Web Log Archive, November 12th through November 25th, 2006

Saturday, November 25th, 2006

"...we will have wars as long as leaders find it easier to say what they would kill for [rather] than what they would die for."
Jonathan J. Margolis

"The situation is deteriorating more rapidly than anyone anticipated and to an unending depth. I don't think, in modern American history, there is another example of such egregious failure of policy and execution. We're seeing something unprecedented here. Even Vietnam was a slower decline, and the military forces were more in balance." David Rothkopf


Friday, November 24th, 2006

"At a Senate hearing last week, Gen. John Abizaid sounded like
 

Goldilocks meets Guernica.
 
He said we can't have fewer troops because the Iraqis need us, but we can't have more because we don't want the Iraqis to become dependent on us."         Maureen Dowd



Thursday, November 23rd, 2006                     Thanksgiving Day

Dateline Redwood City, from the Department of Buy A Vowel: "His parents reportedly did not know she was in the basement. [for 18 months!]."

Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006                             Forty-Three Years Ago

"It is practically an article of faith among psychotherapists that an intimate human relationship is good for you.
[But it] seems that for some people, love and intimacy might not just be undesirable, but downright toxic!"

Richard A. Friedman, MD

Tuesday, November 21st, 2006

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
Popular Mechanics, 1949

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
 Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of DEC, 1977

Monday, November 20th, 2006                         Happy Birthday, Halle! Happy Birthday, Meghan!


One cold night, as a Bedouin prepared himself for sleep, his camel gently thrust his nose under the flap of the tent and looked in. "Master, it's cold and stormy out here. Please let me put my nose in your tent so that it may be warm and dry during this night." "Well...OK," said the man, "if you must...but just your nose!" With that, the man turned over and went to sleep.
When the man came awake a bit later, he discovered that his camel not only had his nose in the tent, but his head and neck as well. Somewhat sheepishly, the camel said,  "Master, I will take up only a little more room if I also place my forelegs within the tent. It is very difficult to be standing out here." Though the tent was quite small, the man was quite drowsy and so he replied "OK, I suppose you may put your forelegs within."
With that, he turned over and went back to sleep.
When the man next came awake, the camel said, "Master, may I not stand wholly inside? Standing as I do, with my hind legs outside, I keep the tent open and the cold creeps in." Sensing some logic in this, but not without misgivings, the man said, "All right, then come wholly inside. Perhaps it will be better for both of us if you do." So the camel crowded in and the man turned over and went back to sleep.
When the man next came awake, he found himself outside in the cold.
The camel had the tent all to himself.

Sunday, November 19th, 2006

Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was delivered one hundred forty-three years ago today.

At left is the only known photograph of Abe on that day of the dedication of the Civil War Cemetery. 

The man to the President's right (who looks a bit like General Grant) is Ward Hill Lamon, his personal bodyguard.

This grainy crop is from a photograph which lay unrecognized in the Archives of the Library of Congress until 1952!



Saturday, November 18th, 2006


Friday, November 17th, 2006

"As a libertarian, Mr. Friedman advocated legalizing drugs and generally opposed public education and the state’s power to license doctors, car drivers and others. He was criticized for those views, but he stood by them, arguing that prohibiting, regulating or licensing human behavior either does not work or creates inefficient bureaucracies."
“Just because Milton Friedman says it doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily untrue.” Paul Samuelson

Thursday, November 16th, 2006

This, courtesy of my big brother:

"While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially I consider it an impossibility, a development of which we need waste no time or dreaming."   Lee De Forest (1873-1961), writing in 1926
"Why should anyone want to buy a radio? Nine tenths of what one can hear is the continual drivel of second-rate jazz, sickening crooning by degenerate sax players, interrupted by blatant sales talks!" ...speaking in 1951
In 1907, Lee DeForest was granted a patent for the 'Audion', a device derived from two earlier inventions: Thomas Edison's 'Electric Light' and Ambrose Fleming's 'Valve'. The latter invention was an evacuated glass bulb used to (crudely) control (DC) current between two oppositely charged electrodes (or 'plates') in the same sense that a faucet (or 'valve') is used to control the flow of water from a source. 
DeForest's genius was to introduce a third internal element which he placed between Fleming's two. He demonstrated that the current through the Valve (the 'tube') could be instantaneously altered by varying the voltage on that third element.
This single innovation became the foundation for the audio amplifier, for telephonic (as opposed to telegraphic) radio transmission (the 'Radiotelephone') and (yes) for television.
Fleming's Valve is a diode. DeForest's Audion is a triode. So Edison's Light is a monode.   ;-)  

Wednesday, November 15th, 2006

This, courtesy of my baby sister:

"One is often told that...religion makes men virtuous [but] I have not noticed it. You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world.  I regard [religion] as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race. I cannot, however, deny that it has made some contributions to civilization. It helped in early days to fix the calendar, and it has caused Egyptian priests to chronicle eclipses with such care that in time they became able to predict them. These two services I am prepared to acknowledge, but I do not know of any others."
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) (That's right! He lived 98 years!), from Why I Am Not A Christian, a lecture delivered in 1927.

 "The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way."

"The problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are certain of themselves while wise people are full of doubts."


Tuesday, November 14th, 2006                Condoleezza Rice is 52

What would you do if your last name was Boring?

Age and treachery may overcome youth and skill.

Monday, November 13th, 2006

"No one notices inequality in the power of the notes of a scale when it is played very fast and equally, as regards time. In a good mechanism, the aim is not to play everything with an equal sound, but to acquire a beautiful quality of touch and a perfect shading. For a long time, players have acted against nature in seeking to give equal power to each finger. On the contrary, each finger should have an appropriate part assigned to it. The thumb has the greatest power, being the thickest finger and the freest. Then comes the little finger, at the other extremity of the hand. The middle finger is the main support of the hand, and is assisted by the first [the 'index' finger]. Finally comes the third [the 'ring' finger], the weakest one. As to the Siamese twin of the middle finger, some players try to force it with all their might to become independent. A thing impossible, and most likely unnecessary. There are, then, many different qualities of sound, just as there are several fingers. The point is to utilize the differences and this, in other words, is the 'art of fingering'." Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)


<<< The only known photograph of Chopin, taken in1849 by Louis-Auguste Bisson (1814-1876).

"Too often, we’ve immersed ourselves in political minutiae; we can’t see the forest for the trees. We’re going to try to make sure we see the forest, keeping our eyes on the big picture while giving you results, as well. I hope I’m able to get in some color, too. (For example, did you know that Montana Senate candidate John Tester is missing three fingers on his left hand from a meat grinding accident when he was a child?? Or that Rahm Emanuel apparently cut off part of his middle finger in a meat slicer, too? Clearly, some Democrats should contemplate becoming vegetarians…) I hope I’ll be able to mention that Virginia senatorial candidate James Webb, a Democrat, wrote in a 1979 article that the Naval Academy is “a horny woman’s dream.” I’d like to mention that because I’ve never said “horny” on TV!" Katie Couric

Sunday, November 12th, 2006

If the results don't agree with the theory, believe the results and invent a new theory.

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