Enter the Dragon

It’s been a long road since 2004, when Space Ship One made its second, prize-winning voyage. Today, astronauts from the International Space Station got to tour the world’s first successful private spacecraft, the Dragon. It’s the first time a non-government vessel has docked with the ISS, and it brought lots of non-essential supplies. Why non-essential? Because nobody was 100% sure the craft would make it.

Dragon also brought James Doohan’s ashes.

This excerpt from the AP confused me, however:

The space station has been relying on Russian, Japanese and European cargo ships for supplies ever since the shuttles retired. None of those, however, can bring anything of value back; they’re simply loaded with trash and burn up in the atmosphere.

By contrast, the Dragon is designed to safely re-enter the atmosphere, parachuting into the ocean like the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo capsules did back in the 1960s. Assuming all goes well Friday, the space station’s six-man crew will release the Dragon next Thursday after filling it with science experiments and equipment.

What? How are we getting astronauts and cosmonauts down from the ISS then? Surely that’s not a one-way trip!

It’s tempting to talk about how this is a great example of private industry doing a job that government used to do. However, Dragon did take off from Cape Canaveral, a big federal government run “space station” as opposed to the (unfinished, mostly state taxpayer funded) Spaceport America in New Mexico.

There are private airports; will there ever be private spaceports?

In Closing: Income inequality in the Roman Empire; 50 years of fire; death by foreclosure (I still don’t know how this could possibly happen — nobody trashed out or did inspections??); and have a great, safe Memorial Day Weekend.

Happy Towel Day

Yes, it’s Towel Day once again. Don’t forget your towel. And most importantly DON’T PANIC.

In Closing: R-Money proposes using my tax dollars to send rich kids to private school help poor and middle class families still not afford private schools; would it have been so hard for some adult, any adult to say “We treat others with respect around here?? (I don’t even know what to say); 550 cats and no husband; there’s an app for that; oops; Detroit; achievements include 8 life sentences; mass hysteria; and Today I Learned there is a patron saint of the Internet.

Life with Diabetes

Sure, Paula. Let’s discuss “Life with Diabetes.” How about we start by talking about the importance of laying off the “Fresh Berry Cakes”? Even the American Diabetes Association says “sweet treats” are for “special occasions.” I get the impression that around the Deen household, Tuesday counts as a special occasion. The Mayo Clinic  suggests that a diabetic’s carbohydrates should come from “fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes (beans, peas and lentils) and low-fat dairy products.” I don’t see “cake” anywhere on that list. Add to that the latest research showing that fatty acids can “impair insulin action and lead to abnormally high blood sugar.” So yeah, the berries are fine, in moderation. The cake, not so much.

I’m not a doctor, and I’m not a nutritionist, but no research has ever found that large amounts of simple sugars are good for diabetics. If you have diabetes, pre-diabetes, metabolic syndrome, or are overweight (and therefore at risk of all the above), you should really talk to your doctor instead of making Paula Deen recipes.

Crap like this is why diabetics have complications. “Carb-smart” my tuchus.

In Closing: Hmm, maybe the Principal having a hissy fit in front of cameras over an event that the mayor thought was a great thing was a bad idea; “excuse me, before I tase you do you have any underlying health conditions or drugs in your system?”; turns police work into a freaking video game (right, totally not gonna abuse that!); Apple and the iPhone; Oof, it is that time of year; and Bill Clinton chilling out with porn stars.

Good News on the Economy

Seriously, I’m coming up on 9 years of writing here, and this is the first time I’ve been able to write those words without meaning it sarcastically.

First, unemployment is down to 8.1% (locally, down to 12.4%). That’s still too high, and it still doesn’t account for people who have given up on finding a job and people who have settled for part time work. And the economy still isn’t quite up to making enough jobs for people new to the workforce, and new grads are still going to have a crappy time out there. However, not that long ago we were looking at almost 10%.

Second, there are signs of life in American manufacturing. Auto plants are working at capacity, and may have to actually hire an additional shift of workers — which is much less expensive than building a new plant and then having it sit idle 16 hours a day. Some industries that decided it was cheaper to make it overseas and ship it here are thinking twice. Senior executives are cautiously optimistic, and 40% report moving operations to the United States.

Finally, home prices are starting to inch up. Granted, this is at least in part because of reduced supply (and at least in part because prices got stupid-low on a per-square-foot basis in some places).

So there you have it. People are getting jobs and buying stuff. Some manufacturers are running out of the ability to make more stuff — so they may have to build places and hire people to make even more stuff. Maybe soon the Fed can raise interest rates from the supposedly “stimulating” levels they are today, and in turn banks will be able to make a reasonable profit lending money without making up fees or outright committing fraud.

In Closing: Who could have guessed that Citizens United could open the door to ordinary people taking over elections?; never forget Romney’s dog; Tokyo Sky Tree now open; too useful to be real; cheap and free ebooks; yet one more reason I’m against school vouchers; FISA; $27,000??; and the Vatican gets outraged when nuns actually act on What Would Jesus Do.

 

Music Monday: Computer Generated?

I’ve become convinced that the Black Eyed Peas are actually performing songs written by a sure-fire no-fail hit writing computer algorithm. How else do you get lines like “Beats so big I’m steppin’ on leprechauns”? People in the place, give it up:

Of course, I prefer the Bad Lip Reading version:

Now, at some point I think the algorithm got “borrowed” by LMFAO:

There. Doesn’t that explain a lot?

In Closing: Scam; is there some reason they couldn’t have raided the store in daytime?; Stereotypes; not normally something one does alone; and that’s why they have to disenfranchise as many people as possible; hope he’s right; look, you silly man, the reason it needs to be better regulated is that if the shareholders and owners lose everything, the FDIC — that is the taxpayers — are on the hook.

A City of Tradition

Why yes, Chicago is a city of tradition. They turn the river green for St. Patrick’s day — and I don’t mean for organic fishing. They have arcane fire codes because of an ancient fire which destroyed most of the city (and freed up the coastal areas for redevelopment as parkland). Foods like pizza and hot dogs have their own Chicago traditions. There’s so much tradition that according to legend, the dead vote.

And there’s also a fine tradition of Chicago’s police department pre-acting and over-reacting.

Sure, they are expecting protests of the NATO summit. Sure, abandoned luggage has to be investigated these days instead of being taken to the lost and found. And sure, there are lots of targets, although I fail to see what bombing the mayor’s place would have proved (and even if it would have accomplished something, any idiot terrorist should have expected more security this week than next week).

Was it really necessary to arrest people for something that they might have been thinking about doing? How do you prove you weren’t thinking something? And really, to describe a Malotov as a “primitive bomb” means that all those IEDs in Iraq are sophisticated devices. Anybody with gasoline, an empty glass bottle, and an old rag can make one. Of course, the “bomb making” equipment may well turn out to be “beer making” equipment. I understand the confusion; both start with B.

And if they were going to take 30 hours to come up with a warrant, couldn’t they at least have found a judge to sign the damn thing? Were these unarmed people really so dangerous they had to be shackled to a bench for 18 hours? Really? Did they get their phone call? Did they have to dial with their noses?

All snark aside, CPD could learn a lot from Vegas Casino security.

In closing: Hawaii tells Arizona where to get off; is a short middle-aged white guy in a hoodie a thug too?; he knew what the job paid when he spent millions of dollars trying to get it; bananas > Gatorade; apparently some people think preventing rape of prisoners is a luxury; 44% of Facebook users never click on ads.

Kitchen Tasks that Sound Hard but Aren’t

When I got out of college, I wasn’t much of a cook. Most of what I made wasn’t awful, but much of it wasn’t good either. Still, I never bought those Hamburger Helper type products, and I have gradually stopped using most processed foods. Over the years, I’ve learned a lot. Here are some things that trust me, you really can do at home.

Whip Butter: Put some softened — not melted! — butter and some milk (or half-and-half) in the mixer. If it’s unsalted butter, add a teaspoon of salt. Start your mixer fairly while everything mixes up or you’ll spray milk everywhere. Keep turning it up gradually until it’s set to the highest setting. Keep going until that stuff is light and fluffy! Put it in a container in the fridge and enjoy for a week or two. Oh, whatever shall you enjoy that butter on? How about some homemade sourdough bread?

Sourdough Starter: Until recently, I kept a starter in the fridge. Let’s start with a film:

The short version is mix whole wheat flour with bottled or filtered water (chlorine in tap water kills microorganisms that would make you sick, but it will also kill yeasts). Put it out someplace covered with cheesecloth to keep bugs out. Once it’s going, you can use a folded paper towel and rubber band instead. Add some more water/flour mix every day until it gets foamy. Feed daily if you leave it out, weekly if you put it in the fridge.

Caesar Dressing: Ok, there are two intimidating parts to making this at home. First is called “coddling the egg.” Put a small pot of water on the stove. Use a pin to poke a small hole in the big end of the egg. Put it in boiling water for a minute. The other “hard” part is the emulsion. More on that in a minute. Toss a clove of garlic, a couple tablespoons of lemon juice, your choice of a total of 2 teaspoons of anchovy paste/Worchestershire/both (I use both), fresh ground pepper, and everything you can scrape out of 2 coddled eggs into a blender. Turn it on, and keep blending even after it looks blended. Now comes the “tricky” part: very slowly add a half cup of olive oil. Seriously, very slowly. That’s the key to the emulsion. Once you’re done, toss that stuff with some romaine hearts and parmesan and call it done.

Devein Shrimp: Ok, I admit this one is a little gross. Recently, my partner got “a great deal” on a box of frozen shrimp, and we discovered that they were whole. Get some water running because you’re going to need it. If they still have heads, you’ll need to twist their little heads off. Then follow these easy tips. By the time dinner is ready, you will have forgotten the shrimp heads.

Seasonings: I am mystified by those little packets of things like “taco seasoning” or “Italian seasoning” sold in every grocery store. Come on folks! I know it seems more expensive to buy things like garlic powder, chili powder, cumin, oregano, and basil, but a bottle of each will last quite a while through many meals. And you’ll probably get a lot less salt and preservatives too.

And don’t even get me started on canned soup as an “ingredient.” Expensive, loaded with crap you don’t need, and not nearly as good as making your own sauces.

In Closing: more Facebook; income inequality and job creation; honestly in the so-called pro-life movement; just change how we grade the test so more people pass; and crash.

Dark Shorties

Hey folks, I made it to the 16th posting every day either here or on my professional site without any shorties! Let’s see if I can make it a single shorties month.

Attack of the Zero Tolerance Policy: Man fired for picking up a gun he found at work and turning it in to police, despite the fact that the police said he’d done the right thing. Sounds like something I wrote once.

I hope nobody is surprised: The most popular times for American birthdays is just about 9 months after winter.

Don’t forget the War on Terror: Where are the missing terrorists? Why do the FBI have to keep making them up? And when did Rolling Stone become a go-to source for serious investigative journalism?? Back in the day it was a music rag!

Context is Everything: GM says it’s evaluating the effectiveness of its $10,000,000 worth of Facebook ads, just days before Facebook’s $105,000,000,000 Initial Public Offering (BTW folks, IPOs are a sucker’s game unless you’re a genuine insider).

Whatever Became of Iceland?: Turns out they had a peaceful revolution, debt writedowns, indictment of bankers, and a host of other reforms we can learn from.

Seemed like a stupid idea to me: FTC fines Sketchers $40,000,000 for advertising shoes as having magic weight loss properties. They always looked like a good way to lose my balance and fall to me.

Amazing what you can do when you are driven by a goal: Harvard MBA pays down $90,000 in student loan debt — in 7 months! Spoilers, it involved selling stuff he didn’t need, taking in boarders, frugality, and taking a second job.

Most balanced thing I’ve seen written on the subject: Internships. It’s sad that a college’s job has to include teaching “job readiness” skills like professional behavior.

And finally: fingernails.

A cool, cozy Nest

I planned on writing a review of this nifty little device Real Soon Now, so let me take advantage of the fact that Engadget gave it a nod. It’s been talked about on NPR, twice. Even C|Net loves it. Popular Mechanics isn’t sure. Our household was an early adopter of the Nest Learning Thermostat. In fact as I think about it, we may well have had one of the first batch to ship back in December. By way of disclosure, my partner personally knows some of the people that worked on it. No, that didn’t get us a discount. And while we’re on the topic, I’m not getting a dime for this review; it’s just my honest opinion.

I’ve had programmable thermostats in the past. Most of them are hard to program, requiring lots of button mashing with the manual in one hand. The last ones we had would sometimes inexplicably reset themselves to the factory settings. Manufacturer knows best!

Unboxing a Nest is a very Apple experience. The packaging is lovely, designed to unveil your brand new $250 thermostat in the prettiest way possible. It has been called “the iPod of Thermostats.” Alright, but that’s not the nifty part.

First and foremost, it learns from the way you live your life. It will figure out that you like it a little warmer on cold winter afternoons, or that you like it cooler at night — and adjust the temperature automatically. It will in a matter of weeks figure out whether you are out all day or whether you leave around noon. You can of course correct it if it’s wrong.

Second, it has built in energy saving features that will reduce your energy bills. Not only will it adjust itself to you, if you pay attention it will help you save even more. According to their latest press release, an average family can save $1000 a year. That’s 4 times what the device itself costs.

Very few people are mentioning that multiple Nests can communicate with one another. This is a huge plus for any household with multiple HVAC units! They will work together to keep the whole house one temperature. This is why I think the Nest is a must for any larger home.

More people have pointed out that your Nest will actually connect to WiFi. What does that mean to you? It means you can control your thermostat from anyplace that you have an internet connection, including your smart phone! Want to turn on the AC or the heat when you leave the office for the day? No problem. Sitting at the airport and wonder if you remembered to turn off the air conditioner? Just log in and do it remotely. This makes it a must-have item for anybody who travels often or anybody with a vacation home.

Finally, it’s simple to use. The controls are intuitive. The menus use plain English. I have no problem saying it’s a great product and a huge step forward in programmable thermostats.

This item is cross-posted at my other site.

In Closing: recessions will do that; judge recognizes “fair use” when he sees it; and value added services.