Open Message to Google - Newfoundland Street View

Looking at the VOKL Sitemeter logs I see lots of hits from people trying to find out about Google Street View in Newfoundland. I've been interested ever since I saw a Google Street View camera car near St. John's on August 31st. I suspect we are not a high priority. They've published Halifax, but they haven't published PEI, Winnipeg, Regina or Edmonton yet. So this is an open message to Google Street View - what are ye at, b'ys? It could be worse. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has wiped Newfoundland clear off the map.

The Real Environmental Crisis

As I have written before, people often think that those of us who do not believe in the religion of global warmism automatically care nothing for the environment at all. And as I said, that is absolutely false.

Compared to what is actually happening in China right now, the theory of global warming is a poor joke. In that previous post I showed you a satellite picture of gross air pollution in China. Here, via Instapundit, are some frightening pictures of environmental armageddon in China, right on the ground, right now.

I just hope their economy grows fast enough that they begin to clean up their mess. As has already happened in the west.

Update: An interview with Lu Guang, the photographer.

LCROSS Made A Splash Afterall

New analysis of data from LCROSS, the spacecraft NASA intentionally crashed into the Moon last month shows evidence of "significant" water in Cabeus crater.

"We are ecstatic," said NASA's Anthony Colaprete,  "Multiple lines of evidence show water was present in both the high angle vapor plume and the ejecta curtain created by the LCROSS Centaur impact. The concentration and distribution of water and other substances requires further analysis, but it is safe to say Cabeus holds water."

Das Auto Ist Nicht Ein U-Boot

Das Auto ist ein $1.6M Bugatti Veyron. And if pelicans and cell phones distract you that much you probably should not drive it near a salt water lagoon. Salt water: submerging the value of your investment no matter how fast you bail it out. Sort of like GM come to think of it.

Update: Video of the crash. And not a pelican in sight. Must have been the cellphone, huh. If you are easily offended by language that people use, well, all the time to express sudden dismay, then turn off your speakers now.

More AGW Questions From The Times

Is this a trend? At the Times of London, more coverage of science contrary to the received wisdom of anthropogenic global warming.

I am fed up though, with the blatant Alinsky-isms "global warming deniers" and "climate change skeptics". These labels are used by the warmists to "freeze" and "polarize" their enemies. Why, if the science is so settled, do the warmists require such hard-left political tactics to support their cause?

From the comments:

Every scientist should be a skeptic, but since this is a political debate and not a scientific debate the real scientists are labeled as "deniers" and "sceptics." The true believers in the cult of MMGW should be labeled as "deacons" or "priests" or "grand poo-bahs" of Al Gore's made up religion.

Mikey's Missing Microbus Turns Up

A very pretty 1965 VW Microbus, stolen from an upholstery shop in 1974, has turned up in LA in sparkling condition. The ex-hippy who was, like, ripped off man, wants it back. An upholstery shop you ask? Why, that was to install the seats that could be made into beds, silly. See, it already had the big folding sunroof for letting out the smoke, er, letting in the starlight.

Sullenberger's Heroic Moment In 3D

Capt. Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger is the hero pilot who safely ditched his jetliner loaded with 155 souls in the Hudson River last January after multiple bird strikes killed his engines. His copilot that day was Jeff Skiles.

Now, ExoSphere 3D has created a stunning 3D reconstruction of the accident. You can watch the takeoff, bird strike and ditching in real time, overlaid with cockpit readings, real time transcripts of cockpit and air traffic control conversations. You can hear the icy calm of pilot Sullenberger and his co-pilot Skiles. And you can hear the helpless air traffic controller making alternate suggestions for runways right to splashdown. Gripping stuff.

25 Beautiful Macro Photographs

Expensive lenses and quite a bit of post-processing on display here, but stunning results. Also included, several links on macro photography, including one extremely useful one on how to get into macro photography without going broke.

Newfoundland Wiped Off The Map

Via Mashable, here's a map that shows where the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has issued grants to scientists all around the world. If their map can manage to get in all those tiny little Arctic archipelagos, what became of the 15th largest island in the world?

Here is the website this map originally came from and here is an email address where you can raise cartographical hell, er, eyebrow.


UPDATE: Newfoundland is back on the map.

Have You Tried Bing Yet?

Bing is Microsoft's Google-competitor search engine. Bing was rolled out last June and has been steadily gaining a share of the search engine market which, except for Yahoo and other minor players, is virtually Google's private domain.

Yesterday Bing announced it will begin to integrate some search results from Wolfram Alpha, a more esoteric service which attempts to answer user questions. More from the New York Times.

And here, I posted some thoughts about how the Internet changes the way we think.

Rememberance Day

For Remembrance Day:

This is my grandfather L.J. Lawton of Bell Island, Newfoundland in September 1958. He is visiting the grave of his nephew - his sister's boy -  Myles Murphy, in Orléans, France.

Myles died on July 29, 1944. He was a Flight Engineer on a Sqdn. 570 RAF bomber that didn't make it back. He was 22.

The Pig Wins

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about George Bernard Shaw's advice: Never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it. The context was the Obama administration's fight with Fox News.

Today the pig (Fox?) is grinning because the Mao-quoting White House communications director Anita Dunn, who first declared war on Fox, is quitting.

What A Croc

Via MSN Money:

Porsche is suing shoe company Crocs (CROX) because it doesn't like the way the company named one of its product lines the Crocs Cayman. That's because it would be so easy to, you know, confuse a luxury sports car with a rubber shoe.

Hotmail, Other Users, Got Phished

Last month, thousands of Hotmail, GMail and Yahoo users got phished. They were tricked into giving their passwords to a hacker who then uploaded them to an open website. An analysis of the published list shows some spectacularly foolish passwords and gives some hints on password security. From The Register:

The most common single password in the sample of 10,000 purloined Live ID login credentials ... was "123456", something only marginally more secure than the traditional favourite "password".

Perhaps it should be no surprise that someone who thinks "password" is a good password would also be easily tricked into giving it away.

Army Lost In Sand Storm Discovered - 2500 Years Later

From Discovery News:

Bronze weapons, a silver bracelet, an earring and hundreds of human bones found in the vast desolate wilderness of the Sahara desert have raised hopes of finally finding the lost army of Persian King Cambyses II. The 50,000 warriors were said to be buried by a cataclysmic sandstorm in 525 B.C.

Pushing A Dumptruck Out A Fourth Floor Window

Via the Wall Street Journal: How did the dumptruck get up there? That is, up on the fourth floor of an abandoned Packard plant in Detroit? Nobody's saying (if you look closely there's an old Chevy breadvan up there too). Anyway, it had to come down, and these folks were just the ones to do it. Poor old dumptruck.

Anvil Shootin'

World champion anvil shooter Gay Wilkinson demonstrates how to blow an anvil sky high with black powder. Woohoo.

The Berlin Wall

November 9 is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of communist rule in eastern Europe.

Commemorating the anniversary, the Wall Street Journal has created this interactive time line that is well worth your time.