The Western Syndicate

Western Syndicate Plans Aerial Service

2010-11-28T10:16:00.001-08:00

Definition

2010-08-10T22:51:00.000-07:00

A divided or “Western” syndicate is one in which the members stand alone. When a member of such a syndicate has sold its allocation—or bracket—it has no further liability. This is in direct contrast to the undivided—or Eastern—syndicate in which the members have a continuing liability, at their original bracket, for any unsold securities.

You will probably have to visit the link to understand the context.

Hand Signals Defined

2010-07-10T21:29:00.001-07:00

http://unconventional-airsoft.com/2003/01/15/hand-signals-defined/

The backlog

2010-06-13T08:57:00.001-07:00

The backlog is pretty long -- if I actually intended to post one item from the backlog here every couple of days, I could fake you out and post for a few months, without disclosing that it was just old backlog stuff.

But, naah.

Random Questions security

2010-06-13T08:56:00.001-07:00

I hate web sites that implement Random Questions security.

http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/WishItWas-TwoFactor-.aspx

Semi abandoned

2010-06-13T08:52:00.000-07:00

This blog has joined the legions of semi-abandoned blogs, as you can tell. Check Twitter and Facebook to see what is going on.

I will still post things from time to time over here when I am just looking for someplace to upload something. But it won't be on a regular basis anymore.

I do have a backlog of old items that I eventually intended to post here. I will go through some of those and put them up. But some of them were from a long time ago and I may not remember why I put them in my backlog. That is just a warning in advance in case it doesn't seem to make any sense. (What? Doesn't make any sense? Here?)

Lent

2010-02-20T23:27:00.000-08:00

from Pithless Thoughts via Mark Shea

Box auction

2010-02-19T23:38:00.001-08:00

marriedtothesea.com

Yes I've been to that exact station

2010-01-20T18:25:00.001-08:00

There Will Be Confetti and Speeches
Conductor: This is not the airport station. You will know it when you see it. I will make a big deal about it when we get there.

BART Station
San Francisco, California

Overheard by: Glad my iPod was off
via Overheard Everywhere, Nov 8, 2008

Times are bad

2010-01-20T17:58:00.001-08:00

Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC)

Didn't know about Haiti

2010-01-16T09:28:00.000-08:00

This is an interesting opinion. Why Haiti's Earthquake Is France's Problem

I almost feel guilty...

2010-01-16T09:11:00.001-08:00

... forwarding this story around. But I can't resist. It is pretty amusing.

Weight Watchers clinic floor collapses under dieters

Curious?

2010-01-02T14:24:00.001-08:00

Scores of readers are asking me when my predictions for 2010 will be coming. You'll just have to wait for a while.

I predict that I will not post them before January 1.

So was I right?

2009-12-31T13:15:00.000-08:00

It is time for me to review the predictions from last year so we can have a good laugh. Maybe? Not sure. I wrote that last sentence before even looking to see what I predicted. Here goes:

- Either a new country will be created somewhere in the world in 2009, or a country will disappear.

As far as I know, this did not happen.

- The GDP of the US will be lower in 3Q2009 than it was in 4Q2008. It will be higher in 3Q2009 than it was in 2Q2009.

Obviously we all had the economy on our minds at the end of last year (still do). So let's look up the actual statistics here. I am going to use the best available numbers, since I know they get "updated" from time to time, probably when it's politically convenient.

I am using http://www.bea.gov/national/nipaweb/TableView.asp?SelectedTable=5&FirstYear=2008&LastYear=2009&Freq=Qtr for some nice raw data. These numbers are presumably in billions of US$.

3Q2009: 14,242.1
2Q2009: 14,151.2
4Q2008: 14,347.3

So it looks like I was right on that one.

- I am going to put up an additional new web site in 2009.

I'm going to call that a "no" -- there was really nothing significantly public that I did. Partly because of the next item.

- The Western Syndicate site will still be going same as ever at the end of 2009.

It turns out no. Postings here, as you may have noticed, are significantly down, but that is because I have offloaded a lot of stuff to the Twitter/Facebook combination, where I am actually posting more than I used to. Foresaw the rise of social media, possibly, but not my sudden increased use of it in 2009.

So I got, what, 1 out of 4. That seems pretty typical. Predicting the future is hard.

One I can agree with

2009-12-29T20:43:00.001-08:00

If we're picking what we want the next terrorist act to be, here is a good suggestion.

Are you ready?

2009-12-28T22:02:00.000-08:00

Do you want to talk about predictions from last year and predictions for next year?

The Queen what?

2009-12-11T17:47:00.000-08:00

Queen faces anti-terror checks every time she leaves UK
(Daily Mail)

The Queen is to be forced to go through an identity check every time she flies into and out of Britain.
For the first time, Her Majesty will be compelled to give her full name, age, address, nationality, gender and place of birth to immigration officials, who will then check that she is not on a list of wanted terrorists.

I want to know what they do if they find her on the list.

Nebraska Nebraska

2009-12-09T09:00:00.001-08:00

http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2009/12/09/426-mysterious-nebraska-shaped-field-in-nebraska/

Why didn't I think of this?

2009-12-08T21:03:00.000-08:00

This was a great idea... while it worked. (from Daring Fireball)

Scott McCartney, for the WSJ:

At least several hundred mile-junkies discovered that a free shipping offer on presidential and Native American $1 coins, sold at face value by the U.S. Mint, amounted to printing free frequent-flier miles. Mileage lovers ordered more than $1 million in coins until the Mint started identifying them and cutting them off.

Coin buyers charged the purchases, sold in boxes of 250 coins, to a credit card that offers frequent-flier mile awards, then took the shipments straight to the bank. They then used the coins they deposited to pay their credit-card bills. Their only cost: the car trip to make the deposit.

Work

2009-11-29T09:03:00.000-08:00

From Frank J Fleming:

Work extra hard knowing your money is going towards getting poor people prison sentences for not buying health insurance.

(IMAO)

I concur

2009-11-16T21:12:00.000-08:00

Marc Andreessen finds a priceless CNN headline.

Department of Remarkably Good Ideas, nuclear weapons edition

True facts

2009-11-16T20:11:00.001-08:00

If Wiki Confirms It, It Must Be True.
Philly girl #1, pointing to picture: Hey! My dad once punched that guy in the face!
Philly girl #2: Benjamin Netanyahu?
Philly girl #1: Yeah.
Philly girl #2: Wait... isn't he from Israel?
Philly girl #1: Nope. He went to Cheltenham high school, same as my dad.
Philly girl #2: What happened?
Philly girl #1: My dad said, "if you poke me one more time, I'm gonna punch you in the face."
Philly girl #2: (silence)
Philly girl #1: He poked him.

--M60 Bus
via Overheard in New York, Nov 14, 2009

The bank

2009-11-16T10:34:00.000-08:00

One Day At The Bank Branch (Mish Shedlock)

I imagined the same thing

2009-11-11T23:34:00.000-08:00

11AM We Imagine Ving Rhames in This Role
Starbucks barista: And what size would you like?
Very tall and intimidating black man with deep voice: My size.
(barista grabs largest cup available)

Santa Rosa, California

Overheard by: One-Hit
via Overheard in the Office, Nov 10, 2009

Confess

2009-11-11T23:17:00.001-08:00

"If you torture data sufficiently, it will confess to almost anything." -Fred Menger, chemistry professor (1937- )

Success

2009-11-11T11:04:00.000-08:00

James Cameron quote being passed around today (I got it from Daring Fireball):

“If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success.”

Know any Harvard MBAs

2009-11-07T13:08:00.000-08:00

Submitted with no comment.

Fewer Harvard M.B.A. graduates took jobs on Wall Street this year than in the past as a result of the sharp contraction in the financial services industry. But for Ray Soifer, a former banking analyst and Harvard Business School alumnus, the reduced number of graduates flocking to Wall Street isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it may actually be a positive signal for the market.

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/a-contrary-indicator-on-mbas-and-stocks/

Have a drink

2009-11-06T15:36:00.000-08:00

(stolen from the comments box on Mark Shea's blog)

Rene Descartes goes into a bar and has a glass of wine. The bartender asks him, "Would you like another?" Descartes replies, "I don't think..." and then vanishes into thin air.

Dies irae

2009-11-02T15:35:00.000-08:00

Dies irae, dies illa
solvet saeclum in favilla:
teste David cum Sibylla.

Quantus tremor est futurus,
quando judex est venturus,
cuncta stricte discussurus!

Tuba mirum spargens sonum
per sepulcra regionum,
coget omnes ante thronum.

Mors stupebit et natura,
cum resurget creatura,
judicanti responsura.

Liber scriptus proferetur,
in quo totum continetur,
unde mundus judicetur.

Judex ergo cum sedebit,
quidquid latet apparebit:
nil inultum remanebit.

Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?
Quem patronum rogaturus,
cum vix justus sit securus?

Rex tremendae majestatis,
qui salvandos salvas gratis,
salva me fons pietatis.

Recordare, Jesu pie,
quod sum causa tuae viae:
ne me perdas illa die.

Quaerens me, sedisti lassus:
redemisti Crucem passus:
tantus labor non sit cassus.

Juste judex ultionis,
donum fac remissionis
ante diem rationis.

Ingemisco, tamquam reus:
culpa rubet vultus meus:
supplicanti parce, Deus.

Qui Mariam absolvisti,
et latronem exaudisti,
mihi quoque spem dedisti.

Preces meae non sunt dignae:
sed tu bonus fac benigne,
ne perenni cremer igne.

Inter oves locum praesta,
et ab haedis me sequestra,
statuens in parte dextra.

Confutatis maledictis,
flammis acribus addictis:
voca me cum benedictis.

Oro supplex et acclinis,
cor contritum quasi cinis:
gere curam mei finis.

Lacrimosa dies illa,
qua resurget ex favilla
judicandus homo reus.

Huic ergo parce, Deus:
pie Jesu Domine,
dona eis requiem. Amen.

It really works

2009-10-13T23:07:00.000-07:00

I got this reference without looking it up!

toothpastefordinner.com

More destruction

2009-10-13T08:42:00.000-07:00

Blogging as Creative Destruction (CloudAve). I haven't been engaging in a lot of creative destruction lately (at least not in this venue, although I have been doing plenty of it elsewhere in my life.)

In the meantime if you are a frequent visitor of this space and are interested in seeing what's going on, I am afraid you'll just have to wait a little longer :-)

I need one of these

2009-09-23T23:31:00.001-07:00

Continuing the renowned series of "Mark needs one of these" postings.

nataliedee.com

Putin

2009-09-23T23:27:00.000-07:00

Drew's title is "when putin says tusks you say da"

superpoop.com

Libertarian

2009-09-23T23:24:00.000-07:00

superpoop.com

My evil plans are completely ruined

2009-09-21T23:13:00.000-07:00

Melting Ice Caps Expose Hundreds Of Secret Arctic Lairs (The Onion)

According to oceanographers, the Arctic Circle has been devastated by the effects of global warming in recent years, threatening hundreds of men and women who use the frozen tundra as a place to conduct bizarre experiments in human-animal grafting, carry out massive government cover-ups, or simply as a hidden headquarters from which to battle the forces of evil and fight crime.

I think I'm doing this backwards

2009-09-13T11:09:00.001-07:00

I just posted a bunch of interesting pages up on my Facebook profile. Doh.

I thought I was supposed to be using FB to direct traffic here.

Anyway, go check it out.

Genius

2009-09-09T20:41:00.001-07:00

"The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves, which leave us to wonder at the possibility that there may be something to them that we are missing."
- Gamel Abdel Nasser

VMware Fusion in Snow Leopard

2009-08-29T12:27:00.001-07:00

(this is from mail I sent last night about my Snow Leopard install)

Seems to work ok. This is 32 bit snow leopard though.

Couple of weirdnesses -- I unthinkingly didn't actually shut down my guests before upgrading, I just suspended them. I did the snow leopard install and vmware fusion 2.0.5 upgrade, and then restarted the XP guest, and got a warning saying that the video drivers might be screwed up until I rebooted the guest. I dismissed the warning, it didn't seem to have any effect at all. Later I rebooted the guest and there was no more warning. Ubuntu didn't complain at all.

I did upgrade the VMware tools in the XP guest also.

The handoff of the mouse pointer between the host and the guest is slightly broken. If I kind of ease into the guest's screen, it works. If I try to do it fast, sometimes it doesn't catch, or the pointer just gets stuck, or the pointer disappears. Hitting control-cmd to release the pointer and then moving the mouse again fixes it.

If I disconnect my USB serial port from the VM (which happens in my normal workflow sometimes) the Mac now helpfully notices that a USB port has become available that I probably want to run TCP/IP over, and asks me if I want to configure that. Every time. Also it did when I booted the machine (I don't know if it will ask me when I reboot... maybe.) So this magic detection of networks running over USB might be an annoyance. It is pretty clear that the USB port that has a tty device driver installed on it is not going to be used as a network device, or I wouldn't have installed a tty device drive manually on it already.

It is nice that my tty device driver from Leopard actually still worked though.

So I seem to be able to work.

Someone should do that

2009-08-29T11:24:00.001-07:00

marriedtothesea.com

Destruction

2009-08-25T09:46:00.000-07:00

The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor.. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent.
-- George Orwell, 1984

Bit of market wisdom

2009-08-25T09:34:00.000-07:00

This is about right, from experience.

Reacting to data and market releases: (Zerohedge.com)

weak data = Fed ease, stocks rally
consensus data = lower volatility, stocks rally
strong data = economy strengthening, stocks rally
bank loses $4bln = bad news out of the way, stocks rally
oil spikes = great for energy companies, stocks rally
oil drops = great for the consumer, stocks rally
dollar plunges = great for multinationals, stocks rally
dollar spikes = lowers inflation, stocks rally
inflation spikes = will inflate all assets, stocks rally
inflation drops = improves earnings quality, stocks rally

The kilogram is busted

2009-08-23T17:59:00.001-07:00

This Kilogram Has A Weight-Loss Problem (NPR)

I was just doing air travel the last few days

2009-08-13T12:27:00.000-07:00

toothpastefordinner.com

I wonder how they did that

2009-08-13T12:23:00.000-07:00

marriedtothesea.com

Your Quaoar news source

2009-08-07T15:14:00.000-07:00

An update from Wikipedia about our friend Quaoar:

The discovery of a satellite of Quaoar was reported in IAUC 8812 on 22 February 2007.[15][16] The orbit of this satellite has yet to be determined. The satellite was found at 0.35 arcsec from Quaoar with magnitude difference of 5.6.[17] Assuming an albedo similar to that of the primary the magnitude suggests a diameter of 95 ± 24 km.[16] Brown believes it is likely to be a collisional fragment of Quaoar, which he speculates lost much of its ice mantle in the process.

Brown has left the choice of a name up to the Tongva, who have reportedly chosen the sky god Weywot, son of Quaoar. However, the Tongva have yet to formally inform Brown or the IAU of their decision.[18]

Full page is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50000_Quaoar

Idea

2009-07-30T16:15:00.000-07:00

"Exhilaration is that feeling you get just after a great idea hits you, and just before you realize what's wrong with it."
- Rex Harrison

Effective

2009-07-28T09:25:00.001-07:00

Sometimes there are pearls of wisdom inside all of this business spam that I get.

“No executive has ever suffered because his subordinates were strong and effective.”
— Peter Drucker

How to find generals

2009-07-27T15:10:00.000-07:00

"The Creator has not thought proper to mark those in the forehead who are of stuff to make good generals. We are first, therefore, to seek them blindfold, and then let them learn the trade at the expense of great losses. "

- Thomas Jefferson

Oh, that'll fix it

2009-07-26T18:24:00.000-07:00

Best headline of the day, too.

Single Regulator To Solve Systemic Risk (Dealbreaker)

IKEA takes over General Motors

2009-07-25T15:44:00.000-07:00

I like this photo.

Hunting

2009-07-19T11:43:00.001-07:00

Microsoft's Laptop Hunter ads

I think this is a really good ad, even though I'm a Mac guy myself. Probably the first halfway effective Microsoft ad I've ever seen.

And Apple is upset enough about the ad that their lawyers have contacted Microsoft about it.

I am not on email

2009-07-14T15:34:00.001-07:00

toothpastefordinner.com

Thanks Drew

2009-07-12T18:21:00.000-07:00

The laugh was helpful

toothpastefordinner.com

No, really

2009-07-07T09:31:00.000-07:00

I liked this anecdote reported on Yahoo Finance. #8 in a list of 10:

http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/107261/dumbest-moments-in-business-2009-midyear-edition.html;_ylt=Aubt8tBgOlOVXdJTsAktdxK7YWsA?mod=career-leadership

8. U.S. Debt is 'Safe.' Seriously. Stop Laughing

Following a speech at Peking University on his first trip to China as Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner was asked to share his thoughts about the safety of Chinese investments in the United States. They are "VERY safe," he quickly asserted.

At which point the audience burst out laughing. Apparently, the audience was amused not only by the answer's substance, but by the flat "don't worry your little young heads about it" certainty with which Geithner insisted that China's U.S. debt holdings were A-OK. Because as even a group of Chinese college kids understood, that's just not as clear as the Treasury Secretary insisted it was.

Who watches the Watchmen?

2009-07-05T15:32:00.000-07:00

The smiley face on Mars:

http://jennifersaylor.wordpress.com/2006/09/25/face-on-mars-revealed/

The end

2009-06-27T12:33:00.001-07:00

And I mean democracy in the entire world, not just the US.

Democracy

2009-06-27T12:32:00.001-07:00

I think we're looking at the end of democracy.

I could explain why, but I think I'll leave you guessing for the moment.

Lunar

2009-06-21T21:46:00.000-07:00

HD Images from Japan's Kaguya Lunar Probe

Alarming

2009-06-18T08:53:00.000-07:00

America’s ice sculptures melting at alarming rate (Derf)

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released a cautionary statement this week regarding the accelerated melting rates of America’s ice sculptures. The agency cited facts from a recent study indicating within a decade the U.S. production of ice sculptures may not be able to keep pace with the melting of current sculptures. Experts say virtually all of America’s original ice sculptures have melted and new replacement sculptures are being created daily.

Pie

2009-06-14T10:44:00.001-07:00

I would just note here that the iPhone is similar in shape and size to a McDonald's apple pie.

Fast Food Apple Pies and Why Netbooks Suck

Matrix Ping Pong

2009-06-04T10:09:00.000-07:00

A great shame

2009-06-04T10:02:00.000-07:00

marriedtothesea.com

Interesting race discrimination case

2009-05-31T20:46:00.000-07:00

Pappas v. Giuliani -- the dissent of Judge Sotomayor is the interesting part.

So the reverse-discrimination claim is one of the very few cases where she stood out from the other judges. It's notable that that was a case that turned on free speech rights — and the speech in question was speech Sotomayor presumably disgrees with vehemently...

More fail

2009-05-31T20:45:00.000-07:00

I liked this knife trick. Watch closely.

Anyone remember Kelo?

2009-05-26T21:59:00.000-07:00

Good to recall this one once in a while. I bet we hear more about this in the hearings.

Sotomayor and eminent domain (Washington Examiner)

I support this excellent idea

2009-05-25T20:34:00.000-07:00

It is time to legalize counterfeiting.

(It's scary that the author had to clarify, "this is satire".)

[More: I liked this from the comments:

I'm going to sneak into Mexico and mow lawns for a while. When the exchange rate hits 1:1, I'll come back and convert all my pesos to dollars. If I time it right, the dollar may go back up someday.

]

Proposition fail

2009-05-20T10:36:00.001-07:00

(really getting into the "fail" meme this week)

California Rejects Schwarzenegger’s Budget Measures (Bloomberg, via Yahoo)

There is a lesson in here for legislators who are drafting ballot propositions:

California voters rejected a package of budget-balancing measures that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said were needed to keep a $15 billion deficit from widening to $21 billion. A proposal to limit lawmaker pay passed.

They had to suspect that this combination of issues, broken up into this combination of propositions, would give the people a chance to do nothing but deny them a pay raise.

Oh yeah, look who shows up to add her two cents' worth:

“The fact is, right now, Californians do not trust Sacramento or the political process by which the budget is crafted, and they cannot afford higher taxes,” Meg Whitman, the former EBay Inc. chief executive officer who plans to run for California governor, said in a statement.

Meg, the tax buster.

Food

2009-05-19T10:25:00.000-07:00

You've probably noticed that once I started feeding Facebook and Twitter more, I was putting content over there instead of here.

I actually prefer to put the content here though. I need to think about that some more.

I shouldn't spend too much time thinking. Thinking doesn't make content show up here unless I actually write something.

updating

2009-05-19T10:20:00.001-07:00

You're supposed to tell me I'm being lazy and not updating my blog.

I would like to hear more from my thousands of readers and minions.

Anyway, if you really want to look at my stream of consciousness, you can look at that Twitter feed which is currently located over on the right side. But that's kind of scary.

It was C, then DCX...

2009-04-30T10:42:00.000-07:00

A couple of random links about the Chrysler bankruptcy situation:

Relative sizes of Fiat and Chrysler

Statement from non-TARP lenders of Chrysler

Disclaimer

2009-04-29T12:31:00.000-07:00

marriedtothesea.com

Mac OS X: How to uninstall Google Software Update

2009-04-26T20:36:00.001-07:00

Use Google software on your Mac? Want to disable the annoying automatic Google Software Update that it's impossible to shut up? This site gives tips for how to disable Google Software Update on Mac OS X.

And before all you Windows users tell me that it can be disabled in the preferences -- yes, it can be disabled that way on Windows, but not on the Mac. No idea why Google did that -- it's pretty unforgivable and just a horrible user experience. It nearly drove me to uninstall all of my Google software before I found this workaround.

Happy Earth day...

2009-04-22T17:57:00.001-07:00

and Lenin's birthday.

I'd like to borrow this Easter tradition

2009-04-22T17:49:00.000-07:00

Every year, two churches in Greece fire rockets at each other while services are held.

The revolution

2009-04-22T16:59:00.000-07:00

This interesting article entitled The Coming of the Fourth American Republic aligns with my thesis that we have been in a slow-moving revolution starting about ten years ago. (Read about the Roman revolution to get more of an idea of what I'm talking about.)

And today's quote of the day is from the article:

as former Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Herbert Stein said: “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.”

Spreadtweet

2009-04-16T16:51:00.001-07:00

Best abuse of Adobe AIR I've seen yet.

http://www.elliottkember.com/spreadtweet.html

(more fun: see the dog-eared corner in the upper left? pull it back...)

Junk

2009-04-14T14:47:00.000-07:00

toothpastefordinner.com

To self quote or not

2009-04-08T23:18:00.001-07:00

I have a large supply of self quotes from tonight's conversation with Patrick but I don't know if I want to go there.

I mean, I wouldn't want this blog to become all about me, or something.

Dear Microsoft

2009-04-03T10:21:00.001-07:00

On my work account I use Outlook, connected to an Exchange server.

Search is SO SLOW in Outlook that I actually run Thunderbird in a separate window, do my searches over there over IMAP, and then find the date of the mail note that I am looking for, and then go back to Outlook and scroll through my Inbox to locate the message manually.

In other words, what I'm saying is the only reason I'm even running Outlook at all is because it has a task list and a calendar in it.

That Thunderbird code is open source. You might want to look through the code and see if they have figured out a way to make search faster than you have been able to and, well, take the code.

What a trillion dollars looks like

2009-03-25T20:09:00.000-07:00

Lots of people are passing this around, I figured I'd join them. Here is what a trillion dollars looks like.

Extremely dangerous

2009-03-23T20:27:00.000-07:00

Geithner's Plan "Extremely Dangerous," Economist Galbraith Says

Might want to mute it first, it's a TechTicker article at Yahoo and that video player has an annoying habit of starting up without your explicit permission -- good article though.

Sunshine or Dark Star?

2009-03-20T23:55:00.000-07:00

I just watched the old old ultra low-budget John Carpenter sci-fi "comedy" Dark Star. I thought it resembled the movie Sunshine a lot. A bit too much. One of the major characters in Sunshine is named Pinback(er). Yeah, definitely copied from it.

Anyway, found this review of Sunshine, which is spot on and pretty amusing. I don't recommend that you watch Sunshine unless you just want to look for analogies with Dark Star (and the fast-forward button in hand in both cases.)

A Day on Mercury

2009-03-20T23:31:00.000-07:00

Try this flash animation to see what the sun does in the sky during a day on Mercury. I didn't know that.

A Day on Mercury

Automatic bailout machine

2009-03-16T18:07:00.001-07:00

toothpastefordinner.com

No parking tree

2009-03-15T22:49:00.000-07:00

There is really a No Parking tree. Sorbus Admonitor.

The tree, a deciduous hybrid related to the rowan, was first noticed in a small lay-by at Watersmeet in North Devon in the 1930s with a no-parking sign tacked to the bark.

It is only recently that scientists have undertaken a biochemical analysis to confirm the tree is a new species and it was formally named yesterday.

No photos unfortunately. Click through on the link for the full article (Telegraph.co.uk via mirabilis.ca)

Wind turbines

2009-03-15T22:46:00.000-07:00

Great xkcd up now: http://xkcd.com/556/

They are unnerving.

New tip: Repairing "check for missing files failed" error on VMWare Fusion

2009-03-15T22:09:00.000-07:00

I just added an article over on the EarthTrax site with some additional tips about debugging a VM on VMware Fusion that wouldn't start because of the "check for missing files failed" error. I had difficulty finding the fix by searching the usual places, so I thought I should post what I found out.

I want to scan all this content into this site

2009-03-13T17:58:00.001-07:00

Someone get me a big scanner. I like this story.
Lost in the Archives (Chronicle Review, via Matthew)

Actually there's a lot that isn't on the Internet. And once you fly across the ocean in a cramped economy seat, arrive in Paris with your luggage and research notes, locate your rented apartment, renew your pass at the archives, secure a numbered spot in the crowded manuscripts room, find your documents in the catalogs, carefully write the shelf marks (call numbers) on the neat little forms provided for that purpose, and stand in line to hand your requests to the harried or indifferent clerk at the call desk — your work has only begun.

The quote of the day, but only when I feel like it

2009-03-11T12:11:00.000-07:00

Only the mediocre are always at their best.
Jean Giraudoux

Pirate Bay

2009-03-11T09:15:00.000-07:00

Awaiting the judges' ruling at the Pirate Bay trial (xkcd):

Avocado

2009-03-10T22:22:00.001-07:00

Now really, that's an avocado costume, not a new fashion, isn't it?

Megan's grill

2009-03-08T14:48:00.000-07:00

The Parable of Megan's Grill. An interesting discussion thread about credit and bankruptcy.

Watching the skies

2009-03-08T12:41:00.000-07:00

You can use this page at the Heavens Above web site to find the location of one of the latest new astronomical features, the (in)famous "ISS tool bag" .

What fools we were to save

2009-03-03T14:17:00.001-08:00

I was a fool

Spring is in the air

2009-03-02T17:01:00.000-08:00

84F today, surpassing the previous record for the day of 78F (got the chart from Intellicast)

Happy days are here again

2009-03-01T08:35:00.000-08:00

The approval of the stimulus plan may mean that the recession was already ending anyway, if history is any guide.

Remember This Catchphrase: "Maybe Too Little, Always Too Late" (Reason)

One might suggest this

2009-02-27T14:30:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day

"The suggestion might be that there's some hard-wiring there that can interfere with the average man's ability to interact on deeper levels with really hot looking stranger women in bikinis," he said.

Men see bikini-clad women as objects, psychologists say (CNN)

State of the Union

2009-02-25T11:02:00.000-08:00

I think Karl says it best. I have been saying that a lot lately.

State Of The Union Verdict: BOOOO

The vast majority of Americans did not cheat. We did not lie about our incomes, we did not take out dangerous mortgages, were did not participate in selling garbage loans to Americans by deceiving them so we could skim off thousands in fees and we did not participate in this garbage.

We, however, are the ones who are getting hosed - we're being asked to pay higher taxes, either directly (ourselves) or indirectly (as when "the rich" are taxed more they will not hire as many people - that would be those of us who need jobs!)

The Banksters are getting bailed out, the irresponsible or even outright cheaters are going to be able to refinance their mortgages (despite what Obama said tonight, Sheila Bair said otherwise - there will be no verification that fraud was not involved in the mortgages they refinance) and not one prosecution is being planned for those who screwed us.

Find

2009-02-18T09:00:00.001-08:00

Major cache of fossils unearthed in L.A. (LA Times)

A cool feature of living in southern California -- mammoths and saber-tooth cats.

Providence

2009-02-17T23:18:00.000-08:00

A special Providence protects fools, drunkards, small children and the United States of America.

- Otto von Bismarck
German Prussian politician (1815 - 1898) (from The Quotations Page)