Miki...

Miki...  It seems like such a short time ago, but actually it's been almost eight years that we first brought Miki home (that's him, in April 2006).  Yesterday we took him down to our vet (the wondrous Dr. C., of course!) to have some routine minor surgery, to get rid of a bump on his left shoulder.

He needed to be anesthetized for this procedure, so while he was under, we asked that they clean his teeth and cut his nails, too.  Amber (our candidate for the world's greatest RVT) discovered during the teeth cleaning that he had five teeth that were so bad they were loose in their sockets.  Yikes!  So the poor little guy woke up missing three molars and two of his front bottom teeth.  We felt bad for not having picked up on his dental problems, as he's probably been in some pain for a while – we never had a clue.  Dogs are awesomely good at hiding their pain or lameness; when you do see it, that's an indication of just how bad it is...

Notes from a home with 4 dogs and 7 cats...

Notes on life with 4 dogs and 10 cats...  Upon sighting a darker area on the floor when walking through the darkened house, do not step on the darker area.  It may be squishy.  It may be wet.  It may be warm.  It may be all three!

Oh, and smell bad, too...

Six thought experiments...

Six thought experiments...  Each in a one minute video; first one is at right.  The whole collection is a good introduction to the fascinating world of thought experiments.  I spent a lot of time as a kid trying to understand how Zeno could be wrong...

Via reader and friend Simon M...

Say, that's a little harsh, isn't it?

Say, that's a little harsh, isn't it?  Some physicists recently published a paper in a relatively new journal.  The paper expressed some views that were skeptical of the IPCC report and warmists' views in general.  So the publisher cancelled publication of the journal.  It's history!

Take that, skeptical physicists!  How are you going to publish those heretical views now?

Fishermen are crazy...

Fishermen are crazy...  That's an observation I think most sentient beings would agree with.  However, this pair of fishermen have taken craziness to an entirely new level.

Note for the squeamish: it all ends well. 

Note for those who think these boats are repeatedly sinking and are somehow resurrected: you're being fooled by the perspective; they're actually (mainly) rising and falling with the waves, and sometimes there's a wave between the camera and the boat...

Demand curves...

Demand curves...  I share Warren Meyer's perplexity over the progressive's support for minimum wages.  I would think they'd be clamoring to abolish them!

Prepare to be angry...

Prepare to be angry ... at the Democrats' top priority in the recent budget negotiations.  Kimberley Strassel as the scoop...

Public servant selfishness...

Public servant selfishness...  Peggy Noonan makes some interesting points...

It's starting...

It's starting...  The number of electrical engineers in the U.S. declined last year, by 35,000 positions.  The growth of software engineers in the U.S. is also declining, and may go negative next year or the year after.

The article I linked concludes that the people claiming we don't graduate enough STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) students are wrong, as witness the decline in positions and the growth overseas.  I think they've picked the wrong problem – I think those jobs are going overseas because the education systems in so many places are producing better qualified graduates.  Just to pick on one example, in which I have personal experience: a software company looking for talent isn't going to hire the first engineer they run into – and most of the time, they won't just hire the best engineer they find locally.  They're going to look all over the world, and pick the best and brightest that they can attract from anywhere at all.  It no longer matters what country a software engineer works in.  The last company I worked for had software engineers who lived in five different countries – and they've expanded the part outside the U.S. since I left.  The reason is not economics; in some cases, those foreign engineers cost more...

Geek: a bit of wisdom from The Master (whoever that is)...

Geek: a bit of wisdom from The Master (whoever that is)...

The programmer and the stone statue.

A programmer was troubled and sad, so he went to see his Master.

“Nobody recognizes my work” the programmer said with woeful voice.

The Master took him to a temple with a beautiful stone statue in the center and said “If you want your work to be recognized you must be like the person who made this statue”.

They kept walking for a couple of minutes util the programmer asked “Who made it?”

“I don’t know” replied the Master.

Suddenly, the programmer was enlightened.

Excellent!

My mom could use this...

My mom could use this...  Reading blood sugar levels in real time, from tears.  I'm not sure that she'd go along with a contact lens, though...

Schneier briefs congresscritters...

Schneier briefs congresscritters...  Six of them, all advocates of reining in the NSA (and the rest of our “intelligence” apparatus).  I have competing reactions to this.  Part of me wants to applaud Congress for bringing in a grounded security expert like Bruce Schneier.  Part of me wants to cry over the reasons why they brought him in (read the piece to see what I mean).

Don't neglect the comments on this post; amongst the usual troll-crap there are some interesting ideas and points...

Ship of fools...

Ship of fools...  Steve McIntyre is back, not with a post about climatology per se, but rather on the adventure tourism ship that recently got itself stuck in the ice near Antarctica.  Steve, in his classic thorough style and with his irrepressible wit, tears the leader of the expedition (Chris Turney) to shreds over his self-serving claims and evident idiocy.  It is by far the best take-down of that fool that I've read – and Steve titled it, appropriately, Ship of Fools...

More toxic fallout from the war on drugs...

More toxic fallout from the war on drugs...  This is one that not too many U.S. citizens are aware of: almost nobody charged with a crime gets a trial by jury today.  Depending on whose numbers you want to believe, somewhere between 3% and 9% of criminal charges are resolved by a jury trial – the rest are all “plea bargains”.  The plea bargain system has completely changed the face of American criminal prosecution within my lifetime.  Up until the '70s, if you were charged with a crime and you didn't plead “guilty”, then a jury trial was a virtual certainty.  Now it's nearly unheard of.

And the war on drugs did it.

Here's an excellent piece by Brad Schlesinger, writing at Outside the Beltway, that explains it all. 

To me, this is just one more in a long, long list of reasons to legalize drugs and cut our losses in the disastrous war on drugs...