hardly working

When someone’s mom called this morning around 11, I mentioned that someone had been sleeping all morning. She really hadn’t, someone was up at five and didn’t fall back asleep until past 9. The point is, someone took offense (thinking, I assume, that the insinuation is that someone is lazy). But men? Sleeping all morning on a Saturday is something to be proud of.

Check out this awesome graph of how your federal tax dollars are spent (from Boing Boing). And I mean awesome not to say that Dubya is doing an ‘awesome’ job of spending tax dollars, but rather that this graph does an ‘awesome’ job of displaying just what a poor job Dubya is doing.

Came across (through jeremy) this very good story about how intelligent dolphins are. Some of the choice bits:

At the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Mississippi, Kelly the dolphin has built up quite a reputation. All the dolphins at the institute are trained to hold onto any litter that falls into their pools until they see a trainer, when they can trade the litter for fish. In this way, the dolphins help to keep their pools clean.

Kelly has taken this task one step further. When people drop paper into the water she hides it under a rock at the bottom of the pool. The next time a trainer passes, she goes down to the rock and tears off a piece of paper to give to the trainer. After a fish reward, she goes back down, tears off another piece of paper, gets another fish, and so on. This behaviour is interesting because it shows that Kelly has a sense of the future and delays gratification. She has realised that a big piece of paper gets the same reward as a small piece and so delivers only small pieces to keep the extra food coming. She has, in effect, trained the humans.

Her cunning has not stopped there. One day, when a gull flew into her pool, she grabbed it, waited for the trainers and then gave it to them. It was a large bird and so the trainers gave her lots of fish. This seemed to give Kelly a new idea. The next time she was fed, instead of eating the last fish, she took it to the bottom of the pool and hid it under the rock where she had been hiding the paper. When no trainers were present, she brought the fish to the surface and used it to lure the gulls, which she would catch to get even more fish. After mastering this lucrative strategy, she taught her calf, who taught other calves, and so gull-baiting has become a hot game among the dolphins.

Taking shortcuts with my car

Originally uploaded by smooth.

Somebody was supposed to have fixed this tail light problem. But as soon as they left town the light came back on. Oh well, I’m glad to see that somebody else takes shortcuts too.

Got this (automated) email today. Kind of a nice touch.

Dear Sam,

Congratulations on your 1 year anniversary with Novell! We would like to take this opportunity to recognize your contributions since your service date of Sep 12, 2005

Sincerely,

The team at Novell

From SFGate.com:

The Stratosphere Giant, the world’s reigning tallest living tree, seems to have lost its title — to not one but three contenders.

Like the 370-foot Giant, the three trees are coast redwoods. They were discovered this summer in Redwood National Park near Eureka by a team of California researchers who spend most of their free time bushwhacking through North Coast forests in search of taller and taller trees.

So far, the group has found about 135 redwoods that reach higher than 350 feet, said team member Chris Atkins, the man credited with finding the Stratosphere Giant in August 2000 in nearby Humboldt Redwoods State Park.

The tallest of the three new finds, a redwood named Hyperion, measures 378.1 feet. Next in line, Helios, stands at 376.3 feet; Icarus, the third, reaches 371.2 feet.

Thanks Meagan! And happy birthday!

One of the expected benefits of moving to Seattle is the complete and total lack of state beauracracy. We’re continually astonished at just how quick and downright pleasant most processes are within the state of Washington. I thought a comparison with the time required to complete common transactions in California was in order.

We Netflixed the first season of Weeds tonight. It’s about a suburban mom who’s forced to become a pot dealer to pay the bills after her husband dies. Maybe even funnier than Curb Your Enthusiasm.

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Today is a sad day in our house. Steve Irwin was killed by a stingray barb through the heart.” Supposedly it was an absolute freak accident, though I would guess that if your name is “Crocodile Hunter” your odds of encountering any single “freak accident” are pretty high. Anyway, we’re sad about it ane we hope his wife and kids are okay.