Back to the future

Remember Tron? There was a story after the story...

Genius, Visionary, Modern Hero. That is Kevin Flynn. He came into our lives and showed us the limitless possibilities of the future. And then, all of a sudden, he "disappeared." Some people believed he died. We don't. We know that Kevin Flynn Lives. We're not crazy, we're not obssessed, we're not lunatics. We simply have followed the facts wherever they lead. And the facts tell us that Kevin Flynn Lives. We are here for Kevin. Nobody can make us stop believing that he is out there, that he's waiting for us, and that he will return when the time is right.

High Noon

The famous time of day is usually synonymous with a quiet time of the day when people struggle to get out of the noonday sun and bear the heat in silence. When the sun itself is silent, it's a different story.

Is the Sun Missing Its Spots? - NYTimes.com: "Indeed, last year marked the blankest year of the Sun in the last half-century — 266 days with not a single sunspot visible from Earth. Then, in the first four months of 2009, the Sun became even more blank, the pace of sunspots slowing more.

“It’s been as dead as a doornail,” David Hathaway, a solar physicist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., said a couple of months ago.

The Sun perked up in June and July, with a sizeable clump of 20 sunspots earlier this month.

Now it is blank again, consistent with expectations that this solar cycle will be smaller and calmer, and the maximum of activity, expected to arrive in May 2013 will not be all that maximum."

Hat Tip: Instapundit

Regulation of dangerous equipment

Warner Crocker has some interesting things to say:

"Today all of the research is being made public (you can see them on the NYTimes site.) I’m sure it will provoke cries for more stringent laws. I say save us all the aggravation and the expense and just enforce the laws we already have, even if it upsets Congress or whomever."

Warner is no doubt correct about the outcry for more laws. People in general are very concerned about other people having dangerous items.

What's curious about the quote above is that it could easily be applied to gun control laws. That's not what the story is about at all:

Quite honestly, I don’t think there need to be new laws put on the books about using cell phones, and texting while driving. There are already laws on the books about reckless driving and to my mind anyone who is texting while driving is already guilty enough. The same holds true, in my opinion, for those who don’t use a hands free solution while talking on the phone and driving. If we need to spend money to determine if using hand held devices while driving is a potential danger, then I think we need to look more at the deficiencies caused by having our heads stuck in places where they don’t belong.

Fascinating.

Roundabout

I remain unconvinced. Perhaps I'm getting old, but the few "roundabouts" I've been in have left me stressed as I attempt to keep up with traffic, not get hit by incoming drivers, and navigate to the exit I'm looking for while reading a bewildering array of signs arranged like a Chaos Arrow.

American drivers should learn to love the roundabout. - By Tom Vanderbilt - Slate Magazine: "Safety. Intersections are perhaps the single most dangerous environment in traffic. According to the Federal Highway Administration, more than one-fifth of all traffic fatalities happen at intersections. If you think the problem is a lack of signals, think again. Reports FHWA: 'Only 10% of all intersections are signalized, but nearly 30% (2,744) of intersection fatalities occurred at signalized intersections.'
Roundabouts are safer than traditional intersections for a simple reason: By dint of geometry and traffic rules, they reduce the number of places where one vehicle can strike another by a factor of four. They also eliminate the left turn against oncoming traffic—itself one of the main reasons for intersection danger—as well as the prospect of vehicles running a red light or speeding up as they approach an intersection to 'beat the light.'"

Making Better Choices?

Help me out here. We're going to eliminate waste by making better choices? Sounds simple, but I have to ask if a pacemaker for a 100 year old woman is one of those choices that might go the other way?

YouTube - Obama to Jane Sturm: Hey, take a pill: ""

Evoloterra -- When We First Left Planet Earth

I like to link to this every year in the hope that some day I won't have to search for it.

Evoloterra -- When We First Left Planet Earth

Lifeboat

I've been considering a move to Blogger from my own personal Wordpress blog for some time, but the difficulty in moving post from the old blog to this one has been causing me to delay.

Today, I was told that my blog wasn't responding. I couldn't even get to the control panel or support. So if nothing else, I'm now familiar with the ways and means of switching my name servers.

I'll continue to try to recover all my old posts, but I fear they may be down the digital memory hole.