Debbie Liked This for Some Reason...

Modern Art is a Complete Mystery to Me...

Via Tim Blair:

Difficult territory is a cornerstone of the visual arts – so artist Mikala Dwyer knew it would be confronting last night when she invited Balletlab dancers to empty their bowels as part of a performance at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art.

Australians pay for this, er, pile of feces.

I don't understand.  I must be an uncultured, gun-lovin' hillbilly.

I'm ok with that...

For Real...

Radicalized Islamic youths run through the streets, vandalizing dozens of cars, burning some of them.  The municipal police, operating under of policy of non-confrontation driven by multicultural precepts, stand by doing nothing.  The parking police then ticket the destroyed cars.

Sounds like something from the Onion, no?  But it's for real...

If the Progressives in America keep gaining power, you can look forward to this coming to an American city someday soon...

Grandma's Boyfriend...

Via my mom:

A 5-year-old boy went to visit his grandmother one day.  Playing with his toys in her bedroom while grandma was dusting, he looked up and said,

'Grandma, how come you don't have a boyfriend now that Grandpa went to heaven?'

Grandma replied, 'Honey, my TV is my boyfriend.  I can sit in my bedroom and watch it all day long.  The religious programs make me feel good and the comedies make me laugh.  I'm happy with my TV as my boyfriend.'

Grandma turned on the TV, and the reception was terrible.  She started adjusting the knobs, trying to get the picture in focus.  Frustrated, she started hitting the backside of the TV hoping to fix the problem.

The little boy heard the doorbell ring, so he hurried to open the door and there stood Grandma's minister.

The minister said, 'Hello son, is your Grandma home?'

The little boy replied, 'Yeah, she's in the bedroom bangin' her boyfriend.'

The minister fainted.

That minister must lead a very sheltered life :)

The Blonde and the Pilot...

Via reader Jim M.:

This is the story of the blonde flying in a two-seater airplane with just the pilot. The pilot has a heart attack and dies... She, frantic, calls out a May Day."May Day! May Day! Help me! Help me! My pilot had a heart attack and is dead. And I don't know how to fly. Help me! Oh my God, Please help me!"

She hears a voice over the radio saying:"This is Air Traffic Control and I have you loud and clear. I will talk you through this and get you back on the ground. I've had a lot of experience with this kind of problem. 'Now, just take a deep breath. Everything will be fine! Now give me your height and position." She says,

"I'm 5'4" and I support Obama.

"O.K." says the voice on the radio.  "Repeat after me: Our Father... Who art in Heaven..."

My Kind of Response...

From a location in Syria, an artillery piece fires three shots at an Israeli Defense Force (IDF) patrol.  Luckily there were no injuries and damage was slight.  Then the IDF immediately responded:


There was a time when the U.S. military had a similarly aggressive posture.  These days, multiple layers of politics, PowerPoint presentations, and battlefield lawyers would prevent any such timely response.  Perhaps a few days later, we'd lob a Tomahawk at a “training ground” or some other target that would make politically acceptable press.

The IDF stance seems to be more like “You shoot at me, asshole, and I'll take you out!”

I rather like that.

No Comment Required...

How a Civilization Commits Suicide...

The militant Islamists living in Europe (including the U.K.) long ago figured out that the European welfare states were wonderful sources of funding for jihad.  All a jihad supporter has to do is go live in one of these countries, and the government will pay them generously.  There's plenty of money to live on, and the excess can be sent back to the jihadists to fund terrorists, bombs, etc.  For years, radical imams have been urging their flocks to do just this – and they have.

Douglas Murray, writing at the Wall Street Journal, points out that in the U.K., these welfare payments to terrorism funders are more than what the U.K. pays its soldiers:

Most of the extremists who have repeatedly expressed their hatred of British soldiers are themselves supported by the British state. A prominent hate-preacher—Anjem Choudary, a leader of the disbanded al Muhajiroun—was even caught on video earlier this year extolling Britain's "jihad-seekers' allowance." As he explained to his followers, "The normal situation, really, is to take money from the kafir"—a slur for non-Muslims. "Allahu akbar. We take the money."

After the video showed up online, a BBC reporter asked Mr. Choudary to clarify how much he's taking—the press has long reported a sum of £25,000 ($37,770) per year. "It's irrelevant," Mr. Choudary replied.
This would not be the first time a country has paid both sides in a conflict. But if the reported figure is anywhere near accurate, it would surely be the first time in human history that a society has paid its opponents better than it pays its own. A British soldier can expect to start in the army on a salary of around £16,000 ($24,172).

That, dear readers, is how a civilization commits suicide: by paying its attackers more than it pays its defenders...

Steyn on the London Beheading...

Here an angry Steyn is laying into the British lamestream media's refusal to identify militant Islamism as the root of this attack:

In London as in Boston, the politico-media class immediately lapsed into the pneumatic multiculti Tourette’s that seems to be a chronic side effect of excess diversity-celebrating: No Islam to see here, nothing to do with Islam, all these body parts in the street are a deplorable misinterpretation of Islam. The BBC’s Nick Robinson accidentally described the men as being “of Muslim appearance,” but quickly walked it back lest impressionable types get the idea that there’s anything “of Muslim appearance” about a guy waving a machete and saying “Allahu akbar.” A man is on TV dripping blood in front of a dead British soldier and swearing “by Almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you,” yet it’s the BBC reporter who’s apologizing for “causing offence.”

Read the whole thing...

Leadership...

Imagine that you run a big news organization, one that's attacked constantly by the President of the United States and his political allies.  Suppose further that investigations have uncovered the fact that one member your organization was subjected to illegal surveillance.  What do you say to the people who work for you?

Roger Ailes runs Fox News, and James Rosen is a Fox News reporter who was subjected to just such an illegal surveillance.  Here's how he responded, in a written memo to all Fox employees:

Dear colleagues,

The recent news about the FBI’s seizure of the phone and email records of Fox News employees, including James Rosen, calls into question whether the federal government is meeting its constitutional obligation to preserve and protect a free press in the United States. We reject the government’s efforts to criminalize the pursuit of investigative journalism and falsely characterize a Fox News reporter to a Federal judge as a “co-conspirator” in a crime. I know how concerned you are because so many of you have asked me: why should the government make me afraid to use a work phone or email account to gather news or even call a friend or family member? Well, they shouldn’t have done it. The administration’s attempt to intimidate Fox News and its employees will not succeed and their excuses will stand neither the test of law, the test of decency, nor the test of time. We will not allow a climate of press intimidation, unseen since the McCarthy era, to frighten any of us away from the truth.

I am proud of your tireless effort to report the news over the last 17 years. I stand with you, I support you and I thank you for your reporting with courageous optimism. Too many Americans fought and died to protect our unique American right of press freedom. We can’t and we won’t forget that. To be an American journalist is not only a great responsibility, but also a great honor. To be a Fox journalist is a high honor, not a high crime. Even this memo of support will cause some to demonize us and try to find irrelevant things to cause us to waver. We will not waver.

As Fox News employees, we sometimes are forced to stand alone, but even then when we know we are reporting what is true and what is right, we stand proud and fearless. Thank you for your hard work and all your efforts.

Sincerely,

Roger Ailes

Awesome.

FJ Cruiser: The Platform Begins...

My current effort on fixing up the FJ Cruiser is focused on building a platform where the back seats used to be.  This platform will serve two purposes.  First, it provides a level, flat, and elevated place for the dogs to sit behind us at the right height for them to see around.  Second, under the platform is a handy-dandy storage space for tools, winch supplies, etc.

The platform needs to be sturdy and rigid, and strong enough to handle any kind of stress we might put on it while offroading.  I came up with a design that relies on 1/2" thick marine-grade plywood (this means it has no voids on the internal plies) and 1" angle iron to join the pieces.  So far I've fabricated the fore and aft bulkheads, and a port and starboard rib – the basic strength components of the design.  All four of these pieces are bolted directly to factory threaded holes, the same places that the back seats and seat belts were attached.  The pictures below, with their captions, tell the story of what I've done so far (there's much more to go!)...

My "baby" drill press - primitive, but it works surprisingly well.  Curls are from drilling holes in steel angle irons; oil is used to lubricate the drill bit (to keep it from getting hot).

A cut, ground, wire-brushed, and drilled piece of angle iron, forming one "connector" between two pieces of plywood.

Four identical connectors (for connecting the aft bulkhead to the port and starboard ribs).

 

Two pieces cut from a 10' length of angle iron.

Rough-cut ends.

In the little "pony" vise, ready for grinding...

Yours truly, all gussied up with safety gear: face shield (I'm quite attached to my vision), hearing protectors (ditto), and gloves (those metal shaving and sparks can be very painful and hard to extract!).  The Australian bush hat is there to protect the top of my head from the sun!

The 4.5" angle grinder, armed with grinding wheel, ready to go to work.

What it looks like after grinding - flat end, chamfered edges.

After grinding, I degreased them with this magic stuff.  Probably should have done that before grinding!

Change over to the wire brush, which cleans all the non-grease gunk off the metal.  It also acts like fine emery paper, polishing off all the rough bits.

Quite a difference after being cleaned up!

All three parts completely cleaned up.

Next step is to mark where the holes are to be drilled.  The machinist's square does the measuring, the scribe (long pointy thing) scores lines in the metal, and the automatic center punch (short pointy thing) makes precise little dents in the metal, right where I want the center of the holes to be.

You can see two of the dents made by the center punch, and the scribed line they are on.

Connector ready for drilling, a drop of oil on the center punch dent.

First step is to very lightly "tap" the drill against the work, to check whether you've got the bit centered over the dent.  When you get it right, you can see a faint disk drilled out around the dent (as above).  Sometimes it takes me four or five tries to get the drill in the right place :)

We're at the right place, so it's time to start drilling.  The key with drilling into hard metal like steel is to go slow and let the tool do the work.  I just keep a steady pressure of a few pounds on the drill press handle.  The drill bit does the rest; takes about 60 seconds or so to drill the complete hole.  Above is what it looks like when the hole first gets started.

Here the entire width of the hole is started.  The little curls of steel are what it should look like if your bit is sharp and you have the right pressure on the drill bit.  Time for some more lubrication; don't want my bit to get hot...

The hole is finished, and you can see there are a number of quite large curls lying out.  That's what you want it to look like!  For a 5/16" hole (as above) through 1/8" steel (as above), I generally pause twice for additional lubrication.  For a bigger hole or thicker metal, I'd pause more.  It's all about keeping that drill bit cool, which will keep it sharp much longer (it gets softer when it gets hot).

Done, and degreased again!

Now I need to cut the port rib (the starboard rib is the piece with the angle iron bolted to it, lying down to the left of the router).  I use the router (upside down on the plywood) to do the cutting, not a saw - saws tend to splinter the top side of the wood, plus it's a challenge to make a perfectly square cut with them.  The router against a straight edge (like the big aluminum one above) makes a perfectly square cut every time, with no splinters.  It's a little tricky to control (and I screw up sometimes), but on the whole the result is superior to what I can do with a circular saw.

The router, close up, showing the milling bit (1/4" diameter).  Note the drill-like flutes to pull the wood chips up and out of the cut - key to this technique working.  The router is still upside-down, of course.

Here's my starting piece of wood, with the cuts I need to make marked on it in pencil.  There are five cuts altogether - three horizontal, one vertical, and one angled.

To make the first horizontal cut, first I set up (and clamp) the straight edge exactly 2 7/8" from where I want to cut.

All rigged for cutting.

The first horizontal cut.  Note I first cut through some waste wood to get there.

The second horizontal cut.

The third horizontal cut.

The angle cut (note some of the waste wood now fell off).

And the last cut, the vertical cut.  My piece is done.

And there it is!

Marking hole centers with a scratch awl.

These two holes are getting a counter-sunk bolt in them, so I drill them with the special counter-sink drill bit.

The trick is to counter sink them enough so that the head of the bolt projects ever-so-slightly (perhaps 1/32"), so that when you tighten the bolt, it pulls in flush with the wood.  There's a bit of art to this, as it depends on the size of the bolt and the kind of wood...

The rest of the holes are just 1/4" holes for bolts; there's steel on both sides so no counter-sinking is required.  To make a nice, clean, perfectly cylindrical hole I use a special kind of bit called a Fortsner bit - with a "backer board" so that the bottom of the hole doesn't splinter.  The backer board is just a piece of waste wood placed below the work piece when you're drilling.  The drill bit goes cleanly through the work piece and 1/8" or so into the backer board. 

The Fortsner bit.

 

Tah dah!  The perfect resulting holes...

The port and starboard ribs, with all their connectors installed.  The two long connectors tie into the fore and aft bulkheads; the short connector on the bottom ties directly into the FJ.

Lunch Yesterday...

Debbie and I went to lunch yesterday with a friend and former colleague, Aleck L. – at Sushi Ota in Pacific Beach.  It was make-your-brains-fall-out good, and it was even better to spend some time with Aleck.  This was my lunch, a daily special:

Debbie ordered several rolls and gobbled them down like Mo'i attacks dog food.  Then we had dessert – green tea creme brulee, also delicious.  After we ate, we sat and had a delightful conversation in which three hours went by without our noticing...

Murphy's Law...

Dave Carter, over at Ricochet, waxes poetic about his personal encounter with Murphy's Law the other day.  Here's one paragraph to whet your appetite:

As it turned out, the remainder of THAT day was filled with one human abnormality after another.  It began to wear on me, so that by the end of the day, I sought out a booth in the corner of the restaurant, as far away from everyone as possible.  That was when, predictably, a very large fellow and his wife arrived at the booth directly behind me.  When the big fellow -- we'll call him Jabba the Customer -- plopped down in the seat directly behind me, it had a seesaw effect that nearly launched me across the room.  I tried to make the best of it though, honestly I did.  When he decided to blow his nose loud and long in the restaurant, it sounded like the contents of his head were being spackled into his hanky.  I didn't say word, though my appetite was waning.  But when he followed up that little display of grace with a chunky, wide open-mouthed belch, I quite reflexively turned around and asked, "Would you like me to get a waitress to clean that up or do you want to barf first?"  His wife sat there wide-eyed and speechless, and Jabba the Customer didn't even acknowledge that I had said anything.  A few minutes later, they left. 

The rest is here...

Key Management Is the Problem...

In any system for transmitting messages using encryption, the security of the system boils down to the security of the encryption key.  This key security often isn't electronic at all – you need a secure way to distribute keys to authorized message senders and receivers.  If that key is stolen or misplaced, your key distribution process and ensure that no real messages are sent with that key – as the bad guys might have it.  This process is called “key management”, and it's hard.  Almost always there's a flaw in key management – anything from a minor and unlikely vulnerability to a gaping security hole you could drive an aircraft carrier through.  All of this is well understood by anyone designing a security messaging system.

So...how do you make a secure key management system?

Well, Roarke Horstmeyer at the California Institute of Technology and some others think they have an answer.  For their “key” they use a slab of special glass whose microscopic structure is random, unpredictable, and readable.  To set up a secure system, they make two slabs of glass – one for each side of the messaging system.  They then read the random data in each key and combine them to make a public key.  This public key can be safely published to the world, as it's contents can't be used for anything by itself – you have to possess one of the two glass slabs to make it useful.

Let's say we have two parties: the traditional Alice and Bob, each of whom have one of these special glass slabs.  The combination has been published.  Now Alice wants to send Bob an encrypted message.  She figures out how long her message is (“n” bits) and then takes the next “n” bits of her key (read from her glass slab) and uses them to encrypt her message.  She sends the message to Bob.  Bob takes the next “n” bits of his key (read from his glass slab) and subtracts it from the published combined key, yielding Alice's key – which he then uses to decrypt her message.  Straightforward and as secure as a one-time pad.

Really the glass slabs are just a memory – a very reliable, physical and tangible memory that (today at least) could not easily be copied.  Even just reading it would take a considerable amount of time, which means that security protocols (processes) could detect the fact that someone was reading it.  There's nothing special about the glass per se; it's this combination of characteristics that make it attractive.  A thumb drive could store data for a key, and be used the same way as the glass – but copying the thumb drive takes only a few seconds, and it's easy.  A thumb drive (or any other electronic store) would be vulnerable to any such attack.

The trouble with the glass, though, is that almost certainly there's a technical attack – some way that a bad guy could quickly read it.  Any conceivable storage mechanism for a key has this problem...

What a Great Idea!

Hmmm...

When you distrust your government, you start looking at things in a different light. 

Consider this: on March 31st, 2010, Colleen Kelly visited with President Obama.  Kelly was the president of the National Treasury Employees Union – a virulently anti-Tea Party group that happens to represent most IRS employees.  Nothing suspicious about this visit; that's exactly the kind of friendly visitor you'd expect Obama to have.  But...the very next day IRS workers started targeting conservative and Tea Party groups.

Coincidence?  Hmmm...

Quote of the Day...

From a post by Neo-Neocon:

That has always been the danger of having a republic. Its success rests on the character and the understanding of its people, because if they stop learning and comprehending what makes us great and unique—are not taught it in the schools or in society at large, or lack the skills or the motivation to understand or to care—then we will lose it. And the funny thing about liberty is that it’s only then that people experience (up close and personal) how important it was, and how deeply they yearn for it.

Read the whole thing...

I yearn.

Hue Light Bulbs...

Former colleague, friend, and reader Doug S. says “Just got these and they are freakin (geekin) awesome!”  Yes, he really does talk that way :)  These Hue LED light bulbs (by Philips) can be set to any color in the spectrum and changed any time you'd like, through a smartphone app.  Awesome!  But a bit pricey – it helps to have a job in high tech and be a real estate mogul like Doug (he owns a significant fraction of Idaho)...

Red Sprite Lightning...

Red sprite lightning is a phenomenon that was long rumored, but only recently confirmed.  This is the only color photograph of it.  This sort of thing – phenomena hiding in plain sight – fascinate me.  There seems to be no end of unmade discoveries!  From APOD, of course...

The Dog and the Tornado...

This is but one of many stories emerging from the Oklahoma tornado tragedy, but this one is of particular interest to dog lovers.

What If...We Never Run Out of Oil?

Ocean-bottom methane hydrates offer that possibility.  Researchers are working hard on practical ways to “mine” the stuff.

So think about it.  What would change if we knew that we had an essentially infinite supply of naturally renewed hydrocarbon fuel?

• Environmentalists who are convinced that carbon dioxide is causing global warming will be horrified.
• The economic incentives for switching away from hydrocarbon fuels (still by far the most efficient way, by volume or by weight, that we know how to store energy) will be greatly reduced.  Unless, that is, government decides to distort the market with “carbon taxes” or some such thing.
• The oil-supported country economies (Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela, Nigeria, etc.) will be sorely tested.
• Prices for most goods and many services (especially transportation) will fall.

Most of that sounds pretty good to me!

Update and bump: reader and friend Doug W. points out this marvelous quote from the above-linked article:

To ask utilities to take in large amounts of solar power—electricity generated by hundreds or thousands of small installations, many on neighborhood roofs and lawns, whose output is affected by clouds—is like asking a shipping firm to replace its huge, professionally staffed container ships with squadrons of canoes paddled by random adolescents.

Hah! Squadrons of canoes paddled by random adolescents :)

Sounds pretty good compared with the Obama administration and Congress, though, doesn't it? 

Book Review: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks...

Executive summary: excellent book; read it.

Henrietta Lacks was a black woman who died in 1951 – far too young, of cancer.  Her cells were sampled (without her knowledge or informed permission) and turned out to be immortal.  Such cells are incredibly useful for many different kinds of investigations and tests.  Researchers figured out how to grow her cells (dubbed “HeLa” cells) and soon they spread throughout the world of medical research.

That's an interesting bit of science history, and I can easily imagine someone writing a book about that.  That's not what Rebecca Skloot (the author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks) did.  In fact, science's use of HeLa cells isn't really detailed much at all in her book.  Instead, her book is mainly about the impact of HeLa cells on Henrietta Lacks' family – and Rebecca Skloot becomes a part of that story herself as she researches her book. 

I picked up this book thinking that it was going to be a sort of standard history of science book; a genre that I particularly like.  But instead it was something else altogether, something unlike any other book I've ever read.  Part science history, part human interest, part philosophy, and in places it reads like a novel.  I couldn't put the book down, and found much in it that provoked thought about the conflicts between medical research and human rights.  Some of these conflicts are avoidable, but others are, I suspect, intrinsic to the field. 

One helluva read, and I highly recommend it – despite the New York Times also recommending it :)

Understand How It Works...

Martin Rue writes about this simple piece of advice he got from his grandfather: “Understand how it works.”  Instead of just understanding what something does, understand how it does it.

This resonates strongly with me.  I've written before about my surprise that many programmers working today really have no idea at all how a computer actually works, and yet they can still write good software.  Lots of people know how to drive a car, but they haven't a clue what actually happens when they press on the gas pedal, or the brake, or turn the steering wheel.

I've noted that it is quite powerful, sometimes, to actually understand how something works.  Martin makes this point better than I have:

If you simply remember how to do something, then all you can do is use it the same way over and over, but if you understand how it works, you can reason about it. Once you can reason about something in your mind you can contemplate why it is the way it is, you can apply your entire creative mind to making the most of it, and you can implement and question improvement – you own it intellectually.

What he said.

Good or Evil?

Here's a very compact collection of statistical formulae, nicely organized and with almost no explanation.  I can't decide whether this is a great thing (a sort of “cheat sheet” for statistics) or if it's an evil thing (encouraging programmers to misuse tools they don't understand)...

Dolphins Find Antique Torpedo Off San Diego's Coast...

Dolphins trained by the U.S. Navy to locate sea mines (at the Pt. Loma facility) have located a Howell torpedo from the late 1800s (the only other known example is at right).

Awesome!

Sometimes We All Have a Day Like This...

Via reader Simi L.:

Cicada Periodicity...

Cicadas are currently emerging on the east coast of the U.S.  These are interesting large insects that I remember well from my childhood in New Jersey.  The North American species (called “periodical cicadas”) have a fascinating quirk: they breed in multi-year cycles of either 13 or 17 years.  They spend most of their lives underground, feeding from the roots of trees.  But every 13 or 17 years (depending on the group, or brood they belong to), they emerge, transform in the large flying insect pictured at right, and breed – thereby starting the next 13 or 17 year cycle.

If you're into math at all, you probably noted immediately that both 13 and 17 are prime numbers.  Is there are reason why those cycles are a prime number of years?  I've wondered that myself.

This morning I read about a hypothesis for this phenomenon.  If it's true that the cicada have multiple predators (that is, things that eat cicadas) whose populations vary cyclically (but independently), then it's provable that the best way for the cicadas to have a regular life cycle while minimizing the chances of being eaten is to have a life cycle that is a prime number of years long.  This, of course, would provide an evolutionary pressure giving the advantage to cicadas whose life cycles happened to be a prime number of years long.  After a few thousand generations, you'd get the situation we have today.

Awesome!

Steyn on Scandals...

Just go read it...

College Tuition Increases...

This article rants and raves about the cost of college tuition, which for the past 20 years or so has been rising much faster than inflation.  The author explores several possible reasons for the increase, but none of them are satisfyingly simple and obvious. 

There is such a reason, however: the fast ramp of college tuition almost exactly correlates with the easing of student loan availability.  Way back in the Cretaceous era when I was examining the possibility of going to college, there's no way that I could have gotten a student loan.  These days, thanks to numerous Federal and State programs, if you can fog a mirror and get admitted to any college, you can easily get a loan to pay not only your tuition, but your books and living expenses as well.

So why would that make college tuition increase?  Because the marketplace for college has been distorted by the government subsidies and guarantees in the student loan market – a student selecting a college no longer needs to worry so much about what it costs.  Because the loans are so easy to get, the only pricing pressure comes from a students deferred need to pay off the loan.  This greatly reduces the pressure on colleges and universities to keep their prices low, as the “buyers” not longer care so much about the price.  Instead, they are now motivated to spend more money to compete for student loans (the fact that a student comes along with the loan is just a cost of doing business for them, and a relatively minor one). 

This is yet another example of the government's intervention causing a huge distortion in the market.  Like the housing bubble, the taxpayers are going to be on the hook again – because a large fraction of all the trillions in student loans are guaranteed by some Federal program or another.  Of course “Federal guarantee” is just the polite way of saying “They're going to stick their hands in my pocket to steal the money”...

Slo-Mo Hummers...

This was taken in Los Angeles.  The two hummingbird species shown (Allen's and Anna's) are both native to us as well...

Reunited...

Marine Sgt. Ross Gundlach served in Afghanistan with Casey, a yellow lab trained as an explosives dog.  Sgt. Gundlach wanted to take care of Casey after she was retired, but she was assigned to the Iowa State Fire Marshal's office.  After pleading his case to the Fire Marshal's office, some state officials with a heart decided to make Sgt. Gundlach's dream come true.  They arranged a surprise reunion of Sgt. Gundlach and Casey, and now the two will be together permanently.

There's a government story that makes me feel good.  First time in a while...

A Most Excellent Wildlife Viewing Evening...

Last night Debbie and I went up to one of our favorite local wildlife viewing spots: the Stonewall Mine Road in Cuyamaca Park, just before dark.  We're still delighting in the return of a substantial deer herd (gone since the 2007 fires), and last night didn't disappoint on that score – we saw at least 50 deer in two different main groups and in several singles and pairs.  We hoped for a bobcat or mountain lion, but alas didn't see one.  We did get a extended great view of a male meadowlark singing his heart out.  What glorious colors on them!

But the highlight of the evening wasn't at Stonewall – it was on the way home.  Debbie, sharp-eyed as always, spotted a hawk silhouetted on a nest with chicks – just 15 feet or so from the road!  I never saw a thing, as I was concentrating on getting the truck safely around the tight corners (this is on the stretch of State 79 between Oakzanita and Descanso town, where the road is very curvy).  I found a place to turn around, and we drove back up to find that nest.  We parked the truck on the road, half on the (narrow) shoulder and turned on the 4-way flashers – and then settled in for a delightful 10 minutes or so watching one hawk parent (we think a red tail, but we couldn't positively ID it) and its two chicks.  The chicks were still mostly white, with a mottled appearance as their first flight feathers were emerging.  There wasn't much action; they seemed sleepy (this was right at dusk) and maybe a little cold.  The parent just stared at us the whole time :)

I've never been this close to a raptor nest with chicks before.  We both had our binoculars with us, so we had a real treat – with the binoculars, were were count-the-feather-barbs close.  Awesome!

One fellow drove by the other way while we were stopped.  He asked if we were ok, and I told him we were watching a hawk's nest.  He said “Nice!” and drove on.  Shortly after we packed up our binoculars and left, though, several cars passed us the other way, and a sheriff's SUV came up behind us.  Our timing was very good :)

We drove home with big silly smiles plastered all over our faces...

Pelargonium tetragonum...

From BPOD, of course:

Quantum Computing Skeptic...

Scott Aaronson doesn't think we're likely to see practical quantum computers anytime soon – if ever.  The rash of recent news concerning the D-Wave company and their claims of working quantum computers drove Scott to comment publicly (for the first time in a while) and even to talk with some reporters.  The reporters all want to know, basically, why he remains skeptical when big businesses (can you spell Google?) and government (uh oh) are spending millions of dollars on D-Wave machines, and have announced spectacular results.  Scott's awesome response:

My reaction, I confess, is simple.  I don’t care—I actually told them this—if the former Pope Benedict has ended his retirement to become D-Wave’s new marketing director.  I don’t care if the Messiah has come to Earth on a flaming chariot, not to usher in an age of peace but simply to spend $10 million on D-Wave’s new Vesuvius chip.  And if you imagine that I’ll ever care about such things, then you obviously don’t know much about me.  I’ll tell you what: if peer pressure is where it’s at, then come to me with the news that Umesh Vazirani, or Greg Kuperberg, or Matthias Troyer is now convinced, based on the latest evidence, that D-Wave’s chip asymptotically outperforms simulated annealing in a fair comparison, and does so because of quantum effects.  Any one such scientist’s considered opinion would mean more to me than 500,000 business deals.

Read his entire post for a (much) more detailed D-Wave takedown...

I don't understand enough about quantum computers to have an informed opinion on their plausibility.  But I have seen hype before, and I have personally witnessed hype completely overwhelming any semblance of reality.  Anybody who lived through the dot-com bubble and was at all observant can say the same thing :)

Cold War Gadgets...

A collection of photos of Cold War KGB (Soviet) gadgets, like the listening device shown below, hidden inside a hollowed-out log:

London in 1927...

This is America?

Sarah Ingram headed the IRS' unit that oversaw tax-exempt organizations up until a short time ago.  She was the boss of that unit when conservative organizations were being targeted for tax-exempt application slowdowns and runarounds, and when conservative organizations and individuals were audited.  She's at the very center of the current scandal, and a completely relevant questions (all as yet unresolved) are:

• How much did Sarah Hall know, and when did she know it?
• Did Sarah Hall direct any of the conservative targeting?
• Did Sarah Hall, directly or indirectly, condone any of the conservative targeting?
• Should Sarah Hall have had the processes and procedures in place to detect and prevent the conservative targeting?

That last point may sound like a no-brainer, but it's really not – it depends substantially on how the IRS organizes its oversight and audit processes (I'm making the large assumption that they actually have such processes).

Now, given all those questions hanging over Sarah Hall, what's the right thing for the IRS to do with her?  You and I might say she should be put on paid leave while the investigation unfolds.  The IRS says she should be promoted and put in charge of the implementation of the parts of Obamacare that the IRS is responsible for.

That should terrify any American – the possibility exists that an operative devoted to abusing the IRS for political purposes just got placed in charge of access to healthcare for millions of Americans.  If you're not terrified, you might want to play a little connect-the-dots...

As I read this, I felt like I was reading about East Germany or Romania in the '60s – but I double-checked, and that article really is about America in 2013.

I want my country back.

Quote of the Day...

From today's Day-by-Day cartoon (below):

...you don't want to grow up to be like the president, do you?

Can You Raise 73 to the 12th Power in Your Head?

I certainly can not (it would have to be a good day for me to do 5^5 in my head!), but apparently this fellow can.  Not just that pair of numbers, but any pair you can throw at him.  If this is for real, it's amazing...

National Geographic Photo of the Month...

It'a a corker of an Eastern Screech Owl, in the Okefnokee Swamp of southern Georgia...

In the News...

Spotted:

WASHINGTON—Saying that none of the facts quite add up, first daughter Sasha Obama, 11, reported being “highly suspicious” today after poking around the details of the 2012 Benghazi attack. “I’m sorry, but it just doesn’t make sense—first they blame the attack on a spontaneous demonstration, but now we find out the CIA talking points were secretly revised?” said the sixth-grader, sitting in the darkened White House library intensely scrolling through pages of articles about the controversy and classified Pentagon briefings. “Obviously, someone’s hiding something: the poor security; the al-Qaeda link; the leaked emails. All I’m asking for here is a simple explanation from the State Department and the White House, and I’m not getting one. I mean, who are they protecting here? And why?” Sasha went on to tell reporters she felt even more suspicious after former defense secretary Leon Panetta failed to respond to any of her 24 voicemails.

The Onion, of course.

When you've lost the Onion, ...

Leg Room...

If you've flown in the past few years, and you're not one of the fortunate few in business or first class, then you've had the lovely experience of seat compression.  The airlines keep moving the seats closer together (they call this “seat pitch”) to cram more seats in the airplanes.

It's occurred to me to wonder how much this is actually worth to an airline.  Does making their passengers miserable actually make them any more money?  You have to believe it does, or the airlines would quickly stop doing it (competition assures that some airline would try this as a way to attract passengers).  But how much does it make the airlines?

Well, now we know the answer.  For Southwest Airlines, changing the seat pitch from 32" to 31" was worth $773,074,040 a year.  That's serious money!

I would guess this could be optimized a bit more.  If you had seats available at various pitches (say, 31", 32", and 36"), I'd be willing to bet the airlines could sell the seats with more separation for a considerable premium, just as they do today for exit row seats (which have more separation)...

Overheard...

Yesterday I had to venture “down the hill” into San Diego to pick up some specialty lumber items (I'm getting ready to build the storage compartment and dog platform in the FJ).  The vendor I was visiting, who shall remain unnamed, is notable for two things: (1) the marvelous selection of hardwoods and exotic plywoods, and (2) the glacial pace of their customer service and antiquity of their computers (they should really be in a museum somewhere, not actually in use!).  The second of these characteristics assures there will be a collection of customers at the counter, waiting with various degrees of patience.  And there are conversations...

I sat on one of the provided benches and read the text on the container of glue I was buying.  Next to me, a thirtyish young man was complaining about the negative portrayals (by the media) of the current Washington scandals.  This provided me with a fascinating view into the mind of a progressive voter, and with the opportunity to ask some questions.  From memory, here's how it went:

“I'm OK with Obama ordering searches of those damned reporters!” said my progressive voter.  “If he thinks they leaked that intelligence information, then I want him to go after the leakers!”  I asked if he really thought that Obama had personally ordered the phone records searched, and if he really thought that the AP employees were the actual leakers – yes on both counts.  I then asked if he would have been OK with G.W. Bush ordering a similar search.  “Hell, no!  Don't trust him!” was the answer.  OK, I said, but how would you codify that into the law?  “Easy!  Democrat presidents can do it, Republicans can not.”  I asked a few questions to see if he was serious about that, and as far as I can tell, he was.  If you distill what I heard there, it comes down to fascism – my progressive voter was really proposing a flavor of fascism.

Now to the IRS kerfuffle, wherein progressive-leaning groups applying for tax-exempt status had their applications expedited, and conservative-leaning groups got the run-around, threats, and extended information requests.  You can probably predict that my progressive voter thought that was the way things should be.  He saw nothing wrong with it at all, and thought the press should be lauding the IRS's efforts.  Shades of 1984! 

Finally, the Benghazi affair.  My progressive voter surprised me a little here.  Basically he was completely ignorant of the damning emails and other documents that have been trickling out, or else he's just pretending they don't exist.  His belief is that all of the Benghazi flap is a Republican “dirty trick”, and that they've got stooges manufacturing all this testimony about Obama having political motives for not treating the Benghazi attacks as a terrorist attack.  He thinks that the four Americans were likely killed “by accident” when they tried to interact with an unruly mob enraged by viewing the YouTube video.  As best I could tell, he really, truly believes all that.

By the time we finished with our conversation, we had a small knot of others waiting for service around us.  Some of these people had peripherally participated in the conversation.  It was clear from the general tone and facial expressions that most were with my progressive voter (there were, thankfully, a few scornful faces of those who were not).  From some of the comments, it was clear that in general this was not a well-informed crowd.  One fellow, for example, was certain that Benghazi was a city in Iraq; another was convinced that every word we said (on the telephone or not) was being recorded by the CIA and this AP flap was therefore by definition a tempest in a teapot.

Being quite immersed in the news myself, I sometimes forget that most people pay much less attention to these things that I do.  They're probably happier for doing so :)  What's interesting is how these folks make up their minds about the news items they've heard just a little about.  It's clear that the lamestream media has a big influence.  It appears that preconceived notions and their personal feelings about the president also have a lot of influence.  And for some people, a predisposition to conspiracy theories seems to be a predominant driver.  All of these people are quite likely to arrive at a conclusion that simply cannot be supported by those pesky things known as actual facts – and this doesn't actually seem to bother them too much.

It bothers me, though.  These people vote.

I got no answers, just worries...