Pining for the Fjords

The Stores at Nat

2011-05-13T23:01:00.000-07:00

or baig en brat

* * * *

dipe en th' hort uh Tixes

Spinning Tornados

2011-04-30T11:55:00.000-07:00

Adopting Andrew Sullivan's methodology I point you to interesting stuff elsewhere.

There's a huge kerfuffle about attributing severe weather in Alabama to climate forcing. Kevin Trenberth and Peter Gleick come out strongly in favor of "this is the sort of thing"-ism.

Trenberth:

It is irresponsible not to mention climate change. … The environment in which all of these storms and the tornadoes are occurring has changed from human influences

David Appel, who gets far too little credit as a pioneer of climate blogging, is, perhaps surprisingly, appalled.

You don't have to look very far to disprove this -- in fact, you don't even have to look farther than the Drudge Report, which today links to this story:
TuscaloosaNews.com
5 P.M. UPDATE: Hundreds treated at DCH
"The loss of life is the greatest from an outbreak of U.S. tornadoes since April 1974, when 329 people were killed by a storm that swept across 13 Southern and Midwestern states."
When are activists going to learn that they will never make their case by falsifying the science, and that, in fact, they only harm their cause when they do so? You cannot draw conclusions about climate based on weather. You can only do it via long-term (decadal or more) statistics.

Please tattoo this on your foreheads, so you don't ruin this for those of us trying to communicate actual, real science, with all its inconvenient unknowns and uncertainties.

Judith Curry, who has many good links, is somewhat more predictably appalled.

I think that we are seeing another instance of excessive attention to "attribution" in a statistical sense. The climate is changing with increasing rapidity. Some of the changes will be anticipated, some not. We shouldn't presume that changes will be locally monotonic. They won't be. Under the circumstances, we'll get extraordinary runs of just-the-sort-of-awfulness-we-get-around-here in various places as the system wobbles about. I mean, what did you expect?

On that basis, +1 Trenberth
==
140

Almost Didn't Cut My Hair

2011-04-28T23:03:00.000-07:00

Summer's basically here already, and long hair in Texas summer is something to avoid.

But that sort of motivates me not to bother cutting my hair in spring, knowing that I'll be chopping it all off in summer.

But I was tired of my wife's snooty hairdresser, and went into this new place, a chain popping up around town that has a sort of a funky Southwest, Freebirds burritos kind of a vibe if you know what I mean.

I was looking particularly gnarly, unshaven, scraggly, sandwich sauce on my shirt, when I walked in. I woke up with this headache. The haircut I had been longing for was the only useful thing I could think of to do with myself besides spilling a sandwich on me.

I took one look at the the tattooed young barberess and said "don't restrain yourself. Make me look like a Republican". She blinked for a second, then said "oh, sure, you want the Uptighty Whitey." I said I reckoned that I did, "The Uptighty Whitey is just exactly the thing" I allowed.

She said "I'll have you lookin' like Dan Quayle in no time," and I sort of shrugged. Haven't laid eyes on the fellow in years, but he was always kind of good looking that I remember. Unstressed fellow. Golfer. You know.

About three quarters of the way through it I allowed as how it was working. "I am trying to think of a small country to invade" I told her.

As a first timer I got a delicious shampoo, head massage, hot towel on the face and shoulder massage for free, normally $3 extra. Floyd's, the barber shop is called. But it's nothing like Mayberry. Good haircut too, for a UyWy. I recommend the place.

Southern Cogitation Words

2011-03-17T22:47:00.000-07:00

Reckon: Think; "I reckon I've got me the fannest pickup in these parts"

Think: Believe; "I hardly think she'll be comin back here anytam soon"

Believe: Intend; "I believe I'll have me another one o themmair biscuits"

Crumpets and Tea

2011-02-18T14:05:00.000-08:00

Your search - "crumpets and tea" "boys from lcc" - did not match any documents.

hrmph. What kind of internet is that? It's time somebody fixed that.

Crumpets and tea.
Crumpets and tea.
We are the boys from LCC.
We're not rough.
We're not tough.
But boy, are we sexy!

Used by opposing schools to taunt us, generally just before we obliterated them.

Easy yummy cross cultural snack

2011-01-11T23:27:00.000-08:00

Black forest ham sliced thin (not shaved though).
Cream cheese. (Philly or such. Plain, no pineapples or chives or nothin.)
Flour tortilla, as Tex-Mex as possible. HEB brand or El Milagro will do nicely. Regular size (a bit bigger than a ham slice).

Apply about 1.5 tbsp cream cheese to one thin ham slice.

Warm a tortilla in a dry nonstick pan on medium-high until just starting to toast on one side. Flip and apply ham cheese side up. Brown second side lightly. Fold in half and press flat with a spatula. Heat to taste a few seconds more. The tortilla should be hot, the ham should be warm, the cream cheese should be soft but not totally melted.

Prep time about a minute. The NAFTA special. Yummm...

Fake Villages

2011-01-03T05:42:00.001-08:00

Apparently the big budget corporate fake village shopping zone is catching on in Europe as well. This scene, meant to emphasize the fact of snow, is of "Clarks Village" in Street, England.

Here is a busy day at Austin's "The Domain", a privately owned shopping center that is also one of our few tolerable walking neighborhoods.

(To be fair, I am discovering that the park system here is great on foot, though the idea that it is bikable is pure BS.)

But I don't see why a place with real villages would want fake ones.

Somebody's top 100 SF list

2010-12-18T11:59:00.000-08:00

From here; I made some effort to clean up the html. Somebody explain what Ayn Rand is doing here.

100. The Word For World Is Forest by Ursula K. LeGuin

99. Sorcerer's Son by Phyllis Eisenstein

98. Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress

97. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

96. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

95. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

94. The Company by K.J. Parker

93. An Evil Guest by Gene Wolfe

92. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

91. Dhalgren by Samuel Delany

90. Camp Concentration by Thomas Disch

89. Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner

88. Song of Kali by Dan Simmons

87. Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card

86. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller

85. Sphere by Michael Crichton

84. Fevre Dream by George R.R. Martin

83. The Alteration by Kingsley Amis

82. The Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey

81. The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers

80. Watership Down by Richard Adams

79. Griffin's Egg by Michael Swanwick

78. Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

77. Free Live Free by Gene Wolfe

76. Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke

75. Ringworld by Larry Niven

74. Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling

73. Old Man's War by John Scalzi

72. Maske: Thaery by Jack Vance

71. The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

70. The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

69. Flow My Tears The Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick

68. The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov

67. The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson

66. The High Crusade by Poul Anderson

65. A Song for Lya by George R.R. Martin

64. At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft

63. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

62. Wildlife by James Patrick Kelly

61. The Book of Knights by Yves Maynard

60. The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan

59. Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman

58. Nightwings by Robert Silverberg

57. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

56. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

55. Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

54. The Book of the Short Sun by Gene Wolfe

53. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman

52. Foundation by Isaac Asimov

51. The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin

50. The Wizard Knight by Gene Wolfe

49. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

48. The Demon Princes by Jack Vance

47. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

46. The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson

45. Alastor by Jack Vance

44. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

43. Flatland by Edwin Abbott

42. Farmer in the Sky by Robert Heinlein

41. A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick

40. Animal Farm by George Orwell

39. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

38. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

37. Lyonesse by Jack Vance

36. Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein

35. True Names by Vernor Vinge

34. Ubik by Philip K. Dick

33. The Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons

32. Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert Heinlein

31. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

30. A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge

29. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

28. More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon

27. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

26. 1984 by George Orwell

25. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

24. The Cadwal Chronicles by Jack Vance

23. Lost Horizon by James Hilton

22. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

21. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

20. The Fifth Head of Cerebus by Gene Wolfe

19. A Song of Ice And Fire by George R.R. Martin

18. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein

17. The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay

16. The Master and the Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

15. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

14. All My Sins Remembered by Joe Haldeman

13. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

12. Planet of Adventure by Jack Vance

11. Dune by Frank Herbert

10. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

9. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin

8. The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe

7. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

6. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

5. Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay

4. The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin

3. The Dying Earth by Jack Vance

2. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein

1. The Book of the Long Sun by Gene Wolfe

Bad guys

2010-12-16T17:16:00.000-08:00

When did "bad guys" become a term of art in the US military? Apparently it means somebody you are allowed to kill.

It's infantilizing and dehumanizing and grotesquely avoidant. The decline of the language isn't usually an ethical issue but this time it is.

For the Love of All That's Holy

2010-10-08T12:11:00.000-07:00

This is so wrong.

Mexican Poutine Contest!

Too Horriffic

2010-09-15T11:20:00.001-07:00

Boomers and Our Kids

2010-08-13T10:35:00.000-07:00

To complicate the emergent emergency, we do not find ourselves in an era of international trust and good feeling, though after the defeat of the Soviets one might have expected we would. I attribute this largely to a tragic failure of leadership by my own (boomer) generation in the western countries. We made great breakthroughs in music, cinema and technology, we finally brewed some decent coffee and beer in America, we trashed the landscape and we kept on making enemies and starting wars. Not what I, for one, was hoping for.

And my suspicion is that we made a successor generation that, while to our credit is kind and creative and empathetic, seems to me passive and intellectually lazy and defeatist.

If there is hope, I do not think it will come from the west. But the rest of the world lacks our creativity. So it doesn't look pretty.

Haircut Advice

2010-08-05T08:42:00.000-07:00

Vache qui Rit Queso Fresco y Chipotle - Reduced Fat

2010-07-26T21:48:00.000-07:00

You think I am making this up but I am not.

I have it on Jewish rye just to round out the multicultural experience. It's better than you'd expect but I imagine it is only available in the southwest. I don't think most people elsewhere have any idea of what "queso fresco & chipotle" might taste like, which by the way, this doesn't really very much.

Just askin'

2010-07-23T13:23:00.000-07:00

Was there actually much more to Ludwig von Bertallanfy than a shabby math-less imitation of Norebrt Wiener, likely with a more cultivated accent? And was Ludwig von Drake, in turn, based on von Bertallanfy?

If so, my fascination with Norbert Wiener goes back even longer than I had thought.

Funnies

2010-07-18T07:00:00.000-07:00

In case you missed it, Joe Romm has a great David Horsey cartoon up considering how things might look in the case of an alternative cause for global warming.

In honor of that, here's a snippet from Throb's that I'm fond of:

You Say You Got a Real Solution

2010-07-16T21:18:00.000-07:00

Hark! h/t Dr. Matthew Knepley

Enclave within Enclave within Enclave

2010-07-16T12:34:00.001-07:00

1/51 is bit of India entirely within a bit of Bangladesh that is entirely within a bit of India that is entirely within Bangladesh. (Scale is km)

Here's a photo of the most recursive boundary on earth:

Here is another enclave within an enclave, but this one not within yet another enclave; there are several of those in the region.

The whole border in that neighborhood is almost fractal, as if some of those jute plants were divided into Muslim leaves and Hindu leaves.

I suppose it's less brutal than the simpler partition that occurred elsewhere. It appears that the enclaves and sub-enclaves are having trouble getting services. Imagine that. Also, in some places the borders are actually enforced with fences and gates and all, while in others they are ignored.

The whole story is here.

Baby Pop

2010-07-10T23:55:00.000-07:00

Les quelques sous que tu vas gagner
Faudra pour ça durement travailler
Te lever aux aurores
Automne comme été
Tu auras beau économiser
Tu ne pourras rien mettre de côté
Et là-dessus encore
Heureuse si tu peux
Aller danser

Chante, danse Baby pop
Comme si demain Baby pop
Ne devais jamais Baby pop
Jamais revenir
Chante, danse Baby pop
Comme si demain Baby pop
Au petit matin Baby pop
Tu devais mourir

Sur l'amour tu te fais des idées
Un jour ou l'autre c'est obligé
Tu seras une pauvre gosse
Seule et abandonnée
Tu finiras par te marier
Peut-être même contre ton gré
À la nuit de tes noces
Il sera trop tard pour
Le regretter

Chante, danse Baby pop
Comme si demain Baby pop
Ne devais jamais Baby pop
Jamais revenir
Chante, danse Baby pop
Comme si demain Baby pop
Au petit matin Baby pop
Tu devais mourir

Tu ne peux ignorer les dangers
Que représentent les libertés
Les menaces de guerre
Semblent se préciser
À cet instant Baby tu le sais
Où tous les soleils vont se lever
Quelque part sur la terre
Les balles sifflent
Le sang est versé

Chante, danse Baby pop
Comme si demain Baby pop
Ne devais jamais Baby pop
Jamais revenir
Chante, danse Baby pop
Comme si demain Baby pop
Au petit matin Baby pop
Tu devais mourir

Homage a "Neverending Audit"

2010-06-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

"The sound of a resounding tu quoque with the morning coffee is always priceless."

Willard, waking up entertained.

The two best paragraphs I have ever read

2010-06-05T10:19:00.000-07:00

here

It will be a great day in the history of science if we sometime discover a damp shadow elsewhere in the universe where a fungus has sprouted. The mere fossil trace of life in its simplest form would be the crowning achievement of generations of brilliant and diligent labour. And here we are, a gaudy efflorescence of consciousness, staggeringly improbable in light of everything we know about the reality that contains us. There are physicists and philosophers who would correct me. They would say, if there are an infinite number of universes, as in theory there could be, then creatures like us would be very likely to emerge at some time in one of them. But to say this is only to state the fact of our improbability in other terms.

Then there is the odd privilege of existence as a coherent self, the ability to speak the word "I" and to mean by it a richly individual history of experience, perception and thought. For the religious, the sense of the soul may have as a final redoubt, not as argument but as experience, that haunting I who wakes us in the night wondering where time has gone, the I we waken to, sharply aware that we have been unfaithful to ourselves, that a life lived otherwise would have acknowledged a yearning more our own than any of the daylit motives whose behests we answer to so diligently. Our religious traditions give us as the name of God two deeply mysterious words, one deeply mysterious utterance: I AM. Putting to one side the question of their meaning as the name and character by which the God of Moses would be known, these are words any human being can say about herself, and does say, though always with a modifier of some kind. I am hungry, I am comfortable, I am a singer, I am a cook. The abrupt descent into particularity in every statement of this kind – Being itself made an auxiliary to some momentary accident of being – may only startle in the dark of night, when the intuition comes that there is no proportion between the great given of existence and the narrow vessel of circumstance into which it is inevitably forced. "I am Ozymandias, king of kings. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair."

- Marilynne Robinson

Wow. Who is this chick, anyway? Anyway, yeah.

In honour of PO Day

2010-05-21T17:26:00.001-07:00

I am sorry I did not find out until today about Piss Everybody Off Day, so I am a bit late to the party. Also I have no clever picture of Mohammed to offer.

Instead I will tell you, truthfully, that I have a five foot long plush python named Jesus.

This is in honour of that Englishwoman teaching school in ~~Libya~~ Sudan who asked her kids what to call their mascot stuffed bear. Of course, they had little choice but to call it Mohammed, upon which the poor woman was jailed for sacrilege. Since I had just acquired my plush python, I decided to call it Jesus in her honour. (Being a Texan python named Jesus, of course it is pronounced Hey-ZOOSS.)

Did I miss anybody? Vegans? Ruby programmers? OK, here goes.

Little Girl: I'd like to buy a bunny rabbit, please, mister.
Rabbit Breeder: That's wonderful! Do you know what color bunny you'd like?
Little Girl: Oh, it doesn't matter. I don't think my pet python will care.

(As long as she names the bunny Ruby, I don't mind.)

Cumberland Blues

2010-05-03T15:33:00.000-07:00

I can't stay much longer, Melinda
The sun is getting high
I can't help you with your troubles
If you won't help with mine

I gotta get down
I gotta get down
Got to get down to the mine

You keep me up just one more night
I can't sleep here no more
Little Ben clock says quarter to eight
You kept me up till four

I gotta get down
I gotta get down
Or I can't work there no more

Lotta poor man make a five dollar bill
Keep him happy all the time
Some other fellow making nothing at all
And you can hear him cryin...

"Can I go buddy
Can I go down
Take your shift at the mine?"

Got to get down to the Cumberland mine
That's where I mainly spend my time
Make good money/five dollars a day
Made any more I might move away -

Lotta poor man got the Cumberland Blues
He can't win for losin
Lotta poor man got to walk the line
Just to pay his union dues

I don't know now
I just don't know
If I'm goin back again
I don't know now
I just don't know
If I'm goin back again

- R H

Verb swifties

2010-03-18T22:05:00.000-07:00

"DOWN WITH ADVERB SWIFTIES!" Tom verbalized.

"It's worth more than that, but I guess I'll take it," Tom assented.

"I think we've crossed into Arkansas," Tom stated.

"I really couldn't stand that lousy newspaper job anymore," Tom expressed.

"I guess I couldn't eat just one after all," Tom relayed.

"It's corked," Tom whined.

"Actually, my membership has been reinstated," Tom rejoined.

"These are the first words I've spoken in ten years," friar Tom allowed.

"I'll have the saltimbocca plate yet again," Tom revealed.

"She must be warm and cozy in that coat," Tom inferred.

"The cruise ship has returned," Tom reported.

"Now I can see you much better," Tom delighted.

"It was an eventful day, when they had to reattach my arm," Tom remembered.

"And two more makes six," Tom added.

"OK, maybe I don't know how to do all those things," tom recanted.

"Yes, I am employed in the private sector," Tom affirmed.

"Can I have one of those candies with the chewy caramel center?" Tom entreated.

"Yes, there is a corporate logo on my glove," Tom admitted.

"Why don't people see there are better ways to get around besides by car!" Tom railed.

"There's no need to call an electrician," Tom refused.

"I'm sure this ledge can hold my weight," Tom erred.

"Show me your license and registration, sir," Tom demanded.

"Watch out for that tree!" Tom barked.

"Hang on, hang on, I still need to get my clothes on," Tom panted.

"I see the whites of their eyes now!" Tom incited.

"I'm getting up now," Tom lied.

"I still think my cake is much better," Tom retorted.

"My breath is much fresher now," Tom asserted.

"Well, I guess you paid me back last time," Tom relented.

"I'd like to take some photos of you," Tom proposed.

"This kind of mousetrap is inhumane," Tom debated.

"I'm ready for the figure skating competition," Tom informed.

"I'm so pleased with this award for best-dressed woman at the dance," Sally addressed.

"This bra really improves my figure," Sally pointed out.

"This diet works great," Sally expounded. "It didn't work so well for me," Tom announced.

"We'll teach that Saddam a thing or two!" George inveighed.

"Ve're goink to block dat bulldozer until dey come to dere senses!" Moish inveighed.

Beware of the Door

2009-10-10T00:09:00.000-07:00