Sunday, May 24, 2015
Babi and Aton...
Progress in Paradise...
Progress in Paradise... Looks like we have a cloudy, but dry, morning. I'll be heading out soon to (I hope!) clean up the last of the brush left behind by the Mormon horde one week ago. I'll likely be very tired when I get back in, so blogging will be iffy today.
Debbie and I watched more television yesterday than I have in quite a few years now. We've been intermittently watching a British series called Foyle's War, set in England from WWII through the early Cold War years. Stuck inside on a rainy day, yesterday we watched the last three episodes of the entire series. We've quite enjoyed these. The acting is excellent, the story lines intriguing (especially for anyone who loves British mysteries), and the production quality is very high. While they took a few liberties with actual history, for the most part the events depicted are completely consistent with reality. Most of you know that I watch nearly zero television. For me to watch an entire series, it has to be particularly well done, and on a subject that appeals to me. Foyle's War hit the mark especially well. Highly recommended!
We have a bit of Mo'i news, or perhaps more accurately, preliminary Mo'i news. He's our 16 year old field spaniel, who just a few months ago was struggling and (we thought) near the end of his rope. In January he developed a strange condition that had no organic cause that our veterinarian could detect: he started compulsively drinking, and as a result, urinating uncontrollably. We started putting diapers on him, and that cured the problem of urination in the house – but of course that was merely treating the symptoms.
A few weeks ago, we noticed that his compulsive drinking seemed to be tapering off. Shortly thereafter, wet diapers started tapering off as well. Finally, two days ago, he hit a milestone that I was watching for: 3 weeks without a wet diaper. So yesterday, for the first time in five months, we let him go all day without one. No “accidents”. With a little trepidation (as waking up to a urine-soaked kitchen is not high on our list of preferred awakening modalities), we left the diaper off last night. This morning he woke me up later than usual (at 4:30 am) with his “I have to pee!” bark, and I took him out for his morning walkie. The kitchen was unsullied.
So for reasons we have no way to discern, Mo'i's odd thirst and urination issue looks like it might be over – just a strange five month episode in his life. Meanwhile, he is in much better physical condition now than he was in January, thanks to walks we've been taking with him. We'll do a mile or so this morning, something he simply could not have done in January. One theory we have about the odd behavior is that it was some kind of response to the stress of moving to Utah. If so, it was a stress our other dogs felt none of – they (very obviously) couldn't be happier to be in this land of cool, green grass. It's harder to tell with Mo'i – at his age, his cavorting days are over. The stress theory is just a theory, though; really it's just a correlation between his behavior and the timing of the move. But we have no other theories.
In any case, to have our relatively normal Mo'i back with us is a joy that we're cherishing while we have it. At this moment he's in much better condition than when we left California, is clearly enjoying his life up here, and has no bizzaro behaviors. We'll take that!
Debbie and I watched more television yesterday than I have in quite a few years now. We've been intermittently watching a British series called Foyle's War, set in England from WWII through the early Cold War years. Stuck inside on a rainy day, yesterday we watched the last three episodes of the entire series. We've quite enjoyed these. The acting is excellent, the story lines intriguing (especially for anyone who loves British mysteries), and the production quality is very high. While they took a few liberties with actual history, for the most part the events depicted are completely consistent with reality. Most of you know that I watch nearly zero television. For me to watch an entire series, it has to be particularly well done, and on a subject that appeals to me. Foyle's War hit the mark especially well. Highly recommended!
We have a bit of Mo'i news, or perhaps more accurately, preliminary Mo'i news. He's our 16 year old field spaniel, who just a few months ago was struggling and (we thought) near the end of his rope. In January he developed a strange condition that had no organic cause that our veterinarian could detect: he started compulsively drinking, and as a result, urinating uncontrollably. We started putting diapers on him, and that cured the problem of urination in the house – but of course that was merely treating the symptoms.
A few weeks ago, we noticed that his compulsive drinking seemed to be tapering off. Shortly thereafter, wet diapers started tapering off as well. Finally, two days ago, he hit a milestone that I was watching for: 3 weeks without a wet diaper. So yesterday, for the first time in five months, we let him go all day without one. No “accidents”. With a little trepidation (as waking up to a urine-soaked kitchen is not high on our list of preferred awakening modalities), we left the diaper off last night. This morning he woke me up later than usual (at 4:30 am) with his “I have to pee!” bark, and I took him out for his morning walkie. The kitchen was unsullied.
So for reasons we have no way to discern, Mo'i's odd thirst and urination issue looks like it might be over – just a strange five month episode in his life. Meanwhile, he is in much better physical condition now than he was in January, thanks to walks we've been taking with him. We'll do a mile or so this morning, something he simply could not have done in January. One theory we have about the odd behavior is that it was some kind of response to the stress of moving to Utah. If so, it was a stress our other dogs felt none of – they (very obviously) couldn't be happier to be in this land of cool, green grass. It's harder to tell with Mo'i – at his age, his cavorting days are over. The stress theory is just a theory, though; really it's just a correlation between his behavior and the timing of the move. But we have no other theories.
In any case, to have our relatively normal Mo'i back with us is a joy that we're cherishing while we have it. At this moment he's in much better condition than when we left California, is clearly enjoying his life up here, and has no bizzaro behaviors. We'll take that!
Saturday, May 23, 2015
Storm total...
Storm total ... is 2.85 inches, as of 7 pm this evening. We still have more rain in the forecast, too – tomorrow afternoon through Thursday. Our fields are saturated, and the baby alfalfa plants are practically leaping for joy, while the rye and orchard grass is growing almost visibly. What a difference from the desert of California!
Raindrops kept falling on our heads...
Raindrops kept falling on our heads ... nearly all day long. It stopped around 2 pm, but now (at 5 pm) it looks like it's going to start again. I didn't have a chance to work outside today at all. Maybe tomorrow morning.
Debbie and I took a drive up to Hardware Ranch today, and a few miles beyond. We saw a male Lazuli Bunting, a gorgeous male meadowlark, and – best of all – a pair of Sandhill Cranes with two chicks, much like the photo at right (which isn't mine). We sat and watched the four of them for quite a while, enjoying the show.
We picked up the mail on the way home, and in there had quite a surprise. Just a week ago Wednesday, Debbie and I got our cars registered in Utah. Debbie ordered a custom plate for her truck, and the clerk there told us it would take 6 to 8 weeks for them to arrive, along with her new registration (the standard plates they just handed us on the spot). Then they issued us a temporary registration good until July 31st. Well, her new plates showed up today. That's ridiculously fast – just nine calendar days, and seven working days since we ordered them. And that includes delivery by U.S. Post Office, which may well have eaten up half of that!
We love living here! It's like the exact opposite of the dysfunctional California DMV. Anyone who lives there can tell you that to get your custom plates there is going to take a lot longer than that – and you'll be lucky if they don't screw it up...
We picked up the mail on the way home, and in there had quite a surprise. Just a week ago Wednesday, Debbie and I got our cars registered in Utah. Debbie ordered a custom plate for her truck, and the clerk there told us it would take 6 to 8 weeks for them to arrive, along with her new registration (the standard plates they just handed us on the spot). Then they issued us a temporary registration good until July 31st. Well, her new plates showed up today. That's ridiculously fast – just nine calendar days, and seven working days since we ordered them. And that includes delivery by U.S. Post Office, which may well have eaten up half of that!
We love living here! It's like the exact opposite of the dysfunctional California DMV. Anyone who lives there can tell you that to get your custom plates there is going to take a lot longer than that – and you'll be lucky if they don't screw it up...
Precomputation renders Diffie-Hellman vulnerable...
The new attack is enabled by the use of an enormous table of precomputed partial results for a particular prime number used in the Diffie-Hellman scheme. The details aren't important to understanding the vulnerability. The key is that you need one of these tables for each possible prime number being used – and that most Diffie-Hellman implementations use one of a very few number of such primes.
There are three main mitigations available, but both are going to be challenging to roll out. One mitigation is to use longer keys (this always seems to be the mitigation for a vulnerability!). Another is to stop using the magic few prime numbers, and switch to using frequently generated prime numbers. The last is to quit using classical Diffie-Hellman.
It will be interesting to watch how the world reacts to this.
Much more technical information in the original paper, and here, here, and here...
Robot employment act...
The economics of this are very straightforward. Take a job that needs to be filled 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (typical for a factory job). That's 21 shifts (8 hours each) per week. To hire a minimum wage worker at $15 per hour costs the employer $131,040 per year in direct wages, plus roughly $25,000 more in social security, unemployment insurance, etc. Call it $150,000 a year. That actually understates the cost a bit, because there is more overhead associated with management, human resources, parking lots, break rooms, rest rooms, etc. We'll ignore all that (though it's actually not insignificant).
What does a robot cost? Well, that depends entirely on exactly what that minimum wage worker was doing. Some jobs are very easily handled by robots: repetitive assembly work, welding, parts painting, etc. Some are less easily handled: short order cook, maid, house painter, etc. These are difficult precisely because they require (or seem to require) human judgment, analytic capability, and motor skills. However, progress in these areas is happening very quickly. There are, for instance, fully operational short-order cook robots right now. They don't look anything like the photo above; they're more like automated stoves with food and implement handling capability. But they work, and they cost about $300,000 - plus $20,000 or so a year in maintenance and power. Ask any businessman what he'd choose: a worker who costs $150,000 every year, or a robot that costs $300,000 up front and $20,000 a year thereafter, and you'll get the answer very quickly. The robot wins!
If it isn't blindingly obvious why that's so, consider the 10 year cost of the worker versus a robot. The worker would cost 10 x $150,000, or $1,500,000. Ouch. The robot would cost $300,000 + 10 x $20,000, or $500,000 – just one third the cost of the worker. Furthermore, the robot is going to get cheaper and cheaper over time, and the worker ... will get more expensive.
This is how robots are going to take over. They're going to be the cheapest way to get something done. The minimum wage raising accelerates this process by forcing workers to cost more – and precisely the class of workers whose job is most easily automated.
Jeff Bezos at Amazon, with his robot armies in his warehouses, is leading the way...
Rain drops in Paradise...
Yesterday afternoon, my rain gauge was showing 2.4 inches for the storm total. It's been raining since about 8 pm last night, so we're probably getting close to 3 inches at this point...
Friday, May 22, 2015
Progress in Paradise...
Progress in Paradise... This morning saw fine weather again, so I headed out early to burn some more of the brush collected by the Mormon horde last Saturday. I made good progress, getting about half of the brush burned. The remaining brush should be easier to deal with, as it's quite a bit smaller diameter, on average, than the stuff I've already cleaned up.
The fire today was quite hot – hotter than I realized at first. When I got done for the day, my glasses were hard to see through. I cleaned them, to no effect. Only then did I notice that the heat had distorted the surface of both lenses, in a spot near the center and covering about a third of the lens. I can see clearly through the top (distance) and bottom (near), but in the center it's all fuzzy. Who knew that plastic lenses were less resistant to heat than my own skin?
After finishing up with the burning for the day, I drove Debbie's truck down to Hyrum Tire to get the new rubber installed. I'm really impressed with these guys. I drove in without an appointment. They asked if I was going to leave the truck or wait for it to be done. When I indicated the latter, they swarmed my truck with three workers (see photo at right). In no time at all they had the truck up on a lift, and all four tires removed. They had two tire machines plus a balancer going, and very quickly had the old tires off the rim, new tires on, balanced, and mounted back on the truck. It was fun to watch a competent bunch of guys do their thing. They teased each other and bantered away as they worked. Competent workers, good advice, cheerful folks, quality products, and good prices. Pretty hard to beat!
After that it was off to Macey's grocery store to pick up some essentials for Debbie and I. She's making chicken soup, hoping that the “Jewish penicillin” will conquer the virus that's giving her a sore throat. She's making her usual 5 gallons, so I will be the accidental beneficiary of this effort :)
The fire today was quite hot – hotter than I realized at first. When I got done for the day, my glasses were hard to see through. I cleaned them, to no effect. Only then did I notice that the heat had distorted the surface of both lenses, in a spot near the center and covering about a third of the lens. I can see clearly through the top (distance) and bottom (near), but in the center it's all fuzzy. Who knew that plastic lenses were less resistant to heat than my own skin?
After that it was off to Macey's grocery store to pick up some essentials for Debbie and I. She's making chicken soup, hoping that the “Jewish penicillin” will conquer the virus that's giving her a sore throat. She's making her usual 5 gallons, so I will be the accidental beneficiary of this effort :)
Partly cloudy, no rain in sight until early this afternoon...
Partly cloudy, no rain in sight until early this afternoon ... so I'm headed out to burn some brush piles. Got my burn permit in my pocket, and I'm going to fire up the tractor after I take the dogs for a walk. Debbie's out with a cold, mostly manifesting as feeling like crap and a sore throat. Sure hope she doesn't get the nasty cough she's prone to...
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Progress in Paradise...
This morning the weather was unexpectedly fine, so Debbie and I set out to burn said brush piles. We set up a water line, armed ourselves with matches and paper to start a blaze, a pitchfork, and drove the tractor out to a spot near the southeast corner of our property. This spot is on the peninsula formed by a bend in the irrigation canal, and it's a long way from any structures or trees – a perfect spot for a burn. It was also conveniently close to about half the brush piles left behind by the Mormon horde. We put a bit of brush on the spot and in short order we had a nice blaze going (photo above). The fire was so hot that I couldn't get closer than about six feet to the brush pile, unless I was willing to have my beard burned off (which I was not).
We worked as hard as two ancient and decrepit people could, for about 5 hours, until we could plausibly say that rain was threatening us. At that point we sat down and didn't get up for about an hour, while pretending to watch the fire closely. Since everything for about 100 miles in every direction had just been soaked with almost 2 inches of rain, in reality there was no fire danger at all. But our burn permit required us to remain in attendance, so we had our excuse :)
As I write this, I'm about to stagger off to my bed to rest my weary bones. With any luck at all, tomorrow morning we'll get up and do it all over again.
Oh, and we burned about one fifth of the brush. We have quite a bit more work to do! And we are also learning in a very direct way just how much that Mormon horde accomplished on a rainy Saturday morning...
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
Paradise update...
Paradise update... Well, Jimmy and Michelle B. are on their way home. We had breakfast together at Herm's this morning, and then they set out for St. George. We had a lovely day with them yesterday.
First we drove out to Hardware Ranch and partway to Ant Flats. On that trip we saw a beaver working on his dam, a half dozen or so kingfishers, and an osprey gnawing on a fish atop a power pole, while a magpie tried to steal the fish away. On the way back down from Hardware Ranch, we took the Left Hand Fork road and moseyed along it for 5 or 6 miles. That's a beautiful drive in a steep canyon with a burbling brook at the bottom, and there are trails galore that leave from it. This area is just 30 minutes or so from our house, and I suspect it will take us several years to explore it all.
After this, we drove down to Porcupine Reservoir as far as the road would take us. I was hoping to share the loons with Jimmy and Michelle, but we didn't see a single loon anywhere. We did see lots of baby farm animals though: goats, horses, cows, and sheep.
After this we headed over to Brigham City to have dinner at Maddox House. On the way down toward Mantua in Sardine Canyon, traveling at 60 MPH, we had a special surprise: a tire failure. Our left front tire started making some odd noises, then just a few seconds later it disintegrated – lots of loud noises and smoke. The truck was perfectly stable through the tire issue; slowing down, driving off the road, and stopping were no problem at all. The ABS system kicked in when I turned to leave the road, and it worked perfectly – we were rock-solid stable throughout. We piled out of the truck and went to work to change the tire. Partway through this effort, a sheriff pulled up: Brian Nelson. He was incredibly friendly and helpful. First he lent us a star wrench, which was much easier to use than the single-handled wrench that came with the car. Then when I ran into a lug nut that I couldn't break loose, he got on the wrench with me until we got it going. He helped raise and lower the jack. When we were all done, he brought out some clean-up towels to get the worst of the grime off our hands. We all left the scene with big, happy smiles on our faces.
But those smiles were soon supplanted by moans of gustatory pleasure as we dug into our meal at Maddox House. Between the four of us we had filet mignon, ribeye steak, fried chicken (me!), and salmon. All was delicious, as were the accompaniments: homemade rolls, raspberry butter, carrots, birch beer and sarsaparilla. None of us had any room for dessert, dang it. Someday I'm going to get to try one of their fruit pies!
After we staggered back home, holding our bellies to salve the pain of being so full of good food, we had a fun evening playing cards. The four of us teased each other and laughed for hours, and we didn't retire until way past my usual bed time. Jimmy and Michelle promised to come up again, sometime later this year, for a longer visit. They also volunteered their slave labor to help around the place, a promise which I am certain they will regret!
First we drove out to Hardware Ranch and partway to Ant Flats. On that trip we saw a beaver working on his dam, a half dozen or so kingfishers, and an osprey gnawing on a fish atop a power pole, while a magpie tried to steal the fish away. On the way back down from Hardware Ranch, we took the Left Hand Fork road and moseyed along it for 5 or 6 miles. That's a beautiful drive in a steep canyon with a burbling brook at the bottom, and there are trails galore that leave from it. This area is just 30 minutes or so from our house, and I suspect it will take us several years to explore it all.
After this, we drove down to Porcupine Reservoir as far as the road would take us. I was hoping to share the loons with Jimmy and Michelle, but we didn't see a single loon anywhere. We did see lots of baby farm animals though: goats, horses, cows, and sheep.
But those smiles were soon supplanted by moans of gustatory pleasure as we dug into our meal at Maddox House. Between the four of us we had filet mignon, ribeye steak, fried chicken (me!), and salmon. All was delicious, as were the accompaniments: homemade rolls, raspberry butter, carrots, birch beer and sarsaparilla. None of us had any room for dessert, dang it. Someday I'm going to get to try one of their fruit pies!
After we staggered back home, holding our bellies to salve the pain of being so full of good food, we had a fun evening playing cards. The four of us teased each other and laughed for hours, and we didn't retire until way past my usual bed time. Jimmy and Michelle promised to come up again, sometime later this year, for a longer visit. They also volunteered their slave labor to help around the place, a promise which I am certain they will regret!
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Hiatus in Paradise...
Hiatus in Paradise... No progress yesterday, as we had friends visiting: Jim and Michelle B. They arrived late on Sunday, and they'll be here through Wednesday morning. Blogging will be light to non-existent :)
Sunday we all went to Angie's for a local style supper. Yesterday we drove south from our home, through Paradise and Avon, then up and over the pass (on a four-wheel dirt road) to Liberty and Eden. That was a beautiful drive. It was overcast but not raining, and we traveled through lush greenery, lots of flowing water, and spring flowers. The blue larkspur at around 6000' was my favorite. In some places there were patches six feet or so across that were solid blue. Michelle spotted a pair of Sandhill Cranes foraging in a meadow. We also had a nice viewing of a blue heron, and a couple of does.
We went to the Red Iguana in Salt Lake City for our supper, and a fine meal was ours. I'm still not hungry :) We're going to do some more driving in the mountains today, then we're headed to Maddox House for a BEEF dinner tonight!
While we were gone yesterday, we got another three tenths of an inch of rain. The storm total (since last Thursday) now stands at 1.7 inches. Woo hoo! We're going to be driving past Porcupine Reservoir today – we're hoping it's full now, or nearly so...
Sunday we all went to Angie's for a local style supper. Yesterday we drove south from our home, through Paradise and Avon, then up and over the pass (on a four-wheel dirt road) to Liberty and Eden. That was a beautiful drive. It was overcast but not raining, and we traveled through lush greenery, lots of flowing water, and spring flowers. The blue larkspur at around 6000' was my favorite. In some places there were patches six feet or so across that were solid blue. Michelle spotted a pair of Sandhill Cranes foraging in a meadow. We also had a nice viewing of a blue heron, and a couple of does.
We went to the Red Iguana in Salt Lake City for our supper, and a fine meal was ours. I'm still not hungry :) We're going to do some more driving in the mountains today, then we're headed to Maddox House for a BEEF dinner tonight!
While we were gone yesterday, we got another three tenths of an inch of rain. The storm total (since last Thursday) now stands at 1.7 inches. Woo hoo! We're going to be driving past Porcupine Reservoir today – we're hoping it's full now, or nearly so...
Sunday, May 17, 2015
Tired and sore in Paradise...
Tired and sore in Paradise... My workout with the Mormon horde yesterday pushed my muscles and skeletons a little further than they wanted to go :) I'm going to take the day off from any physical work today. I need to recover!
We had a very nice dinner last night with Sheila Miller, her sister, and a good friend of theirs. We met at Cafe Sabor, and as usual, the food was very good. The friend and I were the designated drivers. The other three hogged down multiple flagons of alcohol mixed with various things to disguise its flavor. By the time we were ready to leave the restaurant those three were ... very happy. The evening was full of good conversation and funny dog stories. Sheila's sister (Debbie) is a gifted storyteller, at least when she can keep track of the story line. That got harder after the first margarita :)
When we left for the restaurant, our storm total rainfall stood at 9/10ths of an inch. It rained the entire time we were gone, sometimes hard (according to the weather radar). As soon as it's light this morning, I'll check the gauge – but I'd bet we're well over an inch now. There is much relief amongst the farmers here, who have all been quite worried about the possibility of severe drought. That doesn't appear to be much of a concern any more!
We had a very nice dinner last night with Sheila Miller, her sister, and a good friend of theirs. We met at Cafe Sabor, and as usual, the food was very good. The friend and I were the designated drivers. The other three hogged down multiple flagons of alcohol mixed with various things to disguise its flavor. By the time we were ready to leave the restaurant those three were ... very happy. The evening was full of good conversation and funny dog stories. Sheila's sister (Debbie) is a gifted storyteller, at least when she can keep track of the story line. That got harder after the first margarita :)
When we left for the restaurant, our storm total rainfall stood at 9/10ths of an inch. It rained the entire time we were gone, sometimes hard (according to the weather radar). As soon as it's light this morning, I'll check the gauge – but I'd bet we're well over an inch now. There is much relief amongst the farmers here, who have all been quite worried about the possibility of severe drought. That doesn't appear to be much of a concern any more!
Saturday, May 16, 2015
Quote of the day...
“Please, please champ, don’t beat my brains out – because if you did, I’d have to become a Democrat.”I don't like to think about what it might have been like to have a President Mitt Romney instead of a second Obummer term, because cry...
My mother-in-law made the front page...
A pleasant surprise...
A pleasant surprise ... was ours last night, when we learned that Sheila Miller (the proprietor of Wolftree Acres, and the breeder from whom we got all three of our field spaniels) would be in nearby Logan this weekend. She's at a dog show happening in the fairgrounds there, and we're hoping to be able to have dinner with her tonight. Sheila keeps threatening to stop breeding (it's a LOT of work!), but we're hoping she'll do it at least one more time – as we'll probably be looking for another puppy in a year or so...
This is turning out to be a highly social weekend for us. First the Mormon horde, then Sheila, and (allegedly) our friends Jim and Michelle are showing up tomorrow. Woo hoo!
This is turning out to be a highly social weekend for us. First the Mormon horde, then Sheila, and (allegedly) our friends Jim and Michelle are showing up tomorrow. Woo hoo!
Despite the cold drizzle...
Despite the cold drizzle ... the Mormon horde showed up and went to work. In just four hours they got more done that I could have done myself in a year of part-time (hard!) work. All the old barbed-wire fence is down and hauled off to the dump. Nearly all of the dead limbs have been cut down, cut up, and piled up ready for burning. There are just a few branches left that were too high to reach without ladders. The trash in the old dry canal bed has all been dug up and hauled away. It's amazing how much got accomplished! People came and went all morning, but overall I think about 15 people contributed. There were a half dozen guys with chainsaws, we had a nice big hydraulic dump trailer for hauling, and a neighbor with a 40-horsepower tractor came over to do the heavy lifting and pulling. The only real challenge we ran into was an old corner post made from cinder blocks and reinforced concrete. We managed to knock it over, but we couldn't lift it or break it up. That will have to wait for another day...
Debbie had a nice meal waiting for us when we finished: chicken salad sandwiches on nice buns, with tomato and lettuce, chips, cookies (her homemade chocolate chip cookies with cranberries and orange), and lemonade. The sandwiches and cookies were a big hit – they disappeared quickly, though Debbie of course made way more than we could possibly eat :)
Now that we're done, I'm all sore and creaky. Those guys were all way younger than I, and in trying to keep up, I think I've strained ... everything. No more working for me today!
Debbie had a nice meal waiting for us when we finished: chicken salad sandwiches on nice buns, with tomato and lettuce, chips, cookies (her homemade chocolate chip cookies with cranberries and orange), and lemonade. The sandwiches and cookies were a big hit – they disappeared quickly, though Debbie of course made way more than we could possibly eat :)
Now that we're done, I'm all sore and creaky. Those guys were all way younger than I, and in trying to keep up, I think I've strained ... everything. No more working for me today!
A boy, a truck, and two flags...
A boy, a truck, and two flags... Nice story. It would be different here in Utah. I can't imagine the local school behaving this way here. And none of my neighbors are complaining about my flagpole and flags...
False memories...
False memories... I first started reading about this phenomenon in the '70s, and I'll note that the more research on it that's done, the more common the false memories turn out to be. One study I read recently said that of 150 people whose memory of a vivid incident was tested one week later, even when they were tasked with remembering it accurately – 100% of them had “significant” errors in their remembered chronology or list of events. One hundred percent, and the group included over a dozen people whose job required accurate memory. By far the most common error was addition, not omission – meaning that chronologies were changed or events that didn't actually happen were added. Another thing that seems clear from the studies: emotionally charged incidents (which the previously mentioned study used) are far more likely to be mis-remembered.
Fallible, we humans are...
Fallible, we humans are...
Today is the day...
Today is the day ... that the Mormon horde shows up to clean up our canal area, as a service project. However, the weather isn't looking very cooperative: heavy rain is predicted starting at around 9 am, and the weather radar in fact looks a little ... ominous. The leaders were here last night doing some final planning, and noting the weather they decided to start this morning at 7 am. I'm not sure how long they're going to last – if it starts getting wet, we've all agreed they're going to pack it in and reschedule...
Friday, May 15, 2015
Quote of the day...
What I would like to emphasize is that human actions have very large effects on the ecology, which have nothing to do with the climate. Carbon dioxide is what we're producing in big quantities and putting into the atmosphere. This happens to be a very good fertilizer for all kinds of vegetation, good for wildlife, good for agricultural production, so it has many benefits. And this is something you have together with the climate effects, which are much less certain, so it's a question of drawing a balance. I'm just saying I don't understand it and neither does anybody else. I'm skeptical because I don't think the science is at all clear, and unfortunately a lot of the experts really believe they understand it, and maybe have the wrong answer.That's Freeman Dyson, in a quote from an interview about his new book...
Of course [the weather] concerns me, but of course, we don't know much about the causes of those things. We don't even know for sure whether it is more variable than it used to be. I mean the worst disasters were the Ice Ages, and nobody really understands for sure the causes of Ice Ages, so I'm not saying the climate disasters aren't real, I'm merely saying we don't know how to prevent them.
Fun with big data...
The chart at right shows the result for my own given name (“Thomas”). You can see that “peak Thomas” (the raw data is downloadable) was in 1952 – the year I was born. I've always assumed that I was named after my dad, but (perhaps coincidentally) my name was also at its peak popularity that year.
I tried about 20 names from my family or Debbie's, and the results were quite a surprise to me. Try some of your own, and if you find something surprising, leave a note to tell us about it!
31 things you will never hear Southern boys say...
31 things you will never hear Southern boys say... Via my brother Scott, who lives in Virginia Beach, Virginia – sort of in the South...
31. When I retire, I'm movin' north.The first one on that list has long fascinated me. I've seen maps showing where people move after retirement, and in fact is is highly unusual for people to move north (as we did!). I've forgotten the exact ratio, but it's on the order of 6:1 in favor of moving toward the south...
30. Oh I wouldn't dare; she's only sixteen.
29. I'll take Shakespeare for $1000, Alex.
28. Duct tape won't fix that.
27. Come to think of it, I'll have a Heineken with a slice of lime.
26. We don't keep no guns in this house.
25. You can't feed that to the dog.
24. No kids in the back of the pickup, it's just not safe.
23. Wrestling is fake.
22. We're vegetarians.
21. Do you think my gut is too big?
20. I'll have grapefruit and grapes instead of biscuits, grits, and gravy.
19. Honey, we don't need another dog.
18. Who gives a sh** who won the Civil War?
17. Give me the small bag of pork rinds.
16. Too many deer heads detract from the decor.
15. I just couldn't find a thing at Wal-Mart today.
14. Trim the fat off that steak.
13. Cappuccino tastes better than espresso.
12. The tires on that truck are too damn big.
11. I've got it all on the C: DRIVE.
10. Unsweetened tea tastes better.
9. My fiancée, Bobbie Jo, is registered at Tiffany's.
8. I've got two cases of Zima iced down for the Super Bowl.
7. Checkmate!
6. She's too young to be wearing that bikini.
5. Hey, here's an episode of "Hee Haw" that we haven't seen.
4. I don't have a favorite football team.
3. Youse Guys.
2. Those cutoffs ought to be a little longer, Betty Mae.
AND THE NUMBER ONE THING THAT YOU WILL NEVER HEAR A SOUTHERN BOY SAY:
1. Nope, no more beer for me. I'm driving a whole busload of us down to help in the Hillary Campaign.
Progress in Paradise...
Progress in Paradise... Three hours – that's what it took to work out all the changes required for our insurance yesterday. I (naively) thought that transferring our car insurance from the carrier we used in California to our new carrier in Utah would be simple and easy. Oh, no. No way!
First, there are about six zillion options on car insurance. It's been many, many years since I last reviewed car insurance in detail – I've just sort of been on autopilot while I was working. It never seemed like it was worth bothering with. After a couple hours of working at it, we've now got coverage that's better suited to our needs – and we're spending less money to get it. Win!
That was only part of the complication, though. Another twist was my discovery that standard car policies don't cover the use of a trailer. Adding coverage for the trailer was cheap – but I had no idea I even needed it! Then there was the coverage for the shed. The structural coverage was easy enough, but the contents are another story. There are different coverages needed for tools, ATVs, and tractors. Tractor attachments fall into a gray area. This all took time to sort out.
Then there were a bunch of discounts available for certain combinations of coverage (especially basic homeowner and automobile). When I left, there were still a few unresolved issues – liability umbrella and some details around tractor coverage. So I'm not quite finished with the insurance mess yet :)
One thing that surprised me: the agents were unfamiliar with high deductible rates. On talking with them, I found out that nearly all their clients want policies with the lowest possible deductibles, apparently unaware of just how much more expensive such policies were. Even the agents seemed unaware of how much less expensive high deductible policies were. For someone like us who very rarely make claims on homeowner or automobile policies (two claims in 45 years!), the savings on high deductible polices is substantial. We did the same thing on healthcare insurance, for the same reasons.
The rest of the day Debbie and I installed new fixtures in the upstairs bathroom. We didn't quite finish, but we'll do so today. The new stuff looks way nicer than the old! The faucets operate with a satisfying smoothness and solidity; the old ones were creaky and felt like you were sliding pieces of plastic against each other (which probably is exactly what they were)...
First, there are about six zillion options on car insurance. It's been many, many years since I last reviewed car insurance in detail – I've just sort of been on autopilot while I was working. It never seemed like it was worth bothering with. After a couple hours of working at it, we've now got coverage that's better suited to our needs – and we're spending less money to get it. Win!
That was only part of the complication, though. Another twist was my discovery that standard car policies don't cover the use of a trailer. Adding coverage for the trailer was cheap – but I had no idea I even needed it! Then there was the coverage for the shed. The structural coverage was easy enough, but the contents are another story. There are different coverages needed for tools, ATVs, and tractors. Tractor attachments fall into a gray area. This all took time to sort out.
Then there were a bunch of discounts available for certain combinations of coverage (especially basic homeowner and automobile). When I left, there were still a few unresolved issues – liability umbrella and some details around tractor coverage. So I'm not quite finished with the insurance mess yet :)
One thing that surprised me: the agents were unfamiliar with high deductible rates. On talking with them, I found out that nearly all their clients want policies with the lowest possible deductibles, apparently unaware of just how much more expensive such policies were. Even the agents seemed unaware of how much less expensive high deductible policies were. For someone like us who very rarely make claims on homeowner or automobile policies (two claims in 45 years!), the savings on high deductible polices is substantial. We did the same thing on healthcare insurance, for the same reasons.
The rest of the day Debbie and I installed new fixtures in the upstairs bathroom. We didn't quite finish, but we'll do so today. The new stuff looks way nicer than the old! The faucets operate with a satisfying smoothness and solidity; the old ones were creaky and felt like you were sliding pieces of plastic against each other (which probably is exactly what they were)...
Thursday, May 14, 2015
Heisenberg's Theorem on Green Energy Measurement...
Heisenberg's Theorem on Green Energy Measurement... My three long-time readers will know that CoyoteBlog, by Warren Meyer, is one of my daily visits. He's been on a roll recently with a series of excellent posts. This morning, before I got to my morning blog reading, my friend Doug W. emailed me about a really good, short post there. He took unfair advantage of the time zones, as he's currently traveling in Italy :)
Mr. Warren is many things, but a world-class speller is not amongst them :) I've taken the liberty of correcting his spelling, and quoting his awesome post in its entirety – it's way too short to be excerpted:
Mr. Warren is many things, but a world-class speller is not amongst them :) I've taken the liberty of correcting his spelling, and quoting his awesome post in its entirety – it's way too short to be excerpted:
Heisenberg's Theorem on Green Energy MeasurementThe media and the greenies, in bed together. The result is pretty bad...
Theorem: A media article on a wind or solar project will give its installation costs or the value of its energy produced, but never both.
Corollary 1: One therefore can never assess the economic reasonableness of any green energy project from a single media article
Corollary 2: For supporters of green energy, there is a good reason for Corollary #1.
Wait, what?
Wait, what? I saw this headline and feared that Utah had done something stupid to interfere with business:
Yay, Utah!
More like this, please...
Contested Utah law could impact contact lens industryOn reading the article, though, I discovered the exact opposite: Utah has acted to prevent the contact lens business from fixing prices artificially high. They are removing a barrier to getting lower prices for consumers.
Yay, Utah!
More like this, please...
Kinetic sculptures in wood...
Mr. Roy limits his sculptures to purely mechanical motion (springs, weights, etc.) and eschews anything like an electric motor. Personally, I don't think they'd suffer if motorized. Beautiful things! And it makes me wonder if I could do something like them...
Progress in Paradise...
Progress in Paradise... Yesterday we finally finished the maze of paperwork, inspections, etc. required to transfer registrations of our vehicles from California to Utah. Now when we travel about the area, we won't have the locals looking at us and wondering who the hell let these damned Californians in here!
I started working on replacing all the fixtures in our upstairs bathroom. When we bought the house, that bathroom was equipped with rather cheaply made chrome faucets, drain, towel racks, etc. They were also badly installed (just screws in wallboard). I'm replacing the whole kit and caboodle with much nicer fixtures in an oil-rubbed bronze finish. One sink and surrounds are finished, and they look quite nice. Works well, too. But ... I have kinks in my back and side where I shouldn't outta have them, thanks to all the under-sink work :)
“Caboodle” is an interesting word. It's American slang (according to the OED), dating back to at least 1848. Every reference to it is from American magazines, newspapers, or books. That means it's one of those words you can use to confuse a Brit!
I started working on replacing all the fixtures in our upstairs bathroom. When we bought the house, that bathroom was equipped with rather cheaply made chrome faucets, drain, towel racks, etc. They were also badly installed (just screws in wallboard). I'm replacing the whole kit and caboodle with much nicer fixtures in an oil-rubbed bronze finish. One sink and surrounds are finished, and they look quite nice. Works well, too. But ... I have kinks in my back and side where I shouldn't outta have them, thanks to all the under-sink work :)
“Caboodle” is an interesting word. It's American slang (according to the OED), dating back to at least 1848. Every reference to it is from American magazines, newspapers, or books. That means it's one of those words you can use to confuse a Brit!
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Paradise perambulations...
Paradise perambulations... We had two very nice walks today with the dogs. They seem to still be in a state of disbelief that this area is now their home – a place with green grass (and alfalfa!) to run around in! Race is very curious about the irrigation canal along the east edge of our property – he likes to watch the moving water, along with the swallows and red-winged blackbirds. Photos and a couple of short videos below...
Oh, this felt so good...
Oh, this felt so good... Throwing away our California license plates, that is. Those were the last vestige of our former residence. We have Utah plates now, and Utah titles are on the way. Woo hoo!
Oh, YES!
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
Progress in Paradise...
Debbie and I went out to lunch at Jack's Wood-Fired Pizza. I've blogged about this place before – it's got weird and wonderful pizzas with magically good crusts. I had the “chuck wagon” pizza – barbequed pulled pork with pineapple – scrumptious! Debbie had one with pepperoni, sausage, and jalapenos; she pronounced it wonderful. To my surprise, Debbie also ordered dessert (something I'd never had there before). She got a huge slice of lemon cake, and it was as good as I've ever had. The cake itself was delicious, but the lemon filling was absolutely superb. It was lightly drizzled with a not-too-sweet icing, and garnished with perfect fresh blackberries and raspberries. I was full from the pizza, but I still managed to eat some of that...
Yesterday afternoon I mowed about half our yard. It's been two weeks since the last mowing; all the rain has kept the yard so soft I didn't dare run the mower over it. In areas where there's full sun, the grass had grown up to about 6 or 7 inches high. I had to go very slowly in those spots so the mower could digest all that :)
Those funny abbreviations weren't invented by kids for texting...
Those funny abbreviations weren't invented by kids for texting... They were actually invented in the early 1900s, for use by telegraph operators...
“Even by his standards, Krugman's argument was lame.”
“Even by his standards, Krugman's argument was lame.” Now there's a sentence that brought a smile to my face! Even better, it was in the midst of a nice piece (The Rise and Fall of Krugmania in the UK) by an author I admire: Niall Ferguson...
Amazon Dash teardown...
What he discovered is much as I'd expect: no magical innovations, just an exploitation of Amazon's scale to reduce the cost and size of a fairly complex gadget (really a small WiFi-equipped computer) to the point where giving it away is actually feasible...
Monday, May 11, 2015
The Beast of Turin runs...
The ascent of man...
Buttons that do nothing...
Buttons that do nothing... An interesting article from the BBC about buttons and other controls that do absolutely nothing, but make people feel better anyway.
This is not new understanding. Back in the early '80s, a customer for my design consulting practice introduced me to the same idea. The customer was a firm in San Diego that built specialty radios, mostly for the commercial maritime trade. These were sturdy devices that internally were quite advanced systems, but were being used by fisherman, cargo ship crews, and the like – not technically advanced folks, typically. They also didn't have the habit of being gentle with their gear :)
I was contracted to build the first radio receiver they'd ever produced with a digital front panel. The company's own engineers were analog folks, so they hired me to design all the digital parts as well as the interface to the analog side. Most of this was very straightforward. One seemingly simple element was the volume control. Back in those days, controlling volume digitally was a bit of a challenge. One couldn't simply go out and buy something like an 8-bit digital-to-analog controller (DAC) at a reasonable price. So we decided to settle for a 3-bit DAC made from discrete components. This provided 8 volume levels, which the company decided was more than sufficient – most users would simply turn it to the max, and leave it there. I designed in an 8 position rotary switch that provided a click-stop at each of the 8 possible volume levels. It worked great.
The company took our prototype and sent it out on a boat with a real customer to get feedback. Mostly the feedback was very positive, to the delight of the entire team. But ... the customer hated the volume control. He claimed that the volume he wanted was always directly in between two of the click stops. I was dismayed, and foresaw a difficult challenge – one that would likely bust the production cost budget. The founder of the company was unperturbed, though. He told me to put in a switch with no click stops, just smooth continuous motion. To do this, we had to switch to a gray-coded DAC (to avoid glitches at the switch points), but that was relatively easy and cheap. Then we sent the prototype back out to the same customer for testing, with a couple of other minor changes.
The result? The customer was totally pleased, and reported that the volume control now worked exactly as expected. Several follow-on testers reported the same thing. Note that there was no actual change in function – the only thing we did, functionally, was to remove the click-stops. The smooth motion of the switch now gave the customers the illusion of analog control, but the reality was they still had just eight discrete volume levels. Customers were happy, and so was the company that employed me, as the new design actually turned out to be slightly cheaper to build.
I've remembered that incident ever since, and I confess that I've employed the same technique several times since then. It worked every time. I'm sure I've been fooled (and satisfied) by non-functional controls myself, many times. We humans are funny beasties, aren't we?
This is not new understanding. Back in the early '80s, a customer for my design consulting practice introduced me to the same idea. The customer was a firm in San Diego that built specialty radios, mostly for the commercial maritime trade. These were sturdy devices that internally were quite advanced systems, but were being used by fisherman, cargo ship crews, and the like – not technically advanced folks, typically. They also didn't have the habit of being gentle with their gear :)
I was contracted to build the first radio receiver they'd ever produced with a digital front panel. The company's own engineers were analog folks, so they hired me to design all the digital parts as well as the interface to the analog side. Most of this was very straightforward. One seemingly simple element was the volume control. Back in those days, controlling volume digitally was a bit of a challenge. One couldn't simply go out and buy something like an 8-bit digital-to-analog controller (DAC) at a reasonable price. So we decided to settle for a 3-bit DAC made from discrete components. This provided 8 volume levels, which the company decided was more than sufficient – most users would simply turn it to the max, and leave it there. I designed in an 8 position rotary switch that provided a click-stop at each of the 8 possible volume levels. It worked great.
The company took our prototype and sent it out on a boat with a real customer to get feedback. Mostly the feedback was very positive, to the delight of the entire team. But ... the customer hated the volume control. He claimed that the volume he wanted was always directly in between two of the click stops. I was dismayed, and foresaw a difficult challenge – one that would likely bust the production cost budget. The founder of the company was unperturbed, though. He told me to put in a switch with no click stops, just smooth continuous motion. To do this, we had to switch to a gray-coded DAC (to avoid glitches at the switch points), but that was relatively easy and cheap. Then we sent the prototype back out to the same customer for testing, with a couple of other minor changes.
The result? The customer was totally pleased, and reported that the volume control now worked exactly as expected. Several follow-on testers reported the same thing. Note that there was no actual change in function – the only thing we did, functionally, was to remove the click-stops. The smooth motion of the switch now gave the customers the illusion of analog control, but the reality was they still had just eight discrete volume levels. Customers were happy, and so was the company that employed me, as the new design actually turned out to be slightly cheaper to build.
I've remembered that incident ever since, and I confess that I've employed the same technique several times since then. It worked every time. I'm sure I've been fooled (and satisfied) by non-functional controls myself, many times. We humans are funny beasties, aren't we?
Is it proper for women to be learned?
Is it proper for women to be learned? That's a question from an advice column of the 1690s.
Oh, the blue sunsets of Mars!
I remember reading a science fiction story from the '60s or '70s that postulated blue sunrises and sunsets on Mars, complete with the reasons why. At the time, I thought of that is the speculation of an author who probably wasn't all that well-informed about science. There was plenty of that (and still is) in science fiction, but there were (and are) also plenty of authors who actually do have a good science background, or who are scientists. Isaac Asimov is the canonical example of the latter, and he also wrote several hundred non-fiction books to popularize science...
The most successful scam evah!
The most successful scam evah! I speak of the beauty industry, of course...
Integer overflow on BBC...
Integer overflow on BBC... Interesting seeing a technical issue like this explained by non-technical people...
Paradise perambulations...
Paradise perambulations... Yesterday afternoon we had sunshine with a few clouds in the sky; temperature was a beautiful 63° and the roads and pastures had dried out a bit. All three dogs, Debbie and I took a walk of a mile or so up the dirt road that goes east from our home. The views back to the west from the top were so nice – the lush greens of spring in farmland dominating.
Earlier in the day we had taken a drive up to Porcupine Reservoir, about 7 miles south of our home. We wanted to see if the recent rains had raised its level, and they had. But we also were treated to some other sights. Flowers, especially lilacs and tulips, abounded in the yards of almost every home we passed. Nearly all deciduous trees are now in leaf, and the sticks of winter are largely shrouded.
But the real treat was birds – lots and lots of birds! Probably the most fun for me was sighting several common loons on the reservoir. I knew they were present here in northern Utah, but I had no idea they were here in such number, or on Porcupine Reservoir. That's very close to our home! Also spotted on the reservoir: a new bird for me, the double-crested cormorant (at right, not my photo). Away from the reservoir, we also spotted a single male lazuli bunting, a male American goldfinch, and several yellow warblers (most likely Wilson's, but we didn't get a good enough view for a positive ID). Very nice!
Earlier in the day we had taken a drive up to Porcupine Reservoir, about 7 miles south of our home. We wanted to see if the recent rains had raised its level, and they had. But we also were treated to some other sights. Flowers, especially lilacs and tulips, abounded in the yards of almost every home we passed. Nearly all deciduous trees are now in leaf, and the sticks of winter are largely shrouded.
Sunday, May 10, 2015
Miki has a friend...
My mom asked for a photo of the barn...
Folks around here, when they hear me call this building “the barn”, immediately assume we've got horses or the like. I'm going to have to start calling it “the shed” or some such thing. Maybe “kuur”, which is Estonian for shed (and pronounced like “coor” in English).
I know what a kuur is because I once spent the night in one :) In the late '90s I was on a business trip to Tallinn, Estonia. I stayed over the weekend, rented a car, and drove to Hiiumaa island. I had planned to stay at a small hotel in the city of Kaina, but when I got there it was completely full – and after a half hour of the staff helping me check with other hotels, they were all full as well. Furthermore, the last ferry had already left for the mainland. I thought I'd be sleeping in my (tiny!) rental car, but a woman on staff, who spoke some English, offered to let me stay in their kuur. They also let me use their bathroom to take a bath (no shower!), and fed me breakfast in the morning. I had to endure a death by 10,000 questions from their two children, about 8 and 10, both of whom spoke passable English and knew far more about Hollywood than I did :)
The A-10 “Warthog” is the finest close air support aircraft ever built...
Marines I know who have seen combat in Afghanistan have a reverence for this airplane and its pilots that has to be experienced to understand its profundity. The reason is simple enough: the A-10's magnificent close air support capability has, quite literally, saved hundreds and hundreds of American lives at the tip of the spear...
Paraprosdokians...
Paraprosdokians... According to Wikipedia:
searching for more. Reading through a few dozen of these was a very pleasant
way to burn a few minutes! A few I particularly enjoyed:
A paraprosdokian is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence, phrase, or larger discourse is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part.I ran across some examples at Maggie's Farm this morning, and that got me
searching for more. Reading through a few dozen of these was a very pleasant
way to burn a few minutes! A few I particularly enjoyed:
If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong.
You're never too old to learn something stupid.
Some cause happiness wherever they go. Others whenever they go.
I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.
Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.
ScanSnap IX500 trick...
ScanSnap IX500 trick... We've been paperless here for a few months now, thanks to our ScanSnap IX500 scanner and DEVONThink software. In general, I've been very pleased with the arrangement – and with a few month's practice, all the steps now seem very easy and straightforward.
There's one little thing, though, that's been driving me slightly crazy: long receipts, such as those giant ones from the grocery store, or the Home Depot receipts with a book's worth of text printed at the end. The scanner would stop after about 18" of receipt, reporting an error. That happened to me for a half dozen attempts until I realized it was simply the length. After that, I started cutting the longer receipts into short sections (never needed more than two), and scanning them separately. But it was a pain in the neck!
A few days ago, after suffering through another of those, I decided to Google the problem. Wouldn't you know it? In seconds I found a ridiculously simple solution. Here it is: instead of just clicking the blue button on the scanner to start the scan, hold it down for a few seconds until it blinks, then release it. That's it! This morning I scanned a 31" long receipt, with no issue at all.
I have no idea why Fujitsu decided to make that a special mode on the scanner. You'd think that decision could be automated. But there it is. The solution is simple enough, and works great...
There's one little thing, though, that's been driving me slightly crazy: long receipts, such as those giant ones from the grocery store, or the Home Depot receipts with a book's worth of text printed at the end. The scanner would stop after about 18" of receipt, reporting an error. That happened to me for a half dozen attempts until I realized it was simply the length. After that, I started cutting the longer receipts into short sections (never needed more than two), and scanning them separately. But it was a pain in the neck!
A few days ago, after suffering through another of those, I decided to Google the problem. Wouldn't you know it? In seconds I found a ridiculously simple solution. Here it is: instead of just clicking the blue button on the scanner to start the scan, hold it down for a few seconds until it blinks, then release it. That's it! This morning I scanned a 31" long receipt, with no issue at all.
I have no idea why Fujitsu decided to make that a special mode on the scanner. You'd think that decision could be automated. But there it is. The solution is simple enough, and works great...
Morning walk...
The dogs really like these after-rain walks. You can tell that the smells are intensified for them – they eagerly dash hither and yon, chasing the wisps their noses catch. Me, I just smell the wet earth from the alfalfa fields we're walking past.
For some reason the dogs were completely disinterested in the earthworms this morning. Even Race, who ate about a hundred of them a few mornings ago, just completely ignored them. Weird. Maybe they weren't too digestible :)
Mo'i (with the green leash) is speed-regulated by the slope of our path. On the steeper uphill parts, we're walking at a lazy human pace. On the level bits, we're making a kind of normal human pace. On the downhill stretches, we're zipping along at a brisk pace. It feels like I could model his pace in software very easily, by assuming a certain amount of friction, mass, and a little locomotive force. The other two, were they controlling the pace, would have us at a flat-out run no matter what the slope was. The model for them would be even easier: a fixed speed!
How they made...
I remember this movie for an odd reason. I saw it in a theater on the Mare Island Navy base, while I was attending computer technician school there in the early '70s. There's a scene in the movie where a broad landscape is visible under a gorgeous blue sky. For one brief cut, there's a jet contrail visible at one side – and about a dozen of us caught it at the same moment and laughed out loud in the theater. A fun moment...
Carrot vs. stick...
Carrot vs. stick... A new study (which I can't help but be skeptical of, simply because it's a psychological experiment!) backs up my own experience as a manager: to modify behavior, punishment works better than reward.
In all my regretted years as a manager and executive, I tried a great many ways to motivate my employees to do what I wanted them to do. Most of these ways were various reward schemes (bonuses, stock options, recognition, etc.).
While these schemes were sometimes effective for a while, they were plagued with problems. The biggest of these problems were that the reward was quickly seen as an entitlement by many people, there was no real general agreement on the criteria for the reward, and a certain class of people (usually about a quarter of them) would immediately start figuring out how to game the reward system to get what they didn't deserve. Every single time, the reward system turned into a management nightmare, and was ineffective anyway. Much time and money was utterly wasted.
On the other hand, I once implemented a remarkably effective punishment system. If any of my ex-employees are reading this blog, all I have to do is say “Mr. Monkey” and they will instantly remember the whole thing. Mr. Monkey was a stuffed monkey with a comically stupid expression on his face. Each week I awarded the monkey to the engineer or technician whom I judged to be the least effective that preceding week. The recipient had to display the monkey on the top of their cubicle wall, and they weren't allowed to hide it. Everybody in the company knew about the monkey, and who had received it – and even why. All this took no work on my part – the news spread by osmosis in moments after each award. I didn't award it for making mistakes – we all do that – but rather for poor work, causing friction on the team, etc. There was only one monkey; I collected it from the previous winner before awarding it to the new winner. My team had 30 to 35 people on it over the period I used the monkey, and nobody wanted to get the monkey. On many occasions I actually heard people refrain from a behavior (say, checking in some horrible code), saying something like “I have to fix this, or I’ll get the monkey!” I never had a problem with people thinking the award was unfair, nor did I have people trying to game the system. It actually worked, over the entire 18 month period I employed it.
As it happened, the job where I used the monkey punishment was the last management or executive role I ever had. I was laid off from that job, and the company failed shortly thereafter. I went from there to a purely engineering job, and never had any opportunity to repeat the experience. I wish now that I had learned the lesson earlier in my career.
I had another experience in the early '80s which should have taught me the lesson. At the time I was an engineer working for a small company in San Diego, with about 200 employees. One of the executives there was nicknamed “The Hammer” because he “brought the hammer down” regularly on misbehaving employees – and it worked. To cite one example he was famous for: he had a rule regarding meeting attendance. If you accepted an invitation to a meeting, you were expected to show up on time. The first time you were late, you got dressed down in front of the entire meeting. The second time you were late, you were fired right then and there. To my knowledge, exactly two employees were fired (one of them a senior manager) – and every meeting at that company started on time. That has never happened to me at any other company I've ever worked at or with. Late-starting meetings are a standing joke everywhere for their tremendous time-wasting. We were all frightened of The Hammer, but somehow I missed the underlying lesson that his methods worked...
In all my regretted years as a manager and executive, I tried a great many ways to motivate my employees to do what I wanted them to do. Most of these ways were various reward schemes (bonuses, stock options, recognition, etc.).
While these schemes were sometimes effective for a while, they were plagued with problems. The biggest of these problems were that the reward was quickly seen as an entitlement by many people, there was no real general agreement on the criteria for the reward, and a certain class of people (usually about a quarter of them) would immediately start figuring out how to game the reward system to get what they didn't deserve. Every single time, the reward system turned into a management nightmare, and was ineffective anyway. Much time and money was utterly wasted.
On the other hand, I once implemented a remarkably effective punishment system. If any of my ex-employees are reading this blog, all I have to do is say “Mr. Monkey” and they will instantly remember the whole thing. Mr. Monkey was a stuffed monkey with a comically stupid expression on his face. Each week I awarded the monkey to the engineer or technician whom I judged to be the least effective that preceding week. The recipient had to display the monkey on the top of their cubicle wall, and they weren't allowed to hide it. Everybody in the company knew about the monkey, and who had received it – and even why. All this took no work on my part – the news spread by osmosis in moments after each award. I didn't award it for making mistakes – we all do that – but rather for poor work, causing friction on the team, etc. There was only one monkey; I collected it from the previous winner before awarding it to the new winner. My team had 30 to 35 people on it over the period I used the monkey, and nobody wanted to get the monkey. On many occasions I actually heard people refrain from a behavior (say, checking in some horrible code), saying something like “I have to fix this, or I’ll get the monkey!” I never had a problem with people thinking the award was unfair, nor did I have people trying to game the system. It actually worked, over the entire 18 month period I employed it.
As it happened, the job where I used the monkey punishment was the last management or executive role I ever had. I was laid off from that job, and the company failed shortly thereafter. I went from there to a purely engineering job, and never had any opportunity to repeat the experience. I wish now that I had learned the lesson earlier in my career.
I had another experience in the early '80s which should have taught me the lesson. At the time I was an engineer working for a small company in San Diego, with about 200 employees. One of the executives there was nicknamed “The Hammer” because he “brought the hammer down” regularly on misbehaving employees – and it worked. To cite one example he was famous for: he had a rule regarding meeting attendance. If you accepted an invitation to a meeting, you were expected to show up on time. The first time you were late, you got dressed down in front of the entire meeting. The second time you were late, you were fired right then and there. To my knowledge, exactly two employees were fired (one of them a senior manager) – and every meeting at that company started on time. That has never happened to me at any other company I've ever worked at or with. Late-starting meetings are a standing joke everywhere for their tremendous time-wasting. We were all frightened of The Hammer, but somehow I missed the underlying lesson that his methods worked...
Mark Steyn is back...
Mark Steyn is back ... from whatever evil thing is disturbing his health, and he's got a corker of a piece. It's on the Garland shooting and related topics, and you really should read the whole thing. A paragraph as a teaser:
It'll be a long time before you see "Washington Post Offers No Apology for Attacking Target of Thwarted Attack" or "AP Says It Has No Regrets After Blaming The Victim". The respectable class in the American media share the same goal as the Islamic fanatics: They want to silence Pam Geller. To be sure, they have a mild disagreement about the means to that end - although even then you get the feeling, as with Garry Trudeau and those dozens of PEN novelists' reaction to Charlie Hebdo, that the "narrative" wouldn't change very much if the jihad boys had got luckier and Pam, Geert Wilders, Robert Spencer and a dozen others were all piled up in the Garland morgue.
Progress in Paradise...
Progress in Paradise... Still operating under the delusion that our friends were showing up today, yesterday I finished re-doing the electrical outlets and switches in the living areas upstairs. I also repaired a couple of wall-hanging items that had originally been installed with screws-in-wallboard (don't do it, people!) and had since come loose. Debbie decided this was a good moment to do something we'd already planned to do: buy higher quality fixtures for the bathroom. She ordered it all on Amazon, and it will be here next Tuesday. Something tells me I'll turn into a plumber on Wednesday :)
In the afternoon I was feeling lazy, so I went out to the barn and finished the cat-dish holder project I'd started a few days ago. The finished article is in the photos below, sitting our our kitchen cabinet before we took it down to the cattery. I made this entire thing from a single black walnut board, 50" long, 5 ½" wide, and ¾" thick. The top I made by gluing four boards together, with a top layer that had grain at 90° from the bottom layer. While this isn't the best thing aesthetically, it has the advantage of being almost warp-proof. Since this is a water bowl, I figured the wood was practically guaranteed to get wet, so I'd better pay attention to that. I also finished it with a penetrating oil finish, the better to protect the wood in the first place. To get the hole in the middle for the water bowl, I mounted the square glued-up board onto my lathe with a big chuck, and used a parting tool to cut out the center. That was amazingly easy! The legs were a different sort of challenge. You can't really tell from the photos, but they're made from two glued-together boards, this time with parallel grain. I started with a glued up board 8" long, 5½" wide, and 1½" thick. I sawed that down to four pieces, each 3¾" long, and 1½" square in cross-section. I mounted those as spindles in the lathe, and turned them down to the shapes you see here. One thing you can't see: the top of each leg has a ½" diameter tenon that fits into a ½" diameter hole I drilled into the bottom of the flat part to fix each leg. I'm quite happy with the result. Not bad for a starter project, from a single $11 Home Depot board!
In the afternoon I was feeling lazy, so I went out to the barn and finished the cat-dish holder project I'd started a few days ago. The finished article is in the photos below, sitting our our kitchen cabinet before we took it down to the cattery. I made this entire thing from a single black walnut board, 50" long, 5 ½" wide, and ¾" thick. The top I made by gluing four boards together, with a top layer that had grain at 90° from the bottom layer. While this isn't the best thing aesthetically, it has the advantage of being almost warp-proof. Since this is a water bowl, I figured the wood was practically guaranteed to get wet, so I'd better pay attention to that. I also finished it with a penetrating oil finish, the better to protect the wood in the first place. To get the hole in the middle for the water bowl, I mounted the square glued-up board onto my lathe with a big chuck, and used a parting tool to cut out the center. That was amazingly easy! The legs were a different sort of challenge. You can't really tell from the photos, but they're made from two glued-together boards, this time with parallel grain. I started with a glued up board 8" long, 5½" wide, and 1½" thick. I sawed that down to four pieces, each 3¾" long, and 1½" square in cross-section. I mounted those as spindles in the lathe, and turned them down to the shapes you see here. One thing you can't see: the top of each leg has a ½" diameter tenon that fits into a ½" diameter hole I drilled into the bottom of the flat part to fix each leg. I'm quite happy with the result. Not bad for a starter project, from a single $11 Home Depot board!
So last night...
So last night ... as I was about to go to bed, our phone rings. It's our old friend, Jim B. With his wife Michelle, we were expecting him to arrive for a visit today – until he sheepishly told us that he gave us the wrong date by email! He was off by an entire week – they're not due until next Sunday!
When we were in the U.S. Navy together, he was known as “the goat”. There's a reason why he had that nickname :)
When we were in the U.S. Navy together, he was known as “the goat”. There's a reason why he had that nickname :)
Saturday, May 9, 2015
What a sandwich!
What a sandwich! If you're hungry, you should be jealous of the sandwich I'm eating right now. It's made on a bakery bun, asiago cheese and chive flavored. There's beautiful rare roast beef, smoked gouda, perfectly ripe tomato slices, and Duke's mayonnaise.
It'll make your brains fall out!
Duke's mayo is a recent discovery of ours. I've been using Hellmann's (or the western equivalent, Best Foods) for my whole life, and I'd never found the equal before. Something I read online made me try Duke's, and ... it's better! The only mayo I've ever had that beats it is my own homemade mayo, or (just twice) mayo made in a restaurant...
It'll make your brains fall out!
Duke's mayo is a recent discovery of ours. I've been using Hellmann's (or the western equivalent, Best Foods) for my whole life, and I'd never found the equal before. Something I read online made me try Duke's, and ... it's better! The only mayo I've ever had that beats it is my own homemade mayo, or (just twice) mayo made in a restaurant...
It looks like ObamaCare is here to stay...
It looks like ObamaCare is here to stay... The political will to repeal it is fading fast, as is the political will to significantly reform it. Already, the number of voters who think of it as an entitlement is large enough to scare politicians. I think the likelihood is that we will be living with it basically forever.
So what's that going to be like? Megan McArdle looks at the issue, with sobriety. Her conclusion:
So what's that going to be like? Megan McArdle looks at the issue, with sobriety. Her conclusion:
Overall, I think that this is a real potential threat to the future of the insurance market. But as yet, it is only a highly speculative threat. We'll know more as the risk-adjustment programs begin to expire, insurers get more experience in setting rates, and states begin to publish more data on what insurers plan to charge.
Wheatgrass shots...
Most of the kids in the video seem to agree with me :)
CPU jitter for random number generation?
CPU jitter for random number generation? Here's an interesting paper that claims to present a method for generating random numbers by using the “jitter” caused by various elements of modern CPUs interacting in a complex operating system. I skimmed the paper, concentrating on section 5, where the author discusses estimating the entropy of the system. I'm afraid there's too much there that I don't understand for me to make any sort of judgment about the validity of the method.
What the author seems to be asserting is analogous to something anyone can relate to. Imagine you're driving your car 10 miles in heavy traffic, partly on a highway and partly on city streets. You can measure your average speed easily enough, and it will be reasonably consistent from one identical trip to another. However, if you were to measure the instantaneous speed at thousands of points along the way, you'd find lots of variations from the average. Sometimes a slowpoke in front of you will slow you down. Sometimes fortune smiles upon you and there's a mile of open, car-free road in front of you. As you maneuver through traffic, you'll momentarily speed up to pass someone, then slow down to slip back into the traffic pattern. Similarly, your average direction is the same as that of the road, but there will be lots of momentary variations as you change lanes, bobble about in your lane, etc. All those minor variations in speed and direction are – the author asserts – random. There's no pattern to them, and there's no predicting them. Also importantly, a bad guy can't disrupt the randomness. These are all good characteristics of a quality random number generator.
Proving that those generated numbers are truly random is another kettle of fish, though. I'm not sure they've done it. The current system used by UNIX and a number of other operating systems (and cited in the paper) have been shown to be less than excellent under certain circumstances – most especially on server computers with solid state hard drives. The problem, it seems, is that timing on such systems is more predictable than with devices that actually move.
Random is hard!
What the author seems to be asserting is analogous to something anyone can relate to. Imagine you're driving your car 10 miles in heavy traffic, partly on a highway and partly on city streets. You can measure your average speed easily enough, and it will be reasonably consistent from one identical trip to another. However, if you were to measure the instantaneous speed at thousands of points along the way, you'd find lots of variations from the average. Sometimes a slowpoke in front of you will slow you down. Sometimes fortune smiles upon you and there's a mile of open, car-free road in front of you. As you maneuver through traffic, you'll momentarily speed up to pass someone, then slow down to slip back into the traffic pattern. Similarly, your average direction is the same as that of the road, but there will be lots of momentary variations as you change lanes, bobble about in your lane, etc. All those minor variations in speed and direction are – the author asserts – random. There's no pattern to them, and there's no predicting them. Also importantly, a bad guy can't disrupt the randomness. These are all good characteristics of a quality random number generator.
Proving that those generated numbers are truly random is another kettle of fish, though. I'm not sure they've done it. The current system used by UNIX and a number of other operating systems (and cited in the paper) have been shown to be less than excellent under certain circumstances – most especially on server computers with solid state hard drives. The problem, it seems, is that timing on such systems is more predictable than with devices that actually move.
Random is hard!
Progress in Paradise...
Progress in Paradise... Well, I made that trip to Home Depot and picked up a gutter downspout extension. That will stave off any more flooding in our basement's casement window until we have a more permanent solution.
Most of the rest of the day I spent replacing outlets and switches on our second floor. This job had long been in the queue, but the imminent arrival (tomorrow!) of our first overnight guests (Jim and Michelle B.) bumped it to the front. We don't want them sticking their fingers into an uncovered and miswired outlet and frying themselves! That job is now done.
Debbie spent the day baking cookies – her trademark chocolate chip cookies with orange. The house smelled quite delicious all day :)
We didn't end up getting much rain yesterday, and the forecast for today has been much reduced. As I write this, the forecast now says 0.45", and the radar shows a few gentle rainclouds sidling toward us. Even if we get no more rain at all, this storm was still wonderful for us. Maybe we'll get some today...
Most of the rest of the day I spent replacing outlets and switches on our second floor. This job had long been in the queue, but the imminent arrival (tomorrow!) of our first overnight guests (Jim and Michelle B.) bumped it to the front. We don't want them sticking their fingers into an uncovered and miswired outlet and frying themselves! That job is now done.
Debbie spent the day baking cookies – her trademark chocolate chip cookies with orange. The house smelled quite delicious all day :)
We didn't end up getting much rain yesterday, and the forecast for today has been much reduced. As I write this, the forecast now says 0.45", and the radar shows a few gentle rainclouds sidling toward us. Even if we get no more rain at all, this storm was still wonderful for us. Maybe we'll get some today...
Friday, May 8, 2015
Misadventures in Paradise, late night edition...
Misadventures in Paradise, late night edition... Just after I crawled into bed last night, iPad in hand for some evening reading, Debbie came in to tell me that one of our basement casements was threatening to overflow into the cat room. There were several inches of water in the bottom of it, she said, and if it rose any more it was going to spill through the window bottom.
I threw on my nightgown and headed down to the basement with her. There we discovered that the water was already leaking in – the water had risen in just the few minutes she had left. When I cracked the window open to take a better look, the water came flooding into the cattery. Fortunately the floor in the cattery (and the baseboard) is tile, so that water wasn't going to do any damage. But the water in the casement was another story altogether.
We went to work. I emptied the casement (using a bucket) into the cattery sink. Debbie ran out to the barn, got the mop and bucket, and started cleaning up the floor. The water I pulled out with the bucket was full of leaves and twigs, and this kept clogging the cattery sink. I practically froze my hand off repeatedly cleaning that drain screen out. Once we got the immediate threat removed, I went outside to see what the heck was causing this. I found that workmen – either the fencing crew or the painters – had damaged a downspout pipe. Water was streaming out of the hole onto a sidewalk, and flowing downhill to the edge of the casement, about six feet away. I made a temporary patch for the hole in the pipe, and then shoveled some dirt to make an earthen dike to keep the water from flowing down toward the casement. That all worked, but it won't suffice for the long haul, of course. We finished cleaning up the basement and draining the casement, and then went to bed.
This morning I could see better (in the daylight). I'm going to run up to Home Depot and get another gutter pipe, to get that water out into our yard when it rains next time. That will do for now, until we can get something more permanent done...
I threw on my nightgown and headed down to the basement with her. There we discovered that the water was already leaking in – the water had risen in just the few minutes she had left. When I cracked the window open to take a better look, the water came flooding into the cattery. Fortunately the floor in the cattery (and the baseboard) is tile, so that water wasn't going to do any damage. But the water in the casement was another story altogether.
We went to work. I emptied the casement (using a bucket) into the cattery sink. Debbie ran out to the barn, got the mop and bucket, and started cleaning up the floor. The water I pulled out with the bucket was full of leaves and twigs, and this kept clogging the cattery sink. I practically froze my hand off repeatedly cleaning that drain screen out. Once we got the immediate threat removed, I went outside to see what the heck was causing this. I found that workmen – either the fencing crew or the painters – had damaged a downspout pipe. Water was streaming out of the hole onto a sidewalk, and flowing downhill to the edge of the casement, about six feet away. I made a temporary patch for the hole in the pipe, and then shoveled some dirt to make an earthen dike to keep the water from flowing down toward the casement. That all worked, but it won't suffice for the long haul, of course. We finished cleaning up the basement and draining the casement, and then went to bed.
This morning I could see better (in the daylight). I'm going to run up to Home Depot and get another gutter pipe, to get that water out into our yard when it rains next time. That will do for now, until we can get something more permanent done...
More rain than expected...
More rain than expected ... and nobody is complaining! We got 0.7" inch since yesterday, bringing the storm total up to just over 1.5". Yay! Better yet – NOAA has upped the forecast, showing another 0.4" today and 0.65" tomorrow. We may end up with almost 3" from this storm. Yesterday there was an enormous storm cell that hit us from the southeast, after it very slowly passed over the mountains that drain into Porcupine Reservoir – the source of our local irrigation water. It's all good news!
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