So here’s a quick stat: Apple sold more iPod Touches, iPhones, and iPads in 2011 alone than they did Macintoshes in TWENTY EIGHT YEARS. This is the new platform of record. It is the new default, for good or ill.
No, Android is not going to supplant this juggernaut. I hope they can remain a viable competitor, but the crown is Apple’s to lose.
Also, you know what name isn’t even part of this discussion? Microsoft.
Shit-beer vendor Anheuser-Busch whined to Hay Merchant about their practice of using Bud and Bud Light 40-oz bottles for water service, so they’ve had to switch to Cobra malt liquor.
One again, Heathen Nation, join me in a hearty “fuck you” to AB and all their ilk.
John Mulaney on Girl Scout Cookies kills me:
There’s something that’s always bothered me about Girl Scout Cookies. Why can’t you just buy them in a supermarket? Why are they only available once a year, through some weird organization? It’d be like if they only sold Coca-Cola in July, and you could only buy it from the Knights of Columbus.
This is short. Just go read it.
Turns out, they only hate birth control mandates when Obama does them. When Romney does them, it’s fine.
I’ve just had a pair of calls from a very, very frantic friend. In a hustle to get to the airport this afternoon, he managed to (a) not close his SUV’s tailgate; (b) only close it remotely once he got 50 yards down his street; and therefore (c) not notice his laptop bag had fallen out until he got to the airport. Upon return to his street, of course, an hour or more had passed and the bag was nowhere to be found. And his only backup drive was in the bag, too. And, to add insult to injury, he had no password on the computer, which contained lots of personal financial information in unencrypted files.
So he called me. He had no online or secondary backups. He hadn’t signed up for a stolen-laptop service. Did I know of any other way he could track or try to recover the computer? Sadly, no, I don’t. I gave him some pointers on identity theft prevention and protection, but that was about all I could do. His computer — with all his tax information, his business files, his contacts, his pictures, his digital life, was simply gone.
Now, if you don’t have an ugly bolus of nausea in the pit of your stomach right now, well, you’re made of stouter stuff than I am.
I’ve spoken before at some length about the supreme importance of backups, and how critical it is to have more than one kind, in more than one place. My friend had made a few seemingly small errors here that compounded into a seriously catastrophic situation. Read along now, and figure out where YOU would be if it were your laptop box and not his.
Device Security
First, security. Your laptop needs a password, for sure. Try to make it a good one. You don’t want just any nefarious goon to be able to sniff around on your laptop. You wouldn’t leave your home unlocked; you shouldn’t leave your data unlocked, either.
Data Security
Security extends beyond this, though. For truly sensitive information, like bank account access information, or passwords to credit card accounts, you should use some kind of encrypted storage. I like 1Password, which takes this idea to the next level. In addition to storing my passwords and account numbers in an encrypted file that locks after a few minutes of idleness, it includes the ability to create secure password AND a browser plug-in that makes remembering those secure passwords unnecessary. Just click the toolbar button, and 1Password notices I’m at Chase and fills in the right info. (Obviously, if the db hasn’t been used in a while, it’ll demand my passphrase — but it’s easier to remember one long, secure password than a whole bunch of them.) Cost: $49.99 for Mac or Windows license; $14.99 for companion iPhone/iPad app. Browser plug-ins are free.
Computer Recovery
There is also now a whole class of tools designed to make recovering a stolen laptop easier. The most famous is the Prey Project, discussed in some depth by Lifehacker here. Basically, you install it, and at an interval you choose it silently checks in with the Prey servers to see if the computer has been marked “stolen.” If that’s the case, it busily starts sending in all sorts of information about the theif’s activity — up to and including webcam pics. Prey is also free for up to 3 devices, which is kind of insane, but it’s well-reviewed and well-liked, and there are many examples of lost laptops being recovered using it, or using tools like it. I do not yet use any such tools, but I’m actively considering it. Cost: basic Prey is free for up to three devices; they have more elaborate plans and services, however.
Backups
My previous backup scheme, detailed in this space before, is unchanged. The driving principle is “measure your backups in spindles and time zones.”
Spindles are the “axles” inside hard drives. To measure by spindle is to count the ones involved in keeping your data safe. More spindles means more copies on more drives, which protects you from single points of physical failure.
Measuring by time zone means to keep physical separation between your data copies — keep some local, within easy reach, but keep some far away in the event of a local cataclysm. (And for God’s sake don’t put your only backup in your laptop bag.)
To recap:
Apple’s Time Machine runs all day every day. This is powerful, because of instead of just “big dumb copies” it keeps up with file versions. I used to just make a copy of my hard drive periodically, but that’s not enough, because if a region of your drive starts to go it’ll destroy files well before the problem is obvious. By dutifully copying my drive to my backup drive every week, I just spread the corruption to the backup drive, too, and in so doing lost a whole bunch of data — including about a year’s worth of pictures. Time Machine protects you from a drive or computer failure, but it also protects you from more subtle failures like the one I experienced. Best of all: it’s a set-it-and-forget-it kind of thing. As long as the backup drive is accessible, Time Machine will work with no intervention from you. (I still don’t know a good Windows option here.) Cost: Free with Macs.
I keep all my active files in Dropbox, which sucks copies into my folder there more or less instantly. Dropbox is really meant for synchronization between multiple computers (say, your work PC and your home PC), but the basic mechanics of the tool mean it’s a great extra backup step, too. Fun fact: about 18 months ago, my laptop went dark all of a sudden, in the middle of the day. No power, no nothing. I made an Apple Store appointment and then just powered on my backup computer, and the file I was working on was already there, thanks to Dropbox. Can’t beat that. Cost: Free for up to 2GB; I pay $9.99 a month for 50GB.
Periodically — before any major change to my laptop, or before any long trip — I make a perfect clone of my laptop’s hard drive using SuperDuper. Despite the trouble I mentioned before, keeping a clone around of your hard drive is a good idea — especially if you travel. Imagine how much less freaked out my friend would have been if, inside on his desk, a perfect copy of his data was safe and sound? In the ideal case, you keep TWO such copies and rotate them between two different locations. For example, during Hurricane Ike, one of my cloned drives was in Erin’s office on the 43rd floor of a building downtown and presumably therefore flood-safe. Cost: $27.95.
The final step for me is Crashplan, but competitors Mozy and Carbonite are also well regarded. (And Mozy is probably better for less-sophisticated users.) These are online, so-called “cloud” backup tools. You configure the client to protect certain folders or groups of folders, and the data is slowly and securely uploaded to the service. Once the initial backup is complete, only changes go up the wire. This type of tool is of HUGE value for three reasons: First, it happens automatically. Second, by definition the backups these tools perform are offsite, far away — your house could burn down, and you’d still have whatever data you stored there. Third, because these tools store file histories, you get protection from the “creeping corruption” problem that stung me years ago. I keep about 140GB of data backed up with CrashPlan, including over 100GB worth of photos. (While I just waited for the first backup to be done (it took a couple months), most of these services will allow you to seed your backup by sending in a portable hard drive.) Cost: Varies by service, and usually paid by the gigabyte. MozyHome is $4.99 for up to 50GB, e.g.
This Sounds Complicated!
It’s really not. If you know me well enough to have my phone number, you also know that I’ll help you with this. Don’t put it off. Do it today, or at least this weekend. Your data is important.
Epilogue
Now, I do have a little bit of extra news. I mentioned before that my friend had called twice. I got the disaster rundown in the first call, but an hour or two later he called back. It seems his neighbor had seen what happened, and collected the bag for him. Bullet dodged, of course, but you can be sure my pal is busily acquainting himself with the tools and services listed in this post. I think I’ll send him a link to it, just in case. For reference.
As for you, dear Heathen public, don’t count on having such a kind neighbor or such extraordinary luck. Protect yourself.
Local jackass Michael Berry has apparently been involved in a hit-and-run when leaving a Montrose gay bar.
Astute Heathen will notice that the header graphics are no longer stock images, and in fact are now Official Heathenographs. My photos have no titles normally, but here are fifteen provisional titles to go with the pictures.
Since the banner’s on a random rotation, you may have to visit a few times to sort out which is which. Actual humans pictured include the AccountingCatSnorter, Mrs Heathen, FirstNiece, some strangers, Leopardboy, certain Kohn’s bartenders, and Jim Lehrer. Enjoy.
You should go read about AJ’s plan for 52 new Adventures in 2012, because she’s delightful and funny.
In the US, we’re so accustomed to our “one man, one vote” election system that we’ve by and large forgotten that alternatives exist that can produce materially fairer outcomes.
C. G. P. Grey discusses the main problems with First Past The Post in this excellent video, which explains briefly why such systems — even if they start with multiple parties — inevitably devolve into a two-party duopoly that poorly represents most citizens. Go watch. It’s worth 6 minutes of your time, I assure you.
If you enjoyed it, continue for more over at his blog, where concepts like Alternative Vote (also known as “Instant Runoff Voting“) and Gerrymandering are explored in similar style.
Via MeFi.
There’s a move afoot to make Sudafed prescription again, in an effort to keep would-be Walter Whites out of business. This sucks for lots of reasons, but at least this writer is thinking clearly about the implications costwise:
What really bothers me is the way that Humphreys [the author of a post to which she is responding] — and others who show up in the comments–regard the rather extraordinary cost of making PSE prescription-only as too trivial to mention.
Let’s return to those 15 million cold sufferers. Assume that on average, they want one box a year. That’s going to require a visit to the doctor. At an average copay of $20, their costs alone would be $300 million a year, but of course, the health care system is also paying a substantial amount for the doctor’s visit. The average reimbursement from private insurance is $130; for Medicare, it’s about $60. Medicaid pays less, but that’s why people on Medicaid have such a hard time finding a doctor. So average those two together, and add the copays, and you’ve got at least $1.5 billion in direct costs to obtain a simple decongestant. But that doesn’t include the hassle and possibly lost wages for the doctor’s visits. Nor the possible secondary effects of putting more demands on an already none-too-plentiful supply of primary care physicians.
Of course, those wouldn’t be the real costs, because lots of people wouldn’t be able to take the time for a doctor’s visit. So they’d just be more miserable while their colds last. What’s the cost of that–in suffering, in lost productivity?
Perhaps it would be simpler to just raise the price of a box of Sudafed to $100. Surely that would make meth labs unprofitable–and save us the annoyance of a doctor’s visit.
They can still buy cold medicine, protest the advocates for a prescription-only policy. But as far as I can tell, there’s really no evidence that the current substitute, phenylephrine, does a damn thing to ease congestion; apparently, a lot of it gets chewed up in your liver pretty quickly, and because the FDA only allows a low dose to start with, the resulting pills don’t seem to be any better than placebo. For people who are prone to sinus or ear infections, that’s no joke; one of the main ways you prevent them is by taking a decongestant as soon as you feel the first ticklings of a cold–not four days later, when your GP can finally see you.
I added the emphasis, since that’s also my own experience with the non-sudafed sudafed.
Here’s the real point:
But no policy question is ever as simple as “How can we stop X”, unless “X” is an imminent Nazi invasion. We also have to ask “at what cost?” and “by what right?”
Exactly. There is no doubt that meth is a scourge. But the societal costs of drastically increasing the effective price of Sudafed are bad, too. Are we sure that’s a good idea? And let’s also be clear about something: some anti-meth crusaders are actively talking about prohibition. Seriously. Fuck that.
(Via Schneier.)
This video about competitive dog herding would actually be completely fascinating even if the dog owner and narrator wasn’t David Lee Roth.
Rick Santorum Want To Fight The Dangers Of Contraception:
Last October, Rick Santorum gave an interview with an Evangelical blog called Caffeinated Thoughts, in which he said contraception is “not okay,” and that this would be a public policy issue he would tackle as President.
This is your GOP frontrunner, people. God DAMN I’m sorry I ran off all the right-wingers from my Facebook feed.
I came across this via Reddit, and thought at first it was a Photoshopped image — until someone posted the video.
When the Feds announced a while back that using Tor, a tool to ensure online security and anonymity, could be construed as evidence you might be a terrorist, I wrote it off as them being absurdly out of touch and possessed of the same authoritarian taint as most cops — “if you haven’t got anything to hide, why care?” is sort of a mantra for some LEO folks.
However, now the Feds are suggesting that paying cash for coffee might be suspicious, which is just getting ridiculous.
Do you feel safer yet? Does the FBI have anybody who LOOKS at these pronouncements before they go out? Good lord.
YES.
As always, summed up with exemplary flair by Jon Stewart. It’s a good one. Don’t miss it.
(h/t Rob.)
Herein he discusses the wide gap between the Catholic laity and their purported leadership, the bishops, and why it makes more sense to listen to the liaty as the voice of Catholicism on issues like birth control.
Here then are the two issues on which the consensus of the laity and the assertions of the bishops are in conflict: contraception and child rape.
The bishops teach that contraception is a grave moral sin. The laity know that it is not. The devout laity know this. They are sure of it. They employ contraception with a clean conscience and an untroubled spirit. Some may be troubled that their doing so is a form of disobedience to the teaching of the bishops, but the only guilt they experience is due to that disobedience, not because they believe the practice to be intrinsically wrong.
The laity have listened to the bishops’ rationale for their opposition to contraception and have not found it compelling. It’s too confusing, contradictory and inconstant to be understood. It changes and collapses back on itself. […] Unpersuaded by the bishops’ case, the laity thus choose to heed their own conscience and ignore the prohibition.
That decision is informed by and reinforced by the second, more vehement, disagreement — the matter of child rape.
For the Catholic laity, overwhelmingly, the rape of a child is considered a moral horror and one of the worst sins imaginable. For the bishops, it’s a regrettable act, but it’s not as bad as the public disclosure of it. For the laity, there can be no greater priority than ensuring that children in one’s care are not abused. For the bishops, there has been no greater priority than ensuring that abusers are not exposed. The paramount concern for the laity is the protection of children. The paramount concern for the bishops has been the protection of their own reputation.
Honestly, it’s amazing people are willing to listen to the power structure of the Roman church at all, ever, about anything until they address this. Because Fred is not wrong here, not even a little.
The competition for “Best High Concept Nerd Article Online, Software Review Division” will have to get pretty tight for anyone to surpass this one.
I shall put down my organic coffee and NPR tote so that I may type on my Mac with both hands to share with you that Ira Glass and Philip Glass are cousins, and that the former interviewed the latter for the former’s radio show.
Also:
This is the joke I didn’t do. This is the joke I didn’t do. This is the joke I didn’t do. This is the joke I didn’t do. This is the joke I didn’t do. This is the joke I didn’t do. This is the joke I didn’t do. This is the joke I didn’t do. This is the joke I didn’t do. This is the joke I didn’t do. This is the joke I didn’t do. This is the joke I didn’t do. This is the joke I didn’t do. This is the joke I didn’t do. This is the joke I didn’t do. This is the joke I didn’t do. This is the joke I didn’t do. This is the joke I didn’t do. This is the joke I didn’t do. This is the joke I didn’t do.
Please buy me one of these, because it’s without a doubt the coolest toy I’ve ever seen.
“Hang on while I check the pressure…”
Click on through to read more about why domain knowledge matters in design.
This is pretty great, but the best part may be the ref to a Slashdot commenter, who said:
Audiophiles don’t use their equipment to listen to your music. Audiophiles use your music to listen to their equipment.
You may have heard that the White House sidestepped the whining of the wingnut portion of the GOP and some Catholic organizations this week by allowing the health plans offered by religious organizations to omit coverage for birth control — while still requiring the insurers to provide contraception free of charge. The insurers are on board (birth control is way cheaper than pregnancy), and if the GOP was really concerned about “requiring employers to pay for something they find immoral,” this should’ve shut down the debate.
That would’ve been nice. But that wasn’t all the position does: It also means that, if the GOP continues to bitch and moan and whine and say “but this isn’t enough!”, then they’re basically making it clear that what they REALLY want to to reduce access to contraception. Make no mistake: the pivot by the White House was a clever and pragmatic compromise, but also a very clever trap.
And, well, the Bishops and Mitch McConnell have led the GOP directly into it:
Not satisfied with President Obama’s new religious accommodation, Republicans will move forward with legislation by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) that permits any employer to deny birth control coverage in their health insurance plans, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said Sunday.
What’s hilarious here is the angle he takes:
“The fact that the White House thinks this is about contraception is the whole problem. This is about freedom of religion, it’s right there in the First Amendment. You can’t miss it — right there in the very first amendment to our Constitution,” McConnell said. “What the overall view on the issue of contraception is has nothing to do with an issue about religious freedom.”
McConnell went on to embellish the argument, claiming Obama is being “rigid in his view that he gets to decide what somebody else’s religion is.” He said that “this issue will not go away until the administration simply backs down.”
House GOP leaders also said Friday they will move forward with legislation to repeal the birth control rule in its entirety. Republicans from both chambers are aligning themselves with the Catholic Bishops who say the new policy remains unacceptable.
Religious freedom isn’t about imposing your will on others. It’s allowing others to worship, or not, on their own. If your employees are getting birth control for free from the insurer, you ought not care. If you still do, you’re trying to control them, and that’s not “religious liberty” anymore. Check out what Fred Clark has to say about this version of religious liberty.
What’s even funnier is that a majority of both Americans and Catholics are in favor of the White House compromise, so the GOP’s rant here is going to become a giant poison pill. It’s a whole bunch of old white men insisting that birth control access be curtailed. Nobody is going to miss that message, I assure you.
Fred has another great rundown of some additional analysis on this that’s also worth your time.
Astonishingly, this high concept world-ending rom-com looks like it might actually be worthwhile.
Also, Keira Knightly.
An Open Letter To The Worst Human Being To Ever Sit In A Theater pretty much sums it up in a worst-case scenario kind of way.
I know there exist some theaters (God bless, you Tim) who take this stuff seriously, but the overwhelming majority simply do not. If the options are “wait for video,” “theater full of yahoos,” or “drive half an hour to the closest Alamo,” I’m going with home video every damn time. It’s no contest. I have a great wine list, a comfy couch, two great cats to hang out with Mrs Heathen and I, and the ability to pause it when we need to take a leak. And, most importantly, Heathen World HQ is a yahoo-free zone.
What is the most hauntingly beautiful song? (Widely linked.)
Dana Gould as Dr Zaius as Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain. Yes. Yes. Yes. Via HODGE MAN.
The original is, apparently, at NPR.
Wolf pup and bear cub are friends in this video, which also includes stills of them as adults. They are still friends now, apparently.
MS State House Rep. Steve Holland has filed HB150, which would, in summary, rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” for all “official purposes” in Mississippi.
Folks, I left as soon as I was able.
Update: Turns out it was a joke/stunt. From FFF’s new comment:
Turns out it is a joke. Steve is generally a smarter guy than that. I was saddened to learn of this legislation without more. The problem is, he needs serious messaging help to get his point across. This is what he told the Mississippi Business Journal about why he filed the bill, according to its staff writer, Clay Chandler:“It’s right in line with all the other bullsh** going on now in the Legislature,” Holland said. “And you can quote me on that in capital letters if you want to. Cutting education, cutting healthcare, going after immigrants, all the things the Rebublican majority seems interested in, that don’t do anything to enhance the quality of life and the economic foundation of the average Mississippian. It’s a spamelot bill. I thought it made about as much sense as some of the other stuff coming through here. We’ll see what happens.”
No, really.
It may help if you know what The Eye of Argon is.
Go read The Party of Lincoln is not the party of Lincoln; a bit:
The 1960s completed the weird reversal of America’s two political parties. The Radical Republicans brought about a second American revolution with the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. They were committed to a strong, large federal government, to public education and to expanded voting rights. A century later, Republicans were adamantly opposed to all of those things.
Today, if you hear a politician railing against public schools, or calling for voting restrictions, or for a smaller and weaker federal government, you know without looking that this politician is a Republican. Today if you hear a politician attacking due process, or citizenship for all born here, or equal protection, then you know without looking that this politician belongs to the party that bears the same name as the party that fought to enshrine all those things in the Constitution.
Then click through to the post that inspired him. (Fred’s link is to the blog’s home page; this is the actual post he means.)
As a direct result of a delightful yet convoluted series of social connections, last night I was engaged to attempt to repair a broken piece of video installation art at the home of a local collector. The gallery owner who sold the collector the piece is a friend of a friend, and because I’m widely perceived as being generally good with technology (by which I think people mean “he knows how to hook things up”), I got asked to help. I wasn’t able to do anything for them other than confirm that the screen portion needed replacing, but hey, you help your friends.
Anyway, the gallery owner had her assistant drive me out to this woman’s house, which was about half an hour away on Houston’s west side. Said assistant is the sort of bright-eyed, right-out-of-school type I remember being, which of course made me feel old because I have shoes older than she is. But I felt much, much older when, on the way back, we started discussing live music venues and bands we’d seen in them, and it came to light she’d never even heard of Steely Dan.
Ouch.
Well, if that hurts you, then what Joey DeVilla has up today will really break you. Prepare yourself for the shock that is What If Back To The Future Was Made Today.
Enjoy, if that’s the word for it.
[…] I fear that Barack Obama will in all likelihood be facing a socially maladroit charisma-challenged gaffe-prone filthy rich religious cultist who claims to be middle-class and unemployed, holds no deeply held belief that couldn’t be swayed by a stiff breeze, enjoys making money by dismantling businesses, firing the employees and shipping their jobs overseas and then taking that money and stashing it in off-shore tax havens and who has recently been spending tens of millions of dollars fending off the likes of Newt Fucking Gingrich and Rick Fucking Santorum because, even faced with those horrible choices, most Republicans still find him as palatable as a semen-flavored popsicle.
Even with all of that, he will still be competitive because his opponent is a black guy and this is America.
You know you want some Motorhead Shiraz. Someone please give Lemmy some US distribution!
“God Bless America” is a film by Bobcat Goldthwait. Coming soon.
Edit: The MeFi thread describes it as “Falling Down meets Juno,” which might be perfect.
Iron Man, played with a MIDI guitar and Tesla coils.
Certain Louisiville-area Heathen alerted us to this video of Ultimate TazerBall which, I admit, I initially took to be satire.
For good or ill, however, it appears that it is a real, actual thing.
I saw references to the Agenda 21 boogieman first on Facebook, in updates from a college acquaintance whose shop had been destroyed by the tornado last year. She was all up in arms about how the UN was gonna steal everyone’s land, and FEMA was in on it, and it was a giant plot, and RON PAUL RON PAUL RON PAUL WILL SAVE US, etc.
I wrote her off as a crank. Now it seems increasingly clear that some elements on the right, or within the Tea Party, are absolutely spreading these weird misconceptions about loss of local sovereignty as a means of riling up their base against projects designed to preserve green spaces, increase bike usage, and other completely reasonable steps generally seen as increasing livability and decreasing pollution. The point is not so much to preserve the status quo (though that’s surely part of it) as it is to distract the Tea Party dingbats from something that might actually matter, like lobbying.
Across the country, activists with ties to the Tea Party are railing against all sorts of local and state efforts to control sprawl and conserve energy. They brand government action for things like expanding public transportation routes and preserving open space as part of a United Nations-led conspiracy to deny property rights and herd citizens toward cities.
Many are suspicious of environmental initiatives. Ed Elswick, a county supervisor, voiced criticism at last month’s meeting. They are showing up at planning meetings to denounce bike lanes on public streets and smart meters on home appliances — efforts they equate to a big-government blueprint against individual rights.
[…]
In Maine, the Tea Party-backed Republican governor canceled a project to ease congestion along the Route 1 corridor after protesters complained it was part of the United Nations plot. Similar opposition helped doom a high-speed train line in Florida. And more than a dozen cities, towns and counties, under new pressure, have cut off financing for a program that offers expertise on how to measure and cut carbon emissions.
It’s the same weird song-and-dance I saw on Facebook, writ large. Some doofus went to Tuscaloosa spreading this bullshit last spring, and hooked lots of scared people in the wake of the tornado, as part of an overall strategy of (as MeFi put it) getting people to worry about the wrong things. It’s classic misdirection, craven and cynical at its core, and unfortunately very, very effective with unsophisticated voters.
Since that’s most American voters, we are, of course, completely fucking doomed.
This excellent drunken rant of a video explains, in 16 minutes, the whole Death of Superman storyline from 1992, complete with re-enactment skits and some unexpected guest stars.
(Note: Guest stars probably only possible because the filmmaker (an narrator) is Max Landis, who has a famous dad.)
Stay with it for the final reveal. Via MeFi.
It’s that time of year again: the Buffalo Beast’s 50 Most Loathesome Americans is, as always, spot on. I’d quote, but you should really just go read the whole thing.
The link at “Awesome People Hanging Out Together” said “William Shatner and Stan Lee,” so obviously I was gonna click it.
Then I clicked it, and it turned out to be “William Shatner and Stan Lee AT GALATOIRE’S,” and I exploded from all the awesome.
The drought in Houston (and Texas) in 2011 came up in conversation with a co-worker today, which set me wondering what the hard numbers were.
First, let’s figure out what “normal” rainfall looks like. Wikipedia says we usually get something like 54 inches of rain a year; NOAA says it’s more like 49.77″.
NOAA also has per-year values. We got less than 25 inches of rain in 2011. That’s less than half normal, which is a lot for a place that typically gets more than four feet a rain a year.
NOAA’s figures since 2000 are below; note that no other year in the list is even close to 2011.
So, yeah. Pretty dry.
But, just so we’re clear this doesn’t change who they are, or who’s running the organization. As noted before, contribute accordingly.
What happens when you use prisoner labor to design and execute logos for the state police? I SMELL BACON! Oink Oink Oink.
Bonus: Apparently, the prank’s been in place for FOUR YEARS.