September 2013

There were 39 posts published in September 2013 (this is page 2 of 4).

Police: Man wanted in Raleigh museum break-in surrenders :: WRAL.com

Some dude broke into our favorite state museum early Sunday morning and made a mess. Fortunately for him, he turned himself in before I could find him. You do not mess with the Turners’ favorite museum.

One question I have about this incident is where was the State Capitol Police? Shouldn’t they be regularly patrolling this and other multi-million-dollar state resources? Would it be too much to ask that our cheapskate Republican legislature properly fund its state police resources so they can fulfill their obligations?

These are state resources. Why does it seem that Raleigh Police always has to bail out the state?

Raleigh, N.C. — A man caught on security video breaking into the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences early Sunday has turned himself in, State Capitol Police said.Police Chief Glen Allen said Joshua Matt Pace, 23, of Raleigh, turned himself late Sunday in after photographs from the security video were widely shown by the media.

via Police: Man wanted in Raleigh museum break-in surrenders :: WRAL.com.

Goldsboro Broken Arrow

Yesterday, news outlets ran a story based on newly-declassified documents concerning the 24 January 1961 crash of a B-52 near Goldsboro which resulted in the release of two megaton-sized atomic bombs. I became captivated by the story and spent what free time I had today collecting information on it for its Wikipedia page.

I had known about the crash for some time as UNC’s ibiblio server has hosted documents about it for nearly two decades. It seemed to be an interesting plane crash story with a nuclear angle but it make me worried. What I did not know until today is just how close one bomb was to nuclear detonation, vaporizing much of eastern North Carolina and raining deadly fallout all over the East Coast.

Yesterday’s stories highlighted the fact that only one switch kept one of the bombs from completing its arming cycle and setting off a detonation 250 times as powerful as the bomb that leveled Nagasaki, Japan. While that’s certainly scary enough, today’s sleuthing revealed a much more terrifying situation. It turns out when the second bomb was found it had been fully armed. Its arm switch had been activated. No one knows why the bomb plummeted harmlessly into the ground at 700 MPH instead of reaching a thermonuclear critical mass and wiping out all living things within a 10 mile radius. Only sheer blind luck saved us from nuclear incineration.
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Dogs in parks issue postponed

Due to a high likelihood that the Parks, Recreation, and Greenway Advisory Board (PRGAB) will not have a quorum tonight, the issue of restricting dogs in certain areas of parks will not be taken up at tonight’s meeting. Almost half of our board members have said they are unable to make it. This is an important issue we’re considering and we want to make sure all our members have the chance to weigh in with their thoughts, particularly those members who serve on the committee which considered it, the Greenways and Urban Trees Committee (GWUT).

Another factor is the change in location, part of the board’s desire to explore all the great meeting spaces the Parks system has to offer. We are meeting at the new Hill Street Neighborhood Park off of Skycrest Drive. It would not be good to have those interested in the dog issue schlep all the way out to Hill Street only to find that the issue wasn’t being considered. We’ll likely take it up at the next meeting, which should be held at the usual place: the Jaycees Module building off Wade Avenue.

This will be a notable meeting for another reason, however: it will be the last Parks board meeting I chair. I’ll officially hand the gavel over to Kimberley Siran tonight. She’ll be great.

Dear parents, you need to control your kids. Sincerely, non-parents

Nice rant about non-parents thinking they know more about parenting than parents themselves.

Anyway, listen, I don’t think you, of all people, should be telling other folks what they “need to learn.” If you just shut up and paid attention, you’d realize that YOU could learn plenty from mothers like the one we both encountered yesterday. I know I have lots and lots to learn as a young parent, which is why I’m always prepared for a more experienced parent to take me to school and teach me a thing or two, even if they don’t know they’re doing it. Parenting is the easiest thing in the world to have an opinion about, but the hardest thing in the world to do. You shouldn’t scrutinize parents when you aren’t one, for the same reason I wouldn’t sit and heckle an architect while he draws up the blueprint for a new skyscraper. I know that buildings generally aren’t supposed to fall down, but I don’t have the slightest clue as to how to design one that won’t, so I’ll just keep my worthless architectural opinions to myself.

via Dear parents, you need to control your kids. Sincerely, non-parents | The Matt Walsh Blog.

Innovation and competition

theideafactory

The book The Idea Factory made me question what we know about innovation and the free market.

Conventional wisdom says that a free enterprise system that rewards innovators with market success is what drives innovation in this country. However, this was not the case at the fabled Bell Labs, where brilliant AT&T scientists brought forth a dizzying number of groundbreaking discoveries, one after another.
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Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy | Wait But Why

This Huffington Post repost of a Wait But Why post draws an unflattering picture of Generation Y:

Say hi to Lucy.

Lucy is part of Generation Y, the generation born between the late 1970s and the mid 1990s. She’s also part of a yuppie culture that makes up a large portion of Gen Y.

I have a term for yuppies in the Gen Y age group — I call them Gen Y Protagonists — Special Yuppies, or GYPSYs. A GYPSY is a unique brand of yuppie, one who thinks they are the main character of a very special story.

So Lucy’s enjoying her GYPSY life, and she’s very pleased to be Lucy. Only issue is this one thing:Lucy’s kind of unhappy.

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N&O switches to Facebook comments

The News and Observer switched to Facebook comments for its online stories today. I suppose that’s a good thing, since the previous comment system was frequently the target of spammers.

It will be interesting to see if the N&O follows through on its belief that if it’s worth saying, one should sign one’s name to it. Can we expect the newspaper to start putting names on its editorials?

We’ve always wanted our story forums to be places for robust, but civil, exchanges of opinion on the issues of the day. But too often, they become pits of mudslinging and abuse that scare off folks who want a rational conversation.

The biggest reason: Our systems have allowed readers to use screen names that hide their identities.

We believe that if you have something to say, you should be willing to put your name on it.

via Why we’ve changed how you comment on our site | Local/State | NewsObserver.com.

Latest Casualty Of NSA Spying Revelations: Web Advertising Based On Tracking Users

I’m so trendy.

As we’ve noted before, Edward Snowden’s revelations about the globe-spanning spying being conducted by the NSA are have all sorts of interesting knock-on consequences. Here’s another: people are starting to worry about being tracked by online advertisers, and taking action to avoid it,

via Latest Casualty Of NSA Spying Revelations: Web Advertising Based On Tracking Users | Techdirt.

Born on the Bayou

Now when I was just a little boy standin’ to my Daddy’s knee
My Poppa said “son don’t let the man get you do what he done to me
’cause he’ll get you ’cause he’ll get you now now.”

I can remember the fourth of July runnin’ through the backwood bare.
And I can still hear my old hound dog barkin’ chasin’ down a hoodoo there
Chasin’ down a hoodoo there.

Born on the bayou
Born on the bayou
Born on the bayou.
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