Sculpture looks like cartoon drawing on hillside

Look at this. I couldn't believe the picture when I saw it. It's a sculpture that produces a very cool effect.

More Mars Curiosity images

images from orbit and from the ground of the Curiosity landing site and descent, as well as the first low res color image they've downloaded. From Space.com .

Mars Curiosity Image

I'm watching a NASA press conference on the Mars Curiosity landing right now, and just checked the web for the most recent image. It landed near crater rim near what they have called "Mount Sharp."

Look at this very cool photo

History of bringing foreign auto manufacturing to U.S.

This NY Times article gives an interesting history of the past 30 years and what happened to bring so much of the growing foreign auto manufacturing (like Nissan/Toyota) to the U.S. I vaguely remember some of this as I grew up in KY around where a large Toyota plant was built, and now live near the large Nissan plant in Smyrna TN mentioned in the article.

Here's a quote from former TN governor and now Senator Lamar Alexander:
“We were the third-poorest state in the nation back then,” Mr. Alexander said. “President Carter had told all the U.S. governors to go to Japan and persuade the Japanese to make in the U.S. what they sell in the U.S.”

The article states that TN now has around 60,000 jobs related to automotive and parts supply manufacturing.

The article goes on to discuss if some of the more aggressive tactics used to bring automotive jobs to the US (diplomacy, arm-twisting, quotas, legislation, tariffs, tax-incentives - by the way - aren't tariffs and/or tax incentives the same thing by different names?) could/should be use used to bring some tech manufacturing jobs to U.S. Essentially- it's a discussion if the U.S. should have a manufacturing policy (or not).

One of the final quotes of the article makes a distinction:
"But consumer electronics are different. Though some jobs have moved to Asia, many were never here to begin with. And the biggest technology importers — like Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Microsoft — are American companies."

Two creatures in one body?

Here's an interesting hypothesis I've never heard. Could Caterpillars and Butterflies be two separate creatures in a single body? Again, I've never heard of this, but it's one of those type of ideas that gets in your head and makes you think. Conventional thinking makes it difficult for me to believe, but then again I've never thought about it much either. The key idea here is that the explanation involves the caterpillar actually "dying" and the moth or butterfly constructing itself from the dead organic material left over from the dead caterpillar - not a continuous life cycle. Fun thought anyway.

Placebo and Nocebo effects

Here's an interesting article talking about the placebo effect and it's counterpart - the nocebo effect. Not only can taking a fake medicine have positive effects, but the nocebo effect finds that people taking a fake medicine can also develop some of the side-effects of the real thing. Apparently we can trick ourselves both into getting better and developing side-effects. Article is from Discover magazine.

Skydiving from 18 miles up

Check this story out: Skydiver jumps from 18 miles up

Says he's going to go for the world record and try 23 miles next, and expects to reach a speed of 690mph on his next jump. (doing the math that's falling a mile about every 5.2 seconds)

What does space smell like?

Here's something I've never heard asked or described before (from Space.com):

What does space smell like?

Economy as a Garden

I thought the metaphor of the economy as a garden in this article was interesting. The metaphor is that a garden left to it's own devices quickly is over-run with weeds, but a good attentive gardener can make that garden productive. HOw applicable is this metaphor to the economy? Hard to say, but as some recent posts show, I think we probably have our share of weeds right now - most recently the big banks rigging interest rates- that need some serious trimming if they can't act better. :_)

Golden Parachute

CEO resigns after one day, gets $44 million severance

Here's another related story about possible ratings downgrade for Duke Energy after the change in leadership.

Here's more on the deal from NYTimes. Apparently it was a board of directors "coup".

More on Banks

...yet another tale of big banks as parasite - this time bid rigging in local bond issuances...

"The scam Wall Street Learned from the Mafia" - from the Rolling Stone Magazine

"It turns into a kind of unbroken Möbius strip of corruption – the banks pay middlemen to rig auctions, the middlemen bribe politicians to win business, then the politicians choose the middlemen to run the auctions, leading right back to the banks bribing the middlemen to rig the bids. When we allow Wall Street to continually raid the public cookie jar, we're not just enriching a bunch of petty executives ... we're effectively creating an alternate government, one in which money lifted from the taxpayer's pocket through mob-style schemes turns into a kind of permanent shadow tax, used to maintain the corruption and keep the thieves in place. And that cuts right to the heart of what this case is all about.""

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-scam-wall-street-learned-from-the-mafia-20120620#ixzz1ztoHnxK5

I really am beginning to think the big banks have gotten too big - not only too big to fail, but too big to act properly even in non-crisis times. This shows they're acting like a cartel now.

Images from FUEL video game

I've recently been playing a video game called FUEL. It's mostly a racing game in a free-roam world, and I'm very impressed with the large world and the quality of graphics. I took a few screenshots just running around today and have posted them as samples.

Phantom limbs

I thought this article about phantom limbs was interesting, and may say something about how our brains are to a degree pre-wired to expect certain sensory input.

The patient was born with a deformed hand that didn't have several fingers. After a bad accident that required the amputation of that hand, she started having phantom pains of a 5-fingered hand that she had never had.

Click here for the article: "Phantom Finger Points to Secrets in the Brain"

First tomatoes

So far my tomato plant seems healthy - better than the past 2 yrs where the tomatoes tended to die on the vine. Here's the first red ones of the year.