Pergelator

A Steal - 1958 Philco Predicta TV restored (retro '50s) - $1800 (Skamania Co, WA)

2013-05-19T10:44:00.003-07:00

From Craig's List. Via Scott.

Welcome, Robot Overlords. Please Don't Fire Us?

2013-05-19T10:12:00.000-07:00

Scott stirs the pot again. Today he sent out a link to a story in Mother Jones about how real smart computers may be here in ten or twenty years. The story makes use of an interesting example of exponential growth. That's all fine and wonderful, but the title (I stole the title for this post) is what worries me. If computers are doing all the work, nobody will have a job. On one hand it's paradise, you can just lie around and eat grapes all day. Ha. Who's buying the grapes? We have lots of people with nothing to do right now, and a lot of them are using their new found leisure time to make trouble. Dealing drugs, trafficking in arms, running credit card scams, dreaming up new class action law suits, starting religious revivals, recruiting jihadists, starting political action committees, the list just goes on and on. The more automation we have, the more people don't have any direction and the more trouble they get into. Maybe that's why the government is growing Homeland Security so much. Not because there are threats, but because we need something for people to do so they aren't out making trouble. We need a new model for society.
Perhaps the expanding organic-free-range farming business will start employing more people. For it to expand enough to make a difference would mean people would have to give up some of their shiny new toys, and that could impact corporate profits, and lord knows we can't have that. I see trouble no matter which way we go.
Update: Somehow I missed page two of the Mother Jones story, and that part talks about my concerns. He doesn't have any solutions either. Maybe join the Amish.

Say Hello to my Leetle Fren'

2013-05-17T09:42:00.001-07:00

From the Internet Movie Firearms Database

What have I been saying about just scratching the surface of knowing how the human body works? Turns out I was righter than I thought. Story by Micahel Pollan (author of The Omnivore's Dilemma) in The New York Times about how microbes rule, we're just along for the ride. Via Scott (who else?).

Pax Vobiscum

2013-05-16T22:48:00.000-07:00

We've started watching Season 2 of Borgia: Faith and Fear on Netflix, not to be confused with The Borgias on Showtime. In the last couple of episodes there has been a priest making trouble in Florence, and we recognized the actor as the advisor to the dragon lady from Game of Thrones. I'm trying to track this guy down and I'm looking for a summary and I'm not finding one. How can this be? Is this show really that far out on the fringe? I finally locate one in French. Google translates, and then I edited it. All I really needed were the names.

Borgia, Season 2, Episode 4 - Pax Vobiscum

Cesare arrests Savonarola and has him tortured until he "confesses". Pope Alexander VI sentences him to death by hanging, and Cesare carries out the sentence. Savonarola uses his last breath to curse Cesare Borgia and his whole family. Cesare attends Midnight Mass and lights the traditional fireworks Florentine. Alessandro, his lifelong friend, wishes him "peace of God", but the peace of God no longer interests Cesare.

Iain Glen plays Savonarola, who was the instigator of the most infamous Bonfire of the Vanities. And here I thought it was just a clever name for a book.

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

2013-05-16T18:36:00.001-07:00

I think someone must have given this to me as a Christmas or birthday present. I mean it's a new hardback. I never buy those unless they're on the close out table. Well, almost never.
It's an excellent book that tells a very unpleasant story about a very unpleasant future. It's set in Thailand, which is hot and humid now. Think about what it will be like when global warming takes hold. The city is surrounded by dikes built to keep back the sea. There are coal fired pumps on the sea wall. They run on coal because we've run out of oil. Is the world overpopulated now? Hard to tell, numerous, constantly mutating plagues are on the loose, but it's still crowded in the city. And did I mention it's hot and humid? And everyone is constantly sweating? So, not a very nice place. But we have characters, interesting characters: the tiger, champion of environmental purity; the mole struggling to serve two masters; the evil agent of the evil genetically engineered seed company, and a host of other characters, some with large but minor roles, other with small but crucial roles. Political intrigue at it's finest.
One of the most interesting bits was the description of a violent insurrection, how, to the average man in the street, the pot apparently just boiled over without any warning. Never mind the instigators had planned it out meticulously in advance. Maybe that's what it takes. That, and being able to keep a secret.
Oh, yes, the Windup Girl. Victimized female, but attractive, with hidden talents (no, not that kind), who finally gathers herself together and ... well, I'm not going to say anymore, except that it isn't until she finally gets free that she manages to get a grip.

Moscow International Business Center

2013-05-16T17:33:00.000-07:00

We're talking about that cluster of new buildings all under construction. Massive pre-planned development in central Moscow. Google Maps View. Russian web site looks to the future.

Threshold

2013-05-16T12:29:00.003-07:00

We have a cat. We've had him for a while, five or ten years or so. Everyone in my family loves him except me. Maybe I love him too, hard to say. It has fallen to me to feed and water him and clean his litter box. He has me well trained, he squeaks (meows) when he wants to go outside, and I open the door for him. He comes to my office window and bats at the screen or the glass when he want to come in, and I get up and go open the door for him and then walk up the basement stairs to open the door for him so he can gain access to his food and water. I try and remember to pet him at least once a day. I read something about how cats need to be petted, so I do my duty. Sometimes I will stroke him, sometimes I ruffle his fur, sometimes rub him vigorously. But I only spend a few seconds at it and then I'm back to whatever it is that fills my days. He will sometimes sit with my wife and I when we watch TV, but he is just as liable to get up in the middle of the show and wander off, or bolt. I don't know how I would feel if something happened to him. I might be relieved that I don't have to cope with him anymore. On the other hand I might miss him. I dunno.
I have a bad habit of losing my temper: I yell and curse loud and long, and occasionally throw things. I like to think it happens less often now than it used to, but I don't really know. What I have noticed is that it is more likely to happen when I am tired, and moreover there seems to be a limit below which I am more likely to go off. When I am well rested, I am well behaved. As the day goes on and/or I exert myself, I become more tired, and if I am worn down because of previous exertions or illness, I am more likely to slip over the edge.

Two days ago I had a migraine headache, the second one in a month, the second one in my life, or at least that I remember. I say "migraine" because the pain was bad enough to make me nauseous. I took a Zyrtec (anti-hay-fever medicine) and in a couple of hours it had gone away. Connection? Cause and effect? Sure. Maybe. Anyway, that episode drained me and next day I laid low. Yesterday evening, Gus, the cat, started squawking, making his little meowing noises, wanting something, I lost my temper and hollered at the little twerp. I made so much noise that older son came to see what the problem was. Fortunately he is mature enough to face down his father-the-jerk and tell me to cool it.
So my mission, should I choose to accept it, is to recognize when I have reached the limits of my endurance and to stop before something happens that triggers an outburst of insanity. This is hard to do when I am tired. Perhaps now that I have identified the circumstances I might be better able to avoid these situations.

Software Patents

2013-05-16T10:10:00.000-07:00

A 1911 Industrial Worker (IWW newspaper) publication advocating industrial unionism that shows the critique of capitalism. It is based on a flyer of the "Union of Russian Socialists" spread in 1900 and 1901.

I'm reading about those loathsome creatures, patent trolls, this morning and I come across this little bit:

Rader's four-judge group affirmed the broad scope of what is eligible for patenting under Section 101, written in 1952. "Both inventions and discoveries are eligible for patenting," wrote Rader. "Before 1952, the courts had used phrases including 'creative work,' 'inventive faculty,' and 'flash of creative genius' which compared the existing invention to some subjective notion of sufficient 'inventiveness' as the test for patentability."

In the view of these four judges the 1952 Act, written largely by a patent judge and a chief patent examiner, got rid of that "flash of creative genius." It simply stated that to get a patent, an idea couldn't be obvious. This simple test for "nonobviousness" would be more "objective" than a test for inventiveness.

This might explain why I haven't patented anything. Everything I think of is perfectly obvious, otherwise I wouldn't have thought of it. Never mind that you actually need to apply for a patent in order to get one.
I don't like patent trolls (companies that make no use of their patents themselves other than to extort licensing fees from other people), but I view them as a product of our times. If our society was not so productive, we would not have so many under-utilized lawyers who have nothing better to do than to cook up near-criminal schemes for making money. It we weren't so busy pushing half of what we make over a cliff every day, we might be putting more people to work. I keep looking for an answer and I keep coming back to pyramids. We need a national program to transform the Rocky Mountains into a series of giant pyramids. That should keep the unemployed busy, and it would straightened out all those ugly, craggy rocks.

Tranquility

2013-05-16T00:09:00.000-07:00

Quiet country estate, yours for a paltry 75 million. It looks like something out of someone's medieval CGI fantasy, but it's real and Sotheby's is selling it. The photos are unbelievable. I didn't think anyone built anything like this anymore. All you would need would be a couple of thousand stinking peasants groveling at your feet and you could feel like a real king. Once again Scott provides me with blog fodder.

The Bridges of Toko-Ri

2013-05-15T22:50:00.001-07:00

Going through a pile of old books I came across a copy of James Michenor's The Bridges at Toko-Ri. It looked familiar, but I didn't recall the story, so I started reading it and soon encountered the character "Beer Barrel", the LSO (Landing Signal Officer) who worked better when he had a couple of beers in him, and since he was critical to the successful operation of the aircraft carrier, the admiral overlooked the keg of beer he smuggled on for each cruise. So, yes, I read the story a long time ago.

Skyraider attacking a North Korean bridge during the Korean War.

Scott sent me a link to the "true" story of the Bridges at Toko-Ri today, which reminded me of another story story about the Korean war that I wrote about earlier. This story had a couple of interesting bits in it. One is that the single engined Douglas A-1 Skyraider aircraft they were using had as much bomb capacity as the four engined WW2 B-17 heavy bomber, which depending on how you add things up could be true. Combat aircraft carry four kinds of payload: crew, ammo, fuel and bombs. Crew and ammo are pretty much fixed. You carry all the ammo you can, you don't want to run out. If you are not operating at the limit of your range, fuel and bomb load can be traded off. More bombs, less fuel, or vice versa.
Another was Operation Pinwheel, where the propellers on the prop planes were used to help dock the aircraft carrier. I remember seeing this in a movie as a kid and I was amazed that you could do such a thing. I mean, who'd a thunk it? I didn't understand what the people in the movie were so upset about. I mean, those props are just big fans, aren't they? Why not use them if they are handy. Well, sonny, for the same reason guys get upset when their woman uses his razor to shave her legs. Or put it more plainly, for the same reason a surgeon would not want you chopping vegetables with his scalpel. You don't use highly stressed, precision instrument for crude, barbarian type work.
The last was "the pilots marched into the wardroom singing the prisoners song" (para-phrased). The Prisoner's Song? What's that? A sad, sad lament. Not my cup of tea, but YouTube has several versions, including one by Johnny Cash.

Packards in Russia

2013-05-15T18:16:00.002-07:00

Upon liquidation, the remaining pre-war Packard designs and tooling were sold to Russian car companies. For decades Packards would continue to be built under the ZIL and ZIM nameplates, catering to the Communist elite. Post-war Packard designs would continue to appear around the Soviet Union into the 1970s. - From a story about the Packard Factory on Something Interesting.

No wonder all those Russian cars looking like American cars from the 1950's. They were.

Futurific

2013-05-15T17:23:00.000-07:00

What's Wrong with a 30-Hour Work Week?

When I was a kid there were several stories that were told about what the future would hold. Among them were flying cars, robots, electric power that would be too cheap to meter and the three hour work week. We have made great strides in our technological capabilities, but we are still stuck with Homo Sapiens Version 1.0, and so we still have the 40 hour work week even though the number of people who have jobs keeps falling.
Some people like to say that exporting jobs to countries with cheaper labor frees us up to do other, more important, more profitable work. But that more important, more profitable work requires a bigger capital investment, or more money gambled on business ventures, most of which will fail, in order to find one that will pay off. But we are expending ourselves in building war material which is getting burned up at the rate the of a million dollars a minute. That's like taking every new car and pushing it over a cliff.

Can't You Smell That Smell?

2013-05-15T11:34:00.000-07:00

Massasoit and governor John Carver smoking a peace pipe

I've been trying to figure out what makes people crazy. Crazy enough, for instance, to become a suicide bomber, or shoot, even just a regular mad bomber. One favorite reason/excuse/agent is the temperature. The closer you get to the tropics, the crazier people get. But whenever someone makes that argument, some wet blanket comes along with some counter example that spoils all our fun. Then it occurred to me that maybe it's odors that are at the root of all this. The daily shower and ritual application of deodorant is a relatively new phenomena, maybe only 50 years old or so. 300 years ago tobacco was in the ascendancy The common explanation for it's rapid adoption was that it contained a drug that people enjoyed. I'm thinking that possibly a bigger reason was the powerful smell. It blinded people's sense of smell and masked the odor of their fellows. Mind you this was all on a subconscious level. Smell is a funny thing. Odors that you are familiar with are pretty much undetectable, new and different odors are the ones you notice. Dealing with a stranger before tobacco could easily raise your hackles. Cover his stink with the soothing aroma of strong tobacco and business may be easily transacted. Makes me think the American Indians were on to something with their "peace pipe".

Blast From The Past

2013-05-15T10:46:00.004-07:00

Ad for United Airlines, November 11, 1966, Life Magazine. From Scott.

Things have changed since then. Some things are better, some are worse. Sometimes I wonder if the good outweighs the bad.

Nick's Tale

2013-05-12T22:53:00.000-07:00

Up into Saquero cactus dessert hills at twilight, Nick grabs a lizard by the tail.

Business as a Hobby

2013-05-12T13:37:00.000-07:00

I often see small, hole-in-wall, businesses that seem to have almost no clients, no customers, no business, and I wonder how they manage to survive. Over the years a theory has been gestating in the back of my mind, and given any evidence to the contrary, I am beginning to suspect (as Sherlock Holmes would say) it is the truth. They are not "businesses" in the strict sense of the word, they are not making a profit and they are not paying their way. By any measure of accounting they would have to be considered hobbies. Lots of people have hobbies, some are very economical, others are very extravagant. A small business would probably tend towards the economical, I mean, if it ever took off it might become profitable. In many cases the proprietor probably owns the premises, so running a business there is more of a holding action until a real, rent paying client comes along. If you are running the place yourself, there is no salary to pay, and if you aren't selling anything you don't have the expense of replenishing your stock. The one constant is taxes, and if you do not have a profitable business, you could argue that the property isn't worth much, and so your taxes should be low. Also, as you are "running a business" any expenses you incur would go on the debit side of the ledger and could help at income tax time. I would not be surprised if a smart accountant could make a shop with absolutely no business show a profit just by juggling taxes.

My Niece, the Scientist

2013-05-11T10:01:00.002-07:00

Amber in her secret laser lab. Tuscon, maybe.

Missing Battery

2013-05-10T19:22:00.000-07:00

My wife got me a Makita cordless drill for Christmas some years ago. Along with a screwdriver bit extension and a Phillips bit, it is the handiest tool I have. A couple of weeks ago, or maybe a couple of months, depending on who you believe, one of the batteries and the battery charger went missing. Since they went missing together I presume that I put the battery in the charger and plugged the charger into the wall so as to charge the battery. Question is, where did I put it? I've been all over the house at least twice and I cannot find them.

It's getting to the point where I am ready to give up and go buy a replacement. I can replace the missing items for about $40 off of E-bay, or I could buy a new, no-name drill, off of Amazon for about the same amount. Problem is that I know that as soon as I order new stuff, the old stuff will turn up, and then I'll feel like an idiot. Meanwhile, I am without a cordless drill and I am starting to feel pretty stupid. Gah! What a dilemma.

Tiger by the Tail

2013-05-10T13:55:00.000-07:00

Tiger Tank 131 Hand Crank Engine Start Up
After reading that Cracked story about how the Eastern front was the main event in WW2 and how the Western front was just a side-show, my whole view of Europe and Russia is undergoing a radical shift. Again. The technique they are using here (spinning up a flywheel and then connecting the flywheel to the engine to start it) is very similar to the one used on the Russian Anotov AN-2 Biplane. I have never seen a machine that uses this technique, and I've seen a few. Must be something about Eastern Europe that warps minds.

Quote of the Day

2013-05-10T08:23:00.000-07:00

“Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 stuffed with CDs.” - Lyle in a comment on The View From North Central Idaho

Communist Toadie

2013-05-09T15:02:00.002-07:00

Cuban Toad from Treasure Island

Programmer Escapes! Army Called In to Pick up the Slack!

2013-05-09T10:38:00.000-07:00

Iowa Andy reports:

I was terminated this morning from my job, the owner came up from Florida to administer the coup de grace.
Saying he didn't realize how difficult the job was.
So he is coming up to organize the mess into a well oiled machine.
So they are going to have Retired Bob do the operations report, the guy who trained me so he could retire.
And use the contract programmers full time to make the programming changes
And use our systems contractors full time to support the infrastructure.
So I was replaced by 10 people.
And the owner will be in the office full time, much to the chagrin of my boss, whose stated primary job was to keep the owner out of the office and in Florida.
I of course, predict catastrophe, but wished them ...whatever....
none the less.
My coworkers were weepy, as I skipped out the door.

New Fangled

2013-05-09T10:26:00.002-07:00

I've been using Google's Chrome browser for a while now and it works okay. Basically it works just like any other browser, slow when you want it to be fast, and fast when you don't care. Some of the controls are in slightly different spots, and there is no "home" button, but it's fine. There is one thing that is a little weird and that is when I am doing a lot of scrolling it seems to switch into some mode where it keeps scrolling. The cursor changes and this little four-arrowed floating icon appears. Click anywhere and it reverts back to normal mode, usually. I am not sure what it's for, or how it works exactly. All I know is that somehow it is not doing what I want it to do anymore, it's doing what it thinks is best. Perhaps someday I will try it out and see if it could possibly be useful, but for right now I cancel it as quick as I can. Do what I tell you, you stupid machine, not what you think I want you to do.

Volunteers encourage reading

2013-05-09T10:15:00.000-07:00

Local Iowa paper remembers my mother-in-law.

Volunteers provide one-on-one attention during a program sponsored by the Friends of the Rockwell City Library

The Friends of the Rockwell City Library have a long history of encouraging reading among patrons of all ages. Several years ago, they expressed a desire to support the reading of elementary aged students, a group with which they had previously not worked directly. Ever-passionate about helping children read, Audrey Gray took the lead in developing plans for such a program.
Through her volunteer work at the elementary school, Audrey knew that all students had independent reading goals that were set and monitored through a program called Accelerated Reader, or AR. She also knew that there were students who needed adult assistance or encouragement to meet their goals. In March, 2010, then, she launched a program called the All StARs, the “AR” a reference to the school's AR reading program.
The program has continued since, and still operates at the SCC Elementary. Adult volunteers, or “coaches,” are paired with individual students. They meet after school for 40 minutes, twice a week, for three to four weeks each session. Each pair reads together, choosing books that are of interest to the students and at his/her independent level. As they finish a book, the student takes a brief quiz on the computer to demonstrate comprehension. These quizzes translate into points that count toward a personal reading goal.
Audrey's passion, powers of persuasion, and winsome personality enabled her to recruit more than 40 adult volunteers over the years. Many of these were members of Friends of the Library, but she also called on others in the community. It's estimated that almost 100 children have participated and benefited. For some, participating in All StARs helped them meet their AR goals for the first time. For others, their “coaches” became mentors who took an interest in and encouraged their achievement.
It was because of the success of the program that Audrey continued to look for ways to involve and benefit more children. She found coaches who could come earlier to work with first graders during the school day. She worked out rides for students who needed them. She ran the program during the summer before the district offered summer school. And she dreamed of helping volunteers in other communities of the SCC district to start a program at their local libraries.
Today, Audrey's legacy continues, thanks to the efforts of other Friends of the Library including Marlene Stacey. Mary Voith, and the dedicated coaches who selfless give of their time help children succeed at (and love!) reading.

My wife sent me a scan of the actual newspaper clipping. I used a free online OCR service to translate it. It didn't work too well. I think it might have been easier to simply enter the text manually.

Monday Evening

2013-05-09T09:03:00.004-07:00

I've been following Marcel on Monday Evening for a while now. He seems to be an intelligent, reasonable person, well, except for his hot buttons. Of course we all have a few of those, don't we?