Friday, July 10, 2015
A cheerful morning in Paradise...
Thursday, July 9, 2015
Morning in Paradise...
Morning in Paradise... Very early this morning – at about 12:30 AM – we were awakened by the loud crashing of thunder all around us. For the next 45 minutes or so we were treated to a sudden fierce rain squall. In the morning, when there was enough light to read the rain gauge, I saw that we got 0.6" of rain in that short amount of time. Pouring, it was...
The forecast shows a decent chance of rain later today, too. It's a wet July in Paradise!
We took our morning walk just a bit later than usual. The sun rose over the Wasatch Mountains just as we got to the highest point of our walk. In the first photo below you can see my loooong shadow reaching to the west as I look downhill toward our house. The second photo is looking north, the third south, from the track that runs north/south through a farmer's field. You can see the remnants of that storm cell receding to the north, over the city of Logan. The third photo is looking south on that same road. It's clear in that direction, except that if you enlarge the photo, you'll see some clouds hugging one of the smaller peaks. Such ground-hugging clouds are a common occurrence around here, for some reason I don't know but would like to understand. The last photo is looking west, and I've drawn a red arrow in there pointing to our just-visible shed. Our house is hidden behind the trees just to the left of the shed.
As we walked back toward home, we saw an ATV putt-putting up the hill toward us. It was my neighbor Tim D., together with his two dogs (Lewie and Lexie), coming up to visit with us. The two of us stood chatting with the valley laid out in morning splendor all around us.
I love living here!
The forecast shows a decent chance of rain later today, too. It's a wet July in Paradise!
We took our morning walk just a bit later than usual. The sun rose over the Wasatch Mountains just as we got to the highest point of our walk. In the first photo below you can see my loooong shadow reaching to the west as I look downhill toward our house. The second photo is looking north, the third south, from the track that runs north/south through a farmer's field. You can see the remnants of that storm cell receding to the north, over the city of Logan. The third photo is looking south on that same road. It's clear in that direction, except that if you enlarge the photo, you'll see some clouds hugging one of the smaller peaks. Such ground-hugging clouds are a common occurrence around here, for some reason I don't know but would like to understand. The last photo is looking west, and I've drawn a red arrow in there pointing to our just-visible shed. Our house is hidden behind the trees just to the left of the shed.
As we walked back toward home, we saw an ATV putt-putting up the hill toward us. It was my neighbor Tim D., together with his two dogs (Lewie and Lexie), coming up to visit with us. The two of us stood chatting with the valley laid out in morning splendor all around us.
I love living here!
Greeks apologize with huge horse...
If, perchance, you don't get the joke ... then read this...
Opportunity: the movie...
How does the TSA decide if someone might be a terrorist?
Pluto or bust!
Next Tuesday (7/14) is the big day – the day that New Horizons passes close by (less than 8,000 miles) Pluto. Go, go, go!
Back from the endodontist...
Just like my other medical and dental experiences here, this one was all positive. As usual, my appointment started right on time. The staff, from Marlane (the receptionist), the assistant, and Dr. Thornton himself, were all friendly, warm, and caring. I particularly noted that awkward or uncomfortable positions (like head keeled very far backward) were asked of me only when actually needed. It may seem obvious, but ... this is the first time that's ever happened to me during a dental procedure.
Dr. Thornton was impressively efficient – whenever he had to wait for something (such as for the numbing injections to take effect), he went to another room to work on another patient. The last third or so of the job he did on me was actually kind of fun for me to watch, as he and his assistant conducted what looked like a choreographed high-speed ballet-of-the-hands. Things were happening so fast and furiously that I totally lost track of what was going on. Tools and materials were flying back and forth over my face at breakneck speed.
My bottom line: if you need an endodontist, I recommend Dr. Thornton. He and his staff were great!
There is the possibility now...
There is the possibility now ... that the 2016 presidential race will be Trump v. Sanders. In which case the four or five non-U.S. governments that aren't already laughing at the U.S. will convulse with hysterical, uncontrollable laughter along with all the other non-U.S. governments.
Me, I'd write-in Mickey Mouse on my ballot. Not as a joke, mind you, but rather as a serious vote for a better alternative.
I'm hoping that I'll wake up soon from the nightmare that allowed me to believe Trump v. Sanders was an actual possibility...
Me, I'd write-in Mickey Mouse on my ballot. Not as a joke, mind you, but rather as a serious vote for a better alternative.
I'm hoping that I'll wake up soon from the nightmare that allowed me to believe Trump v. Sanders was an actual possibility...
Unpredictable blogging alert...
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
Evening in Paradise...
Evening in Paradise... Our new routine in the evening is to let Mo'i out into “his” backyard for him to amble at his own pace, while Miki, Race, and I take off for a somewhat brisker – and much longer – walk to the east. We walked just over a mile each way tonight. Walking away from home, uphill, the dogs wanted to go fast as hell. Coming home, downhill, they were content with a much more leisurely pace. That's of course exactly backwards from what I'd like to do. Not that they would care. Just look at these completely unrepentant faces!
On the other hand...
On the other hand ... we're now at 0.95" for this storm, with still more to come. The forecast was for 0.4", so the weatherman was only off by 100% or so...
Any twinge of hopefulness I was feeling today...
Any twinge of hopefulness I was feeling today ... was completely destroyed by reading this story.
Some commenters said that the judge (a judge!) didn't get the big picture. I don't think the judge (a judge!) gets any part of the picture, big or little.
The average IQ is 100 (because definition). I'm fairly certain that at least one of our dogs (Miki) has above human-average IQ. That's not a good message about humanity, even though Miki is a pretty darned smart little dog.
His latest demonstration of high IQ? A few days ago I walked upstairs in our house, while the dogs were all kept in the kitchen by a doggie gate. Or so I thought – but as I sat down in my office chair, I discovered Miki, tail wagging furiously with happiness. He curled up by my feet and stayed there for an hour or so. Then I went back downstairs with him, and discovered that the gate was closed. The gate is too tall for him to jump over. How the heck did he get out of the kitchen?
A couple of days (and escapes) later, I caught him in the act. The clever little guy figured out that he could jump onto a kitchen chair, walk across the kitchen table, jump over to a little table we have near the gate, and then leap over the gate. That first chair is a good 10' from the gate. Somehow he figured all this out. I've employed people who wouldn't have been able to do that :)
Some commenters said that the judge (a judge!) didn't get the big picture. I don't think the judge (a judge!) gets any part of the picture, big or little.
The average IQ is 100 (because definition). I'm fairly certain that at least one of our dogs (Miki) has above human-average IQ. That's not a good message about humanity, even though Miki is a pretty darned smart little dog.
His latest demonstration of high IQ? A few days ago I walked upstairs in our house, while the dogs were all kept in the kitchen by a doggie gate. Or so I thought – but as I sat down in my office chair, I discovered Miki, tail wagging furiously with happiness. He curled up by my feet and stayed there for an hour or so. Then I went back downstairs with him, and discovered that the gate was closed. The gate is too tall for him to jump over. How the heck did he get out of the kitchen?
A couple of days (and escapes) later, I caught him in the act. The clever little guy figured out that he could jump onto a kitchen chair, walk across the kitchen table, jump over to a little table we have near the gate, and then leap over the gate. That first chair is a good 10' from the gate. Somehow he figured all this out. I've employed people who wouldn't have been able to do that :)
Many scientists are waking up to the fraud that is Big Climate Change...
Many scientists are waking up to the fraud that is Big Climate Change... Here's one more...
Is there any hope?
Kozinski on the criminal justice system in the U.S.
Kozinski on the criminal justice system in the U.S. Awesome!
Dione, moon of Saturn...
Morning in Paradise...
Morning in Paradise... We woke a little late for us – around 5:30 am. I got up and let Mo'i out into our back yard, which he has taken a real liking to. He now treats it as “his”, as opposed to being some strange new place. He wanders about, sniffing all the things he can neither see nor hear. He's have some trouble with the two steps down from the back door, though. I think I'll have to build him a ramp soon.
Miki, Race, and I took our usual walk up the dirt road to our east. We went a bit further than we ever could with Mo'i, about a quarter mile past the abandoned quarry. That last stretch is almost level, just a track between two fields (barley to the west, alfalfa to the east). This morning the sky was particularly interesting looking. Over us were a few scattered clouds, but in all directions around us were storm cells, like those in the photos at right. The first one is looking north, the second west. That storm cell in the second photo was headed right for us, and about a half hour after I snapped that photo, it started raining on us – just as our neighbor (Tim D.) and I were laying a string of his hand line, to irrigate his alfalfa. Thunder and lightning played all around us, but especially up in the mountains – both east and west of us. It was by far the most dramatic irrigation pipe carrying I've ever done :)
So far we've received 0.7" from this storm – more than forecast, and very welcome. The radar shows a nice storm cell headed straight for us, too, so we're likely to see more!
I had an appointment this morning Hyrum Tire for routine service on my Tundra pickup. Despite their business name, that place is far more than a tire store – they do all sorts of maintenance on cars, trucks, and small engines (mowers, weed whackers, etc.). I walked in, they grabbed my keys and went right to work. Just forty minutes later, they told me I was all finished. They did all the usual things, plus checked my timing chain (because I've got 120,000 miles on the original, and Toyota recommends changing at 100,000). Like Dave in Jamul (our favorite mechanic there), these guys said “Don’t change it; yours is doing fine.” They even filled my windshield washer. Total charge: $45.32. I love living here! In California my coffee might have cost that much...
It's raining as I write, and it's in the 50s outside. My shed will be nice and cool – so I think I'll go do the heavy moving work I've been putting off for a few weeks now :) Just before I started writing this post, I took a nice photo of Jahar, our Savannah cat that is Debbie's constant companion. With the cool temperatures of the past few days, he's spending his time all cuddled up with her. If you know Debbie, then you know she's not objecting to this :)
I had an appointment this morning Hyrum Tire for routine service on my Tundra pickup. Despite their business name, that place is far more than a tire store – they do all sorts of maintenance on cars, trucks, and small engines (mowers, weed whackers, etc.). I walked in, they grabbed my keys and went right to work. Just forty minutes later, they told me I was all finished. They did all the usual things, plus checked my timing chain (because I've got 120,000 miles on the original, and Toyota recommends changing at 100,000). Like Dave in Jamul (our favorite mechanic there), these guys said “Don’t change it; yours is doing fine.” They even filled my windshield washer. Total charge: $45.32. I love living here! In California my coffee might have cost that much...
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
New backups in Paradise...
New backups in Paradise... Well, that was totally painless! The hardest part of bringing up our new backup RAID was ... unpacking it. The damned hard disks were swathed in plastic that my (sharp!) pocket knife had a heck of a time cutting. Other than that, all I did was plug in cables and disks, and OS X led me through the rest of the setup. I'm making a backup right now. What a piece of cake!
Progress in Paradise...
Progress in Paradise... It was so beautiful here this morning that I just couldn't stand to work inside, despite the fact that all my higher priority projects are there. Instead, I decided to fix our lawnmower (a riding “zero-turn” type). The last time I mowed, I noted a rather awful problem: the left side of the mowed swath was cut about an inch and a half lower than the right side. This gave our lawn a distinctly odd look :)
Without even looking, I figured that the mechanism that raises and lowers the deck must have gotten out of whack. So I used a floor jack to raise each end of the mower and put it up on jack stands to make it easy to see and reach the deck-adjusting mechanism. I also figured it would a good moment to pull off the blades and sharpen them.
Well, a careful inspection of the deck-adjusting mechanism showed no problems at all! Everything was intact, all the fasteners were present, nothing was bent. Even the lubrication was up to snuff. Puzzling over this unexpected finding, I leaned against the mower – and noticed that the left front tire was soft. Soft, as in completely flat. The right front tire was perfectly inflated. Dang! Well, at least I knew what the problem was now. So I pulled the tire off (easy, since the mower was up on jack stands) and ran it up to Hyrum Tire to be repaired. Then I came back home, pulled off and sharpened the blades, reinstalled them, and added grease at every zerc fitting. This was much easier with the mower on jack stands – that's how I'll be handling that chore from now on!
That left me with a couple hours to kill while waiting for the tire to get fixed. It was still cool and beautiful outside, so I decided to do some pruning. Several of our blue spruces had taken a hit when I sprayed the lawn with 2,4-D. From the symptoms, it looks like new growth at a particular stage was killed or damaged. This made some of the lower branches look very odd, with light brown tips where it should be blue or green. Also there were two beautiful blue spruces along the canal that had an upstart hawthorn growing up through their branches.
So I trimmed up 4 blue spruces, getting rid of those brown ends, and in two cases trimming them away from the driveway a foot or so. Then I really made that hawthorn's day a miserable one. It had 17 trunks (I counted them!) ranging from 1" to 4" in diameter. The hawthorn wood is ridiculously easy to saw, so I had them all cut in a matter of a couple minutes. Getting them out of the blue spruces without damaging the spruces turned out to be the challenging bit – the hawthorn branches were practically tied in knots around the blue spruce branches. It took a bunch of precision cutting, but I finally did get it all out. I only lost one small blue spruce branch in the process. I thought removing that hawthorn would leave a big hole between the two blue spruces, but in fact it did not – there were still blue spruce branches growing inside the hawthorn (which is why it was so hard to disentangle them). Instead it just looks like a less-dense patch in the blue spruces. If you weren't looking for it, you probably wouldn't even notice. Great!
After finishing up the pruning and carrying all the brush to the brush pile, I helped Debbie wash her hair and take a bath (of sorts). This is quite an operation when you can't put any weight on one leg, can't stand up unassisted, and must spend most of the time sitting on a roll-around chair. We're getting good at this, with all the practice. It makes Debbie feel much better, but still, I'm sure she's really looking forward to being able to take a shower again.
Then I ran up to Hyrum Tire, picked up my fixed tire (it had an inch-and-a-half long thorn in it – almost certainly from a hawthorn!), and put my mower back together. A little test run in an obscure corner of the yard proved that the problem was fixed. Yay!
For the hour or so preceding this happy resurrection of my mower, there were thunderstorms rumbling in the distance. A couple times we got sprinkled on a little bit. Just as I was putting the mower away, it started to rain a little more seriously – and we were getting almost continuous thunder overhead, sounding very close. I couldn't see any lightning, so it must have been cloud-to-cloud lightning above the dense layer of clouds that was dumping water on me.
Now I'm about to put together a new backup disk. The 3TB backup disk we've had for three years died a couple days ago, so I ordered the parts for a replacement. This time, to choose the disks I used the drive reliability data gathered by BackBlaze to select HGST 4TB drives (HGST Megascale 4000.B). The enclosure I selected is a RocketStor 5212, with a Thunderbolt interface, good reviews, and compatibility with OS/X software RAID. This will become the Time Machine backup disk for our OS/X server and Debbie's iMac. Hopefully this will be as easy as my past experiences with similar devices!
Without even looking, I figured that the mechanism that raises and lowers the deck must have gotten out of whack. So I used a floor jack to raise each end of the mower and put it up on jack stands to make it easy to see and reach the deck-adjusting mechanism. I also figured it would a good moment to pull off the blades and sharpen them.
Well, a careful inspection of the deck-adjusting mechanism showed no problems at all! Everything was intact, all the fasteners were present, nothing was bent. Even the lubrication was up to snuff. Puzzling over this unexpected finding, I leaned against the mower – and noticed that the left front tire was soft. Soft, as in completely flat. The right front tire was perfectly inflated. Dang! Well, at least I knew what the problem was now. So I pulled the tire off (easy, since the mower was up on jack stands) and ran it up to Hyrum Tire to be repaired. Then I came back home, pulled off and sharpened the blades, reinstalled them, and added grease at every zerc fitting. This was much easier with the mower on jack stands – that's how I'll be handling that chore from now on!
That left me with a couple hours to kill while waiting for the tire to get fixed. It was still cool and beautiful outside, so I decided to do some pruning. Several of our blue spruces had taken a hit when I sprayed the lawn with 2,4-D. From the symptoms, it looks like new growth at a particular stage was killed or damaged. This made some of the lower branches look very odd, with light brown tips where it should be blue or green. Also there were two beautiful blue spruces along the canal that had an upstart hawthorn growing up through their branches.
So I trimmed up 4 blue spruces, getting rid of those brown ends, and in two cases trimming them away from the driveway a foot or so. Then I really made that hawthorn's day a miserable one. It had 17 trunks (I counted them!) ranging from 1" to 4" in diameter. The hawthorn wood is ridiculously easy to saw, so I had them all cut in a matter of a couple minutes. Getting them out of the blue spruces without damaging the spruces turned out to be the challenging bit – the hawthorn branches were practically tied in knots around the blue spruce branches. It took a bunch of precision cutting, but I finally did get it all out. I only lost one small blue spruce branch in the process. I thought removing that hawthorn would leave a big hole between the two blue spruces, but in fact it did not – there were still blue spruce branches growing inside the hawthorn (which is why it was so hard to disentangle them). Instead it just looks like a less-dense patch in the blue spruces. If you weren't looking for it, you probably wouldn't even notice. Great!
After finishing up the pruning and carrying all the brush to the brush pile, I helped Debbie wash her hair and take a bath (of sorts). This is quite an operation when you can't put any weight on one leg, can't stand up unassisted, and must spend most of the time sitting on a roll-around chair. We're getting good at this, with all the practice. It makes Debbie feel much better, but still, I'm sure she's really looking forward to being able to take a shower again.
Then I ran up to Hyrum Tire, picked up my fixed tire (it had an inch-and-a-half long thorn in it – almost certainly from a hawthorn!), and put my mower back together. A little test run in an obscure corner of the yard proved that the problem was fixed. Yay!
For the hour or so preceding this happy resurrection of my mower, there were thunderstorms rumbling in the distance. A couple times we got sprinkled on a little bit. Just as I was putting the mower away, it started to rain a little more seriously – and we were getting almost continuous thunder overhead, sounding very close. I couldn't see any lightning, so it must have been cloud-to-cloud lightning above the dense layer of clouds that was dumping water on me.
Now I'm about to put together a new backup disk. The 3TB backup disk we've had for three years died a couple days ago, so I ordered the parts for a replacement. This time, to choose the disks I used the drive reliability data gathered by BackBlaze to select HGST 4TB drives (HGST Megascale 4000.B). The enclosure I selected is a RocketStor 5212, with a Thunderbolt interface, good reviews, and compatibility with OS/X software RAID. This will become the Time Machine backup disk for our OS/X server and Debbie's iMac. Hopefully this will be as easy as my past experiences with similar devices!
Are medical screening tests valuable?
Are medical screening tests valuable? The answer isn't always as clear as you might think. Study the chart for breast cancer screening (mammograms) below to see one example of this (more details here). Some kinds of screening (example: colonoscopy) themselves pose a risk, and though that risk is generally quite small so are the positive detections. Mammograms involve exposure to high-energy radiation, which is a known risk for causing cancer. All kinds of screening have a false-positive problem – and these false positives put the patient through a lot of stress and additional testing, which also has risks.
This stuff is hard. Some kinds of medical screening absolutely make sense. Some of them absolutely do not make sense. Most of them are a lot less clear...
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This stuff is hard. Some kinds of medical screening absolutely make sense. Some of them absolutely do not make sense. Most of them are a lot less clear...
I can scarcely believe...
Monday, July 6, 2015
Evening walk in Paradise...
Evening walk in Paradise... Just Miki, Race, and I tonight. I let Mo'i wander about in our back yard at his own pace, stopping when he needs to. The three of us marched at a quick pace a little over a mile (with 300' elevation gain) to an abandoned quarry, and back. Normally on these walks, paced by Mo'i, my muscles don't even notice it. Tonight I can feel a little burn in my quads and calves. It's a good thing! Or at least that's what I'm told...
The photos below are from that walk. The first one is looking to the southeast from right near that quarry. In the foreground is the corner garden I took photos of earlier. In the background is the home of the gardener, about 3/4 mile away. That family owns a couple thousand acres of prime hay fields in this area, and they plunked their home right down in the middle of it. I haven't met them yet, but I can tell they're probably my kind of people :) The second photo is a panorama looking due west. I was trying to capture the 22 visible strings of irrigation lines all running right now. Most of the alfalfa fields have now had their first cutting, so sunshine and water are the farmer's primary objectives. They want a nice growth burst for the second cutting – and this year, they're getting it in spades. The last photo is take slightly north of west, showing part of what's in that panorama – but bigger. You can't see all 22 strings in that photo, but you can pick out 17 if you try really hard. There's a lot of water being squirted around right now! Click to embiggen.
One of my readers had the gall to email, complaining that he couldn't understand the diagram I published earlier. He wanted a photo. Ok, here's your photo (at right). I took this photo before I had the brilliant idea of taping the wires together in the correct orientation; at this point I was orienting them by hand, very tediously.
I finished wiring up the air compressor today, both the 240 volt circuit and the 120 volt circuit. I also capped off the output so we can test the pressure tank when the technicians go through the startup testing (hopefully later this week).
I have an appointment for this Thursday to have my tooth root-rootered, or possibly yanked if it's damaged beyond repair. If they do yank it, it will be the first tooth (not counting my deliberately removed wisdom teeth) that I've ever actually lost. I'm hoping that's not required...
Another set of neighbors (Gary and Elaine S.) came by today to see Debbie. This community is kind of amazing this way. We just barely know Gary and Elaine. They live on the other side of the highway from us and probably because of that we don't have much contact with them. Our previous contacts with them have mostly been waving and saying “hi”. Today they came over and stayed with Debbie for an hour, and Elaine promised to come by a few times a week – and to bring us a dinner tomorrow night. They came by because they'd heard from another neighbor (Tim D.) that Debbie was ailing, and that was all the nudging it took for them to take the initiative to see if we needed any help. They behaved exactly the way you'd expect a good friend to behave. What a place we landed it!
The photos below are from that walk. The first one is looking to the southeast from right near that quarry. In the foreground is the corner garden I took photos of earlier. In the background is the home of the gardener, about 3/4 mile away. That family owns a couple thousand acres of prime hay fields in this area, and they plunked their home right down in the middle of it. I haven't met them yet, but I can tell they're probably my kind of people :) The second photo is a panorama looking due west. I was trying to capture the 22 visible strings of irrigation lines all running right now. Most of the alfalfa fields have now had their first cutting, so sunshine and water are the farmer's primary objectives. They want a nice growth burst for the second cutting – and this year, they're getting it in spades. The last photo is take slightly north of west, showing part of what's in that panorama – but bigger. You can't see all 22 strings in that photo, but you can pick out 17 if you try really hard. There's a lot of water being squirted around right now! Click to embiggen.
I finished wiring up the air compressor today, both the 240 volt circuit and the 120 volt circuit. I also capped off the output so we can test the pressure tank when the technicians go through the startup testing (hopefully later this week).
I have an appointment for this Thursday to have my tooth root-rootered, or possibly yanked if it's damaged beyond repair. If they do yank it, it will be the first tooth (not counting my deliberately removed wisdom teeth) that I've ever actually lost. I'm hoping that's not required...
Another set of neighbors (Gary and Elaine S.) came by today to see Debbie. This community is kind of amazing this way. We just barely know Gary and Elaine. They live on the other side of the highway from us and probably because of that we don't have much contact with them. Our previous contacts with them have mostly been waving and saying “hi”. Today they came over and stayed with Debbie for an hour, and Elaine promised to come by a few times a week – and to bring us a dinner tomorrow night. They came by because they'd heard from another neighbor (Tim D.) that Debbie was ailing, and that was all the nudging it took for them to take the initiative to see if we needed any help. They behaved exactly the way you'd expect a good friend to behave. What a place we landed it!
Asphodelus aestivus...
Morning in Paradise, in the shadow of the mountain edition...
Morning in Paradise, in the shadow of the mountain edition... Took the two younger dogs (Miki and Race) out for our morning perambulation. Mo'i isn't feeling too well after pooping all over the kitchen; he's resting up for his next adventure.
I took the first photo below as we were walking to the east, away from home. The sun is just below that minor peak in shadow. The sky is lit up brightly because technically it's after dawn. The official dawn starts when the sun peeks above the theoretical horizon – where the horizon would be if there were no mountains. This almost never occurs in the real world on land, but on the sea it happens all the time.
The second photo was taken about 10 minutes later, as we were headed downhill and west, toward home. The sun is at our back, but we're deep in the shadow of that silhouetted peak. To the right of the dirt road you can (barely) make out the alfalfa field that was mowed 11 days ago. It's now around 15" high, so that alfalfa is growing at just over 1" per day. In the distance you can see the Wellsville Mountains all lit up, and below them the nearby foothills – they're about a mile and a half from where I was standing. They're all lit up as well, and you can see very nicely how all the fields with their different kinds of grass, forage, or grain have changed in appearance from the similar photo I took about a month ago. Many of the fields have been mowed now, and a few have even been plowed and replanted.
The rainstorm yesterday delivered 0.55" of rain, according to my rain gauge. That's a bit more that forecast, and very welcome. We have three more days with roughly a 50% chance of rain in the forecast, so we might get even more. That sound you hear is all the local farmers cheering. Except, of course, for those who just mowed their fields. They've now got soppy windrows that will have to dry for several days before they can bale...
I took the first photo below as we were walking to the east, away from home. The sun is just below that minor peak in shadow. The sky is lit up brightly because technically it's after dawn. The official dawn starts when the sun peeks above the theoretical horizon – where the horizon would be if there were no mountains. This almost never occurs in the real world on land, but on the sea it happens all the time.
The second photo was taken about 10 minutes later, as we were headed downhill and west, toward home. The sun is at our back, but we're deep in the shadow of that silhouetted peak. To the right of the dirt road you can (barely) make out the alfalfa field that was mowed 11 days ago. It's now around 15" high, so that alfalfa is growing at just over 1" per day. In the distance you can see the Wellsville Mountains all lit up, and below them the nearby foothills – they're about a mile and a half from where I was standing. They're all lit up as well, and you can see very nicely how all the fields with their different kinds of grass, forage, or grain have changed in appearance from the similar photo I took about a month ago. Many of the fields have been mowed now, and a few have even been plowed and replanted.
The rainstorm yesterday delivered 0.55" of rain, according to my rain gauge. That's a bit more that forecast, and very welcome. We have three more days with roughly a 50% chance of rain in the forecast, so we might get even more. That sound you hear is all the local farmers cheering. Except, of course, for those who just mowed their fields. They've now got soppy windrows that will have to dry for several days before they can bale...
Floating point follies...
Floating point follies... I ran across this blog post in my morning reading, and as I was reading it I thought “Jeez — this is like a litany of all the floating point problems I’ve seen programmers stumble into!” Two memorable occasions:
- While working at a firm that provided hedge fund IT infrastructure as a service, I worked with a team implementing an algorithmic trading server. This was implementing a relatively simple algorithm called “pairs trading”. Part of the calculation involved raising a pair of fixed numbers to a series of powers, looking for a particular relationship between the results. The powers were 1.00 to 1.99, in increments of 0.01. The programmer's initial approach was to calculate the two fixed numbers raised to the 0.01 power, then accumulate as he iterated through the increments. The programmer did this in the belief that he'd speed up the calculation by avoiding the power computation (which wasn't actually true on the server the code executed on, though it was true on his laptop). However, much to his surprise and consternation there was a considerable error in his computation by the time he got to the end. He sought my help on this, and we changed a few lines of code to eliminate the accumulated additions by doing the power raising for each iteration, and the error disappeared (of course). I was tempted to tell the programmer that the problem was caused by his choice of Visual Basic as the programming language, but that didn't seem fair :)
- While working at a different electronic trading firm, we had a problem wherein the cost we computed for a trade didn't match what NASDAQ computed and charged us. Usually the difference was a few cents and we just ignored it, but one day a trader bought a huge number of shares of a very low cost stock, and the difference was over $100 – enough for my boss to tell me “Go figure that out, damn it!” When I dug into our calculations, I could find no errors, so I called my peer at NASDAQ, a pleasant fellow named Gary. He told me he'd run into this a few times before, but had never figured it out. He sent me the block of code that did the calculations on his end. Our code was Java; theirs was C++, but in both cases the code used the underlying x86 machine's floating point processor. After staring at the two pieces of code side-by-side for a while, I realized that we were doing a particular multiplication with the operands in a different order. We were multiplying shares x price, and they were multiplying price x shares. When I swapped the order of our multiplication, the difference suddenly disappeared. I called Gary back and told him what the problem was, and he told me I was crazy – multiplication was associative and that was that! An hour or so later he called me back and said he'd duplicated my results. That was one very disillusioned programmer! After that, he and I had several phone calls (at his request) so I could educate him a bit about floating point numbers. Despite having a very responsible position on staff in a large exchange, he knew next to nothing about them – most especially about the sorts of things outlined in the blog post linked above.
Bullwinkle...
Bullwinkle... Our neighbors have named the moose who visited us a couple days ago. Here's a photo Alan L. took with an actual camera, showing Bullwinkle in our alfalfa/grass field:
Sunday, July 5, 2015
Evening in Paradise...
This guy set a new record...
Progress in Paradise...
Progress in Paradise... We actually had some progress today, on wiring up my new air compressor. I ran most of the 240 volt circuit today, about 60' of the total of 85' that I have to run it. I did the hard parts today, through two walls and into the main circuit breaker panel. All that's left is the final 25' across a wall, and terminating in a junction box. Should be a piece of cake to get that done tomorrow. Then all I have left (for the air compressor) is a short run of 120 volt line for the air dryer that's built into the compressor.
The 240 volt line I was running today is comprised of three 8 gauge copper wires, colored red, black, and green. I'm running them inside a 1/2" PVC conduit, so in cross-section it looks something like the diagram at right (the scale is approximately correct). As you can see from the diagram, the three wires fit inside the conduit with plenty of room to spare – and yet, running those wires through the conduit proved to be quite a challenge!
Why would this be challenging? Well, imagine moving that red wire over to the other side of the green wire. At one point in that process, all three wires would have to fit side-by-side inside the conduit – and the conduit just isn't big enough for that to happen. In practice what this meant is that I had to “comb out” the three wires and tape around them every foot or so, to make sure they stayed in the same orientation. Otherwise I could never have gotten them through the conduit! Also, I had to do this one piece of conduit at a time, so that at most I had just a single bend to navigate. This made the process quite tedious. Of course, if I had been bright enough to buy 3/4" conduit...
These heavy wires are needed only because the start-up current for the air compressor is unusually high. Under full load that motor (5HP) will draw about 21 amps – but during startup, according to the documentation, it will spike as high as 35 amps. Yikes! So I have to have a 40 amp breaker, and that means 8 gauge wire is the smallest safe size. That's a whole lot of copper when you're talking about an 85' run, which is what I have...
Why would this be challenging? Well, imagine moving that red wire over to the other side of the green wire. At one point in that process, all three wires would have to fit side-by-side inside the conduit – and the conduit just isn't big enough for that to happen. In practice what this meant is that I had to “comb out” the three wires and tape around them every foot or so, to make sure they stayed in the same orientation. Otherwise I could never have gotten them through the conduit! Also, I had to do this one piece of conduit at a time, so that at most I had just a single bend to navigate. This made the process quite tedious. Of course, if I had been bright enough to buy 3/4" conduit...
These heavy wires are needed only because the start-up current for the air compressor is unusually high. Under full load that motor (5HP) will draw about 21 amps – but during startup, according to the documentation, it will spike as high as 35 amps. Yikes! So I have to have a 40 amp breaker, and that means 8 gauge wire is the smallest safe size. That's a whole lot of copper when you're talking about an 85' run, which is what I have...
Pictures from Paradise...
Pictures from Paradise... The first photo below is attempting to show the beautiful droplets hanging from green berries on a tree I haven't identified in my back yard. The second is a local “corner garden”. These are pretty common around here, in the corners of fields where the turning radius prevents the mowers, balers, and other equipment from getting into. Rather than waste the space, people grow little gardens in them. This on is drip irrigated, and is growing very quickly. It's far enough from any waterway that it's not likely to have racoons stealing everything from it. Skunks and magpies will be there, though. The rest of the photos are from a barley field a half mile east of our house...
It's no longer spritzing...
It's no longer spritzing ... it's raining. We've already had a tenth inch, in just the past 10 minutes or so. Go, rain!
Morning in Paradise...
Morning in Paradise... For some reason I've slept particularly well the past couple of nights. Generally speaking, a solid night's sleep is a rarity for me – something that happens maybe once a month. In a good month. To have two such nights sequentially is most unusual. If this is a change brought about by ancientness, then I may embrace my ancientness more!
At 5 am, before dawn, the dogs and I took off on a morning walk. Our heat wave appears to have broken last night – it was cool and humid this morning, and it even spritzed on us a bit. The forecast is calling for a high of just 78° today, which (assuming that pans out) will feel downright chilly compared with the high 90s we've been experiencing. The forecast for today also has a good chance of rain, with 4/10ths predicted. That will be welcome here, especially for all the hay farmers around me.
We only saw one exciting thing on our walk. Our first sighting was from about 150' away, an animal the size of a small dog scampering through alfalfa that had been mowed 10 days ago. It was too dark to see it clearly, but it was headed right for us. It was too big to be a skunk, so I just stopped. The dogs went on full alert, staring intently at the moving shape. It was downwind of us, so they had no odor cue, and didn't know what it was. Finally it emerged from the field onto the road, just 6' or so in front of us – and then we could see that it was a gigantic house cat! It was an orange tabby (I think – the light was very dim), and had the look of an intact male. It's attitude was all cat: it glanced at us disdainfully, dismissively, and continued on its way at its own pace. This despite the fact that all three dogs were slavering, barking, bouncing at the end of their leash trying to get at it. The cat saw no threat at all, which really tweaked the dogs; they renewed their efforts to seem fearsome. They failed. Cat: 1, dogs: 0. Human? Laughing :)
As I write this post, it's just starting to get light outside my window. The sky is deeply overcast, and it's sprinkling just a little. I just got out my binoculars and looked at my rain gauge; it shows 3/100ths" last night. That's about right if it spritzed most of the night, which I suspect it did, as everything is damp outside.
My mom and I have started playing a Scrabble-like game (called Lexulous) over the Internet. So far I am clobbering her in an embarrassing fashion. She claims its my good letters. I did something to make her laugh (no idea what!), so it's a good morning :)
At 5 am, before dawn, the dogs and I took off on a morning walk. Our heat wave appears to have broken last night – it was cool and humid this morning, and it even spritzed on us a bit. The forecast is calling for a high of just 78° today, which (assuming that pans out) will feel downright chilly compared with the high 90s we've been experiencing. The forecast for today also has a good chance of rain, with 4/10ths predicted. That will be welcome here, especially for all the hay farmers around me.
We only saw one exciting thing on our walk. Our first sighting was from about 150' away, an animal the size of a small dog scampering through alfalfa that had been mowed 10 days ago. It was too dark to see it clearly, but it was headed right for us. It was too big to be a skunk, so I just stopped. The dogs went on full alert, staring intently at the moving shape. It was downwind of us, so they had no odor cue, and didn't know what it was. Finally it emerged from the field onto the road, just 6' or so in front of us – and then we could see that it was a gigantic house cat! It was an orange tabby (I think – the light was very dim), and had the look of an intact male. It's attitude was all cat: it glanced at us disdainfully, dismissively, and continued on its way at its own pace. This despite the fact that all three dogs were slavering, barking, bouncing at the end of their leash trying to get at it. The cat saw no threat at all, which really tweaked the dogs; they renewed their efforts to seem fearsome. They failed. Cat: 1, dogs: 0. Human? Laughing :)
As I write this post, it's just starting to get light outside my window. The sky is deeply overcast, and it's sprinkling just a little. I just got out my binoculars and looked at my rain gauge; it shows 3/100ths" last night. That's about right if it spritzed most of the night, which I suspect it did, as everything is damp outside.
My mom and I have started playing a Scrabble-like game (called Lexulous) over the Internet. So far I am clobbering her in an embarrassing fashion. She claims its my good letters. I did something to make her laugh (no idea what!), so it's a good morning :)
Oh, noz!
Oh, noz! New Horizons is having problems. I sure hope they get this resolved before the flyby, which is only 9 days away!
Zeta Ophiuchi...
Intuition...
Intuition... I ran across this blog post in my reading this morning. It caught my attention mainly because it has a Feynman story in it; one that I was familiar with, but hadn't thought about in a while. In it, Feynman talks about the importance of developing an “intuition” about physics problems, in addition to understanding the mathematics describing them. Sometimes that intuition will get you to an answer long before you can prove it with the math.
I think that same observation applies across many kinds of science, and even some math itself. I've noted the same phenomenon with arithmetic many times. In particular, developing the skill to do arithmetic mentally or on slide rules (which actually involves quite a bit of mental arithmetic) helps you develop an intuition for the general value of a solution to an arithmetic problem. Almost any problem in more advanced mathematics (say, a differentiation problem) involves, in the end, simple arithmetic, then having such an intuitive grasp on arithmetic helps you avoid errors in the more complex math. I've used a variation of this to argue for the value of slide rules over calculators or spreadsheets. As I read this blog post, it occurred to me that what I was really arguing for was developing an intuition for arithmetic, as Feynman argues for physics.
Several other fields I'm familiar with demonstrate the same value of an intuition. Analog electronics, for example – having an intuitive understanding of how the basic components (resistors, capacitors, inductors, diodes, transistors) work is an incredibly powerful base to build an understanding of electronics on. As Feynman might have said, you could analyze any circuit with mathematical tools, but it's far easier if you have a good intuition for how the parts work. I think the same thing could be said for programming, or mechanical engineering, or concrete mix design...
I think that same observation applies across many kinds of science, and even some math itself. I've noted the same phenomenon with arithmetic many times. In particular, developing the skill to do arithmetic mentally or on slide rules (which actually involves quite a bit of mental arithmetic) helps you develop an intuition for the general value of a solution to an arithmetic problem. Almost any problem in more advanced mathematics (say, a differentiation problem) involves, in the end, simple arithmetic, then having such an intuitive grasp on arithmetic helps you avoid errors in the more complex math. I've used a variation of this to argue for the value of slide rules over calculators or spreadsheets. As I read this blog post, it occurred to me that what I was really arguing for was developing an intuition for arithmetic, as Feynman argues for physics.
Several other fields I'm familiar with demonstrate the same value of an intuition. Analog electronics, for example – having an intuitive understanding of how the basic components (resistors, capacitors, inductors, diodes, transistors) work is an incredibly powerful base to build an understanding of electronics on. As Feynman might have said, you could analyze any circuit with mathematical tools, but it's far easier if you have a good intuition for how the parts work. I think the same thing could be said for programming, or mechanical engineering, or concrete mix design...
A reader...
Did you really need to ask?
I haven't asked my (Mormon) neighbors what they think of this movement, but somehow I doubt they are as supportive :)
Saturday, July 4, 2015
I'm a plugger...
I'm a plugger ... and there are a lot of pluggers in this part of the world. Friend and reader Doug W. turned me on to this cartoon series...
He speaks for me...
He speaks for me... Charles C. W. Cooke, writing at The National Review. His conclusion:
That matters, especially for the liberty-minded man, for if he hopes to be free; if he hopes to see his natural rights protected and respected; if he hopes to agglutinate himself to the most beautiful set of ideas in the history of mankind — well, he has no choice but to stick around and fight. Today, I shall raise a glass to the last great hope of mankind. Tomorrow I shall go back to griping about all and sundry.For America, of course.
Do read the whole thing...
Celebrating Independence Day...
ObamaCare premiums set to soar...
ObamaCare premiums set to soar... More details here.
While I was at the dentist the other day, we were talking about the impact of ObamaCare. They've seen a precipitous drop in insured patients, as when local employers switched to ObamaCare-compliant insurance policies, they all dropped dental insurance. Why? Cost, of course. That got me to thinking about our health insurance, and what it would be like if (as projected) our premiums rise by 30 to 35%.
Right now – before any projected rise – our healthcare insurance is by far the largest monthly expense we have. Our home is not mortgaged, but even if it were the mortgage payment would be smaller than our monthly health insurance bill.
If the premium rises by 30%, our healthcare insurance payment will be greater than all our other monthly payments combined. In other words, more than half of our minimum monthly living expense. More than groceries, gas, home and car insurance, power, phone, TV, and Internet combined. And this is for a health insurance policy with such high deductibles and co-payments that we are out of pocket more than $10,000 for the year (mainly because of Debbie's two injuries) on top of the insurance premiums.
What a crazy world we live in...
While I was at the dentist the other day, we were talking about the impact of ObamaCare. They've seen a precipitous drop in insured patients, as when local employers switched to ObamaCare-compliant insurance policies, they all dropped dental insurance. Why? Cost, of course. That got me to thinking about our health insurance, and what it would be like if (as projected) our premiums rise by 30 to 35%.
Right now – before any projected rise – our healthcare insurance is by far the largest monthly expense we have. Our home is not mortgaged, but even if it were the mortgage payment would be smaller than our monthly health insurance bill.
If the premium rises by 30%, our healthcare insurance payment will be greater than all our other monthly payments combined. In other words, more than half of our minimum monthly living expense. More than groceries, gas, home and car insurance, power, phone, TV, and Internet combined. And this is for a health insurance policy with such high deductibles and co-payments that we are out of pocket more than $10,000 for the year (mainly because of Debbie's two injuries) on top of the insurance premiums.
What a crazy world we live in...
Quote of the day...
Quote of the day... Mark Steyn:
“And there, in a nutshell, is the story of the modern western world: not enough wild independent spirit, just more paperwork.”Hah!
Odd sightings in Paradise...
Odd sightings in Paradise... Last night, as Debbie and I were settling down to go to sleep, our phone rang. It was our neighbor Alan, sounding very excited, telling me that a moose was headed straight for our front yard!
He wasn't kidding. When I poked my head out our front door, there was indeed a moose standing right next to my pickup truck. I managed to get a couple photos of it (below) with my iPhone. Alan showed up shortly thereafter, carrying his Nikon with a telephoto lens attached; he told me he got some good photos (and maybe he'll share). Click to embiggen:
Shortly after I took these photos, Alan approached trailing a gaggle of excited kids. They clambered all over the back of my pickup, looking for a safe place to watch the moose. The moose wasn't excited about all this attention, and wandered off into the irrigation canal, about 200' from where I took these photos. Alan and the kids left, and then a milk delivery man drove in – and was quite startled to find a moose standing in front of his truck! He and I walked around behind the moose to encourage it to head to the west, away from the highway. That worked very well – the moose ran completely around our house, and into my neighbor Tim's alfalfa field. Eventually it ran into Tim's yard and toward his garden (which I hope survived intact), then back out of his yard and into the irrigation canal. Last I saw, it was in that canal, hiding from the nasty cars and people, and with a 5 strand barbed wire fence between it and the highway. I haven't heard anything about what happened after that.
You just never know what you're going to see in Paradise :)
Now here's something that's nowhere near as exciting, but I liked it anyway. It's what happened two days after I watered a piece of ground that had some sweet peas growing on it:
He wasn't kidding. When I poked my head out our front door, there was indeed a moose standing right next to my pickup truck. I managed to get a couple photos of it (below) with my iPhone. Alan showed up shortly thereafter, carrying his Nikon with a telephoto lens attached; he told me he got some good photos (and maybe he'll share). Click to embiggen:
Shortly after I took these photos, Alan approached trailing a gaggle of excited kids. They clambered all over the back of my pickup, looking for a safe place to watch the moose. The moose wasn't excited about all this attention, and wandered off into the irrigation canal, about 200' from where I took these photos. Alan and the kids left, and then a milk delivery man drove in – and was quite startled to find a moose standing in front of his truck! He and I walked around behind the moose to encourage it to head to the west, away from the highway. That worked very well – the moose ran completely around our house, and into my neighbor Tim's alfalfa field. Eventually it ran into Tim's yard and toward his garden (which I hope survived intact), then back out of his yard and into the irrigation canal. Last I saw, it was in that canal, hiding from the nasty cars and people, and with a 5 strand barbed wire fence between it and the highway. I haven't heard anything about what happened after that.
You just never know what you're going to see in Paradise :)
Now here's something that's nowhere near as exciting, but I liked it anyway. It's what happened two days after I watered a piece of ground that had some sweet peas growing on it:
Friday, July 3, 2015
Progress in Paradise...
Progress in Paradise... I visited a dentist yesterday, for the first time since moving up here. Like just about every other “first” experience, this was a good one. My appointment was for 1 pm, with Dr. Lance Gunnell. Figuring there would be paperwork, I showed up at 12:30. In fact, there was a thick wad of paperwork to fill out, and I sat down with a clipboard loaded with forms with tiny little boxes to fill out. Partway through the first of these pages, a young lady came out and called my name – and at 12:40 I was seated in the examining chair. Just before I finished the paperwork (between a tech's taking X-rays), at 12:46, Dr. Gunnell showed up.
He'd already reviewed my X-rays, and launched into a detailed explanation (complete with diagrams he drew as he was talking) of exactly what was wrong with my tooth – an infected root, on a tooth with a porcelain crown. There's also the possibility of a different root on the same tooth being cracked. Recommendation: he'd drill through my crown, trying to preserve it, then clean out the accessible infection in my tooth. He'd then pack it with antibiotics, stuff it with gutta-percha, put a temporary plug in the hole, and send me to an endodontics specialist for the actual root canal. By 1:20 pm he had actually completed all this (with the aid of two assistants and impressive organization) and I was out the door. Next stop: Reed's Pharmacy, for the antibiotics and pain meds that would sustain me until my appointment next week. Dr. Gunnell told me there was a 50/50 chance that the antibiotic would knock the infection down to the point where there was no pain, and it looks like I won the bet: I haven't needed any pain medication since last night. Woo hoo!
This morning I mowed our lawn and blew the driveway clean, at which point the heat plus my mostly sleepless night caused me to call it a day...
He'd already reviewed my X-rays, and launched into a detailed explanation (complete with diagrams he drew as he was talking) of exactly what was wrong with my tooth – an infected root, on a tooth with a porcelain crown. There's also the possibility of a different root on the same tooth being cracked. Recommendation: he'd drill through my crown, trying to preserve it, then clean out the accessible infection in my tooth. He'd then pack it with antibiotics, stuff it with gutta-percha, put a temporary plug in the hole, and send me to an endodontics specialist for the actual root canal. By 1:20 pm he had actually completed all this (with the aid of two assistants and impressive organization) and I was out the door. Next stop: Reed's Pharmacy, for the antibiotics and pain meds that would sustain me until my appointment next week. Dr. Gunnell told me there was a 50/50 chance that the antibiotic would knock the infection down to the point where there was no pain, and it looks like I won the bet: I haven't needed any pain medication since last night. Woo hoo!
This morning I mowed our lawn and blew the driveway clean, at which point the heat plus my mostly sleepless night caused me to call it a day...
City governments are worried...
City governments are worried... Because driverless (automated) cars will not run stop signs or red lights, or speed – and city revenues from ticket sales fines will plummet. The progressive reflex will be to ban driverless cars. Then after deeper thought, they'll realize it's a new tax opportunity...
Just put this country out of its misery, huh? Part III...
Just put this country out of its misery, huh? Part III... This is not The Onion – it's an official Health and Human Services Administration web page:
You should be prepared when Aunt Janine says something like, “Obamacare hasn’t helped anyone!” So here are a few points to remember during this long holiday weekend:Speechless, I am, at the squandering of even more of my tax dollars. I'm afraid to know how much of my money was spent creating this garbage...
Situation: Uncle Ted claims Obamacare is a train wreck and has cost jobs.
You say: Uncle Ted, you’ve gotten ahold of some old talking points. With greater access to affordable, quality health insurance, the Affordable Care Act is helping individuals and strengthening our economy!
Since the main components of the law went into effect, we’ve reduced the number of uninsured by 16.4 million, the largest increase in the insured in decades. Before the ACA, the U.S. economy faced rapidly growing health costs that put enormous pressure on businesses and consumers. We paid more than any country without better health results, and millions of Americans were one illness away from bankruptcy. Today, we’ve seen the slowest growth in health costs in half a century, improved patient safety has saved an estimated 50,000 lives and $12 billion, and employer premiums for family coverage grew just 3 percent in 2014, tied with 2010 for the lowest on record back to 1999.
Meanwhile, since the ACA was signed, the private sector has added 12.8 million jobs over 64 straight months of job growth, extending the longest streak on record. The increase in employment over that period is due almost entirely to higher full-time employment. The number of people working part-time who would prefer to be full-time has fallen by 2.6 million from March 2010 through May 2015, including a decline of 1.1 million since December 2013.
Now, would you like more corn?
Just put this country out of its misery, huh? Part II...
“Just put this country out of its misery now, huh?”
“Just put this country out of its misery now, huh?” So says Ace, and it's easy to see why...
Unemployment is down...
Unemployment is down... At least, the official number is. But if you look at labor force participation (a much more useful measure, in my view), it's down to 62.6% – a number last seen in 1977. For those of you who are less ancient than I am, let me remind you that 1977 was Jimmy Carter's first year in office. The country was suffering from a terrible recession, partly driven by skyrocketing oil prices. In that context, consider that our labor force participation rate has just declined to a level matching those parlous economic times. Yeah, that's how good our economy is doing!
For the government to claim that unemployment is falling sounds like Orwellian doublethink, no?
For the government to claim that unemployment is falling sounds like Orwellian doublethink, no?
Race vs. violent crime in the U.S...
Race vs. violent crime in the U.S... Some interesting data here, with more confirmations than surprises. Violent crime is disproportionately committed by blacks, including (perhaps especially) blacks on blacks. Black on white crime, as I'd expect, is far lower than perceived by whites...
Lunch for a hot summer day...
Lunch for a hot summer day... I just cubed a tomato, an avocado, a roasted red pepper, and a thick slice of ham. Tossed it all with a tablespoon or so of Duke's mayonnaise. Ate it with a glass of ice cold apple juice. Oh, yum!
Thursday, July 2, 2015
With two numbers and a single arithmetic operation...
With two numbers and a single arithmetic operation ... generate the Fibonacci sequence up to 24 digit results. How could you possibly do this? Here's how: divide 1 by 999,999,999,999,999,999,999,998,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999!
Who thinks of these things?!?!
Who thinks of these things?!?!
Is this really funny?
Is this really funny? A “joke” sent along by my brother Scott:
Sad about my country, I am...
Hillary Clinton goes to a gifted-student primary school in New York to talk about the world. After her talk she offers question time. One little boy puts up his hand. Hillary asks him what his name is.This reminds me, strongly, of the dark Russian humor of the Soviet era. My first reaction was ... that it wouldn't surprise me at all to find that this was a true story. My second reaction was ... the story actually is implausible – but only because Hillary doesn't answer unscripted questions. My last reaction was ... this isn't funny, though I know it's supposed to be a joke.
"Kenneth," he answers.
"And what is your question, Kenneth?"
"I have three questions: First - whatever happened in Benghazi? Second - why would you run for President after your husband shamed the office? And, Third - “whatever happened to the missing 6 billion dollars while you were Secretary of State?"
Just then the bell rings for recess. Hillary Clinton informs the kiddies they will continue after recess.
When they resume Hillary says, "Okay where were we? Oh, that's right, question time. Who has a question?"
A different boy puts his hand up; Hillary points to him and asks him what his name is.
"Johnny," he answers.
"And what is your question, Johnny?"
"I have five questions: First - whatever happened in Benghazi? Second - why would you run for President after your husband shamed the office? Third- whatever happened to the missing 6 billion dollars while you were Secretary of State? Fourth - why did the recess bell go off 20 minutes early? And, Fifth - where's Kenneth?"
Sad about my country, I am...
Ricochet's Daily Shot...
Ricochet's Daily Shot... I've blogged about Ricochet on several occasions. It's one of my favorite sites, and it's part of my morning reading routine. I love their commenting Code of Conduct, which keeps the comment threads civil. The writers and commenters are top drawer. One of the features of that web site is a daily email called the Daily Shot, and it's something I look forward to reading every morning. It's a free subscription even if you don't join Ricochet; just go to their home page, look on the upper right, and sign up. Highly recommended! I'd pay for Ricochet membership just to get that email :)
Here's a sample from this morning's Daily Shot:
Here's a sample from this morning's Daily Shot:
Want to Understand Greece? Take This and Extrapolate it Across a Whole EconomyLove that last paragraph :)
Greece is in quite a pickle. It has defaulted on its debt payments to the IMF, it’s cut off (for the time being) from a European bailout, and its prime minister ... is a piece of work. Alexis Tsipras seems to be in over his head.
First, he left bailout negotiations, insisting on a public referendum on the conditions Greece’s creditors were demanding. Then he let his nation go into default on its debt payments. Then, he suddenly realized how bad an idea that was, so he wrote a letter late Tuesday to other European leaders and the IMF, accepting the terms of their bailout. Then he started telling his voters to reject the measure.
On Wednesday, finance ministers from Eurozone countries held a conference call to collectively facepalm ... and then to talk about Tsipras. They decided that, rather than jump in and help, they’re going to wait for the outcome of Sunday’s referendum. You know, rather than rely on the whims of the prime minister/hormonal teenager. Many of Greece’s creditors also have serious doubts that, even if bailed out, Tsipras’s left-wing government would make the necessary reforms.
So now it’s in the lap of the gods and the hands of Greek voters. (You know, the folks who elected Tsipras to begin with). Well, at least until Tsipras changes his mind six more times tomorrow.
Friends, we should applaud the man. It takes an extra level of ineptness of make even Barack Obama look like a decisive leader.
Morning in Paradise...
Morning in Paradise... Two of the dogs (Miki and Race) and I took a brisk morning walk just after 5 am this morning. Mo'i can only walk about a half mile before he starts getting tired, but without him we did just over a mile (each way) this morning.
It was a beautiful morning, cool and crisp. A full moon hung over the Wellsville Mountains to our west, with wispy little clouds occasionally scudding across its orb. When we set out, the first hints of dawn showed over the Wasatch Mountains to our east. By the time we came back, we had a gorgeous sunrise behind us, which I kept stopping to spin about and look at. We passed barley fields that in the space of a single day had their crowns turn from green to brown. In another day or two, the entire plants will be brown, and it will be time to harvest it.
We also passed a very active striped skunk in a recently mowed alfalfa field just south of the road we were walking on. Though the skunk got to within about 20' of us, the two dogs never saw it. It was downwind, so they couldn't smell it either. That skunk was moving faster than I've ever seen a skunk move before, foraging for bugs and whatever else that skunks eat. It was headed straight for us, and showed no signs of hesitating – so I hurried the mutts along to get out of its way. Sure enough, just 30 seconds or so after we zoomed by it, it crossed the road behind us.
Photos taken along the way:
It was a beautiful morning, cool and crisp. A full moon hung over the Wellsville Mountains to our west, with wispy little clouds occasionally scudding across its orb. When we set out, the first hints of dawn showed over the Wasatch Mountains to our east. By the time we came back, we had a gorgeous sunrise behind us, which I kept stopping to spin about and look at. We passed barley fields that in the space of a single day had their crowns turn from green to brown. In another day or two, the entire plants will be brown, and it will be time to harvest it.
We also passed a very active striped skunk in a recently mowed alfalfa field just south of the road we were walking on. Though the skunk got to within about 20' of us, the two dogs never saw it. It was downwind, so they couldn't smell it either. That skunk was moving faster than I've ever seen a skunk move before, foraging for bugs and whatever else that skunks eat. It was headed straight for us, and showed no signs of hesitating – so I hurried the mutts along to get out of its way. Sure enough, just 30 seconds or so after we zoomed by it, it crossed the road behind us.
Photos taken along the way:
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