A blog about science, law, language, and the arts
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
A Few Words on Incarceration Rates in the U.S. and the "War on Drugs"
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| Chart from Wikipedia article on incarceration in U.S. |
The United States not only has the most number of people in prison in the world, but it has the highest incarceration rate among its population in the world. More people per capita go to prison in the U.S. than anywhere else. Evidently, people who live in the U.S. are the biggest bunch of criminals anywhere. Either that or the U.S. criminal justice system is broken.
It is Halloween (and Your Author has Given Out 15+ Bags of Candy so Far)
Halloween is big where I live. Somehow this feels appropriate right now.
40 Photos That Supposedly Cannot Be Explained
The Drawings of Jason D'Aquino
It is Halloween, and, thus, I present the graphite drawings Jason D'Aquino, many of which are incredible miniatures. See also here.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
A Few Words on Financial Institution Regulation and Why It's So Important
While its origins are now forgotten by many, hidden as they are by the ongoing economic woes of individuals and businesses, the current worldwide financial crisis had a distinct beginning. That distinct beginning may have been the "final straw" for overly burdened and extended economic systems, but it nonetheless occurred. The beginning was the collapse of several investment bankers, the most significant of which was the collapse of Lehman Brothers. When Lehman collapsed things went down quickly throughout the world as the financial systems in many countries were heavily leveraged; Lehman's bankruptcy was the largest in U.S. history, and affected the value of investments everywhere.
The collapse of Lehman Brothers and the enormous economic downturn that followed is not the first time such a thing has happened. the economic downturn here is more severe than most (but not all) of these events, but it is recurrent. It follows deregulation sort of like the plague.
In recent history, the savings and loan crisis of the mid 1980's, the corporate accounting and securities frauds of the late 1990's to 2001, and the banking, mortgage, and securities meltdown of the late 2000's were all due to lack of (sometimes outright removal of) financial oversight of financial institutions. These three, coupled with the current recession, which came from the 2007-08 collapse, should be evidence enough since these are every significant economic downturn in the last 30 years. But look at longer history: there's the Black Friday market and economic collapse of 1869 caused by the Fisk-Gould attempt to corner the gold market ; there's the Panic of 1873 which led to what's now known as the Long Depression caused by the silver market falling apart; there's the Panic of 1907 (I wrote about it here) caused by an attempt to corner the copper market; and there's the big mamma of them all, the stock market crash of 1929 that led to the Great Depression, just to name a few.
The collapse of Lehman Brothers and the enormous economic downturn that followed is not the first time such a thing has happened. the economic downturn here is more severe than most (but not all) of these events, but it is recurrent. It follows deregulation sort of like the plague.
In recent history, the savings and loan crisis of the mid 1980's, the corporate accounting and securities frauds of the late 1990's to 2001, and the banking, mortgage, and securities meltdown of the late 2000's were all due to lack of (sometimes outright removal of) financial oversight of financial institutions. These three, coupled with the current recession, which came from the 2007-08 collapse, should be evidence enough since these are every significant economic downturn in the last 30 years. But look at longer history: there's the Black Friday market and economic collapse of 1869 caused by the Fisk-Gould attempt to corner the gold market ; there's the Panic of 1873 which led to what's now known as the Long Depression caused by the silver market falling apart; there's the Panic of 1907 (I wrote about it here) caused by an attempt to corner the copper market; and there's the big mamma of them all, the stock market crash of 1929 that led to the Great Depression, just to name a few.
The Gashlycrumb Tinies
The Disquieting Art of Oliver De Sagazan
"Climate of Doubt"
Climate of Doubt is a Frontline documentary about the global warming skepticism "movement," which is a coordinated, highly financed attempt to sow doubt about the legitimate science and overwhelming consensus of climatologists about global warming. Meanwhile, Climatologist Michael Mann has sued The National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute for defamation due to comments they made about him and his work. The Competitive Enterprise Institute is a subject of Climate of Doubt.
Monday, October 29, 2012
The Cut Book Collages of Alexander Korzer-Robinson
I make book sculptures / cut books by working through a book, page by page, cutting around some of the illustrations while removing others. In this way, I build my composition using only the images found in the book.This is wonderful found art; a transcendental idea beautifully executed. Here's a few additions to what colossal put up (going farther back into Korzer-Robinson's historical work:
A Few Words on the U.S. Budget, Deficit, and Stimulus Package
The U.S. budget for the 2013 fiscal year (which for the U.S. government runs October 1, 2012 to September 30, 2013) is about $3.8 trillion of which about $2.45 trillion is for nondiscretionary spending (social security, medicare, medicaid, children's health insurance, interest on the national debt, and TARP/stimulus), and about $1.35 trillion is for discretionary spending (military and numerous other smaller discretionary). The U.S. national debt is $16.16 trillion, which, of course, has been accumulated over many years. The 2013 budget has a $246 billion (i.e. $.25 trillion) deficit (and so will add that amount to the existing debt); roughly the same amount is being paid in 2013 in interest on the existing debt.
The United States is slowly, ever so slowly, climbing out of the deep worldwide recession. About seven years ago it was evident that President G.W. Bush's economic approaches had put the US economically in trouble, the nation needed a large stimulus package, and the Republicans opposed it . Our stimulus was too small, but it was something. Europe did not take this approach overall, the prime exception being Iceland. Europe is still deep in trouble, the prime exception being Iceland. Among other things, the Republicans opposed aggressive funding of TARP and a bailout of the United States automobile industry, most of which was repaid ahead of schedule.
The are three principal ways for the U.S. to improve its budget (i.e. to eliminate its yearly deficits and pay down its debt): (1) raise more revenue by imposing more taxes (the leading theory for doing that is to return taxes on the wealthy to their higher historical levels); (2) reduce expenditures (the only significant way that can be done as to discretionary spending is to reduce military spending); and (3) to stimulate the economy. That's where the stimulus package comes in. The Republicans, again, oppose all three of these measures.
Some of this post appeared previously in my post Why I am Not a Republican and is posted here as part of my 2012 election series.
The United States is slowly, ever so slowly, climbing out of the deep worldwide recession. About seven years ago it was evident that President G.W. Bush's economic approaches had put the US economically in trouble, the nation needed a large stimulus package, and the Republicans opposed it . Our stimulus was too small, but it was something. Europe did not take this approach overall, the prime exception being Iceland. Europe is still deep in trouble, the prime exception being Iceland. Among other things, the Republicans opposed aggressive funding of TARP and a bailout of the United States automobile industry, most of which was repaid ahead of schedule.
The are three principal ways for the U.S. to improve its budget (i.e. to eliminate its yearly deficits and pay down its debt): (1) raise more revenue by imposing more taxes (the leading theory for doing that is to return taxes on the wealthy to their higher historical levels); (2) reduce expenditures (the only significant way that can be done as to discretionary spending is to reduce military spending); and (3) to stimulate the economy. That's where the stimulus package comes in. The Republicans, again, oppose all three of these measures.
Some of this post appeared previously in my post Why I am Not a Republican and is posted here as part of my 2012 election series.
Oh Boy! Oh boy! Only Two Days Until Jesusween!
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Sculpture by Villafane Studios
A Few Words on Taxation of the Wealthy
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| Chart from Visualizing Economics |
The Cuban Missile Crisis 50 years Later
Today -- October 28, 2012 -- is the 50th anniversary of the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the day that the U.S. and the Soviet Union agreed that the nuclear armed weapons the U.S.S.R. was installing in Cuba would be removed in exchange or the U.S. removing nuclear armed missiles from Turkey and Italy and agreeing not to invade Cuba. In the years since the crisis it is evident that the U.S. was very close to invading Cuba and to launching a preemptive strike on the U.S.S.R., that Castro wanted the U.S.S.R. to launch a full out nuclear strike on the U.S., and that several incidents nearly occurred where missiles were launched without direct orders from Moscow or Washington, D.C. The closest of those was when the U.S. Navy had cornered three Russian subs and two of the three commanders on on one sub wanted to launch its nuclear weapons and started steps to do so. There have been several excellent write-ups about what we know of the crisis, and an excellent Bob Edwards Weekend piece on it on PBS radio, and several PBS television documentary shows on it.
CGI in Movies and Television by Stargate Studios
Stargate Studios produces a lot of computer generated imagery (CGI), chroma key compositing (green screen), and other production effects for television and film. Via Neatorama, who came to it via Reddit, here are two videos demonstrating Stargate's work, the first, immediately below, showing green screen mostly in television shows (it's still pretty interesting), and the second, below the break, showing more CGI type effects.
Wind Map of the United States: This is so Cool (or, um, Hot)
This comes, by the way, via Hint.fm -- which is an awesome site run by two Ph.D's who run Google's Big Picture visual research lab (and ran their own visual research lab before that and ran IBM's Visual Communication Lab before that, all with groundbreaking work).
Via Zack.
Saturday, October 27, 2012
A Few Words on Runaway U.S. Military Spending
Two months ago I wrote a very detailed post, with numerous factual referents and links, on Why I am Not a Republican. Over the next week leading up to the U.S. Presidential and Congressional elections I'll be highlighting some of the most important subjects. I am not an ideologue; there are aspects of the Democrat's approach I dislike, too, and I'll mention those.
The United States is not in danger of being attacked by another nation. Yet military spending by the United States constitutes 45.7% of all military spending by the entire world (2011 numbers). This is incredible. But it is indisputable. And it is unjustifiable.
The United States is not a war with the rest of the world. It would have to be to justify spending about half the world's military spending.
The Iraq War is over. The U.S. does not have an extensive troop presence there. The U.S. presence in Afghanistan cannot justify this level of spending. U.S. involvement in Libya was de minimis; it does not have a presence in Syria. The threat of terror attacks, based on one horrific surreptitious attack in the U.S., does not justify this level of spending. Indeed, the billions budgeted are only direct costs; the reaction to potential terrorism has numerous and substantial indirect costs to the U.S.
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| Chart from The International Institute for Strategic Studies |
The United States is not a war with the rest of the world. It would have to be to justify spending about half the world's military spending.
The Iraq War is over. The U.S. does not have an extensive troop presence there. The U.S. presence in Afghanistan cannot justify this level of spending. U.S. involvement in Libya was de minimis; it does not have a presence in Syria. The threat of terror attacks, based on one horrific surreptitious attack in the U.S., does not justify this level of spending. Indeed, the billions budgeted are only direct costs; the reaction to potential terrorism has numerous and substantial indirect costs to the U.S.
The Layered Glass Artwork of Angela Palmer
Via Colossal.
Clown Convention in Mexico City; Trump Flying In Tomorrow
America's Favorite Clown, Donald Trump, may arrive at any moment. Trump recently delighted the nation with his antic shenanigans of trying to get the U.S. President to jump through hoops for a possible charitable donation by Trump. It was funny becauseTrump has been called "the country’s least charitable billionaire, a guy who has personally donated [only] a combined $3.7 million to his foundation since 1990" and "the laughingstock of the uberwealthy." Trump, who is known for his hilarious catch phrase "you're fired!," is a charter member of the Island of Idiots.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Let it Be, No Cry
I am not sure this is as strong as some of the others I've posted -- the speed up on Let It Be is noticable -- and the mixed songs are each so strong alone that the mix doesn't necessarily help them. But it's an interesting combination anyway that sort of works ...
A Map Showing the "History of Religion"
This is interesting but a little simplistic. Where are Confucianism and Daoism? Where are animistic and shamanistic religions? Where are the New World beliefs? And wouldn't be better to show the mixing of religion rather than just colored regions with hard edges between them (color is actually great to show religion because one can use shades and show mixing and degree). But I expect too much.
A 9 Billion Pixel Image of the Milky Way from ESO
The European Southern Observatory has just released a massive 9 billion pixel image of the Milky Way made from a composite of photos taken by the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy ("VISTA") at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. This is the largest most detailed image of the Milky Way ever taken. The version below, expanded, is a measly 380 KB (~1.2 million pixels). It's not grainy; those are stars.
Maik Scherer: "Nano-vegetable"
This can be found at the Carl Zeiss competititon photostream at Flickr, which is a great set with many equally great photos (scroll down). I saw it through the tumblrs Proof (Math is Beautiful) and Fresh Photons, both of which are awesome math/science image driven blogs. In fact, instead of posting more images here from the Cambridge photostream (which is great but you have to go through it), here's a few fabulous recent images from Fresh Photons:"Microphase separated diblock copolymer film with HPL morphology. All of my images are individual scanning electron micrographs with feature sizes ranging from 10 to 20 nanometres and were colour enhanced."
Thursday, October 25, 2012
"Tina Fey Rips ‘Grey-Faced Men with $2 Haircuts’ Defining Rape"
Quoting The Raw Story, quoting Tina Fey in part:
“I wish we could have an honest and respectful dialogue about these complicated issues,” the comedienne told the Center for Reproductive Rights Inaugural Gala. “But it seems like we can’t right now. And if I have to listen to one more gray-faced man with a two-dollar haircut explain to me what rape is, I’m gonna lose my mind!”
Last month, Republican Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin had asserted that women could not get pregnant through “legitimate rape.” And then Republican Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock claimed on Tuesday that pregnancy from rape “is something that God intended to happen.
Bluestar: Taking Wacky to a Whole New Level
My recent suggestion that we colonize the stars with human embryos and robots was intended to be as nutty as I could imagine (the implication being that other popular star colonization schemes, which are even less physically plausible, are also nutty). But now I've been one-upped. One upped by a serious plan called "Bluestar" which sought to have a ball of water (evidently free floating in space) with dolphins swimming in it surrounded by a ring of "thinking and laboratory spaces. The dolphins would supposedly be able to think brilliantly in space without the limitations of gravity and they would function as a computer and use their highly advanced sonar skills to talk with humans and other animals.
Here's a video (I've set it up to start a little bit in, where it starts to get relevant):
Here's a video (I've set it up to start a little bit in, where it starts to get relevant):
"Golden Waves" -- Photographs by William Dalton
NGC 2623, Just Because This is Beautiful
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Photography by Brett Walker
The Books of King Modus and Queen Ratio
Really, this is from The Books of King Modus and Queen Ratio, a two volume set, from which BiblioOdyssey posts a number of its beautiful pages (v. large sized if you click through to his Flickr downloads). The full book, in fact, is on line at the Royal Library of Belgium. Written in the 13th century and published in the 14th, the first book (the Book of Infer) is the first treatise in french on hunting and the second book (the Dream of Pestilence), is a poem about morality. King Modus and Queen Ratio, by the way, were not real. They're fictional, though King Modus is evidently very much into hunting boars and stags ... just like King Robert! (This is definitely King Robert.) And there's tournaments and intrigue and townsfolk rioting and a deer with a cross growing it out of its head and a person with a big open-mouthed face growing on his stomach and ravens serving as messengers or something (I'm not sure) and what could be wolves and maybe a little person (okay, I lied about that).
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Positive Law and Natural Law
In this blog I'll use the phrase positive law to mean "law that derives from human expression" and I'll use the phrase natural law to mean "law that does not derive from human expression." So, that's simple.
Lamentably, those aren't quite the uses that lawyers (or philosophers) often have for the terms; their uses frequently are ambiguous, poorly reasoned, and inconsistent. What may not seem to be a big deal does turn out to be a big deal. It leaves their analysis often clotted and wrong, and betrays a larger failure to understand how humans and our rules relate to the world we inhabit. So, it's time for a somewhat esoteric discussion of these terms -- that may not be your "thing" -- feel free to go. But there is a reason (besides its interest to me): it has important legal, political, and ontological ramifications.
Lamentably, those aren't quite the uses that lawyers (or philosophers) often have for the terms; their uses frequently are ambiguous, poorly reasoned, and inconsistent. What may not seem to be a big deal does turn out to be a big deal. It leaves their analysis often clotted and wrong, and betrays a larger failure to understand how humans and our rules relate to the world we inhabit. So, it's time for a somewhat esoteric discussion of these terms -- that may not be your "thing" -- feel free to go. But there is a reason (besides its interest to me): it has important legal, political, and ontological ramifications.
Why, Yes, Mr. Romney, Surely Our Underpowered Navy Needs About 100,000 of These
Mr. Romney has so thoughtfully suggested that our Navy is no better supplied today than it was in 1917. Yes, that is so very correct. Cruise missiles. I have no idea why I wrote that. Anyway, for the latest in the totally automated killing of our enemies, may I suggest bankrupting us with the following:
Some Recent Concerns About "The Media"
But some recent actions by some "mainstream" media outlets have to make us concerned.
Monday, October 22, 2012
Scientists for Obama
It's a New York Times day for me, evidently. It reports:
Sixty-eight Nobel Prize winners in the science fields, including the two Americans who won this year’s chemistry prize, have signed a letter endorsing Mr. Obama over his Republican rival, Mitt Romney.If ad hominem arguments matter, this matters.
“President Obama understands the key role science has played in building a prosperous America,” the laureates wrote in a letter that was released on Wednesday. Mr. Obama “has championed investment in science and technology research that is the engine of our economy.”
The signers said that Mr. Romney, by contrast, “supports a budget that, if implemented, would devastate a long tradition of support for public research and investment in science at a time when this country’s future depends, as never before, on innovation.”
"A Rogue Climate Experiment Outrages Scientists"
Via The New York Times:
A California businessman chartered a fishing boat in July, loaded it with 100 tons of iron dust and cruised through Pacific waters off western Canada, spewing his cargo into the sea in an ecological experiment that has outraged scientists and government officials.The businessman, Russ George, apparently sold his iron seeding services for $2.5 million to several coastal tribes. The theory was that they could claim carbon tax credits. That would appear unlikely. Calling it an "ecological experiment," given the absence of ability to measure results and the absence of controls, also seems unlikely.
* * *
Marine scientists and other experts have assailed the experiment as unscientific, irresponsible and probably in violation of [international] agreements, which are intended to prevent tampering with ocean ecosystems under the guise of trying to fight the effects of climate change.
Though the environmental impact of the foray could well prove minimal, scientists said, it raises the specter of what they have long feared: rogue field experiments that might unintentionally put the environment at risk.
You'll Either Think "This is Great" or "Please for All that is Holy Make It Stop"
Via Miss Cellania, who is a national treasure (and whose pen name I didn't understand for too long, so maybe I should be called Mister Point?):
"A Portrait a Day Keeps Myself Sane": Artwork of David A. Johnson
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| Charles Dickens |
Sunday, October 21, 2012
"Starship Dimensions"
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| Screen grab of a tiny part of the site |
The Surreal Street Art of Andre Gonzaga "Dalata"
Drunk History -- Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr
Okay, since I mentioned the Alexander Hamilton -- Aaron Burr feud last night, I felt that I should not have failed to link to this important reference material:
Saturday, October 20, 2012
The Odd Politically Connected Life of Daniel Sickles
"Solarized is the Mother of All Color Schemes"
The color set could be used in a lot of contexts, so, for what it's worth, here they are:
#002b36 base03
#073642 base02
#586e75 base01
#657b83 base00
#839496 base0
#93a1a1 base1
#eee8d5 base2
#fdf6e3 base3
#b58900 yellow
#cb4b16 orange
#dc322f red
#d33682 magenta
#6c71c4 violet
#268bd2 blue
#2aa198 cyan
#859900 green
"The 50 Most Interesting Articles on Wikipedia" According to the Blog, Copybot
According to the blog Copybot someone named Ray Cadaster, who I can't locate, has put together an exhaustive list of interesting articles on Wikipedia, and these are his top 50. He's got a list, as well, of his second 50, should you exhaust these.
"Christiaan Huygens": Ah Nuts, I've Been Saying It Wrong
Christiaan Huygens was a brilliant dutch physicist who possibly ranks in the class of Galileo, Descartes, Newton, and Leibniz and yet, of those, the one so few people (in the U.S.) seem to know about. For what it's worth, he wrote an early version of what became Newton's second law of motion (no, Newton did not come up with this stuff all by himself), invented the pendulum clock, demonstrated that light has wave properties, independently discovered the balance spring, discovered coupled oscillations (see also!), solved the tautochrone problem (which was critical to the creation of a useful pendulum clock), used an early geometric form of calculus predating Newton, developed the theory and formula for centripetal force, wrote the first lengthy work on probability, designed a large tubeless telescope, was the first to understand that Saturn has a ring around it, discovered Saturn's planet Titan, was the first to draw the Orion Nebula, designed an early internal combustion engine that was intended to work with gunpowder, and designed a pocket watch (an outgrowth of the balance spring), among many other inventions. His father, grandfather, and brother were also very successful (his father, though Dutch, was knighted by both England and France and is historically one of the Netherlands most famous poets as well as a composer and was a friend of John Donne and an acquaintance of Rembrandt and Descartes (who lived in the Netherlands for 20 years)).
So, okay, here's the deal: it turns out pretty much everybody who isn't Dutch has been mispronouncing his name all along. According to Wikipedia it's pronounced like this; according to the video below it's {Huh}{clear your throat or something}{ens}. Also, while we're on it, Euler is pronounced {oiler}, Leibnitz is pronounced {laip}{nits}, and Newton is pronounced {New}{ton}. Dr. Lewin, below, is right: I've got no idea how to say it.
So, okay, here's the deal: it turns out pretty much everybody who isn't Dutch has been mispronouncing his name all along. According to Wikipedia it's pronounced like this; according to the video below it's {Huh}{clear your throat or something}{ens}. Also, while we're on it, Euler is pronounced {oiler}, Leibnitz is pronounced {laip}{nits}, and Newton is pronounced {New}{ton}. Dr. Lewin, below, is right: I've got no idea how to say it.
Cats that Look Like Pin-up Girls
Friday, October 19, 2012
My Continuing Series on "Libraries": Googlemania
Albert Newton Designs Our New Furniture
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| Photo of Albert Newton, our Editor in Charge of There/Their/They're Correction, goofing at his desk drawing "gravitational furniture" instead of doing his job. There a lot of people like this. |
Color Photos of Kutno, Poland, 1939-40, on the Brink of Annihilation
Jaeger's photographs are surprisingly humane, and Life magazine, which has a spread of the photos on its website, speculates why Jaeger took the photos in this manner (scroll down on link site to read). Suffice it to say we don't really know. We do know that most of the people in these photos would be dead in a short while due to disease, starvation, or outright murder by the Nazis (mostly in Chełmno extermination camp).
Matchbook Illustrations by Jason D'Aquino
Thursday, October 18, 2012
From Le Blog De Jean-Paul Sartre
At The New Yorker (via Metafilter):
* * *
Wednesday, 22 July, 1959: 10:50 A.M.
This morning over breakfast S. asked me why I looked so glum.
“Because,” I said, “everything that exists is born for no reason, carries on living through weakness, and dies by accident.”
“Jesus,” S. said. “Aren’t you ever off the clock?”
"Light Drive" by Kim Pimmel
This is a stop-motion video by Kim Pimmel, who photographs colored lights using very long exposures in dark spaces. There's no computer graphics here. Rather, his photos are made using more or less everyday objects (as you can see at the beginning of the video) and stringing them together stop-motion style. At Flickr Pimmel has a large set of photos, some of which explain his techniques further, and at the always great Colossal, where I first saw some of Pimmel's images, there's a set of large sized stills of Pimmel's work. The net effect of the long exposures and stop motion is that what looks like it is happening very fast must have taken place over a lengthy period of time -- in fact, the time compression may be part of what adds to the beauty.
Apparently the Women Come Separately
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
My Kids Believe This to be the Original Version
When they hear either Stayin' Alive or Another Brick in the Wall they think of the other song. In fact, I now do that, too. Don't judge me. Please for heaven's sake ... I couldn't help it.
Because Libraries can be Awesomely Beautiful
Walker, by the way, made the many millions necessary to pay for things like this library from Walker Digital, a company that has acquired a reputation as a patent troll.
Stunning Discovery Reveals Earth Sized Planet Only .00000443 Light Years Away From Earth!
**PRESS RELEASE**PRESS RELEASE**PRESS RELEASE**
While the astronomical world was abuzz today with the discovery of an Earth sized planet "only 4.3 light years from Earth," dubbed Alpha Centauri Bb, Galileo Feynman announced his discovery of an Earth sized planet one million times closer. He is calling the planet “Venus.”
"Venus" is only.00000443 Light Years Away From Earth.
Scientists are excited about the possibility of colonizing Alpha Centauri Bb which, according to Space.com, has a surface temperature of 2,240 degrees Fahrenheit. Feynman asserts the temperature of his so-called “Venus” is substantially below 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. “While colonization of Alpha Centauri B b is certainly a good idea for its discoverers,” Feynman said, “we may want to send others to Venus first.” He listed a series of prominent Republicans and pundits.
Although The New York Times says the discovery of Alpha Centauri B b brings "the search for another Earth about as close as it will ever get," Feynman speculates that there are other small planets much closer to earth. In addition to his so called "Venus," he named other potential planets "Mars" and "Mercury," suggesting that we might have already landed one or more probes on them. In a flight of fancy, he also suggested that some huge planets near Earth might have moons of their own which would be colonization candidates. He offered suggested names of "Titan" and "Europa." Space colonization, of course, is inevitable.
OMG, I Had No Idea, That's So Sad!
Tearful Mitt Romney Announces He Has Rare Disease Where You Can't Sit Quietly On Stool When Repeatedly Asked ToI've been excessively political here lately, and I am sorry about that. Really sorry. Sorry.
HEMPSTEAD, NY—Highly emotional in the wake of last night’s town-hall-style debate, a tearful Mitt Romney called a press conference this morning to “come clean” about having a rare, little-understood disease known as Shuttlesworth Syndrome, a condition that prevents its victims from sitting quietly on stools anytime they are repeatedly told to do so. “As a sufferer of this rare disorder, being told to sit down and shut up—particularly when a stool is involved—only provokes in my central nervous system a violent overreaction that forces me to behave in the exact opposite manner,” Romney told reporters, his voice cracking with emotion as he revealed his secret to the world. “Without meaning to, I reflexively stand up, stride forward, and continue trying to speak—doing so even, and especially, when one or more people are instructing me to stop talking immediately and go back to my stool. It is a truly debilitating condition that I have battled all my life.” Romney said additional symptoms of the syndrome include an inability to maintain a convincing human smile, inexplicable reversals of previously stated policy positions, and an impaired ability to chuckle without sounding like a deranged maniac.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
On Matrindale's "The Reference Desk"
I posted A List of Reference and Educational Sites yesterday, and, without surprise, I quickly learned of another site that has an extraordinarily detailed list of reference materials on the internet, Jim Martindale's The Reference Desk. I've updated my post include it.
I've noticed, though, that what my list offers and what Martindale's list offers are substantially different. For example, I could find no link to nine of the tweleve sites my post identified as the most important, including the current mother of all references, Wikipedia. There are a lot of other sites I consider important I haven't been able to find there, such as some key federal agency reference sites like EDGAR, the Census, and the National Archives, book and journal sites like Project Gutenberg and SSRN, and some really excellent general information sites like FindLaw and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. That doesn't mean they're not there, by the way; it means I wasn't able to find them, and that's part of the problem.
Martindale's site was started many years ago, and it seems to revel in the sheer number of listings it has. It looks like a great place to poke around in, like poking around in the stacks of a library. In fact I plan to go there and do that a lot. My list was designed for practical purposes, and I pared down my list to about 150 as my goal is to provide ready reference. Not distinguishing between the highly useful and the less useful makes the important and best stuff less accessible. But that's not the only valid approach, and martindale's heaps of links have a place. It is obvious that Martindale's site has been carefully composed and developed over years; it's a musty library but a really nice place to browse.
I've noticed, though, that what my list offers and what Martindale's list offers are substantially different. For example, I could find no link to nine of the tweleve sites my post identified as the most important, including the current mother of all references, Wikipedia. There are a lot of other sites I consider important I haven't been able to find there, such as some key federal agency reference sites like EDGAR, the Census, and the National Archives, book and journal sites like Project Gutenberg and SSRN, and some really excellent general information sites like FindLaw and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. That doesn't mean they're not there, by the way; it means I wasn't able to find them, and that's part of the problem.
Martindale's site was started many years ago, and it seems to revel in the sheer number of listings it has. It looks like a great place to poke around in, like poking around in the stacks of a library. In fact I plan to go there and do that a lot. My list was designed for practical purposes, and I pared down my list to about 150 as my goal is to provide ready reference. Not distinguishing between the highly useful and the less useful makes the important and best stuff less accessible. But that's not the only valid approach, and martindale's heaps of links have a place. It is obvious that Martindale's site has been carefully composed and developed over years; it's a musty library but a really nice place to browse.
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