Ryan Poster of the Day...

Get Lost!

Not long ago, the inimitable Mark Steyn published a piece in National Review Online (NRO) in which he ripped apart Michael Mann (the originator of the infamous “hockey stick” graph that effectively started the global warming wackiness).  Dr. Mann didn't like being ripped apart, so he's now threatened to sue NRO and Mr. Steyn.  Rich Lowry (editor of NRO) responded publicly today.  The best part of his response?  The headline: Get Lost.  The whole piece is great, though.  An excerpt:

So why threaten to sue us? I rather suspect it is because the Steyn post was savagely witty and stung poor Michael.

Possessing not an ounce of Steyn’s wit or eloquence, poor Michael didn’t try to engage him in a debate. He sent a laughably threatening letter and proceeded to write pathetically lame chest-thumping posts on his Facebook page. (Is it too much to ask that world-renowned climate scientists spend less time on Facebook?)

Mr. Lowry goes on to say that this lawsuit (should it actually materialize) isn't the nuisance such lawsuits normally are.  In fact, because of one little word this lawsuit is a golden opportunity.  That word: “discovery”.

Read the whole thing!

Pro-Romney/Ryan Ad, Targeting Catholics...

Impressive production work...

TeleHash...

A new wire protocol with some interesting attributes...

More Climate Nonsense...

...but with a refreshing twist: mainstream media coverage!  Here's the data showing that the earlier reported “unprecedented” ice melt in Antarctica was, in fact, quite precedented.  And here's an article in the mainstream media (British, but still mainstream!) that actually discusses it on a recognizably factual basis.  A true flying pig moment...

Clouds...

The photo below was taken a few minutes ago from Lyon's Peak, a few hundred feet higher than our home.  The layer of clouds you see is currently enveloping our house...

A Telling Remark...

Obama made a joking remark at an event yesterday.  Despite it being intended as a joke, the exact wording he chose is very telling:

It is very rare I come to an event where I’m like the fifth or sixth most interesting person. Usually the folks want to take a picture with me, sit next to me, talk to me. That has not been the case at this event and I completely understand.

Most people would make that joking remark something like this:

Usually when the President is in the room, he's the focus of attention. Folks want to take a picture with him, sit next to him, talk with him. Understandably, that's not the case at this event.

Obama's use of the first person and the phrase “most interesting person” speak volumes about him.  He is a man very full of himself...

Top TED...

The top 20 most-watched TED talks.  I've only seen five of them.  I'm very curious to see what other people find interesting...

Ghosts in the ROM...

The photo at right was found in the system ROM of an ancient Macintosh SE.  It's part of an “Easter Egg” left in the ROM by the system's developers, some of whom are in this photo.

Geeks of a certain age will recognize a now almost-forgotten technique in this photo: dithering to get gray scale.  The photo actually contains nothing other than black or white pixels – the appearance of various gray levels is created by varying the relative prevalence of either white or black pixels over a given area of the photo.  Dithering is a bit harder than it might appear to be at first glance; the obvious approaches lead to grid patterns showing up as artifacts in the photo.  To make it look “natural”, the dithered pixels have to be randomized, as they are in this photo.  Pure black and white photos can be stored very efficiently, one bit per pixel, which I'm sure is why this technique was chosen here.

Read the whole story...

The Sages of Sacremento...

Unbelievable, it is – the idea that there are sages (of the human kind, not the botanical kind) in Sacremento.  The dominant human species in Sacremento is homo bozocus, as this article amply demonstrates.  The “logic” of the Sacremento Sages appears to be something like this: (a) social security isn't adequate to pay for a decent retirement in California, (b) companies have lots of money and nothing worthwhile to spend it on, and (c) therefore, let's make companies pay for retirement!  Then there's the added bonus of a cornicopia of corruption opportunities opened up by the possibility of handing out exemptions to favored industries (e.g., those that send money to the politicians).

This bill has already passed the Senate, is almost certain to pass the Assembly, and then it heads to Governor Moonbeam.  I have no intuition at all about his reaction, other than to forecast that his statements about his decision (whichever way he goes) won't make any sense.

It doesn't matter to me whether this bill turns into law or not.  The very fact that it passed even one half of our legislature is more than sufficient information for me.  California has gone off the cliff; it's heading the way of Greece, Detroit, and other such socialist/corruptocratic regimes.  Recovery to anything resembling the country I was born into seems like a vanishingly small possibility.  Time for us to get out, just as soon as we can arrange it...

The Last Bomb...

The Last Bomb is a Technicolor documentary from the War Department and the Army Air Forces Combat Camera Units, filmed in the last days of the war with Japan.  It's online in its entirety...

Typing Through Tears...

Your fearless blogger has tears streaming down his face right now.  Not because of anything I've read this morning.  No, these tears are caused by one of my dogs.  I blog from a tiny little space, about 8' by 10'.  Two of my dogs are often sleeping behind me.  One of them just farted, hence the tears...

Curiosity: A Perfect Moment...

Yesterday Curiosity stretched its articulated arm for the first time since before it was launched toward Mars.  There are five separate joints on the arm, and all of them were “exercised”.  Curiosity's numerous cameras watched every motion to verify that it worked correctly – and it did!

Curiosity's first days remind me a little bit of a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis – various parts are being pulled out, stretched, tried out, checked out, and calibrated.

And they're all working perfectly so far!

Believe You Can Change...

When I read that title, my reaction was “Well, of course you can change!”  I dug into the article to find out what point the author was trying to make, and got to this passage – which I found a bit shocking:

The difference, Dweck discovered, was one of mindset. Dweck had always thought “human qualities were carved in stone. You were smart or you weren’t, and failure meant you weren’t.” That was why the helpless kids couldn’t take it when they started failing. It just reminded them they sucked (they easily got confused, they had “a bad rememory”). Of course it wasn’t fun anymore — why would it be fun to get constantly reminded you’re a failure? No wonder they tried to change the subject. Dweck called this the “fixed mindset” — the belief that your abilities are fixed and that the world is just a series of tests that show you how good you are.

The successful kids believed precisely the opposite: that everything came through effort and that the world was full of interesting challenges that could help you learn and grow. (Dweck called this the “growth mindset.”) That’s why they were so thrilled by the harder puzzles — the easier ones weren’t any sort of challenge, there was nothing you could learn from them. But the really tough ones? Those were fascinating — a new skill to develop, a new problem to conquer. In later experiments, kids even asked to take puzzles home so they could work on them some more.

It took a seventh-grader to explain it to her: “I think intelligence is something you have to work for…it isn’t just given to you… Most kids, if they’re not sure of an answer, will not raise their hand… But what I usually do is raise my hand, because if I’m wrong, then my mistake will be corrected. Or I will raise my hand and say… ‘I don’t get this. Can you help me?’ Just by doing that I’m increasing my intelligence.”5

In the fixed mindset, success comes from proving how great you are. Effort is a bad thing — if you have to try hard and ask questions, you obviously can’t be very good. When you find something you can do well, you want to do it over and over, to show how good you are at it.

In the growth mindset, success comes from growing. Effort is what it’s all about — it’s what makes you grow. When you get good at something, you put it aside and look for something harder so that you can keep growing.

Fixed-mindset people feel smart when they don’t make mistakes, growth-mindset people feel smart when they struggle with something for a long time and then finally figure it out. Fixies try to blame the world when things go bad, growthers look to see what they can change about themselves. Fixies are afraid to try hard — because if they fail, it means they’re a failure. Growthers are afraid of not trying.

Well, I'm a “growther” (and didn't even know it). I have to say that it never occurred to me that there might be this “fixed mindset”.  The last two paragraphs above resonated very strongly with me; it's a good description of how I approach my craft. The preceding paragraph sounded alien to me ... and yet I recognized it as a pattern I see often in people I've worked with.  I just never realized there was another way people felt about such situations...

The Bozo Event Horizon...

Fascinating article about one way tech companies die.  Any author who can weave “bozo” and “event horizon” together in a convincing way has my approval :-)

Is There Nothing That Amazon Can't Do?

Amazon Glacier: archival storage at about a penny per gigabyte per month, with a stated 11 9s durability/year.  Awesome.  I gotta get me some of that!

Do Things That Have Never Been Done Before...

A modern geek encounters Russell Kirsch, one of the creators of SEAC (an early programmable computer) and creator of the first computerized photo.  It's a fun read..

Paul Ryan: Viral Images...

Oh, this is going to be an interesting election season!

Curiosity: the Laser Zapping Has Begun...

The Curiosity rover carries a megawatt laser on board.  This isn't just for fun, or for playing with Martian cats.  It's part of an instrument system (known as “ChemCam”) that lets scientists analyze the nature of rocks near Curiosity. 

Huh?  How can a laser help analyze rocks, you ask?

Well, it's like this.  First the scientists pick a rock.  Then they aim the laser and a telescopic spectroscope at the rock.  Then they zap the rock with the megawatt laser while capturing data with the spectroscope.  The laser heats a tiny bit of the rock to very high temperatures, creating a glowing plasma.  The spectroscope records the intensity of over 6,000 different wavelengths (colors) of light.  The pattern of these intensities lets scientists infer what elements and compounds the rock is made of.

Reports back from the first use were all positive.  The lead scientist said that (unexpectedly) the data they were receiving from Mars was actually better than that collected in experiment on Earth – the signal-to-noise ratio was superior.  The scientists have no idea why, but they aren't complaining!

“Clouds” on the Sun...

APOD brings us this fantastical photo of the Sun, showing a filament (the “cloud”) as if in relief.  The article doesn't say how the photo was taken, but it's clarity suggests that it was taken from one of several solar investigation satellites currently operating.  Almost certainly this was taken through a narrow-band filter such as a hydrogen alpha filter...