Tuesday February 25, 2014 The University of Minnesota Law School has a hockey team called the Fighting Mondales. And a chess club called the Fighting Pawndales.
***Comments of Comment:
Lee Gold 2/24/14: "Thursday February 20, 2014 My birthday. I don't feel 71 years old."
Congratulations anyway.
Now close your eyes and imagine: "How old does 71 years feel?"
I remember sometime in the mid-1950s some public service announcement trying to get people to re-imagine age. "What does a grandmother look like?" the nice man's voice asked, and showed a white-haired lady in a wheelchair, knitting.
Then it showed a busy woman, shopping. "This is a grandmother," the nice man's voice said, and showed clips of her busy life, ending up with her going to a party with adult children and teenaged grandchildren -- and her mother, who was the white-haired lady in a wheelchair.
When people have told me now and then, "You don't look [fill in the age]," I tell them, "This is exactly how I look at that age." (I turned 71 on October 7th, 2013.)
Reply: My head hair is black. My maternal grandfather's hair stayed black till the end of his life. But I first grew a beard at 26 or so; and it had some gray in it.
***From Facebook:
Tweets of Old
Girls, you had better hustle to keep pace with one 15-year old Maine maiden who drives oxen, studies Latin, and runs a saw-mill. VA1910
***From Twitter:
Susan Cosmos @SusanCosmos "The only thing we know about the future is that it is going to be different." - Peter Drucker #quote
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Monday February 24, 2014 "Finally, in my survey of world history in the two centuries following the fall of the Bastille, I come to the question of why the workers never took over the idea of revolution."
Kenneth Minogue, "What if Karl Marx Had Drowned in a Cross-Channel Ferry Accident (1847)" In Nelson W. Polsby (ed.), What If. The Lewis Publishing Company, 1982
Historical point of divergence: Karl Marx died before writing a complete exposition of his theories. Which meant there was no adequate theory for working class revolution, and no such revolution could occur.
I place this in the "If roosters didn't crow, the Sun wouldn't rise" category. Factory workers would have adapted some other philosophy to their needs.
As peasants have done with Marxism in our timeline. As groups across political and social spectrums have done with Christianity and other religions.
***The University of Minnesota's Metro-area campuses will go smoke-free in July. The ban will include electronic cigarettes.
***From minnpost.org:
"Fake" ... Twitter followers? Nick Winkler of KSTP-TV writes: "5 EYEWITNESS NEWS audited high profile politicians in Minnesota and found they have thousands of fake twitter followers. For instance, approximately 6,000 of Governor Mark Dayton's twitter followers are not real. We checked and candidates for the Republican nominee for Governor have fake followers as well."
***From Twitter:
Brainwave Architect™ @brainwavetweets You will either step forward into growth or you will step back into safety. ~ Abraham Maslow.
Kenneth Minogue, "What if Karl Marx Had Drowned in a Cross-Channel Ferry Accident (1847)" In Nelson W. Polsby (ed.), What If. The Lewis Publishing Company, 1982
Historical point of divergence: Karl Marx died before writing a complete exposition of his theories. Which meant there was no adequate theory for working class revolution, and no such revolution could occur.
I place this in the "If roosters didn't crow, the Sun wouldn't rise" category. Factory workers would have adapted some other philosophy to their needs.
As peasants have done with Marxism in our timeline. As groups across political and social spectrums have done with Christianity and other religions.
***The University of Minnesota's Metro-area campuses will go smoke-free in July. The ban will include electronic cigarettes.
***From minnpost.org:
"Fake" ... Twitter followers? Nick Winkler of KSTP-TV writes: "5 EYEWITNESS NEWS audited high profile politicians in Minnesota and found they have thousands of fake twitter followers. For instance, approximately 6,000 of Governor Mark Dayton's twitter followers are not real. We checked and candidates for the Republican nominee for Governor have fake followers as well."
***From Twitter:
Brainwave Architect™ @brainwavetweets You will either step forward into growth or you will step back into safety. ~ Abraham Maslow.
Monday, February 24, 2014
Saturday February 22, 2014 "Ada [Lovelace] and [Charles] Babbage tried to apply their mathematical skills to predicting the outcome of horse races, and Ada died deeply in debt."Julia Cresswell, Naming Your Baby; entry for Ada.
I recommend this book. Partly for asides such as this one. Mostly because when there are conflicting explanations of a name's origin, or the standard explanation is dubious, Cresswell says so. And there's a good bibliography of books and websites.
***From Friday's minnpost.org:
We’re No. 40! And I know why … City Pages' Aaron Rupar writes: "[A] sexual stamina study uses data from Spreadsheets, a mobile app that 'monitors data from user's movement and audio levels through the accelerometer and microphone to provide statistical and visual analysis of their performance in bed,' according to its website. … Anyway, using data from 10,000 users, Spreadsheets broke down the relative stamina of each state, and it turns out Minnesota is home to a bunch of two-pump chumps. Here are the results:
38. Oklahoma — (2:21)
39. Colorado — (2:21)
40. Minnesota — (2:19)
41. Ohio — (2:18)
42. Louisiana — (2:17)
43. Kentucky — (2:14)."
Do they have any idea how exhausted we are from shoveling snow?
I recommend this book. Partly for asides such as this one. Mostly because when there are conflicting explanations of a name's origin, or the standard explanation is dubious, Cresswell says so. And there's a good bibliography of books and websites.
***From Friday's minnpost.org:
We’re No. 40! And I know why … City Pages' Aaron Rupar writes: "[A] sexual stamina study uses data from Spreadsheets, a mobile app that 'monitors data from user's movement and audio levels through the accelerometer and microphone to provide statistical and visual analysis of their performance in bed,' according to its website. … Anyway, using data from 10,000 users, Spreadsheets broke down the relative stamina of each state, and it turns out Minnesota is home to a bunch of two-pump chumps. Here are the results:
38. Oklahoma — (2:21)
39. Colorado — (2:21)
40. Minnesota — (2:19)
41. Ohio — (2:18)
42. Louisiana — (2:17)
43. Kentucky — (2:14)."
Do they have any idea how exhausted we are from shoveling snow?
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.)
"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.)
Saturday, February 22, 2014
Wednesday February 19, 2014 Met Nate Bucklin for conversation at the Dunn Brothers coffee house in the Minneapolis Central Library building.
The Friends bookstore was having a 25-cent sale. I bought two name books.
***From politicalwire.com:
Missouri House Appropriations committee chairman Mike Lair (R) appropriated $8 "for two rolls of high density aluminum to create headgear designed to deflect drone and/or black helicopter mind reading and control technology," according to the Columbia Daily Tribune.
The money was tied to an amendment removing language barring the state from accepting federal grants to implement Common Core standards for public schools which some conservatives believe is President Obama's attempt to indoctrinate children.
Explained Lair: "Basically, when you deal with conspiracy theorists, you do logic first... If you can't deal with folks with logic, you use humor. This is to stop all the problems from the black helicopters and drones. This is high density foil."
***"Arguing that we need more carbon dioxide, not less, in the atmosphere," Utah state Rep. Jerry Anderson (R) "has proposed legislation that would limit the state's ability to regulate emissions of the greenhouse gas," the Salt Lake Tribune reports.
Said Anderson: "We are short of carbon dioxide for the needs of the plants. Concentrations reached 600 parts per million at the time of the dinosaurs and they did quite well. I think we could double the carbon dioxide and not have any adverse effects."
The Friends bookstore was having a 25-cent sale. I bought two name books.
***From politicalwire.com:
Missouri House Appropriations committee chairman Mike Lair (R) appropriated $8 "for two rolls of high density aluminum to create headgear designed to deflect drone and/or black helicopter mind reading and control technology," according to the Columbia Daily Tribune.
The money was tied to an amendment removing language barring the state from accepting federal grants to implement Common Core standards for public schools which some conservatives believe is President Obama's attempt to indoctrinate children.
Explained Lair: "Basically, when you deal with conspiracy theorists, you do logic first... If you can't deal with folks with logic, you use humor. This is to stop all the problems from the black helicopters and drones. This is high density foil."
***"Arguing that we need more carbon dioxide, not less, in the atmosphere," Utah state Rep. Jerry Anderson (R) "has proposed legislation that would limit the state's ability to regulate emissions of the greenhouse gas," the Salt Lake Tribune reports.
Said Anderson: "We are short of carbon dioxide for the needs of the plants. Concentrations reached 600 parts per million at the time of the dinosaurs and they did quite well. I think we could double the carbon dioxide and not have any adverse effects."
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Tuesday February 18, 2014 Warm enough that I saw a man wearing shorts. Up to the mid-40s F.
To Southeast Library. Picked up hold: Jack Bickham, Setting.
On to the Wedge Coop.
Then to Steeple People Thrift Store. Bought two used golf balls for hand exercises, and an exercise band.
***From politicalwire.com:
Liberals Like Cats More Than Conservatives Do
A TIME survey found that preferences for pets or particular kinds of food can accurately predict partisanship.
"Loving cats may not make a person a liberal, but it does increase the odds that a person already is one. To see how accurate our survey was, we analyzed the data from 220,192 TIME readers who took the quiz and then volunteered their actual political preferences, and found that all 12 items did in fact predict partisanship correctly."
***From sciencedaily.com:
Theory on origin of animals challenged: Some animals need extremely little oxygen
Date: February 17, 2014
Source: University of Southern Denmark
Summary: One of science's strongest dogmas is that complex life on Earth could only evolve when oxygen levels in the atmosphere rose to close to modern levels. But now studies of a small sea sponge fished out of a Danish fjord shows that complex life does not need high levels of oxygen in order to live and grow.
To Southeast Library. Picked up hold: Jack Bickham, Setting.
On to the Wedge Coop.
Then to Steeple People Thrift Store. Bought two used golf balls for hand exercises, and an exercise band.
***From politicalwire.com:
Liberals Like Cats More Than Conservatives Do
A TIME survey found that preferences for pets or particular kinds of food can accurately predict partisanship.
"Loving cats may not make a person a liberal, but it does increase the odds that a person already is one. To see how accurate our survey was, we analyzed the data from 220,192 TIME readers who took the quiz and then volunteered their actual political preferences, and found that all 12 items did in fact predict partisanship correctly."
***From sciencedaily.com:
Theory on origin of animals challenged: Some animals need extremely little oxygen
Date: February 17, 2014
Source: University of Southern Denmark
Summary: One of science's strongest dogmas is that complex life on Earth could only evolve when oxygen levels in the atmosphere rose to close to modern levels. But now studies of a small sea sponge fished out of a Danish fjord shows that complex life does not need high levels of oxygen in order to live and grow.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Wednesday February 12, 2014 Non-allergenic love potion in one a day
capsules. (Permanent love potions have gone out of fashion.)
***To Waite House for this month's NAPS package (Nutritional Assistance Program for Seniors.) Took some stuff other recipients didn't want, gave away stuff I didn't want.
Also got food from the twice-monthly produce distribution.
***David Gerrold on Facebook: "And the good news is, I just sold a new story to F&SF. That Pesky Dan Goodman returns in this one and the results are ... hysterical."
***From Twitter:
MarkMillerITPro @MarkMillerITPro "By 2050 $1,000 worth of computing will have the power of all the human brains on the planet." -Jim Seifert, Cisco Canada CTO
Atlas Obscura @atlasobscura This #Singapore shrine is to an unnamed German girl who has become a local deity - http://bit.ly/1eStRCG
***From politicalwire.com:
Gay Republican Runs Ad with Same-Sex Partner
Wall Street Journal: "Carl DeMaio is one of three openly gay Republicans running for Congress this year, and he would be at least the third to serve in the House if he wins. But Mr. DeMaio on Thursday will take a step that none of them has, airing a campaign ad that features a shot of him with his same-sex partner."
***To Waite House for this month's NAPS package (Nutritional Assistance Program for Seniors.) Took some stuff other recipients didn't want, gave away stuff I didn't want.
Also got food from the twice-monthly produce distribution.
***David Gerrold on Facebook: "And the good news is, I just sold a new story to F&SF. That Pesky Dan Goodman returns in this one and the results are ... hysterical."
***From Twitter:
MarkMillerITPro @MarkMillerITPro "By 2050 $1,000 worth of computing will have the power of all the human brains on the planet." -Jim Seifert, Cisco Canada CTO
Atlas Obscura @atlasobscura This #Singapore shrine is to an unnamed German girl who has become a local deity - http://bit.ly/1eStRCG
***From politicalwire.com:
Gay Republican Runs Ad with Same-Sex Partner
Wall Street Journal: "Carl DeMaio is one of three openly gay Republicans running for Congress this year, and he would be at least the third to serve in the House if he wins. But Mr. DeMaio on Thursday will take a step that none of them has, airing a campaign ad that features a shot of him with his same-sex partner."
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