Noscript, Cleaning up Firefox

Firefox has been getting flaky.  It will get stuck in loops, sucking up all CPU time, hogging humungous amounts of memory, and slowing to a crawl.  Plus opening unasked for ad windows.  That last is scary, if Firefox will open an ad window just 'cause a website asked it too, it can plant a virus, or do anything else bad that you can imagine. Standard Firefox allows websites to load code into your browser and execute it on your computer.  Which is a gaping security hole.  This code is called "a script" which doesn't sound so bad, but it is bad. 
   There is a fix.  Get NoScript, a Firefox "extension".  Google will find it for you.  NoScript blocks all scripts, along with other flaky things like Java.  Properly coded websites will continue to work properly.  Cheap ass websites, such as blogger,  stop working 'cause they rely on scripts to make 'em work.  Noscript allows you to re enable scripts for the websites that have to have scripts. 
   Since installing NoScript on both Trusty Desktop and Antique Laptop the Firefox lockups have ceased, the unasked for ad windows have gone away.  Re enabling scripts for the low speed websites that rely upon them is easy.
   The Mozilla help pages say good things about Noscript, clearly the Firefox programmers know about NoScript and consider it a good thing.   

NRA cuts another notch on its gun butt

Obama has given up on his surgeon general nominee, a Dr. Vivek  Murthy, who is anti gun, and considers gun ownership a disease.  NRA said a vote in favor of Murthy would be reported to the membership, a serious threat.  NRA has some 5 million dues paying members, it gets the word out to the membership via a monthly magazine, American Rifleman, and the membership takes a word from the NRA very seriously, far more seriously than they take a word from the MSM. 
   Anyhow,  nervous democrats from red districts decided that  voting for Obama's surgeon general might get them voted out of office in November.  There were enough democrats seeing the light that Obama has given up on the nomination. 

Aviation Week on Malaysia Flt 370

My copy arrived in the mail this morning.  Aviation Week reports a few details, like the aircraft tail number, how old it is, and it's last trip thru heavy maintenance (periodic inspection we called it in USAF)  All this was quite unexceptional.  They gave a map of radar coverage in the area.  They did not speculate on the cause of the loss.  They went on at some length about electronic reporting and tracking systems the could be installed, if there was funding, but are not present today.  That's about it.
   No speculation about hijackers, aircrew, Bermuda Triangle, terrorists, bad karma, etc.  Aviation Week just reports the facts, of which there are few.

Obama sanctions Russian officials

In return for invading Ukraine, Obama announced the US will sanction a few Russian officials.  Nine, or was it eleven of 'em. Of course he never names these officials, nor explains what they did, that puts them in the US shooting gallery, but Obama did get a lot of press coverage. 
   Obama has said nothing about increasing US natural gas exports,  bouncing Russian banks out of the world financial system, selling arms to Ukraine, offering Ukraine a trade deal as good as we give Canada, or anything else of substance. 

Beating up on GM, some more

The get-GM crowd is in full cry.  Defective ignition switches on a huge batch of GM cars.  The switches would occasionally fail and kill the engine.  This has been talked up as a lethal safty hazard with 12 deaths claimed over 10 years.  Wow!. 
   Now I am not a big fan of GM, they have done plenty of stupid things over the years.  But to call engine failure a lethal safety hazard?  Over the years I have experienced sudden engine failure on the road, maybe three times.  Last one, ten years ago,  was a Dodge Caravan that broke its timing belt on the way to Blind River Canada.  But you know, the engine just dies, and you pull the car over to the shoulder, and pop the hood, get out some tools, and try to fix it.  Twice before I got her going again, but the timing belt breakage was beyond my side-of-the-road repair abilities.  This sort of thing is a major pain in the tail, but I never considered it dangerous. 
   Oh well,  GM bashers have to get their kicks somewhere.

Scott Brown jumps into the race

You gotta love this guy.  He is electable with a capital E.  Any Republican who can win Ted Kennedy's seat in deep blue Massachusetts, has a way with voters.  Although he is a carpetbagger from Taxachusetts, he looks pretty good going up against Jean Shaheen for NH senate.  Coming from Massachusetts he is probably more liberal than hard shell conservatives in NH might like, but he is electable.  We could win with this guy. 

They still haven't found missing airliner

It's still missing.  We don't know anything that we didn't know a week ago.  But the TV coverage is non stop, every hour on the hour, and lots a time in between.  They don't have anything to say, but they are getting airtime.  They are even retelling old Bermuda triangle stories.  Pack journalism at its most packy.

They still do gun shows in NH

So my brother and I drove down to Concord to see what was what.  They drew a pretty good crowd.  Parking lot was full of pickups and SUV's.  Virtually no econoboxes.  The crowd was older, my generation, few young guys.  They had dealers dealing in rifles and handguns and shotguns.  Lot of ammunition for sale and being bought.  Lots of holsters and fancy knives, some WWII surplus stuff, including jerricans.  Did not find anything to buy, the few rifles I might have liked were way out of my price range.  

Getting an IP address. With or Without DNS

The entire world now talks to itself using Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, usually abbreviated to TCP/IP.  Back in the distant past other protocols were used, NETBUEI, DECNET, and such.  They are all dead now, and TCP/IP rules.  Protocol is a set of rules for doing business.  For instance protocol for using the plain old telephone goes like this.  Lift handset. Dial 1 plus the area code for long distance,  otherwise dial just seven digits.  TCP/IP, since it is used by computers is more complex, but it deals with the same issues. 

    Part of TCP/IP is the IP address, a long string of digits that works like a telephone number.  Each computer has to have an IP address, and all the IP addresses must be unique.  Two computers may NOT have the same IP address, for obvious reasons.  In the old days, you typed the IP address into your computer.  The network administrator for your site gave out IP addresses, kept track of the ones in use, and reissued IP addresses used by old computers that were taken out of service.  As you can imagine, the Network Administrator’s job got harder and harder to do in outfits that might have thousands of desktop PC’s on the Internet.

   So they invented an automatic program running on the server, to take care of it.  Each time a desktop powers up, it asks the TCP/IP server to give it a new IP address, which it keeps until it powers down.  This server program is called Domain Name Server (DNS) or Dynamic Host Control Protocol (DHCP). Since Windows XP goes back to the bad old days of typing in IP addresses by hand, it still supports that, as well as DNS/DHCP.  You, proud computer operator get the choice of which, or both, to use.

  Normally all this complexity just works, and your computer goes on line every time you power it up.  But sometimes, for obscure and undocumented reasons,  DNS fails, your computer does not get an IP address, and you get a little message down on the task bar about “limited or no connectivity” and “IP address” .

  What to do? 

Windows Repair

Built into Windows is a repair program.  It will reset the hardware by powering it down and then up again, and then go thru the “ask-the-server-for-an-IP-address” song and dance again.  This works a good deal of the time, (but not always).  To start repair, left click on the channel’s icon down on the task bar.  This will open up a “status” window that will tell you what’s broke and offer more information tab.  Click and you will find another tab labeled “Repair”.  Click on it and hope.  It may take a while, it gives the server plenty of time to get its act together and issue an IP address.  If it doesn’t work, you will have to wait about a minute to get the bad news.  If it does work, you are home free, at least for today.

IPCONFIG

 This is essentially a manual way of doing what Repair does, with some benefits of extra information.  IPCONFIG is a DOS program, you launch it  from the DOS window.  Get the DOS window open from the Windows Run option on the Start menu.  Microsoft renamed DOS to CMD, for the Run option.  That helped everyone, a lot.  Thanks MS. 

   Like all DOS programs, IPCONFIG works off switches on its command line.  Switch /ALL makes it list out all the I/O channels (Ethernet, Wireless, etc) on your machine.  It gives the IP address (if it has one),  serial numbers, and other stuff.  Switch /RELEASE hangs up your internet connection, turns in your IP address, and takes you off line.  Switch /RENEW  does the “ask-the-server-for-an-IP-address” song and dance.  I don’t know what IPCONFIG does with no command line switches, so I don’t run it that way.  Doing IPCONFIG /RELEASE  followed by IPCONFIG /RENEW is equivalent to doing the Windows Repair. 

Alternate Configuration

 And, sometimes the server is feeling cranky and just won’t issue an IP address no matter what.  My “server” is a little 4 port Belkin wireless router, it works fine on Trusty Desktop, but just won’t issue an IP address to AntiqueLaptop. 

    You can configure the channel ask for an IP address, but if that doesn’t work, just use an IP address that you assign.  And this works on the Belkin router, why I don’t know.  To set this up, left click on the taskbar icon of your channel.  Get the status window.  Click on “Properties”  lower left.  This will display a list of all the drivers, protocols, and other bits of software that make the channel work.  Scroll thru the list and find “TCP/IP”  Click on the properties button that comes up with the selection of TCP/IP.  This accesses the properties of the TCP/IP software.   On the “General” page of TCP/IP properties, you want to check  “Obtain an IP address automatically” and “Obtain a DNS Server address automatically”. That will make your computer attempt to do the DNS song and dance.  If that dance should fail, it goes to Plan B, “Alternate Configuration”.  Check “User Configured”.  The other choice “Automatic Private IP address” is undocumented, but I believe it only works in XP Professional, which few of us have.  Below the “User Configured” are boxes for IP address, sub net mask,  Default Gateway, and Preferred DNS server.  Fill them in.

   What to Use?  For my Belkin router 192.168.2.4 works for IP Address.  Trusty Desktop, who gets his IP address from DNS (the router) is 192.168.2.2.  And he is the only other computer in the house, so I figured the .4 IP address ought to work and not conflict.  If you have a different router, different IP addresses might work.  You gotta do some snooping around.  Sub net mask is 255,255,255,0.  Both Default Gateway AND  Preferred DNS Server is 192.168.2.1, again I got that from Trusty Desktop.     

And, Lo and Behold, Antique Laptop is now back on the net. 

Congress is OK on bailing out Ukraine.

At least that's what NHPR is reporting.  A Ukraine subsidy bill, offering $1 billion in aid has passed the House and a Senate committee.   The NHPR guys then went on at length about a controversy.  The Senate committee attached a rider containing "reform" of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)  NHPR reported that Democrats liked the IMF reforms and Republicans did not.  And the House bill lacks the IMF reforms and so a House Senate reconciliation and a revote on the final compromise might be necessary.  And that will be a big deal.  And NHPR does not approve.
   Of course, NHPR didn't bother to say just what these IMF "reforms" might be.   IMF has been in business of bailing out broke countries since the end of WWII.  They seem to do a fairly decent job over all those years. 
   I wonder what "reforms" might be necessary?  I can think of a lot of "reforms" that I would not approve of and few that I would approve.  The "reforms" that spring immediately to mind would attach more conditions to bail outs.  While we have 'em on their knees, let's make 'em do our will.  You gotta do multi cultural things, green things, put in a minimum wage, protect US intellectual property, meet US environmental standards, yadda, yadda, or else, no bailout.   Do things our way, or starve. 
   One other thing the NHPR boys didn't bother to report.  The I in IMF stands for International.  How does the US Congress get to change the rules of an international organization?  We all know that the US calls most of the shots at the IMF 'cause we still have more money than anyone else, but still, out of pure politeness, we ought not to be rewriting the rules in our national Congress.

Cannon Mt Ski Weather

I measured an honest 12 inches on my deck this morning.  For those of you who don't know, my deck is within walking distance of the Peabody Slopes chairlifts, so it's pretty representative of what they got at Cannon.  The snow started mid day yesterday and had put down 4-5 inches by sunset.  It snowed all night, and it's still snowing this morning.  Temperature is good and cold, 9 degrees so we are getting nice light powder.  Very little wind, so the snow is staying on the trails rather than blowing away into the woods.  Conditions at Cannon will be the best all year.  Don't miss it. 

Missing 777 Flt 370

So where could it be?  If it crashed at sea, we ought to spot floating wreckage.  If we are looking in the right place. 
   There is evidence that the plane changed course 90 degrees or more to the west.  At 600 mph, it could go a long long way in an unexpected direction.  The 777 is designed for long range trans oceanic flight, and can carry enough fuel to stay up for 10-20 hours.  Which means it could be nearly anywhere on earth. 
  Air traffic control radar mostly works off transponders.  These are descendants of WWII IFF units.  When struck by a radar transmitter pulse from the ground, the transponder replies with  simple code with perhaps 25 watts of power.  That is humungously stronger than the "skin paint" return of the transmitter pulse reflected off the aircraft skin.  It gives a good bright solid pip on the ground radar screen and also gives an ID and the altitude.  Air traffic controllers work with the transponder pips, and may not see or may ignore the much fainter skin paint pips.  Turning off the aircraft's transponder makes it very difficult to see on ATC radar.  Flight 370's transponder pips disappeared off radar.  The 777 has two transponders, it is unlikely that both of them failed at the same time.  Either someone switched them off, or the plane blew apart in midair, or it crashed into the sea, (or both).  Nothing less would silence the transponders. 
   There are reports that a military ground radar saw the missing plane, flying way off its planned course.  If the plane was hijacked, all they had to do is fly at 1000 feet or so and few to no ground radars can see them.  I remember USAF air defense exercises.  A target aircraft would be sent way up north, then turn around, and fly back south into US-Canadian airspace.  The radars were supposed to pick him up and vector fighters onto him. This particular morning, a bright and sunny morning, fine flying weather, the radar operators were calling back to SAGE HQ and complaining that they could not see the target.  SAGE would ask the target to "come up another 1000 feet".  Target was not visible to ground radar until he was a 9000 feet. 
  I'm pretty sure a 777 at 1000 feet would not get picked up on today's ground radar. 
  If it crashed at sea, we ought to find wreakage.  If it crashed in the jungles, we might never find it.  We lost an F-111 Aardvark somewhere in Laos during the war.  We never did find the wreck.  It just knifed thru the triple canopy jungle, the leaves closed up behind it, and it was gone.  Granted that a 777 is bigger than the Aardvark and ought to make a bigger ground footprint, but who knows. 
   Final possibility.  They might have landed the plane in one piece, somewhere.  A good pilot could probably get a 777 down on a very short strip.  Might blow a few tires, but the plane ought to survive.  And now we have to beginnings of a James Bond movie. 

Winter not dead yet

It's snowing up here.  Coming down pretty good.  The TV news is doing the winter storm warning (warning is more heavy duty than a mere watch).  I'm forecast to get a foot.  We'll see if that works out. 

Game of Thrones Season III

Netflix just got the Season III discs of Game of Thrones.  I don't get HBO so I have to wait for the show to get to Netflix.  It's pretty good, a swords and sorcery fantasy, set in an imaginary medieval world.  They have some interesting characters, who they haven't killed off yet.  It's decent light entertainment, better than the average cop show.
  But I do have some advice for the show's producers.
1.  Get a real sound man.  I can't hear much of the dialogue.  The dialogue lacks needed volume, and is often blurred by the score or the sound effects.  I notice that on the "commentaries" (actors voice overs explaining how cool they are) are perfectly understandable.  If you can do it for "commentaries" you can do it for the main thing.
2.  Don't costume everyone in the same color of drab homespun gray-brown .  I know it's realistic, but when you costume everyone the same it is hard for the audience to tell who's who. 
3.  Turn up the lighting.  Too many scenes are dark interiors, so dark we cannot see what's going on.  Go back to that old Hollywood trick, where a single candle is lit, and the movie lights come on, and we can see what's happening. 
4.  Say the character's names aloud, so we can identify them.  I've actually read the books, but it was a while ago.  Scene after scene characters would come on stage, and I would scratch my head asking myself "who's that?"  Scene would end and I'd still not know the name.  I still don't remember the name of the strapping armored lady who drives Jaime Lannister along to King's Landing. 

Veggies

All the medics and dieticians keep pushing the value of eating veggies.  They are probably right, but a serving of green peas is never gonna have the attraction of a Big Mac and fries, at least for me.  But, I have found a few veggie things that taste pretty good.
   Lettuce.  In salads.  Conventional salads, chef's salads with a bit of sliced ham, and plain old steakhouse style.  Just a wedge of lettuce on a plate with your favorite salad dressing poured on top.
   Celery.  Stuffed with cream cheese, and cut into 3 inch lengths.  Crunchy.
   Carrots.  Raw, with ranch dip.  Either the expensive little mini carrots, or just plain old carrots, peeled and sliced.
  Artichoke.  Steamed, with a bit of garlic.  And melted butter to dip the leaves into.
  Apples.  I cut 'em into quarters, and cut out the seeds.  Less waste than just nibbling them down to the core.  With a little cheddar cheese on the side.
  Apple sauce.  Comes in little single serving plastic tubs.  Sweet and moist, just right during winter heating season when everything gets dry.  Also good with pork.
  Tomatoes.  Sliced with a bit of cottage cheese on top.  And a dash of basil.  Juicy.   
  Pineapple.  Cans of sliced pineapple.  Serve it with some cottage cheese on top. 

Broadband under repair

I got back from shopping yesterday, and found a bright international orange tag hanging on my doorknob.  It claimed excessive radio frequency leakage had been detected from my cable, FCC part 76 violations, yadda yadda, call the cable company and get ti fixed.  And my internet was dead. 
  So I called the cable company, and surprize, the tech showed up bright an early this morning.  I gave him a cup of coffee and than he go to work.  He replaced some coax going to the TV and the FM, and the modem, and replaced some connectors.  All was well, Channel 6 now comes in clear instead of fuzzy, and the meter says all is quiet.  So I am back on the air.

Firefox is getting flaky

More and more, Firefox is getting flaky.  Something goes wrong after some time active and it slows to a crawl.   Task manager shows firefox.exe and container-plugin.exe eating up 90 percent of CPU time, and hogging hundreds of K of ram.  Contain-plugin.exe is some kinda Firefox helper program.  In bad cases, Task manager will report Firefox is not responding.  And task manager has trouble killing off Firefox when he gets all bent out of shape.  So far after a lotta tries, eventually  the "kill" command works but it's getting harder and harder.
   Some Googling suggested  resetting Firefox.  The reset command is deeply hidden (Help ->troubleshooting info->reset. ).  It works, didn't break anything.  Didn't really help, I still have the problem. 
  Interesting side note.  Reset leaves a copy of your "old" profile after creating a new fresh clean one.  The "old" profile is 27 megabytes, which is a lot.  I can see how a single tiny error in a 27 megabyte database could throw a program into an infinite loop.
   Stay tuned for future developments.   

What's Gone Wrong with Democracy?

Cover story in last week's Economist.  They run a six page special section on it.  Lotta whining about failure of democracies to legislate things they approve of, such as balanced budgets and stable currency.  More whining about failure of democracy to "take" after the revolutions in Egypt, Libya, Ukraine, and other places.
   Seems to me, Economist is confusing two really separate subjects.  One subject is the planting of democracy in undemocratic states, the other subject is democratic decision making in traditional democracies.  The causes and cures for these two subjects are different.
   To plant democracy in an previously undemocratic state is a matter of a citizenry ready for democracy.  Needed is a citizenry willing to abide by the rule of law, which means you need fair courts, that are seen to be fair.  If the courts are seen as biased, unjust, and crooked, nobody is going to pay them much heed.  Once you have some decent courts, your citizenry has to be willing to accept the court's ruling even when that ruling goes to the other side.  And you need some decent people to staff the democratic government at all levels.  They must be able to place the national interest ahead of their personal, family, tribal, and local interests. 
   Growing these and other necessary attitudes among the citizenry takes time, generations. Where the citizenry lacks these attitudes, democracy won't work. The issue in these countries is the survival of the democratic government itself. 
   The other subject, the difficulties in well established democracies like the US, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and others, to make good decisions in areas such as budgets, national debt, taxes, education, central banking, foreign policy.  The established democracies are teetering on a cusp between the makers and the takers.  The takers want more free stuff, the makers don't want to pay for more free stuff.  Both sides have about the same strength, neither side has the votes to push thru their pet programs.  The result is called "gridlock",  but its really democracy in action.  If you don't have the votes, you don't get your way.  Most of the people whining about gridlock, are actually whining that they cannot get their way when they don't have the votes. 

Computer bugs/hackers/whatever hit All Electronics

All Electronics has been around for 5 may 10 years, so it isn't a newbie on the web.  They sell electronic parts, like you used to be able to get at Radio Shack.  I ordered a bunch of stuff from them last summer.  the stuff came in, works right, and I'd sorta forgotten about it.  Til the other  night.  I get one of those "Your All Electronics order number such and such has shipped" emails.  Hmm I said to myself,  I don't remember ordering anything from them lately.  Looking at the parts on the order, I remembered ordering this stuff, and receiving it, last summer.  Very strange.
  Next morning, another email from All.  They explained they had been doing maintenance on their system and something went wrong, and a batch of old shipping notices got resent.  Not to worry, just a computer glitch, we didn't reship this stuff, and we haven't double billed anyone's credit card. 
    How much of this do I believe?  Were they hacked like Target?  I'll surely double check my Mastercard bill this month. 
    Just to be fair.  All Electronics is a perfectly reliable supplier, good stuff cheap and fast.  I'll order from them again. 

Talking with Cats

Cats have a number of things that they say to their humans.
1.  Meow                                  I want something.  Human is expected to fill in from context. 
                                                 such as Food, In, Out, Petting.
2. Purr                                       I am pleased with the world.
3. Tail lash                                  I am upset and unhappy.  Back off or you might get hurt.
4. Tail held high                           I am feeling cool and groovy today.
5. Tail held straight out and level  I am hunting and I don't want to spook the game
6. Tail between legs.                    I am scared.
7. Siren Howl.                             A war cry.
8. Merrup (part meow part purr)  I was stroked unexpectedly.
9. Hiss  (raised fur, fluffed up tail)  I am mad, you are about to get clawed

Going the other way, cats pretend not to understand anything  said to them.  Cats know that understanding leads to demands for obedience, which is far beneath the dignity of cats.  Obedience is for dogs.  

Damn tool makers

Who make tools with round handles.  So they roll off the bench, onto the floor and disappear every time I set them down.  Tools ought to have hexagonal handles, or at least a single flat side, so they stay put when you put 'em down.

Shed a tear for Radio Shack

They are hurting.  They just announced they will be closing 1000 stores.  And it may get worse.  I remember when they started up, a single store on Washington St in Boston.  That was before Tandy bought them.  In those days the store was filled with electronic parts, mostly surplus, TV antennas, hifi equipment, and ham radio stuff.  If you were building or fixing electronic stuff Radio Shack is where you went for parts.  They carried their own brand of hifi, Realistic, which never had the cache associated with Harman Kardon or Bogen or McIntosh, but the price was right and it sounded OK to my ear.  Once they even carried British Army surplus rifles for $19.95 each.  It used to be a fun place to shop, even if you didn't need any parts or rifles.
   That was a long time ago.  They are still around but the stock is less interesting, cell phones and point-n-shoot cameras, and toys.  They still have some parts and wire and connectors, but this is all little stuff, couple of dollars apiece, and you gotta sell an awful lot of it to keep the lights on.  I still buy parts for my home projects at the Shack, but that's about it.  Although Radio Shack pioneered home computers, remember the TRS-80, they seem to have faded out of that business.  They still have a few cables and connectors, but you don't see laptops or printers in the store. 
   Without a high value or a high volume product, they will continue to hurt.  When they go,  most of us will have to go Internet for electronic parts and stuff. 

Bob Beckel inserts foot into mouth

Beckel, the token liberal on Fox News's Five, said something really dumb last night.  He trashed Bush for not using enough troops against Iraq.  Really Bob.  The force we sent overran the country, seized the capital, and drove Saddam Hussein  into hiding, all with in a matter of weeks.  That's a crushing victory by anyone's standards.  Which means we sent enough soldiers to do the job. 
   I'll grant that we didn't handle victory as well as we should have, but that's not a matter of boots on the ground, that's a matter of heads up and locked. 

Godwin's Law strikes Hillary

Godwin's law comes from Internet discussion/argument groups.  The first person to invoke Hitler's name (usually by calling his opponent a Nazi)  lost the argument.  That rule used to be confined to high level Internet surfer nerds. 
   Well, Godwin's law is spreading.  Hillary Clinton compared Putin's  claim to be protecting Russians in Crimea to Hitler's claim to be protecting Sudetenland Germans in the 1930's.  Which actually is a pretty good fit.  Hitler took over Czechoslovakia claiming he was protecting ethnic Germans living in Czechoslovakia.  Putin took over the Crimea claiming that he was protecting ethnic Russians living in the Crimea.  What goes around comes around. 
   And, Hillary was forced to back off about comparing Putin to Hitler.  Apparently the liberal newsies just couldn't stomach calling a bastard a bastard.  Godwin's law moves off the 'net into the political world. 

Boston to Manchester by rail

They were talking about it on NHPR this morning.  They are spending taxpayer money on a "study".  They hope the study will be convincing enough to gain them federal funding.  Greenies love rail, they think it's low carbon.  They also love the money that rail projects soak up.  They estimated that 31,000 passengers a year would ride a Boston to Manchester train. 
   On an emotional level, I like it.  I'm a rail fan from way back, I have an HO model railroad in my guest room.  On an economic basis, it's craziness.  Right now, travelers from Boston to Manchester drive.  It's only 53 miles on I93.  Takes about an hour by my reckoning, and only 55 minutes by Google maps reckoning.  And there is bus service, takes about an hour 20 minutes and costs $18. 
   Rail would have to compete, in speed and cost to be worth the sizable money fixing up the track would cost.  The land is hilly and the existing track, all laid down in the 19th century, is curvy, which limits speed. Buying a brand new ultra straight right of way would cost maybe $10 million a mile, for 53 miles, or $530 million.  Which is probably out of the question.  Especially  for a mere 31,000 passengers.  Figure a fare of somewhat more than the bus, say $25.  That makes farebox revenue for a year $775000, and it takes 683 years to pay off  the bonds.  No can do.
   So the project has to run over existing right of way, of which there are plenty.  Much of it has been abandoned, or turned into bike trails, but some still works.  Bring the track and roadbed up to 19th century standards and the trains could surely do 60 mph, but probably not more than 100 mph.  Trains don't corner as well as cars.  So that makes the train trip somewhere between half an hour and a hour.  On the Boston end, it has to connect with the T, and it ought to have a station on 128.  Assume fixing up the track is a mere $1 million a mile, so we put $53 million into track work   At that rate the fares will pay off the bonds in a mere 68 years, assuming ALL the fare goes to baying off the bonds, with nothing for maintenance, keeping the culverts clear, buying diesel fuel, plowing the snow, paying the trainmen, buying rolling stock.  And assuming the bonds are zero interest.  At 5%,  a 68 year $53 million bond will require $147 million to pay off. 
   For the taxpayer, this isn't just a bad deal, it's a swindle. 

Filling Steve Jobs' shoes at Apple

Wall St Journal ran a nice long piece about Apple's new president, Tim Cook.  Needless to say, Mr. Cook is having a spot of bother filling in for Steve Jobs.  According to the Journal, Tim is cutting the mustard, but it's hard work.  They go on to talk about management styles, clothing styles, hair styles, and other fluff 'n stuff.
It is a full page piece, with photographs. 
   Not once does the Journal talk about how Jobs built Apple into what it is today.  Jobs could envision a new product, get it designed, get it into production, get it out to market.  And Jobs' products sold, like hot cakes.  Apple II, Macintosh, Ipod, Iphone, Ipad,  every one of them was new, nothing like it on the market, priced right, low enough to sell, high enough to turn a profit.  Good styling.  The right functions.  Not since Thomas Edison has one man  put out so many brand new products. 
    The real question us readers have, is "Can Tim Cook bring another successful new Apple product to market?"  This Journal piece didn't even attempt to answer that question. 

BitCoin gets bit

Mt Gox, the leading Bitcoin exchange announced they have been robbed.  $470 million worth of Bitcoin was stolen.  Mt. Gox halted customer withdrawals, and has filed for bankruptcy in Japan.  Mt. Gox claims that bugs in the Bitcoin programming allowed "unauthorized withdrawals".
   Wow.  Just how do you steal a Bitcoin?  And, surely each Bitcoin has a serial number.  Why cannot Mt. Gox  put out the word that Bitcoins serial numbers thus and thus and thus are stolen and not to be honored anywhere?   And since Bitcoins are a pure software concept, why cannot Mt. Gox's computers simply gin up enough Bitcoin to cover their obligations? 
   And what does one do with a stolen Bitcoin?  Surely you cannot hide it under a mattress. 
  

The Forty Knot Sailboat wins the America's Cup

Years ago I read "The Forty Knot Sailboat".  The author  described a large sailboat equipped with hydrofoils.  These underwater wings would lift the entire boat out of the water, vastly reducing drag and enabling ice boat like speeds.  Ice boats can do 100 miles an hour because the friction of the runners is zip, and doesn't rise with speed.  Whereas the friction and wave drag on a hull in the water is high, and goes up by the square of the speed.  But  once a boat is up on hydrofoils, planing,  friction drag drops off, form drag goes away and fantastic speeds become possible.  The author foresaw sailing yachts fast enough to outrun bad weather.  It all seemed like science fiction at the time.  In those days sailboats were made of wood, lines were manila fiber, dacron sails were just coming in. 
   Fast forward to the 21st century, 2013.  The America's cup, currently in possession of the Americans (again) is facing a challenge from New Zealand.   Larry Ellison of Oracle is defending the cup in San Francisco bay.  The cup defender is a huge catamaran, all carbon fiber, 72 feet long and carrying a 131 foot mast (that's better than twelve stories tall).  It's got hydrofoils, and with the right wind, it's been clocked at 55 miles per hour (48 knots) .  That's freeway speed, and it's done under sail. 
   Trouble is, hot as the Oracle boat was, the Kiwis kept beating it.  This year it takes winning nine races, match races, just two boats.  The Kiwis had won eight straight and one more win would give them the cup.  Up to this point, the Oracle crew had been sailing in accordance with computer simulations.  Oracle being a software house, I dare say every single programmer in the company  was working on America's Cup programs.  And, all the software had favored a strategy of pointing.  This is one strategy for going to windward.  You point the boat up into the wind as high as she will go, until the sail begins to luff  (flap).  This is the closest to a straight line course, and the boat gets to the windward mark by covering the shortest distance on the water. 
   The other strategy is footing.  You bear off a touch and get the sails really full of wind.  You go faster thru the water, but you have to cover more distance since you aren't going as directly to the windward mark.  For the crucial ninth race, the Oracle team decided upon footing instead of the pointing recommended by all the computers.  All, wonder of wonders, the extra speed footing gives was enough to get the boat up on foils, vastly increasing its speed.  The Oracle team came from behind, won the next nine races and kept the America's Cup in America. 

Kerry tours the Sunday TV news

I saw Kerry on Meet the Press and later this morning on Face The Nation.  He might have done some other shows too.  The administration is using TV appearances to show concern for the Ukraine situation.  Kerry clearly disapproves of Putin invading Ukraine, but other than outrage, he didn't speak of doing anything about it.  Probably 'cause Obama doesn't want to do anything, and we haven't been able to talk the Europeans into backing up any economic sanctions against the Russians.   The Europeans are afraid to say "boo", lest the Russians turn off their gas and let them all freeze in the dark.  

Kiss your Windows XP goodby

That's what Microsoft is saying.  Support for XP goes away next month, April 14.  This probably isn't the end of the world.  In the 14 years XP has been in service you would think that they had patched most, perhaps even all, of the serious security holes.  Certainly I haven't been receiving many patches in the last few months. 
  Microsoft officially recommends upgrade to the latest version, Windows 8.  They do admit that Windows 8 is a bigger ramhog and runs slower and to compensate for fatter slower Windows 8, Microsoft suggests you buy a new computer, with incredible amounts of RAM and a 1 gigahertz processor.   As far as I know, Windows 8 doesn't offer anything that XP doesn't have, except touch screen support, which is cool if you have a touch screen, but few XP machines do.  
   I plan to keep running my trusty 9 year old Compaq tower machine.  With XP it's faster than my children's laptops running Win 7 and 8.  It  surfs the web, runs all my CAD programs, supports Microsoft C and Quickbasic.  The children sneer at it, 'cause it won't run their games fast enough, but I'm not a gamer so I don't care. 
   XP is fairly reliable.  It's been a long time since I had a blue screen of death.  I still have programs lock up, but XP is still alive and can shut the offending program down. 

Targeting Target

Target Stores took a tremendous hit when hackers broke into company computers and stole the identities and credit card numbers of zillions of customers.  Certainly I will think twice before shopping at Target. 
  Little has been released about how they did it.  But it appears the bad guys infected the "point of sale" equipment (jargon for cash register).  The malware skimmed off the credit card info right at the scanner, before it was encrypted.
   Question:  How do you infect a cash register with malware?   Needless to say just about everything electronic has a microprocessor inside these days.  They work off programs stored in memory.  Understand that computer memory, random access memory (RAM) is volatile.  When the power goes off, it forgets everything.  An infection cannot survive living in RAM.  It must work its way into non-volatile storage.  In the good old days, devices like cash registers kept their programs in Programmable Read Only Memory, PROMS for short.  PROMS were cheap and very dependable and best of all, they could not be written in circuit.  Only special test equipment, PROM programmers, could write into PROMS.  The only way to change programs burned into PROM was for a tech to open the device casework, remove the old PROM and insert a new PROM.  You ain't going to pull off that stunt over the Internet.  I suppose the bad guys could have infiltrated Target after closing hours (does Target ever close?)  and rework all the cash registers.  Does not sound likely to me.
   And, technology moves on.  They invented the Electrically Eraseable PROM, EEPROM which can be reprogrammed in circuit.  Production loved them.  They used to buy blank PROMS, keep them in the stockroom, program batches of them, get the programmed ones stuffed into boards as opposed to blank ones.   Blank PROMs look just like programmed PROMS after all.  And make sure the right version of the program is in the PROM.  With EEPROMs all these possibilities of error go away.  Just stuff the board and solder it, then program the EEPROM in circuit.  And with EEPROMS we now have the possibility of changing the program in the cash register without laying a hand on it.  Assuming the cash register make was stupid enough to allow reprogramming of his product in the field.  There are plenty of ways to disable the programming capability before you ship the product. 
    Presumable the bad guys infected Target's central computers, the ones in finance and the stockroom that talk to the cash registers and total up dollar volume of sales and keep track of inventory so they can reorder product as it sells out.  And somehow the central computers infected the cash registers, by sending new programming out over the wire to the checkout counters. Had Target been more security minded they would not have allowed the central computers to talk to the cash registers.  Just listening is enough to make the system work. 
   I assume the Target people are hard at work securing things.  I haven't heard that they had succeeded yet.

The Russians are coming

To Ukraine it looks like.  Ukraine in undergoing a revolution/civil war.  The Russians are mobilizing their army.  They call it "exercises" but it's mobilization, the troops are out in the field moving around, and it only takes a telephone call to send them over the border into Ukraine.  The Russians look upon Ukraine as historically Russian territory.  If it weren't for the strong and lasting reaction to a Ukraine Anschluss in Europe and America, they would have done it by now.  Putin surely thinks Ukraine will fall into his lap, without international repercussions if he just plays a waiting game. So the troops stay in Russia for the time being.  But that could change anytime. The Ukrainians have gotta be really worried, or perhaps scared to death, with the Russian army mobilized on their border. 

Do we really need PreK?

Pre Kindergarten education for four year olds.  Obama and DeBlasio have been plumping for it, calling for new taxes to pay for it.  Question: Does PreK education to any good?  Or are the kids just too young to get anything out of it?  Head Start, the federal preK program started by JFK, doesn't seem to do much good.  Studies show that any difference between Head Start kids and other kids is pretty much gone by third grade.  Parents do find that PreK solves the daycare problem nicely, but that's about it.
   Way back when, I have wonderful memories of playing out of doors with the Center St gang when I was 4 and 5.  Having to start school when I was 6 was a downer.  Playing with the gang beat sitting at a desk any day.  Do we have to coop kids up in school so young? 

Climate Change. What can't it do?

Cold and snowy winters, climate change.  Drought in the US southwest, more climate change.  Rain and flooding in Britain, climate change.  Hot and sticky summers , climate change,  Arctic ice cap melting out, climate change.  Arctic ice cap freezing over, climate change. 
   Climate change is like bacon, it's good with everything. They used to call it Global Warming, except the Goddard Institute of Space Studies data shows world temps stopped rising about 1990 or 1991.  So they changed over to calling it climate change.  No matter what happens it's change.  No hope, just evil change.
Call every bit of bad weather around the world climate change and of course it's evil and needs to be fought. 
  Oh yes, and they can tax the heat, tax the electricity, subsidize battery powered cars, raise the price of gasoline,  demand real cars get 50 mpg, close down electric power plants,  and attempt to force us back to a Hiawatha life style. 

Helicopter falls out of the sky

Happened last November 29th in Glasgow, Scotland.  A police helicopter suffered twin engine failures, both engines quit, and the chopper fell onto the roof of a pub.  All three crewmen and seven patrons of the pub were killed.  Must have been quite a scene,  crowded pub, everyone hoisting beer mugs, and suddenly a helicopter busts thru the ceiling and crashes on the bar. 
   Accident investigation hasn't found anything useful.  Twin engine aircraft are not supposed to have both engines fail.  That's why there are two of 'em.  There was 5-6 gallons of fuel left in the tanks, enough to 10-15 minutes of flight.  Nothing wrong was found in either engine.  No radio distress calls were made.  The main and tail rotors had stopped turning by the time the helo hit the roof.  No evidence of an autorotation to a safe landing.  The chopper was just flying along, both engines stop, and it falls like a brick.  No one knows why.
  

So how big a US Army do we need?

First let look at what we might need the Army to do.  How about defending Israel from invasion?  How about doing regime change on Iran rather than allowing them to go nuclear?  How about staving off an invasion of South Korea?  Or, in the aftermath of a second Korean War, doing regime change in Pyongyang?  How about intervening in some armpit in Africa to prevent another genocide?  How about cleaning out pirate bases in Somalia?  How about intervention in the Balkans, or some East European armpit?
   I'm not saying that we ought to do any of these things, but I do think America needs the capability, just in case.  So what does it take to do the job?  We did Iraq with 140,000 troops deployed in country.  It would take more to deal with North Korea.  Let's say we need 200,000 soldiers on active duty, with maybe that many again in the reserves.  Modern war is quick, you gotta run what you brung.  There is not time to enlist and train troops, the war is over before that happens. 
   Obama wants to cut the army down to 450,000 men.  Sounds like enough?  Dunno.  The 140,000 soldiers sent to Iraq were all combat troops, infantry, tankers, gunners.  Historically, the US Army has a ratio of tooth to tail of about 9 to1.  For every combat soldier carrying weapons in the face of the enemy there are nine support troops driving supply trucks, manning depots, cooking, doing paperwork, fixing jeeps, building schools and bridges, etc, etc, ad nauseum.  Based on past experience, a 450,000 man US Army might contain only 45,000 real soldiers, which clearly ain't enough. 
   In actual fact, American troops have plenty of experience in every line of work.  Men capable of fighting on the front line, are capable of doing pretty much anything else that might be needed.  I suggest that a lot of the specialists behind the lines could be re trained as infantry and sent to the front.   Regular units can do much of the work now done by specialists.  If we could get the ratio of tooth to tail down to maybe 2 to 1, then maybe 450,000 men might be enough. 
  

Mars has rivers

A lot of rivers.  We put a photo recon satellite, the Mars Global Surveyor, into orbit around Mars in 1997.  It carried wonderful cameras that returned zillions of sharp clear photographs of the Martian surface.  The best of the pictures are collected in a softback book "A travelers guide to Mars", William K. Hartmann.  Thumbing thru this book, the dried up river beds are striking, and there are  lot of 'em.  There is no question that they are rivers, even to my layman's eye they really look like rivers.  You can see deltas at the end of them where they flowed into ancient Martian seas.  Shades of Edgar Rice Burroughs
   Some of them flowed recently (like within the last 10 million years).  You can tell by counting meteor craters.  Old (going back to the formation of Mars) land is wall to wall craters.  New land, recent lava flows, has fewer craters, partly because they have had less time to accumulate meteor hits, and partly because the meteor hit rate has dropped off in more recent times.  The plentiful meteors at the time of solar system formation got swept up by planets over time.  Some of the rivers have no craters at all, which makes them very recent. 
   The unanswered question is, where did the water come from, and where did it go?  We have found a few dozen meteorites on Earth that we believe came from Mars. Some have been dated back to 4500 megayears (pretty much the formation of Mars) and some to as recently as 167 megayears.  All of them had been soaked in liquid water at some time in their past, as evidenced by deposits of water borne minerals in cracks and crevices.  So there was a lot of water on Mars, as recently as the youngest meteorites.  We think the water is still there, soaked into the soil and frozen. 
  We think Mars has been cold, and short on atmosphere, as it is today, for the last 3000 megayears.  So how did the water to form river beds as recently as 10 megayears ago come from?  No good answer has been proposed as of yet.  We think there is plenty of water frozen in the Martian soil, but how did it melt and flow on the surface?  No one knows. 
   We now think that Mars had open water, seas and rivers from the beginning, say 4500 megayears ago, until perhaps 3000 megayears ago.  That gives 1500 megayears for some kind of life to evolve in Martian seas.  Perhaps some such life still exists somewhere on Mars. 

Aerodynamic efficiency and the airliner of the future

Today's airliners are a long tubular fuselage, carrying the passengers and cargo atop a wing that does all the aerodynamic work, lifts, stability etc.  A good deal of sheet metal goes along just to carry the payload.  A more efficient design (illustrated on the cover of Aviation Week)  blends the wing and the fuselage into a single body, like the B2 flying wing bomber.  The B2 is as efficient as it gets, it's all wing, no structure is just along for the ride.  Fortunately the payload (iron bombs) is good and dense and doesn't take up much room inside the wing.  Passengers are not that dense. 
   So the blended wing Lockheed  design is a wing with a great swelling in the middle to accept a passenger cabin.  Trouble is, cabins have to be pressurized, which imposes enormous forces trying to blow the cabin open.  With only 5 pounds per square inch cabin pressure, over the 13 million square inches of a typical cabin, you get nearly 70 million pounds of force straining the cabin walls.  The only structure that can resist this is a round tube, like present day airliner fuselages.  So the Lockheed designers have a cylindrical passenger cabin buried inside their swoopy blended wing/body swelling.  Trouble is, we have many feet of space between the cabin wall and the outer skin.  Which makes cabin windows impossible.  Which doesn't bother the designers, cabin windows are a pain, heavy, prone to leaks, points of weakness, and crack start locations.  They are happy to omit cabin windows.
   Passengers are not in favor.  They like window seats, they like being able to see out, and they like sunshine.  Boarding a windowless airliner gives some of them the willies, and depresses many others. 
   Maybe the conventional jet liner design is not so inefficient after all.

GIMP, poor man's photo edit program.

Gnu Image Manipulation Program.  Very powerful, free, photo edit program.  It can do things that Picassa cannot such as correct perspective, filter out artifact, smooth out seams, and bunch of other stuff.  Extremely steep learning curve, which is a polite way of saying the program is user hostile.  The GIMP people assign whimsical names to things, the on line documentation doesn't describe or explain many obscure concepts used in the program.  GIMP enthusiasts claim that GIMP can do everything Adobe Photoshop can do and then some.  This may be true, if you have the time to experiment until GIMP starts to work.  Version 2.8  can now drive the printer under Windows, something that the previous version 2.6 could not. 
   Anyhow, wanting to correct the perspective, and being too cheap to buy Photoshop, I downloaded GIMP.  And it does work.  If someone would write a decent manual, in plain English, it could be a winner.

I'll take the high road and you'll take the low road

And I'll be in Scotland before ye.  Scotland, formerly an independent kingdom, merged with England at the beginning of the 17th century.  It was part of the deal upon the death of the childless Queen Elizabeth, by which the Scottish King, James, became king of England, as well as of Scotland.  So this is a deal that goes way back.  Despite some tensions, and a number of old rivalries, the merger worked fairly well, at least to outsiders, it looked like the writ of the London government ran over all of the British Isles, and it has been that way for 400 years. 
   Zap, Pow, Kablam.  Save your whiskey cups, the Scots will rise again.  Scottish separatism has come to the point where there will be a referendum on Scottish independence in September.  Polling right now is mixed, the referendum might go either way.  If Scotland votes to leave Great Britain there are a number of "issues".  Like money.  The Scots want to keep using the British pound, the Brits have said  "No way".  The Scots want to become/remain EU members and the EU is saying, "Perhaps, but no guarantees".  Who knows what this will do to the British Army, who will have to turn the Black Watch, all the kilts, all the bagpipes over to the Scots.  The Brits get to keep their redcoats and bearskin hats, but no more bagpipers piping the troops into the attack, like we see in all the old WWII movies.. 
   Or course Scottish separatism may go the way of  Quebec separatism, where it got voted down by a thin margin some years ago, and has died out. 
   When Quebec separatism was riding high (before the referendum) some Quebec leaders visited Wall St to inquire about floating bonds and exchanging the newly created Quebec currency.  According to the Wall St Journal, the Americans poured cold water on the separatist idea.  The Quebecers were told, no loans, no bonds, and we won't accept your currency.  Which had something to do with the referendum failing a few months later.

Case of beer bet on Can Am hockey game

Heard on Fox TV this morning.  Obama bet a case of beer with Canadian prime minister Stephan Harper on the woman's Can-Am hockey game. 
  What?  A case of Bud Lite against a case of Molson's?  You gotta be kidding.  Especially as Canadians think American beer is watery and flavorless.  I agree with them, and fortunately I live close enough to Canada to get the good stuff. 
   They should have bet a case of whiskey.  A case of Jack Daniels against a case of Canadian Club, now there's a bet.
By the way.  Congratulations to both hockey teams.  

Cannon Mt Ski Weather

It didn't rain last night.  It cooled off and we got a dusting (too little to measure) over night.  It's warm this morning, a degree or two above freezing and my roof is melting off, at least my icicles are dripping.  Skiing ought to be pretty good. 

Ukraine

Looks like they have a good little civil war going there.  One side is on our side.  We wish them well.  We ought to give them diplomatic and public relations support.  But we cannot give them military support.  Ukraine is right next to Russia, and the Russians look on it as estranged Russian territory.  They won't allow US military action in Ukraine.  They will oppose us, with the full force of their army, fighting close to home, on home soil.  We don't want to get into a fight with the Russians.  They can probably beat an American expeditionary force operating so far from home.  And if they cannot, they still have nukes.  We don't want to go there. 
  It's like the East German uprising in the 1950's, the Hungarian uprising in the late '50s, the Czechoslovakian uprising in the '60s.  We sympathized with the insurgents, but we didn't dare touch off a war with the Russians.  So let let the Russians crush the uprisings.  It's grin and bear it time, again. 

Can a shoe bomb bring down an airliner?

I mean just how much explosive can you fit into a shoe? Really.  And Boeing builds very rugged airplanes.  They have been doing it since the legendary B-17 of WWII, one of which was tough enough to fly back to base after a mid air collision with a German fighter.  The modern 737/777/787 jetliners are very strongly built.  I think the best a shoe bomb could do is punch a smallish hole in the skin, depressurizing the cabin. This would be exciting for all on board, but the plane will keep flying.
   TSA snoopers must love this.  Another excuse to make life miserable for passengers.    

Cannon Mt Ski Weather

We got maybe four inches of snow yesterday.  Hard to be sure how much, cause we got a lot of wind that blew it everywhere.  With four inches of new snow on top of last weeks nine inches, Cannon is in good shape right now. 
  Clouds on horizon.  It's warm, 40 F right now.  More precip is forecast for tonight.  It might be snow, but it might be rain.  The weather guys are non committal.  Unless it cools down some, it will be rain. 

How dumb are American voters?

Listen to the pundits prognosticating the next election.  They all think, the Republicans ought to win fairly big, win the Senate, increase their house majority, but they all are hedging on the the air.  None of 'em are really sure what will happen, at least not sure enough to risk their reputation on a prediction.
   So here we have a dreadful economy, going back five years.  A $900 billion porkulus bill that didn't get the economy going again.  The voters are out of work, or worried about losing their jobs.  Obamacare is cancelling everyone's health insurance, and threatening to get even worse.  The Obamacare policies cost more and cover less.  People can no longer see their regular doctors.  We have let the Taliban take over Iraq, and looks like we give them Afghanistan next year.  The Iranians are building nukes.  Obama has squandered taxpayer money on crony green schemes like Solyndra.  He is closing down coal power plants to hike electric rates.  He is stalling the Keystone XL pipeline project.  He has turned the IRS into a political secret police.  He is covering up the Benghasi scandal.  He was passing out guns to Mexican drug runners.  He has hiked everyone's taxes.  He has run up the national debt to $17 trillion. He and his wife take expensive and frequent vacations on the taxpayer's dime.
   With a record like that, even the dumbest voter ought to vote a straight Republican ticket.  But will they?  These are the same voters who re elected this turkey just a year ago, when his record was just as bad.  

Innovation is what keeps everyone employed

Innovation goes right back to the founding of the American Republic.  Inland canals, cotton gin, steam railroad, repeating firearms, telegraph, mechanical reapers, telephone, electric light, motion pictures, motor vehicles, aircraft, radio, washing machines, refrigerators, air conditioning, radar, 33 rpm records, automatic transmission, microwave ovens,  CD players, personal computers, cell phones. 
  Each of these products caught on, sold like crazy, and created industries, employed people, and made money.  Every since the industrial revolution, a small portion of the population has been able to create all the food, clothing, housing and services that the country can consume.  It takes an innovation to keep everyone busy.  After a while, everyone has the innovation, and sales slack off.  In the past, we took up the slack by yet more innovation, another new product that catches on, sells like crazy and keeps the economy moving. 
  What's the next big thing?
   And what can we do to keep the flow of innovation coming?

Can the US keep a secret?

We have insurrections in Ukraine and Venezuela which are on our side.  We ought to be supporting them.  We can furnish money, intelligence, internet access, paperwork (passports and such), favorable publicity, and drone strikes.  And other things.
   Trouble is, support like this has to be kept secret.  Otherwise our supporters get called American stooges and worse.  The insurrections have to be seen as legitimate native uprisings by the opponents, the natives, the EU, and just about everyone in the world, otherwise they loose legitimacy.  Can the US keep support a secret?  Can the US keep anything a secret? We had US assistant secretary of state Victoria Nuland, blow her cover over the phone just a couple of weeks ago.   For that matter will Obama see these insurrections as something he should support?  He was stupid enough to cold shoulder an Iranian insurgency a couple of years ago. 
   For that matter would insurgents dare talk to US agents?  After CIA has leaked all sorts of stuff to the NY Times?  Some years ago we were intercepting Bin Ladin's satellite phone conversations.  CIA leaked that, and Bin Laden scrapped the sat phone and went back to couriers.  Every one remembers that one. 

Near Earth objects, on Fox News

Astronomers have detected a small asteroid/giant meteor coming sorta close to Earth tonight.  Sorta close is like 8 times the distance to the moon, which isn't really all that close.  The object is a thousand meters across, which would make one heluva hole if it were to hit the Earth. 
   Then Fox dove off into magic, far beyond even the science of Star Trek.  In the future, with enough funding, we could send a space craft to intercept (there have been movies, Armageddon, Bruce Willis, about this) and use the space craft's GRAVITY to deflect  the rock.  Not a chance.  We have a space going rock the size of a small mountain.  The gravitational pull between even a monster spacecraft, one the size of an aircraft carrier, and a mountain sized rock, would be a matter of ounces.  A hundred ounces of pull ain't gonna move a mountain sized rock.  Not ever.
   Possible, even with today's technology, would be to place a large fusion bomb to one side.  Detonate it, and I guarantee you that sucker will move.  If it doesn't move enough, set off  more nukes.  Or, if the rock is not very strong, the bomb will blow it into gravel.
   So far so good.  There is one bad outcome.  The bomb blows a huge rock, say a 10 mile rock, into dozens of one mile fragments.  In that case, best have more nukes available to deal with each of the fragments.
    For this to work, we have to build the necessary rockets, and bombs, and keep them on standby, ready to launch on maybe a day's warning.   That will cost serious money. 

Phishing nearly caught me

So I'm doing a little leisurely Sunday web surfing.  I leave the machine to make a cup of hot chocolate.  When I get back, I have a new window open, one I've never seen before.  Looks official.  And it says there is an emergency browser update, hot off the presses, and I ought to click right here to install the update.  It will only take a few seconds. 
  I nearly clicked.  Which probably would have been a big mistake. 
  But I hesitated, and thought.  This isn't the way Firefox updates.  They never do a full screen window, their update routine looks different.  In fact, I just updated Firefox to version 27.0.1  a couple of days ago.  And it didn't look anything like this.  So, I closed the window, closed Firefox.
   Restarting Firefox, I clicked on the "check for updates" button inside Firefox, and lo and behold, Firefox reports himself all up to date.  So much for emergency browser updates.
   The scary part is, that update browser window managed to force itself onto my PC with no help from me.  That's kinda unusual.  Then it wanted me to click on a button.  I wonder why.  Here is a hostile website, powerful enough to move into my computer all by itself.  Anything that powerful can do pretty much anything it pleases.  Why does it want to get a mouse click from me?