Software is Hard

Very interesting article about the Romney polling software system call Orca and its failure during its deployment to the field. Effective software at large scale is not easy.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/inside-team-romneys-whale-of-an-it-meltdown/

Couture between his legs goal

Logan Couture between his legs goal with Joe Thornton on the other team. Too bad the NHL can't get its act together so the only "Sharks" hockey I can watch is not in English and via youtube.

Anti Science And Its Growth

Been a topic of conversation within the Everett brothers (Steve and I) for at least a few years.

Good article that presents it in a historical perspective.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=antiscience-beliefs-jeopardize-us-democracy

Lightning

I loved watching lightning as a kid, I can vividly remember seeing cloud to cloud lightning occur over and over one morning while sitting inside waiting to head off to school.

 Interesting article about it: http://what-if.xkcd.com/16/

The Craziness of How Fast Computers Advance

 My iPhone has the storage equivalent of 64 of those 1981 1 gigabyte hard drives in it.

Rootstriker

I have just begun reading the book "Republic, Lost How Money Corrupts Congress and a Plan to Stop It" by Lawrence Lessig, the speaker in the above video.

One thing I am always amazed is to see how history tends to repeat itself or how issues from the past are still issues now without many people recognizing that fact.

The influence of money is not a partisan issue, it is occurring within simply the government.

Quote:
"The Republican party is now facing a great crisis. It is to decide whether it will be, as in the days of Lincoln, the party of the plain people, the party of progress, the party of social and industrial justice; or whether it will be the party of privilege and of special interests, the heir to those who were Lincoln's most bitter opponents, the party that represents the great interests within and without Wall Street which desire through their control over the servants of the public to be kept immune from punishment when they do wrong and to be given privileges to which they are not entitled"

Who do you think spoke those words? Maybe somebody during the current election? To be honest, it could easily be switched around for the Democratic party as well.

The speaker of the above quote is Teddy Roosevelt in April of 1912, over 100 years ago...

Vanity Fair article - Obama's Way

My political disposition is probably influencing my thoughts, but I believe this article simply shows how courageous, challenging, and overwhelming being the President of the United States is and how well President Obama is accomplishing it.

My favorite quote from the article: “There are some things about being president that I still have difficulty doing,” he said. “For example, faking emotion. Because I feel it is an insult to the people I’m dealing with. For me to feign outrage, for example, feels to me like I’m not taking the American people seriously. I’m absolutely positive that I’m serving the American people better if I’m maintaining my authenticity. And that’s an overused word. And these days people practice being authentic. But I’m at my best when I believe what I am saying.”

 http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2012/10/michael-lewis-profile-barack-obama

NHL Locked Out

Instead of the pre-season starting this week, the players are locked out again. Many NHL players are playing overseas, including Joe Thornton.

Below is a clip from the first game Joe played in with HC Davos in the Swiss National League. He had four assists including 3 of them with Rick Nash.

Another source of "Tim" material

I have been using Google Plus just to share various news articles and blog postings that I find interesting. You can view my stream on Google Plus at https://plus.google.com/105943794069230037136/posts.