... and now, Jerry Pournelle, RIP

Another influential thinker checks out.  Article over at The Verge.  While primarily a science fiction writer, he was also known as an early blogger, the first person to write an entire novel on a computer, and a sharp commentator on social and economic trends (see: Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy).

Don Williams Checks Out

Even if you're scratching your head and asking "Don who?" right now, when you hear one of his songs you'll likely nod "oh yeah, he was good, gonna miss him."  Not much to add beyond the write-ups at Fox and the BBC.

He played in Biloxi about three years ago, and now I'm really regretting not making that show.

Ensemble Modeling Explained

We're seeing a lot of this sort of thing lately:

uh-oh

I'd explain, but Randall Munroe has already done the job graphically with style and a side-order of humor:

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There.  All clear now?  OK then, I'll go back to staring at the various hurricane prediction sites and chewing my fingernails now.

How to Spot a Flood Salvage Car

Not that I'm in the market, but you never know:
Avoid a Harvey Hooptie over at Eric Peters Autos site.
The article give some quick checks anybody looking around on a used car lot can do on the spot, even before taking it to an independent mechanic for the obligatory pre-buy checkout.

Makes me sad.

Voyager

This picture and what it's about (explanation over at NASA's Astronomy Picture Of the Day site) ought to float your boat.  You can get a high-res pdf of it from there too.

Gearing Up for Backpacking, Part 7: Initial Weigh-In

Shoved it all together last night.  Initial base weight: 22.2 pounds.  Throw in the FT-817nd with its accouterments and this balloons to 29.3 pounds.  Remember, that's base weight, and it's unacceptably high.  Will have to mull this one over.  Applying Amdahl's Law to the problem, clearly the tent and the bear keg are the first two items to consider.

Hmm.  Something to ponder.

Shamelessly stol.. borrowed from

http://www.cleverhiker.com/blog/top-12-beginner-backpacking-blunders

Extended Forecast

After a long, damp summer it looks like we might be about to turn the corner:

Lows in the mid-60's?  I'll take it!  Of course, a big "we shall see, we shall see" applies to all of this.