We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
What would Italian cooking be like without their foods from the Americas?
Eg: tomatoes, potatoes, squash, baccala, corn (for polenta), bell pepper, chocolate, etc.
If you drive east from Milan on A-4, all you see are cornfields. It almost looks like Massachusetts, except for the Alps in the distance and the stone barns and farm houses.
Set up for breakfast at our B&B overlooking Lake Garda last week.
What's for breakfast? (At 9 am, when most Americans have been working for a couple of hours)
See below, and note the cheese on the far left end of the table. It's 12-month Parmesan, still soft enough to eat with a knife and fork. Never had 12-month Parmesan before. Great stuff, maybe my favorite cheese right now. (Parmesan for grating is aged 18-36 months.)
I have been slow to get to this over-worked story, but It's an excellent article about the surgical approach to identity confusion. I suspect that the vast majority of American Psychiatrists would agree with the author's point of view.
Michael Jackson thought he was Elizabeth Taylor, but he was not.
New York, that strange part-Dutch, part-English, part-Everything-else city, runs on the creativity of the impossible. Starving artists, aspiring actors, failed musicians, flailing poets, real estate mavens without a dime and brokers trading thin air gamble on the impossible. New York always seems on the verge of total anarchy and destruction and yet keeps going on in that strange half-mad creativity.
For months, I was trying to explain to my wife a vocal affectation younger members of the office staff employ. I've noticed it for about 2 or 3 years, and its use is growing, not diminishing. I can't mimic it myself, and trying to explain it to her only left her more confused than before. I asked my boys if they were aware of it, but since I couldn't explain it well, they just shook their heads.
Then, on CBS' Sunday Morning program, a short piece was delivered on "Vocal Fry". That's it, I pointed out to my wife. I don't have the CBS piece, but here is a very clear example of the speech pattern.
When I first heard it, I thought "that's someone trying to be a Valley Girl," but the tone is lower rather than higher, as it is in Valleyspeak. I assumed, like Valleyspeak, it would be a fad and go away. Its use has grown substantially, however. Today, apparently, it is used as a means of sounding either authoritative or sexy. I think it sounds lazy. I don't think I'm judging harshly, oftentimes when this voice is used, the person provides a blank stare along with it. Clearly it began as a derisive or insulting voice, though now it's just commonplace.
Once, an anxious parent wrote into Liberman’s blog to complain that a Ph.D. daughter populates her speech with uptalks, as do her doctor/lawyer peers. Could Liberman point to any research proving the “negative effects” of this feminine affectation? “You're certainly entitled to your crotchets and irks, just as your adult daughter is entitled to her prosodic preferences,” Liberman responded. “But in order for the two of you to get along, something's going to have to give. And realistically, it's you.”
It's not just women doing it, either. Many of the young men in my office are beginning to use it, one young fellow outside my office speaks exclusively in vocal fry. Is it an affectation? Perhaps it started out that way, but it's becoming a standard.
I don't agree with Liberman's response. Sure, I'm getting old and young people are doing things I don't like or agree with. Most of it I can live with. But as a parent, I don't have to accept anything, even from an adult son/daughter. My father will still comment on behaviors of mine he dislikes, and I accept his point of view, even if I don't always agree with it. More often than not, though, I realize he's got a point. Even as adults, we can still learn, and we should learn, from our parents.
Have you heard it, and if so, what was your point of view?
♪ Oh, say can you see, by the dawn's early light... ♫
While I don't think any of these would fall under the heading of 'earthshakingly critical', there might be the odd occasion, like the above, where it would be fun to throw one or two into a comment or email.
For standard special fonts (is that an oxymoron?), like é con acento or the tilde in señor, they're all right there on the top panel of the Character Map program, found in Start Menu, Programs, Accessories, System Tools. First select 'Arial' at the top, double-click on the character you want, hit the 'Copy' button to copy it to memory, then hit Ctrl-V to paste it into the editor.
And you have zee perfect résumé!
Pic: Sorry, the artist screwed up. He thought I said special founts.
There are, however, a handful of oddball fonts that only reside in some offbeat font set or in only one common set in an odd place on the panel. The hitch is that we only have the default Windows fonts to work with, which basically means Arial, Verdana, Tahoma and Times New Roman. If you use a special font from a different font set and the reader doesn't have that particular font on their system, it won't be displayed.
As the earth continues its petty refusal to cooperate with the warmists, we've been having loads of fun watching them get more and more desperate. We've recently had terrorism, violence, war, $80 trillion in damage and the North Pole turning into a picturesque lake officially linked with AGW, and then I noted in my post last Sunday how they're also elevating the scare tactics.
Today's clever ruse is brought to you by the good folks at RealClearPolitics, and a nice — if not downright informative — piece it is. It's always good when some science guy does his best to dispel misinformation.
It's a pretty straightforward process. He gives one page for each of the ten main scientific controversies of our day. Yes, Virginia, evolution is real. Yes, animal testing is necessary. Yes, embryonic stem cell research is important. No, vaccines don't cause autism. Yes, 'alternative' medicine is (generally) bunk.
That last one, however, only gets ½ point because of a personal story. My mom fell off a horse when she was 9 and suffered a small neck pain for something like 55 years. She tried everything, from neurologists to acupressure, as well as a couple of chiropractors. One day a friend mentioned some old semi-retired guy who had performed some chiropractic miracle on a friend of hers. My mom went to see him. After the second visit, she was cured forever.
And no, Virginia, the Hadron Collider won't cause a black hole to gobble up the earth. And, I'm sorry to say, cold fusion is pure bunk. Nuclear power, however, is quite safe. Finally, yes, GMOs, or genetically-modified organisms (food in this case), are perfectly healthy.
Oops, wait, I forgot one. It was slipped into the #9 slot and I accidentally clicked past it.
Climate Change Is Largely Manmade
As it clearly states:
But in truth, among scientists who study the Earth's climate, there is no controversy whatsoever. The rise in global temperatures over the past few decades is undoubtedly caused by human activities.
Uh, hold on a sec, will ya? Something about that is ringing a bell.
(thinking)
Oh, right, that "past few decades" part. The past few decades is how long it's been since it has warmed up. I remember now.
But an excellent try, nonetheless, RealClearPolitics, and a big gold star for the 8½ items you did get right. As I said, it's always admirable when someone steps up to the plate and tackles the tough ones.
Even if it is only a fake-out to couch the real message.
The worst class I took in education school was on “math teaching methods.” It was taught by my advisor at the time. (I say “at the time” because shortly afterward they changed advisors on me, and she no longer taught courses, but worked with Ph.D. candidates. From what little biographical information I have seen about her, she has not ever taught any classes, math or otherwise, in K-12.)
The math teaching methods class was remarkable for its embrace of every educational fad I detest...
Kim Komando was one of the first online gurus. While she's a little too theoretical and not enough 'in the trenches' for my tastes, she's still much smarter than the average online "computer expert", like all those bozos who declared Windows Vista to be "bloated". For those of us who actually are down here in the trenches, we know that by simply turning off a few pesky background programs magically transformed the "bloated" Vista into a smooth, quick, quite stable operating system.
Kim recently came out with an article titled 5 Bad Tech Habits -- And How To Break Them, so I thought I'd skim through the piece and toss in a few tidbits. She's right on all of them, but some need a bit of elaboration or clarification. I suggest you read the article first.
From the top:
1. Forgetting to clean
So, clean your tech gear as often as you'd clean any other germ or bacteria magnet. Keep some tech-friendly antiseptic wipes near your computer and phone charger.
She's 100% correct about using some kind of handy-wipe for anything with buttons on it, like a phone or keyboard. You get the the littlest bit of something like 409 under the buttons or keys and it'll turn into a thick sludge over time. I spray 409 onto a paper towel for the chore, but you have to be careful not to use too much.
As for maintaining a clean keyboard, I adhere to a rule I've been using almost from the beginning. If I get up and actually do anything, like step outside and touch something or lift up a box or whatever, I give my hands a quick rinse before returning to the computer. I'm not trying to be antiseptic; just knock off whatever's on the surface.
- Qatar wants to build a gas pipeline thru Turkey to Austria. -It also has to go thru Syria -Assad in Syria has said no, it will hurt Russia (Gazprom’s gas monopoly in the EU) -Putin has accumulated a large share of Gazprom -France wants the gas, but must first overthrow Assad
Daughter
of Reverend “God Damn America” Wright and 12 other Democrats are
charged with embezzling $16 million in Federal health grants that should
have gone to AIDS charities and other programs for the poor and needy. -
See more at:
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/09/13-democrats-charged-with-embezzling-16-million-in-federal-grants-for-aids-charities-and-other-needy-programs-rev-wright-daughter-among-those-charged/#sthash.gVHGh18t.dpuf
While Rigoletto and his daughter Gilda listen in hiding, the horny Duke sings seductively to the barmaid Maddalena in Rigoletto. Lyrics in Italian and English here:
My attention was drawn to this article recently, though it is several years old. An intriguing method of balancing desires and scarce resources. I am reminded of my youth and music, playing a record I enjoyed over and over again until, at some point, I just didn't want to listen to that great song or album anymore.
I doubt I would have employed Ayn Rand's rationale if asked to choose my toys when I was young. Delayed gratification isn't something most of us understand until later in life. Today, however, I take a very different view about how I employ things I enjoy. I realize my enjoyment can wear thin quickly, so I tend to not 'overplay the record'.
Fifty years ago, psychologists played a cunning trick on a bunch of American four-year-olds. They were given a marshmallow and told that if they waited for 20 minutes before eating it, they could have another one. Most cracked within seconds, but about one in three held out and – with suitably smug expressions, no doubt – got two sickly confections when the experimenter came back into the room. Their careers have been tracked to the present day, and the goody two-shoes among them (I am sure I would have scoffed the sweet at once) seemed to be healthier, to do better at school, and to have more controlled and perhaps happier lives than those who gave in.
Austrian Economics is deeply concerned with 'time-preference' and its impact on the market, because choosing between immediate and delayed pleasures are part of what drive the market. This explains, to some degree, the general opposition to Keynesian stimuli.
President Obama meets with his advisers on this most serious of issues
As far as I can tell, roughly 95% of both the MSM and the blogosphere still believe wholeheartedly that Assad gassed his own people. There are just three eensy little problems with this:
1. He gave the UN inspectors complete run of the place in their investigation. Compare that to Iran giving the UN nuke inspectors extremely limited access.
2. He was already handily beating the rebels back and thus had no reason to throw himself into the spotlight and incur international wrath.
3. al-Qaeda has long expressed its strong desire to use chemical weapons against the West and the Syrian branch has been caught red-handed with Sarin gas in their possession.
You know how those crime shows are always focusing on motive?
And there's a secondary meme that's evolved in recent days that I believe is off the mark. This blurb from the Washington Times incorporates both:
While saying he sympathizes with current public distaste for more war, President Obama on Friday made the case that the U.S. must live up to its global responsibilities, and for the first time raised the possibility that additional military action — beyond what’s on the table now — may be necessary if Syrian President Bashar Assad uses chemical weapons again.
In my opinion, it has nothing to with a 'distaste for more war' and everything to do with the following. Even site favorite James Taranto is on board the 'Assad Did It' bandwagon, and, as sharp and focused as he is, he seems to have completely overlooked the one key word in his column here. Let's see if you can spot it:
There are reasons to suspect that the effort may be losing rather than gaining momentum. Congressmen respond to their constituents, and the Washington Post reports (with a Fox Butterfield twist): "Americans widely oppose launching missile strikes against the Syrian government for its alleged use of chemical weapons, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll that finds little appetite for military action across the country despite a growing drumbeat in Washington."
Alleged. And, James, if something is only alleged, then only a total moron would take such devastating and possibly far-reaching action on it. Far-reaching, that is, if you count Iran closing down the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation.
The bottom line is that Americans don't like going to war over an alleged anything.
Another media-driven misconception that's been there from the start is that the rebels are 'moderates' and thus are the good guys. Kerry's used the word "moderates" in every speech he's given on the subject. But such is hardly the case.
Secretary of State John Kerry's public assertions that moderate Syrian opposition groups are growing in influence appear to be at odds with estimates by U.S. and European intelligence sources and nongovernmental experts, who say Islamic extremists remain by far the fiercest and best-organized rebel elements.
And here's yet one more meme the protectionist media is pushing, the 'reluctant' president:
The most amusing part of the entire drama, of course, is watching the squishy liberal media dance around the issue. Saddam Hussein gasses 250,000 Iraqi Kurds, Bush wants to stop him, and that's a bad thing. Assad gasses his people, Obama wants to stop him, and that's a good thing. Gosh, I wonder what the difference in those two wildly-opposed attitudes could be?
Then you throw in the doubt of who really gassed the citizenry and, if it actually was al-Qaeda, now you're saying we should fight on the side of al-Qaeda?
As to why all of this is taking place, let's just ask science:
In the name of al-Qaeda, we thank the infidels of the West for removing the largest obstacles in the path to attaining our glorious future World Caliphate, where Allah (Peace Be Upon Him) shall reign supreme forevermore.
Up to this point, our righteous path has been blocked by Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Bashar al-Assad of Syria. Thanks to the combined efforts of America's military, the European Coalition, NATO and America's right-wing bloggers, we have already disposed of three of these obstacles, with only one left to go. Although Iraq was briefly in Western hands, it shall soon be ours once again.
Our special thanks go to sites such as Hot Air and PJ Media, who encouraged us at every step in both Libya and Egypt. Their constant praising of us as "rebels" and "freedom fighters" was especially encouraging to the troops in the field.
A blogger by the name of Walter Russell Mead recently wrote a very important article titled Why Syria Isn’t the Big Story This Week, which a number of bloggers, including Instapundit and Hot Air, linked to.
...to punish a bloodstained government for its use of chemical weapons against its own people.
Yes, that's who did it, Mr. Mead, as Assad's most mortal enemy, the Israeli Mossad, will helpfully corroborate.
He then goes on to describe how, even though the world might be in flames next week and you'll be paying $12 a gallon the week after that, the 'real story' was India's economy.
Again, we thank the West deeply for its support, praise be to Allah.
As for Syria, after our first successful gassing of the citizens (their martyred souls shall rise to Heaven, praise Allah!), the present plan is to wait until the perfunctory bombing begins, then stage another attack, blame it on Assad, then watch the bombing escalate to the point where he must relinquish the kingdom.
Even if the bombing fails to dispose of this tyrant, he will still be tremendously weakened, and we should have control of every city except Damascus within a few years.
Your Editor Dog is back after 12 days without phone, email, internet, TV, or radio. That was a blessing, and put life in perspective - as corny as that may sound. Home is good, work is good, but away is good too. We saw very few Americans, which was different too.
I'll post a few Show 'n Tells of pics when and if I get them organized, with my usual snappy commentary, keen observations, and handy travel tips.
In short, our itinerary was flying non-stop to Milan (Malpensa airport, Italy's largest and busiest), arriving at 7 am local time and picking up our rental car (thanks, Costco international rentals) which they unaccountably and without charge upgraded from an Audi A3 sedan to a Mercedes diesel standard shift wagon which was a comfortable car to drive. The standard was handy for the mountain driving and endless uphill hairpin turns.
We promptly escaped Milano and headed east on A-4 (which is Italy's I-95 - busiest highway in the country) to our excellent B&B about a third of the way up the western shore of Lake Garda, but we had to spend a few hours on the way checking out Bergamo (parked in the town center and took the funicular up to the old city, and had an elegant lunch and a good stroll). Then we proceeded up to our 15th C. B&B farmhouse (Thanks, Karen Brown) in Gardone Riviera for a couple of days on the lake before driving up (the long, scenic route with tunnels, curvy roads, and the large Alpine foothills via Riva del Garda for a brief look-see - lots of quick stops for a caffe or Coke) before getting on the A-22 through Trent and Bolzano to our B&B high on an alpine hill outside Ortesei in the Val Gardena in Italy's Alto Aldige on the Austrian border for a few days of energetic hiking in the Sud Tyrol where nobody speaks Italian but mainly German or Ladin. (Yes, I can write run-on sentences if I need to.) The Val Gardena in the Dolomites is an UNESCO World Heritage site.
After that, we cruised down from the Alps on A-22 to Verona in the Veneto, and spent a few days exploring the old part of the charming city from our elegant old hotel (which was about twelve steps from the Piazza del Erbe) before departing early yesterday morning to drive the A-4 again from Verona to the airport in Milan. Verona has the most beautiful women in the world, in abundance. Juliets, most of them, and they know how to dress - and walk - for maximum impact. Make a note of it, you single fellows. La Bella Figura.
Highest points of our trip:
- Rigoletto in the Arena di Verona, 4th row center. This year was the centennial of Verona's opera season in the huge Roman arena, built to seat 20,000 blood-thirsty citizens of Roman Verona. They request that you dress nicely for the good seats, so we did.
- Hiking above the top of the Seceda funicular in Ortesei, up to 3200 m. where you have to take a breath between each spoken phrase while hiking until you get down a few hundred meters where there is a bit more oxygen.
- Seeing the sort-of Persian, sort-of Klimt, stunning Madonna of the Rose Garden at the Castelvecchio Museum in Verona:
Thanks to Mrs. BD for yet another splendidly-planned joint-birthday adventure.
Here's your Editor, high in the Dolomiti at the tree line. Yes, we hiked our butts off. As usual on our trips, we lose weight from our levels of activity despite very fine dining.
Understandably, Bird Dog usually takes a while to get into gear the morning after a trip, so here are a few goodies to tide you over if he's a tad late.
Pic: Just back from his vacation, the big guy feels fresh and invigorated.
As I've noted in past NASA posts, I've been a huge fan of the space program from the beginning, and have watched all of the major launches over the years. When Story Musgrave and his valiant crew fixed the Hubble back in '93, I was hitting the sack at 9 in the evening and getting up at 3 to watch it live.
The problem is that they've had half a century to deal with the first problem, and that ol' 'treadmill routine' just isn't cutting it. And they're just as clueless — if not just as helpless — with the second problem.
So it's actually kind of sad to see articles like these floating around, misleading people into thinking that whole 'space exploration' business is doable at this point in time:
It was 1973 and I was working at a high-end stereo shop in Keene, NH. Owning a 12-string, I was obviously very intimate with guitar-tuning. This was the dawn of PC chips, remember, and suddenly one came out that could 'read' audio frequencies. It occurred to me that you could incorporate twelve of them to look for a specific frequency and send a plus or minus signal to a mini-servomotor attached to each tuning key, telling it to turn one direction or the other. You'd strum the guitar once and they'd all kick into gear.
Alas.
And we have a fun new twist on the global warming front. You've been told that violence and terrorism and war and 98% of all species dying off and continent-destroying hurricanes and all the rest are going to be a direct result already happening now, as they attempt to scare you into believing. But this guy takes it to the next level.
Sensing such dangers, most people have an instinctively negative reaction to climate geoengineering. The reality, however, is that unless we deal seriously with the climate change problem (which we are not) the siren call of geoengineering will grow. And, when we get to the point where burgeoning concentrations of greenhouse gases are causing undeniable catastrophes -- tornados, hurricanes, droughts, coastal flooding, wild fires, mass extinctions -- on a scale orders of magnitude larger than we are experiencing today, the temptation to seriously consider a technological fix will become irresistible to many.
Since it's Sunday and we're just horsing around, I'll run through his little list, just for practice:
Tornadoes — We're currently at a 10-year low in twister activity — despite an ever-mounting rise of 'killer carbon', CO2.
Hurricanes — Also at an historic low, and some global climatologists are now starting to think that warmer waters reduce the number and strength of hurricanes.
Droughts — Our current drought is nothing compared to the barn-burner of the Dust Bowl 30's.
Coastal Flooding — Ah, you can always tell somebody who grew up in a landlocked state. It's like he's never even seen an oceanside beach. He's picturing the entire surrounding land mass as being at or near sea level, whereupon a few-feet rise in ocean level would devastate everything for miles around. Yet San Francisco, for example, surrounded on three sides by water and obviously one of the first to be washed away, is 15 feet above sea level.
Furthermore, I-
Hold on, this just in:
DATELINE 5/23/2033 (UPI): San Francisco Tourists Shocked At What They See
"I couldn't believe it," said Betina Wilkenson from Flatbush, Arkansas. "We drove all the way out here to kick back on the beach, and there's at least 10 less feet of sand than in the brochure!" Longtime resident Bud Ferris is also upset. "When we moved here back in my youth, there was at least fifty feet of sand running down the water. Now, after all this global warming, we're lucky if we've got forty feet!"
San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom II vowed to take corrective measures. "We long ago outlawed gasoline-powered vehicles, so the obvious next step is to outlaw electric vehicles, since energy is energy and it's obviously all bad."
When asked about the state resolution of 2028 that converted the great agricultural valley into the clean-energy Big Valley Wind Farm, he scoffed. "That wind stuff is okay when it comes to charging up your laptop or cellphone, but a car? Forget it."
Where we we? Oh, right.
Wildfires — We have definitely seen bigger and bigger wildfires in recent times, and will continue to do so. And it has everything to do with poor brush management and the poor clearing of old timber and not maintaining a proper airborne fleet and nothing to do with the weather.
Mass Extinctions — As I point out in my own AGW treatise, the funny thing about the "species dying off" meme is that we have absolutely no friggin' idea how many species there are. So, if you don't have a starting number, how do you know when there are "less"?
But the real point is that there isn't any reason to think masses of species will die off simply because it gets a bit warmer. Colder, yeah, but warmer? And for those on the cusp who actually do die out, a lesser species will find the warmer temp a boon and flourish. Nature's real big on that 'balance' stuff.
On a personal note, however, I have to thank the AGW crowd for giving me the opportunity to write the above 6,531-word dissertation, one of my finest pieces. They also gave me the opportunity to create an entire new environmental movement. So thanks, global warming crowd.
Gwynnie is up in Eastport, Maine and learning about the Old Sow whirlpool. According to Wikipedia, Old Sow is the largest tidal whirlpool in the Western Hemisphere, located off the southwestern shore of Deer Island, New Brunswick, Canada, and Moose Island, the principal island of Eastport, Maine.
According to popular etymology the name "Old Sow" is derived from "pig-like" noises the whirlpool makes when churning; however, a more likely origin is the word "sough" (pronounced "suff"), defined as a "drain," or a "sucking sound." Early settlers to the area may easily have mispronounced "sough," as "sow," due to its similar spelling to other words with "sow-sound" endings, such as "plough."
The whirlpool is caused by local bathymetry and extreme tidal range where waters exchange between Passamaquoddy Bay and the Bay of Fundy, combined with the unusual topography of the location's sea floor at the confluence of the numerous local currents.
Old Sow is one of five significant whirlpools worldwide (Corryvreckan, Scotland; Saltstraumen, Norway; Moskstraumen, Norway; and Naruto, Japan are the others). Although the tidal currents within Western Passage surrounding Old Sow compare with faster whirlpools elsewhere, the speed of Old Sow's vortex is considerably slower than Moskstraumen, the world's most powerful whirlpool.
Tremendous water turbulence occurs locally in the greater Old Sow area, but it does not usually constitute a navigation hazard for motorized vessels with experienced operators at the helm; however, small craft — especially vessels with keels (sailboats) and human-powered vessels — are warned to avoid these waters when the tide is running.
Besides Old Sow and its numerous "piglets" (small and medium whirlpools surrounding Old Sow), other area phenomena include standing waves, upwellings (that on rare occasion may even spout several feet into the air), and 10- to 17-foot-deep or more, non-vortexing depressions in the water.
Robert Godfrey writes in Smithsonian Magazine: “The reasons for the Old Sow are several. To begin with, some 40 billion cubic feet of water floods into Passamaquoddy Bay with each incoming tide and mixes with the countercurrents from the St. Croix River to the north of the bay. There's a 400-foot-deep trench to the southwest of New Brunswick's Deer Island Point that continues as a 327-foot trench to the northwest. Bisecting the trench is a 281-foot undersea mountain. All that water flooding into the bay has to negotiate a right-angle turn to get around Deer Island Point, and then it slams into that undersea mountain. When heavy winds coincide with especially high tides, it becomes liquid chaos and disaster for the unwitting seafarer.”
See also It’ll Thrill Y, It’ll Kill Ya in WIRED Magazine... "Chaos isn't just a theory in the Passamaquoddy Bay. Here in the waters off of Eastport, Maine, lurks the Old Sow, the western hemisphere's biggest whirlpool. She shows up wherever and whenever the spirit and tides move her, occasionally opening her maw suddenly in the form of a madly spinning, 40-foot-deep hole in the ocean, several hundred feet wide. Sometimes she's more subdued, creating a funnel-shaped hole roughly 12 feet wide and 12 feet deep.
A friend of mine sent me this link with the comment "This is the best song of the summer." I opened it, expecting to be blown away. I was, though I have to admit not in the sense I expected. It definitely got some sideways glances from the rest of my family while I listened.
Meanwhile, my friend was kind enough to pass this along to me, as well. A sorbet for the ears, I suppose. Math makes good music. Fibonacci numbers are a sequence beginning with 0 and 1, then each following number is comprised of the previous two added together. Thus the sequence is 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13....and so on. Fibonacci numbers are closely related to Phi, or the golden ratio, which nature follows very closely. Items which utilize the golden ratio are aesthetically pleasing.
I don't play an instrument, and I suffer from tinnitus, but I know when I hear something I enjoy.
That conclusion should be obvious. Roughly 48 percent of our college graduates are in jobs that the require less than a four-year degree, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the future looks worse: growth in the number of graduates in this decade is likely to be nearly three times as great as the projected number of jobs requiring such degrees. Despite incredibly lax standards (the typical full-time student spends about 30 hours a week on academic matters) and rampant grade inflation, well over 40 percent of entering students fail to graduate within six years.
That conclusion should be obvious. Roughly 48 percent of our college graduates
are in jobs that the require less than a four-year degree, according to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the future looks worse: growth in the number of
graduates in this decade is likely to be nearly three times as great as the
projected number of jobs requiring such degrees.Despite
incredibly lax standards (the typical
full-time student spends about 30 hours a week on academic matters) and
rampant
grade inflation, well over 40 percent of entering students fail to
graduate
within six years. - See more at:
http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2013/08/too_many_people_are_going_to_c.html#sthash.MdCB3djG.dpuf
That conclusion should be obvious. Roughly 48 percent of our college graduates
are in jobs that the require less than a four-year degree, according to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the future looks worse: growth in the number of
graduates in this decade is likely to be nearly three times as great as the
projected number of jobs requiring such degrees.Despite
incredibly lax standards (the typical
full-time student spends about 30 hours a week on academic matters) and
rampant
grade inflation, well over 40 percent of entering students fail to
graduate
within six years. - See more at:
http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2013/08/too_many_people_are_going_to_c.html#sthash.MdCB3djG.dpuf
That conclusion should be obvious. Roughly 48 percent of our college graduates
are in jobs that the require less than a four-year degree, according to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the future looks worse: growth in the number of
graduates in this decade is likely to be nearly three times as great as the
projected number of jobs requiring such degrees.Despite
incredibly lax standards (the typical
full-time student spends about 30 hours a week on academic matters) and
rampant
grade inflation, well over 40 percent of entering students fail to
graduate
within six years. - See more at:
http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2013/08/too_many_people_are_going_to_c.html#sthash.MdCB3djG.dpuf
What would Italian cooking be like without their foods from the Americas?
In 
Let's all sing along!
On September 11, Another Pilot Died in His Seat
Kim Komando was one of the first online gurus. While she's a little too theoretical and not enough 'in the trenches' for my tastes, she's still much smarter than the average online "computer expert", like all those bozos who declared Windows Vista to be "bloated". For those of us who actually are down here in the trenches, we know that by simply turning off a few pesky background programs magically transformed the "bloated" Vista into a smooth, quick, quite stable operating system.
Understandably, Bird Dog usually takes a while to get into gear the morning after a trip, so here are a few goodies to tide you over if he's a tad late.