Reverend Johnathan Gentry...

Reverend Johnathan Gentry...  My mom passes this along, with a note to watch the Reverend's body language when the hosts ask him about Obama's comments on events in Ferguson. Interesting. I wonder how (or if) the black community's perception of Obama has changed over the past few years?  The full six minute rant is here...

Flying pigs moment...

Flying pigs moment...  Hollering about the militarization of police forces in the U.S. has long been restricted to the ranks of libertarians, of both the kooky and the relatively normal varieties.  Generally speaking (though there are a few exceptions), this issue hasn't been of concern to mainstream politicians, or of the press.

The events in Ferguson over the past week may be changing that.  In evidence of that, I present Glenn Greenwald spouting forth like a libertarian – which he most definitely is not.

I think I see a whole flock of pigs flying over my house right now!

Murders, bad sex, and poison...

Murders, bad sex, and poison...  We're speaking of the cougars of Malibu, of course.  That's the furry variety of cougar, not the other...

Steyer's flop...

Steyer's flop...  Kimberley Strassel explores the abject failure of billionaire Tom Steyer's famous $100 million pledge to force the warmist agenda in this fall's elections.  It's a short read that will warm the cockles of any AGW skeptic's heart...

Yup, that's a recipe for disaster all right...

Yup, that's a recipe for disaster all right...  The GAO has issued its report on the botched Obamacare web site development.  Key sentence in the summary:

CMS incurred significant cost increases, schedule slips, and delayed system functionality for the FFM and data hub systems due primarily to changing requirements that were exacerbated by oversight gaps.

The full report is online here (PDF).

“Changing requirements” is a phrase that strikes fear into the heart of any software developer – though it's more the norm than the exception.  The keys to dealing with requirements change are (a) to have an effective filter that restricts requirements changes to those that are actually vital, and (b) to have a development methodology that will accommodate a reasonable level of requirements thrash.  Both of these are vastly more difficult than most people imagine, most especially for large projects with large teams.  The government is singularly poorly equipped to deal with this, as the government bureaucracy has incentives that lead them to thrash requirements at will, and to mandate instead of manage.  All of the above are exhibit here, on a grand scale.

Our tax dollars, hard at work.  Pardon me while I go exercise my lacrimal glands...

Tsunami...

Tsunami...  In 2004, an undersea tectonic shift caused tsunamis that struck beaches over a large range of the Indian Ocean and southern Pacific Ocean.  Over a quarter million people were killed.  With the widespread availability of video cameras, including those built into smart phones, there were dozens of people who were filming their vacation when the tsunami hit.  This is a collection of those clips, with the first of the eight parts at right.

This isn't for the faint of heart.  And I'm not sure I ever want to go near a beach again!

Gallopin' Gertie...

Gallopin' Gertie...  The Tacoma Narrows bridge failure in 1940 is famous amongst engineers, so much so that a photo of it almost always accompanies text on the consequences of bad engineering.  This collection of motion picture footage is the best I've ever seen of it. 

I had not previously known about the professor who risked his life in an attempt to save a dog (“Tubby”) in the only car abandoned on the bridge.  The professor got a bite on the hand for his trouble, with Tubby refusing to leave the car.  Tubby was the only casualty of the bridge's collapse...

Oopsie!

Oopsie!  Top 20 technological blunders of the 20th century.  It's a pretty good roundup.  It must have been challenging to whittle the list down to a mere 20 :)  Number 11 was completely new to me, which surprises me, since in those years I was avidly following the space program.  The omission of a hyphen in a program played a role in the failure, which is something I wouldn't have understood in 1962...