Thursday February 20, 2014  My birthday.  I don't feel 71 years old.
"June or July?," someone asked as I looked at a pile of snow taller than my head.

He meant when I thought the snow would be gone.

"June," I said.  "But I'm an optimist."

***Shopped at Steeple People Thrift Store.

***Someone blessed me in Jesus' name.  I thanked him.  (Later, occurred to me I could have thanked him for the birthday present.)

***Adult Children Anonymous meeting.  Rather smaller than usual, due to bad weather.

***On the bus home, one non-American was explaining to another that in the US it's customary for bus passengers to sit in each others' laps.

***Comments of comment:

seawasp 2/18/14: We aren't even sure how to MEASURE the actual computing power of the human brain; heck, I just saw articles claiming a revival of the "quantum structures involved with human thinking" which would utterly change any of the estimates, and even the existing estimates are equal parts barely-justified assumptions and handwaving. So I'm doubtful on that 2050 date.

Especially since even if I assume Moore's Law holds through that date, I'm only getting the typical computer being roughly one million times more powerful in 2050 than the typical computer today, which would imply that a typical computer today has the computing power of 7,000 human brains.

Reply:  If people like you were right, we wouldn't have had Mars colonies by 1970.  And we'd still have ground cars instead of aircars.

Lee Gold 2/19/14: FWIW, I think I'm a liberal (or at least a yellow dog Democrat) and I prefer B&W cocker scandals to cats.

Reply:  I took the quiz, and scored as 58% conservative.  This is unlikely to be accurate.

al_zorra 2/19/14:  Happy Birthday! I hope it's thawing where you are.

Here, it's thawing and raining upon the piles of filthy snow and lagoons of dirty slush. Much, much better than snow and below freezing temperatures.

Reply:  Above freezing temperatures.  But sleet mixed with rain, followed by much more snow.
[Screen reader warning: next three paragraphs aren't in English.]

Mpls Snow Emergency ‏@MinneapolisSnow Lub zos Minneapolis tau txiav txim tso xov hais tias yuav muaj kev thob dau ceev. Hu rau. http://www.minneapolismn.gov/snow/hmoob/index.htm … … (Snow info, Hmong)

Mpls Snow Emergency ‏@MinneapolisSnow Minneapolis waxay ku dhawaaqday gurmad baraf. Fadlan wac (612) 348-7669. http://www.minneapolismn.gov/snow/somaaliga/  (Snow Emergency info, Somali)

 City of Minneapolis ‏@CityMinneapolis La Ciudad de Minneapolis ha declarado una Emergencia por Nevada. (612) 348-7669 y pulse 2 http://www.minneapolismn.gov/snow/español  (Snow info, spanish)

***From politicalwire.com:

"The Constitution mandates that the minimum age to serve in the U.S. House is 25. That won't be a problem for Joe Newman," USA Today reports.

"Newman, 101, is seeking the House seat held by Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) as a write-in candidate."

***From Twitter:

LiveScience ‏@LiveScience Has someone finally decoded the mysterious #Voynich manuscript? http://oak.ctx.ly/r/qafl  pic.twitter.com/1bbkH7NoN6

Dan Goodman ‏@dsgood Give atheists same right to refuse service to religiously-married couples #tellusatoday

(Context:  proposed Arizona law allowing restaurant owners etc. to refuse to serve same-sex couples on religious grounds.)