ricketyclick

Cars in a dealership parking lot covered with snow

The snow on the highway overpasses were beginning to cover even the traffic paths. I passed one accident, saw one car who looked as if he might have just barely avoided hitting the barrier barrels in the crotch of a wye, and there was a whole lane of stopped cars that may well have been due to an accident. Iwas OK, but for a while, I was being followed by some idiot who hugged my tail by a carlength or less, at freeway speeds, although I kept flashing my brake lights trying to get him to back off. No go. Made it home alright, though.

British bookies have suspended betting on aliens arriving sometime today, 14 October, because they face a seven-figure payout if the aliens do, in fact appear.

Idiots. If the aliens do appear, that’s going to be the least of our concerns. At the very least, we all must learn to play the piano.

Whatever, just don’t feel alone here in the New Age, because there’s a seeker born every minute!

Just remember, avoid eye contact. If there are no eyes, avoid all contact.

Via Steven Den Beste, and have a nice Blue Moss. Or if you prefer, a Bear Whiz Beer.

The Boston Globe has an absolutely stunning series of high-resolution images of our nearest star in the ocean of suns.

I’ve put the following very large (3 MB) animated image file behind a spoiler tag for your dial-up protection. Click on “More”, then click on the image to open the animation.

Hard to believe, but this is not the most stunning picture available.

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Movie of the Sun

Via Bad Astronomy.

Jeff Patterson Conquers the Solar System.

The model consists of markers with hand-painted globes spaced out across forty miles of Maine countryside.

…At this scale one mile equals one AU, and the speed of light is 7 MPH. A brisk walk becomes relativistic, incurring sizable time dialation. Even the lowest speed limit is several magnitudes into the transluminal. It is also staggering to realize that Alpha Centauri would be about as far as the moon.

Today is Powers of Ten Day, celebrating the amazing short film by Charles and Ray Eames, placing us in our proper scale with the universe. Turns out, we’re just about smack dab in the middle, neither cosmically huge nor atomically tiny.

[youtube link]

Eliezer Yudkowsky at Overcoming Bias says the unsayable:

One of the major surprises I received when I moved out of childhood into the real world, was the degree to which the world is stratified by genuine competence.

Now, yes, Steve Jurvetson is not just a randomly selected big-name venture capitalist.  He is a big-name VC who often shows up at transhumanist conferences.  But I am not drawing a line through just one data point.

I was invited once to a gathering of the mid-level power elite, where around half the attendees were “CEO of something” - mostly technology companies, but occasionally “something” was a public company or a sizable hedge fund.  I was expecting to be the youngest person there, but it turned out that my age wasn’t unusual - there were several accomplished individuals who were younger.  This was the point at which I realized that my child prodigy license had officially completely expired.

Now, admittedly, this was a closed conference run by people clueful enough to think “Let’s invite Eliezer Yudkowsky” even though I’m not a CEO.  So this was an incredibly cherry-picked sample.  Even so…

Even so, these people of the Power Elite were visibly much smarter than average mortals. In conversation they spoke quickly, sensibly, and by and large intelligently. When talk turned to deep and difficult topics, they understood faster, made fewer mistakes, were readier to adopt others’ suggestions.

No, even worse than that, much worse than that: these CEOs and CTOs and hedge-fund traders, these folk of the mid-level power elite, seemed happier and more alive.

This, I suspect, is one of those truths so horrible that you can’t talk about it in public.  This is something that reporters must not write about, when they visit gatherings of the power elite.

Because the last news your readers want to hear, is that this person who is wealthier than you, is also smarter, happier, and not a bad person morally.  Your reader would much rather read about how these folks are overworked to the bone or suffering from existential ennui.  Failing that, your readers want to hear how the upper echelons got there by cheating, or at least smarming their way to the top.  If you said anything as hideous as, “They seem more alive,” you’d get lynched.

I shouldn’t have to quote this, because Overcoming Bias should be one of your daily reads. Everyone should have to start the day with muscle burn from exercising your body, and headache from exercising your brain. But it’s a good headache, honestly it is.

Note that Yudkowsky is talking about the power elite, the movers and shakers, not just rich people generally. The Hollywood Elite, chameleons who have become fabulously wealthy by pretending to be real people, speaking words written for them by others, often strike me as more than a little dim in person, say on talk shows, or on their own blogs.

Radar shows northernmost bands approaching south-east corner of the 610 loop. Strongest rain is only moderate to heavy, and it’s followed by a band of light to nothing, then the eye, then more moderate to heavy.

My parents have turned off their power and gone to bed, so they’ll get some rest before Ike shakes them awake.

Sooo…I’ve handed the man my ticket. I’m strapped in. We’re climbing that first hill, and we’re almost to the top….

I just wish…I just wish I could see the other end of the track, but there’s all these clouds in the way.

1940 hrs: Wind’s picking up, tree crowns waving back and forth. Clouds overhead coming from North-NorthEast. Cool. No rain. A few small, dry branches on the ground.

The rain, just an intermittent spit, didn’t last.

Updated wind map, released 1600, from data taken at 1300. Track has moved back east, good for me by a little bit.

Wind speed prediction released 1600 from data taken at 1300

Weather channel says first rain band moving in, and I can expect to lose power then.

WC also reports an “elderly gentleman” who has refused to evacuate Galveston Island, apparently the last resident. Talking head calls it a “death wish”. No, you puny idiot weakling, it’s not a “death wish”, it’s being mule stubborn. Totally different deal. If he’s elderly, and has lived his life on Galvestone, he’s survived shit you can’t even imagine, you puling puppy. I expect he’s taken all the precautions available to him. He has, in any event, earned the right to run his own life as he damn well pleases.

I salute you, sir, whoever you are, and I wish you well.

Three P.M. CDT: I’m out doing some last minute battening down — First Rain felt about 30 minutes ago.

Ike estimated windspeed-currently expecting 87 mph sustained

The predicted path has shifted West, which is bad for everybody to the East of Houston. The current track puts the center going almost directly overhead. (I’m in the 77076 zip code, North of the 610 loop, just below and to the right of the I-45 marker.) My impression is that the eastern coast is more developed, so this is not good. I think, judging by what I’ve overheard on the Weather Channel, it’s going to continue to shift West. Dammit.

I’ll continue to post for as long as I have power and tubes.

Caught my neighbor re-digging a drainage ditch that runs between our houses. I originally dug it for Allison, in a vain attempt to drain the backyard, which was flooding. Just before it topped the slab, I discovered a badly-placed landscape timber in the backyard was blocking the drainage on the other side of the house; the yard drained completely in less than 30 minutes. I’ve since refilled the ditch, which did nothing. Unfortunately, he’d already almost finished. I hope he took care of other business first. Sorry ’bout that.