10 Aug 2012
Pitchfork-wielding Virginia farmers rally against birthday party fine

For all of the wailing in Federal political campaigns about "small government" and "excessive regulation", this little piece nicely (if unintentionally) points out that most of the overbearing, obnoxious and nit-picking regulatory shenanigans that go on are at the very local level, not anything Federal (or in many cases even State) officials have anything to do with or say about. And given that this is in Virginia, I'd be willing to bet even money that the local morons causing this uproar are members of the party of smaller government and less regulation.

Those talking the talk would be well advised to begin walking the walk.

Pitchfork-wielding Virginia farmers rallied to support a woman who claims local officials came down on her for, among other things, hosting a children's birthday party on her spread.

(link) [Fox News]

09:22 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

09 Aug 2012
Blessed Rain

We got almost exactly 3 inches of much needed rain last night into this morning. It started about 9:30pm and continued past 2am - a nice, slow soaking shower. Better still, it's raining now! We've had a couple of hours of drizzle, but we're under a thunderstorm warning with a rather large storm heading our way from the NW. The heat has broken, too - forecast high for tomorrow is 74°!

The drought's not over by any measure, but it's certainly dropped in severity. Another couple of weeks of this pattern and we'll be back to normal. Whatever that is.

Update: We ended up with an even 2 inches from this round of showers and storms.

21:14 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

08 Aug 2012
Drought-hit U.S. busts heat record from Dust Bowl days

I don't have records on the farm before we bought the place, but I can certainly assert that this was the hottest July here in the last decade. There is some potential rain on the horizon - we'll see. And we did take a hay delivery today, so we're set for winter, although the price had gone up by a third from last year.

What worries me is next year. If this pattern continues, it will be pointless to stay - we can't possibly make an operational profit or even break even on 10 acres if our pastures dry out and we can't produce any of our own feed. My fingers are crossed.

In the throes of a historic drought in the United States, a government agency said on Wednesday that it broke a heat record in July that had stood since the devastating Dust Bowl summer of 1936.

(link) [Reuters]

16:22 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

06 Aug 2012
Cloud Computing

The full title of the piece is "Steve Wozniak: Cloud Computing Will Cause 'Horrible Problems In The Next Five Years'", and when I ran across it today I muttered my agreement. I made a pretty good living in the late 80's and early 90's migrating data from remote mainframes to local computers and networks, and see "the cloud" as just another incarnation of Big Iron. I got quite a kick out of some of the comments on the piece, accusing the Woz of being Old School, and a borderline Luddite.

Lo and behold, tonight I find confirmation of the Apple wizard's worst fears - not five years hence, but today: How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking. Read it and be afraid - very afraid.

Steve Wozniak really, really doesn't like the cloud.

(link) [Business Insider]

21:40 /Technology | 2 comments | permanent link

For flock's sake

Clever idea, but I daresay that a guard dog would be cheaper and more effective over the long haul.

Swiss boffins have been testing SMS-equipped sheep to see if they can send a warning text message when the big, bad wolf approaches, and it looks like they can.

(link) [The Register]

07:02 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

05 Aug 2012
Almost a couple

of inches of rain this morning, with a tremendous thunderstorm delivering it. It's still sprinkling bit, and the temperature has dropped considerably. Again, not enough to break the drought by any means, but certainly some welcome relief.

09:13 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

02 Aug 2012
Aurora Over Raufarhöfn

I had no idea such a place existed, but if I ever get to Iceland ...

The Sun will not set at Arctic Henge during the summer solstice in late June, and at its highest point in the sky it will appear just above the aligned vertices of this modern monument. The above image was taken in late March during a beautiful auroral storm.

(link) [Astronomy Picture of the Day]

08:03 /Asatru | 0 comments | permanent link

Signs that you're a good programmer

Fine bit of writing on what makes a good programmer.

The most frequently viewed page on this site is Signs you're a bad programmer, which has also now been published on dead trees by Hacker Monthly, and I think that behoves me to write its antithesis. "Bad programmer" is also considered inflammatory by some who think I'm speaking down to them. Not so; it was personal catharsis from an author who exhibited many of those problems himself. And what I think made the article popular was the "remedies"--I didn't want someone to get depressed when they recognized themselves, I wanted to be constructive.

(link) [Software Engineering Tips]

07:48 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

01 Aug 2012
What patients want in a hospital

I've never read such utter poppycock in my life. People generally go to a hospital to get well, not to surf the web, call their friends and update their Facebook page! It's all fine and well to have these amenities as amenities, but without an emphasis on the primary mission, curing disease and healing the injured, all the amenities in the world aren't going to make a "positive experience".

As for cost, you gotta love this:

Interestingly enough, although price was the biggest driver of purchasing decisions in all other industries in the PwC findings, price was the least important to provider customers. They were more likely to choose a hospital or doctor because of personal experience, at two and a half times more important than consumers in other industries.

Price can't be too important, eh, if the "customer" can't know them! Hospital price lists (called "chargemasters") are generally confidential. Also, most patients are sent to the hospital where their doctor practices - you generally don't go shopping when you're having a heart attack!

The site where this drivel was published claims to be "the leading source of healthcare management news for healthcare industry executives" - if they actually believe this kind of pap I think it's safe to say that we now know where the real problem in American healthcare resides...

Services in one location, Wi-Fi access, according to a PwC report.

(link) [FierceHealthcare]

15:27 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

30 Jul 2012
Is Algebra Necessary?

I would like to say "Unbelievable!", but alas, I cannot. I wonder if this political "scientist" (and IMHO, that title is an oxymoron itself) realizes how utterly foundational to rational thinking mathematics truly is? Heinlein said it best, I think:

Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe and not make messes in the house.

A typical American school day finds some six million high school students and two million college freshmen struggling with algebra. In both high school and college, all too many students are expected to fail. Why do we subject American students to this ordeal? I’ve found myself moving toward the strong view that we shouldn’t.

(link) [New York Times]

12:26 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

29 Jul 2012
Retirement plan

The mechanisms of crony capitalism laid bare...

Chesapeake, based in Oklahoma, has two powerful politicians on its board — former member of the Senate from Oklahoma, Don Nickles, and former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating. The company’s board members used the firm’s private planes for travel — a perk most governance experts frown upon. Perhaps the more salient question is why the two have stayed on the board under the current circumstances. It is equally reasonable to ask why politicians, with their backgrounds unrelated to running big companies, were even appointed to the board.

(link) [NBC News]

via Dispatches from the Culture Wars

13:09 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

28 Jul 2012
How to Write

An excellent essay on art and craft of words ...

Rule No. 11: There are no rules. If everyone jumped off a bridge, would you do it, too? No. There are no rules except the ones you learned during your Show and Tell days. Have fun. If they don’t want to be friends with you, they’re not worth being friends with. Most of all, just be yourself.

(link) [New York Times]

21:42 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

Scorched Earth in the Midwest

Pretty much what it's like up here in Central Indiana, too.

It's July and the temperatures throughout southern Indiana and northern Kentucky are an inferno, in some cases scorching to over 100 degrees, and we know it’s not even August yet; it’s only going to get hotter. Several days in a row I get a mind-splitter headache; it’s so bad, it hurts to blink.

(link) [New York Times]

19:54 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

27 Jul 2012
Five eighths

or 0.625 of an inch of rain today - first measurable precipitation since June 20th. Not enough to break the drought, but we'll take what we can get! We're under a severe thunderstorm watch until 11, so maybe we'll get some more as the even wears on. There's always hope, after all.

15:00 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

24 Jul 2012
Others’ Milk

Fascinating bit of history...

Walk down a dairy aisle and you may start to notice how little we've done with the whole concept. Worldwide, there are about 6,000 mammal species, each with its own unique milk, but Americans get at least 97 percent of all our dairy products from one animal. (That would be the cow.) Even at my local Whole Foods, purveyors of exotica like shad roe and that kombucha stuff, there was only a single brand of goat’s milk. “EASY TO DIGEST!” reads the desperate carton.

(link) [Slate]

21:46 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

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