IPv4 address market takes off...

IPv4 address market takes off...  It took a little longer than the IPv6 advocates predicted, but it looks like it's finally happening – unused IPv4 addresses are getting so scarce that companies are willing to pay good money for them.  Willing buyers, willing sellers, and a little exchange of cash ... and you've got a market!

This is exactly the sort of thing...

This is exactly the sort of thing ... that led to the NSA abuses that Snowden revealed.  This time it's in the area of computer security, and may well lead to less secure computers for all of us.

Government: is there anything it can't screw up?

Democrats hold a massive rally for Hillary...

Democrats hold a massive rally for Hillary...  Via my lovely bride :)

Obama: can he do anything right?

Obama: can he do anything right?  No.  But Romney can...

Taxes done...

Taxes done...  But I'm still mad, and I'll be madder yet next week when I have to post those damn big checks.  Grrrr!!!

tax and spend politicians
tar
feathers
high velocity lead
tree
rope
some assembly required!

Alcohol or marijuana?

Alcohol or marijuana?  A pediatrician considers which he'd rather his children used.  A worthwhile read, especially for anyone who still thinks marijuana is more dangerous than alcohol.

A few years ago a friend asked me what provoked my advocacy for decriminalizing drugs.  He was puzzled by it, as he knew that I wasn't a user of any illegal drugs.  I had to think about it for a while, but realized it was the conjunction of these things:

• My increasing awareness over time of the irrationality of many political decisions, resulting in policies that were indefensible on any rational basis.  The U.S. drug policy fits quite nicely into that category.
• My reading of history, which led to the (then surprising to me) discovery that for most of U.S. history there were no illegal drugs.  We survived anyway.
• My growing circle of friends and colleagues, many of whom I discovered were regular users of illegal drugs (most commonly marijuana, but also including LSD, peyote, cocaine, etc.).  My own experiences with these people showed me that the drugs didn't destroy their intellect or their ambition, nor were they addicted any more than I am to Cabernet.  On the other hand, I've known several people whose lives were utterly destroyed by their alcoholism.
• My solidifying libertarian position on personal freedom.  I take the simple position that personal behavior that does not harm others should not be outlawed.  Personal use of so-called “recreational drugs” (including alcohol) usually doesn't harm others – but even when it does, the harmful behavior should be outlawed, not the drug use.  For the most part, that is exactly how we regulate alcohol use today.
• My growing understanding of the systemic damage caused by the war on drugs, which I've written about many times before.

Add all that up, and you've got the source of my advocacy...

A stunning measure of change...

A stunning measure of change...  The graph at right shows the result of a relatively simple calculation: for each plotted year, it shows the percentage of market capitalization represented by intangible assets, for all the companies on the S&P 500 list.  To make this calculation, the authors simply subtracted the companies' tangible assets from their market caps; these are both readily available numbers straight from the companies' quarterly reports.

In the thirty years since 1975, those intangible assets have gone from around 17% of market cap to over 80% of market cap.  What does this mean?  Well, let's make up an example.  Suppose that in 1975, the market cap of an S&P 500 component company was $1B.  If it was an average company, about $830m of that value would be in the form of tangible assets: cash, buildings, equipment, etc.  But the same company in 2015, with the same $1B market cap, would have only about $160m in tangible assets.  What's the rest of the value?  It's those intangible things, mainly an expectation of growth because of the intellectual property value held by the company.

This reflects the enormous shift in American (and worldwide) industry in the information age.  Much of the value of a company is now in the designs that it has made, code that it has written, patents that it owns, and expertise that it possesses – intangible assets that are the drivers for future growth.  Some of the value is simply in market expectations – Amazon and Apple are two good examples of this phenomenon.

The more I think about the changes documented in this graph, the more it sinks in just how profoundly our world has been changed by IT...

You'd be well-advised...

You'd be well-advised ... to stay far away from me today.  Especially if you're a politician, or anything even remotely close to that.  Why?  Today I start on my tax return.  That's guaranteed to get me thinking about things like politicians, waterboarding, high velocity lead, rope, branding irons, and so forth, in various pleasing combinations.

It will wear off in a month or two, but I'll resurrect this emotional state on election day...

The SETI folks are excited...

The SETI folks are excited...  Radio astronomers are observing fast radio bursts with discrete steps in their dispersion function that are hard to explain by natural mechanisms.  In other words, they look like something produced by an intelligent being.  There's some definite suspicion that the signals are man-made, though: the discrete steps are awfully close to round numbers of seconds.  Since seconds are an entirely arbitrary measure of time used by humans on Earth, it seems unlikely that an alien source would come up with the same thing...

We missed this...

We missed this ... though he must have passed right by our home (it's pretty hard to get out of Paradise without passing by our home!).  We don't know David Smith...

Moonlight in Paradise...

Moonlight in Paradise...  I woke up around 3 am this morning, and took our old field spaniel (Mo'i) outside for a walk.  We didn't need any lights this morning – the full moon was very bright.  Subjectively it was amongst the brightest moonlit nights I've ever experienced.  I could easily see the color of virtually all objects within my sight when the moon was at my back.  Certain colors (like orange) were vivid.  Others (green, blue) were unsaturated but clearly visible.  I could see, easily, Mo'i's brown fur against the green grass. 

We walked an extra couple of passes around the yard just to enjoy it...

Barn progress...

Barn progress...  Yesterday was a day of drudgery – I installed lights in Debbie's agility arena all day long.  Nine lights down, six to go – I should finish easily today...

Top 12 science April Fool's pranks from 2015...

Top 12 science April Fool's pranks from 2015...  Lots of geekly fun here!

Over 1,000 ancient stone tools found...

Over 1,000 ancient stone tools found ... just 60 miles (100 km) southwest of our home.  Awesome!

Can our politicians really be that disconnected from reality?

Can our politicians really be that disconnected from reality?  Yes.  Yes, they can.

On Thursday of this week, Senator Dianne Feinstein called for a book to be “…removed from the Internet.”  She wasn't joking, either – she actually believes that this is possible.  She also is apparently unaware that the physical book is readily available for purchase.

Senator Feinstein happens to be from California, and happens to be a Democrat – but this sort of ignorance crosses party lines and state lines.  Senator Pat Roberts, Kansas Republican, comes right to mind as an example.

In this case, we have a Senator – a person in a position of considerable political power and influence – who is demonstrating a profound ignorance of a technology area that she regulates.  It's a bit like asking a carpenter to land a modern jet airliner.  It seems like there must be a better way, though I don't know what that way might be.

I feel the doom coming on...

I stopped watching TV many years ago...

I stopped watching TV many years ago...  I count that as one of the best life decisions I've ever made.  Ace agrees...

Happy Passover to my Jewish friends...

Happy Passover to my Jewish friends...

Progressive hypocrisy on display...

Progressive hypocrisy on display...  This is like shooting fish in a barrel, to be sure, but this video documents an unusually clear example of it.  Unless you've been sealed into a catacomb over the past week or so, you've heard about the Indiana pizzeria forced out of business by the progressive outrage over the owner's declaration that if she were asked to cater pizza to a same-sex wedding, she'd refuse.  Cue the outrage: crazy homophobic Christians are on the rampage!  The press was filled with a bazillion breathless stories, all featuring OUTRAGE!  Never mind that it was all a hypothetical, that the owners had never actually refused to cater a gay wedding (because nobody ever asked them to).  All the usual suspects chimed in, and right on cue the usual brain-dead celebrities started promoting a boycott of Indiana.

Crowder (the video maker) wondered what would happen if he were to ask a Muslim-owned bakery to make a wedding cake for a gay wedding – and, presuming that he'd be refused, how the progressives and their press lapdogs would respond.  Now you can almost certainly guess what those responses would be – but its still a great illustration of the hypocrisy that pervades the progressive, multi-culti world.  The hypocrisy is strongest when two or more of their cherished beliefs collide, as here, where gay rights and Muslim rights are in strict opposition.

I revel in the display of progressive hypocrisy, but ... that doesn't necessarily mean that I disagree with their position on the Indiana pizzeria (though I most certainly do disagree with some of their methods, and I believe the outrage is entirely misplaced).  I think these are genuinely challenging issues that really don't have clear answers.  Take the Indiana pizzeria case, and modify it slightly.  Suppose the owners had been asked instead if they would cater to a hypothetical marriage of two black people, and they refused.  Would we react differently to that?  I think that today virtually everybody would agree that was inappropriate behavior, and would condemn them – but that wasn't true even as recently as my own childhood.

There's a delicate balancing act here, with at least three competing elements: personal beliefs (religious or otherwise), the rights of individuals, and societal mores.  The Indiana pizzeria owners have a belief that gay marriage is wrong – do we force them to do something in violation of their own beliefs?  The hypothetical gay groom and groom want pizzas for their wedding – do we force them to go to a different pizzeria?  On gay marriage, American society is moving from outraged rejection toward at least grudging acceptance, but there's certainly no consensus on this yet – do we shove the notion down everyone's throat?

No easy answers here.  The only thing I feel sure of is that change is in the air...

Chained libraries...

Chained libraries...  I'd seen individual books with chains on them before, in museums, but I hadn't realized that there were entire libraries filled with books on chains – and I certainly didn't know that some of those libraries survived to this day.  Why were the books chained?  Because before the invention of the printing press and moveable type, books were made by hand-copying from the original.  It took thousands of hours of tedious skilled work to make a single book, so they were very valuable.  It wasn't the calligraphy that was the rare (and expensive) skill back then: it was the ability to read and write – not that many people could!

The gnomes are out of control!

The gnomes are out of control!  Utah humor...