Rocky Mountain High

Sure do get chilly sometimes!

Crayon Physics

Crayon Physics Deluxe from Petri Purho on Vimeo.

I've played the Demo Version of this little game for months, waiting for the Delux Version to be released. What you do in it is try to roll a little ball to bump it into a star. The graphics are styled to look like a crayon drawing, and you move the little rock by drawing shapes on the screen that get the ball rolling, and provide a path for the ball to move along.

It sounds simple, but some of the little puzzles are quite maddening to try to figure out. It takes a bit of physics intuition, and to touch of Rube Goldberg imagination, to solve them. If you don't want to spring for the Delux Version, the Demo version will still provide entertainment.

Here's the website for it: Crayon Physics Delux. Below is an example of the type of silliness you can find yourself doing with it....


Crayon Physics - That Darn Pole, featuring Wall-E from Jimmy Gunawan on Vimeo.

Well, it's supposed to glow in the dark

I kid you not, pictured to the left is a Cold War era, nuclear powered, Atomic Lighthouse. A website called English Russia has a post about them, with many more pictures and an interesting comment thread.

Large portions of the Russian northern coastline are above the Arctic Circle and navigable. It is also uninhabited and inhospitable. The Soviets decided to build automated lighthouses as an aid to shipping. Because of the problems getting power to them, they decided to power them via nuclear energy.

They used radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTG, RITEG) to provide the power. Theses devices, which have been used to power space probes, generate electricity from the decay of radioactive materials. The Wikipedia article say that about 1,000 of these RTG power sources were used in Russia. The United States also used, and still uses, them for power at remote radar stations.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union these lighthouses were poorly maintained. Frighteningly, some are even lost due to poor record keeping (and we think our government workers are lazy and incompetent). They pose an environmental hazard. Two woodcutters died after sleeping near one, and several others have been reportedly looted. Not a comforting thought.

Not exactly the Taj Mahal

I got this from Strange Maps. It is the Buenos Aires suburb of Ciudad Evita named after Evita Peron. The Strange Maps website say it was founded in 1947 by Argentinian President Peron by Presidential Decree in 1947. Other sources have it being a project of something called the Eva Peron Foundation. Likely, it was a mix of the two.

Naming a city after a living person is a common enough thing in a Thugocracy, but according to Strange Maps it is supposedly laid out to be a portrait of her. The other sources I've found don't make that claim. I think the likeness is a bit of the stretch. Perhaps one can see the bun, but the lower part of the face just isn't there.

Regardless, I suggest nobody pass this idea on to Michelle. I don't want to risk my street becomming part of her nostril.

Lindsay's Robo-Face

How odd. Not Lindsay Lohan, although I'm sure she's odd too. Truth be told, to me she is just some celebrity that flits about in my peripheral vision. I have some vague notion that she blunders from one embarrassment to another in front of paparazzi and gossip columnists, but this post isn't about her.

Instead I'm quite struck by the fact that somebody viewed piles of her pictures, realized her expression was always the same, and then carefully cropped and sized the photos to assemble the above animated gif. It is quite remarkable. I wonder if we all look so monotonously consistent?

Sadly, I had this picture sitting on my computer for some time, and I can't remember where I got it, so I can't credit the source.

A blast from the past

Today I made one of my occasional visits to Arts & Letters Daily.  I found there, in the New Books section, a link to The great dictators, a review of two books about the The Great Books.

I have the 54 volume first edition sitting on ridiculously overstuffed bookshelves.  

Neither the authors nor the reviewer apparently thinks much of The Great Books.  To be honest, though I've owned them for nigh unto 30 years, I've read very little from them.  They've been useful the few times I've needed to dig in there after some tidbit or other but that has been rare.  The reason I own them differs from what the reviewer claims for other owners.  I own them because they came available to me for a paltry price of some $50 which included The Annals of America - my set of which may be of extraordinary value since it consists of 19 volumes rather than the 18 volumes available from Amazon.  

I have found the Annals useful from time to time.  Certainly moreso that the Great Books.  But I always figgered the Great Books were an investment in the future.  Something I'd be able to drool upon in my dotage.  Alas, it may just have been $50 poorly spent.

New Blog Site for Tech Links

I have created a new blog for pure tech links here. I will be posting all my tech links on that site Instapundit style going forward. I will only be posting political links on this blog going forward.

The Last Doughboy

I needed to cool my heels for a few minutes and spotted The Last Doughboy in the dead tree version (ht: me).   The story of the (should be) esteemed Mr. Buckles is also covered by George Will and the American Legion.

Here's nothing...

Two-party vote: Obama/Biden 53.6% - McCain/Palin 46.4%

11/4 DJIA close: 8,500


Posted by: Patrick Tyson | October 26, 2008 at 01:56 PM @ justoneminute.typepad.com

A month in:

The DJIA closed at 8,376.24 after spending most of the day between 8,500 and 8,600 while New York State (among others) certified with a vote count that sent Obama/Biden thru 53.6% to 53.66% of the two-party vote.

...and so it goes.

Happy Holidays!

Sunday Links

Does Obama scare al-Qaida?

Switching to the WSJ?

Nearly as hard as diamond, slipperier than teflon.

Russian paranoia runs rampant.

Does time exist?

The great British prostitution debate.

Movies of atoms in motion.

Free plane tickets for the Canadian obese.

We sleep to forget.

China steps up its computer espionage attacks on the US military.

Friday Links

The proud and sad history of the Detroit oligopoly.

Now we know: almost all matter is nothing but quantum fluctuations in the vacuum.

Massive glaciers have been discovered on Mars.

Chicago is on a roll.

Bad cars can live almost forever.

Google axes 3D.

Why worry about a little trillion dollar deficit?

A new Ebola virus has broken out in Africa.

China's expanding sphere of influence in Latin America.

Learning math causes massive reorganization of the brain.

Shades of Stalin: Iranian blogger "confesses" to spying for Israel.

Introducing GlassDoor.

Is the universe teeming with aliens?

Japan is itching to take on the pirates.

Limitless clean energy for the taking.

Is the US going down the tubes in the next two decades?

Wednesday Links

Why people are lucky. (H/T: Jeff)

An Estonian spy passes NATO's cybersecrets to the Russians.

A vaccine for skin cancer?

Let it go to a happier home.

The body's secret network of tunneling nanotubes.

MIT open courseware—in video.

Controlling your time.

A new generator that can boost wind turbine power output by 50%.

Botnet control passed to Russia.

Success begets success.

The case against Hillary.

2 million dead?—oops! Sorry!

Podcasts from Oxford.

The leader of the year.

Godzilla meets King Kong: both dead.

US physicist sends secret military information to China.

Sunday Links

Global warming mongers embarrassingly debunked.

How much per second?

Is there a genius in all of us?

Chromosome division is different between women and men.

Putin: why do we need so many stinkin' elections?

North Korea gets tough.

Can ancient Chinese medicine yield a cure for AIDS?

Some transitions are more equal than others.

Is China its own worst enemy?

How to hide molecules.

Venezuela down the tubes.

How to bail out GM.

Why ant colonies don't have traffic jams.

Dictatorship in Nicaragua.

Time travel in Google Earth.

FLYING BLIND UNDER THE WEATHER RADAR NOW

We weren’t too worried about beauty when
The season opened, —oaks over the old
Pumice stone quarry downhill, with its pond,
Going gold in that all but exhausted light

Reflected, in a last spasm of what,
Ever alert to changes, the first rain
Brings by, backed up along the ridge toward town
And down valley, touching the waiting bay…

Well, if mere “understanding” is the key
Coordinated universal time
Will offer us, the world rolling by,
Stubbornly, we’ll ignore the vanishing

That’s trickling up nearby seasonal streams,
Salmon against the current, shaking free.
So oak leaves settle on the forest floor.
And fall’s no more a form of breathing out, —

It’s all openness now, last laughs have been
Vouchsafed, withdrawn, then granted in a kind
Of pitiless accounting—I’m “all in.”
It’s all a gamble. Speaking with the bee

Person last week, I have this great idea
But lose it in the hum of flying home,
Hoping to hear the reassuring word,
That somehow, what you wrote got past the guard,

Reached spirits in the cold, second-growth woods
Along the Hudson. Shoot me an email:
It looks as though van der Waals forces hem
Us in for now, our world alight with ice

And blowing snow, a type we rarely see
In coastal northern California, free
Of any taint of commerce, the great sky
At peace with us at last. Despair’s a sin

And we won’t take the moss for granted when
Winter rain lights it up—close to the sea,
It won’t do to be backing off, being true
By faking it. You have to build from here

By tearing down sand castles in the air,
Gradually building back: I hope to show
That x to the nth power takes us home,
Flying blind under the weather radar now.


For Lynne Knight


XI.07.2008

Wednesday Links

The persistent and dangerous illusion of political unity.

President Nanobama.

The demise of the Republican party?

Ruby + Lisp in one slick package.

Obama and the KGB.

Are sharks going extinct?

The opportunities of Taiwan.

The home of the apple.

Obama and the Founding Fathers.

Evolving white blood cells to kill HIV.

Introducing BeatMyPrice.

Opportunities sadly missed.

The robot guitar tunes itself.

Close the border!

Rethinking the idea of the gene.

Just how do you lose a whole pyramid?

Sunday Links

Shown: uranium eating bacteria.

Secret Al-Qaida enclaves of the UK.

A triumph of temperament not policy.

Teaching nanoparticles to swim.

Kasparov beseeches Obama.

When things get too dry the government is toast.

A Hard Day's Night is finally solved.

When photoshop goes bad.

The good virus.

The top 10 most irritating phrases.

Individual responsibility and self-reliance are for chumps.

The hotel of the future.

Beware the 5 year old witches.

A man of decency and integrity.

Be the first on your block to get a mini nuclear plant.

The top 10 things to look forward to in Windows 7.

No bittorrent in China.

Chandrayaan enters lunar orbit.

The Two Views of Wealth

Wealth is a slippery and difficult concept. Even money, the most visible manifestation of wealth, is hard for most of us to really grasp. What is it? Where does it come from? Why do some have so much more than others? Why don't we just make more of it?

It was as late as a college economics class that I learned that banks create money when they issue loans. Then I knew we were in deep doo-doo.

As for wealth, the views and understandings are myriad and nuanced, running the gamut of sophistication and erudition. But to simplify greatly there are two common views. The static view is that there is a fixed amount of wealth and the economy is simply the process of moving it around from person to person. Like the "spot" in The Cat and the Hat. If I have $5 I can keep it, in which case I have it and you don't, or I can give it to you and now you have it and I don't.

There are two ways I might give you the money. You could make me something I want, and I could give you the $5 in order to have that thing—we trade. Alternatively I could just give it to you. Either way, the money has moved from me to you, the spot has moved from the wall to the towel.

Dig deeper and there's a world of difference between these two scenarios. If you make something for me to get my $5, then afterward you do indeed have the $5 but I have something I didn't have before. In the dynamic view wealth is not just money, it is something created by the efforts of human beings. It is not like matter. Our exchange has created wealth that didn't exist before. It follows that economic policies can and should be formulated so as to increase wealth as much as possible. The dynamic view has prevailed since Reagan and Thatcher.

I like Obama's temperament. My greatest fear is that, having never held an "ordinary" job in his entire life, his understanding has never matured from the static view of wealth to the dynamic. I fear that he will seek to "spread the wealth around", killing the wealth-creating economic goose in the process. Let us all hope not.

Wednesday Links

Russia responds to Obama's election with missiles.

Antitrust kills the Google + Yahoo deal.

The 10 genetic secrets of a cancer revealed.

Obama's scientific policies, in his own words.

British Big Brother wants to monitor and record every single use you make of the internet.

Some electoral map perspective.

The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace.

The 8-armed animals of yesteryear.

Economic crisis mounts in Germany.

Bacteria you can hold in your hand.

The case against humanitarian intervention.

Congratulations to President-Elect Obama

This blog did not support Barack Hussein Obama for President but we predicted it. We are however happy about his success and wish him the very best during the next four years.

All Republicans can take great pride in the outcome of this election, one set in motion by the Republican party more than 150 years ago. We are proud of President-elect Obama and realize that his victory is a victory for all of us. He is not our enemy; we believe him to be misguided, not evil. We hope that the weight of experience will lead him toward what we consider to be better policies for the survival of the Republic.

One Last Thing to Read Before You Vote

Here's Stanley Kurtz's summary of what we actually know about Obama.

...four inter-related points stand out: Obama’s radicalism, his stealthy incrementalism, his interest in funding and organization-building, and his willingness to use — or quietly support — Alinskyite intimidation tactics.

Obama’s troubling associations are more than isolated friendships or instances of bad judgment. His ties to Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Rashid Khalidi, Michael Pfleger, James Meeks, ACORN, the New Party, and the Gamaliel Foundation all reflect Obama’s sympathy with radical-left ideas and causes — wealth redistribution prominent among them....

Following well-worn organizer strategies, Obama knows how to wrap ideological radicalism in the soothing rhetoric of “pragmatism” and classic American values. There is a kernel of truth to the pragmatism, however. Radical though his ultimate goals may be, Obama follows classic organizer strategy — pursuing his ends in tiny, incremental, and cumulative baby-steps....

Obama has often claimed that his early community organizing, and his redistributive legislative work, were at the very core of his political identity. We’ve heard his radicalism on the radio in 2001. Does anyone really believe that he’s changed in 2008? Obama’s political radicalism consolidated his shaky personal identity. It formed him as an adult....

Obama is clever and pragmatic, it’s true. But his pragmatism is deployed on behalf of radical goals. Obama’s heart is, and will remain, with the Far Left. Yet he will surely be cautious about grasping for more, at any given moment, than the political traffic will bear. That should not be mistaken for genuine moderation.