Random Thoughts

Today, the Boy Scouts of America seemed to back peddle on last year’s promise to accept and recognize gay scouts--by rejecting and banning a gay scoutmaster who was...gay. Why did the organization do that? Nasty administrators? Probably not. Bigoted leadership? Maybe. I suspect another factor: the organization’s core values. Geoff McGrath, 49, leader of Troop 98 in Seattle’s Rainier Beach neighborhood. Link: NBC I say this as a former scout who spent many of his most formative years bending to the Boy Scout Law: trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful,…

Long-time readers of this blog (are there any left ?) know me well since I often used to  write posts about personal matters here and in my previous sites. However, I am aware that readers come and go, and I also realize that lately I have not disclosed much of my personal life here; things like where I work, what's my family like, what I do in my pastime, what are my dreams and my projects for the future. So it is a good idea to write some personal details here. Of course I do not mean to imply that any of that stuff is interesting to you. But if the early experience of "Quantum Diaries…

Boeing 747 AAIB Accident Report Reveals Electrical FailuresAn accident report published April 11 2014 by the AAIB - the UK's Air Accidents Investigation Branch - reveals that on August 17 2012 a large number of serious electrical faults occurred after an engine failure in Boeing 747-4H6  9M-MPL. Summary: Significant vibration was noted on the No 2 engine during departure from London Heathrow Airport. The engine subsequently failed and was shut down by the crew who elected to jettison fuel and return to Heathrow Airport. During the approach for a planned autoland, all three…

When you have been around as long as Harvard, and your library contains 15 million books, you are bound to have a few that are bound in human flesh. Wait, what? Yes, an interesting article by Samuel Jacobs in The Crimson from 2006 got resurrected recently. It detailed what librarians would rather not become an object of morbid fascination - that some of their books are bound in human skin. Odd, right?  I imagine using skin is no different than any other hide, if you get by the cultural creepiness. When I was a kid living in the country I wanted to learn old-timey techniques so I would…

MH370 Transcript - Official Release Malaysian authorities have released the transcript of communications between flight MH370 and ground.  Unfortunately, most media outlets reporting this news are either not citing the transcript in full or are not providing their readers with a link to the original. As a public service I am posting here  the two pages as published in pdf form together with a plain text version. Original pdf file source:http://www.malaysiaairlines.com/content/dam/mas/master/en/pdf/Audio%20Tr...page 1page 2 Plain text transcribed from the pdf - MAS 370 (Kuala Lumpur…

If there is one thing wealthy elites across the developed world share in common, it is increasingly denying vaccines and genetically modified foods. One organic food marketer is laying it right on the table; Bitsy's Brainfood, created by Alexandra Buckley Voris and Maggie Jones Patton, is made with real fruits and vegetables and, they claim, will make your children smarter just by eating it. Wealthy Whole Foods parents will agree because it is organic and all three varieties are fortified with 12 essential vitamins and minerals - which shows you the company is selectively picking and choosing…

We often think of April 1st as more of a modern event, because it's sort of stupid and we think of our ancestors as being more serious.   Not so. Even the eminent biologist Charles Darwin got pranked by his shipmates on the HMS Beagle, April 1, 1832, as evidenced by his diary.  While March 31st only noted a "A fine rattling breeze" the following day had him excited to make a new discovery: All hands employed in making April fools. — at midnight almost nearly all the watch below was called up in their shirts; carpenters for a leak: quarter masters that a mast was sprung. —…

The reboot of Cosmos was on the must-see television list for many; it is a prime-time non-fiction science program, with one of the best hosts in science media, a generous budget, airing on 10 channels, and even had music by the guy who did Captain America. Excitement was high. Then it actually began. It had an alarming non-science gaffe - the story of the likely insane philosopher Bruno reconfigured to be...what exactly, no one is sure. 25% of Episode One was devoted to talking about mean old religion in the middle of a narrative about cosmology only to have Neil Tyson then dismiss the entire…

Whistleblowing - Why I Love the Sound of a Whistle According to an official U.K. Government source: Whistleblowing is when a worker reports suspected wrongdoing at work. Officially this is called ‘making a disclosure in the public interest’. A worker can report things that aren’t right, are illegal or if anyone at work is neglecting their duties, including: someone’s health and safety is in danger ... According to Wikipedia, the term whistle-blower has its origins with the referee in football. Not so. There were whistle-blowers long before the invention of the Acme whistle. The term has…

Suspect Object Identified? News of a mystery object washed up on Haa Alif atoll Baarah southern beach has been wrongly linked to the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Ailines Flight MH370. It appears to me that it is something rarely seen these days outside of a museum: a polyphase mercury arc rectifier.  From the distribution of the components it is probably 6 phase.  It is certainly some kind of pressure vessel.  That would point equally to some kind of fire-suppression component or some kind of evacuated vessel. Examine this image: It looks like a pressure vessel: note…