Trunk Monkey...

Oh, I would so like to have the political edition of the trunk monkey...

Soggy Morning Walk...

Three years ago today, we were in the first day of our evacuation because of wildfires, and we were closely watching the Harris fire that threatened our home.  The threat mainly came from the incredibly low fuel moisture (< 3%) at the time, compounded by a fearsome Santa Ana windstorm.

This morning could hardly be more different.

There was no wind at all.  The dogs and I, on our morning walk, were completely enveloped in thick fog, through which a light drizzle was falling.  The ground is soft and sopping wet.  Another ground moisture indicator: the gophers have started digging their tunnels, which they can only do when the soil is thoroughly wet in the top 10 to 20 inches.  The fuel moisture gauge on Lyons Peak reads 44.7% (meaning that the fuel there would be very hard to ignite).

In two days, our front yard has developed a thick coating of greenery.  Bulbs are erupting everywhere, months earlier than usual.  The frogs were very loud this morning; probably a combination of frog-friendly moisture in the air and better hearing through the wet atmosphere.

Sure enjoyed the walk this morning!

The Problem with Democrats...

First, watch this.




Now it will come as no surprise to my readers that I'm not exactly a fan of Gerry “Moonbeam” Brown.  But just in case you're unclear on the question: I'd sooner vote for a randomly selected retarded goat abuser with Tourette's syndrome before I voted for the Moonbeam.  But my comments here are not so much about Brown as they are about “progressives” (which is, in this country and even more so in this state, pretty much a synonym for Democrats).

First point: note how the Moonbeam's first (and only) reaction to the question was to say (in effect) “throw taxpayer money at it”.  He, like other progressives, seem to know no other solution.

Second point, and the more important one: note the utter obliviousness to the actual problem: a business-hostile environment created by progressives through increased regulation and taxes.  He appears to be, sadly, completely unaware that the major incentive provided by other locales is the absence or lessening of these factors. 

The Moonbeam, like many other progressives, is not a moron.  So how can they possibly miss this point?  I've never been able to decide, myself, whether their ideology so warps their thinking process that despite the facts being squarely and indisputably in front of them, they somehow convince themselves otherwise – or they are simply dishonest and craven to the core, and see that mouthing the progressive line can bring them fame, riches, and power.  I just don't know, but I can't see any other alternative explanations.

But in the end, their motivation doesn't matter.  What matters is that these people must not be in power.  They must lose on November 2.  Please help ensure that happens – this year, your vote actually matters!

Me, I'm going to buy some serious alcohol and have it at the ready on that Tuesday evening.  By the end of the evening, I'll either be celebrating in an alcohol- and joy-induced haze, or I'll be trying to drink myself into a stupor while providing a pleasant environment for my brain cells to die in...

Despair...

Go read.

Then ponder that all this happened in a single week.

Sheesh, folks, what's happening to us?

Hope...

Oh, just go read this...

There now, don't you feel better?

Oh, Crap...

Via my mom:

Positive Feedback...

JoNova has a good, non-technical explanation of what positive feedbacks are, how the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) models depend on them, and why there's good cause to be skeptical of them.  Toward the end there's also a particularly good example of the kinds of presentation tricks the IPCC and its members use to mislead us all...

Juan Williams Firing...

I haven't said anything about this because I didn't have anything to add to the reams of stories already out there, and I figured it would be obvious to my readers where I stood on it.  But I just finished viewing this video of Juan Williams own reaction (below), which I think is worth viewing in its entirety.





There are several possible outcomes from this imbroglio:

• Juan Williams gets a better job.  Done: he's accepted a full time role at Fox News that came with a considerable raise.
  
  
• NPR loses it's government funding.  I think this would be great, but it's not likely.  By the time Congress could act on this, the fervor will have all but died down.  Dang it!
  
  
• NPR's incredibly under-qualified CEO could lose her job.  This seems likely to me, if there's any justice in the world.
  
  
• NPR could fire a bunch of its other propagandists journalists, in order to appear fair to Juan Williams.  Unlikely, I think.  More likely: these journalists will start looking for other work, feeling at risk after Juan Williams' treatment.

Angle vs. Reid and Obama...

Obama was in Nevada yesterday, stumping for Harry Reid – who is fighting for his political life against Sharron Angle.  I know very little about Angle other than that she's been endorsed by the Tea Party and Sarah Palin.  Given the alternative (Reid), I'd take just about any candidate in opposition, so long as he or she could beat Reid.

But one thing that's becoming obvious about Angle: she and her supporters have money to spend, and they're waging a very effective campaign.  This ad was released (I believe) on Thursday afternoon, just before Obama's arrival.  It's simply brilliant, using Obama's own words combined with news images to tie both Reid and Obama to Nevada's current disastrous economy:

Grass...

Usually we get the first grass poking up in February or March, after the rainy season is underway.  I noticed yesterday that we've got grass growing right now, in a thick blanket that's an inch tall this morning.  The recent rains, combined with the relatively cool, damp summer, must have tricked the grass seeds into germinating now instead of on the usual schedule. 

I'm not sure if this is good news or bad news!

November 2 You Vote!

Via my mom, an oldie-but-goodie that seems particularly apt this election year:

While walking down the street one day a US Senator is tragically hit by a truck and dies. The Senator's soul arrives in heaven and is met by St. Peter at the entrance.

"Welcome to heaven," says St. Peter. "Before you settle in, it seems there is a problem. We seldom see a high official around these parts, you see, so we're not sure what to do with you."

"No problem, just let me in," says the Senator.

St. Peter says, "Well, I'd like to, but I have orders from higher up. What we'll do is have you spend one day in hell and one in heaven. Then you can choose where to spend eternity."

"Really, I've made up my mind. I want to be in heaven," says the Senator.

"I'm sorry, but we have our rules", replies St.Peter.

And with that, St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell. The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a green golf course. In the distance is a clubhouse and standing in front of it are all his friends and other politicians who had worked with him.

Everyone is very happy and in evening dress. They run to greet him, shake his hand, and reminisce about the good times they had while getting rich at the expense of the people. They play a friendly game of golf and then dine on lobster, caviar and champagne. Also present is the Devil, who really is a very friendly guy who has a good time dancing and telling jokes. They are having such a good time that before he realizes it, it is time to go. Everyone gives him a hearty farewell and waves while the elevator rises...

The elevator goes up, up, up and the door reopens on heaven where St. Peter is waiting for him.

"Now it's time to visit heaven," St Peter says.

So, 24 hours pass with the Senator joining a group of contented souls moving from cloud to cloud, playing the harp and singing. They have a good time and the 24 hours in heaven passes by and St Peter returns.

"Well, you've spent a day in hell and another in heaven. Now which will you choose for your eternity?" St Peter asks.

The Senator reflects for a minute, then he answers, "Well, I never would have thought it before, I mean heaven has been delightful, but I think I would be happier and better off ... in hell."

So St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell.

Now the doors of the elevator open and he's in the middle of a barren land covered with waste and garbage. He sees all his friends, dressed in rags, picking up the trash and putting it in black bags as more trash falls from above. The Devil comes over to him and puts his arm around his shoulder.

"I don't understand," stammers the Senator. "Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and clubhouse, and we ate lobster and caviar, drank champagne, and danced and had a great time. Now there's just a wasteland full of garbage and my friends look miserable. What happened?"

The Devil looks at him, smiles and says, "Yesterday we were campaigning. Today, you voted."

Vote on November 2. This year, especially, your vote has consequences...

My Company Is Growing...

Service-now.com had just 40 employees when I started working there three years ago; now it has over 200.  The company's current location in Solana Beach is getting cramped, so it has leased new office space:

Cassidy Turley BRE Commercial, San Diego’s market leader in commercial real estate services, today announced that Service-Now.com has signed a 96 month lease for office space in the Carmel Valley Corporate Center. The value of the lease was not disclosed.

The building, located at 12225 El Camino Real in Del Mar Heights, is owned by Kilroy Realty Corporation and is part of two, two-story office buildings totaling 115,513 rentable square feet of Class A office space.

Service-Now.com leased Suites 100 and 200 in the building, which is approximately 37,200 square feet.

We're moving sometime next year.  Onwards, to infinity and beyond!

Programming Language Trends...

Tiobe has been tracking the popularity of various programming languages for nine years.  Their index is based on search engine hits.  The notion is that the number of web sites about a programming language is a proxy for that language's popularity.  I can see some potential issues with this idea (for example, Pascal is popular amongst academics, and one could imagine they're more likely to create web sites), but in general I think it's likely to be reasonably accurate.

At right is the current index (click to enlarge).  For the entire lifetime of the index, Java and C are jostling for first place honors.  There are just a few interesting trends that jump out at me as I stare at this:

1. C++ seems to be in a slow, steady decline.  This is consistent with what I hear from my peers.  I'd be leery of commiting long-term projects to it. 
   
   
2. C's share has been climbing for several years now.  I speculate that this is because of the rise of mobile platforms, many of which use C (though this is now starting to change). 
   
   
3. C#'s popularity is slowly and steadily climbing.  I'm not entirely sure what this means.  The language is very similar to Java, but is specific to Microsoft platforms.  I'd be very curious to see a breakdown in the interest between enterprise developers, academic developers, and hobbyists.  In my contacts with enterprise developers, I do see C# used, but not extensively – its ranking here is higher than I'd expect from what I see in that world.  So I wonder if it's used a lot by academics or hobbyists...
    
4. Objective C is rapidly climbing.  In this case, the reason is obvious: this is the language of choice on Apple's mobile platforms (iPhone, iTouch, iPad), and those devices are attracting hordes of developers.  It will be interesting to see if Android's (which uses Java) recent rapid growth reflects in Java's numbers next year.
   
   
5. Python has been slowly and steadily climbing for years now.  I know that Python is very popular amongst IT organizations; I know lots of sysadmins who swear by it.  But I've never seen it used for any other purpose.  I'd love to know if this growth is entirely within IT, or if Python is being adopted by some other group that's helping drive this growth...

WTF? This is Google's Fault?

I'm having trouble seeing what this flap is all about.  The facts in the story are this: Google sends it's “Street View” vehicles up and down every street and road in the world, recording photos that can then be seen on their online maps.  It's a wonderful feature that I use all the time.  These vehicles record not only the photos, though; they also keep a record of the wireless networks they happen to see as they're cruising by.  These days, practically every house has one. I'm not sure what Google is planning to do with this information, but it's just stuff in the airwaves that they're picking up – the same way that anyone who drove by could do.

Somehow, some people are interpreting this as a violation of their privacy.  This is the part that completely escapes me.  Two factors argue against any expectation of privacy.

First, the wireless data is stuff that the homeowner chose to broadcast.  Suppose the homeowner chose to hang a large sign outside their house, and on that sign ws the homeowner's bank account number and access password.  Would we expect that information to be private?  I think not!  Would we expect the homeowner to behave like that?  Only if they were morons!

And this leads directly to the second factor: this wireless information is very easily secured.  Every wireless router (the gadget that lets you create a wireless network at home) has a simple means to encrypt the information broadcast on the network.  All any homeowner has to do is turn this encryption feature on, and then neither Google nor any other passer-by can read that information.  Why doesn't everyone turn this on?  I haven't the foggiest idea, but I can't see how that failure can in any way become Google's problem...

New Black Panthers Incident Finally Hits Lamestream Media...

The Washington Post (of all places!) “broke” the story.  The scare quotes are there because of course this story has been all over the blogosphere for two years, and outlets like the Wall Street Journal covered it as well – but the mainstream media has studiously ignored the story, giving cover to the Obama administration generally, and Eric Holder in particular.  At best, it's a shameful story of a crime covered up.  At worst, it's a first step toward a Russian-style thugocracy.

I don't have many kind words for the likes of the Washington Post, but this time they deserve credit for airing this disturbing story.  Probably this is less a reflection of their good intentions, and more a reflection of Obama's fall from grace in their eyes...but that's ok, too.

An Odd Sort of Morning...

Though this morning I had no particular reason to get up early, I woke up at 3 am anyway.  Dang it!  Debbie is up north competing this weekend, staying with friends north of Temecula.  She's got Miki (who's entered in the competition) and Race (who's going along to acclimate him to the show environment), so I'm at home without my wife and with just two dogs (Mo'i and Lea).  It felt a little empty around there this morning...

But Lea and Mo'i and I went out for our morning walk as usual.  The sky was clouded over nearly completely – in the eastern sky I could see but a single star (probably Sirius, from its position and brightness).  High in the southwest sky, though, I could see the disk of a full moon through the gauze of the thin cloud layer.  The clouds were scudding quickly in a wind from the west, and nearly the entire sky was brightly lit by the moon's glow.   The result was quite a bit of light in our yard – enough to see clearly without a flashlight, and for objects close to my face I could even make out a bit of color.  The light was coming from every direction, so there were no shadows. 

Mo'i and Lea were nose down, very intently sniffing for the entire walk.  Even for me, the morning air was full of spicy aromas.  Some were clearly chaparral plants, but others I fancy were of animal origin.  The dog's behavior reinforced that notion.  I suspect we were visited by some beast or other last night...

The crickets and frogs, who have been silent the past few mornings, were in full-throated chorus this morning.  I heard a new frog sound this morning, so I'm guessing that another species has joined the morning crowd.  This new sound seemed to be coming from the north, which is downhill from our house.  Probably these new frogs are in the woods around the creek below us; that creek has just started trickling after our recent rains...

Coming back into the house, I heard lots of meowing – all five cats that live in the house were sitting on top of the cat tree in our living room.  That's where we keep the cat food bowl, and it was empty.  The meowing was their way of letting me know that they wanted food, and right now!  I got their food...

Backcountry Plan: No Decisions...

This article has the details, but the bottom line is that (as expected) the County Supervisors are not voting on the General Plan Update until sometime after the election on November 2.  There will be more hearings and more public input.  However, as the article points out, the public input so far has been overwhelmingly negative.  The plan update has something for everybody to hate, as probably any proposed changes would.

How do I feel about it?  Unsure, as I haven't read the proposed changes.  However, if the news stories are accurate (never a sure thing, that), there is one element which I definitely would oppose: a “taking” in the legal sense.  This element would increase the minimum size of lots that homes could be built on – directly reducing the value of larger tracts that individuals or developers own, without compensating them in any way.  That is a taking, and I'd oppose it...

Optical Illusions...

Here's a great collection of spectacular optical illusions.  In the one at right, the “yellow” tile is actually exactly the same color as the “brown” tile on top.  Don't believe it?  Make a mask from a piece of cardboard with two holes in it, and hold it over the image – you can see for yourself that they are the same color.

Perception is a very tricky thing, and the brain is far more involved that most people realize...

Viva Chile!

When Peggy Noonan's writing started wandering down a strange path (this started when Obama was campaigning in 2008), it was a big disappointment for me.  I used to eagerly await her new column each week, and only rarely did she fail to deliver an interesting insight.  For a couple of years, one got the sense that somehow she'd been partly hijacked by the progressives.  I stopped reading her column altogether, and only when some other bloggers started mentioning her writing again a few months ago did I pay attention myself.

Now I'm back reading her column each week, for she seems to have shrugged off whatever “infection” she had.  Her column from last week is a great example of the kind of writing I cherished before.  Here she's commenting about Chilean President Piñera's reaction to learning about the mine collapse and missing miners:

What do you do? You throw yourself at the problem. You direct your government: This is the thing we do now. You say, "We will get the men." You put your entire persona behind it, you put it all on the line, you gamble that your nation can do it. You trust your nation to do it. You do whatever possible to see your nation does it. And the day the rescues are to begin, you don't show up and wring your hands so people can say "Ah, he knew it might not work, he was not unrealistic, he was telling us not to get our hopes up." No, you stand there smiling with joy because you know it will work, you know your people will come through, you have utmost confidence. And so you go and radiate your joy from the first moment the rescue began and the first man came out straight through to the last man coming out. You stand. You stay.

It was the opposite of the governor of Louisiana during Katrina, projecting helplessness and loserdom, or the president flying over the storm, or the mayor holing up in a motel deciding this might be a good time for a breakdown. This was someone taking responsibility. 

This is the same comparison I made in an earlier post, though presented more eloquently than I ever could.  She's captured (in her entire post) exactly the set of reactions I had to Chile's oh-so-competent handling of the mine collapse, and our governments “loserdom”.

Nice to have your old self back, Peggy...

Rain! And So Much Less...

As of this past Monday morning, we'd had a total of a quarter inch of rain in October.  As of this morning, the guage stood at 3.15 inches – so we've had almost three inches of rain in three days.  The bulk of our rain came on Tuesday night, as you can see on the graph at right.

Folks who have lived out here for over thirty years tell us that they don't remember another October that was so cool and wet, and all the research I've done into historical weather records backs up their memory.  Two years ago the anthropomorphic global warming folks were telling us to “stand by” for endless hot, dry summers and more wildfires like the Cedar fire.  For some reason I don't hear them saying much about this year, which has set all sorts of records in the exact opposite direction...

What did we have less of?  Power.  At around 9:30 pm on Tuesday night, Debbie and I were snoring away – but were (very) rudely awakened by the God-awful squalling of some infernal electronic device.  This turned out to be our carbon monoxide detector, which was offended because we had lost power.  I turned it off and went back to bed; such power outages are quite common out here after a storm.

But when we woke up at 2:30 am on Wednesday morning, we still had no power.  This was more unusual; the power company crews normally do an amazing job of fixing outages quickly.  For something to be out for five hours indicated a more serious problem than we usually experience.

So after some caffeination, around 4 am, Debbie and I jumped in our truck and went on a quest to find the source of the outage, and to see if we could get some progress information from the crew.  We drove all the way out of Lawson Valley to Skyline Truck Trail in complete darkness – nary a light to be seen anywhere along the route.  That was actually a bit eerie.  We continued up over the little knob until we could see the town of Jamul, which was lit up as usual.  And we saw three SDG&E (the local power company) trucks parked down near the stop sign.

I stopped and talked with the three crews, who were taking a break after finishing repairs on an outage near the church in Jamul.  They were unaware of an outage in Lawson Valley, but looked it up on a laptop computer.  From this same computer they were able to see where the outage affecting us was, and they were able to get status: good progress was being made, and they estimated a couple more hours until power was restored.  Back home we went, but first we took a slight detour to see the actual outage.  This was near the intersection of Lawson Valley Road and Lyons Vally Road, just south of Skyline Truck Trail.  When we got there, we could see a crew at work, high on a hill just northwest of the intersection.  We'd learned that the outage was caused by lightning striking and breaking the wires, and that high location would be exactly where you'd expect such an outage.

Our power came back on around 6:30 am, close enough to their estimate, nine hours after we lost it...