The Cigarette Camps: U. S. Army Camps in the Le Havre Area -- Introduction

My grandpa on my Dad's side was a PX Officer at Lucky Strike and Chesterfield.

The Cigarette Camps: U. S. Army Camps in the Le Havre Area -- Introduction: "Introduction: The Cigarette Camps"

TaxProf Blog: Inside Higher Ed: Women Profs Spend More Time on Teaching, Less on Research

TaxProf Blog: Inside Higher Ed: Women Profs Spend More Time on Teaching, Less on Research:

"Joycelyn K. Moody, the Sue E. Denman Distinguished Chair in American Literature at the University of Texas at San Antonio, said that what most troubled her about the responses was that women reported feeling shame about their interest and success in teaching. Women should be feeling pride in their success as teachers, she said, but are “perceiving themselves as performing below expectations,” because they aren’t doing more research. It’s time to “dismantle those institutional values,” Moody said, so that the shame disappears."

What If New York Goes Bust? - The Daily Beast

What If New York Goes Bust? - The Daily Beast: "The Alice in Wonderland absurdity of the current budget debates was nicely illustrated by the president of the United Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten. She was quoted without irony in The New York Times saying, 'We understand there will be cuts. The real question, will there be cuts, not just cuts against growth, but real cuts that will turn back the clock.'

A close reading reveals that for union leaders like Ms. Weingarten, the only acceptable 'cuts' are not cuts at all, but rather reductions in the rate of increase for public spending. She is willing, in effect, to receive a reduced bonus this year, but not the cut in pay or benefits that would constitute shared sacrifice in a financial crisis."

Armchair Commentary: Exclusive Interview: Fillion on Captain Hammer & Classic "Firefly"

Armchair Commentary: Exclusive Interview: Fillion on Captain Hammer & Classic "Firefly": "Exclusive Interview: Fillion on Captain Hammer & Classic 'Firefly'"

xkcd - A Webcomic - 11th Grade

xkcd - A Webcomic - 11th Grade

LiveWeb - insert and update web pages real-time in PowerPoint

LiveWeb - insert and update web pages real-time in PowerPoint

Christmas bokeh | dooce ®

Christmas bokeh | dooce ®

The picture at this link is the first I have seen that starts to capture what a Christmas tree looks like to me when I don' have my glasses on. For years, I have enjoyed sitting with my glasses off and staring at the tree after it is decorated. It is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. The only difference between this picture and what I see is that I don't see a smooth circle. Instead I see a pattern of lighter and darker in each circle. Note that each light circle is the same size, regardless of how obscured some of it may be. If it is mostly obscured, it appears not as bright, but it exactly the same size and has the same pattern in it.

One of the few joys of wearing glasses.

CD/DVD drives disappear after installing iTunes - GEAR CD / DVD Software Support Knowledgebase

CD/DVD drives disappear after installing iTunes - GEAR CD / DVD Software Support Knowledgebase: "Summary:
After installing a GEAR Software or a GEARWorks GEAR Powered Product (such as Apple iTunes and Norton Ghost) on Vista, the CD/DVD drives disappear in Windows Explorer and the installed software is unable to detect any CD/DVD drives on the system"

CIO - SOA What? Why You Need SOA Governance Framework

CIO - SOA What? Why You Need SOA Governance Framework:

"Without an established governance plan and policy, the original author and
support organization may not even know this 'use' of their software is
happening. This can lead to a lawless environment where: 1.) Increased volume
may cause a jump in users from hundreds to thousands overnight. Servers or
networks being used for this process may not be able to handle the load; 2)
Contrarily a service is created but 'no one comes' to re-use it because there is
no established procedure about how to communicate service availability within
the enterprise; 3) Finally, it is easy for a developer to read a service
definition and create a sample request message in minutes. In a SOA world, the
data travels on the wire in the clear and even has tags identifying each and
every data element. Ease of access to SOA services raises an important issue of
security policies and SOA governance.

So without a well-thought out governance plan SOA can seem like the lawless Wild, Wild West."

Op-Ed Contributor - What They Hate About Mumbai - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Contributor - What They Hate About Mumbai - NYTimes.com

Minnesota Management Institute

EDC General Management Programs - Minnesota Management Institute

Obama's small donor base image is a myth, new study reveals | Top of the Ticket | Los Angeles Times

When people try to make something look like something else, it makes me wonder why...

Obama's small donor base image is a myth, new study reveals | Top of the Ticket | Los Angeles Times:

"Everybody knows how President-elect Barack Obama's amazing campaign money machine was dominated by several million regular folks sending in hard-earned amounts under $200, a real sign of his broadbased grassroots support.

Except, it turns out, that's not really true.

In fact, Obama's base of small donors was almost exactly the same percent as George W. Bush's in 2004 -- Obama had 26% and the great Republican satan 25%. Obviously, this is unacceptable to current popular thinking."

Slashdot | Suggestions For Cheap Metrics Eye Candy Software?

Slashdot | Suggestions For Cheap Metrics Eye Candy Software?: "Suggestions For Cheap Metrics Eye Candy Software?"

An Online Journal of the Stories & Passions Behind The Research ‎(The Heart Of Research‎)

An Online Journal of the Stories & Passions Behind The Research ‎(The Heart Of Research‎)

Sorting 1PB with MapReduce

This is just crazy..... If you are a computer person, you understand just how crazy this is. If you aren't, this is similar to sorting all the junk mail, junk email, everything on your computer, everything in your cupboards, under the sink, sock drawers, that one junk drawer everyone has (yes, you do!), the nightstand, the basement and the garage, and basically every single piece of somethingt you and everyone in your city has every owned, possessed, touched, looked at, or smelled in the last 5 years...sorted *all* of that in, oh, a few seconds. All of it...every piece...sorted, organized, and arranged...oh yeah, and copied 3 times (before the sort) for disaster recovery.

Official Google Blog: Sorting 1PB with MapReduce: "We are excited to announce we were able to sort 1TB (stored on the Google File System as 10 billion 100-byte records in uncompressed text files) on 1,000 computers in 68 seconds. By comparison, the previous 1TB sorting record is 209 seconds on 910 computers.

Sometimes you need to sort more than a terabyte, so we were curious to find out what happens when you sort more and gave one petabyte (PB) a try. One petabyte is a thousand terabytes, or, to put this amount in perspective, it is 12 times the amount of archived web data in the U.S. Library of Congress as of May 2008. In comparison, consider that the aggregate size of data processed by all instances of MapReduce at Google was on average 20PB per day in January 2008."

Missing CD/DVD drives: solution?

Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39) « Barugon’s Cave (^_^): "A few days ago I ran into an issue where my DVD drives no longer appeared in Windows and were not accessible either. What was strange was that I have two physical DVD drives (a DVD-RW and an Xbox HD DVD drive), as well as a virtual drive provided by Daemon Tools for loading ISOs - yet all three were highlighted with an exclamation mark and the same error code: Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)."

The Final Inch: The Eradication Of Polio

Official Google Blog: The Final Inch: "Early readers of the Google.org blog may recall us embarking on a film project portraying public health heroes working in the field to eradicate polio. Gone from the modern world, new cases of polio continue to afflict mostly children under age 3 in the poorest regions of just a few countries — India, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan. When we first announced this project and the collaboration between Google.org and Vermilion Films, filming was underway primarily in India and Afghanistan, documenting the front lines of public health in some forgotten corners of our world.

David Heymann of the World Health Organization reminds us, 'When you haven't seen a disease for quite a while, which is the case in the industrialized countries, you forget about the terrible disease that it really is.' Polio is such a disease, as it can ruin the lives of children even before they are old enough to understand how to prevent it."

Beloit College Mindset List 2009

This lists all the things that people born in 1987 know about their world.

Beloit College Mindset List

1. Andy Warhol, Liberace, Jackie Gleason, and Lee Marvin have always been dead.
2. They don't remember when "cut and paste" involved scissors.
3. Heart-lung transplants have always been possible.
4. Wayne Gretzky never played for Edmonton.
5. Boston has been working on the "The Big Dig" all their lives.
6. With little need to practice, most of them do not know how to tie a tie.
7. Pay-Per-View television has always been an option.
8. etc......
   

Read the whole thing...

Five-Star Hospitals Might Not Kill You

FOXNews.com - Study: Five-Star Hospitals Might Not Kill You - Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News: "If all hospitals performed as well as 5-star facilities, as ranked by an independent healthcare ratings company, 237,420 U.S. Medicare patient deaths could have been prevented between 2005 and 2007.

That's the upshot of a new study that finds you have a 70 percent lower chance of dying at a facility that is top-ranked by HealthGrades compared to its lowest-ranked ones across 17 procedures and conditions that were the reasons for the hospital visits.

More than half of the Medicare patient deaths were associated with four conditions: sepsis (a systemic response to infection), pneumonia, heart failure and respiratory failure."

Redistribution of Wealth Experiment

Bluey Blog | Robert Bluey » Blog Archive » Redistribution of Wealth Experiment: "In a local restaurant my server had on a “Obama 08″ tie, again I laughed as he had given away his political preference–just imagine the coincidence.

When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need–the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight.

I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I’ve decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful.

At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient deserved money more.

I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application."

Street Legal, 256 mph, Made in the USA

SSC Ultimate Aero is All American Supercar - Jay Leno's Garage - Popular Mechanics: "The guy who built it, Jerod Shelby (no relation to Carroll Shelby), did it all in reverse compared to most fledgling supercar companies. First, after seven years of work, he produced the car. Next, he set a production car world speed record on the road and certified the SSC for U.S. emissions. Only then, after he broke the record, did he finally tell everybody about it. At a two-way average speed of 256 mph, the SSC Ultimate Aero is actually faster than a $1.5 million Bugatti Veyron, which has been clocked at 253 mph. And at about $650,000, it’s a lot less expensive."

*This* is how to test software

Chromium Blog: Putting It to the Test: "At last count, we run more than 9100 individual tests, typically 30-40 times every weekday."

Gone Darker

A proper send off... read the whole thing...

Ravenscroft Dog Farm: Gone Darker: "Sad times at the dog farm. We lost one to cancer."

A Look Inside Virgin Galactic's Flight Training | Popular Science

A Look Inside Virgin Galactic's Flight Training | Popular Science: "Would-be astronauts train for the world’s first suborbital space tourism flight
By Brooke Borel Posted 11.11.2008 at 10:25 am 4 Comments

As early as next year, if you are one of a lucky few, you may find yourself strapped in a six-passenger rocket some 50,000 feet above the Earth’s surface, bracing yourself as it disengages from the specially designed jet plane mothership, and shoots cannon-like 60 miles up into suborbital space at three times the speed of sound. If all goes well, you'll then get to unbuckle and float in zero gravity for a full fifteen minutes, spying on the earth’s curvature, all of North America and the Pacific Ocean."

Training video

Right to work - Megan McArdle

A very thoughtful piece on the auto bailout.

Right to work - Megan McArdle: "I understand that this is not what the auto workers want; they want their jobs. But while I am happy to help the auto workers, I am not happy to help them manufacture undesireable cars at massive social cost. I too, would have liked to keep my job as a management consultant. But I didn't have a right to have the job I wanted merely because I liked it. And it wouldn't have been good for America if I had."

Tor's Worlds Without Death or Taxes

Tor's Worlds Without Death or Taxes: When is a mainstream publisher also an anti-authoritarian propagandist? When it publishes science fiction. - Reason Magazine: "High in Manhattan’s famous Flatiron Building you’ll find the headquarters of Tor Books, the most successful science fiction publisher in the world. The Flatiron is a monument to mad Belle Epoque futurism, with a wedge shape that makes right angles rare. Inside Tor’s cramped office, drifts of books cover every horizontal surface and most of the vertical ones. The mind boggles at the destruction that could be wrought here by a dropped match, let alone a misfired laser gun.

Tor publishes between 110 and 120 new original titles each year, routinely topping the science fiction bestseller list compiled by the industry magazine Locus. For 20 years running, it also has won the highly respected Locus Award for the best science fiction publishing house. This year Tor earned yet another distinction when its authors claimed all five finalist spots for the Prometheus Award, the annual prize for best science fiction novel of the year handed out by the Libertarian Futurist Society.

So is this the most successful libertarian propaganda venture in modern history? Publisher and founder Tom Doherty denies any ideological agenda. “First comes the story,” he says. His only stated goal is to “do a story in a way that’s honest.”"

MormonTimes - Heroes and victims in Prop. 8 struggle

I probably would have voted no on Prop 8 if it was here. But the response of hatred and violence towards the Morman Church is dispicable. Let's see if those that pointed out the racism towards President-elect Obama will speak out unconditionally against this.

MormonTimes - Heroes and victims in Prop. 8 struggle: "Many people worked to pass Proposition 8 in California. Those who wish to be our enemies are working hard to blame it all on the Mormons, but our votes alone could never have done the job of protecting marriage from a fatal redefinition."

Google Phone Number Search

Google Phone Number Search - Use Google to Find Phone Numbers - Phone Number Search on the Web

The Hospital Is Watching You - WSJ.com

The Hospital Is Watching You - WSJ.com:

"Automatic-tracking software programs were introduced more than a decade ago to
help hospitals prevent infant abductions. Now, institutions are putting
electronic tags on all sorts of things, from EKG monitors and ventilators so
they can readily be located in an emergency, to surgical sponges so they don't
get sewn up inside a patient. Some hospitals have begun tagging arriving
patients to help cut waiting times in emergency rooms. Some have also begun
tracking employees to help supervisors move them to understaffed areas."

A Butler Well Served by This Election

A Butler Well Served by This Election: "He saw eight presidential administrations come and go, often working six days a week. 'I never missed a day of work,' Allen says.

His is a story from the back pages of history. A figure in the tiniest of print. The man in the kitchen.

He was there while America's racial history was being remade: Brown v. Board of Education, the Little Rock school crisis, the 1963 March on Washington, the cities burning, the civil rights bills, the assassinations.

When he started at the White House in 1952, he couldn't even use the public restrooms when he ventured back to his native Virginia. 'We had never had anything,' Allen, 89, recalls of black America at the time. 'I was always hoping things would get better.'"

Helicopter Installs New HD Antenna | WUSA9.com | Washington, DC |

Helicopter Installs New HD Antenna | WUSA9.com | Washington, DC |

Cloud Computing Requires Changing Your Mindset on Security | Advice and Opinion

Cloud Computing Requires Changing Your Mindset on Security | Advice and Opinion: "Here's a couple of questions:

Do you have a personal account with Amazon where you enter in your credit card information?

Has your business done Web advertising through Google?

It's funny that I can't remember the last major data breach either of those companies have had as a trusted vendor in the consumer space. So tell me, why would they fail to extend the same security policies to enterprise data if you entrusted it to them? Would that be good business for them?"

Collateral Damage | PBS | Window Mobile is doomed.

I, Cringely . The Pulpit . Collateral Damage | PBS: "I am not a very sophisticated mobile phone user. I don't use most of the bells and whistles on my phone, probably because I don't know what they even are. But just because I'm an idiot about USING mobile phones doesn't mean I don't understand the emerging mobile market, to which I have been paying a lot of attention of late. And why not? As personal computers fade from what Al Mandel called 'ubiquity to invisibility,' something has to take over. And everyone I respect thinks the new dominant platform will be mobile. So it's my job to tell you, then, that Windows Mobile is probably doomed."

America's Most Overrated Product: the Bachelor's Degree - Chronicle.com

America's Most Overrated Product: the Bachelor's Degree - Chronicle.com: "Unbelievably, according to the Spellings Report, which was released in 2006 by a federal commission that examined the future of American higher education, things are getting even worse: 'Over the past decade, literacy among college graduates has actually declined. … According to the most recent National Assessment of Adult Literacy, for instance, the percentage of college graduates deemed proficient in prose literacy has actually declined from 40 to 31 percent in the past decade. … Employers report repeatedly that many new graduates they hire are not prepared to work, lacking the critical thinking, writing and problem-solving skills needed in today's workplaces.'"

Summary of Findings: Most Voters Say News Media Wants Obama to Win

Summary of Findings: Most Voters Say News Media Wants Obama to Win: "Voters overwhelmingly believe that the media wants Barack Obama to win the presidential election. By a margin of 70%-9%, Americans say most journalists want to see Obama, not John McCain, win on Nov. 4. Another 8% say journalists don't favor either candidate, and 13% say they don't know which candidate most reporters support."

Orson Scott Card

Meridian Magazine:: Ideas and Society: Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?: "It's not too late. You know that if the situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.

If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices."

See? Now THAT’S Funny. | The Truth About Cars

It would never happen in America and so much the shame for that...

See? Now THAT’S Funny. | The Truth About Cars: "Awesome Cop Work in Europe!"

YouTube - Evolution of Dance

YouTube - Evolution of Dance

Digital Camera Accessory Review: Our favorite AA Charger: The Maha/PowerEx C-204W

Digital Camera Accessory Review: Our favorite AA Charger: The Maha/PowerEx C-204W: "As you'd expect though, over the course of three years, even something as seemingly ordinary as battery charging technology has evolved. In part based on our my test results (see the aforementioned Battery Shootout page), Maha has developed a charger that does an even better job of 'topping off' batteries than the C-204F did, and added a host of other advancements as well. The result is the new Maha Powerex C-204W, the subject of this review. Thanks to the advancements that Maha has made, the C-204W has finally taken over the top spot as the charger I most prefer for routine use."

Dan's Motorcycle "Storing Your Motorcycle"

Dan's Motorcycle "Storing Your Motorcycle": "Every year lots and lots of people just come in from riding, push their bike over in a corner and walk away. They return in four or five months and wonder why their bike won't run... well DUH ! If you want that bike to work for you, you've got to take care of it. Let's take a look at how you do that."

Winterizing your Motorcycle - CycleChaos

Winterizing your Motorcycle - CycleChaos: "Although storage procedures vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, there are some general processes that you should do for your ride before you put it into storage."

Motorcycle Winterization

Motorcycle Winterization: "Half A$$ Winterization

Let’s all face it. We live in the meteorological dead zone of the Pacific Northwest, where overcast days outnumber sun-dress sightings by about 300 to 1. All too often, when the clocks roll back, I tool along behind other cars in heavy traffic under a light drizzle. And I watch with envy as that same Beemer-guy rides past me in the HOV; all toasty and dry in full rain gear and heated vest and gloves, I feel like a wimp."

Motorcycle Winterizing Tips

Motorcycle Winterizing Tips: "This is difficult for me to write about because it means that the Michigan riding season is ending. Regardless, I hope you find these tips helpful. For those that live in a climate that does not have off road months, you can ignore this. Those of us in the snow belt... read on..."

How to winterize your motorcycle

How to winterize your motorcycle: "Winter is fast approaching and if you live in a frigid climate it's time to store your bike for the season. In storing your bike for a few months over the winter, your main concern is to avoid corrosion while in storage and the goal is to have a bike that is ready to go when you are."

Motorcycle Winter Storage - Motorcycle Maintenance Guide

Motorcycle Winter Storage - Motorcycle Maintenance Guide: "Outside a single white snowflake falls... Disbelief falls on your face as another snowflake falls... Then you realize, another riding year over and it's time to put the bike away for the winter. This is the time to get in that last few riding days and put our bikes properly away for the winter so they are ready for the next riding season to start again."

How to Winterize Your Motorcycle - wikiHow

How to Winterize Your Motorcycle - wikiHow: "For many motorcyclists across the country, the end of fall marks a crucial maintenance time for their cycles. Some fortunate riders enjoy year round suitable cycling climate. If you are not one of the fortunate, you need to follow a few important steps to protect your cycle over the winter months ahead. The following steps are helpful guidelines to assist you in winterizing your motorcycle to assure come spring, you can get back on the road with little trouble."

Winterizing your motorcycle

Winterizing your motorcycle: "For Canadian motorcyclists autumn marks the end of the riding season and a time of completing a crucial step in the maintenance for your motorycle-Winterizing! The following are simple guidelines to assist you in accomplishing this task to assure that next spring you are back on the road with no problem."

Road Star Clinic - Re:How to winterize your bike

Road Star Clinic - Re:How to winterize your bike - Road Star Clinic Forum: "I have a friend who just bought a bike and I put together a list of how to winterize her bike. This is written assuming the bike will be stored inside a non-heated garage in the midwest over the winter from around the end of November to the beginning of April. Her bike is a Yamaha V-Star 650."

Solar-Powered Electric Motorcycle

I'm not sure how useful this would be, but it is interesting...

Prometheus Demonstrates Solar-Powered Electric Motorcycle : CleanTechnica: "This past weekend, Prometheus Solar founder Jim Corning demonstrated his proof-of-concept electric motorcycle at the Santa Monica AltCar Expo. The motorcycle is a reconstructed Ninja 250 that uses four solar panels which provide 800 watts of power."

sometimes late at night

Sometimes, late at night, you are heading back from a late meeting or a movie or something, you stop at a SuperAmerica or some other quick stop kind of place. You go in looking for a particular snack, say Mallo Cups. And they don't have any. Do you ever start wandering looking for something else to spend your money on but you really don't find anything so you start looking at the other snacks and you notice the hot dog rolly thing that has several nasty looking hot dogs that have clearly been there all day and you quickly look away hoping to see something else and all the while you feel the Krispy Kreme donut case calling calling calling you but you resist and head for the corn nuts next and on the way you remember that you need aspirin for the car so you head over there and see the beef jerky in 40 different flavors and you pause, thinking hmmm maybe, and then you realize you are thirsty and you end up spending at least $15 in the store? Me neither...

Scott Adams Blog: Only Good News 10/10/2008

Scott Adams Blog: Only Good News 10/10/2008
a bit about his voice problems and a new comic writer he likes.

Remember: when all is said and done...it usually isn't.

YouTube - Honda Cub is the number one motorcycle in the world

YouTube - Honda Cub is the number one motorcycle in the world

Test from MS-Word2007

This is a post using the built-in template for blog posting. The ribbon changes to a "Blog Post" ribbon with "Publish", "Home Page", "Manage Accounts" buttons and some others. There is both publish and push as draft.

Fountainhead Speech

I've never read Ayn Rand. This is a speech from it that someone recommended. I've read it but want to read it again. So I am putting it here for future reference.

Fountainhead Speech

SanDisk Unveils USB Drive With Online Backup -- Storage -- InformationWeek

SanDisk Unveils USB Drive With Online Backup -- Storage -- InformationWeek: "SanDisk Unveils USB Drive With Online Backup

The device comes with a six-month subscription to the BeInSync backup
service and two years of BoomerangIt's lost-and-found service.
By Antone
Gonsalves
InformationWeek
January 2, 2008 04:41 PM

SanDisk
(NSDQ: SNDK) on Wednesday introduced a USB flash drive with automatic online
backup, so files can be recovered from any Internet-connected computer if the
drive is lost, forgotten, or stolen.
The Cruzer Titanium Plus is SanDisk's
first USB drive with backup capabilities. The 4-Gbyte device will be featured at
the International Consumer Electronics Show Jan. 7-10 in Las Vegas.

The Cruzer Plus comes with a six-month subscription to the BeInSync backup
service at no additional charge. After opening a personal, password-protected
account, any files copied to the drive from a computer are automatically backed
up online. If the computer is offline, then the files will be backed up the next
time the drive is plugged into an Internet-connected machine."

No where else can we imagine
No one else can be sure
No one thing can make us believe
No one except us
No one

43 Folders

43 Folders: "Drowning in email? Try Inbox Zero to learn sane tips for dealing with high-volume email. And don’t miss the free Inbox Zero video."

Recent Volcanic Activity - The Big Picture - Boston.com

Recent Volcanic Activity - The Big Picture - Boston.com: "Several volcanoes have erupted in the past few months - two in Chile (Chaiten and Llaima) and one in Alaska (Okmok). At any given time, approximately 20 to 50 volcanoes are active worldwide (depending on the definition of 'active'). Collected here are photos of volcanic events from the the past several years, seen from many angles, including low Earth Orbit. (15 photos total)"

Slashdot | Software Logging Schemes?

Slashdot | Software Logging Schemes?:

"'I've been a software engineer for just over 10 years, and I've seen a lot of different styles of logging in the applications I've worked on. Some were extremely verbose — about 1 logging line for every 2 lines of code. Others were very lacking, with maybe 1 line in 200 devoted to logging. I personally find that writing debug and informational messages about every 2 to 5 lines works well for debugging an issue, but can become cumbersome when reading through a log for analysis. I like to write warning messages when thresholds or limits are being approached — these tend to be infrequent. I log errors whenever I catch one (but I've never put a 'fatal' message in my code, because if it's truly a fatal error I probably didn't catch it). Recently I came across log4j and log4net and have begun using them both. That brings me to my question: how do the coders on Slashdot handle logging in their code?'"

YouTube - How to Fix a Wet Cell Phone

YouTube - How to Fix a Wet Cell Phone

MedlinePlus Health Information from the National Library of Medicine

MedlinePlus Health Information from the National Library of Medicine
good resource for medical stuff. The videos are supposed to be pretty good.

Eating Polar Bears Is Okay in Greenland - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog

Eating Polar Bears Is Okay in Greenland - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog

The Original Bacon Post

Whatever: Clearly You People Thought I Was Kidding: "Me (to Krissy): So, would you mind if I tape bacon to the cat?

Krissy: That's a fairly interesting question. What's the purpose here?

Me: I put taping bacon to the cat on a list of things I said I was going to do today and people seemed to be skeptical.

Krissy: You said you were going to tape bacon to the cat on the Whatever.

Me: Yeah.

Krissy (audible sigh): Since you are going to do it, and take a picture of it, all I ask is that you take the bacon off right after. All right?

Me: Okay.

Krissy: You're a strange, strange, strange man."

Possible August Bike Trip

Possible August Bike Trip

In the below map, zoom out a couple of times to see the entire route.


View Larger Map

AP Exclusive: US removes uranium from Iraq

AP Exclusive: US removes uranium from Iraq - Las Vegas Sun

Hmmmm...how could we be removing something that wasn't there? There weren't any WMD in Iraq, right?

Old Xcel Power Plant Tower Demolition

Ravenscroft Dog Farm: Video Zen

World Famous Violinist playing in a subway

Very well written article...

Pearls Before Breakfast - washingtonpost.com: "HE EMERGED FROM THE METRO AT THE L'ENFANT PLAZA STATION AND POSITIONED HIMSELF AGAINST A WALL BESIDE A TRASH BASKET. By most measures, he was nondescript: a youngish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money, swiveled it to face pedestrian traffic, and began to play."

Edheads - Virtual Knee Surgery - Total Knee Replacement - TKR

This is a detailed explanation of what my dad just had done. I haven't had a chance to look at it yet (ok, ok, I am a little anxious about watching the detail).

Edheads - Virtual Knee Surgery - Total Knee Replacement - TKR

YouTube - Iraq: Democrats' intellegence

YouTube - Iraq: Democrats' intellegence

Dr. Helen: Top 10 Male-Bashing Ads

Dr. Helen: Top 10 Male-Bashing Ads: "Top 10 Male-Bashing Ads"

Last Lecture

Last Lecture: "Randy Pausch reprising his 'Last Lecture'"

KID CAN DO IT ALL ON ONE LEG

A great story about a kid w/ one leg playing sports... Make sure to check out the video.

KID CAN DO IT ALL ON ONE LEG: "Adam Bender slips a chest protector over his Astros jersey, buckles a shinguard to his right leg, positions a mask atop his head, grabs his catcher's mitt and hops out of the dugout.

Adam has his game face on. Or at least what passes as a game face for an 8-year-old. His eyes are serious. His freckled nose is crinkled with determination.

It is a cool, breezy Saturday morning at Veterans Park, which is already buzzing with activity. Baseball games are being played on three diamonds within a pop-up of each other. Parents are clustered in and around the stands, chatting and cheering. Players of all ages, wearing uniforms or team T-shirts, swarm the place.

Hardly anybody gives a second glance to the catcher in the Southeastern rookie league deftly playing on one leg."

The 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time : Rolling Stone

The 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time : Rolling Stone: "This is what makes a great rock & roll guitar sound: an irresistible riff; a solo or jam that takes you higher every time you hear it; the final power chord that pins you to the wall and makes you hit 'play' again and again. Every song here has those thrills. But these are rock's greatest guitar moments because of what's inside the notes: hunger, fury, despair and joy, often all at once. You hear the blues, gospel and rockabilly that came before, transormed by the need to say something new and loud, right away. Rock & roll has been the sound of independence for half a century. The guitar is still its essential, liberating voice. These are the 100 reasons why."

Very clever animation

About a minute long, very clever, and clean.

Animator vs. Animation by *alanbecker on deviantART: "An animator faces his own animation in deadly combat. The battlefield? The Flash interface itself.
A stick figure is created by an animator with the intent to torture. The stick figure drawn by the animator will be using everything he can find - the brush tool, the eraser tool - to get back at his tormentor. It's resourcefulness versus power. Who will win? You can find out yourself.

-- This took three long months.. i think it's worth it."

Nanosoccer at 2008 US RoboCup Open promises to be a real riot for the microscopic set - Engadget

Nanosoccer at 2008 US RoboCup Open promises to be a real riot for the microscopic set - Engadget: "Nanosoccer at 2008 US RoboCup Open promises to be a real riot for the microscopic set"

Sara Tucholsky, Her First Home Run

This is a great story. The screen gets a little cloudy and out of focus at the end.

Sara Tucholsky, Her First Home Run: "Sara Tucholsky, Her First Home Run"

What is governance? (sharepoint world)

What is governance?

Implementing and governing information architecture

Implementing and governing information architecture

IT Governance

Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies Team Blog : New governance content for SharePoint published on TechNet: "Governance is the set of policies, roles, responsibilities, and processes that you establish in your enterprise to guide, direct, and control how it uses technologies to accomplish business goals."

Battleship Mtron: the absurdly fast SSD RAID array - Engadget

Battleship Mtron: the absurdly fast SSD RAID array - Engadget: "Listen, we know you think your RAID setup is pretty snazzy, and, truth be told, it probably makes our rig look silly by comparison. However, in the computer world, there's always someone out there with a bigger, nastier system -- and we've just spotted one of the nastiest of them all. Next Level Hardware is a site that specializes in putting outrageous setups to the test, and this time they haven't disappointed with their benchmarks on the Mtron 16GB SSD (reportedly the fastest SATA drive in the world). Oh, did we mention the test was on a RAID 0 array of nine drives? Dubbed the 'Battleship Mtron,' the sickening collection of hardware blazed past the competition (a WD Raptor, less stacked Mtron RAID setups), delivering mind-boggling data swaps like copying a 1GB folder in four seconds. You read that right: four seconds. Like where this is headed? Truck over to the test page and peep all the stats... seriously, it's upsetting."

HttpWatch: An HTTP Viewer and HTTP Sniffer for IE 6 & 7

HttpWatch: An HTTP Viewer and HTTP Sniffer for IE 6 & 7: "HttpWatch is an HTTP viewer and debugger that integrates with Internet Explorer to provide seamless HTTP and HTTPS monitoring without leaving the browser window."

YouTube - 2008 First Robotics Competition(FRC) Game Animation

YouTube - 2008 First Robotics Competition(FRC) Game Animation

Motorcycle: Radio

This is the two way radio we bought in order to talk to each other while riding bikes. Requires an FCC license.

Amazon.com: Midland GXT710VP3 22-Channel 26-Mile GMRS 2-Way Radio (Pair): Electronics

Motorcycle: Radio: Closed Helmut Headset

This is the headset we use for our two-way radios that we bought in order to be able to talk to each other while riding.

Amazon.com: Midland AVPH2 Closed Face Helment Headset for Midland GMRS: Electronics

Teen is running out of innings, but the game still isn't over

A very moving story about a kid with cancer...

Teen is running out of innings, but the game still isn't over: "Teen is running out of innings, but the game still isn't over"

Would a Salary Cap Improve Baseball? - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog

Would a Salary Cap Improve Baseball? - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog: "A number of you suggested instituting salary caps. This chart comparing team performance with total player salaries over the 2008 season, by data visualization guru Ben Fry, does seem to suggest a link between higher pay and sluggish performance. But does it?Check out Fry’s charts for the 2005, 2006, and 2007 seasons as well."

How Valid Are T.V. Weather Forecasts? - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog

How Valid Are T.V. Weather Forecasts? - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog: Eggleston and his daughter two minutes before it began to hail. Says Eggleston, “Hail was not in the forecast.”A gentleman named J.D. Eggleston recently wrote to us with a rather interesting report, a nice piece of D.I.Y. Freakonomics concerning the accuracy of local T.V. weather forecasts. I thought it was interesting enough to post in its entirety here on the blog, and I hope you agree."

new grill discussion

Instapundit.com -: "GRILLBLOGGING: Okay, I'm finally getting to following up on Kaliph's question about gas grills. The response was so overwhelming that I still haven't read it all, but here goes."

LeaveMeAloneBox Video

The only this this device does is turn itself off using the same physical switch a human used to turn it on.

LeaveMeAloneBox Video: "Here's a short Video of the Ultimate Machine doing its thing. Notice that once the box top is open, if you continue to flip the switch, the hand follows to flip the switch off."

Kai-Fu Lee on Cloud Computing

The numbers below can be looked at 3 says:
-- (5 years ago) Crazy Talk!
-- (now) That's pretty cool!
-- (5 years from now) Yeah so? My Pc does that.


Kai-Fu Lee on Cloud Computing: "6. Programmable. 'For fault tolerance, Google uses GFS or distributed disk storage. Every piece of data is replicated three times. If one machine dies, a master redistributes the data to a new server. There are around 200 clusters (some with over 5 PB of disk space on 500 machines). The Big Table is used for distributed memory. The largest cells in the Big Table are 700 TB, spread over 2000 machines. MapReduce is the solution for new programming paradigms. It cuts a trillion records into a thousand parts on a thousand machines. Each machine will then load a billion records and will run the same program over these records, and then the results are recombined. While in 2005, there were some 72,000 jobs being run on MapReduce, in 2007, there were two million jobs (use seems to be increasing exponentially).'"

24 Hours on the 'Big Stick'

24 Hours on the 'Big Stick': "Carrier launches are astonishing events. The plane is moved to within what seems like a bowling alley's length of the bow. A blast shield larger than any government building driveway Khomeini-flipper rises behind the fighter jet, and the jet's twin engines are cranked to maximum thrust. A slot-car slot runs down the middle of the bowling alley. The powered-up jet is held at the end of its slot by a steel shear pin smaller than a V-8 can. When the shear pin shears the jet is unleashed and so is a steam catapult that hurls the plane down the slot, from 0 to 130 miles per hour in two seconds. And--if all goes well--the airplane is airborne. This is not a pilot taking off. This is a pilot as cat's eye marble pinched between boundless thumb and infinite forefinger of Heaven's own Wham-O slingshot."

FIRST Robotics Video - New York Regional Competition - Hand-Built Robots - Popular Mechanics

FIRST Robotics Video - New York Regional Competition - Hand-Built Robots - Popular Mechanics

Bike Trip to New Ulm & Wabasha

Here is our trip

The Stock Market Surged Yesterday Because Why? - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog

I have always hated the news reports saying that it went up or down for a particular reason. It seems to me that most of the time they are making stuff up or, worse, just talking to one or two people (or even 5-10) and then distilling it down to a single reason. Looking for the cute sentence instead of acknowledging the complexity.

The Stock Market Surged Yesterday Because Why? - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog: "I may be wrong, but it strikes me that the articles that appear in nearly every newspaper every day that describe a particular day’s stock-market movements are pretty much worthless."

Freedom Never Cries

Freedom Never Cries:
"Though you might after watching this video. I am not a huge fan of Five For Fighting (though it’s a great name) but John Ondrasik just gets it. He knows who the good guys are and who the bad guys are and isn’t afraid to stay it. Sadly, that’s not a very common trait among today’s purveyors of pop culture."

Jonathan Coulton » Blog Archive » Prepare for the Robopocalypse

Jonathan Coulton » Blog Archive » Prepare for the Robopocalypse

Pretty cool video about a 4 legged balancing robot.

Last of the Few: Top Gear: Bugatti Veyron vs Eurofighter Typhoon

Last of the Few: Top Gear: Bugatti Veyron vs Eurofighter Typhoon

Camcorder Brings Zen to the Shoot - New York Times

Camcorder Brings Zen to the Shoot - New York Times

Interesting little video camera that focuses on simplicity and few features.

Major Brian Shul: "I loved that jet" - Maggie's Farm

Major Brian Shul: "I loved that jet" - Maggie's Farm: "One day, high above Arizona, we were monitoring the radio traffic of all the mortal airplanes below us. First, a Cessna pilot asked the air traffic controllers to check his ground speed. 'Ninety knots,' ATC replied. A twin Bonanza soon made the same request. 'One-twenty on the ground,' was the reply. To our surprise, a navy F-18 came over the radio with a ground speed check. I knew exactly what he was doing. Of course, he had a ground speed indicator in his cockpit, but he wanted to let all the bug-smashers in the valley know what real speed was 'Dusty 52, we show you at 525 on the ground,' ATC responded. The situation was too ripe. I heard the click of Walter's mike button in the rear seat. In his most innocent voice, Walter startled the controller by asking for a ground speed check from 81,000 feet, clearly above controlled airspace. In a cool, professional voice, the controller replied, 'Aspen 20, I show you at 1,742 knots on the ground.' We did not hear another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast."

Freedom Means Responsibility - George McGovern

Freedom Means Responsibility - WSJ.com:
"Nearly 16 years ago in these very pages, I wrote that ''one-size-fits all' rules for business ignore the reality of the market place.' Today I'm watching some broad rules evolve on individual decisions that are even worse.

Under the guise of protecting us from ourselves, the right and the left are becoming ever more aggressive in regulating behavior. Much paternalist scrutiny has recently centered on personal economics, including calls to regulate subprime mortgages."

Interesting commentary on what people pay for in a "free" (as in information) society

Kevin Kelly -- The Technium

There are a number of other qualities similar to trust that are difficult to copy, and thus become valuable in this network economy. I think the best way to examine them is not from the eye of the producer, manufacturer, or creator, but from the eye of the user. We can start with a simple user question: why would we ever pay for anything that we could get for free? When anyone buys a version of something they could get for free, what are they purchasing?

Geldof and Bush: Diary From the Road - TIME

The Most Powerful Man in the World studied the front cover. Geldof in Africa — " 'The international best seller.' You write that bit yourself?"

"That's right. It's called marketing. Something you obviously have no clue about or else I wouldn't have to be here telling people your Africa story."

Lunar Eclipse from last night

Zero Gravity Alka-Seltzer

Minnetronix Can Can

Twisted Balloons Fashion

Royal Pingdom » When data center cabling becomes art

Park Square Theatre : 2007/2008 Season : Well by Lisa Kron

All Lisa Kron wants to do is put on a nice, orderly play about her family and how she got cured of allergies. But her mother—who’s watching the play from her onstage La-Z-Boy—has her own agenda. Interrupting to correct Lisa, make friends with the actors, and feed snacks to the audience, she steals the show. This 2006 Broadway hit, a New York Times "Top Ten Pick," is a touching and utterly original comedy for anyone who has ever had a mother.

Marine Corps Silent Drill Team

It's a slow Friday, so what not a little entertainment courtesy of the USMC?

Good example of Yamaha V Star 1100 Classic modifications (lights and luggage)

SilverBack's Gorilla - His Ride

My 2002 Yamaha V-Star 1100 Classic, plus some blings and things

& My Constant Companion and Mascot, "SilverBack, Two"

Irving Wladawsky-Berger: Final Thoughts on the Evolution towards a Knowledge Economy

In the last two weeks I have been writing about my feeling that 2008 might be a key year in the transition to an IT-based knowledge economy. In the first post, I focused on the emergence of the advanced technology platforms needed to deliver a diverse set of information-rich services to a very large number of people. In the subsequent post I wrote about the critical importance for a business to stand out and differentiate itself from competitors by providing consistent, first-rate customer service and thus building a loyal customer base.

In my third and final post on the subject, I want to focus on business values - in particular, on the critical importance of trust, responsibility and accountability in our increasingly integrated, global knowledge economy.

Travel Safely: Create your own DIY first aid kit for the road - Gadling

The first kit that should be the basis of all the others is the "Basic Travel Kit" set forth below. It will be highly customizable depending on the health needs of the travelers, length of travel, and destination. This is the kit that is ideal to bring on a trip through larger, developed cities and towns where advanced medical care is easily found and re-supply of medicine is possible.

It is all about jobs

This is exactly right. Social programs are a necessary safety net. However (to really abuse the metaphor), the real goal is to make sure people don't fall off the high-wire in the first place. Lots of jobs that pay well enough to support families does that. The state and local government's primary job (warning, metaphor switch coming) is to ensure that the economic environment is a well fertilized field that will cause lots of jobs to grow on their own. A city government that makes it easy for 5000 new well paying jobs are created is doing a better job that one that runs shelters for 5000 homeless. While obviously both need to be done, the creating of one well paying job will have a more positive impact.

Fortunately, making it easy for job growth is predominantly one of getting the hell out of the way (regulations, taxes) and figuring out how to advertise the strengths of the citizens to potential businesses.

More businesses/jobs means more tax dollars which means more money for social programs. Grow the tax base by more businesses, not by raising business taxes.


The Corner on National Review Online

In today’s innovative high-tech world economy, where the global spread of free-market capitalism is the single biggest growth factor, saying “the entrepreneur is no longer king” is just plain wrong. New technologies and new companies are springing up everywhere, and it is precisely this Schumpeterian process that is the single-biggest driver of jobs, incomes, prosperity, and wealth creation.

DataPortability.org - Share and remix data using open standards

IT: Using Wikis and Blogs

How One Company Is Using Wikis and Blogs to Unclog E-mail Boxes - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership

IT Allocations: How to Make Them Work

How to Make IT Allocations Work - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership

"Allocations are killing us," a CIO friend recently said to me.

UST:: 2007 - 2008 Undergraduate Academic Calendar