Well, this twitter feed was inevitable. It’s pretty good.
Category Archives: Technology and Society
Automatic Transmissions
Don’t be afraid to shift them in motion.
I’ve noticed that most/all of the new cars have shifters on the automatic (some are with thumb paddles on the steering wheel). But unlike a pattern of a stick, they work like a motorcycle, with an upshift or downshift, but you can’t skip gears. In general, absent a clutch, I don’t really see the point, except perhaps for stump pulling or climbing steep hills, and for the latter it still seem like the transmission will know best. As a stick driver, I have trouble knowing what to do with the throttle when I shift them. Supposedly, you’re supposed to just keep the gas on for the shift, which seems very unnatural to me.
The Fracking Fallacy
…of Tom Friedman. Friedman gets entirely too much respect for his intelligence.
Loot
I find it interesting that many of the spam emails I get offering me quick loans (usually on the order of a thousand or fifteen hundred or so) use the word “loot” in the subject line to describe the funds (e.g., “We’ve got the loot the get back in your bankroll!”). I wonder if this is a deliberate connotation of theft, or just a poor understanding of the historical meaning of the word on the part of the spammer?
Mark Twain Video
Not really — as the first commenter points out, it’s film, but it’s pretty cool. Particularly considering who the film maker was.
Longevity
It’s not really a new story, but things continue to advance, and it’s a useful reminder, to plan to live a long time. Unfortunately, it’s not something that most pension planners or entitlements reformers are taking into consideration. It implies that Social Security and Medicare are even more broke than we think.
My Phone Bill
So, I’m paying twenty bucks a month to Verizon to be able to tether to my phone. Does this ruling apply to me? Or is it only for 4G users? Guess I’ll have to read it to see, and even then I still may not know (particularly since they may appeal it).
Back Home
We got in last night (did some hiking in Yosemite on Monday). Yes, I’m aware of the site issues. The problem seems to be intermittent, which makes it harder to troubleshoot (and I’m not that much of a PHP maven to do such troubleshooting). I suspect it has something to do with the template update I did a few weeks ago. Any suggestions are appreciated. But I’m also pretty busy getting a talk prepared for the Mars Society conference on Friday, and getting caught up from being gone for a week.
Technophobic Fearmongering
I love the picture in this story.
Beautiful Sky Monsters
Some amazing photos of super cells over the plains.