Thomas Jefferson On The Federal Government vs States

"It has long been my opinion, and I have never shrunk from its expression (although I do not choose to put it into a newspaper, nor like a Priam in armor to offer myself as its champion), that the germ of dissolution of our Federal Government is in the constitution of the Federal Judiciary; an irresponsible body (for impeachment is scarcely a scare-crow), working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little to-day and a little to-morrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the States, and the government of all be consolidated into one. To this I am opposed; because, when all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the centre of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated. It will be, as in Europe, where every man must be either pike or gudgeon, hammer or anvil. Our functionaries and theirs are wares from the same workshop; made of the same materials and by the same hand. If the States look with apathy on this silent descent of their government into the gulf which is to swallow all, we have only to weep over the human character formed uncontrollable but by a rod of iron, and the blasphemers of man, as incapable of self-government, become his true historians." - Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Charles Hammond, August 18, 1821

Fuel Efficiency Per Passenger

	Number of vehicles (thousands)	Vehicle- miles (millions)	Passenger- miles (millions)	Load factor (persons/ vehicle)	(Btu per vehicle- mile)	Btu per passenger-mile	Energy use (trillion Btu)	Gallons Per 10,000 Miles	MPGe
Motorcycles	7,183.5	13,612	16,334	1.2	2,224	1853	30.3	161.13	62.06
Rail, Intercity (Amtrak)	0.3	267	5,784	21.7	54,585	2516	14.5	218.78	45.71
Rail, Transit (light & heavy)	13	741	18,070	24.4	62,833	2577	46.6	224.09	44.63
Rail, All	19.7	1,333	35,007	26.3	67,900	2586	90.5	224.87	44.47
Rail, Commuter	6.4	326	11,153	34.2	90,328	2638	29.4	229.39	43.59
Air, Certificated route	No Data	6,122	595,327	97.2	301,684	3103	1847	269.83	37.06
Cars	135,932.9	1,670,994	2,623,461	1.6	5,517	3514	9218.2	305.57	32.73
Personal trucks	89,286.4	928,755	1,597,459	1.7	6,788	3946	6304	343.13	29.14
Bus, Transit	65.8	2,314	21,132	9.1	39,408	4315	91.2	375.22	26.65
Demand response (taxi)	64.9	1,471	1,502	1	16,771	16429	24.7	1428.61	7

Source: Transportation Energy Data Book: Edition 28

Average Material Consumption for a Domestic Light Vehicle, Model Year 2007

Material	Pounds	Percentage
Regular steel	1644	40.30%
High and medium strength steel	518	12.70%
Plastics and plastic composites	331	8.10%
Iron castings	322	7.90%
Aluminum	313	7.70%
Fluids and lubricants	215	5.30%
Rubber	189	4.60%
Glass	106	2.60%
Other materials	92	2.30%
Stainless steel	75	1.80%
Copper and brass	53	1.30%
Powder metal parts	43	1.10%
Textiles	46	1.10%
Lead	42	1.00%
Other steels	34	0.80%
Coatings	29	0.70%
Magnesium castings	10	0.20%
Zinc castings	9	0.20%
Other metals	5	0.10%
Total	4076	100.00%

Source: Transportation Energy Data Book: Edition 28

Hail Gods Of War!

Here to the blaze,
I wander...
Through this black night,
I pounder...
The edge of our mighty swords
Did clash...
Fallen by our axes
Helmets smash!

Glory and fame,
Blood is our name!
Souls full of thunder
Hearts of steel!
Killers of men,
Of warriors friend!
Sworn to avenge our fallen brothers
To the end!

One day too,
I may fall...
I will enter Odin's Hall...
I will die sword in hand...
My name and my deeds will
Scorch the land!

Glory and fame,
Blood is our name!
Soul full of thunder
Hearts of steel!
Killers of men,
Of warriors friend!
Sworn to avenge our fallen brothers!

Sons of the gods today we shall die!
Open Valhalla's door!
Let the battle begin with swords in the wind!
Hail Gods of War!

Sons of Odin we four,
By the hammer of Thor!
Ride down from the sky.
Another is born.
Another shall fall.
This day men will die.

Glory and fame,
Blood is our name!
Souls full of thunder
Hearts of steel!
Killers of men,
Of warriors friend!
Sworn to avenge our fallen brothers!

Sons of the Gods today we shall die!
Open Valhalla's door!
Let the battle begin with swords in the wind!
Hail Gods of War!

Sons of the gods today we shall die!
Open Valhalla's door!
Let the battle begin with swords in the wind!
Hail Gods of War!

Let the battle begin with swords in the wind!
Hail Gods of War!!!

Onward into the heart of the battle,
Fought the sons of Odin.
Outnumbered many times,
Still - they fought on...
Blood poured forth from their wounds
Deep into the earth.
Vultures waited for the broken shells
That once were bodies.
But Odin alone would choose the day
They would enter Valhalla.
And in their hour of need;
He sent forth onto them The Berserker Rage!
Now Gods embed!
They rose up from the ground,
Screaming like wild animals!
Such is the gift of absolute power!
No blade or weapon could hurt them,
They killed men and horses alike!
And all who stood before them died that day!
Hail Gods Of War!

Holland

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland

http://www.librarything.com/topic/55502

Holland is a name in common usage given to a region in the western part of the Netherlands. The name 'Holland' is also often used to refer to the whole of the Netherlands, although this is not formally correct. From the 10th century to the 16th century it was a unified political region, a county ruled by the Count of Holland. By the 17th century, Holland had risen to become a maritime and economic power, dominating the other provinces of the Dutch Republic. Today, the former County of Holland consists of the two Dutch provinces of North Holland and South Holland.


The people of Holland found themselves living in an unstable, watery environment. Behind the dunes on the coast of the Netherlands a high peat plateau had grown, forming a natural protection against the sea. Much of the area was marsh and bog. By the tenth century the inhabitants set about cultivating this land by draining it. The drainage however, resulted in extreme soil shrinkage, lowering the surface of the land by up to fifteen metres.

To the south of Holland, in Zealand, and to the north, in Frisia, this development led to catastrophic storm floods literally washing away entire regions, as the peat layer disintegrated or became detached and was carried away by the flood water. From the Frisian side the sea even flooded the area to the east, gradually hollowing Holland out from behind and forming the Zuiderzee (the present IJsselmeer). This inland sea threatened to link up with the "drowned lands" of Zealand in the south, reducing Holland to a series of narrow dune barrier islands in front of a lagoon. Only drastic administrative intervention saved the county from utter destruction. The counts and large monasteries took the lead in these efforts, building the first heavy emergency dikes to bolster critical points. Later special autonomous administrative bodies were formed, the waterschappen ("water control boards"), which had the legal power to enforce their regulations and decisions on water management. As the centuries went by, they eventually constructed an extensive dike system that covered the coastline and the polders, thus protecting the land from further incursions by the sea.

However, the Hollanders did not stop there. Starting around the 16th century, they took the offensive and began land reclamation projects, converting lakes, marshy areas and adjoining mudflats into polders. This continued right into the 20th century. As a result, historical maps of mediaeval and early modern Holland bear little resemblance to the maps of today.

This ongoing struggle to master the water played an important role in the development of Holland as a maritime and economic power and in the development of the character of the people of Holland.

Par2 Backups

http://thecootsconnection.blogspot.com/2008/09/missive-missile-from-pete.html <- Note the second video http://www.motivatedphotos.com/?id=3352

http://www.instructables.com/id/Measure-the-drag-coefficient-of-your-car/

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=498

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=490

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=458

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=410

http://www.itvnews.tv/Blog/Blog/best-50-astronomy-pictures-of-year-2008.html


So I wanted to find a program that could make a parity for files. I already have most of my stuff on multiple hard drives, but I like to burn it to dvd every once in a while. My first thought was to do something like RAID 1 on dvd where I'd burn it to 2 dvds and any errors be fixed with the other. There turned out to be no easy way to do this, so instead I found a program called par2 which can build parities for files. At first I found it rather confusing, but now I rather like it. It claims to support multiple files, but I can't figure out how to make it work on a whole directory at once, it seems to want me to list every file indivdually, there must be some way to do it. Either way I found it easy to just compress everything first as a .7z archive, then build the parity for that. Here's how it works, you give it a command like par2 create test.mpg, and you get:
test.mpg.par2 - This is an index file for verification only
test.mpg.vol00+01.par2 - Recovery file with 1 recovery block
test.mpg.vol01+02.par2 - Recovery file with 2 recovery blocks
test.mpg.vol03+04.par2 - Recovery file with 4 recovery blocks
test.mpg.vol07+08.par2 - Recovery file with 8 recovery blocks
test.mpg.vol15+16.par2 - Recovery file with 16 recovery blocks
test.mpg.vol31+32.par2 - Recovery file with 32 recovery blocks
test.mpg.vol63+37.par2 - Recovery file with 37 recovery blocks

At first I didn't get this block concept, but as it turns out a block is just 1/1000th of a file. So if you had 1 block of parity data you could repair a file that was up to .1% corrupt. The blocks are interchangable, so if you only needed 1 block of parity data you could use any of the above files. If you needed 15 blocks worth you could use the first 4 files togethor (1 + 2 + 4 + 8 = 15 blocks), or you could use any of the last 3 by them selves each of which would have more parity then you needed. As one last example if you needed 25 blocks worth but were missing all but files 2-5 that would work (2 + 4 + 8 + 16 = 30 > 25).

The index file is always about 40kb, and is only useful to verify the file is ok, and I think you need it to rebuild the file. To rebuild you'll need at least 1 block, and the program will tell you exactly how many you'll need. By default it only does 5% (50 blocks) worth of parity, but I went ahead and ran it at 100%. My backup .7z file is about 500megs, so I'll be able to burn it plus all the parity data to a dvd, and then store it somewhere safe. The neat thing is I'll also be able to email myself the first couple parity files so that if there is mild corruption I'll be able to recover with just them.

I tested to make sure it worked, opened the file in a hex editor and deleted about half the file. I then delted a coupld of the parity data files, leave more than half it should need, it rebuilt the file fine. I then deleted the entire orginal file, and left all the parity files, and it complety rebuilt the file from scratch. It took a little over an hour to build the 100% parity on my 500meg file.
http://www.par2.net/




In fact, they are. In a remarkable experiment, Margaret Shin, Todd Pittinsky, and Nalini Ambady asked Asian- American women to take an objective math exam. But first they divided the women into two groups. The women in one group were asked questions related to their gender. For example, they were asked about their opinions and preferences regarding coed dorms, thereby priming their thoughts for gender-related issues. The women in the second group were asked questions related to their race. These questions referred to the languages they knew, the languages they spoke at home, and their family's history in the United States, thereby prim­ing the women's thoughts for race-related issues.

The performance of the two groups differed in a way that matched the stereotypes of both women and Asian- Americans. Those who had been reminded that they were women performed worse than those who had been reminded that they were Asian-American. These results show that even our own behavior can be influenced by our stereotypes, and that activation of stereotypes can depend on our current state of mind and how we view ourselves at the moment.



A second experiment tested the same general idea by priming the concept of the elderly, using words such as Florida, bingo, and ancient. After the participants in this experiment completed the scrambled-sentence task, they left the room, thinking that they had finished the experiment—but in fact the crux of the study was just beginning. What truly interested the researchers was how long it would take the participants to walk down the hallway as they left the building. Sure enough, the participants in the experimental group were affected by the "elderly" words: their walking speed was considerably slower than that of a control group who had not been primed. And remember, the primed participants were not themselves elderly people being reminded of their frailty—they were undergraduate students at NYU.

http://www.autoblog.com/2007/07/30/model-t-takes-on-a-hummer-in-hill-climb/

http://accuterra.com/blog/the-most-exhilarating-hiking-trips-in-the-united-states

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=280001

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/24/0151211

Ariely and Shin conducted an experiment on MIT students. They devised a computer game which offered players three doors: Red, Blue, and Green. You started with 100 clicks. You clicked to enter a room. Once in a room, each click netted you between 1-10 cents. You could also switch rooms (at the cost of a click). The rooms were programmed to provide different levels of rewards (there was variation within each room's payoffs, but it was pretty easy to tell which one provided the best payout).

• Players tended to try all three rooms, figure out which one had the highest payout, and then spend all their time there. (These are MIT students we're talking about).
• Then, however, Ariely introduced a new wrinkle: Any door left unvisited for 12 clicks would disappear forever. With each click, the unclicked doors shrank by 1/12th.
  • Players jumped from door to door, trying to keep their options open
  • They made 15% less money; in fact, by choosing any of the doors and sticking with it, they could have made more money
• Ariely increased the cost of opening a door to 3 cents; no change--players still seemed compelled to keeping their options open.
• Ariely told participants the exact monetary payoff of each door; no change.
• Ariely allowed participants as many practice runs as they wanted before the actual experiment; no change
• Ariely changed the rules so that any door could be "reincarnated" with a single click; no change.
• "Players just couldn't tolerate the idea of the loss, and so they did whatever was necessary to prevent their doors from closing, even though disappearance had no real consequences and could be easily reversed."

Wall Street Kid and Daylight

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pM-NlF8ikkYJ4YqBfaZX3Og

So I've been obsessed with actually beating Wall Street Kid. I started keeping track of the prices on paper, and then switched over to a spreadsheet. After 3 games I finally bought the house (I probably would have got it in the second game but I accidentally agreed to buy it early). Turns out, there are 4 different types of stock and each week 2 of those types are doing well, and all the member stocks will tend to go up. There is no penalty for buying and selling so you want to buy and sell every day if needed. To make a long story short, after about 3 hours of logging data I used the strategy of buying whatever stock did best that day, usually the same stock does best all week. Buying the house is only the first level, but once you have it you can get loans, and it makes it pretty easy so I stopped playing. Note that I was getting about 20-25% a week by buying the best stocks. If you bought all the stocks in the types doing well you'll average about 15%. You have 4 weeks to turn 500k into 1000k so you need at least 19% a week, or 3.75% a day.

http://daleswanson.org/wsk/wsk.htm


http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/articles/bahcall/

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=oR00_uLfGVE

So I was reading something that mentioned that due to the Earth elliptical orbit the summer is longer than the winter. This meant that contrary to my long held belief the year did not have exactly equal amounts of day and night. So I put the sunrise/sunset data for a year into a spreadsheet and figured out exactly how much extra daylight we were stealing from the southern hemisphere (since they had extra night for our extra day). Turns out there are 4,644 hours 43 minutes of daylight per year, while you'd only expect 4,380 hours given 12 hour average daylight. Meaning we get an extra 264:43 of daylight every year, or 1:26 per day.




I've been wanting to start a new thread here for a while. I've been doing a lot of research about astronomy, so I was going to start with a email about that, but surprisingly I've been to lazy. But I am reading the first book I've read in months, and I like it a lot, so this email will be about that. It's called Predictably Irrational, and it's about how people behave irrational, but in a predictable manner, I'm not sure where they got the title from. Here's the review where I learned about it:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/ariely-tt0409.html

From the review I immediately compared it to Freakonomics, which I liked a lot, but if I remember you read and didn't really care about. Well I've attached it, so you can read it if you want. If you do you may want to not read my thoughts on it, as it'll be sort of like spoilers.

It starts with an example I've seen before, possibly on Slashdot, and that I may have written about in a past email. It is a supscription scheme for some economics journal. They had 3 options:

1. Internet-only subscription for $59.
2. Print-only subscription for $125.
3. Print-and-Internet subscription for $125.

When I gave these options to 100 students at MIT' s Sloan School of Management, they opted as follows:
1. Internet-only subscription for $59—16 students
2. Print-only subscription for $125—zero students
3. Print-and-Internet subscription for $125—84 students

However when he removed the middle option, the one no one picked, he got different results:

Au contraire! This time, 68 of the students chose the Internet-only option for $59, up from 16 before. And only 32 chose the combination subscription for $125, down from 84 before.

What could have possibly changed their minds? Nothing rational, I assure you. It was the mere presence of the decoy that sent 84 of them to the print-and-Internet option (and 16 to the Internet-only option). And the absence of the decoy had them choosing differently, with 32 for print-and-Internet and 68 for Internet-only.

And then there's this:

An ironic aspect of this story is that in 1993, federal secu­rities regulators forced companies, for the first time, to reveal details about the pay and perks of their top executives. The idea was that once pay was in the open, boards would be re­luctant to give executives outrageous salaries and benefits. This, it was hoped, would stop the rise in executive compen­sation, which neither regulation, legislation, nor shareholder pressure had been able to stop. And indeed, it needed to stop: in 1976 the average CEO was paid 36 times as much as the average worker. By 1993, the average CEO was paid 131 times as much.

But guess what happened. Once salaries became public information, the media regularly ran special stories ranking CEOs by pay. Rather than suppressing the executive perks, the publicity had CEOs in America comparing their pay with that of everyone else. In response, executives' salaries sky­rocketed. The trend was further "helped" by compensation consulting firms (scathingly dubbed "Ratchet, Ratchet, and Bingo" by the investor Warren Buffett) that advised their CEO clients to demand outrageous raises. The result? Now the average CEO makes about 369 times as much as the aver­age worker—about three times the salary before executive compensation went public.

http://www.babeled.com/2008/02/21/alec-baldwin-spreading-fear-and-lies-about-nuclear-energy-in-my-backyard/

http://www.ssqq.com/archive/vinlin27c.htm <- looks like a job for the rally neon http://www.oliverbenjamin.net/badalbumcovers.html <- Make sure you pay attention about half way down http://xkcd.com/231/

http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/cargocul.htm

http://xkcd.com/320/

http://xkcd.com/209/


"The solution was to be found on the moon. Scientists determined that Tall King radar signals, traveling in a straight line, would eventually collide with the moon at least part of the day. The trick would be to catch the signals as they bounced back to earth. To accomplish this, a complex "catcher's mitt" was built. Near Moorestown, New Jersey, a giant sixty- foot satellite dish was aimed at the lunar surface. Attached to it were very sensitive Elint receivers tuned to the Tall King frequency. Over time, as the earth and moon revolved and rotated, all of the Tall King radars eventually came within view and were charted. "


"In Bruce Schneier's book,Secrets & Lies,he points out that the FBI estimates that up to twenty national intelligence organizations are partly focused on U.S.companies in the hope of successfully conducting industrial espionage.Their purpose is to relay information to companies in their own countries. China is considered the worst offender the world around, but France and Israel are also high on the list."


"Turnbull studied the Bambuti pygmies who live in the dense rain forests of the Congo, a closed-in world without vast open spaces. Turnbull brought a pygmy out to a vast plain where a herd of buffalo was grazing in the distance. The pygmy said he had never seen one of these insects before; when told they were buffalo, he was offended and Turnbull was accused of insulting his intelligence. Turnbull drove the jeep toward the buffalo; the pygmy's eyes widened in amazement as he saw the insects 'grow' into buffalo before him. He concluded that witchcraft was being used to deceive him."