If Americans are worried about money in politics, there is no larger concern than the Clintons, who are cosseted in a world where rich people endlessly scratch the backs of rich people.Ouch! Who dumped on the Clintons? Hint: it's someone whom you'd expect would be leaping upon the Hillary bandwagon right about now, winding up for 2016...
I never thought I’d have to read the words Ira Magaziner again. But the man who helped Hillary torpedo her own health care plan is back.
You never hear about problems with Jimmy Carter’s foundation; he just quietly goes around the world eradicating Guinea worm disease. But Magaziner continues to be a Gyro Gearloose, the inept inventor of Donald Duck’s Duckburg.
Clintonworld is a galaxy where personal enrichment and political advancement blend seamlessly, and where a cast of jarringly familiar characters pad their pockets every which way to Sunday.
Until Harry Truman wrote his memoirs, the ex-president struggled on an Army pension of $112.56 a month. “I could never lend myself to any transaction, however respectable,” he said, “that would commercialize on the prestige and dignity of the office of the presidency.” So quaint, Packer wrote, observing, “The top of American life has become a very cozy and lucrative place, where the social capital of who you are and who you know brings unimaginable returns.”The Clintons want to do big worthy things, but they also want to squeeze money from rich people wherever they live on planet Earth, insatiably gobbling up cash for politics and charity and themselves from the same incestuous swirl.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Quotes of the Day...
These quotes are all from a single article, and mostly what makes them notable is who said them. Read the quotes first, then click on the link to see who said them – and read the whole piece:
Saturday, August 17, 2013
Smoke in Lawson Valley...
Update at 3:20 pm: the smoke has mostly cleared now. We believe the fire at I-8 and Los Coches was the source of the smoke.
Original post: Just went outside to fire up the grill, and immediately noticed the strong smell of smoke. In a broad smear to the WNW of our home there is moderately thick smoke.
The CalFire twitter site notes a fire in La Cresta, near I-8 and Los Coches; that may be the source. The Lyons Peak cameras on HPWREN aren't telling me anything.
Please leave a comment if you have more information...
Original post: Just went outside to fire up the grill, and immediately noticed the strong smell of smoke. In a broad smear to the WNW of our home there is moderately thick smoke.
The CalFire twitter site notes a fire in La Cresta, near I-8 and Los Coches; that may be the source. The Lyons Peak cameras on HPWREN aren't telling me anything.
Please leave a comment if you have more information...
What the Hell is Happening to My Country, Part 49,927...
From the Weekly Standard, Matt Labash writing about the “Brony” phenomenon:
But Bronies represent a novel variation on the theme: Like so many American men, they wish to be forever suspended in childhood. Except this time, they want to be 6-year-old girls. Bronies have, in fact, come to embody what pop sociologists call the New Sincerity Movement. The thinking goes that the smirky ironic detachment of recent decades—pretending to embrace low-culture totems for laughs—has grown stale. Now that the Internet has fragmented the culture into a million pieces, helping every maladjusted shut-in to realize his natural level of eccentricity, the only way for a self-respecting hipster or a Zuckerbergian alpha-nerd (the tribe that now runs the world) to distinguish himself is to enthuse over his enthusiasms without detachment or apology. Even if that means grown men writing Twilight Sparkle fan fiction or cutting bad electronica songs with titles like, “I Might Be a Brony.” You might find it funny, but they’re not joking.Read the whole thing, then weep for my country...
Three-Shear Image Rotation...
Nick Berry has the best explication of three-shear image rotation I've ever seen – something any programmer could understand...
Surprise!
But it reminded me of a surprise Debbie and I got a few months ago. I've forgotten the context, but somehow we were on the road, headed home late at night, and hungry. We didn't want to take the time for a sit-down meal, and the only fast food places we knew were closed. So we decided to grab a burger or something at McDonald's.
We hadn't looked at a McDonald's menu in years and years – and really didn't expect to do so ever again. I saw couple of things on the menu that sounded appealing: a chicken-and-bacon wrap, and a mango-pineapple smoothie. So I ordered them.
They were quite good. Surprise!
I've had that same combination a couple of times since then, and I still have the same reaction: a convenient and inexpensive treat on the road.
Now, mind you, I don't think the wrap and smoothie are the best in the world. I'd prefer more have more dark chicken meat, a bit more bacon, and the smoothie not quite so sweet. But for the modest price and consistent quality, I'd say it was quite a bargain.
So to my own surprise, I'm now an occasional patron of McDonald's...
Friday, August 16, 2013
Obamacare: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Jack-booted Obamacare thugs will be knocking down the doors of servicemen's homes, along with many others.
George Orwell: “Told ya!”
George Orwell: “Told ya!”
California: You Will Earn 3% on Your Retirement Savings...
If I were still employed by a small business in California, this would really piss me off – the nanny state telling me that it knows how to save for my retirement better than I do. The proof is their guaranteed rate of return: a whopping 3%.
Oh, vey.
We gotta get out of here...
Oh, vey.
We gotta get out of here...
Watts vs. Mann: My Money is on Watts...
Mr. Watts notes a recent paper that examines the dendochronology (tree ring interpretation) data that much of Mann's notorious “hockey stick” is based on. A layman's summary: Mann's interpretation is faulty, and is faulty in a way that exaggerates (or possibly even creates) the hockey stick.
Oh, Mann!
Oh, Mann!
I'm Indebted to Snowden...
Without his disclosures, I wouldn't have believed my government would do this...
U-2 and Area 51 Info Declassified...
This ought to keep the tin foil hat brigades up for a few nights...
Thirty Two Years Ago...
Debbie and I were married on this day in 1981 – 32 years ago. Despite years of experience, she's still putting up with me :)
Today we celebrated in a very low-key way. First we journeyed over our local back roads to Pine Valley, where we had a fish sandwich and fries at Frosty Burger (best fast food in the known universe). The fries were absolutely perfect. Then we drove up a Forest Service road that leads from just west of Pine Valley up to the Sunrise Highway north of Mt. Laguna. The first part of this road is paved, but we turned off the pavement onto a 4WD road that stays downhill and west of the Mt. Laguna massif (which runs roughly north/south).
There wasn't a lot of wildlife to see there today, though we did get a brief glimpse of a male Western tanager – just his back as he flew across the road below us. We don't often come out this way in the summertime, as it's very hot and dry – and the wildflowers are long gone. Except there was one wildflower there in abundance, a new one to me even after all these years (first photo below). The mountain mahogany were prime, and very abundant. And in one particular spot we ran across lots of a plant we don't know bearing red berries.
Despite the lack of exciting scenery, it was still a very pleasant drive. When we hit the Sunrise Highway, we looped back around to Cuyamaca Park and into the Stonewall Mine road, hoping for some deer – and we did see one. Just one :)
Now we're back home, did the chores, and we're just chilling out for the rest of the day...
BTW, the photos below were all taken with a tiny little pocket camera: a Nikon CoolPix S4300. I got this camera for my mom, and I'm learning how to use it – so that I can show her while I'm visiting next week. It's been quite a few years since I've last used a pocket camera. They've come a long, long way – both in capability and in ease of use. Also, the automation is remarkably good. I'm deliberately using only the full auto mode, as I'm pretty sure my mom will use only them. I'm finding that the camera nearly always does exactly what I want it to do.
The touch screen on the back allows a feature I've never used before, but have already fallen in love with: while you're viewing the scene you want to take a photo of, you can touch the part you want exposed correctly and focused on – and the camera just does it. For example, you might compose a photo with someone's face in the lower left corner, and a distant scene in the rest of the frame. By simply touching the person's face on the screen, you're telling the camera to focus there, adjust the exposure to suit the face's illumination, and take the photo. One touch does all that. Nice!
Today we celebrated in a very low-key way. First we journeyed over our local back roads to Pine Valley, where we had a fish sandwich and fries at Frosty Burger (best fast food in the known universe). The fries were absolutely perfect. Then we drove up a Forest Service road that leads from just west of Pine Valley up to the Sunrise Highway north of Mt. Laguna. The first part of this road is paved, but we turned off the pavement onto a 4WD road that stays downhill and west of the Mt. Laguna massif (which runs roughly north/south).
There wasn't a lot of wildlife to see there today, though we did get a brief glimpse of a male Western tanager – just his back as he flew across the road below us. We don't often come out this way in the summertime, as it's very hot and dry – and the wildflowers are long gone. Except there was one wildflower there in abundance, a new one to me even after all these years (first photo below). The mountain mahogany were prime, and very abundant. And in one particular spot we ran across lots of a plant we don't know bearing red berries.
Despite the lack of exciting scenery, it was still a very pleasant drive. When we hit the Sunrise Highway, we looped back around to Cuyamaca Park and into the Stonewall Mine road, hoping for some deer – and we did see one. Just one :)
Now we're back home, did the chores, and we're just chilling out for the rest of the day...
BTW, the photos below were all taken with a tiny little pocket camera: a Nikon CoolPix S4300. I got this camera for my mom, and I'm learning how to use it – so that I can show her while I'm visiting next week. It's been quite a few years since I've last used a pocket camera. They've come a long, long way – both in capability and in ease of use. Also, the automation is remarkably good. I'm deliberately using only the full auto mode, as I'm pretty sure my mom will use only them. I'm finding that the camera nearly always does exactly what I want it to do.
The touch screen on the back allows a feature I've never used before, but have already fallen in love with: while you're viewing the scene you want to take a photo of, you can touch the part you want exposed correctly and focused on – and the camera just does it. For example, you might compose a photo with someone's face in the lower left corner, and a distant scene in the rest of the frame. By simply touching the person's face on the screen, you're telling the camera to focus there, adjust the exposure to suit the face's illumination, and take the photo. One touch does all that. Nice!
 |
| The mystery flower that we've never seen before because we don't venture onto Mt. Laguna in the summer. The flowers are about dime-sized. |
 |
| Mountain mahogany seeds. |
 |
| Close up of the mountain mahogany seeds (zoomed to telephoto, shooting from about 3 feet away). |
 |
| The obligatory FJ shot! |
 |
| Mystery berries... |
Curiosity: Occultation...
Curiosity recently took a sequence of images of the Martian moon Phobos occulting its sister moon Deimos. Phobos is physically larger than Deimos, and is in a lower orbit, so its apparent size from the surface of Mars is much larger. The good folks at JPL took this sequence of images and made a movie out of them:
Put Down Your Hot Morning Beverage...
...and go read these actual product reviews on Amazon. There are some very funny and clever people out there. Here's a sample:
Spambot of the Day...
Introducing a new feature on this blog: Spambot of the Day (see this Wikipedia article if you're new to the delights of spambots). The particular flavor of spambot that typically plagues bloggers is the “comment spambot”. These unethical marketing tools post fake comments on blogs, typically containing a link to a web site they're advertising, or a hacker's trap site trying to trick you in to downloading something you shouldn't.
Google's Blogger (the blogging platform this blog runs on) is pretty good at catching these spambot postings. Most of them never become visible to me, which is much better than a few years ago – back then, on a typical day I might see 30 or 40 of them. The main reason I have comment moderation turned on for my blog is to catch these things and delete them.
Usually the text of the comment the spambot is posting has been either just gibberish, or some random text copied from a news story or some such thing. Recently, however, the spambots are doing something clever: they know that comment moderation is catching them, so they try flattering the blogger – to trick the blogger into accepting a comment that's actually spam. Some of these are quite funny, once you realize what they are.
Hence my new feature. When I see a good one come by, I'll post it as Spambot of the Day.
Today's:
Google's Blogger (the blogging platform this blog runs on) is pretty good at catching these spambot postings. Most of them never become visible to me, which is much better than a few years ago – back then, on a typical day I might see 30 or 40 of them. The main reason I have comment moderation turned on for my blog is to catch these things and delete them.
Usually the text of the comment the spambot is posting has been either just gibberish, or some random text copied from a news story or some such thing. Recently, however, the spambots are doing something clever: they know that comment moderation is catching them, so they try flattering the blogger – to trick the blogger into accepting a comment that's actually spam. Some of these are quite funny, once you realize what they are.
Hence my new feature. When I see a good one come by, I'll post it as Spambot of the Day.
Today's:
I like reading your current well written articles. I totally cherished each and every little bit of it. I have you bookmarked your website to be able to check out the new material in the future.Nice try, spambot!
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Filthy Filner: Another Day, Another Assaulted Woman Comes Forward – Plus, Bonus Video!
Yet another (I've now lost count, but it must be approaching 20) woman comes forward, alleging Filthy made unwanted advances upon her. This time, it's a 67 year old great-grandmother, and part-time city worker.
Good grief. Pass the popcorn, please.
And:
Good grief. Pass the popcorn, please.
And:
Message from Mom...
My mom sends lots of humorous things my way. Sometimes I post them on my blog. Sometimes I wonder what she's trying to tell me. This morning she sent me this:
I just don't know...
Now men ... men are like a fine wine. They begin as grapes, and it's up to women to stomp the shit out of them until they turn into something acceptable to have dinner with.I'm wondering what she's trying to tell me by sending this to me. Is she taking credit for stomping me as a child (implying that the results were acceptable)? Or is she telling me that I need to find a women to stomp me (implying my wife isn't getting the job done)?
I just don't know...
The Jewish Quarterback...
Another good one from Jim M. – laugh and cry:
The coach had put together the perfect team for the Chicago Bears. The only thing that was missing was a good quarterback. He had scouted all the colleges and even the Canadian and European Leagues, but he couldn't find a ringer who could ensure a Super Bowl win.The homicide rate in Chicago is 15.2 per year, per 100,000 people. In Israel, it's 2.4. His mother has good reason to be afraid...
Then one night while watching CNN he saw a war-zone scene in the West Bank. In one corner of the background, he spotted a young Israeli soldier with a truly incredible arm. He threw a hand-grenade straight into a 15th story window 100 yards away.
KABOOM!
He threw another hand-grenade 75 yards away, right into a chimney.
KA-BLOOEY!
Then he threw another at a passing car going 90 mph.
BULLS-EYE!
"I've got to get this guy!" Coach said to himself. "He has the perfect arm!"
So, he brings him to the States and teaches him the great game of football. And the Bears go on to win the Super Bowl.
The young man is hailed as the great hero of football, and when the coach asks him what he wants, all the young man wants is to call his mother.
"Mom," he says into the phone, "I just won the Super Bowl!"
"I don't want to talk to you, the old woman says. "You are not my son!"
"I don't think you understand, Mother," the young man pleads. "I've won the greatest sporting event in the world. I'm here among thousands of my adoring fans."
"No! Let me tell you!" his mother retorts. "At this very moment, there are gunshots all around us. The neighborhood is a pile of rubble. Your two brothers were beaten within an inch of their lives last week, and I have to keep your sister in the house so she doesn't get raped!"
The old lady pauses, and then tearfully says, "I will never forgive you for making us move to Chicago!!!!
Retirement...
Passed along by reader Jim M.:
One day a man decided to retire...This does not describe my retirement priorities :)
He booked himself on a Caribbean cruise and proceeded to have the
time of his life, that is, until the ship sank.
He soon found himself on an island with no other people, no supplies, nothing, only bananas and coconuts.
After about four months, he is lying on the beach one day when the most gorgeous woman he has ever seen rows up to the shore.
In disbelief, he asks, "Where did you come from? How did you get here?"
She replies, "I rowed over from the other side of the island where I landed when my cruise ship sank."
"Amazing," he notes. "You were really lucky to have a row boat wash up with you."
"Oh, this thing?" explains the woman. "I made the boat out of some raw material I found on the island. The oars were whittled from gum tree branches. I wove the bottom from palm tree branches, and the sides and stern came from a Eucalyptus tree."
"But, where did you get the tools?"
"Oh, that was no problem," replied the woman. "On the south side of the island, a very unusual stratum of alluvial rock is exposed. I found that if I fired it to a certain temperature in my kiln, it melted into ductile iron and I used that to make tools and used the tools to make the hardware."
The guy is stunned.
"Let's row over to my place," she says "and I'll give you a tour." So, after a short time of rowing, she soon docks the boat at a small wharf. As the man
looks to shore, he nearly falls off the boat. Before him is a long stone walk leading to a Cabin and tree house.
While the woman ties up the row boat with an expertly woven hemp rope, the man can only stare ahead, dumb struck. As they walk into the house, she says casually, "It's not much, but I call it home. Please sit down."
"Would you like a drink?" "No! No thank you," the man blurts out, still dazed. "I can't take another drop of coconut juice."
"Oh it's not coconut juice," winks the woman. "I have a still. How would you like a Tropical Spritz?"
Trying to hide his continued amazement, the man accepts, and they sit down on her couch to talk. After they exchange their individual survival stories, the woman announces, "I'm going to slip into something more comfortable. Would you like to take a shower and shave? There's a razor in the bathroom cabinet upstairs."
No longer questioning anything, the man goes upstairs into the bathroom. There, in the cabinet is a razor made from a piece of tortoise bone. Two shells honed to a hollow ground edge are fastened on to its end inside a swivel mechanism.
"This woman is amazing," he muses. "What's next?" When he returns, she greets him wearing nothing but some small flowers on tiny vines, each strategically positioned, she smelled faintly of gardenias. She then beckons for him to sit down next to her.
"Tell me," she begins suggestively, slithering closer to him, "We've both been out here for many months. You must have been lonely. When was the last time you played around? She stares into his eyes.
He can't believe what he's hearing. "You mean..." he swallows excitedly as tears start to form in his eyes, "You've built a Golf Course?"
Flash Floods...
What they actually look like:
I've only seen two flash floods in my entire life, both entirely by accident – I wasn't chasing them like these guys. Both the flash floods I saw looked much like this, though the character of the brush was a bit different (being Southern Californian chaparral). They aren't at all like the flash floods of Hollywood or many western novels – there's no 50 foot high wall of water that appears without warning.
On the other hand, if you do something stupid like, say, parking your RV in the wash and going to sleep – you're likely to get quite a rude surprise! In one of the flash floods I witnessed, exactly this happened. I saw the RV being washed along the by the torrent, flipping over and over. About 15 minutes after the RV went by, the owners (a young couple) came huffing up, trying to catch up with it. They managed to get out of the RV before the flood tipped it over, but getting to shore was touch-and-go. They were both quite scared. I gave them a ride, first down to where their RV was still tumbling along, now beaten almost beyond recognition. It was a total loss. Then I gave them a ride into the town of Ocotillo, where they parked themselves in an air-conditioned business and awaited help from relatives.
I've only seen two flash floods in my entire life, both entirely by accident – I wasn't chasing them like these guys. Both the flash floods I saw looked much like this, though the character of the brush was a bit different (being Southern Californian chaparral). They aren't at all like the flash floods of Hollywood or many western novels – there's no 50 foot high wall of water that appears without warning.
On the other hand, if you do something stupid like, say, parking your RV in the wash and going to sleep – you're likely to get quite a rude surprise! In one of the flash floods I witnessed, exactly this happened. I saw the RV being washed along the by the torrent, flipping over and over. About 15 minutes after the RV went by, the owners (a young couple) came huffing up, trying to catch up with it. They managed to get out of the RV before the flood tipped it over, but getting to shore was touch-and-go. They were both quite scared. I gave them a ride, first down to where their RV was still tumbling along, now beaten almost beyond recognition. It was a total loss. Then I gave them a ride into the town of Ocotillo, where they parked themselves in an air-conditioned business and awaited help from relatives.
Quote of the Day...
This is a long one, but choice: Matt Walsh writes an apology letter to President Obama, tongue planted very firmly in cheek. The lead:
What a thin skin our narcissist-in-chief has!
Dear President Obama,You most definitely want to read the whole thing.
I’m reaching out to you as a friend. I know you must be deeply hurting after what happened at the Missouri State Fair. Sure, you probably try to avoid watching the news while you’re on vacation, but I’m sure the pilot who airlifted your dog to your rental mansion in Martha’s Vineyard probably caught you up to speed (that guy is such a chatterbox). Your jaw must have hit the floor when you heard the news: A rodeo clown in Missouri poked fun at you. Yeah, I know, almost impossible to believe. The gall! The gumption! The racism! Don’t worry, the entire country erupted in outrage, Democrats and Republicans issued statements of condemnation, and now the offending clown has been banned for life from the Missouri State Fair. There will likely be “action taken” against the Missouri Rodeo Clown Association, and I do hope justice is visited upon them swiftly. I think we’re all a little sick of the Missouri Rodeo Clown Association causing trouble. It’s something new every week with those freakin’ guys.
What a thin skin our narcissist-in-chief has!
On July 4th, 1776...
...how old were the Founding Fathers? These ages surprised me greatly – somehow, in all my history reading, I'd never quite grasped this:
I'd always imagined this group being roughly contemporaries – and I'd certainly never registered just how young some of the key thinkers were. That list makes me feel...humbled...
| Marquis de Lafayette | 18 |
| James Monroe | 18 |
| Gilbert Stuart | 20 |
| Aaron Burr | 20 |
| Alexander Hamilton | 21 |
| Betsy Ross | 24 |
| James Madison | 25 |
| Thomas Jefferson | 33 |
| John Adams | 40 |
| Paul Revere | 41 |
| George Washington | 44 |
| Samuel Adams | 53 |
| Benjamin Franklin | 70 |
I'd always imagined this group being roughly contemporaries – and I'd certainly never registered just how young some of the key thinkers were. That list makes me feel...humbled...
Grasshopper Hops Sideways...
carSpaceX's test vehicle, dubbed “Grasshopper”, makes a test flight that adds a new maneuver: a lateral move away from, and then back to, the launch pad:
SpaceX seems to be carefully pushing their test vehicle along, trying one or two new things on each flight. Their budgets are a tiny fraction of NASA's budget for rocket development, and yet they've arguably accomplished much more than NASA has managed, and in a very short time. If they can figure out how to make money from the private sector, there's a lot of potential there – but that is a mighty big “if”.
Right now, 100% of their revenue comes from NASA contracts. I'm glad to see the cost reduction this affords NASA, but I'd much rather just shut down the manned space program at NASA – that would save a lot more money...
SpaceX seems to be carefully pushing their test vehicle along, trying one or two new things on each flight. Their budgets are a tiny fraction of NASA's budget for rocket development, and yet they've arguably accomplished much more than NASA has managed, and in a very short time. If they can figure out how to make money from the private sector, there's a lot of potential there – but that is a mighty big “if”.
Right now, 100% of their revenue comes from NASA contracts. I'm glad to see the cost reduction this affords NASA, but I'd much rather just shut down the manned space program at NASA – that would save a lot more money...
A Peek Inside North Korea...
Michael Malice is an American writer who was born in the Soviet Union, but came to the U.S. at the age of 2. He visited North Korea as a tourist, partly on a quest to see a land that might give him a sense of what life in the Soviet Union was like for his parents.
He wrote about his week in North Korea for Reason. He has some fascinating, sober, and insightful observations about the people there; well worth reading. I continue to be impressed with the quality of the writing in Reason - one of only two magazines that I still subscribe to (the other is Science News).
A lot of observers who claim to be much better informed about what's going on inside of North Korea are convinced that the government there is about to collapse. Nobody can be precise on the timing, of course – but the consensus seems to be that the intersection of a better-informed public (mainly through smuggled devices giving them access to Chinese media) and a disintegrating state apparatus (mainly because of its inability to pay, or even feed, its minions) makes a collapse inevitable.
That can't happen soon enough for the suffering people of North Korea. But when the collapse does come, it will pose large problems for South Korea, and to a lesser extent, China. South Korea will be in the same position as West Germany in 1991 – but with an even greater economic disparity, and with the enormous disadvantage of a relatively poorly educated and brainwashed North Korean population. China will inevitably be taking in refugees and probably supplying humanitarian aid. Even worse for them, however, will be losing the useful thorn in the West's side that North Korea has been for them...
He wrote about his week in North Korea for Reason. He has some fascinating, sober, and insightful observations about the people there; well worth reading. I continue to be impressed with the quality of the writing in Reason - one of only two magazines that I still subscribe to (the other is Science News).
A lot of observers who claim to be much better informed about what's going on inside of North Korea are convinced that the government there is about to collapse. Nobody can be precise on the timing, of course – but the consensus seems to be that the intersection of a better-informed public (mainly through smuggled devices giving them access to Chinese media) and a disintegrating state apparatus (mainly because of its inability to pay, or even feed, its minions) makes a collapse inevitable.
That can't happen soon enough for the suffering people of North Korea. But when the collapse does come, it will pose large problems for South Korea, and to a lesser extent, China. South Korea will be in the same position as West Germany in 1991 – but with an even greater economic disparity, and with the enormous disadvantage of a relatively poorly educated and brainwashed North Korean population. China will inevitably be taking in refugees and probably supplying humanitarian aid. Even worse for them, however, will be losing the useful thorn in the West's side that North Korea has been for them...
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
40 Maps to Understand the World...
Well, some aspects of the world, anyway :) It is a fascinating collection of maps, visualizing all sorts of things I'd never have thought of visualizing. Like this one:
One thing I learned from this is that I'm not even close to the national average consumption for the U.S. – I'd better get to work on that! Assuming the U.S. average is about 8 liters of alcohol a year, that works out to 3/4 ounce of pure alcohol. My consumption is nearly entirely in wine, so that works out to about 6 ounces a day. That doesn't sound like much, but I actually only have wine a couple times a week – which means I'd have to drink about 20 ounces of wine at a sitting. Yikes! That would knock me for a loop!
I'm not surprised by the large Russian consumption. I saw an awful lot of vodka when I was there, and witnessed people drinking in amounts and at rates that I'd have thought were fatal. But France and England? I wouldn't have guessed that their alcohol consumption was on a par with Russia's...
One thing I learned from this is that I'm not even close to the national average consumption for the U.S. – I'd better get to work on that! Assuming the U.S. average is about 8 liters of alcohol a year, that works out to 3/4 ounce of pure alcohol. My consumption is nearly entirely in wine, so that works out to about 6 ounces a day. That doesn't sound like much, but I actually only have wine a couple times a week – which means I'd have to drink about 20 ounces of wine at a sitting. Yikes! That would knock me for a loop!
I'm not surprised by the large Russian consumption. I saw an awful lot of vodka when I was there, and witnessed people drinking in amounts and at rates that I'd have thought were fatal. But France and England? I wouldn't have guessed that their alcohol consumption was on a par with Russia's...
What the Hell is Happening to My Country, Part 49,926a...
Kimberley Strassel has an update on the story I posted a few days ago, about an ethanol mandate exemption being secretly granted to a single refinery. At the time, we didn't know which refinery got the exemption, nor why it was granted. Now we know the refinery (a small refinery in Louisiana), but we still don't know why. However, knowing the refinery allows all sorts of investigation and speculation, which Ms. Strassel has done. It has the stench of crony capitalism at work...
Open Content...
I hope this is the start of something big...
The Getty Museum announced its “open content” program, and released hundreds of high resolution images into the public domain. You can browse the released images on a rather nicely done web page. The preceding link will show you all the open content digital images of paintings by Rubens of the natural world. It's easy to change those filter settings to whatever you'd like to see. If you click on the title of any image shown here, you'll get a page that lets you download it, in awesomely high resolution.
Bravo, Getty Museum!
The Getty Museum announced its “open content” program, and released hundreds of high resolution images into the public domain. You can browse the released images on a rather nicely done web page. The preceding link will show you all the open content digital images of paintings by Rubens of the natural world. It's easy to change those filter settings to whatever you'd like to see. If you click on the title of any image shown here, you'll get a page that lets you download it, in awesomely high resolution.
Bravo, Getty Museum!
Browser Wars Update...
I just saw this at The Economist, and it took me by surprise:
The chart starts with Chrome's release in 2008. In just four years, Chrome went from nothing to being the dominant web browser. Firefox's popularity didn't change all that much. Internet Explorer went from dominance to a distant second place, falling at almost exactly a linear rate.
Chrome and Firefox are open on my desktop all day long. I like Chrome better for some web sites (especially Google's :), and I like Firefox better for handling tabs (which I use extensively). Internet Explorer is not allowed on my computer :) I do occasionally use Safari, though mainly that's for testing web applications.
Anyway, the rapid rise of Chrome caught be by surprise. I had no sense of that happening at all. I went to my blog's statistics and looked at browser share, and sure enough, Chrome is on top – followed, though, by Safari and Firefox (apparently an unusually high percentage of my readers are on Macs). Internet Explorer is missing in action.
There's an interesting map of browser dominance by country at the link...
Chrome and Firefox are open on my desktop all day long. I like Chrome better for some web sites (especially Google's :), and I like Firefox better for handling tabs (which I use extensively). Internet Explorer is not allowed on my computer :) I do occasionally use Safari, though mainly that's for testing web applications.
Anyway, the rapid rise of Chrome caught be by surprise. I had no sense of that happening at all. I went to my blog's statistics and looked at browser share, and sure enough, Chrome is on top – followed, though, by Safari and Firefox (apparently an unusually high percentage of my readers are on Macs). Internet Explorer is missing in action.
There's an interesting map of browser dominance by country at the link...
Organize for Action FAIL...
Organize for Action is the child of Obama's permanent campaign, and claims “millions” of members. Yesterday they called for a rally in Georgetown (on the outskirts of Washington D.C.) to agitate for Congressional action on anthropogenic global warming.
Nobody showed up.
Not one single person.
Awesome.
Nobody showed up.
Not one single person.
Awesome.
Filthy Filner: It's Come to This...
This sign is on display at all San Diego City Hooter's locations:
Now I know that the Hooter's folks are just taking advantage of the Filner situation to garner some positive publicity for themselves. But, still...
Now I know that the Hooter's folks are just taking advantage of the Filner situation to garner some positive publicity for themselves. But, still...
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Book Review...
I've just finished reading The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code, by Margalit Fox. It's the story of the decoding of Linear B script, which was much more of an accomplishment than many today remember. The first clay tablets bearing Linear B script were discovered in the late 1800s, and the form of the tablets made it crystal clear that Linear B was a script. Prior to that, objects were found with Linear B script on them (especially seals), but nobody recognized the odd symbols as a script; they were thought to be merely decoration.
For over 50 years after the tablets were discovered – until Michael Ventris' key breakthrough in 1953 – nobody knew how to interpret the Linear B script. For most of that period, even the kind of script Linear B was (alphabetic, syllabic, or logographic) was unknown. And for that entire period, the language that the script was recording was unknown.
I first read about Linear B something like thirty years ago, and I've long wanted to learn more about how it was decoded. On the face of it, the problem seemed insurmountable to me: an unknown script, recording an unknown language, and no equivalent of the Rosetta Stone to help. How in the world could someone decode that?
Like many such achievements, the decipherment involved several people, much cleverness, and had several breakthrough “Ah ha!” moments. One of the main players (Alice Kober) got little contemporaneous credit. There were amateurs, professionals, and academic hobbyists. At least one curmudgeon was present. There was a borderline lunatic, much obsession, and a possible suicide. And of course there were academic rivalries and jealousies, and abuse of power. In other words, it's a pretty typical story of science, with lots of human interest.
I was quite satisfied with the book, especially for telling the stories of all the players in what appears to be an even and fair-minded way. I wish it had a bit more detail about how the decipherment was accomplished, but there is enough there to give the reader the basic idea without too much work.
Recommended for anyone interested in the history of science, or in ancient languages...
For over 50 years after the tablets were discovered – until Michael Ventris' key breakthrough in 1953 – nobody knew how to interpret the Linear B script. For most of that period, even the kind of script Linear B was (alphabetic, syllabic, or logographic) was unknown. And for that entire period, the language that the script was recording was unknown.
I first read about Linear B something like thirty years ago, and I've long wanted to learn more about how it was decoded. On the face of it, the problem seemed insurmountable to me: an unknown script, recording an unknown language, and no equivalent of the Rosetta Stone to help. How in the world could someone decode that?
Like many such achievements, the decipherment involved several people, much cleverness, and had several breakthrough “Ah ha!” moments. One of the main players (Alice Kober) got little contemporaneous credit. There were amateurs, professionals, and academic hobbyists. At least one curmudgeon was present. There was a borderline lunatic, much obsession, and a possible suicide. And of course there were academic rivalries and jealousies, and abuse of power. In other words, it's a pretty typical story of science, with lots of human interest.
I was quite satisfied with the book, especially for telling the stories of all the players in what appears to be an even and fair-minded way. I wish it had a bit more detail about how the decipherment was accomplished, but there is enough there to give the reader the basic idea without too much work.
Recommended for anyone interested in the history of science, or in ancient languages...
Geek Nostalgia...
Update: Mere minutes after I published this, reader, friend, and former colleague Doug W. wrote to say: “Sorry to out-geek you, but no way is this equation (from your blog today) correct.” Out-geek me he did – and he caught a typo. I've now fixed it (the pi / 2 term on the left)...
Long ago – before, I'm afraid, many of my readers were born – I was given the task of writing a “program library” that calculated a particular set of functions to a specified accuracy within a specified amount of (computational) time. These included trigonometric functions, logarithmic functions, and a few others.
Initially I looked at Taylor series that converged on the functions I needed. These are series with an infinite number of terms, each of which is trivially related to the terms preceding. In other words, they're easy to compute. It quickly became obvious, though, that the Taylor series converged too slowly to be useful for my problem – the computers I was writing the program for (Univac CP-642Bs) were just too slow.
What to do? I did a lot of reading at libraries – first the San Francisco City library, then the technical library on the Navy base I was stationed at (Mare Island). In the Navy's library I accidentally ran across a slim volume titled Approximations for Digital Computers, by Cecil Hastings. As the preceding link shows, this book is well represented on the web even today (including free PDF and eBook downloads), despite it's 1954 publication date.
The book was a revelation for me, and a direct solution to my problem. It contained numerous finite (and usually quite short!) polynomials that approximated most of the functions I needed, usually to better than the accuracy I needed. Even better, for each of the approximations an error curve was included – and that could be directly used to improve the approximation even further. Best of all, the first half of the book explains exactly how these approximations were created – so I could create my own approximations for the few that Hastings didn't already do.
Just as an example, here's the Hastings approximation for sin(x) that produces sines accurate to better than 1 part in 10-7:, for angle in radians, -1 <= x <= 1:
sin((pi/2)x) = 1.57079631847x - 0.64596371106x3 +
0.07968967928x5 - 0.00467376557x7 + 0.00015148419x9
If you're a programmer, you'll see the beauty of that approximation right away. First of all, it's a finite series – no iteration to reduce errors is needed. You just compute the five terms and add them up, and bada bing, bada boom, you've got your answer. Second of all, the computation is easy – even for the ancient computers I was working with.
With that little book, and a couple weeks of work, I successfully implemented that programming library. About a week after I delivered it (this would have been in 1973), a full Commander whom I didn't know dragged me out of a cryptography class and into a meeting with several Captains and a Rear Admiral. At the time, I was a lowly E-5 (Petty Officer Second Class, in Navy parlance). I had very little experience with officers of any rank, and absolutely none with this level. I was terrified, and in spite of their best efforts, only slightly put at ease by their smiles and evident good will.
This group of scary people told me why they'd dragged me up there. They had given this problem (of writing that library) to two companies who had failed to deliver a usable result after more than a year of effort. The second company declared it impossible. The officers decided to give it to the school as a classroom exercise, thinking that it would make a good challenge to humble students upon. The instructors, thinking it was for real, gave it to three of their best pupils, myself included – but as an assignment, not a challenge. We all thought we had to deliver, or suffer some dire consequence. The worst possible consequence was really, really bad – students flunking out of this school were sent to another school at Mare Island: the “swift boat” school, whose graduates went on patrols on Vietnam's rivers, and suffered the highest casualty rate of any of the U.S. Armed Forces.
So when those officers got back a piece of code after just three weeks that claimed to solve the problem, they were skeptical. They tested it, and found that it exceeded both their accuracy specification and (especially) their performance specification. They did find a couple of little bugs, but they were obviously just little bugs, not major fails. So they dragged me out of class to explain to them just what magic I was using.
I happened to have the Hastings book with me, so I just whipped it out and showed them. To say they were stunned – especially after I told them where I found the book – would be a major understatement. Now they knew I wasn't a magician, but just a stubborn guy familiar with libraries :)
The best part of all, for me, was that they wanted to deploy this code as part of an upgrade to the Navy Tactical Data System (NTDS) – actual production code being used on our warships. They pulled me out of class for two months (I just dropped back in on the next class cycle), and I worked with a hotshot Lt. Cmdr programmer and two Univac contractors to get my code tested and “production ready”. That was the very first piece of production code I ever wrote, and I still get a warm feeling when I remember producing the master tape (for that was how we distributed code back then :)
Every few years since then, I've searched for a copy of Hastings' book. Last time was probably ten years ago, when I bid on eBay for a copy – and lost, to someone willing to pay $200 for it. A couple weeks ago I looked again – and found several copies available through Amazon's used book sources. I ordered one that was in good condition, paying just $12 (including shipping!). Today it arrived.
The copy I had used in 1973 was library-bound; the one I just received had the publisher's binding and the slip cover on it – so I didn't recognize the cover at all. But the inside of the book – oh, my, that brought back good memories in a hurry. Skimming Chapter 5, on Chebyshev polynomials, immediately brought back the sense of excitement, and even of adventure, that I felt on first reading this chapter. I knew then even less mathematics than I do today, and that chapter was quite challenging for me to understand. But once I did understand it, woo hoo! “Revelatory” is the right word.
Awesome geek nostalgia moment!!!
Long ago – before, I'm afraid, many of my readers were born – I was given the task of writing a “program library” that calculated a particular set of functions to a specified accuracy within a specified amount of (computational) time. These included trigonometric functions, logarithmic functions, and a few others.
Initially I looked at Taylor series that converged on the functions I needed. These are series with an infinite number of terms, each of which is trivially related to the terms preceding. In other words, they're easy to compute. It quickly became obvious, though, that the Taylor series converged too slowly to be useful for my problem – the computers I was writing the program for (Univac CP-642Bs) were just too slow.
What to do? I did a lot of reading at libraries – first the San Francisco City library, then the technical library on the Navy base I was stationed at (Mare Island). In the Navy's library I accidentally ran across a slim volume titled Approximations for Digital Computers, by Cecil Hastings. As the preceding link shows, this book is well represented on the web even today (including free PDF and eBook downloads), despite it's 1954 publication date.
The book was a revelation for me, and a direct solution to my problem. It contained numerous finite (and usually quite short!) polynomials that approximated most of the functions I needed, usually to better than the accuracy I needed. Even better, for each of the approximations an error curve was included – and that could be directly used to improve the approximation even further. Best of all, the first half of the book explains exactly how these approximations were created – so I could create my own approximations for the few that Hastings didn't already do.
Just as an example, here's the Hastings approximation for sin(x) that produces sines accurate to better than 1 part in 10-7:, for angle in radians, -1 <= x <= 1:
sin((pi/2)x) = 1.57079631847x - 0.64596371106x3 +
0.07968967928x5 - 0.00467376557x7 + 0.00015148419x9
If you're a programmer, you'll see the beauty of that approximation right away. First of all, it's a finite series – no iteration to reduce errors is needed. You just compute the five terms and add them up, and bada bing, bada boom, you've got your answer. Second of all, the computation is easy – even for the ancient computers I was working with.
With that little book, and a couple weeks of work, I successfully implemented that programming library. About a week after I delivered it (this would have been in 1973), a full Commander whom I didn't know dragged me out of a cryptography class and into a meeting with several Captains and a Rear Admiral. At the time, I was a lowly E-5 (Petty Officer Second Class, in Navy parlance). I had very little experience with officers of any rank, and absolutely none with this level. I was terrified, and in spite of their best efforts, only slightly put at ease by their smiles and evident good will.
This group of scary people told me why they'd dragged me up there. They had given this problem (of writing that library) to two companies who had failed to deliver a usable result after more than a year of effort. The second company declared it impossible. The officers decided to give it to the school as a classroom exercise, thinking that it would make a good challenge to humble students upon. The instructors, thinking it was for real, gave it to three of their best pupils, myself included – but as an assignment, not a challenge. We all thought we had to deliver, or suffer some dire consequence. The worst possible consequence was really, really bad – students flunking out of this school were sent to another school at Mare Island: the “swift boat” school, whose graduates went on patrols on Vietnam's rivers, and suffered the highest casualty rate of any of the U.S. Armed Forces.
So when those officers got back a piece of code after just three weeks that claimed to solve the problem, they were skeptical. They tested it, and found that it exceeded both their accuracy specification and (especially) their performance specification. They did find a couple of little bugs, but they were obviously just little bugs, not major fails. So they dragged me out of class to explain to them just what magic I was using.
I happened to have the Hastings book with me, so I just whipped it out and showed them. To say they were stunned – especially after I told them where I found the book – would be a major understatement. Now they knew I wasn't a magician, but just a stubborn guy familiar with libraries :)
The best part of all, for me, was that they wanted to deploy this code as part of an upgrade to the Navy Tactical Data System (NTDS) – actual production code being used on our warships. They pulled me out of class for two months (I just dropped back in on the next class cycle), and I worked with a hotshot Lt. Cmdr programmer and two Univac contractors to get my code tested and “production ready”. That was the very first piece of production code I ever wrote, and I still get a warm feeling when I remember producing the master tape (for that was how we distributed code back then :)
Every few years since then, I've searched for a copy of Hastings' book. Last time was probably ten years ago, when I bid on eBay for a copy – and lost, to someone willing to pay $200 for it. A couple weeks ago I looked again – and found several copies available through Amazon's used book sources. I ordered one that was in good condition, paying just $12 (including shipping!). Today it arrived.
The copy I had used in 1973 was library-bound; the one I just received had the publisher's binding and the slip cover on it – so I didn't recognize the cover at all. But the inside of the book – oh, my, that brought back good memories in a hurry. Skimming Chapter 5, on Chebyshev polynomials, immediately brought back the sense of excitement, and even of adventure, that I felt on first reading this chapter. I knew then even less mathematics than I do today, and that chapter was quite challenging for me to understand. But once I did understand it, woo hoo! “Revelatory” is the right word.
Awesome geek nostalgia moment!!!
Transgender Children...
California Governor Gerry “Moonbeam” Brown has signed into law a bill (AB-1266) protecting transgender children enrolled in public schools. Provisions in the bill allow transgender children to choose which gender's restrooms and locker rooms they will use, and choose which gender sports teams they'll participate in.
What does this actually mean?
The bill uses the term “gender identity”, which I found several definitions for out on the web – similar, but not identical. The basic notion is that your gender identity is that gender that you deeply feel you are – even if that's different than your physical gender. I couldn't find anything that defined (under California law) how one gets a particular gender identity under the law. It could be that you simply declare it, or it could be that you have to have a psychiatric professional certify it. I have no idea.
There really are people out there whose gender identity is different than their actual physical gender – transgendered people. I've known two in my life. The first was born a man (and that's how I first new him), but who thought of himself as a woman. “Robert” became “Robin” while (s)he was an employee of mine. That was quite an experience, on many levels. The other was a person born as a woman (coincidentally, “Robin”) who thought of herself as a man. She became “Al” several years before I first met him. In this case, Al was an employee of the company I was CEO of, and I had another male employee who complained about Al's inappropriate advances. Yes, transgender people can also be gay, as I got a quick education on.
I relate the preceding mainly to illustrate through my own experience that transgender people exist. I have no doubt, personally, of the reality of this condition. I also have no doubt that some transgender children exist, and in this day and age, they might well be recognized at a young age.
So I don't doubt the sincerity of the bill's authors, nor the reality of the issue they address.
But I, like many others, am worried about the bill's imposition of potentially very uncomfortable situations on young people who already have enough social challenges. Again like many others, I worry about its potential for abuse.
First the uncomfortable situations. Imagine a 16 year old person who is physically male, but identifies as female. That person, under AB-1266, has the right to choose to use the girl's restrooms and the girls locker room. I suspect that even in these “enlightened” times, there are still girls of high school age who are uncomfortable in the presence of nude men, and who would be uncomfortable being nude in the presence of a man (nude or not). Basically this bill says “tough” to those girls (or the boys in an opposite situation, though the discomfort potential there is admittedly far lower :).
Then there's the potential for abuse. This mainly rests upon the requirements imposed by California law on establishing gender identity. If those requirements are very loose – say, simply the declaration of the student – then it doesn't take much imagination to contrive situations where a horny and curious boy (that would be all of them) establishes gender identity as a girl and thereby gains admittance to about 80% of all teenage boy sexual fantasies. Because I couldn't find the rules by which one establishes gender identity (under the law), I can't assess the probability of abuse. I can imagine a fairly “tight” set of rules that would make it difficult for abuse to occur, but this is California; there's no telling what those idiots in Sacramento have actually done. They probably don't know themselves!
What does this actually mean?
The bill uses the term “gender identity”, which I found several definitions for out on the web – similar, but not identical. The basic notion is that your gender identity is that gender that you deeply feel you are – even if that's different than your physical gender. I couldn't find anything that defined (under California law) how one gets a particular gender identity under the law. It could be that you simply declare it, or it could be that you have to have a psychiatric professional certify it. I have no idea.
There really are people out there whose gender identity is different than their actual physical gender – transgendered people. I've known two in my life. The first was born a man (and that's how I first new him), but who thought of himself as a woman. “Robert” became “Robin” while (s)he was an employee of mine. That was quite an experience, on many levels. The other was a person born as a woman (coincidentally, “Robin”) who thought of herself as a man. She became “Al” several years before I first met him. In this case, Al was an employee of the company I was CEO of, and I had another male employee who complained about Al's inappropriate advances. Yes, transgender people can also be gay, as I got a quick education on.
I relate the preceding mainly to illustrate through my own experience that transgender people exist. I have no doubt, personally, of the reality of this condition. I also have no doubt that some transgender children exist, and in this day and age, they might well be recognized at a young age.
So I don't doubt the sincerity of the bill's authors, nor the reality of the issue they address.
But I, like many others, am worried about the bill's imposition of potentially very uncomfortable situations on young people who already have enough social challenges. Again like many others, I worry about its potential for abuse.
First the uncomfortable situations. Imagine a 16 year old person who is physically male, but identifies as female. That person, under AB-1266, has the right to choose to use the girl's restrooms and the girls locker room. I suspect that even in these “enlightened” times, there are still girls of high school age who are uncomfortable in the presence of nude men, and who would be uncomfortable being nude in the presence of a man (nude or not). Basically this bill says “tough” to those girls (or the boys in an opposite situation, though the discomfort potential there is admittedly far lower :).
Then there's the potential for abuse. This mainly rests upon the requirements imposed by California law on establishing gender identity. If those requirements are very loose – say, simply the declaration of the student – then it doesn't take much imagination to contrive situations where a horny and curious boy (that would be all of them) establishes gender identity as a girl and thereby gains admittance to about 80% of all teenage boy sexual fantasies. Because I couldn't find the rules by which one establishes gender identity (under the law), I can't assess the probability of abuse. I can imagine a fairly “tight” set of rules that would make it difficult for abuse to occur, but this is California; there's no telling what those idiots in Sacramento have actually done. They probably don't know themselves!
Monday, August 12, 2013
Not So Fast...
Listening to Obama and the lapdog lamestream media's reports, you'd think that the U.S. was burning up with record high temperatures, burning down from wildfires, being blown apart by tornadoes and hurricanes, and so on.
Reality? Not so much...
Reality? Not so much...
Ukelele?!?
Unless you are a very strange person, you will never before have heard a ukelele that sounded like this:
Name Change...
A judge in Tennessee has told the parents of a 7 month old baby boy that they must change its first name to “Martin” instead of the name the parents wanted.
My first reaction upon reading that was to wonder how it could be possible for a judge in the U.S. to even have that power. It doesn't seem to me that a judge should be able to do that – if a parent wants to assign some particular name to their child, why should a judge be able to overrule them?
Then I read the name the parents had chosen: “Messiah”. Ah, ha! They must have offended a Christian judge, I thought – and the article confirms that. This seems like particularly egregious overreach on the part of the judge, imposing her Christian sensibilities on the parents, who may or may not be Christian themselves. My guess is that if the parent's fight the judge's order, they will prevail.
But what to do with a judge that exhibits such blatantly inappropriate prejudice and partiality? Get her out of there! She doesn't belong in a position with such responsibility to be impartial with respect to faith...
My first reaction upon reading that was to wonder how it could be possible for a judge in the U.S. to even have that power. It doesn't seem to me that a judge should be able to do that – if a parent wants to assign some particular name to their child, why should a judge be able to overrule them?
Then I read the name the parents had chosen: “Messiah”. Ah, ha! They must have offended a Christian judge, I thought – and the article confirms that. This seems like particularly egregious overreach on the part of the judge, imposing her Christian sensibilities on the parents, who may or may not be Christian themselves. My guess is that if the parent's fight the judge's order, they will prevail.
But what to do with a judge that exhibits such blatantly inappropriate prejudice and partiality? Get her out of there! She doesn't belong in a position with such responsibility to be impartial with respect to faith...
Just Sayin'...
The IPCC and it's gang of warmists (Hansen, Mann, etc.) love to tell us that the science is settled with respect to global warming. Their models, upon which virtually everything they assert rests, are chock full of questionable assumptions and faulty data, but the warmists nonetheless assure us that the models tell the whole truth, the only truth, and nothing but the truth. Amongst these “truths” is that variations in the brightness of the sun have almost no effect on global average temperatures – so little, in fact, that the majority of the models used by the IPCC reports don't even bother to include it.
This morning I read a report by several climatologists that claims they have discovered the cause of the (roughly) 100,000 year Ice Age cycle. This cycle has long been known, but was unexplained (at least, in any rigorous and plausible way). These scientists claim to have solved the riddle (by producing a computer model that can reproduce Ice Ages). The cause, they say, is a cyclical variation in “insolation” (a five dollar word meaning sunlight striking the Earth).
So, the science is settled: variations in solar radiance (which result in variations in insolation) do not cause global warming, but variations in insolation do cause Ice Ages. The sun can't heat the Earth, but the lack of sun can cool it.
Right.
Just sayin'...
This morning I read a report by several climatologists that claims they have discovered the cause of the (roughly) 100,000 year Ice Age cycle. This cycle has long been known, but was unexplained (at least, in any rigorous and plausible way). These scientists claim to have solved the riddle (by producing a computer model that can reproduce Ice Ages). The cause, they say, is a cyclical variation in “insolation” (a five dollar word meaning sunlight striking the Earth).
So, the science is settled: variations in solar radiance (which result in variations in insolation) do not cause global warming, but variations in insolation do cause Ice Ages. The sun can't heat the Earth, but the lack of sun can cool it.
Right.
Just sayin'...
Earthquakes...
A couple of times a week I check out the “Recent Seismic Activity” link at right, which shows the latest data collected by the seismometer installed in my home office (about four feet from where I'm typing this). Usually there will be one or two entries posted each week. This time, there were four entries just from the last two days – and they were a large enough magnitude that I knew they must be from relatively close earthquakes.
The map below shows the location of the cluster of small earthquakes (largest one is magnitude 3.8), located about 30 miles ENE of our home. Not close enough to be worrisome, but certainly closer than most earthquakes the seismometer sees! The cluster is almost due east of Mt. Laguna, close to S2 near the mouth of Canebrake Canyon. This is an area I know quite well, as I walk there looking for Desert Lilies many winters.
The map below shows the location of the cluster of small earthquakes (largest one is magnitude 3.8), located about 30 miles ENE of our home. Not close enough to be worrisome, but certainly closer than most earthquakes the seismometer sees! The cluster is almost due east of Mt. Laguna, close to S2 near the mouth of Canebrake Canyon. This is an area I know quite well, as I walk there looking for Desert Lilies many winters.
Perseid Meteors...
I got up extra early this morning (about 3 am) so I could go out and watch the Perseid meteors, which peaked tonight. They put on quite a show! In 20 minutes I saw 27 meteors. Most of them were the typical streak of light about as bright as a star, but four of them were much bigger and brighter than any star. One of these came more-or-less straight toward me, making only a short streak just to the north of the Pleiades. Another of them went straight overhead, moving toward the southwest – and making a visible smoke trail that persisted for a minute or so.
Awesome!
Awesome!
Sunday, August 11, 2013
What the Hell is Happening to My Country, Part 49,926...
Kimberley Strassel, writing at the Wall Street Journal, points out a relatively small, but telling piece of corruption: a single oil refinery (out of 143) has been granted an exemption from the mandate to include ethanol in the gasoline they produce. The other 142 refineries are being told to take up the slack for the one exempted.
What refinery is the lucky recipient of this exemption? And by what process was the exemption granted? Here's where the stench of corruption really starts pouring forth: the EPA (the government agency responsible for assigning ethanol mandate targets) refuses to say which refinery was exempted, or why. Furthermore, they even fiddled the public numbers to hide which refinery it was.
Ms. Strassel concludes:
Rope.
Tree.
EPA Administrators.
Some assembly required.
What refinery is the lucky recipient of this exemption? And by what process was the exemption granted? Here's where the stench of corruption really starts pouring forth: the EPA (the government agency responsible for assigning ethanol mandate targets) refuses to say which refinery was exempted, or why. Furthermore, they even fiddled the public numbers to hide which refinery it was.
Ms. Strassel concludes:
Dozens of small refineries are being crushed by the mandate, and a number have petitioned the EPA for exemptions. If "disproportionate economic hardship" is the agency's standard, no doubt plenty would qualify. Yet only one got the nod. The rest of the industry is dying to know what is so special about this refinery, especially since the EPA is making every other refinery shoulder its burden.Go read the whole thing, then write your Congresscritters (I just did). My conclusion?
The public should want to know too. Washington is rife with secret deals that reward select corporate players, and the numbers have only accelerated under this "most transparent" of administrations. If the process by which the EPA issued this exemption was aboveboard, it should have no problem divulging details. Until that time, the public might fairly assume funny business.
Rope.
Tree.
EPA Administrators.
Some assembly required.
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Oops!
I'm a reasonably technical guy, but this really surprised me when I first read of it: a broad range of Xerox brand copiers can change the numbers in a document being copied. Xerox has owned up to the problem, and appears to be approaching the resolution of it in a constructive way. It may not be just Xerox copiers, either. As David Kriesel (the researcher who first reported the issue) points out, this can have consequences that are costly (e.g., invoice with the wrong numbers on it) or even deadly (e.g., a bridge design with the wrong specifications).
My expectation of copiers is that they will produce copies that are perfect duplicates of the original, within the resolution constraints of the device. They might have optical distortion, color distortion, streaks, etc. – but they shouldn't just move shit around or make shit up!
But truthfully, I should have known better. After all, I have some idea how a modern copier actually works. They do not work like many people imagine: kind of like a camera. Not at all. Instead, every modern copier is actually a small, special-purpose computer with (at minimum) a scanner and a printer attached. Fancy copiers may also have a whole bunch of paper handling mechanism attached, and possibly multiple scanners and printers, too. But for this discussion, let's stick with a simple copier like you might have in your home office. We have one such copier, which also works as a scanner and a printer – a multifunction device.
These copiers work like this when you press the “Copy” button:
The first one has been long recognized, and isn't the main subject of this post: many (probably most, actually) copiers store copies of the documents scanned on the hard disk indefinitely. The hard disks can easily store millions of pages of documents, so there's not even much danger of filling one up. That's a security problem for just about anybody, even home owners, as someone could steal that hard disk and retrieve copies of anything you've ever copied.
The other problem is the new one, and it's related to the image compression step. “Compression” is a method for reducing the size of the image files the copier saves to disk. The more compression, the more pages that can be stored. The Xerox copiers (and many others as well) allow users to configure exactly what kind of compression is used. The most important choice is between lossless and lossy compression. Lossless compression will make a perfect copy of the document, but without as much compression. Lossy compression will make an imperfect copy of the document, but with (much) more compression. Lossy compression methods (algorithms) achieve their higher compression by compromising on some aspect of the copy. There are many different ways to do this, with different consequences for the quality of the resulting image copy.
One of the lossy compression choices Xerox provides is an algorithm called JBIG2. The preceding link has a good general discussion of how JBIG2 works, but here's the relevant bit for this issue: for text (including numerical data), JBIG2 recognizes characters (much like OCR, if you're familiar with that) on the page. This recognition process is far from perfect, and can easily result in one character being mistaken for another. The JBIG2 algorithm keeps track of the context of what its compressing – if it sees a column of numbers, it's much more likely to match another number than it is to match a letter. So the mistakes it makes in recognizing characters to match can, in fact, result in choosing the wrong number.
So what? Well, let's say the original document has a “5”, but JBIG2 matches a “2” instead. The copy that gets printed will have a “2” where the “5” should have been. Oops.
The actual process is much more complicated than I just described. There's one element of that complexity that matters for this discussion: JBIG2 can be configured for different degrees of “looseness” on the character matching. The problem I described really only matters when this configuration is set for high levels of compression (which use loose matches).
Xerox has a firmware patch that fixes the problem by the simple expedient of disabling JBIG2 compression. As Mr. Kriesel points out, getting that patch to all of Xerox's copiers in the field is not simple. Inevitably there will be customers who never get the message – and if they've configured their copier(s) to use JBIG2 at high compression, they could be in for some very rude – and possibly costly or deadly – surprises...
A big oops!
My expectation of copiers is that they will produce copies that are perfect duplicates of the original, within the resolution constraints of the device. They might have optical distortion, color distortion, streaks, etc. – but they shouldn't just move shit around or make shit up!
But truthfully, I should have known better. After all, I have some idea how a modern copier actually works. They do not work like many people imagine: kind of like a camera. Not at all. Instead, every modern copier is actually a small, special-purpose computer with (at minimum) a scanner and a printer attached. Fancy copiers may also have a whole bunch of paper handling mechanism attached, and possibly multiple scanners and printers, too. But for this discussion, let's stick with a simple copier like you might have in your home office. We have one such copier, which also works as a scanner and a printer – a multifunction device.
These copiers work like this when you press the “Copy” button:
- The original document is scanned into the computer's memory as an image.
- The image is compressed and stored on the computer's hard disk.
- The image is decompressed and printed.
The first one has been long recognized, and isn't the main subject of this post: many (probably most, actually) copiers store copies of the documents scanned on the hard disk indefinitely. The hard disks can easily store millions of pages of documents, so there's not even much danger of filling one up. That's a security problem for just about anybody, even home owners, as someone could steal that hard disk and retrieve copies of anything you've ever copied.
The other problem is the new one, and it's related to the image compression step. “Compression” is a method for reducing the size of the image files the copier saves to disk. The more compression, the more pages that can be stored. The Xerox copiers (and many others as well) allow users to configure exactly what kind of compression is used. The most important choice is between lossless and lossy compression. Lossless compression will make a perfect copy of the document, but without as much compression. Lossy compression will make an imperfect copy of the document, but with (much) more compression. Lossy compression methods (algorithms) achieve their higher compression by compromising on some aspect of the copy. There are many different ways to do this, with different consequences for the quality of the resulting image copy.
One of the lossy compression choices Xerox provides is an algorithm called JBIG2. The preceding link has a good general discussion of how JBIG2 works, but here's the relevant bit for this issue: for text (including numerical data), JBIG2 recognizes characters (much like OCR, if you're familiar with that) on the page. This recognition process is far from perfect, and can easily result in one character being mistaken for another. The JBIG2 algorithm keeps track of the context of what its compressing – if it sees a column of numbers, it's much more likely to match another number than it is to match a letter. So the mistakes it makes in recognizing characters to match can, in fact, result in choosing the wrong number.
So what? Well, let's say the original document has a “5”, but JBIG2 matches a “2” instead. The copy that gets printed will have a “2” where the “5” should have been. Oops.
The actual process is much more complicated than I just described. There's one element of that complexity that matters for this discussion: JBIG2 can be configured for different degrees of “looseness” on the character matching. The problem I described really only matters when this configuration is set for high levels of compression (which use loose matches).
Xerox has a firmware patch that fixes the problem by the simple expedient of disabling JBIG2 compression. As Mr. Kriesel points out, getting that patch to all of Xerox's copiers in the field is not simple. Inevitably there will be customers who never get the message – and if they've configured their copier(s) to use JBIG2 at high compression, they could be in for some very rude – and possibly costly or deadly – surprises...
A big oops!
There's a Message Here...
Just read in the news that the rate of Americans renouncing their citizenship has jumped sixfold – and over 100,000 people (not all Americans, though) have signed up for a one-way trip to Mars.
Used to be that people saw America as the golden land of opportunity. Now they're willing to go to great lengths to get out of here.
The drums of doom. I hear them beating...
Used to be that people saw America as the golden land of opportunity. Now they're willing to go to great lengths to get out of here.
The drums of doom. I hear them beating...
Quote of the Day...
Nobody beats Mark Steyn for provoking laughter, anger, and tears in the same piece, and sometimes even in the same sentence. His current piece (Know Thine Enemy) at NRO is a great example of his art, this time on the trial of Major Hasan. The quote:
“...you can’t get much more diverse than letting your military personnel pick which side of the war they want to be on.”Do read the whole thing...
What the Hell is Happening to My Country, Part 49,925...
Repeal the Bill of Rights? You betcha!
Words fail me...
Words fail me...
Filthy Filner: Just About Out of Support...
Weeks after the public revelations started, the last Democrats willing to defend Filthy Filner are turning on him. The last city council members have called for his resignation, as have California's two Democratic Senators and nearly all of his former Democratic colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives. Even the national lamestream media is starting to take notice, though (of course!) they rarely mention Filner's party association.
Michelle Malkin has a good piece on the Filthy Filner coverup at NRO, and San Diego's 10 News has a straight up piece on the latest twist in the Filthy Filner Saga: allegedly he started his intensive therapy a week early, and so finished a week early – yesterday.
Will Filthy resign? Will he fight on? For locals, it's an entertainment smorgasbord, with every choice quite tasty...
Michelle Malkin has a good piece on the Filthy Filner coverup at NRO, and San Diego's 10 News has a straight up piece on the latest twist in the Filthy Filner Saga: allegedly he started his intensive therapy a week early, and so finished a week early – yesterday.
Will Filthy resign? Will he fight on? For locals, it's an entertainment smorgasbord, with every choice quite tasty...
4k TV...
Debbie and I were down the hill yesterday, doing various and sundry errands. Along the way we had a lovely meal of eastern scallops, definitely the best part of the day! We also ran into completely unreasonable traffic, reminding us once again of why we really don't like coming down off the hill very much :(
But one of the things we did was kind of fun – we wandered into Fry's Electronics to see what a 4k TV (also called Ultra High Definition TV, or UHD TV) actually looked like. The model we looked at was one of Sony's latest. They're quite expensive now, but certain to come down in price very quickly as more manufacturers get into the game and the competition heats up.
We weren't there to buy one, just to look and see what the fuss was about. We own an HD TV now, so that was the benchmark for our comparison. Both of us were very impressed; in my case, much more so than I was expecting to be. What got my attention was this: from four feet away from the screen, if I stood perfectly still while watching an outdoor scene, I could almost imagine that I was looking at a window and not a TV. The result was better than any slide projector I've ever seen – so immediately I thought about what a great way to show off still photography this would make. The movies were impressive, too, but I rarely watch either TV or movies, so that's not too compelling for me. Debbie, on the other hand, is a big movie fan, and watches quite a bit of TV, too. Her reaction was to comment on the three dimensionality of the sample movies, and the resolution. When content is available (and the price comes down!), she wants one.
Reader and friend Cliff F. passed along this article explaining about 4k TV; lots of good information in it.
From a technical guys perspective, there's a lot of marketing spin at work here. First of all, the horizontal resolution isn't actually 4k (4,096), it's 3,840, yielding an image size of 3,840 x 2,160 pixels (for a 16:9 aspect ratio). But even this is misleading, as (most of) the cameras used to capture this content don't actually have 3,840 RGB-sensing pixels on a line (which would require 3,840 x 3 = 11,520 sensor cells per line). Instead, they use sensors with 3,840 sensor cells and a technology called “Bayer filters” that provides 1/4 the areal resolution you think you're getting – then uses a “de-mosaicing” algorithm to computationally estimate what an actual RGB sensor would have seen. This is, of course, very different than the 3x CMOS cameras, which are apparently impractical for 4k TV; these actually deliver the resolution specified.
Being an engineer, this kind of misleading specification really ticks me off. If someone told me I was buying a “4k” TV camera with a 16:9 aspect ratio, I'd expect to have a 4,096 x 2,304 pixel TV. That would imply (to me!) a sensor with 4,096 x 2,304 x 3 (for RGB) = 28,311,552 individual sensors on it. What I actually get is 3,840 x 2,160 = 8,294,400 individual sensors. That's less than 30% of what I expected from the marketing claim. Annoying!
I don't know if the displays for UHD TV are specified in the same misleading way, but I'd bet they are.
In any case, that's all an engineer's rant. From a user's perspective, the 4k TVs are beautiful, but expensive. But then, there are a lot of things like that :)
But one of the things we did was kind of fun – we wandered into Fry's Electronics to see what a 4k TV (also called Ultra High Definition TV, or UHD TV) actually looked like. The model we looked at was one of Sony's latest. They're quite expensive now, but certain to come down in price very quickly as more manufacturers get into the game and the competition heats up.
We weren't there to buy one, just to look and see what the fuss was about. We own an HD TV now, so that was the benchmark for our comparison. Both of us were very impressed; in my case, much more so than I was expecting to be. What got my attention was this: from four feet away from the screen, if I stood perfectly still while watching an outdoor scene, I could almost imagine that I was looking at a window and not a TV. The result was better than any slide projector I've ever seen – so immediately I thought about what a great way to show off still photography this would make. The movies were impressive, too, but I rarely watch either TV or movies, so that's not too compelling for me. Debbie, on the other hand, is a big movie fan, and watches quite a bit of TV, too. Her reaction was to comment on the three dimensionality of the sample movies, and the resolution. When content is available (and the price comes down!), she wants one.
Reader and friend Cliff F. passed along this article explaining about 4k TV; lots of good information in it.
From a technical guys perspective, there's a lot of marketing spin at work here. First of all, the horizontal resolution isn't actually 4k (4,096), it's 3,840, yielding an image size of 3,840 x 2,160 pixels (for a 16:9 aspect ratio). But even this is misleading, as (most of) the cameras used to capture this content don't actually have 3,840 RGB-sensing pixels on a line (which would require 3,840 x 3 = 11,520 sensor cells per line). Instead, they use sensors with 3,840 sensor cells and a technology called “Bayer filters” that provides 1/4 the areal resolution you think you're getting – then uses a “de-mosaicing” algorithm to computationally estimate what an actual RGB sensor would have seen. This is, of course, very different than the 3x CMOS cameras, which are apparently impractical for 4k TV; these actually deliver the resolution specified.
Being an engineer, this kind of misleading specification really ticks me off. If someone told me I was buying a “4k” TV camera with a 16:9 aspect ratio, I'd expect to have a 4,096 x 2,304 pixel TV. That would imply (to me!) a sensor with 4,096 x 2,304 x 3 (for RGB) = 28,311,552 individual sensors on it. What I actually get is 3,840 x 2,160 = 8,294,400 individual sensors. That's less than 30% of what I expected from the marketing claim. Annoying!
I don't know if the displays for UHD TV are specified in the same misleading way, but I'd bet they are.
In any case, that's all an engineer's rant. From a user's perspective, the 4k TVs are beautiful, but expensive. But then, there are a lot of things like that :)
Remember When...
Passed along by reader, friend, former colleague, and Idaho real estate mogul Doug S:
Yes, as a matter of fact, I do remember...
Yes, as a matter of fact, I do remember...
Friday, August 9, 2013
How To Safely Keep Those National Secrets...
Passed along by reader and neighbor Marisa S., who says “Good One!”:
I wasn't able to confirm that it was actually Mike Huckabee who said this, but it does sound like him...
I wasn't able to confirm that it was actually Mike Huckabee who said this, but it does sound like him...
Back in the U.S.A...
No, not me – I haven't left the U.S.A. for quite a while (though the U.S.A. seems to be leaving me – but that's another story). Rachel Lucas is back in the U.S.A., and Primo is with her. Rupert is stuck back in Italy for a while, but will be joining Rachel and Primo soon.
Rachel is happy to be back home, in Texas. Primo...Primo is apparently consumed by canine ecstasy. The latest episode of that is his discovery of peanut butter filled Kongs:
Now that's a happy dog!
Rachel is happy to be back home, in Texas. Primo...Primo is apparently consumed by canine ecstasy. The latest episode of that is his discovery of peanut butter filled Kongs:
Now that's a happy dog!
Aunty Acid...
Via my mom, a cartoonist new to me. I was very glad I had finished my morning tea before reading these :) Many more here...
Bombardier 415...
Nice video of Bombardier 415s in action – the only airplane designed from the ground up for fire-fighting. Via reader and blog friend Simi L.:
Linear Regression...
Linear regression is a tool I've used countless times, without understanding it as well as I thought I did (a common theme in my life :). In my own experience, it's more common to see the tool misused – especially, for some reason, in psychology and biology. Here's a very accessible explanation of it, even if you don't have a Ph.D. in mathematics...
The End Is Near (UPDATED)...
Peter Robinson, posting at Ricochet, posted this picture with the same title I used:
Question: if that bumper sticker is for real, is the end near – or is it already here?
Update: I did a little googling, and found this. Time to start stockpiling canned food...
What the Hell is Happening to My Country, Part 49,924...
Yesterday, a tiny little company providing encrypted email services, called Lavabit, rather abruptly shut down. Their web site now has just this message:
Lavabit gained some notoriety recently because allegedly Snowden used it. There's lots of speculation in the press about what provoked Lavabit's shutdown. I think it's likely they were the recipient of a National Security Letter (NSL) requiring them to turn over metadata they thought should be private.
I want to focus on something other than Snowden's use of it, and the probably-not-coincidental appearance of an NSL. I want to focus on the wrongness – the un-Americanness – of a mechanism like the NSL. I (and many others) think it's a step way, way over the line between privacy and security. It's also a gold-plated invitation for abuse, as the victim has no recourse at all – he can't even tell anyone (not even a lawyer!) what his problem is. That's just wrong. Even if you believe that Snowden was a traitor, even if you believe our government needs a way to snoop on this data...it's still wrong. It's the wrong way to solve the problem, even if you believe there is a problem.
The existence of NSLs is one of the (unfortunately) many things happening to America in my lifetime that have started to make me wonder if this really is the best country for my family and I to be citizens of. Before about 10 years ago, I had never had such a thought in my life...
Lavabit gained some notoriety recently because allegedly Snowden used it. There's lots of speculation in the press about what provoked Lavabit's shutdown. I think it's likely they were the recipient of a National Security Letter (NSL) requiring them to turn over metadata they thought should be private.
I want to focus on something other than Snowden's use of it, and the probably-not-coincidental appearance of an NSL. I want to focus on the wrongness – the un-Americanness – of a mechanism like the NSL. I (and many others) think it's a step way, way over the line between privacy and security. It's also a gold-plated invitation for abuse, as the victim has no recourse at all – he can't even tell anyone (not even a lawyer!) what his problem is. That's just wrong. Even if you believe that Snowden was a traitor, even if you believe our government needs a way to snoop on this data...it's still wrong. It's the wrong way to solve the problem, even if you believe there is a problem.
The existence of NSLs is one of the (unfortunately) many things happening to America in my lifetime that have started to make me wonder if this really is the best country for my family and I to be citizens of. Before about 10 years ago, I had never had such a thought in my life...
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
What the Hell is Happening to My Country? Part 49,923...
The crime: refusing to take medication.
The suspect: a 95 year old man.
The legal process: no need for that, the cops are judge, jury, and executioner all rolled into one.
The sentence: death, by electrocution and assault.
Mark Steyn reports.
What the hell is happening to my country?
The suspect: a 95 year old man.
The legal process: no need for that, the cops are judge, jury, and executioner all rolled into one.
The sentence: death, by electrocution and assault.
Mark Steyn reports.
What the hell is happening to my country?
Filthy Filner: Number Eleven...
I cannot bear popcorn, but I wish I liked it – I like the mental image of having a nice, big tub of popcorn while we watch the Filner Follies...
Yesterday, the eleventh woman to publicly charge Filthy with sexual harassment came forth. The story here sounds very Filneresque at this point: Filthy offered to help a Marine with PTSD – but only if the nurse asking for help agreed to go on a date with him.
What a schmuck!
But I don't like popcorn, so I'll just sip my tea and keep reading the Filthy Files, and Google News...
Yesterday, the eleventh woman to publicly charge Filthy with sexual harassment came forth. The story here sounds very Filneresque at this point: Filthy offered to help a Marine with PTSD – but only if the nurse asking for help agreed to go on a date with him.
What a schmuck!
But I don't like popcorn, so I'll just sip my tea and keep reading the Filthy Files, and Google News...
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Obamacare: Consequences...
One of the “features” of Obamacare is an absolutely enormous transfer of wealth from the young (through their mandate to purchase health insurance) to the old (the dominant consumer of health care, and therefore dominant cause of health care expenses). In other words, Obamacare purports to solve the problem of healthcare expenses for the elderly by making the younger folks pay for it.
Many opponents of Obamacare imagine that in the long run this theft of young people's money will drive young people away from the Democratic party. Since this is one of the Democrats' key constituencies, this possibility is seen with some glee by the Republicans (the likely beneficiary of youth disenchantment with Democrats). This would then give the Republicans the legislative and executive authority to repeal Obamacare.
Personally, I think it's more likely that if the Republicans ever gain the political power to repeal Obamacare, they won't (all their campaign promises notwithstanding). Instead, I suspect they'll modify Obamacare in ways that retain the popular part, make some nominal (but electorate appeasing) adjustments to the wealth transfer aspects, and keep every bit of the opportunity for regulation and exception carve-outs – so they can keep the lobbyists coming, cash in hand.
But something I hadn't considered before is that there is a completely different solution to the wealth transfer problem. Think about this from a younger person's perspective. They're getting taxed, heavily, to pay for older people's health care. Why not just get rid of the older people? No old people, no healthcare expenses to pay for. Problem solved! And apparently, there's solid support for this idea:
I think I'll do a little preliminary research on other countries Debbie and I could live in...
Many opponents of Obamacare imagine that in the long run this theft of young people's money will drive young people away from the Democratic party. Since this is one of the Democrats' key constituencies, this possibility is seen with some glee by the Republicans (the likely beneficiary of youth disenchantment with Democrats). This would then give the Republicans the legislative and executive authority to repeal Obamacare.
Personally, I think it's more likely that if the Republicans ever gain the political power to repeal Obamacare, they won't (all their campaign promises notwithstanding). Instead, I suspect they'll modify Obamacare in ways that retain the popular part, make some nominal (but electorate appeasing) adjustments to the wealth transfer aspects, and keep every bit of the opportunity for regulation and exception carve-outs – so they can keep the lobbyists coming, cash in hand.
But something I hadn't considered before is that there is a completely different solution to the wealth transfer problem. Think about this from a younger person's perspective. They're getting taxed, heavily, to pay for older people's health care. Why not just get rid of the older people? No old people, no healthcare expenses to pay for. Problem solved! And apparently, there's solid support for this idea:
I think I'll do a little preliminary research on other countries Debbie and I could live in...
NYT Editorial Takedown...
Every time – every time – I read a New York Times editorial on a subject I'm informed about, I end up getting angry about their ability to shovel pure bullshit down the maws of their less-informed readers. They often don't even make a token effort to be truthful or objective – they just change the “facts” to suit the progressive narrative, and run with it as if it were true.
Most of their readers, presumably, swallow the lie whole without ever knowing they've been lied to.
Kent Scheidigger does what I wish I'd done: takes one of these propagandatorials apart, meticulously. Kudos, Kent.
Jeff Bezos (who is openly libertarian) just bought the (quite liberal/progressive) Washington Post for $250M. At the rate the NYT business is declining, he could buy them for the same price pretty soon.
That could be interesting...
Most of their readers, presumably, swallow the lie whole without ever knowing they've been lied to.
Kent Scheidigger does what I wish I'd done: takes one of these propagandatorials apart, meticulously. Kudos, Kent.
Jeff Bezos (who is openly libertarian) just bought the (quite liberal/progressive) Washington Post for $250M. At the rate the NYT business is declining, he could buy them for the same price pretty soon.
That could be interesting...
Everything You Need to Know About Obamacare...
...on a single entertaining web page. A sample:
When Obama promised everyone making under $250,000 a year that he wouldn’t raise our taxes, I was like:
But then he introduced Obamacare and it had 18 tax hikes…
When Obama promised everyone making under $250,000 a year that he wouldn’t raise our taxes, I was like:
But then he introduced Obamacare and it had 18 tax hikes…
RRAM...
Crossbar says it can put a terabyte of nonvolatile Resistive Random Access Memory (RRAM) on a single small chip. Access times are 20 times faster than flash. The structure of the chip is three dimensional, meaning that the storage capacity is proportional to the volume of the chip, not the area (as is true for conventional DRAM or flash memory). This offers the potential of fully electronic nonvolatile RAM with capacities equaling or exceeding those of rotating magnetic memory.
Hard disks and tape are gonna die. The only question is when...
Hard disks and tape are gonna die. The only question is when...
Triple Play...
A book review in the Wall Street Journal (my favorite newspaper), written by Bruce Schneier (my favorite security commentator), about a book by Radley Balko (my favorite libertarian writer). Sweet!
Dead Penguins...
Via my lovely bride:
You really didn't believe I know anything about penguins, did you? In the Dilatush family, the correct response to something like this is: “Sigh!”Did you ever wonder why there are no dead penguins on the ice in Antarctica? Where do they go?
Wonder no more!!!
It is a known fact that the penguin is a very ritualistic bird which lives an extremely ordered and complex life. The penguin is very committed to its family and will mate for life, as well as maintain a form of compassionate contact with its offspring throughout its life.
If a penguin is found dead on the ice surface, other members of the family and social circle have been known to dig holes in the nearby snow, using their vestigial wings and beaks, until the hole is deep enough for the dead bird to be rolled into, and buried.
The male penguins then gather in a circle around the fresh grave and sing:
"Freeze a jolly good fellow."
"Freeze a jolly good fellow."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)