Oh, happy days!

Oh, happy days!  We got enough done today that I can safely go back to Jamul on Wednesday.  I've got a bit of slightly less essential tractor work I'm going to do tomorrow – but no matter what happens tomorrow, I'll be hitting the road for California bright and early Wednesday morning.  I get to see my wife and our animals on Thanksgiving, have Thanksgiving dinner with friends, and then pack our household to actually move up here for real.  Yippee!!!

I took the photo at right this morning, from a field near Wellsville.  I had an appointment with our health insurance agent, whose home office is just a couple hundred yards from where I stood to snap this.  We had beautiful weather today, as you can see...

Rocket Man...

Rocket Man ... bluegrass style!

Kill Bill...

Kill Bill...  An opening skit from Saturday Night Live skewers Obama's executive order Constitutional runaround.  The “Do Not Mock Obama” rules on mainstream media seem to be relaxing a bit.  Via friend, reader, and former colleague Tim B., who watches a bit more TV than I do :)

97% of climate scientists think mankind is causing global warming?

97% of climate scientists think mankind is causing global warming?  Uh, not so much!  50% is closer to the mark.  Doesn't so sound much like “settled science”, does it?  Reader, friend, and former colleague Simon M. passes along this study.  The broadly-quoted 97% meme has been soundly debunked on several previous occasions, too, but it never hurts to pound a few more nails into its coffin...

Quote of the day...

Quote of the day...  This quote from Thomas Jefferson has come to mind often these past few years:

...yet experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny...

He wrote this in 1778, in a document called Preamble to a Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge.  Considerably more diffusion is needed!

Titan flyover...

Titan flyover...  This is a video constructed from radar data collected by the Cassini robotic explorer on several close flybys of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn.

That new car smell?

That new car smell?  Obama said yesterday that Americans want “that new car smell” in their next president, and that Hillary Clinton would make a great president – implying that she's got that desirable smell.

He really does think that American voters are stupid chumps.

My neighbor's dog just left a steaming pile on my lawn; it's a perfect metaphor for that speech.

If there's any justice in this world, Obama's comments on Hillary's odorosity along with his endorsement should guarantee that she loses...

How were trig tables made before computers or calculators?

How were trig tables made before computers or calculators?  I've read before about how early mathematicians made logarithm tables.  The methods are heavy on tedium, low on cleverness.  I've also read how some mechanical devices were contrived to estimate trig functions (sine, cosine, and tangent), but the precision of these devices was quite low: a couple of digits, three at the very most.  But I knew that mathematicians were using much higher precision trig functions hundreds of years ago.  How did they do it?

Here's an explanation of how they got tables at one degree intervals.  That's enough for many kinds of work, but I know there were tables at much smaller intervals (down to 10s of arc-seconds, I believe) that filled entire books.  I don't fully understand the math being described here, but I'm guessing that method for getting to one degree intervals can be extended to smaller intervals.  What jumps out at me about the method is that it involves some clever hoop-jumping, along with an awe-inspiring amount of tedium as well...

“His word is a ping-pong ball in flight.”

“His word is a ping-pong ball in flight.”  That's Rex Murphy describing the value of Obama's word, in his piece on the recent carbon dioxide reduction agreement between the U.S. and China.  Here's his conclusion:

So this great historic deal is really nothing more than yet another trot out of verbal commitments, a last gasp for Mr. Obama, a placation to the always fierce warming constituency, and for the Chinese, a little chuckle or two at how easy it is to charm the eagerly gullible.

You owe it to yourself to read the whole thing – and anything else you can find that Mr. Murphy has written.  His speeches are just as good.