This is a good time to point out today’s SMBC.

I’m sorry, but nobody can take John Wick. Nobody.

For data visualization I always come back to this chart showing Napoleon’s disastrous 1812 march on Moscow. It conveys six different types of information in one chart.

Fun fact: the first electronic digital computer was ENIAC, built at the University of Pennsylvaina’s Moore School of Electrical Engineering in 1943-46. Informed that a newsreel team was coming to film the new “Giant Brain”, inventors John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert were concerned that nothing visible happened when…

Fun fact: the first electronic digital computer was ENIAC, built at the University of Pennsylvaina’s Moore School of…

Fun fact: in the lead photo Spidey is gripping the tip of the Washington Monument. It is a pyramid about nine inches tall, made of solid aluminum. This metal was so rare in its pure form in 1884 that the piece was publicly exhibited at Tiffany’s in New York before it was installed. It cost well over $6,000 in today…

This is local news for me; I live in Sterling, and my wife and I go to this gym all the time. I have an explanation for this and the many similar recent events: people have lost their damn minds.

Want more! I’ve played all of the Uncharted games multiple times and love them. I would watch the hell out of a movie like this.

“...ended his career.”

I’ve owned several boats over the years, and will share three well-known observations that neatly synthesize the boat-owning experience:

Cats are inherently evil. They think they own you, and are content to ignore you until they need something from you.

Morse code is almost, but not quite useless. Radio amateurs still use it extensively.

Interestingly, the international distress signal ...---... is not and never has been “SOS”. It is a signal called a “procedural sign” or prosign for short, and consists only of the dots and dashes, without spaces. It’s true that three dots are an S and three dashes an O, but the signal is not delineated in that way. Yo…

Fun fact: the Morse code was created by American portrait painter turned inventor Samuel F.B. Morse (1791-1872), who developed the first practical electromagnetic telegraph in 1838. Earlier attempts worked but were unwieldy, some requiring 27 lines between stations, one for each letter of the alphabet and the space. Mo…

The food was served buffet style, and the coconut was thoroughly mixed in :-(

The Federal Reserve needs no help in destroying our currency.

I once had occasion to visit an oil rig about 200 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico (long story). We ate in the worker’s mess hall, and I was delighted to discover that dessert that day was banana pudding, one of my all time favorites. I got a generous helping, only to find that the cook had added shredded coconut. I…

When I was growing up in the ‘50s toy guns were everywhere. All our dads had been in the Army or Navy in WWII, and they thought that toy guns were just fine. TV shows usually featured guns, and some were about the gun, like The Rifleman and Colt 45.

When I graduated from college in 1971 practically every graduate received unsolicited credit cards in the mail. This was not an invitation to apply, or even a pre-approved application, but a fully functional BankAmericaCard (now Visa) or Master Charge (now Mastercard) card, ready for you to use as you explored the…

Fun fact: the camera in the lead photo is an Olympus OM-1 35mm SLR film camera introduced in 1972. The picture has been edited to remove the brand name from the body and lens. It troubles me that I know these things.

I’ve never been to the Louvre, although I did see the Mona Lisa when she visited DC in 1963. If I went, #1 on my list would be Nike of Samothrace, aka Winged Victory. She stands alone atop the majestic Daru staircase commanding the Denon wing; it’s where I’d go first.