The Mill...

Geek: The Mill...  Reader and friend Doug W. passed this fascinating development along: a project to redesign digital computers by rethinking them from the ground up.  You may have to work at finding things on that site; those guys are spending their time on hardware design, not web site design :)

The photo at right is of Ivan Godard, who seems to be the principal hardware designer involved.  He reminds me of the LOTR movie's Gandalf, especially when I hear him in the videos...

The project is well underway as a stealth commercial effort, but they're disclosing pieces of the design as the patents get filed.  I've listened to three of the talks so far, and read quite a bit of the material they've published – there are lots of interesting ideas here for anyone interested in hardware design to gnaw on.  The central idea is called “The Mill”, and the more you know about it, the more powerful the idea seems.

Hackaday has more (in a less technical form)... 

Parental planning...

Parental planning...  When Sandra Denis got pregnant, she and her partner (photographer Patrice Laroche) decided to prepare an explanation for their child – an explanation of where the kid came from.  The first step, obviously, is to pump some compressed air into mom's belly button – the air compressor at the local garage will do just fine.

The rest of the photos in the series...

Via my mom...

So that's why there's an angel on top of the Christmas tree!

So that's why there's an angel on top of the Christmas tree!  My mom explains:

A Little Christmas Story

When four of Santa’s elves got sick, the trainee elves did not produce toys as fast as the regular ones, and Santa began to feel the pre-Christmas pressure.  Then Mrs. Claus told Santa her Mother was coming to visit, which stressed Santa even more.

When he went to harness the reindeer, he found that three of them were about to give birth and two others had jumped the fence and were out, Heaven knows where.  Then when he began to load the sleigh, one of the floorboards cracked, the toy bag fell to the ground and all the toys were scattered.

Frustrated, Santa went in the house for a cup of apple cider and a shot of rum. When he went to the cupboard, he discovered the elves had drunk all the cider and hidden the liquor. In his frustration, he accidentally dropped the cider jug, and it broke into hundreds of little glass pieces all over the kitchen floor. He went to get the broom and found the mice had eaten all the straw off the end of the broom.

Just then the doorbell rang, and an irritated Santa marched to the door, yanked it open, and there stood a little angel with a great big Christmas tree. The angel said very cheerfully,“Merry Christmas, Santa. Isn’t this a lovely day? I have a beautiful tree for you. Where would you like me to stick it?”

Said Santa: “Up your ass!”

And so began the tradition of the little angel on top of the Christmas tree.  Not a lot of people know this.

California leads the way...

California leads the way ... in sea lion poop problems...  San Diego is the locale...

Dogs can sense weak magnetic fields...

Dogs can sense weak magnetic fields...  Here's the conclusion from a recent study (note: MF means the Earth's natural magnetic field):

It is for the first time that (a) magnetic sensitivity was proved in dogs, (b) a measurable, predictable behavioral reaction upon natural MF fluctuations could be unambiguously proven in a mammal, and (c) high sensitivity to small changes in polarity , rather than in intensity, of MF was identified as biologically meaningful. Our findings open new horizons in magnetoreception research. Since the MF is calm in only about 20% of the daylight period, our findings might provide an explanation why many magnetoreception experiments were hardly replicable and why directional values of records in diverse observations are frequently compromised by scatter. 

The full paper is available online.

If verified, this is a fascinating result from a couple of perspectives.  First, of course, is the surprise discovery of magnetic field sensitivity in dogs.  Then there's the author's hypothesis that MF variability is the reason other attempts to detect this ability have failed – which opens the possibility that the ability to detect magnetic fields is far more common than we'd thought.  Possibly it even provides the mechanism that allows (some :) people to “know” their position and direction.  And I'm certain that Dave Barry is intrigued by the prominent role of peeing and pooping in the study...

Time for a Big-League President...

Time for a Big-League President...  Daniel Henninger, writing at The Wall Street Journal.  A clip:

Only one thing really matters in an unsettled world: the quality of U.S. leadership. And so amid global unease came the disturbingly smug selfie photo of Barack Obama, David Cameron and the prime minister of Denmark at the Mandela funeral. 

Of the three or four phrases from this presidency that will live past 2016, one we may see quoted in a future Margaret MacMillan-type history is that in the affairs of the world, Mr. Obama was leading from behind. What this often means is that the American president goes with the flow of opinion polls. 

Because polls say Americans are in an isolationist mood, Mr. Obama won't spend political capital outside the country—Ukraine, Syria, Asia. He wants to spend what capital he has left consolidating internal federal authority. The Iran nuclear deal is an obsession, similar to promoting windmills after the fracking revolution. 

Read the whole thing...

IPCC faces its enemy: data...

IPCC faces its enemy: data...  The IPCC has – very quietly – slashed it's estimates of global warming rates to one third their previous estimates.  This is the highest value they could possibly defend in the presence of accurate (and public!) recent temperature data.

Am I the only one irritated by climatology's institutional willingness to describe computer modeling efforts as “science”, when those models are so evidently invalid?  The simple fact that they pool dozens of models together to arrive at a (claimed) “model consensus” is, all by itself, enough to completely invalidate the idea.  It seems to me that global climate models are a valuable tool for testing our understanding of the natural mechanisms that drive climate.  But...taking 32 (or 37, or 42, or whatever the number is this week) different models, each with different assumptions, and each individually failing to have any predicative value, averaging them, and then claiming that the numerical result is valid and useful as a vision of our temperature future – that seems like something approach madness to me!

Want fewer murders in your area?

Want fewer murders in your area?  Agitate for liberal concealed carry policies!  We're headed to one such place (Utah) from one that's not (California)...

Backdoors in Linksys and NetGear routers confirmed...

Backdoors in Linksys and NetGear routers confirmed...  Details...

No respect for the law...

No respect for the law...  I'm talking about That One's administration, of course.  All through the ObamaCare rollout, we've watched as the administration simply disregards extant law whenever it's not convenient to them.  This outrageous violation of the U.S. Constitution has gone largely unremarked by the lamestream media, and unpunished by either the legislative or judicial branches.  We shouldn't be surprised when they do it again and again.  In at least one case, the lawless shenanigans of That One's bureaucratic minions has caught the attention of The Wall Street Journal:

Since the 1970s, annual federal appropriations bills have explicitly prohibited the federal workplace overseer from descending on small family farms. Specifically, OSHA does not have jurisdiction over "farming operations" with 10 or fewer employees.

But OSHA officials have found a novel way to circumvent this statutory restraint. The regulators have simply claimed the authority to rewrite the definition of farming. A remarkable 2011 memo from OSHA's enforcement chief to regional administrators at first acknowledges that the law prevents the agency from regulating small farms engaged in growing and harvesting crops and any "related activities." But then the memo proceeds to instruct employees on how to re-categorize small farms as commercial grain handlers. So OSHA inspectors have recently begun to descend on family farms, claiming the authority to regulate their grain storage bins.

This time, the bureaucrats seem to have tugged on a bigger tiger's tail than they had imagined.  When this outrage got the attention of The Wall Street Journal and a bunch of senators, OSHA suddenly backed off.  For now, at least.  But I have no doubt that That One and his fellows will be back at it again...

DHS confiscates and destroys musical instruments...

DHS confiscates and destroys musical instruments...  Customs agents took a look at the priceless, hand-made flutes in Boujemaa Razgui's luggage, decided that they were, in fact, illicit “agricultural items” – and destroyed them. Never mind the fact that they were obviously musical instruments, never mind the fact that he had carried them in his luggage to the U.S. many times before – this time, they were dangerous and illicit and must be destroyed!  With this logic, everything made of wood or other plant material is fair game for the DHS.  Wooden flute?  To the fire with it!  Hockey stick?  Illicit agricultural item – burn it!  Antique English table?  Obviously dangerous – smash it!

Good grief...

In the course of researching this post, I came across something even more frightening than flute destruction.  Take a good look at that organizational chart at left.  It shows just the top two levels of the Department of Homeland Security's organization, right off their web site.  That org chart qualifies as “big government” all by itself – but each of those boxes represents up to tens of thousands of bureaucratic tools.  If this doesn't terrify you, then you must be a leftist.  Gazing at this, I feel the doom coming on...

Flying pigs moment...

Flying pigs moment...  In which I agree with a New York Times editorial – an event with approximately the same likelihood as Governor Moonbeam repealing California's income tax.  An excerpt from the editorial:

Considering the enormous value of the information he has revealed, and the abuses he has exposed, Mr. Snowden deserves better than a life of permanent exile, fear and flight. He may have committed a crime to do so, but he has done his country a great service. It is time for the United States to offer Mr. Snowden a plea bargain or some form of clemency that would allow him to return home, face at least substantially reduced punishment in light of his role as a whistle-blower, and have the hope of a life advocating for greater privacy and far stronger oversight of the runaway intelligence community.

I agree with this, except that I don't believe Snowden should face any punishment at all.  In fact, I'd like to see him rewarded – not in a material way, but with recognition.

Read the whole thing...

Scientists get a little too honest!

Scientists get a little too honest!  More like the one at right...