When you've lost Alan Dershowitz...

When you've lost Alan Dershowitz ... it's pretty much time to turn in your “progressive” membership card.  Even the progressive elite are starting to realize that Jimmy Carter is a hypocritical, pompous, lying, and corrupt son of a bitch...

Fish oil: the new snake oil?

Fish oil: the new snake oil?  Reader and friend Simon M. passes along this article (caution: link goes to Slate, which may cause conservatives' heads to explode) and comments:

“I enjoyed your drink when you're thirsty blog. Makes perfect sense to me.

Eat when you're hungry works too. :)” 

I totally agree, but I'll extend it a bit: eat when you're hungry, and eat whatever you want to – in moderation.  Most of what I eat is relatively healthy (according to nutritionists), because that's what I like.  But ... there are plenty of things I like – and eat – that most nutritionists (at the moment, anyway) would call unhealthy: rare (or raw) beef, premium ice cream, Braunschweiger, etc., etc.

Back when I was still employed, I was 40 or 50 pounds overweight.  Every time I went to my doctor (who has known me for 25 years or so) for a physical, I asked him if there are things about my diet I should change, or if I should be making an effort to get more exercise.  His answer was always the same: there was nothing wrong with me, so whatever I was doing wasn't causing any problems, so don't worry about it.

Now that I'm retired, I'm getting much more exercise, sitting around far less, but my eating habits haven't changed at all.  I've dropped about 40 pounds, and I think my weight is still headed down.  At the time of my last physical, I'd dropped about 20 pounds.  My doctor, upon hearing about my change in lifestyle, was sure it was due to the exercise – and once again, he found nothing for me to worry about.  It's much easier now to go up stairs and to hike, and I feel better in general.  But ... absolutely none of that is down to diet.  It's entirely due to exercise, so far as I can tell.  I'm tracking my weight now, though (at my doctor's advice), just to be sure that it's not changing in some way that's not in sync with my level of exercise.  He warns me that come wintertime, when likely I'll be sitting on my butt a lot, I should expect that weight to pile back on...

Air quality egg...

Air quality egg (updated)...  We now have an Air Quality Egg (AQE) up and running at our house in Paradise.  The AQE is an air quality monitoring system that reports its data up to the web.  Our AQE monitors temperature, humidity, nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon monoxide (CO), ozone (O3), and particulate concentration (very fine dust).  The particulate sensor has a problem of some kind (I have a query into the maker about that), but the rest of it seems to be working fine.

Update: the particulate sensor is now working (all it took was unplugging and replugging the sensor board).  This sensor was one of the main reasons I picked the AQE in the first place, as Cache Valley (especially the northern part of it, near Logan) has occasional significant particulate pollution during temperature inversions in the winter.  The data right now is showing between 1 and 3.5 million particles per cubic meter (multiply the values on the graph by 3,534 to convert to pcs/m3), which is within the limits for the lowest grade of clean room – pretty good!  We'll see what happens to us this coming winter when there's an inversion.  Our very limited experience last winter, when we were house-hunting, is that the southernmost extent of haze (particulates) caused by the inversions is around the town of Hyrum, four miles to our north.  We're hoping this proves to be a generalizable phenomenon...

The community web site currently displays only temperature, humidity, NO2, and CO.  The full data set is available at Xively for all the AQEs.  Our AQE's page on the community site is here (note: the temperature is in degrees Celsius), and our Xively data feed is here (click the “graphs” link to see a timeline for the data).

Break out the Kleenex...

Break out the Kleenex...  Grandpa's not alone any more...

Earthrise: the backstory...

Earthrise: the backstory...  Via my card-carrying, pissed-off, ancient-American mom.  There were quite a few details in this short documentary that I had never heard before – most especially that the photo almost didn't happen!

My mom is a little more pissed off than usual this morning, because she had to call me to rescue her from a confusing (and deliberately misleading) Java update process left her with an unwanted, crapware-ridden Ask toolbar, and home pages reset to the Ask site.  The folks at Oracle ought to be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for loosing this evil upon the world.  We have this message for the Java product manager responsible for this horror: may the concerted efforts of 100 Congressmen be applied to your next software update...

Meerkat overload...

Meerkat overload...  Meet the family...

Cute overload...

Cute overload...

What she said...

What she said...  Neo-neocon echoes my feelings about Obama's speeches...

Oh, noz!

Oh, noz!  Oh, say it ain't so!  My favorite non-alcoholic drink is intoxicating...

Barn: the forms come off!

Barn: the forms come off!  Early this morning the crew arrived and started disassembling the forms holding the foundation wall in place (photos below).  They could do this because the concrete had cured sufficiently to safely hold the wall in place.  I watched them start this work, then I ran some errands that took a couple hours.  When I came home the forms were completely off, all the parts had been hauled away, and the foundation wall was fully exposed.  It will sit like this for about a week so that it can completely cure...

Email from an Israeli...

Email from an Israeli...  Reader Jim M. passes this email from a relative living in Israel along.  I have no way to verify its authenticity, but ... it rings true.

From: Andi

Subject: How I feel today
Date: July 20, 2014 at 11:24:49 AM CDT

I feel like I weigh 500 pounds. Everyone I know feels like they are walking through water. And sad. We are all so very, very sad.

This is what I know right now, today:

The ugliness, the venom, and the sheer, violent hatred you are seeing in Paris, London, Berlin, LA, Boston, Denver…..this is just the beginning. We Jews are the canaries in the coal mine for all of humanity. Today, they are throwing bricks at synagogues and smashing chairs and saying "Kill the Jews." Tomorrow it will be someone else.

Do the French really think these people will protect and safeguard the treasures of the Louvre? Do Londoners really think these people will cherish the symbols of the British Empire? Does anyone really think this is only about Israel and the disputed territories?

Today it is Israel, tomorrow it will be you.

Maybe that is why everyone gets so disproportionately annoyed about this conflict. Because everyone knows that, after us, it gets real personal. Seeing these violent protests, hearing the sickening screams for death, we Israelis understand better than ever we must fight for every square inch and with all we have. It matters not how much better our military is, how much more precise our targets can be. It only matters that when the smoke clears Hamas is disarmed, destroyed, disabled, and defeated. Forever.

Hamas. NOT the people of Gaza. I feel so very sorry for them. Sorry they were misguided and elected these lunatics. Sorry that, in their desperation, they allowed Hamas to fill the empty bedrooms next to their children's room with rockets. Sorry that their leaders have mansions and swimming pools and are sitting in air conditioning in another city while they are sweating and wondering where the roof over their houses went (if not their house itself.) Sorry that they have been brought up with no inkling of who Israelis are or what compromise is.

Defeating Hamas will be a big problem for the power brokers because shame and honor are all that matter in this part of the world. Honor in the Middle East does not come from whether your children are literate, how successful you are, how much money you make, how civilized your community is, or how many paved roads you have, and whether or not you have garbage collection and recycling.

Here in this part of the world - for Hamas, honor comes from getting revenge. For them revenge is everything. For them revenge is the only thing. Remember we left Gaza. There was no blockade. They were free to build a model democracy - the first successful, shining, taste of the new, proud Palestine. But they didn't want that kind of success.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. We will not be fooled again. We have nowhere else to go. And the rockets won't stop. The folks in Ashkelon cannot shower, have a bowel movement, get more milk, or walk a dog without wondering if they are taking their lives in their own hands.

There is another Gaza underneath Gaza. Hamas could have built hundred of schools, paved thousands of roads, built hundreds of kindergartens with the cement and iron they have used to build these underground bunkers and tunnels. (And you wondered why Israel put a blockade on bringing building supplies into the Gaza strip?) These tunnels to hell are filled with ammunition. And no women or children, nor a single elderly person, are brought to safety there. They want them on the street, on the roof, standing right behind (nice and close to) the terrorist firing the rocket. Hamas has refused to let journalists out of Gaza. Why? They need them to take pictures and record the carefully staged piles of bloody children and women. If the journalists leave, they have lost the vehicle for distributing their bloody ad campaign.

Hamas asked for a cease-fire. And they broke it. They break every single one.

Israel is setting up a massive field hospital to treat ... our enemies. From 8 pm on tonight there will be a working maternity ward, an operating theater, a working hospital for ... our enemies. We are going to lose more boys. Last night we lost 13. With each day we are going to lose more. But everyone here now understands this is a fight to the death. It is them or us. They cannot compromise and they don't want peace or to share or to negotiate. They want revenge even if it means killing their own people. So we have to go in there and do things none of us want to do, but we have to. This is why we are all so sad. Israelis want peace so badly. But we also desperately want to live. We love life and we are not about to let anyone, let alone a bunch of deranged thugs, take it away from us.

So yes, this is a fight to the death for both sides. Remember, if they win, you are next. If we win, those symbols of civilization that everyone takes so for granted will remain standing. And everyone will criticize and complain about disproportionate responses and war crimes and all kinds of other irrelevant nonsense, but secretly I think everyone will be heaving a sigh of relief.

“All I can do is cry...”

“All I can do is cry...”

“Have the strength to doubt and question what you believe as easily as you're so quick to doubt his beliefs.”

“Have the strength to doubt and question what you believe as easily as you're so quick to doubt his beliefs.”  Good advice from Andrew W. K.  His music isn't my style, but for a 35 year old show business type, he's really got his shit together...

“I picture the enemy watching this video and laughing.”

“I picture the enemy watching this video and laughing.”  What she said...

Barn: the foundation wall is poured!

Barn: the foundation wall is poured!  After all these weeks of waiting, now the barn construction seems to be proceeding at a breakneck pace.  I went out to run a few errands, and when I got home the last concrete truck had just pulled out, and the concrete crew was making the final tweaks (see photos below).  Tomorrow they'll be back to pull the forms off, and then we're just waiting for a few days for the concrete to cure...

Just before the pour...

Tweaking the forms...

Adding connectors...

The most trusted name in news...

The most trusted name in news...  This is, I'm told, an actual screen capture of a CNN broadcast.

One hardly knows what to say...

Barn: the foundation wall is underway!

Barn: the foundation wall is underway!  In the photos below you can see the outer side of the form being constructed, and the rebar reinforcement rods being wired in place.  Once that's all done, the inner form side will go up, the form as a whole will be lined up, and then the concrete trucks (about a dozen of them) will start arriving.  By early this afternoon, the entire foundation wall should be poured.  It will sit undisturbed for a week or so to cure, then work will pick up again...

Comet 67P close-up...

Comet 67P close-up...  Rosetta has returned a couple of high-resolution images of comet 67P – the best images ever obtained of any comet.  The image at right shows a “village of boulders,” each roughly the size of a house – and at the moment nobody has any idea what they're made of, or how they came to be.

But this is merely the beginning!  Rosetta is currently orbiting 100 kilometers (about 60 miles) from 67P, but will be spiraling in to just 10 kilometers (about 6 miles) as the mission progresses.  That will increase areal resolution by a factor of 100 on the images obtained.  Even more important (if less attractive to the public): the science instruments are going to work very soon...

“But under the guise of enabling innovation, the agency is making an already complex regulatory climate even harder to navigate.”

“But under the guise of enabling innovation, the agency is making an already complex regulatory climate even harder to navigate.”  The story is about FDA regulation of software, but that statement could be applied equally to almost any regulatory agency...

Barn: the first concrete is poured...

Barn: the first concrete is poured...  Just after I published the last post, I heard a terrific buzzing from my back yard.  It was the vibrator that sends the concrete down the placement chute – the first (of two) concrete trucks was placing some stiff concrete into the footing base forms the crew set up just a few hours ago.  I ran out and took a few photos, just as the second concrete truck showed up.  Just a few minutes later they were finished placing all the concrete, and the crew started setting up vertical pieces of rebar – the first step of the reinforcement construction.  They're going to finish wiring the reinforcement in place, then set up the forms for the next step: pouring the footing and foundation wall.  Woo hoo!

My neighbor Tim D. knew the barn was about to get underway, so a few days ago he dug a post hole, into which he wanted to put a piece of 4" steel tubing as a very strong corner post.  That hole needed some concrete, and clever Tim knew they'd likely have a few cubic feet left over (they never try to get the quantity exactly, but rather always order a bit more than they actually need – knowing that to order less than they actually needed was courting disaster).  Sure enough, when they finished pouring the barn's footing, there was still concrete in the truck.  A minute later, Tim's post hole was filled to the brim with concrete – with no cost and almost no work for him!