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US government funded scientists have measured the speed of glaciers in Greenland as they move down to the sea over the past ten years, and discovered that – while the glaciers have speeded up somewhat – there’s no indication that this will mean major sea level rises.

Well, shucks. What’s a global warming alarmist to do?

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This actually looks pretty useful — at least until the checkout people in Target and Kroger can be broken of the habit of putting each item purchased in its own separate plastic bag.

Check it out. And drool.

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Boyer describes his course as an “Intro to the Planet” that brings “the average completely uninformed American” up to speed on world issues. His approach? Decentralize the rigid class format by recreating assessment as a gamelike system in which students earn points for completing assignments of their choosing from many options (1,050 points earns an A, and no tasks, not even exams, are required). Saturate students with Facebook and Twitter updates (some online pop quizzes are announced only on social media). Keep the conversation going with online office hours.

Biden on Iran: “I Promise You, the President Has A Big Stick”.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

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Woolrich, a 182-year-old clothing company, describes its new chino pants as an elegant and sturdy fashion statement, with a clean profile and fabric that provides comfort and flexibility.

And they are great for hiding a handgun.

The company has added a second pocket behind the traditional front pocket for a weapon. Or, for those who prefer to pack their gun in a holster, it can be tucked inside the stretchable waistband. The back pockets are also designed to help hide accessories, like a knife and a flashlight.

The chinos, which cost $65, are not for commandos, but rather, the company says, for the fashion-aware gun owner. And Woolrich has competition. Several clothing companies are following suit, building businesses around the sharp rise in people with permits to carry concealed weapons.

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-Great definition of “nerds”: “I’ve come to the conclusion that “nerdy” translates to, “An item or activity pursued by men that isn’t directly related to attracting or providing for women.”” For some reason, I have a visceral dislike of nerds and overly smiley, nice men.

-Predicting today’s news: Someone was killed by someone else over some conflict in some country. In other news, someone had sex with someone else when they weren’t supposed to.

-Twitter is populated by bots and people following other people so that other people follow them. I have a feeling no one actually reads anyone else’s tweets.

Read it.

Is your office less like a workplace and more like a battlefield? Head into the day prepared with the Bolt Action Tactical Pen ($50). Built from anodized milled aluminum, it features a bolt action mechanism that opens and closes the pen tip, an integrated clip, and a flat head in case all the goofing around becomes an actual, “I need to stab someone in the eye” battle.

For all your merc-wannabe needs.

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For example, c-Jump — a board game that teaches the basics of programming. Some of the spaces you’ll land on in the course of your journey down the mountain include “goto jump;” and “switch (x) {“. Then there’s CPU Wars, for the three people out there that think Magic: The Gathering is too mainstream.

Freeberg has created a useful new word, as is his wont.

Real science knows what has been demonstrated after the research is done. Red-dot science knows what has been proven, after, during, and before this research; the research itself is little more than a tangent. Most people with normal working brains, very often have at least the unsettling suspicion they’re looking at such a false brand of science when they read about studies that say, for example, “women suffer more than men do” or “girls are much more advanced in [blank] than boys” or anything of the form “World To End, Women & Minorities Hardest Hit.” Any story about a study that begins “Researchers wondered what would happen if…” inspires thoughts, although it isn’t mentioned much, of wonder about the wondering by the researchers. Wait, what kind of “researchers” would wonder about that? Intellectually-capable, non-agenda-driven people read things like that and think — waitaminnit, was this open to question or was it not? If it was not open to question, why did the money get spent on the study? And if it is indeed questionable and therefore there must be difficulty in measuring it, then how come there never, ever seem to be any “outlier” studies, even ones that are subsequently discredited, that suggest something contrary? Even through error? Like, ever?

And, of course, it wouldn’t be science without a cat.

Read it. And watch the video.

Last month Altaeros Energies demonstrated its Airborne Wind Turbine, a 35-foot-wide blimp that could carry a turbine hundreds of feet into the air in order to harness stronger winds. While we had heard about the achievement, the company has now released a video showing the AWT in action. The clip shows the turbine blimp being tested 350 feet in the air, where it managed to generate twice the amount of power as a land-based turbine and then transfer it back to the ground through special tethers. It’s impressive to watch, but the company has even bigger plans for the AWT — eventually it’s expected to reach heights of over 1,000 feet.

And if these are widely deployed, how long before some stupidly-piloted aircraft or helicopter flies into the tethers and crashes? Nobody thinks things through any more.

Read it.

Boffins in Taiwan and the University of California predict that nanoscale CMOS memory could soon be on its way after research showed nanodot memory operating 10 to 100 times faster than current RAM. The electro-optics researchers also emphasised that they had used materials that are compatible with mainstream integrated circuit technologies…

We have the technology.

A classic cartoon.

Freeberg makes up a useful new word.

1. You have a problem and want everyone to know about it; it is the very same problem other people have had, and have managed to solve, while keeping it to themselves.
2. This doesn’t bother you in the slightest.
3. The answer you have in mind for your problem involves a change in the rules that would affect EVERYONE.
4. You partner up with special-interest and advocacy groups, politicians, “community organizers” and so forth, and give lots of press conferences and interviews about this problem you’ve got…that thousands, maybe millions, of other people have managed to solve without bugging anyone at all.
5. That doesn’t bother you either.
6. You have your problem in years that are divisible by 4.
7. Inexplicably and strangely, while yammering away about how helpless you are until such time that the rules are changed so that everyone is forced to reckon in some way with your problem, and bitching up a storm about some guy on the radio calling you dirty names, you still want to let everyone know how tough you are and how you don’t back down, that you’ve got a backbone of solid steel, your will be done, you’ll triumph over anything, never get discouraged…blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
8. Just like a kid on the playground at recess during third grade, you are entirely unable to distinguish between people who have logical/moral reservations against your idea (which, as noted above, would impact everyone)…and…well, you’ll slander ‘em any which way you possibly can, won’t you. Chauvinists, sexist pigs, Nazis, monsters, DirtyRottenCreepyJerks…nobody can be a decent human being unless they back your idea. Because your skin is too thin to handle disagreement, skepticism or legitimate criticism.

Next up. Motherfluker. Suggested definitions are now being accepted.

See, there’s the thing. In the pre-teen years, the dudes have to make a choice. They can grow up to be sissies who are constantly complaining that this-or-that basic challenge in life is tooooooo haaaaaard…can’t handle it by themselves, start hollering for help even where it’s obvious they should be able to succeed by themselves. But you have to give up your big-badass title to do that. You can act like a smug prick if you want, like our current Commander in Chief. You can wrap yourself up in a thick blanket of that “NPR male” not-quite-masculine sissy-rage, like Keith Olbermann or Alan Alda used to do when people were still paying attention to them. But you can’t go strutting around like a modern Conan The Barbarian when you need someone else to twist the top off your soda pop for ya. If you insist on having your cake and eating it too, you get your ass kicked. It’s wired into the male DNA. We put up with bossy male progs, expecting that after they’re done strutting around and acting imperious, they’ll go away, or at least get out of the way. To actually take the top-dog spot, for reals, pulling rank after you got done proving you aren’t good for anything — that’s a whole different story. Men don’t tolerate this in other men.

Oh, noes! Sex-linked differences! How politically incorrect!

We’re now very deep into the Age of the Fluker. I hope it’s a brief blip on the radar of our history. I don’t know if it’s up to the women to stop it, or up to the men to stop it, or to motivate the women to stop it, or if the two sexes need to work together on it somehow. Whatever the case may be, this cannot continue. There are reasons men make other men choose between prestige and the soft blanket of helplessness. No society can survive for long when its rules are created and refined by the wanker set.

Hear, hear.

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Scientists monitoring water flow in streams at test sites across the USA have found, unexpectedly, that the global warming seen in the late 20th century had basically no effect on most of the ecosystems they studied.

I guess we’re not all going to die after all. Imagine that.

Thanks, Freeberg.

Arnold Kling looks on the bright side.

Twenty years ago, most well-off US citizens owned a camera, a video camera, a CD player, a stereo, a video game console, a cell phone, a watch, an alarm clock, a set of encyclopedias, a world atlas, a Thomas Guide, and a whole bunch of other assets that easily add up to more than $10,000. All of which come standard on today’s smart phones…that’s how quickly $10,000 worth of expenses can vanish.

Read it.

I can live with that.

Participate.

Hurry, before some drone in Congress makes it official.

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In town, where almost every German has a relative who has married an American and moved to the United States over the six decades the base has been here, many talk of picking up stakes, too.

“I’m heading to Texas,” said Irmtraud Goettel, 64, who runs a hotel and open-pit barbecue restaurant with her husband. Longhorns are mounted above the bar, a reminder of her granddaughter, who’s about to graduate from college in the Lone Star State.

“You know what I do in Texas?” Goettel said. “I like to pop open a big can of Natural Light” — much better than German beer, she said — “sit on the back porch, fire up the grill.”

You’ll have to fight your way past the people moving from Michigan.

Read it.

Read it. And watch the video.

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And who are we to say he’s not?

“It was a magnificent home,” he told the Sentinel. “Did we need it? No. Did we want it? Yes.”

Yeah, that’s always said ‘frugal’ to me….

Megan McArdle articulates (much better than I could) her position (with which I agree) regarding certain aspects of modern life.

A good kitchen gadget lowers the marginal cost, in time or money, of producing good food.  More than occasionally, they also produce better food than you can do unassisted.  Toasters make better toast than your oven does.  Food processors make better pie crust than tediously fooling with two forks or a pastry blender while your fat gets warm.   Genoise can fail on even the most expert cook, but the Thermomix method is basically foolproof–and produces a product just as good as the old hand method.

And that’s what progress is all about: Getting machines to do the boring and tedious parts of a process, so that humans can spend more time on the interesting and fun parts, and so that we get a final result that as many people as possible can afford.

Read it.

A fascinating look at how Torahs are made.

Eric S Raymond liked it.

And so did I.

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Unlike conventional silicon, the new chip uses light — not electricity — to perform its logic. By creating an array of nano-rods, light-flow can be treated like voltage and current. These rods can then be configured to emulate electrical components such as resistors, inductors and capacitors.

We have the technology — or soon will.

Read it. And watch the video.

Chris Christie on Warren Buffet: The gift that keeps on giving.

Read all about it.

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A remote-controlled aircraft owned by an animal rights group was reportedly shot down near Broxton Bridge Plantation Sunday near Ehrhardt, S.C.

Imagine that.

Steve Hindi, president of SHARK (SHowing Animals Respect and Kindness), said his group was preparing to launch its Mikrokopter drone to video what he called a live pigeon shoot on Sunday when law enforcement officers and an attorney claiming to represent the privately-owned plantation near Ehrhardt tried to stop the aircraft from flying.

“It didn’t work; what SHARK was doing was perfectly legal,” Hindi said in a news release. “Once they knew nothing was going to stop us, the shooting stopped and the cars lined up to leave.”

In other words, they were a bunch of shits devoted to sticking their noses into other people’s business — their citizenship may be American, but their hearts are European.

He said the animal rights group decided to send the drone up anyway.

“Seconds after it hit the air, numerous shots rang out,” Hindi said in the release. “As an act of revenge for us shutting down the pigeon slaughter, they had shot down our copter.”

Quelle domage.

He claimed the shooters were “in tree cover” and “fled the scene on small motorized vehicles.”

Laughing like loons all the way, I’m sure.

“This was SHARK’s first encounter with the Broxton Bridge Plantation, but it will certainly not be the last,” Hindi said in the release. “We are already making plans for a considerably upscaled action in 2013.”

Perhaps the next time higher caliber weapons will make their appearance. I should think a drone an even more challenging target than a clay pigeon. Just sayin’.

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But you knew that.

Read it. And watch the video.

‘Judge, it needed killin’.’ Sometimes the old ways are best.

Check it out.

Tell the truth: You’ve always suspected as much….

Read it. And watch the video, which is freaky.

We have the technology … almost.

Check it out.

Really, does it get any better than this?

Freeberg explores the wonderful world of computer errors.

Read it. And watch the video.

Now that’s entertainment.

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Read it.

Welcome aboard, Niall. Don’t forget to wipe your feet.

Watch it.

I don’t think I’ve ever laughed at anything so hard this year.

Well, so far, anyway.

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Buzzword Bingo a là Gingrich.

I don’t care who you are, that’s funny.

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And that’s what makes Us different from Them.

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The new entrepreneur: Making money off of helping people cope with the bureaucracy. Not that this is a new thing (do a Google search for ‘tax help’) but they have a nice narrow niche and they’re serving it beautifully well.

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Just about every product or service that makes our lives better requires a mass market or it’s not economic to bother offering. Those who invent and produce for the mass market get rich. And the more these innovators better the rest of our lives, the richer they get but the less they can differentiate themselves from the masses whose wants they serve. It’s the Pages and Bransons and Zuckerbergs who have made the unequal equal: So, sure, income equality may widen, but consumption equality will become more the norm.

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Truly, this is a great time to be alive. And it will only get better.

Freeberg looks at a .700 caliber rifle. Watch the video.

The rifle, with just a 16.25? barrel, can push the 1132 grain of lead up to 2300 fps. Thats 13,000 ft/lbs of energy, right up there with the .50 BMG and far exceeding the .700 Nitro Express. The cast lead bullet has enough energy to pass clean through a 1/4? steel plate.

.700 caliber is about the diameter of a penny and just shy of the size of the bullets used in classic smoothbore muskets. Needless to say, having such a weapon in your possession, much less actually owning one, would be illegal in most European countries.

Steve Sailer is shooting some post-Turkey-Day fish in a barrel.

On p. 6 of Back to Work, I tripped over a sentence of 85 words. Alerted, I began to keep track of Clinton’s XXXL-sized sentences. By page 20, I had found additional leviathans of 91, 105, 110, 98, 118, and a round 200 words. I decided to give up counting. But, then, on pp. 23-24, Clinton lets loose with a blue whale of a sentence comprising 346 words.

Cicero did that all the time — but then, he wrote in Latin; it’s doubtful Clinton could distinguish Latin from latte.

In the past, the Clintons have been notorious for not acknowledging their ghostwriters. For example, Simon & Schuster paid Barbara Feinman $120,000 to write It Takes a Village for Hillary Clinton, but the First Lady refused to mention Feinman’s name.

Shucks, I’d have done it for half of that.

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A former NBA superstar was been tugged in by a bunch of hoop-shooting strippers as their head coach ahead of the launch of a basketball league comprised entirely of topless dancers.

The 23-strong Rick’s Cabaret International chain of “upscale adult night clubs” set up its league after spotting a hole in the market – due to an acrimonious dispute between the NBA and players that has shut down the league for the last five months.

Just think of the ratings.

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Led by bioengineer James Hickman, the team pulled off the feat with help from Brown University Professor Emeritus Herman Vandenburgh, who collected muscle stem cell samples from adult volunteers. After close examination, they then discovered that under the right conditions, these samples could be combined with spinal cord cells to form connectors, or neuromuscular junctions, which the brain uses to control the body’s muscles.

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A team of open source enthusiasts is putting together instructions for how to build 50 tools essential to establishing – or reestablishing – a civilization.

The Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) is being developed by the Open Source Ecology (OSE) group, and includes such basic tools as a well drill, steam engine, and brick making machine, along with more complicated devices such as a bulldozer, 3D printer, and 50kW wind turbine. These can be built from scrap or recycled materials at a fraction of the cost of commercial machinery.