Dude!
Monday, November 4, 2013
I want to be like him when I grow up!
Dude!
The magic number is 17 years...
1. The trend is almost perfectly flat, the data sources are replicated, verified, calibrated, and unimpeachable, and the tabulation is cross-checked. It's observational data, not models.
2. AGW proponents, starting in 2011, have been saying that 17 years was the minimum set of data needed to unambiguously observe anthropogenic global warming. This is their assertion, their standard.
The warmies are going to be in need of funding soon, I think. I predict they will suddenly discover the imminent danger of global cooling, and will agitate for funds to study that...
Things non-Americans find weird about the U.S...
Things non-Americans find weird about the U.S. These are curated from a Reddit post, and they are both interesting for their perspective, and entertaining to read through. An example of the latter:
Choice. Buying a sandwich was utterly bewildering the first few times.Of course, a similar list might be made of things that Americans find weird when they visit overseas. At the top of my list would be this one:
For example, in the UK a typical exchange between me and sandwich guy might go like this over the period of 30 seconds:
Me: “Can I have a ham sandwich please”
SG: “White or brown?”
Me: “Brown”
SG: “Any salad or sauces?”
Me: “Lettuce and mayo please”
SG: “Here you go. That’ll be £15 million, and your car and your house.”
Similar exchange in the US, over ten minutes:
Me: “Can I have a ham sandwich please”
SG: (over-enthusistically) “Sure thing, Sir! Which of these two thousand varieties of bread would you like today?” (None of which qualify as bread, but that’s another subject…)
Me: “Oh, er, not sure really. That one please”
SG: “Sure! That’s a multi-grained-crap-tasting-full-o-sugar-shit-fest-foot-long-sub-roll. Do you want enough ham to sink a battleship, or would you prefer just enough to make you shit like a bear for an entire week?”
Me: “Erm, I’ll go for merely enough to induce meat-sweats for 8 hours, thanks”
SG: “What kind of cheese are you after?”
Me: “What have you got?”
SG: “Montery Jack, Jack-o-Lantern, Jack of all Trades, Tastes of Jack Shit, Chilli-Jack, Rubbery-Jack and Jackie Chan.”
Me: “No Cheddar then. I’ll go for Monterey Jack”
SG: “Gherkins Pickles?”
Me: (confused and overwhelmed by all the choice) “Can I just have the sandwich now?”
SG: “Sure! I just need to know what else you want on it. Jalapenos?”
Me: (exasperated): “No, thanks but re…”
SG: “…Olives? Cucumber? Lettuce? Relish?”
Me: (eyes glazed over): “No, thank you, it’s fine as it is”
SG: “Toasted, roasted, basted? Mayo, coleslaw, salt or pepper?”
Me: “No, thank you, really, the sandwich is fine as it is, please can I have it now before I starve to death?”
SG: (confused) “Sure thing! Here you go. That’ll be $0.000000001 please”
No matter what country I visit, the inhabitants, from infants to the elderly, can all tell with just a glance that I am an American. I don't have to speak, gesture, or wave a flag – somehow they just know, even when I'm hundreds of feet away from them.
De Bruijn sequences...
De Bruijn sequences... Nick Berry at DataGenetics has another of his great posts up, this time on De Bruijn sequences. He's got a talent for explicating interesting ideas in an accessible, entertaining fashion...
Well, that didn't take long...
Well, that didn't take long... ObamaCare has been rolled out (sort of) for just over a month, and already the progressives have started bleating for more government control. Kathleen Murphy, a Virginia Democrat, is calling for the government to force doctors to accept Medicare and Medicaid patients.
The Founding Fathers have been spinning in their graves for quite a while now, but the RPMs are climbing...
The Founding Fathers have been spinning in their graves for quite a while now, but the RPMs are climbing...
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Confession of a Marine wife...
I sat, as did millions of other Americans, and watched as the government underwent a peaceful transition of power a few short years ago.
At first, I felt a swell of pride and patriotism while Barack Obama took his Oath of Office.
However, all that pride quickly vanished as I later watched 21 Marines, in full dress uniform with rifles, fire a 21-gun salute to the President.
It was then that I realized how far America’s military had deteriorated.
Every one of them missed the bastard.
Awww...
Awww... My mom sent me a collection of photos like this. I'm saving the rest for a day when I'm feeling grumpier than usual...
What happens when you die?
And from the comments:
...and then you find yourself 35 cents short.
Canyon of fire...
A magnetic filament of solar material erupted on the sun in late September, breaking the quiet conditions in a spectacular fashion. The 200,000 mile long filament ripped through the sun's atmosphere, the corona, leaving behind what looks like a canyon of fire. The glowing canyon traces the channel where magnetic fields held the filament aloft before the explosion. Visualizers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. combined two days of satellite data to create a short movie of this gigantic event on the sun.
In reality, the sun is not made of fire, but of something called plasma: particles so hot that their electrons have boiled off, creating a charged gas that is interwoven with magnetic fields.
These images were captured on Sept. 29-30, 2013, by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, which constantly observes the sun in a variety of wavelengths.
Different wavelengths help capture different aspect of events in the corona. The red images shown in the movie help highlight plasma at temperatures of 90,000° F and are good for observing filaments as they form and erupt. The yellow images, showing temperatures at 1,000,000° F, are useful for observing material coursing along the sun's magnetic field lines, seen in the movie as an arcade of loops across the area of the eruption. The browner images at the beginning of the movie show material at temperatures of 1,800,000° F, and it is here where the canyon of fire imagery is most obvious.
By comparing this with the other colors, one sees that the two swirling ribbons moving farther away from each other are, in fact, the footprints of the giant magnetic field loops, which are growing and expanding as the filament pulls them upward.
You can almost hear the AGW papers disintegrating...
You can almost hear the AGW papers disintegrating... Steve McIntyre, with his impertinent insistence on using real data and sound analysis, must be really irritating to the AGW crowd of the Mann and Hansen species. Their dependency on dodgy models and even dodgier, cherry-picked data to build those models on makes them highly vulnerable to Steve's ability to wield common sense, logic, and math. And Steve is at it again...
It's the stupid, stupid!
It's the stupid, stupid! The new progressive meme about Obama's big lie (if you like your policy, you can keep it): he had to lie, 'cause we're too stupid to understand the truth.
Government is Magic...
Our technocracy is detached from competence. It's not the technocracy of engineers, but of "thinkers" who read Malcolm Gladwell and Thomas Friedman and watch TED talks and savor the flavor of competence, without ever imbibing its substance.Speaking as an engineer with at least a modicum of competency, this rings very true to me. They (the administration) seem to think that every problem is easy – all they have to do is sprinkle a little magic techno-dust on it, and it's solved...
These are the people who love Freakonomics, who enjoy all sorts of mental puzzles, who like to see an idea turned on its head, but who couldn't fix a toaster.
The ObamaCare website is the natural spawn of that technocracy who love the idea of using modernity to make things faster and easier, but have no idea what anything costs or how it works.
Lois Lerner's cushy deal...
Lois Lerner's cushy deal... Wizbang has the scoop, and it ain't purty...
The One's administration is infuriating in their arrogance and disregard for the law. There needs to be a comeuppance, but there isn't one anywhere in sight...
The One's administration is infuriating in their arrogance and disregard for the law. There needs to be a comeuppance, but there isn't one anywhere in sight...
Holding on to the Memories...
Holding on to the Memories... Dave Carter, writing at Ricochet, has a piece that moved me to tears this morning – mainly because of its resonance with respect to my own father. Dave's father is far away and failing, like mine – and also like me, Dave has a collection of memories that he will cherish forever. But he writes (much) more movingly than I can...
The music of ancient Greece, recreated...
Geek: To HTML, “chucknorris” is a color...
Geek: To HTML, “chucknorris” is a color... When I first saw this headline, I thought it was a joke. But the joke's on me: for some reason the HTML standards body thought it was a good idea to allow anything in the color specification field. I can't imagine why they thought this was a good idea, and if you read the linked thread you'll see how much confusion reigns over this.
Of course, it's easy to avoid the confusion (and likely compatibility issues): just don't use this “feature”. That's certainly what I will do :)
BTW, the link goes to StackOverflow, one of the geekly treasures of the web. If you think of yourself as a geek, and you're intimately familiar with StackOverflow ... then you should seriously consider a career change...
Of course, it's easy to avoid the confusion (and likely compatibility issues): just don't use this “feature”. That's certainly what I will do :)
BTW, the link goes to StackOverflow, one of the geekly treasures of the web. If you think of yourself as a geek, and you're intimately familiar with StackOverflow ... then you should seriously consider a career change...
Is there anyone he hasn't pissed off?
Is there anyone he hasn't pissed off? The One is doing a remarkably complete job of alienating all our friends and allies around the world. This morning I read about how he's managed to get on the wrong side of both sides in Egypt – something I wouldn't have guessed was even possible. Also, the situation in Venezuela has deteriorated to the point where their government is seizing U.S.-owned oil platforms, and we're doing nothing about it. In just the past couple of months, The One and his administration have managed to wreck or make worse the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Venezuela, France, Germany, and Russia. He seems to be working hard to do the same thing in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a couple things I read last week were early warnings about trouble brewing in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.
Which got me to my morning ponder: is there, in fact, any country that has a better relationship with the U.S. today than they did when Obama was elected. I cannot for the life of me think of one. Not even one...
Which got me to my morning ponder: is there, in fact, any country that has a better relationship with the U.S. today than they did when Obama was elected. I cannot for the life of me think of one. Not even one...
A new snail species...
Hardware Geek: Programmable capacitor...
I never thought of making a “programmable” capacitor, but now that I see it, the idea seems obvious. This Kickstarter project is just 32 capacitors that can be individually switched in or out of a parallel combination. The sum of the “on” capacitors is the value of the programmable capacitor. The board has values down to 0.1pf, which I suspect is swamped by the parasitic capacitance on the board (and wiring), but never mind that – for the higher values, I can think of many times when this would have been a very handy beast to have around! I've made my $29 pledge...
Geek: Leslie Lamport has placed all his papers online...
Saturday, November 2, 2013
A friend sent this to me...
So I'll ask my readers! Does anyone out there have even the slightest clue why anyone would make this video, and what they thought they were accomplishing?
People are noticing...
People are noticing... The climate models that have been driving the AGW scare mongering are starting to look like their wheels are coming off – and the much-mocked, much-simpler solar models are looking better every day. I'm seeing more and more articles like this, some of them from mainstream scientists.
Even better, several friends and colleagues – former AGW faithful – are starting to sound like outright skeptics. Now, that is fun!
Even better, several friends and colleagues – former AGW faithful – are starting to sound like outright skeptics. Now, that is fun!
I identify with this mouse...
Obama: The Myth of the Master Strategist.
Obama: The Myth of the Master Strategist. By Jonah Goldberg, writing at National Review Online. His lede:
Often in error but never in doubt, Barack Obama could walk into the Rose Garden and step on a half-dozen rakes like Foghorn Leghorn in an old Looney Tunes cartoon, and the official line would be, “He meant to do that.”It gets even better.
And the amazing thing is that so many people believe it. “Mr. Obama is like a championship chess player, always several moves ahead of friend and foe alike. He’s smart, deft, elegant and subtle,” proclaimed then–New York Times columnist Bob Herbert in 2009. It’s an image of the president that his biggest fans, in and out of the press, have been terribly reluctant to relinquish — because it confirms the faith they invested in him. Nobody ever likes to admit they were suckered.
Look at that sour puss!
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal has confirmed that Obama and his aides knew all along that millions of people would have their policies canceled, and that “If you like your policy, you can keep it.” was known (by them) to be a lie. Well of course it was – I never thought they were stupid enough to believe that bullshit! They just thought you and I were...
Neo-Neocon was inspired to pen new lyrics for an old Bob Dylan song. Her's is called “Stuck Inside of DC with the Obamacare Blues Again”.
And then, along the lines of dogshaming.com, we now have MyCancellation.com. When your healthcare policy gets canceled because of ObamaCare, you can share your anger there...
A phalanx of lies...
A phalanx of lies... The inimitable Mark Steyn weighs in. His lede:
CNN has been pondering what they call “a particularly tough few days at the White House.” “Four out of five Americans have little or no trust in their government to do anything right,” says chief political analyst Gloria Borger. “And now Obama probably feels the same way.” Our hearts go out to him, poor wee disillusioned thing. We are assured by the headline writers that the president was “unaware” of ObamaCare’s website defects, and the NSA spying, and the IRS targeting of his political enemies, and the Justice Department bugging the Associated Press, and pretty much anything else you ask him about. But, as he put it, “nobody’s madder than me” at this shadowy rogue entity called the “Government of the United States” that’s running around pulling all this stuff. And, once he finds out who’s running this Government of the United States rogue entity, he’s gonna come down as hard on him as he did on that video maker in California; he’s gonna send round the National Park Service SWAT team to teach that punk a lesson he won’t forget.My favorite line:
For the media, just a spoonful of bovine manure makes the Obamacare medicine go down.Well said!
Short-form philosophy...
Short-form philosophy... Via my mom:
As I hurtled through space, one thought kept crossing my mind - every part of this rocket was supplied by the lowest bidder.
~ John Glenn
When the white missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.
~ Desmond Tutu
America is the only country where a significant proportion of the population believes that professional wrestling is real but the moon landing was faked.
~ David Letterman
After the game, the King and the pawn go into the same box.
~ Italian proverb
Men are like linoleum floors. Lay 'em right and you can walk all over them for thirty years.
~ Betsy Salkind
The only reason they say 'Women and children first' is to test the strength of the lifeboats.
~ Jean Kerr
I've been married to a communist and a fascist, and neither would take out the garbage.
~ Zsa Zsa Gabor
You know you're a redneck if your home has wheels and your car doesn't.
~ Jeff Foxworthy
When a man opens a car door for his wife, it's either a new car or a new wife.
~ Prince Philip
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kickboxing.
~ Emo Philips.
Wood burns faster when you have to cut and chop it yourself.
~ Harrison Ford
The best cure for sea sickness is to sit under a tree.
~ Spike Milligan
Lawyers believe a man is innocent until proven broke.
~ Robin Hall
Kill one man and you're a murderer, kill a million and you're a conqueror.
~ Jean Rostand.
Having more money doesn't make you happier. I have 50 million dollars but I'm just as happy as when I had 48 million.
~ Arnold Schwarzenegger.
We are here on earth to do good unto others. What the others are here for, I have no idea.
~ WH Auden
In hotel rooms I worry. I can't be the only guy who sits on the furniture naked.
~ Jonathan Katz
If life were fair Elvis would still be alive today and all the impersonators would be dead.
~ Johnny Carson
I don't believe in astrology. I am a Sagittarius and we're very skeptical.
~ Arthur C Clarke
Hollywood must be the only place on earth where you can be fired by a man wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a baseball cap.
~ Steve Martin
Home cooking. Where many a man thinks his wife is.
~ Jimmy Durante
America is so advanced that even the chairs are electric.
~ Doug Hamwell
The first piece of luggage on the carousel never belongs to anyone.
~ George Roberts
If God had intended us to fly he would have made it easier to get to the airport
~ Jonathan Winters
I have kleptomania, but when it gets bad, I take something for it.
~ Robert Benchley
What made someone think that “skiing” and “naked” went together?
What made someone think that “skiing” and “naked” went together?
Lies, lies, and more damned lies!
Lies, lies, and more damned lies! It seems like every day The One and his administration just dig themselves deeper and deeper into the ObamaCare pit of things progressives desperately want to believe.
Here's my ponder: come the 2014 and 2016 election cycles, will enough voting Americans realize (and remember) just how badly ObamaCare worked out? If I were a betting man (other than on the stock market), I'd place a bet on “no”. But them, I'm not generally thought of as an optimist :)
Here's my ponder: come the 2014 and 2016 election cycles, will enough voting Americans realize (and remember) just how badly ObamaCare worked out? If I were a betting man (other than on the stock market), I'd place a bet on “no”. But them, I'm not generally thought of as an optimist :)
California leads the way...
California leads the way... to the bottom of the list of states with friendly concealed-carry laws...
SR-72?
The key to the speed of this beast is a hybrid turbine/ramjet power plant that would have both engines running in parallel during the transition to hypersonic speed. There's a presentation on the power plant here. Despite having dual engines, there's only a single intake and exhaust nozzle, thanks to some clever plumbing.
Way back in the early '70s, toward the end of the Vietnam War, I spent some time on a U.S. Navy ship on the South China Sea, off the coast of Vietnam. The ship I was on (USS Long Beach CGN-9) had PIRAZ duty, and as part of that we tracked air targets over and near Vietnam. Several times we tracked an air target crossing North Vietnam at an impossible speed – and we were told to say nothing at all about it. Back then, the SR-71 was still a classified program. They've long since been declassified and retired, and now can be found in quite a few aerospace museums. That's a bit of an odd feeling for me :)
Friday, November 1, 2013
Jahar is back amongst his buddies...
Well, this morning I took him back in to see the vet for his two week post-operative checkup and stitches removal. The vet pronounced him to have made an excellent recovery, and removed all restrictions on his movement and diet. That means Jahar can move from the little pen where I've been taking care of him, out to the “general population” of his dog and cat buddies – and the dry food bowl. For the past two weeks he's been eating nothing but canned cat food, which he doesn't particularly like.
Upon returning home from the vet and escaping from his carrier, Jahar had two priorities: (1) to say “hi” to all his buddies (the photo shows him greeting two of our dogs), and (2) to spend some quality time with the bowl of dry cat food.
He looks very happy :)
Abstract art, of a certain kind...
Abstract art, of a certain kind... Reader Jim M. forwarded this:
Early one morning I hollered to my wife: “Honey! Come see what I created. It’s an abstract panorama depicting the five years of the Obama Presidency!”
She yelled back: “Flush the toilet and come eat your breakfast.”
Six...
Six. That's how many people actually managed to enroll in ObamaCare on October 1 – though (apparently) 4.7 million people visited the web site.
No wonder The One and his minions don't want to tell us how the program is doing.
Of note: this is being reported by CBS News, a charter member of the Obama lapdog wing of the lamestream media. Amazing!
No wonder The One and his minions don't want to tell us how the program is doing.
Of note: this is being reported by CBS News, a charter member of the Obama lapdog wing of the lamestream media. Amazing!
This photo came at a steep price...
Today, I can just dial it up on Google Maps (though of course the image is probably several years old). Military planners today can get an up-to-date photo of anywhere on earth in very short order.
Texas police do care...
Texas police do care... Reader Jim M. (a Texas native) passes this uplifting story along:
I get irritated when people come down on our police officers, saying that they don't care about or respect others. Well, here is a story that clearly shows not all cops are in that category.
This story involves the police department in the small hill country town of Kerrville, TX who reported finding a man's body last Saturday in the early evening in the Pedernales River near the State Highway 87 bridge. The dead man's name would not be released until his family had been notified.
The victim apparently drowned due to excessive beer consumption while visiting "someone" in Fredericksburg. He was wearing black fishnet stockings, 10 inch spiked heels, a red garter belt, a pink G-string, purple lipstick, dazzle dust on his eyelids, 2 1/2 inch false eyelashes and an Obama T-shirt.
The police removed the Obama T-shirt to spare his family any unnecessary embarrassment.
Daylight Saving time, explained...
Thursday, October 31, 2013
The healthcare mash...
Mac OSX “Mavericks”...
Mac OSX “Mavericks”... I installed this a few days ago, and so far I am well pleased. My installation was completely painless, though I've read that's not true for everyone. Three features in particular I'm finding very nice:
Memory management. This one I did not expect, but the improvements in OSX memory management have completely eliminated the problems I used to have with Firefox eating all my RAM. I used to be in the habit of restarting Firefox several times a day, especially after having lots of tabs open, just to get rid of memory it was hanging onto. If I didn't do this, my whole machine would grind ever slower. Now I can use Firefox all day long without any issue at all. Marvelous!
Menu and dock on every screen. Hallelujah! Happy days are here again! Handsprings and fireworks and joy! Finally! My normal working setup has two 27" Retina screens, and now they are equal in all respects. It works flawlessly.
Battery lifetime. Better CPU management in Mavericks means my laptop battery lasts much longer. The battery life was already great on my Macbook Pro, but now it lasts two to three hours longer – it really is close to an “all day” battery now.
Nice job, Apple. Free was a nice touch...
Memory management. This one I did not expect, but the improvements in OSX memory management have completely eliminated the problems I used to have with Firefox eating all my RAM. I used to be in the habit of restarting Firefox several times a day, especially after having lots of tabs open, just to get rid of memory it was hanging onto. If I didn't do this, my whole machine would grind ever slower. Now I can use Firefox all day long without any issue at all. Marvelous!
Menu and dock on every screen. Hallelujah! Happy days are here again! Handsprings and fireworks and joy! Finally! My normal working setup has two 27" Retina screens, and now they are equal in all respects. It works flawlessly.
Battery lifetime. Better CPU management in Mavericks means my laptop battery lasts much longer. The battery life was already great on my Macbook Pro, but now it lasts two to three hours longer – it really is close to an “all day” battery now.
Nice job, Apple. Free was a nice touch...
That pretty well sums it up!
That pretty well sums it up! Reader Jim M. sent me this:
Remember when Nancy Pelosi said: “We have to pass it, to find out what’s in it?”Pretty much.
A physician called into a radio show and said: "That's the definition of a stool sample."
I give up!
I give up! Trying to keep up with the ObamaCare news, that is. I can't figure out whether it's going to collapse under the weight of poor design, poor implementation, and poor optics – or make us all yearn for the healthcare system of Bangladesh...
My personal, immediate issue is this: after I retired this past January, we continued my former employer's healthcare through the COBRA program. We can do this for up to 18 months, but ... the annual enrollment period is underway, and finishes on November 15. So sometime in the next two weeks, I have to figure out whether it makes more sense for us to buy private insurance directly, use the ObamaCare exchange, or to extend our COBRA insurance. I have no freaking idea which makes more sense. Any advice from my readers?
My personal, immediate issue is this: after I retired this past January, we continued my former employer's healthcare through the COBRA program. We can do this for up to 18 months, but ... the annual enrollment period is underway, and finishes on November 15. So sometime in the next two weeks, I have to figure out whether it makes more sense for us to buy private insurance directly, use the ObamaCare exchange, or to extend our COBRA insurance. I have no freaking idea which makes more sense. Any advice from my readers?
Estonian mushrooms...
Estonian mushrooms... Ah, this article brought back some very nice memories for me! First, watching the Estonian faces in the video took me right back to the happy times I had driving around the nether regions of the country. Then the story about the mushrooms raised memories of my many hikes through the taiga and swamp forests of Estonia – where many of the people I met were searching for berries, mushrooms, or meteor craters. It's been quite a few years now – more than ten – since my last visit to Estonia. I'd like to go back again, with Debbie...
The F-35's capabilities are simply amazing...
The Benghazi story is finally starting to come out...
The Benghazi story is finally starting to come out, and it isn't pretty. It seems likely to me that a toxic combination of incompetence and political meddling led to the deaths of Americans (including our Libyan ambassador). I used to expect better from my country, but those days are long gone...
Seeing in the dark?
A banana flower...
Where oh where is the dark matter?
Now a bunch of them have bitten the dust, ruled out by the LUX detector (more on Science News ($)). These results need to be duplicated, so they can't be called definitive yet – but it's not looking good for the particle candidates. And if not them, then what?
War of the worlds...
Also available (my mom will like this): The Shadow.
There's a lot more at the Internet Archive. I could spend several happy days pawing through this collection...
Flying pig moment!
I suspect the lag time for healthcare technology decisions will be roughly the same...
The battle for power on the Internet...
We're in the middle of an epic battle for power in cyberspace. On one side are the traditional, organized, institutional powers such as governments and large multinational corporations. On the other are the distributed and nimble: grassroots movements, dissident groups, hackers, and criminals. Initially, the Internet empowered the second side. It gave them a place to coordinate and communicate efficiently, and made them seem unbeatable. But now, the more traditional institutional powers are winning, and winning big. How these two side fare in the long term, and the fate of the rest of us who don't fall into either group, is an open question -- and one vitally important to the future of the Internet.
In the Internet's early days, there was a lot of talk about its "natural laws" -- how it would upend traditional power blocks, empower the masses, and spread freedom throughout the world. The international nature of the Internet circumvented national laws. Anonymity was easy. Censorship was impossible. Police were clueless about cybercrime. And bigger changes seemed inevitable. Digital cash would undermine national sovereignty. Citizen journalism would topple traditional media, corporate PR, and political parties. Easy digital copying would destroy the traditional movie and music industries. Web marketing would allow even the smallest companies to compete against corporate giants. It really would be a new world order.
This was a utopian vision, but some of it did come to pass. Internet marketing has transformed commerce. The entertainment industries have been transformed by things like MySpace and YouTube, and are now more open to outsiders. Mass media has changed dramatically, and some of the most influential people in the media have come from the blogging world. There are new ways to organize politically and run elections. Crowdfunding has made tens of thousands of projects possible to finance, and crowdsourcing made more types of projects possible. Facebook and Twitter really did help topple governments.
But that is just one side of the Internet's disruptive character. The Internet has emboldened traditional power as well.
Single points of failure and security layers...
Single points of failure and security layers... Megan McArdle has a good introduction to the ideas, in a non-technical post. Nicely done!
Some people know how to correct their mistakes...
Some people know how to correct their mistakes. Chris Muir, of Day by Day, is most definitely one of them:
Sometimes I despair for my species...
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Balloons over New Mexico...
Employment in America: WTF is going on?
Employment in America: WTF is going on? Interesting rant from a headhunter, with some elements strongly resonating with my dimly-remembered corporate days (where I often recruited people)...
Well, duh!
Well, duh! Doctors prescribe more of the most profitable therapies. Does this really surprise anyone? Incentives work! The tricky part is to get the incentives lined up with the desired outcomes – which ObamaCare does even more poorly than what preceded it. Real health care reform would take care of that by putting consumers in charge of their choices...
The incredible shrinking workforce...
The incredible shrinking workforce... William Galston, writing at The Wall Street Journal on the shrinking labor force participation rate, especially for men. This is a very worrisome trend, especially when the U.S. looks so much worse than other countries...
21 of the best insults by classical composers...
How the left distorts gun injury figure...
How the left distorts gun injury figure... An excellent take-down.
It should be noted, though, that political activists on all sides of any given question are prone to doing the same. One of the biggest challenges for anyone seeking objective truth on one of these questions is sorting through the various statistics. Megan McArdle is my favorite go-to person on such matters; she has the skills and the intellectual honesty required...
It should be noted, though, that political activists on all sides of any given question are prone to doing the same. One of the biggest challenges for anyone seeking objective truth on one of these questions is sorting through the various statistics. Megan McArdle is my favorite go-to person on such matters; she has the skills and the intellectual honesty required...
ObamaCare roundup...
ObamaCare roundup... The blogosphere – and even some mainstream media – is in full rant over the ObamaCare roll-out debacle. Here are some I found most interesting, or entertaining (and often both!):
A lie is just a truth that wasn't precise enough (NeoNeocon)
ObamaCare girl has disappeared (NeoNeocon)
Obama's big lie (NeoNeocon)
Obama lied for you, not to you (NeoNeocon)
I was very wrong to defend ObamaCare these past four years (Ace)
NBC throws its reporter under the bus (Ace)
Games incompetent people play (Ace)
How the Obama administration made sure people couldn't keep their plans (National Review)
Another story the media is missing (Ace)
Why won't the GOP let us have a normal debate? (Jonah Goldberg) [a fine rant!]
Why Obama's lie is so infuriating (Patterico)
Can we call Democrats the “Stupid Party” now? (Ricochet)
Democrats: the Gullible Party? (Ricochet)
The ObamaCare Awakening (Wall Street Journal)
Questions for Secretary Sebelius (Peggy Noonan)
A lie is just a truth that wasn't precise enough (NeoNeocon)
ObamaCare girl has disappeared (NeoNeocon)
Obama's big lie (NeoNeocon)
Obama lied for you, not to you (NeoNeocon)
I was very wrong to defend ObamaCare these past four years (Ace)
NBC throws its reporter under the bus (Ace)
Games incompetent people play (Ace)
How the Obama administration made sure people couldn't keep their plans (National Review)
Another story the media is missing (Ace)
Why won't the GOP let us have a normal debate? (Jonah Goldberg) [a fine rant!]
Why Obama's lie is so infuriating (Patterico)
Can we call Democrats the “Stupid Party” now? (Ricochet)
Democrats: the Gullible Party? (Ricochet)
The ObamaCare Awakening (Wall Street Journal)
Questions for Secretary Sebelius (Peggy Noonan)
Rush Limbaugh's new book is #1 on Amazon...
Rush Limbaugh's new book is #1 on Amazon... The book (Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims) is aimed at older children, the kind of book you wouldn't expect to hit #1 overall unless it was of Harry Potter caliber. I haven't read the book, so I don't know if that's the case. My first thought on seeing that rating was that it was a hopeful sign – maybe parents, believing that some of Limbaugh's conservative views would find their way into the book, would buy it for their kids in the hopes of educating them a bit. Then I went and read the reviews, which are largely either 5 stars or 1 star. The 5 star reviews mainly say the book's content isn't political, but is entertaining and historically accurate. The 1 star reviews are overtly the same kind of mouth-breathing ad hominem attacks you expect from lefty trolls.
So I'm not at all sure what it means to see this book at #1 ... but somehow it still feels hopeful :-)
So I'm not at all sure what it means to see this book at #1 ... but somehow it still feels hopeful :-)
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Codebase size, visualized...
A “codebase” is the entire collection of program text (aka “source code”) that is used to create some particular piece of software. The size of that codebase is usually measured in “lines of code”, much as you might measure the size of a book by counting the lines of text in it. The size of the codebase is reasonably well correlated with the effort that went into it, much like one book that's twice as long as another probably took roughly twice as much work to write.
This visualization shows the relative sizes of a number of different pieces of software, measured by lines of code. Note that the horizontal scale is different for the top group than for all the others. For non-programmers, I suspect there are quite a few big surprises here – things that perhaps looked easy to you turn out to be large codebases, or vice versa. For me, the big surprise was car software – I had no idea so much effort has been put into this.
But for everybody, the real kicker is at the bottom. Just look at how big the healthcare.gov web site (ObamaCare) software is! My very first thought upon seeing that: I'm not sure commercial efforts that large would ever produce something that worked – and there's no way in hell a government effort would!
Blow it up and start over, and make the first priority be this: how can we make this thing simpler? It's just too big to succeed...
Geek! Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR)...
Geek! Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR)... I'm a little surprised that the IT world hasn't already converged on a single binary object representation, as they have for so many other things (e.g., TCP/IP and Unicode). It's an obvious interoperability problem, and one that I've spent a ludicrous amount of my own engineering time on, converting back and forth between two different representations of exactly the same object. CBOR is on an IETF “Standards Track” (RFC 7049), which doesn't guarantee acceptance, but certainly doesn't discourage it.
With a little googling, I found implementations in Ruby, C#, and Python. Nothing so far in Java; I might fool around a bit with that myself...
With a little googling, I found implementations in Ruby, C#, and Python. Nothing so far in Java; I might fool around a bit with that myself...
The unbearable lightness of Obama...
The unbearable lightness of Obama... Bret Stephens, writing at The Wall Street Journal, with a collection of summarized stories that speak to Obama's leadership style.
The last week or two is so chock full of examples of Obama's failures to lead that I find myself just plain disgusted. He's like the anti-Midas – everything he touches turns to crap...
There's a fool at the helm of our ship of state, and there's naught I can do about it as an individual. All I can do is wait for the crash (which might take any of several forms, including financial crash or armed conflict) or for his term to expire. And to tell you the truth, I'm not sure which of those outcomes to hope for...
The last week or two is so chock full of examples of Obama's failures to lead that I find myself just plain disgusted. He's like the anti-Midas – everything he touches turns to crap...
There's a fool at the helm of our ship of state, and there's naught I can do about it as an individual. All I can do is wait for the crash (which might take any of several forms, including financial crash or armed conflict) or for his term to expire. And to tell you the truth, I'm not sure which of those outcomes to hope for...
Mortality rates in the U.S....
Phenakistoscopes, praxinoscopes, and zoetropes...
Amish in Maine...
Now I read that some Amish are starting to settle in Maine. When I was a kid (in the '50s), most Amish and Mennonites were in Pennsylvania, and there were less than 20,000 of them altogether. Today they can be found all across the U.S. and Canada (though they are concentrated in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana), and their population has grown steadily to almost 300,000 souls. Their population growth rate is far above the U.S. average, so I expect to see that sort of growth continuing.
To anyone who knows anything at all about farming, one thing stands out above all else about these folks: they are absolutely the best, highest productivity farmers there are. No industrial farmer can match their extensive knowledge and lore of the land, nor their land-preserving farm practices. I've never seen people who work harder than them. What they achieve routinely would be considered remarkable, even astounding by any other farmer.
I'm glad to see all that paying off for them...
Monday, October 28, 2013
How would you like this?
Take a careful look at the chart at right (click on it to embiggen). Note that the time axis is in weeks, not hours.
It's from this report on wait times for healthcare in Canada. I don't know about you, but I find that graph shocking and depressing...
Oh, goody, look what's coming...
Oh, goody, look what's coming... When you want to know what the environmentalist wackos are going to do next over here, just look to Europe. They banned high-wattage incandescent bulbs over there, then a few years later over here. Now they've banned high-wattage appliances – I own at least 3 that would not make the grade. You can bet our home-grown wackos will be demanding parity within a year or two. Like your Shop-Vac? Well, that's just too bad. You can't keep it!
A vision...
Wouldn't that be awesome?
The job is beneath him...
The job is beneath him... Via my mom, Michael Goodwin, writing at the New York Post, on The One's behavior during the government shutdown (this is clipped from the middle of a longer piece at the link):
America has had some great presidents, many mediocre ones and a few bad ones. But we’ve never had one like Barack Obama. He’s the first who thinks the job is beneath him.The new worst president. I wonder if he'll still look that way 20 or 30 years from now? With the likes of Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and Elizabeth Warren being the front runners for the Democrats, there's a reasonable chance the bar will be set even lower a few years from now – so The One may not hold this particular record for long...
He’s the first who turns political give-and-take into a crisis by refusing to negotiate with Congress.
He’s the first who thinks the way to more power is to inflict pain on ordinary people.
The move to barricade the World War II memorial reveals the mentality of a tin-pot dictator. The limited government shutdown did not need to affect the memorial because it is open 24 hours, without gates and often without guards.
But to turn public opinion in his favor, Obama’s goons trucked in barricades to keep out World War II vets and other visitors. By one estimate, the barricades and workers cost $100,000.
The same punish-the-people attitude led to shutdowns of other parks and historic sites that get no federal funding.
“We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting,” a Park Service ranger told The Washington Times.
The ranger cited the order to close the parking lot at George Washington’s home in Mount Vernon so visitors couldn’t use it. The cheap trick captured the contrast between a revered president and the current one.
I’ve been saying for a while that there is no bottom to Obama. He’s not just ruthless. He’s without scruples and honor.
However the shutdown ends, it will bring only a temporary respite from the crisis atmosphere in Washington. When it comes to his countrymen, Obama always chooses conflict over cooperation.
Meanwhile, Jimmy Carter can rest easy. We have a new worst president.
Optical illusions in a car ad...
Sunday, October 27, 2013
How an Economy Grows and Why It Doesn't...
Fellow Jamulian and reader Scott M. sent me a link to a PDF of the full comic, along with another one: The Kingdom of Moltz, about inflation and where it comes from. Both are full of simply explained ideas, though the latter suffers a bit from the old trope that inflation is caused by getting off of “hard currency” (e.g., the gold standard). Like all the purveyors of that theory, Schiff neglects the many historical occurrences of inflation in countries using hard currencies. For instance, Europeans of the late 1500s could teach Schiff a thing or two about inflation under the gold standard :)
I don't generally read comic books (or “graphic novels”, as they're styled today). I enjoyed these, though – mainly because I could imagine some people I know reading them, and perhaps accidentally learning a thing or two. Some of those people read this blog...
Christopher Columbus was awful...
Christopher Columbus was awful... The Oatmeal (aka Matthew Inman) is not happy that we're celebrating Columbus Day, and he makes some very good points.
When I first started reading history (some 40 years ago), discovering that Columbus was downright evil was one of the things that started me doubting the propaganda I'd been fed in school under the guise of “history”. It turns out that precious little of that pap contained anything remotely resembling objective truth – and the stories we were fed about Columbus are as fine an example as you ask for...
When I first started reading history (some 40 years ago), discovering that Columbus was downright evil was one of the things that started me doubting the propaganda I'd been fed in school under the guise of “history”. It turns out that precious little of that pap contained anything remotely resembling objective truth – and the stories we were fed about Columbus are as fine an example as you ask for...
What the hell is happening to my country?
What the hell is happening to my country? This is disgraceful. And scary. And tyrannical...
Former ObamaCare supporter has revelatory experience...
Former ObamaCare supporter has revelatory experience... There are more and more stories like this popping up, even in the lamestream media. I'm beginning to think there's hope that even The One's lapdogs in the media are going to be forced to acknowledge the suckiness of ObamaCare...
ObamaCare, taking insurance away...
Saturday, October 26, 2013
Ringing the ObamaCare bell of doom...
Ringing the ObamaCare bell of doom... Megan McArdle is doing it almost daily. Here's her latest...
What the hell is happening to my country?
What the hell is happening to my country? According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are now more people receiving welfare because of their low income than there are full time workers.
Contrary to the assertions of some of the more raving liberal loonies, this isn't happening because the U.S. has more and more poor people. In fact, the average income of poor people in the U.S. has been steadily increasing, no matter how you measure it. Only in the U.S. do you see “poor people” with fat bellies, 75 inch flat screen TVs, nice cars, designer clothes, and smartphones. That's not to say the U.S. doesn't have any people who are actually poor – of course we do. But their numbers are declining, not increasing.
So why are so many people getting welfare? Because the “means testing” (the maximum income you can have and still get the welfare) has been rapidly climbing. What we're seeing is income redistribution on a scale that is quickly approaching that of overtly socialist countries. We're on a trajectory to equal the redistributive policies of Europe within a decade or two.
We need us a revolution, folks. At the ballot box, preferably. But if that doesn't work...
Contrary to the assertions of some of the more raving liberal loonies, this isn't happening because the U.S. has more and more poor people. In fact, the average income of poor people in the U.S. has been steadily increasing, no matter how you measure it. Only in the U.S. do you see “poor people” with fat bellies, 75 inch flat screen TVs, nice cars, designer clothes, and smartphones. That's not to say the U.S. doesn't have any people who are actually poor – of course we do. But their numbers are declining, not increasing.
So why are so many people getting welfare? Because the “means testing” (the maximum income you can have and still get the welfare) has been rapidly climbing. What we're seeing is income redistribution on a scale that is quickly approaching that of overtly socialist countries. We're on a trajectory to equal the redistributive policies of Europe within a decade or two.
We need us a revolution, folks. At the ballot box, preferably. But if that doesn't work...
Oh, if only ObamaCare was as good as the DMV!
Oh, if only ObamaCare was as good as the DMV! Mark Steyn's conclusion in his new piece, ObamaCare's Magical Thinkers:
Despite the best efforts of President Obama and doting tweeters in Jersey City, government isn’t groovy. The standard rap on Obamacare is that it’s turned America’s health system into the DMV. If only. I had cause to go to the DMV in Twin Mountain, N.H., the other day. In and out in ten minutes. Modest accommodations, a little down-at-heel, nothing cool about it at all. But it worked just fine. Friendly chap, no complaints. Government can do that at the town level, county level, even (more sparingly) at the state level.Oh, boy. I can hardly wait!
But a national medical regime for 300 million people? Not in a First World country. And, when you’re mad enough to try it, the failure is not the insignificant enrollment numbers, but the vaporization of the existing health plans of 119,000 Pennsylvanians, 160,000 Californians, 300,000 Floridians, 800,000 in that tech tweeter’s New Jersey . . . That’s the magic that happens when you disdain the limits of prosaic, humdrum, just-about-functioning government. Perhaps things will get so bad the coolest president ever will no longer seem quite so hip. But, alas, you’ll have to wait three years for a hip replacement. That’s government health care for you.
The Middle East was enough of a muddle before The One started messing with things...
The Middle East was enough of a muddle before The One started messing with things... Now it's falling apart before our eyes. Michael J. Totten is the best source of solid, first-hand information and clear thinking on the Middle East that I know of. He's got an article in World Affairs on the Saudi-American rupture. A sample:
“I’ve worked in this field for a long time,” says Brooking Institution expert Mike Doran in London’s Telegraph, “and I’ve studied the history. I know of no analogous period. I’ve never seen so many disagreements on so many key fronts all at once. And I’ve never seen such a willingness on the part of the Saudis to publicly express their frustration. Iran is the number one issue — the only issue for Saudi policy makers. When you add up the whole Middle Eastern map — Syria, Iraq, Iran — it looks to the Saudis as if the US is throwing Sunni allies under the bus by trying to cut a deal with Iran and its allies.”Go read the whole thing...
Foreign Policy 101 dictates that you reward your friends and punish your enemies. Attempts to get cute and reverse the traditional formula always lead to disaster. Yet Barack Obama thinks if he stiffs his friends, his enemies will become a little less hostile. That’s not how it works, but the Saudis have figured out what Obama is doing and are acting accordingly.
“They [the Americans] are going to be upset—and we can live with that,” said Mustafa Alani, a Saudi foreign policy analyst. "We are learning from our enemies now how to treat the United States.”
This is what tyranny looks like...
This is what tyranny looks like... The feds (DHS) cobble up a “plausible” reason to raid the home of a reporter, then use that raid to steal confiscate her confidential files – which just happen to contain identifying information on DHS whistleblowers.
The reporter used to work for the Washington Times, and they're going to sue the government on her behalf.
The boot is in our face, folks...
The reporter used to work for the Washington Times, and they're going to sue the government on her behalf.
The boot is in our face, folks...
Friday, October 25, 2013
“OK, Louie. Drop the mop.”
“OK, Louie. Drop the mop.” That's my quote of the day, written by Cecil Adams, the self-proclaimed (with tongue firmly planted in cheek) “world's most intelligent human.” The occasion for this quote is an issue of The Straight Dope, wherein Cecil answers a reader's question:
Why does the label on a bottle of Pine-Sol say, "It is a violation of federal law to use this product in a manner inconsistent with its labeling"? Exactly what uses are unlawful? We'd hate to be sent up the river on a Pine-Sol rap.You just gotta love Cecil...
Now, this smells like the beginning of an ObamaCare death spiral...
Now, this smells like the beginning of an ObamaCare death spiral... Dave Carter, writing at Ricochet, leads off with:
Do read the whole thing – like all of Dave Carter's posts, it's good reading and full of information...
"Let me be exactly clear," he said, at which point prudent Americans everywhere reached furtively for their wallets, because clarity to Barack Obama becomes a dismal and dangerous fog of dissimulation for everyone else. The prelude out of the way, the conductor continued:He points out several very public examples of ObamaCare delivering precisely the opposite of what was promised. California leads the way in ObamaCare-related health insurance cancellations, and for some reason that doesn't surprise me in the slightest.
First of all, if you've got health insurance, you like your doctors, you like your plan, you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan. Nobody is talking about taking that away from you.In a purely sophistical sense, that last sentence may be correct. They didn't talk about it. They just did it. But the rest of that statement is as blatant a lie as we've heard from any president since Bill Clinton denied using a subordinate as a humidor. And whereas Clinton was exposed, so to speak, as having dallied with one vulnerable young lady, we now face a situation in which the whole country is getting the shaft.
Do read the whole thing – like all of Dave Carter's posts, it's good reading and full of information...
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