Category Archives: Uncategorized

Judith Curry Is In With The Koch Brothers

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I’m only just digesting this, but it appears that Judith Curry, climate scientist turned anti-climate change activist (more or less) has joined the Koch Brothers front group “Cause of Action“.

How do we know this? Because she has filed an Amicus Brief (2017.01.25 Mot. for Leave to File, Nos. 14-cv-101 14-cv-126 (D.C.))( on behalf of the National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute in the case of Mann vs. Those Guys, with council at Cause of Action Institute.

Go read the brief. It is pretty nasty.

Also related, this: 2017.01.25 Br. of Amicus Dr. Judith A. Curry Nos. 14-cv-101 14-cv-126 (D.C.).

Have at it.


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The Orderly Transition of Twitter

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I’m not sure this has happened before, and most people are unaware, so I thought a quick note was in order.

If you were previously following the President of the United States on Twitter, when it was Barack Obama, you followed @POTUS.

Twitter has created an account called @POTUS44, which is for President Obama. You are now automatically following that handle.

Twitter redesignated @POTUS to apply to President Trump, and left all of the President Obama followers on that account as well. So, you are now following President Trump at @POTUS.

The same applies, in parallel, to the First Lady and the Vice President.

Meanwhile, these folks have their own civilian twitter handles. President Obama is simply using his old handle (and, by the way, he follows me, just sayin’).

So, you may or may not want to update your Twitter accounts accordingly.


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Reading Around Trump Induced Depression

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This is not a time to be distracted, to turn away from politics, to eschew activism. In fact, if you are an American Citizen, you have to look back at your life and recognize that you screwed up, in two ways. First, whatever time you spent agitating and activating and acting out, turns out, was not enough. You needed to spend something like 10% more time on that. Second, whatever decisions you made as to exactly what sort of activism you would do on a given day were likely flawed. Instead of yammering about Bernie after the primary you should have been going after Trump. At the beginning of the primary process, you should have gone with the insurgent, Bernie, instead of the tried and true, Hillary. Whatever. I’m not here to tell you what you did wrong exactly, because I’ll be damned if I know. But I know, and you know, that you did something wrong.

How do I know that? Because of this:

Donald Trump Inauguration

Schedule of Inaugural Events (Eastern Time)

January 20th, 2017

8:30 a.m. ET: Trumps attend service at St. John’s Church
9:40 a.m. ET: President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama welcome Trumps to White House
9:45 a.m. ET: Obamas host a coffee and tea reception for the Trumps.
10:30 a.m. ET: Trumps, Obamas leave White House for U.S. Capitol
11:30 a.m. ET: Swearing-in ceremony
12:30 p.m. ET: The Obamas depart by helicopter
12:54 p.m. ET: President’s Room signing ceremony
1:08 p.m. ET: Luncheon
2:35 p.m. ET: Review of the troops
3 p.m. ET: Inaugural Parade
7 p.m. ET and thereafter for four years: Inaugural Bawl

See? If this election had been a landslide, then our collective yammering, protesting, messaging, teaching, communication, etc. would be part of an insurgency, a hopeful revolution, a determined evolution, or something. But what actually happened is this: We were making progress, we were turning many things around, changing things for the better, then suddenly along came this big log tied to a rope suspended from on high and it plowed right through us. An enormous, ugly, political pendulum that we thought was going in one direction had turned, and plowed through us like a bowling ball through nine pins.

But only just barely.

A while back I had been conversing for weeks with a bunch of activists, serious activists, people with their hands on the activism levers of power, serious serious people. They had been so thrown off by the outcome of the Democratic Primary that they spent huge amounts of effort making sure that a totally insignificant document, the DNC Platform, included their pet projects, and thereafter following through on that, that they simply put nearly zero effort into working against Trump. Had these remarkable and important individuals not walked away from the process at he crucial moment, they would have been the deciding factor in this election and Trump would not have been elected president. That’s my story, and it is one of dozens around the country, many of you will identify them in your own lives if you look. People were distracted, misled, or simply wrong, about this or that aspect of the election. Collectively, all of this added up to a slim victory. But it matters not how slim that victory was, because the Republican Party is 100% in charge in the White House, in both houses of Congress, and in many state chambers and state houses around the country.

Climate scientists model future climate change using a number of different model configurations, but the initial input to those models are based on various scenarios of how quickly we change our energy policies and related behaviors. With a Trump presidency and a GOP Congress, that process just got easier, because the two or three more optimistic staring assumptions can be ignored for several years. Think of the computing time that will save!

That was a very long way of saying that you can not distract yourself from the task of saving civilization over the next few years.

How to survive a Trump presidency starting now

But, during that time, you can spend a bit of time doing something that will make you feel better, maybe energized, maybe even self educated in an area that gives perspective or some other help to your psyche.

I’ve been asking around, to see what people are doing, and here, I’ll put some of the book suggestions and other ideas people have made. I expect more suggestions to come in soon, and I’ll add them to the lists.

Watch the West Wing


One idea, often mentioned, is to watch The West Wing, as an example of a better time and place. If you do that (and I suspect for many this would be a re-watch) I suggest you consider listening to The West Wing Weekly Podcast, co-hosed by Joshua Malina ahd Hrishikesh Hirway. Josh is Will Bailey from the West Wing (he currently stars in Scandal, another excellently distracting White House related show!). The podcast tracks the West Wing episode by episode, with occasional variations in that pattern. One of the best things about it are the interviews with various individuals involved with the show. Also, over time, Malina and Hirway develop a working methodology of the West Wing, including terminology, morphological and categorial functions, etc. This gives the weekly review and discussion an interesting and evolving texture. Since they are currently well into Season Two, you can start now and listen to the podcasts on your own schedule. If you catch up to them, you’ll have to start waiting for Wednesdays, when the podcast is released.

Read interesting history

One thing I’ve decided to do is to read some interesting history. It turns out that a lot of other people are doing something similar. Here is a list of what people have suggested so far:

  • History of American Presidential Elections, 1789-2008, Fourth Edition, 3-Volume Set (Facts on File Library of American History). This link is to a fairly expensive product, but note that it is several books. I’ll bet you can get the various volumes cheap and used, if you get them one at a time, or just go to the library.
  • The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Defender of the Realm, 1940-1965
  • Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
  • What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (Oxford History of the United States)
  • Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President
  • How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day
  • America in the King Years (3 Book Series)
  • Read interesting fiction

  • The Complete Wreck (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Books 1-13)
  • People of the Book: A Novel
  • Watch or listen to something interesting

  • Hamilton
  • Black Mirror – Series 1-2 and Special [DVD]
  • Roots
  • Hardcore History Podcast
  • Read current non fiction about how messed up everything is

  • Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right
  • Insane Clown President: Dispatches from the 2016 Circus
  • The War on Science: Who’s Waging It, Why It Matters, What We Can Do About It
  • Sherlock: Series Four
  • The Plot to Hack America: How Putin’s Cyberspies and WikiLeaks Tried to Steal the 2016 Election
  • Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power
  • Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present
  • Drinking suggestions

  • Talisker Storm

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  • Should I get a Google Pixel?

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    My current phone, a Google Nexus made by Motorola, is still working fine. I’m much more worried about Amanda’s Samsung, which is a nightmare. The storage on that phone is used up by Samsung proprietary gunk that can’t be removed, and she can’t insert a microSD card because the phone will not operate as an actual phone (reliably) when there is a microSD card in it. Her “deal” at Verizon is running out soon, and I’m personally hoping she goes with the Pixel. And, eventually, I’ll be in the market for an upgrade as well.

    One must make proper comparisons. So I did.

    The bottom line: Objectively, given the specs, the iPhone is the least cool, the Samsung Galaxy S7 is the most cool, and the Pixel is in the middle, but closer to the Galaxy than to the iPhone. But, if you look at the features that separate these phones, there really isn’t much difference, and your choice should probably be made on the basis of something other than these details, such as price, operating system, and your comfort with the various companies that make the phones (i.e., which company most recently did you the most emotional or physical harm!).

    The Pixels (look around for the proper storage amount and color for you):

  • Google Pixel
  • Google Pixel XL
  • The Google Pixel vs. the iPhone: there is only one important difference

    The Google Pixels (regular and XP) have somewhat better specs than the current and corresponding iPhones. The Pixel has an equivalent or better screen, a better camera, does video mostly at the same level at the lower end, but is probably overall better (except for the iPhone’s optical image stabilization, which is better to have than electronic stabilization). As far as I know, neither phone has a hand that comes out of it to slap the user and say “Turn your phone sideways, you idiot,” but I assume there is an app for that.

    The iPhones:

  • Apple iPhone 7
  • Apple iPhone 7 Plus
  • They both read fingerprints, they both have similar sensors, including the all important barometer. The Pixel has a headphone jack, and the new iPhones, sadly, do not have that. You can hook a headphone to the iPhone, but Apple has invented a new kind of plug you need to use, so you either need to buy special headphones or an adaptor.

    The iPhone has stereo, but how can it really be so small and have meaningful stereo? The iPhone may be more water resistant than the Pixel. The Pixel battery life is significantly better.

    The Pixel has more RAM. Depending on which model you get, they have similar amounts of storage, but the iPhones can be gotten with 256GB, while the max for the Pixel is 128GB . The Google free cloud storage deal is way better than the Apple deal (Apple wants you to pay for storage beyond 5GB).

    They are very close to the same price, depending on where you buy it. Other details are comparable.

    While the Pixel is probably better feature for feature in most areas, the two phones are high end and in the same major league ball park. It is not like one sucks and one is wonderful.

    So, the bottom line for this comparison is: Which operating system do you like? If you like Android, get the Pixel. If you like iOS, get the Apple. Neither one is going to disappoint you, and if your current phone is a couple/few years old, either one will be a palpable, and even exciting, upgrade.

    There is one small difference I should mention as well, which may not apply by the time you read this: You can’t easily get a Pixel because they are selling like hot cakes. It will be easer to find a hot cake, because no one is quite sure what that is.

    The Pixel vs. the Samsung S7

    There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who love Samsung to the point that it is kind of disgusting, and those who have been burned by Samsung, and don’t. Of those who have been burned, some of them have actually been burned!

    The Samsung Galaxy S7:

  • Samsung Galaxy S7
  • (Note there has been some confusion here… I do not look at the Edge here. Maybe some other time.)

    But, the top of the line Samsung Phones are still considered to be top products, so comparing the Pixel to the Samsung S7 seems appropriate.

    The S7 and the regular Pixel are about the same size, and are probably similar in overall case mechanics. The S7, like the iPhone, claims to be “waterproof.” People who have played around with the Pixel and the Samsung tend to walk away a bit more impressed by the Pixel.

    The Galaxy S7 has a somewhat larger screen and a noticeably higher resolution, which even with the larger screen translates into a higher density of pixels. Both are “retina” level, as I understand “retina.” The main area where this matters is when you attach the phone directly to your face with special phone goggles so you can experience virtual reality. You’ll like the Samsung better every time you do that. But (see below) the Google phone is going to have better VR abilities in the operating system than the Samsung, at least for a while.

    The cameras are very similar . The Samsung might be a bit better in lower light. Most people will tell you that the Samsung camera is the best one out there. But, the newer version has a lower pixel density than earlier cameras, and that is often the metric people focus on.

    This does not necessarily mean that Samsung downgraded its camera. It is more the case that all the cameras have gotten so good that hardware will plateau for a while. And, in particular, the pixel density metric is no longer as critical since all the main cameras are high in this areas (not true of the front facing selfie cameras, though). In other words, it no longer matters like it did a few years ago that you get THE phone with THE camera. A few years ago there were phones and tablets with truly substandard and awful cameras. Those days are a Kodachrome memory now.

    The Samsung camera does have this fancy “dual pixel” technology which is supposed to make focusing faster. By the way, the front facing camera, the one you use for selfies, is better on the Pixel than the Samsung.

    The Samsung operating system is highly modified from stock Android. To me, this is a deal killer. I tend to dislike Samsung mods, and I tend to like stock Android. But some might like the Samsung enhancements such as an “always on” mode. At the moment, the Samsung phones are only at Android level 6, while the Pixel is at level 7. The Samsung phones will always be behind in this area because they muck with the system so much. By the way, Android 7 is significantly different from 6 in several interesting ways; this is not a trivial difference.

    The internal guts, the computer inside, are similar. The Pixel has more storage, much more storage, internal, and will not have the crazy Samsung space hogging “enhancement” software. However, the Samsung has a microSD slot.

    But, I am no longer impressed with microSD slots. I used to think they were a deal breaker, until I got my current Google phone, which has lots of memory but not microSD slot, and I installed DropSync, which puts my photos and videos onto my main computer and dropbox account in the background. I’m the kind of user that fills up storage space. I’ve not filled up the storage space on this phone, not even close. Add this to the fact that phones don’t use microSD cards like you, if you’ve not used one, might think. Things go wrong with them. Your camera forgets to put the pics there. Apps that use proprietary content may not let you put stuff there. Many apps won’t really run from the microSD card flawlessly, or at all.

    The lesson here: SD card or not, do not rely on that feature. Get the phone with the most storage given the type of phone you are buying.

    It appears that the Pixel kills the Samsung on battery lifespan. However, some Samsungs are known to have had the Exploding Fire Starter Feature in the past. So there’s that!

    Conclusion: In a number of areas, the Samsung is better than the Pixel. However, I feel you should ignore the microSD difference; that is an overrated feature, and that is coming from a person who strongly believed it to be important until I got a phone without it and realized it wasn’t if you get a biggish storage feature to begin with. I don’t see the cameras as being that different, but maybe Samsung is better. The single most annoying thing your phone will do for the first two years of use, assuming it does not catch fire, is running down on battery life. If that is important, the Pixel is the way to go. Also, the operating system will probably always be better on the Pixel than any Samsung phone, unless you really like the Samsung features (which many do) then the opposite is true.

    So, while the comparison between the two is more complicated than with the iPhone (where you get to chose between two vastly different operating systems and ignore everything else) it is probably true when it comes down to it that either one is fine.


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    The Russians Are Coming!

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    Remember that movie? I mainly remember it because I was a kid in Gloucester when it was being filmed. Anyway, here they come again.

    This happened today on C-Span.

    LOL

    Then, C-Span released this statement (Hat Tip: Sheril Kirshenbaum):


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    Is Donald Trump A Russian Asset? (Updated after news conference)

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    It has been suggested that President Elect Trump has been compromised by Vladimir Putin and/or the Russian Intelligence agency. This allegation suggests that Putin and/or the FSB have information, including video of unsavory sexual activities of some sort (loosely defined) and documentation of inappropriate business activities, that could be used to blackmail the future United States President. Since this is something I have been saying for weeks that we would eventually learn, I’m compelled to make a few comments.

    What did we sort of know and when did we sort of know it?

    In the weeks after the US presidential election, I learned something that a lot of people inside the beltway had known for months. This was third hand plus. Like, ‘a friend of a friend of a friend says this is widely known.’

    There are three parts.

    First, a commonly known fact was confirmed for me: major intelligence agencies will spend effort trying to compromise highly influential individuals such as real estate tycoons. This is apparently potentially useful for future manipulation of things.

    Most such potential targets are intelligent and have a reasonable sense of risk and humility, to the extent that they know they can be compromised and they bother to seek and follow expert advice covering all their security needs. Also, I assume just because it is generally true of humans, that these highly successful and potentially influential people have at least a modicum of self control over what they do and what they say.

    The second part is the simple logical idea that since highly influential individuals are likely to be approached or some attempt made to turn or compromise them, that Donald Trump would have been such a target, and that such an effort would likely have worked.

    Since none of the aforementioned self protective attributes seem to pertain to Donald Trump, it stands to reason and is apparently fully expected that he would have long ago been compromised by major intelligence agencies. Since Trump has significant business dealings with Russia and has made the trip to Moscow several times, it is reasonable to assume there is a high probability that Putin had long ago compromised trump. Sexual honey pots, attractive but illegal business dealings, challenges to bravado or ego, etc. could all have been used to obtain film of Trump doing what might be widely regarded as inappropriate sexual things, or documentation of engagement in shady financial dealings, and so on.

    So part of this was the basic assumption that someone like Trump would be pretty likely to be in Putin’s pocket.

    The third part, which goes beyond assumption and speculation, is the belief among intelligence experts that this sort of thing had in fact occurred. Not just that it was highly likely, but that it was actually true.

    Again, that is third hand, and it is third hand rumor. In other words, the third generation out from me is not a person who knows this stuff, but a person who is probably in a position to know what is generally known.

    I was hoping at the time that individuals in the intelligence community who knew about this would somehow make it generally known, before the Electoral College voted, so there would be some chance of the Russians not placing a compromised agent at the head of the United State government. Indeed, I was hoping for a particular individual to step forward (see below). But that never happened, and the Electors elected a person many inside the beltway suspected to be a Russian puppet as President.

    I once knew an evil librarian, story-book evil, surreally evil. Example: one day an employee asked for one day off a week to receive chemotherapy. The evil librarian grudgingly allowed it. Several weeks later the employee’s cancer got worse, and she needed two days a week for a month or so, to get extra chemotherapy. The evil librarian fired her on the spot, in front of the other employees and library patrons, and did so with a lot of screaming and yelling. That sort of thing happened all the time and she kept her job anyway.

    Then, one day, the evil librarian made a reference to a particular woman and used the word “bitch” in so doing. Someone who heard her say that reported it to the woman’s husband. That man happened to be the director of the learned institution of which this library was a part. Within minutes Evil Librarian, who had been in her job for well over 20 years, being all evil and stuff the entire time, was fired.

    The straw. For want of a straw, the evil librarian was left alone to make many lives miserable without mitigation or abatement. Then the straw, then the termination.

    What makes me recall that event? The intelligence community failing to act in accordance with their oath of office. Until the straw.

    When Trump was selected by the electors, the intelligence community, or large parts of it, probably knew all about what is in the recently released (and as yet unconfirmed) report indicating that Donald Trump has been compromised by the Russians, and by Putin in particular. But they stood by and did nothing. I now assume that they did nothing because their individual jobs were more important to them than, you know, civilization. Or their oath.

    But then, Trump, who had been acting disrespectfully towards the intelligence community all along, started to make noises about making changes in, downgrading, or otherwise damaging the intelligence community. When I saw him doing that, I predicted that the “widely known” but unspoken of potential control Vladimir Putin would have, though blackmail, over the next United States President, would become rather suddenly known, if in fact those rumors had substance. I saw Trump’s threats to the intelligence community as a straw alighting on the back of a Russian camel. As it were.

    PDF File of the reported intelligence information

    This will all be confirmed, denied, elaborated, clarified, in coming months. At this moment I choose to assume this is mostly true, and that there is likely more. There is a certain strength of argument when something is fully expected for logical reasons, and with a modicum of confirming evidence available in advance, and then the thing actually happens. Of course, there is also conformation bias, where the expected, when it happens, is given more credence than it deserves. But expecting something to happen, then having it happen, is NOT inherently a case of false belief based on confirmation bias. That is why it is called confirmation bias and not confirmation now we know it can’t be true because it happened. Putting this a somewhat different way, I was pretty sure, based on earlier conversations and logical thinking, that Trump would have been, by now, compromised by Putin and/or the FSG, possibly others. I’m still pretty sure. But now, there are as yet unconfirmed details to potentially fill in some of the blanks.

    ###Trump and Obama may provide confirming evidence

    Until a few days ago, Trump was tweeting as per usual, which for him means, obnoxious and inappropriate missives about things the President Elect should not be concerned with. Then, suddenly, he stopped tweeting and his twitter feed became more corporate and informational, more third person, as though his smart phone had been taken away from him, with the campaign taking over the feed. This has happened before.

    The confirmation hearings had just started up, and this produced mounds of Trump Twitter fodder. There was a press conference coming up. And, the story we are talking about here was breaking. So, of course, Trump’s local handlers (and maybe his Russian handlers?) made an effort to separate him from his Twitter.

    Then, he got it back.

    I always wonder what that looks like. Does Trump have a stash of smart phones hidden around the house? Does he pay, or threaten, a household servant to get him a phone? Does he have a tantrum and hold his breath until Melania gives in? But I digress…

    Anyway, he got his Twitter access back and started tweeting denials of the story, and this time, he was screaming in ALL CAPS. Also, he let something slipped. He asked how intelligence services could leak fake news. Leak? Fake news? Leak? This makes it sound like he knew it was a leak. Made up fake news would not be a leak. He also invoked Hitler. So, there you go.

    Methinks he doth tweet too much.

    President Obama essentially but subtly confirmed the story. This story is thought to have been part of the secret part of earlier intelligence briefings. So, this story is either fake made up news, or part of the inside story that would be known to the President (and Trump). If it was fake made up news, and the press asked President Obama about it, he would say “I never heard anything about that, probably fake made up news, watch out for that, there is too much of that going on, cut it out.” But, if it was part of the inside story, but top secret, there is only one thing he could say. “I don’t comment on top secret stuff” or words to that effect.

    So, what did President Obama say about the intelligence indicating that Donald Trump paid Russian women to urinate on the bed President Obama and his wife used in the presidential suit in a famous hotel?

    From NBC:

    In an interview with NBC News before his farewell address Tuesday night in Chicago, President Barack Obama said he had not seen the news accounts of Trump’s Russian ties but noted that “as a matter of principle and national security, I don’t comment on classified information.”

    He had not seen the news accounts (and thus has no first hand, comment-able, response) but he does not comment on classified information. So, there you go.

    ADDED:

    This from NBC regarding the contents of Trump’s intelligence briefing. I think this conflicts with what Trump said during this press conference, in which I think he said he knew about this “false news” from that briefing.

    MOSCOW — President-elect Donald Trump was not told about unverified reports that Russia has compromising information on him during last week’s intelligence briefing, according to a senior intelligence official with knowledge of preparations for the briefing.

    A summary of the unverified reports was prepared as background material for the briefing, but not discussed during the meeting, the official said.

    Two U.S. officials told NBC News that materials prepared for Trump during last week’s intelligence briefing included damaging allegations — unverified by American intelligence agencies — about his dealings with the Russians.

    A special word about Mad Dog Mattis

    United States Marine Corps General James “Mad Dog” Mattis was selected by Trump to be his Secretary of Defense. When I heard that, I thought there was hope that any widely known but still underground intelligence about Trump being a compromised puppet of Putin would have to come out. After all, if I more or less knew that Trump was compromised by the FSB (or by some other entity but ultimately, by Putin), then Mad Dog Mattis certainly knew it.

    Unlike me, Mad Dog has on several occasions taken the oath. He would have put his hand on the Bible and uttered the words “I, James Mattis, do solemnly sear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic…” And, he knew that he would be taking the oath again if sworn in to be Secretary of Defense.

    I assumed that someone, especially someone like General Mattis, would come forward with this intelligence and put a stop to the takeover of the United States government by a foreign power.

    But no one did, not even the General.

    UPDATE:

    In his remarks at a news conference that happened as I was writing this post, Trump thanks the news organizations that did NOT report the allegations, and suggests that those specific agencies have now “gone up a notch.” He also suggested that intelligence agencies now have a “blot” on their records.

    Trump calls his opponents who released the intelligence reports, which he fully denies, “sick people.”

    He admits that Russia did the hacking.

    He restates the false claim that the DNC did not have defense against hacking but the RNC did, and that the Russians were unable to break into the RNC.

    Trump notes that if Putin likes Donald Trump, that’s an asset. OK, then.

    Trump continues to refer to the election and deride Hillary Clinton.

    Trump claims that he tells people all the time to be careful of hidden cameras in foreign hotel rooms. That he actually told everyone this all the time should be confirmable.

    Trump claims that he has very low debt and zero loans with Russia.

    (Note: All the questions are about Russia, Hacking, etc. Trump has no control over the message.)

    Trump says he was offered 2 billion dollars to do a number of deals in Dubai. He turned down the deal, though he says he didn’t have to turn it down because he is President. He claims he could run his business and run government at the same time, this would be legal. Also, he claims he would be able to do it and would be good at it.

    Reporters claims that nobody but the press cares about his tax returns. This got applause. I suspect not from the reporters. So, apparently, Trump has an audience of sycophants in the room. That feels wrong.

    Trump shows a pile of papers indicating that he passed business interests off to his sons. Then, he walked off stage and did not take any more questions. (He returned later to answer questions.)

    The post-Trump spokesperson claims that emoluments do not include, for example, foreign visitors paying high prices at Trump hotels. That’s going to leave a mark.

    Trump is claiming that profits from foreign business will be donated to the US Treasury.

    Other notes on the news conference:

    <li>Trump, who is probably anti-vax, spoke out against "pharma." </li>
    
    <li>Oddly, this press conference has applause following some of the remarks.  That seems unusual. </li>
    
    <li>Trump indicates that certain states, but not all states, would benefit from his jobs programs, and the veterans in those states would be taken care of.</li>
    
    <li>Trump states that he has lots of news conferences. This is is first news conference in six months. </li>
    


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    Makeblock mBot Add-on Pack-Six-legged Robot

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    The Makeblock mBot Add-on Pack-Six-legged Robot V1.1 is an add on for the Makeblock DIY mBot 1.1 Kit (Bluetooth Version) – STEM Education – Arduino – Scratch 2.0 – Programmable Robot Kit for Kids to Learn Coding & Robotics – Pink or any of its variants.

    The makeblock robot is an arduino technology robot. It can be controlled with a supplied controller, or operated from any of several different kinds of computing devices (such as your cell phone) using an app. It can be programmed using the Arduino interface (from a Mac, Windows or Linux computer), but the robot comes with built in capabilities so you won’t need to do that to operate it. Note that the app-based controls provide more functionality than the hand held IR control.

    But here we are talking about making that robot into a six legged insect with an add on package.

    The add on package consists of the leggy parts of the photograph above. With this add on installed, the robot walks instead of rolls on wheels.

    I love the Makeblock Robot and this is a great add on, but before you start investing in this system you need to know a couple of things.

    Makeblock itself makes well designed and interesting robots and add ons, but they also produce several slightly different versions of everything they do. They all seem to work fine but there are many differences you will want to track. For instance, when buying a robot make sure you get one with bluetooth, because you will enjoy controlling the robot with your phone, where you will have more options than with the supplied IR controller. When choosing a leg upgrade, there are several options, though I think they all have the same basic parts. Each expansion pack allows you to make a six legged robot (the beetle robot) or a mantis robot, or a crazy frog robot. The kits I know of are:

  • Makeblock mBot Add-on Pack-Six-legged Robotby Makeblock
  • Makeblock Add-on Pack: Six-legged Robot Designed for mBot
  • Makeblock mBot STEM Six-Legged Robot Add-On Pack
  • Makeblock mBot Add-on Pack-Six-legged Robot Enjoyable Funny Tool Kids Adults Xmas Gift for Learning Programming Promote Creativity
  • Makeblock Flagship Store – Makeblock mBot Add-on Pack-Six-legged Robot by Makeblock
  • Makeblock mBot Add-on Pack-Six-legged Robot V1.1
  • I would go for the cheapest one, which at the moment, is this one. Whatever you do, don’t spend more than about 30 bucks.

    The basic idea is this: The main back wheels of the mBot robot serve as cams for a set of levers. To get a six legged robot, the first lever is attached off center to the wheel, and thus acts like a piston as the wheel rotates. This then drives all the other levers in a series of crude step like movements. The other variants use a similar principle.

    Tips and hints for building the mBot legged robot extensions:

    This is a DIY kit. Therefore, the manufacturers have less than the usual interest in keeping their product exactly the same for every iteration. This probably contributes to the plethora of seemingly similar but maybe slightly different versions. So, the first hint is to look at the pictures and descriptions closely to see if you can figure out exactly what you are getting, and then, don’t expect the instructions to necessarily exactly match the product. They usually do, but beware.

    If something doesn’t seem quite right, check the instructions to see if you screwed up. Whether or not you screwed up, remember: DIY project. Fish some additional bits out of your box of extra parts, figure it out.

    The biggest limitation of the robots, especially the six-legged version, is the surface on which they are walking. I have two suggestions that may allow them to be able to turn on a carpet and to keep traction on slipper tile. First, maybe add length to the legs so the thing rides up higher. Second, add feet. Feet that provided a bit more traction would help on tile. Perhaps a simple wrap of electric tape will do this. Feet that are flat attached to the bottom of the legs, like little snow shoes, should both increase traction and allow better turning on shag carpets. If you are going to have this robot chase around your cat, you are going to have to handle a variety of surfaces. We are playing around with some of these ideas.

    The kit comes with what are called “lock nuts.” But really, they are “hard to screw on nuts.” They are designed to not unwind themselves to fall off this highly energetic device. Two hints will make their use more effective.

    -use a socket from a socket wrench kit to hold the nuts when you are screwing in the bolt.  This will work better then the little wrench the kit supplies, or your fingers.
    
    -there may be some places where the instructions don't tell you to use a lock nut, but you will want to anyway.  You will discover these when the nuts start falling off as you use the robot.
    
    In the six legged build, shown at the top of the post, notice that the wheels do not have their tires.  Take the tires off. In our kit, the instructions did not say to do that. 
    

    Instructions for making the Mantis, and Crazy Frog configurations

    The six legged adapter kit allows you to make three configurations. The most complex one is the Beetle, which uses six legs. The other two, Crazy Frog and Mantis, are much simpler.

    Instructions are provided to make the Beetle. To make the other two, look at the back of the box and, well, DIY!

    Notice that with the Mantis, I think you keep the tires on the back wheels. With the crazy frog, you take the tire off.

    Have fun!


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    My Review Of The White Rabbit Project

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    The White Rabbit Project is a Netflix project in which former MythBusters cast members Tory Belleci, Kari Byron, and Grant Imahara lead the viewer down various rabbit holes to explore a range of interesting and often strange things.

    Before going any further in this review, I need to tell you two things. First, since this is a MythBusters related thing, and Mythbuster fans hate everything (especially myths, of course), you will probably see a lot of iffy reviews of this project. (This isn’t just a MythBusters thing, it is a skeptics thing, a science-cheerleader thing, a geek thing. Just comes with the territory.)

    Kari Byron invites Tory Belleci to a quite dinner at  the neighborhood Italian restaurant.  Bwahahahaha
    Kari Byron invites Tory Belleci to a quite dinner at the neighborhood Italian restaurant. Bwahahahaha
    Second, the White Rabbit Project is really good, you will enjoy it. There will be many “oh wow, I did not know that” moments even though you are smart, and there are a few spots where you can not legally watch the show while holding a hot drink because you will damage someone or something while ROTFLYAO.

    Since this show’s roots are planted firmly in MythBusters, it is fair, and even necessary, to make comparisons and references to the earlier show. In case you didn’t know, Imahara, Byron, and Belleci were forced to leave the Discovery Channel production for what I think were relatively dumb reasons, having to do with contracts, and “the way things work” and such. In MythBusters, for the last several seasons, stars Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage would take on a primary “myth” — a thing people believed to be true but may or may not have been true — while the so-called “build team” of Byron, Belleci and Imahara would take on some other presumably secondary topic or set of topics, sometimes but not always related to the primary topic. Everybody had their specialties. Hyneman is a master builder and explosives expert. Savage an expert designer of things and experiments, and fearless of danger. Kari Byron is expert on firearms, explosives, and prop design. Tory Belleci is an expert on rigging, and falling off and onto things. Imahara is an expert on anything that resembles a robot or that uses Pulse Width Modulation.

    Over time, MythBusters spent less time busting classic and well known urban myths and more time on more obscure things such as how cars, people, guns, or other things are made to act in movies, or historical stories that really weren’t urban myths though they were interesting.

    In the new show, the White Rabbit Project (in which Savage and Hyneman are uninvolved), Imahara, Byron and Belleci do not follow a “myth busting” model. Rather, they pick a topic that could come from fiction, reality, mythic or not, such as the effects of extra gravity, navigation, jailbreaking, super hero abilities, or weaponry. Then, they come up (arbitrarily, I assume it is a design thing) with six exemplars, and explore them. The team makes no effort to address these six instantiations of the focal topic uniformly. Indeed, they do quite the opposite. Some of the specific “builds” (as it were) are treated in detail, others are glossed over.

    For instance, consider Episode 2 on jailbreaks. One of the jailbreaks involved a guy’s wife showing up for a visit, they swap clothes, and he tries to walk out of the prison in drag. This is done with actors (though they do show the real before and after mug shots) and there is no serious analysis and zero attempt to replicate the event. This one is jut for fun. A second jailbreak involved over 100 British officers escaping from a Nazi prisoner of war camp. For this escape, the team went into great detail as to how it was done, and took it very seriously, but did not replicate anything. A third case involved two families trapped in East Germany behind the Iron Curtin escaping via a home made hot air balloon. For this escape, Belleci actually builds a replica of the balloon and gets it off the ground, reveals problems with the technology, teaches how the technology works by demonstration and interviews with one of the original builders as well as a ballon expert, etc. So that historical escape got the whole nine yards.

    By not attempting to give even treatment to each instance, but covering several instances, the final effect is one of richness and thoroughness. We don’t need to see Grant Imahara in drag trying to see if he could get past prison guards (though I suppose that would be interesting …) but Tory’s balloon build was fascinating.

    One of the funniest things I’ve seen on television is Kari Byron’s absolutely fascinating and instructive sequence on mind control, in the Super Power Tech episode (Episode 1). This treatment comes in three segments of the show. I give a regular guest lecture in a human anatomy class at a nearby school. Imma show bits and pieces of Kari Byron’s segments to the students because I know it will cause some of them to focus their academic interest on medical devices (and we live in a medical device manufacturing neighborhood) or, perhaps, clown school. Either way is good.

    So, I guess I’m trying to make a point here. Did you ever watch a Mythbusters episode and realize that the format and design of a segment was hampered by the overarching theme of busting myths? If not, then you haven’t watched many episodes. I imagine that Byron, Belleci and Imahara and their off camera associates designed the White Rabbit Project the way they did because they thoughtfully deconstructed their experience at Mythbusters, looking at what was good and what was limiting. They could have sat down and tried to figure out how to be totally different from Mythbusters, because, after all, everything has to be different. Or, they could have sat down and figured out how to be better than Mythbusters, because, after all, everything has to be better. But I don’t think that is what they ultimately did. Instead, it seems like they sat down to figure out how they can be themselves, playing to their own strengths, while at the same time defining and avoiding some of the constraints that might have been working against them previously.

    And, I’m really glad that they’ve decided not to shy away from familiarity. In Episode 3, they did not have to go to a gun range and fire hundreds of bullets at targets to test one of the anti-German WW II weapon systems (the weapon was not a firearm). But they did, even if the firing range was perhaps the out of studio Mythbuster milieu used most.

    I regard Season 1 of White Rabbit Project to be a success, and I hope they do a Season 2.


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    Republicans are weakening the “civilian led” US military

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    The Republicans don’t care at all bout the law, the Constitution, freedom, security, or the people of the United States.

    One way we ensure civilian control of the military is by restricting military associated individuals from being secretary of defense. It is not like it can’t happen, but there has to be a waiting period.

    Trump’s current pick for this position is too fresh out of the military to legally take this roll.

    So, the Republicans are changing the rules. Just for their own guy, though. Just for Trump’s appointment.

    Roll over, Republicans. Sit. Heel.


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    People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

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    The Kindle version of People of the Book: A Novel by Geraldine Brooks is currently, and I suspect briefly, available for $1.99

    If you’ve not read it, you should read it.

    Publisher’s summary:

    Inspired by a true story, People of the Book is a novel of sweeping historical grandeur and intimate emotional intensity by an acclaimed and beloved author. Called “a tour de force”by the San Francisco Chronicle, this ambitious, electrifying work traces the harrowing journey of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, a beautifully illuminated Hebrew manuscript created in fifteenth-century Spain. When it falls to Hanna Heath, an Australian rare-book expert, to conserve this priceless work, the series of tiny artifacts she discovers in its ancient binding-an insect wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair-only begin to unlock its deep mysteries and unexpectedly plunges Hanna into the intrigues of fine art forgers and ultra-nationalist fanatics.


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    How to avoid nuclear apocalypse: this will only take you a few minutes.

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    Right now the number one problem we face in the US is the fact that a) the president of the United States can not be stopped or deterred from launching nuclear missiles if he choses to do so, by design; and b) Donald Trump will be inaugurated, if the electoral college so decides, in January.

    If you are in a state that has electors slated to vote for Trump. send your city and state name to this email address:

    votehrc@gmail.com

    You will then receive instructions as to what to do next.

    Pass it on.


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    Army Corps on Dakota Pipeline: Pipeline Route Will Be Moved

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    According to NBC:

    Standing Rock Chairman: Pipeline Plan Denial ‘A Win For All Of America’ 1:57
    The secretary of the Army Corps of Engineers told Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II Sunday that the current route for the controversial Dakota Access pipeline will be denied.

    “Although we have had continuing discussion and exchanges of new information with the Standing Rock Sioux and Dakota Access, it’s clear that there’s more work to do,” the Army’s Assistant Secretary for Civil Works, Jo-Ellen Darcy said in a statement Sunday. “The best way to complete that work responsibly and expeditiously is to explore alternate routes for the pipeline crossing.”

    So, this is a win for Standing Rock and the native community there.

    It is not yet a win for the climate. The pipeline should not be built at all. But this is still good news.


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