The Met Office, home of UK weather soothsaying, is getting its climate research budget chopped by a quarter after the Ministry of Defence ended financial support to focus on "current operations."Funny, even the Brits think that winning in Afghanistan is more important that the climate change bandwagon. I blame George W. Bush. And Tony Blair. The science is settled! Settled, I say!
The idea was ahead of its time, and not feasible owing to the state of mechanical technology in 1942. It was not implemented in the USA until 1962, when it was used by U.S. military ships during a blockade of Cuba after the patent had expired. Neither Lamarr nor Antheil, who died in 1959, made any money from the patent. Perhaps owing to this lag in development, the patent was little-known until 1997, when the Electronic Frontier Foundation gave Lamarr an award for this contribution.From the EFF's award:
Actress Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil are being honored by the EFF this year with a special award for their trail-blazing development of a technology that has become a key component of wireless data systems. In 1942 Lamarr, once named the "most beautiful woman in the world" and Antheil, dubbed "the bad boy of music" patented the concept of "frequency-hopping" that is now the basis for the spread spectrum radio systems used in the products of over 40 companies manufacturing items ranging from cell phones to wireless networking systems.
"The minute I saw the faces of the agents, I knew I was in trouble. The first page of the Unthinkable script mentioned 9/11, terror plots, and the fact that the (fictional) world had become a police state. The TSA agents then proceeded to interrogate me, having a hard time understanding that a comic book could be about anything other than superheroes ..."I've flown around a million and a half miles on commercial carriers, and now I'll bend over backwards to avoid flying.
When I found out about my husband's infidelity I worked immediately to first seek reconciliation through forgiveness, and then to work diligently to repair our marriage. We reached a point where I felt it was important to look my sons in the eyes and maintain my dignity, self-respect, and my basic sense of right and wrong. I therefore asked my husband to leave two weeks ago.And this:
I believe enduring love is primarily a commitment and an act of will, and for a marriage to be successful, that commitment must be reciprocal. I believe Mark has earned a chance to resurrect our marriage.And this:
Psalm 127 states that sons are a gift from the Lord and children a reward from Him. I will continue to pour my energy into raising our sons to be honorable young men. I remain willing to forgive Mark completely for his indiscretions and to welcome him back, in time, if he continues to work toward reconciliation with a true spirit of humility and repentance.Translation: shape up and walk the line, mister.
However, speaking as someone who several decades ago had to choose between princesses and cowgirls, I'd tell the boys to go with the cowgirls every day. As Postrel says:That's what built this country, and it's alive and well in the South Carolina Governor's Mansion. Without the Governor.I expected the museum to be stupid. It wasn't. In stark contrast to the ridiculous Women's Museum in Dallas, which (the one time I visited it) featured a strange combination of populist kitsch and social-constructionist feminist dogma, the Cowgirl Museum showcased women of no-nonsense character, pioneer (and pioneering) achievement, physical daring, and unapologetic femininity.No-nonsense character. Pioneering achievement. Daring. Feminine. Yeah, baby.
Very interesting discussion at Wattsupwiththat on data quality (a perennial problem with science in general, and Climate Science in particular, at least lately). There's a real problem with urbanization causing measured temperatures to increase over time, simply because a previously rural sensor is now in the middle of an "Urban Heat Island".“Women are looking for resources and excitement. A 38 year old single father with three kids offers neither.”There's more - so much more, including words of wisdom from the Irish Advice Columnist. Top shelf snark, right there.
Shockwave Player is installed on 450 million desktops, according to Adobe.Well, now. This is worth a look.
A while back, I used to like watching (the now canceled) Nashville Star, a country music version of American Idol. During the competition, there was always one evening where the contestants had to sing a song that they had written.I'm pushing you away each time I pull up that ol' barstool,
And drownin’ you in every drop I drink.
I'm telling you to go to hell but I’m talking to myself
‘Cuz you’re not around to hear what I think.
I’m trying to teach my heart to hate you,
But it ain’t workin’ right
Now the truth is I’m only drinkin’ me lonely tonight.
Lord, it’s more than just thirsty that I’m feeling inside
‘cause these tears I’ve been crying have left me bone dry,
I wish the bartender had a cure I could buy,
But the truth is I'm only, drinkin' me lonely tonight.
He said I’d have to choose between your love and this old bar room,
And I just laughed, but I guess you knew best,
Who cares whose right or wrong tonight, my better half is gone
And this whiskey's laying claim to all that’s left.
So I'll just order up another and pretend I'm all right,
When the truth is I’m only drinkin’ me lonely tonight.
And Lord, it’s more than just thirsty that I’m feeling inside
‘cause these tears I’ve been crying have left me bone dry,
And I wish the bartender had a cure I could buy,
But the truth is I'm only drinkin' me lonely tonight.
Iraqi: “Safety is not 100 per cent… why are the Americans leaving?”About sums it up right there. Surbur continues:I hate to tell him this, but we had an election in 2006. His side lost. Those who care about Iraq were able to muster enough support to give it one last shot — The Surge — before leaving, but then in 2008, we elected as president a guy who pronounced The Surge DOA before it began.
About sums it up right there, too. I supported the war, and the surge, because I didn't see an alternative, and I'm sick of the whining.The pro-Surge side might have been helped if somewhere along the way, Iraqis had held a day of appreciation for the liberation from one of the most ruthless dictators on the face of the Earth.
A parade or two of some magnitude might have persuaded the American people that Iraqis gave a damn — that the sacrifices we endured were not in vain.
The longest journey a man can take is the eighteen inches from his head to his heart.When I was young I spoke like a child, and I saw with a child's eyesI have more sympathy for Gov. Sanford than I would have, not so very many years ago. He's run from the arms of lovers, from the eyes of friends, from the hands of kindness, because he can. I think I know the feeling that he had, looking into that abyss, of carrying the weight of the world. For him, it may be too late for turning back now - he's shown both his family and his constituents that they can't count on him.
And an open door was to a girl like the stars are to the sky
It's funny how the world lives up to all your expectations
With adventures for the stout of heart, and the lure of the open spaces
There's 2 lanes running down this road, whichever side you're on
Accounts for where you want to go, or what you're running from
Back when darkness overtook me on a blind man's curve
I relied upon the moon, I relied upon the moon
I relied upon the moon and Saint Christopher
Now I've paid my dues 'cause I have owed them, but I've paid a price sometimes
For being such a stubborn woman in such stubborn times
Now I have run from the arms of lovers, I've run from the eyes of friends
I have run from the hands of kindness, I've run just because I can
But now I'm grown and I speak like a woman and I see with a woman's eyes
And an open door is to me now like the saddest of goodbyes
It's too late for turning back, I pray for the heart and the nerve
And I rely upon the moon, I rely upon the moon
I rely upon the moon and Saint Christopher
To be my guide
Tell us what she was like and how much fun it was. This whiny apology crap makes you look weak and nobody, not me, not the press, not your political cronies, and certainly not your wife, believes a word of it.He has more, including pictures worth more than a thousand words. More than one (keep scrolling on this one).
A year ago, I put up my first post, about Internet Security. Not my best effort, looking back on it.a. Google notices, and starts to put you in their page rankings. Sometimes it puts you strangely high in their rankings, like I am for german country music. If you like traffic (and who doesn't?) this will ramp your traffic perhaps faster than anything.3. A regular topic will help you hone your writing style. JayG offers up a weekly Friday Fun thread on cars. It's always interesting, and always fun. Me, I have Saturday Redneck, where I take a country music song and offer some background musing, a music video, and the lyrics. Now country music may not be your bag, baby, but regular writing in the same format is called "practice". I've clearly gotten better with time: compare and contrast an early post with the Johnny and June Carter post, which has attracted more traffic than anything I've written. It's clear that this practice pays off.
b. People will start to find things they like, and link to you. Links are very nice indeed: not only do they drive traffic, but it's a great ego boost.
c. As people start to read you regularly, they will come back more often the more frequently you post. This is one of those duh statements when you think about it for a second: if someone likes what you post, then posting more will get them back for more of what they like.
Albert Rasch asked in an email: which laptop would I recommend that is rugged and reliable, and with a decent screen? He also asks which Linux I'd recommend for it, assuming that the primary use is basic Internet and multimedia.
Third, you might consider one of the new-fangled Netbooks, like the Asus EeePC 1000 HA (or even better, the soon to be released 1005, which has a replaceable battery). I haven't tried this configuration, but expect that if you plugged mouse, keyboard, and monitor into the little thing that it would work great, plus would give you outstanding portability if you needed it (although then you'd be using the small 10" screen). I'm actually quite tempted to do this myself.
If you want a second opinion for Netbook Linux distrubutions, El Reg has an exhaustive comparison of the choices.You might think they did it because it was easy, but you'd be forgetting the title of this post.BT Openzone is set to expand further with a deal to put hotspots in cashpoints, forgetting for a moment that it's not a mobile phone network, and making maximum use of the unlicensed spectrum available to Wi-Fi.
The latest deal is with cashpoint specialist Cashbox - suppliers of those stand-alone machines found lurking in the back of late-night shops and increasingly in the corners of pubs. These cashpoints, which are connected via the Link network, already have a broadband connection; so slipping a Wi-Fi access point into the box is not a great technical challenge.
Both Svajcer and Zacheroff stressed the trojan could only be installed by someone who had physical access to an ATM, since the devices, obviously, don't have floppy drives and typically run only on private isolated networks. That means the malware could most likely be installed only with help of an insider or in the event passwords weren't managed properly.OK, so maybe Cashbox makes so much money with these things that they can afford the inevitable breach. What does it mean to you?
The problem is that what you want (security) and what your users want (information on Al Gore's Intarwebz) inherently is in conflict. You can't win unless they lose, and vice versa.The chief driver of the security FAIL that they find themselves in?
And remember, you're not really the architect. These networks weren't so much designed, as grew. Even the Internet itself grew by connecting networks together - a network of networks. The name IP comes from this: Internet Protocol.
It's the Dancing Baby from the mid-1990s. This was the first example of a mass Internet video meme - it was wildly popular, and spread virally, via email from user to user as people passed the link on to each other. Remember, as the architect, you need to keep the [Classified] network from getting to the dancing baby.So what does this have to do with Iran? Well, they're trying to do the same thing that DoD is trying - stop the flow of information on the Internet. They also lose:
You lose.
So when a government censors the Internet, it had better think twice: “Cute cats are collateral damage when governments block sites,” Mr. Zuckerman wrote for a recent talk. People who could not “care less about presidential shenanigans are made aware that their government fears online speech so much that they’re willing to censor the millions of banal videos” and thereby “block a few political ones.”
Within an hour after I received a plea for help from Iran, a regular commenter on this blog recruited me into a hacker network that has been forming to support the democratic Iranian revolutionaries by providing them with proxy servers, Tor anonymizers, and any other technologies needed for them to communicate over channels the Iranian regime cannot censor or control.I'd with the Iranian regime good luck, because they'll need it to close down these channels. But they don't deserve it, and I dare say that they won't get it.
Seems that the good folks at Census don't much like this:Outspoken Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann says she's so worried that information from next year's national census will be abused that she will refuse to fill out anything more than the number of people in her household.
In an interview Wednesday morning with The Washington Times "America's Morning News," Mrs. Bachmann, Minnesota Republican, said the questions have become "very intricate, very personal" and she also fears ACORN, the community organizing group that came under fire for its voter registration efforts last year, will be part of the Census Bureau's door-to-door information collection efforts.
"I know for my family the only question we will be answering is how many people are in our home," she said. "We won't be answering any information beyond that, because the Constitution doesn't require any information beyond that."
Shelly Lowe, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Census Bureau, said Mrs. Bachmann is "misreading" the law.Well now. I wonder if you have to sign the Census form, under penalty of perjury?
She sent a portion of the U.S. legal code that says anyone over 18 years of age who refuses to answer "any of the questions" on the census can be fined up to $5,000.
The official “trained manning requirement” of the army is 101,790, so the loss of three battalions, of roughly 1,800 men in total, would take the strength of the army to below 100,000.Europeans wonder why we don't think of them as trustworthy allies. It's because when the chips are down, we aren't sure if we can count on them. Europe wants to go back to sleep, with end-of-history dreams. Peace Dividend! More money for NuLabor to spend on favored programs.
Charles Heyman, a former infantry officer who edits The Armed Forces of the United Kingdom, a military guide, said the proposed cuts were “stark raving mad”.
He added: “If we were to withdraw from Afghanistan it would be fine but with the government saying operations there will go on for 10 years it is sheer lunacy. It will do severe damage to morale within the infantry and within the wider army.”
A king, realizing his incompetence, can either delegate or abdicate his duties. A father can do neither. If only sons could see the paradox, they would understand the dilemma.He didn't have to wake up
He'd been up all night
Layin’ there in bed listenin’
To his new born baby cry
He makes a pot of coffee
He splashes water on his face
His wife gives him a kiss and says
It gonna be OK
It won’t be like this for long
One day soon we'll look back laughin’
At the week we brought her home
This phase is gonna fly by
So baby just hold on
‘Cause it won't be like this for long
Four years later ‘bout 4:30
She's crawling in their bed
And when he drops her off at preschool
She's clinging to his leg
The teacher peels her off of him
He says what can I do
She says now don't you worry
This’ll only last a week or two
It won’t be like this for long
One day soon you'll drop her off
And she won’t even know you're gone
This phase is gonna fly by
If you can just hold on
It won’t be like this for long
Some day soon she'll be a teenager
And at times he'll think she hates him
Then he'll walk her down the aisle
And he'll raise her veil
But right now she's up and cryin’
And the truth is that he don't mind
As he kisses her good night
And she says her prayers
He lays down there beside her
‘Til her eyes are finally closed
And just watchin’ her it breaks his heart
Cause he already knows
It won’t be like this for long
One day soon that little girl is gonna be
All grown up and gone
Yeah, this phase is gonna fly by
So, he's tryin’ to hold on
‘Cause it won’t be like this for long
It won’t be like this for long
Sgt. Darrell "Shifty" Powers, member of the 101st Airborne Division, and immortalized in Stephen Ambrose's "Band of Brothers", has died at age 86.Shooting tennis balls makes for an uproariously good time, even if you’re by yourself. Why? Because a well-placed shot with a .40S&W will launch the sucker 50 feet into the air, and easily 50 yards downrange. Why hadn’t I thought of this before!?Happy to move him off the "Sadly Missed" link!
And another:
Heh.Soccer mom Madison wants to hear how wrong she was done by her ex husband (in a humorous manner of course). She wants to hear about love and thinking back to teenage days and drinking wine from a Dixie cup. Not about how your last threesome went awry when one of the parties turned out to be a Bobbi with a "y." Safe: God, pie, beer, mama. Not safe: herpes, rope burns, naked slap fights.Now I like Big & Rich just fine, but that right there's a funny joke.
The "Stimulus" bill is fixin' to create a hundred bazillion quadrillion jobs - the good ones, mind, not the ones that Americans won't do. It's in the bag.I leave it to smarter men to reconcile President Obama's pledge to reduce unemployment in the auto industry while simultaneously cutting 21,000 jobs at GM, of which he is now 60 per cent owner and bankruptcy receiver-in-chief.Plus the greatest Detroit song ever, by the late, great Johnny Cash. There's a country music song for everything.
The D.C. government released emergency regulations yesterday that greatly expand the models of handguns that District residents can own, a shift designed to stave off another lawsuit over its compliance with the Second Amendment.Emergency, get it? Pretty serious, I'd think, especially when you read into the story to find this:
Several council members who voted to implement the District's gun policies declined to comment yesterday, saying they had not reviewed the changes.Wow. It was so much of an emergency, that the city council voted for it without even reading it.
It's the second time in less than a year that city leaders have had to back away from some of the restrictions they put into place immediately after the Heller decision. Initially, the council permitted residents to register only revolvers, not semiautomatic pistols. But the ban on semiautomatics was lifted in September because of pressure from Congress and gun rights groups.The only explanation that makes sense is that the reporter (Tim Craig) is so clueless about guns that he is simply incapable of writing a coherent story. Emergency legislation passed without the council even reading it - why did they think they were going to lose in court? What, in other words, constitutes non-common sense gun controls, per the Washington DC city council?
First is a good word to describe Patsy Cline. The first woman inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. First on CMT's The 40 Greatest Women of Country Music. First in the Guinness Book of World Records for most weeks on the charts for a female star, in any music genre (722 total, 251 at #1).I fall to pieces,
Each time I see you again.
I fall to pieces.
How can I be just your friend?
You want me to act like we've never kissed.
You want me to forget, pretend we've never met.
And I've tried and I've tried, but I haven't yet.
You walk by and I fall to pieces.
I fall to pieces,
Each time someone speaks your name.
I fall to pieces.
Time only adds to the flame.
You tell me to find someone else to love,
Someone who'll love me too, the way you used to do.
But each time I go out with some one new,
You walk by and I fall to pieces.
You walk by and I fall to pieces.
The newspapers are perhaps a bit kind when they describe these deaths; he was playing with the gun and it went off. This should perhaps be changed to he was playing with the gun and fired it, forgetting it was not a toy, forgetting it was loaded, and forgetting that he had pointed it at his best friend.
On June 25, 2007, Cape Cod detectives went to Bolduc's home to investigate a report that his son had pointed an unloaded gun at a 5-year-old girl and pulled the trigger. When the 12-year-old son directed investigators to an unlocked bureau in his father's bedroom, they discovered a department-issued, high-capacity handgun that was not secured with a trigger lock.Lt. Richard Bolduc needs to give his son a refresher on the 4 Rules of Gun Safety. More seriously, he was arrested and charged with violating said statutes.
This is a State, not a Federal case, but it is fascinating to to see even State District courts - in a liberal state like Massachusetts, no less - rule that the Second Amendment means what it says, and applies to Cambridge as much as it does to Fort Worth.The Supreme Judicial Court decided to look at the law after a District Court judge cited a U.S. Supreme Court decision in dismissing firearms charges against a Billerica man who had been accused of keeping unlocked weapons.
That decision said the District of Columbia could not require gun owners to keep their weapons disassembled and the Second Amendment gives people the right to keep and bear arms.
You be happy to know that the Gormogons are reasonably well armed. Though we could always use more. Send guns and money. (Lawyers enough we got.)Molon Labe, and added to the Borepatch bloglist (and daily read).
Enjoy your coveted spot on our Blog Pimp Roll (with apologies to Tom Wolfe).
What's happening now is precisely the kind of political gridlock I--and a lot of libertarians and conservatives--predict when it comes time to actually cut costs in healthcare. Why can't we tax employer health benefits? Liberal answer: because Ben Nelson is a big fat jerk. My answer: because then the awesome health care package that Democrats want to run on in 2010 would come packaged with a non-awesome hefty decline in everyone's weekly paycheck. The number of people who would get a benefit out of the program would be much smaller than the number of people who would pay a noticeable cost.Must read stuff, especially for liberals who think that this is 1932 all over again, and that Obama is FDR.
Me, I'm updating my Facebook account:Like a lot of people who use social media, Israel Hyman and his wife Noell went on Twitter to share real-time details of a recent trip. Their posts said they were "preparing to head out of town," that they had "another 10 hours of driving ahead," and that they "made it to Kansas City."While they were on the road, their home in Mesa, Ariz., was burglarized. Hyman has an online video business called IzzyVideo.com, with 2,000 followers on Twitter. He thinks his Twitter updates tipped the burglars off.
[snip]
Most people wouldn't leave a recording on a home answering machine telling callers they're on vacation for a week, and most people wouldn't let mail or newspapers pile up while they were away. But users of social media think nothing of posting real-time vacation photos on Facebook showing themselves on beaches hundreds of miles from home, or sending out automatic e-mail messages that say, "I'm out of the country for a week."
Ted is home cleaning his guns, and waiting for burglars.(Borepatch likes this.)
The difference between America and Europe is that Americans think that 100 years is a long time, and Europeans think that 100 miles is a long way.
Not on the list: Flint, Michigan:Not dead, but dieing. The silver's run out, the mine is boarded up, and the prospectors have moved on.The government looking at expanding a pioneering scheme in Flint, one of the poorest US cities, which involves razing entire districts and returning the land to nature.
Local politicians believe the city must contract by as much as 40 per cent, concentrating the dwindling population and local services into a more viable area.
All that's left are those too old to pick up and move again, or those too sentimental.Flint, sixty miles north of Detroit, was the original home of General Motors. The car giant once employed 79,000 local people but that figure has shrunk to around 8,000.
Unemployment is now approaching 20 per cent and the total population has almost halved to 110,000.
The exodus – particularly of young people – coupled with the consequent collapse in property prices, has left street after street in sections of the city almost entirely abandoned.
I used to sort of like the Dead until I started working Dead shows. While it might have seemed all "free love and mellowness" from the outside, if you've ever gone to a Dead show sober you've never met a more selfish group of people. By "free" they meant "I shouldn't have to pay no matter what because everything in the world should be free, especially if I want it", and by mellow they meant, "I'm mellow as long as I get to do whatever I want and you are a fascist pig if you tell me what to do, especially if you're telling me to be considerate of other people".Concerts, Internet Security, and how to eat the elephant. If this is your bag, baby (as it is mine), you need to RTWT.
Ever wonder why it's called "Greenland"? One explanation is that it was marketing: If we call it "Greenland", we can fool people into coming here.
The animal bones in those topmost layers tell a grim story. They include: foot bones of small wild birds and rabbits, which would normally have been considered too small to be worth hunting and usable only as last-ditch famine food; bones of a newborn calf and lamb, which would have been born in the late spring; the toe bones of a number of cows approximately equal to the number of spaces in that farm's cow barn, suggesting that all cows had been slaughtered and were eaten down to the hoofs; and partial skeletons of big hunting dogs with knife marks on the bones. Dog bones are otherwise virtually absent in Norse houses, because the Norse were no more willing to eat their dogs then we are today. By killing the dogs on which they depended to hunt caribou in the autumn, and by killing the newborn livestock needed to rebuild their herds, the last inhabitants were in effect saying that they were too desperately hungry to care about the future.Gone, victims of climate change. The current climate models don't explain this, either.
The models predict higher temperatures.For the second time in little over a year, it looks as though the world may be heading for a serious food crisis, thanks to our old friend "climate change". In many parts of the world recently the weather has not been too brilliant for farmers. After a fearsomely cold winter, June brought heavy snowfall across large parts of western Canada and the northern states of the American Midwest. In Manitoba last week, it was -4ºC. North Dakota had its first June snow for 60 years.
[snip]
None of this has given much cheer to farmers. In Canada and northern America summer planting of corn and soybeans has been way behind schedule, with the prospect of reduced yields and lower quality. Grain stocks are predicted to be down 15 per cent next year. US reserves of soya – used in animal feed and in many processed foods – are expected to fall to a 32-year low.
