Bits and Pieces - September 9, 2013
Ancestry.com
is sending me a genetic testing kit this week. It was on sale and I've always
wanted to give it a try. If I understand the tests, though, it won't give me
much information on Mom's Dad, which is where the big gap in our knowledge is.
I'm thinking of signing up and doing some genealogy again. Last time I did any
work along those lines was in 2003.
My last word on Syria (I hope)
I hope
this is the last thing I post on the potential of the US government bombing
Syria. The American people don't want it to happen. No doubt the Syrian people
don't want it to happen. So why the push? Just to show we're the biggest kid on
the block? To display our outrage at the deaths of the Syrian people? I don't
know. As the article states, however: "The White House has left open the
possibility that Mr. Obama would proceed with military action if a vote in
Congress fails." That concerns me. This is a republic, right? "Of the
people, by the people and for the people" yet the people don't want this
action in Syria.
There is an article explaining how Scientists Use Video games to Improve Older Brains. Since I play a lot of video games, my brain
should stay young forever! Turns out it is a custom-designed game and it
doesn't look all that fun to me.
In other
science news, we're halfway through the Hurricane season, and no storms have spun up.
Divers
might have found the remains of 24 American soldiers from WWII at the bottom of
an Italian lake. Leave no man behind is still a good motto.
Stranded in the Andes for four months, a 58-year-old Uruguayan man survived on raisins
and sugar and some food in mountain shelters and seems in pretty good health
despite his ordeal.
On the Technical Side
There are lots of rumors for the Apple event tomorrow. If
you want to look at them, that's okay, but you really only have a day to wait.
Otherwise, check out the pundits at CNN and PC Magazine. The anticipation is fun, but I'll still wait and see what Apple has for the show.
Still on
the technical side, Margaret Stewart wrote an excellent article on Red Burns, a
woman I never heard of but whose influence pervades most of the computer work I
do every day.
This is a cool keyboard, the width of a human hair and flexible.
CNN has a list of the world's happiest nations. Most are Scandinavian
countries, and the US comes in at seventeen, not quite in the top ten. (Canada is,
and so is Australia.)
Tossing in a little culture, there's a new Van Gogh painting. I think it's pretty. AND it's in the museum in Denmark, number one on the list of the world's happiest nations. Of course they're happy! They have a bunch of Van Gogh paintings!
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