perfidy

Vermont, wedged between two far better states, has long been a hotbed of separatism and posturing independence. And so we turn our critical eye toward the home of overly sweet syrup:

• YEEEAAARRRGGGHHH
• If it weren't for us, your pancakes would be dry
• Canadian Money Accepted Here
• Birthplace of the Insufferable Hippie
• Yep
• Live Free or, uh… something
• We're Only Cheap in Monopoly
• Green Loogie State
• Home of, well, nothing much
• Manly Deeds, Womanly Hands
• More people than Alaska!
• The best French-named state in the union
• New Connecticut
• Bet ya can't name 2 of our towns
• Frozen Rednecks
• Land of Mustaches
• Our presidents our renowned for doing nothing
• Vermont – Home of Hippies Too Stupid To Move To Oregon
• Gettin' busy with New Hampshire since 1791
• We don't care who you marry, as long as we get the license fee
• Freedom and Unity, except with those fuckos from New Hampshire
• The New Jersey of New England
• The sort of triangular state
• Vermont, preternaturally
• Sing it! I, Hate New York
• Vermont is for Losers
• Independent does not necessarily mean paranoid
• Gateway to prosperous upstate New York
• Piss on Vermont
• The only state to successfully get out of New York
• Don’t pick on us just ‘cause we talk funny
• Ethan Allen, not just mediocre furniture
• Hillbillies aren’t just from Appalachia
• Like Massachusetts, only poorer and more socialist
• The last famous person from Vermont was born in 1872
• Best skiing on the East Coast, which is like saying you’re the smartest retard
• Birthplace of creepy Mormonism
• The first state, after the first thirteen states
• If Maple syrup was as valuable as oil, we’d be Texas. Or maybe Saudi Arabia

[wik] Bonus slogans!

• United States? What's that?
• Ben & Jerry for President!
• Howard Dean! He's One of Us!!!!!!!
• Welfare mothers make better lovers
• North West Virginia
• Most of us still have teeth

In a fascinating breakthrough, scientists have determined that the lowly fruit fly, subject of the predations of generations of high school geneticists, has a tiny sliver of free will. Remarkable!

And proof that at least some in the scientist community are aware of the possible threats of continued research in this area, one said,

Future research delving further into free will could lead to more advanced robots, scientists added. The result, joked neurobiologist Björn Brembs from the Free University Berlin, could be "world robot domination."

Naturally, the reporter assumed that the Brembs was joking. We know different.

Despite the lingering threat of robot domination of our species, this research does poke at some interesting corners of the human condition. Ironically, though, the researchers noted that the behavior that caused them to suppose that the flies’ behavior was less than completely random followed another mathematical pattern, that of Levy’s distribution:

Flies use this procedure to find meals, as do albatrosses, monkeys and deer. Scientists have found similar patterns in the flow of e-mails, letters and money, and in the paintings of Jackson Pollock

Now, there must be some sort of biological process at work to create this activity, and if there is a biological basis, then it is hard to make the argument that free will is at work. The particular results might vary from fly to fly, but the process is determined. Just like a random process will be different each time, but the process is entirely random.

And comparing a fly’s behavior to that of Jackson Pollock is not a particularly strong argument for free will, either.

Last Sunday, the Buckethead clan up and decided to take a roadtrip into the wilds of West Virginia. (The wilds of West Virginia being coterminous with the borders of West Virginia.) Our original destination was Spruce Knob, the highest point in WV aside from the pothead rock climbers at Seneca and over by the New River Gorge. On the way south, though, I happened to spy a sign for the Dolly Sods. Executing a 45mph ninety degree right turn, we drove up a mountain to see them.

Almost 23 years ago, I had visited this area, and it is a fascinating miniature ecosystem. The name “Dolly Sods” comes from a German immigrant family, Dahle, who once farmed in the area. They moved on, but the Americanized version of their name remained. The “Sods” appellation refers to the grassy areas that grew up in the burned out regions of the plateau. The Dolly Sods is the largest, highest plateau east of the Mississippi, and it was once a Spruce forest, though logging and subsequent fires reduced the area to a near desert. Since then, it has grown back – but the plants and animals there are more like what is generally found 1600 miles to the north in Canada – like the cold-adapted snowshoe hare.

Most of the trees have branches growing on only one side – away from the prevailing winds. Most of the ground cover is low, bushes and heath, huckleberries and blueberries. There are also huge bogs, watered by the 100 or more inches of snow that the area gets each winter. The bogs are filled with lichen and moss, and we had to warn the boy back from the edge, lest he become a permanent addition to the bog ecosystem.

The views from the edges of the plateau are incredible – there’s a hundred foot drop-off at one point, and lots of fun boulders to clamber around. There was another family there, who had a five year old daughter in tow, and Sir John-the-precocious-casanova was entranced:

John: She’s my girlfriend.
Me: Really?
John: Yes. She’s my girlfriend.
Me: Don’t you think you’re a little young to have a girlfriend?
John: Well, no
Me: Did you ask her if she wanted to be your girlfriend?
John: No. Why?
Me: You should always ask a girl before calling her your girlfriend.
John: Okay
Me: Do you know her name?
John: No, I can’t know that.

All in all, a fun and educational experience. And once we get the pictures developed, I’ll update this post. (I misplaced the cable for the digital camera, so it remains full of older pictures.

One amusing thing, and frankly the reason for the whole post, was the presence, in the middle of nowhere, a wonderful modern four lane highway that connected the Virginia border with Petersburg, WV. As we got on to the highway, and noted it’s many bridges over creeks, huge cuts through ridges, and impressive width, I said to Mrs. Buckethead, “This is one expensive road. Look how much earth they had to move to make that cut – that must have cost a shitload of money. And it connects one obscure corner of the middle of friggin’ nowhere to another even more obscure corner! I guarantee you this is the work of Robert C. Byrd.”

And as God and my wife will attest, not two minutes later we passed a discrete sign that informed us that we were traveling on the Robert C. Byrd Appalachian Highway System.

Brickmuppet, one of the legion of bloggers that I don't link often enough, has moved to new digs. He's out of the blogspot ghetto, and over into a sparkling gated community at mee.nu. I assume that mee.nu is related in some way to the munuvians. I wonder if the new group are going to be meenuvians? Anywho, go check out his new, perty blog here.

Over the last week, I've been spending some time looking over the blogs of people I met at the milblogger conference. Of course, all of them are chock full of brilliant writing, penetrating insight, late-breaking news and scintilating wit. But one thing I saw yesterday really caught my eye over at Michael Fumento's blog:

The guy with the tat was saved by Navy SEAL Michael Monsoor, who later died saving the lives of three of his fellow SEALs, and is now being considered for the Medal of Honor. You can read the Monsoor's story here or here.

I googled "Archangel Michael's Prayer" to see if I could get the text of it, and google and wikipedia again came through:

Saint Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle.
Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray;
and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host —
by the Divine Power of God —
cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits
who roam throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls.

Amen.

It turns out that there is an interesting story or legend behind this prayer, which was once said in every Catholic Mass. Back in the late 1800s, Pope Leo XIII had this experience:

"I do not remember the exact year. One morning the great Pope Leo XIII had celebrated a Mass and, as usual, was attending a Mass of thanksgiving. Suddenly, we saw him raise his head and stare at something above the celebrant's head. He was staring motionlessly, without batting an eye. His expression was one of horror and awe; the color and look on his face changing rapidly. Something unusual and grave was happening in him.

"Finally, as though coming to his senses, he lightly but firmly tapped his hand and rose to his feet. He headed for his private office. His retinue followed anxiously and solicitously, whispering: 'Holy Father, are you not feeling well? Do you need anything?' He answered: 'Nothing, nothing.' About half an hour later, he called for the Secretary of the Congregation of Rites and, handing him a sheet of paper, requested that it be printed and sent to all the ordinaries around the world. What was that paper? It was the prayer that we recite with the people at the end of every Mass. It is the plea to Mary and the passionate request to the Prince of the heavenly host, [St. Michael: Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle] beseeching God to send Satan back to hell."

Others have spun that into a legend that Pope Leo overheard a conversation between Christ and Satan, where Satan claims the 20th Century to try to destroy the church. That would certainly explain some things, but I don't think that Satan actually, you know, stopped on 1 Jan 2001.

"Those who roam the world seeking the ruin of souls"

That could describe all too many in this world.
 

This last weekend, I was privileged to attend the second annual milblogging conference. (Shouldn't it be a milblogger conference? After all, it isn't a gathering of milbloggings) As was the case last time, I had a fantastic time indulging my need to talk at great length about nearly anything. My wife, who has heard everything I have to say about most things, no longer sees the value in listening anymore; and so a captive audience of people who also feel the need to talk at length about nearly anything is Buckethead heaven. Which is proof, I guess, of the old saying about one man’s heaven being another one’s hell.

And this time, there was plenty to talk about, and, of course, much beer to be drunk. The festivities started with what Blackfive referred to as the “Pre-Cock.” We gathered at Arlington’s legendary Car Pool before the official Cocktail hour and reception. I was greatly pleased that Steve Schippert of Threatswatch was able to attend, despite needing to return home on Saturday for personal reasons. Steve is a fantastic guy, and only a little silly when inebriated. Many others were there as well – the aforementioned Blackfive, Princess Cat, Mike of USAA, Kevin, Noah Shachtman (now at Wired) and a few others who, while significant and entertaining individuals in their own right, have slipped through the cracks of my memory.

Moving over to the Cocktail Festivities, I hooked up with Murdoc and his wife, down from Michigan, and met his longtime companion commenter AW1 Tim. Jon of Aaaarrggghhh was there handing out prizes (though none for me) and various and sundry other bloggers. Rob the fast squirrel was there, and good company.

After attempting to eat fajitas in a room with no tables, and spending $7 for Heineken, we went back to Carpool. At this point, we lost a few people, but Noonan from Op-For, Threatswatch Steve, me, Cat, Rachelle, Scott (great guy, but he likes sleep more than beer – can we trust him?) Blackfive, Murdoc and a couple others kept going. While I did not drink as much as I did on the Friday before the last conference, I did put down a few and a nice glass of the Macallan, and things got kinda hazy.

Went back and crashed at Cat’s and slept on the couch while she and Rachelle slept together. Is that hospitality? I think not.

Bright and early the next morning, we got to the conference just in time to miss the President address the conference. I have to say that I missed a lot of the panels – if I sat down I started getting sleepy no matter how interesting the speakers – and there were some interesting speakers indeed. But I had been short on sleep Thursday night, and only got a couple hours the night before. Adapting my strategy, I generally spent most of the day outside the conference room, talking to the other attendees in smaller groups.

Had a fascinating conversation with the Armed Liberal of Winds of Change and Bill Roggio from the Fourth Rail, and at one point Bill turned to me after I said something and allowed that, “You’re awfully smart for a guy named Buckethead.” I still don’t know quite how to take that, but the sentence had the word ‘smart’ in it so I’ll count that a compliment. And Noonan is not the spare. Or so I have been told.

A big topic of discussion both in and out of the panels was of course the recent Army directive that all military bloggers must get all posts approved by chain of command. It seems that there are two currents in the Army – one which wants to use the milbloggers to aid it in getting information out into the world, “winning the information war” and another group that is operating not on a Web 2.0 basis, but rather a 50s era corporate Web -.5 basis. You can’t win, really, in keeping information contained. It’s damn near impossible in this new world we’ve created. What you can do is compete in an information ecosystem, and attempt to get your ideas, and your points of view respected. That seems to be the consensus, and milbloggers (and I am truly not really one of them, except in spirit) feel that they have a key part to play in that effort. I believe they are right. Bill Roggio, for example, is a one man counterexample to the idea that only major media outlets can provide comprehensive coverage of the war – this guy doesn’t just comment on the news, he is an active producer of it.

Noah Shachtman offered himself up for sacrifice in his panel, by defending the MSM. This was not an audience predisposed to think kindly of the “regular” media. You should have seen people rushing to the microphones to argue. Noah was right, though, there isn’t a conspiracy. But there is ignorance – and though Noah said that milblogs are a perfect resource for mainstream media, I don’t really see a lot of evidence that they are making use of it.

That was one of the things that I was talking about later with several people – in any instance where you have seen reporting on a topic with which you are intimately familiar, have you ever seen them get it right? Ever? And what makes you think that they get anything else right?

In the course of some of those conversations I also met American Soldier and Army Girl – active duty soldiers who are also active bloggers. They are approaching the problems of blogging while on active duty differently – AS is anonymous, while Army Girl must deal with her chain of command. Fascinating discussions, and both were great people to talk to. of Soldier’s Angels (and Vivienne) were both charming. Vivienne kept wanting me to pick up toys, which I was happy to do on a part time basis, but my Jocelyn has a prior claim.

At lunch, we had a presentation from Soldier’s Angels, a truly fantastic group that works with injured soldiers coming back from Iraq and elsewhere. If you are looking for a good cause to donate to, or really even if you aren’t – throw some money their way. They do incredible work. The highlight of the lunch was Chuck Ziegenfuss, a soldier who was wounded severely in Iraq. The guy is an amazing speaker – he told the story of how, after he was wounded, Soldier’s Angels helped him by (among many other kindnesses) getting him a laptop, and how that grew into Project Valour IT, which has now raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase laptops for other injured servicemen and women. Besides being a hero and orator, Chuck is wonderfully profane and wicked funny. I was honored to meet him. Second best quote of the weekend came from him:

"Chuck, did you watch the DNC debates?"

"No, If I want to watch retards fight, I'll throw a bag of candy under the short bus"

After all the official events wound down, we retired to the lounge. There, I met McQ and Jon Henke; current and former members of Q and O. I had a blast talking to both over the course of the rest of the evening as we wended our way though the hotel bar, to PFChangs, and back to the hotel. Also met Lex, who does an excellent Irish accent while drunk. For all I know he may do an excellent sober Irish accent, but I never saw him sober. And no one has seen the Irish sober. Spent some quality time talking to (and smoking with) Jacki, who is not a blogger though she probably should be. (Remember, it’s not about fractals…)

Who else? Tammi, Chuck’s wife Carren, Laurie from Soldier’s Angels, Homefront Six all the way from Hawaii – we had a great time talking early Sunday morning while Lex sobered up, that’s all that comes to mind at the moment. I’ll have to call Cat and start asking, “Who was the one guy…” to fill in the rest.

Last weekend was one of the best weekends I’ve had in a long time. Spending two days in the presence of a crapload of highly intelligent, motivated and articulate people is inspiring. For those who, unlike myself, are inspirable anyway. Thanks to Andi for putting it all together.

And despite my description, it was not all about drinking. People who have done incredible work – the Soldier’s Angels, and everyone who has helped them – were honored. There was a lot of good discussion amongst the bloggers of course, but there were non bloggers there who, I think, got an earful – hopefully a useful one. And making new friends is never wasted.

Can’t wait for next year.

It looks like Cold Fusion is returning from the outer darkness of fringe science, where it had been condemned by legions of right thinking scientists from 1989 on. Some pointy-heads at the Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) in San Diego have achieved a reproducible sort of room temperature fusion:

Cold fusion has gotten the cold shoulder from serious nuclear physicists since 1989, when Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann were unable to substantiate their sensational claims that deuterium nuclei could be forced to fuse and release excess energy at room temperature. Spawar researchers apparently kept the faith, however, and continued to refine the procedure by experimenting with new fusionable materials.

Szpak and Boss now claim to have succeeded at last by coating a thin wire with palladium and deuterium, then subjected it to magnetic and electric fields. The researchers have offered plastic films called CR-39 detectors as evidence that charged particles have emerging from their reaction experiments.

The Spawar method shows promise, particularly in terms of being easily reproduced and verified by other institutions. Such verification is essential to widespread acceptance of the apparent breakthrough, an important precursor to scientists receiving the necessary funding to fuel additional research in the field.

Maybe we will have our Mr. Fusion after all.

Not that any thing like that ever happened last time. Nor did we run up a four hundred dollar bar tab for four people. Nor did I pass out in the metro.

It has arrived! This weekend, as some of you may be aware, is the second annual Milblogging conference. Our friend Murdoc is going to be a panelist this year, kudos to him, and tonight is the mandatory heavy drinking preliminaries. Murdoc, Cat, Rachelle, Blackfive and Steve Schippert of Threatswatch will be joining yours truly for some pre-cocktail hour festivities before heading to the official cocktail hour. If you're in DC, email me and I'll give you details on where to meet if you'd like to join in.

My only regret is that my "No one reads your crappy blog" t-shirt did not arrive in time for the festivities.

The Russian tradition of matryoshka nesting dolls is descended from the medieval practice of burying the dead in concentric circles around the corpses of the previously deceased family members.

Emperor Buckethead I. That has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? When I become Emperor of the United States, there’s a few things I want to change around here.

Last weekend, my mom came out to help celebrate the birthday of my son, who turns four this coming weekend. As part of the bag of gifts that she brought out for greedboy, she included a couple of the new dollar coins, the ones with George Washington’s portrait on them. I was underwhelmed with this latest effort from the Bureau of Printing and Engraving.

The coin feels like what Monopoly money would feel like if the game used coins. It’s light, as if it had a plastic core. The sheen is distinctly unreminiscent of gold. The quality of the art work is poor, I mean really, from some angles it looks like poor George is missing his eyes instead of his teeth. Zombie George is not what I want on my dollar coin. The fonts are ridiculous. And once again, we have a dollar coin the same size as a quarter.

Now, I am in favor of dollar coins. Ever since I spent time in England, I have been for dollar coins. The pound coin is a nifty thing, and we by rights should have an equivalent. A large value coin that is easily distinguishable from other coins. This, our government has signally failed to provide for us for far too long.

One of the problems, of course, is inflation. Precious metals, the ones that make the best coins, are now far to expensive to use in coins – people would melt them down for the metal rather than use them as currency. That’s why our dollar coins are made of anodized aluminum, and our quarters are made of tin foil.

To make things right, we can’t just make better coins. We must make more far reaching changes to our system of currency. To wit, we must revalue the currency 10:1. That is to say, ten current dollars would equal one new dollar. With this simple change, we can return to decent coins.

A quick peak at the internets reveals some key facts:

Gold= $21.63/g
Silver= $.43/g
Copper= $.008/g

Penny= 2.5g (3.1g before 1982)
Nickel= 5g
Dime= 2.3g
Quarter= 5.7g
Pound Coin= 9.5g

So what does it all mean?

• A ten gram gold coin would be worth over $200 now. But, under the new dispensation, it would be worth $20. The return of the $20 gold coin.
• A silver quarter would be $2.44, or very nearly .25 in the new order.
• Current dimes in silver would be $.99, or almost exactly ten cents.
• Old half dimes were made of silver, and weighed 1.3g - $.56, or 5.6 cents in the new money. Perfect.
• A 3g penny, made of pure copper, would be worth about 2.5 cents. Double the size, and you have 5 cents current currency, or ½ cent in the new system. (The old large penny was 10g.) Our lowest denomination coin would therefore be 5 cents, and the eliminate the penny crowd would be simultaneously thwarted and victorious.

So, the new coinage:

• Twenty Dollar – pure gold, 9.25g, about the size of a British Pound coin. Worth $200 in current money. Obverse: Liberty with sword and shield; Reverse: “Give me Liberty or give me death”
• Ten Dollar – pure gold, 4.75g, about the size of a nickel. Worth $100 in current money. Obverse: Eagle; Reverse: U.S. Space Series - Armstrong on Moon, Mercury Capsule, Gemini Capsule, Docked lander and Apollo Capsule, Space Shuttle, Skylab, Voyager, Burt Rutan and SpaceShipOne… $10:
• Five Dollar – pure gold, 2.5g, about the size of a dime. Worth $50 in current money. Obverse: Gouverneur Morris; Reverse: Seal of the United States of America.
• Dollar – gold/silver alloy, 8.75g, about the size of a pound coin. Worth $10 in current money. Obverse: Grizzly Bear; Reverse: American warplanes series: P-38 Lightning, P-51 Mustang, F-6 Hellcat, F-86 Super Sabre, F-4 Phantom II, F-15 Eagle, F-14 Tomcat, F-18 Bug, F-22 Raptor, F-35 Lightning II...
• Half Dollar – gold/silver alloy, 4.5g, about the size of a nickel. Worth $5 in current money. Obverse: John Hancock; Reverse: Liberty Bell.
  2¢
• Quarter Dollar – pure silver, 6g, about the size of a quarter. Worth $2.50 in current money. Obverse: Buffalo; Reverse: American Generals series: Patton, Sherman, Grant, Washington, Sheridan, MacArthur, Eisenhower, … Lee, Jackson, no Omar Bradley.
• Dime – pure silver, 2.5g, about the size of a dime. Worth $1 in current money. Obverse: George Washington (from current quarter); Reverse: U.S. Capitol.
• Half Dime – pure silver, 1.25g, about half the size of a dime, and the size of the old 19thC half dimes. Worth 50¢ in current money. Obverse: Walking Liberty; Reverse: Independence Hall.
• Two Cents – copper/silver alloy, 5g, about the size of a nickel. Worth 20¢ in current money. Obverse: John Adams; Reverse: Statue of Liberty.
• Cent – copper/silver alloy, 2.5g, about the size of a penny. Worth 10¢ in current money. Obverse: Abraham Lincoln (image of his statue in the memorial); Reverse: Lincoln Memorial.
• Half Cent – pure copper, 6g, about the size of a quarter. Worth 5¢ in current money. Obverse: Liberty Head; Reverse: Wreath.

Italicized coins would be relatively rare. The Gold/Silver alloy would be about 4% gold. Every coin will have the motto “Liberty” and the year on the front; and “United States of America,” “E Pluribus Unum,” and the value on the back. The value will always be indicated in words, not numbers. Americans should be literate. The series of coins is not a bad idea, but we need some new topics. The idea of the Buffalo is cool, and looks good, too. So I combined the two. The Buffalo, the Grizzly and the Eagle each get a coin and a series.

And while we’re at it, why not change the folding money? I think the bills should be a little bit bigger, like the old money before 1929. Maybe about 7 by 3, instead of the current 6.14 x 2.61 inches. As for colors, screw the new colors. We can add enough other counterfeit countermeasures to return to the traditional green for the front of the bill. On the back, though, we could, conceivably, use other colors. Some of the older bills had blue, orange or even red in addition to black for the reverse side. I’m open to change there.

I’ve never been completely satisfied with the choices on our bills. Jackson was a terrible president, and doesn’t deserve a place on the $20 bill. Hamilton was important, but he’s worn out his welcome.

I think we need really large denomination bills again. I know that electronic transfers make them largely unnecessary, but the idea is just too cool to pass up. The new bills should have a portrait on the front, and a painting that is relevant to the portrait on the back. And the portrait should have a oval border around it, like we used to have.

So, a new order for the paper money:

• One Dollar Bill – ($10 in current money); Obverse: George Washington; Reverse: Washington Crossing the Delaware.
• Two Dollar Bill – ($20 in current money); Obverse: Thomas Jefferson; Reverse: Declaration Signing. (Same as current $2 bill.)
• Five Dollar Bill – ($50 in current money); Obverse: Abraham Lincoln; Reverse: Surrender at Appomattox. (Screw the southern prideniks.)
• Ten Dollar Bill – ($100 in current money); Obverse: FDR; Reverse: Engraving of Iwo Jima flag-raising. (Screw the japs.)
• Twenty Dollar Bill – ($200 in current money); Obverse: Ronald Reagan; Reverse: Engraving of the Berlin Wall being torn down. (Same to the commies.)
• Fifty Dollar Bill – ($500 in current money); Obverse: Albert Einstein; Reverse: Engraving of the Trinity nuke test. (Same to the enviro-anti-nuke weenies.)
• Hundred Dollar Bill – ($1000 in current money); Obverse: Nikola Tesla; Reverse: Engraving of a couple Tesla Coils going nuts. (Same to Thomas Edison.)
• Five Hundred Dollar Bill – ($5000 in current money); Obverse: Wilbur and Orville Wright; Reverse: Engraving of the first flight at Kitty Hawk.
• Thousand Dollar Bill – ($10,000 in current money); Obverse: Werner von Braun; Reverse: Engraving of a Saturn V rocket lift off. (Screw anyone who says von Braun was a Nazi. Maybe he was, but he became a good American.

How cool would it be to have a $500 bill with a picture of nuclear explosion on it? Or pay for groceries at the whole foods store with a Reagan twenty? Or carry fifty dollars in change in your pocket instead of a reinforced canvas bag, and each coin with a picture of an American warbird? This new money would kick ass.

So there it is, the Buckethead plan for American monetary reform.

JohnL, the proprietor of Texas Best Grok, has found hisself a coblogger. And this seems to have upped the posting frequency a bit. The new addition, Planet Stories, provides some insight into the mind of the engineer:

Understanding Engineers: Take Four

What is the difference between Mechanical Engineers and Civil Engineers? Mechanical Engineers build weapons and Civil Engineers build targets.

Understanding Engineers: Take Nine

An engineer was crossing a road one-day when a frog called out to him and said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess." He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket. The frog spoke up again and said, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week." The engineer took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to the pocket. The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I'll stay with you and do anything you want." Again the engineer took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket. Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter? I've told you I'm a beautiful princess, and that I'll stay with you for a week and do anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?" The engineer said, "Look, I'm an engineer. I don't have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog, now that's cool."

All true. I remember back in my sordid youth, I spent a lot of time in bars. One night, I was hanging out at Larry's Bar, Grill and Seminar of Lower Woodruff Avenue, and a pair of charming and attractive women joined me at my booth. We fell to talking and it turned out that one of the two was an engineer - specifically, an engineer working in the environmental field - dealing with toxic waste and whatnot.

"Cool!" I said. "One of my best friends does that too. Let me call him, and invite him over." So I called my friend (let's call him Dave) and said, "Hey, there's a hot Macedonian chick over here who's an environmental engineer. Stop jerking off and come over to Larry's." And so he did.

Now, the conversation continued. I learned that Emily (or so we'll call her) was by training a Civil Engineer, but at the time I thought nothing of my friend Dave's deep and abiding hatred of civil engineers. Nothing whatsoever. About twenty minutes later, Dave arrives, and flops bonelessly into a chair at the end of the booth. "Rough Day?" I asked.

Dave mimed putting a gun in his mouth and pulling the trigger. "I fucking hate civil engineers."

"Dave, this is Emily. She's a civil engineer."

Panic. "I, uh, fucking hate civil engineers that I work with. That's what I meant to say."

Dave didn't mention that he, as recently as the week before, had said in confidence that civil engineers were people who failed out of all the real engineering disciplines. "How hard," he asked, "is it to get water to run downhill?"

Of course, Dave blamed me for not warning him that Emily was a civil engineer. Now I ask you, am I responsible for Dave's engineering bigotry? I think not, but it was certainly fun watching Dave preface a disparaging remark later with a question to the two young ladies - "None of y'all are from Texas are you?"

From H. L. Mencken:

Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.

Decision making is fraught with risk. Will our choices be to our benefit, or will things go awry? When the stakes are high, sophisticated aids to planning are needed. Historically, important choices have been left to traditional oracular methods, such as flipping a coin. The binary limitation on outcomes proved a hindrance to the wide scale adoption of coin flipping in complicated situations.

Advances in technology over the centuries improved decision-makers options. The invention of dice, first in the simple cubical six-sided form, and later in diverse polyhedral forms, allowed for choosing between as many as twenty or even fifty outcomes. The problem here, of course, was making the list of outcomes. Perhaps the ultimate advance in this form of decision aid was the introduction of the Magic 8-Ball, which provided graduated responses to a single question.

However, these methods allowed for a only single decision maker. Technology had left choosing between leaders far behind. Voting, the best solution for millennia, was cumbersome and time-consuming. When two people needed to choose between them, voting was impractical. Other methods (typically adaptations of single-leader methods and dependent on chance and probability) were often less than optimal for situations which required a leader to win, not merely be the recipient of the blessings of the laws of probability.

Trial by combat was often resorted to, to be sure, but this often left the loser incapacitated. What was needed was a bloodless, strategic, quick, portable and trusted method of determining a winner.

For centuries, that method was rock-paper-scissors. Rock-paper-scissors (RPS) was so dominant, for so long, that few had the temerity to question it even in the smallest particulars. However, certain weaknesses had become apparent over time. Most notably, the frequent ties that were a necessary side effect of having only three options. Nevertheless, the psychological power and strategic possibilities seemed endless.

While some engaged in pointless revisionism (Pirate-Cowboy-Ninja; Cat-Foil-Microwave), in the free-wheeling seventies, some daring souls expanded the sacred trinity of RPS to five, in the hopes of mitigating, if not eliminating, the problem of repeated ties in Rochambeau. The new version was called Rock-Paper-Scissors-Spock-Lizard, or RPSSL.

In the way of things in these modern times, five was not enough, and a good idea was run straight into the ground.

The result is RPS-25.

The advantage here is that ties are almost never going to happen. The disadvantage is memorizing 25 hand gestures and their 300 possible outcomes. A sample of the madness:

Click on the picture for all the outcomes and gestures. Or go here for a flash instantiation of the concept.

[wik] Of course, that wasn't enough. And now we have RPS-101.

Utah, the home of the 2002 Olympics and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Utah, which once fought an almost war with the United States, and which once claimed to own Southern California. Utah, home of Utards.

• Utah welcomes you and your 50 wives!
• Like Georgia, Only Mormon
• Coffee, a forty, a pack of Newports and Utah
• Now open 7 days a week
• Killer, Polygamous, Bees
• Birthplace of TV and the BMG
• Michael Jackson is now almost white enough to live here
• Putting the "white" in "red, white, and blue"
• The Salt Lick State
• Our Jesus Is Better Than Your Jesus
• Utah: 62.4% Mormon, 100% Sexy
• If you ain't Mormon, get the fuck out!
• Want Sheep?
• Utah is Utahded
• At least we’re not Montana
• Just think how spastic we’d be if we drank coffee
• Into Weird Religions Way Before It Was Hip
• The Righteous Hammer of the Central Rockies
• We know we didn’t deserve the Olympics
• There’s a stripper hiding behind every tree
• Life, Multiplied
• The LDS is not part of the Illuminati
• The Hive
• Five alimony payments is not even funny
• I’m not retarded, I’m Mormon
• Utah, we love thee and thee and thee
• With OUR God, all things are possible
• Where’s the chicks?
• Land of the Saints. And we don’t mean the lamer football team.
• It really sucked giving up multiple wives
• Bicycling and ties, two great tastes that taste great together
• Gateway to lifeless desolation
• Utah: Mormons As Far As The Eye Can See
• Industry macht frei

[wik] Bonus slogans:

• That's U-tah, not Me-tah

Really, queer.

It's Friday Funtime Quizzery time. Over at Naked Villainy, we find a biblical quiz. I scared the Bejesus out of myself by getting a 100%, proving that despite two and half decades without cracking open the bible, my Lutheran Confirmation classes were ruthlessly effective. How well can you do, Heathen?

From a wonderful little website that I just discovered, this gem:

Guy 1: So my friend almost ran over a big family the other day but at the last moment a little boy popped up beside the car and I said 'dude you gotta make sure you get them all, or else that little boy is going to grow up and become Batman and come after you'

Guy 2: That's why they invented reverse, so that Batman won't get you.

Guy 1: They should just call it Batman. I'm just going to put the car in Batman and back into this spot.

Guy 2: Seems perfectly logical to me.

Yet another odd lexical twitch to add to my armamentarium, and confuse those near me.

We’re moving into the home stretch here on Perfidy’s longest running series, alternative state slogans for alternate state people. Today, we focus on Texas, a state that has, historically, been foremost in the republic for arrogance and misplaced judgments of its own competence. Twice since independence Texas has not been part of the United States, a fact that is not well appreciated in light of Texans vehement protestations of patriotism. Anyway, on to the ridicule and fun-poking:

• I messed with Texas, and now I have a rash
• If it's good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for Texas
• Because Sometimes You Make Bad Choices
• Se Habla Ingles
• We Kill 'em So YOU Don't Have To
• 95% More Texasness Than The Next Leading State
• Crazy 'Bout Guns!
• Where everything's bigger, except the IQ's
• Mess with Texas, and Chuck Norris will roundhouse kick you to death
• All the oil, without all the burkhas
• 49 of 50 states agree, Texas Sucks
• Why?
• More episodes of Cops filmed on location here than anywhere
• Prone To Flooding
• We kill because we’re frightened little girls
• Have Fun Driving Through Us On Your Way To Nowhere!
• We gave you nuculer
• You Grill 'Em, We'll Kill 'Em
• If we secede again, you're all in deep crap.
• The Beefstick State
• I can see for miles and miles and miles and miles
• An execution a day keeps the prisons relatively empty
• The Manhandle State
• Swim to freedom!
• The unconditionally affirmative frontier
• Most, but by no means all, things are bigger in Texas
• Better Behave, or We'll Fry Your Ass
• Because You Can Never Have Enough Churches
• Come for the oppressive heat, stay for the flat dusty sameness
• Texas, Schmexas
• We Live to Annoy the Rest of the Country.
• Enjoy Leaving!
• More Mexico
• Friendship, Except When Betrayed or Approached By Strangers
• The Key To A Door You Don't Want To Open
• Yes, it is bigger. You'll have to step back though.
• Everything Is Brown Here
• Twice as loud, half as popular
• We put the "Ex" in "execution"!
• Texas: Your last, best defense against education.
• The Dumbo State
• Our state tree is the gallows.
• We Let America See Our Bush!
• The Great Horney Toad State
• That chili's not hot, you're just a pussy
• Don’t blame me, I voted Kinky
• Steers and Queers
• Y’all can go to hell. I’m goin to Texas. Damn, same thing.
• Tuck Fexas
• Welcome Wetbacks and Yankees!
• The Criminal's Lethal Injection Connection
• The Big Freakin' Hat State
• More Crime Than You'd Think
• Things look smaller in Texas
• Poker? I don’t even know her
• Texas: Come for the Adventure, Stay for your wrongful execution
• Birthplace of the meanest president in US History.
• Rodeo: a way for nominally straight Texans to dress in leather chaps and wrestle with animals
• Wetbacks R Us
• Of course we’re loners, who likes a loner?
• It’s like a whole other planet
• Gateway to Texas
• New Jersey thanks God they’re not us
• Our teenagers are the cutest! Did I say that out loud?
• Still proud of defeating Mexico
• Oil, leather, cows, mustaches… It’s not what you think

[wik] Bonus slogans!

• Okay then. LBJ was sort of an asshole.
• For the 100th time, they're 'palmetto bugs'
• We're just as God intended...although maybe not so much with the fire ants, killer bees, rattlesnakes, and little black scorpions
• 104 with 86% humidity makes you sweat? Fuckin' yankee sissy
• Hey we don't mind your freaky cult; it's the Feds
• Nation's leader in cows lost to flash floods
• All that AND tornados! What a'ya waitin' fer?
• It's really only this one guy who drives around with steer horns on his Cadillac - Earl Strickland - and he's from fucking Ohio.
• Gateway to...everywhere! I mean, fuck, look at the size of the place!
• The entire human population could fit squarely in Texas, but why the fuck would it want to?
• Bigger than alot of countries, especially pissant European ones
• Just say 'pardner' instead of 'dude' and you'll be OK
• Our strippers are 60% sassier than most other leading states
• Cornerstone of America's ludicrously-oversized-belt-buckle industry
• We have both political parties: Conservatives and Republicans
• Beers, steers, and, yes, queers
• Median strips? Sure, Tex - we put them there specifically so that you could just drive your SUV right the fuck over them.

The more alert of our mostly sessile readership may have noted that astronomers have detected a new extrasolar planet. We've discovered hundreds of extrasolar planets, so why is this one so damned special? Well, let me tell you. It's earthlike. It's close. And it's in the habitable zone of its star.

Roadtrip!

Well, close in astronomical terms, and for some odd values of "earthlike." The new planet, Gliese 581c, is about half again as big, and five times as massive as Earth. The bigdomes are guessing that this would result in a surface gravity somewheres around twice that of Earth. Which would kill any fat, tall people on a colonization mission. It'd be worse than Oregon Trail. For more details on what life might be like on this planet, visit here, here, here, or here. And get in line behind this guy for tickets:

What might be most significant about this discovery is its implications for the Drake Equation – something we talked about in great depth just a little while ago. Pretty much as soon as we fired up that fancy new telescope, we discover an earthlike world, right on our doorstep. That has to be indicative of how common planets like ours are in the galaxy.

As we learn more about the big universe out there, more of the numbers in the Drake equation are looking to be large. The Drake equation can be divided into physical, life, and civilization factors. All of the physical factors are now almost certain to be large across the galaxy, so there’s no way to minimize your estimates of the number of ETs by saying that there aren’t going to be abodes for life as we know it. (Of course, they may be many other places amenable to life as we don't know it.)

As for life, there are two ways that we could get a firmer grasp on how to judge those numbers, and both are within, nearly, our grasp. Any evidence of life in our solar system would be a strong, but not definitive, clue that life is common in the galaxy. Europa and Mars are the prime candidates there. More research along the lines we are pursuing now may give us some answers. The other way is to increase our capacity to gain information on extrasolar planets, which we are also pursuing. If we get to the point where we can image these planets, it is certainly possible that we could detect chlorophyll or other biological evidence in their reflected light. Finding that would be strong evidence that life exists outside our solar system, and that it could be common as well.

That would mean that two thirds of the Drake Equation’s constituent elements would be heavily weighted toward high numbers. And that the chance of ET’s would be correspondingly higher as well.

[wik] The super nifty star map has not yet been updated to include our new vacation destination. However, you can look at it anyway by going to the to the scrolly thing right on the left side of the window, and scroll down about halfway, looking for "Gl 581." When you find it, click it, and you'll see the Gl 581 circled on the star map. Click on it, or in the window on the right to see the solar system, sadly absent little c. On the star map, if you click on the right arrow, and then the back arrow, you'll be in our sector. Neato!

A summary of the info taken from various websites, linked above:

Gliese 581c orbits a small, red star located 20.5 light years from Earth, in the direction of the constellation Libra. The star has 1/3 the size, and 1/50 the brightness of our sun.

Due to the dim smallness of Gliese 581, its habitable zone is correspondingly narrower than that of our sun. The planet, Gliese 581c (“c” for short) is within this zone, orbiting a mere 6 million miles out. That close orbit gives c a year lasting only 13 days. The presence of a large, Neptune-sized planet inside c’s orbit could mean that it is unlikely that c is tidally locked to the sun – having one side eternally facing the sun, as our moon does with Earth.

The planet itself is large, five times as massive as Earth and perhaps half again as large, or even bigger if it is made of ice and less dense than here. This would result in a surface gravity between 1.6 and more twice that of Earth. The temperature on c would be in the range of 0 to 40 degrees Celsius, or just what we have here. We have no idea what the composition of the planet is, guessing that it is a rocky world like Earth is not unreasonable. A big planet like this would have no difficulty holding down an atmosphere, and the presence of water is certainly a possibility as well.

Someone came up with this cheesy graphic, which despite its cheese gives you a good idea how big the sun would be from the surface of the planet.

This pic has some comparative stats for c and Earth:

And of course, Wikipedia has more info as well.

Everyone can now stop using "inconvenient truth" - or its derivatives in any sort of writing, anywhere. If you feel tempted to do so in spite of my request, please read Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" and reconsider. Failing that, find an unabridged copy of Orwell's collected works and hit yourself repeatedly in the head with it.