NASA's "back in harness"

NASA's new "test harness" for its next generation of interplanetary flight systems gets "first light" this month. -- DocSalvage

Test engineer James Peckham runs an avionics flight simulation to see how SLS will perform during launch.

.@NASA_SLS hardware, software, operating systems integrated & powered up for inaugural run: http://t.co/iw6VJ6yumH pic.twitter.com/uMoVPTS0JX
— NASA (@NASA) January 13, 2014

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Edward Snowden is a patriot

Today, I'm very proud of the ACLU.

I'm proud of ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero for having the courage to publicly pronounce Mr. Snowden a patriot while the administration that I otherwise love continues to vilify him and aggressively seek his extradition and prosecution.

Today, I'm even proud of my country.

It has not been so for many years now. For the last 33 years, America has been dominated by a profound state of fear.

That all-consuming fear has driven administrations to oppress and abuse any who disagreed... both foreign and domestic. That all-consuming fear has driven American business to levels of exploitation and corruption of law not seen in a hundred years. And that all-consuming fear has driven half of the American people to re-embrace racism and sexism; to arm themselves beyond all reason; to actively reject 50 years of making the world a better place in which to live.

I'm proud of my country today because, despite all that, despite the tremendous official and public vitriol towards Edward Snowden ... despite the historic condemnation by many of the ACLU's work ... Mr. Romero and the ACLU have the freedom to speak out without fear of retribution.

That cannot be said in much of the world.

That cannot be said in the world that half of this country wants to return us to.

As one of our most famous patriots once said, "We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

Mr. Romero and the ACLU have chosen to "hang together" with Edward Snowden.

I couldn't be prouder.

Are men, by nature, rapists?

I believe history provides a great deal of supporting evidence that men are, indeed, exactly that. It is only the "civilizing" affect women have managed to have on men in the last century that curbs the most overt expressions of it.

Male dominance over women is near-universal throughout history.

Note that every major religion is patriarchal and places stringent requirements on women to act in ways that are subservient, powerless, and non-enticing. The Christian Crusades of the late Middle-Ages virtually wiped all of the religions with female deities.

A case can also be made that the "war on women" by conservative men over the last 30yrs, particularly recently, is a kind of retaliation. Greater restrictions on actual sexual dominance may very well have caused many men to find other ways to assert themselves.

"Civilizing" a society is the act of teaching men to think more like women.

The Cannabis Business

Illegal goods and services are a lot more profitable than legal ones if you can structure the market to keep the inevitable legal costs manageable.

In free-markets, the better something is for consumers and business startups, the worse it is for the establish businesses. That's the vital counter-balance competition provides. Without it, business stagnates into a few mega-companies that work in sync to inflate prices and minimize cost by minimizing quality.

Eventually, it becomes so unbearable that enough entrepreneurs join with consumers in rebelling.

If the government leans towards the totalitarian model, it's usually beholden to established business and so attempts suppression, resulting in violence.

More democratic governments like ours elect more liberal, consumer/entrepreneur sympathetic representatives who pass laws that rein-in the worse business excesses. Healthy competition is thus restored without violence.

It's good to see the first glimmers of that on the horizon.

"ibuprofen is the safest of the NSAIDs", IIF tells FDA in 2002

Having severe acid-reflux (GERD) for years along with numerous other ailments, I've struggled to formulate a combination of diet and medications that can happily coexist. In that adventure, and contrary to most medical advise, prescription (Rx) strength (800mg) ibuprofen has consistently proven the easiest on my digestive system, while being far more effective at pain relief than aspirin or acetaminophen.

Programmers' Hardest Tasks

So, spending half my programming time naming things intelligently so I'll have a chance of being able to reuse them without studying their code all over again is how everyone does it?

Here and I thought I was just a dunce.

It's refreshing to learn I'm a real programmer!

Unfortunately, due to the widespread shortage of enlightened programming managers, it also means I'm unemployable.

Ah well ... I'll just keep blogging ...

Top 5 misconceptions about open source in government programs

If we want reliable, open government, shouldn't most government software be open source?

posted 21 May 2013 by Adam Firestone on opensource.com
Within US government programs, while the use of open source software (OSS) is not mandatory, it is both permissible and often encouraged. However, due to the Byzantine nature of the controlling laws, regulations, policies, and guidance (LRPG) as well as some popular misconceptions, architects, systems engineers, and developers often encounter reactions ranging from unfamiliarity to resistance when recommending the use of OSS. For the remainder of this article, we’ll debug five of the most widespread misconceptions.

... life and death in the so-called safety net

Sharing and emailing to everyone, including my doctor, Dr. Jose Rodriguez at the Neighborhood Medical Center (nee Neighborhood Health Services) that is one of only two free clinics in Tallahassee like the one in this article ...

Texas' Other Death Penalty

http://www.texasobserver.org/a-galveston

A Galveston medical student describes life and death in the so-called safety net.

by Rachel Pearson Published on Wednesday, November 13, 2013, at 2:01 CST

Healthcare.gov: Armchair Analysis

Healthcare.gov may need to be redesigned to just collect and store the application data, then say, "Thank you very much, you'll get an email within 48hrs with a link to your options."

The data would go into a queue database that other, back-end software would process sequentially and produce a results dataset with whatever is needed to present a list of plans and prices for that applicant. The applicant logs back in in a couple of days to start comparing plans.

Reagan Started It All

JJR wrote on Facebook Oct 1, 2013
re: today's government shutdown...

"One of the ways you can acquire a prion disease is to eat right out of its skull the brains of an infected monkey. We are now seeing the country reeling and jabbering from the effects of the prion disease, but it was during the time of Reagan that the country ate the monkey brains. . ."

I was so naive back then. Here I thought no elected official could be more Hitler-like than Reagan. Then I was sure Newt had him beat. Then it had to be "W."

Who knew they were wusses compared to Ted Cruz, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, ... (I'm tired of typing)?

You're absolutely right, Reagan set it all in motion.