West Texas...

Via reader Jim M.:

Northern Nights...

Via reader Rodney R.:

I just got off the phone with a friend living in North Dakota near the Canadian border. He said that since early this morning the snow has been nearly waist high and is still falling. The temperature is dropping way below zero and the north wind is increasing to near gale force. His wife has done nothing but look through the kitchen window and just stare. He says that if it gets much worse, he may have to let her in.

Six Minutes to Management Excellence...

Via my mom:

Six Minute Management Course Lesson 1: A man is getting into the shower just as his wife is finishing up her shower, when the doorbell rings. The wife quickly wraps herself in a towel and runs downstairs. When she opens the door, there stands Bob, the next-door neighbor. Before she says a word, Bob says, 'I'll give you $800 to drop that towel.'After thinking for a moment, the woman drops her towel and stands naked in front of Bob, after a few seconds, Bob hands her $800 and leaves. The woman wraps back up in the towel and goes back upstairs. When she gets to the bathroom, her husband asks, 'Who was that?' 'It was Bob the next door neighbor,' she replies. 'Great,' the husband says, 'did he say anything about the $800 he owes me?' Moral of the story: If you share critical information pertaining to credit and risk with your shareholders in time, you may be in a position to prevent avoidable exposure. Lesson 2: A priest offered a Nun a lift.. She got in and crossed her legs, forcing her gown to reveal a leg. The priest nearly had an accident. After controlling the car, he stealthily slid his hand up her leg. The nun said, 'Father, remember Psalm 129?' The priest removed his hand But, changing gears, he let his hand slide up her leg again. The nun once again said, 'Father, remember Psalm 129?' The priest apologized 'Sorry sister but the flesh is weak.' Arriving at the convent, the nun sighed heavily and went on her way. On his arrival at the church, the priest rushed to look up Psalm 129. It said, 'Go forth and seek, further up, you will find glory.' Moral of the story: If you are not well informed in your job, you might miss a great opportunity. Lesson 3: A sales rep, an administration clerk, and the manager are walking to lunch when they find an antique oil lamp. They rub it and a Genie comes out. The Genie says, 'I'll give each of you just one wish.' 'Me first! Me first!' says the admin clerk. 'I want to be in the Bahamas , driving a speedboat, without a care in the world.' Puff! She's gone. 'Me next! Me next!' says the sales rep. 'I want to be in Hawaii , relaxing on the beach with my personal masseuse, an endless supply of Pina Coladas and the love of my life.' Puff! He's gone. 'OK, you're up,' the Genie says to the manager.. The manager says, 'I want those two back in the office after lunch.' Moral of the story: Always let your boss have the first say. Lesson 4 An eagle was sitting on a tree resting, doing nothing. A small rabbit saw the eagle and asked him, 'Can I also sit like you and do nothing?' The eagle answered: 'Sure, why not.' So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the eagle and rested. All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it. Moral of the story: To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up. Lesson 5 A turkey was chatting with a bull. 'I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree' sighed the turkey, 'but I haven't got the energy.' 'Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?' replied the bull. They're packed with nutrients.' The turkey pecked at a lump of dung, and found it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree. The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch. Finally after a fourth night, the turkey was proudly perched at the top of the tree. He was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot him out of the tree. Moral of the story: Bull Shit might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there. Lesson 6 A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold the bird froze and fell to the ground into a large field. While he was lying there, a cow came by and crapped on him. As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cow crap, he began to realize how warm he was. The crap was actually thawing him out! He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy. A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate. Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow crap, and promptly dug him out and ate him. Morals of the story: (1) Not everyone who craps on you is your enemy. (2) Not everyone who gets you out of crap is your friend. (3) And when you're in deep shit, it's best to keep your mouth shut!

Christmas Poem, Brooklyn Style...

This is quite likely the only time you will ever see this blog linking to Imus in the Morning! Via my mom, this audio clip of a Christmas poem, in the style of Brooklyn...

Animal Camouflage...

Can you spot the animal at right? 

Lots more examples of animal camouflage at work in this slide show...

Noonan on Newt...

In today's WSJ.  Her conclusion:

There are many good things to say about Newt Gingrich. He is compelling and unique, and, as Margaret Thatcher once said, he has "tons of guts."

But this is a walk on the wild side.

The UNIX Way vs. Knuth...

Interesting post, with this quote from a review by Doug McIlroy:

Knuth has shown us here how to program intelligibly, but not wisely. I buy the discipline. I do not buy the result. He has fashioned a sort of industrial-strength Fabergé egg—intricate, wonderfully worked, refined beyond all ordinary desires, a museum piece from the start.

As the author of the post says:

Just remember, he’s saying this about Donald Knuth.

Geekly Music...

Love the retro touches, like the EICO Model 460 'scope.  Passed along by reader Doug S.:





I have a couple personal connections to that video. First, the EICO 460 'scope – today the thing is a museum piece.  Around 1969 or 1970, that exact same 'scope was the centerpiece of my little electronics workshop.  I found one broken somewhere, bought it, fixed it, and then paid a metrology shop in Philadelphia $40 to recalibrate it (back then, $40 was a substantial sum for me!).

Then there's the stepper motor noise that forms the main “instrument” in this video (the stepper motor is what's positioning the scanner imager).  Back in the late '70s and early '80s, I made a little money selling a nifty piece of software to computer manufacturers who were making systems that included floppy disk drives.  Those early floppy disks used stepper motor head positioners that made an annoying grinding/whining noise.  My software changed the way the steppers were used: instead of sending step commands at a constant rate, it smoothly accelerated and decelerated it.  The constant rate steps made the motor move and stop on each step, “shaking” it, and making the objectionable noise.  With my software, the motor never shook like that, and there was then almost no noise.

While I was developing that software, I noted that I could make the stepper motor make nearly whatever noise I wanted it to make.  But it never occurred to me to make music with it!

Driverless Cars...

A great, thought-provoking short post on the unintended consequences of driverless cars.

Flight 447: the Rest of the Story...

Popular Mechanics has a great summary of what really happened in the crash of Air France's flight 447 two years ago off the coast of Brazil.  Bottom line: profound pilot error combined with an apparent lack of understanding of how the automated flight systems on board their Airbus 330.  Some of the pilot errors were apparently caused by the pilots expecting the plane's flight control systems to work like older, less automated systems worked.  Said another way, the pilots appeared to be unprepared to handle the complexities of their automated flight controls.

This is a problem familiar to any modern software developer: users, in general, have little idea how the software they use actually works.  It's common – in fact, normal – for the users' mental model of the software package to be badly flawed.  For most kinds of software, the outcome of this is frustrated users and angry tech support calls.  This is not the case for flight control software, as this article makes very clear...

Gypsum on Mars...

Gypsum is a mineral, the stuff that's in the core of drywall.  It's very common on Earth, and had been previously detected on Mars.  What's new here is that the Mars rover Opportunity spotted a vein of gypsum (at right, click to enlarge) – and the only way anybody knows of that such a vein could be formed requires the presence of liquid water.  In other words, this is the equivalent of an old sign saying “Liquid water was once present here!”  Lots of other things found on Mars were already hinting that liquid water was once present on Mars – but this finding makes it all but certain...

70 Years Ago Today...

The Japanese Imperial Navy attacked Pearl Harbor...

It's a fine day for us all to remember that we (the United States) are always a target for those threatened by our way of life...

The Utterances of the Newt...

Here are 18 things that Newt Gingrich has said:

1. “I’m not a natural leader. I’m too intellectual; I’m too abstract; I think too much.”

2. “If the Soviet empire still existed, I’d be terrified. The fact is, we can afford a fairly ignorant presidency now.”

3. “The idea that a congressman would be tainted by accepting money from private industry or private sources is essentially a socialist argument.”

4. “Give the park police more ammo.”

5. “The problem isn’t too little money in political campaigns, but not enough.”

6. “I have enormous personal ambition. I want to shift the entire planet. And I’m doing it. I am now a famous person. I represent real power.”

7. “Gingrich – Primary mission, Advocate of civilization, Definer of civilization, Teacher of the rules of civilization, Leader of the civilizing forces.”

8. “The most serious, systematic revolutionary of modern times.”

9. “It doesn’t matter what I do. People need to hear what I have to say. There’s no one else who can say what I can say. It doesn’t matter what I live.”

10. “This is one of the great tragedies of the Bush administration. The more successful they’ve been at intercepting and stopping bad guys, the less proof there is that we’re in danger… It’s almost like they should every once in a while have allowed an attack to get through just to remind us.”

11. “Now, we don’t get rid of it in round one because we don’t think that that’s politically smart, and we don’t think that’s the right way to go through a transition. But we believe it’s going to wither on the vine because we think people are voluntarily going to leave it — voluntarily.”

12. “She isn’t young enough or pretty enough to be the President’s wife.”

13. “I read Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them and I found frightening pieces that related to…my own life.”

14. “It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in child laws which are truly stupid…These schools should get rid of unionized janitors, have one master janitor, pay local students to take care of the school.”

15. “We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto.”

16. “The left-wing Democrats will represent the party of total hedonism, total exhibitionism, total bizarreness, total weirdness, and the total right to cripple innocent people in the name of letting hooligans loose.”

17. “These people are sick. They are so consumed by their own power, by a Mussolini-like ego, that their willingness to run over normal human beings and to destroy honest institutions is unending.”

18. “I think one of the great problems we have in the Republican party is that we don’t encourage you to be nasty. We encourage you to be neat, obedient, and loyal and faithful and all those Boy Scout words.”

Some of these are taken of context in such a way as to deliberately distort their original intent.  Many of these I agree with; some I don't.  Now take a look at how a liberal interprets them...

Yes!

I'm a Developer...

Someone should invest in me!

Where Should You Get Your Mental Healthcare?

Via my mom.  Once again, I'm not certain what message she's really sending:

Ever since I was a child, I've always had a fear of someone under my bed at night.  So I went to a shrink and told him “I've got problems. Every time I go to bed I think there's somebody under it. I'm scared. I think I'm going crazy.”

“Just put yourself in my hands for one year,' said the shrink. “Come talk to me three times a week and we should be able to get rid of those fears..'

“How much do you charge?”

“Eighty dollars per visit,” replied the doctor.

“I'll sleep on it,” I said.

Six months later the doctor met me on the street. “Why didn't you come to see me about those fears you were having?” he asked.

“Well, Eighty bucks a visit three times a week for a year is an awful lot of money! A bartender cured me for $10. I was so happy to have saved all that money that I went and bought me a new pickup!”

“Is that so!' With a bit of an attitude he said, “And how, may I ask, did a bartender cure you?”

“He told me to cut the legs off the bed! Ain't nobody under there now!!!”
 

Forget the shrinks.  Have a drink and talk to a bartender!

No Nativity Scene...

A seasonal oldie-but-goodie, via my mom:

The Supreme Court has ruled that there cannot be a Nativity Scene in the United States' Capital this Christmas season.

This isn't for any religious reason. They simply have not been able to find three Wise Men in the nation's Capitol.

A search for a Virgin continues.

There was no problem, however, finding enough asses to fill the stable.

Taken Out the Plane Window...

I didn't take this picture, or any of the 100 out-the-plane-window pictures you'll find in this collection.  I have, however, been to quite a few of those places and seen very similar sights.  The photo of Mt. Ranier at right (note the shadow of the mountain in the clouds), and of the salt ponds in San Francisco Bay that appears in the linked collection, are both things I've seen many times.  Some of these photos are remarkably good considering the usually dirty, scratched, dual-pane windows they were taken through...

Political Correctness vs. Common Sense...

At JFK airport in New York, this past week, TSA agents strip-searched a ticketed passenger going through security. 

Why? Because the passenger didn't want to go through the X-ray equipment, fearing that it might interfere with her defibrillator.  The usual alternative is a pat-down search (something I've had done myself), but in her case, they opted for a strip search. 

Why?  That's a bit unclear, as the passenger didn't fit any threat profile I've ever heard of: she's white, 85 years old, weighs 107 pounds, and uses a walker.

Somehow in the process of doing the humiliating strip search, they managed to injure her as well.

The only reason the TSA would strip-search a passenger like that is in their eagerness to avoid “profiling”.  In an all-too-familiar example of the triumph of multi-culturalist political correctness over common sense, our TSA has decided that we cannot recognize the rather clear fact that terrorists seem to be overwhelmingly (1) Muslim, (2) young men, and (3) Middle Eastern.  Not that there aren't exceptions (though I'm pretty certain that 85 year old Caucasian women are not amongst them), but the preponderance of terrorists do, in fact, fit this profile.  There, I did it: I used the politically-incorrect word.

The good news: Europe, where our “elites” get their cues, seems to have figured out that the multi-culti movement has been a disaster for them.  The first steps to reversing the ravages of multi-culti are underway.  If they can avoid a new Nazi takeover as the pendulum swings the other way, even our “progressives” will wake up and start singing a different, politically-incorrect song.

I can hardly wait!

How Doctors Die...

A thought-provoking piece by Ken Murray, a retired M.D.  The assertions he makes will be a topic the next time I meet with my doctor; I'd like to know whether he agrees with them.  From our own experiences with our animals at the ends of their lives, I find this entirely plausible.  The intro:

Years ago, Charlie, a highly respected orthopedist and a mentor of mine, found a lump in his stomach. He had a surgeon explore the area, and the diagnosis was pancreatic cancer. This surgeon was one of the best in the country. He had even invented a new procedure for this exact cancer that could triple a patient’s five-year-survival odds—from 5 percent to 15 percent—albeit with a poor quality of life. Charlie was uninterested. He went home the next day, closed his practice, and never set foot in a hospital again. He focused on spending time with family and feeling as good as possible. Several months later, he died at home. He got no chemotherapy, radiation, or surgical treatment. Medicare didn’t spend much on him.

It’s not a frequent topic of discussion, but doctors die, too. And they don’t die like the rest of us. What’s unusual about them is not how much treatment they get compared to most Americans, but how little. For all the time they spend fending off the deaths of others, they tend to be fairly serene when faced with death themselves. They know exactly what is going to happen, they know the choices, and they generally have access to any sort of medical care they could want. But they go gently.