Genetic Sequencing of T-Rex

I got a crazy feeling that I have seen this before in a movie...

http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/genetic-sequencing-t-rex-confirms-dinosaurs039-link-birds-16088.html

Headlines from the AP

Great headline from the AP.

I dunno, to me, it looks like the US bombed Syria. I couldn't remember the US doing that lately, so I decided to read the article. Oh, I got it now. It's our fault because we didn't tell the UN information that can get our people killed and dismantle years and years of setup. If you take the risks, you get to have the benefit of the information.

I don't know what to say about this ElBaradei. How is he equal to our own Congress?

The International Atomic Energy Agency said Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei also was not provided information about the site until Thursday, the same day U.S. officials briefed members of the House Intelligence Committee about evidence including dozens of photographs taken from ground level and footage of the interior of the building gathered by spy satellites after the Israeli strike seven months ago.

On the other hand, our own intelligence committee, they are valid:

Intelligence committee members also expressed anger Thursday over the seven-month time lapse before their committee was briefed.

As that is the type of stuff they are supposed to be in the loop about.

Update:

Great video about the incident

The video is very revealing, I was surprised. Just think about how they got some of those pictures. Someone has some big marbles.

Moped!

I bought a moped.

It is a 50cc chinese model. Looks like it should work just fine for what I want to do.

It checked out fine when I was buying it. To transport it home we put it in the bed of a truck. It looked unstable so I laid it on its side.

When we got home, some gas and oil had leaked out. I am fairly certain that I flooded the engine, and the engine wouldn't start. Denisse and I took off some body panels searching for the spark plug so that I could have it clear out faster. Luckily, we didn't have to find the spark plug.

An hour or two later everything worked great. I did two laps around the block, and Denisse did a few. Sara took it for a spin when she got here. The look on her face was worth buying it.

allergies!

I have had a fever the past day or so, and a runny nose that wouldn't stop.

I don't know if it is good or bad news, but my mucus was thick and yellow this morning, with a hint of blood.

Off to the doctor I go!

Running

So I am still on the training track for the Peachtree Roadrace (10k). I ran for 40 minutes today, but ran less distance than last Saturday (pi mile). I think it was about 3.2 miles (from google maps)

I owe everyone a lake post, but I don't have any pictures yet.

Bluetooth FAILS.

Comcast Call:Trying to Cancel (it worked, I think!)

Apr 8 2008:

I am going to attempt to call comcast and get my service canceled.

11:02 am Placed call

11:04 First human, John
11:06 Actually seems to be getting things done, just needs the nebulous "confirmation code"
11:12 It seems that the official comcast policy is to not change my bill until after the disconnect.

John told me that I should pay the prorated amount, then wait until the cancel for the other charges to disappear. I can't believe that it is comcast policy. (I asked him)

update:
To be clearer
They can not change the bill, ie, what I am supposed to pay, until after it cancels. So right now, I owe them 66 dollars. When prorated it will be 53 dollars. The will not send me a new bill (or change it online) to reflect the fact that I am canceling service. Once they cancel it, I won't owe the money. As it stands, I seem to owe the money. Does that make sense? If not, you can see what I am dealing with.

Quotes you thought you knew

I assume that everyone has heard the Kennedy quote:

"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard"

I assume less readers are familiar with the rest of the quote:

""We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills..."

I think that the last part is key to the whole quote. When I read that it finally made more sense why he was talking about doing hard things instead of easy things.

We (as the United States, or as Mankind) need to do hard things. We need to be continuously pushing the boundaries of the possible. The idea that hard things organize our society and measure us is powerful. Right now, the best of our energies seems to be going into fixing Iraq. People are losing confidence in the economy and the government (although, I don't think that the economy is bad, nor that the government is owed all of the current criticism).

Let's do something big. Shrink the gap. Go to Mars. Use Space Based Solar Power. Beat cancer. Cure malaria. Cure communism and damning fatcats.

Anything the commenters would like to see accomplished?

No NSF for me

I didn't get the NSF fellowship.

I will have to find another way to bring peace to mankind.

Qualifying exams

I passed the Phd qualifiers. Now the real journey begins.

Protesting awards

Airbus was about to start work on the new tanker project.

Then the award was protested.

I wish there was an easy way out of this mess. You need the ability to protest a contract award. You also need faith in the person doing the awarding so that every award is not contested.

In this case, the protests seem sort of dumb, and it is wasting tax payer money.

Can you believe that they were actually about to start work? That is REALLY fast.

Boeing wouldn't have even had a plane available for modification for quite a while.

It takes too long to develop a new weapon system, and all of these scandals and protests only increase the time. We need to move toward acquisition like we did with the Predator, where it was not 20 years. Incrementally they have been improving that system and now we have the Predator B.