"Because They Work, Bitches!"

Science based medicine works. XKCD hits the nail on the head once again. Click the image to read the rest of the comic.

Wonderful Quote

From Eric Rothschild, the chief counsel for the plaintiffs in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial. During cross examination, Intelligent Design proponent Michael Behe claimed the immune system was irreducably complex and when pressed admitted he had not read the books and articles on immunological evolution. To which, Mr. Rothschild countered

Thankfully, there are scientists who do search for answers to the question of the origin of the immune system ... It's our defense against debilitating and fatal diseases. The scientists who wrote those books and articles toil in obscurity, without book royalties or speaking engagements. Their efforts help us combat and cure serious medical conditions. By contrast, Professor Behe and the entire intelligent design movement are doing nothing to advance scientific or medical knowledge and are telling future generations of scientists, don't bother.

As someone who suffers from one of those debilitating diseases of the immune system, I for one whole heartedly thank those scientists toiling in obscurity. Michael Behe and his ID brethren can suck an egg for foisting this nonsense on our school systems.

Tweeting From the Command Line

A little while ago, Twitter removed the ability to tweet using HTTP Basic Authentication. This killed the ability to use a simple call to curl with your Twitter username and password. Interestingly enough, the November issue of the Linux Journal still mentions using the basic auth method to tweet from a script.

This will not work any longer now that Twitter is officially using the OAuth specification. Fellow CLIer's take heart, however, fortunately there is a way to use OAuth from the command line, it only requires a will and a tweepy. Tweepy is a python module written specifically to allow users to authenticate via Twitter's API and fire off tweets programmatically.

I used the method described here to setup my system checks for my home server. Thus far it's working well.

"Your Silly Little Computation Requires Energy, Fool"

I hear the voice of B.A. Baracus when I repeat the title of this post in my head.

Our Universe is a quirky place (much quirkier and more interesting than your local psychic or astrologer make it out to be, but that's a conversation for another day). One of the most surprising discoveries of modern physics is the fact that energy can be neither created nor destroyed by any process.

Oh sure, we can move energy around with chemical, mechanical, electrical, physical, or nuclear processes but rest assured we cannot create any new energy from these processes. Burning a piece of firewood is a good example of a chemical energy conversion. By igniting a piece of wood, you are starting a chain of events that lead to a chemical reaction known as combustion. Combustion combines the hydrocarbons in wood with oxygen from the air; a reaction which outputs heat, light, and several elements (carbon, very little nitrogen, etc...)

Believe it or not, computers function as basic energy converters. More specifically the processor in your desktop, mobile phone, car, or about a gadzillion other electronic devices convert electrical energy into something useful like a photo of your dog. As a matter of fact, the more you push your processor to do something useful, the more energy it needs. This fact is easily demonstrated by a computer attached to an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS).

The job of a UPS is to maintain power to a device even if the source of electricity stops working. By attaching a computer to a UPS, you are able to keep using the computer even if the power goes out in your home for a few minutes. Most newer UPSs allow you to track the amount of power your computer is consuming and how much run time you have left. Run time is a measurement of how long the UPS will last in the case of a power outage and goes down when more power is being consumed by the computer.

The graphs posted below depict me forcing my computer to do some real work (encoding a home movie in x264 using 8 threads). All of a sudden, when the work (encoding) begins, the run time of the UPS drops from 14 minutes to 9 minutes and the UPS load goes up from 25% to 40%!

Basically, the processors in my computer are converting a home movie from one format to another by converting energy into work!

Neato mosquito!

Blue Jay

I finally got a picture of the Blue Jay that's been visiting our bird feeder. I never realized how much bigger he is compared to the little House Finches and Chickadees until he landed on the feeder and it started to swing a little bit.

This picture is so blurry because I took it during the low light morning hours with our point-and-shoot Canon SD850 IS. I'll attempt to get a better picture next time I see the jay.

What comes after bath time?

A rocking faux hawk, that's what!

The Backyard Project

After several months of preparation, the sod for my backyard was finally delivered yesterday evening. A couple of neighbors and I laid the three pallets from Milberger's Nursery in a little under two hours! It was a lot of work, but definitely worth it.

"What happened to all the dirt?"