Book Of Norm

The FAA has allowed a small weight exception for the The Transition Roadable Aircraft, developed by Massachusetts-based engineering firm Terrafugia. Basically, this allows it to be 1,430lbs instead of 1,320lbs and still be classified as a light sports aircraft. This is not that big an exception, as seaplane light sports aircraft are also given this limit - so going on the road = going on the ocean more or less. This thing, much as reports would like you to read it that way, is not a flying car. It is a plane that you might be able to drive on the road (not sure what kind of exceptions it is going to need for that - no way it will pass passenger car safety tests). It will however go about 70mph on the roads - which is not bad. However, at about $200,000 this is not going to be flight for the masses just yet. Actually, what interests me more than a $200,000 plane which you can drive to your private airstrip is just how interested people are in the ...

CNN gets what so many of the fanboy tech writers dont: the iPhone 4 is flawed. Like do-not-buy-one-there-will-be-a-massive-class-action-lawsuit flawed http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/mobile/06/30/leaked.apple.docs.mashable/index.html?iref=NS1 "According to documents leaked to Boy Genius Report today, AppleCare representatives are being given a strong company line to deliver to unhappy iPhone 4 owners who complain about reception issues. Employees are told to say that the device's reception performance "is the best we have ever shipped" and that its critical antenna flaws are "a fact of life in the wireless world." They are told not to perform service on iPhones with these problems and instead to give customers a PR-driven recitative instead. Outside the reality distortion field, on the other hand, we and many others have been able to duplicate the issue being discussed: When held by its sides, which are composed of a metal antenna band, the phone's recep...

You think that Norm would not comment on the spy scandal? Hell - I love spy scandals - but I think this one is especially interesting. First of all - you have the Russians going all Cold War on our ass. Literally. None of this digital stuff, we are talking about dead drops, secret passwords, maps with stamps on them, microdots etc. They did also do a little bit of online transfers (embedding things in images for example) and a lot of lying and building up cover stories on social networking sites, but overall the tradecraft was pretty much in line with the beautiful 1979 Lada. The interesting thing is that these people were pretty much living their legend (legend being the long-term cover story, background, and current livelihood of the spy) - these spies were seriously embedded - like a tick on a rhino's ass. So deeply embedded that it is kind of hard to imagine. Many of them were married, with kids, yet living in the US with false documents, false pretenses, etc etc. The idea of b...

Looking at the news this morning -came across this gem of a headline and tagline. Journalistic excellence... not to mention - who the hell cares about the middle of the curve? New Mexico ranks 32nd fattest in U.S. Bizjournals.com - ‎1 hour ago‎ New Mexican's are less fat than most states, but still rank as the 32nd fattest in US, according to a new report from the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation .

FIFA is about as responsive to customer complaints as your typical Chinese eBay seller - they don't give a damn. But they did say they would consider goal-line technology so that the above bullshit shenanigans never happens again. To not consider it would be "nonsense." At the same time, they completely ruled out the possibility of even considering the 21st century video replay so that when their refs are paid off totally blow it they can still get their kickbacks only have to face possible assassination by angry Brits, Mexicans, Americans, and possibly a few more (from this world cup alone).

I don't believe in the right to bear arms. I am a libertarian and think that the protection of an individuals rights is the most important aspect of society. But I do not think that the right to own a specific kind of weapon ever has been or ever will be a fundamental right. The argument for them is usually a secondary one: owning a gun increases your ability to protect your other rights, and thus they are critical to civil liberties. I think not. Guns do little good, and contrary to the NRA's campaigns, it is guns that kill people. In the UK, you have a higher rate of violent crimes and a much lower murder rate. Surprising? not really. It is much harder to kill if you don't have a gun - and that is a good thing. The number one argument given as to why guns should not be banned is a practical one: bad guys can always get them, and then the good guys (usually in the form of "me") would not be able to get one. I will concede that is likely the case - it would be pos...

Well, kinda. They put out this statement on the holding-with-the-left-hand-means-no-more-talky-talky issue: "Gripping any phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas. This is a fact of life for every wireless phone. If you ever experience this on your Phone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases." Doesn't Apple just make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?

Congress has lost control. "After the Wall Street collapse in the 1930s, Congress laid the groundwork for historic reforms with a meticulous investigation of the misdeeds of corporate bankers by the Senate Banking and Currency Committee – known as the Pecora Commission after the panel’s chief counsel, Ferdinand Pecora. But the 111th Congress didn’t wait for completion of a probe to propose fixes. The ongoing Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, chaired by former California state treasurer Phil Angelides, is to report to Congress in December." Instead they are going to try and ram through a bill which fixes what caused the financial crises, by getting rid of the huge downfalls of a mixed economy created by Freddie and Fannie and government regulation which creates asset bubbles and false security. Wait, whats this? The bill does not even mention or deal with Freddie and Fannie? But everyone knows they were the root of the issue. Ohh - too hard to deal with, so you are going to...

This is just pathetic. Congress passed a new campaign finance bill because its old one got torn to shreds by the Supreme Court - and this one is even more arbitrary and likely unconstitutional. Even more sickening, it passed with a carve-out for the NRA and large labor-unions. In other words, the regulations apply to any business or smaller group in America, but not the NRA and major unions. WTF is that? Really gooddamn sickeningly pathetic is what it is. How can you claim this has anything to do with freedom of speech when it creates a two-tiered system. Where the hell in the constitution is the justification that large organizations should have more freedom than small organizations? This is "Hope and Change" in action. The only thing that will let us survive the Obama era is that most of these bills are and will likely eventually be ruled as unconstitutional. In passing this kind of utter crap, Congress has lost all sense of dignity, honor, common sense, and basic fairness.

A little while ago I wrote about how the drilling ban in the gulf was an idiotic (and luckily shot down by the judicial branch - so far) decision on the part of our President. So... par for the course from Obama really. But more and more article have come out in the last couple days about how everyone in Louisiana, after being hit hard by Katrina and now this seemingly endless disaster... is against the ban as well. They realize that a) the events leading up to this disaster were rare, unlikely to ever be repeated, and not representative of the overall industry and b) this is a really friggin idiotic time to be heaping more economic disaster on the gulf region. Obama trying to get BP to pay for all the rigs that Obama arbitrarily shut down is ridiculous again. Let me give again the example that this would be like one airline having a disaster, and the government banning all air travel and forcing that company to pay for it. Ridiculous. Anyway, I feel really bad for Louisiana, they have...

Soccer it seems is on the up and up in the land of made-for-TV sports. I mean, I like watching American football and all - but the game is usually about 9 minutes long but takes 2 and 1/2 hours to play. Something is wrong there. Soccer is 90 (usually 94 total actually) minutes long.. and takes about 20 mins more than that to play. There are sometimes longish periods without goals, but rarely are there long periods of nothing going on - especially at the highest level. It always surprises me that this is American's number one complaint about soccer, when baseball can go for hours with nothing more exciting than a close call on a strike. Regardless, it seems that attendance at MLS is now higher than the NHL, and the ABC/ESPN ratings for this world cup are much higher than the last few (though I think '94 was still higher). A number of commentators are talking about this as the rise of America actually caring about soccer. And to a degree I think that is true. My generation grew u...

These ships are an example of why America is a great nation. The third largest class of ship in the US Navy (after the two nuclear carrier classes), the Mercy class is a massive floating hospital. They have been deployed only once for war – the Gulf war – but spend much of their time in the Pacific and Atlantic respectively offering free hospital care to hundreds of thousands and support in times of need and natural disaster, from the tsunami, to Katrina, to broad tours around the globe.

best of craigslist > new york > penis caught in my zipper at el biet - m4w Originally Posted: Fri, 1 Jan 22:21 EST penis caught in my zipper at el biet - m4w Date: 2010-01-01, 10:21PM EST i had just gone in for a normal pee, but the way you pounded, and pounded, and pounded on the door screaming "out! i have diarrhea! out! for the love of god come out, its coming out of my butt, pleeeeease!!!" got me so turned on that i got an erection. then, because your kicking started splintering the door, i quickly yanked up my zipper and caught my penis up in the process. i'm sorry again for the screaming as you pushed me down and sat down with the door hanging off it's hinges, but the look of sheer horror and embarrassment we shared in front of the staff and other patrons looking on before you ran out the back door and climbed over the fence has captured my heart. please describe what i was wearing so i know its you. Location: williamsburg it's NOT ok to co...

Some of the groups are set. Indeed, the US and England, the two teams I really care about, already know who they will be facing in the next round. The US will face Ghana, certainly a winnable match, but the interesting part is that one of the teams from among the U.S., Ghana, South Korea and Uruguay will be in the semifinals. A fairly unlikely crew. For England, it is in a corner of the bracket with Germany, Argentina, and Mexico.. which is.. not good. If it beats Germany (and I really hope it does) it will then have to get past Argentina, which will be... difficult. Not to mention the fact that England loves both the Germans and the Argentinians (for those who dont remember such things - the Falklands war was between the UK and Argentina in '82 - we spanked them like a German at a sex-expo). Anyway - here are some simulated odds pulled together - perhaps the most interesting is that Spain, which came in as #2 in the world and with many people expecting them to win it all, has unde...

If you go around the web you can find any number of glowing reviews of the new iPhone. Not here. Lets go over the main new features in terms of software: "In addition, the iPhone now includes an updated operating system—which also can be installed free on the prior model—that introduces catch-up software features such as limited multitasking (the ability to run apps simultaneously); folders for grouping related apps; and, for email, a unified inbox for multiple accounts and the ability to present messages as threaded conversations" All of this crap is something I have had for a year on my Pre, and is built into every version of Android. In addition, webOS has full, not limited multitasking. Android, though not as good on that front as the crystal-clear card view of webOS, is still much more powerful than iPhone OS 4. In terms of hardware, the phone now has a 1ghz chip and a higher resolution screen, along with a front facing camera you can use to video chat with other iPhone ...

It is more than somewhat fitting and slightly ironic that Elon Musk chose "Tesla" as the name of his electric car company. The original Tesla, Mr. Tesla himself, was a brilliant scientist who was a founding father in the study and use of electricity. He was also chased after impossible pipe dreams, made it damn near impossible to tell his truths form his lies, his brilliant revolutionary theories based in fact from his wishes based on dreams. What lives on from Tesla is not a behemoth of industry such as conEdison. No, what lives on from Tesla are a string of brilliant ideas, a fundamental way in which the world works, but a feeling that he was always looking forward too far, to something always not quite there, and that he knew he would not be able to actually achieve. To this day, Telsa, a genius, a scoundrel, a brilliant inventor, has an air about him of wishes and dreams, what could have been but never was. And today, Tesla, the motor company, is going cap-in-hand to inv...

Mazda is giving up on its "Nagare" styling theme. Though it produced some truly beautiful show cars, the swoopy organic lines were hard to translate onto production cars, specifically boxy shaped vehicles such as the Mazda 5. In addition, the main designer behind Nagare left about 18mo ago for Tesla, which means he will be getting a chance to draw a lot of art and build very few vehicles. In search of a new design direction, Mazda has stated it is looking to become a Japanese Alfa Romeo. As such, its new design direction will be known as "Thrusting Motion". Seriously. The Japanese want to be more like the Italians so they are copying their "Thrusting Motion"...

Nokia remains the largest cellphone company in the world, but its smartphones... well... they are terrible. Do you know anyone rocking the latest Nokia N-series? Maybe the N98? No? No one? Yeah - thats because they are barely even sold over here, largely because the operating system is about as up-to-date and attractive as Windows Mobile. Nokia phones have been stuck in a pre-iPhone world, and couldn't break out. Nokia even paid $1 billion to buy Symbian, the company which makes the software for Nokia phones (and some other companies as well before that). But symbian was unable to make an effective modern operating system, which is why as of today a little known science project of Nokia's will step up to try and save the company. By this I mean Nokia's line of internet tablets, one of which I bought for my brother a few years ago, and I loved it so much I got one for myself. For their time (came out in 2005) they were revolutionary little guys running a touch-friendly versi...

There are some crappy coaches at the World Cup. Indeed you wonder how they get to be coaches at the World Cup. You have Fabio Capello for the English team - who I am not a huge fan of. He refuses to play some of England's best players (Crouch) and has failed to create a cohesive and effective strategy. Currently, Rooney--probably the best player on the team--doesn't seem to know where his position is or what he is meant to be doing. But Capello has nothing on my two least favorite: There is Carlos Caetano Bledorn Verri - known as Dunga. The coach of the Brazilians. He was a very prominent player for Brazil from the late 80's to late 90's, including captaining the winning '94 squad. The time is known as 'era Dunga' for the slow boring style of game he brings. By the end of his playing time a young whippersnapper, Ronaldinho, was stealing the show with his amazing playing (Along with Ronaldo - who scored 12 goals in the 2002 world cup, a performance which was ...

Decided it was time for some just plain ridiculous stuff. In my opinion - no explanation necessary here:

Yeah - so we all thing our "Ice Road" truckers are badass over here in North America. This is what one of the Russian trucking "roads" can look like. Yeah.

Group B Rallying was epic. Though you may think that most racing and rallying done today pushes the limits, it doesn't. Group B did. They did not bother limiting the cars to what humans would be able to handle - and that is exactly why Group B eventually supernovaed.

Japan's space agency has successfully deployed the first solar sail. There was a US outfit which tried this a few times (not NASA) but never got it to work. Now, IKAROS has its beautiful sail unfurled and is ready to ride the solar winds. There is something incredible about the idea of literally sailing through the cosmos, reaching for stars in the same way that mankind reached for new lands and continents. Of course, solar sailing is not the fastest way to get around, but it does allow infinite propulsion, which is not a bad thing. from wired: The unfurling of a Japanese solar sail, the first demonstration of a new space propulsion technology, went exactly according to plan. According to JAXA’s blog posts and photos from the event, the IKAROS spacecraft’s sail appears to be in place. It’s a big step in its attempt to travel driven only by sunlight. “This is the first sail ever deployed in space, and if they succeed in using it for solar-sail flight — it’ll still be a few weeks...

Both my teams made it through to the round of 16, but damn they could have made it easier. England managed to score a grand total of 2 goals in three world cup games, including this game against Slovenia where they should have ended 4 or 5-0, but failed again and again to have any skill in actually finishing. The US was in serious danger of elimination, as Algeria had some very good chances to go ahead, and the game was not nearly as lopsided as the England match. Thankfully, they managed to pull it out in the 92nd minute on a somewhat ugly goal, but I'll take anything. Anyway - it is ridiculous that the US and England, who had one of the easiest pools, should have to have narrowly avoided elimination. That said, France is out and there is a good chance that Germany could go out - so I suppose it is not all that unusual this year. Speaking of which, it is a good time to be from S. America - they have won 12 games, lost 0, tied 2. Pretty damn impressive.

Thankfully - a federal judge has recognized that the federal government overstepped its bounds, a situation all to common these days. The ruling that the 6mo ban on all drilling in in the gulf in water over 500ft was "arbitrary" seems pretty damn logical to us simple folk, but the administration has vowed to fight it. Looking at it another way - this would be like banning all air travel on the west coast for 6mo because a plane crashed when trying to land in LA, and you already knew the cause of the crash. In other words, the ban was an idiotic and arbitrary decision, designed to appeal to the hearts of the mob rather than the brains of the majority. Or, in other words again, it was business as usual for the current administration. Anyway - it will be upheld, but I doubt any judge will find this ban as anything but arbitrary. Yet again - I have more faith in the unelected branch of government than any other.

I dont really support solar as a power source. I use a solar panel in my truck now, because the battery tended to go flat if I didn't drive it for a while. And I think solar panels for boats and cabins are pretty damn cool. But solar does not and never will (at least in the next 50 years) make sense for large-scale electrical generation. However - that is not to say we should prevent people from trying, especially if idiots in CA are willing to pay for it. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) sets the rates that companies have to pay to lease federal land to build their solar plant on. They recently set out their rates, and they, well, totally screwed up. Really idiotically screwed up. I mean, is anyone there or in the administration even paying attention to this? The POTUS spouts off about alternative energy all the time, and on his watch this is what we get: There are two costs to the lease, the first based on the cost per acre of the land, tied to local land values. Fair enough. ...

The estuarine crocodile is a bad swimmer. So how has it managed to colonize northern Australia, eastern India, part of southeast Asia and multiple South-east Pacific islands separated by enormous swaths of ocean? It loves to surf. Specifically, it loves to ride ocean tides and currents: Using acoustic telemetry and satellite positioning or tagged crocodiles, the researchers found that both male and female crocodiles regularly traveled more than 30 miles by 'surfing' river and ocean currents. They always began their voyages within an hour of the river's tides changing, so they could take advantage of the current. When the tide turned against them they pulled up onto the riverbank to wait for the next day's tide. They also analyzed data showing that one satellite-tagged crocodile traveled 360 miles over 25 days. A second male, went 255 miles in 20 days. The paper is in this month's edition of the British Ecological Society's Journal of Animal Ecology . The estuari...

The Aurora Australis, As Seen from the ISS on May 29 NASA Sometimes you're just at the right place at the right time. Astronauts aboard the ISS experienced just such a moment when they captured this captivating image of a rare aurora australis over the Southern Indian Ocean likely caused by a coronal mass ejection from the sun late last month.

Finally, an environmentalist who gets it right. Which of course means other environmentalists hate him. Because to most of them, it is more about the look and the feel of the thing, the raw emotion of the natural world rather than the practical needs of a modern society. I would love to build an off-the-grid cabin in the woods of NH, with my own little ski rope-tow, some solar panels, a fresh stream, and a rally course to tearass around on in Subaru Imprezas.... err greenies should ignore that last bit... but that does not mean I think this is a sensible solution to the worlds energy needs. Neither does this guy, which is why I like him: Environmental Visionaries: The Nuclear Revivalist For environmentalist Jesse Ausubel, going green means land conservation and energy efficiency—and forgetting “boutique” renewables like windmills and biofuels ...

Seems like Mars really is our long lost brother. Recent work shows that the planet, long suspected of once harboring an ocean, did at one time look a lot more Earth, with about 1/3 of the planted covered in an ocean. Interestingly, this was about at the same time life was developing on Earth - personally I would love to find evidence of life on Mars - if only to show that life is a common, not shockingly rare, occurrence, and that a lot more human endeavor should be based around expansion off-earth. Read on: Reconstruction of the putative Martian ocean that would have covered one third of the planet CAPTION B.Hynek. A vast ocean covered the northern lowlands of Mars some 3.5 billion years ago, suggest planetary scientists. In the current Nature Geoscience journal , Gaetano Di Achille and Brian Hynek of the University of Colorado, Boulder, looked at Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) measurements made from NASA's 1996 Mars Global Surveyor. The pair find 17 of 52 delta features app...