Links of the Day...

Syria roundup:  demanding, devilish, anchorless, deceptive, lost, and exploiting.  Summary: bad, trending worse.  Winners: Iran and Pooty-Poot...

All things Feynman.  Richard Feynman, that is.  Lots of videos, photos, links and more here.  One of my personal heroes, taken by cancer after just 69 amazing years on this planet...

Better be quick!  At least in Arkansas, where if you want an investigation of a police homicide, you'll need to file your request within about 30 minutes of the death...

This is just wrong.  Forensic labs get a bonus when the evidence they produce convicts you...

You can't please 'em all...  Labor unions were one of the key supporters of Obamacare – until they figured out what was actually in it.  Many unions are now calling for “fixing” Obamacare (translation: lard it up with more free goodies), and some are actually calling for its repeal.  Hard to know where all that noise is going to lead...

Who's that?  Megan McArdle has an interesting post about the impact of changing demographics on the economy, but it's the photo she chose that caught my eye.  Who are those people with President Ford?  That's Billy Preston on the left, and George Harrison in the middle...

As unions gain power ... they tend to evolve into racketeers and shakedown artists.  We've seen that here in the U.S. in the past, and today with public sector unions.  But in Mexico, unions have elevated the art of the racket to epic proportions.  Teachers there effectively “own” their positions, freely selling or bequeathing them as they please.  Nowhere in the teacher employment criteria does competence appear.  The government is trying to change that, and the unions are fighting back by shutting down Mexico City.  It's not clear who's going to win.  It's very clear who's losing now: the kids.

What the hell is happening to my country?  It's abundantly clear now, even to the most pig-headed of progressives, that Lois Lerner grossly abused her position at the IRS.  In a just world, she'd be prosecuted, and jailed if convicted.  Instead, she's still at the IRS, still being paid, being considered for promotion, got a bonus, and ... isn't being charged, much less prosecuted...

Don't tell Al Sharpton!  Migaloo, the white (albino) humpback whale from Australia...

Talk about redundant systems!  Jonathan Trappe is trying to fly across the Atlantic, slung under 370 helium balloons.  His Facebook page is streaming his log and diary...

Ya think?  Parents are pulling students out of the Michigan school system whose teachers, administrators, and even board members supported a teacher who admitted pedophilia and was convicted and sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison.

Unexpectedly!  “G” – the gravitational constant – appears to have changed.  Just a little, but still – that's not supposed to happen.  Growing by 0.02% may not sound like much, but in the world of physics that's big change – especially when zero was the expected change...

Another nail in California's coffin...  California's legislature passed an increase in the state's minimum wage, to $10 an hour.  Governor Moonbeam has indicated he'll sign it.  Of course they're completely ignoring the recent instance proof that raising minimum wages causes employers to lay people off.  The “optics” are all those self-serving politicos care about...

Knaves or fools?  Oh, knaves for sure – though they may be fools as well.  Via Moonbattery...

Smoking is bad, part 3,408,622: The cigarettes handed out to WWII troops killed more of them than the enemy did.  And that's not even counting the indirect effects of smoking on physical fitness, which surely killed even more...

But but but...  It's illegal for them to be here, but we'll give them driver's licenses just the same.  Even though I support open legal immigration, and oppose government licensing of almost every kind ... I can't make any sense out of this sort of incremental, ignore-one-law and enforce another nonsense.  We need to straighten the entire mess out, but there's no political motivation to do that – so we get idiocy like this, instead.  California's dominant low-information voters will probably love it.  Along with the illegals, who (thanks to the equally idiotic “motor voter” law) will now be able to vote...

Much clumpier than I expected.  This map, used by Abraham Lincoln, shows the distribution of slaves (as a percentage of population) over the slave states, by county.  Some counties were over 90% slaves!

Eeeeww!  Strange things people do to themselves...

Kermit is not happy.  NASA doesn't just launch rockets these days – it seems they're launching frogs as well!  No word on how this worked out for the frog, but I'm betting the rocket won...

This was completely predictable.  Obamacare supporters want to get rid of ERISA.  Of course – more people contributing to ERISA plans means less people paying Obamacare insurance.  All those promises not to touch ERISA?  Crickets...

You didn't build that.  Bugs did.  Gears, that is...

Calling George Orwell...  Obamacare requires your doctor to collect sexual histories (and much more) from their patients.  And they haven't even started yet!

The mom is at fault, not the zoo.  This seems pretty clear to me.  But I'll bet my opinion is in the minority.  What a collection of ninny-pies we're turning into!

Hopeful signs.  North Korea is starting to look like Eastern Europe in the late '80s.  Maybe it will collapse in a similar manner.  Can't happen too soon for me...

Preventing amputations in our wounded warriors.  Awesome!

The 2013 IgNobles have been awarded.  Beer goggles.  Watch the ducks.  And much, much more...

In the “Surely you're not surprised?!?” department: tenured professors make worse teachers.  Any business manager can tell you that incentives matter...

Tradeoffs.  Google's Android system for smartphones automatically backs up your phone numbers, contacts, WiFi passwords, etc.  But...that means Google has your phone numbers, contacts, WiFi passwords, etc.  Bruce Schneier has written a lot about these sorts of security vs. convenience tradeoffs.  They're only going to get more common, and more difficult to navigate.  We need transparency on these things, and we need liability attached to the right players.  So far all we've seen in the U.S. is reactive, largely ill considered moves...

The CEOs?  Why aren't the politicians in jail?  This article bemoans the lack of Wall Street CEOs in jail for “causing” the latest financial crisis.  The author bemoans the wrong thing – the real problem is that the politicians who enabled the housing bubble (especially) and other systemic problems have never been held accountable.  Nor, most likely, will they ever be...

Unintended consequences...  Apple's newest phones identify you with a fingerprint scanner.  Google pronounces “Passwords are dead!” and pushes biometric identification.  If this stuff works (itself a very dicey assumption), there's a legal issue with biometric identification that may bother you.  In the U.S., the government cannot (not yet, anyway) compel you to provide a password.  They can, however, compel you to provide your fingerprints or other biometric source data.  I don't know about you, but that's enough to prevent me from using it...

Links of the Day...

Now you've done it, Pooty-Poot...  Putin's got an op-ed in the New York Times that mercilessly mocks The One and his policies.  Some of the commenters get it, some don't.  A selection of reactions to Putin and Obama's Syrian posturings for your delectation: nausea, chagrin, plagiarism, hypocrisy, more hypocrisy, deflection, and confusion.  My take?  Up is down, left is right, and most likely we're screwed and Iran is the big winner...

Molasses kills!  Fish, that is.  But this is just a tenth the size of the Boston Molasses Disaster...

A failure.  What do you call a university that graduates just 16% of its students in 4 years?  Oh, and where only about 25% of its staff is faculty (more are administrators!).  Welcome to California State University, the product of years of progressive efforts...

Rope, tree, some assembly required.  Congress hasn't passed a farm bill yet, and the bought-and-paid-for congress-critters are not happy about this, as their masters are not happy.  So they've come up with a “new” tactic to force the issue: threatening to double milk prices.

First, kill all the lawyers.  That's Megan McArdle's proposal to clear the path for robotic cars in the U.S.  The real problem isn't the lawyers, though they certainly are a tempting target.  The real problem is the entitlement culture that says someone has to be on the hook for anything at all that goes wrong...

Who rules us?  Reader Jim M. passes along this answer:

Yesterday's Elections...

The New York Democratic pervs (Weiner, Spitzer) lost.

The nannies lost (Morse and Giron, Colorado's two Democratic gun-controlling state Senators) – recalled from office and replaced with gun rights Republicans.

We won!

Ouch!

And:




And (Hugh Hewett via Twitter):

Caller just now: "The president's problem tonight is he had to give a speech with John Kerry's foot in his mouth"

22 Times Too Cute!

Via my mom:

Quips...

Said by Steven Wright, via reader Jim M.:

I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Borrow money from pessimists -- they don't expect it back.

Half the people you know are below average.

99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.

82.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.

A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

If you want the rainbow, you have got to put up with the rain.

All those who believe in psycho kinesis, raise my hand.

The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

I almost had a psychic girlfriend...But she left me before we met.

OK, so what's the speed of dark?

How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?

If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.

Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.

When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.

Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.

Hard work pays off in the future; laziness pays off now.

I intend to live forever... So far, so good.

If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?

Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

What happens if you get scared half to death twice?

My mechanic told me, "I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder."

Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?

If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.

A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.

Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.

To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.

The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.

The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up.

The colder the x-ray table, the more of your body is required to be on it.

Everyone has a photographic memory; some just don't have film.

If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

If your car could travel at the speed of light, would your headlights work?

Links of the Day...

Creepy, yet engaging.  With animation and special effects, a few minutes of video can show decades of aging.  It happens slowing enough to be almost imperceptible, yet still all within just a few minutes...

Michael J. Totten has a new Kickstarter project running, to finance a reporting trip to Cuba.  I'm in – he's one our best independent journalists, a refreshingly blunt observer in the dark corners of the world.  As I write this, his project is just $365 short of its tiny $8,000 goal.  If you can, and are so inclined, go support him – he's a resource we need in this crazy world...

Maybe it can be unseen?  Scientists come up with a way to selectively erase memories.  Man, I've seen some things I'd love to be able to forget!  Where do I get some?

Because Obama.  Hybrid Prius tanks and your own senator for a year!  Oh, my.  I can't decide whether to laugh or cry – this spoof is funny, but also too damned close to reality...

Judge OKs TSA lying.  This is how we all get enslaved to the bureaucrats.  Dolores Umbridge would feel right at home there. 

We're going to see many things like this.  As drone technology evolves, people are going to find more and more useful ways to leverage eyes in the sky.  Farmers today, who knows what tomorrow?

When you've lost Bruce Schneier...  The crypto community is a-buzz over a comment by Bruce Schneier that strongly implies he no longer trusts NIST's elliptic cryptography standard.  Presumably he's concerned about the existence of an NSA backdoor. 

He should have canceled the speech.  So says Peggy Noonan, and I agree. He didn't have much to say, and he said it badly...

I don't even like Jello.  So why is this so fascinating?

So wrong, on so many levels.  The WSJ editorial board weighs in with a good analysis of Putin's rescue of The One.  You just can't make this stuff up!

The missing symbol.  An evocative artifact of 9/11 that won't be in the 9/11 museum.  Why not?  Short answer: progressive political correctness...

man ascii and four other very useful *nix commands.  Three of these were new to me.  I'll use them, if I can remember them :)

Ginormous aquifer discovered in Kenya.  They sure need the water badly in many parts of Africa.  I worry, though, about aquifer depletion as has happened in the western U.S....

Amazing acrobatic duet.  Via my mom...

12 Years Ago...

Twelve years ago this morning, 2,977 innocent people, mostly American, were killed by al Qaeda terrorists who hijacked four aircraft.  Two were crashed into the World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan, one was crashed into the Pentagon, and one went down into a field in Pennsylvania (presumably because the passengers overpowered the hijackers).

Like most Americans, I will never forget the shock and horror of that day, or our fears in the days immediately following.  I mourn those 2,977 innocents, and each year on this day I take a few minutes to remember them.

I also will never forget how this nation came together in response.  I celebrate that American spirit each year on this day.  But that sure didn't last long, did it?

As the years go by and our ineffective, intrusive, and downright un-American response to 9/11 congeals into institutional concrete ... I'm beginning to think that the cure was worse than the injury.  The TSA appears to be nearly completely ineffective, but costs billions of dollars each month and is as entrenched as any bureaucracy I've ever heard of.  The NSA revelations, still slowly and painfully rolling out, collectively reveal how precious little our government doesn't know about us.  The only thing that seems to have truly been improved is our intelligence capabilities, and I'm really just hoping for that – inferring from the lack of successful follow-on attacks that our intelligence gathering must be working...

Scam Alert: Repair Saver...

I'm sure that you, like me, have received deceptive marketing mail before.  There's one that we get repeatedly – several times a year – that is a great example of the genre.

The cover of the mailed piece looked like this (with my name and address blacked out):

The warning, with its notice of a $2,000 fine and 5 years imprisonment, sounds really scary, doesn't it?  I can just see some nice little old lady reacting to that in exactly the way these marketers want her to: to open it up and find out what she has to do in order to avoid being thrown in the hoosegow.  While that warning is accurate, it's got nothing to do with this letter – it's the penalty associated with interfering with any first class mail.  It's there only to impress you with how vital it is for you to react.  In sales terms, they're building a sense of urgency.

When I saw that warning on the outside, I knew it was going to be some kind of sales pitch on the inside:

Now, if you read this carefully enough, it's obvious that they're trying to sell you something.  In this case, it's an extended warranty.  I have no idea if their insurance product is any good, though I do know that in general extended warranties – especially for cars – are a really bad deal for the consumer, and rife with fraud.  For all I know, this company is selling a perfectly good product.  But they're sure doing it deceptively, starting with the outside of the piece.

Inside, the first thing you see is that they know about the car you have.  We do, in fact, own a 2010 Toyota Tundra.  How this company knows that, I have no idea.  But it makes the marketing piece look more legitimate, doesn't it?  Nice deception.

Then you get the all-uppercase, scary looking notice that your factory warranty has expired, and you will now be responsible for repairs.  Well, of course I will be – if, in fact, our factory warranty has expired.  It has not expired, though, and we still have considerable coverage left on it – for precisely those things this extended warranty covers.  Very, very deceptive – it sure looks like they're trying to get me to buy a warranty for something already covered by my Toyota warranty!

I called the 800 number and got a pleasant fellow named Corey.  He verified that the company name was “Repair Saver” Then I went online to try to find out about the company, and discovered ... nothing.  Almost certainly that means the company is not actually Repair Saver, but instead another company doing business under that name – another deception, and this time it's one that is notorious in the extended warranty industry.  By operating under many names, and changing them frequently, these companies insulate themselves from careful consumers trying to find out about them.  Most especially, they don't want you to find out about all the unhappy customers they have.  It sure looks to me like Repair Saver is one of those.

I really hate this sort of deceptive marketing.  I make it a point to never do business with a company using such tactics.  They've lost my trust as a consumer without me ever buying one of their products...

Lyons Fire: the Final Final Update...

Debbie and I were able to drive up to the edge of the Lyons Fire burned area, right at four corners (where Lyons Valley Road meets Skyline Truck Trail and Honey Springs Road).  We drove a little ways up Honey Springs Road to get a view of the burned area.

There were quite a few fire crew members still on scene, both down by the roads and up in the burn.  A spotter plane circled overhead the entire time we were there (photo at right), and a tanker was working the fire as we approached.  CHP has Lyons Valley Road to the east of Four Corners closed off (presumably it's also closed at the intersection with Japatul Valley Road).

The burned area that we could see is shown below.  In the left-hand photo, north is about at the left edge; in the right-hand photo, east is about at the right edge.  The fire burned right to the top of the ridge at right, and quite possibly beyond that – we simply couldn't see from where we stood, and we couldn't go down Lyons Valley Road to see directly, as it was closed.






Here's a very rough map (below) I drew by hand to show the burn boundaries.  I can't tell for 100% sure, but it appears to me that the fire crews managed to protect all the homes on the north side of Lyons Valley Road.  I don't believe there were any structures in the burn areas uphill from those homes along Lyons Valley Road.

Links of the Day...

The Doom report.  Morningstar recently released a research report detailing the (mostly sorry) condition of the 50 state-run pension plans.  The total of unfunded liabilities was over $1.2 trillion in 2011.  The good news is that some of these state pension plans are in great shape (the bluish states).  The bad news is that most of them are not (the orange states).  I'm surprised by some of these states (New York, Montana, Alaska).  The report is full of great (though depressing) information...

Clear thinking alert!  Bruce Schneier is the best source for calm, clear analysis of security issues that I know of.  His blog is consistently interesting and informative (and on my daily read list), as evidenced by this recent post on the NSA's huge security problem, and on one blood price we're paying for the TSA's security theater...

What the hell is happening to my country?  A co-founder of the Sooner Tea Party (Oklahoma) is going to be tried on charges of blackmail and computer crimes – for sending an email demanding that his state representative do his job...

Low solar irradiance continues...  The NOAA has updated its solar cycle data, and it shows that the unexpectedly low number of sunspots in this cycle continues.  The red line is the NOAA's official prediction, which they've been revising downwards regularly.  Reminder: solar irradiance (brightness) decreases as the number and size of sunspots declines – the opposite of what you might think.  If those scientists who believe global temperatures are quite sensitive to solar irradiance are right, then we're in for a cooler period for at least the next 20 years.  The warmists think this is a lot of hooey...

Let me get this straight...  Kerry says something stupid that the State Department quickly backpedals from, then Putin says “What a great idea!”, Obama says “Yeah, baby!”, and Assad says “Sure, we'll give away all our chemical weapons!”  If someone wrote a novel with that plot, I'd call it implausible.  As I will the idea that Assad will actually give away his weapons, acquired with much expense and effort.  I think he's playing precisely the same game Sadaam did: let the foreigners in, delaying any military action against him, and then evading and hiding like crazy.  Bet you anything that Obama claims victory...

They don't understand business.  In fact, they detest business.  Obama thought he could pay for part of Obamacare simply by taxing the crap out of medical companies.  Now we're all paying the price: those companies, faced with hundreds of millions of dollars in new tax obligations, are laying off employees, abandoning promising research, and relocating to other countries.  The Obamanoids say this is “unexpected” – I call bullshit on that...

Ok, that's weird!  Does the photo of a lotus seed (at right) make you uncomfortable?  If so, you may have trypophobia, which may just be the strangest phobia I've ever heard of...

Stomp the stupid!  How should you respond to a petition asking you to do something technically stupid?  If you're Linus Torvalds, you do it like this:

Where do I start a petition to raise the IQ and kernel knowledge of people? Guys, go read drivers/char/random.c. Then, learn about cryptography. Finally, come back here and admit to the world that you were wrong. Short answer: we actually know what we are doing. You don't. Long answer: we use rdrand as _one_ of many inputs into the random pool, and we use it as a way to _improve_ that random pool. So even if rdrand were to be back-doored by the NSA, our use of rdrand actually improves the quality of the random numbers you get from /dev/random. Really short answer: you're ignorant.

The first computer bug.  Found 66 years ago by Grace Hopper, whom I've written about before...

Where can I buy some of these?  Gut bacteria that let you eat and be skinny...

Bomb Obamacare.  Instead of Syria.  So says Sarah Palin, whose PAC recently released the “death panel” ad at right...

Lyons Fire: Final Update...

The fire now has an official name: the “Lyons Fire”, and it's listed on the CDF incident site.  As of 7 pm last night, they're calling it 250 acres and 10% contained.  This morning's HPWREN view from Los Pinos looks better than that report sounds: there isn't the slightest trace of smoke visible:

We saw CDF aircraft flying over the fire site several times yesterday afternoon and evening, and we heard them early this morning as well.  My somewhat educated guess is that they're doing both visual inspections and infrared inspections, looking for hot spots that need attention.

The speed and efficacy of the firefighter's response was very comforting to us.  When you're living in the midst of tens of thousands of cubic meters of highly flammable fuel, as we and our neighbors are, it's really good to know that competent firefighters have got your back...

Early this morning we were awakened by a completely unexpected sound: rainfall.  We didn't get much – just 3mm, or just over 1/10th inch – but it was very welcome nonetheless.  This morning when we got up, we were completely fogged in – that's normal for March or April, but definitely not for September!  It brought a very welcome coolness and dampness, and though it's not enough water to reduce the fuel flammability for very long, it must have been very welcome to the fire crews (assuming they got the same)...

Lyons Valley Fire Update...

“I think you're looking pretty good right now.”

Just heard that from the CDF fire crews.  Just before that, they said that they were down to just hot spots left; the fire was basically out.

Three cheers for the fire crews!  A bunch of people in Lawson Vally, Lyons Valley, and Deerhorn Valley are breathing a little easier...

Lyons Valley Fire Update...

Current view from Lyons Peak:

From all I can see and hear, it looks like the firefighters (both in the air and on the ground) are making great progress.  On the scanner I heard concerns from fire crews about the fire burning toward Carveacre Ranch, but the latest photo looks like they've largely knocked it down.  These things can flare up in a hurry, especially if the wind kicks up, so we're not out of the woods until they've doused every hotspot...

I just heard the fire crews order 500 lunches.  Hard to believe there are that many in the fire crew!

Fire in Lyons Valley...

At right is a map with a pink shaded area showing roughly where the fire is located.  We believe (though we don't have eyes on it) that it's mainly north of Lyons Valley Road, just easy of Four Corners.

The fire is being actively worked as I write this (2:35 pm).  Debbie and I saw an observation plane orbiting, three tankers attacking the fire directly.  We also heard ground fire crews talking on the scanner.

The wind is light, out of the north.  The fire appears to be burning both to the south (presumably driven by wind) and to the north (which is uphill from the fire's perspective).  We're guessing that the fire crews will be able to contain it at the ridge west of Lawson Peak, if not before.  We certainly hope so, as our home is only a mile or so from that ridge.

Below are a couple of shots from the east-pointing HPWREN camera on Lyons Peak.  As always, this is our best information, as it's nearly real time (the photos are updated every 2 minutes, 24 x 7).

The top shot was taken at 1:44 pm today, the bottom at 2:28 pm.  As you can see, the fire teams have already made a lot of progress.  Go, firefighters!

Links of the Day...

In just three little cartoon frames.  Scott Adams nailed it:  Dilbert on the NSA revelations and reaction to it...

Wait – they needed someone to tell them?  Little Rock, Arkansas has a new teacher dress code: they must wear underwear.  Teacher's union objects strenuously...

Well, she should know...  A Russian immigrant to the U.S. worries that we're becoming what she fled from over 30 years ago.  She has a handy checklist of the characteristics of socialist countries:

• Controlling people by making them dependent on government for basics such as medical care, property rights and income.
  
• Applying separate standards in medical and other services for government employees and acolytes vs. the rest of society.
  
• Brainwashing the population starting as early as possible with propaganda that is pro-central government and anti-free market capitalism.
  
• Polarizing society by dividing people into groups by ethnicity.
  
• Controlling speech, enforcing political correctness and attempting to suppress opposition media.
  
• Collecting citizens' personal information using all resources available, including NSA programs.
  
• Intimidating opposition through Justice Department investigations of journalists, IRS intimidation of groups and individuals who oppose government policies, and information collected on citizens that becomes quite handy.
  
• Demonizing and destroying the livelihood of anyone — from members of the Tea Party to rodeo clowns — who dares to criticize the president.
  
• Controlling economic resources via EPA and other regulations despite negative economic consequences.
  
• Conducting show trials of freethinkers, such as the 13 felony counts brought against Internet prodigy Aaron Swartz, potentially leading to 30 years imprisonment.
  
• Calling for sacrifices in the name of the collective good, promises of a bright future and endless lies about disastrous government failures here and now.
  

Gulp.

This is what the Internet is for, right?  Team drumming, the DrumCat way...

How's that climate change working out for ya, eh?  Arctic ice cover this year is 60% greater than last year.  Right on cue, the warmists are bleating that this is not evidence against global warming – even though they hooted and hollered last year about the decrease being solid evidence to the contrary.  Hypocrites and shoddy scientists, they are..

Knave or fool?  Is Obama's foreign policy the product of his incompetence, or his belief that America is a force for evil in the world?  Norman Podhoretz, no dummy he, argues knavery in a very scary piece...

Who knew?  In 1892 they knew how to cure just about everything!  Cheap, too!  Professor Wilson's Magneto-Conservative garments...

So this is what a super-power sounds like! John Kerry, on the planned American attacks on Syria: they will be “Unbelievably small.”  Ooooh, I bet Assad is really scared now!

Oh, please, no.  Just no.  Please!  Elections have consequences, and the 2012 elections might have some particularly bad ones...

Interchangeable, they are.  Dave Carter, writing at Ricochet:  “What we are witnessing is a disturbing and seemingly unstoppable coalescence of both major parties into an amalgamation of  autocrats, ambitious to maintain their own power and anxious to relieve us of our property and liberty.”  Makes me want to stock up on guns and ammunition...

Data Compression: Curiosity's “Focus-Merge” Images...

The Curiosity rover currently exploring Mars has an interesting image manipulation capability on board that is effectively a form of data compression, albeit a very unconventional one.

Since early in the days of digital cameras, photographers have realized that there are ways to combine multiple digital images of the same scene to provide a better composite image.  One of the first uses of this technique was to increase the camera's effective depth-of-field with a technique called focus stacking or focus bracketing.  The idea is simple enough: you take several images of precisely the same scene, but each with different focus settings.  Then you combine the parts of each image that are in focus, so that the entire resulting image is in focus.

Focus stacking is particularly useful in macro (close-up) photography, because the lenses used have very shallow depth of field.  Digital photographers routinely use focus stacking today, generally with software such as Photoshop.  You might start with images taken at 4 or 5 focus settings, then combine them carefully to get one image as a result.  This is especially useful with studio or product photography, where your subject is stationary.

From the perspective of data size, this is a very inefficient process.  To get a single final image, you have to move several full size images from the camera to your focus stacking software.  For an earthbound digital photographer, that's a few seconds of time as the memory card gets read.  For Curiosity, millions of miles away on Mars, it's an entirely different story – it has to send all those images over a very slow communications link.

Now Curiosity has a macro camera (the MAHLI imager), and it has a major depth-of-field challenge.  It's designed to capture images of rocks for geologists to study, and those rocks generally have surfaces that are far from flat.  But sending multiple images for focus stacking over that slow data link is a more bandwidth than they'd like to use.  The solution: implement focus stacking right on the Curiosity rover, so that only the final, all-in-focus image has to be transmitted.  The MAHLI team calls this technique “focus-merge”

How do they accomplish this feat, normally done with human manipulation?

First, the MAHLI team built an in-focus sensing capability into the camera that extends across the entire image.  On every image, the camera knows which pixels are in focus and which are not.  This is similar to (but more extensive than) the multiple-areas autofocus capability of most high-end digital SLRs today.  This in-focus data is stored with each image taken.

Then for any given rock that MAHLI is imaging, they'll take several photos (2 to 8, depending on the rock's depth variation) at different focus settings.  Software on board Curiosity then scans all the images pixel-by-pixel, choosing the image with the best focus for each pixel.  It also creates a visualization map showing the image selected at each pixel (using 2 to 8 gray levels, with blacker being more distant).

To anyone who has done much macro photography (as I have, with wildflowers), the result approximates magic: extreme close-up photos with essentially infinite depth-of-field.  I really can't use this technique with wildflowers, because the darned things are highly unlikely to be still at microscopic scales.  But I can envy the result nonetheless.

Here's a recent Curiosity focus-merge image of a rock's surface (on top) and it's matching focus map (at bottom):

Links of the Day...

Armchair parkour.  The helmet camera really brings it home...

I don't think there's a practical cure.  You don't have to know much history to understand that the safest time in human history is right now.  It never ceases to amaze me how few people seem to understand this rather basic (and quite verifiable) fact.  This ignorance, unfortunately, drives a lot of public policy (both directly and indirectly, via elections)...

I'm a big supporter of gun rights, but...  Iowa is granting concealed carry permits for blind people.  Their laws require it.

A majority of low information voters can't be good.  I'm glad to see leaders taking note of this problem.  Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor:  “Less than one-third of eighth-graders can identify the historical purpose of the Declaration of Independence, and it's right there in the name.”

Sad cat diary.  If you own a cat, this will resonate :)

Tyrants rule us.  What else can you call a government that won't even let you know how many security-related inquiries it makes?  Yahoo! reports that it supplied customer content (presumably email and/or chat) to the government for 4,604 requests (each of which may encompass information on multiple individuals).  Yahoo! states: “The U.S. Government does not permit us to disclose additional details regarding the number of requests, if any, under national security authorities at this time, or even to separate them in aggregate from other requests.”  We're not allowed to know how our own government works.  That's tyranny.

At this point, color me completely unsurprised.  The Obama administration secretly removed Bush-era restrictions on NSA spying on American citizens.  We can't believe anything these bozos tell us!

Speed riding on Mont Blanc.  Via reader Simi L.  Be sure to go full screen...

Jury to decide whether science data is accurate?  A judge has ruled that Michael Mann's defamation suit against the National Review (prompted by this Mark Steyn post) can proceed.  To prove defamation, Mann will have to prove that the allegations in Steyn's post are false – which means we may end up having a jury decide on the “truth” of the science.  In my opinion, that's a very bad idea...

I wondered about these...  I once saw a giant concrete arrow, in a remote area of the Ruby Mountains in northern Nevada, and I could not figure out what the heck it was for.  It's all the Post Office's fault!  

Ouch.  Conrad Black, writing in the New York Sun:

“But for this administration to redeem its credibility now would require a change of direction and method so radical it would be the national equivalent of the comeback of Lazarus: a miraculous revolution in the condition of an individual (President Obama), and a comparable metamorphosis (or a comprehensive replacement) of the astonishingly implausible claque around him.”

I think the first chance for Lazarus to return is after the next election – and I'm not too optimistic about that, either.  Especially after the 2012 elections...

Wow!  Now this is some juggling.  A team of jugglers!

Embarrassed, repelled, and outraged.  How does our military leadership feel about the Obama administration's preparations for intervention in Syria?  Robert Scales, retired U.S. Army Major General and former commandant of the U.S. Army War College, writing in the Washington Post:

They are embarrassed to be associated with the amateurism of the Obama administration’s attempts to craft a plan that makes strategic sense. None of the White House staff has any experience in war or understands it. So far, at least, this path to war violates every principle of war, including the element of surprise, achieving mass and having a clearly defined and obtainable objective.

They are repelled by the hypocrisy of a media blitz that warns against the return of Hitlerism but privately acknowledges that the motive for risking American lives is our “responsibility to protect” the world’s innocents. Prospective U.S. action in Syria is not about threats to American security. The U.S. military’s civilian masters privately are proud that they are motivated by guilt over slaughters in Rwanda, Sudan and Kosovo and not by any systemic threat to our country.

They are outraged by the fact that what may happen is an act of war and a willingness to risk American lives to make up for a slip of the tongue about “red lines.” These acts would be for retribution and to restore the reputation of a president. Our serving professionals make the point that killing more Syrians won’t deter Iranian resolve to confront us. The Iranians have already gotten the message.

I find it very plausible that Scales is well plugged into our military leadership's thinking, and what he reports is even more plausible...

How much does a bullet cost? Between the time Nidal Hasan (the Fort Hood Shooter) killed 13 and wounded 30, and his sentencing next week, U.S. taxpayers will have paid him over $300,000.  We've also paid over $650,000 just to house him.  A bullet certainly would be less expensive.  Seems like a win for process over common sense.  Just sayin'...

Why Old Men Don't Get Hired...

Via reader Jim M.:

An old man went to a job interview, given by the human resources manager.  The conversation went like this:

Manager: “What is your greatest weakness?”
Old Man: “Honesty.”
Manager: “I don't think honesty is a weakness!”
Old Man: “I really don't give a shit what you think.”

Hmmm...

Via reader Jim M:

Links of the Day...

It ended well, thanks to them: young oglers rescue a kidnapped girl.  They also helped your curmudgeonly, doomy blogger feel a little hope for our country.  Well, for Texas, at least...

Despite the Obamanoids best efforts to spin it: The Friday jobs report was more of the same: the announced unemployment number was notionally lower, the real number much higher, and the workplace participation ratio is as bad as it was when Carter was president.  Even worse, the last two months were revised downward.  There seems to be a pattern here...

Australians are celebrating: in yesterday's elections, the Labor party (roughly like our Democrats) has been overthrown, and the conservatives (still fairly progressive by our standards) are taking the reins.  There's hope down under.  James Delingpole is a bit more cautious: “...it will require a huge pair of balls (possibly a pair even bigger than a man can reasonably fit into a pair of Speedo budgie smugglers) and a will of iron to resist those siren voices that trouble all conservative incumbents: the voices that urge caution in doing anything too radical because conservatism, being essentially nasty and selfish, should never be deployed except in moderation.”.

Not that I really want to hear from them: But, say, where have all those anti-war celebrities gone?

Why do these things always seem to come from Japan?  It took 11 years, but the 17 ton steel beetle lives!

“A complete stud.”  A sheepherder in the La Sal Mountains (where Debbie and I were in late July) was gored by a bull elk, and rescued by wildlife workers releasing Rocky Mountain goats.  The sheepherder is fine...

Naturally, California is first in line:  The California legislature passed (and Governor “Moonbeam” Brown has indicated he'll sign) a bill that would start a transition to electronic license plates.  These plates would show advertisements on stationary cars, would give indications if stolen or expired, and would transmit your position to government computers.  This raises large security concerns, and somehow you just know that progressive political ads will run non-stop, for free.  And of course we are unsurprised to discover that a California company is promoting this.  Follow the money...

Some comfort...  I use 1Password to generate and store my passwords, and I've had some concerns about that in light of recent revelations about the NSA's crypto capabilities.  AgileBits, he people who make 1Password, respond in style.

Sounds like a strange weapon: Penitentes – thin blades of hardened snow – in the Chilean mountains.  APOD.

The next big thing?  A woman drops out of college 10 years ago and starts a company (Theranos) making miniaturized blood testing gizmos that are a lot faster, better, and cheaper than today's lab tests.  Awesome!  Where do I go?

Word.  James Taranto, in Reductio ad Obama.  The man has an enviable way with words, and he's been on a roll recently...

Looking back...  Captured by the tail camera on the second flight of the Virgin Galactic's second-rocket powered flight.  If I had the kind of money needed for the ticket, I'd be signing up for a ride...

Obama's quagmire.  The Iranians will punish us if we attack, and Russia will help Syria.  The world's tallest economics blogger weighs in with some clear thinking...

Sweet.  The husband of a pregnant woman makes a touching composite video from one second of each of her pregnant days.

Solar eclipse on Mars: captured by the Curiosity rover.

Armchair exploration: of Mercury.  Fully interactive map, with science data overlays, all driving by the ongoing MESSENGER robotic exploration of Mercury.  New data is added periodically...

Sample image from interactive science data map of Mercury...

Musical Musings, Memories...

I think almost everyone has had the experience of listening to a piece of music that transports you back to some other time, place, and experience.  There are several such pieces that zap my brain like that, and I occasionally discover a new one.  Here are three that get me every time:

Tommy (The Who): Takes me back to 1969, when I was consumed in learning about electronics.  I spent many hours in a disused chicken shack that I'd converted into an electronics workshop, building lots of home-designed projects that occasionally worked.  I couldn't afford to buy parts, so I scavenged them from old vacuum tube radios and televisions that local repair shops (remember them?) gave me.  I played this album repeatedly, on an old Motorola stereo (vacuum tubes and electrodynamic speakers!) that I'd scavenged and repaired...

Kodachrome (Paul Simon): Takes me back to 1973, when I was attending U.S. Navy technical schools in Mare Island (Vallejo), California.  On the weekends I jumped into my old beater of a car and cruised north to Yolo County, between Davis and Dixon, to go skydiving.  I drove through miles and miles of fragrant fields, windows open and hot, humid air pouring in, and this song playing loud on my cassette deck.  Happy times, and this song takes me right back there...

Smoke on the Water (Deep Purple) Takes me back to 1975, when I was a few short miles off the coast of South Vietnam, in the South China Sea, as Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese forces.  The USS Long Beach (which I was stationed on) was part of a task force that was picking up refugees.  We had many ARVN helicopters land on our aft deck, just barely big enough to hold one of the CH-47 Chinooks they were mainly coming out in.  Each time one landed, a large working party (including me!) would push it over the side to make room for the next one.  While we worked, someone had this song playing in a loop, very loud.  It was an eerie scene – frantic refugees (men, women, and children), laden with valuables, running around terrified; multimillion dollar helicopters being tossed over the side like garbage; even more helicopters running out of fuel and landing close alongside (sometimes very close!); and a motley assortment of overloaded boats heading for us.  Every ship in the large task force was experiencing similar things; together we took back over 25,000 refugees to the Phillipines.  A few notes of that song and I'm right back there in that maelstrom...

Morning Funnies...

Via my mom:

Links of the Day...

There and back again... Nick Berry has another nice brain-teaser, with a little easy algebra in the proof.  His additional examples neglect the non-linearity of speed vs. drag, but no matter – the results are the same anyway...

The more I hear about Snowden's NSA leaks, the more I think the man is a hero – and the more worried I am about what the hell is happening to my country...

Awesomely detailed drawings of animals, like the example at right...

Peggy Noonan has a good piece in today's WSJ on the Syrian issue, but the best part is the addendum at the end:

A point on how quickly public opinion has jelled. There is something going on here, a new distance between Washington and America that the Syria debate has forced into focus. The Syria debate isn't, really, a struggle between libertarians and neoconservatives, or left and right, or Democrats and Republicans. That's not its shape. It looks more like a fight between the country and Washington, between the broad American public and Washington's central governing assumptions.

I've been thinking of the "wise men," the foreign policy mandarins of the 1950s and '60s, who so often and frustratingly counseled moderation, while a more passionate public, on right and left, was looking for action. "Ban the Bomb!" "Get Castro Out of Cuba."

In the Syria argument, the moderating influence is the public, which doesn't seem to have even basic confidence in Washington's higher wisdom.
That would be a comment on more than Iraq. That would be a comment on the past five years, too. 

 On Yahoo's new logo...  General reaction from the serious business community is about like this, which could be summarized as “WTF, Marissa?”  But Megan McArdle wins the pithy comment contest (and her piece reflects my own reaction):

“Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic” has some new competition for phrase meaning pointless business activity at failing firm: “rearranging the fonts in your logo.”

Political commentary in the days of yore: Napoleon Bonaparte in a chamber pot (at right).  Awesome.  Let's bring it back!

Through reader, friend, and former colleague Aleck L.., I've discovered that one of my favorite books (Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary) is out of copyright and available on a web site and in free eBook form.  Hooray!

Another great, short TED talk, this time on the beauty (and primal sexuality) of prime numbers.  Mathophobes, do not fear – the talk is almost entirely free of weird symbols and head-exploders.  Via reader and friend Simon M.  I've lost track of how many times I've spent an entertaining and informative few minutes watching one of the TED talks – it's a great web resource.