Soft as Pudding...

From a film review by Kyle Smith of the New York Post:

Young adults born in the 1980s and early 1990s leaped out of nicotine- and alcohol-free wombs to be deemed geniuses every time they passed a test, awarded trophies every time they caught a ball and tucked into comfy car seats on the victory ride over to their favorite sushi palace.

They took groovy public-service internships at an age when their grandfathers were sweating on assembly lines or being shot at by Nazis, lived with their parents until they were 28, then proceeded directly to their shrinks for marathon weeping sessions every time they messed up a project at work. They're as soft as pudding, and they know it. The Greatest Generation didn't need triathlons or X-treme skateboarding; every Friday night was a thrill ride after manual labor and eight Schlitzes.

Matches my experience in the city, but not so much out in the country, or on the farms that remain. Just read recently that the Marines and Army have a far higher proportion of farmers than one finds in the general population, reinforcing this notion...

Mimicking Nature Win!

A 13 year old kid discovered something interesting about solar cells, by observing trees.  Both are ways to collect the sun's power.  He observed that the collectors on trees (the leaves) are distributed in many small pieces, and not all are pointed the same way.  Solar cell arrays, generally speaking, are single rectangular arrays pointed in one direction.  By splitting up the solar cells and aiming them in many different directions, he discovered that the average power output was higher than a single array pointed in one direction.  Cool!

He did leave out a few important details, though.  For starters, many conventional solar arrays are mounted on systems that keep them pointed toward the sun.  That technique produces more power than splitting the array up into pieces.  But I think the biggest piece he left out is that many trees (especially temperate and arctic trees) have mechanisms to aim their leaves toward the sun.  This mechanism isn't perfect, but it does greatly improve the efficiency of the collectors.

His idea is still cool, though...

I suspect the results would have been much different had they been seeking the support of those with low GPAs – which is, basically, what our politicians are doing with respect to taxes...

The Final Step...

A parable for our times, via reader Jim M.:

It started out innocently enough. I began to think at parties now and then - just to loosen up and be a part of the crowd.

Inevitably, though, one thought led to another and soon I was more than just a social thinker.

I began to think alone -- "to relax," I told myself -- but I knew it wasn't true. Thinking became more and more important to me, and finally I was thinking all the time.

That was when things began to sour at home. One evening I turned off the TV and asked my wife about the meaning of life. She spent that night at her mother's.

I began to think on the job. I knew that thinking and employment don't mix, but I couldn't help myself.

I began to avoid friends at lunchtime so I could read Thoreau, Muir, Confucius, Camus and Kafka. I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking, "What is it exactly that we are doing here?"

One day the boss called me in. He said, "Listen, I like you, and it hurts me to say this, but your thinking has become a real problem. If you don't stop thinking on the job, you'll have to find another job."

This gave me a lot to think about. I came home early after my conversation with the boss. "Honey," I confessed, "I've been thinking..."

"I know you've been thinking," she said, "and I want a divorce!" "But Honey, surely it's not that serious." "It is serious," she said, her lower lip aquiver.

"You think as much as college professors and college professors don't make any money, so if you keep on thinking, we won't have any money!"

"That's a fallacious syllogism," I said impatiently.

She exploded in tears of rage and frustration, but I was in no mood to deal with the emotional drama.

"I'm going to the library," I snarled as I stomped out the door.

I headed for the library, in the mood for some John Locke. I roared into the parking lot with NPR on the radio and ran up to the big glass doors.

They didn't open. The library was closed.

To this day, I believe that a Higher Power was looking out for me that night.

Leaning on the unfeeling glass and whimpering for Emerson, a poster caught my eye, "Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life?" it asked.

You probably recognize that line. It comes from the standard Thinkers Anonymous poster.

This is why I am what I am today: a recovering thinker.

I never miss a TA meeting. At each meeting we watch a non-educational video; last week it was "Porky's." Then we share experiences about how we avoided thinking since the last meeting.

I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home. Life just seemed easier, somehow, as soon as I stopped thinking. I think the road to recovery is nearly complete for me.

Today I took the final step... I joined the Democratic Party.

Winning the Future...

Obama's re-election campaign has adopted the slogan Winning the Future.

The acronym for that is WTF.

Excellent.

Donating to a Political Campaign = Treason?

Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert):

I would go so far as to say that donating to a politician or political party in this environment is as close as an ordinary citizen can come to treason. Political contributions broke the government, and a government that stays broken will doom the country. Political donations made perfect sense when the system was working. That time has passed. It's time to try something different. We can start with Howard Schultz idea to stop donating to politicians.

Read the whole thing...

Anniversary Gift...

The little fellow at right – not yet named – is a Savannah Cat.  Debbie picked him out of a litter yesterday afternoon.  He's not quite old enough yet to come home with us, but in about ten days he will be.

Savannahs are a cross between a serval and a domestic cat (i.e., an ordinary house cat), and has some characteristics of both.  This little guy is an F4B, and will grow up to weigh up to 20 pounds.

Debbie seems quite excited about her anniversary gift!

Anniversary...

Thirty years ago today, Debbie and I were married.  It just doesn't seem possible that so much time has gone by, but I'm pretty sure the calendar isn't lying to me...

Barack's Bullshit Bingo...

Via Simi L., a political game that anyone can play:

This will make it easier to listen to Obama. Try it the next time you hear the President speak. It will keep you awake!

Rules for Bullshit Bingo:

1. Before Barack Obama's next televised speech, print your "Bullshit Bingo" card.
2. Check off the appropriate block when you hear one of those words/phrases.
3. When you get five blocks horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, stand up and shout "BULLSHIT!"

Obama, Pay Your $%#&*@*$ Bills!

Via Jim M.  Warning: f-bombs galore.




The optics sure have changed since '08...

Black Fawn...

Via my mom.  I've never even heard of such a thing before!

Meteor...from the ISS...

Via Paul H., an astronaut on board the ISS captured this image of a Perseid meteor.

Warning: ASI Hastings...

In years past, we have done business with ASI Hastings on several occasions – the installation of our heater and air conditioner, and two major repairs.  We were pleased with that work, with the people they sent out here, and with the price.  Pleased enough that I recommended them to my readers, friends, and neighbors.

Today we had them out to repair our air conditioner, and it will most likely be the last time we ever call ASI Hastings again.

My wife called them this morning and asked for them to repair our air conditioner, which had just completely failed.  There are two major issues I have with what they did.

First, the prices for the repair items are just insanely high – hundreds of dollars for a contactor (relay) and startup capacitor.

Second, they sold my wife something we didn't ask for at all – an air cleaner to take dust and odors out of the air.  We asked for a repair, not some things we neither needed nor wanted.

I'm done with them.  Anybody got a good recommendation for a local (to Jamul, preferably) air conditioning repair firm?

Post Office Nears Collapse...

The Post Office's horrific “business” problems have actually made it to the news recently, so I thought it would be a good time to post this excellent primer on the Post Office's travails.  It's longish, but well worth reading if you'd like to understand this institution's problems – and why crazy people like me have long advocated ceasing all subsidies to the Post Office, and eliminating all special privileges of the Post Office.

As the article makes clear, the subsidies are not all direct and their removal will be politically challenging to accomplish.  Even more politically challenging: the huge union membership of the Post Office's work force.  The privileges granted to the Post Office are unknown to most people. The most important of these is that the Post Office currently enjoys an absolute monopoly on carrying first class mail, and on the right to deliver mail to a mailbox.  These privileges exist only to prevent carriers like Federal Express and UPS from competing with the Post Office.

It's time for this beast to die...

JavaScript Prototypes...

Yehuda Katz is on a roll, with a nice post about JavaScript prototypes...

VJ Day in Hawaii...

Hard Core Geek: Forth in Your Browser...

It was only a matter of time...

A Story to Make Liberals Squirm...

...and me smile, of course.  Here's a fellow who's figured out how to make money on the backs of the poor while making their lives better at the same time.  Everybody wins, as opposed to charitable doles, where everybody loses...

Starry, Starry Night...

And moonlit, too.  I was out walking the dogs at about 3:15 this morning.  The moon was high in the southern sky, full and bright.  It washed out most of the stars in the sky (especially near the moon), but in the northeast I could see almost all of Orion, rising from behind Gaskill Peak.

The dogs, of course, didn't care about all this beauty in the sky.  The three brown dogs were (as usual) doing the important work of smelling every possible scent deposited during the night.  Race, the border collie, had himself a stick.  He went through an endless cycle of dropping the stick, backing up and watching it intently for as along as he could stand it (maybe 10 seconds), then pouncing on the stick and victoriously dancing around with it.

The stick made an interesting sound when it struck the pavement – something close to the metallic ringing of a bell, but a muted and distinctly wooden.  It's not the mushy, soft sound one usually hears when a stick drops, though.  Once, years ago, struck by this sound, I did a bit of investigation.  I discovered that hardwood is more likely to make this curious sound than a softer wood.  Also, it turns out that the drier the wood is, the clearer this almost-ringing is.  So when I picked up Race's stick this morning, I wasn't surprised to discover that it was a piece of manzanita wood (very hard wood indeed) and very light (meaning it's very dry)...

Rick Perry Ad...

I don't really know much about Rick Perry, and I'm certainly not ready to sign on as a Perry supporter.  I've read a few things about him that bother me, but I haven't verified them yet.

Here's his first ad.  If this was the only thing I had heard about him, I'd be hollering my throat raw, jumping up and down with delight:



But it's not the only thing I've heard about him, so for the moment I'm just observing with interest...