- I really like Palo Alto Firefighter hot sauce; it has a solid kick with a slightly sweet aftertaste. Great on eggs in particular. I am eagerly awaiting Honey Badger BBQ sauce, too.
- Apropos of honey badgers: I totally missed the Tyrann Mathieu story. Even though it will hurt their prospects for beating Alabama this season, I applaud LSU for firing him for breaking team rules. I don’t think there is enough of that kind of enforcement of team or school rules among top-tier college athletic programs. Ordinary students have to play by those school rules, and so should athletes.
- In the last two weeks I’ve seen two horror stories involving failure to back up data: Mat Honan is one, and then shortly afterwards a coworker’s husband had his laptop stolen… while he was in rural Israel doing archeological fieldwork. He lost more than a month of essentially irreplaceable research material. I use, and highly recommend, CrashPlan. Even their free plan is a great deal.
- And speaking of things you should do: if you use a Google account, turn on two-factor authentication. It’s easy to do and provides much stronger security than using a password alone.
- In related security news: my Dropbox subscription was up for renewal, so I cancelled it and switched to SkyDrive. It’s less expensive ($0 for 25GB), and I trust Microsoft’s security and privacy policies and implementation more than I do Dropbox’s. (Google Drive was never even in the running, as I trust their privacy implementation not at all.)
Tag Archives: Thursday
Thursday trivia #69
Filed under General Stuff
Thursday trivia #68
Whoa, I’m behind on my schedule. That’s what comes from being so busy.
- Fascinating map that helps explore stereotypes about different US states. Why is California so liberal, broke, expensive, and anti-gun? (Please note that the work was apparently done by a German, so no fair complaining that a particular US political philosophy is behind it.)
- I’d never heard of Z-Hire before, but it looks like an extremely useful tool for provisioning Active Directory accounts (and Exchange, and Lync, and anything else that depends on AD) when you hire new employees.
- Can’t wait to see Oscar Pistorius run again tomorrow.
- I’m excited to be speaking at MEC 2012 but it’s a little daunting when I think of how much work it’s going to take to build quality sessions… the attendees will have justifiably high expectations. I’d better buckle up.
- Speaking of buckling up: I’m loving season 5 of Breaking Bad so far. All hail the king.
- Some jerk stole my bike. May he crash while riding it, and soon.
- I’m not sure which is more surprising: that Google offers a death benefit for the spouse or partner of a deceased employee, or that the oldest Google employee is 83.
Filed under General Stuff
Thursday trivia #67
- C.J. Chivers is one of my favorite reporters. Why? Check out this well-sourced and well-argued article on US arms transfers to Libya. I wish all articles in the mainstream press were as thoroughly sourced as this one.
- Check out this cool interactive graph of box office vs budget for all the Bond movies.
- I installed Mountain Lion (dog!) last week and have had a smooth experience with it; I really like the new notification behavior in particular. However, I didn’t have a recovery partition on my SSD, and the Mountain Lion install wouldn’t create one. To try to fix this, I reinstalled it on an external USB drive… which also didn’t get a recovery partition. At least that’s what it looked like. However, holding down Option on boot gave me the option to boot into the partition! It still doesn’t show up in Disk Utility, even with the debug menu enabled, so I must be missing something simple.
- Longtime acquaintance Tom Negrino is tired of the gun religion. It won’t surprise many folks to know that I don’t agree with much of what he says, but I respect the fact that he and I can have a civil debate about it. We could use more of that.
- “@shunsukeiwai: Like a woman, Airbus is a complex creature with many buttons. (Don’t push the wrong ones.) – @KarlenePetitt”. Yeah, that. (Also, Karlene frequently writes about the Airbuses, as in this article on stalling them.)
- Great Paul Cunningham article on mail flow in Exchange 2013.
- I was gutted to see that the Hubig’s Pies factory in New Orleans burned down. As a gesture of support, I ordered some stuff from their online store; if you’re a pie lover, I encourage you to do the same.
- The new Posts app for the iPad looks pretty cool. I wonder if I’d blog more if I switched to using the iPad (or, really, started using it as an adjunct.) Might be worth a try.
- Olympics! And season 5 of Breaking Bad! My TV may explode.
Filed under General Stuff
Thursday trivia #66
- I always thought of nutria as being primarily a Louisiana problem, but it turns out they’re elsewhere– including the Delmarva Peninsula. Even the New York Times says so.
- Batman tonight! David and I are headed to see all 3 movies, back to back. (Don’t tell anyone but I may take a nap toward the middle of Batman Begins.)
- This is a really interesting article about the design process behind how Microsoft supports touch in Office 2013, but I agree with what Gruber said: users don’t care about design, they care about efficacy.
- So AT&T now has a shared data plan… that would actually cost me more than what I pay now for the same amount of data on the same devices: 10GB on 3 smartphones and 1 dumb phone (that currently has no data) would cost me $240, a $35 increase. Thanks, guys, but no thanks.
- Tony weighs in on the multi-mailbox search licensing changes. I hope Microsoft takes the opportunity in Exchange 2013 to fix all of the scripts that count ECALS, etc., including the one that gathers data for the organizational health summary. Still no word, of course, on Exchange 2013 licensing. Experience suggests that license terms and requirements will be one of the very last things Microsoft discloses.
- How to sell an airplane. First, of course, you have to buy one.
- The McLaren dealership was every bit what I hoped it would be, at least as far as cars are concerned. What beauties.
- Oshkosh is next week, but I can’t go. I have high hopes for next year though.
Filed under Musings
Thursday trivia #65
- “7 Minutes of Terror.” Just go watch it.
- Fantastic paper detailing the process of designing and prototyping the F-22. Its subtitle: “An aerospace melodrama, for adults only.” Highly recommended.
- Don McGowan, an acquaintance of mine who happens to be Pikachu’s lawyer, just started a new blog: The Legal Minimum, subtitled “a plain-English overview of legal issues that affect creatives and creators, as understood by someone who works in the business.” If you are a creative or creator, you should be reading it.
- A good question: does Google have any social skills at all?
- From the “I hate it when that happens” department: two Mirage 2000s go supersonic over the Brazilian Supreme Court building. Hijinks ensue.
- This is a pretty good explanation of the TSA PreCheck program, which I am going to interview for on the 31st. I hope it helps.
- A beautiful story of a wrong redressed, and of pride in one’s country.
Filed under Musings
Thursday trivia #63
- From the department of giant robots: an industrial robot with an industrial laser. I know what I want for Christmas.
- They don’t make ’em like these guys anymore: Watson’s Whizzers.
- Knolling: something I’d like to do with my toolbox. I wouldn’t dare attempt it with my desks at work or home.
- This interactive chart of the top 10 causes of death in the US from 1900-2010 is absolutely engrossing. The killers of yore– tuberculosis, influenza, “gastrointestinal infections”– have been supplanted by heart disease, cancer, and airway diseases.
- What I hope everyone who reads this blog understands: the military has people whose job it is to plan for every imaginable contingency, from Plan Orange to Plan Red to Iraq. So this article shouldn’t surprise you too much. Don’t take the fact that we have contingency plans for attacking Iran as evidence that anyone in the military wants to do so, or thinks it’s a good idea.
Filed under Musings
Thursday trivia #62
- Why are the Chinese investing heavily in commercial real estate in and around Toledo? (And no, the answer is not “because no one else wants to.”)
- Got to take nephew Charlie to Fry’s Electronics for the first time yesterday. It was the quintessential Fry’s experience: wide-eyed wonder on the part of the first-time visitor coupled with surly-to-indifferent service from the floor staff, mixed in with a hearty helping of inaccurate information. (The cashier we had, bless her heart, solved the problem for us, though.)
- The NTSB wants you to know that in-cockpit NEXRAD weather may not be as timely as pilots think it is. OK, fine. I’d still rather have old NEXRAD than none at all.
- I’m very interested in Microsoft’s Surface products, but the timing of the introduction seems a little odd. Press reports say that no one was allowed to use the Touch Cover, one of the signature Surface features. That makes me think that it wasn’t ready for public handling– so why not wait until it was ready? One of the unique things that Apple’s done with their product introductions, and that Microsoft could easily copy, is having the product ready to ship the minute it’s announced. Imagine the impact of the Surface announcement if Microsoft had said “here it is, here’s what it costs, and you can buy one today” instead of “here it is; stand by for further details.”
- If you wonder why Pixar’s films are so successful, wonder no more– this list of “story basics” neatly captures the things they think about when crafting stories– and make no mistake, the stories are what make their films so good, not the technology.
- Switzerland as one giant booby trap. With fondue.
- Dick Collins’ writing is always thought-provoking, but never more so than here: “The ultimate responsibility: thoughts on family flying“.
Thursday trivia #61
- I’m a robot guy– I am fascinated by industrial robots, but it hadn’t occurred to me to use them for photography and videography. Luckily there are other, more imaginative, people out there. This video is stunning– watch it in HD.
- Did you know the Chinese were thinking about building a manned space station? Yep. (For another time: this ties in neatly with the premise of James Fallows’ China Airborne, which is on my reading list.) Why would they do this? The Union of Concerned Scientists explains. (The full report is much more interesting than the summary.)
- I am not much interested in History-with-a-capital-H, but I do love the unveiling of a good story through diligent research into primary sources. Here’s a great example: an exploration of secrecy and leaks in the IVY MIKE H-bomb test. This discussion is, of course, applicable to the recent flapping about the (probably unlawful and certainly ill-advised) series of leaks from the White House about US intelligence and military programs, sources, and procedures.
- Oh, Apple. After doing such a good job of staving off device fragmentation, now you’re introducing it in spades with iOS 6. Many of the new features won’t work on older devices, including some that don’t seem to have any technical requirements that should prevent them from working. I’m not going to upgrade to a new phone just to get turn-by-turn maps, etc, though.
Filed under General Stuff
Thursday trivia #60
- “A Russian City Always on the Watch Against Being Sucked Into the Earth“: um, OK. “We will fight the holes with science,” says the mayor.
- “Delta Air passengers unexposed to rabies from bat on board“: it’s not very nice of them to call the former Northwest flight attendants bats… wait, what? (Actually, Delta has only recently started staffing flights with mixed cabin crews of former Delta and former Northwest flight attendants.)
- R.I.P. Eugene Polley, inventor of the wireless television remote.
- I subscribe to American Airlines’ list of last-minute “saver” fairs. Every week, without fail, I get an e-mail from them telling me that there are no such fares out of San Jose. You’d think I would have smartened up and cancelled my subscription by now.
- Did you know that GPS satellites also carry sensor packages intended to detect nuclear explosions? Neither did I.
- I enjoyed this two-part article about the role of science (and scientists) in The Avengers.
- A fantastic new programming language: Objectivist-C.
Filed under General Stuff, Musings
Thursday trivia #59
- I’ve decided to start journaling my flying lessons. Look for the first entry in the next couple of days.
- This weekend I’m headed to see my first live professional MMA bout: the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix final. I’m pretty excited about it.
- Diablo III: sorry, couldn’t care less.
- If you’re thinking about attending MEC 2012, the early-bird discount for registration ends tomorrow. Get it while the gettin’ is good. (And if you’re not thinking about attending, whyever not?)
- And speaking of conferences: I’m moderating a panel discussion at Hewlett-Packard’s Discover 2012 conference next month in Vegas. I would have included a link to the session but H-P’s event website is so encrusted with JavaScript that I can’t get the links to work properly.
- Beautiful 1971 letter from Ronald Reagan to his son Michael about marriage. If you are married, want to be married, or know someone who is married, read it.
- A volcano. In a trash can. That fires rubber ducks into the air. Yes please.
Filed under General Stuff, Musings
Thursday trivia #58
- On Monday I went flying; during the flight, I shot some landings at the Hayward airport; it is more or less right across the bay from the Palo Alto airport. As I was flying downwind for an approach to land on runway 28L, I heard an unusual radio call: “Hayward Tower, Boeing 5017 November…” My CFI and I looked at each other, wondering what kind of aircraft it was. Turns out it was the Experimental Aircraft’s B-17, Aluminum Overcast, come to town for a visit! (Their tour is this weekend, when I’ll be in Huntsville, so I did the virtual tour instead. So should you.) He landed while I followed in trail, but it took him long enough to clear the runway that I had to go around– so I got to overfly a B-17. Bonus: I could see our friendly neighborhood Zeppelin about 10nm to the north as I executed the go-around. Some flights just can’t be improved on…
- …but others can. Case in point: the Indian Air Force has purchased 872 MiG fighters since 1966. Since then, they have crashed 482 of them, killing 171 pilots. That’s a loss rate of 55%! I can’t find official data on accident rates (as opposed to total numbers of airframes lost) for the IAF, though an article (whose link I lost) cites a loss rate of somewhere between 0.83 and 1.07 per 10,000 hours. For comparison, see the USAF mishap data from 1947 to 2006 (see the “Destroyed” column), which appears to be calculated per 100,000 hours. It’s surprising both that the IAF has such high total losses and that their mishap rate seems to be pretty steady. (Interesting side note: the USAF apparently flew 25% more hours during “peacetime” in FY 1993 than in the midst of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars in FY 2007!)
- From the “could you possibly find a more obvious research result?” department: “…The surprising result is that relationships in which the man is happier than the woman are significantly more likely to come to an end relative to relationships in which both partners are similarly unhappy.” You don’t say. In other news: water is still wet, and Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.
- I was excited about Bo’s mention of Mad Anthony’s XXXTRA HOT Private Reserve hot sauce… but for $10 a bottle plus $10 shipping, Im thinking I’ll pass. That’s a high barrier to entry just to try it. On the other hand… mmm, delicious spice… so I might have to get some anyway. (Related note: just ordered a refill of Blair’s Death Rain habanero chips, yum!)
- Great persuasive essay from Brian about willpower and desire in relation to fitness. Go read it. And then stay out of the snack closet.
- Attention Tony: now that I know of the existence of The Aviator’s Guide to Ireland my interest in visiting Ireland has gone up about five notches.
- I wish I could convince Amazon to stop cluttering up their home page with top-center ads for womens’ clothing and the Kindle Fire. I don’t want either of them, nor am I likely to suddenly change my mind; if they put up ads for things I might actually buy it would be better for both of us.
Filed under aviation, General Stuff, Musings
Thursday trivia #57
- I have long been fascinated by the history of Bell Labs, perhaps one of the best-known research outfits in the history of the modern age. There’s a new book, The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation, that looks like it might be interesting, so it’s on my Amazon wish list now.
- Speaking of my wish list: I love it that I have a single location to keep track of every interesting-sounding book I run across. It’s much easier to add books to the list than to read them, though, so periodically I have to make a pass through the list and cull it a bit.
- Yet another reason why I love O’Reilly Media: their newest book is the Illustrated Guide to Home Biology Experiments. It’s intended for home schoolers, but who wouldn’t want to read it?
- And speaking of biology: Brain freezes are caused by dilation of the anterior cerebral artery. Yep, really. Now you know! (Reading that story did make me want some ice cream, however.)
- And speaking of brains: I’ve been spending some time lately trying to wrap mine around the concept of storyboarding in iOS 5. There sure is a lot to learn; if you’re interested I recommend starting with this tutorial and working your way on from there.
- Speaking of working: women may soon be working in the Marine Corps’ infantry, artillery, and other ground combat jobs. After thinking about it quite a bit, I’ve come to believe that they’re taking the right approach: try sending some women to the Infantry Officers’ Course and see how it goes. In parallel, they are developing new, gender-neutral fitness tests. In theory, these tests should make it possible to set a standard that applies to men and women. Meet the standard and you’re good to go; fail to meet it and you’re not. If this actually happens, fantastic. Gunpowder & Lead said it best: “I think women should have the same opportunities as men to serve in our military, provided they can meet the necessary standards to ensure the maximum possible safety and effectiveness of our combat forces.”. Me too. As with “don’t ask, don’t tell,” I believe that the Marine Corps will lead the way in integrating women into ground combat forces if that’s what we’re directed to do.
- Twin-engine airplanes are supposed to be safer than single-engine planes, and in most flight regimes they are. But see this video of a horrible accident for a counterpoint: the pilot’s trying to land with one engine out. His turn to final approach is too tight, so he skids to try to make the runway. This causes the wing with the dead engine to enter an aerodynamic stall, which in turn causes a spin, with catastrophic results. Takeaway: don’t do this.
- Another takeaway: subscribe to the Flying Lessons newsletter, which is a weekly compendium of annotated aviation accident reports. Great reading, though sobering.
Filed under General Stuff, Musings
Thursday trivia #41
I’ve been in Pensacola working at the US Navy’s IT A-school. Short summary: you should be very proud of the dedication and work ethic of the members of your Navy. Now I’m in Greenwich teaching the final Exchange Maestro event for 2011, thence to Mountain View for a night in my own bed, then to Vegas for the Exchange Connections show and then, finally, back to Pensacola.
With all this teaching and travel going on, my blogging of late has been limited; without further ado, this week’s trivia edition:
- No one seems to know what the actual average mailbox size is for Exchange mailboxes. In fact, most organizations don’t seem to know what their own averages are, much less what the industry-wide average is.
- Steve Yegge is the kind of guy I’d like to work with.
- Really, New York Times? An article on how to be hip and Mormon on the front page of your Thursday style section? Who exactly do you think the audience is for this? I’m guessing that the overlap between would-be Mormon hipsters and NYT readers is probably pretty small.
- This year’s Marine Corps birthday message.
- Hopefully this year I’ll make it to the MVP Summit. Well, next year, I mean.
- The more I run, the better I like running. I’m sure there’s a metaphor in there somewhere.
Filed under General Stuff, Musings
Thursday trivia #18
- I just discovered Pandora’s QuickMix channel. Heaven help me; I can’t see how I missed it.
- At the end of May, I was down a little over 10lbs. I’ve dropped 6 more since then.
- For the last couple of weeks I’ve spent my evenings contributing to an as-yet-unreleased iPhone app for the church. If you want to see what kinds of bugs I’ve been fixing, see the public list. Rest assured that I’ll be posting a link to the app once it hits the App Store, hopefully in a week or so.
- It’s that time of year. What time, you say? Time to order The Year’s Best Science Fiction, of course. Every July, like clockwork.
- Also, I’ll be ordering this bio of Robert A. Heinlein.
- I have a huge backlog of blog posts on various topics. Perhaps I’ll get to some of them in the next couple of months. Perhaps I’ll need a gentle reminder.
- Tomorrow I should be picking up an Xbox 360 slim. Gamestop has a great trade-in deal running until Sunday, so I’m just getting in under the wire.
- This blog post is now diamonds.
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Filed under Friends & Family
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