gregladen | February 2, 2016Increasingly, I feel the need to declare my position on the candidates before commenting on the process, because, increasingly, the conversation has become one of comparative litmus tests. So, here's the deal on that: I like Clinton and Sanders both, and I like each of them for both overlapping and different reasons. As a life long Democrat I'm glad to see such good candidates running. I will decide whom to support in the Minnesota Caucus some time after I walk into the building, most likely. Then, later, I will decide which candidate, if any, I might work for during the time between our…
gregladen | February 1, 2016Suddenly my computer tells me that copy.com is shutting down as a cloud storage service. That sucks, since I had a few terabytes of free storage with them.
I will now have to seek an alternative. What are your experiences with cloud storage, free or otherwise?
gregladen | February 1, 2016As of 8:45 or so PM:
Cruz 28.9 Trump 25.6 Rubio 20.8
I'm privileged to live in Minnesota, which is Iowa's neighbor and thus not so different from Iowa, except our college football teams are better.
And it isn't just the corn, but also, the caucus. We do that here too. Our caucus system is similar enough to Iowa that one can have a sense of what goes on over the border just with some local experience.
So let me tell you a story. I volunteered one day to help out a friend with a local campaign. The idea was to show up at the local VFW post and engage in a caucus to determine a DFL (that's…
gregladen | February 1, 2016UPDATE (Tuesday Morning):
In the Democratic Caucus, Hillary Clinton beat Bernie Sanders by an amount so small that the caucus results have to be regarded as tie.
Clinton: 49.86%
Sanders: 49.57%
O'Malley: 0.57%
Lesson learned: Those who caucused for O'Malley for ideological reasons, knowing he could not possibly win, account for a larger percentage of the overall caucus than the difference between the top two contenders. If most of those O'Malley voters would have been Sanders voters had O'Malley not been in the race, then they effectively Nadered Sanders.
Ted Cruz won the GOP caucus.
Cruz:…
gregladen | January 30, 2016There is a food crisis sneaking up on us right now. A lot of them, actually. A lot of little one, some big ones. There are always places in the world where food has become scarce for at time, and people starve or move. You've heard of the ""Syrian refugee crisis," and the often extreme reactions to it in Europe and among some in the US. That started out as a food crisis, brought on by human pollution induced global warming in an already arid agricultural zone.
Nearly similar levels of climate change related pressure on agricultural systems elsewhere has led to very different outcomes,…
gregladen | January 29, 2016David Macaulay is famous for his "how things work" books. How Machines Work: Zoo Break! is a new book that is really fun. So fun that it took me a long time to get it back from Amanda and Huxley so I could review it.
The concept is simple. A story, a simple story, is constructed, that has nothing to do with machines. Except it has everything to do with machines. Two critters, Sloth and Sengi, are in a zoo and trying to escape. Their various escapades lead to situations that allow the exploration of all those interesting mechanical concepts, such as inclined planes, levers and fulcrums and…
gregladen | January 29, 2016I'm not sure what an "album" is, but I think it is like a CD.
Anyway, if you don't know who Baba Brinkman is, check this out. (he previously produced "The Rap Guide to Evolution.")
Then, head on over to the Indiegogo site to see his project. This is likely to be a go, with your help. He's a fourth of the way there already, and he has a lot of fans and supporters. I have no doubt that this so-called "album" will be great.
Also by Baba Brinkman:
The Rap Guide to Religion
The Rap Guide to Evolution
The Rap Guide to Evolution: Revised [Explicit]
The Rap Canterbury Tales
The Rap Guide to…
gregladen | January 29, 2016UPDATE for Feb 6th debate:
This post was originally written for the previous GOP debate. Here are a few comments on last night's debate.
I watched the debate at a debate watching party of DFL activists, so naturally I saw very little of it because we were a loud and raucous crowd. But this morning I re-watched portions of the debate, and checked out the online commentary and polls.
Once again, most of the commentary by experts has little to do with the on line polls. The on line polls show Trump as having won by a huge landslide, while the experts are talking about this or that lower level…
gregladen | January 26, 2016The Great Human Race is a new production of National Geographic, in three parts. I recently viewed the first episode, "Dawn" which comes with this description:
All people can trace their roots to the savanna of East Africa, the home of one of the first members of the human species -- Homo habilis. Archaeologist Bill Schindler and survival instructor Cat Bigney face what early man did as they work together to survive in the wild savanna just as these primitive people did 2.6 million years ago -- without any weapons or fire. But they soon find that living like our ancestors is harder than…
gregladen | January 25, 2016Storms like last weekend's blizzard and widespread snowfall can happen, in theory, any winter, but large snowfall storms in the US Northeast have been significantly more common in recent years than in previous recorded history. Over the last few years we've seen these large snowfalls happen farther south than usual, as was the case with the 2016 Blizzard. Climate scientists are pretty sure that this blizzard was either outright caused or significantly enhanced (you really can't tell the difference) by human caused global warming. How can a blizzard, a big cold thing, be caused by warming…
gregladen | January 23, 2016According to Paul Douglas (pers. com) there is some important news on what Jonas still has planned.
There is likely to be major flooding along the coast of Cape May, and in some areas of New Jersey there may be coastal flooding nearly of the magnitude that happened with Superstorm Sandy. So far storm surges have exceeded the original predictions.
The region from Washington DC to New York is likely to have another half foot or more of snow, and storm totals will be two to three feet with much larger drifts over that area. This snow will taper off this evening over much of the area.
The map…
gregladen | January 22, 2016The book is: Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right.
Also by the same author: The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals.
Here is my version of recent American political history:
Everyone in America knows that if you want to identify the people or corporations, and the motivations, behind politics, you follow the money. Americans have historically differed in the degree to which they formulate this concept in their own minds as conspiratorial end-times ranting or shrug it off as just the way…
gregladen | January 22, 2016The answer: One Republican and One Democrat/Independent.
The Iowa Caucus is pretty much up for grabs in both parties. Over recent days, a clear Trump lead has been erased, and Cruz is now ahead in recent polls. Over roughly the same period, a clear Clinton lead has been erased, and Sanders is now ahead in recent polls.
FiveThirtyEight (Nate Silver) is still predicting a Clinton victory for the Dems, but a Cruz victory for the GOPs. The Clinton victory prediction is of high confidence, while the Cruz prediction is not, and Trump is close behind.
One way to look at the polls is to track…
gregladen | January 21, 2016I had previously mentioned the ScienceDebate ad with the kids asking for a science debate. Here is some local coverage on the story (the ad was made here in the Twin Cities) including an interview with one of the stars, Susanlyn Singroy. (I don't agree with everything she said, but what the heck, she's asking for a debate, and is up for it!)
Here is the coverage.
More about ScienceDebate.org here.
gregladen | January 21, 2016Friday AM Update: Overall the storm has shifted north. Washington DC is still on track to have something close to two feet of snow in the city, more to the west. The predicted snowfall for New York City, the city that eats meteorologists, is increasing, and The City may see a foot or more, with closer to two feet to the northwest. DC will have its most intensive snowfall during the night on Friday, while New York City will have most of its snow falling during the day on Saturday.
With this northward shift, Boston is likely to get more snow too, possibly over a foot. Snow will start there…
gregladen | January 20, 2016GO HERE FOR THE LATEST UPDATE
See below for update
Jonas, (and no, I do not condone naming of storms that are not tropical cyclones) is going to do bad things to the US East Coast and hinterland.
Imma let you get back to setting your hair on fire over this storm, but first I want to 'splain something to you.
A big No'reaster like this is a big swirling fast moving low pressure system that is drawing potentially huge quantities of moisture off of a global warming and El Niño over-heated Atlantic ocean, driving that moisture inland where it will mix with cold air and turn into various forms of…
gregladen | January 20, 2016We often hope, even assume, that technology will fix our problems. We also know that sometimes technology creates a problem. In this case, technology can help us fix the problem of needing to keep the fossil carbon in the ground by making use of the sun, but created the problem of vaporizing birds with intensely focused solar energy. But then, the engineers applied adjustment to the technology to save the birds!
I wrote it up here on 10,000 Birds, where I write a monthly installment on birds and stuff: Solar Plant Stopped Killing Birds: One Weird Trick!
gregladen | January 19, 2016The following is a repost of a Facebook Post by Michael Mann. I don’t think this needs any comment from me. The original is here.
Begin Repost
Several colleagues have notified me of the following email that has been sent to a presumably broad group of researchers and academics by John Droz of the #Koch-funded American Tradition Institute (#ATI) (read about Droz here).
The email forwards a sign-on letter from #GeorgeMarshallInstitute chair and #climatechange denier #WillHapper (read about Happer here) asking colleagues to support the Lamar Smith (R-TX) witch-hunt against NOAA scientists (my…
gregladen | January 18, 2016I have studiously avoided picking a Democratic candidate to support. I will not have to decide until Super Tuesday, when Minnesotans caucus to support one or another candidate. I like Hillary Clinton for a number of reasons, including the simple fact that she has considerable experience in the Executive branch, and is a person who can get things done. If I got to pick the president (skipping the election process entirely), I'd probably pick Sanders because I'm all in on the revolution in American policy. Both candidates are actually in close agreement on most of the key issues. Neither…
gregladen | January 16, 2016One mouse to rule them all
I had previously reviewed the Logitech Ultrathin Touch Mouse, suggesting it as a replacement for the Apple Magic Mouse. Now, I've tried it on my Linux machine (don't know why that took so long). It turns out to work very well, better than most, possibly all, mice I've used.
One's mouse is a very personal thing, and everyone is going to have a potentially different opinion about what the best mouse is. The Ultrathin is designed to work with laptops/notebooks because it is small, and it is assumed that everything you use with such a portable device must be small.…