PS

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Bruce A. McHenry via James Wm Clement
This clever birdbot flies almost like a real seagull.
When I upload, I want it to be into one of these!
Short video is well worth the few seconds (despite
the ditzy narration)
Ultra-realistic bionic bird
brightcove.newscientist.com
A robot modelled on the herring gull sets a new standard for realistic flying machines
April 4 at 8:56pm · · · · Share
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Barry Kort Jonathan Livingston Seagull!
April 4 at 9:05pm · · 1 person
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Bruce A. McHenry
Despite what is being written about him today, Paul Baran told me that there was another guy in England with the idea of using data packets for a wide area network. He said the other guy called it a "packet network" whereas he came up with a complicated long name compressed into an acronym. Paul was a really honest, nice guy interested in finding ways to make the world a better place.
Read my condolence and leave your own in the Guest Book for Paul Baran
Bruce left a condolence in the Guest Book for Paul Baran.
www.legacy.com in partnership with San Jose Mercury News
March 28 at 5:46pm via Legacy.com · · · · View Guest Book
Bruce A. McHenry via Yohko Hatada
By far, the best time lapse, long exposures I have ever seen of the Northern Lights. Many shots taken also with the moon illuminating beautiful mountain scenery as if under daylight.
In The Land Of The Northern Lights
vimeo.com
Ok folks, this is it. Here is my first video project. It is a timelapse video of the Northern Lights. All sequences are shot in or close to Tromsø in Northern Norway. I have spent over 6months collecting footage for this, I have shot approx 50.000 stills...
March 28 at 5:52am · · · · Share
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Bruce A. McHenry Watch it in full screen mode with HD.... unless you have a slow Internet connection.
March 28 at 6:00am ·
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Bruce A. McHenry via Araz Inguilizian
This is a rather long piece that backs up the remarkable data on vacant apartments in China with images. The central planning behind this makes the US sub-prime mortgage business look frugal.

This Australian news video says there are 70 million unsold apartments in China. The overbuilding has been going on for years, and the building continues. It seems most are "luxury" at $100,000 and up. Terms? 50% down an
SBS Dateline | China s Ghost Cities
www.sbs.com.au
SBS :: Special Broadcasting Service
March 25 at 9:39am · · · · Share
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Jim Lai Provincial governors are told to hit GDP targets. Enabling make-work projects count as economic activity and stimulus, but they are not sustainable when they result in oversupply and bad debt. Corruption and kickbacks further reinforces the trend. They've clearly abandoned any socialist concern for affordable housing.
March 25 at 9:52am ·
Bruce A. McHenry I was saying that with terms like 50% down and 3 years to pay, the building boom makes US bankers seem prudent. The million dollar question is who is holding all that debt? I read something about higher level party officials being fond of real estate. Is it possible that much of the upper level bureaucratic class is holding it? If so, wow!
March 25 at 11:58am ·
Bruce A. McHenry Eventually, they are going to have to fill those apartments with Chinese workers. If the vacancy rate is 75% now, how much will prices have to drop to be affordable?
March 25 at 12:01pm ·
Jim Lai The Chinese banking system has long had issues with bad debt and balance sheets. While the US had a massive bailout in one shot, China has been gradually bailing out their banks over the years. China's massive reserve of dollars could be applied to bail out the big four state banks.
March 25 at 12:33pm ·
Jim Lai From 2004: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_04/b3867133_mz035.htm
March 25 at 12:34pm · · 1 person
Bruce A. McHenry Reading between the lines, it appears that the state owned banks are holding the titles to those 70 million unsold apartments.

I guess the rationale is that incomes are growing quicker than the government's cost of money.

The apartments were probably also dirt cheap to build, maybe $20,000 per unit where the asking price is $100,000.
March 25 at 1:59pm ·
Jim Lai And now everyone can see part of how China magically achieves its GDP growth targets. Housing contruction adds to GDP, even if the result sits there unoccupied, or the loan goes bad.
March 25 at 2:16pm · · 1 person
Bruce A. McHenry Hey, it keeps unemployment way down too. It worked for W, then he bailed out the banks, and his special friends at Goldman et al on the winning side of those credit default swaps. And to think that there are still people who do not believe that 9/11 was also a conspiracy of those scoundrels...
March 25 at 2:24pm ·
Jim Lai I'm one of those who do not believe, actually.
March 25 at 3:42pm ·
Bruce A. McHenry
Jim,

Do you believe there was a conspiracy behind the issuance of AIG's credit default swaps? That was something like a $150 billion scam that will funds years of the big dog bonuses on Wall Street.

If so, think about how much more money was at stake should Saddam Hussein have conquered the Sunni Arabs of the Gulf. American concessions would have been put up for grabs. Israel would have been threatened.

I was involved with a quasi-conservative think tank (Center for the Study of the Presidency) in 2002. Yes, there is a lot of conspiracy theory that makes no sense. However, there is also some that really adds up.

To see a summary of the evidence that most convinces me, scroll down toward the bottom of http://docs.google.com/View?id=dgq8gmpn_37d5nnn6g8
March 25 at 4:18pm ·
Jim Lai
This is what I get when I follow the money. Pakistan played a double-game with the US, with AQ as a proxy via the ISI. WikiLeaks backs up the link between Pakistan and AQ.http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/america_plays_the_fool_in_pakistan_fZOjcKtRYU17iMSHAd38HJ By playing a double game, Pakistan's backing of AQ and the 9/11 plot to trick the US into providing aid, and have diverted the majority of billions in funding toward conventional arms better suited to fighting India than terrorists. http://www.pulitzer.org/archives/8322 http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-07-24/india/28273058_1_pakistan-army-coalition-support-funds-weapons-purchases
March 25 at 5:06pm ·
Bruce A. McHenry
Those are good articles and it is certainly true that Pakistan plays for both sides with its military deeply divided. But Saudi Arabia exports on the order of 10 million barrels a day - $1 billion. A day. That's almost 100 times more than US military aid for Pakistan. It's an open faucet compared with a dribble. Read the cites at my link before you wave off complicity of Saudi princes with Kissinger and the neo-cons.
March 25 at 5:55pm ·
Jim Lai You can bet the Saudis paid attention to this analysis from 1999: http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/cc/baker.html Quote: "Despite this application of airpower, the fall of Riyadh was delayed by only a single day in Desert Storm 2010."
March 25 at 6:05pm · · 1 person
Bruce A. McHenry Thanks for the cite which confirms that Iraq remained a threat to "our friends" in the House of Saud.
March 25 at 6:18pm ·
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RESTAN: A Ubiquitous Device that Transforms the Use of Cars and Roads | Connected Vehicle Technology
connectedvehicle.challenge.gov
RESTAN combines many key functions foreseen by professionals into one ubiquitous device. It uses DSRC to eliminate approximately 40% of all collisions and traffic casualties. As a side effect of keeping vehicles off collision courses, it will significantly improve city MPG.
March 22 at 10:44am · · · Share
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Bruce A. McHenry via Dave Jans
Isn't it time for America to get on the right side of history, the side taken by its founding fathers?
Deadly crackdown in Yemen
gdata.youtube.com
Yemeni security forces have opened fire at a protest in the capital Sanaa, killing at least 30 people. It is the highest death toll in a single day after weeks of demonstrations calling for Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Yemeni president, to stand down. Witnesses say armed men opened fire from nearby
March 18 at 2:27pm · · · · Share
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Ask Speaker Boehner to Honor his Pledge
readthebill.org
Call Speaker Boehner and ask him to honor his word and follow the 72 hour rule in the future.
March 18 at 2:20pm · · · Share
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Bruce A. McHenry via Ann Tulintseff
Even when there were court orders against it, the oligopoly providers behaved poorly. eg The local phone companies contravened court decrees to give 3rd DSL internet providers access to the central offices. Another example was when Comcast or AT&T intermittently blocked competing VOIP services like Lingo and Vonage.

Now, the House ruling seems to be be setting a precedent allowing ISPs to selectively cripple compe
House Panel Moves Forward To Repeal Net Neutrality Rules
www.huffingtonpost.com
WASHINGTON — House Republicans have taken another step toward repealing new Federal Communications Commission rules that prohibit phone and cable companies from interfering with Internet traffic on their broadband networks. The House Commerce Committee voted 30-23 along party lines Tuesday to overtu
March 17 at 4:08pm · · · · Share
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Laura Kelleher Neal Posts with a purpose.
March 17 at 4:38pm · · 2 people
Bruce A. McHenry Hmm.... foiled by the post length limit again. Why is it that Facebook still does not properly deal with this? It should notify users before truncating their posts. It does not. Then it trashes anything that it silently truncated which is inconvenient if not inconsiderate and rude.
March 18 at 1:40pm ·
Bruce A. McHenry
Anyway, I was writing about the House committee vote. Apparently, all the Republicans voted to let ISP's discriminate against certain content. It is a precedent that seems to show an appreciation of free market principles. However, it is not a free market. As any decent introductory economics course teaches, it is a natural monopoly. In such cases, strong regulation or public ownership is essential to prevent abuses. Didn't any of the Republicans take economics?
March 18 at 1:44pm ·
Bruce A. McHenry via Andrea Kuszewski
If the price of solar cells continues to decline at the same rate, this article predicts that they will be cost effective for a location with average sunshine by 2020. Unfortunately, the author omits the cost of backup systems for when the sun is not shining.
Guest Blog: Smaller, cheaper, faster: Does Moore's law apply to solar cells?
www.scientificamerican.com
The sun strikes every square meter of our planet with more than 1,360 watts of power. Half of that energy is absorbed by the atmosphere or reflected back into space. 700 watts of power, on average, reaches Earth’s surface. Summed across the hal
March 16 at 12:35pm · · · · Share
Bruce A. McHenry
just found his Twin. Find yours now!
March 15 at 3:40pm via Twin Mind · · ·
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Bruce A. McHenry is in an open relationship with Noreen Ferrante.
March 6 at 3:49pm · · · See Friendship
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Laura Kelleher Neal
Very good. All square.
March 5 at 5:47pm · · · See Friendship
Noreen Ferrante We are going to a Rosey reunion in April in Texas! I'm looking forward to meeting his friends from Rosey.
March 6 at 3:55pm ·
Laura Kelleher Neal Yes, the kids are all good. Daughter at age 12 in the middle of puberty is sometimes challenging! It was a nice idea for Jan's 50th. I have kind of lost touch with him, though I did send him a b'day card. Have fun in Texas!
March 6 at 4:29pm ·
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Twilight Landing At LAX - Bing Videos
www.bing.com
A commercial airline pilot sets up a camera in the cockpit and captures a beautiful dusk landing at Los Angeles International Airport.
March 5 at 3:52pm · · · Share
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Bruce A. McHenry Low cost of living. Exciting place. Good climate during the winter.
March 7 at 5:24am ·
Noreen Ferrante You will get very sick from their parasites. Just to visit you have to get shots, bring antibiotics and be very careful of what you eat and drink. It's dusty and windy so you must be careful about upper respiratory infections. I suppose once you get exposed your body will build up antigens to fight off sickness.
March 7 at 1:03pm ·
Bruce A. McHenry went from being "single" to "in an open relationship."
March 5 at 3:43pm · ·
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Bruce A. McHenry I'll be there by June at the latest and maybe as soon as April. I just moved back to the Bay Area after almost 19 years away.
March 5 at 5:58pm ·
Abhishek Sinha ‎:)
March 5 at 6:24pm ·
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