Dr. Sowell: “We're Lost”...

Hearing someone of the wisdom and intellectual clarity of Dr. Sowell declaring that all is lost is most definitely...not comforting...

A Pile of Leaves...

This Is Getting Serious!

Via friend and neighbor Dick F.:

Look what happens when we cut down too many trees.

Global warming is one thing, but see below and look at what might happen if we continue to clear our forests!

We have to stop cutting down trees! This is getting serious!

The Typewriter...

Via my mom...

Some of my colleagues are young enough that they wouldn't recognize the manual typewriter being used.  There's a possibility they'd believe it was actually a musical instrument!

U.S. Post Office Tries to Get With It...

The U.S. Post Office (USPS) loses billions of dollars each year, and each year Congress agrees to allow taxpayers to cover that shortfall.  The tale behind how the USPS manages to “stay in business” is one of the great stories of dysfunctional government.  And now that paragon of inefficiency has decided to take advantage of an opportunity to leverage its vast, union-crippled, calamitously-managed assets: they're going to work with national retailers to let them provide same-day package delivery.

If the USPS were an ordinary business, unencumbered by union work rule problems and with competent management struggling to make a profit...then I might have some faith in a positive outcome.  Given the pathetic reality of the USPS, the only faith that I have is that they will bungle this opportunity in a spectacular fashion.  They will find a way to lose even more money, and we the taxpayers will bail them out once again.  Meanwhile, they will succeed in making it more difficult for some competent private sector organization to enter the business.

Unions: 1
Taxpayers: 0

Again.

Beautiful Free Icons...

Adam Whitcroft has open-sourced a collection of beautiful minimalist icons, scalable and suitable for web design.  There's an interesting backstory about why he made it free.  Basically, it boils down to this: he built the collection to see it used, not to make money.

Can You Decrypt This Message?

If so, the folks in the British intelligence agency GCHQ would like to hear from you – because so far, this recently found WWII pigeon-carried message has completely stumped them.

Even as recently as WWII it was common for secret messages to be sent via trained pigeons.  The message was rolled up tightly and put inside a small covered vial attached to the pigeon's leg...

Close Call?

This is kind of scary – some scientists think that a billion ton comet may have missed hitting the earth by just a few hundred kilometers, in 1883.  If it had hit the earth, that would have been called an “extinction event”.  Yikes!

A Tale of Two Bridges...

From Pieter Hintgens' blog:

Two old engineers were talking of their lives and boasting of their greatest projects. One of the engineers explained how he had designed the largest bridge ever made.

"We built it across a river gorge," he told his friend. "It was wide and deep. We spent two years studying the land, and choosing designs. Then we hired the best people and designed the bridge, which took another five years. We contracted the largest engineering firms to build the structures, the towers, the tollbooths, and the roads that would connect the bridge to the main highways. Under the road level we had trains, and a special path for cyclists. That bridge represented years of my life."

The second man reflected for a while, then spoke. "One evening me and a friend threw a rope across a gorge," he said. "Just a rope, tied to two trees. There were two villages, one at each side. At first, people pulled packages across that rope with a pulley and string. Then someone pulled across a second rope, and built a foot walk. It was dangerous, but the kids loved it. A group of men then rebuilt that, made it solid, and women started to cross, everyday, with their produce. A market grew up on one side of the bridge, and slowly that became a large town, since there was a lot of space for houses. The rope bridge got replaced with a wooden bridge, to allow horses and carts to cross. Then the town built a real stone bridge, with metal beams. Later, they replaced the stone part with steel, and today there's a suspension bridge standing in that same spot."

The first engineer was silent. "Funny thing," he said, "my bridge was demolished not long after it was built. Turns out it was built in the wrong place and no-one wanted to use it. Some bastard had thrown a rope across the gorge, a few miles further downstream, and that's where everyone went."

Before you build a product, make sure it's what your customers actually want. Good advice for any entrepreneur!

Quote of the Day...

From blogger Rachel Lucas, talking about her newly acquired dog Primo:

...a furry, cuddly little ball of Prozac...

And she's very thankful to have him.  Isn't that a great description of the effect our dogs have on us dog lovers?

Speaking of which...

I've been sleeping on our couch for the past couple of weeks, since Debbie injured her knee – I'm scared that I'll accidentally cause her some bad pain by moving that knee during the night.  I have a bed roll I lay out there, in the same room with our four dogs.  The dogs think this is the greatest thing since sliced bread.  They love to curl up between my legs, along side me, or plopped right on my chest.  Any way they can be close is just fine with them, no matter how uncomfortable it looks to us.

Last night around 1 am I woke up, startled by some unexpected movement along my side.  One of our dogs (Race, the border collie) had somehow figured out how to get under the covers, and had joyfully snuggled in alongside me.  The moment I cracked my eyes open he started licking my face – great, big, sloppy dog kisses – and whimpering with happiness.  “Happy Thanksgiving!”, he seemed to be saying.

I can't imagine being without our dogs...

Curiosity: 3D Views...

Curiosity is doing some driving right now.  Here are two different 3D views of the terrain in front of it yesterday.  The top view is a blue/red anaglyph; the bottom is a stereoscopic pair.

Now Here's Something...

...that you don't see every day: an island was “undiscovered”!

What's Coming in New Versions of JavaScript...

Addy Osmani has a post about changes we can expect in the next major release of ECMAScript (aka JavaScript)...

Happy Thanksgiving!

WWII troops watching the cook prepare their Thanksgiving turkeys.  I've talked with a couple of WWII combat veterans (one in Europe, the other in the Pacific) who told me that the Thanksgiving dinners they got in the field were one of their best memories of their wartime experiences.  In the case of the Pacific War veteran, he was a runner during the invation of Tarawa - and even in the midst of intense combat he got a turkey dinner with all the trimmings.  He tells me that reminder of what he left back home - under threat from Japan - was a big motivator for him.

From Debbie and I, our wishes for a happy Thanksgiving day for all of our readers...

Curiosity: Big News?

NPR is running a story suggesting that the Curiosity team has made a big discovery with results from the SAM instrument, but that they are waiting for confirmation (presumably from another instrument) before announcing.  I wonder what it might be?

A Moment to Remember...

Yesterday I traveled back home to San Diego from the Richmond, Virginia airport.  As my plane in Richmond (on Delta Airlines) started to board, the gate crew started the usual drill. 

First they called “preboarding” for those people needing some extra time.  A few elderly folks slowly made their way on board, followed by one very harried-looking mom with five little ones (the oldest couldn't have been more than eight). 

Then the gate crew called for “first class” to board.  At that point, one of the passengers (a middle-aged man) walked up to the gate crew and said something I couldn't hear – and next thing I heard over the speakers was “Wait a minute – I just found out we have uniformed military traveling on this flight.  All uniformed military, please board.”

A single young soldier, dressed in camoflauge and carrying a huge seabag, walked up to the gate.  He looked tired.  The people around me all jumped up and started applauding, spontaneously.  One of the gate crew grabbed his seabag and carried it on board for him.  The young soldier didn't seem to hear the applause at first, but then suddenly turned around and looked at the people waiting at the gate – and broke into a beautiful wide grin, saluted us, and then spun around smartly and marched on board.

I shall remember that grin for a long, long time...

A Retiree's Last Trip to Kroger's...

Via my mom:

Yesterday I was at my local Kroger buying a large bag of Purina dog chow for my loyal pet, Jake, the Wonder Dog and was in the check-out line when a woman behind me asked if I had a dog.

What did she think I had? An elephant?

So because I'm retired and have little to do, on impulse I told her that no, I didn't have a dog, I was starting the Purina Diet again. I added that I probably shouldn't, because I ended up in the hospital last time, but that I'd lost 50 pounds before I awakened in an intensive care ward with tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IVs in both arms.

I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and that the way that it works is, to load your pants pockets with Purina Nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry. The food is nutritionally complete so it works well and I was going to try it again.

(I have to mention here that practically everyone in line was now enthralled with my story.)

Horrified, she asked if I ended up in intensive care because the dog food poisoned me.

I told her no, I stopped to pee on a fire hydrant and a car hit me.

I thought the guy behind her was going to have a heart attack he was laughing so hard.

Kroger won't let me shop there anymore.

Better watch what you ask retired people. They have all the time in the World to think of crazy things to say.

Puppy Dreams...

Via my lovely (if somewhat broken) wife:

Cell Phone Etiquette...

Via my mom:

Cell Phone Etiquette

After a tiring day, a commuter settled down in her seat and closed her eyes.

As the train rolled out of the station, the guy sitting next to her pulled out his cell phone and started talking in a loud voice: "Hi sweetheart. It's Eric. I'm on the train".

"Yes, I know it's the six thirty and not the four thirty, but I had a long meeting".

"No, honey, not with that blonde from the accounts office. It was with the boss".

"No sweetheart, you're the only one in my life".

"Yes, I'm sure, cross my heart"

Fifteen minutes later, he was still talking loudly. When the young woman sitting next to him had enough, she leaned over and said into the phone, "Eric, hang up the phone and come back to bed."

Eric doesn't use his cell phone in public any longer.

Turkey Season...