No Nativity Scene in Washington D.C. This Year...

Via my mom:

There will be no Nativity Scene in Washington this year!

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.

The search for a Virgin continues.

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

Branden Dallo Killed...

In an accident that may have been alcohol-related, 21 year old Branden Dallo was killed yesterday in a single car accident off Jamul Drive:

A 21-year-old man was killed and his passenger was injured early Friday when their car went off a winding, rural road in Jamul, authorities said.

Branden Dallo was driving a Porsche south on Jamul Drive when he lost control of the car and veered off the shoulder east of Tuk-A-Wile Drive about 2:15 a.m., California Highway Patrol Officer Brian Pennings said.

The Porsche went down a grassy slope and hit several trees and a boulder, Pennings said.

Dallo died in the wreck. His passenger, McKenzie Hillman, 18, was taken to a hospital with minor injuries, Pennings said.

Pennings said there was evidence that Dallo may have been under the influence of alcohol.

One small consolation: Ms. Hillman is ok.

Many readers have written to let me know that Branden was the younger brother of Johnny Dallo.

Our sympathy to the family and friends of Branden.

Endorsement...

Paul Ryan's Roadmap for America's Future just got a celebrity endorsement: from Sarah Palin.

Geek Rant...

Here's an interesting rant about Object Oriented Programming (OOP).  I'm certainly not ready to abandon OOP, but nonetheless the man makes some points that resonate.  Like this one:

Finally, I hate the catchphrase: “Objects are not enough. We need …” Over the years we have needed frameworks, components, aspects, services (which, curiously, seems to bring us back to procedural programming!).

Given the fact that objects clearly never were enough, isn’t it odd that they have served us so well over all these years?

Read the whole thing (and don't miss the comments!)...

Politics and Eye Movements...

Lead from a Science Daily article today:

It goes without saying that conservatives and liberals don't see the world in the same way. Now, research from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln suggests that is exactly, and quite literally, the case.

In a new study, UNL researchers measured both liberals' and conservatives' reaction to "gaze cues" -- a person's tendency to shift attention in a direction consistent with another person's eye movements, even if it's irrelevant to their current task -- and found big differences between the two groups.

Liberals responded strongly to the prompts, consistently moving their attention in the direction suggested to them by a face on a computer screen. Conservatives, on the other hand, did not.

The reason for this hypothesized by the researchers is that conservatives are less likely to be influenced by what other people say or do.

Fascinating.

Read the whole thing...

M81 in All Its Glory...

Via APOD, of course.

When I was a kid, the best image you could hope for of M81 was a black-and-white smear about the size of a penny.  Click to enlarge this beauty, and marvel at what modern technology allows us to see...

Quote of the Day...

From J.R. Dunn, at American Thinker:

Serves 'em right for using Windows.

I had no idea that Dunn is a geek.

This is right in the middle of an excellent article about the Stuxnet worm and the WikiLeaks cable dumps as examples of modern warfare.  Well worth reading the whole thing...

Scary Chart...

I've published this chart before; but it was time for an update.  The basic message here is that we're in the mother of all recessions, no matter what kind of blather you're hearing from politicians, economists, or “settled science”.  Read it and be afraid, especially of that almost-flat bottom.  Where's the steep upturn that we see in nearly all the other recessions?  It ain't here yet, that's for sure...

Cell Phone Karma...

Very funny ad:

Torn...

So the Democrats are split – some are ok with Obama's tax cut compromise; others are angry that he compromised at all, and are threatening to scuttle the compromise.  And I'm not sure which side to root for...

On the one hand the compromise is very good for me personally; my taxes would be thousands of dollars lower next year if it passes.  On the other hand, continuing the deficit spending is clearly a bad thing for the country, and will come back to bite us one of these days – in ways that will probably be bad for me personally.

This tax compromise is really just more politics-as-usual.  While it solves a problem about to smack us all upside the head in a few weeks, it does absolutely nothing to address the fundamental problem (federal spending exceeding federal taxes), and in fact makes it worse (reducing taxes while not changing spending).  So I'm having a hard time getting excited by this.

It sure would be nice to have a problem-solver go to work over there in D.C...

Who Knew?

The easy way to peel a banana:




Yes, I tried it.  Yes, it works.

Reading...

Several months ago I purchased a Kindle, and I've been using it ever since – I haven't read a single paper book since first picking up the device (though I do still read paper magazines and the occasional newspaper).  At this point I have read almost 40 books on my Kindle, and my style of using it has settled down.  I can make some observations based on experience:

I don't miss the paper format at all.  The convenience and portability of the Kindle far outweigh any aesthetic loss.

Having an entire library (over 300 books now) that I can carry around means that I now find myself much more easily jumping around from book-to-book, reading what suits my mood and mental state.

The dictionary and word look-up facility built into the Kindle has me now doing something I did decades ago, but stopped: looking up every word I don't know.  The only ways Amazon could make this feature any better would be to (a) speed it up (it now takes 10 seconds or so to look up a word) and to (b) switch to the O.E.D. as the dictionary (“antique” words are often not in the Merriam dictionary included, and I read enough older literature for this to be annoying).

The fact that I can download and read copyright-free books at no cost has me exploring all sorts of books that I'd probably never buy.  For example, I've just finished rereading Gulliver's Travels (Jonathan Swift), which I last read in my twenties.  I've also reread all of Jules Vernes' works that were translated to English, and I'm starting on Charles Dickens (many of which I've never read). 

I'm also buying books that I might not have purchased on paper, because of the cost differential.  For example, I recently purchased Decision Points (George W. Bush), and read it.  I'm glad I did – I rather liked the book (something I didn't expect), and it clarified something for me: that the essential thing I liked about Bush as President had nothing to do with his competence, but rather his decency and humility.  In this respect, the contrast with the current President couldn't be more stark...

Another Takedown of the TSA Approach...

From Evan DeFillipis:

There is little evidence to suggest that the newest TSA procedures will be effective at reducing terrorism. Indeed, security expert Bruce Schneier stated unequivocally that nothing that can conceivably be done to stop a well-financed al-Qaeda-like plot from materializing — once terrorist plotters have made it to the airport, it’s already too late to stop them. Against “lone-wolf” amateur forms of terrorism, upper-level intelligence agencies and pre-Sept. 11 technologies has consistently proven effective at neutralizing the threat.

Nevertheless, the TSA continues to advocate a model of security based upon overreaction. Ineffectual peripheral threats relating to liquid explosives, shoe bombs or printer cartridges coincide with rapid changes to the terrorist alert level (as if the risk of terrorism increases after a failed plot!) and reactionary modifications to security protocol, resulting in the loss of millions in governmental revenue, inconvenience for passengers and the abatement of fundamental liberty.

The fundamental problem is that terrorism is innovative while TSA policy is reactive. The TSA modifies its protocol on the basis of terrorist plots that have already happened, while an intelligent terrorist knows not to duplicate the failed efforts of past terrorists.

Security expert, Bruce Schneier, noted that international terrorists have already started smuggling weapons through body cavities, which can’t be detected through either x-rays or pat-downs, instantly rendering both our new procedures useless.

Read the whole thing...

Now This is a Cold Winter!

In Russia, of course.  Brrrrr!

Click to enlarge (and make your room feel colder).

San Diego looks very warm by comparison, even when we have a frost...

A Christmas Carol...

The kind you might hear around our house:

Freaky-Deaky Wireless Technology...

Via my mom:

Excellent Article on the TSA's Security Theatre...

From John Wohlstetter at NRO.  His conclusion:

Does anyone really believe that Americans, if given a choice between intimate patdowns and Israel-style interviews, would choose being groped?

The bottom line is that Israel’s methods work. Instead of having ill-trained TSA agents search for bad things, have well-trained agents search for bad people. Profile by behavior and circumstance (cash ticket, one-way trip, etc.), and leave most of us alone. Compile accurate no-fly lists. Heed credible warnings. Ignore political correctness.

Instead, Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano reportedly has two more Bright Ideas: unionizing TSA employees and special reduced screening for Muslims in traditional garb. The former, rejected when the Department of Homeland Security was established, would make it harder to fire incompetent employees. The latter would have the unintended impact of so enraging most Americans that they will insist lawmakers make TSA apply uniform rules.

Israel’s skies have been friendly for 42 years. Not a bad record. We should learn from it.

Go read the whole thing.

More Handy-Dandy Linux Commands...

Some of these were completely new to me, and useful to know.  Example:

man ascii

Can you guess what that does?

MathJax...

Interesting new JavaScript library.  Interesting, that is, if you want to display equations and formulae on your web site...

Peer Review...

The study reproduced at right (in its entirety; click to enlarge) was published in a peer-reviewed science journal.

Really.