Geek: an open-source text on operating systems...

Geek: an open-source text on operating systems...  I've only read a few pieces of this, but what I have read looks pretty good ... and free is hard to beat!

Geek: Internet of things is getting easier all the time...

Geek: Internet of things is getting easier all the time...  There's nothing particularly revolutionary about this product (called Spark).  It's just another evolutionary entry in the rapidly-evolving “Internet of Things” front.  In a tiny device (roughly the size of your thumb) you get all the things at left (click to embiggen).  For $39.  Anyone with even minimal hardware and software skills can use one of these devices to build their own Internet-connected member of the Internet of Things.  Something much like this, for example, forms the heart of the Nest thermostat, or the General Electric “smart fridge”.

We live in amazing times...

Martian mystery...

Martian mystery...  Well, intriguing at the very least.  The two photos at right show the same spot on Mars, just in front of the Opportunity rover.  The left photo was taken 12 Martian days (called “sols”) earlier than the right photo.  Right in the middle, you can see a rock on the right photo that wasn't there 12 sols earlier.

NASA will send Opportunity over to examine the rock.  It's interesting no matter how it got there, because it's upside-down now, showing a fresh face that will allow some new science investigations.  The leading candidate explanation is that the rock (which is about the size of your fist) was “tiddly-winked” to it's new location by Opportunity's movements.  Another candidate explanation – more exciting, to be sure – is that a meteorite struck the surface of Mars and threw up some debris, one piece of which just happened to land smack in front of Opportunity.

As I read the article linked above, I was thinking to myself “Ah, the loony UFO wackos must be having a field day with this!”  A quick Google search proved me right.  One enterprising loony (Scott Waring, writing at UFO Sightings Daily) enlarged the rock to get the photo at left.  Then he wrote:

I enlarged the object and it seems to be an odd shaped creature of some sort. In the enlargement you can also see that its sort of a square shape, but its center is pushed downward. It would be cool if this was some kind of crab-like creature.

I don't know what sort of creatures Scott runs around with, but where I come from, crabs didn't look much like that at all :)

Miki...

Miki...  It seems like such a short time ago, but actually it's been almost eight years that we first brought Miki home (that's him, in April 2006).  Yesterday we took him down to our vet (the wondrous Dr. C., of course!) to have some routine minor surgery, to get rid of a bump on his left shoulder.

He needed to be anesthetized for this procedure, so while he was under, we asked that they clean his teeth and cut his nails, too.  Amber (our candidate for the world's greatest RVT) discovered during the teeth cleaning that he had five teeth that were so bad they were loose in their sockets.  Yikes!  So the poor little guy woke up missing three molars and two of his front bottom teeth.  We felt bad for not having picked up on his dental problems, as he's probably been in some pain for a while – we never had a clue.  Dogs are awesomely good at hiding their pain or lameness; when you do see it, that's an indication of just how bad it is...

Notes from a home with 4 dogs and 7 cats...

Notes on life with 4 dogs and 10 cats...  Upon sighting a darker area on the floor when walking through the darkened house, do not step on the darker area.  It may be squishy.  It may be wet.  It may be warm.  It may be all three!

Oh, and smell bad, too...

Six thought experiments...

Six thought experiments...  Each in a one minute video; first one is at right.  The whole collection is a good introduction to the fascinating world of thought experiments.  I spent a lot of time as a kid trying to understand how Zeno could be wrong...

Via reader and friend Simon M...

Say, that's a little harsh, isn't it?

Say, that's a little harsh, isn't it?  Some physicists recently published a paper in a relatively new journal.  The paper expressed some views that were skeptical of the IPCC report and warmists' views in general.  So the publisher cancelled publication of the journal.  It's history!

Take that, skeptical physicists!  How are you going to publish those heretical views now?

Fishermen are crazy...

Fishermen are crazy...  That's an observation I think most sentient beings would agree with.  However, this pair of fishermen have taken craziness to an entirely new level.

Note for the squeamish: it all ends well. 

Note for those who think these boats are repeatedly sinking and are somehow resurrected: you're being fooled by the perspective; they're actually (mainly) rising and falling with the waves, and sometimes there's a wave between the camera and the boat...

Demand curves...

Demand curves...  I share Warren Meyer's perplexity over the progressive's support for minimum wages.  I would think they'd be clamoring to abolish them!

Prepare to be angry...

Prepare to be angry ... at the Democrats' top priority in the recent budget negotiations.  Kimberley Strassel as the scoop...

Public servant selfishness...

Public servant selfishness...  Peggy Noonan makes some interesting points...

It's starting...

It's starting...  The number of electrical engineers in the U.S. declined last year, by 35,000 positions.  The growth of software engineers in the U.S. is also declining, and may go negative next year or the year after.

The article I linked concludes that the people claiming we don't graduate enough STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) students are wrong, as witness the decline in positions and the growth overseas.  I think they've picked the wrong problem – I think those jobs are going overseas because the education systems in so many places are producing better qualified graduates.  Just to pick on one example, in which I have personal experience: a software company looking for talent isn't going to hire the first engineer they run into – and most of the time, they won't just hire the best engineer they find locally.  They're going to look all over the world, and pick the best and brightest that they can attract from anywhere at all.  It no longer matters what country a software engineer works in.  The last company I worked for had software engineers who lived in five different countries – and they've expanded the part outside the U.S. since I left.  The reason is not economics; in some cases, those foreign engineers cost more...

Geek: a bit of wisdom from The Master (whoever that is)...

Geek: a bit of wisdom from The Master (whoever that is)...

The programmer and the stone statue.

A programmer was troubled and sad, so he went to see his Master.

“Nobody recognizes my work” the programmer said with woeful voice.

The Master took him to a temple with a beautiful stone statue in the center and said “If you want your work to be recognized you must be like the person who made this statue”.

They kept walking for a couple of minutes util the programmer asked “Who made it?”

“I don’t know” replied the Master.

Suddenly, the programmer was enlightened.

Excellent!

My mom could use this...

My mom could use this...  Reading blood sugar levels in real time, from tears.  I'm not sure that she'd go along with a contact lens, though...

Schneier briefs congresscritters...

Schneier briefs congresscritters...  Six of them, all advocates of reining in the NSA (and the rest of our “intelligence” apparatus).  I have competing reactions to this.  Part of me wants to applaud Congress for bringing in a grounded security expert like Bruce Schneier.  Part of me wants to cry over the reasons why they brought him in (read the piece to see what I mean).

Don't neglect the comments on this post; amongst the usual troll-crap there are some interesting ideas and points...

Ship of fools...

Ship of fools...  Steve McIntyre is back, not with a post about climatology per se, but rather on the adventure tourism ship that recently got itself stuck in the ice near Antarctica.  Steve, in his classic thorough style and with his irrepressible wit, tears the leader of the expedition (Chris Turney) to shreds over his self-serving claims and evident idiocy.  It is by far the best take-down of that fool that I've read – and Steve titled it, appropriately, Ship of Fools...

More toxic fallout from the war on drugs...

More toxic fallout from the war on drugs...  This is one that not too many U.S. citizens are aware of: almost nobody charged with a crime gets a trial by jury today.  Depending on whose numbers you want to believe, somewhere between 3% and 9% of criminal charges are resolved by a jury trial – the rest are all “plea bargains”.  The plea bargain system has completely changed the face of American criminal prosecution within my lifetime.  Up until the '70s, if you were charged with a crime and you didn't plead “guilty”, then a jury trial was a virtual certainty.  Now it's nearly unheard of.

And the war on drugs did it.

Here's an excellent piece by Brad Schlesinger, writing at Outside the Beltway, that explains it all. 

To me, this is just one more in a long, long list of reasons to legalize drugs and cut our losses in the disastrous war on drugs...

Government logic...

Government logic...  Megan McArdle notes some government information that is internally inconsistent.  Some time ago, Washington D.C. implemented a tax on plastic bags to discourage their use.  Recently they declared success, with plastic bag use down to less than half of its former levels.  But, Megan notes, the tax revenue from the plastic bag tax is going up.  How can that be?  If the number of bags being used has been cut in half, shouldn't the tax receipts be half as well?  Megan digs in...

Moving the goalposts...

Moving the goalposts...  Peter Suderman, writing at Reason, on the administration's transparent attempts to declare success by repeatedly changing the objectives to something they apparently think might actually be achievable.  Trouble is, even their modified objectives have yet to be met...

Old temperature data ignored...

Old temperature data ignored...  The warmists have been diligent about hiding exactly what they've done to “adjust” the temperature data (direct or proxied) that they've used.  Even Freedom of Information Act requests have so far failed to pry that information out of them.  But...some of that old data is actually available – and for the most part it does not show the warming trend claimed by the warmists.  Here's an outstanding example: meticulous temperature records, made in documented circumstances, from Adelaide, Australia:

There's almost 100 years of data there, and no hockey stick in sight.  Jo Nova is all over this, and she has both more details and the backstory...