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It goes, boys!

To quote my friend LH with regard to something she did a while back. Honnold solos El Cap. Not exactly a surprise, as most everyone expected that it would be done, and he’d be the one to do it, but still, a welcome surprise. Well done, sir! What is also not surprising is the pearl-clutching […]

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Rocket ships and immortality

My private mental ravings put into words, better, by someone else… [A]n important question is how this globalized, unaccountable tech industry sees its goals. What does it want? What will all the profits be invested in? What is the plan? The honest answer is: rocket ships and immortality. I wish I was kidding. — Maciej […]

Just sayin’

I’m not saying this is all because the Cubs won the Series… but it’s because the Cubs won the series.

Perfect

This is perfect. Pasadena Police Department will step up Bike & Pedestrian Safety Enforcement Operations on Monday, May 15, 2017 with focused enforcement on collision causing factors involving motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists. This operation is also in remembrance of [a seven year old kid], who at the age of seven, was struck and killed by […]

Bliss + letdown = constant

Climbing makes me happy. Being a position where I have to rely on others to belay me and thus dependent on their flakiness makes me unhappy. I propose, that like the amount of sunlight that any given spot on the earth receives in a year [1], this relationship is bounded on the lower end by […]

Linear relationship between excellence and sociability

The harder I climb, the friendlier people are to me. Below V5/5.12, I’m invisible. Above that, people start talking to me out of the blue. I’m pretty sure my RBF is the same above and below. Same thing happened when I was running sub-55s 400m and sub-7 miles.

QotD 30 April 2017

I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will. –Antonio Gramsci, Letter from Prison (19 December 1929)

If it weren’t for rocks, we’d all be surfers

This person would be an awesome climber. She gets it. I don’t surf. I wish I did, but I grew up on the ocean of the Great Plains. Climbing is like this. Maybe moreso. Everyone fails, all the time. If you aren’t failing, you aren’t trying hard enough. Unless you are Adam Ondra or Alex […]

40 hours

“A fracture occurred” is how the powerpoint read. Meaning that working alone on a Sunday afternoon, the contractor broke the glass, leading to another check for $500k to the contractor – cost-plus, don’t you know. Proof again, that will be totally ignored, that working more hours doesn’t save you money – it costs you money. […]

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Damn you, Qualcomm!

TIL: The reason I don’t have a cellular radio in my laptop is that Qualcomm bases its supposedly FRAND prices on the cost of the device their radios are put into, not the cost of the chip. Qualcomm get more for an iPhone 7 ($1000) than an iPhone SE ($500), and would get much, much […]

Missing the point

For years, decades, we’ve had only individual stories of cops shooting people. Michael Brown. Tamir Rice. Just go look. Then one reporter decided to tabulate statistics. Get numbers. Collate data. Then what did RadioLab do? Did they analyze the data, get more data, make plots, do correlations, etc.? Any of the usual data analysis techniques […]

Markers

Anytime I read a post in a tech blog (looking at you, /.) that talks about mining He-3 [1] or telescopes [2] <Vincent Price voice>on the moon</Vincent Price voice>, I know I’m dealing with an idiot and I can stop paying attention. I was sitting on a ski lift listening to the other people talk […]

PotD 16 April 2017

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PotD 15 April 2017

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Just what the doctor ordered

The so-called liberal MSM [1] hires another conservative from the WSJ to write op-eds. His greatest hit? Stop hitting yourself! Reason #423 in a list of thousands why the NYT will never receive another dime from me… [1] There is no such thing of course. All the Sunday newsprograms are dominated by conservatives, all the […]