Paradise Ponders...

Paradise Ponders...  I had an extra-long session with the kids I'm tutoring yesterday morning.  One of them (Abby) is really digging into programming, mostly because with just a few examples the key ideas are starting to make sense to her.  She came back over for a second session instead of going to the local Easter egg hunt with the rest of her family.  I gave them a homework problem of a simple bubble-sort (of an array of integers), and she wanted to see what it would take to modify it to work with strings (an array of names).  I showed her how to use the Chrome developer tools and I swear I could see that cartoon light bulb going off in her head.  We spent about an hour going over a number of questions she asked, including one on sort performance that got us into an overview of Big O notation and what that means for performance characterization.  She's picking this stuff up way faster than I did.  Debbie was in the kitchen watching us work, and she tells me that Abby looked very excited as we worked.  It's fun for me when the kids actually want to learn; so very different than my volunteering experience years ago in the Chula Vista “magnet” high school, where not a single student was interested in anything at all about the class...

The rest of my day yesterday somehow got consumed by some shopping and other running around.  I didn't do a darned thing on the trailer – and I thought I would finish the construction yesterday!  The weather turned out to be very nice – blue sky, sunshine, and mild temperatures.  That is, until Debbie and I decided to take a drive out to Porcupine Reservoir.  There we ran into snow flurries – while still under that nice blue sky and in sunshine!  The nearest clouds large enough to produce that snow were miles away, so what must have happened is that winds were blowing that snow a long way from the source cloud.  It was weird!

We chose Porcupine Reservoir because we hoped there would be fewer weekend visitors there, and that worked out just fine.  On the other hand, there wasn't very much wildlife to see.  The most interesting thing we (Debbie, actually) spotted was a group of four Sandhill Cranes foraging in a field about a quarter mile off the road.  We had a great view of those strange birds.  We also got to see some baby goats and lambs in a couple of farmyards.  There were a few deer, too, but that was it for wildlife.  The reservoir itself was looking very spring-like: all the ice is gone, and the level is up to within about 15' of the top.  I don't think we're going to have any water issues this year!  I walked across the entire earthen dam and took the photos below on that walk:

Both were taken near the south end of the dam, the first looking west across the drainage and the second looking east across the reservoir. It's a pretty spot...

My friend and neighbor Tim D. has been gone for a few days to the Green River area for some springtime sightseeing with his family.  He enlisted us to give his dogs (Lexy and Marley) a little attention during the day (in the mornings and evenings his granddaughter Randi was there to take care of them).  This is nothing but fun for us: those are two delightful and cute little dogs, and after being penned up for 4 or 5 hours they are very happy to see us!  They had a grand time playing with each other.  The photo at right was from one of those visits.  Tim and family are back now, so we no longer get to indulge in this dog-sitting :)

Trailers in Paradise, and ancient cats...

Trailers in Paradise, and ancient cats...  Well, I made some more progress today, though not as much as I'd like to have.  I've got one of the long sides assembled.  Each of those 18 joints (between 2x4 and 1x6) has a bolt through it, and was glued.  Partway through I realized I hadn't purchased enough 1x6s for the slat.  Dang!  Another trip to Lowe's or Home Depot...

Our oldest cat is a fellow we call Koa.  We're not sure exactly how hold he is, but it's somewhere around 16 or 17.  We noticed a hard lump on his right hip a few weeks ago, and we've been visiting the vet with him to try and figure out what the heck it was.  Yesterday on one of those followup visits, she (Dr. Russell) advised us that it was getting larger, faster, and had started to invade some bone in his pelvis.  That didn't sound good, and the behavior was tumor-like, though she saw no other indications of cancer.  She advised surgery to remove it.

So today we took him up there to get that surgery.  He came through it just fine, and he's home now trying to recovery his dignity (and get some sleep).  The bad news is that the mass she removed was like nothing she's ever seen before – it looks like neither a typical infection nor a tumor.  We always get the weird things, it seems.  So she's going to simultaneously send samples off for biopsy (mainly to see if its a tumor), and culture it (just in case it's an infection of some weird kind).  We're putting the poor lad on Clavamox (antibiotic) preemptively, just in case it turns out to be an infection.  Early next week we should have a bit more information, and can make a decision about what to do.  We hope...

Shrimp in Paradise...

Shrimp in Paradise...  Last night Debbie made a new dish for us: shrimp in a tomatoey sauce with stewed tomatoes, with garlic, bell peppers, and mushrooms sauteed in butter, Italian seasonings, over spaghetti noodles.  Delicious!  Somehow we both managed to eat these gigantic servings, much to the disappointment of the dogs...

Progress in Paradise...

Progress in Paradise...  I got a few good hours in my shop this morning, and got enough done that I'm enjoying a sense of satisfaction about it.  First thing I did was to install the handle and wheels on my welder.  I'd bought the “portability” kit a while back, but then stupidly never actually put it together.  That's done (at right) and it does indeed make the welder portable.  Well, more portable than it was :)

The rest of the photos show various steps and progress with my fabrication of the stakes.  There are 18 stakes, each of them 2'6" long.  These were cut out of 8' 2x4s, and then one end of each had to be sawn down to match the pocket size.  That involved sawing about 1/4" from the bottom 5" of each of the narrow sides of each stake, and about 1/8" from the wide side.  In the first photo below, you can see just how thin a slice that made on the wide side!  I did this with my band saw, which made short work of something that would have been quite tedious without it.  Then I drilled three carefully placed holes in each of the stakes (for 54 holes in all); these are where the bolts that hold the slats on will go.  I finished all of that fabrication today – so now I have all 18 stakes sitting nicely in their steel pockets, and holes in the right place for each one.  Tomorrow I'll start putting on the slats!

“I hate you both!”

“I hate you both!”  You'll see why...

An even better way to stop robocalls?

An even better way to stop robocalls?  I've written here several times about our Sentry 2, the best call blocking device I'd ever tried.  A few weeks ago I read about an alternative to having your own call blocking device: a free service called Nomorobo.  We've been using it now for three weeks, and I have only positive things to report:

• It really is completely free.  They never even asked for a credit card.
• It's a blacklist-based system - it looks up the number calling you, and if it's in their (apparently huge) database, it gets blocked.  If the caller is not on the blacklist (and presumably your friends, family, and local people are not), they get through without any trouble.
• You don't have to do anything to maintain it.  With the Sentry 2, I spent some time every week adding numbers to block and numbers to allow.  With Nomorobo, I do nothing.  I like nothing :)

Here's what it's like to use the service.  Whenever someone calls you (including any robocalls), your phone rings as usual.  If it's a robocall, the phone rings just once: after that, Nomorobo blocks it and you're done.  If the phone rings more than once, it's a real call.  That's it.  That's the complete operating instructions.

We've had just one robocall slip through since starting our use of Nomorobo. That was a political call for Bernie Sanders (boy did they pick the wrong household for that!).  Our neighbors reported getting dozens of robocalls in the days leading up to our primaries this Tuesday.  Nomorobo blocked all but one of them.

At the same time, now we have zero problems with people getting through that we want to get through.  The Sentry 2 greets callers it doesn't know with a deliberately intimidating message, so if a store calls us and we don't have their number programmed in, they get that message.  Now they just hear the phone ring, as though we had no call blocking at all.

Summary: winner!

Can you...

Can you ... read this without feeling the doom?  What's going to happen when these precious little snowflakes meet the real world?

A doctoral candidate...

A doctoral candidate ... says she understands why women are less attracted to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) than men.  Her doctoral thesis is all about this phenomenon.  Here's an example section:

At first, the course purpose statement presents a view of knowledge as constructed by suggesting that there is a possibility that different conclusions can be drawn from the evidence by the choice to use “a” instead of “the” conclusion. However, the second sentence indicates that the techniques to analyze the evidence, once learned, are to be used instead of applied.  This indicates that the knowledge of the tools, as well as the tools themselves, are facts, and students will learn how to use the tools to find correct answers instead of becoming independent constructors of knowledge. This represents a conflict between active learning techniques and a view of knowledge as a static concept. While there is a recognition that students learn better through active learning techniques, the knowledge being learned is still viewed as factual and unchanging, further reinforcing the masculine nature of STEM education.

So, according to her, saying:

The answer to two plus two is four.

Is masculine, wrong-headed, and off-putting to women.  Instead we should say:

An answer to two plus two is four.

Because that's so much more sensitive, the answer might change over time, and it would make STEM more approachable for women.

There's much more babble of just this sort if you read the entire paper (it's not long, nor is it technical).

Somebody take this planet, please!

Here be dragons...

Here be dragons...  Bill Whittle's latest.  It's excellent...

Paradise pockets...

Paradise pockets...  All the trailer pockets are now installed: 72 holes measured and drilled, 72 carriage bolts seated with a mallet, 18 pockets installed onto the bolts, 72 washers and nuts threaded on and tightened, and 72 bolts cut off.  It was actually a bit more work than I just listed, as after I installed the 14th pocket I discovered that it matters what direction they're installed – there's a top and bottom to the things.  Who knew?  Well, I had a 50/50 chance of getting each one installed correctly, and in fact I had installed 7 of 14 the right side up.  The other 7, though, I had to uninstall, turn over, and re-install.

But it's done now :)

Tomorrow I shall start on the stake sides.  Woo hoo!

A reader asks...

A reader asks ... what I think about Obama's trip to Cuba.  From the wording of the question, it's obvious the reader thinks I will be appalled.

I am not appalled by the idea of normalizing relations with Cuba, dropping the embargo (which Obama can't do on his own; he needs the Congress for that) , and encouraging business to invest there (assuming the Cuban government changes their policies to allow it).  In fact I support these ideas, as it's been clear for 30 years or so that the 50+ years of Cuban embargo and isolation have been a complete failure in terms of their original goals (bringing the Cuban government to its knees).  It seems at least worth trying a different approach, especially when that different approach will bring at least a little more prosperity to the Cuban people.  It's also possible that it will bring changes in the authoritarian government.

But...

I am appalled by the way that Obama has gone about it.  The optics of that portrait of him saluting in front of the Che Guevara mural are just horrible.  He's apparently obtained very little in the way of concessions or commitments from the Cubans.  He's allowed himself to be used by Raul Castro in a way that makes the U.S. seem like the supplicant.  He's managed to take an opportunity for America to shine and turn it into a moment of American shame.

But nevertheless I'm glad to see some movement on this front. 

Now if we could just get the U.N. out of the refugee business, we'd really be making some progress!

Trailers in Paradise...

Trailers in Paradise...  So I restarted working on a project I stopped last fall: building a four-wheeled stake-bed trailer.  Yesterday I installed six “pockets” for the stakes, and today I'm hoping to install the rest of them. 

Aside from some tricksy measuring (involving division of fractions!), there's nothing particularly challenging about installing these pocket brackets.  I'd cleaned and painted them last fall.  All I had to do yesterday was mark the holes, drill them, and then fasten them with bolts.  The nuts I used have nylon elements built in to hold them in place (the same thing that lock washers do, but neater).  These take quite a bit of torque to screw on – more than the square end of a carriage bolt can resist, in most cases.  So there was a bit of tricky use of pliers to keep the ends of the carriage bolts from twisting.

One nice little touch was enabled by the oscillating saw that I bought last year (in the second photo), after watching some of our remodeling craftsmen using one.  I was able to cut the bolts off to the exact correct length.  It took six seconds for each bolt with that saw.  Lovely thing, it is!

This guy thinks...

This guy thinks ... we should all be legally required to vote.  Under our current system, I think that's completely absurd, for reasons given right in his article: for many of us, voting is a completely meaningless act.  Why?  Because we know our vote wouldn't count for a darned thing.

For instance, here in Utah casting a vote for a Democratic candidate for president is just such a meaningless act.  The state is completely in the tank for Republicans, and there is precisely zero chance that a Democratic candidate could prevail.  So what would be the point of forcing someone to cast that vote?  It will have no effect on the outcome at all.

Utter uselessness aside, I also object on a different basis.  Refusing to vote is just as much an electoral choice as casting a vote is.  The absence of my vote for, say, Trump is contributing to the outcome exactly as much as a vote for Clinton – but without endorsing Clinton.

Then there's this.  Consider that the likelihood (at the moment, anyway) is that the November election will be a choice between Trump and Clinton.  The idea of forcing someone to choose between those two is morally repugnant.  It would be like forcing someone about to be executed to push the button that injected them with fatal drugs...

I finally found...

I finally found ... the quote from John Ehrlichman that first started me thinking about the abject failure of the war on drugs.  Here it is:

“You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

This is an admission by an insider to the initiation of the so-called war on drugs that the motivation was political, not out of any concern for the people using drugs or the rest of the population.  It was all about winning elections.

I found it in an article that I almost didn't read, because I know I have major disagreements with the author, Dan Baum.  He's an advocate for legalizing drugs (and ending the war on drugs), as am I.  However, he strongly advocates for making drug production and distribution a state monopoly, a notion I find abhorrent.  We have a state monopoly on alcohol distribution where we live in Utah, and the only things that accomplishes here are increased prices and inconvenience.  But the rest of the article is a good backgrounder for anyone who isn't already aware of the scam that's been pulled on them concerning drugs...

Quote of the day...

Quote of the day...  This time from Scott Adams, who has been correct about Trump more often than anyone who makes their living as a “pundit”.  He's also been far more interesting.  Here's the quote:

“Those who think the past predicts the future are condemned to pick the wrong stocks.”

...and here's the (interesting!) post it comes from.

If Scott Adams is right about how the (human) world works, then we're all a bunch of damn fools.  And there are bits and pieces that feel very right to me...

I wrote about...

I wrote about ... our excellent meal at Sea Bears Fish House in Ogden last month.  This morning I see that they're in the news, mainly because of their second amendment support.

Have I mentioned that we love living here?  :)

Rainbow airglow...

Rainbow airglow...  Via APOD, of course...

I don't know the whole story on this...

I don't know the whole story on this ... but still, it's hard to see how this is in the best interest of the little girl...

Heavy rain in Paradise...

Heavy rain in Paradise...  The noise woke me up around 1:30 am, and it's continued non-stop since then.  The radar picture as of a few minutes ago (at right) shows no end in sight.  The forecast called for a half inch of rain tonight, but I'm guessing it's going to clock in over that.

What little snow remained on the ground last night should be melted by the time this is over :)

Good eats in Paradise...

Good eats in Paradise...  First thing this morning, my lovely bride made bacon and eggs, with pan-fried potatoes and onions to accompany it.  World-class eats, those were: fresh eggs from Macey's (our local grocery chain) just four days out of the chicken, Dailey's applewood-smoked bacon, and Idaho potatoes from just up the road.  Yum!

But then wait, there's more!  We stopped to pick up sandwiches at Logan's Heroes, and they were terrific as always.  Fresh torpedo rolls, top-notch meats, friendly service, and all the right condiments and veggies.  Dang those sandwiches are good!  And of course I washed it down with a big glass of Rosehill Dairy milk.

Now I'm practically comatose, but I'm going to go back out to my shed to do some more work.  I'm trying to finish up the four-wheeled trailer project I started last fall...

“My passion was my weak spot.”

“My passion was my weak spot.”  That's the title of this interesting piece by Jacques Mattheij.  There's much in here that I agree with, and that I might offer as advice to an aspiring technologist myself.  There's one part, though, that I strongly disagree with.  That's Jacques' advice to never work for free in return for the promise of a future (paying) job.

My reason for disagreeing is quite straightforward: agreeing to work for free in exchange for future paid work was the key to my entrance into the technology workforce.  Back in the early '80s, on the tail end of a couple of less-than-successful businesses, I needed a job.  I very badly wanted to work with microprocessors (whether that meant hardware or software I didn't much care).  I knew that I could do the work, as I had been doing it for six or seven years at that point – as a hobby, as a consultant (where credentials matter less), and in my own businesses.

The biggest challenge for me at that time was that I completely lacked the credentials to be employed as an engineer.  I had no college degree.  There was no open source movement back then, and no Internet, so there was no obvious way to use the peer recognition I had to help get a job.  For instance, most potential employers had never heard of Gary Kildall or MP/M, and the code with my name on it was proprietary.

I needed a way to prove myself to a potential employer.  I decided to offer my free services to such a company (Xscribe) for a limited time, with the understanding that after 90 days they'd either boot me out or hire me.  I also made it clear that I'd be looking elsewhere while I worked there for free.  I figured that if they weren't convinced of my skills after 90 days, they never would be.  As things turned out, they made me a (great!) offer less than a month after I started.  I never had trouble getting a job after that, as I then possessed a credential of sorts: a referenceable, verifiable track record.

So I'll disagree with Jacques on that point: sometimes working for free is a good idea...

My, what interesting rocks...

My, what interesting rocks ... Curiosity is looking at now.  On Mars!  What do you suppose those tiny little pits are?  And are my eyes correctly telling me that every one of those pits has a tiny little pebble in it?

More rain and snow for Paradise...

More rain and snow for Paradise...  That's what's in our forecast for tonight through Wednesday.  It's hard to believe at the moment, as we have wall-to-wall blue sky and there's no snow on the ground.  Our soil is saturated, though – mud season is in full swing here.  You can easily tell that by the grit on our kitchen floor – the inevitable result of letting dogs with hairy feet (field spaniels) go outside :)

We're planning to make a few modifications to our house this year.  Those include a “mud room” outside the current front door, and a rear patio that opens onto the enclosed yard our dogs normally play in.  We're planning a dog washing station on that patio: a place with a hose and a sprayer, where we can easily wash the dirt and mud off their feet in mud season.  The gluey substance known as “Paradise mud” is almost impossible to remove without the assistance of high-pressure water.  The dogs won't appreciate this, but we will!

Will English “destroy” all other languages?

Will English “destroy” all other languages?  The trend is certainly in that direction, and there is much hand-wringing and anguish in certain parts of academia (and other places, too). The language generally employed to describe this phenomenon is that other languages are being driven to extinction by the spread of English, and that predisposes people to think it's bad.  “Extinction” is bad, isn't it?  Always?

I'm not so sure, whether we're discussing critters, plants, or languages.  I'd have no problem with the extinction of mosquitoes (and my wife would be ecstatic!).  Similarly, if burdock were to disappear forever, I'd shed no tears.  Should I be anxious about the impending extinction of Naukan Yupik?

I'm not ready to out-and-out endorse the notion of making English the universal language of mankind.  I'm well aware that as a native English speaker, such an outcome would be oh-so-convenient for me.  As a veteran world traveler, though, I'm also very well aware of just how much friction the absence of a universal language for mankind introduces into any interaction between people who don't share a common language.  From locating a bathroom to ordering a meal to conducting some business, everything is harder if you and the person you're dealing with don't speak the same language.  Fluently.  Easily.  Natively.

I should note that I have a family reason for opposing the obliteration of non-English languages.  My sister has a business that's predicated on the idea of teaching English to people for whom it would be a second language.  The universal adoption of English would obliterate her business.  I've not talked with her about this, but somehow I doubt she'd be in favor of this outcome :)

I haven't made up my mind about this.  It's certainly true that language differences are an important part of the cultural differences that add a lot of interest to our world.  There are tradeoffs.  Most people talking about this topic tend toward overblown rhetoric mourning the disappearance of languages.  But is the disappearance of language X intrinsically “tragic”?  That's where I depart from the conventional line of thought, because I don't think so.  I'd like to hear what the adoption of English means for the welfare of the people in the affected population.  For example, if a young woman growing up in (say) eastern Siberia spoke English (natively) instead of the traditional local language spoken by 200 people – how much easier will it be for her to become a doctor?  A welder?  A programmer?  I know the answer – it will be enormously easier, for the simple reason that she can read and understand the texts that are widely available, not to mention what's on the Internet.  That's the tradeoff I'm interested in exploring: if the price of losing a language forever is X, what's the benefit?  And is it worth it?  I'd like to see a more sober weighing of the costs and benefits.  I'm no expert in this area, but in terms of what's visible to me, the benefits of a universal language outweigh the costs, and not by a small margin.

What do you think?

Oh, it's so nice...

Oh, it's so nice ... to be able to get back to our routine of walking every day.  We just got back from our third walk of the season, Debbie and I, and the two younger mutts.  The photo at right is a 225° panorama from the highest altitude point we reached.  That road is actually straight – the distortion from the panorama process really makes that hard to see!  It was beautiful walking conditions, though we saw little other than a few voles the dogs spotted.  No matter; it felt great to get out.  Debbie is getting better on every walk.  Today was her first walk without her walking sticks, and she did fine.  We did about 1.8 miles today, with a little more elevation change (about 450' each way) than usual.

We're leaving soon to go join my brother Scott for a Sunday “lupper” at Angie's.  Today is chicken soup day, so we'll be having that for sure.  I'm feeling like some fish and chips, unless their special is mighty appealing...

If you don't already have ad blockers on your web browsers...

If you don't already have ad blockers on your web browsers ... here's a great discussion of why you should...

A project finished...

A project finished...  Well, one phase of it, anyway.  Way back in December, just before I drove back to Virginia to move my brother Scott out here, I was working on an electronic clock kit.  I'd actually finished the assembly of it, but I still had a bug of some sort.

Well, this afternoon I spread the kit, its manual, my 'scope, multimeter, and soldering iron out on the kitchen table and went to work.  An hour later, I had it all working, after fixing two more issues.  First issue was a broken circuit board trace (for a total of three in the kit).  The second (and last!) issue was all my own fault: a cold solder joint.  But now it's all running!

Next step on this project: a nice wooden case of some kind.  I'll have to ponder exactly what I want that to look like...

Fire in Paradise!

Fire in Paradise!  But it's fire we actually wanted :)  This year the Hyrum Irrigation Canal folks are sending two separate cleanup crews down the length of the canal.  The first crew started today; they're burning weeds and roses along the sides of the canal.  They're also burning some ancient brush piles that were left by canal cleanup crews in prior years.  The second crew will be along in a couple weeks; they'll be clearing brush and downed trees that are in the canal.  We have a little over a quarter mile of that canal that runs through the eastern edge of our property.  We did a lot of cleanup ourselves last year, plus had a horde of local Mormons come by on a service project that got even more.  Between the canal company's work and what we plan to do ourselves this year, we should have a much better-looking property!

The crew today used a large propane torch powered from a 250 propane tank trailer they hauled behind a pickup.  Here's what it looked like while they were working:

Quote of the day...

Quote of the day...  Scott Adams.  Watch the video; the quote will make more sense then.

“Reason will never be a satisfying explanation of what you see.”

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  We took a ride out past Hardware Ranch toward Ant Flats yesterday afternoon.  It was a good wildlife viewing trip – we saw an American Dipper, several Belted Kingfishers, a beautiful view of a Bald Eagle (sitting on a fence post in full sunshine!), lots of mule deer and elk, a Northern Harrier, and a mostly white undersides hawk that was probably a Ferruginous Hawk (at right) but could possibly have been a leucistic Redtail Hawk.

This morning, using Sibley's guide, we tentatively identified three swans we saw on a previous trip as juvenile (first year) Tundra Swans.  We're just barely within their normal winter range, and the pond is exactly the sort of place they visit when migrating.

The photos here are not mine, but I hope to have some bird photos of my own here soon.  I've ordered a telescope that can mount my iPhone 6 to.  I've seen some photos taken through it with an iPhone, and they're quite good...

An insider's view...

An insider's view ... of why the U.N. is failing.  His description does absolutely nothing to my conviction that the only “right” thing to do with the U.N. is to dismantle it...

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  We had another spectacular dinner at the Red Iguana in Salt Lake City yesterday.  We also had the pleasure of introducing my brother Scott to its delights.  Much food was eaten with gusto, and a good time was had by all.  Debbie and I had a special of which the main part was marinated skirt steak; quite possibly the best I've ever had.  Especially notable: the meat was nice and rare, just like we prefer it, without our even asking.  Scott had a special that involved shrimp swimming in a red sauce of some kind.  He also had the mole sampler as an appetizer (all to himself!).  I tried the Maria's soup (a standard part of their menu) and it was delicious – I shall have it again!  We all had desserts, too: flan for Scott and I, arroz con leche for Debbie.  There wasn't a bit left of any of the meal when we got done.  No white boxes for our poor neglected mutts :)

We sat next to a couple who was visiting from Las Vegas.  We overheard them raving to the waitress about what an unexpected pleasure their meal was – better than anything they could get in Las Vegas.  We concur, but we'll note that in our own experience, that's not a particularly high bar :)

This oughtta do it...

This oughtta do it ... if you want to be even more pissed off at Hillary! than you already are...

Get more people to take buses...

Get more people to take buses ... by making them more dangerous.  I love this kind of thinking :)

Drones...

Drones ... can be art, too...  Via my brother Scott...

I love it when...

I love it when ... I check the market and find a graph like this!

Strange mail of the day...

Strange mail of the day...  This is something we just received via the U.S. Post Office.  It's most definitely not something we solicited.  There's no indication on it (at least, none that I can find) of who sent it.  There's nothing scary about the advice on it; it's basic “get ready for disaster” sort of things, except that they left out arming yourself (something that is usually part of the “prepper” dogma).  I'm left uncertain about the motives of the sender.

All that was surprising enough.  What I find even more surprising is that I can't find this text online!  It's not often I do a Google search and get zero results!

Anybody recognize this (click to embiggen), and can tell me who sent it and why?

Where to eat lunch in Logan...

Where to eat lunch in Logan...  This is another in a series of posts for the good folks who will be attending the Field Spaniel Society of America Nationals being held at the fairgrounds in Logan in May.

If you've been following this series, then you already know about the map we've made that shows all the places we've been talking about.  You might also notice that today's list of lunch places only has one new place on it – we've already talked a bit about all the rest!

Logan's Heroes is the place we haven't mentioned before.  It's a local institution, one of those places every local knows, and it's an easy walk from the fairgrounds.  At lunch time the small dining area is generally packed with locals – farmers, tradesmen, college students, and people who work nearby.  The menu isn't all that large, but we've yet to try a sandwich that wasn't great.  The bread is fresh and good, and the owner and his helpers are experts at making great sandwiches.  They're happy to accommodate any special things you want (or don't want!).  If you're allergic to waiting, it's better to go outside of the lunch rush – and even then you might want to do takeout, as there aren't many tables there.  The owner is a funny and interesting fellow, an Iranian immigrant who came here for college and stayed.  He has an amazing talent that we envy: he remembers people and their stories, even if it's been many months since he last saw you – greets you by name and picks up the conversation you were having last week or last year!

Angie's has an extensive traditional lunch menu, with all sorts of sandwiches, burgers, salads, and some fare like fried chicken and fish 'n chips.  Lots of locals go there for lunch, some (literally!) every day.  Nothing fancy, no high prices, but it's all good, solid food, and the people are friendly as can be.

Jack's Wood Fired Oven has great lunch specials, small pizzas with a bowl of soup.  Both of them can't be beat anywhere in the area.  Great desserts, too.  If you'd like a classy lunch that's a little different, Jack's is a great choice.

Herm's Inn is a little further afield, but if you're looking for a hearty sandwich or burger lunch, it's hard to beat.  You'll want to be really hungry before going there, though :)

Cafe Sabor has decent American-style Mexican food, with lots of choices for lunch.  It's within easy walking distance of the fairgrounds, too.  And yes, they have margaritas – though we're not sure it's a good idea to be drinking them at lunchtime if you have to show in the afternoon :)

Elements is the most upscale of the lunch eateries we're listing here, and it's in walking range of the fairgrounds for the swift of foot.  They've got all sorts of yummy lunch fare, some of it alcoholic.  They're a little pricier than the rest of the eateries here, so if you're watching your pennies you might want to look elsewhere.

The Crepery is within walking range of the fairgrounds, and has all sorts of interesting crepes for lunch.  It's often crowded during lunch hour, as it's a favorite haunt of local workers and college students. 


And last, but certainly not least, is the Crumb Brothers cafe.  It's just a short walk from the fairgrounds, and has lots and lots of delicious pastries, breads, sandwiches, coffee (including espresso) and tea.  This is the place to go for a delicious light lunch in a cafe atmosphere!

Ant Flats Road is open!

Ant Flats Road is open!  Yesterday afternoon we made our first drive on the road to Ant Flats, which starts at the end of the road to Hardware Ranch.  This (very nice) dirt road was a haunt of ours last summer and fall, because of all the wildlife we routinely saw there.  The road is closed to cars all winter (it becomes a groomed snowmobile road), but reopened yesterday – and we were one of the first to drive it.

We had the road to ourselves for about 90 minutes, and we saw a lot of wildlife.  The standout was several large groups of deer, numbering well over 100 in total (we really didn't even try to count them, there were so many).  We saw one large group of elk, about a half mile south of Hardware Ranch.  Best of all: we saw one bald eagle feeding on a ridge top, and a pair of bald eagles wheeling overhead.

The water in the stream (the headwaters for Blacksmith Fork) were fairly high, because of the runoff and melt.  The Wasatch Mountain drainages are running well in general; the water forecasts for spring are all looking very good.  We were at Porcupine Reservoir twice in the past 10 days, and it had risen at least 6 feet between our two visits.  I don't think we're going to have water challenges this year...

Lanna needs a home...

Lanna needs a home...  This under-two-year old female Black Lab needs a home.  She's at the Cache Humane Society shelter, in the kennel we sponsor there.  Do you know anyone who needs a lovable addition to their home?

Science vs. everything else...

Science vs. everything else...  Via my pistol-packing, medical team entertaining mama:

Puppy update...

Puppy update...  One of the puppies (the wheezing boy) died less than a day after he was born.  The other eight (five girls, three boys) are all thriving, and the mom is doing great.  The photo at right is from last night.

I'm going to have to teach our breeder the proper way to hold her iPhone when she takes photos :)

Yes, they're all brown (“liver” is the official term).  Some of them have white spots on their chests, like our Miki.

We still don't know whether we're getting one or two puppies from this litter.  That depends on how many other people are interested...

It looks like...

It looks like ... it's going to be The Donald vs. The Hillary.  Oh, joy.

It's still possible that we could have a contested Republican convention, and the Republican-powers-that-be will pull Jeb out of whatever hole he fell into, or draft Ryan or Romney, or nominate Bozo the Clown.  I don't think that's very likely, though.  On the conservative (well, non-progressive, sort of, anyway) side it looks most likely that The Donald will be our choice.  Pardon me while I go vomit.  I wish there was a way to invest in European comedians, though...

It's also possible that The Hillary will be indicted or even charged in the email scandal.  I've no idea what would happen after that, though I suppose that depends largely on exactly when that happened.  If it happened before the Democratic convention, they could cobble up some sort of procedure to get another nominee – in that case, it seems most likely it would be Bernie.  If she was indicted sometime closer to the election, I'm not sure what the Democrats could do.  Can they change their nominee after selecting one at their convention?  I don't know what the rules are there.  And I wouldn't put it past her to just keep right on running, unless they actually hauled her away.  In any case, I think the most likely outcome here is that she is not indicted or charged, and she will be the Democratic nominee.

If it's The Donald vs. The Hillary, I won't be voting.  No way either one of them is getting my vote...

Paradise phone mystery...

Paradise phone mystery...  For the past two days we've been inundated with marketing phone calls.  We don't answer them; our Sentry 2 blocks them for us after a single ring.  I Google the numbers to see who it is calling us, and they've ranged from healthcare insurance marketers (including one particular company that's called us 12 times already!) to political pollsters to home appliance warranty scams.  Generally we've been getting just a few calls a week, but suddenly we're getting dozens each day.  Very annoying, even with the call blocking capability.

I'd love to know why we're suddenly being targeted by so many companies.  My suspicion is that some company has decided to sell our contact information to a popular marketing list...

No giraffes were injured in this production...

No giraffes were injured in this production...  Because it's an animation, silly!  I published a clip from this last year, but now the whole thing is on line.  You'll definitely want to full-screen this one.

Computer animation is getting to the point where it's actually challenging to detect that it's not real...

Out here in Paradise...

Out here in Paradise ... I have little doubt that nearly everyone would behave just as this homeless veteran does.  I wouldn't be nearly as confident just 12 miles away in Logan, and in San Diego I'd be must as dumbfounded as the creators of this video were...

With any luck at all...

With any luck at all ... you should now see a little “Amazon” link at right, toward the top.  If it's there, you can use it to shop on Amazon.  Anything you buy while you're there will send me a small referral payment – but won't cost you a penny more.  I'd sure appreciate your using that link to do your Amazon shopping – it will help me pay for the bandwidth used when you're reading my blog...

Update: reader Richard Clark noted that ad blockers were (potentially) blocking the logo I'd put up earlier (thanks, Richard!).  I've changed it now to a different technique that I hope avoids that issue...

The puppies are born!

The puppies are born!  The mom (Sissy) had nine puppies, starting yesterday midday and ending early this morning.  Mom's doing fine, and eight of the nine are in good shape; the last is wheezing a bit (still has fluid in the lungs).  Five girls, four boys.  One of these puppies will be ours, and possibly two (because this was an unexpectedly large litter, and we don't want our breeder to end up with a puppy that has no home).

Good doggie!

Good doggie!

What's the right thing to do...

What's the right thing to do ... with primitive indigenous cultures?  We've all heard the stories about the “Stone Age” people still living in places like South America or New Guinea.  Conventional wisdom is that we should carefully isolate such populations, and “allow” them to live as they always have.

This has always bothered me.  This policy, beloved by progressives everywhere, effectively condemns those populations to lives filled with pain and death that our medical prowess has long since banished.  If they break a leg, they may be crippled for life as we refuse to intervene.  The children of these cultures are deprived of an education that we consider to be the birthright of our children.  I could go on and on in this vein.  Why do we think this is the right thing to do?  I've never understood that.  How can “preserving” a culture be more important than welcoming these peoples to the advantages of modern civilization?  It seems cruel and horribly patronizing to me.

Rarely do I see anyone else making those points.  I spotted one such case this morning...

On the Martian plateau...

On the Martian plateau ... is Curiosity.  What a view!

Weather radar picture...

Weather radar picture...  We're right where the precipitation turns from rain to snow...

Soup good. Soup my friend...

Soup good.  Soup my friend...  Debbie made a really nice soup for supper yesterday, accompanied by some dinner rolls made from frozen dough.  The soup was outstanding: a cheesy broth, laden with mushrooms, sausage, and veggies.  The rolls were good – not the best we've ever had, but perfectly decent dinner rolls...

Dang it!

Dang it!  More snow in Paradise (the photo is out our back window just now).  The temperature outside is 35°F; it just might stick for a while...

Happy pi day!

Happy pi day!  More about it here, and the first 100 digits in base 2, in case you didn't know them:

11.00100 10000 11111 10110 10101 00010 00100 00101 10100 01100 00100 01101 00110 00100 11000 11001 10001 01000 10111 00000

Another typically interesting post...

Another typically interesting post ... by Eric S. Raymond, this one on the link between autism and genius.  In it he makes an observation that immediately resonated with me: that high achievement (actually, “genius-level capabilities” is how he puts it) are enabled or promoted by not caring about social conventions (or, as he puts it much more colorfully, “not giving a shit about monkey social rituals”).  His thesis is that autistic people get this for free – it comes with the territory – and other high achievers have to learn how to do it.  The (unstated by him) corollary is that social convention is an enormous impediment to achievement.

Fascinating observation, and it rings very true to me...

The Mediterranean Sea was created...

The current Mediterranean Sea was created ... about five million years ago, when the Atlantic Ocean breached the natural dam at what is today the Straight of Gibraltar.  I'd read in the past that it took several centuries to fill up the Mediterranean Sea to match the Atlantic Ocean's level.  Now there's a new report that says it was filled in as little as a few months, and at most two years.  To do that, water flowed at rates of up to 300 km/hr (190 mph) through a 200 km (125 mile) long channel.  That would have been a spectacular sight!

Prime surprise...

Prime surprise...  I ran across this interesting article about a surprising property of sequential prime numbers.  But even more interesting to me is this piece in the article, which seems obviously wrong to me:

If Alice tosses a coin until she sees a head followed by a tail, and Bob tosses a coin until he sees two heads in a row, then on average, Alice will require four tosses while Bob will require six tosses (try this at home!), even though head-tail and head-head have an equal chance of appearing after two coin tosses.

Have any of my readers ever heard of this?  Search as I might, I've found no reference to anything suggesting unequal probability of head-tail versus head-head.  At the moment I'm assuming that the article's author just misunderstood something she heard...

This guy keeps surprising me...

This guy keeps surprising me...  John Oliver with an outstanding (and still very funny) piece on the Apple encryption debate...

Rain in Paradise!

Rain in Paradise!  It's pouring as I write this, and the weather radar shows lots more headed our way.  The forecast has significant precipitation between last night and this coming Thursday, alternating between snow and rain.  All of this is with temperatures above freezing, so presumably the “snow” will be more like slush, melting shortly after hitting the ground.

We drove up to Porcupine Reservoir yesterday morning.  It's just a few miles from our home, and is the source for our irrigation water.  It's filling up nicely, up several feet over the past couple of days.  This rain will aid in that, reassuring all the local farmers.  It will also ensure a very green spring for us – and hopefully a bumper crop of wildflowers in the mountains...

Nodules on Mars...

Nodules on Mars...  Curiosity is investigating...

Three thoughts...

Three thoughts...  Not in any particular order:

1. I wish we had more reporters like Megyn Kelly.  If we did, I might even watch television news on occasion.  
2. The response to this incident by both the Trump campaign and his lapdog media Breitbart is disgusting.  This isn't the first time we've seen this sort of thing in the U.S., but it's scary every time we do.  
3. Andrew Breitbart must be rolling in his grave at the actions of organization now using his name.

I hear knocking.  What could it be?  Why, it's the doom, at the front door...

A note on doing taxes...

A note on doing taxes...  One of the less delightful parts of doing taxes for me has been, in years past, having to find all the #&*^@$%#! receipts (especially for charitable contributions and tax payments).  That's because all I'd have would be a shoe-box full of slips of paper, in totally unorganized form.  What a pain!

This year it was a breeze – because all I had to do was to type a few key words into DevonThink (the software that organizes the scans I now make of all my receipts) and in well under a second it found each and every receipt I was looking for.  It's almost unbelievable how big a difference it is for me between now and then, and at negligible cost in terms of my effort.  It's way easier than a manual filing system, which takes considerable effort throughout the year.  This is more like a shoe-box with a magical “find it!” capability.

I can't believe I didn't do this five years ago, when it first started to look practicable.  Dang it!

Bumper snicker of the day...

Bumper snicker of the day...  Via my lovely bride:

Want more evidence...

Want more evidence ... that our government is completely out of control?  I'm not sure why anyone would need that at this point, but just in case: the FDA is cracking down on using manure on farms.  Yes, really.

Several historians have suggested that human societies really need to be tossed out periodically, and rebuilt from the ground up.  Sometimes I'm not sure that's actually enough, and that maybe my dad had the right idea: use a few nukes to glass things over, then wait a few million years for the soil to reform.  Maybe the radiation will induce a few beneficial mutations, too...

Jaguar in action...

Jaguar in action... 

What he said!

What he said!  This guy says, eloquently, what I've been feeling about modern art for many years now...

Paradise tutoring...

Paradise tutoring...  Well, I'm down to two kids (from three): Sarah had to drop out because she's already got too heavy a load.  Her mom listed all that she's got, and I have to agree – that slip of a girl has way too much on her plate.  So now I've got Nicholas (11 years old, 4th grade, budding robotics engineer) and Abby (around 13 years old, I think in 7th grade, budding scientist). 

Both of them did fairly well on their homework.  The concept of tens-complement arithmetic had escaped them, and decimal-to-binary conversions as well, so we worked on them for a while.  Then I gave them a concentrated hour on twos-complement arithmetic and the basic binary operators (inversion, addition, AND, OR, and XOR).  Their homework has some hard problems on it; it will be interesting to see how they do :)

Each time Abby got the idea about how something worked, you could see her light right up – she gets joy from understanding.  That's why I called her a budding scientist :)

I sent them home with a printout of a very simple HTML page (source code) that will serve as our first playground for messing about with code.  I'm going to start them with JavaScript, with Chrome's developer tools (which are excellent!) as their IDE...

Paradise kids...

Paradise kids ... are refusing to admit that winter is over.  They want to sled!  These are my neighbor's kids plus a couple they're babysitting.  The building in the background is our shed.  The “mountains” (their term:) that they're sledding on are made from the dirt we dug out of the field to make the shed's foundation.

The kids played on the “mountains” for about four hours.  One of the little blonde girls came over to the house later, and her face was ... not clean.  I'd have given a lot to see her mom's face when she went home :)

Captain Kangaroo, of course!

Captain Kangaroo, of course!  Via my pistol-packing, lobster-eating mama...

A wife's love...

A wife's love...  Via my brother Scott.

A very old man lay dying in his bed. In death's doorway, he suddenly smelled the aroma of his favorite chocolate chip cookie wafting up the stairs. He gathered his remaining strength and lifted himself from the bed. Leaning against the wall, he slowly made his way out of the bedroom, and with even greater effort forced himself down the stairs, gripping the railing with both hands.

With labored breath, he leaned against the door frame, gazing into the kitchen. Were it not for death's agony, he would have thought himself already in heaven.

There, spread out on newspapers on the kitchen table were literally hundreds of his favorite chocolate chip cookies.

Was it heaven? Or was it one final act of heroic love from his devoted wife, seeing to it that he left this world a happy man?

Mustering one great final effort, he threw himself toward the table. The aged and withered hand, shaking, made its way to a cookie at the edge of the table, when he was suddenly smacked with a spatula by his wife. "Stay out of those," she said. "They're for the funeral."

It's all too easy for me to imagine that happening here, in my house :)

Way back in the '60s...

Way back in the '60s ... when I was just starting my electronics career, I built a theremin using vacuum tubes.  I didn't design it myself; just built it from a schematic I found somewhere.  It worked fine, but sounded so awful to me that I disassembled it and used the parts for something else. 

Never did it occur to me that one could make a theremin with a dead badger.  Not once.  But it did occur to this fellow.  That should worry us, I think...

Andrew Klavan...

Andrew Klavan: I'm angry, so I'm voting for Donald Trump!  Is this really why Trump has so much support?  Angry low-information, low-cogitation voters?  That's it?

I don't know whether I hope that's true or false...

Mercury (the planet) is really weird...

Mercury (the planet) is really weird...  The trove of data collected by the MESSENGER robotic explorer didn't help make it less so, either.