It's been an interesting exercise writing this blog from 2004 to now. But now, after 3,149 posts, it is time to move on. I've written about myriad subjects and issues. Travel awaits; grandchildren await. Perhaps other forms of involvement await. The call of the keyboard is now an echo of the past.
To my many loyal readers, thank you.
SEARCH BLOG: SNOW.
This video came in the mail from a friend of mind. A neat concept since it works in fairly heavy snow that would probably bog down a truck... and it still works on bare highway.
SEARCH BLOG: OPINION.
As 2012 winds down, this is a good opportunity to look back at some of this blog's posts that were most popular by month:
SEARCH BLOG: CHRISTMAS.
We hope that Christmas and the New Year brings you love and happiness. And if you feel ambitious, you can try this old recipe for our family's favorite dessert.
SEARCH BLOG: PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS.
We first came across Toby on a walk. He set up quite a commotion as we walked toward him. My wife wanted to turn around toward the way we came, but there was something about him that told me there was not going to be a problem. So we continued by and finished our walk.
A few days later, I walked alone that way. There he was behind the fence in the garbage strewn yard. Once again, Toby made a racket. I stopped and looked right at him. He was quiet briefly, but then started in again. I raised my arm and pointed at him and said firmly, "No!" Then walked away.
A day or two later, I walked that way, again. Toby saw me and waited until I was closer before he started in with the noise. I stopped, said "No!", and walked on. He stopped his noise a little sooner than usual.
The next week, my wife and I walked by Toby's house. He began his routine. This time I walked up to the fence against the protestations of my wife. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a few treats and dropped them over the fence. Toby took them cautiously, but he took them. And he was quiet as we walked away.
A few day's later, my wife asked me if we were going to walked down that way again. I said I thought we could do that. Then she asked if I had some treats with me to which I answered affirmatively. This time, Toby started to make his usual racket when he heard us approach, but stopped as soon as he saw us. I walked up to the fence and handed him some treats rather than dropping them over the fence. He took them and looked at me as he ate them with something on the order of acceptance. We continued our walk in the quiet.
Weeks went by with us stopping by several times each week. Toby seemed to await us almost eagerly. No noise anymore. As we would approach, he would sit down next to the fence and wait. He would take the treats out of my hand. My wife genuinely cared about him, but kept her distance. Summer was turning to fall and the days were getting colder. Toby was always outside, but on this one day he seemed lethargic. He came over to the fence to greet us, but we could see that one foot had been injured as he could barely touch the ground with it. We filled a dish with treats next to him and he slowly took one at a time, but there seemed to be a sadness in his eyes.
Toby's foot gradually healed and the weather got colder. My wife and I were concerned though. He still walked around the junk-filled yard every day. He seemed too thin. We continued to bring him treats.
The nights became frosty and the days cool. As I walked toward Toby's house one day, I saw a couple of men across the street from him. I stopped to talked with them after I left Toby his treats. One of them, Bob, said he was concerned about Toby, too. He said that he had talked with a woman in the house and laid out his concerns. He said that he had given Toby food and water dozens of times when he stopped by to visit his mother who lived across the street from Toby. But his mother had just died and he wouldn't be stopping by much anymore. He gave me his telephone number and said that he and his wife could get Toby help.
Then next day, I left a note in the mailbox at Toby's house expressing my concern about Toby being in the yard so much now that it was cold. I left my telephone number and said that if they felt that they could not give Toby appropriate care with winter approaching they should call me and I'd set up new arrangements for him. A few days later, I got the call.
Bob and Pat work with animal rescue, so I called Bob and told him that Toby was available. This was Thanksgiving. I gave Bob the woman's telephone number and he said he'd be in touch with her in a few days.
This weekend, Pat called to tell me that Toby came to stay with them for about a week and he was really happy. Unfortunately, they couldn't let Toby stay there indefinitely, but they located a retired man who lived alone and had recently lost his companion of many years. They took Toby to this man and said that they appeared to get along really well, but they would continue to check in to be sure it was working out.
Pat said Toby filled the void left by the loss of the man's Golden Labrador that Toby looked very much like. Toby had been given a long-overdue bath and been taken for a checkup and his shots. Pat said she could see that Toby was quite intelligent and now spent much of his time inside his new home although he had a nice clean, big yard in which to play. She said that the only trouble Toby had with the old man was when Toby pulled some of the lights off the Christmas tree. But she said the man knew how to handle Toby with a firm, but gentle, kindness and she knew that the 1-year old Golden Labrador would soon forget his unfortunate first year.
Pat and I wished each other a Merry Christmas and agreed that getting involved when you see an unfortunate situation might cause some anxiety, but in this case was well worthwhile. We know that Toby and his lonely retired companion will have a much happier Christmas as a result.
As for me, I have a lot of treats left over since Toby moved away, but I carry them with me on my walks. I've made some new friends.
SEARCH BLOG: ENGINEERING.
From Gizmodo... watch it until the end:
SEARCH BLOG: MILITARY.
Preppers are getting ready for the clock to be turned back 150 years. They may have to hurry. Raytheon and the U.S. Air Force just tested a new system that creates a pseudo-EMP attack without the nuclear bomb... and it works.
SEARCH BLOG: POLITICS.
The Vice Presidential debate is over. Who won? Well, if it comes down to who was rudist, crudist, and creepiest... Biden won hands down.
So, what did it prove? The President-In-Waiting comes down to a gentleman and scholar versus a face-making clown without manners. Did it matter? No.
SEARCH BLOG: WEATHER.
No doubt that large parts of the U.S. had a hot summer. Here in Michigan, we were playing golf in the middle of March and watering our lawns extensively in July. But things have cooled off. This morning the temperatures were in the lower 40s and the darker clouds of the cold season were evident. But at least we didn't have to put up with this:
SEARCH BLOG: UNIVERSE
This picture was taken by the Hubble Telescope. It shows a small patch of a small patch of small section of the night sky. An object the size of our solar system would not be visible in the most expanded view. Via the BBC.
SEARCH BLOG: IPHONE
SEARCH BLOG: TECHNOLOGY.
From The Wall Street Journal:
Apple Inc. surpassed Microsoft Corp. Monday as the largest U.S. company ever, measured by stock-market value.
Apple hit the new milestone—$623.52 billion—at a time when its influence on the economy, on the stock market and on popular culture rivals that of some of the most powerful companies in U.S. history: General Motors Co., whose Corvette and Impala typified a confident postwar manufacturing giant; Microsoft, whose technology heralded the arrival of the personal computer and the early Internet age; and International Business Machines Corp., whose buttoned-down rigor inspired rivals to reach for greatness.That's an awful lot of iPhones and iPads and Macbooks. But it tells us something about how the U.S. has changed in the past few decades.
SEARCH BLOG: TECHNOLOGY
We're trying an experiment today. I've been a fan of speech recognition before it became really practical with today's powerful processors. But today's experiment is sort of the opposite. Rather than recognizing speech and handling commands, I've added a feature that recognizes text and speaks it.
SEARCH BLOG: LEISURE
Summer is boring. The NBA Finals are over; golf's U.S. Open is over, baseball... who cares? Sure, the weather is great and the outdoor grill gets a workout. Yes, the water in the lake is refreshing on a hot day. Okay, fireworks go off every night since they were legalized in Michigan. And the kids seem to have more energy and less colds. But summer is boring in the world. Nothing happens; everyone goes on vacation.
SEARCH BLOG: HISTORY
SEARCH BLOG: TECHNOLOGY
Morgan Stanley is considering adjusting prices for trades made during Facebook Inc.'s initial public offering, as the lead underwriter and other banks face a fresh investor lawsuit over the how the deal was handled. ...
The suit follows a report by Reuters that analysts at the Wall Street firms cut their revenue forecasts on Facebook amid the investor roadshow, a change that wasn't widely disseminated. [source]Here's the thing: Facebook has little real functionality beyond people visiting their service and sharing trivial pursuits. It is not a search engine or an email system or massive data repository of information that can be readily commercialized. IT'S A FAD AND IF YOU BUY INTO IT WITH YOUR OWN MONEY, YOU WILL LOSE IT.
2012 IS HERE..
SEARCH BLOG: LIBERTARIAN
This video with Libertarian author David Brin explains a lot about the comments received here when the posts are about Ron Paul. He hits it on the head at about 2:35 into this Reason TV video:
SEARCH BLOG: TECHNOLOGY
SEARCH BLOG: WEATHER
You'll have to forgive my forgetfulness about posting earlier today. We've just returned from a long trip to California where the last week was nothing but cool, rainy, foggy weather with a series of missed flight connections and finally arrived home Sunday morning at 3:00 AM. Our internal clocks are finally resetting.
SEARCH BLOG: SPORTS
From Yahoo Sports:
Steelers will release WR Hines Ward
By WILL GRAVES, AP Sports Writer
PITTSBURGH (AP)—Hines Ward has been an icon for the Pittsburgh Steelers for 14 seasons, but no more, as the NFL team announced Wednesday it was releasing the veteran wide receiver.
A four-time Pro Bowl selection, who holds franchise records for receptions, receiving yards and receiving touchdowns, Ward, 35, will be released by the organization that drafted him back in 1998.No confirmation on the rumor that Hines Ward will become a pro on Dancing With The Stars.
The Federal Reserve sees no need to cut interest rates in the light of adverse recent economic data, Ben Bernanke said on Wednesday.
The Fed chairman said ”to date, the incoming data have supported the view that the current stance of policy is likely to foster sustainable economic growth and a gradual ebbing in core inflation”.July 21, 2007 My guess is that if there is an interest rate change, a cut is more likely than an increase. The key variables to be watching at this point are real estate prices and the inventory of unsold homes.
"Should the elevated turbulence persist, it would increase the possibility of further tightening in financial conditions for households and businesses," he said.December 11, 2007 Somehow the Fed misses the obvious."Uncertainties about the economic outlook are unusually high right now," he said. "These uncertainties require flexible and pragmatic policymaking -- nimble is the adjective I used a few weeks ago."
http://www.reuters.com/
December 13, 2007 [from The Christian Science Monitor]
[Image from: CNNMoney.com]
"The odds of a recession are now above 50 percent," says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. "We are right on the edge of a recession in part because of the Fed's reluctance to reduce interest rates more aggressively." [see my comments of September 11]January 7, 2008 The real problem now is that consumers can't rescue the economy and manufacturing, which is already weakening, will continue to weaken. We've gutted the forces that could avoid a downturn. The question is not whether there will be a recession, but can it be dampened sufficiently so that it is very short.
“The question is not whether we will have a recession, but how deep and prolonged it will be,” said David Rosenberg, the chief North American economist at Merrill Lynch. “Even if the Fed’s moves are going to work, it will not show up until the later part of 2008 or 2009.”January 17, 2008 A few days ago, Anna Schwartz, nonagenarian economist, implicated the Federal Reserve as the cause of the present lending crisis [from the Telegraph - UK]:
The high priestess of US monetarism - a revered figure at the Fed - says the central bank is itself the chief cause of the credit bubble, and now seems stunned as the consequences of its own actions engulf the financial system. "The new group at the Fed is not equal to the problem that faces it," she says, daring to utter a thought that fellow critics mostly utter sotto voce.January 22, 2008 The cut has become infected and a limb is in danger. Ben Bernanke is panicking and the Fed has its emergency triage team cutting rates... this time by 3/4%. ...
Individuals and businesses need stability in their financial cost structures so that they can plan effectively and keep their ships afloat. Wildly fluctuating rates... regardless of what the absolute levels are... create problems. Either too much spending or too much fear. It's just not that difficult to comprehend. Why has it been so difficult for the Fed?
Current Activity
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| | "There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty." - John Adams"An enlightened citizenry is indispensable for the proper functioning of a republic. Self-government is not possible unless the citizens are educated sufficiently to enable them to exercise oversight." - Thomas Jefferson
As of Sept. 15, the current solar minimum ranks third all-time in the amount of spotless days with 717 since 2004. There have been 206 spotless days in 2009, which is 14th all-time. But there are still more than 100 days left in the year, and Perry expects that number to climb. Perry, who studies sunspots and solar activity in his spare time, received an undergraduate degree in physics at Kansas State University and a Ph.D in physics and astronomy at The University of Kansas. He also has spent time as a meteorologist.
From Icecap
