Cowboy Fire!

Dang it, another fire.  CAL FIRE is calling this one the “Cowboy” fire; at last report it was around 200 acres, out between Potrero and Campo in a remote area (map of approximate location, NOT its size).  No people or structures are threatened, and it doesn't appear to be any danger to us as it's quite far away (about 16 miles).  As I was driving home tonight, Debbie called me saying that she could see smoke out toward Barrett Lake (east of our house).  So I drove out that way before I came home, which is where I snapped these two photos at around 3 pm, from Lyons Valley Road just west of Lake Barrett. 

There are lots of news reports, as usual with these things they full of conflicting information.  What I could see for myself, though, was very comforting: a small cloud of fire-fighting aircraft swarmed around the fire.  As I drove home, a gigantic helicopter, painted bright red and black, flew right over Lawson Valley headed for the fire site.  It looked like some kind of bizarre insect, angry and rarin' for a fight. 

There is every reason for folks out our way to feel safe – the winds that would make a fire dangerous are not present, nor are they forecast.  Let's hope nothing too odd happens with our weather – and let's all keep our fingers crossed that the firefighters and the folks of East County out near the communities of Potrero, Campo, and Lake Morena – and their property – all stay safe...

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The Cannibal...

Via my cousin Mike D.:

A cannibal was walking through the jungle and came upon a restaurant operated by a fellow cannibal. Feeling somewhat hungry, he sat down and looked over the menu....

    Tourist:                                   $5.00
    Broiled  Missionary:                      $10.00
    Fried  Explorer:                          $15.00
    Baked Democrat or Grilled Republican:    $100.00

The cannibal called the waiter over and asked,"Why such a high price for the Politicians?"

The cook replied, "Have you ever tried to clean one? They're so full of shit, it takes all morning!"

Sounds right to me!

Awesome Dilbert...

That “Oh, right.” is just perfect...

Black Ribbon Project...

Many doctors believe Obamacare will ruin the world's best healthcare system – ours.  And they're taking action, with the Black Ribbon Project.  There's an excellent piece about it in today's WSJ.

I Can See November from My House...

The Iowa Electronic Markets (where real people bet real money on all sorts of things, including politics) has options for sale to bet on the outcome of the November 2010 mid-terms.  The chart at right shows the price for three different options contracts.  The higher the price, the more likely the market thinks that outcome is; the lower the price, the less likely.

What makes this market particularly interesting is two things: first, there's real money on it; second, its track record of prediction is quite good (especially compared to the talking heads and print pundits).  What this chart shows is that the players in the Iowa Electronic Markets think that it's pretty much a slam dunk (80/20) that the Republicans are going to get control of the House.  That's a huge margin as these political things go.

On the other hand, the chart at left shows very similar odds for the Democrats to retain control of the Senate.  The odds have improved over the most recent few days, but only by a little. 

I'm going to be watching this graph as November approaches – and hoping that the lines cross beforehand.  It's not that I'm particularly enamored of the Republicans – to me, the current crop of Republican Senators is only marginally more attractive than the Democratic variety.  Rather, I'm greatly enamored of total gridlock – if the Republicans somehow managed to control both the House and the Senate for the last two years of Obama's term, then Obama's agenda will be greatly impeded.  That's the attractive outcome for me!

Solid-State Memory Breakthrough...

If this new technology proves commercializable (and it sure looks like it will be), then the demise of rotating magnetic media (i.e., hard disks) will be much hastened.  The fact that it can be layered to make “3D” memory means that devices using this technology can have absolutely awesome volumetric densities.

In other words, you can pack a whole bunch of information into an incredibly tiny space.  Today's commercial memory technologies are all “2D”, meaning that they depend on a bits stored in a sheet (hard disks, CDs, DVDs, and Flash Memory are all like this).  There are definite limits to how closely together the sheets can be packed.  The new technology allows bits to be stored in layers that are extremely thin and placed directly atop one another.  By arranging thousands or millions of layers, one can make a cube or brick of practically solid memory – with each bit occupying a cube just a few nanometers on a side.

Just a little back-of-the-napkin math will show what I mean.  Imagine that the “bit cubes” were 100 nanometers on a side (that's 100 billionths of a meter) – far larger than the bits in the lab.  Then imagine we built a cube of these that was 2 centimeters (about three quarters of an inch) on a side.  That cube would hold about 1,000 terabytes – or the same as 1,000 of the largest hard disks one can buy today!

Aging Gracefully...and with Humor!

Science Map...

Better quality version.

I Do Not Like This Uncle Sam...

Via my mom:

I do not like this Uncle Sam,
I do not like his health care scam.
I do not like these dirty crooks,
or how they lie and cook the books.
I do not like when Congress steals,
I do not like their secret deals.
I do not like this speaker Nan ,
I do not like this 'YES, WE CAN'.
I do not like this spending spree---
I'm smart, I know that nothing's free.
I do not like your smug replies,
when I complain about your lies.
I do not like this kind of hope.
I do not like it. nope, nope, nope!

Go green - recycle Congress in 2010!

Shotgun Tracts...

On the lower Mississippi River, there's a stretch of land where the properties are all long, skinny tracts, with each having a tiny sliver of riverfront.  These are the shotgun tracts of the lower Mississippi...

Chaparral Morning...

Beautifully cool (57°F) and clear, with a half-moon high in the northeastern sky, just alongside the Pleiades.  Jupiter is still bright and high in the south; Orion is well up over the northeastern horizon.  The moon was bright enough for the dogs and I to see well without any light – I could even detect the red of our new roof.

Speaking of which, Chris and the boys are back from their vacation, and they went right to work yesterday.  When I got home from work they'd already left, but the roof is now more than half completed.

The three field spaniels were happily snuffling in the moonlight this morning.  No signs of alarm; they were just enjoying their enthusiastic inhalations of the morning's aromas.  Even I could smell the spicy chaparral aromas this morning – sage, especially, but also many other components.  The crickets were almost silent for some reason (possibly it was too cool for their liking).  Race, the border collie, was completely absorbed by the pine cone he'd found – he has a game he plays repetitively and compulsively.  First he drops the pine cone just in front of him.  Then he slowly backs a foot or so away, all the while staring at it intently.  Then as soon as one of the field spaniels or I makes an inadvertent move toward the pine cone (since none of us care a whit about it), he darts in and grabs it, delighting in his victory over us.  Then he does it all again...

Geek Humor...

Via colleague James C.:

Q.  Why do computer geeks get Halloween confused with Christmas?
A.  Because oct 31 == dec 25!

If you don't get it, just take comfort in the fact that you're demonstrably and provably not a geek. It would be hard to explain to the ungeekly...

Fermat's Last Theorem...

A documentary, roughly 45 minutes and quite good:

Light Blogging Alert...

My mother-in-law (Kate) arrived Friday night for her annual visit, and we've been busy settling her in.  Tonight we're headed out for a fried chicken dinner at our favorite local restaurant: the Descanso Junction Restaurant.  Kate's been there many times before on past visits, and loves it.

We love to have her out here visiting, but it's a long flight (from Cincinnati, Ohio) for someone her age.  She's in her 90s, frail, and each year we fear it may be the last time she's able to make the journey.  But she did it again, without any trouble, and now we've got her with us for three whole weeks.

On almost every visit she makes to see us, something goes wrong.  Typical of these problems happened on a visit perhaps 15 years ago.  After arriving at the San Diego airport, she visited the restroom there on the way down to get her baggage.  When she entered one of the stalls and shut the door, it fell off its hinges and landed on her foot!  The door was a heavy metal door, and it broke several bones in her foot.  For that entire visit, she was on crutches with her foot immobilized.  Now when we look back on it, we all laugh at it, but it wasn't so funny at the time.

This time the now-expected thing-that-goes-wrong happened just before she left her home to go to the airport.  As she was getting ready, she poured her eye medicine into an eye-cup (as she does every morning) and upended the cup over her eye.  But she had accidentally filled the cup with mouthwash instead of her eye medicine!  Her eye was burning, very painful.  Fortunately she had her wits about her, and quickly did exactly the right thing: flushed it thoroughly with plain water.  Her vision wasn't hurt, but her eye was tearing badly for that entire day, including on the flight out here.  Furthermore, the mouthwash had irritated the skin under her eye, so she had a big, angry red patch under her right eye.  Today the tearing is all over, and the red patch is fading, so as best we can tell there was no permanent harm done.  

Hopefully that's the only thing that goes wrong on this visit!

Crazy Weather: Yes, Even More!

The high yesterday was 76°F; the low last night 44°F.  This is summer in San Diego?  I global warming means this kind of summer for us, I say: bring it on!

Crazy Weather: Yes, Even More!

Earlier this week we had temperatures over 105°F, which are normal for us this time of year.  Before that our summer had beed substantially cooler than normal.  Well, look what happened to us in the past day: our temperature dropped from a high yesterday of 92°F to a low last night of just 48°F!  As I write this, it's just before noon and the temperature is only 69°F.

It's very nice to have this cool weather.  But it sure is weird!  And the forecast is calling for even cooler weather tomorrow...

You Want Us to Believe What?

Via my cousin Mike D.:

Wal-Mart vs. The Morons


1. Americans spend $36,000,000 at Wal-Mart Every hour of every day.

2. This works out to $20,928 profit every minute!

3. Wal-Mart will sell more from January 1 to St. Patrick's Day (March 17th) than Target sells all year.

4. Wal-Mart is bigger than Home Depot + Kroger + Target +Sears + Costco + K-Mart combined.

5. Wal-Mart employs 1.6 million people, is the world's largest private employer, and most speak English.

6. Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the world.

7. Wal-Mart now sells more food than Kroger and Safeway combined, and keep in mind they did this in only fifteen years.

8. During this same period, 31 big supermarket chains sought bankruptcy.

9. Wal-Mart now sells more food than any other store in the world.

10. Wal-Mart has approx 3,900 stores in the USA of which 1,906 are Super Centers; this is 1,000 more than it had five years ago.

11. This year 7.2 billion different purchasing experiences will occur at Wal-Mart stores. (Earth's population is approximately 6.5 Billion.)

12. 90% of all Americans live within fifteen miles of a Wal-Mart.

You may think that I am complaining, but I am really laying the ground work for suggesting that MAYBE we should hire the guys who run Wal-Mart to fix the economy.

This should be read and understood by all Americans Democrats, Republicans, EVERYONE!!

To President Obama and all 535 voting members of the Legislature,

It is now official you are ALL corrupt morons:

A. The U.S. Postal Service was established in 1775. You have had 234 years to get it right and it is broke.

B. Social Security was established in 1935. You have had 74 years to get it right and it is broke.

C. Fannie Mae was established in 1938. You have had 71 years to get it right and it is broke.

D. War on Poverty started in 1964. You have had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to "the poor" and they only want more.

E. Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965. You have had 44 years to get it right and they are broke.

F. Freddie Mac was established in 1970. You have had 39 years to get it right and it is broke.

G. The Department of Energy was created in 1977 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. It has ballooned to 16,000 employees with a budget of $24 billion a year and we import more oil than ever before. You had 32 years to get it right and it is an abysmal failure.

You have FAILED in every "government service" you have shoved down our throats while overspending our tax dollars.

AND YOU WANT AMERICANS TO BELIEVE YOU CAN BE TRUSTED WITH A GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM???

I'd bet every time on Wal-Mart management over government management to get it right, wouldn't you?

Glass Armonica...

I never knew how this part of the Sugar Plum Fairy was created – and this certainly wasn't what I'd have guessed.  The instrument is called a glass armonica, and wouldn't you know it: Benjamin Franklin invented it!