Take house cats for example. Perfectly formed predators. Created and/or evolved to be the ultimate solo hunters. Quiet, odorless, stealthy, high-speed, retractable-clawed, land-on-their feet killers. Senses of smell, hearing, and vision finely tuned to find prey before prey detects danger.
Yet housecats thrive today as companion animals, using few if any of the previously-stated skills.
Just by being cute, cuddly, furry, and acting crazy to entertain humans. Theoretically, they can also help rid a house of vermin thus protecting their companion humans from rodent-borne plagues. This ability helps genetically select for cat-loving humans.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Potential Gifts For Dad
High-tech Noise-Canceling headphones
A gizmo to clean out the raingutters.
Audible gift Certificate
A gizmo to clean out the raingutters.
Audible gift Certificate
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Not So Super Freak
After reading SuperFreakonomics, I both love and hate the book. As with most entertaining nonfiction I've read, complexities are far oversimplified. Any book that praises Alan Kay and Object-Orient Programming in a way anyone can understand is worth picking up from the 2.99 discount book table.
However, the authors also claim we may not need to worry because geoengineering will solve global warming. That may be true. However, global warming is not what we need to solve, and geoengineering only treats the symptoms anyway. Our climate is screwed up, (we probably did it to ourselves) and enough the resulting crazy, unpredictable weather could destroy civilization.
The increasing climate problems on our little planet are like a house on fire, with the residents arguing that we need to find out who is at fault before we can try to put it out.
The whole climate change thing will be moot when the Yellowstone Caldera blows, unless we get a couple of centuries grace period and can figure out how to safely relieve hot-magma pressure before it blows a hole in the crust.
However, the authors also claim we may not need to worry because geoengineering will solve global warming. That may be true. However, global warming is not what we need to solve, and geoengineering only treats the symptoms anyway. Our climate is screwed up, (we probably did it to ourselves) and enough the resulting crazy, unpredictable weather could destroy civilization.
The increasing climate problems on our little planet are like a house on fire, with the residents arguing that we need to find out who is at fault before we can try to put it out.
The whole climate change thing will be moot when the Yellowstone Caldera blows, unless we get a couple of centuries grace period and can figure out how to safely relieve hot-magma pressure before it blows a hole in the crust.
Tres Compbelleros
Comparing the three wise techguys... Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs....
Larry has had 4 wives and has purchased 4 application servers: Glassfish, WebLogic, Peoplesoft, and the ever-popular OC4J. A lame bunch of servers, but now he owns all Java EE technology except JBOSS and WebSphere. Hmm. Could be a good idea to learn C# or even VB.
I was thrilled to hear today that Steve Jobs has soundly defeated Bill Gates... Apple is more valuable than Microsoft, for the first time in 20 years or so. There was a time, long ago, when Apple had the lead.
Bill Gates then committed a series of white-collar almost-crimes. He robbed Gary Kildall, IBM, Xerox (PARC), Sybase, and Intel. After this crime spree, he quickly became a multi-billionaire. Meanwhile, Steve Jobs had only robbed Doug Englebarger and Xerox (PARC), so he and Apple fell far behind.
Larry has had 4 wives and has purchased 4 application servers: Glassfish, WebLogic, Peoplesoft, and the ever-popular OC4J. A lame bunch of servers, but now he owns all Java EE technology except JBOSS and WebSphere. Hmm. Could be a good idea to learn C# or even VB.
I was thrilled to hear today that Steve Jobs has soundly defeated Bill Gates... Apple is more valuable than Microsoft, for the first time in 20 years or so. There was a time, long ago, when Apple had the lead.
Bill Gates then committed a series of white-collar almost-crimes. He robbed Gary Kildall, IBM, Xerox (PARC), Sybase, and Intel. After this crime spree, he quickly became a multi-billionaire. Meanwhile, Steve Jobs had only robbed Doug Englebarger and Xerox (PARC), so he and Apple fell far behind.
Bill is a true genius, however. Remember that he put something like 15 million into Apple stock about 16 years ago, when the company was struggling? What an investment!
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Repel the Invaders
If the British petroleum guys had invaded Rhode Island and sprayed billions of gallons of oil all over the Rhode Islanders, we could have blamed that state for not defending itself against England and its empire. Instead, the British invaded "The Gulf of Mexico." Which state is responsible for the British successfully stealing our oil and spraying it all over? Who claims the Gulf of Mexico? What county's name is on it?
More On Oil
The TP, which has notably supported a libertarian agenda (no federal government intervention except in cases of force or fraud), has also been an exponent of "drill baby drill!" Where will the oversight come from to ensure our oil, our fishing grounds, our air, and our drinking water are not destroyed by greedy foreign invaders ( British Petroleum, Shell Oil, Exxon... ) if not from the federal government, supported by the nation's taxes?
The TP chants mantras such as "States' Rights First," and "No Federal Taxes," yet we wonder which state should have been in charge of BP's oil drilling out in the "gulf stream waters?" Louisiana? Mississippi? Texas? Florida? Alabama? Maybe a Confederacy of Southern states should form a separate government and take charge... oh, wait a minute. We tried that about 7 score and ten years ago. I was only a lad back then, but it didn't work out too well from what I remember... we ended up with a million or so dead American youth and little or no resolution of the seething conflict; A festering conflict that may be at the root of the incredible violence in modern America.
The TP chants mantras such as "States' Rights First," and "No Federal Taxes," yet we wonder which state should have been in charge of BP's oil drilling out in the "gulf stream waters?" Louisiana? Mississippi? Texas? Florida? Alabama? Maybe a Confederacy of Southern states should form a separate government and take charge... oh, wait a minute. We tried that about 7 score and ten years ago. I was only a lad back then, but it didn't work out too well from what I remember... we ended up with a million or so dead American youth and little or no resolution of the seething conflict; A festering conflict that may be at the root of the incredible violence in modern America.
The Cost of Gasoline in your state.
It's wonderful that many of the people I really wonder about have joined together and given themselves a name I can use without resorting to a long description: "The Tea Party." Wow. This is so cool. As a liberal conservative, it has been a challenge to chide "The narrow-minded far-right ultra conservative evangelical fundamentalist semi-bigoted gun nuts." Now all I have to say is "Tea Party," or just TP for short.
With apologies to Merideth Willson:
Yes, I am a Republican. Always proud to say, I'm always mighty proud to say it. I consider the years I spent following Reagan were surely golden. The man had horse sense. A cool head, a keen eye. Why, who else do you think could have won the highest-stakes war ever fought without even ordering the firing of a shot (well, yes, there were those covert operations, Iran-Contra, proxy invasions...)? But just as I say, it takes judgement, brains, and maturity to be a real Republican, I say any fool can take and blindly wave an idealogy around "No Regulation," "No Federal Government." Never mind fair markets, decent health care, or the oil we burn, or the pollution we spread, or the debt we're in.
With apologies to Merideth Willson:
Yes, I am a Republican. Always proud to say, I'm always mighty proud to say it. I consider the years I spent following Reagan were surely golden. The man had horse sense. A cool head, a keen eye. Why, who else do you think could have won the highest-stakes war ever fought without even ordering the firing of a shot (well, yes, there were those covert operations, Iran-Contra, proxy invasions...)? But just as I say, it takes judgement, brains, and maturity to be a real Republican, I say any fool can take and blindly wave an idealogy around "No Regulation," "No Federal Government." Never mind fair markets, decent health care, or the oil we burn, or the pollution we spread, or the debt we're in.
Competition
We know a little about the universe, and from what we can see, life exists only on our planet. We look at the life around us, and notice that every living thing is locked in an often brutal life-or-death competition to obtain the resources needed for each hour of survival. If there is life in the universe beyond our planet, it makes sense that this struggle goes on wherever life exists.
If, therefore, an extra-terrestrial civilization spent the resources needed to send "ships" into orbit around our planet, there is no chance they would have "Come in Peace, For all Mankind." Indeed, a civilization with what it took to arrive here from elsewhere would be so advanced they would see us as no more than a scrabbling hill of ants.
All the other civilizations in the universe would know what we know: that staying on a single planet means that a single extinction-level event would be the end of life as we know it. Our only insurance is to find other planets to colonize. It is as if we are fish in a cosmic ocean: We have to keep moving and finding resources in the universe or a bigger fish will eat us.
If, therefore, an extra-terrestrial civilization spent the resources needed to send "ships" into orbit around our planet, there is no chance they would have "Come in Peace, For all Mankind." Indeed, a civilization with what it took to arrive here from elsewhere would be so advanced they would see us as no more than a scrabbling hill of ants.
All the other civilizations in the universe would know what we know: that staying on a single planet means that a single extinction-level event would be the end of life as we know it. Our only insurance is to find other planets to colonize. It is as if we are fish in a cosmic ocean: We have to keep moving and finding resources in the universe or a bigger fish will eat us.
Shower thought
The chain of near-miraculous events that would need to occur in perfect order to generate a sentient being from basic elements qualifies as a miracle. Such a miracle, in fact, that other sentient beings in the universe would (as postulated by Vonnegut) be extremely interested in preserving some of us forever as curiosities or as objects to be scientifically examined.
While we may not be much compared to other intelligent life in the universe, our civilization landed a dozen men on the moon, and returned them safely to earth. Those 12 were the elite of the greatest generation of humans we will ever produce. We will never again send humans out beyond low-Earth orbit, at least not with the expectation that they will return safely to Earth. Those precious hours men spent on the moon were the high-water mark of our 7000-year attempt at civilization:
July 20, 1969—Apollo 11
Neil Armstrong
Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin
Nov. 19, 1969—Apollo 12
Charles (Pete) Conrad
Alan Bean
Feb. 5, 1971—Apollo 14
Alan Shepard
Edgar Mitchell
July 30, 1971—Apollo 15
James Irwin
David Scott
Apr. 21-23, 1972—Apollo 16
Charles Duke
John Young
Dec. 11-13, 1972—Apollo 17
Eugene Cernan
Harrison Schmitt
The universe will eventually shake, burn, freeze, and scrape the human infestation off the surface of this obscure planet, but out in the frozen reaches of deep space our tiny monument will sail: small steps in the moondust that amounted to one "Giant Leap."
While we may not be much compared to other intelligent life in the universe, our civilization landed a dozen men on the moon, and returned them safely to earth. Those 12 were the elite of the greatest generation of humans we will ever produce. We will never again send humans out beyond low-Earth orbit, at least not with the expectation that they will return safely to Earth. Those precious hours men spent on the moon were the high-water mark of our 7000-year attempt at civilization:
July 20, 1969—Apollo 11
Neil Armstrong
Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin
Nov. 19, 1969—Apollo 12
Charles (Pete) Conrad
Alan Bean
Feb. 5, 1971—Apollo 14
Alan Shepard
Edgar Mitchell
July 30, 1971—Apollo 15
James Irwin
David Scott
Apr. 21-23, 1972—Apollo 16
Charles Duke
John Young
Dec. 11-13, 1972—Apollo 17
Eugene Cernan
Harrison Schmitt
The universe will eventually shake, burn, freeze, and scrape the human infestation off the surface of this obscure planet, but out in the frozen reaches of deep space our tiny monument will sail: small steps in the moondust that amounted to one "Giant Leap."
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
The Greatest
The generation that gave birth to the baby-boomers is often touted as "The Greatest" ever born on Earth. If you look at what The Greatest Generation (TGG) accomplished, one would almost immediately agree with the moniker. Born in the 20's and early 30’s, TGG learned to work on family farms, shops, and factories during the Great Depression. Then they made the sacrifices, including their lives, to save the world from tyranny. TGG became educated and worked hard after WW II, creating the greatest economic boom ever known. Through their efforts, science and technology took off, eventually landing them on the moon. Born after 1945, no baby-boomer ever went to the moon. All those footprints were left in the moon dust by TGG.
It took another decade or two for them to finally defeat Stalinist and Maoist tyranny, but they won the cold war without firing a shot (unless you count Viet Nam, Korea, Afghanistan...) They not only made the world safe for capitalism, but converted much of the world to it. TGG gave birth to most of the technology that pervades modern civilization, including the computer chip and the Internet.
If we stack up the meager achievements of the baby boomers, it looks like a field of termite mounds against the alabaster cities the TGG created. Indeed, the boomers and their children reversed some of the good done by their parents. TGG created antibiotics, boomers feed antibiotics by the ton to cattle and pigs, reducing their effectiveness against human disease. TGG created automobiles and the interstate highway system, boomers use these to kill and maim each other, waste precious resources, and carbonize the atmosphere. TGG invented the birth control pill, boomers use it to support lives of promiscuity. TGG = greatest generation,
boomers = greatest degeneration.
Our first three baby-boomer presidents seem to have worked together with boomer legislators and bureaucrats to get blindsided by terrorists, spend a trillion dollars and precious young lives to invade the wrong country in retaliation. Then they quintupled the national debt to an amount we can never repay, even if the Chinese foreclose on our real estate.
It could very well be that no other generation will ever walk on the moon. But for a moment, let’s look at where TGG fell short. First of all, TGG parented/reared the baby boom generation: a qualified failure, at best. No success in life can compensate for failure in the home.
Second, TGG left a lot unfinished when it came to providing equal opportunity and justice for all, as Leonard Steinhorn explains in his book about the boomer generation.
It took another decade or two for them to finally defeat Stalinist and Maoist tyranny, but they won the cold war without firing a shot (unless you count Viet Nam, Korea, Afghanistan...) They not only made the world safe for capitalism, but converted much of the world to it. TGG gave birth to most of the technology that pervades modern civilization, including the computer chip and the Internet.
If we stack up the meager achievements of the baby boomers, it looks like a field of termite mounds against the alabaster cities the TGG created. Indeed, the boomers and their children reversed some of the good done by their parents. TGG created antibiotics, boomers feed antibiotics by the ton to cattle and pigs, reducing their effectiveness against human disease. TGG created automobiles and the interstate highway system, boomers use these to kill and maim each other, waste precious resources, and carbonize the atmosphere. TGG invented the birth control pill, boomers use it to support lives of promiscuity. TGG = greatest generation,
boomers = greatest degeneration.
Our first three baby-boomer presidents seem to have worked together with boomer legislators and bureaucrats to get blindsided by terrorists, spend a trillion dollars and precious young lives to invade the wrong country in retaliation. Then they quintupled the national debt to an amount we can never repay, even if the Chinese foreclose on our real estate.
It could very well be that no other generation will ever walk on the moon. But for a moment, let’s look at where TGG fell short. First of all, TGG parented/reared the baby boom generation: a qualified failure, at best. No success in life can compensate for failure in the home.
Second, TGG left a lot unfinished when it came to providing equal opportunity and justice for all, as Leonard Steinhorn explains in his book about the boomer generation.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
How to suck seed in yardwork without really trying
In our backyard, we have hundreds of dandelions. Each dandelion plant has several flowers, which immediately turned into open seed pods after I sprayed poison on them. Within one day, half the yard was completely covered by ping-pong ball sized spheres of dandelion seeds. There was no wind. Not even a breeze. I got an idea. I have a leaf-blower/sucker I use in the fall... it does a good job moderate-sized leaves, sucking them up off the ground, grinding them up a bit, and blowing them into an attached bag. Would this work for dandelions? Hmmm. So I tried it. It sucked up the seeds, and soon a corner of the bag was full. I kept moving and sucking seeds up until I had covered the whole back yard. Now the evil weeds would not be able to spread their seeds as they died from poison. An hour later, however, I noticed more puff-balls were popping up. OK, so I missed a few. I'll get them tomorrow. The next day, half the back yard was covered with dandelion-created ping-pong puff balls. The moral is, I think, that you cannot stop a force of nature, no matter how innovative your approach is. It would not surprise me if, at the end of civilization, WALL-E finds a thriving dandelion population.
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