Book Of Norm

Smart, targeted at industrial equipment, and created by a nation state. This is not your typical virus trying to steal your eBay login. This is a new breed of worm, and warfare, and is well worth the read: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/09/stuxnet/

This is pretty incredible. Though human powered flight has been done before - and over some fairly long distances such as the English Channel in similar craft - this is the first time a human has flown by literally flapping his wings. Those wings just happen to be about the same span as the wings of a 737. HPO The Snowbird from U of T Engineering on Vimeo .

Seriously. Your head ages faster. Over 79 years, your head will be 90 billionths of a second older than your feet will be. All due to the magic of relativity. Your feet, being closer to the big 'ol gravity field that is the earth, are being slowed down, while your head, roaming in the freedom of about 5'8 higher, is just floating around without a care in the world. Thing is, scientists always knew this - but had never been able to test it until now. New atomic clocks, both small and incredibly accurate, can now measure relativity at altitude differences of a foot or less, and speeds of only 20mph. The bad news of course is for those of you living in Denver (or Nepal for that matter). You are getting older faster than the rest of us.

Here's a good one for you: in order to try and pay for some of that government mandated bailout, why do we tax financial institutions for transacting in anything financial? That'll teach 'em. "Yeah, so what that the financial system is global, and in many cases the location of the transaction is immaterial and the services provided are fungible. Oh, your telling me that a transaction tax will cause a massive capital flight? And will drastically cut back or likely eliminate the US position as the global financial hub? Well screw em, we don't need 'em anyway, we'll make our money taxing the shit out of anyone who remains to make up for what they made us spend. No... no, the government wasn't the root cause of the financial crises, no way, we saved the world, saved it I tell you. I'm a hero. A HERO GODDAMIT." -Senator Ima Dumbdumb

Yeah.... so Congress is punting on taxes, because they are a bunch of cowards who cant stand a struggle. But first - I have to get a pet peeve off my mind. Everyone is talking about "extending the tax cuts" - as if somehow letting them expire would be the normal thing, and leaving them would be a "tax cut." Leaving them would not be a "tax cut" - IT WOULD JUST BE LEAVING TAXES WHERE THEY ARE. Getting rid of them is a tax increase - a major tax increase. I don't care that these cuts were written into the law using sunset provisions and the sun is now setting - these cuts have become the new standard, and getting rid of them is a tax hike. Now that I have corrected the politicians and the media for their mistake, back to the matter at hand. America needs tax cuts, and needs them now. Tax cuts, more than spending, boost the economy. Directly. Especially on matters such as capital gains tax: lets see, you earn money, pay tax on it. Some of the money you a...

Ahh England. The Emerald Isle. The Motherland. The throne of the Empire. The home of freedom and democracy in the modern era. Errr... well.. at least it used to be. Because now, it is know for watching all of its citizens very very closely. It has become the closest thing to the Big Brother State the world has ever seen. Hell, they even love the show Big Brother in a perverse irony. The UK watches you when you drive, when you walk through the street, when you shop, when you use any public area, and when you travel - to a degree that no other nation on Earth comes close to matching. It has proposed using satellites to watch you drive, your neighbors to review CCD videos to find infractions, and now it has taken a step further. It wants to get paid, instead of you. And then the balance of your paycheck, whatever they don't take for themselves, they will kindly transfer into your bank account. If that does not raise your hackles, get your blood boiling, grind your gears and just piss ...

What really gets me about ObamaCare is not that it is a huge steaming turd. Well, actually, that does kind of piss me off a lot. But it is also the fact that it was sold as one giant lie to the American public. We are talking Iranian nuclear enrichment kind of lying - showing the inspectors one thing, but all along knowing that what they were selling was false. Obama recently made this comment about his plan: "it is going to increase our costs; we knew that." WTF you arrogant little bastard. I know you knew, we all knew you knew, hell you would have to have been even dumber than you seem to not know. But admitting the fact that you spent the whole time lying to the American public?? WTF. This is on the same scale as "Bush Lied, people died" - its just "Obama Lied, People Died, and we all get to pay a shit-ton of money" CANNON: Six months later … Coverage is decreasing, and prices are going up By Michael F. Cannon The Washington Times Six months ago today, ...

Obama is a smug idiot. Just watch this: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/09/21/obama_mexicans_were_here_long_before_america_was_even_an_idea.html This says it all: "Long before America was even an idea, this land of plenty was home to many peoples. The British and French, the Dutch and Spanish, to Mexicans, to countless Indian tribes. We all shared the same land," President Obama told the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Mexico declared its independence on September 16, 1810. It was recognized on September 27, 1821. The United States of America declared its independence in 1776.

From the guys who brought you Wallace and Gromit, there is this little gem. And I mean little. It is the worlds smallest stop motion animation. And it is pretty damn cool.

One afternoon, when the sun was going down, a mother and her little boy sat at the door of their cottage, talking about the Great Stone Face. They had but to lift their eyes, and there it was plainly to be seen, though miles away, with the sunshine brightening all its features. And what was the Great Stone Face? Embosomed amongst a family of lofty mountains, there was a valley so spacious that it contained many thousand inhabitants. Some of these good people dwelt in log-huts, with the black forest all around them, on the steep and difficult hill-sides. Others had their homes in comfortable farm-houses, and cultivated the rich soil on the gentle slopes or level surfaces of the valley. Others, again, were congregated into populous villages, where some wild, highland rivulet, tumbling down from its birthplace in the upper mountain region, had been caught and tamed by human cunning, and compelled to turn the machinery of cotton-factories. The inhabitants of this valley, in short, wer...

First: Read this article. James Cameron Heads For Mariana Trench to Film Avatar Sequel and Capture X Prize Simultaneously By Rebecca Boyle Posted 09.17.2010 at 6:00 pm 13 Comments Bathyscaphe Trieste This contraption was the first and only sub to bring humans to the ocean's deepest spot, the 7-mile-deep, appropriately named spot Challenger Deep. James Cameron is commissioning an Australian team to build him a new one, so he can win an X Prize and shoot 3-D footage for a new "Avatar" movie. Wikimedia Commons Director James Cameron has commissioned Australian designers to build a sub that can plunge 36,000 feet beneath the surface of the ocean, hoping to combine his love for deep waters with his apparent craving for cash. If he ...

Last year, Toyota was the #1 car company in the US, a title which it took from GM the year before, and most industry watchers expected that Toyota would continue in that position for perpetuity, its ironclad reputation and reliability propelling it forward with the momentum of a battleship going downhill. One year later, Toyota is no longer #1. It's no longer #2. It's #3. Here's how the numbers break down this year: Ford: 1,155,713 Chevy: 1,052,773 Toyota: 1,018,664 Compare that with how the brands finished last year: Toyota: 1.55 million Ford: 1.44 million Chevy: 1.33 million Yeah. Two interesting stories here. First is that Toyota fell. The second is the rise of Ford. Ford has been making some impressive new cars (though I think that the Taurus should be selling better than it has) and has been charging hard. The funny part about all this? Ford has been following the Toyota model: have only a couple brands (Ford sold Land Rover, Jaguar, Volvo, and has killed of Mercury,...

Here's amazing video of flood waters flushing cars down a street in the Italian village of Atrani on the Amalfi Coast last week.

Unions are increasingly dominated by public-sector workers. And they are increasingly out of touch with reality. Which means they were in touch with the Democrats, spending 96% of their political contributions on Democrats in the last election (and I bet the rest went to "independents" who vote democrat). The thing is, the people of this country are finally getting sick of the raise-taxes, pay-us-more, and protect-our-jobs message of the public unions. From the WSJ: In the midst of the contentious 2009 gubernatorial race in New Jersey, the state's teachers union took a poll of its own members and found only a slight majority preferred the candidate the union had endorsed, Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine, over Republican challenger Chris Christie. The alarmed union, the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), swung into action with a campaign that included phoning 100,000 of its members and urging them to vote for Mr. Corzine, according to union documents leaked last Nov...

Across the US, the Tea Party is winning primaries against traditional Republican candidates. How are they doing do? Primaries are generally voted on by a tiny percentage of the electorate. So they have always been driven by the ideological halves of the parties. So what does it take to kick a 10-time senate seat winner out of office? Turns out about 25,000 votes. Which is really not a lot at all. And the end result? A slew of unelectable candidates, and what is shaping up to be a disaster for the Republican party. Yes - they will gain back seats, that much is clear, but they may not gain back the majority, all because of the Tea Party. And that is a big deal. The issue is this: primaries favor the extremes, while general elections favor the middle. The Tea Party is using this to elect "Republican" candidates who are, quite simply, unelectable. As I have said before, we need to move away from the two-party system. It is really preventing rather than helping the political socie...

The SkyRider was just revealed at an airline industry tradeshow. The new "seats" take up only 23 inches... per row. The theory goes that this allows more passengers (like 40% more) and so will give cheaper seats. A number of budget US airlines are interested, as well as (no shocker here) a number of Asian airlines. The thing is though... you would probably have to pay me to ride like that. The company behind it says that cowboys are able to comfortably ride in the saddle for 8 hours a day, and so this should be fine. I call BS. The average American ass spends its time being well cushioned and consistently growing on a diet of fast-food and soda - the SkyRider would be about as comfortable for 8hrs to the average American as 8hrs of the Ring Cycle.

Well, at least some of it. Turns out that there appears to be a lot more oil on the bottom of the gulf than people expected. Near the well, there are a couple inches of oil in places sitting on the bottom of the ocean, largely resting atop a new layer of dead marine life. Sad.

This may look like a rural gravel road, but it's not. Its a waterway, in Louisiana. And its covered with hundreds of thousands of dead fish, crabs, eels and stingrays — even a dead whale. Its caused by a deadzone, something which is relatively common along the Gulf Coast, but in this case people are worried that it is related to the BP spill. Regardless, the level of destruction is pretty astounding.

This may look like a rural gravel road, but it's not. Its a waterway, in Louisiana. And its covered with hundreds of thousands of dead fish, crabs, eels and stingrays — even a dead whale. Its caused by a deadzone, something which is relatively common along the Gulf Coast, but in this case people are worried that it is related to the BP spill. Regardless, the level of destruction is pretty astounding.

Three employees at a veterinarian's office in Egg Harbor Township, NJ say they saw a man fall from the sky on Tuesday, sans parachute. An exhaustive search has turned up nothing. One of the employees told NBC Philadelphia she looked out the window and saw the man plummet to earth head-first: "You could see the arms and legs flailing and his clothes were blue, a dark blue like a navy, black and gray," Hale said. "There's no doubt that it was a person. We're 100 percent sure." Police looked all day today but found no body. There are only a few possible explanations for this: Someone was hiding in the wheel bay of a plane and fell out Crazy movie-style mob hit Three office workers playing a prank/experiencing mass boredom-induced hallucination NJ....

NewSpace, started by the X-Prize, is now officially dead. But all is not lost. Boeing has announced that starting in 2015 it will offer commercial space flight to paying customers. Yes, Boeing is getting in on what the X-Prize started. Remember however that the X-Prize offered a $10 million purse. $10 million is probably less than Boeing pays for staplers in a year. $700 staplers on govt. contracts of course... But yeah, this really is the beginning of the end... or is it the end of the beginning? I would go with the latter. Back when the X-Prize was won, people thought commercial flights would come only a few years later. 6 years have gone by, and Virgin Galactic--which is based on Space Ship One--still has yet to make a flight into space, let alone a commercial flight. None of its major competitors are any further along. The entrance of Boeing does not spell the end of the road for these companies. Rather, I think it signals to potential investors that flying people into space is a w...

The world of the smartphone is increasingly becoming the world of software. When the iPhone first came out the really big deal was the software, not the hardware (though the hardware was a big step forward also). Since that point in time, software has caused phones to succeed or fail (with the exception of Palm, which failed due to idiotic marketing and sales practices). Android is now more popular than the iPhone, and people buy any Android phone because it is an Android phone, the specific hardware is now a secondary consideration. Nokia seems not to have gotten the message. According to a software engineer there, all deadlines and requirements are set by the hardware people, and software is just sort of expected to fill in when needed. Hardware might be changed with no notice to the software people etc. No wonder that Nokia's US smartphone marketshare hovers around 3%, and that I cant think of anyone who actually has one. Until they let software come first, they will never get t...

Well, if there is one thing that will help (somewhat) our massive trade imbalance with Saudi Arabia - its fighter jets. We're good at making 'em, and they want 'em. They have wanted them for years... but now.. we are facing down Iran. So we are selling them $60 billion in arms, with the big-ticket item being already dated F-15s (don't get me wrong, this is a great gen 4.5 aircraft, but a big step behind the JSF and other 5th gen fighters or the F-22 Raptor which is often referred to as gen 6 - but that we refuse to sell to anyone, including countries like Australia). The interesting thing is that the reason we have not done this in the past (and the last jumbo arms purchase by the Saudis was from British BAE - though no doubt with the US's blessing) is because of Israel. They really don't like the idea that these modern aircraft and other armaments could be used against, well, them. And so we have pulled off a nice little trick. Every fighter aircraft broadcasts...

I believe in God. As I have said before, I am a diest. I believe in a God - I just cant stand activist religion and think that God is more of a force or alternate line of understanding rather than a rational (or irrational - have you read the Bible?) actor. Stephen seems to think some of the same things, and has some pretty cool postulations on our live and our universe to boot. For me, one of the most important concepts is one I thought of when I was about 10yrs old, and then found out that a lot of other people had already thought up: "The fact of our being restricts the characteristics of the kind of environment in which we find ourselves" In other words - the chance of us being here, because we are already here, is 100%. Why God Did Not Create the Universe There is a sound scientific explanation for the making of our world—no gods required By STEPHEN HAWKING And LEONARD MLODINOW According to Viking mythology, eclipses occur when two wol...