Innocent Bystanders

Air-Drying Wine Glasses and the Hilarity That Ensues November 29, 2016

So Lifehacker had a post on how you can dry wine glasses by turning them upside-down on a rack of chopsticks to hold them up so air can get in:

Make a Wine Glass-Drying Rack Out of Chopsticks

The following comments ensued:

Cowboy Is As Cowboy Does November 29, 2016

I’m sure you’ll see this everywhere in the dextrosphere over the next couple of days, but here’s an excerpt from a WaPo review of James E. Mitchell’s new memoir (James E. Mitchell developed enhanced interrogation techniques for the CIA):

Far from trying to draw us in, KSM said that al-Qaeda expected the United States to respond to 9/11 as we had the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut — when, KSM told Mitchell, the United States ‘turned tail and ran.’

‘Then he looked at me and said, ‘How was I supposed to know that cowboy George Bush would announce he wanted us ‘dead or alive’ and then invade Afghanistan to hunt us down?’’ Mitchell writes. ‘KSM explained that if the United States had treated 9/11 like a law enforcement matter, he would have had time to launch a second wave of attacks.’ He was not able to do so because al-Qaeda was stunned ‘by the ferocity and swiftness of George W. Bush’s response.’

Via The Federalist (read the whole thing).

What a Difference an Election Makes November 29, 2016

I’m not sure it’s warranted, but look at consumer confidence since the election:

They say it’s the highest since July 2007.

Venezuela Reaps What it Sowed November 28, 2016

Ten years ago we were shaking our heads over Hugo Chavez’s rampant nationalization of various industries. Today we see the result:

It’s very sad to think of the plight of Venezuelan citizens, forced to scrounge for food, medicine and basic necessities. On the other hand, ten years ago they were pretty happy to spend the short-term gains acquired by stealing businesses and facilities from their owners.

Kind of like Bernie Sanders supporters in our country, who are, I guess thankfully, still limiting themselves to tax mechanisms in their theft.

In Case You’re Feeling a Little Too Complacent About Defense & Foreign Policy… November 27, 2016

…I present you this video of Putin “joking” about the borders of Russia (starts at about :30s)

That untranslated comment he makes as he stands up was something to the effect of “I’m joking.”

Heh. Heh heh.

We Won’t Be Kicking Sand in Computers’ Faces For Much Longer November 27, 2016

Ray Kurzweil, in his famous book The Singularity is Near, noted that the human brain can perform the equivalent of 10^18 floating point operations per second (= 1 exaflop). That was one of the benchmarks computers needed to reach in order support his thesis that humans and computers would interact/merge in interesting ways by 2050.  But it looks like this particular benchmark will be reached by 2020:

Japan is reportedly planning to build a 130-petaflops supercomputer costing $173 million (£131 million) that is due for completion next year.

Satoshi Sekiguchi, a director-general at Japan’s ‎National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, where the computer will be built, told Reuters: “As far as we know, there is nothing out there that is as fast.”

According to the Top 500 site listing the world’s fastest computers, the current number-crunching champ is China’s 93-petaflops Sunway TaihuLight, followed by its Tianhe-2, coming in at 34 petaflops. Japan’s most powerful system at the moment is a 13.5 petaflops machine. Overall, Japan has the fourth-largest number of supercomputers in the Top 500 listing, after the US, China, and Germany.

The UK comes in sixth; the most powerful system in the country is housed at the Met Office, and has a max performance of 6.8 petaflops.

That’s 0.13 exaflops, or 13% of the way to the exaflop goal. Of course it would need to be affordable and commonplace for it to really impact society, and there’s still plenty of work to do in other areas (algorithms, storage, throughput, brain science, etc.).

But it’s damn impressive.

How Are Things? November 26, 2016

All Izz Well:

Have a Rip-Roaring T-giving!! November 24, 2016

Welcome to Thanksgiving 2016!! I hope your chowing and shopping are rampant and excessive, and that your gatherings of friends and family are apolitical and congenial.

In fun Thanksgiving Day news we have:

Maybe she had really bad acne:  Massachusetts police say woman tried to use pizza as ID to enter bar

I like to think this was an IB party: Woman arrested for ‘shooting at house guests for being too loud’

What’s Wrong With This Picture November 23, 2016

This picture has been running around the internet for the past few days:

This graffiti appeared at the Adam Yauch Park in New York, and is being used as evidence of a hate crime and “…more hatred & anti-Semitism from Trump supporters.”

Awful, if true. But I’m very suspicious that this is yet another case of liberals trying to gin up controversy where none exists. There are three reasons for my suspicions:

1. Trump supporters don’t think of themselves as Nazis. It’s liberals who think of Trump supporters as Nazis.
2. If it was a Nazi, we should note that the number of Nazis in the United States is, thankfully, tiny (just read an article this past week where they were estimated it at 3000 – 30,000, but I can’t find it). I suspect the number in New York City is pretty much zero.
3. If it was a real-live Trump-supporting Nazi unicorn, I doubt they would have screwed up the swastikas like the perpetrator did. I would think Nazis would have had a lot of practice at that.

We’ve seen incident after incident (there’s one on Ace’s sidebar today) where liberals have faked racist or sexist or white supremacist hate crimes. The style of those hate crimes is generally based on their fanciful notions of the twisted evils of Trump voters – hence the prevalence of Nazi and KKK references in these fabricated incidents.

It’s ironic that their fears of a world where hate crimes are prevalent have driven them to increase the prevalence of hate crimes.

Science Finally Catches Up With My Lifestyle November 23, 2016

From our most brilliant friends in Japan, we have this exciting science news:

Eating ice cream at breakfast boosts mental performance

Sounds like a perfect way to start Thanksgiving.