Random Thought

Or they could down load it all into Data. 

Another attack on an American consulate,this time in Afghanistan near the Irani border.Shouldn't be surprised though that the Iranis might try to influence the local Taliban to attack.There was also a report that a Jihadi leader encouraged his follow Jihadis to start small attacks against America
and thus slowly start to bleed America's will and financial ability.

Well we had some interesting news in church yesterday.Turns out that the National Christmas Tree
this year is coming from our area.It's going to be cut from the Colville National Forest right here.
They already have invited 300 people to stand around in the cold whilst they cut it down;after that
it'll be on display at the Newport Town Hall on November 1.
They even have the prototype of the t'shirt already printed out.
Unfortunately it's only going to be avaible in white(I want a blue one!  )
And then it starts it's long journey to D.C.

Well, not really as interesting as when they make the bells.
According to my parents, the Christmas tree in their church gets smaller each year for the past decade or so. It's sign of something: bad economy, increase population/demand, or environment...hmm. Then again it's free so you can't really complain.

There's a new Boeing out now 787-9. There's still lots of doubt about the last one. It will be hard to sell it.

First time a briton won the chat bot contest and they got a full article on it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24107790
These the chatbots are as numerous as humans. Even when I started out they where already in use and already hard to distinguish from real humans. In practice there's no way to know. And with AI's soon to control/patrol the net in the name of a certain organization ....

Is that the same organization that was spying on the President of Brazil's e-mails?

Yep, (among others). The interesting thing that seemed to have changed is when you go to certain NY based news sites and pages. You not only seemed recorded but when you try to look at the source code for some reason you can't by normal means. You can't reload (you may load something from somewhere even). You can save (and import something(?)). *shrugs*   I mostly always look at the code (ctr+u) to check things before doing other things. It's quite interesting to see certain "movements" happening. For example svg & html 5 canvas seems to become a revolution in webpage design. The Seikai wiki for example had been using special css code. ;)But I've long been eyeing svg as an update. But the wikimedia engine is still no good compared to the javacode features on my old Seikai Laburec Library. Lots of improvement to wait for.

Today we had the start of the Friends of the Library book sell.Goes on through tommorrow afternoon.
They decided not to do DVDs this year because of the poor selling rate.
I ended up buying 3 books:
1.Saints And Strangers by George F. Willison,about the Pilgrims and Puritans and others
who settled New England.
2.George Washington's Sacred Fireby Peter A. Lillback with Jerry Newcomb,about Washington's religion.
3.The Age of ChivalryNational Geographic,speaks for itself.

Reading Saints And Strangers.Interesting warts and all account of the Pilgrims.

I think I am almost over whatever I have had since Thursday night.Right now just a bit stuffy
and sneezing.

That was quick. Well, my library friends association hadn't send a word recently.
Yeah, it's getting cold now, changing weather is the worse for health.

There's been a lot of coverage for the James Webb Space Telescope recently. Nothing different from a decade ago except better detailed pictures. The cooling & coverage design is what's really innovative. I'm 99% certain how it works but I don't really know. With Nasa now censoring(manipulating) every thing they publish nothing can be relied on.

SteamOS is coming out for games. It's not really an OS now but I wonder if it get's enough support to develop into a real windows alternative. That would be worth of support. MS Win is pretty much a monopole, we need options.

So much going on - can't even eat a burger without my phone ringing... at least no one is bothering me at night

The world is a mess these days. What i always felt will be happening came true -whoever pulled the stings made such a great show that it now has life of it's own - changing actors and staff as it goes on. Now those who thought they're running it are trying to stay on the stage themselves.
I fear we yet to see the "best" parts of it..

_________________
You guys probably heard  about Ukrane and it's struggle for joining EU? Funny thing - you get "bad" president, but it turns out to be "good" just because he doesn't get along with another "bar president" and have no choice but to pick sides. But we'll see if he picks good one...and if it's really that good?

EU sympathizers say we'll live better, EU haters say they'll turn us all into gays :DSo carefull politicians accept all euro-integration laws except..."those" ones.

Other people fear if what little production and technology we have left and if it will be competitive once our market is flooded with European stuff.
Well, at least I know one market where we're still feeling alright, especially with all the stuff going on.
Almael, did you hear about Ukrainian tank "Oplot"? Here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjt-OFLU9-4 And only 4mil$

Nice to see you again.

AlexT wrote:The world is a mess these days.
I fear we yet to see the "best" parts of it..

Yeah, can't say anything of the opposite.
No doubt. There's still a lot not been said yet. Nobody wants to reveal either and then bang boom....all the people run scared. There used to be hundreds of people replying to certain topics but nowaday the scaredy cats don't post even ten.
There's no escape!

Spoiler:

_________________

AlexT wrote:You guys probably heard  about Ukrane and it's struggle for joining EU? Funny thing - you get "bad" president, but it turns out to be "good" just
...and if it's really that good?
all euro-integration laws except..."those" ones.

Yeah, I hear it's like what Estonia did. It's a win-win situation imho.
It will be good for you for at least one or two decades. Then it may get better or it could slowly go down if your people don't manage to establish a stable economy.
The Ukraine got a good industry so I doubt there is much to worry about failure.
Agriculture may have some problems with EU regulations e.g. form of potato etc.
But there's lots of support money in that area. imho about 1/3 to 1/2 of all goes there.

The Euro is strong and from an economic point its existence is better for the world economy than the USD alone. Otherwise we all would have lost a lot more than what happened in 2008.

AlexT wrote:
Other people fear if what little production and technology we have left and if it will be competitive once our market is flooded with European stuff.

You get foreign products either way. It's the agriculture you gotta worry in this regard.  Well, it depends on politics and laws in supporting foreign investment and  companies coming into your country. At first, Cooperation is the best choice imho then you can allow more foreign freedom. The computer, media/telephone industry should get a boom. The computer section may not last long, though.

AlexT wrote:
Almael, did you hear about Ukrainian tank "Oplot"? Here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjt-OFLU9-4 And only 4mil$

Nope, but 4mil is a nice deal. The only thing I don't like about those tanks is the comfort/space for the crew. I don't see a lot of disadvantages other than perhaps armor but that's hard to rate. Shooting missiles with the gun is a real plus.
These days remote controlled guns/turrets are a must have.

Edit:
Mars hopper!
http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2010/11/11/rspa.2010.0438
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24213830
The first hopper design. It uses magnetic mechanics like the magnetic joints of Gundam Alex or the ball turret on the basroil or car ball wheels in lost universe (iRobot). It also uses heated plasma via a nuclear core. Similar to our classic animes but less advanced.

I wonder with Germany re-electing Merkel and other EU members tending to go in a more conservative direction if that means the EU as a whole will become at least economically more
conservative than before.
Seems right now Europe as a whole is heading in one direction and the US is headed in the opposite
one.
What will be interesting to see will be if Germany winds up becoming more prosperous under Merkel than the US under Obama in the next five years.

In other news the US has made a rather remarkable comeback in The America's Cup after being declared all but dead last week against NZ.

Well, her party won but she has a minority rule at hand. There's no telling how it will end yet. The majority could come together to put her down.
The EU is moving forward, while the US stays more or less the same.
Expansion, according to our current theories since the past decades, is inevitable to keep the economy going. There will be a boom at first then stability sets in, that's when you gotta start to expand again. The EU has more leeway than the US.
I don't think all this will go on for very long, though. It all depends on Africa now.
I don't think Germany will become more prosperous at least not for the populace. They rank 17th in the world regarding wealth. Like everywhere the middle is shrinking. It's a matter of time until our economic system turns up a major crisis.

Yeah, I saw that. From what I saw the Kiwis were too confident and lax. The oracle team turned into the wind to gain speed while the kiwis did nothing. After about ten minutes the oracle team had about 50% more speed and overtook after the 2nd crossing. The kiwis tried to catch up but at similar top speeds they got no chance. The oracle team had simply the better strategy and execution. So they won in the end. The race was certainly more interesting than usual.
The oracle is always right.

Special news: Paris has found a new job for herself. She's DJ now.
She probably paid some famous DJ to teach her.

Nasa is testing a laser communication system developed by the ESA. Another realization from mecha war stories/games. I bet it's gonna be all mil not civil.

I think the irony of the America's Cup race is that the skipper of the Oracle was actually a Kiwi himself! 

Well another loosing season and another manager gone for the Mariners,this time Eric Wedge took himself out of the running.It's going to be an interesting winter for Seattle baseball fans just to see
who they line up as the new manager.
And another NBA season without a team in Seattle as well.This means that football remains the
game now for the moment.

Actually, both boats were build by kiwis, too.

Anyway, there's been some news about a new type of form-changing material
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v502/n7469/fig_tab/nature12532_F4.html
At first I thought it was really something new e.g. changing structures, but it's not really different from the ones we have been researching for decades. It changes the lattice angles like any other with the exception of having 3 forms instead of two.
I guess it's unlikely we get to see a material that really changes structure someday.

Unless it's manmade,which in and of itself would be a trick.
Anyways I was able to pick up the second volume of the Blood-Cmanga so I'm all set to get the
movie now. 

I just read at Breitbart where the Port Washington elementary school in Nassau co. Long Island,
New York has banned the following: football,tag,cartwheels,soccer,etc.Apparently the principle deems such activities too dangerous for her students.Instead they get nerf balls!   
The kids aren't too thrilled about it and they overwhelmingly pointed out that they needed recess to
be able to run around and get some exercise after being cooped up all day in class.

In other news,the U.S. scored below average among industrial nations in areas of reading,mathematics and problem solving.Japan not surprisingly scored #1 in all three areas.

So combining the two it seems like we're headed to becoming a stupidly fat nation.

It seems to be a general trend for many 1st worlds.
Still, even if it's only 1% of smart people left, that's more than anyone else.

I may be wrong but the access to the web seems slower these days for me. First time opening a page often comes up with "problem loading page". It works on second try, though. Otherwise there seems to be no speed limitation....

Read the comments about online reviews
http://www.dailytech.com/Fake+Online+Review+Crackdown+Leaves+19+Companies+Paying+350000+in+Fines/article33425.htm
Just what I thought.

Well that figures.

In other news,a man in Ohio who went missing in 1986 and declared dead in 1994 can't get his
status officially reversed.

Yeah, I heard about it. You can't get reinstated but you still need to pay your tax. It's a safe bet.

So the Nobless cummittee this year chooses the opcw for the peace price isntead of Berlusconi or Putin. Hmm, giving the experts from companies that once produced those things a reward; Why not give it to the anti-personnel mine producing/removing companies, too? Reminds me of the latest Wolverine movie. Obviously the villain this time was fashioned after a certain person who committed war crimes, became rich by doing so, got imprisoned and let o free (Bank of A got suddenly filled), became a yakuza godfather and most powerful political player behind the scene; donated millions before in later years and become recognized by the UN and praised as benefactor to humanity... It's a nice story to pick up.

ars has an interesting article. Well, not really news but these they people heed it more. It seems my machine is as common as it gets despite some uniqueness. Despite the billions computers online it seems 3.5 millions is the best odd there is. I guess 4 is possible with some tweaking but these things are time limited.

Some old and yet new news again, just for the heck of it.
combining robots have been in simulation as far as I can remember. These days mass use of robots is the focus of research. The same goes for software. Imho the future of software agent I'm interested for some time, too.
"Laser fusion breaks even", well considering that's less than 10% overall energy invested I don't see much noteworthiness. It just adds to the accusation researchers are delaying research progress for their own benefit. Seriously 50 years of research and we are still at the beginning. The Tokamak reached this point in 1997 and only now lasers. At least the tokamak has been around since the 60's and lasers since the 80's (see original Tron movie). What's needed is 100x return to make it viable as a power source. I'm for the tokamak, not lasers, not polywell. Imho Lasers need a lot more laser maintenance vs less core care; while the polywell is just an extreme simplification of the tokamak (if you build it out you end up with a tokamak anyway).

Nice aero picture. It's a nice idea, probably useless, but good enough for scifi.

A lot of people would have preferred that Malala the Afghani or Pakistani girl who was shot by the Taliban for just wanting girls in her country to have an education should have gotten the Peace Prize.

Then again,for some odd reason Washington D.C. SWAT was called on when a group of veterans were having a peaceful protest rally in the Capitol Mall.Speakers included Senators Cruz(R-Tex.)and
Lee(R-UT)and Sarah Palin.

There was also a video of some SWAT officers confronting a group who were gathered in front of the
White House.Not doing anything just standing around.
The cops looked a bit confused as to why they were there in the first place since there wasn't even
a hint of a riot;also a couple of the protesters got into verbal arguments with the cops.That was all.
Eventually at the end it shows the SWAT team marching off again.

Nah, the cummittee has no backbone to give it to her. That's pretty much a given.

Well, the police are on edge in W. D.C. these days. I did my part so I can understand the protesters. It's a sad situation. On the other side it appears to me the only countries who take batter care of their vets are germany, japan and israel. Although, I think it only applies to the WWII vets. <_<

Some things I noticed that changed around the world in the past decade is
-the police forces have been uniformed in their dress code; they all are wearing mostly black uniforms now with the word "Police" on or similar in their local writing.
-there is a rise in chinese people working in other asian nations' embassies
-many local asian languages now sound more like chinese, too. I think that's because chinese movies have been flooding those countries.
-the japanese passport is now the most valuable in the world. I guess in asia the chinese is second.

China is certainly feeling it's oats these days.

Did you read about the typhoon that hit eastern Japan yesterday?It came to land on an island approximately 75 miles south of Tokyo and they say 50 people are now missing.

Also I just found out that Cornish is not considered a separate ethnic group in the U.S. but is in
the U.K.

Maybe it's just for show. Singapure for example is as good as a chinese puppet already. Not long ago their government(80% sino) was about to disband the local indigenous language in favor of chinese only. I wonder how long those asian nations can hold onto their "independence".

Apropos, looks like I got kicked out of the biggest sino network. Still got some footing left.

I'm surprised the typhoon was causing that much damage. It's far from the largest recorded ever some years ago. It seems Japan can no longer hold their own against all the natural catastrophes possible.

I think for 1st world governments it depends on the tax issue to recognize or not some group. Imho Cornish is long gone as a separate group or rather they are all mixed into the larger group. It's only a technicality or some kind of pride that keeping it "alive".

There's prove now that the mountain swallow in europe spend all winter in the air or about 7 months in the air without setting foot on a tree or land. It's amazing how swallows can set long range and endurance records despite their small bodies & wings. AFAIK no other bird can do this.

Well like a lot of Americans I do have ancestors that came from southwestern England.
Some of them came over to Ireland and settled around Cork.

Weirdness of the Week:
Cracked at a list of 10 celebs you didn't know were Scientologists and
lo and behold Fox News Channel's Greta Van Sustern was on it.
I lost respect for her now.
I mean she's supposed to be a logical thinking person being a lawyer.
Then again she also roots for the Packers..... 

A couple of sad notes for the state of Washington this past weekend:
First former Speaker Tom Foley who represented our district when he was in Congress passed away.
He was one of those politicians who was well respected by both his own Democratic party and
Republicans as well.
The second bit of sad news is that legendary University of Washington Husky football coach Don James
passed on also this weekend.
James led the team in it's Glory Years of the mid-70s to the early '90s.In his term as coach he compiled a 153-58-2 record with a 10-4 bowl record 1 co-National Championship and Pac 10
championships in 1977,1980,1981,1990,1991 and 1992.