Thursday, December 26, 2013
We did a careful, scientific test the past couple of days...
We did a careful, scientific test the past couple of days ... of the proposition that it's possible to have too much good seafood. On Christmas day, Debbie and I – all by ourselves – consumed two pounds of Dungeness crab meat cooked in lovely southwestern-style crab cakes, with homemade tartar sauce. Today we followed that up with a pound and a half of giant-sized fresh Atlantic sea scallops, broiled to perfection with butter, garlic, lemon, and other seasonings. We haven't a bit of room left in our stretched bellies. Conclusion: it is not possible to have too much good seafood! We'd do it again in a heartbeat!!
“...in those days, you could XOR anything with anything and get something useful”...
“...in those days, you could XOR anything with anything and get something useful”... A sample from the writings of “the funniest man at Microsoft Research”. For anyone with a geekly mindset, there are some very funny passages in these essays by James Mickens. Here's a sample paragraph:
I picked that last example at random. You must believe me when I say that I have the utmost respect for HCI people. However, when HCI people debug their code, it’s like an art show or a meeting of the United Nations. There are tea breaks and witticisms exchanged in French; wearing a non-functional scarf is optional, but encouraged. When HCI code doesn’t work, the problem can be resolved using grand theories that relate form and perception to your deeply personal feelings about ovals. There will be rich debates about the socioeconomic implications of Helvetica Light, and at some point, you will have to decide whether serifs are daring statements of modernity, or tools of hegemonic oppression that implicitly support feudalism and illiteracy. Is pinching-and-dragging less elegant than circling-and-lightly-caressing? These urgent mysteries will not solve themselves. And yet, after a long day of debugging HCI code, there is always hope, and there is no true anger; even if you fear that your drop-down list should be a radio button, the drop-down list will suffice until tomorrow, when the sun will rise, glorious and vibrant, and inspire you to combine scroll bars and left-clicking in poignant ways that you will commemorate in a sonnet when you return from your local farmer’s market.Awesome, Mr. Mickens. Awesome!
Term of the day “Manufactured intelligence”...
Term of the day “Manufactured intelligence”... Daniel Greenfield, writing at his Sultan Knish blog, with a useful tool for understanding the progressive (or, as he says, liberal) mindset. Here's his conclusion:
Liberalism isn't really about making the world a better place. It's about reassuring the elites that they are good people for wanting to rule over it.But you should read the whole thing, really...
That is why Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize for having good intentions. His actual foreign policy mattered less than the appearance of a new transformative foreign policy based on speeches. Gore promised to be be harsher on Saddam than Bush, but no one remembers that because everyone in the bubble knows that the Iraq War was stupid... and only conservatives do stupid things.
Liberal intelligence exists on the illusion of its self-worth. The magical thinking that guides it in every other area from economics to diplomacy also convinces it that if it believes it is smart, that it will be. The impenetrable liberal consensus in every area is based on this delusion of intelligence. Every policy is right because it's smart and it's smart because it's progressive and it's progressive because smart progressives say that it is.
Progressives manufacture the consensus of their own intelligence and insist that it proves them right.
Imagine a million people walking in a circle and shouting, "WE'RE SMART AND WE'RE RIGHT. WE'RE RIGHT BECAUSE WE'RE SMART. WE'RE SMART BECAUSE WE'RE RIGHT." Now imagine that these marching morons dominate academia, the government bureaucracy and the entertainment industry allowing them to spend billions yelling their idiot message until it outshouts everyone else while ignoring the disasters in their wake because they are too smart to fail.
That is liberalism.
A cryptographic nightmare...
A cryptographic nightmare... Some French mathematicians have made a dent in the discrete logarithm problem that is at the heart of the Diffie-Hellman key exchange protocol and elliptic curve encryption – both widely used on the Internet. So far their discovery is only useful for decrypting some much less-used cryptography, but they're working on extending it to a more generally useful tool. If they succeed, their method will invalidate much of the cryptographic infrastructure that today allows secure transactions...
Triangulum Galaxy (M33)...
In memoriam: the space robots we lost this year...
In memoriam: the space robots we lost this year... A nice summary of the robotic space explorers that stopped working this year – some expectedly, others not...
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Virtual Phobos...
The gist of Christmas lost...
The gist of Christmas lost... The Las Vegas Review-Journal published this – good for them!
’Twas the season of Christmas, and all through the land
Were signs and symbols some folks couldn’t stand.
The evergreen conifer many decorate with glee,
But don’t you dare call it a Christmas tree.
Heaven forbid a Nativity in the town square
For fear the grievance mongers soon would be there.
Meanwhile the choirs at many a public school
Are told no religious carols — those just aren’t that cool.
Don’t say “Christmas Concert,” for that’s full of shame.
“Winter Festival” — now that’s the new name!
A California judge, trying to squelch more good will,
Orders a war memorial cross removed from a hill.
The postman leaves Christmas off his “holiday stamp” fliers.
Forget the reason for the season — they’re Christmas deniers!
This despite Jesus’ birth named a federal holiday
On which those in government get a day off with pay.
For that fact, they should shout “Merry Christmas!” with glee,
If we can say that anymore, if we can just let it be.
Jolly old Santa gives grouches no pause,
But don’t get them started on the Establishment Clause.
A passive display is not proselytizing.
State-sponsored religion? They’re fantasizing!
How did we reach this point, where it all ran amok?
Christmas got run over by the politically correct truck.
It’s easy to forget, amidst Christmas bashing,
That the faithful do great things — just smashing!
Every day in this so-called city of sin
Christians donate and volunteer, creating a win-win.
Catholic Charities, Salvation Army, Las Vegas Rescue Mission,
Where helping the needy is year-round tradition.
At countless valley churches, the downtrodden do enter,
For those touched by AIDS, there’s the Saint Therese Center.
Far too numerous to mention are so many others
Helping our struggling sisters and brothers.
So the need to kick Christmas right out of the season
Seems illogical, overzealous and lacking in reason.
’Tis the season for giving, to that we attest,
So to all grievance seekers, try giving it a rest.
Spread some charity and cheer, and let go of the spite.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
It's about time...
It's about time... Alan Turing finally has been pardoned, over 60 years after he was convicted of homosexuality in England, and almost 60 years after he committed suicide. Such a sad, sad story...
George Washington: victor in battle, freeman at heart...
George Washington: victor in battle, freeman at heart... This article discusses an issue near and dear to my heart: the failure of modern America to elect leaders that resemble in any way the Founding Fathers. It's conclusion:
But these are the arenas of our culture under assault today. Rather than prospering and spreading as they should, they are under an all-out assault by the modern American Left, taking a beating from the pop culture of one coast and the bureaucratic strangulation of the other coast. The citizens of today have a duty to the citizens of tomorrow, and to fulfill that duty, we must turn to the examples of the citizens of the past… to the Founding Fathers of this great nation, and first and foremost, to the greatest example, George Washington, universally admired as the greatest leader of his time, who won a war and went home to his farm, looking forward to being “just another average American citizen again” – in the days when being “just another average American citizen” was the greatest thing to be in all the world.Read the whole thing...
All Apollo program images are now online!
The TSA couldn't protect you from a 6-year-old with a water balloon...
The TSA couldn't protect you from a 6-year-old with a water balloon... The lede from a great article, written by a guy who headed security for the airport most targeted by terrorists: Israel's Ben Gurion airport (which also happens to be the world's safest airport):
The TSA is all about security theater and union membership, and not a bit about security. It hasn't stopped a single terrorist attack. But it is absolutely fantastic at boosting union membership (with consequent union dues and contributions to Democratic political campaigns) and spending American taxpayer dollars...
For a bunch of people in snappy uniforms patting down crotches, the TSA is remarkably unpopular. Nobody likes going through security at the airport, but you probably figured most of it had a point. All those hours spent in line with other shoeless travelers are a necessary precursor to safe flying. It's annoying, but at least it wards off terrorism.In a nutshell, Rafi says the TSA is doing it all wrong. All wrong.
That's all bullshit. The TSA couldn't protect you from a 6-year-old with a water balloon. What are my qualifications for saying that? My name is Rafi Sela, and I was the head of security for the world's safest airport. Here's what your country does wrong.
The TSA is all about security theater and union membership, and not a bit about security. It hasn't stopped a single terrorist attack. But it is absolutely fantastic at boosting union membership (with consequent union dues and contributions to Democratic political campaigns) and spending American taxpayer dollars...
Police rescue dog from frozen river...
What a difference 32 years make...
Contrast that attitude with the Christmas address at right, by President Reagan in 1981. Can you imagine That One addressing the nation in anything like that manner? Nope, I can't either...
This belongs in my “What the hell is happening to my country?” series...
Merry Christmas, everyone!
Merry Christmas, everyone! Debbie and I had a special “present” from one of our cats this morning. We'd left an unopened box of chicken broth on our kitchen island (it's actually been there for a month or so). Sometime early this morning, one of the cats decided to gnaw through the top of it, then knock it over. Next thing you know, a quart of low-sodium chicken broth is all over the island top, the bottoms of the stuff on the island, the sides of the island, and the wine rack. Some of it even made it to the floor! Naturally, the cat responsible took off for some dark corner of the house – we have no idea which little hellion did it. Nor do we know why they picked this morning, out of all the mornings when they could have done it.
Sigh...
Sigh...
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
Where are y'all from?
Christmas with the family...
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