Product review of the year...

Product review of the year...  Whatever you do, do not click on the link that follows while you are standing up, drinking or eating something.  Fair warning: if the kiddies read this, you may have some explaining to do.  Here's the product review on Amazon's UK site.  Other reviews of the same product.

Photos from the Shackleton 1914-1917 expedition found...

Photos from the Shackleton 1914-1917 expedition found...  Conservators found these 22 negatives frozen together in a block of ice, in a box found in a hut on Cape Evans in Antarctica.  The negatives were separated, cleaned up, and printed; one example is at right.  If you're not familiar with the Shackleton expeditions, it's one of the great stories of human exploration – well worth reading about.  There are several excellent books about Shackleton's expeditions, and lots of material on the web as well...

California leads the way!

California leads the way!  In losing the competition for drone testing areas.  We lost out to Texas, Nevada, Alaska, New York, North Dakota, and Virginia.  I'm sure that Governor Rick Perry is doing the happy dance, and Governor Moonbeam is confused again (for the 4,506,772nd time this week)...

Megan on ObamaCare...

Megan on ObamaCare...  Signs that ObamaCare is not dead yet, and change is ObamaCare's only certainty...

The big, giant health care reform roundup...

The big, giant health care reform roundup...  Pejman Yousefzdeh at Ricochet, chock full of linky goodness...

Moral for engineers: always look for the simple answer...

Moral for engineers: always look for the simple answer...  Via reader Sean H.  For some reason I haven't been able to pin down, software engineers seem to be particularly susceptible to the siren's call of overly complex solutions for problems that actually have a simple solution.  Here's a parable that nicely illustrates this engineering challenge, and it's in a form that anyone can understand:

A toothpaste factory had a problem: Due to the way the production line was set up, sometimes empty boxes were shipped without the tube inside. People with experience in designing production lines will tell you how difficult it is to have everything happen with timings so precise that every single unit coming off of it is perfect 100% of the time. Small variations in the environment (which can't be controlled in a cost-effective fashion) mean quality assurance checks must be smartly distributed across the production line so that customers all the way down to the supermarket won’t get frustrated and purchase another product instead.

Understanding how important that was to his bottom line, the CEO of the toothpaste factory gathered the top people in the company together. Since their own engineering department was already stretched too thin, they decided to hire an external engineering company to solve their empty boxes problem.

The project followed the usual process: budget and project sponsor allocated, requests for proposal sent out, third-parties were selected, and six months (and $8 million) later a fantastic solution was delivered — on time, on budget, high quality and everyone in the project had a great time. The problem was solved by using high-tech precision scales that would sound a bell and flash lights whenever a toothpaste box came off the production line weighing less than it should have. The line would stop, and someone had to walk over and yank the defective box off the line, then press another button to re-start the line.

A short time later, the CEO decided to have a look at the ROI (return on investment) of the project: amazing results! No empty boxes ever shipped out of the factory after the scales were put in place. There were very few customer complaints, and they were gaining market share. “That was some money well spent!” he said, before looking closely at the other statistics in the report.

The number of defects picked up by the scales was zero after three weeks of production use. How could that be? It should have been picking up at least a dozen a day, so maybe there was something wrong with the report. He sent an email asking why, and after some investigation, the engineers indicated the statistics were indeed correct. The scales were NOT picking up any defects, because all boxes that got to that point in the conveyor belt were good.

Perplexed, the CEO went down to the factory and walked up to the part of the line where the precision scales were installed. A few feet before the scale, a $20 desk fan was blowing any empty boxes off the belt and into a bin. Puzzled, the CEO turned to one of the workers who said, “Oh, that … one of the guys put it there because he was tired of walking over every time the bell rang!”

The moral is obvious: simple, obvious solutions are not always possible – but when they are, they are better.

A personal aside: I've seen the fan-blowing-empty-boxes-off-the-line solution in actual use, on a production line for paper clips.  There was a machine that took small boxes of paper clips and stuffed a dozen of them into a larger box.  That machine sometimes spit out an empty box (if it couldn't get 12 little boxes in time), and a nozzle squirting compressed air would blow those empties off the conveyor carrying the “full” boxes out of the machine.  It worked great!

Shelf cloud...

Shelf cloud...  Twisted Sifter...

Glitter nail polish – new security tool...

Glitter nail polish – new security tool...  This is wickedly clever – a cheap, easy, and effective way to tell if something has been tampered with.  For example, suppose you're traveling to China, Iran, or some other destination where you're afraid someone might open up your laptop and install a keylogger or similar device that will compromise the security of your laptop.  Actually preventing that may be impossible – but at least if you knew that your laptop had been opened, you'd know it wasn't safe to use it any more.

Enter the glitter nail polish.  Put a dot of nail polish over all the screws in your laptop's case.  Then (key part!) take a photo of those dots with your cell phone, and keep the cell phone with you at all times.  Now if you have to leave your laptop unguarded, you can do a “blink test” to compare the photos of the nail polish blobs with what you see now.  The glitter in the nail polish forms an effectively random pattern that would be practically impossible to copy precisely – and you've recorded it on your cell phone.  Even if the intruder managed to find the same nail polish you used, the pattern of the glitter would be different – and your brain's excellent pattern matching software would instantly detect the difference in the blink test.

Awesome, via Wired...

Oh, the irony!

Oh, the irony!  A small ship packed full of warmist climate scientists, credulous greens, and eco-tourists heads for Antarctica to “study” the impacts of global warming.  They get stuck in the expanding ice area (ice coverage is unusually high this year, and approaching all-time records).  Oops!

But it gets better.  An ice breaker goes to rescue them, but can't get through – and gives up.  A second ice breaker tries to rescue them, and it also can't get through, and gives up.  A third ice breaker does the same thing.  Now a (very expensive) helicopter rescue is being planned, and the fate of the ship is uncertain.

The lamestream media is mostly ignoring this story.  It just doesn't fit the narrative...

Full details at Jo Nova's place.  Rob Long is quite amused at Ricochet...

A Left-Wing America Stands Alone...

A Left-Wing America Stands Alone...  Daniel Greenfield, writing at Sultan Knish, with another ponder-worthy essay.  Key point:

The rule of the radical left in the United States is very much an outlier in the rest of the First World where conservative and center-right parties predominate. The conventional First World response to the economic crisis has been to cut spending and reform welfare, while in the United States has spent more money than ever before and expanded welfare.

Much of Europe now favors less federalism and less immigration. The United States has expanded its federal government dramatically and both Democratic and Republican leaders support amnesty for illegal aliens at a time when immigration is politically toxic everywhere else.

The only major European countries with a sizable population and serious economic problems ruled by the left are France and Italy and both are approaching economic collapse. France’s ruling left has become wildly unpopular and Italy is still imploding in slow motion. While the American left insists that historical inevitability is on its side, it has lost nearly everywhere else. America stands alone under the rule of the left, in uncontrolled spending, uncontrolled immigration and the iron hand of the welfare state.

Read the whole thing...

World's largest reflection pool...

World's largest reflection pool...  Twisted Sifter...

Let this one sink in for a moment...

Let this one sink in for a moment...  A commenter responding to this question:

What can gun owners learn from non-gun owners?

One of the answers:

I was never against having guns for shooting ranges, I am against them as means of self-defense (or freedom).

Sort of takes your breath away, doesn't it?

Tip of the hat to Kevin Baker at The Smallest Minority, who used the second quote as his Quote of the Day...

ObamaCare: at least 3 million fewer people are covered...

ObamaCare: at least 3 million fewer people are covered...  That, of course, is because more people had their healthcare policies canceled because of ObamaCare than signed up for new policies under ObamaCare.

Way to go, bozos...

Dave Barry's year in review is out...

Dave Barry's year in review is out...  As usual, you don't want to miss it.  San Diego made it this year:

In politics, San Diego Mayor Bob “Bob” Filner resigns as a result of allegations that he is a compulsive serial horn dog who groped pretty much the entire female population of Southern California. He immediately becomes a leading contender in the New York City mayoral race.

I do miss Filthy Filner...

Pater: “The Treatment”...

Pater: “The Treatment”...  At right, the top of Copper Gulch with Red Mountain in the background, where my dad and I spent hours wandering through meadows full of wildflowers on July 17th, 2005.

The Treatment...

Anyone who visited our home in the '50s or '60s (and possibly later) was potentially a target of The Treatment.  Generally speaking (though there were some exceptions), any given individual would have The Treatment administered once, and then they were exempt from further administrations – and could even participate in administering The Treatment to someone else.

What was The Treatment?  There was no precise definition, but generally speaking it included (a) ice cubes down the pant legs while being held upside down, and (b) unconstrained tickling while being held to the floor by a horde of torturers.  My dad was the boss of The Treatment administration.

I never fully understood the rules that determined exactly who would be subjected to The Treatment, but it certainly included any of my friends that I might invite over for a visit, so kids were definitely eligible.  Some adults were also eligible.

One of my high school friends, Nom Loy, was given The Treatment on his second visit to our home.  More than 20 years later, he talked with me of his disbelief and shock when my whole family worked together to capture him, restrain him, throw him on the floor, pick him up by the legs, and then pour a bowl full of ice cubes down his pants legs.  This was so far outside his experience of family behavior that he simply couldn't process it.  He could tell by our laughter that we weren't actually threatening him, yet our behavior suggested an attack.  My mom pouring the ice cubes down his pants legs was the ultimate shock for him, the utter and absolute loss of all dignity – past, present, and future.  All those years later, Nom still remembered his experience with The Treatment as traumatic – but he also recognized that afterward he was much more comfortable around us, much less careful and reserved. 

While I was growing up, I never thought of our tradition of The Treatment as particularly unusual.  The first time I can remember recognizing it as unusual family behavior was in Navy boot camp, in Orlando, Florida.  A few of my fellow recruits were horsing around, and had wrestled their target to the floor.  I suggested ice cubes down the pants legs to them, and that started a long discussion wherein I described The Treatment and they marveled that my family wasn't locked up in the loony bin.  But they did get the ice cubes :)

I still have never met another person whose family had some tradition resembling The Treatment...

Project Echo...

Project Echo...  I ran across a reference to this early space age project in my reading this morning, and that sent me off to read about it.  Two Echo satellites made it to orbit: Echo 1 (5/13/1960 - 5/24/1960) and Echo 2 (1/25/1964 - 6/7/1969). 

These satellites were enormous by today's standards: Echo 1 was 100 feet in diameter, and Echo 2 was 135 feet in diameter.  Both were metalized Mylar balloons, and both were intended to be used as passive communications satellites – simple reflectors in space.  Today's communications satellites are all either simple repeaters (devices with a radio receiver tied directly to a radio transmitter that simply retransmits an amplified version of whatever it “hears”) or more sophisticated routers (all-digital repeaters that not only amplify a signal, but can also send it through a particular antenna to the right part of the Earth's surface).

I have two memories of the Echo project.  The first one was from shortly after Echo 1's launch in 1960, when I was just 8 years old.  Because Echo 1 was so large, and had a mirror finish (reflective in visible light, not just radio frequencies), it was extremely bright for a satellite.  That made it very easy to spot with the naked eye, and I remember standing outside at dusk with my Uncle Donald, in a soy bean field near his apple orchard, watching it transition overhead from horizon to horizon.   It's funny how these old memories work – I remember it being my uncle that I was with, but I have no idea why.  My Uncle Donald was not generally interested in space; he was into archaeology, fungi, and history...

The second memory is from several years later, when I was old enough to drive, still living in New Jersey, and was starting to design and build my own radio receivers and transmitters – most likely, in the late '60s.  The first radio signals bounced off the Echo 1 satellite were transmitted from California and received in New Jersey.  The receiver was a gigantic horn antenna (the Holmdel Horn Antenna), especially built at Bell Labs for the purpose. Later, in 1965, radio astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson used this same antenna to discover the cosmic microwave background radiation, which completely revolutionized cosmology.

View Larger Map

This antenna was just 30 miles or so from the farm I grew up on (see map at left), and I drove up there one day to see if I could get a peek at it.  At the time it was still privately owned by Bell Labs, and there was a fence keeping the public away – but one of the employees there saw me gawking through the fence and offered up a tour.  For me the exciting part was in the little hut that you can see to the left of the antenna in the photo, with one window in it.  The microwave receiver electronics were located in that shack, all custom-built stuff using the absolute latest and greatest.  That employee turned out to be a technician who kept the gear tuned up (the microwave equipment of the day needed nearly constant attention to stay in tune), and very knowledgeable about the equipment.  The main takeaway for me was a keenly whetted interest in bleeding-edge radio technology.  When I enlisted in the U.S. Navy not long afterwards, that sort of technology is what I desperately wanted to learn about.  Instead, they sent me off to learn about those boring old computers :)

Double transportation cipher solved?

Double transportation cipher solved?  That's the claim of this newspaper article, though no details are supplied...

Here we go!

Here we go!  The start of every new year means new taxes, but 2014 has a bumper crop of them.  One that's going to affect a lot of people: a new tax on healthcare policies (some cost reduction from ObamaCare, eh?) that will mainly affect small businesses, the self-employed, and retirees not on Medicare.  Hey – that's me!  Dang it!!

What the hell is happening to my country?

What the hell is happening to my country?  Church ordered to take down “Support our troops” sign...

Punishment...

Punishment...  I have been undecided about whether to inflict these upon my readers, as my mother inflicted them on me.  I'm mad at the world today, though, so I'm turning them loose.  Warning: once read, these cannot be unpunned...

I tried to catch some fog. I mist.

When chemists die, they barium.

Jokes about German sausage are the wurst.

A soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray isnow a seasoned veteran.

I know a guy who's addicted to brake fluid. He says he can stop any time.

How does Moses make his tea? Hebrews it.

I stayed up all night to see where the sun went. Then it dawned on me.

This girl said she recognized me from the vegetarian club, but I'd never met herbivore.

I'm reading a book about anti-gravity. I can't put it down.

I did a theatrical performance about puns. It was a play on words .

They told me I had type A blood, but it was a type-O.

This dyslexic man walks into a bra .

PMS jokes aren't funny, period.

I didn't like my beard at first. Then it grew on me.

A cross-eyed teacher lost her job because she couldn't control her pupils?

When you get a bladder infection, urine trouble.

What does a clock do when it's hungry? It goes back four seconds..

I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me!

Broken pencils are pointless.

What do you call a dinosaur with an extensive vocabulary? A thesaurus.

England has no kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool .

I used to be a banker, but then I lost interest.

I dropped out of communism class because of lousy Marx.

All the toilets in London police stations have been stolen.  Police say they have nothing to go on.

I took the job at a bakery because I kneaded dough.

Velcro - what a rip off!

Cartoonist found dead in home. Details are sketchy.

My dad loved awful puns.  He'd have been smiling for hours after reading these...

Crowdsourcing the end of free speech...

Crowdsourcing the end of free speech...  An excellent post, chock full of ponder-worthy ideas, by Daniel Greenfield at Sultan Knish...

The old cowboy gets a shave...

The old cowboy gets a shave...  Via my mom:

An old cowboy walks into a barbershop in Dime Box for a shave and a haircut. He tells the barber he can't get all his whiskers off because his cheeks are wrinkled from age.

The barber gets a little wooden ball from a cup on the shelf and tells the old cowboy to put it inside his cheek to spread out the skin. When he's finished, the old cowboy tells the barber that was the cleanest shave he'd had in years, but he wanted to know what would have happened if he had accidentally swallowed that little ball.

The barber replied, just bring it back in a couple of days like everyone else does...

Catalog of NSA hacking tools...  Thank you, Snowdon...

It doesn't matter who you are...

It doesn't matter who you are...  Via my mom...

Benjamin Franklin, leaker...

Benjamin Franklin, leaker...  Really!

Yes.

Yes.

Geek: the CDC 6600 architecture, documented...

Geek: the CDC 6600 architecture, documented...  This is a supercomputer from the late '60s, considerably more modern than the first computers I worked on (Univac 1206s), which were designed in the late '50s and early '60s.  It's interesting for a computer hardware buff to see the evolution of these machines over the 8 to 10 years between them.  The Univac 1206s had 100 kHz clock speeds and zero CPU concurrency, and the CDC 6600 had 10 times faster clocks, up to 10 concurrent CPU operations, and a tiny (27 word!) semi-conductor instruction cache – all of which combined to boost the power of the CDC 6600 to over 100 times that of the Univac 1206...

A feminist defense of masculine virtues...

A feminist defense of masculine virtues...  Camille Paglia, in The Wall Street Journal.  The more I read from her, the more I like her.  In this piece, she had me from the first line:

What you're seeing is how a civilization commits suicide.

Living the California nanny-state life...

Living the California nanny-state life...  Andy Kessler, writing in The Wall Street Journal, vividly outlines some of the many reasons why Debbie and I are escaping from California...

Shipwrecked on an island inhabited by Stone Age people...

Shipwrecked on an island inhabited by Stone Age people...  It actually happened!  In 1981, the Primrose grounded on the reef surrounding North Sentinel Island in the Indian Ocean (the island in the photo at right).  The story is fascinating, and sounds so unlikely for such a populous part of the world.  More details here and here.

View Larger Map

With a bit of searching on Google Maps, I was able to find the wreck of the Primrose, just off the northwestern-most prominence on the island.  Expand the map at left and zoom out to see exactly where it is..

Best and worst quotes of 2013...

Best and worst quotes of 2013...  An excellent pair of lists, with many of my personal favorites on both lists...

Pater: the wild cucumber...

Pater: the wild cucumber...  The photo at right is from our July, 2005 trip to the San Juan Mountains of Colorado.  Debbie, my dad, and I were there for several days with two of our field spaniels: Lea (at left) and Mo'i (at right).  Both of them are still with us.  My dad particularly enjoyed Mo'i's antics as he tried so hard to catch one of the pikas that live in rock piles and talus slopes.  Only once did Mo'i actually get one in his mouth – only to lose it as it wriggled free.  In this photo, Lea and Mo'i are splashing across a wet area, white marsh marigolds all around them, and behind them a patch of one of my dad's favorite flowers: Parry's Primrose.

The wild cucumber...

On one of my dad's visits with us, not long after we moved out to Lawson Valley, he and I took a couple of our dogs on a walk up a little-traveled dirt road that leads uphill for a mile or so from our house.  It was the first time he and I had ever walked together in the southern California chaparral, and at that point most of the plants around me were new to me.  I knew the manzanitas and the ceanothus, but most of the rest I did not.

My dad's main body of botanical knowledge was not of this area, but he certainly knew a lot more of the plants than I did.  He recognized the lemonade berry as a sumac, he knew the toyon, and he recognized the many buckwheat species we have here.  Some of our plants, such as chamise, were completely new to him; others, like our evergreen oaks, he knew but not well.  As usual, my dad kept spotting more and more plants that I'd never even noticed before.  And as always, I learned a lot from him in a very short time.

As we came around one bend, there was a ceanothus right next to the road.  It was covered thickly with a vine in bloom (like the photo at right, which is not mine).  My dad said “What have we got here?”  I told him that the locals called it a wild cucumber, which he dismissed as utter nonsense.  That was most definitely not a cucumber!

I have a clear memory of my dad standing next to that ceanothus, carefully studying the vine.  Then he spied something on the ground – the remains of last year's seed pod from the same vine, the dried up spiky thing as at left (also not my photo).  “Ah ha!” said he, “This is a Marah, a manroot!”  To which I said something brilliant like “Huh?  What are you talking about?”

If you knew my dad, then you know what came next: a long and detailed lecture on the natural history of the Marah species, absolutely none of which I had previously known.  I don't know if he had ever actually seen one before.  They certainly didn't grow in the wild on the east coast, nor are they used in horticulture, so it's not the sort of plant you'd expect my dad to know about.  I suspect something about it caught his fancy, and he'd read up on the Marah species at some point.  It may have been the plant's root that interested him, because he knew a lot about it.

My dad didn't know the particular species he was looking at, but I've since identified it as Marah fabaceus.  He did, however, know all about the gigantic roots of these plants – and the evolutionary advantage that root conferred on it.  My dad said that the roots could grow to be “as large as a man”, both in height and weight.  The photo of one such root is at right (not mine, again).  My subsequent reading backs that up: the largest Marah fabaceus root ever dug up weighed just over 110 kg (242 lbs) and was almost 3 m (9 ft) tall.  That's a lot of root!  And it's a lot of food and water storage for the plant.  The water storage is particularly important in a desert plant, and it allows the Marah family to thrive where you might not expect a perennial vine to do well.  They are very common here; on our 10 acres we have hundreds of them.  Water storage in the roots is a common trait amongst desert flora, but somehow I didn't expect to find that in a perennial vine.

My dad also said that the local native Americans made use of the plant, and that it had something to do with fishing.  He was fuzzy on the details.  It was many years later that I found a reference to the Kumeyaay tribe (the tribe our local Cuyamaca Mountains were named after) using Marah fabaceus to catch fish.  On researching this post, I discovered that bit of natural history is now also in the Wikipedia article.  My dad loved to read natural history books, especially older ones; I suspect he came across this little factoid in one of those.

A few years after that walk with my dad, I was using a small backhoe to dig a trench in our yard to lay some pipe in.  In the side of my trench I spotted a large root – and I recalled seeing a Marah fabaceus there the year before.  The one I dug out was perhaps 3 ft high, and weighed about 60 or 70 lbs. – not a giant (and therefore not particularly old), but still pretty respectable for a plant whose above-ground parts can't weigh more than 8 or 10 lbs.

This morning, while walking our dogs, I spotted a Marah fabaceus vine wending its way up the trunk of one of our pines.  The highest stalks of the vine were well over my head, perhaps 10 ft up.  Seeing that vine instantly brought back that memory of my dad, lecturing me on the natural history of Marah as we walked slowly up that road by our house.  Those sorts of triggered memories are happening to me a lot.  Sometimes, as this morning, they're emotionally intense – a trigger for more grieving.  This morning, two of our dogs put an abrupt end to that, and in a way that I know would have greatly amused my dad: Miki (our youngest male field spaniel) lifted his leg to pee – and peed all over Race's tail (Race is our hyperactive border collie).  My dad loved the couthlessness of dogs, and I laughed out loud thinking of how he'd enjoy that little scene.  I had to go wash Race off with a garden hose, but I came in from our walk with a smile instead of a heavy heart...

Mount St. Helens photos found, 33 years later...

Mount St. Helens photos found, 33 years later...  Reid Blackburn was one of the unfortunate people killed when Mount St. Helens surprised everybody by exploding on May 18, 1980.  A few weeks before the explosion, he was taking photos from an airplane flying around the mountain.  That roll of film (yes, kiddies, we could take photos before there were digital cameras!) was set aside, undeveloped, and forgotten after his death.  Until recently, when the film was discovered in an old storage box and finally developed.  The entire set of photos doesn't seem to be online yet, but there's one example at right, and some more at the link...

A fine Christmas rant...

A fine Christmas rant...  Clark Bianco, writing at Popehat, has a rant that needs to be savored slowly, so as to extract every last morsel of rantly goodness.  His conclusion will give you the general idea, but you really need to read the whole thing to generate that wholesome after-rant glow:

It is corrupt, corrupt, corrupt. From Ted Kennedy who killed a woman and yet is toasted as a "lion of liberalism", to George Bush who did his share of party drugs (and my share, and your share, and your share…) while young yet let other youngsters rot in jail for the exact same excesses instead of waving his royal wand of pardoning, to thousand of well-paid NSA employees who put the Stasi to shame in their ruthless destruction of our rights, to the Silicon Valley CEOs who buy vacation houses with the money they make forging and selling chains to Fort Meade, to every single bastard at RSA who had a hand in taking the thirty pieces of silver, to the three star generals who routinely screw subordinates and get away with it (even as sergeants are given dishonorable discharges for the same thing), to the MIT cops and Massachusetts prosecutor who drove Aaron Swartz to suicide, to every drug court judge who sends 22 year olds to jail for pot…while high on Quaalude and vodka because she's got some fucking personal tragedy and no one understands her pain, to every cop who's anally raped a citizen under color of law, to every other cop who's intentionally triggered a "drug" dog because the guy looked guilty, to every politician who goes on moral crusades while barebacking prostitutes and money laundering the payments, to every teacher who retired at age 60 on 80% salary, to every cop who has 50 state concealed carry even while the serfs are disarmed, to every politician, judge, or editorial-writer who has ever used the phrase "first amendment zone" non-ironically: this is how the system is designed to work.

The system is not fixable because it is not broken. It is working, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, to give the insiders their royal prerogatives, and to shove the regulations, the laws, and the debt up the asses of everyone else.

Burn it to the ground.

Burn it to the ground.

Burn it to the ground.

Merry Christmas.

From the San Diego Union-Tribune...

From the San Diego Union-Tribune...   This would apply equally to those who, like us, are seeking escape from the Nanny State of the West.  We're taking I-15.  How about you?

First, read the cartoon...

First, read the cartoon...  As always, click on the thumbnail to embiggen.  Now think about this: it was drawn almost 20 years ago.

We pretend to teach, they pretend to learn...

We pretend to teach, they pretend to learn...  That's the title – and the short version – of this insider's view of our higher education system today.  Professor Geoffrey Collier hits many of my favorite concerns, including (most especially) the credentialist culture.  A sample of his essay:

Education thus has degenerated into a game of "trap the rat," whereby the student and instructor view each other as adversaries. Winning or losing is determined by how much the students can be forced to study. This will never be a formula for excellence, which requires intense focus, discipline and diligence that are utterly lacking among our distracted, indifferent students. Such diligence requires emotional engagement. Engagement could be with the material, the professors, or even a competitive goal, but the idea that students can obtain a serious education even with their disengaged, credentialist attitudes is a delusion.

The professoriate plays along because teachers know they have a good racket going. They would rather be refining their research or their backhand than attending to tedious undergraduates. The result is an implicit mutually assured nondestruction pact in which the students and faculty ignore each other to the best of their abilities. This disengagement guarantees poor outcomes, as well as the eventual replacement of the professoriate by technology. When professors don't even know your name, they become remote figures of ridicule and tedium and are viewed as part of a system to be played rather than a useful resource. 

To be fair, cadres of indefatigable souls labor tirelessly in thankless ignominy in the bowels of sundry ivory dungeons. Jokers in a deck stacked against them, they are ensnared in a classic reward system from hell. 

Do read the whole thing...

More legislators – just what we need!

More legislators – just what we need!  At least, that's what John Cox thinks – he wants to overhaul California's legislative branch, including increasing the number of legislators from 120 to over 12,000.  There's one part of his idea that I like: cutting the legislator's salary from $95,000 to $1,000, but that's still far more than they're worth...

We did a careful, scientific test the past couple of days...

We did a careful, scientific test the past couple of days ... of the proposition that it's possible to have too much good seafood.  On Christmas day, Debbie and I – all by ourselves – consumed two pounds of Dungeness crab meat cooked in lovely southwestern-style crab cakes, with homemade tartar sauce.  Today we followed that up with a pound and a half of giant-sized fresh Atlantic sea scallops, broiled to perfection with butter, garlic, lemon, and other seasonings.  We haven't a bit of room left in our stretched bellies.  Conclusion: it is not possible to have too much good seafood!  We'd do it again in a heartbeat!!

“...in those days, you could XOR anything with anything and get something useful”...

“...in those days, you could XOR anything with anything and get something useful”...  A sample from the writings of “the funniest man at Microsoft Research”.  For anyone with a geekly mindset, there are some very funny passages in these essays by James Mickens.  Here's a sample paragraph:

I picked that last example at random. You must believe me when I say that I have the utmost respect for HCI people. However, when HCI people debug their code, it’s like an art show or a meeting of the United Nations. There are tea breaks and witticisms exchanged in French; wearing a non-functional scarf is optional, but encouraged. When HCI code doesn’t work, the problem can be resolved using grand theories that relate form and perception to your deeply personal feelings about ovals. There will be rich debates about the socioeconomic implications of Helvetica Light, and at some point, you will have to decide whether serifs are daring statements of modernity, or tools of hegemonic oppression that implicitly support feudalism and illiteracy. Is pinching-and-dragging less elegant than circling-and-lightly-caressing? These urgent mysteries will not solve themselves. And yet, after a long day of debugging HCI code, there is always hope, and there is no true anger; even if you fear that your drop-down list should be a radio button, the drop-down list will suffice until tomorrow, when the sun will rise, glorious and vibrant, and inspire you to combine scroll bars and left-clicking in poignant ways that you will commemorate in a sonnet when you return from your local farmer’s market.

Awesome, Mr. Mickens.  Awesome!

Term of the day “Manufactured intelligence”...

Term of the day “Manufactured intelligence”...  Daniel Greenfield, writing at his Sultan Knish blog, with a useful tool for understanding the progressive (or, as he says, liberal) mindset.  Here's his conclusion:

Liberalism isn't really about making the world a better place. It's about reassuring the elites that they are good people for wanting to rule over it.

That is why Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize for having good intentions. His actual foreign policy mattered less than the appearance of a new transformative foreign policy based on speeches. Gore promised to be be harsher on Saddam than Bush, but no one remembers that because everyone in the bubble knows that the Iraq War was stupid... and only conservatives do stupid things.

Liberal intelligence exists on the illusion of its self-worth. The magical thinking that guides it in every other area from economics to diplomacy also convinces it that if it believes it is smart, that it will be. The impenetrable liberal consensus in every area is based on this delusion of intelligence. Every policy is right because it's smart and it's smart because it's progressive and it's progressive because smart progressives say that it is.

Progressives manufacture the consensus of their own intelligence and insist that it proves them right.

Imagine a million people walking in a circle and shouting, "WE'RE SMART AND WE'RE RIGHT. WE'RE RIGHT BECAUSE WE'RE SMART. WE'RE SMART BECAUSE WE'RE RIGHT." Now imagine that these marching morons dominate academia, the government bureaucracy and the entertainment industry allowing them to spend billions yelling their idiot message until it outshouts everyone else while ignoring the disasters in their wake because they are too smart to fail.

That is liberalism. 

But you should read the whole thing, really...

A cryptographic nightmare...

A cryptographic nightmare...  Some French mathematicians have made a dent in the discrete logarithm problem that is at the heart of the Diffie-Hellman key exchange protocol and elliptic curve encryption – both widely used on the Internet.  So far their discovery is only useful for decrypting some much less-used cryptography, but they're working on extending it to a more generally useful tool.  If they succeed, their method will invalidate much of the cryptographic infrastructure that today allows secure transactions...

Triangulum Galaxy (M33)...

Triangulum Galaxy (M33)...  Well, the inner part, anyway (this image covers an area “just” 30,000 light years wide).  Via APOD, of course.  Full resolution version...

In memoriam: the space robots we lost this year...

In memoriam: the space robots we lost this year...  A nice summary of the robotic space explorers that stopped working this year – some expectedly, others not...

Bollocks on stilts...

Bollocks on stilts...  Mann v. Steyn...

Virtual Phobos...

Virtual Phobos...  Via APOD, of course.  Mars Explorer will do a very close flyby of Phobos on December 29, just 45 km (27 miles) above its surface.  It will be traveling so fast, relatively, that it can't take photos – but it will be able to gather some interesting science information.

The gist of Christmas lost...

The gist of Christmas lost...  The Las Vegas Review-Journal published this – good for them!

’Twas the season of Christmas, and all through the land
Were signs and symbols some folks couldn’t stand.
The evergreen conifer many decorate with glee,
But don’t you dare call it a Christmas tree.
Heaven forbid a Nativity in the town square
For fear the grievance mongers soon would be there.
Meanwhile the choirs at many a public school
Are told no religious carols — those just aren’t that cool.
Don’t say “Christmas Concert,” for that’s full of shame.
“Winter Festival” — now that’s the new name!
A California judge, trying to squelch more good will,
Orders a war memorial cross removed from a hill.
The postman leaves Christmas off his “holiday stamp” fliers.
Forget the reason for the season — they’re Christmas deniers!
This despite Jesus’ birth named a federal holiday
On which those in government get a day off with pay.
For that fact, they should shout “Merry Christmas!” with glee,
If we can say that anymore, if we can just let it be.
Jolly old Santa gives grouches no pause,
But don’t get them started on the Establishment Clause.
A passive display is not proselytizing.
State-sponsored religion? They’re fantasizing!
How did we reach this point, where it all ran amok?
Christmas got run over by the politically correct truck.
It’s easy to forget, amidst Christmas bashing,
That the faithful do great things — just smashing!
Every day in this so-called city of sin
Christians donate and volunteer, creating a win-win.
Catholic Charities, Salvation Army, Las Vegas Rescue Mission,
Where helping the needy is year-round tradition.
At countless valley churches, the downtrodden do enter,
For those touched by AIDS, there’s the Saint Therese Center.
Far too numerous to mention are so many others
Helping our struggling sisters and brothers.
So the need to kick Christmas right out of the season
Seems illogical, overzealous and lacking in reason.
’Tis the season for giving, to that we attest,
So to all grievance seekers, try giving it a rest.
Spread some charity and cheer, and let go of the spite.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

It's about time...

It's about time...  Alan Turing finally has been pardoned, over 60 years after he was convicted of homosexuality in England, and almost 60 years after he committed suicide.  Such a sad, sad story...

Aurora borealis, Christmas edition...

Aurora borealis, Christmas edition...  Twisted Sifter...

George Washington: victor in battle, freeman at heart...

George Washington: victor in battle, freeman at heart...  This article discusses an issue near and dear to my heart: the failure of modern America to elect leaders that resemble in any way the Founding Fathers.  It's conclusion:

But these are the arenas of our culture under assault today.  Rather than prospering and spreading as they should, they are under an all-out assault by the modern American Left, taking a beating from the pop culture of one coast and the bureaucratic strangulation of the other coast.  The citizens of today have a duty to the citizens of tomorrow, and to fulfill that duty, we must turn to the examples of the citizens of the past… to the Founding Fathers of this great nation, and first and foremost, to the greatest example, George Washington, universally admired as the greatest leader of his time, who won a war and went home to his farm, looking forward to being “just another average American citizen again” – in the days when being “just another average American citizen” was the greatest thing to be in all the world.

Read the whole thing...

All Apollo program images are now online!

All Apollo program images are now online!  Start here.  The photo at right was taken by the Apollo 11 crew (using the handheld 70mm Hasselblad) as they traveled from the Earth to the moon...

The TSA couldn't protect you from a 6-year-old with a water balloon...

The TSA couldn't protect you from a 6-year-old with a water balloon...  The lede from a great article, written by a guy who headed security for the airport most targeted by terrorists: Israel's Ben Gurion airport (which also happens to be the world's safest airport):

For a bunch of people in snappy uniforms patting down crotches, the TSA is remarkably unpopular. Nobody likes going through security at the airport, but you probably figured most of it had a point. All those hours spent in line with other shoeless travelers are a necessary precursor to safe flying. It's annoying, but at least it wards off terrorism.

That's all bullshit. The TSA couldn't protect you from a 6-year-old with a water balloon. What are my qualifications for saying that? My name is Rafi Sela, and I was the head of security for the world's safest airport. Here's what your country does wrong.

In a nutshell, Rafi says the TSA is doing it all wrong.  All wrong.

The TSA is all about security theater and union membership, and not a bit about security.  It hasn't stopped a single terrorist attack.  But it is absolutely fantastic at boosting union membership (with consequent union dues and contributions to Democratic political campaigns) and spending American taxpayer dollars...

Police rescue dog from frozen river...

Police rescue dog from frozen river...  I'm shocked on a nearly daily basis by stories of police shooting dogs, (over 1,000 times this year) so when I see the words “police” and “dog” in a headline, I steel myself for another horrifying story.  This time it's a much better story, though...

What a difference 32 years make...

What a difference 32 years make...  In this morning's news, the sad story of a Veteran's Administration hospital refusing to distribute Christmas cards made by kids for the hospitalized vets.  This is, of course, yet another example of trying not to offend someone – political correctness.  As many have pointed out before me, the very essence of free speech is the freedom to offend someone with what you say.  In their pathetic, pandering attempt to avoid offending persons unidentified and uncomplaining, the VA has managed to offend a vast swath of Americans – including this irreligious blogger.

Contrast that attitude with the Christmas address at right, by President Reagan in 1981.  Can you imagine That One addressing the nation in anything like that manner?  Nope, I can't either...

This belongs in my “What the hell is happening to my country?” series...

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Merry Christmas, everyone!  Debbie and I had a special “present” from one of our cats this morning.  We'd left an unopened box of chicken broth on our kitchen island (it's actually been there for a month or so).  Sometime early this morning, one of the cats decided to gnaw through the top of it, then knock it over.  Next thing you know, a quart of low-sodium chicken broth is all over the island top, the bottoms of the stuff on the island, the sides of the island, and the wine rack.  Some of it even made it to the floor!  Naturally, the cat responsible took off for some dark corner of the house – we have no idea which little hellion did it.  Nor do we know why they picked this morning, out of all the mornings when they could have done it.

Sigh...

2013 science breakthrough of the year...

2013 science breakthrough of the year...

Where are y'all from?

Where are y'all from?  The New York Times has a fascinating feature online right now: a 25 question quiz about vocabulary and pronunciation.  Once you answer the questions, software generates a heat map showing where (in the U.S.) you're likely from.  The map at right is from my answers, and given that I grew up in central New Jersey I'd say it was pretty much right on.  Debbie answered the questions and got a map centered a bit away from where she grew up (in eastern Indiana – but there was a red blob right on Union County, where her home was.  Pretty darned good for just 25 self-answered questions!

Christmas with the family...

Christmas with the family...  Oh, my.  This is not what our Christmas will be like – nor were our Christmases ever like this!

Pater: a Christmas eve memory...

Pater: a Christmas eve memory...  My dad overlooking Garrapata State Park in April 2006...

A Christmas eve memory...

This is a very brief one, as I can really only remember one little thing.  I know it was Christmas eve, and that I was quite young.  In my memory, my brother Scott and sister Holly were just barely toddlers, and I'm only a couple of years older than them.  Let's guess that I was 5 or 6 years old.  My dad was sitting on our living room sofa, I was sitting next to him; Scott and Holly were on the floor below us.  My dad was asking me, in a teasing way, what I wanted for Christmas. 

I don't remember what I told him I wanted, but I do remember asking him what he wanted Santa to bring for him.  His answer: “I already got my Christmas presents!”, and he gave me a big hug, then gathered up Scott and Holly and gave them a big hug, too.  Then he started tickling us (something he loved to do, to make us giggle).  My mom was watching all of us, a huge happy smile on her face, through the serving window that connected our living room to the kitchen (where, no doubt, she was busy cooking)...

That's one of those warm, sugary, happy, safe, secure moments that I wish I could just bottle up somehow, to have available for a swig when I need it...

Fifty years of space exploration...

Fifty years of space exploration...  on one map!  Full resolution version here, source (National Geographic) here...

Just talk...

Just talk...  Ramirez nails it again...

California leads the way...

California leads the way...  toward a permanent progressive, socialist state, a la Hugo Chavez...

The TSA's 12 banned items of Christmas...

The TSA's 12 banned items of Christmas... 

It's not just me...

It's not just me...  Jonathan Adler also noticed the bogus study purporting to show that conservative groups were spending a half billion dollars a year fighting AGW warmists.  I wrote about this a few days ago...

Pajama Boy Nation...

Pajama Boy Nation...  Victor Davis Hanson.  A sample:

Pajama Boy is the bookend to vero possumus, the faux-Greek columns, the Obama rainbow logo, cooling the planet and lowering the seas, hope and change, Forward!, “Yes, we can!”, the Nate Silver infatuation, Barbara Walters’ “messiah,” David Brooks’ crease, Chris Matthews’ tingle, and the army of Silicon techies who can mobilize for Obama but not for Obamacare. These are the elites without identities who feed on the latest fad. They are the upper-crust versions of those who once mobbed stores to buy the last Cabbage Patch Kids doll, or had to have a pet rock on their dresser. Obama, after all, was the lava lamp and Chia Pet of the young urban progressive.

If I were to focus on just two of the many characteristics of Pajama Boy nation in the Age of Obama, one would be that the consequences of one’s ideology apply always to someone else. Obama obsesses on inequality, but cannot even go through the populist motions of avoiding Martha’s Vineyard, or not dressing like a nerd for golf at the latest tony course.

He is an arugula-eating man of the people who tries to bowl only during election season. Michelle rags on the 1%, but still hits Costa del Sol and Aspen. Obamacare for us; for congressional staffers and insiders something quite different. A Nobel Prize and a half a billion dollars for guru Al Gore; and dumping Current TV on a fossil-fueled, anti-Semitic authoritarian Middle Eastern regime to fund more good work of our green Elmer Gantry.  Amnesty for illegal aliens, but private academies for liberal kids far from the ensuing chaos of the public schools.  Pajama Boys are fiercely liberal so that they can fiercely avoid the people they so champion and are so afraid to live among.

Second, the architects of Pajama Boy nation always expect others to go on despite rather than because of them. The frackers must frack so that Obama can brag about their productivity, while he bites his lip and looks pained to billionaire coastal benefactors about pumping liquid into the bowels of their Mother Earth.

Go read.

But the science is settled!

But the science is settled!  Physicist Pierre Darriulat, former Director of Research at CERN, submitted a statement to the British House of Commons' Energy and Climate Change Committee.  He did this because he'd heard of their investigation of the IPCC report.  He had quite a bit to say (his full statement is online).  Here's one statement that will give you the flavor:

The way the SPM deals with uncertainties (e.g. claiming something is 95% certain) is shocking and deeply unscientific. For a scientist, this simple fact is sufficient to throw discredit on the whole summary. The SPM gives the wrong idea that one can quantify precisely our confidence in the [climate] model predictions, which is far from being the case.

It's been clear for some time that the “consensus” was largely a construction of the IPCC, but it's still instructive to see how professional scientists – especially those who are outside the climate change funding axis – respond to the posturings of the warmists...

Hitting the panic button, That One is...

Hitting the panic button, That One is...  Me?  I'm drinking deeply from my overflowing mug of hot, delicious, and sweet schadenfreude...

The voice of experience...

The voice of experience...  Mark Steyn (together with Ezra Levant) is all too familiar with the costs of giving in to those who would like to control free speech.  I was looking forward to his response to the recent free speech controversies (“Duck Dynasty” and the PR lady).  Mark didn't disappoint – here's his lede:

Having leaned on A&E to suspend their biggest star, GLAAD has now moved on to Stage Two:

“We believe the next step is to use this as an opportunity for Phil to sit down with gay families in Louisiana and learn about their lives and the values they share,” the spokesman said.

Actually, “the next step” is for you thugs to push off and stop targeting, threatening and making demands of those who happen to disagree with you. Personally, I think this would be a wonderful opportunity for the GLAAD executive board to sit down with half-a-dozen firebreathing imams and learn about their values, but, unlike the Commissars of the Bureau of Conformity Enforcement, I accord even condescending little ticks like the one above the freedom to arrange his own social calendar. Unfortunately, GLAAD has had some success with this strategy, prevailing upon, for example, the Hollywood director Brett Ratner to submit to GLAAD re-education camp until he had eaten sufficient gay crow to be formally rehabilitated with a GLAAD “Ally” award.

Read the whole thing...

ObamaCare support “cratering” ... with moms.

ObamaCare support “cratering” ... with moms.  They were the last demographic with a majority supporting ObamaCare – but not any more...

Paper is not dead!

Paper is not dead!  Via my mom...

Pater: His BFF, Mo'i...

Pater: His BFF, Mo'i...  We have three field spaniels: Lea (LAY-ah), Mo'i (MOH-ee), and Miki (MEE-kee), oldest to youngest.  Mo'i, at right just after back surgery in 2008, is our older male.  His name is Hawaiian for “king” or (with different accents) “to remain in one place for a long time”.  Both seem applicable to Mo'i :)

His BFF, Mo'i...  

For many of the trips I took with my dad, he would first come out to our home near San Diego.  Generally he'd stay with us for a few days at the beginning and the end of the trip, to see our local scenery and (especially) to eat at some of San Diego's fine restaurants.

Over the years and visits, he got to know some of our dogs reasonably well.  They'd recognize him when he showed up, and he'd get down on the floor and play with them.  My dad liked friendly dogs.

One of our dogs, though, was a particular favorite of my dad: Mo'i.  If you knew my dad and you know Mo'i, you'd be completely unsurprised by this – as they shared two defining traits.

First, Mo'i and my dad had very similar attitudes toward food.  I've mentioned before how planning for the place and time to eat was something my dad would do reliably as we took off on a trip.  He did the same thing at home, too.  Mo'i is very similar in that regard – the central focus of Mo'i's life is food.  He's a bit less particular, perhaps, than my dad was – but the centrality of food in Mo'i's world view is basically exactly like my dad's was.  When my dad first saw this, he felt (and expressed, to our amusement) an instant kinship with Mo'i.

Secondly, Mo'i and my dad both enjoyed naps in the sunlight.  All you have to do is show Mo'i a patch of sunlight and his eyes will start to close.  My dad was pretty much the same way.  On one of his first visits to our current home in Jamul, I once found him and Mo'i curled up on our living room floor together, in a patch of sunlight streaming in through a south-facing window.  Their faces had quite similar expressions – peaceful, happy, and calm.

At the end of one of our trips – I think the one to the Big Sur – we were driving toward home, through the night-time traffic of Los Angeles.  We were both pretty tired, having spent most of the day in my truck, on the road.  My dad, characteristically, was plotting what goodies we should pick up at the grocery store before heading “up the hill” to our home.  He was hungry, and this was therefore a serious undertaking.  Suddenly, with no warning to me, he burst into a sunny smile and started laughing.  When I asked why, he said he was thinking of Mo'i's reaction when he walked in the door with grocery bags.  He wanted to pick something up, just for Mo'i.  We did – we picked up some hamburger.  The other dogs got some, too, but Mo'i got the bulk of it.  My dad fed it to an extremely appreciative Mo'i, who was clearly transported to some earthly version of field spaniel heaven.  My dad at that moment looked nearly as happy as Mo'i...

Frosted spiderweb...

Frosted spiderweb...  Twisted Sifter.

Little Drummer Boy, a cappella...

Little Drummer Boy, a cappella...

30 best quotes of 2013...

30 best quotes of 2013...  Many of these were new to me; all were interesting.  Here's one sample:

I am so old that I can remember when most of the people promoting race hate were white.
– Thomas Sowell

I'm that old, too...

Buy your health insurance somewhere else!

Buy your health insurance somewhere else!  Says ... the Oregon ObamaCare exchange.  Oh, my...

TaskRabbit...

TaskRabbit...  Reader and friend Simon M. passed this along.  TaskRabbit is a web site that matches up people who need something done (shopping, cleaning, fixing something, etc.) with people who want to earn some money by doing such things.  It's an interesting concept, putting on the web something we used to see in the newspaper's classified ads.  When I was in my late teens, I found several short-term jobs that way – people or companies needing help for some job (usually far) too small to hire a permanent employee for.  Most of these were terrible jobs that paid poorly, but still, I was willing to do it.  Also it occurs to me that this is one way to work around the minimum wage law, as this service arranges jobs for an agreed price...

A brief history of NSA “back doors”...

A brief history of NSA “back doors”...  An excellent summary complete with links off to (much) more detail.  There were several things in this list that were completely new to me, and I thought I was reasonably well-informed on the subject...

Pater: Boulder Creek Road...

Pater: Boulder Creek Road...  At right, my dad at Rice Creek, near Mt. Lassen National Park, in June 2007...

Boulder Creek Road...

View Larger Map

Stretching from Descanso to Julian along the west-facing slopes of Cuyamaca Mountain is a mostly gravel road, Boulder Creek Road.  The map at left shows one stretch of the road; you can expand it to see the rest of it.

Debbie and I took a drive along this road yesterday afternoon, curious to see if our recent rains had started the creek flowing (they had) and if the deer had moved down to the lower elevations yet (they had not).  Taking that drive brought back some memories of the drives we took along this same road with my dad.  It was a favorite destination for us in the spring or summer because there are several particularly nice wildflower patches along it.  I don't have records of our first trip with him out here, but it was probably in the late '90s.  When he last visited us, in 2007, we also made the trip, for perhaps the 3rd or 4th time with my dad.

I have several very vivid memories of these trips.

On the very first trip we took along that road, my dad was still physically in good shape, and could still easily out-hike me.  At one particular point along the road, he spotted some unusual looking shrubs and trees on a little ridge, about a half mile from the road.  We stopped and bushwhacked our way over to these unexpected plants, and my dad went into “botanical detective” mode.  First he was able to identify some of the plants from memory, and knew that they weren't native plants – which meant that someone must have planted them.  I might have noticed that a few of them looked out of place, but I couldn't have identified any of them.  Then he spotted two overgrown shrubs, about 8 feet high and planted about 10 feet apart, and identified them as something often planted alongside stairways or porches, and speculated that there used to be a stairway between these two (now grown together, but would have been much smaller in the past).  I've forgotten what any of those plants were, but I remember that I was skeptical at that point.  Then he noticed that some of the other non-native bushes (and some irises) we'd found formed a rough rectangle, with the two “porch bushes” in the center of one of the small sides.  That was definitely suggestive of a man-made building here, and even I could see it.  My dad kicked at the dirt in the center of this rectangle, and immediately turned up a few man-made artifacts: an old bolt, an old piece of broken green glass, and some other junk.  One of the prominent trees nearby my dad identified as a species often planted for shade, but it needed more water than we had – but it was thriving, so he speculated that there was a well nearby its trunk.  We walked over to it (maybe 50' from the rectangle), and within a couple of minutes we found the remains of a circular stonework about 4' in diameter.  It was certainly suggestive of a well, albeit a filled-in one.  Then for a grand finale, he spotted a couple other non-native shrubs that were larger than they normally got.  These were about 100' from the rectangle, and my dad immediately speculated that they were on the site of an outhouse, and the extra “fertilizer” there accounted for the bushes' unusual size.  He concluded from all this that someone had once built a home there, probably in the 1800s.  It was a beautiful site for a home, with a gorgeous view of both Cuyamaca Mountain and the large valley just to the south.

When we got home that night, I dragged out my topo map (this was before the days of topo maps on iPads :) of the area, and we pored over it looking for a clue.  We didn't have to look long: exactly where we'd found the rectangle, there was a building marked (from a survey in the '20s).  It was a one-room schoolhouse, probably much like the different one at right, not a home – but otherwise my dad had it right.  The well was marked on the topo map as well, also exactly where we found it.  The outhouse wasn't marked, but I have no doubt he was correct.  Later, in a book I have on the history of Cuyamaca Mountain, I discovered that this schoolhouse was established in the 1870s, and that it served the children of the ranchers then in the area (there were many more people living there then than today).  That was pretty impressive detective work on my dad's part, and almost entirely from his knowledge of the plants we saw.

On another trip, we hiked for a mile or so upstream along Boulder Creek from where it crosses Boulder Creek Road.  This must have been in April or May, because the wildflowers were prime.  We clambered together all over that valley and its sides, seeking out wildflowers we'd spied from a distance.  Many of those wildflowers were new to my dad, and in a few cases they were ones that I could identify.  I suspect you'd have to grow up in my family to know what an unusual occurrence that was – between my dad and my mom, it seemed like they could identify anything with chlorophyll – and my Uncle Donald (my dad's brother) could identify all the fungi.  It was a rare occasion indeed for me to be able to identify a plant that my dad could not :)

There's one visual memory I have of my dad on that hike.  He was sitting on a nice flat rock, with Boulder Creek burbling along at his feet, the sun pouring down like butterscotch (thank you, Joni Mitchell), and beautiful blue wildflowers growing alongside up to the height of his head while he was sitting.  He was pulling one of the plants toward him and inhaling deeply of its perfume.  A happy dad...

On one of our earlier trips along Boulder Creek Road, as we were driving north near the Inaja Indian Reservation, my dad cried out “Blagh!” (or something much like that :), and asked me to stop.  Anyone who has traveled with my dad (or with me, for that matter) is very familiar with this behavior.  It meant that he had spotted something interesting, and wanted to get out and go see it.  In this case my dad had spotted some heather, growing in and around a large exposed piece of rock.  As you can see at the preceding link, there are a lot of heather species, and some of them are native to the Americas.  The one my dad spotted, though, was a European heather, almost certainly one of the Erica genus.  It was definitely not a native plant, which meant that someone had planted it.  It was thriving in a shady, west-facing spot; the rock it was on or near was wet from a nearby seep.

If the heather had been in bloom (as in the photo at right, not mine), I'd certainly have spotted it – but I would never have been able to identify it as a non-native heather.  Once he pointed it out to me, and we walked over to the patch, it was obvious – different than anything around it.  My dad had picked it out of the understory growth flying by his window when it wasn't in bloom, as we drove through at perhaps 15 or 20 MPH.  He was incredibly good at doing this: plants that to me formed a green blur were as good as an illustrated book from his perspective.  He routinely picked out interesting plants, often at a great distance, when I saw nothing interesting at all.  That's a lifetime of plant-hunting experience at work, and very impressive to watch if you were paying attention.

On every single drive I've subsequently made along Boulder Creek Road (dozens by this point), including yesterday afternoon, I've searched for that patch of heather.  I've never found it again...

Tinni and Sniffer, BFFs in Norway...

Tinni and Sniffer, BFFs in Norway...  Via my lovely bride.  Much more here, including still photos...

Dolphins helping fishermen...

Dolphins helping fishermen...  Friend, former colleague, and Idaho mogul-of-everything Doug S. passes this along: a group of Brazilian fishermen who fish in cooperation with a group of dolphins.  The relationship between these particular fishermen and the particular dolphins appears to be a unique one – but very well-developed.  It's been going on for at least 15 years, but there's no mention of how it got started.  What an amazing world we live in!

ObamaCare debacle update...

ObamaCare debacle update...  Because it's a fine Saturday, and we need a little schadenfreude to spice things up!

ObamaCare initiates self-destruction sequence.  Megan McArdle reads the latest tea leaves and concludes that ObamaCare as enacted is basically doomed.  Oh, I so want her to be right on this!

ObamaCare = CompuServe.  Rob Long, at Ricochet, also predicting the end of ObamaCare...

Obama repeals ObamaCare.  The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board says Obama's recent actions amount to a kinda-sorta repeal of the whole darned thing.  Then there's this:

Pulling the thread of the individual mandate also means that the whole scheme could unravel. Waiving ObamaCare rules for some citizens and continuing to squeeze the individual economic liberties of others by forcing them to buy what the White House now concedes is an unaffordable product is untenable. Mr. Obama is inviting a blanket hardship amnesty for everyone, which is what Republicans should demand.

The new political risk that the rules are liable to change at any moment will also be cycled into 2015 premiums. Expect another price spike late next summer. With ObamaCare looking like a loss-making book of business, a public declaration of penance by the insurance industry for helping to sell ObamaCare is long overdue.

The only political explanation for relaxing enforcement of the individual mandate—even at the risk of destabilizing ObamaCare in the long term—is that the White House is panicked that the whole entitlement is endangered. The insurance terminations and rollout fiasco could leave more people uninsured in 2014 than in 2013. ObamaCare's unpopularity with the public could cost Democrats the Senate in 2014, and a GOP Congress in 2015 could compel the White House to reopen the law and make major changes.

Republicans ought to prepare for that eventuality with insurance reforms beyond the "repeal" slogan, but they can also take some vindication in Thursday's reversal. Mr. Obama's actions are as damning about ObamaCare as anything Senator Ted Cruz has said, and they implicitly confirm that the law is quarter-baked and harmful. Mr. Obama is doing through executive fiat what Republicans shut down the government to get him to do.

That One is ducking, weaving, and dodging, doing whatever it takes to get through the current news cycle with ObamaCare intact.  This tactical behavior is, however, endangering his apparent strategic initiatives as led by ObamaCare.  He's losing, and losing ugly...

Who says Obama hasn't united the country?  John Fund points out that nothing Obama has done tops ObamaCare for getting citizens of every political stripe on the same page – the repeal ObamaCare page!

ObamaCare is falling apart before our eyes.  James Capretta rejoices...