Notes for Our Corner of the World

December 14, 2008 Maui Curmudgeon No Comments

Add to the growing list of things American’s can’t do is protect it’s military secrets from its own soldiers. “agent.biz” is a new worm developed to destroy data aggressively, and it’s making its rounds in the miliary computers, particularly in Iraq. It seems those flash drives soldiers use to port mail and photos around from station to station when they are communicating with the outside world, are no longer allowed on military hardware. The worm came from one of those drives.

Steve Jobs says that Apple doesn’t know how to make a $500 computer “that is not a piece of junk.” This revelation comes when new statistics show that netbooks – notebook computers weighing less than 2 pounds – have taken over the portable computer business. They cost as little as $180. Though they’ve been around for just over a year now, they account for nearly 12% of the entire laptop market, a shocking fast-growth statistic when you consider that Apple has been around for decades and has never accounted for more than 3% of the computer market in any single quarter. Of course, there are those among us who would argue that the ipod touch and iphone are computers too, and for the sake of peace and goodwill at this time of year, we’ll let them think that.

Dire predictions of the internet come as some analysts say that by 2010 an “exaflood” will cause the internet to crash. Basically this means that users will demand so much data through the digital pipes that the system will fail. Nearly 60% of the data now pouring through the lines is video, and up to half of that is porn.

This past week a telescope in Hawaii went online with the expressed purpose of finding a planet killer – one of those large asteroids or comets (greater than 7 miles wide) which, if it hit the earth, would end humanity. Some scientists put the odds of such an event happening this century 1 in 100.

The controversy that won’t die: an enormous study from Kings College in Britain says what a lot of people just don’t want to hear: to a significant degree intelligence is genetic. In examining the connections between intelligence, genetics and health, the study makes surprising conclusions: the smarter you are, the healthier you are, and the healthier you are, the better, when you’re a man, your sperm is. This causes intelligent women to be more attracted to such men, and they breed…intelligent kids. So it goes. And further, it turns out that when tested, intelligence is sexy, and may be the greatest factor in determining sexual attraction, primarily because intelligence makes you healthier and healthier people look better, etc. The good news for Americans still looking for a mate is that over the past several decades the country has managed to cordon off for easy identification the stupid people in this country. They are located in pens called “the south”, or the more modern term – “red states.”

A Rainy Sunday

December 14, 2008 > Maui Yesterdays No Comments
Aloha

Click for Kahului, Hawaii ForecastChildren’s Day
Day 348 of 2008
17 days left in this year
HAWAIIAN WORD OF THE DAY — Hui hui: Constellation
PIDGIN WORD OF THE DAY —Heven: Heaven
HAWAIIAN PROVERB OF THE DAY — I Ho’okahi Kahi Ke Aloha: Be one in love
 HAOLE SAYING OF THE DAY — “He will always be a slave who does not know how to live upon a little.“ -Horace
WEB SURF SPOT OF THE WEEK — Think Green Hawaii
WEB VIDEO OF THE WEEK — Bush Shooed in Baghad
NETCAST OF THE WEEK — Slate’s Podcasts
GOOD DEED SITE OF THE WEEK — Recycle Hawaii
December 14,2009:
OK, was it me or did that cloud early this morning look like a funnel cloud? How would you like to be a tourist who paid thousands of dollars to come here in this economy only to see weather you can see in Kansas?
December 14, 1910
Maui is quarantined because of a breakout of diphtheria. Strangely, no other island has this problem, and the quarantine lasts for just five days.

Diphtheria is an infection of the upper body, lungs, throat, nasal passages, tonsils, and accompanied by fever. It has largely been eradicated from the U.S., with just five cases reported here in the past seven years.

EVENTS ON THIS DAY
1656 Artificial pearls 1st manufactured by M Jacquin in Paris made of gypsum pellets covered with fish scales
1793 1st state road authorized, Frankfort KY to Cincinnati OH
1798 David Wilkinson of Rhode Island patents a nut & bolt machine
1819 Alabama admitted to the Union as the 22nd state
1825 Decembrist uprising in Russia against Tsar Nicholas I begins
1849 1st chamber music group in US gives their 1st concert (Boston)
1863 Battle of Bean’s Station-Confederacy repulses Union in Tennessee
1882 Henry Morton Stanley returns to Brussels from the Congo
1901 1st table tennis tournament is held at the London Royal Aquarium
1911 South Pole 1st reached, by Norwegian Roald Amundsen
1924 Chiang Kai-shek occupies Hankou
1924 Respighi’s symphony “Pini di Roma” premieres in Paris
1926 Danish Madsen government, forms
1927 Iraq gains independence from Britain, but British troops remain
1928 2nd Test Cricket Australia vs England starts with Bradman 12th man
1929 Alexander Zaimis elected President of Greece
1930 New York Giants defeat Notre Dame 22-0 in a charity game
1944 Congress establishes rank of General of the Army (5-star General)
1953 Brooklyn Dodgers sign pitcher Sandy Koufax
1954 WOAY TV channel 4 in Oak Hill-Beckley WV (ABC) begins broadcasting
1955 Dutch Reformed Church condemns woman/wife as vicar
1961 Jimmy Dean’s “Big Bad John” is 1st country song to get a gold record
1962 Mariner 2 launched, makes 1st US visit to another planet (Venus)
1962 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1963 Verne Gagne beats The Crusher in Minneapolis, to become NWA champion
1964 Michael Brown meets Rene Fladen, then writes “Walk Away Rene”
1965 “La Grusse Valise” opens at 54th St Theater NYC for 7 performances
1967 DNA created in a test tube
1969 “La Strada” opens/closes at Lunt Fontanne NYC for 1 performance
1969 Bishen Bedi takes 7-98 (career-best) vs Australia at Calcutta
1969 Jackson Five made their 1st appearance on “Ed Sullivan Show”
1971 Golden Gate Bridge lights out all night due to power failure
1971 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1972 Eugene Cernan & Harrison Schmitt leave the Moon
1972 Willy Brandt re-elected West German chancellor
1976 Dutch 1st Chamber condemns Dutch Liberal/social-democratic abortion laws
1977 Egypt & Israel representatives gather in Cairo for 1st formal peace conference
1977 “Saturday Night Fever”, starring John Travolta, premieres in New York NY
1977 Red Sox trade Fergie Jenkins to Rangers for John Poloni & cash
1977 Test Cricket debut of Abdul Qadir, vs England at Lahore
1981 Israel annexes Golan Heights (seized from Syria in war of 1967)
1982 Marcel Dionne, Los Angeles CA, becomes 9th NHLer to score 500 goals
1990 Right to Die case permits Nancy Cruzan to have her feeding tube removed, she dies 12 days later
1990 Louis Jordan’s revue “Five Guys Named Moe” premieres in London
1991 57th Heisman Trophy Award: Desmond Howard, Michigan (WR)
1991 Ferry boat Salem Express sinks in Red Sea, 476 killed
1992 Lennox Lewis given WBC title, when Riddick Bowe refuses to fight him
1993 Moslem fundamentalists murder 12 Kroates/Bosnians in Algeria
1995 “Les Miserables” opens at Cable Hall, Helsinki
1995 AIDS patient Jeff Getty recieves baboon bone marrow transplant
1996 12th Soap Opera Digest Awards
1996 62nd Heisman Trophy Award: Danny Wuerffel, Florida (QB)
1997 “View From the Bridge” opens at Criterion Theater NYC
1997 Diners Club Senior Golf Match
1997 Juli Inkster & Dottie Pepper win LPGA Diners Club Matches
1997 Phoenix Coyote Mike Gartner is 5th NHLer to score 700 goals
BORN ON THIS DAY
1503 Nostradamus [Michel de Nostre-Dam] French astrologist/prophet
1546 Tycho Brahe Knudstrup Denmark, astronomer (Golden nose)
1553 Henri IV the Bourbon king of Navarra (Henri III)/France
1829 John Mercer Langston 1st black to hold US political office
1896 James H Doolittle US Army General (Raid on Tokyo 1942)
1897 Margaret Chase Smith (Representative/Senator-R-ME)
1908 Morey Amsterdam Chicago IL, comedian (Buddy-Dick Van Dyke Show)
1911 Spike Jones Long Beach CA, composer (Cocktails for Two)
1914 Dan Dailey New York NY, dancer/actor (Governor Drinkwater-Governor & JJ)
1935 Lee Remick Quincy MA, actress (Days of Wine & Rose, Long Hot Summer)
1939 Ernest Davis 1st black to win Heisman Trophy (1961)
1954 Ib Anderson Copenhagen, ballet dancer
DIED ON THIS DAY
0872 Adrian II Italian Pope (867-72)/last married pope, dies at about 80
1136 Harald IV “Gylle Krist”, king of Norway, murdered
1417 John Oldcastle Lord Cobham, English nobleman, hanged & burned
1542 James king of Scotland (1513-42), dies at 30
1903 William Ennis first cop to die in the electric chair
1906 John A C Oudemans Dutch geographer/astronomer, dies at 78
1909 Leopold II king of Belgium, dies
1947 Stanley Baldwin English premier (1923, 24-29, 35-37), dies at 80
1964 William Bendix actor (Life of Riley), dies in Los Angeles at 58
1965 Hermann Sandby composer, dies at 84
1974 Walter Lippmann US journalist (One of Dynasty), dies at 85
1975 Arthur Treacher TV announcer (Merv Griffin Show), dies at 81
1979 Nirode Ranjan Chowdhury cricketer (2 Tests for India, average 205), dies
1980 Elston Howard MVP catcher (New York Yankees), dies at 59
1984 Vicente Aleixandre Spanish poet (Historia del corazón), dies at 86
1985 Roger Maris homerun hitter (61 in 61, New York Yankees), dies of cancer at 51
1985 Stanley G[rauman] Weinbaum US, sci-fi author (Red Peri), dies at 85
1987 Paul Clinton Sundberg actor (Belle of New York, Easter Parade), dies
1989 Andrei D Sakharov Soviet Physicist/Dissident/1975 Nobel peace prize winner, dies in Moscow at 68
1989 Jock Mahoney actor (Dallas, Cow Town, Range Rider), dies at 70
1989 Lee Van Cleef actor (Good Bad & Ugly, Sabata), dies at 64
1990 F Dürrenmatt writer, dies at 69
1990 Hope Sansberry actress (Rats are Coming), dies at 94
1990 Johannes von Thurn und Taxis prince in Germany, dies at 64
1991 John Arlott cricketer (the greatest of cricket commentators), dies
1991 Robert Eddison British actor (Uncle Silas), dies at 83
1993 Myrna Loy [Williams] actress (Thin Man, Vanity Fair), dies at 88
1994 Mary Ann McCall singer, dies at 75
1994 Petrus van Doorne bus manufacturer/owner (BOVA), dies at 58
1995 Don Anthony bandleader/songwriter, dies at 85
1995 Eric Brown architect, dies at 84
1995 Rob Harris sky surfer, dies while skydiving at 28
1996 Alan Hargreaves climber, dies at 92
1996 Norman Hackforth broadcaster, dies at 88
1997 Owen Barfield philosopher of language, dies at 99
1997 Robert Sutton electronics engineer, dies at 82
1997 Stubby Kaye actor (Guys & Dolls, Sweet Charity), dies at 79