Happy 5th birthday to Olivia!

Sometimes the headlines, they just write themselves: fifth foot found on British Columbia's south coast. Bonus: police have no clues as to just to who the feet belong. WeIrD!

It's FAKE people!

On the way to Orlando!

It would seem the race for biologically-generated oil has another contestant. This is, what, the third company we've linked that's doing this? Suddenly this is changing from a pipe dream to a "matter of time" sort of thing. If it puts Hajji and his Merry Band of Detonating Dervishes that much closer to a bread line, I'm all for it!

So, really, what is it with these urban tigers? No, really, urban tigers. There's video! I swear!

Ellen would've tried to "step up" the hawk (command it to perch on her hand). Knowing her, it'd probably be in a cage in the corner within the hour, happily "nom'ing" one of the snakes' rats.

The C-17 is one versatile aircraft. I can remember, before it became operational, the usual anti-military suspects making all sorts of noise about how it would be over-priced and under-whelming. Yeah, they're not talking too much about that anymore.

NOM NOM NOM!!!

We got a nice COZY and SOFT bed tonight at our hotel before flying out to meet Scott.

Coming to a hi-fi wanker store near you: $500 "audiophile" ethernet cable. Directional, even! Ok, the CAT-5 equivalent of lamp power cord is a bit more expensive than, well, lamp power cord, but it'll transmit your data just as well as the cord transmits electricity to your speakers, and it'll all sound just as good as the idjit who spends $5k on his interconnects.

Oh, and I couldn't quite think of how to express the "fool and his money" adage in a single line using a lambda. After 12 years using the real thing, I'm just too comfy with pseudo-SQL. I'll leave alternatives as thought exercises for the peanut gallery.

Three words: Farming with Dynamite. Does the real chance of dying from some weird disease that today would only require a shot balance out with having high explosives available for purchase at the corner hardware store? I'm just not sure...

Ron gets a beautiful yet obscure no-prize for bringing us news that what is widely considered one of the most beautiful sports cars from the 1950s is available again in sophisticated kit form.

Which, of course, you've never heard of. Because you're a philistine with totally screwed up priorities.

Now why didn't I think of this? "Renewing" your cat wouldn't work for us... I'm pretty sure the only reason Swoozie is still around is because our bunch is too fat, lazy, and old to care.

It was bound to happen eventually. Someone's come up with a "sock Obama". It's got that great racist fizz!

Caught on cam!

Look, ma! My laptop has a camera innit!

There she is!

We dropped Swoozie off to DJ Feathers today for her vacation stay at the Tiki Bar. If you look closely, she is in the middle cage on the left side of the bar closest to the doorway in the back.

An Israeli company has created a full-featured electronic defense systems for UAVs that weights only 36 kilos. While nearly 80 pounds is nothing a person might want to carry, the average system providing this capability weighs nearly five times as much.

Like a child who refuses to clean up her room until her trip to the movies is threatened, it would seem China really can control counterfeiters, if they're given a reason. If I were Microsoft or Sony, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for this newfound efficiency to "bleed over" into any of my piracy cases. They do have their priorities, donchanknow?

Leave it to California to take a small mess, grow it into a medium mess, and then make it a big one. I'm ambivalent about gay marriage, but I am certain on one thing: this is a matter for legislative, not judicial, action. Put it another way: it's not like you need to give the lunatics on my fringe another set of targets to bomb, eh?

Turkey: 1, School bus: 0. Day 2 of "news so slow it makes me worry."

Normally I would not post a dorky pix of myself unless requested. Well a certain AMCGLTD member is in FL and made a request.

Damion gets a no-prize he can captain a starship with for bringing us the absolutely ultimate in gaming workstation setups. I particularly like the clamshell adjustment. Hey, you think if I stuck a cat sticker somewhere on it???

Ron gets the coveted Mountain Goat No-Prize for bringing us news of the ELSORV, the army's for real off road vehicle. Considering the Humvee's reputation for best-of-class off roading, I can only think this thing must be able to climb trees or something. Just how nasty are those freaking Afghan mountains?!?

whats on the other end of a 900 number.

Watch the cat!

The Skeptical Optimist:

Why aren't we hearing more from the candidates about how their proposed policies would help to grow the economy, and therefore the average worker's take-home pay -- as well as the government's tax receipts? Why doesn't Obama take the muzzle off Austin Goolsby? Why doesn't McCain fire the Concord Coalition from his team, and get them out of Jack Kemp's way?

Bonus: a brain teaser that even the luddites on the left side of the peanut gallery may finally get. Then again, I won't hold my breath waiting on them.

The F-35B has finally made its first flight. The video seems to be identical to the one we linked a few weeks back. However, it seems it will be some time before the -B does anything the -A hasn't already done.

Seems giraffe meat is kosher. Who knew?

Ok, I'm officially nervous now. When a news day gets this slow, it usually means something awful's in the offing. I'd say, "be interesting!", but that'd probably just set it off.

Ever wonder what an SRB separation looked like? From the shuttle's booster's perspective? Wonder no more. Don't know why, but I was surprised to see the sky is black when they pop free. From the ground, it all still looks blue. Must be because the blue is between me and them, eh?

For a certain Daddy out there that has to sit through 'live' T.V.

This year, convention's in Orlando. Unlike last year, Ellen & Co. will fly out Sunday, thereby avoiding much drive-by kissing & staring at the walls. I, on the other hand, will have the joys of 12 hour days spent helping people hook LCDs to laptops. Whee!

Meh. Could be worse. This year I have my gaming laptop! Fragfest!!!

Oh, and if anyone has dining recommendations, leave 'em in the comments. Even if they're downtown or something, that's OK, because we'll have a car after Sunday.

So just what would happen if each side of Congress had it all its own way trying to lower the cost of oil? About what you'd expect. Of course, Republicans would figure out how to piss away our money in a different way. If it weren't the world's largest demonstration of a Chinese fire drill, it wouldn't be Congress!

Leave it to BMW to come up with a car who's body hearkens back to the days of SPADS, Camels, and Triplanes. Will we ever see anything even remotely like this on a production car? Oh hell who knows? I just like the whole concept of a morphing car!

While a pro-Israel statement from a neo-Nazi organization may at first seem contradictory, I'm not so sure it is. After all, they're supporting Jews in Israel. This would be quite similar in word and spirit to the KKK announcing it's support for black folks in, say, Liberia. "Not in my back yard, for racists."

Ok, ok... so it is the HOME SPA! We had fun with the mud mask anyway.

This is my new dance tray, much lighter and dirtier than than the last one! That gives it a double thumbs up!

Scientists are claiming to have discovered evidence of a time before the "Big Bang." Folks have been postulating that universes could be formed in "bubbles" of space time for... oh, gosh, I don't know when the first time it was I read about that. Say, thirty years at least. Nobody, until now it would seem, could come up with any way of testing the idea. While it does seem to neatly account for some previously observed quirks in the cosmic background radiation, it remains to be seen if the theory makes testable predictions.

Sometimes when you're stuck on jury duty you end up sitting for an interesting murder case. Most of the time, you either sit until they turn you loose or you help adjudicate two boring people with a petty problem. Then, just every once in awhile, you hit the poo lottery. And I mean poo lottery in almost it's literal form.

Inveterate peanut gallery member Ron is justly famous for his bathroom humor. However, something tells me even he'd have his limit, and some girl crying covered in the stuff is probably six or seven notches beyond it.

Me? Hey, if everyone's happy and I'm not forced to watch it, you do what you want. But as far as I'm concerned, when one of the participants is filmed being upset? Yeah, that's not art. Not by a long shot.

Problem: Gummint doesn't pay attention to yer self-righteous pedaling ass.

Solution: Interest group, baby. Interest group.

Well hell, if a bunch of cranky old white people can do it, why can't cyclists?

Well, that's what you get when your internet service goes legs-up, causing the "whattabahgain" wireless router to do its own dead bug imitation in sympathy. Yeah, and there was much swearing. We're back now, so the fragfest should resume momentarily.

Phoenix has already made an inadvertent discovery about polar Martian soil, it would seem it's a lot clumpier than originally thought. Having the very first soil sample clog the filter is apparently not as bad as it would at first seem. Considering how far away the nearest repair man is, it's a good thing!

Ares has the latest on the B-2 crash investigation, with video of said crash! According to this AvWeek summary, the cause was moisture in some of the wing sensors of the plane. Crews long ago learned a quick and simple fix, but nobody bothered to write it down. Considering the consequence was the loss of a very expensive bit of weaponry, something tells me there's a whole chain of noncom maintenance people who are in one helluva lot of trouble.

Mark gets a no-prize which he'd do just as well tossing for bringing us this article on seven things most people think are recyclable, but really aren't. Ellen is absolutely obsessive about putting just about everything in the recycle bin. Now, maybe not so much.

British engineers are considering deploying "micro generators" in tube stations. The result? Power big enough to light 6500 light bulbs. Something tells me, however, that the tech is a lot more expensive than they're letting on. What good does powering 6500 light bulbs do if it required 30 years to pay off the investment?

Annie gets a well-protected no-prize for bringing us just what, exactly, the very last shipment of goods this season to our antarctic research base contained. Jiggidy!

Self-professed atheist Terry Pratchett seems to have walked right out the other side and found something there. We all come to faith in our own way and our own time. While not as spectacular as meeting the savior on an old country road, finding it while walking down the stairs will definitely do.

This is what happens when you have a poor stage, 102 degree heat and bare feet!

This occurred in the first 10 minutes of dancing. I totally sliced a part of my foot off.

We danced at a major festival in Virginia today. It hit 100 degrees today and we were NOT happy!

Here is the moment of us just before heading outside.

For, on this day, the seventh day of June, 2008, Olivia has proved her fundamental usefulness to daddy.

She got me a beer. Out of the fridge! Threw away the bottle cap too! I knew this kid would be useful some day.

Oh, don't worry, I'll cherish it while I can. I'm only, what, eight years away from her telling me to f- off three times in two sentences? Heck, it's what her mom does just about every day lately. She'll have learned from the best!

I think this one pretty much defines "so scared you scream like a girl." Since she is, and does, and is, well, there ya go. Me, I'd be hooting and hollering like a goddamned chimpanzee, but I'm special that way.

India has premiered what it bills as the cheapest car in the world. No, it'll never play well in Peoria, but it should do the trick in the choked streets of Bombay. And get a load of the build quality when they show the inside door handle. Gaps are not your friend!

Seconded:

The core belief of Masonomists is in spontaneous order. We embrace change that emerges from an evolutionary, trial-and-error process. We trust the process of entrepreneurial creative destruction, market solutions to market failure, and technological progress. What we distrust is central planning by experts. And I am sure that Pete Boettke would want to remind me of our intellectual debts to Austrian economists.

Mark gets a no-prize that'll descend on him using a clever bungee-rocket thingamajig for bringing us this nifty summary of what's up next in Mars exploration. Mostly, it's about the one-ton rover (!) scheduled to land there in 2010. Hopefully it won't run over the little ones which've been puttering around for the past few years, eh?

Anti-submarine aircraft get away with being fat, slow, and clumsy because their prey can't shoot back. Leave it to the Germans to come up with what would appear to be the first workable solution to that problem. Having a missile pop out of the water and head straight for you while you're in a hover 50 feet off the water holding up 1000 feet of cable and a dipped sonar would seem a pretty good way to increase the ol' pucker factor, donchaknow?

Seems they're putting women's parts on just about everything these days. Puts a whole new spin on all those "do you wanna ride?" pick-up lines.

While I knew the correct definition for most of these "9 words that don't mean what you think they mean", there were still a few surprises. I have, fortunately, grown out of the habit of correcting people about them. Having a wife who can tell her husband to f- off three different ways in two sentences will teach one to maintain one's own council about such things, donchaknow?

Looks like Alfa's Mini-killer, the MiTo (mee-too), will be heading our way for 2010. The rumored price target seems to be in the mid-20s, which, if true, makes it a darned tempting idea for me. The Cruiser's getting a little long in the tooth as a daily commuter, and since Ellen's been looking at Minis for awhile, well, maybe this will be a much nicer storm than we had yesterday, sort of thing. :)

If this seemingly even-handed look at the Bakken oil formation in Montana is on the right track, it would seem we're a few generations of drilling technology away from a very significant oil deposit right in our own back yard. Of course, there will be a ton of "ifs" involved, not the least of which is an environmental movement which will vehemently appose any attempt to expand supply. Will the state of Montana use it's famous "going-to-do-it-my-way-f-you-very-much" attitude to stymie the watermelons' ongoing efforts to strangle the kulaks? We'll see.

Via Instapundit.

This month marks the Intel x86 architecture's 30th birthday. What started out in 1978 with the 8086 has, with time, money, and innovation, ended up the de-facto standard for desktop computing. Considering the radically different environment at the time, it's remarkable the instruction set has survived. The article goes into at least some of the reasons why.

After years of big subsidies, India is being forced to raise fuel prices. This is one of the 800 pound gorillas which is actually causing the spectacular and sustained rise in gas prices. The other is China. Both heavily subsidize fuel prices, helping their countries sustain spectacular growth rates, but at the same time insulating their populations from supply signals prices provide. They do not conserve, they do not become more efficient, because they have no incentive to do so. And, as long as their respective governments continue to insulate them, they never will.

The story was, of course, buried deep inside the Post. I wouldn't be surprised to find out it wasn't reported at all in other places. It doesn't fit with the "it's the Evil Oil Companies / Vast Right Wing Conspiracy / Wasteful Lazy SUV-driving Americans that cause our suffering!!!" theme. It's not us, it's them, and until economic pressures squeeze their government subsidies on fuel out, things won't change.

Of course, Indian people aren't really that much different than American people or European people or any other people, so instead of bucking up, tightening their belts, and using less fuel, they're raising hell, blocking traffic, and jangling the cage of every politician and reporter they can get their hands on. It'll be even worse in China, because that nation does not have the mechanisms in place for peaceful regime change or even (relatively) non-destructive civil disobedience.

In other words, it's not over yet.

Problem: In public-transit-friendly Germany, seniors affected with Alzheimer's can end up half way across the country before anyone knows they're gone.

Solution: Decoys.

This probably wouldn't work well in the US, because our public transit systems aren't as strong or extensive. But it is a thought.

Thunderstorm cells crashing through the neighborhood does not a happy sysadmin make! Years ago, having the power blink a few times was equivalent to taking a sledgehammer to the network and whacking it a few times. Amusing things would come tumbling out the other side. Nowadays, things are much more robust, but old reflexes die hard. Now I gotta ride metro home. Whee!

What is it with these chicks and their land marks:

Erika La Tour Eiffel, 37, a former soldier who lives in San Francisco, has been in love with objects before ... But it is the Eiffel Tower she has pledged to love, honour and obey in an intimate ceremony attended by a handful of friends.

Methinks there's a reporter or two who have too much time on their hands.

Scientists have developed a "tongue display" to help people with balance problems stay up and those bound to wheel chairs avoid pressure sores. The idea is to use small electrical pulses on the tongue to substitute for lost sensations in the affected areas. The device would appear to be very small, easy to learn, and (one would hope) affordable. What will they think of next?

Scott created a monster. He found her in the pantry ONCE. Now every time he is in the kitchen, she has to fly over and bat her birdy eyes at him to open the pantry door.

This is what happens when you try to remove her from it.

Remember that new superconducting material we linked up awhile ago? It's still providing surprises:

[Frank Hunte, a postdoctoral associate at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory's Applied Superconductivity Center] and his colleagues thought the world-record [45-tesla Hybrid] magnet would be more than sufficient to test the field tolerance limits of the new material. They thought wrong: The iron oxyarsenide kept superconducting all the way up to 45 tesla, far past the point at which other superconductors become normal conductors.

Magnetic resistance is one of the three elusive requirements for making large-scale use of superconductors practical. Will this new material provide the other two as well?

The Navy has finally admitted its role in the discovery of HMS Titanic in 1985. It seems Ballard's original mission was to make detailed surveys of the lost submarines Thresher and Scorpion. Ballard finished ahead of time, and, since Titanic was thought to be between the two wrecks, he sort of took the long way home.

I'm not completely sure this is all of "the rest of the story," as I recall reading vague references to Ballard's mission being used to "send a message" to the Soviets about certain capabilities the Navy had developed. Nobody that I know of has been specific as to what these were.

Another "Western Union by Other Means" test that I've heard of is STS-2, space shuttle Columbia's second flight. According to things I've read, the widely-publicized radar test which revealed the presence of ancient riverbeds crisscrossing the Sahara was actually meant to demonstrate the US's ability to image hidden Soviet bunkers and missile silos. At least, that's what I've heard at any rate. YMMV!

A company has announced the development of a heart stent coated with a substance found in tooth enamel. The hope is the new device will offer superior protection and fewer side effects when compared to metal-only stents. If it keeps the ticker tickin', I guess it's allright with me.

The latest shuttle launch appears to have caused "extensive" damage to Pad 39A. Complete with bits of said pad splashing into the lagoons surrounding the complex, no less. Apparently NASA officials are confident they'll be able to repair the damage in time for the next launch, currently scheduled for October. However, it seems nobody has a clear answer as to why, after some 80+ launches, one of the pads would fail in this fashion.

Update: More detailed pictures can be found here... It would seem the bricks departed with enough force to tear apart a stout-looking chain link fence.

First it was scancats, then lolcats, now I guess we'll have to call them "sinkcats". If they weren't so damned goofy pretending to be elegant, I'm not sure this stuff would be near as much fun.

And yes, I know I need to get out more. No need to whack me toward the door with a broom, thank you.

Leave it to a small English town to generate a story about a parrot "terrorizing" a neighborhood. Praising quirkiness for its own sake is a famous English past time, but there have to be limits somewhere. Do you know how much one of those things costs?!?

Drunk driver: 1 & 10, cyclists: 0. I wonder if they'd even closed the highway for the race?

Update: This video seems to indicate it was a decent-sized event. It would appear the well-earned reputation of Mexican police has withstood yet another test of incompetence.

Phoenix may have already discovered ice. Pointing retrorockets at dusty tundra and punching go will tend to do that, I would think.

Today's "commercial crop threatened by some wicked disease" is brought to you by Dole. The fruit company, not the ex-senator, that is.

Mark gets a no-prize Renaissance Italian scientists will want to use to drop various objects from for bringing us news that the leaning tower of Pisa has been stabilized. For now, at any rate, and for the next 300 years, according to the engineers in charge.

Which is all well and good, but to me the lesser-known leaning towers of Bologna are much more interesting. Statics: there's a reason why it's a required course for engineers, ya know?

What with the Northeast's reputation for meddlesome property activism, I'm rather surprised this guy's neighbors didn't object more strenuously to his building a castle on his property. Here in good ol' Northern VA, our anti-development professionals would by now have tied him down with six or seven lawsuits, complete with dramatic "granny showing up with a noose around her neck and her mouth taped shut" appearances at zoning board meetings.

Well, actually, probably not. Like most rich American communities, it's not ostentatious construction by a like-minded (and usually, but not always) like-raced fellow gentry owner that is treated so dramatically here in NVA. Rather, it's the housing for all the brown people who service said demesnes which undergo draconian scrutiny. We Must Not Have the Wrong People Moving Next Door to Our Mansion, that sort of thing.

It would appear having an older dad is just about as bad as having an older mom. It seems Olivia just skated in under the deadline, as it were.

Look, WE will pay the toll if you just take them off our hands!

OM eating his tortoise biscuits. He loooooves his biscuits.

If The Washington Post is running unabashedly positive reports on Iraq, something good must be going on over there, eh? Lately I've noted a certain amount of bitter admiration of the Bush administration from several of his other implacable critics. However, the left side of our own peanut gallery continues to collectively roll its eyes and froth on cue whenever our not-quite-departed president is mentioned, so at least something is still right in this world.

Were it otherwise I'd start rushing outside to see if angels were arching across the sky.

Via Instapundit.

The 2008 Darwin Awards are out. When the going gets tough, the stupid get dead.