Bear Hunting

Tip of the hat to Rick P…

Bear Hunting

The Pope took a couple of days off to visit the mountains for some sight-seeing.

He was cruising along the campground in the Popemobile when there was frantic commotion just at the edge of the woods.

A helpless Democrat, wearing sandals, shorts, a “Save the Whales” / “Bush Lied” T-shirt and a tree hugger hat, was screaming while struggling frantically, thrashing around trying to free himself from the jaws of a 10 foot grizzly.

As the Pope watched horrified, a group of Republican loggers came racing up. One quickly fired a 44 magnum into the bear’s chest. The other two reached up and pulled the bleeding semi-conscious Democrat from the bear’s grasp. Then using long clubs, the three loggers finished off the bear and two of them threw it onto the bed of their truck while the other tenderly placed the injured Democrat in the back seat.

As they prepared to leave, the Pope summoned them to come over. “I give you my blessing for your brave actions!” he told them. “I heard there was a bitter hatred between Republican loggers and Democratic environmental activists but now I’ve seen with my own eyes that this is not true."

As the Pope drove off, one of the loggers asked his buddies “Who was that guy?"

"It was the Pope", another replied, “He’s in direct contact with God and has access to all God’s wisdom.” “Well,” the logger said, “he may have access to all God’s wisdom but he sure doesn’t know anything about bear hunting!! By the way, is the bait holding up, or do we need to go back to town and snatch another one?"

Cabinet Blogging

The two pictures at right show the equipment cabinet that is now serving up this blog. The picture at right shows the equipment cabinet with its doors open. You can see the server, and if you expand it, the routers, DSL modem, and the custom controller board I built. The picture at left shows me alongside the cabinet all buttoned up. Note the environment it’s in: two air compressors are in close proximity!

Both pictures were taken by my friend who is allowing me to host this stuff in his basement. As usual, click on the small pictures to get a larger view…

History of Mankind

Tip of the hat to Jim Mundy!

A Short History of Mankind

Humans existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunter/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer & would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in winter.

The 2 most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. These were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into 2 distinct subgroups: Liberals and Conservatives.

Once beer was discovered it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor the aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early human ancestors were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That’s how villages were formed.

Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to B-B-Q at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as “the Conservative movement."

Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly B-B-Q’s and doing the sewing, fetching and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement. Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as 'girliemen.'

Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy and group hugs and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that conservatives provided.

Over the years conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the jackass.

Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard liberal fare. Another interesting revolutionary side note: most of their women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn’t “fair” to make the pitcher also bat.

Conservatives drink domestic beer. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, Marines, athletes and generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living.

Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to “govern” the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America. They crept in after the Wild West was tame and created a business of trying to get MORE for nothing.

Here ends today’s lesson in world history: It should be noted that a Liberal may have a momentary urge to respond to the above before simply laughing and forwarding it. A Conservative will be so convinced of the absolute truth of this history that it will be forwarded immediately.

Done!

Well, the great blog server move has been accomplished — the new “blog cabinet” is up and running. You should notice a major improvement in the speed of the blog.

Comments welcome!

Bobcat

Ever since the big Cedar fire just over two years ago, our once-abundant local bobcats have been very scarce — and in our valley, almost non-existant. This is very sad for us, as these bobcats used to be one of our favorite things to spot as we were walking.

In the past few days, we’ve had two bobcat sightings. First, a few days ago Debbie spotted one while driving through Lyons valley. This is one valley over from ours, about two or three miles from our home. Then yesterday we had a much closer encounter. Debbie was sitting in our living room, reading, when she glanced up and saw a feline silhouette against our patio door, about 30' from her. She called to me (I was in the next room), but by the time I got there it had gone. She was sure it was a bobcat. I crept out as quietly as I could, hoping to catch a glimpse. When I went through the doorway where Debbie had originally spotted it, I couldn’t see a thing. So I walked around to the side of the house, in the direction she thought it had moved, and when I looked around the corner — there it was! It was loping away, not looking all that concerned. At the moment I spotted it, the bobcat was about 25' from me — but it was only about 6' from the window Debbie had moved to, so she got a terrific view of it, from the side. I had the butt view <smile>. The bobcat was a male, roughly the size of Lea (our female field spaniel); I’d guess it was 25 to 30 pounds. It’s color was a little unusual — more pale than most of the bobcats we’ve seen here. So far as I could tell, it was in good health.

I sure hope this is a portent of things to come…

Dogs and Cats

Mo’i (the field spaniel) and Boots (the cat) are enjoying some late afternoon sunshine streaming in our livingroom window. The dark-furred animals can really absorb some heat — put you hand on them while they’re sunbathing, and you’ll feel as if you’ve been burnt! Mo’i could just barely work up the energy to open one eye to look at me, as I took this picture. Boots is a little scaredy-cat, so she was watching me warily, as always…

These three images are of Halala Pala, our most photogenic of cats. We think he’s a Maine Coon, from his looks, behavior, and ridiculously tiny and squeaky voice (as compared to the magnificence of his size). His belly fur is particularly curly and unkempt; in this upside-down pose (which he loves to adopt), it’s sometimes hard to tell where anything is. As I took these pictures (and about 20 more just like them!), he twisted and turned, posing for me as if he was a supermodel. The moment I stopped taking pictures, he stopped and went to sleep…

These three guys are the best of buddies, and they like to hang out in this cat tree together. The fellow on the right is Halala Pala, in a more normal pose. The other big fellow on the left is Alika — our biggest cat by far, and also the most afraid of people. Only rarely am I able to touch him, and he hates it when I do. The little guy in the middle is Maka Le’a, who only recently has learned to climb to high places (much to Debbie’s distress, as she imagines he’ll launch himself to a bad fall).

As usual, click on the pictures for a larger view.

Cats and Cookies

Baking cookies with your cat — a step-by-step guide:

1. Look in cookbook for cookie recipe.

2. Get cup of coffee.

3. Get cat off of cookbook.

4. Find that special recipe.

5. Get cat’s nose out of coffee mug.

6. Go to fridge and get eggs.

7. Get dry ingredients from cupboard.

8. Break eggs in small bowl.

9. Sift dry ingredients in large bowl.

10. Answer the phone.

11. Cat ate eggs; get more from fridge.

12. Get cat out of flour bowl and dust cat off.

13. Get Band-Aids for scratches on hands.

14. Throw flour out and get more.

15. Preheat oven for cookies.

16. Looking at cat & wanting to bake cat now. Cat runs for cover into bathroom.

17. Flour the counter to roll out cookie dough.

18. Big crash in bathroom; run to see what happened.

19. Cat has TP all over floor; stuff spilled and knocked over on top of bathroom counter.

20. Yell at cat. Cat falls in toilet bowl.

21. Can sense cat is angry.

22. Take cat out of toilet to dry cat off.

23. Get bandages to cover more scratches on arms and legs.

24. Clean up bathroom.

25. Hear a thump in kitchen …Oh Golly … now what?

26. Get cat off floured counter in kitchen.

27. Try to pick out cat hairs from flour.

28. Step on cat’s tail and get bitten.

29. Get coat, car keys, and go to store to buy cookies!!!

Cabinet Blogging

If you’re wondering why my blogging has been light recently, there are two main reasons: I’ve been sick as the proverbial dog for the past few days (but now I’m recovering nicely), and I’ve been working on a humongous project. The guts of the project are pictured at right, and I’m sure nobody could figure out what’s going on from that little bit of a clue <smile>!

As usual, click on the small pictures to get a larger view.

The general point of this project is to upgrade the pitifully slow bandwidth of our Internet connection. Way out here in the boondocks of Jamul, the only choices we’ve got are dial-up and satellite. Dial-up is doggone slow, and satellite is just terrible for almost everything other than file downloading (it’s great at that!).

And there are two parts to this problem: the bandwidth that we experience, sitting in Jamul, suring the web or picking up email — and the bandwidth that our web site visitors experience. This project addresses both issues.

First, I’m locating two servers at a friend’s house (this maniac has oh-so-graciously allowed me to put all this stuff in his home!). My friend lives in El Cajon — a real city, with real services. I’ve installed a high-speed DSL connection to his home, and my two servers will be connected to that. This means that you, dear reader, should experience simply stunning speed improvements when reading this blog. This operation is scheduled to take place next Sunday, January 29th.

Second, in addition to the DSL I ran to my friend’s home, I also ran a pair of dedicated phone lines. Also in his home will be a special kind of router that will accept a pair of connections over the phone lines (doubling the normal dial-up speed) and relaying them to the DSL. At our home in Jamul, I’ve also installed two phone lines, and these will be connected full time to our friend’s home.

Saying it all like that makes it sound pretty easy — but there are some tricks here. First of all, the place my friend made available is in a somewhat dirty basement, not air conditioned. That dictates putting the equipment in a cabinet with a filtered air supply. Then when you start adding up what I mean by “equipment", you see some challenges: two servers, two routers, one dual modem router, two network switches, a DSL modem, and a UPS. Yikes!

But wait — it gets worser.

This cabinet full of tightly packed equipment will be located about a half-hour’s drive from my home. It’s not really practical to drive that far to reset a server whenever I make some change in my blog code that causes a crash. Or when any other of a zillion things happen. So I needed a way to remotely reset the servers. And taking that same thought to a (very) slightly more extreme level, I also needed to be able to power cycle the servers (sometimes a reset just doesn’t do the trick). Plus I needed to automatically manage the server shutdown and startup in the event of a power outage. And then I also need to manage the fan speeds — rather than just run them at full blast all the time (reducing their lifetime), I thought I’d monitor temperatures in the cabinet, and adjust the fan speeds automatically.

Oh, this got complicated really fast…

One saving grace: my friend’s son is a most excellent cabinet maker, just by happenstance. And he very graciously allowed me to use his shop and his skills to build a custom cabinet of my own design, just the right size to fit all my gear. Without his help (and his fantastic computer-controlled MDF-cutting machine!), this project would have been much more difficult.

The lower three pictures are various views of the controller board that I built to run the cabinet. It’s based on a Z-World Jackrabbit BL1810 board (with prototyping board), which has a processor that’s basically a seriously souped-up Z80 (and I wrote a lot of Z80 code in my day!). The pair of stacked PC boards visible in the lower-right photo are the Jackrabbit.

The rest of that mess is a piece of vectorboard with a bunch of circuitry that I designed on it. There are switches to turn the fans on and off, digitil potentiometers to control the fan’s speed, and a tachometer mux to allow all the fans to be individually monitored for speed. Temperature measurement is handled by eight digital temperature sensors, which are scattered throughout the cabinet and inside the two servers. Power control is handled by a pair of miniature hard-contact relays (with drivers); reset is handled by a pair of digital switches. The controller has its own sensing of the power mains, separately from the UPS. And of course there are LEDs (couldn’t build something like this without 'em!), and just for grins, a pair of optoelectronic reflective infrared door-open sensors. Finally, the controller has a pair of serial ports that I’m using for communications between the controller and the servers.

Whew! Just building all that hardware was a pretty big project. But then came the firmware for the controller… There’s some fairly tricky stuff in there, like a few interrupt service routines that really had to be done in assembly language (for speed) — and it’s been a few years, folks, since I’ve written any assembly language. Fortunately the old saw about never forgetting how to ride a bicycle appears to apply to assembly language coding as well. I had to re-familiarize myself with the Z80’s architecture, but within a few hours of starting I had the first ISR going. The rest of the firmware I wrote in “Dynamic C", supplied by the Z-World folks. This is a very modern and very friendly environment compared to the primitive tools I used way back when. It’s full of snazzy features and unexpected conveniences. But … it ain’t Java, and this ancient and venerable software engineer has gotten very comfortable with the cushy, safe, protected world of Java. I’ll give you just one example, which the techies amongst you will appreciate. In Java, if you intend to compare a variable 'i' with 2, you might write this code: if( i = 2 ). But that would be wrong, and it wouldn’t compile (so you’d know it immediately and fix it before you ever tried to run the program). With the C language, that code compiles just fine, and when it runs, that code will set i equal to 2 and then tell you it was equal. Yikes! I did that three times in 5,600 lines of code, and each of those took me quite a while to find. Sheesh! I miss Java!

But now the whole darned thing is working. All the hardware, all the wiring, and all the firmware — it’s all up and chunking along. Yee hah! All that’s left is configuring the network gear and servers, and that, my friends, is truly trivial compared to what I just went through with the rest of this project.

My wife is absolutely overjoyed to have this project come to an end — I believe she’s marked next Sunday on her calendar. The reason for her abundance of joy is one that I’m sure many of you will be sympathetic with: this project is being built in our livingroom. We simply have no other place to build something this large, so there it had to be. Oh, Debbie will be very, very happy to see that cabinet depart…

And so will I…

The Thing

Hah! Here’s a short post from The Big Pharaoh (a most excellent blog, BTW) that I’ve taken the liberty of posting in its entirety:

The THING!

An old Arab lived close to *New York* City for more than 40 years. One day he decided that he would love to plant potatoes and herbs in his garden, but he knew he was alone and too old and weak. His son was in college in Paris, so the old man sent him an e-mail explaining the problem:

"Beloved son, I am very sad, because I can’t plant potatoes in my garden. I am sure, if only you were here, that you would help me and dig up the garden for me. I love you, your father."

The following day, the old man received a response e-mail from his son:

"Beloved father, please don’t touch the garden. That is where I have hidden 'the *THING*.' I love you, too, Ahmed."

At 4pm the FBI and the Rangers visited the house of the old man and took the whole garden apart, searching every inch. But they couldn’t find anything. Disappointed, they left the house.

The next day, the old man received another e-mail from his son:

"Beloved father, I hope the garden is dug up by now and you can plant your potatoes, that is all I could do for you from here; Your loving son Ahmed.

We can only hope that the NSA and DHS have this much on the ball…

A Son's Farewell

Lt. Hank Harding died on March 27, 1961 when his Navy FJ-4 “Fury” crashed into the side of Otay Mountain. Bad weather and confusion at the Brown Field control tower take the blame.

Yesterday Marc Harding — Lt. Harding’s son — visited the wreckage that he only recently found out had been discovered in 1998. Read the whole thing.

From the San Diego Union-Tribune:

Harding knelt beside it, alone, for several minutes. Chunks of the plane were remarkably well preserved with the original paint, still bright, stenciled writing, clearly visible.

Eventually, the group found another large chunk of airplane wing. As they huddled around it, Harding took out of his backpack a small plaque. It had his father’s name and rank, his birthday and date of death.

"To our loving son, brother, husband, father,” it read. “We miss you so much. We will forever love you. We will never forget you."

He held it in place carefully while Dave Schurhammer, who also works with the Macha family on wreck sites, screwed it into place.

Later, after the long hike out, Harding reflected on the day’s events. He had said that placing the plaque did not necessarily close a circle for him, but after coming down from the mountain he said the effort was worth it.

"When my Dad died, he was doing something honorable,” he said. “And I wanted to honor that."

Otay Mountain is about 8 miles southwest of our home.

French Flag

What could I add to this?

Click on the little picture to see this clearly…

Random Thought

This morning’s news of the Al Qaida leaders killed in the Pakistan strike a few days ago got me to thinking about the internal reactions of the Al Qaida leadership. Such a successful demonstration of our intelligence gathering capability must be sobering. Not to mention our ability to drop a few bombs with pinpoint accuracy at one of the most remote sites in the world, on very short notice.

But on the flip side, imagine what it must be like for the Al Qaida leadership to watch CNN’s reporting of American politics. What do you suppose is going through Osama Bin Laden’s mind as he’s watching (say) Ted Kennedy bloviating? On one level, I’d imagine he’s quite amused at the silliness of his enemies. On another level — and this is disturbing — the moonbats in powerful positions must be very encouraging to him. Seen from Al Qaida-land, the moonbats are basically on Al Qaida’s side of the global war on terror, opposing just about any effective tactic that comes along. Al Gore’s recent speech on the NSA wiretapping is a terrific example of this. Here’s a formerly-secret program that’s been effective stopping Al Qaida attacks — and the moonbat Democrats have not only revealed the program’s existence (remember, moonbat political beliefs were at the core of the leaker’s motivation), but they’re now actively trying to stop the program.

Al Qaida has friends in high places.

How depressing.

Wolf or Hamster?

Ahhh … there’s nothing quite like the sting of a Mark Steyn piece in the morning…

From “Ham-handed Dems didn’t lay a glove on Alito":

Even smear tactics require a certain plausibility. When you damn someone as a big scary mega-troubling racist misogynist homophobe and he seems to any rational observer perfectly non-scary and non-troubling, eventually you make yourself ridiculous. The boy who cried “Wolf!” at least took the precaution of doing so when there was no alleged predator in view. If he’d stood there crying “Wolf!” while pointing at a hamster, he’d have been led away for counseling. That’s the stage the Senate Democrats are at.

Racist misogynist homophobe, indeed. That’s a hamster you’re pointing at, you damned stupid bloviating Democrats! You’re ridiculous!

I wonder if this performance will wake the apparently hibernating voters in Massachusetts, so they’ll vote ABT (anyone besides Ted) next time around? Or are they all bought and paid for?

A Wife's Tears

Watching Mrs. Alito quietly crying during Senator Graham’s apology for the behavior of Senators Ted Kennedy and Chuck Schumer was one of the most painful political events I’ve endured. Anybody with a even a vestigal human heart left can’t help but sympathize with her. And anyone with even a shred of common sense, listening to the two champion democratic bloviators thunder on, realizes that their ad hominem attacks are completely without substance and all about perceived political gain (mostly blatantly pandering to their base).

Meanwhile, in a display of illogic and over-the-top spinning that has even this curmudgeonly political watcher simply stunned, the lefties are positioning this sad incident as having been caused by Senator Graham’s apology. If this is (as I suspect) 100% spin that not a one of them actually believes, then it’s yet another watermark in a the past few year’s series of new records for political bottom-seeking. On the other hand, if the lefties actually believe this drivel they’re pushing, then I am truly beginning to believe that there are two species here: homo sapiens (rightus) and homo sapiens (leftus)…

Meanwhile, I’m left with a sense of sadness — not just for Sam Alito and his family, but also for the country. That our political “discourse” descends to the levels it did in yesterday’s hearings is to nobody’s credit. What Ted Kennedy and Chuck Schumer did was outrageous and reprehensible. But so too was the fact that the rest of their colleagues didn’t shout them down, didn’t immediately condemn them, didn’t shut down the hearings in protest, didn’t get up and walk out, escorting the Alitos with them. The near-silence (Graham excepted) of the other members of the committee speaks volumes about what has become acceptable in today’s politics.

A pox on them all, but on Ted Kennedy and Chuck Schumer first, please.

Don't Miss This

If you’re as tired as I am of the way that most Democrats are now opposing everything about the Iraq War, giving comfort to our enemies, and the incessant “Bush Lied!” chants — then you’re going to love this new TV ad (this is a fast link, not the usual snail’s pace thing from my blog) that the GOP has put together. Don’t miss it!

Tip o' the hat to John and Grayle for passing this along!

Troubling Words

Today’s Wall Street Journal has an op-ed piece by Sergei Ivanov, the deputy prime minister and minister of defense of the Russian Federation.

From “Russia Must Be Strong ($)” by Sergei Ivanov…

We have seen a steady trend pointing at a broader scope of use of military force recently, not least because more challenges to national security have emerged. Chief among them is interference in Russia’s internal affairs by foreign states — either directly or through structures that they support — and the attempts of some countries, coalitions and extremist terrorist organizations to develop or gain access to weapons of mass destruction. We must also be prepared for the possibility of a violent assault on the constitutional order of some post-Soviet states and the border instability that might ensue from that. Arms and drugs trafficking and other kinds of cross-border criminal activity must be closely watched.

None of these threats shows any sign of abating. Everyone knows that when it comes to war and conflict-prevention, Russia always goes first for political, diplomatic, economic and other nonmilitary means. But maintaining a robust military capability is clearly in our national interests.

The primary task for the armed forces is to prevent conventional and nuclear aggression against Russia. Hence our firm commitment to the principle of pre-emption. We define pre-emption not only as a capability to deliver strikes on terrorist groups but as other measures designed to prevent a threat from emerging long before there is a need to confront it. This is the guiding principle of the profound and comprehensive modernization of our armed forces. The actual level of combat readiness and effectiveness hinges on how successful this upgrade will be.

Most troubling to me: “…We must also be prepared for the possibility of a violent assault on the constitutional order of some post-Soviet states and the border instability that might ensue from that.” Taken at face value, this is not unreasonable — it is, in fact, probably something the U.S. would say in response to (for example) a serious threat to take down Mexico’s democracy (if that’s the right thing to call their government). The trouble is that it sounds remarkably like the doublespeak of the Soviet era, and I no longer have must trust left in Putin’s good intentions. So I mentally reword that statement to something like this: “…We don’t like the new governments in the Ukraine, or the Baltics, or the 'stans, and if we feel like it we’re just going to swoop in their with our military and put things back the way they belong.” Kind of like Stalin in the post-WWII era, who used similar justifications for overunning the eastern European states that lay helpless before the Red Army.

Kind of scary, really…

Anagrams

These very clever anagrams were sent to me by a friend…

DORMITORY — DIRTY ROOM

PRESBYTERIAN — BEST IN PRAYER

ASTRONOMER — MOON STARER

DESPERATION — A ROPE ENDS IT

THE EYES — THEY SEE

GEORGE BUSH — HE BUGS GORE

THE MORSE CODE — HERE COME DOTS

SLOT MACHINES — CASH LOST IN ME

ANIMOSITY — IS NO AMITY

ELECTION RESULTS — LIES - LET’S RECOUNT

SNOOZE ALARMS — ALAS! NO MORE Z 'S

A DECIMAL POINT — IM A DOT IN PLACE

THE EARTHQUAKES — THAT QUEER SHAKE

ELEVEN PLUS TWO — TWELVE PLUS ONE

MOTHER-IN-LAW — WOMAN HITLER

Just Weird!

I ran across this on BoingBoing, where they showed the picture of the girl at right. Not a real girl, BTW — just a little photoshopping. The weird part is how this affects one’s perceptual system. When I look at those pictures (especially the girl, for some reason), I feel a bit like I’m cross-eyed, and no matter how long I stare at it, I don’t feel like I’ve actually clearly seeing the picture. It’s a very strange feeling, hard to put into words.

Click on either thumbnail to get a larger image. And if you’re intrigued by these, there are many more here.

I speculate that the slightly alarming visual effects are caused by the special sensitivity of our perceptual system to human faces; that somehow these faces are “wrong” in a way that our perceptual system just cannot handle. Kind of like what happens when you get dizzy, because your perception (the combination of spatial and visual, in that case) is getting conflicting inputs.

Saturn

This photo looks like something right out of one of the pulp science fiction novels I devoured as a kid:

From the official Cassini website:

In this magnificent view, delicate haze layers high in the atmosphere encircle the oblate figure of Saturn. A special combination of spectral filters used for this image makes the high haze become visible. A methane-sensitive filter (centered at 889 nanometers) makes high altitude features stand out, while a polarizing filter makes small haze particles appear bright.

Methane in the atmosphere absorbs light with wavelengths around 889 nanometers as it travels deeper into the gas planet, thus bright areas in this image must represent reflective material at higher altitudes. Small particles or individual molecules scatter light quite effectively to a polarization of 90 degrees, which this polarizing filter is sensitive to. Thus, high altitude haze layers appear bright in this view.

The small blob of light at far right is Dione (1,126 kilometers, or 700 miles across).

The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Dec. 5, 2005, at a distance of approximately 2.9 million kilometers (1.8 million miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 100 degrees. The image scale is 169 kilometers (105 miles) per pixel.

Think about that last little bit. If you click on the small picture above right to get the larger view, each dot on that photo is an area 105 miles square on Saturn. That’s a big place! Saturn’s surface area is about 84 times that of our Earth’s. Much more information on Saturn at Wikipedia…

Cats and Dogs

With two dogs and seven cats living in our house, we have our share of inter-species animosity (though much less than you might think). Add to that the fact that we have more than a few computers, and we can easily imagine this happening…

Click on the picture for a larger view…

Solar Storage

As a homeowner in rural Southern California, you might think I’m nearly an ideal case for solar power. Throw a few solar panels on my roof, attach an inverter, and cut the umbilical cord to SDG&E (our local power company).

You would be wrong.

In fact, solar power is not yet practical (in the economic sense) as a total energy replacement. The problem is energy storage (more on this in a moment). It is possible today, under certain fairly restrictive circumstances, to economically justify solar energy as a supplement to the power grid. For instance, I might be able to justify a supplemental solar system designed to run my air conditioner. The analysis would include the capital expense (presumably financed) for purchasing and installing the solar system, compared with the estimated future cost of energy. The problem I have with the justifications for supplemental solar systems is that they only make sense when one assumes quite high future energy costs. You place a large bet, in effect, by buying (say) a $75K supplemental solar array — you pay (bet) $300 or $400 a month (on the loan) for 20 or 30 years, and hope that you save at least that much on energy costs. For me, that sounds like a very risky bet — the real payoff is just a few hot months per year, and then only if our energy costs remain at historically high levels. Of course, I might just be a chump who doesn’t realize energy prices are on some kind of inevitable upward spiral, but who knows?

The economic justification would be on much more solid ground if the solar system could completely replace the power grid. Earlier I cited energy storage as the culprit, and it’s a doozy of a problem. The person who comes up with an answer for this is going to make a lot of money! Here’s the problem: your house uses some power all day and all night. The pattern of power usage varies by individual, geography, lifestyle, etc. — but darned few of us would be interested in a home with zero power at night. But solar panels only generate useful amounts of power when there is bright sunlight shining on them. Most solar panels are mounted in a fixed orientation (e.g., on a rooftop) — and in that case, the panels generate much less power in the morning and evening than they do during the middle of the day. Fog, clouds, and rain all reduce the power generated. Less power is generated in the winter both because the days are shorter and because the sun is lower in the sky. The only way to provide power for your house all day and all night is to store the power (for example, in car batteries) during the day when the sun is bright, and use it from storage at other times. This means that your solar array must generate much more power (typically 5 to 10 times) than you actually need during the day to fill that storage — only in this manner will you have sufficient power to run your house day and night. And you really need more than one day’s worth of storage — you need enough to get through whatever worst-case assumption about weather you want to make. Here in Southern California I’d probably get away with four or five days worth of storage; in other places you might want more.

The least-expensive storage technology available today is a fancy version of the good old-fashioned car battery: a lead-acid cell designed for day-in, day-out deep discharge cycling. These batteries cost something like $0.15 to $0.20 per watt/hour of storage. Sound cheap? Suppose your home uses 8 kilowatts on average (that’s modest) when the sun is not at its peak. Further suppose that in the winter you have 16 off-peak hours per day, and you want 5 days worth of storage. That means you need 640 kilowatt/hours of storage — and that will set you back about $100,000, for something like 500 batteries weighing 10 tons. Yikes! You see what I mean about that being a problem?

And it gets worse. Your battery investment is not a one-time affair. The typical lifetime of such a battery is 3 to 5 years under ideal conditions — something few of us can practicably provide. Some batteries (more expensive) are maintenance free; others need regular checking and maintenance. All batteries have various ways to fail; some of these involve violent explosions, acid leaks, and other delightful scenarios. Oh, and also poisonous gas. Not to mention the disposal problem of a few tons of lead each year. So it’s not really a $100,000 expense — it’s more like $20,000 a year (forever!) and a not-insignificant amount of hassle and risk.

So I’m still connected to the grid. But I’d sure like someone to solve the energy storage problem!

I was reminded of this entire issue by a very interesting article about a solar energy generation system that uses the ocean as a storage mechanism. This idea generates power through the temperature difference between the sun-warmed surface water and the cold deep water. The idea is not new, though making it practical is. In my mind, the primary benefit of this approach is that it completely solves the energy storage problem. The bad news is that this won’t work in my back yard <smile>!

Churchill at War

I took the liberty of reproducing in entirety this very short op-ed piece in today’s WSJ:

No one knows how Winston Churchill would have fought the war on terror or what he might have thought of the U.S. practice of holding members of al Qaeda at Guantanamo or secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe. But in newly declassified records of the British Bulldog’s War Cabinet meetings, Churchill offers some posthumous insights on wartime leadership.

In 1942, the Cabinet discussed the options were Hitler to fall into British hands. “All sorts of complications ensue as soon as you admit a fair trial,” Churchill said, according to notes taken by the deputy cabinet secretary Sir Norman Brook. To avoid such a “farce,” which he thought would distract from the war effort, Churchill favored swifter means of dealing with Hitler. “This man is the mainspring of evil. Instrument — electric chair, for gangsters."

Churchill called other Nazi leaders “outlaws” and argued that those who fell into British hands should be executed rather than put on trial. (There is no record of his views on water-boarding.)

At another Cabinet meeting, he advocated shooting German POWs if the Nazis were to kill British prisoners (the U.K., for the record, never did). After the Germans massacred the people of Lidice, Czechoslovakia, Churchill proposed, perhaps again half seriously, “wiping out German villages by air attack on a three-for-one basis.” The Cabinet overruled him.

Churchill might wonder at today’s attitudes toward fighting terrorists, about American “torture” of prisoners, and about the U.S. President who’s often derided in London as a “cowboy.” The British Prime Minister’s clarity about the Nazi threat in World War II got his nation and the world successfully through that conflict.

The more I learn about Winston Churchill, the more I admire his wartime leadership. I’m largely at least satisfied with President Bush’s leadership in the war on terror, and occasionally inspired. But I’d feel much safer — and more confident of the eventual outcome — if that war was being led by someone with the clarity and … ruthlessness … of Winston Churchill…

Economic Freedom

Estonia, that’s who.

In the 2006 Index of Economic Freedom (click on the thumbnail at right to read the whole chart), Estonia places 7th in the world — and the United States is in a three-way tie for 9th. Estonia’s Baltic neighbors Latvia and Lithuania come in at 39th and 23rd, respectively. Clearly little Estonia is doing something right, as I’ve been personally observing for more than ten years now…

In this morning’s Wall Street Journal, Mary Anastasia O’Grady (the co-editor of the 2006 Index) has an op-ed piece ($) specifically lauding Estonia’s economic miracle. Some highlights:

From “Wish They Could All Be Like Estonia ($)":

With the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall the world witnessed a backlash against the overintrusive state. A rallying cry in favor of economic liberalization went up around much of the globe. Some governments — notably in Eastern Europe — used the momentum to push deep, structural reform. Others — notably in Latin America — bungled the opportunity.

Is there any way to explain why it is that some countries have been able to restructure their economies so radically while others have been left in the clutches of special interests?

...

Chile has been in various stages of economic reform since the 1973 coup that ousted Salvador Allende, who was threatening to take the country over the communist cliff. The return to democracy in 1989 brought about a series of left-of-center governments that, while boasting that they had not turned back the economic liberalism of the Pinochet dictatorship, slowed the pace of reform dramatically. The current socialist presidency of Ricardo Lagos even reversed liberalization in labor markets.

Meanwhile in Estonia, as former Prime Minister Mart Laar likes to explain, the post-Soviet period has been marked by rapid, deep reform. Communism was so reviled that policy makers, almost instinctively, chose its direct opposite and promptly enshrined the preference in law.

The results may explain why political support for economic liberalism continues in Estonia, while in Chile free markets are under assault even by center-right politicians. The difference is the rate of change of progress for citizens. In 2004, with reforms kicking in, Estonia’s per capita GDP was almost $7,500, nearly double what it was in 2001 — $3,951, when the country ranked 14th in the Index of Economic Freedom. In Chile, after 30 years of reform, per capita GDP remains below $5,900, edging up only slightly from $4,784 in 2001, when Chile ranked 13th.

The tale of two small nations tells a wider global story. Is it any wonder for example that Brazilians, who after almost two decades of being told they are converting to a market economy, widely reject the notion? Improvements have occurred, for instance in monetary stability, but the country is still ranked “mostly unfree,” with a per capita GDP of $3,500. Maybe Mr. Laar could pay them a visit.

Mart Laar has been getting a lot of good press in the past few months, world-wide. As has Estonia itself. And with good reason — each time I visit, I am impressed afresh with the vibrance of its rollicking economy. And as well with what I read of the process by which the country’s leaders make economic decisions, and by the decisions themselves. The changes in Estonia in just the 10+ years I’ve been visiting it are simply amazing — and contrasts with its neighbors (especially Russia) are especially astonishing.

It’s good to see their accomplishments being recognized…

Morning After

Yesterday morning Debi and I, along with Lea and Mo’i (our two beautiful field spaniels), took our usual walk a mile or so up the hill south of our home. It was special yesterday because this was the “morning after” the first big rain of the season.

Visually, everything was clean and bright and green. Olfactorally (??), the fresh and spicy desert smells were back — and we know from experience that they’ll keep getting better and better from now until early summer.

There were some more changes as well, some a little subtle (such as the more saturated colors of the damp rocks). My favorite: the many expanses of solid rock on the hillsides covered with a thin film of water, flashing and glinting in the morning light. These wet rocks are very common in this area. They’re caused by a seep or a spring that flows onto a sloped area of smooth rock — and the granite that our hills has many such rocks. Some of them are quite large (as much as a few acres), and when one of them has a sheet of water on it, the visual effect can be spectacular. Typically these rocks are curved and have small imperfections in them, which means that the reflective sheet of water is not flat — it’s more like a jumbled pile of broken mirror pieces in its visual effects. It sparkles, in other words. And the effects change as you move, as the wind blows, and as the sun moves through the sky…

Force Multipliers

Read this on Michelle Malkin’s site this morning — it was so good I just had to share it…

Russ Vaughn is a poet and Vietnam vet.

Force Multipliers by Russ Vaughn

Wikipedia: force multiplier-a military term referring to a factor that dramatically increases (hence multiplies) the combat-effectiveness of a given military force.

-

In Iraq an IED explodes,

An American soldier dies,

But that blast will grow as the media blow

It up before our eyes.

And trumpet to the watching world,

These fifth column falsifiers,

Like sheep they bleat we face defeat,

Our foe’s force multipliers.

-

Osama and his minions know,

In combat they can’t beat us;

So they hope and pray will come a day,

Our own media will defeat us.

Ignoring all the good we’ve done,

Liberals focus on the gore,

On losses mounting and body counting,

To prove we’ve lost this war.

-

They disgraced us once in Vietnam,

So now these leftists feel,

That again they’ll win with media spin,

And make America kneel.

But defeatists aren’t the only ones,

Learned lessons from the past;

Back then we swore we’d lose no more,

This time we’re standing fast.

-

The Internet’s exposed them,

As elitist media liars;

They stand unclothed and widely loathed,

Our foe’s force multipliers.

Some day when all our troops return,

With Iraq on freedom’s path,

The liberal elite who sought defeat,

May face some Righteous wrath.

-

Russ Vaughn

2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment

101st Airborne Division

Vietnam 65-66

Rain!

According to my weather instruments (click on the picture at right for a full-sized view), we’ve received just over an inch of rain in the past 24 hours — and close to an inch and a half in the past 48 hours. To those of you in the wetter parts of the (that would be just about anywhere else!), that may not sound like much. But for the desert rats like us, this is manna from heaven…

Within an hour of the rain starting, the formerly blackened moss on the rocks had turned bright green. Even though I’ve witnessed this dozens of times, it still amazes me how the first real shower of the rainy season transforms the chaparral country. The accumulated dust of months, caked and burned into the leaves and onto the bright red trunks of the manzanitas, is all washed away. The gusty winds that accompanied the rains blew most of the dead leaves off. And somehow many of the desert plants store away their chlorophyll during the dry season, and take it back out again after a good rain — producing exhuberant greens where before there was black or gray. The visual transformation is magical enough, but there’s more — with the rains, the wonderful and intense smells of the desert will be back in our mornings. Within a few days, it’s easy to predict, we’ll start smelling it again on our morning walks…

But best of all, of course: this inch of rain means the chaparral around us has at least a few more months of safety from fire.

Happy New Year!

I don’t know about you, but ever since 2000 I’ve felt a bit like I’m living in a science fiction novel. When I was a kid, the year 2000 felt impossibly far away — so far that the fantastical science fiction stories set in those post-2000 years, with their exotic technologies, didn’t seem so very far-fetched…

Now we’re actually living in those times. The prognostications of those science fiction authors weren’t, I’m afraid, any more accurate than anyone else’s. But certainly the changes have been great in magnitude, and mostly interesting and enjoyable and making life generally better. I’d much rather be living in 2006 than in 1956. I can almost hear the liberal whining as I write that, that firm belief that things have gone solidly downhill in America and the world (especially since Reagan). But they’re all delusional; they just dismiss somehow the vastly increased standard of living (and not just in the U.S., but worldwide), the tremendous advance of medicine (with the corresponding increase in life expectancy), and the life-enriching technological developments that we use every single day (imagine — a car that goes for tens of thousands of miles between repairs, or phones that you put in your pocket and let you talk to your friends and loved ones wherever you might be!). Yup, they just ignore all that and concentrate on persuading themselves that they are worse off this year than they were in any year of their life…

Screw 'em.

I’ve had a very nice morning on this first day of 2006. All simple, little things:

— Maka Le’a, our new little kitten, played happily on my chest as I sat reclined. His goal was to eat my thumb, then my nose, and finally my ears. He failed, but punched many tiny holes with those needle-like kitten teeth and claws. Kittens are outrageously cute, but they are unexpectedly effective fighting machines…

— Our Lawson Valley sunrise was gorgeous, full of saturated reds and blues. I went outside to watch it unfold, and as I watched a Southwestern Airlines 737 passed about 2500 feet overhead to my west (on approach to San Diego). The sky in that quarter was still dark grey, but the orange-colored jet was brightly lit by the rising sun. It was like a little moving, sparkling jewel in the sky, with the same color scheme as the sunrise on the other side of the sky.

— We had rain last night, a great way to usher in the new year in this fire-prone area. It wasn’t a whole lot (0.2"), but it was enough to wet down all the fuel in the chaparral. And that means a greatly reduced fire danger for us. Better yet, the Weather Service is predicting a sizable storm will hit tonight and tomorrow. Oh, I hope they’re right — an inch or two of rain right now would turn our hills green and practically eliminate any fire danger until next summer…

— Debbie and I are healthy (if you don’t count the holiday overeating!), as are our animals. Debbie’s off to an agility competition, where one of our dogs (Mo’i) just earned his “Excellent B” rating on jumpers and weaves. She’s hoping he will earn that same rating on the standard course today, and also hoping that Le’a will qualify on a run or two today.

— We hear from our breeder (Sheila Miller, of Battle Mountain, Nevada) that she believes the breeding of Picaboo “took", and that means puppies around Valentine’s day — and one of that litter will be our third Field Spaniel, if all goes well. Big, anticipatory smiles in Lawson Valley.

Oh, there’s much more, too. It’s good to be in 2006.

When you hear those whiny liberals complaining about how awful everything is … stuff something in their mouth, will ya?