OneSmoothOperator: April 2006

Super Mario Live

Golden Goose - A yearly talent show held at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts. This video is a "live" performance ... all » of a level from the game, Super Mario Brothers.

Government and Traffic

Most people would say that government provides many things that citizens could not provide on their own. If asked for an example they may point to traffic regulations as making things safer for everyone. Well, that may not be the case. The video below is a self-regulated traffic intersection in India. Everything moves safely and efficiently despite the absence of signs, signals, or cops. Also here is an interesting article examining the same idea.

Map of US Religions

I came across this interesting site that has various maps of the US shaded by religions.

Two of the most interesting maps are this first one that shows the dominant religion in each county.

And this one that shows the religious adherants as a percentage of total population.

Please check out the site for more breakdowns.

Banned Xbox 360 Commercial and Flashmob

Here is a pretty cool Xbox 360 Commercial that was banned for some reason.

Here is a flashmob recreation of the commercial... pretty cool.

Dance of Death

Scientists are watching two supermassive black holes spiral towards each other near the center of a galaxy cluster named Abell 400. Shown in this NASA X-ray/radio composite image are the multi-million degree radio jets emanating from the black holes.

The Color of Mars

Do you remember all those red pictures of Mars from elementary school? Well it turns out that taking true color pictures of Mars is a complicated task. Most of the pictures from the 1970s Mars mission are not what a human would see if he was on Mars. It turns out that Mars is more brownish orange than red. Some people call Mars salmon. Mars can even appear to have bluish skies during sunsets. Please enjoy these true color photos taken from NASA Mars Rovers' website.

This final picture is a Martian sunset, notice the bluish skies around the sun, opposite of what we would see on Earth. You can read more about this sunset photo here.

Immigration

Now that the immigration bill has been killed by Democrats, it may be that the immigration debate is winding down. So this may be a little late, but I want to weigh in on the matter. I have previously been supportive of a liberal immigration policy. I also have been previously supportive of amnesty. This began to change with the protests. I was thoroughly unimpressed by people who broke the law, and perhaps more importantly "cut in line" take to the streets to protest while waving Mexican flags. If they truly want to be considered American then they shouldn't be waving the flag of another country. That was a big mistake. I think that the protests have solidified many people previously on the fence against them.

This debate has convinced me that an aggressive plan should be enforced limiting illegal immigration from other countries and especially Mexico. That means much more border security, fences, and more importantly tying all foreign aid to Mexico to reforms meant to remove governmental corruption. Also, I think we need to enact more free trade with Mexico, as free trade is the best way to help their economy. So regarding Mexico, we need a stick and a carrot. Free trade and aid to remove corruption and raise the standard of living, and strong controls on illegal immigrants. And most importantly no more tolerance of illegal aliens.

There is also the problem of what to do with people that are already here. America wants immigrants. It just doesn't seem fair to all those who have been waiting in line to legally immigrate to give amnesty to people who cut in line and broke the law. On the other hand, it is inhumane to uproot people and rip families apart. We have been lax in immigration enforcement and so part of the blame is with the government. I think we should let most of the illegal aliens stay. We obiviously don't want criminals, drug users, etc to stay. So send those people home. Also, there should be some punishment, maybe a fine, but otherwise let's recognize that many illegal immigrants are productive and useful members of our society.

So I think we need to be strict from now on, but lenient on those who are already here.

Right-wing or Left-wing, who has more heart

Here are some excerpts from a CBS News article on who has more "heart" right-wingers or left wingers. The summary is that liberals under 30 are much more likely to have a college education than conservatives under 30. However, conservatives give more to charity, express more willingness to sacrifice for loved ones, and more likely to be unhappy if a loved one is unhappy. The author thus concludes that the statement that if you aren't liberal under 30 you have no heart and conservative after 30 you have no mind is not accurate.

Let's dispense with righteous rhetoric and look at what really counts: behavior, starting at the level of heart in personal relationships. Consider two groups of people under age 30: those who say they are liberal or extremely liberal, and those who say they are conservative or extremely conservative. According to General Social Survey in 2004, liberal young Americans are significantly less likely than the young conservatives to express a willingness to sacrifice for their loved ones. For example, progressives under 30 are significantly less likely than young right-wingers to say they would prefer to suffer rather than let the one they love suffer, that they are not happy unless the loved one is happy, or that they would sacrifice their own wishes for the one they love. (The practical implication of this is that you might want your daughter to marry a Republican.)

This pattern persists at the community level. Young liberals in 2004 belonged to one-third fewer organizations in their communities than young conservatives. In 2002, they were 12 percent less likely to give money to charities, and one-third less likely to give blood. These differences were not due to demographics such as age or education. Imagine that you picked two people, both under 30, from the American population. Imagine they had the same education level, same household income, and were of the same race and gender. The only difference was that one was a self-described liberal, and the other a conservative. Based on nationwide data collected in the year 2000, the young conservative would donate nearly $400 more per year to charity than the young liberal.

Of course, there are many other ways to measure heart, some of which probably favor young liberals over conservatives. But the evidence here suggests that leftist youth don't have any clear cardiogenic surplus after all. They do, however, appear to possess something of an advantage when it comes to the head — or at least to education. In 2000, a young liberal was much more likely than a young conservative to possess a college or graduate degree, even after correcting for all other relevant demographic forces. Taken all together, this suggests that the old saying about heads and hearts is actually backwards, when it comes to youth on the modern American left.

Pin Mod

Well, when deciding the name of the blog, I was leaning towards SuperSmartyPants.com. I thought that is was a humorous and memorable name. My wife wanted OneSmoothOperator.com because she thought that I was a smooth operator of many things, including computers. Of course she won out.

So to demonstrate my smooth computer operation I post the following pictures of a pin mod I did on my laptop.

Basically, the pin mod forces a Pentium M 1.6 ghz CPU to run at 2.13 ghz. It is a significant increase in power. A lot of people think that the 1.6 chip is just a faster chip forced to run at a slower speed, so there is not a lot of risk of damaging the cpu. However, to accomplish the mod you need to completely take apart your computer and place a small little wire between two pins on the cpu socket.

This first picture shows my laptop disassembled on my table.

This next pic shows the cpu socket with the cpu chip removed and the wire in the proper pins. The wire is tiny and took several tries to properly place. You can see it on the 3rd row from the top, spanning the 15-16 pins. You may have to click on the image to see the wire.

The complete project took about 2 hours. The hardest part was placing the wire. While I was there I replaced the stock thermal pad with the more efficient Artic Silver 5. My cpu has been running great at about the same temperature as it was running before. There is a very noticeable performance boost. All in all it was a very successful and fun project.

If you want to learn more about the pin mod please check out the following guide.

Ultrasound Images

For those interested here are ultrasound pictures of our daughter-in-making:

Global Warming

Here is an interesting opinion piece about global warming. I've included some of the more interesting paragraphs.

Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero)...

In response to these facts, a global warming devotee will chuckle and say "how silly to judge climate change over such a short period". Yet in the next breath, the same person will assure you that the 28-year-long period of warming which occurred between 1970 and 1998 constitutes a dangerous (and man-made) warming. Tosh. Our devotee will also pass by the curious additional facts that a period of similar warming occurred between 1918 and 1940, well prior to the greatest phase of world industrialisation, and that cooling occurred between 1940 and 1965, at precisely the time that human emissions were increasing at their greatest rate...

Two simple graphs provide needed context, and exemplify the dynamic, fluctuating nature of climate change. The first is a temperature curve for the last six million years, which shows a three-million year period when it was several degrees warmer than today, followed by a three-million year cooling trend which was accompanied by an increase in the magnitude of the pervasive, higher frequency, cold and warm climate cycles. During the last three such warm (interglacial) periods, temperatures at high latitudes were as much as 5 degrees warmer than today's. The second graph shows the average global temperature over the last eight years, which has proved to be a period of stasis...

The essence of the issue is this. Climate changes naturally all the time, partly in predictable cycles, and partly in unpredictable shorter rhythms and rapid episodic shifts, some of the causes of which remain unknown. We are fortunate that our modern societies have developed during the last 10,000 years of benignly warm, interglacial climate. But for more than 90 per cent of the last two million years, the climate has been colder, and generally much colder, than today. The reality of the climate record is that a sudden natural cooling is far more to be feared, and will do infinitely more social and economic damage, than the late 20th century phase of gentle warming.