Weathersfield

Wallpaper of the Day, September 9, 2010

2010-09-09T09:17:00.000-07:00

Swimsuit model Natalia Paris, in 1920x1080 HD, 501KB.

The 684KB original:

Wallpaper of the Day, September 9, 2010

2010-09-08T15:36:00.000-07:00

1255x1024, 315KB.

The 657KB original:

Fly-sized assassins

2010-09-07T12:38:00.000-07:00

FuturePundit asks "Will Terminator Robots Come In Fly Miniature?" My comment:

The wiping-out-towns problem is already solved by aerial bombardment or poison gas. Notice that full-size drones are already being used for targeted killing. Swarms of fly-sized assassins, with some means of identifying targets, are a logical development.

Fighter pilots who have survived being locked on by homing surface-to-air missiles describe the experience as "soul-destroying." I suspect that unleashing a horde of dog-sized robots, each of which picks an enemy soldier at random and hunts him specifically, might turn a defensive trench into chaos as soon as the defenders realized what was happening.

The robotic battlefield might come about sooner than we expect, as a result of human psychology.

Wallpaper of the Day, September 7, 2010

2010-09-06T17:32:00.000-07:00

Model Mayra Suarez. 1280x1024, a mere 96KB.

The 134KB, 1636x2000 original:

Wallpaper of the Day, September 6, 2010

2010-09-06T09:02:00.000-07:00

Actress Autumn Reeser in uniform. 1280x1023, 178KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, September 5, 2010

2010-09-05T18:35:00.000-07:00

Actress Anne Hathaway. 1280x1024, 262KB.

Listening to quantum mechanics

2010-09-04T20:11:00.000-07:00

The Right Coast blog takes a break from Law, Politics and Culture to weigh in on the interpretation of quantum mechanics. My comment is, basically, that we should see what QM has to say first.

One of the lessons I learned from Albert Einstein is, "Believe the theory."

So what does QM say about this? What do we believe when we believe the theory? Basically, Dan Simon's Choice 3:

QM says that probability is preserved. If you start with a universe with total probability 1.0, you will end with a total probability 1.0. Therefore, there is no creation of parallel universes. (I make a distinction between "creating parallel universes" and the existence of a superposition of states. For one thing,as I discuss below, we already accept the second, but not the first.)

QM says that if you make a measurement with two outcomes, state A and state B, with probabilities pA and pB respectively, you will end up with a state (pA*A+pB*B), with some relative phase difference between the pA and pB substates. This includes the experimenter being in a superposition of (pA*"I measured A!" + pB*"I measured B!"), also with the phase.

What you have instead of the creation of parallel universes, is the subdivision of the original universe into substates that coexist, and in fact can interact, even though the substates are logically inconsistent. Quantum computing is totally based on this principle.

This does not introduce a new concept to QM. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle says that all possible quantum states subdivide the universe into incompatible states that coexist and interact. If you put a particle into a state with a specified spread of momenta, it will be subdivided into a collection of incompatible position states such that dPdX >= h/pi is satisfied.

So you're just going from a state that satisfies Heisenberg to a different state that satisfies Heisenberg. Not too startling.

I don't claim that anything above is "true." I do claim that it is what QM says. "Interpretations" like the Copenhagen interpretation assume that QM is lying at some point.

Personally, I think it would be good to follow QM and see where it takes us. For some reason, almost no one agrees. I suspect it's the part where the experimenter suffers splitting like a common electron, but I don't know.

So the state where you're in the shower with Hillary Clinton is not a whole parallel universe. It is a part of the singular universe, with a (for most of us) infinitesimal probability. So is the one where you're in the shower with Kate Beckinsale. Or Brad Pitt. And they interfere with each other. That's life in the quantum universe.

Wallpaper of the Day, September 4, 2010

2010-09-04T20:00:00.000-07:00

1080x1920, 351KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, September 3, 2010

2010-09-02T07:42:00.000-07:00

Actress Scarlett Johanssen.

1920x1080, 316KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, September 2, 2010

2010-09-01T08:42:00.000-07:00

1280x1024, 251KB.

The 1MB original:

Wallpaper of the Day, September 1, 2010

2010-08-31T09:00:00.000-07:00

Actress Susan Ward. 1280x1024, 130 KB.



The 699KB original. See, it really is Susan Ward.

Wallpaper of the Day, August 31, 2010

2010-08-30T18:03:00.000-07:00

1280x1024, 240KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, August 30, 2010

2010-08-30T17:14:00.000-07:00

1280x1024, 258KB.

The Reactionary Left, or Modern Enlightened Thought[2010]

2010-08-29T19:43:00.000-07:00

Matt Ridley, at his "The Rational Optimist" blog, links approvingly to an essay by Fred Siegel in "City Journal," about how progressivism turned against Progress in the 1960s. I commented on "The Rational Optimist":

You may have observed that you get the best fit to activist behavior if you assign a value of 4.0 to the emotional age of activists. The evolution of liberal activist attitudes described by Siegel can be entirely explained by the "Well I never really wanted that anyway!" response.

As Siegel notes, everything promised by the Left was being achieved, even over-achieved, by 1960. The problem was, it was being achieved without the Left's methods. We were coming off 8 years of Eisenhower and gray flannel suits, remember? So the Left [...] had to either admit that 1950s free enterprise and gray flannelism worked at least as well as Leftism, or declare "Well I never really wanted that anyway!"

They chose the latter course. Not for the last time either.

To make a long story short, 80 years ago, socialism was a moral imperative because it was the best way to create smoke-belching factories and deliver copious goods to the masses. 40 years ago, socialism was a moral imperative because it was the best way to prevent smoke-belching factories while still delivering copious goods to the masses. The Wall fell, and today socialism is a moral imperative because it's the best way to prevent smoke-belching factories and keep copious goods out of the piggish hands of the masses.

[I edited out a redundant "either".]

From the environmentalist revolution of the 1960s until after the collapse of Soviet Communism, it was axiomatic on the Left that socialist governments would be incomparably better stewards of the environment than capitalist governments. But once the socialist governments fell, it became undeniable that they had, in fact, been worse. There needed to be some way that capitalism was still wrong. Since capitalism had long ago proven to be more productive, and since it was now undeniable that the productivity had not been bought with greater environmental impact, there was only one path left. Productivity had to be a bad thing. Sure, at one time socialism had been supposedly superior because it was supposedly more productive. But that was then. This is now.

And so, we have locavores. Capitalism is able to bring you strawberries in February? BAD! BAD! BAD CAPITALISM!

Wallpaper of the Day, August 29, 2010

2010-08-28T10:45:00.000-07:00

Actress Megan Fox in extreme closeup. 1280x1024, 332KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, August 28, 2010

2010-08-27T08:48:00.000-07:00

Actress Sienna Miller. 1080x1920, 559KB.

The 1.8MB, 2524x3333 original:

Wallpaper of the Day, August 27, 2010

2010-08-26T11:05:00.000-07:00

Model Julie-Marie Geyskens, in 1920x1080 HD, 253KB.

The 259KB original:

Wallpaper of the Day, August 26, 2010

2010-08-25T13:23:00.000-07:00

1280x1024, 181KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, August 25, 2010

2010-08-24T12:13:00.000-07:00

1280x1024, 232KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, August 24, 2010

2010-08-23T17:08:00.000-07:00

1280x1024, 154KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, August 23, 2010

2010-08-22T19:11:00.000-07:00

Actress Olivia Wilde. 1200x1024, 306KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, August 22, 2010

2010-08-22T07:19:00.000-07:00

Actress Emma Watson, enjoying nature. 1280x1024, 278KB.

The 575KB original:

Wallpaper of the Day, August 21, 2010

2010-08-21T08:49:00.000-07:00

Actress Selma Blair. 1080x1920, 180KB.

PBS, "NOVA", and Kennewick Man

2010-08-20T15:26:00.000-07:00

Clayton Cramer has a blog post about the PBS "NOVA" program on Kennewick Man. I haven't watched NOVA for 20 years or so, for reasons I explained in my comment to that post:

I may have to give Nova another chance. It won't be easy, though.

I pretty much haven't watched it in about 20 years, since the program on the "wild man" of Hunan Province, China. In the intro, they said it was based on the work of Ohio State physical anthropologist Gary Poirier (pronounced as French). I thought "What a coincidence, I took physical anthro at Ohio State from Frank Poirier (pronounced the way it's spelled, of Armenian decent). And he's interested in the same kind of stuff."

Then they showed "Gary Pwa-ree-ay" and it was the guy I had at OSU, Frank Poirier. The whole show was based on his work, he was on-camera a lot, and they got his name completely wrong. Made it hard for me to take "Nova" seriously after that.

There was also the NOVA episode about how MIT invented radar in WWII. (Hint: MIT didn't invent radar.)

Anyway, Clayton Cramer recommends the episode on Kennewick Man, and is even planning to use it in the American History class he teaches. So I may have to break my two decade NOVA fast.

From a teenager, I wondered why the possibility of humans in the New World prior to about 20,000 years ago, was so taboo. Then I heard an anthropologist stating, with heavy emphasis, that DNA evidence proved beyond any doubt that the ancestors of today's Native Americans arrived in the New World more recently than 20,000 years ago, and therefore any evidence of humans in the New World prior to then, must be rejected.

And the penny dropped. The problem was that any humans in the Americas prior to 20,000 years were not ancestors to today's Native Americans, but were replaced by them. That overturns the whole "First Americans" noble savage narrative. Hence the taboo.

Kennewick Man stirred this pot but good, since his remains were first identified as Caucasian, then as possibly related to the Ainu, the aborigines of Japan. (The Ainu themselves were originally identified as Caucasian by the first Europeans to study them.) And he was carbon-dated to 9,300 years ago.

So Kennewick Man gives us this picture: an aboriginal New World population is displaced by the ancestors of today's Native Americans. This is inconceivably anti-PC. If Kennewick Man turned out to be Caucasian, it would be Slartibartfast's-signature-on-the-glacier-level proof that God exists and has a sophomoric sense of humor. Native American tribes in the Kennewick area wisely invented a cultural aversion to DNA testing of ancient, unidentified remains. Who knows how many faculty clubs would have been littered with exploded brains otherwise.

BTW, one of Poul Anderson's "Time Patrol" novels features a time-traveling anthropologist studying an encounter between New World aborigines and Palaeo-Indians. I suspect it's a lot more accurate than the politically correct narrative where the aborigines never existed.

Wallpaper of the Day, August 20, 2010

2010-08-19T16:16:00.000-07:00

Model Anne Vyalitsyna is back again, this time in 1920x1080 HD. 319KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, August 19, 2010

2010-08-18T16:10:00.000-07:00

Actress Amanda Tapping, 1280x1024, 118KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, August 18, 2010

2010-08-18T05:37:00.000-07:00

1280x1024, 222KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, August 17, 2010

2010-08-16T10:26:00.000-07:00

1280x1024, 223KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, August 16, 2010

2010-08-15T11:06:00.000-07:00

1280x1024, 173KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, August 15, 2010

2010-08-14T14:39:00.000-07:00

Actress Alexis Bledel. 1280x1024, 255KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, August 14, 2010

2010-08-14T07:25:00.000-07:00

Actress Kate Beckinsale , in 1080x1920 HD. 474KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, August 13, 2010

2010-08-12T14:31:00.000-07:00

Model Florencia Salvioni in glorious blonde 1920x1080 HD.

369KB. The 2544x3392, 597KB original:

Wallpaper of the Day, August 12, 2010

2010-08-12T08:32:00.000-07:00

1280x1024, 207KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, August 11, 2010

2010-08-11T13:38:00.000-07:00

1280x1024, 153KB.

Evolution is such a hacker

2010-08-10T07:47:00.000-07:00

Transterrestrial Musings links to an article on "The Big DNA Letdown." The sequencing of the human genome was insanely overhyped back at the funding stage, and has produced almost none of the promised medical wonders.

This was, of course, easily predicted. The linked article attributes the letdown to something that wasn't known at the time, "epigenetics," the influence of cellular context on the expression of genes. But it was predictable even based on what was known.

The linked article describes the pathetic state of our understanding at the time: "But in the past few years, researchers have come to recognize how grossly oversimplified was the so-called central dogma of molecular biology — the notion that DNA makes RNA, RNA makes proteins, and proteins make us." The sequence of DNA codons produces a predictable sequence of amino acids in the protein.

And then the protein folds. Sequences of amino acids from far distant parts of the protein are brought next to each other, the chains twisted and bent, to make the active sites of the protein. The protein folds itself in milliseconds. Human beings with supercomputers pretty much can't do it at all. So, knowing the DNA sequence still leaves you an NP-complete problem with large n away from anything biological.

I happened to know about the folding problem because I shared an apartment with a couple of theoretical biochemists who were working on it in the winter of 1986-7. It's still far from being solved. Solving it would be one of the biggest steps that could be taken, to make genomic sequencing useful. But as I commented over at Transterrestrial Musings:

Protein folding — being able to predict the 3D shape of a protein from the amino acid sequence — would be a lot more immediate use. But the public mind isn’t prepared to accept “protein folding” as a magical incantation. “DNA,” on the other hand, is used as magic in innumerable movies, TV shows, and comic books. Anything to do with DNA is already overhyped.

Wallpaper of the Day, August 9, 2010

2010-08-09T07:08:00.000-07:00

Candice Swanepoel relaxing by the pool. 1280x1024, 324KB.

The 483KB original:

Wallpaper of the Day, August 8, 2010

2010-08-07T12:48:00.000-07:00

A pensive Scarlett Johanssen for Sunday.

1280x1024, 555KB.

Purple Hearts

2010-08-07T04:31:00.000-07:00

Random Jottings has a post on the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. My comment:

The War Department ordered 750,000 Purple Heart medals for the invasion of Japan, to be awarded to servicemen killed or wounded. Because of the atomic bomb, they weren't needed, and were stored.

Some of them, were awarded during the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and other conflicts. They are still being issued in Iraq and Afghanistan today.

All the combat seen by American forces since WWII still have not equaled the first installment of what was expected in Japan.

(The number actually awarded in WWII was about 965,000.)

In my opinion, the invasion of Japan would not have taken place even without use of the atomic bomb. The US would simply have continued the submarine campaign against Japanese shipping, and the air campaign against Japan itself, and starved and bombed Japan to death. This would have minimized Allied losses, while killing many times more Japanese, and destroying Japan as a nation, a culture, and a people.

One thing people don't grasp is that US war production was still ramping up when it ended. The US Navy canceled more aircraft carriers scheduled to be launched in 1946, than the Japanese Navy had built in its entire history. Henry Ford's production line for B-24 bombers had just gone into operation in Michigan. It took in aluminum stock at one end and launched a bomber every 60 minutes at the other. All that firepower, and nowhere to use it but Japan.

Most of those Purple Hearts would have gone into storage anyway, The people who call the use of the atomic bomb a war crime, would be calling the failure to use it a war crime, with considerably more justification. It's very unlikely that I would be blogging about it, in either case, since my mother was working in a clerical position for Japanese Army Intelligence in Nagoya.

Wallpaper of the Day, August 7, 2010

2010-08-06T07:22:00.000-07:00

A sideways HD 1080x1920 wallpaper for Saturday. 472KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, August 6, 2010

2010-08-05T14:25:00.000-07:00

Alyssa Milano in 1920x1080, 374KB HD.

Wallpaper of the Day, August 5, 2010

2010-08-04T17:41:00.000-07:00

1280x1024, 243KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, August 4, 2010

2010-08-03T10:56:00.000-07:00

1280x1024, 219KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, August 3, 2010

2010-08-02T10:02:00.000-07:00

Model Zoe Duchesne contemplates her lingerie-clad reflection. As do we all.

1280x1024, 182KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, August 2, 2010

2010-08-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

Actress Susan Ward in a rare wet bikini.


1280x1024, 251KB. The 702KB original:

Wallpaper of the Day, August 1, 2010

2010-07-31T07:51:00.000-07:00

Tennis star Maria Sharapova gets August off to a sunny start.

1280x1024, 303KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, July 31, 2010

2010-07-30T11:38:00.000-07:00

1080x1920, 358KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, July 30, 2010

2010-07-29T09:52:00.000-07:00

Emma Watson with 340KB worth of high-def 1920x1080 pretty.

The original can be found at the "I (heart) Watson" fansite.

Wallpaper of the Day, July 29, 2010

2010-07-28T07:11:00.000-07:00

Model Karolina Kurkova.

1280x1024, 276KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, July 28, 2010

2010-07-27T11:24:00.000-07:00

Now this is what I'm getting at. 1280x1024, 211KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, July 27, 2010

2010-07-27T06:26:00.000-07:00

Model Elsa Benitez, and nothing else.

1280x1024, 247KB. The 981KB original:

Our stupid descendants

2010-07-26T05:11:00.000-07:00

(An xkcd production)

Reminds me of the line from the Isaac Asimov story "The Feeling of Power," about "primitive man, with his stone axes and railroads."

And, presumably, terrorists will be depicted like pirates are today, roguish but honorable Disney heroes. Women will wear cheerleading uniforms to funerals. Astronauts will carry pistols designed in 1911 -- oh wait, that already happened in the original "Planet of the Apes." Gas guzzler cars will have voice-interactive -- oh wait, that already happened in the original "Knight Rider." Doctors serving in the Korean War will express attitudes entirely -- oh, wait --

Wallpaper of the Day, July 26, 2010

2010-07-25T08:22:00.000-07:00

Page 3 girl Gemma Atkinson. 1600x1200, 291KB.

All those books

2010-07-25T08:18:00.000-07:00

The Sunday Book Thread post at Ace of Spades is about the flood of American Civil War and WWII books. My comment:

I once caught a panel discussion on the Civil War on C-SPAN. At the beginning, the moderator said that since the end of the Civil War, more than one book a day has been published with Civil War-related material. This is also true of the Napoleonic Wars. Undoubtedly true of WWII.

So I avoid any book about the Civil War or Napoleon, and concentrate on falling behind with WWII.

I think it's also true of Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation.

I like Mongolian history. You can read a book every 3 or 4 years and stay current.

Wallpaper of the Day, July 25, 2010

2010-07-24T08:15:00.000-07:00

Actress Michelle Trachtenberg.

1280x1024, 218KB.

Click on the "Wallpaper" tag below for all of my wallpapers.

Die Monster Cable die

2010-07-23T10:34:00.000-07:00

Ace of Spades links to a Make: Online video about audio myths. The subject of copper wire supposedly introducing distortions is a bit of a sore spot with me.

I hate Monster Cable and all their ilk, and yes, it's personal.

I did my PhD work on the high resolution Fourier Transform Spectrometer at Ohio State. This instrument took the infrared radiation off a gas-dryer lighter, bouncing it back and forth off mirrors a hundred times or so, causing the light to pass through the equivalent of a kilometer of absorbing gas, then focusing the picowatts that were left on a liquid nitrogen cooled detector. The signal from the detector went first to a liquid nitrogen cooled FET pre-preamp, then over copper cable to a preamp, then was amplified and digitized.

My professor read some of the Monster Cable propaganda and freaked. If copper wire could reduce Aerosmith to unlistenable distortion -- well, to noticeably more unlistenable distortion -- what was it doing to our delicate picowatt signals? And our method of analysis was particularly susceptible to distortion. His whole career flashed before his eyes.

SO I had to stop work, stop making progress toward a degree and gainful employment, tear down the experiment, and spend a week building a new setup to determine what grotesque nameless horrors the PLAIN OLD COPPER WIRES had wreaked on our helplessly whimpering signal, played by Lillian Gish.

And the answer was nothing. Zero, zip, nada, 0.00E00, 1/(infinity squared), the set of all sets containing no members, bupkis, the Schneid, the integrity of John Edwards multiplied by the simple human decency of Drew Rosenhaus.

AUDIOPHILES ARE HIPPIES. Plain copper wire is great. I just got a new receiver and I wired it completely with plain copper wire and banana plugs AND I LIKE IT and I'm going to turn it on and listen to Andresjz Panufnik and I won't hear any distortion. I hope your Monster Cable strangles you.

I mean that metaphorically of course. If it happened literally, well, you never know how you will react in a tragic situation like that. I feel like I would laugh, though.

Except for the reference to Lillian Gish, the above is all true. As God is my witness, if an audiophile got tangled in his Monster Cable and inadvertently strangled himself to death, I think I would laugh.

Wallpaper of the Day, July 24, 2010

2010-07-23T10:19:00.000-07:00

Another 1080x1920 sideways high-def Saturday wallpaper, and no one deserves the poster treatment better than the incomparable Holly Marie Combs.

233KB. The 1 MB, 1625x2308 original:

The Grandfather exclusion principle

2010-07-22T18:26:00.000-07:00

Neatogeek links to an article about a solution to the well-known Grandfather Paradox of time travel. That's where you go back in time and kill your own grandfather, making it impossible for you to be born. And the paradox is, if you were never born, who killed your grandfather?

The proposed resolution to the paradox is that actions that would create paradoxes are excluded by quantum mechanics -- they have zero probability. Assuming that the proposal is valid, my comment was:

One advantage of this idea is that it is analogous to an established quantum mechanics principle, the Pauli exclusion principle.

The exclusion principle is the observation that, if you calculate the probability that two electrons will occupy the exact same quantum state, QM gives a zero probability. It doesn't matter what the state is, you always get zero.

This is why solid objects can't pass through each other, why, for example, you don't fall through the floor and keep going to the center of the earth. Solid objects are solid because almost all the available electron states are filled. If you try to push solid object A (the sole of your shoe) into the space occupied by solid object B (the floor), there are nowhere near enough empty states to accommodate all the electrons in object A. Therefore, you're trying to push many of the electrons in A into states already filled by electrons in B, and the probability of that happening is zero. So you stay above the floor.

Analogously, Lloyd et. al. propose that the probability of you preventing your own birth calculates to zero. You're trying to introduce an additional cause (a bullet in your grandfather's heart) into a sequence of events that already has 100% of the causes it needs. And like the way the floor is shoeproof, you'll find your grandfather is bulletproof.

Actually, I expect that the past is travelproof. Any travel into the past, however innocuous your intentions, will introduce paradoxes at the quantum level. And QM cares about those at least as much as it cares about you and your grandfather.

Wallpaper of the Day, July 23, 2010

2010-07-22T18:12:00.000-07:00

1920x1080, 321KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, July 22, 2010

2010-07-21T18:29:00.000-07:00

1280x1024, 171KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, July 21, 2010

2010-07-20T19:25:00.000-07:00

1280x1024, 176KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, July 20, 2010

2010-07-19T20:54:00.000-07:00

Hurrying to get this posted while my internet connection is momentarily up.

1280x1024, 208KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, July 19, 2010

2010-07-19T10:46:00.000-07:00

For 1280x1024 desktops, 234KB.

I'm a little late posting this because my internet connection has been down most of the last three days.

Wallpaper of the Day, July 18, 2010

2010-07-17T13:53:00.000-07:00

Model Nena Ristic, with a hockey stick as a decoy.

1280x1024, 224Kb. The 1MB original:

WWII? Who writes this stuff?

2010-07-16T21:40:00.000-07:00

Squid314's LiveJournal (via Volokh Conspiracy with a hat tip to Instapundit, like he needs it) has an amusing rant about the implausibility of that World War II show on the History Channel. And both he and Volokh forget to mention the comic relief, the Barney Fife of the Axis, Benito Mussolini.

After you've read enough WWII history, you start to wonder why anyone bothers to make anything up. Squid314 touches on only a few of the unlikely plot twists. You also have the most critical battle of the war, the Battle of the Atlantic, going the right way because of, not one, but two miracles. You have the Battle of Britain won, arguably, not in spite of the fact that the head of RAF Fighter Command was certifiably insane, but because he was. You have Thermopylae in the Pacific, in which the unarmored ships of Taffy 3 turned back a Japanese fleet including the two most powerful battleships ever built, battleships that were designed specifically as US Navy-killers, the Japanese admiral defending his decision to run by saying, "No one could be that brave." You have the Japanese War Cabinet voting to continue the war after the second atomic bomb, the Emperor overriding the War Cabinet, young officers staging a military coup against him, with the wax discs on which the Emperor's surrender speech had been recorded as the McGuffin. (They escaped the young officers by being hidden in the Empress's makeup cabinet.)

And that's just some of the big items off the top of my head.

Wallpaper of the Day, July 17, 2010

2010-07-16T18:50:00.000-07:00

Kate Beckinsale, in 1080x1920 sideways HD. 407KB.

Bacon and Buccaneers

2010-07-15T14:48:00.000-07:00

Don Surber wonders why calling someone a "cracker" is considered offensive. I explain:

The original crackers were herding pigs, using whips to keep the pork moving. Another word derived from pigherding is “buccaneer,” a corruption of an old French word for pig farmer (i.e., “baconeer”).
So when you call someone a “cracker,” you’re accusing him of being a fan of the Tamp[a] Bay NFL team. Hence the term’s offensiveness.

The first paragraph is all true, as far as I know. "Buccaneer" came to mean a pirate because pirates, like other sailors of the time, ate a lot of pork. Pirates who got too old to pirate any more (not a large percentage, I would guess) would settle down on some Caribbean isle and raise pigs, which they would smoke and trade to pirate ships for whatever they needed. So old pirates became baconeers, and eventually all pirates became buccaneers.

The second paragraph is admittedly a stretch. But really, naming a team after murderous, thieving pirates is offensive. If someone was stealing your FedEx shipments and selling them on eBay, would you cheer for a team named after him? What next, the Toledo Taliban? The San Jose SS? The Wisconsin McCarthyites? The University of Phoenix Concern Trolls?

Wallpaper of the Day, July 16, 2010

2010-07-15T10:51:00.000-07:00

Charlize Theron in 1920x1080 HD.

317KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, July 15, 2010

2010-07-14T10:50:00.000-07:00

1280x1024, 214KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, July 14, 2010

2010-07-13T12:51:00.000-07:00

Your Wednesday kiss, 1280x1024, 367KB.

Undocumented matriculators

2010-07-12T08:14:00.000-07:00

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway wonders why Harvard would rescind the degree it gave to one of the Russian spies who was recently exposed. I agree, he should keep his Harvard sheepskin.

Aren’t we past this kind of prejudice against undocumented matriculators? If someone wants to come to Harvard to improve their lives, I for one don’t want petty rules or vindictive enforcement to get in their way. I support open borders at Harvard!

Besides, he just did the homework that legacies won’t do.

I'm sure selfish Harvard grads will whine about devaluing their degrees, and the destruction of a great university by a flood of border-crossers from UMass-Amherst. But isn't it a palpable violation of human rights, to force a degree from UMass-Amherst on an unwilling graduate?

Wallpaper of the Day, July 13, 2010

2010-07-12T06:41:00.000-07:00

Model Cintia Dicker, inappropriately dressed for her environment.

1280x1020, 261KB. The original is not much bigger:

Wallpaper of the Day, July 12, 2010

2010-07-11T07:02:00.000-07:00

1280x1024, 231KB.

Strategy vs Tactics

2010-07-10T14:52:00.000-07:00

The Cosmic Conservative notes the confusion that many people have between strategy and tactics. My comment was brief:

Tactics is how you win battles. Strategy is how you use battles to achieve national objectives.

Every battle should be for a militarily achievable objective. A better way to say it would be: "Tactics is how you achieve the militarily achievable. Strategy is how you use sub-objectives, including militarily achievable ones, to reach objectives that are not militarily achievable." But not as snappy.

"That government of the people, for the people, and by the people, shall not perish" is not something that can be accomplished by pure force of arms. Force of arms can surely contribute to it, when combined with malice toward none in the peace terms.

Wallpaper of the Day, July 11, 2010

2010-07-10T07:41:00.000-07:00

Katy Perry cleans up real good.

1280x1024, 300KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, July 10, 2010

2010-07-09T06:26:00.000-07:00

1080x1920, 366KB. The 2200x2800, 814KB original:

The Future of Man in Space: A Modest Proposal

2010-07-08T09:39:00.000-07:00

Greg Gutfeld at Big Hollywood proposes weaponizing space to make it more fun. My proposal is more specific:

Turn self-replicating robots loose on the moon and sell robot hunting licenses.

I'm sure the many advantages of this simple idea raced through your mind the instant you read the above sentence. But you may have been too dazzled by the sheer brilliance to recognize them. So:

An earth-to-moon transportation system and moon-base facilities will be built by private enterprise, funded by Colonel Blimps with .375 H&H Magnums, and good ol' boys with lever-action .30-30s. Cape buffalo and whitetail deer will be able to relax a little with those guys offworld, not to mention the occasional Maine housewife hanging up clothes in the backyard in a deerlike way. The license fees can go to support Homeland Security personnel surfing porn in their offices. Robot evolution will progress rapidly.

I call on the 111th Congress to act immediately. Don't read the bill, just pass it. I'll settle for 1% of the license fees in perpetuity.

Alvin Greene (D-CAND SC)

2010-07-08T08:52:00.000-07:00

Transterrestrial Musings links to Democratic Senate candidate's Al Greene's economic plan. One proposal is for South Carolina to manufacture action figures of... Al Greene. He thinks they would be real money-spinners. My comment:

People questioned the plausibility of this guy putting up the filing fee to run. It looks like his (craziness)x(egotism) product is sufficient, however.

Hey, the Libertarians had Stan Jones the Human Smurf, the Senate candidate who took so much colloidal silver for his health that his skin turned blue. The Republicans have... well, I don't want to list their names for fear of attracting the wrong sort of Google searches. On the other hand, the Democrats already have... well, I can't risk listing those names either. Having Alvin Greene and Stan Jones in the same post is bad enough.

Wallpaper of the Day, July 9, 2010

2010-07-08T07:43:00.000-07:00

1920x1080, 397KB.

Wallpaper of the Day, July 8, 2010

2010-07-07T07:00:00.000-07:00

Sienna Miller knows how to deal with the heat wave. Dress skimpily and eat cool, juicy watermelon.

1280x1024, 227KB. The 872KB original:

Islam's self-esteem problem

2010-07-06T08:14:00.000-07:00

Another minor glitch in the crude computer simulation we call "the Universe." NASA Administrator Charles Bolden describes his priorities, as given to him by the President: "[P]erhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with predominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering."

Yeah. Like "Gilligan's Island" becoming a cultural icon, that would never happen in a real universe or a properly debugged simulation. Obviously the "Head of the Space Program" routine mistakenly got a pointer to data intended for the "Deputy Assistant Undersecretary State Department drone" object.

Transterrestrial Musings has a brief post on Bolden's remark asking "What isn't wrong with Sharia law?" I commented:

Islam’s self-esteem problem is that Muslims have lots of phony self-esteem. The Koran tells them that they’re Masters of the Universe, and those other people designing computers and inventing vaccines should bow down to them. The dissonance between what they’re taught and what they see is extreme. It probably deters them from doing things that would create real self-esteem (patent offices in Islamic countries sometimes go a year or more without issuing any patents). Obama via Bolden’s contribution to the problem is very minor, but it is a contribution.

Of course the West has made phony self-esteem public policy. But it’s effects seem to have been limited. The relative ineffectiveness of public policy is widely seen as a problem, but to me it’s a safety feature.

Wallpaper of the Day, July 7, 2010

2010-07-06T07:39:00.000-07:00

Your Wednesday kiss.

1280x1024, 151KB.

The Glorious 4th

2010-07-05T10:48:00.000-07:00

I left a comment about the Fourth of July in my neighborhood over at Clayton Cramer's blog:

I'm pleased to report that the citizens of my town committed massive civil disobedience on the night of the 4th. In Ohio, while it's legal to sell fireworks, it's illegal to use them, other than sparklers and "novelties."

Well, last night, many of my neighbors launched spectacular unlicensed rockets from their backyards. It was a pretty good, if uncoordinated, show, and I didn't have to move more than 40 feet from my refrigerator to see it. Scofflaws.

Made me proud to be an American and a Buckeye.

Other than some expended ordnance on my driveway, no damage.

Wallpaper of the Day, July 6, 2010

2010-07-05T07:35:00.000-07:00

1280x1024, 157KB.

Battlefield mechs

2010-07-04T15:19:00.000-07:00

Neatogeek quotes an analysis of "mechs," soldiers wearing armored powered suits, which concludes that they will never be cost-effective. I have no objection to the technical points that are raised, but the conclusion goes too far.

This is more an argument that mechs will never be dominant on the battlefield, not that they won't exist at all.

One of the painfully learned lessons of modern war is the necessity of "combined arms," of more than one type of warrior, working together. Even the most powerful, heavily armored tank has vulnerabilities -- e.g. poor vision and lack of fine-grained situational awareness -- that the humble foot soldier can cover. When you fight a combined arms team, one of the things you really really want to do is to separate their armor from their infantry, because defeating them separately is easier than defeating them together.

As long as there is some necessary task on the battlefield, for which mechs are better adapted, mechs will have a place. If history is a guide, there will be such a role.

Even in ancient times, armies combined infantry, cavalry, archers, etc. I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that it will be different in the future.

Wallpaper of the Day, July 5, 2010

2010-07-04T07:54:00.000-07:00

A model named Anne Vyalitsyna to get your week started.

1280x1024, 298KB. The original 328KB file:

The Universe is a computer simulation

2010-07-03T11:01:00.000-07:00

Curmudgeonly & Skeptical has an astronomical photo of a "hole in space" and asks what is it? The answer is almost too obvious to require explanation, but I did anyway.

I'm sure all your readers are familiar with the idea that the universe is actually a computer simulation. Every simulation has its glitches. The hole in space is a minor one.

Some of the other obvious glitches: half the events in Spanish history happened in 1492; the Japanese and Scandinavians morphed from Samurais and Vikings into inoffensive Saab jockeys and Hello Kitty consumers; a movie about a mathematician won an Oscar; a Kenyan became President of the US; the Red Sox won a World Series; John Travolta and Mickey Rourke won't stay dead; vuvuzelas; you don't even know who Renee Olstead is; the state of Massachusetts; and the Turing word for this post is "lasouna", which is ludicrous.

Not only is our "universe" a simulation, but it's running under limited resources. Take the way certain mathematical constants get reused in completely different contexts. There's an old joke about an actuary giving a presentation to the executives of an insurance company. He puts up a slide with the formula for the number of life insurance customers who will die in the next year. One of the executives interrupts. "What's that in the formula? That funny symbol?"

The actuary looks and says, "That's pi. You know, the ratio between a circle's circumference and its diameter."

The executive explodes. "What malarkey is this! What does a circle have to do with how many people are going to die!?"

But given that it takes an infinite number of bytes to store pi, you can see where using the same constant for both, really saves on the memory.

Two billion years ago, two galaxies were colliding

2010-07-03T10:16:00.000-07:00

The World History Blog has an interesting post on how, shortly after WWII, the "Superman" radio show was used to knock the Ku Klux Klan down a peg. Reporter Stetson Kennedy gave the "Superman" writers inside information on how the Klan operated, to be used in scripts. The Klan attempted to pressure the show's sponsors but it wasn't enough to stop the scripts. I commented:

Also, the negative reaction was probably less than it would have been if the information had appeared in a more "serious" form. SF and fantasy have been useful to express ideas contrary to the zeitgeist for a long time, "1984" and "Animal Farm" being examples.

Back in the 1930s, when all "serious" writers were waving a sad farewell to weak democracy and making the best deal possible with their tough new fascist overlords, E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman stories subversively depicted the victory of a free, multispecies melting pot over the totalitarian Empire of Boskone.

When the original "Addams Family" TV series was on, with Carolyn Jones and John Astin, one critic noted that it was the only series with an intact family where everyone respected each other. And where but on "Smallville" do we get teenagers who are grateful to their parents.
No, I don't know if Stetson Kennedy was mild-mannered. The title of this post is a line from "Doc" Smith.

Wallpaper of the Day, July 4, 2010

2010-07-03T10:10:00.000-07:00

Amber Heard is keeping an eye on you.

1280x1024, 183KB.

The 600KB original:

Redcoats vs Rebels in Northern Ireland

2010-07-02T17:37:00.001-07:00

James Rummel, over at Hell in a Handbasket, has a post about... well, it's a little complicated.

It turns out that there is an Ulster American Folk Park, some kind of a theme park where the theme is the USA. For the 4th of July this year, they're going to re-enact the War of 1812. Apparently there are also American Revolutionary War re-enactors in Ireland. And they're importing American re-enactors to play the part of British Redcoats.

So Americans are going to Ireland to play British Redcoats so Irish playing American colonials can pretend to shoot them in the War of 1812. To quote Hermione Granger, "Please don't ask me to say it again."

[CORRECTION: The Redcoats are being played by British re-enactors (see James's comment below, thanks!) This explains why they're re-enacting the War of 1812, the British re-enactors probably like to burn the White House every chance they get.]

My only comment was:

I once ran across the website of Ukrainian Vietnam War re-enactors. They dress up in US Army uniforms.

That's all I could manage. Archaeologists are going to dig this stuff up 4000 years from now and I don't know what they'll do.

Wallpaper of the Day, July 3, 2010

2010-07-02T11:30:00.000-07:00

1280x1024, 258KB. Yes, it's supposed to be black & white.

Wallpaper of the Day, July 2, 2010

2010-07-01T09:15:00.000-07:00

Leggy Anne Hathaway, so leggy that 1920x1080 High Definition is barely enough.

A mere 249KB.

The Russian sleeper agents

2010-07-01T07:59:00.000-07:00

Coyote Blog notes that the recent arrest of Russian sleeper agents lends credibility to the old Charles Bronson/Lee Remick movie "Telefon" and the like.

A lot of people wonder what purpose the Russians could have to be establishing sleeper cells at this late date. I commented:

The Russians inherited a whole bureaucracy devoted to running sleeper agents. You can’t expect all those bureaucrats to stop what they were doing and get real jobs.

I think this really is a factor. Not that the FBI shouldn't be rounding up these S.O.B.s. Even if they have no practical effect, it's the principle of the thing.

BTW, the above link has the YouTube video of the "Telefon" trailer embedded. It sucks. I could cut a better trailer. It would have more Lee Remick, to start with.

The FEPCA Story

2010-06-30T07:20:00.000-07:00

Victor Davis Hanson has a post at his "Works and Days" blog asking "Where did the Tea Party Anger come from?" I left a comment on one of the sources he mentioned:

RE: “The old idea that a public servant gave up a competitive salary for job security was redefined as hitting the jackpot.”

The story of FEPCA (Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act of 1990) may shed some light on this subject.

FEPCA set up the “locality pay” system in which Federal employees in high cost-of-living localities get extra pay to maintain “comparability” with private sector employees in the same area. If you work in the Boston area, you get 24.8% above your base pay. However, there is a “Rest of the US” category for all non-high-cost-of-living areas, and Federal employees in those areas get 14.16% above their base pay. So every Federal employee in the US makes more than the supposed base pay.

FEPCA also scheduled pay increases above cost-of-living. Essentially feds were to get an extra 3% per year for 10 years, with the usual proviso that the President could suspend the increase by declaring a financial emergency. The Clinton administration formally declared the US to be in a state of financial emergency each of the last 7 years of his Presidency, and suspended the FEPCA boost for those years. Not a peep out of the public sector unions.

This suggests that much of the increase in Federal pay is Republican administrations buying off the bureaucracy, where Democrats don’t have to.

Also, Presidents named Bush give feds a lot more extra days off -- the Friday before three-day weekends, for example -- than Clinton did.

Wallpaper of the Day, July 1, 2010

2010-06-30T07:19:00.000-07:00

The Thursday blonde. 1280x1024, 192KB.

From Enemy to Friend

2010-06-29T12:43:00.000-07:00

Famous blog babe Megan McArdle is bemused by the Russian spy ring that was recently exposed by the FBI. The best she can do is "In fact, the only parallel I can think of is the possibly apocraphyl allegation that during the Cold War, Soviet intelligence subscribed to the Village Voice for several years . . . in an attempt to find out about rural life in America. "

I commented:

A non-apochryphal version of the Village Voice story can be found in "From Enemy to Friend" by Bui Tin. Bui Tin is best known as the North Vietnamese colonel who accepted the surrender of the President of South Vietnam. But one of his earlier jobs was translating American magazine articles for consumption by North Vietnamese leadership.

He said that he was never able to get across to his superiors the insignificance of individual magazine articles, and the lack of influence by, say, the New York Review of Books on the Nixon White House. He was continually horrified to hear top leadership debating some article he had translated as if it were American gospel.

Bui Tin crossed the authorities in postwar Vietnam and found it advisable to move to France. The book is his FAQ, answers to the questions he's always asked about the Vietnam War.

One of the most interesting chapters is about the secret treaties between China and North Vietnam. China promised to help defend North Vietnam against attack by the US on a tit-for-tat basis. If the US attacked North Vietnam by air, the Chinese air forces would come in to defend North Vietnamese air space. If the US Navy shelled North Vietnam, the Chinese navy would intervene to stop the shelling.

Of course, China didn't do any of this. They just looked the other way and whistled tunelessly as their North Vietnamese friends went out on the limb and got pummeled. If you ever wondered, "What's more worthless than a treaty," the answer is "A secret treaty."

The book is short and a worthwhile read if you're interested in the history of the Vietnam War. If you can find it; it's currently listed as unavailable at Amazon.

Wallpaper of the Day, June 30, 2010

2010-06-29T08:29:00.001-07:00

Your Wednesday kiss.

1280x1024, 351KB.

The Office of the President-Elect is VACANT!

2010-06-28T08:44:00.000-07:00

Over at Ace of Spades HQ, there is smug condescension toward the Obama administration's discovery that like math, being President is hard. The "Office of the President Elect" thing is dredged up. I pointed out the real problem:

But he was right. President-Elect is more important than President.

You realize, since Obama's inauguration, the Office of the President-Elect has been vacant. And look what's happened to the country since then!

If only we still had Obama as President-Elect. We finally found the flaw in the Constitution.

Wallpaper of the Day, June 29, 2010

2010-06-28T08:42:00.000-07:00

1280x1024, 192KB.

What illegal immigration is really about

2010-06-27T11:25:00.000-07:00

Timothy B. Lee, at his Bottom-Up Blog, does not understand why people are so against illegal immigration. It's my experience that knowing the purpose of something makes understanding it so much easier.

Your attention has been thoroughly misdirected.

Instead of asking, why do Tea Party types oppose unrestricted illegal immigration, ask: why do both party elites support it, and refuse to enforce existing laws against it?

It’s because both parties want to use it to shape the electorate, the way the UK Labour Party tried. You know that line about “the government will dissolve the people and elect a new one”? Not actually a joke.

Once enough illegals are in place, there will be a race to legalize them and give them the vote. If history is any guide, whoever gets the credit will have those votes for at least a generation. This is most acute for the Democrats, since the votes they bought with Social Security are dying off and need to be replaced. But it was also W’s plan. W opposed Prop 187 in California, and supported “comprehensive immigration reform,” for this reason.

Those eternally grateful automatic votes are so much better tha[n] fickle election-by-election, what-have-you-done-for-me-lately votes. So now you know why Tea Party types are against unrestricted illegal immigration. The purpose of the exercise is to minimize the need for their votes.

Wallpaper of the Day, June 28, 2010

2010-06-27T10:54:00.000-07:00

1280x1024, 265KB.