Using Doppler Effect helps find lost plane's path

Jet Fell Into Ocean With All Lost, Premier Says

NY Times quote:  "Guided by a principle of physics called the Doppler effect, the company, Inmarsat, analyzed tiny shifts in the frequency of the plane’s signals to infer the plane’s flight path and likely final location. The method had never before been used to investigate an air disaster, officials said."


Here's a story from cnn with a more detail on using the ping data off of satellites that revealed slight expansion or compression of the signal as the plane moved while it was transmitting.
 
CNN quote: "If you sit at a train station and you listen to the train whistle -- the pitch of the whistle changes as it moves past. That's exactly what we have," explained CNN Meteorologist Chad Myers, who has studied Doppler technology. "It's the Doppler effect that they're using on this ping or handshake back from the airplane. They know by nanoseconds whether that signal was compressed a little -- or expanded -- by whether the plane was moving closer or away from 64.5 degrees -- which is the longitude of the orbiting satellite."

Edit:  Here's an interesting map from the BBC showing projected path at varying speeds.  Just eyeballing things seems like course changes were designed to avoid radar - especially turning south after out of site even of military radars.

Why are mango seeds so big?

My wife brought back a mango from the grocery store the other day.  Mangos are a fairly large fruit, but when I cut it open I find the seed itself is about 3 1/2" to 4" long based on the mango I had.

So I'm sitting here wondering why the seed is as big as it is?  My thinking runs along these lines:  Seeds of most fruits are smaller because the fruit itself "wants" to be eaten, go through the digestive track of some animal, and wind up in a pile of manure that will give a new plant - in this case a mango tree - a fertile place to grow.  But in this case the seed seems particularly hard to eat.

So I'm considering the unpleasantness of not only swallowing a mango seed, but also the unpleasantness of passing a mango seed - and I'm thinking something much larger than me must've at one time or the other led to such relatively huge seeds.   Admittedly, I guess it's possible that human cultivation has increased the size of the seed and as a parallel result the seed got bigger, but there are many large fruits which tend to have small seeds, so it seems unless the tendency for large seed was there to begin with that human cultivation would've gradually selected for smaller seeds when possible (or even seedless like grapes or watermelons). 

Now mangos are tropical, common in India, Bangledesh, and the Phillipines per wikipedia, so I'm wondering what huge tropical animal used to or currently eats mangos and can pass the seeds.  Elephants I guess come to mind, but why would a plant restrict itself to requiring animals the size of elephants to eat it.  It seems the natural course of events would favor smaller seeds in a fruit so more animals that are smaller than elephants could swallow and pass.  So I guess I'm a little confused by the large size of this seed.  It doesn't make sense that a super-sweet fruit that attracts insects and animals would have such a huge seed - and it's difficult to understand the benefit of the huge seed.

Stock Update

Thought I'd update things.  I sold my position in CHRW at loss today after what I felt was a pretty bad conference call.  This company has been excellent in the past, and may be in the future, but I just didn't like what I was hearing.  I had waited a long time for it to come into price range and was thinking it'd be one I bought and held for a long time.

Overall I've added some positions since last time.  Here's what things look like now.


INTC Intel - still my largest holding, but it's just not moving, and seems like results keep getting pushed out into the future.  It pays a nice dividend, but I'm expecting some capital gains at some point.
BRK.B - Berkshire Hathaway
CMI Cummins
NEU NewMarket
CTSH Cognizant Tech
OUTR Outerwall (Coinstar) - recently announced very good results
QCOM Qualcom - I'm glad I picked them up as a rider to INTC.  They're executing better.
LQDT Liquidity Services.  A new position from a while back. Good report recently
CHKP Checkpoint software
GEOS Geospace - a new position from a while back.  I'm down on this one so far but like what I heard in the conference call.
VMI Valmont Industries
SNI Scripps Networks
CF   CF Industries
PETM PetSmart.  A new position from a couple weeks back.
AFL  AFLAC.  A new position.  I normally try to stay away from financial companies (with exception of BRK.B), but this looked good to me and I sortof understand the insurance market.
FFIV  F5 Networks
HFC  Holly Frontier
TCX  Tucows.  This was a small position for me that I hadn't listed, but it has grown into a decent size - enough to list it here.
 DE  Deere and co.  Relatively new addition.
GES  Guess.  I've had this a long time for dividend and what I thought would be cap appreciation, but it really hasn't done much and retail trends don't seem favorable to me.

Other smaller positions include: TIVO, CRUS, DHX, PETS

R&D tax credit quote in conference call

I thought this was a pretty funny quote in the recent NewMarket conference call.  

From the call: "That being said, as we speak, Congress has not yet renewed the tax credit for R&D for 2014. If Congress does not pass the credit, each quarter next year will have an additional tax, which represents the absence of that credit. We get about $3 million a year of R&D credits. This seems to be a bit of a pattern though, where Congress eventually passes the credit, but often is late in the year and made retroactive to the beginning."

It ties in well to how Lawrence Lessig says congress builds in dependencies in the tax code as opportunities to raise campaign money.  Instead of making something permanent in law, like a permanent "R&D" tax credit, congress will instead make it annually renewable and use it as a lever to raise money for campaign contributions.


Interesting - I didn't realize this, but Lessig did a TED talk on this very topic re: influence of money in campaigns.  Really good stuff starts around 7minute mark. 
http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim.html

Excellent Creative Commons images on Pixabay

I do a little bit of graphic design, and often I find I need just a background image of some type.  Often I'm  building a banner highlighting one of my wife's new books - so often the image is not central - it's just to set the right tone (at the beach, nature, sunshine sunset, etc).  I often don't need the "perfect" photo - heck often I use vacation photos that I've taken myself if they work - but sometimes you need a pic of somewhere you've never been - or just an artistic abstract background.  

Anyhow, a website that I've found very useful is Pixabay .  This website contains some very high quality creative commons licensed work (usually CC0 licensing which means you can use without worrying about licensing restrictions) and the site is searchable and easy to use.  And Pixabay is not just for background images.  If you need an image that sits front and center - you very well could find something here - although anything with peoples faces/expressions is going to be in short supply - likely due to the legal signoffs around using photos/likenesses.  Still - very useful site with great pictures.

I've uploaded some of my own photos there for usage (my photography isn't the best, but it might be helpful to some folks).  Several of my submissions have gotten rejected, so they just don't take any old photo - so only the good stuff makes it onto the site.  For folks like me who want a community to contribute to as well as be able to use a few photos for what little graphic design uses I have - Pixabay.com is excellent. 

Here's a few pics I've uploaded to the site
Cicada Shell Macro
Cool Flower and Butterfly Tongue Macro
A Wooly Worm Macro

Heard today

I laughed when I heard a quote from a frustrated announcer during Cincinnatti's 44 -43 victory over Pitt in the Jimmy V. classic.  The score tells alot, but at one point Pitt had gone about 9 minutes without scoring from the field in this clankfest and the announcer remarked something like:

"It's not a bad shot.  He's just not a good shooter."

Replaced some light switches

Replaced some light switches today.  Thank heavens for you tube instructional videos.  I opened up one and it was totally not the wiring I was expecting, but you tube straightened me out.

White Box Bacon

I tried some of the cheap white box bacon from Kroger this week and it's been awesome.  I tried it after having several batches of overly fatty bacon in my normal brands got me to try something else.

I was looking at the options for other bacons and saw the white box cheapy bacon was the lowest cost per lb, and it looked good to me through the little window, so I grabbed some.  The only difference I've noticed is the cut consistency isn't quite as uniform, and it's a little more stretchy than I'm used to - but it fries up pretty good without so much shrivel.

Saving on medicines

Interesting article on people buying prescriptions from outside the U.S. much more cheaply than they can get them in the U.S., but then the shipments getting seized at customs.


quote: "So about five years ago, Mrs. Higman started ordering the tablets from Canada, where a year’s supply that would cost about $1,000 in the United States sells for under $100."

Updated Stock Holdings 10-22

Hadn't done this in a while, and just wanting to update my top stock positions as of today.

INTC - Intel
WDC - Western Digital
CMI - Cummins
BRK.B - Berkshire Hathaway B shares
OUTR - Outerwall/Coinstar
NEU  - Newmarket Corp
CHRW - CH Robinson Worldwide
CTSH - Cognizant Tech
QCOM - Qualcom
SNI - Scripps Networks
CHKP - Checkpoint software
VMI - Valmont Industries
CF - CF Industries

I guess the newest 2 additions were VMI Valmont Industries and SNI Scripps.   I think the only recent sell I had was liquidating my ORCL Oracle position (at a loss I think). 

I did purchase a small position in TIVO (TiVo) the other day, but it is small and not based in my traditional valuation methods.  My wife really likes her TIVO and I read a presentation about their new products and progress in becoming the set top box for more cable providers (who then won't have to develop their own), and it just felt like TIVO might have a good chance to build up a to a tipping point where the economies of scale tip in their favor.  The stock has not done much in a long time, and the earnings are not currently there - so support things - this is just a small gut call that seemed it might have a good chance of working out.

Hemingway

I'm getting kindof old so I figured maybe I should read a Hemingway novel before my time was up.  I'd been looking for examples of what many considered excellent writing and Hemingway's books seem to be on most lists.  Particularly he was held up as an example of clean, clear, precise writing.

I did a little internet search and decided on reading "For whom bell tolls" and picked it up from the local library.  I finished it last night.  I was hoping I'd like it better, but unfortunately the book sortof lost me around page 350 or 400 - and I had to force myself to plow through the remaining 100-150 pages or so to get to the end.   While the final scenes were pretty interesting I felt like a lot of the "middle" of the book could've been trimmed considerably while preserving the story.  There was a large section that felt like it was just marking time until we got to the finish.

Anyhow, overall I was pretty disappointed with the pacing in the middle.  It had a very strong first half, and an exciting conclusion, but that part in between...

Something very interesting in the writing style was how Hemingway often would change from third person point of view (he, she, they) to first person point of view (I,me) - often even within the same paragraph.   It actually worked pretty well in the narrative to quickly move in and out of the main character's head, but it seems like it's something that would be discouraged by editors today.

Why Americans living abroad renounce their citizenship

I thought this was interesting.  It asks those who were American citizens but who were living abroad and renounced their US citizenship - why?   It seems alot of the comments are related to difficulties of living abroad while trying to comply with complicated U.S. tax filing laws that make it very difficult to live/work overseas.  Some also comment that overseas banks don't even want to deal with them due to all the complications.  Many don't seem to want to do it - but they seem to say it's financially too difficult to maintain.

Anyhow, I thought this BBC article was good reading:   Why I gave up my US passport

Near Nuclear disaster over North Carolina in 1961

I never heard this story.  Nuclear bombs were dropped over North Carolina in 1961 when a B-52 bomber came apart in flight and released the bombs - and in the process one of the bombs began arming itself as it fell.  One of the bombs was only 1 fail safe away from detonating.  According to the story the bomb was @260x as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb.

US plane in 1961 'nuclear bomb near-miss'

" three out of the four fail safe mechanisms failed"

Here's the event detail from wikipedia

Apparently the uranium from one of the bombs was buried so deeply after the bomb impacted into the field that it is still there - at estimated 180 ft below the surface of the ground.

 Here's some eye-witness reports from the local papers in Goldsboro, NC

"So despite the fact the the military claims to have recovered many components of that Mark 39, those who live near the site say there is still a bomb in the ground."

Here's apparently a picture of the land where the bomb is buried under

According to comments here (formerspook.blogspot.com) of the two bombs that fell, the parachute on only 1 opened (apparently the bombs are designed to float down on parachutes) and that bomb was the one that was only 1 fail safe from detonating.  The one has parts still buried in the field apparently fell so fast that it was less of a risk and couldn't arm properly as they were designed to fall slowly by parachute and that process would arm them.  There's good comments at that site.

Voyager 1 leaves solar system

Cool story for the day.  The voyager 1 spacecraft has left the solar system about 43 yrs from it launch - according to changes in measurements on it's internal devices.  It's now at a distance of @ 121 times the distance from the earth to the sun.  It's a really good article.