October 29, 2016
How can you tell what a megalomaniac is really up to? You find out what the megalomaniac is accusing everyone else of. That's what they are up to.
While the just barely brighter than dim press and pundits are focusing on Trump's call for his followers to carry out voter suppression in African…
October 28, 2016
Scratch Programming Playground: Learn to Program by Making Cool Games is a brand new offering from No Starch Press.
Never mind all the other programming books for kids, this is the best so far.
It helps that the Scratch Programming environment is so easy to use and allows such creative…
October 27, 2016
I've got a new set of electoral college predictions. I'm using the same method as before, but with these differences: a) I had to use less than ideal polls (c rating, a few that overlapped with days prior to POTUS debate III) on the last run, this time no such polls are used; and b) there are some…
October 26, 2016
It is fun to look at polls, and using such data, decide which candidate will win which state, and ultimately, which candidate will win the electoral college. A lot of people and organizations do that, and for this reason, I don't. I do not have access to polls that no one else sees. Were I to use…
October 25, 2016
I had a good printer experience, and I thought I should pass it on to you.
Printers are, of course, the spawn of Satan. Especially the ink jet kind.
For a long time, I had a cheap black and white laser, which worked OK for non color stuff, and an inkjet all in one, which was handy but cost a lot…
October 25, 2016
Lenovo makes two Phablets that are similar, the 4G and the 4G plus. The latter is not bigger (in fact, it is a little smaller) but rather, has higher specs all around, making it a fairly expensive device. But the Lenovo PHAB 4G Phablet (regular) is practically free and is actually rather Phabulous…
October 25, 2016
This is a fascinating story involving Crazy Eddie, Donald Trump, and this year's election.
Here's what I want to know. Do Democrats across the country have a plan in place to collect usable data (usable in court) to document violation of the consent degree by the Republicans, should they do so?…
October 24, 2016
At the moment, this is a nail biter. There is a theory that a strong showing by one party at the top of the ticket brings along those lower down. However, that theory does not apply this year for several reasons. I think it works better for Republicans than for Democrats, for many the top of the…
October 24, 2016
Many years ago, Mel Konner, Marjorie shostak, and Boyd Eaton wrote "The Paleolithic Prescription: A program of diet and exercise and a design for living." (It is hard to find these days. To find it and related titles on Amazon, look for this book first, and track the PP down via the author name…
October 23, 2016
My friend Paul Douglas calls himself an albino unicorn. He is a Republican (one of my few Republican friends!) and an evangelical Christian (one of my few evangelical Christian friends!) who is extremely well informed about climate change, and who acts on a day to day basis as a climate warrior,…
October 22, 2016
I've been thinking about Trump's attempt to blackmail the voters. He intimates that he might not accept the election results unless he wins. The word goes around that his followers will go to the streets and carry out acts of violence if Trump does not win. It is a bully tactic by a bully's bully…
October 21, 2016
A presidential election season involves a series of debates. After the last debate, a day or a few days after, the main candidates attend and speak at a charity dinner run by the Archdiocese of New York, to raise money for Catholic Charities. It is the last event at which the candidates will appear…
October 20, 2016
What really happened the night Osama Bin Laden was killed by Hillary Clinton and her SEAL Team?
Or, was it like this?
Check out this maximally LOL item at Slate for all the details.
October 20, 2016
Updated to include polls through Oct 26th (AM, more polls later in the day on the 26th will be added at the next update):
Updated, 25 October AM
As I expected, and demonstrated much to the consternation of everyone, the ever widening double digit lead of Clinton over Trump in an increasing number…
October 19, 2016
It is unfortunate that "all the pundits" are now saying that Clinton will now win no matter what, and that Trump will likely suffer more scandal before the end of the process.
This is unfortunate because a weak get out the vote effort is probably worth a couple of points on election day. It is…
October 19, 2016
A new study illuminates this shadowy question. First, the video:
And now, a press note from the American Chemical Society:
Water striders' ability to walk and jump on the surfaces of ponds and lakes has long amazed curious observers — and inspired robot designers who want to mimic the bugs'…
October 18, 2016
Steve Schmidt, bless his pointy Republican head, makes a very important point here.
And to underscore the point, let me ask you this: How do we go from having an "election" to having a "president elect"?
The process is actually a bit subtle and somewhat more complicated than one might think.…
October 18, 2016
I have another tablet review for you. (See the bottom of the post for some followup on my last review.) This is a "tablet PC" meaning a tablet that runs a full on PC operating system, as opposed to a tablet-oriented operating system.
With the keyboard (not supplied, buy separately).
The…
October 18, 2016
My current model (subject to change) puts Arizona in the Clinton Column. This is the prediction that has resulted in the most head scratching from those observing this, but it turns out that the Clinton Campaign seems to agree. Clinton surrogates, including Chelsea, Michele Obama, and Bernie…
October 16, 2016
There are some interesting, and in some cases, potentially disturbing, things going on with the state by state numbers in the current election. Most of this has to do with third party candidates, and most of it with Gary Johnson.
First, I'll note, that despite fears among liberals and progressives…
October 15, 2016
The Outdoor Science Lab for Kids: 52 Family-Friendly Experiments for the Yard, Garden, Playground, and Park is a good guide to home science experiments for kids, usually with adult involvement, ranging across a fairly wide range of age but mainly, I'd say, middle school for unsupervised work, or…
October 14, 2016
... until you have cleaned house and stopped embarrassing yourselves. And by clean house, I mean, take are of this deeply offensive bullshit your people are now spewing out.
You have turned a very bad situation into something ten times worse.
As background, this comes from a meeting of national…
October 13, 2016
First, Michele Obama's full speech earlier today:
You know two news outlets have produced confirming evidence of actual sexual assault by Donald Trump. So, naturally, Trump intends to sue.
But, this from Media Matters:
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s threats to The New York Times…
October 13, 2016
Andy Lee Robinson started the recent trend of making compelling graphics about climate change that move. He did a version of the Arctic Ice Death Spiral (a term coined by Joe Romm), which was highly acclaimed but that did not go as viral as it should have at the time. Then, a version with additive…
October 13, 2016
Or so it is alleged. Rather credibly.
Trump talked about sexual assault in 2005, that was recorded on tape, those tapes released Friday. Trump denied that he actually ever sexually assaulted/groped anyone during the Sunday debate, just a couple of days later.
Meanwhile many Republicans running for…
October 12, 2016
Update, MID PM Thursday
Nicole blew up to a category 4 storm by some reports, but I think was Category 3 at as it raked Bermuda.
As far as I can tell, Bermuda suffered 115+ mph winds,
The center of the storm was about 10 miles east of Bermuda (which is causing people to say, incorrectly, that the…
October 12, 2016
First, for the record, I want one. But, since my current smart phone is a Nexus 6, I don't need one yet. I'm fine for a while.
Google essentially invented Android, and the Nexus phones were pretty close to being Google phones, but they were not. They were simply very well designed and powerful…
October 12, 2016
The Royal Society is the world's oldest extant scientific society. And, it is a place where scientific controversy has a home. Both Huxley and Wilberforce were members back in the 19th century, when young Darwin's ideas were first being knocked around.
More recently, just a few weeks ago, the…
October 12, 2016
There aren't any. But, aquaria have many times tried to make it so, and it always goes bad for the shark. The basic problem is that great white sharks are pelagic, and it is very hard to keep pelagic creatures in a confined space, and the largest aquaria are very confined from the point of view of…
October 11, 2016
Above is my latest electoral college projection.
This uses the technique previously described. However, instead of using RCP averages for all polled states and then using extreme (non-tossup) states to develop the regression model, this method uses only polling from states with one or more recent…
