Porcupine Reservoir is full!

Porcupine Reservoir is full!  We took a drive up there (map at right) this afternoon (photos below) and were delighted to see that the dam is spilling over – the reservoir is full to the brim.

This is most excellent news for all of us in the southern Cache Valley who depend on Porcupine Reservoir for our summer irrigation water.  Just a month ago everyone here was worried about a water shortage – now we're actually a little bit ahead of the water curve.  Most years the draw from the reservoir would already have started.  Not this year!  We're sopping wet at the moment.  The storm total ended up being 3.7 inches just north of Paradise, and it will have been something similar over the entire southern Cache Valley.

This is such a pretty drive for us, south from our home through the beautiful farms and towns of Paradise and Avon, then up the canyon to the reservoir.  There isn't any stretch of that drive that isn't pleasing to the eye.  This time of year, the fields are full of babies: colts, calves, kids, lambs, and more.  The trees and waterways are full of chicks and fledglings.  The fields are lush shades of green, as are the hills all the way up to the mountain peaks.  Lots of plants are still in bloom, though that's winding down.  The smells of farms and forest fill our nostrils on the whole trip, and the sounds of farm animals, birds, insects, and frogs are with us all the way.  As I write this the sun is setting, and around our house we hear dozens of birds complaining about the night time that is about to start.

We feel lucky as hell to live here...

The new peace...

The new peace...  An excellent short documentary on the astonishing reduction in war-related deaths since WWII.  There were no surprises in here for me, but I'll bet that for most people born after about 1980 it's chock full of 'em...

Medical instruments of a century ago...

Medical instruments of a century ago...  I don't generally suffer from the “good old days syndrome” – and things like these are amongst the reasons why.  Not to mention the fact that I would never have reached my age (62) a hundred years ago, because back then they had no idea how to treat my pernicious anemia.  I would have died from it a couple of decades earlier...

Powerless in Paradise...

Powerless in Paradise...  We were without power for several hours yesterday.  The outage was caused by someone hitting a power pole just north of our place, snapping it off at the base.  The pickup that hit the pole ended up in the irrigation canal alongside the highway, with its nose aimed right at our neighbor's (Tim and Jeannie D.) house!  When I walked over to see if I could help, the police on scene told me everybody was ok; no serious injuries.  Both Tim and Jeannie were away at the time of the accident, so I called Tim to let him know what happened – and he told me someone else had hit that same pole just a few years ago!  The thing must have a target on it :)

We need a generator.  We've lost count, but this is either the fifth or sixth power outage we've had this year...

Best dog story evah?

Best dog story evah?  My pistol-packing mama thinks it just might be:

A guy is driving around the back woods of Montana and he sees a sign in front of a broken down shanty-style house: 'Talking Dog For Sale'.  He rings the bell and the owner appears and tells him the dog is in the backyard.

The guy goes into the backyard and sees a nice looking Labrador retriever sitting there.

'You talk?' he asks.

'Yep,' the Lab replies.

After the guy recovers from the shock of hearing a dog talk, he says 'So, what's your story?'

The Lab looks up and says, 'Well, I discovered that I could talk when I was pretty young. I wanted to help the government, so... I told the CIA.

In no time at all they had me jetting from country to country, sitting in rooms with spies and world leaders, because no one figured a dog would be eavesdropping.'

'I was one of their most valuable spies for eight years running...but the jetting around really tired me out, and I knew I wasn't getting any
younger so I decided to settle down. I signed up for a job at the airport to do some undercover security, wandering near suspicious characters and listening in.  I uncovered some incredible dealings and was awarded a batch of medals.'

'I got married, had a mess of puppies, and now I'm just retired.'

The guy is amazed. He goes back in and asks the owner what he wants for the dog.

'Ten dollars,' the guy says.

'Ten dollars? This dog is amazing! Why on earth are you selling him so
cheap?'

'Because he's a Bullshitter. He's never been out of the yard'

Curiosity finds layers on Mars...

Curiosity finds layers on Mars...  Tiny, thin layers.  I'm no geologist, but to me this says WATER.  All the ways I know that such layers can form involve water with minerals in solution, either invading a crack, or evaporating from a flat surface.  This image was taken with the MAHLI camera, so it is highly magnified.  It was processed with focus-merge, so there is an unusually deep field of focus.  (Many) more here...

“...because our feeble American brains cannot fully comprehend the awesomeness of organized labor.”

“...because our feeble American brains cannot fully comprehend the awesomeness of organized labor.”  Snatched from an excellent post by Frank Soto on Ricochet...

Two ways to see this...

Two ways to see this...  Watch the video at right, then read this.

Most software engineers viewing this will have the same reaction I did: some variant of “Holy crap!” Why?  Because that robot is doing something that is incredibly challenging to program, especially in real time.  Almost every element of that robot, from sensors to actuators, poses a very difficult programming challenge.  That challenge is even harder if the solution you're seeking is a general one (i.e., let this robot run anywhere and jump over obstacles) as the MIT program is, and not a specific one (i.e., jump over this set of specific obstacles). 

Most other people will look at this and say something like “Well, this is cool and all, but what else can it do?  Just run?”

And in a very roundabout way, that's why I'm not too worried about artificial intelligence powered robots taking over the world anytime soon :)  It's just too damned hard for conventional computers and conventional programming methods, no spectacular breakthroughs are around the corner (at least, none that I know of), and consumer expectations are light-years ahead of the reality.  I suspect that the spawn of Roomba is what we can reasonably expect for quite a long time...