I've been up here for six weeks now, sans dogs, and I miss them badly...
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
I bawled like a baby...
I've been up here for six weeks now, sans dogs, and I miss them badly...
I want to go there!
If this doesn't raise your fear of flying...
Russia fights back against sanctions...
Russia fights back against sanctions... And our short-sighted, politically-motivated space policy comes back to bite us in the butt. Hard.
Wow. Just wow...
Wow. Just wow... The Obama administration has decided to reverse course on home mortgage policy – to make easier credit available to consumers through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The stated reason? They're afraid that tight mortgage policies (i.e., those that require mortgagees to be creditworthy) are going to stifle the nascent housing recovery. Translation: unless we let people buy homes that they can't actually afford, there won't be as many homes purchased.
The real reason? Buying votes, of course. With taxpayer dollars, of course.
Somehow the geniuses that run the country have managed to forget the housing crisis that came to a head just 8 years ago, provoking the financial crisis that we're still trying to recover from.
I'm giving them too much credit, though. It's really much simpler than that. If you're a national level politician in the U.S., you're just trying to figure out how to get people to vote for you. Making it easy for them to “buy” houses they can't afford, backed by taxpayer dollars from the “rich” minority is a great way to do that...
Sheesh... If we as a people keep electing these idiots, we deserve to get it good and hard. And we are...
The stated reason? They're afraid that tight mortgage policies (i.e., those that require mortgagees to be creditworthy) are going to stifle the nascent housing recovery. Translation: unless we let people buy homes that they can't actually afford, there won't be as many homes purchased.
The real reason? Buying votes, of course. With taxpayer dollars, of course.
Somehow the geniuses that run the country have managed to forget the housing crisis that came to a head just 8 years ago, provoking the financial crisis that we're still trying to recover from.
I'm giving them too much credit, though. It's really much simpler than that. If you're a national level politician in the U.S., you're just trying to figure out how to get people to vote for you. Making it easy for them to “buy” houses they can't afford, backed by taxpayer dollars from the “rich” minority is a great way to do that...
Sheesh... If we as a people keep electing these idiots, we deserve to get it good and hard. And we are...
Those cheap Apple knockoffs are just as good, right?
Those cheap Apple knockoffs are just as good, right? Wrong! Ken Shirriff does a stellar side-by-side comparison between two products: a genuine Apple iPad charger ($19), and a cheap knockoff ($3).
I once bought one of the cheap ones myself, and did a much less rigorous test: I connected the output to a 2.5 ohm load (to get 2 amps/10 watts of output) and looked at the output with a 'scope.
First problem: the output was just over 3 volts, not the desired 5 volts. That's 40% under voltage; the USB spec says 5% at most.
Second problem: there was almost 1 volt of 25 KHz noise on the output. Apparently the switcher operated at that frequency. One would expect to find no more than 100 millivolts of noise, and ideally less than 10 millivolts. This thing was producing 10 to 100 times that!
Third problem: after about 2 minutes of under-load testing, a wisp of smoke started curling up from the charger block. A few seconds later there was a loud pop, the case cracked, and clouds of black smoke shot out. Simultaneously the house's circuit breaker blew. I opened the windows and let the stupid thing cool down, then threw it away.
I ran the same tests on the Apple charger, and it passed with flying colors. The block got slightly warm, otherwise I couldn't see any change at all. I've happily paid my “Apple tax” ever since. I prefer my electronics to work, and without noxious smoke, please...
I once bought one of the cheap ones myself, and did a much less rigorous test: I connected the output to a 2.5 ohm load (to get 2 amps/10 watts of output) and looked at the output with a 'scope.
First problem: the output was just over 3 volts, not the desired 5 volts. That's 40% under voltage; the USB spec says 5% at most.
Second problem: there was almost 1 volt of 25 KHz noise on the output. Apparently the switcher operated at that frequency. One would expect to find no more than 100 millivolts of noise, and ideally less than 10 millivolts. This thing was producing 10 to 100 times that!
Third problem: after about 2 minutes of under-load testing, a wisp of smoke started curling up from the charger block. A few seconds later there was a loud pop, the case cracked, and clouds of black smoke shot out. Simultaneously the house's circuit breaker blew. I opened the windows and let the stupid thing cool down, then threw it away.
I ran the same tests on the Apple charger, and it passed with flying colors. The block got slightly warm, otherwise I couldn't see any change at all. I've happily paid my “Apple tax” ever since. I prefer my electronics to work, and without noxious smoke, please...
What kids really do in college...
Some day I will be proud of our elected leaders...
Overall I think I prefer the fisticuffs that periodically break out in the South Korean and Taiwanese legislatures.
What party does Joe Garcia belong to? The Democrats. What state does he hail from? Florida.
Last night I received four emails from friends who live in other countries. This little video clip just confirmed all their suspicions about the barbarian nature of Americans. We're just not ready for membership in the civilized world, and we need adult supervision. Badly.
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Wreck of Columbus' ship Santa Maria may have been found...
Wreck of Columbus' ship Santa Maria may have been found... Off the coast of what is today Haiti...
Curiosity is drilling holes on Mars again...
Low information citizens...
Low information citizens... The Arab nations in general, and the Palestinians in particular, have spent a lot of money over the past few decades on public relations (PR) efforts. These are primarily in Europe and the U.S. The PR paints a far more moderate picture of their views and intentions than the reality on the ground in the Arab countries, and this is deliberate. It's been well-known in Europe and America for over 30 years, and anyone there can find this out for themselves these days through numerous sources on the web (the lamestream media, with only a few exceptions (notably the Wall Street Journal), just republishes the PR, so they're just about useless for discovering the truth).
However, the vast majority of the population of both Europe and America are what I'm calling “low information citizens”. These citizens know only what they hear from the Arab/Palestinian PR, as trumpeted by the lamestream media, and as a direct consequence public opinion has gradually shifted toward pro-Palestinian views and away from pro-Israeli views. One consequence of this has boomeranged on the Palestinians (as noted by the linked article): more Jews are emigrating from Europe to Israel because of the increase in anti-Semitism there.
There's a larger issue, though, that makes me very sad: public policy in many countries, including the U.S., is drifting toward support for the Palestinians at the expense of the Israelis. In different terms, policy is drifting toward support of the utterly corrupt, totally failed Arab societies and away from the sole example of a moral, free, and successful society in the Middle East. That is what makes me sad, because this drift in policy will only promote the needless suffering and deaths of millions of people suffering under the Arab thugocracies. At the heart of the problem is those low information citizens. Were they informed and engaged, I have no doubt the drift would be entirely different...
However, the vast majority of the population of both Europe and America are what I'm calling “low information citizens”. These citizens know only what they hear from the Arab/Palestinian PR, as trumpeted by the lamestream media, and as a direct consequence public opinion has gradually shifted toward pro-Palestinian views and away from pro-Israeli views. One consequence of this has boomeranged on the Palestinians (as noted by the linked article): more Jews are emigrating from Europe to Israel because of the increase in anti-Semitism there.
There's a larger issue, though, that makes me very sad: public policy in many countries, including the U.S., is drifting toward support for the Palestinians at the expense of the Israelis. In different terms, policy is drifting toward support of the utterly corrupt, totally failed Arab societies and away from the sole example of a moral, free, and successful society in the Middle East. That is what makes me sad, because this drift in policy will only promote the needless suffering and deaths of millions of people suffering under the Arab thugocracies. At the heart of the problem is those low information citizens. Were they informed and engaged, I have no doubt the drift would be entirely different...
Geek: Randall Munroe's TED talk...
Geek: Randall Munroe's TED talk... Munroe is the creator of XKCD...
Monday, May 12, 2014
Climate change – is there anything it can't do?
Delingpole also reports that the latest studies of those rapidly disappearing Himalayan glaciers had some unexpected results: the glaciers are not disappearing after all! In fact, if measured by the aggregate ice accumulation in all Himalayan glaciers, they're increasing at a higher rate than the climate models can model. Oops!
Then there's this bit on Watts Up With That?, wherein Nobel-prize winning chump Michael Mann is caught out with his “hide the decline” fakery in a particularly delicious fashion. The graph above right is from that story.
A friend from Estonia wrote me the other day, asking how I would react if Mark Steyn were somehow to lose his lawsuit with Michael Mann. My correspondent is a fervent anthropogenic global warming believer, so he fully expects this outcome. Here's what my reaction would be: I would lose what little faith remains in me about our American system of justice. That reaction has absolutely nothing to do with whether Steyn's position is just, and everything to do with free speech – because in the end, that's what this lawsuit is about: whether Mark Steyn (or anyone else) can stand up and speak his or her mind. Forget the climatology-related merits of each side on this case; they are irrelevant. What's really on trial is good old-fashioned American-style free speech...
She's a mom, too...
Geek: computers really suck at division...
Geek: computers really suck at division... By that, I mean that division is slow compared with other arithmetic operations, and there are no simple ways to make it faster. So programmers will sometimes go to extreme lengths to avoid it...
I've never done anything quite like what the article describes. However, I have used many other “tricks”, including table look-ups, shift-and-add (for fixed integers), and approximations. The programmers working on video games have been particularly inventive in this area, as their code often needs to do many millions of divisions in order to paint a scene...
I've never done anything quite like what the article describes. However, I have used many other “tricks”, including table look-ups, shift-and-add (for fixed integers), and approximations. The programmers working on video games have been particularly inventive in this area, as their code often needs to do many millions of divisions in order to paint a scene...
Free speech is one of America's most precious ideas...
Free speech is one of America's most precious ideas... Our universities are conspiring to kill it, just as it starts to flower in other countries. This does not bode well for America. I feel the doom approaching when I think about the implications.
I'll bet the multi-culti, non-offending metro-sexual types would have an entirely different attitude if they had any experience or knowledge of the the world outside their bubble, or of the past. I suspect this is where historical cycles originate; the pattern is quite visible even in our own country's history. The current madness will likely end when some existential threat appears – and for a little while at least, we'll get back to the core values that the country was founded upon. Then they'll probably fade to blackness yet again...
I'll bet the multi-culti, non-offending metro-sexual types would have an entirely different attitude if they had any experience or knowledge of the the world outside their bubble, or of the past. I suspect this is where historical cycles originate; the pattern is quite visible even in our own country's history. The current madness will likely end when some existential threat appears – and for a little while at least, we'll get back to the core values that the country was founded upon. Then they'll probably fade to blackness yet again...
A beautiful idea...
Room-temperature superconductor breakthrough?
Room-temperature superconductor breakthrough? Maybe.
It's very hard to overstate what an impact on our lives such a breakthrough would have...
It's very hard to overstate what an impact on our lives such a breakthrough would have...
Cognitive biases...
Cognitive biases... This is a good collection of them, with easily understood descriptions.
I've long noted that most people are completely unaware of these biases, though they'll readily recognize them when confronted with descriptions like those at the link above.
One thing that article doesn't mention is that people vary widely in their susceptibility to each of the biases. For instance, in general introverts are much less susceptible to in-group bias. I knew the late Dr. Alan Davidson, an industrial psychologist, quite well. He and I had a fascinating conversation once about efforts to predict people's success by measuring their cognitive biases. He believed that this effort, if made practical, was the only real contender to using IQ as a predictor of success. At the time he and I had that conversation, about 15 years ago, the major finding so far was that successful people had much lower cognitive biases of certain types – and higher for other types. For me, at least, that's a completely counter-intuitive result!
I've long noted that most people are completely unaware of these biases, though they'll readily recognize them when confronted with descriptions like those at the link above.
One thing that article doesn't mention is that people vary widely in their susceptibility to each of the biases. For instance, in general introverts are much less susceptible to in-group bias. I knew the late Dr. Alan Davidson, an industrial psychologist, quite well. He and I had a fascinating conversation once about efforts to predict people's success by measuring their cognitive biases. He believed that this effort, if made practical, was the only real contender to using IQ as a predictor of success. At the time he and I had that conversation, about 15 years ago, the major finding so far was that successful people had much lower cognitive biases of certain types – and higher for other types. For me, at least, that's a completely counter-intuitive result!
Recycling is bullshit!
Many moons ago, when we lived in Chula Vista, I made a discovery that outraged me – but I was very alone in that reaction. My discovery? The city's waste collection system required us to sort aluminum, plastic, and paper trash into a blue recycling bin. We were charged extra for these bins. The contents of those bins went to a facility where the aluminum cans were picked out and sold – for slightly less than it cost to run the facility. The remaining plastic and paper trash was then trucked – at extra cost to the taxpayers – to a separate landfill in Mexico. The rest of the trash went into a landfill in San Diego County. The overall result was that taxpayers were subsidizing a completely ineffective recycling industry that ended up not only costing more, but using more energy and disposing of a large quantity of paper and plastic in an unregulated Mexican landfill.
Before recycling was imposed legislatively, the vast majority of aluminum cans were recycled – by armies of people picking through the trash to make some money. The proportion of aluminum cans that were recycled actually went down after recycling was imposed, simply because some people didn't recycle, but nobody picked through the trash any more. The rest of the trash used to go all into a nice, safe San Diego County landfill, costing the taxpayers much less than trucking a bunch of it to Mexico.
When I shared my discovery with others, I was surprised that basically nobody shared my outrage. It's a peculiar situation, where logic and common sense seem to be inoperative in the face of the “feel-good” aspects of recycling. The entire multi-billion dollar industry seems to be one gigantic scam, a scheme to milk abundant tax dollars. I'm sure you will not be a bit surprised to learn that the recycling companies are huge political campaign contributors...
California leads the way...
California leads the way ... in billion dollar oopsies. And yet the voters keep on electing these knuckleheads. You'd think they'd figure it out eventually, wouldn't you?
Wait. What am I thinking? I've met some of these voters – and I think I should feel lucky they didn't elect Justin Bieber...
Wait. What am I thinking? I've met some of these voters – and I think I should feel lucky they didn't elect Justin Bieber...
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Product and company review: CAI Technologies water softener...
Product and company review: CAI Technologies water softener...
One of the things we needed to fix in our new home in Paradise, Utah
was the water softener. The old softener was leaking brine (ugh!) and
also some of its resin beads were making it into the house water. These
beads clogged up basically every faucet and shower head in the house,
greatly reducing the rate of water flow. I had a plumber come out and
inspect the old softener (a 24,000 grain single tank Aqua-Pure model),
just in case it was something simple and inexpensive to fix. It wasn't.
So ... it was time for me to start researching water softeners. We have never owned a home that had one before, so I've never really had any idea how they worked. The whole “add salt and your water gets better” part was a mystery to me. Fortunately there are numerous excellent web sites that explain all this, and in a short while I actually understood how these things worked. But I still didn't know which one I should get, and there are a bazillion choices. My next tactic was to start reading water conditioning bulletin boards and blogs, and there are quite a few of them. I quickly got to several concrete recommendations, based on the experience of quite a few installers. The big ones:
Three days later, UPS dropped off 7 or 8 boxes containing the parts and pieces of our new water softener. I arranged for a local plumber to come out and install it a week later, and then I unpacked and inspected all the parts. It all looked great – the right stuff and all looked well made – except that they had shipped me the wrong controller. Dang.
Well, anyone can make a mistake. What really matters is how they handled it. I called CAI, and within 30 seconds I was connected to an actual tech – someone intimately familiar with their products and how they're used. He had me do a couple of checks to verify my belief that I had the wrong controller. I did. Then he said the magic words:
That was a week ago. I've now gone through two startup regeneration cycles (manually initiated) and one automatic regeneration cycle (because we used enough water to consume the capacity of one of the tanks). It works flawlessly. I've tested the water before and after softening: before it's 23 grains/gallon (fairly hard), after it's 0 grains/gallon (perfectly soft). There are no brine leaks, and no resin beads are escaping into our water supply.
Good product, good company, great service. Recommended!
So ... it was time for me to start researching water softeners. We have never owned a home that had one before, so I've never really had any idea how they worked. The whole “add salt and your water gets better” part was a mystery to me. Fortunately there are numerous excellent web sites that explain all this, and in a short while I actually understood how these things worked. But I still didn't know which one I should get, and there are a bazillion choices. My next tactic was to start reading water conditioning bulletin boards and blogs, and there are quite a few of them. I quickly got to several concrete recommendations, based on the experience of quite a few installers. The big ones:
- Fleck controller. This is a brand of controller – the usage meter, electronics, and valves that control the operation of the water softener. There are several manufacturers of these, but the Fleck products are the consensus “good stuff”.
- Twin tank. This is a more expensive route to go, as there is an additional resin tank and double the resin beads. However, there are multiple advantages to it. First, your system has double the total capacity (that is, number of gallons of hard water that can be softened before a brine wash is needed). Second, the regeneration job is done with soft water (coming from the tank that's not being regenerated) instead of hard water (which a single tank system must do). This results in a better job of regeneration. But third, and to me most important, is that the system is never off-line for the regeneration – one tank is regenerated while the other continues to supply softened water to the house. This means that we can go to a purely metered system (a tank is only regenerated when it is actually needed, as opposed to being on a schedule). The two hour regeneration process won't affect us at all.
- High capacity. I discovered that “buying up” the total capacity is relatively inexpensive and results in much longer times between regenerations, and less wear-and-tear on the controller. The capacity is measured in “grains” of calcium removed from the hard water. Small units may be 16,000 or 24,000 grains capacity; large residential units are 64,000 grains. With a twin tank system, that doubles – so a large residential unit would be 128,000 grains total capacity.
Three days later, UPS dropped off 7 or 8 boxes containing the parts and pieces of our new water softener. I arranged for a local plumber to come out and install it a week later, and then I unpacked and inspected all the parts. It all looked great – the right stuff and all looked well made – except that they had shipped me the wrong controller. Dang.
Well, anyone can make a mistake. What really matters is how they handled it. I called CAI, and within 30 seconds I was connected to an actual tech – someone intimately familiar with their products and how they're used. He had me do a couple of checks to verify my belief that I had the wrong controller. I did. Then he said the magic words:
“Well, we’re going to fix this right now. We’ll ship you the right one by overnight express today, and we’ll arrange for a pickup of the wrong one. Our apologies for screwing this up. Let us know if there’s anything else we need to do to make this right.”I can't ask for anything better than that. CAI did exactly as promised. The next day I had the right controller in my hands, and the day after that UPS picked up the old (wrong) one to return to them. By the time the plumber arrived, I had all the right stuff. He installed it, we tested it, and all looked good.
That was a week ago. I've now gone through two startup regeneration cycles (manually initiated) and one automatic regeneration cycle (because we used enough water to consume the capacity of one of the tanks). It works flawlessly. I've tested the water before and after softening: before it's 23 grains/gallon (fairly hard), after it's 0 grains/gallon (perfectly soft). There are no brine leaks, and no resin beads are escaping into our water supply.
Good product, good company, great service. Recommended!
Happy dogs (and cat)...
Tattoo files...
Valles Marineris (Mars)...
Quantum random numbers generated on a mobile phone...
Quantum random numbers generated on a mobile phone... There's an app for that!
APIs can be copyrighted?
APIs can be copyrighted? This strikes me as a strange court decision, one with lots of implications far beyond the software world. Translated into the world of books, for example, this ruling would allow an author to copyright the characters and world characteristics in their novels – not just the novel itself. For example, J.K. Rowling could copyright Harry Potter's world – and nobody else could write novels using them. Last time I looked, there were several thousand novels and stories (most written by fans) using that world or derivatives of it. If this ruling were applied to books, all of them would be copyright violators.
For the software world, this ruling, should it stand, will raise roadblocks for one of the fruitful paths for software innovation. Like many other software engineers, I've personally reverse-engineered quite a few APIs so that I could write replacements that improved the original – making it more capable, faster, smaller, or sometimes just making it work correctly. Had this ruling's logic been in place back then, I'd have been unable to do any of that.
I hope it's overturned. More than that, though, I'd like to see our entire framework of intellectual property revisited, to take into account the realities of modern technology. I'm not talking just about software here – music, visual art, and writing have all been impacted by modern technology. Digital music and electronic book readers are familiar to us all, but even arts like painting and sculpture are seeing the impact of modern technology. For example, one can now buy oil painting reproductions where even the brush strokes are robotically reproduced. Even stone sculptures can now be precisely reproduced by large-scale 3D scanning and robotic sculptors.
The world, she's a-changing – and intellectual property law needs to change, too...
For the software world, this ruling, should it stand, will raise roadblocks for one of the fruitful paths for software innovation. Like many other software engineers, I've personally reverse-engineered quite a few APIs so that I could write replacements that improved the original – making it more capable, faster, smaller, or sometimes just making it work correctly. Had this ruling's logic been in place back then, I'd have been unable to do any of that.
I hope it's overturned. More than that, though, I'd like to see our entire framework of intellectual property revisited, to take into account the realities of modern technology. I'm not talking just about software here – music, visual art, and writing have all been impacted by modern technology. Digital music and electronic book readers are familiar to us all, but even arts like painting and sculpture are seeing the impact of modern technology. For example, one can now buy oil painting reproductions where even the brush strokes are robotically reproduced. Even stone sculptures can now be precisely reproduced by large-scale 3D scanning and robotic sculptors.
The world, she's a-changing – and intellectual property law needs to change, too...
Three million for hot coffee...
Three million for hot coffee... Remember that famous lawsuit, in which a woman won a $3 million judgment against McDonald's for their overly hot coffee? Most likely, just about everything you thought you knew about that case was wrong.
That case happened back in the early '90s, in the days when we were all completely dependent on mainstream media for our news. It's a great example of the distortions produced by their quest for a sensational story. I remember reading about this case in the Wall Street Journal, and even there I don't recall seeing the details in the article above. Doing a little searching on the web today, I found multiple sources for the same information in the article I linked, dating back to 2009 when HBO started making a movie about the case.
I like our new world much better – without the mainstream media deciding which news I'm going to hear...
That case happened back in the early '90s, in the days when we were all completely dependent on mainstream media for our news. It's a great example of the distortions produced by their quest for a sensational story. I remember reading about this case in the Wall Street Journal, and even there I don't recall seeing the details in the article above. Doing a little searching on the web today, I found multiple sources for the same information in the article I linked, dating back to 2009 when HBO started making a movie about the case.
I like our new world much better – without the mainstream media deciding which news I'm going to hear...
California leads the way...
California leads the way ... in the flight to Mexico for medical care. Why, you ask? ObamaCare, of course...
Virtual President Bill Whittle on gun control...
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Angry bird...
Angry bird... A slightly early Mother's Day present for my card-carrying ancient-American mom (who loves owls).
Love you, mom. I'll be there to collect a hug in 30 days!
Love you, mom. I'll be there to collect a hug in 30 days!
Mann misrepresents the EPA...
Mann misrepresents the EPA ... and Steve McIntyre takes him to the woodshed for it.
I love reading these public floggings by McIntyre – he's so level-headed and unemotional in his analyses, no matter what the provocation. He behaves like my ideal for a scientist – in marked contrast to a number of actual climate scientists, most especially including the disgusting self-promoter Michael Mann...
I love reading these public floggings by McIntyre – he's so level-headed and unemotional in his analyses, no matter what the provocation. He behaves like my ideal for a scientist – in marked contrast to a number of actual climate scientists, most especially including the disgusting self-promoter Michael Mann...
Green failures...
Green failures... Graveyards of failed wind and solar power projects litter the land, especially in California. England had its Victorian Follies; we have our Millennium Follies™
Ace didn't see it coming...
Ace didn't see it coming... Neither did I. The arrogance, hypocrisy, shamelessness, and boundless ambition of the Clinton family still boggles the minds of the rest of us...
Ancient Egyptian objects...
Ancient Egyptian objects... Three-dimensional, fully interactive versions are being posted online, and access is free...
Saving Feynman's van...
Hadrian's Wall...
Debbie is back in Jamul...
Debbie is back in Jamul... And I'm still “camping” in our new home in Utah. It's lonely up here without Debbie and all our animals...
We had close to an inch of rain yesterday, along with a bit of hail the size of small marbles, and a bout of strong, gusty winds. This morning it's still mostly cloudy and a bit cold (38°F). The birds are all puffed up for warmth :)
We had close to an inch of rain yesterday, along with a bit of hail the size of small marbles, and a bout of strong, gusty winds. This morning it's still mostly cloudy and a bit cold (38°F). The birds are all puffed up for warmth :)
Thursday, May 8, 2014
If this is for real...
If this is for real ... it's a most welcome development! It might be the proverbial “silver bullet” for cancer – or it might be another disappointment...
Leading climate scientist “defects”...
Leading climate scientist “defects” ... and Delingpole has the scoop...
The Black Death wasn't all bad...
The Black Death wasn't all bad... It was a stimulus for human evolution.
This is one of the reasons why I oppose mandatory safety regulations :)
This is one of the reasons why I oppose mandatory safety regulations :)
Cold war calculators...
“It’s gross hypocrisy.”
“It’s gross hypocrisy.” That's from an anonymous former senior U.S. official, talking about Hilary Clinton. Specifically her current bellowing to bring the Boko Haram to justice for kidnapping several hundred young Nigerian women – as compared to her refusal to label Boko Haram a terrorist group when she was Secretary of State.
Gross hypocrisy? Check.
Politically motivated? Check.
Lying politico-weasel? Check.
Typically conflicted progressive ideology (multi-culti vs. women's rights)? Check.
Probability of election? High - current poll front runner matched against any Republican opponent.
Is that a whiff of doom I smell, wafting in on the otherwise lovely morning breeze? I think it is...
Gross hypocrisy? Check.
Politically motivated? Check.
Lying politico-weasel? Check.
Typically conflicted progressive ideology (multi-culti vs. women's rights)? Check.
Probability of election? High - current poll front runner matched against any Republican opponent.
Is that a whiff of doom I smell, wafting in on the otherwise lovely morning breeze? I think it is...
Quote of the day...
Quote of the day...
“At the rate we’re going, we’re going to have so many people with guns everywhere, fully licensed, fully validated, in settings where [one] could be in a movie theater, and they don’t like someone chewing gum loudly or talking on their cell phone and decide they have the perfect right to defend themselves against the gum chewer or cell phone user by shooting.”That's Hilary Clinton, presumptive Democratic nominee for President in 2016. She (along with nearly all other Democrats and a non-trivial percentage of Republicans) would turn us into Euroweenies and ready us for a Hugo Chavez-like thugocratic takeover. Does that sound extreme to you? If so, I suggest you read more recent history – not to mention current events...
Tea Party donor? IRS audit you?
Tea Party donor? IRS audit you? You were in good company: the IRS audited about 10% of the people on the Tea Party donor lists it illegally requested from Tea Party groups submitting non-profit status applications. That's ten times the rate that ordinary citizens are audited.
Rope.
Tree.
Corrupt partisan bureaucrats.
Some assembly required.
Rope.
Tree.
Corrupt partisan bureaucrats.
Some assembly required.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Heidi needs a new home!
Another busy day for us...
Another busy day for us... Yesterday, that is. We spent the morning at a local paint store, where their color expert helped us select paint colors for our new home. If it were up to me, I'd just pick some nice off-white color and paint the whole house with it :) Debbie had other ideas – and we ended up with a total of ten different colors, and I have to admit that I like both the selections and the variety. Most of them are shades of browns and blue-greens, mostly quite light. A couple of rooms will be a fairly bright creamy yellow color. The door casings, baseboards, and crown moldings will be bright white.
The process of choosing the colors was entirely new to me. We visited the store late last week, and they told us to come back with samples of our flooring and pictures of rooms we like the looks of (gleaned from the web). Yesterday we did that, and looked dozens of paint sample chips against both the flooring samples and the photos we'd collected. The fluorescent store lighting threw off my perception of the colors; I had to keep taking them to a sunlit doorway to see what they really looked like (often quite different than under fluorescent lighting, which there will be none of in our home, as I absolutely detest it). To my surprise, Debbie and I converged on each color choice fairly quickly.
We had a lovely evening, going out to dinner with the couple who were our realtors for our new home purchase, and who are becoming good friends. They live just a few miles south of us, outside the town of Avon. Last night they took us to a restaurant we'd never been to before: the Copper Mill, in downtown Logan. Debbie had grilled salmon and asparagus, which she pronounced as excellent (hard for her to say about someone else's grilled salmon, as it's one of her specialties). I had a concoction they call “Burbank”: chicken breast, ham, smoked bacon, tomato, avocado, and mozzarella drizzled with hollandaise sauce – it will make your brains fall out. Both of us had mango lemonade to drink, served with lemon quarters floating in it – delicious! A meal like that, with the good company of our friends, was a real treat.
Today we have two contractors coming out. One will be doing some plumbing work: fixing a drainage issue in the basement, and installing a new water softener. The other will be fixing some major problems with our spring development (our home's water comes from a spring). It's been neglected for many years, is falling apart, and is seriously ugly with a “concentration camp” style barbed-wire topped fence surrounding it (more a problem for our neighbor than for us, but we're embarrassed by it). We're having it fixed up and made into something we hope better disappears into the background.
The process of choosing the colors was entirely new to me. We visited the store late last week, and they told us to come back with samples of our flooring and pictures of rooms we like the looks of (gleaned from the web). Yesterday we did that, and looked dozens of paint sample chips against both the flooring samples and the photos we'd collected. The fluorescent store lighting threw off my perception of the colors; I had to keep taking them to a sunlit doorway to see what they really looked like (often quite different than under fluorescent lighting, which there will be none of in our home, as I absolutely detest it). To my surprise, Debbie and I converged on each color choice fairly quickly.
We had a lovely evening, going out to dinner with the couple who were our realtors for our new home purchase, and who are becoming good friends. They live just a few miles south of us, outside the town of Avon. Last night they took us to a restaurant we'd never been to before: the Copper Mill, in downtown Logan. Debbie had grilled salmon and asparagus, which she pronounced as excellent (hard for her to say about someone else's grilled salmon, as it's one of her specialties). I had a concoction they call “Burbank”: chicken breast, ham, smoked bacon, tomato, avocado, and mozzarella drizzled with hollandaise sauce – it will make your brains fall out. Both of us had mango lemonade to drink, served with lemon quarters floating in it – delicious! A meal like that, with the good company of our friends, was a real treat.
Today we have two contractors coming out. One will be doing some plumbing work: fixing a drainage issue in the basement, and installing a new water softener. The other will be fixing some major problems with our spring development (our home's water comes from a spring). It's been neglected for many years, is falling apart, and is seriously ugly with a “concentration camp” style barbed-wire topped fence surrounding it (more a problem for our neighbor than for us, but we're embarrassed by it). We're having it fixed up and made into something we hope better disappears into the background.
Parody posters appearing in Los Angeles...
a steven spielberg playI don't know who's behind the posters, but clearly they're not happy with That One...
saving barack obama
the mission is a fraud
The birth of a shipping container...
A sea of cherry blossoms...
Our very active local star, aka “The Sun”...
White death...
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
A 94 year old prophecy is fulfilled...
A 94 year old prophecy is fulfilled... Via my card-carrying pissed-off-American mom:
H.L. Mencken (born 1880 - died 1956) was a journalist, satirist, critic, and Democrat. He wrote the editorial below while working for the Baltimore Evening Sun, which appeared in the July 26, 1920 edition.
"As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and complete narcissistic moron."So it was written, and so it has come to pass.
— H.L. Mencken, the Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920
Someone finally did it...
Someone finally did it... An Internet TV channel that's all cats, nothing but cats, all the time...
Monday, May 5, 2014
Is this why Jay Leno was involuntarily retired by NBC?
Is this why Jay Leno was involuntarily retired by NBC? A collection of his one-liners that just may have contributed to the network's decision, via reader Simi L.:
"I was going to start off tonight with an Obama joke, but I don't want to get audited by the IRS."One can easily imagine a petulant That One phoning Steve Burke: “Dude, stifle that Leno guy, would you?”
On NSA surveillance: "We wanted a president who listens to all Americans - now we have one."
On a new IRS commissioner: "He's called 'acting commissioner' because he has to act like the scandal doesn't involve the White House."
On closing the Guantanamo prison for terrorists: "If he really wants to close it, turn it into a government-funded solar power company. The doors will be shut in a month."
Concerning the Benghazi, Associated Press, and IRS scandals: "Remember in the old days when President Obama's biggest embarrassment was Joe Biden?"
On Obama saying he didn't know about the IRS scandal: "He was too busy not knowing anything about Benghazi to not know anything about the IRS."
"The White House has a new slogan about Benghazi : Hope and change the subject."
"It's casual Friday, which means that at the White House, they're casually going through everybody's phone calls and records."
"It is not looking good for President Obama. Today his teleprompter took the fifth."
"Fox News has changed its slogan from 'Fair and Balanced' to 'See, I told you so!'"
On Obama's commencement address: "He told the young graduates their future is bright unless, of course, they want jobs."
On a Chicago man who set a record for riding a Ferris wheel: "The only other way to go around and around in a circle that many times is to read the official report on Benghazi."
On White House claims of ignorance on the scandals: "They took 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' out of the Pentagon and moved it into the White House."
"These White House scandals are not going away anytime soon. It's gotten so bad that People in Kenya are now saying he's 100 percent American."
Jason and Cici, together again...
California leads the way...
California leads the way ... in Congressional insanity, business unfriendliness, and doom.
Liberal Maryland rejoices – because some other state is so business-hostile that it might drive some to consider relocating to not-quite-so-business-hostile Maryland. More likely, Texas will get the fleeing entrepreneurs, though...
Liberal Maryland rejoices – because some other state is so business-hostile that it might drive some to consider relocating to not-quite-so-business-hostile Maryland. More likely, Texas will get the fleeing entrepreneurs, though...
Have they not eyes to see with?
Have they not eyes to see with? This self-proclaimed progressive does. Perhaps the cruelest aspect of modern progressivism is that its anti-capitalism stance dooms millions of people to short lives and abject poverty. Caleb Rossiter wants nothing to do with that...
The trees are gone...
This changed the appearance of the front of the house considerably. It also opened up several south-facing windows, so the house should be considerably brighter now on a fine day...
Sunday, May 4, 2014
California leads the way...
California leads the way ... in government-mandated employee leaves of absence...
Debbie and I are working hard...
Debbie and I are working hard... Hard physical work, for a change. We have several largish trees planted right next to the house. They are so close that they pose a hazard to the house, and our insurance company (rightly, I think), insists that they be removed. Yesterday Debbie and I took down the first one (a Norway Spruce, my mom thinks); it had a 7 inch trunk. This morning we took down a second Norway Spruce, this one with a 6 inch trunk. Armed with a chain saw, loppers, and a pruning saw we chopped them up into bite-sized pieces, loaded them in the pickup, and carted them off to a brush pile we're accumulating. Now we're sitting and resting up, preparing to take down the largest of the three (a juniper of some kind). This one has a 12 inch trunk, so there will be considerably more wood in it...
Saturday, May 3, 2014
Busy day yesterday for us...
Busy day yesterday for us... Debbie and I were running all over Cache Valley, meeting with our flooring guys, our painters, our cabinet makers, and with some paint color experts. Then we went grocery shopping! We were very tired by the time we finally got home – but then we took a drive up into the Wasatch Mountains, the base of which are just a mile from our new home. We drove through an elk preserve (Hardware Ranch) and beyond into the National Forest. It was our first visit into the Wasatch Mountains after the snow melt, and it was beautiful. Spring is springing: the first grass shoots are emerging, the streams are engorged, and you can see it won't be long before things start blooming...
Friday, May 2, 2014
Weird people...
Weird people... An interesting article that actually is about weird people. No, I'm not the subject of it. Though perhaps I should be :)
SpaceX gets injunction prohibiting ULA from buying Russian rockets...
SpaceX gets injunction prohibiting ULA from buying Russian rockets... I wouldn't have expected them to win this injunction, but they did. SpaceX now has the chance to compete for the deal...
For 20 years now...
For 20 years now ... I've been saying that magnetic tape data storage is going to die, imminently. I've always been wrong. Now this – and I may be even wronger...
Geek: co-routines and state machines do basically the same thing...
Geek: co-routines and state machines do basically the same thing... I've never had occasion to investigate co-routines, as I've never written programs in a language that supports them intrinsically. But as I read this article and thought about it, I realized that my implementations of state machines in languages like Java, C, or assembly were basically indistinguishable from a co-routine implementation in the same language. So ... languages that intrinsically support co-routines are actually also intrinsically supporting state machines.
State machines are one of my favorite programming techniques for dealing with a messy real world with minimum complexity. This makes me want to investigate Ruby – and nothing else I've ever read about Ruby did that :)
State machines are one of my favorite programming techniques for dealing with a messy real world with minimum complexity. This makes me want to investigate Ruby – and nothing else I've ever read about Ruby did that :)
Ukraine: it's on...
Ukraine: it's on... I can't help but be reminded of the run-up to WWII, specifically Hitler's deceptions and subsequent invasion of Poland. I also can't help but worry that the West's non-support of Ukraine will lead to further “explorations” by Putin.
Only time will tell. The choices now are Putin's, as the West has already decided to leave Ukraine to its fate. What will Putin do? Will he back off, worried about the reactions from Obama, Merkle, et al? Or will he sense opportunity and start the troops rolling into eastern Ukraine?
My bet is on the latter. I'd love to be wrong...
Only time will tell. The choices now are Putin's, as the West has already decided to leave Ukraine to its fate. What will Putin do? Will he back off, worried about the reactions from Obama, Merkle, et al? Or will he sense opportunity and start the troops rolling into eastern Ukraine?
My bet is on the latter. I'd love to be wrong...
Thursday, May 1, 2014
You wanted the truth. You'll take abashed silence...
You wanted the truth. You'd take abashed silence... Ace, at his best, on the latest Benghazi wrinkles...
Good advice...
Good advice... Things to do before publishing something on the web. I try to do these things before posting on my blog here, though I don't always succeed...
The absurdity of LinkedIn...
The absurdity of LinkedIn... That site is really starting to tick me off with their aggressive marketing of their premium services. Several times now, after being bombarded with stupid efforts like this one, I've been tempted to simply delete my profile there...
Geek: useful lifetimes of cryptographic hash functions...
Geek: useful lifetimes of cryptographic hash functions... Sobering table for secure systems implementers...
Nazi Germany's Type XXI submarines...
Nazi Germany's Type XXI submarines ... advanced, but too late to have any effect on the war's outcome...
Peaks made of ice...
Estimating the value of π...
Estimating the value of π ... with 200 shots from a Mossberg 500 pump-action shotgun!
Many moons ago, when I was much younger and even more inclined to waste my time on something fun, I ran a slightly different Monte Carlo estimate of π. That version used a box of 500 straight pins and a grid of lines drawn on paper. As I recall, the estimate I calculated was less than 1% off the actual value of π...
Many moons ago, when I was much younger and even more inclined to waste my time on something fun, I ran a slightly different Monte Carlo estimate of π. That version used a box of 500 straight pins and a grid of lines drawn on paper. As I recall, the estimate I calculated was less than 1% off the actual value of π...
Actual ObamaCare enrollment data...
Actual ObamaCare enrollment data... And it's not good, just as many of us suspected. Key points:
- 33% of people who signed up have not paid, and therefore aren't actually enrolled. That 8 million you heard about? Not so much...
- 31% of the people who actually enrolled (and paid) are under 35 years old. The target was 50%. This is precisely what the insurance companies were afraid would happen, and it means that the largest goal of ObamaCare – getting young people enrolled – has failed. Why? Because 34% of people under 35 were already insured before ObamaCare. The slight difference is actually a decrease from pre-ObamaCare figures. Epic fail.
“I miss having freedom of speech.”
“I miss having freedom of speech.” That's Scott Adams, who is censoring his own blog posts from fear of online reprisals from (generally left-leaning) web sites. He's vulnerable to this because he's a celebrity; he has good reason to fear economic damage from them (by, for example, managing to get his cartoons dropped from newspapers). He doesn't propose any particular solution, but rather is simply telling his readers what he's doing, while bemoaning the fact that he feels compelled to do it.
It's a classic free speech issue: our Constitution allows us to speak freely, but there is no guarantee that we can do so without negative consequences. I'm glad to see that Scott didn't propose curtailing the free speech of others to allow his own free speech to be free of consequences – that's the traditional stance of the left, with their attraction toward laws preventing offensive speech. Scott implies (though he doesn't directly say it) that he'd like to have a way to sue the trolls who actually lie about him (libel). That's an especially challenging thing in the anonymous world of the Internet, where it may not be possible to know who is saying something – though this sort of thing isn't actually new to the Internet; newspapers have published anonymous letters to the editor for centuries.
I've never heard a good solution for this problem. Every solution I've ever heard proposed is fraught with either free speech issues or legal morass issues...
It's a classic free speech issue: our Constitution allows us to speak freely, but there is no guarantee that we can do so without negative consequences. I'm glad to see that Scott didn't propose curtailing the free speech of others to allow his own free speech to be free of consequences – that's the traditional stance of the left, with their attraction toward laws preventing offensive speech. Scott implies (though he doesn't directly say it) that he'd like to have a way to sue the trolls who actually lie about him (libel). That's an especially challenging thing in the anonymous world of the Internet, where it may not be possible to know who is saying something – though this sort of thing isn't actually new to the Internet; newspapers have published anonymous letters to the editor for centuries.
I've never heard a good solution for this problem. Every solution I've ever heard proposed is fraught with either free speech issues or legal morass issues...
So a progressive starts a business...
So a progressive starts a business ... and promptly discovers the profit motive. Political transformation ensues...
One of the best of our Founding Father's many ideas was the notion of a government comprised of ordinary citizens. Now that didn't last long, unfortunately (and this is something the Founding Fathers also foresaw). But while it did, we had a government full of people who actually understood how the real world operated – and what a tremendous boon that was to the country.
I look at the quality of some of the bozos we have in government today, and I want to cry...
One of the best of our Founding Father's many ideas was the notion of a government comprised of ordinary citizens. Now that didn't last long, unfortunately (and this is something the Founding Fathers also foresaw). But while it did, we had a government full of people who actually understood how the real world operated – and what a tremendous boon that was to the country.
I look at the quality of some of the bozos we have in government today, and I want to cry...
I support the legalization of drugs...
I support the legalization of drugs. That's not because I use illegal drugs myself; I do not (I stick strictly to the legal drugs: alcohol and caffeine). Here are some of the reasons why I support legalization.
Have you no decency, sir?
Have you no decency, sir? That's the title of a recent post by Eric S. Raymond, and I find nothing in it to disagree with. The post is about an example that shows clearly the difference between the political response from both the left and the right to a challenging human problem – and how both responses are deeply problematic. The comments (as usual for one of his posts) are just as fascinating as the post itself...
One thing Eric says particularly resonates with me: I don't want anybody to associate me with either of the major parties. Both of them are instruments of power hungry, corrupt big government folks. There are individuals in both parties who are exceptions to this, but unfortunately they are just that: exceptions...
One thing Eric says particularly resonates with me: I don't want anybody to associate me with either of the major parties. Both of them are instruments of power hungry, corrupt big government folks. There are individuals in both parties who are exceptions to this, but unfortunately they are just that: exceptions...
Not so very long ago, we were all poor...
She starts with a statement of fact that is obvious and completely uncontroversial to anyone with even a smattering of knowledge of human history – that is, perhaps 5% of the American citizenry. That fact? That there has been a constant and spectacularly rapid rise in the wealth of the human race since about 1800, no matter how you measure it. It's very sad to me that this fact is not common knowledge...
She goes on to attribute this growth primarily to the advent of respect for traders, which I think is just a bit silly. It seems pretty clear from my own reading of history that the rise of human wealth can be attributed primarily to the conjunction of these things:
- The advance of organized science, which leads directly to technological innovations. This advance continues at an ever-increasing pace; the process is regenerative and there's no end in sight.
- The rise of capitalism, perhaps especially with the advent of stock corporations which allow vast pools of capital to be raised focused on a single business opportunity.
- The rule of law, applied equally to everyone. This is still far from perfect anywhere on the planet, but nevertheless there's a direct correlation between the rule of law (and the correlated rise of personal honesty) with the wealth of nations. Corruption and thugocracy are major reasons why countries like North Korea, Yemen, Pakistan, etc. are generally much poorer than countries like England, Finland, America, etc.
In conversations with my fellow Americans over the years, I've often been struck by their ignorance of both the temporal and geographical history of wealth. Many Americans have not traveled extensively outside of the United States, and many more have never really paid any attention to history. This leads to a set of assumptions – most likely completely unconscious – about the wealth of people in other places and times. Generally that assumption is that they are (or were) much like the United States today – and of course that's very far from the truth.
I've been fortunate to have traveled to many parts of the world, some of them actually quite obscure :) This travel has been almost entirely because of my military service and on business trips – the only exception is a single (wonderful) trip that Debbie and I once made to Costa Rica.
In those travels I have seen firsthand just how poor certain parts of the world are. The Philippines in the '70s (under the corrupt thug Marcos) was one such place. There I spent some time with people who lived in homes on stilts over their rice paddies, who tilled the earth with wooden plows pulled by water oxen, who defecated through a hole in their floor into the rice paddy below, who owned almost nothing made of metal, and who carried potable water by hand from a spring several miles from their home. Today these same people have tractors and cars, live in decent homes, and have running water. What changed? Their government now embraces capitalism and they have the rule of law.
Even outside my own travels there are some spectacular before-and-after examples. China is the most obvious one. Millions of Chinese died of starvation within my own lifetime. Today they are the fastest growing economy on the planet, home to thousands of millionaires, and soon will be the biggest economy on Earth. What happened? Mainly capitalism and a smattering of the rule of law.
Then there's our own history. It's easy for me to remember that when I was a child, people were not generally as wealthy as they are today. It always amazes me how easily people forget this, and especially how easily they conflate the rising prices (due to inflation) with their own decreasing wealth. It's a good mental exercise to think hard about the state of the world in your childhood, and ask if you really think you're not wealthier today. If you're more than 40 years old or so, it should be easy for you to realize how much better off you are today then when you were a child – unless you grew up in a wealthy family and have today become impoverished.
Consider this now-famous quote:
“I really want to move to a country where the poor people are fat.”That's Dinesh D'Souza, quoting an Indian friend. Two things strike me about that quote. The first is the obvious one: that even the poor people in America today are much better off than many people around the world. The second, though, is one that many Americans don't know (or have forgotten): that poor people in America weren't always fat. In fact, less than 100 years ago – in the Great Depression – we had a great many of our citizens hungry to the point of malnutrition. The adults who grew up in that time, including my own parents, were significantly shorter on average than the generation after them (height is the classic gross measure of nutrition).
Now here's my punchline: I strongly suspect that if most Americans understood just two things: the fact that our average wealth has been rapidly increasing, and why – that progressives would be squashed out of existence.
Further, I think the progressives understand this – and that's why they resist educating people about it. What provoked this thought was listening to Harry Reid (something that should only be done with the assistance of alcohol or psychiatric intervention, or both) blather on about income inequality. He said a great many things that I simply cannot accept he actually believes – for Harry is himself a wealthy man, and hobnobs regularly with capitalist titans. If he doesn't believe it, then why is he babbling about it? That's easy: it provides political advantage (i.e., votes). He doesn't want his constituents to understand that capitalism works, and that even with great inequality in income everyone can be better off. That won't get him votes. Stoking class envy, on the other hand, that's a proven success for progressives all the way back to Karl Marx.
How do we educate people about this? I'm afraid I don't have any good ideas on that count. The progressives have established pretty solid control of the educational system, most especially in our universities – where the students are of an age they're likely first interested in political matters. Every time I think about this, the doom comes upon me...
The Democrats don't like being criticized...
The Democrats don't like being criticized ... and they want to amend the Constitution to allow the banning of political criticism. Really.
I don't believe this attempt has any chance at all of succeeding. As Ed Morrissey points out in the linked post, it probably won't even succeed amongst the Democratic caucus. Personally, I think every supporter of this amendment ought to be removed from office by the voters – though most likely there aren't enough of them paying attention to make that happen.
Just for the record, let me point out that Hugo Chavez actually got an amendment like this passed in Venezuela – and that passage serves as a marker, as good as any other I can think of, of start of that country's disastrous fall into the thugocratic mess they're in today...
I don't believe this attempt has any chance at all of succeeding. As Ed Morrissey points out in the linked post, it probably won't even succeed amongst the Democratic caucus. Personally, I think every supporter of this amendment ought to be removed from office by the voters – though most likely there aren't enough of them paying attention to make that happen.
Just for the record, let me point out that Hugo Chavez actually got an amendment like this passed in Venezuela – and that passage serves as a marker, as good as any other I can think of, of start of that country's disastrous fall into the thugocratic mess they're in today...
Today is a big day in Paradise...
Today is a big day in Paradise... That's Paradise, Utah, where our new home is located. I've been “camping” in our new home (with a bed, a table, and a chair) while getting some remodeling done, and my lovely bride Debbie has been holding down the fort in our Jamul, California home. Today she's winging up to visit with me for a week. She'll see first-hand what it's like to camp in the plaster dust :) She can only do this because of the wonderful Dionecia, a local (to Jamul) lady who takes care of our house and animals when we go on vacation. She was available this week, and Debbie jumped on it. In a couple of hours, I'll be driving down to the Salt Lake City airport (the closest major airport to our new home) to pick her up. Woo hoo!
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