Winter Paradise...

Winter Paradise...  Some photos from around our yard, none of them more than 50' from our house.  Click any thumbnail to embiggen:

What's that?

What's that?  Why it's a close-up image of some Martian sand, from the dark dunes Curiosity is currently exploring.

Staring at this raises all sorts of questions for me, mainly because that sand looks so very much like sand I might find here on Earth.  Here, we understand a lot about how such sands form.  All of the processes I know of involve water: the freezing ices of winter (expanding in cracks to break rocks up), the erosion of particles in flowing water, or the pounding waters of the sea (which break up rocks by pounding them).  How did this sand happen on Mars?  Is there some mechanism that involves only atmospheric gases that created them?  Or is this good evidence of the presence of water?

Star cluster R136...

Star cluster R136...  Via APOD, of course.  Click thumbnail at right to embiggen, or get the glorious full resolution image...

A couple of good ones...

A couple of good ones ... via my lovely bride:

Ed Yourdon, RIP...

Ed Yourdon, RIP...  For geeks of a certain age, Ed Yourdon is a name that conjures up memories of computer programming's first tentative steps toward engineering, rather than as a pure art.  His book Structured Design was a milestone.  It's largely forgotten now, as its essentials have been absorbed into the programming culture as well as into successor design “fads”.  For me that book was revelatory ... it truly introduced me to the idea that one could usefully think about patterns in the way one wrote code.

I had the chance to meet (and talk with) Ed on two occasions, both times at conferences.  Once was in the early '80s, when my then-employer sent me to a conference put on by Roger Oech; the other in the early '90s at Comdex.  At that first conference, I had lunch with him, and we share some memories of the early days of microcomputing.  Even then, both of us were surprised at how quickly microcomputers were ramping up – and neither of us had any clue that those days were but the beginning.

Ed's book sticks in my mind mostly for one thing it accomplished: teaching this young geek why the spaghetti code (the only kind I'd ever written to that point, with jumps sprinkled randomly throughout) was a bad idea, and how it could be better done.  I still remember the conflict I felt then, between the rigor and beauty of structured programming and the need for performance optimizations.  I really didn't understand, then, that the low performance microcomputers of the day would shortly be antiques, and that the cost of a few extra computer instructions would soon be zero for all practical purposes.  It seems downright silly today to assert that it might be necessary to write some unstructured code to get the performance we needed, but back then it was quite a normal thing.  It still happens today, but on increasingly rare occasions...

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  Woke up this morning to 35°F temperatures, gentle snowfall, and about 2" of new snow on the ground.  When I let the dogs out for their morning constitutional, they gamboled about the back yard with sheer joy.  There's something about that fluffy snow that they really like.  I had to go out in the yard (with my housecoat and boots :) to retrieve them; they didn't really want to come back inside.  All three of them had a nice coat of fresh snow on them that (of course!) they didn't want to get rid of until after they were back inside...

Will space junk start a war?

Will space junk start a war?  That's what these scientists are saying, but I suspect the hyperbole is aimed at getting some action on the subject.

I do remember reading a science fiction story in which the author postulated the end of civilization after a space junk cascade took out all the communications satellites, which many nations interpreted as an act of war by some enemy.  The result was a world war that reduced us all to Stone Age level.  Considering that I read the story in the '60s, that author seems ... prescient...

History-making astronomical plates...

History-making astronomical plates...  The photographic plate at right was made in 1943 by astronomer Walter Baade, showing the best view of the Andromeda Galaxy anyone had ever seen – and the first one that made it obvious that the “fuzzy spot” was actually an enormous collection of stars.  It's one of the plates chosen for this piece on the history of photographic astronomy...

Another irreproducible science report?

Another irreproducible science report?  Looks that way.  This one spawned a multi-billion dollar industry selling devices to stave off Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), which ... may not be real at all.

The social sciences are becoming indistinguishable from the JIR...

Capitalism is accomplishing...

Capitalism is accomplishing ... what NASA could not.  They're making better videos along the way, too :)  More here.  If you're wondering what the “Karman line” is, here's an explanation...

Our local star...

Our local star ... the sun, is just a bit more complicated than most people think.  The video at right, captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO, a solar telescope in space), shows solar filaments warped by dynamic magnetic fields.

Many years ago I visited the Kitt Peak Observatory, mostly to get a glimpse of the McMath-Pierce solar telescope, still the largest instrument of its kind.  I remember flipping through a book of some of the photos it took – revolutionary at the time.  Today they seem primitive by comparison with the SDO's product.  Nevertheless, the McMath-Pierce telescope is still in active use; it's size and ability to change sensors keep it useful...

Best optical illusion evah?

Best optical illusion evah?  I can't convince myself that the clip at right is on the up-and-up.  If it's really an optical illusion, it's so good that I can't see the reality.  That would make it a damned fine illusion!  Lots of comments on this Reddit thread...

Who's on first?

Who's on first?  Anyone old enough to remember Abbott and Costello will appreciate this :)  Via my lovely bride:

COSTELLO: I want to talk about the unemployment rate in America .

ABBOTT: Good Subject. Terrible Times. It’s 5.6%.

COSTELLO: That many people are out of work?

ABBOTT: No, that’s 23%.

COSTELLO: You just said 5.6%.

ABBOTT: 5.6% Unemployed.

COSTELLO: Right 5.6% out of work.

ABBOTT: No, that’s 23%.

COSTELLO: Okay, so it’s 23% unemployed.

ABBOTT: No, that’s 5.6%.

COSTELLO: WAIT A MINUTE. Is it 5.6% or 23%?

ABBOTT: 5.6% are unemployed. 23% are out of work.

COSTELLO: If you are out of work you are unemployed.

ABBOTT: No, Obama said you can’t count the “Out of Work” as the unemployed. You have to look for work to be unemployed.

COSTELLO: BUT THEY ARE OUT OF WORK!!!

ABBOTT: No, you miss his point.

COSTELLO: What point?

ABBOTT: Someone who doesn’t look for work can’t be counted with those who look for work. It wouldn’t be fair.

COSTELLO: To whom?

ABBOTT: The unemployed.

COSTELLO: But ALL of them are out of work.

ABBOTT: No, the unemployed are actively looking for work. Those who are out of work gave up looking and if you give up, you are no longer in the ranks of the unemployed.

COSTELLO: So if you’re off the unemployment roles that would count as less unemployment?

ABBOTT: Unemployment would go down. Absolutely!

COSTELLO: The unemployment just goes down because you don’t look for work?

ABBOTT: Absolutely it goes down. That’s how it gets to 5.6%. Otherwise it would be 23%.



COSTELLO: Wait, I got a question for you. That means there are two ways to bring down the unemployment number?

ABBOTT: Two ways is correct.

COSTELLO: Unemployment can go down if someone gets a job?

ABBOTT: Correct.

COSTELLO: And unemployment can also go down if you stop looking for a job?

ABBOTT: Bingo.

COSTELLO: So there are two ways to bring unemployment down, and the easier of the two is to have people stop looking for work.

ABBOTT: Now you’re thinking like a Democrat.

COSTELLO: I don’t even know what the hell I just said!

ABBOTT: Now you’re thinking like Hilary.

Yup, I'd say Costello got it. Now if only American voters would get it...

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  Oh, we had a fine evening yesterday!

Our dinner was spectacular – Debbie's baked salmon (Ora King, of course), Brussels sprouts (quartered, tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and baked), and scalloped potatoes (a truly evil recipe with half-and-half, Gruyere cheese, and the wonderful bacon we get here).  My brother Scott was here with us, and it was fun to hear his moans and groans of gustatory pleasure.  Even the dogs got to share a bit, with scraps and enthusiastic plate-licking :)

Afterwards we played cards, our family standard game of “Oh, Shit!”  When trying to find the rules just now, I discovered that there are a bazillion variations on this game – we may have to try some :).  In any case, it was a pleasant and companionable way to spend a few hours together.

When it was time to end our evening, we poured a cup of tea into Scott to get him alert enough to drive safely back to his cabin.  Somehow I'm sure that when he got back to his house, he (briefly) contemplated putting his leftovers package into the refrigerator, and then simply ate it all...

I feel sorry for (almost) all of you...

I feel sorry for (almost) all of you...  Why?  First because you missed Debbie's chicken-mushroom soup.  We ate it all; finished it off yesterday afternoon.  It was so good!  Then because you're going to miss Debbie's baked Ora King salmon this afternoon (except for my brother Scott, who's joining us for dinner).  Much deliciousness around here!

I read articles...

I read articles ... like this one, and I wonder: does anyone believe a word she says?  That article is from NPR, and you'll note how carefully it avoids any judgment – or push-back, or statements of alternative views, etc.  If this (and other outlets just as carefully pro-Democrat) was your only source of news, you might be forgiven for siding with The Hillary.  But are their any prospective voters like that?  The chart at right (from RealClearPolitics this morning) says ... yes, there are. 

That's quite amazing to me.  And depressing.  Though if you're a Democrat and you think your only alternative it The Bernie...

Those burrowing humans!

Those burrowing humans!  This is the first I've heard of a proposed project (lots more here) to build a 92 kilometer (about 55 mile) long tunnel under the Baltic Sea between Helsinki, Finland and Tallinn, Estonia.  The estimated costs are up to 13 billion Euros.  Politicians nearly always underestimate such costs, so likely it would be more like 20 to 30 billion Euros (or $18 to $27 billion at today's exchange rates). 

I suspect the benefits for such a tunnel would be primarily for the Finns, who by virtue of their geography are relatively isolated from the rest of Europe.  That tunnel would give them direct access to all of Europe by rail, which is much less expensive than air travel.  Of course, it would also do the reverse: give all of Europe direct rail access to Finland.  One likely consequence of that I personally find unfortunate: there will be many more people traveling to the relatively isolated (and very beautiful) hinterlands of Finland...

Some very unsettled science...

Some very unsettled science...  Our understanding of human history has been constantly changing throughout my entire life (and of course, before that as well).  This, despite the very confident and (dare I say?) settled tone of all the texts and science books on the subject I've read, up until about 20 years ago.  At that point the relevant science communities seemed to collectively decide they were better off not claiming that they actually knew anything – instead, they've been concentrating on finding actual evidence (like the mammoth in this story). 

Why did that science community take the humbler approach, and the climatologists their fervently preachy approach?  The answer seems obvious: money.  There's no grant money riding on any particular answer from archaeology and anthropology.  Climatologists, on the other hand, know their grant money derives from fear of global warming.  It's conspicuously true that the (relatively few) dissenting voices in that community are almost entirely immune to this grant money influence, because of tenure, impending retirement, independent resources, etc.

Is object-oriented programming dead?

Is object-oriented programming dead?  Or a disaster?  It's interesting for us ancient geeks to survey the apparently never-ending train of code design fads.  I have personally experienced three major such fads: structured programming, object-oriented programming, and (the current one) functional programming.  In each case, proponents touted the earth-shaking power, beauty, and correctness of their fad with religious fervor – and, often, with the sort of fanaticism one all too often associates with fundamentalist religions.  In each case, the impact on how everyday programmers actually go about their work has been ... minimal. 

I'm not saying that there has been no progress made in understanding software design or architecture, and I'm certainly not saying that the state of software design and architecture hasn't progressed.  They have, and in major ways.  Teams of programmers today routinely build systems that are vastly larger and more complex than anything built even 10 years ago.  But I am saying that most of this progress has been made through developments other than those major software design fads.  We don't build large, complex systems today because of (say) object-oriented programming.  Mostly, I think, we can build them today because we have far better tools available (true in no small part to the open software movement), and on better programming languages. 

When I use IntelliJ Idea today to write Java or JavaScript code, I frequently marvel at its power compared to the tools I used in the late '70s.  It's like comparing Home Depot's tool section to a screwdriver with a broken handle and a boogered-up blade.  Those tools have made far more impact on my programming productivity, and on the reliability of the programs I write, than my inculcation into the fads of structured programming, object-oriented programming, and functional programming have.

And then there's the programming languages, which could quite reasonably be thought of as just another tool.  It's almost impossible to overstate the impact of the sheer power of a language like Java (and I'm including both its standard libraries and the host of open source libraries readily available for it) compared with the assembly language environment I programmed with back in the '70s.  I can quite literally code things in minutes in Java that would have taken months in assembly language back in those days. 

So is object-oriented programming dead?  Nah, not really.  But it's not all that important, either...

The snow-diving squirrel...

The snow-diving squirrel ... of Estonia.  Cute little bugger, isn't he?

Five little planets...

Five little planets ... all in a row.  Don't miss it!

Should space be commercialized?

Should space be commercialized?  Oh, hell yes, it should.  Profit-seeking should drive (and fund!) development in space, most especially manned space travel.  Fundamental to that would be property rights in space.  Aeon has a good piece on exactly this topic...

Misleading statistics...

Misleading statistics...  James Pethokoukis, writing at Ricochet, has a good takedown of the statistical analysis summarized by the graph at right.  This analysis (and the graph) was produced by Oxfam.  Among the many doozies one could infer from the graph is this one: that the U.S. has some of the poorest people in the world.  Really?

Yes, I am aware...

Yes, I am aware...  This is in reply to the (male!) reader who shall remain anonymous: yes, I am aware that the Day-by-Day cartoon I feature on the right occasionally has some depictions of nude women.  I happen to like naked women!  I wish they were featured more often :)  No, I will not remove it from my blog to protect your delicate (and, dare I say, somewhat warped) sensibilities.  If you don't like it, then don't visit here.

Physical therapy...

Physical therapy ... kicked Debbie out this morning!  It's all good, though: they said she no longer needs to go.  She can do all she needs at home.  We go back in two weeks for a checkup, but basically ... she's done!

With that, we will declare her surgery (just two weeks ago today!) a complete success...

Scharrkreise...

Scharrkreise...  Beautiful image at right of a perfect circle made by a plant, some wind, and some sand.  I've seen many similar circles made by desert lilies in the desert east of San Diego, but I never managed to capture it quite so perfectly as this photographer did...

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  I made a run to the grocery store yesterday, to pick up the ingredients for Debbie's chicken-mushroom soup (which I will be enjoying later this morning!).  On the way back from the grocery store, in a light drizzle, I was on a stretch of the highway with two lanes in each direction.  Passing through an area where the speed limit was 45 MPH, a pickup and I were traveling side-by-side, with me in the left lane.  Behind me a little car zoomed up to within a few feet of my rear bumper, and next thing I know it's honking at me, flashing its lights, and the driver (a middle-aged woman) was waving at me angrily.

Now that's the sort of thing one routinely sees on the highways of southern California, but not up here in northern Utah!  I was quite shocked, actually, as that sort of behavior is just not seen here.  Maybe 10 seconds after she approached my bumper, the truck on my right turned off the highway, and right away the lady behind me jerked to the right lane, zipped up right next to me, and rolled down her window – in the drizzle, mind you!  I looked over to see a foaming-at-the-mouth angry woman, flipping me the bird, and yelling something that I couldn't (thankfully!) hear.  Then she took off.

I was pondering the outrageousness of this behavior when I saw a police car behind me light off his flashy lights.  He zoomed by me on the right, and pulled over Ms. Outraged.  I pulled over right behind him, thinking I might be able to help somehow.  The cop got out of his car, waved at me in a friendly way, and walked up to her car.  After speaking with her for a minute, he came back to my truck and we had a nice conversation.  It turns out that Ms. Outraged is named Marsha, and she's well-known to the local cops.  She's had two previous incidents of aggressive driving and distracted driving; this would make the third – and the one that would cost her her license.  The cop asked me if I'd be willing to testify if she asked for a jury trial, and of course I said yes.  He took my contact info and a brief statement, then sent me on my way.  With a smile.  I can't imagine that ever happening in southern California!

Yesterday evening, Debbie and I watched The Martian on DVD.  I'd already read the book (which I loved!), but Debbie had not.  The movie did quite a good job of following the book, right up until the very last scene in space where the filmmaker took some liberties with the plot line.  Compared with most movies made from books, this was a small divergence.  As always, though, the book had far more detail than the movie could possibly cram in.  I enjoyed the movie, probably most especially the scenery.  I'm assuming that's all computer-generated, but it's still quite beautiful – even though it doesn't really match the photos I've seen of the Martian surface :)

Space flowers...

Space flowers...  The first flowers grown in space, some orange zinnias.  This was part of an experiment on the ISS designed to learn how to grow things in space.  I like the flower, but I hate the waste taxpayer dollars being spent on the ISS – most especially on the purposeless pursuit of manned space missions (which this experiment is part of)...

Still beautiful after all these months...

Still beautiful after all these months...  Comet 67P, imaged by the Rosetta robotic explorer...

I'm not surprised by this:

I'm not surprised by this: a new study casts doubt on the notion that smoking marijuana reduces cognitive function.  My lack of surprise isn't from personal experience, but rather from observation: a significant percentage (probably over half of those under 40) of the talented programmers I've worked with were regular marijuana users.  I saw no observable impact on their performance...

Curiosity and the dark dune of Mars...

Curiosity and the dark dune of Mars...  Curiosity has been studying some dark dunes on Mars for several weeks now.  The photo at right shows the main object of its study.  Go, Curiosity!  Via APOD, of course.   Full resolution photo here.

And speaking of Curiosity ... check out the recent photo it took (with the mast camera) at left.  The photo shows a soil analysis system mounted on Curiosity's deck.  The interesting thing to me here is all the accumulated dust.  Curiosity needs a good windstorm to blow all that crap off!

Synchronization and syntonization...

Synchronization and syntonization...  It's amazingly difficult for a computer to keep very precise time.  Anything more accurate than within a second or two of accepted standards is a major challenge. 

I first ran into this when working for an electronic trading company, where we were required (by regulatory agencies) to keep our logs accurate to sub-second levels.  When I was given responsibility for the IT organization, one of the first things the team hit me with was that we were out of compliance with the regulations.  In fact, our servers weren't even able to stay with 10 seconds of the “correct” time!  Fixing that problem took months of very hard work by several people on the team, mainly to make sure we had no delays (from network gear, mostly) between our logging servers and their time source. We also had to buy $20,000 worth of special “Stratum 1” NTP servers that were synced to atomic clocks on GPS satellites. 

It's gotten a little cheaper these days, but not really any easier...

A winner like ME!

A winner like ME!  My pistol-packing mama passed along this appearance by Donald Trump on the Jimmy Kimmel show.  It includes a segment (starting at around the 3:00 mark) that's pretty funny at first blush ... but then I got to thinking what it would be like to have a President Trump who would embody what's being spoofed here.  That's not a particularly pleasant or humorless thought.

Estonia looks better all the time, if only it didn't have Pesky Putin with a gun at its side...

No trouble...

No trouble...  Debbie's friend never has any trouble when she goes to the ATM, as she brings along her Smith and Wesson.  Smith is on the left, Wesson on the right!

Several scientific papers suggesting that GMO crops might be harmful...

Several scientific papers suggesting that GMO crops might be harmful ... may have been fraudulent.  Sadly, I'm not surprised.  Disappointed, yes.  Surprised?  Not so much.  This is of a piece with the typical “the ends justify the means” approach that the greenies and progressives routinely take...

So close!

So close!  Yesterday SpaceX attempted to land a Falcon 9 on a barge off the coast of California (after a launch from Vandenburg Air Force Base).  This was challenging for several reasons, not least of which was weather that had the barge heaving and rolling.  Nevertheless, as you can see in the video at right, the landing itself went perfectly.  After the rocket successfully touched down, one of the landing legs collapsed and the rocket fell over and exploded.

On the one hand, this must be very disappointing for the SpaceX team.  Of course they want the landing to be completely successful.  On the other hand, this was crazy-close to being that complete success.  So much went well that I have utterly no doubt that they will not only succeed one of these fine days, but they'll make it routine – and in the process, drastically reduce the cost of putting satellites into orbit.

From one perspective this is a fine story about the power of capitalism.  With a budget that is minuscule by NASA standards, SpaceX has (almost) done what NASA proclaimed impossible with any budget: made a reusable vertical-launch orbital-capable rocket.  One can quibble about the “subsidies” SpaceX is getting (in the form of launch contracts), but no matter how you look at it, those capitalists are giving us far more bang for the buck than the NASA technocrats ever did...

Making the primary mirror...

Making the primary mirror ... for gigantic astronomical telescopes.  This article has a nice description of the process; no jargon or math.

When I think about the artifacts that mankind produces, a few jump out as particularly amazing.  These mirrors are one.  Others that immediately come to mind include modern integrated circuits (especially CPUs and analog circuits), hard disk drives, and photo-realistic drawings...

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  We had a nice, slow day yesterday.  That's just what both Debbie and I needed, as we're both on the tail ends of a nasty sort of cold.  We're down to residual sniffles, the occasional hacking cough, and a bit of puniness; otherwise we're doing just fine.  It will feel great when this is gone!

We took a drive up to Hardware Ranch yesterday, despite this being “elk ride” season.  The elk are in enclosed pastures for the winter, and are as tame as cows.  The Hardware Ranch staff gives rides on rubber-wheeled wagons pulled by horses, right through the herd.  As you might imagine, there are unbelievable quantities of kids there.  Anyway, we were too early to see many deer (though we did see a few) – but there was plenty of beautiful winter scenery to see through the ongoing snowstorm.

Debbie made a new dish yesterday afternoon – a sort of Mexican lasagna.  Though it was a bit spicier than I prefer, it was very tasty.  The predominant flavors were chicken, chilies, cheese, and Mexican sour cream.  There were lasagna noodles, of course.  Overall it had the texture and flavor you'd expect from a great comfort food.  Next time she makes it, she's going to see if there's a way to tone down that spiciness.

We're looking forward to another easy, relaxing day today.  We got about three more inches of snow last night, which means there is now about 8" on the driveway.  I briefly considered plowing today, but talked myself out of it considering that there are four more inches in the forecast for Monday and Tuesday :)

Martian sand...

Martian sand ... close up.  Via Curiosity, of course...

Gaming the system...

Gaming the system...  Megan McArdle has a useful post up, explaining how it appears that Obamacare customers (victims?) are gaming the system, and how that's undermining the entire financial underpinnings of Obamacare.

As I look around at news reports and our own experiences with Obamacare, it looks to me like the unraveling is (a) already well underway, and (b) damned close to inevitable.  I've been surprised by how many people I've met who have no comprehensive understanding of how Obamacare works – but who know at expert level exactly how they can get around the rules to their personal advantage.  That's the very essence of “gaming the system”. 

This particular game is tilted in favor of two groups: the young and healthy, and people making less than roughly $100k a year.  Those two groups are, of course, not mutually exclusive – quite the opposite.  We're in neither group, so our best bet (at the moment, anyway) seems to be to survive until Medicare eligibility.  Until then, we get to help pay for everyone else's healthcare.  And I won't be a bit surprised to discover that when I reach 65, the rules have been changed in a way that steals even more of our money.  If Bernie Sanders gets elected, burying money is going to look quite attractive...

Data tampering...

Data tampering...  Tony Heller has a great (and typically detailed) post up that shows rather convincingly how NASA has tampered with their weather data to bolster the case for anthropogenic global warming (AGW). 

This tampering is accomplished in a manner that's familiar to anyone who watches what the government does: they didn't lie about the actual data – they just “adjusted” it.  They adjusted the hell out of it. 

If you're a regular reader of this blog, then you know another blatant example of this data tampering: the way the Bureau of Labor Statistics presents unemployment.  The number that gets the publicity is not the actual number of unemployed people (though that's what most people believe), but rather an “adjusted” number.  That adjusted number shows a far lower unemployment percentage than the actual reality.

This tampering is just as blatant.  The graph at upper right is one of the “tells”: it shows how much the actual measured temperature has been adjusted for various years.  The numbers that NASA presents are the measured temperatures plus this adjustment.  If the measured temperatures stayed perfectly flat (and in fact they're not far off that), then after adjustment they'd show – what a surprise! – the infamous “hockey stick” increase.

Corruption takes many forms.  This is one of them...

“We’ve just legalized mortgage fraud.”

“We’ve just legalized mortgage fraud.” That's Kevin Williamson, writing at the National Review, and I can't think of a better way to summarize it.  More:

But Fannie Mae, the organized-crime syndicate masquerading as a quasi-governmental entity, has other ideas. Under its new and cynically misnamed “HomeReady” program, borrowers with subprime credit don’t need to show that they have enough income to qualify for the mortgage they’re after — they simply have to show that all the people residing in their household put together have enough income to qualify for that mortgage. We’re not talking just about husbands and wives here, but any group of people who happen to share a roof and a mailing address. And some non-residents can be added, too, such as your parents.

That would be one thing if all these people were applying for a mortgage together, and were jointly on the hook for the mortgage payments. But that isn’t the case. HomeReady will permit borrowers to claim other people’s income for the purpose for qualifying for a mortgage, but will not give mortgage lenders any actual claim against that additional income.

This is madness.

Madness, indeed.  But it seems of a piece with our government's careening toward socialism and fantasy-based reckoning...

Russian book jackets...

Russian book jackets ... from the 1930s.  For those of you with an imperfect grasp on 20th history, that's in the early years of the Soviet Union.  That's an example at right; many more here...

Obamacare explained...

Obamacare explained ... in just four sentences!  Via my lovely bride:

1. In order to insure the uninsured, we first have to uninsure the insured.
2. Next, we require the newly uninsured to be reinsured.
3. To reinsure the newly uninsured, they are required to pay extra charges to be reinsured.
4. The extra charges are required so that the original insured, who became uninsured, and then became reinsured, can pay enough extra so that the original uninsured can be insured, so it will be ‘free-of-charge’ to them.

It sounds funny, until you study it carefully – and realize that every word is true!

Quote of the day...

Quote of the day...  By Senator Ted Cruz, via my lovely bride:

If Americans really wanted Obamacare ... you wouldn't need a law to make them buy it.

Well put.

Ok, this is really weird...

Ok, this is really weird...  I don't even know what to call it!  Via my pistol-packing mama, which will surprise exactly nobody who knows her...

Saturn in all its glory...

Saturn in all its glory ... as seen on March 7, 2015 in infrared light from the robot explorer Cassini.  Magnificent!  Full resolution version here...

Sunset in Paradise...

Sunset in Paradise...  That's what it looked like last night from our front yard, just after the sun dropped below the Wellsville Mountains:

Paradise ponders....

Paradise ponders...  Took a drive up to Hardware Ranch this afternoon, hoping to repeat the bazillion deer spotting we did on Sunday.  On the way up we saw one deer.  One.  We also saw a bald eagle, on the wing high above us.  We watched the penned elk for a while; had the place nearly to ourselves. Then on the way home we saw a couple deer, followed quickly by a bull moose (sans antlers, since they'd been shed) looking a bit lost and possibly exhausted.  After that Debbie started spotting deer about every 22 inches.  We must have seen 50.  As best we can figure, those deer all have their alarm clocks set for 3:30 in the afternoon!

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  We had a long and interesting day today.  It started bright and early at the physical therapy clinic, where Debbie got a real workout for the first time since her recent surgery.  She did great!  Then we drove to Wellsville to meet up with my brother Scott, and we all drove down to Ogden together.  The transit through Sardine Canyon to Brigham City was particularly beautiful, with the snowy mountains and frosty trees.  In Ogden we dropped Debbie off at her hairdresser's, and Scott and I continued down to the south side of Salt Lake City.  There we raided Trader Joe's for a very odd assortment of food and treats (Scott eats some mighty weird stuff!), followed by a quick pillaging of one of the big State liquor stores - our beer and wine stocks needed replenishing.  Then it was back to Ogden to pick up Debbie (with her nicely refurbished hair), and back toward home.

We made a slight detour in Brigham City, though - a turn toward Perry for a meal at Maddox.  Scott had never been, and if you're going to live in Cache Valley, then you have to know Maddox.  He's now been introduced by means of a New York strip steak advertised as 16 ounces, but actually more like 20.  Delicious, of course (it's Maddox!).

Then we really did head home.  That wasn't quite so pleasant.  Miki had chewed and clawed his way out of his soft (cloth) crate, and was loose in the house.  The crate was destroyed.  Then our poor old dog Mo'i had pooped and peed all over our kitchen.  So our welcome home was a big cleanup job :(

Still, it was worth it.  We had a decadent meal, good company, and now we're all stocked up with a variety of goodies.  And tomorrow's another day in Paradise!

A class act...

A class act...  Via my pistol-packing mama...

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  I dumped a few photos out of my phone.

The first one is Jahar, in his customary position tucked up against Debbie.  Whenever she's in the bedroom, you'll find him attached to her somehow (the exact position varies, but not the proximity).

The second one is Marley, Tim D.'s new dog.  He's two years old and is a bundle of energy – basically the complete opposite of Louie, Tim's dog that was killed a couple weeks ago.

The last photo is from last night, of the snow-covered Wasatch Mountains as seen from near our home, just before sunset.  The shadows of the Wellsville Mountains (behind me as I snapped that) have nearly crept to their peaks.

We took a drive yesterday afternoon, up toward Hardware Ranch.  We really hadn't expected to see any wildlife, but we saw something like 50 deer in about 10 groups.  We also saw a bald eagle sitting on a power pole right near the road, looking really pissed off.  I don't think he likes winter :)

Thank you, mystery person!

Thank you, mystery person!  On Friday morning, Fedex delivered a small box to us.  On the outside, it was marked “Collin Street Bakery”, in Corsicana, Texas.  Neither Debbie nor I had any idea what that bakery was, but hey – from a bakery it can't be too bad, can it?

So we opened the box, and discovered that it contained a fruitcake, in a traditional round tin.   We hadn't ordered it, so whoever did must be someone who knows me fairly well – well enough to know that I am one of 5 living humans who admit to liking fruit cake (well, good fruit cake, anyway).  Debbie is not one of the other 4 – she can't stand 'em.  Also, whoever it is knows our new address.  But there was no card with the cake, and no letter, so we have no idea who sent it!

Then we tried the fruit cake.

That's the best damned fruit cake I've ever had.  I've had some good ones in the past, but none even came close to this one.  When Debbie heard my exclamations of delight, she decided to try it, too – and now the cake is disappearing twice as fast as it was.  If a fruit cake is good enough to get Debbie to eat it, you know it's good!

So thank you, oh mysterious giver of fruit cake.  We don't know who you were, but thank you!

Geek: working around a Java bug...

Geek: working around a Java bug...  On Friday I ran smack into a weird bug in a most unexpected place, while doing something seemingly very straightforward.  I was creating a socket factory for SSL connections to a web site, using Jetty (which relies on standard Java library classes).  To do this, the socket factory needs to know about your certificates.  These are usually kept in a keystore file, which is what I am doing.  The standard API has you pass in the path to the keystore file, along with the password for it.  When I passed in the path, I got an exception (below with the first few lines of the stack trace):

Caused by: java.lang.RuntimeException: default directory must be absolute
   at sun.nio.fs.UnixFileSystem.(UnixFileSystem.java:54)
   at sun.nio.fs.LinuxFileSystem.(LinuxFileSystem.java:39)
   at sun.nio.fs.LinuxFileSystemProvider.newFileSystem(LinuxFileSystemProvider.java:43)
   at sun.nio.fs.LinuxFileSystemProvider.newFileSystem(LinuxFileSystemProvider.java:36)
   at sun.nio.fs.UnixFileSystemProvider.(UnixFileSystemProvider.java:55)

The default directory path was absolute, so this error made no sense.  Eventually I tracked down the source of the issue: a known Java bug (JDK-7181721)!  That's something one doesn't run into every day – virtually 100% of the time, the bug is either in your own code, or someone else's code that you're relying on – not the code that's actually part of Java.  This is so unusual that I was suspicious I was wrong at first.  So I came up with a workaround that avoided this code, and sure enough that fixed it.

The workaround?  It turns out that the socket factory as a completely separate way to get the certificates.  You can create a Keystore object (in memory) and load it yourself, then pass that in.  I did that this morning, and bye-bye problem.

I'd be quite happy to not run into another one of these!  On the other hand, finding and fixing such a bizzaro problem is kind of satisfying...

A slight change of plans...

A slight change of plans...  This past August we'd booked a trip to Hawai'i, to leave on January 13th, which would have been our first visit there in about five years.  With Debbie's surgery just a few days ago, and some recovery time needed, she's decided that she'd rather make that trip later, after she's more fully recovered.  So the trip has been canceled (boo hoo!), and we'll re-book it sometime later.

Happier news: Debbie's recovery is going rather spectacularly well!  Yesterday she spent most of the day on her own two feet, without crutches, cane, or any other kind of assist.  She reports that the pain that stopped her recovery progress over the past few months is gone – a pretty good indication that the meniscus tear has truly been the source of her issues.  Now she's got a different sort of pain, the soreness you'd expect after surgery.  It's already down to the point where she's not taking any pain medication except prior to physical therapy visits, and even then it's just ibuprofen.  She hasn't touched the opioids for days now.  Yay!

There's a new dog in town!

There's a new dog in town!  Not ours, but our neighbor Tim D.  Cute little bugger, isn't he?  For some reason they named the poor guy “Marley”.

We also heard from Sheila Miller, the breeder who has been the source of all our field spaniels over the years.  She's got a female who was just bred, and one of the puppies from her litter, if everything works out, has our name on it.  Sometime in March or April, there may be some yipping and squeaking in Paradise...

A geeky rescue...

A geeky rescue...  My friend and neighbor Tim D. had something of a computer emergency earlier this week.  His ancient Dell refused to boot, and made funny noises.  I checked it out for him, but it was deader than the proverbial door nail.  Not a hint of video, no audio, and no disk noises.  All I could really detect was the symptoms of a power supply in agony, which could be either the power supply itself, or something else drawing way too much power.  Tim didn't want to invest a lot of time or effort in it, so decided to upgrade to a new Dell: smaller, quieter, faster, and half the price.

Here's the rub, though: he had years of photos and documents on that old Dell that he really didn't want to lose.  He never backed up locally, of course.  He did have some kind of cloud backup running - but he had no idea what his account name or password might be.  Oh, my.

So today I went over to help him with his new machine.  First thing I noticed: the thing was larded up with an unconscionable amount of crapware, some of which was really obnoxious with the scary, misleading pop up screens full of doom-laden technobabble.  Sheesh.  I got rid of most of that, but at least one thing is still installed, forcing all of his web searches to go to Yahoo.  Shame, Dell.  I will never buy one of your machines again, nor will I recommend them.  Just awful.

Next I tried to figure out whether his Internet connection was up to snuff.  He's paying for a 105/50 connection, but his cable modem had a blinking orange light - likely some sort of problem.  Comcast told him to ignore the light.  I ran a speed test, and he's only getting a 13/12 connection - horrible, and not even close to what he's paying for.  He and I are declaring war on Comcast Commies!

Then I tried to figure out a way to log into his backup service.  Finally I got the account password reset, logged into his backup service - and discovered that he'd never actually backed up anything at all!  That meant that all his photos and documents existed in only one place: his old computer's hard disk.  Which, of course, might not be in working order.  Yikes!

So I removed his old hard disk, took it back to our house, and rifled through my boxes of junk to look for a magic widget I bought a couple of years ago.  This thing turns any SATA or IDE disk into a USB disk.  If Tim were really, really lucky, that would mean that I could mount that old disk on my Mac as an external drive, and recover his files.

Well, Tim must be doing something right, because that old disk spun right up.  Further, my Mac already had a read-only NTFS file system driver installed - so I could read it with no fuss at all.  A few minutes of work with the Finder and I had all his files on a thumb drive.  A half hour or so later, they were on his new computer.  Yay!

Now I've got him running on BackBlaze, my favorite cloud backup ... and I've recorded his credentials so he doesn't get in trouble like this again!  He'll have to find some new way to live dangerously :)

Quote of the day...

Quote of the day...  This time it's from the U.S. government, in a document just released called Scientific Report of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee.  On the off chance that you're not familiar with this committee, they're the ones who issue the federal government's official dietary guidelines – the ones quoted so often in the press, and likely, by your doctor.

For decades these guidelines have contained strict limitations on the consumption of cholesterol.  Generations of Americans have been told that the science was settled: they should stop eating those nasty egg yolks.  So you might be surprised to see this in the latest (2015) guidelines:

Previously, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommended that cholesterol intake be limited to no more than 300 mg/day. The 2015 DGAC will not bring forward this recommendation because available evidence shows no appreciable relationship between consumption of dietary cholesterol and serum cholesterol, consistent with the conclusions of the AHA/ACC report. Cholesterol is not a nutrient of concern for overconsumption.

Translated, this says: our previous guidelines were bullshit.  Eat all the cholesterol you want, as the cholesterol you eat doesn't affect the cholesterol in your blood – we're not aware of any potential for eating too much.  So go right ahead and eat those egg yolks – jumbo, if you'd like.

Sheesh.

Flying colors!

Flying colors!  That's how Debbie's first physical therapy went.  Her tiny wounds are nearly healed already, no infection, and the swelling is almost completely gone.  Best of all: full range of motion with very little pain.  Yay!

Excellent speech..

Excellent speech ... by Brigadier General Michael Kurilla.   Via Michael Yon, much more here...

Another Dilbert strip...

Another Dilbert strip ... that resonates oh-so-strongly with my corporate experience:

One incident in particular comes right to mind, in which my then-CEO, a nice fellow named John T., sent me off to make a budget spreadsheet for the engineering department.  He particularly wanted it to show the effects of a planned layoff.  When I brought the spreadsheet down, he said (these are his exact words):

“Fix that so that the total savings is $1.4 million.”

My calculations had showed a roughly $600 thousand savings.  Further discussion revealed that he really, truly didn't care whether the spreadsheet represented reality at all.  All he cared about was the bottom line.  So I just changed (as he stood there) the total savings cell from a formula to a fixed value of $1.4 million.  He said:

“Great!  But add just a little bit so it doesn’t look like we just made it up.”

At that point I reverted the spreadsheet to the way I had built it, emailed it to him, and told him I didn't want to know what he did with it...

Debbie update...

Debbie update...  All is well!  She's progressing nicely, getting around on crutches, and already able to put considerable weight on her surgery knee.  Her bandage comes off this afternoon, and tomorrow morning we've got the first physical therapy session scheduled...

A great collection of animal photos...

A great collection of animal photos...  See them all here.  Sample at right is for my pistol-packing mama, who's a big fan of owls...

Highlights from the 2014 Budapest air show...

Highlights from the 2014 Budapest air show...  There's some mighty fine flying in here, along with some very interesting aircraft...

Debbie's meniscus tear, the photo...

Debbie's meniscus tear, the photo...  At right is the most interesting photo of the 20 or so images her surgeon took through his arthroscopic apparatus.  What you're looking at is the space between the outside ball and socket in her right knee.  The fuzzy white material is the torn up meniscus, which is most likely the source of the knee pain she's been having ever since her injury last June.  The metallic object at the right (just above center) is part of the surgeon's arthroscopic tool kit.  He tried to describe it to me; it sounded like a cross between a pair of scissors and a router.  Anyway, he used some of these tools to cut away all the torn part of the meniscus.  The tears were all on the outer edge of it, which means there's a good chance it will repair itself.  Even if it doesn't, Debbie's knee pain should be gone.

Despite being a technology guy my whole life, I was still surprised that the surgeon could walk out to talk with me just a couple of minutes after he finished with Debbie, carrying a set of high-quality photos of the operation he had just performed.  Using the photos he was able to describe to me – about as far from a medical expert as you can get – exactly what he found, what he did, and the likely outcome.  Technology has transformed our world in many ways during my lifetime, and this is “just” another one of those ways – but even so, it seems pretty miraculous to me...

Too much evidence can be a bad thing...

Too much evidence can be a bad thing...  This is a fascinating article that shows how evidence that is “too good to be true” often really is untrue – the result of a systematic bias of some kind, or outright fraud.  I particularly like the article's lead – it's not the sort of thing you see every day in a science journal:

Under ancient Jewish law, if a suspect on trial was unanimously found guilty by all judges, then the suspect was acquitted. This reasoning sounds counter-intuitive, but the legislators of the time had noticed that unanimous agreement often indicates the presence of systemic error in the judicial process, even if the exact nature of the error is yet to be discovered. They intuitively reasoned that when something seems too good to be true, most likely a mistake was made.

Armed citizens stopping crime..

Armed citizens stopping crime...  Who'd have thunk it?  Here's an interactive map showing the places in the U.S. where armed citizens stopped crimes in one year (7/1/2014 - 7/1/2015, the most recent data available).  The screenshot at right is a sample...

Just talked with Debbie's surgeon...

Just talked with Debbie's surgeon ... who had just finished working on her.  It was all good news: no surprises, no problems, and (best of all) he found a meniscus tear in exactly the right spot to cause the symptoms she was experiencing.  He was able to trim that meniscus up nice and neat, and also “sanded” off a few spots on one of the “knobs” of her knee joint.  Overall, the surgeon said her knee is in great shape – especially considering the injuries she's had over the past couple of years.  I have photos (taken during the arthroscopic procedure) that I'll share after we get home.

Big sigh of relief here!

Debbie's in the recovery room right now, coming out of anesthesia.  She'll be back in the hospital room (where I am) shortly, and then an hour or so later we'll be headed home...

Quote of the day...

Quote of the day...  This time from Megan McArdle:

And so we have the paradox of U.S. tax policy: Everyone wants things to be simpler, but no one wants to get rid of the things that make it complex.

That observation applies to many government systems, not just our tax structure.  Think about Social Security and Medicare, for instance.

This observation strikes to the core of why the only real answer for America may be another revolution: after 200+ years of accumulated complexity, maybe the only way to fix it is to start over...

IRS penalty or involuntary health insurance purchase?

IRS penalty or involuntary health insurance purchase?  For younger, healthier folks, this is a genuine quandary – and it's one that was loudly predicted by Obamacare's many detractors (including me!).  Here comes the New York Times with an article pointing out that for many, the IRS penalties are preferable – and that will likely cause problems for the viability of Obamacare's financial underpinnings.  To wit, it will cause insurance companies to drop out.  The Times largely couches this as a potential future occurrence, but in fact it is already happening in many states (including Utah).

Now, what do you suppose the government's reaction to this will be?  I see just two likely choices, and both are bad.  First possibility (and one that I judge most likely): the IRS penalties will be raised to the point where buying insurance costs less for everyone.  Second possibility: the government just abandons the entire pretense of providing Obamacare through private insurance policies, and goes the full socialist route, with the government (backed by our tax dollars) acting as the sole healthcare insurer.  There's still significant political resistance to the latter route, not only amongst Republicans but also amongst many Democrats – so that route seems much less likely.  Unless Obama can figure out how to do it with an “executive action”, in which case doom.

I note in passing that the linked article bandies about the “possibility” that between premiums and deductibles, the cost of Obamacare could reach $10,000 a year.  Our cost in 2015 was more than twice that, with nearly $15,000 in premiums alone – for a plan with substantially less benefits than our pre-Obamacare healthcare policies.  Never underestimate the ability of a socialist mouthpiece like the Times to downplay the actual costs of their socialist agenda.  In other words, they have zero qualms about lying through their teeth...

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  Debbie's pre-op appointment was mainly for the purpose of educating us about the surgery today.  We're to appear at the hospital at noon today, where she'll spend an hour or two in prep, then 10 or 15 minutes (!) in surgery, then an hour or two in recovery (mainly waking up from the general anesthesia).  I double-checked on the duration of the surgery – they really meant 10 or 15 minutes!  Somehow that sounds insanely fast to me, but from what I've been able to read, that is quite a normal duration.  Wow!

We had an unexpected bit of excitement here yesterday.  A year and a half ago we “reserved” a Tesla Model X (their SUV).  We had no idea how long it would take to actually get it, so we've been waiting patiently for them to tell us.  Yesterday we got an email from them telling us it was time to go configure (meaning: select the options, color, etc.) our car.  We went through their online configurator, and (unlike the Toyota experience) were able to choose exactly what bits and pieces we wanted.  Tesla still hasn't told us when we'd actually take delivery, though – other than to say “early 2016”.  I'll translate that as “first half” and be pleased if we see it before July 1st  :)

Light blogging alert...

Light blogging alert...  Debbie's got her pre-op appointment this morning, and the actual surgery tomorrow.  She's getting some damage on her right knee's meniscus repaired, which (with any luck at all) will be minor, in-and-out sort of surgery.  The minor damage was spotted on an MRI last month, and we're hoping that fixing it will resolve the pain she's been having while diligently exercising to get back into shape...

A rule for life that won't lead you astray...

A rule for life that won't lead you astray...  When Paul Graham writes something, read it!  A small sample:

One of the most important instances of this phenomenon was in TV. Here there were 3 choices: NBC, CBS, and ABC. Plus public TV for eggheads and communists. The programs the 3 networks offered were indistinguishable. In fact, here there was a triple pressure toward the center. If one show did try something daring, local affiliates in conservative markets would make them stop. Plus since TVs were expensive whole families watched the same shows together, so they had to be suitable for everyone.

And not only did everyone get the same thing, they got it at the same time. It's difficult to imagine now, but every night tens of millions of families would sit down together in front of their TV set watching the same show, at the same time, as their next door neighbors. What happens now with the Super Bowl used to happen every night. We were literally in sync.

The entire essay is full of interesting observations and insights like this.

He's not as pessimistic as I am about the future of the U.S.  I hope he's right.  But I'm not optimistic about that :)

I don't always agree with Bill Whittle...

I don't always agree with Bill Whittle ... but I sure like his style!  On the topic of Hillary Clinton, though, he and I are in total agreement...

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  It was a high-delta day today in our household. 

First, Debbie is feeling much better (thanks for the good wishes, all who wrote!).  Her cough is greatly reduced, and she doesn't look sick any more.  Her voice sounds normal, too.  That's a delta on the plus side.

Two of our cats needed to visit the vet today, though.  Both of them have urinary tract infections (UTIs) – that's the fifth and sixth, if I'm counting correctly, since we moved up here.  The vet (and everything I've read) swears that UTIs are not infectious.  With cats as isolated and coddled as ours, you'd think UTIs would be unlikely.  Tell that to our poor cats!  That's a delta on the minus side.

I spent the day working on some programming, mainly on a fairly complicated state machine tracking the state of one process from another process, using UDP messages encoded in JSON.  I brought all the plumbing for that up from scratch in about 8 hour of programming.  Speaking as an ancient and venerable assembly language programmer, it's just amazing how productive one can be in a modern high level language like Java, with the bazillions of free, high quality, open-source libraries available.  I have exactly one programming tool that I had to pay for (IntelliJ's IDEA) – and that only because I'm a fussy, lazy sort when it comes to my IDE.  If I was forced to use NetBeans or Eclipse, I'm pretty sure I'd survive.  What a different world it is today for programmers, compared with my beginnings in the early '70s, when even assemblers were expensive, proprietary, and lousy :)

One hardly knows what to say...

One hardly knows what to say...  The Red Army Choir and the Leningrad Cowboys, singing Sweet Home Alabama.  Not quite Lynard Skynard, but certainly much better than I'd have guessed...

Happy New Year, everyone!

Happy New Year, everyone!  We went to bed at our usual hour (around 7 pm) 2015, and our oldest dog (Mo'i) woke me up at 2:30 am in 2016 – he needed to go outside, and he didn't care what year it was :) 

Our thermometer read 5.0°F, and the forecast says it will be -3°F by sunrise.  Yikes!  People who have lived here a long time tell us that this sort of cold weather is very unusual here, especially for such a long spell.  It's hard to be a global warmist up here :)  Allegedly we'll have above-freezing daytime temperatures again by Wednesday.  After this cold spell, that will feel like time to break out the shorts!