Swedish firm.  So the California High-Speed Rail Authority quietly, secretly changed the rules in mid-process, to allow Tutor Perini's bid to be considered.

– Tutor Perini was declared the winner.  Their bid was the lowest price (by a wide margin), and also scored the lowest on technical merit (also by a wide margin).  Something to note: Tutor Perini has been frequently accused of “lowballing” their bids – deliberately submitting unreasonably low bids to win, then finding ways to jack up the price as the job proceeds.  In fact, they have been remarkably successful at doing so.

Now the part where we get screwed: the principal owner of Tutor Perini is Richard Blum.  If you don't know that name, you will most likely recognized the name of his wife: Diane Feinstein, one of our California Senators.  The political operators would say here that the optics look bad.  I say something else: there's no way this happened without corruption, however subtle and soft.

Rope.
Tree.
A whole bunch of politicians.
Some assembly required.

Saved!

Try to picture this: a woman is being mugged on the front porch of her house.  She hollers for help, and the help comes running.  A 47 year old man whips out his 29 inch long Samauri sword and comes after the mugger – who hightails it out of there, eyes big and round, and later turns himself into police.  Probably afraid for his life!

Now who would you expect that savior to be?  Perhaps a truck driver?  A construction guy?  Some salt-of-the-earth type, right?

How about a Mormon bishop?  Yup, for real.

I know several Mormons, and count several of them amongst my friends.  I cannot imagine any of them behaving like this, so I suspect this isn't some pattern, some result of their awesome religious training.  But still...I can't help but think that someone who would run into battle with a sword would find tough going in most other religious hierarchies :)

Perception of Motion...

Here's some interesting new science results investigating how we perceive motion.  As is often the case, the research leans on optical illusions (new to me) for the investigation.

The more I learn about how our visual perception, the more amazed I am at our brain's ability to derive vast amounts of information from relatively crappy sensors (our eyeballs).  None of us would be happy with a camera that performed as badly as our eyeballs do – and yet, our overall visual perception (brain included) is better than anything we know how to make...

Oh, Nooz!

Via reader and (former) colleague Doug S., this disappointing news: a major retailer (Williams-Sonoma) has decided all on their own to stop selling pressure cookers.  But only in Massachusetts.  And only in brick-and-mortar stores.  An employee says “It's a temporary thing out of respect.”

Well, I have some self-respect, too.  And it tells me that I won't be buying anything at Williams-Sonoma anytime soon, as I'm not interested in lending even the slightest support to such craven posturing...

Oh, My...

Via my mom, this impossible-looking contortionist.  While watching her perform, I found myself wondering if this video had been manipulated – but a little googling shows that Nina Burri is for real, a Swiss contortionist, dancer, and model:


Best Earth Day Rant Evah...

George Carlin says what I'd like to say, but in a far more entertaining manner than I ever could:

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!

Progressive pundits are chagrined to discover that the Boston Marathon bombers didn't have valid gun permits.  It was illegal for them to carry weapons.  It was also illegal for them to possess the explosives they used.  Oh, and we're not sure yet whether the guns they used were legally or illegally purchased, but given their status, they were likely illegally purchased as well.

Why are they chagrined? 

Because this rather pointedly displays the utter futility of the stated purpose of gun control laws.  The fact that their weapons and explosives were illegally obtained and used didn't slow down these two terrorists.

Also, there are widespread reports that the weeks events have caused many a Boston-area resident to reconsider their opposition to personally owned weapons.  Reality appears to have slapped them upside the head...

Algorithmic Trading...

Here's a good primer on the basics of algorithmic trading, something that practically every programmer involved in electronic trading considers doing at a personal level.  It's harder than most people think it is!

There's a plug in here for Interactive Brokers, the company that acquired FutureTrade, whom I used to work for...

Drums of Doom...

There are days when I wake up uncertain what country I'm actually living in...

Fly Like a Bird, Fly With a Bird!

Via my mom: