Well, Jennifer and I decided to watch the last movie as we had the other movies in the series. We went to the 12:01am screening of the movie. For years that had been our treat for our children. This time, we went by ourselves.
Though pruned a bit, this movie does a good job of following the book. As I had told others, though the book felt as if it was not enough, adding the visual to the story filled it out admirably.
For those of you who are wondering if you should see it, I say this is one movie that we will see again. And one we did not mind spending full price on the tickets. Definitely a good flick for families (of older children, since it is intense).
And may the farce be with you ... Oops! Wrong movie. 8^)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2, is the final adventure in the Harry Potter film series. The much-anticipated motion picture event is the second of two full-length parts. In the epic fin... read more  ale, the battle between the good and evil forces of the wizarding world escalates into an all-out war. The stakes have never been higher and no one is safe. But it is Harry Potter who may be called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice as he draws closer to the climactic showdown with Lord Voldemort. It all ends here. -- (C) Warner Bros
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The infographic, which is available in the attached web page, is an interesting and compelling argument for vaccinations. There has been a resurgence of various childhood diseases because some people either do not think they can afford the cost of the vaccination, or they think (mistakenly) that it might hurt their child. Death due to whooping cough or measles is far worse than the vaccination. Why do so many people refuse vaccinations for their kids? |
Wow! Time flies. As you may know, I tend to periodically post some articles reminding people about how important it is to vaccinate children. It helps protect them and it helps protect others in the community with weakened immune systems.
So, here's your friendly reminder ... 8^)
Only rarely do we see theories presented fully fleshed out. Such flashes of genius are rare. Rather, most theories, such as Darwin's Theory of Evolution, develop ... one might say "evolve".
Though historians have long known that Darwin struggled with his theory, digitization of his manuscripts now allow others to have some insight into that struggle.
It is frankly refreshing to realize that others struggle to understand the data presented to them. And it is heartening to know that we can throw off the blinders of long held theories when that data does not fit those theories. We can, as did Darwin, actively search for understanding. Young Darwin’s Marginalia Shows Evolution of His Theory |
A trove of books from Charles Darwin’s personal library is now digitized, online and free for all to view. The collection, displaying Darwin’s scrawled-in-pencil marginalia, tantalizingly reveals his thought process as he developed the theory of evolution. |
While many of his papers and notebooks are already online, Darwin didn't keep a notebook for several months after returning from his 5-year-long voyage aboard the HMS Beagle. Instead, Darwin — then just 27 years old, with his theory of evolution half-formulated — made notes in the margins of books he read. |
The notes in these books represent another kind of voyage. Darwin develops arguments and considers challenges to his hypotheses. “This fills a gap in his notebook writings, and gives us a new lens to look at Darwin,” said David Kohn, director of the American Museum of Natural History's Darwin Manuscripts Project. "His thoughts are very frank, very fresh.” |
Sure, we know that we can impact the weather. But I never imagined that the use of aircraft could cause snow! But sure enough, it appears that we can and do increase (locally) snow.
The good news is that the impact is very localized and does not tend to have a major impact upon our weather. But the science behind it is fascinating. Enjoy! Aircraft punch holes in clouds, leave snow in their wake |
We've seen recently that air travel can have an oversized impact on the atmosphere, at least relative to emission of things like greenhouse gasses, because they seed clouds that can persist for hours. Now, researchers have taken a detailed look at what happens when aircraft fly through clouds that already exist. Under many circumstances, it turns out that the aircraft have the opposite effect, causing pressure changes that trigger the formation of large holes in the cloud, with the missing water falling out as snow.
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Holes in clouds, like the one shown above, have been associated with the passage of aircraft since the 1940s, but it hasn't been clear how significant this process is. By the 1980s, researchers had found that propeller-driven aircraft produce large pressure changes in their wake, which produce a lot of ice crystals if they pass through supercooled clouds. More recent work showed just how large this effect can be: propellers can induce temperature drops of up to 30°C, while the wings of jets can lower the temperature by 20°C. If a cloud is already in the area of -10 to -20°C, that means the airplane should cause ice to crystalize out of clouds.
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The authors don't expect that the formation of snow is significant enough to do much more than cause small amounts of localized snow in the immediate vicinity of the airport. But the satellite imagery suggests that heavy air travel can cause a measurable drop in the total area covered by clouds under the right conditions. Along with the earlier results, the new work indicates that, although aircraft only disturb a small area of the atmosphere, the disturbances they cause can persist and propagate long enough to have an unexpectedly large impact on our planet.
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Here's a useful article that can get you started on building an "In Case of Emergency" documentation kit.
Years ago, I read about a horrible situation where a wife was struggling to break into her husband's computer. He took security seriously. Unfortunately, he also had all their documentation online. And she needed that information after his death.
I hope that my passing won't create as much frustration for those I love. So, I will use this article to be certain everything is well organized and available. How to Create an In-Case-of-Emergency Everything Document to Keep Your Loved Ones Informed if Worst Comes to Worst |
Melanie Pinola
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 If you were hit by a bus today or were otherwise incapacitated, would your loved ones be able to quickly locate your important information or know how to handle your affairs? Many of us have a great handle on our finances, but our record keeping systems might not be obvious to family members or friends who might need immediate access to them in times of emergency. Here's a step-by-step guide to organizing your vital information so it can be conveniently and safely accessed when needed. |
The Goal: A Master Document or Folder with All Your Important Information |
Step 1: Gather Your Vital Records to Keep in the Master Information Kit |
Step 2: Export Your Accounts Information |
Step 3: Share Your Master Information Kit and Vital Documents |
Step 4. Regularly Update Your Everything Document |
More Resources for Creating a Master Information Kit |
Erik Dewey's free Big Book of Everything is a very thorough organizer for all your affairs, with placeholders for you to record your bank accounts, insurance policies, tax records, and more. The 44-page Big Book of Everything is available in PDF or Excel format. |
Whichever method you choose, having all your vital information in one easily accessible place can be comforting, for both you and your loved ones. |
There are several reasons why I love this:
First of all, I'm of an age where I still love the space program. Like many others, I am convinced that our willingness to reach into the unknown will be vital for the survival of our race.
Second, this is some spectacular photography! Dramatic and it reminds of the the stark environment of the moon.
Third, this is the first time I heard that Tycho Crater was probably caused by a part of the asteroid that led to the destruction of the dinosaurs. In addition to living to see the space age unfold, I have seen the gradual adoption of the asteroid impact theory for the extinction of the dinosaurs. And this is a new twist on that theory that unites the two. Dramatic Sunrise Over Moon’s Tycho Crater Mountains |
A spacecraft circling the moon snapped this dramatic image of the sun rising on the mountains in the middle of Tycho crater. |
The 51-mile-wide depression is all that remains of a catastrophic asteroid impact 108 million years ago. Planetary scientists think the guilty asteroid was a fragment from a larger space rock, another piece of which wiped out the dinosaurs. |
The crater’s 1.24-mile-high central peaks, photographed June 10 by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, barely protrude halfway up into the hole left by the impact. They weren’t made by rock bouncing upward. Instead, liquefied rock at the crater’s rim sagged inward immediately after the impact and pushed up the central peaks. |
For those of you, who use Gmail, you will be pleased to know that along with changes that Google is making to allow Google+ to work, they have made some interface changes to Gmail. It's nothing major. But it does make the interface look a little more spartan. I switched to "Preview (Dense)" and enjoy it.
It seems that Google is trying to incrementally revamp all their interfaces. The Google+ roll out is not so much a single product as a series of tweaks that integrate together to become a cohesive environment. They might just provide an interesting environment for social communications.
Enjoy! Gmail Rolls Out Its New, Minimal Look |
Adam Pash
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 Gmail just rolled out, via preview themes, their new, minimal look. Keeping in line with the update to Google Calendar, the new interface brings a lighter and cleaner look to your Gmail inbox. It's not the default just yet, so to turn it on: |
Wow! This is an interesting article. We continue to learn the brain is amazingly plastic. That is, it can change and adapt even when we get older. It's great to see that something as simple as walking appears to help improve our ability to function. No doubt more studies will need to be done to confirm this. However, it is promising that a simple activity can help so much. Walking May Increase Brain Size and Boost Memory |
It seems that brisk walking or moderate aerobic exercise is better than just any activity: the hippocampus brain region for a control group of participants who instead did stretching and toning exercises decreased in volume by 1.4%. |
Whether or not our brains shrink naturally with age (something scientists have debated), this is the first time the brain has been shown to be modifiable late in life, even reversing brain shrinkage (all of the participants had some degree of brain shrinkage). Regular exercise may be able to reduce the risk of Alzheimers' disease. |
One of the key features to OpenVMS is the ability to span from High Availability to Disaster Tolerance all the way to Disaster Recovery with the same operating system with minimal overhead (cost or manpower) to manage the environment.
HP's Host Based Volume Shadowing (HBVS) for OpenVMS is a key component to the resiliency within a OpenVMS environment. V8.4 will allow you to extend the capabilities of HBVS to meet new and complex demands that face your environment.
For example, with V8.4, you can implement two shadowset members per site in a three site OpenVMS cluster. So, even if you have to drop one member, you will still have a second member that is local. This is incredibly important as more customers implement split-site OpenVMS clusters.
But the improvements are not limited to that. You can pause updates on demand. This will allow you, under program control, pause all I/O requests to the shadow set to perform maintenance activities. For example, you could pause all database activity, then pause all shadowset I/O activity, immediately perform a snapshot operation, and then resume activity of the shadowset and database. You would then have a "crash consistent" view of the database in the snapshots. Even the most complex transactions consisting of multiple records on multiple databases over multiple OpenVMS volumes could provide this "crash consistency". This is a PERFECT tool for a OpenVMS administrator working with the storage subsystem.
But the fun does not stop there. Imagine being able to apply the concept of "divide and conquer" to shadowsets. Assume a database is on a shadowset that spans across two or more arrays on shadowset members on each array. Now, imagine a large SQL job that wades through the database. Though it reads the database sequentially, the storage arrays will see the workload as a random workload. Why? Because by default, HBVS will read from each member in a round-robin fashion. Read record 1 from member A, read record 2 from member B, read record 3 from member A, read record 4 from member B, etc. Because each array sees a stream that appears to be disjointed, many arrays see this as a random workload.
Now imagine if your could divide the LBNs on a shadowset. So, by default you can allow one member to handle one set of LBNs and another member to handle another set of LBNs. If you have two members in the shadowset, then if you enable this feature the read requests for LBN 0 to LBN N/2-1 will go to the first member and read requests for LBN N/2 to LBN N will go to the second member.
Suddenly, the array will see all of the read requests within that range. It will recognize large sequential read streams and start to prefetch data into cache based on that read stream. Performance of the storage system suddenly improves.
Last, but not least, HBVS improves the mini-copy bitmap feature by allowing multiple copies to exist. This is similar to the mini-merge bitmap feature. Why do this? Well currently if a volume is dismounted on System A with the mini-copy feature and System A fails before the volume can be remounted on System A, then the mini-copy bitmap will be lost. This adds the redundancy built into the mini-merge bitmap feature to the mini-copy capability. The loss of one system does automatically result in the loss of the mini-copy bitmap.
So, can something that's pretty darned good get better? I sure think so. This will make these capabilities better than ever for most production OpenVMS environments. HP OpenVMS version 8.4
for Integrity server systems and AlphaServer—New features and benefits |
Extended Shadowing Membership
- Increases the number of member disks in a host-based volume shadowing
set from 3 to 6 disks
- Alpha and Integrity servers
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We've long known that 
