Events

It's hard to overstate how bad this is. Via Bruce Schneier, it turns out that the Swedish Transport Ministry outsourced its database hosting to IBM, which subcontracted the work to a Serbian company with ties to the Russian military. And what databases did Sweden wind up hosting in its "Cloud" facility in Serbia? All of them: Part of what IBM contracted to was run, and which was run from Serbia, was the Swedish government’s secure intranet – the SGSI, the Secure Government Swedish Intranet. This network...

...to your whisky: [A]dding water releases molecules that improve the flavor. Water and ethanol don’t make for a perfectly uniform mixture. Aromatic compounds could become trapped in ethanol clusters and never reach the surface. Our tongues are only capable of identifying the flavors, sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami (savory), so aroma is really important for detecting all the other flavors that connoisseurs appreciate in whiskey. Guaiacol is what gives whiskey that smoky, spicy, peaty flavor....

The organization will no longer defend armed hate groups: The change in policy followed the ACLU of Virginia’s decision to file suit to ensure that an assortment of white supremacist groups could hold the now-notorious “Unite the Right” rally earlier this month in Charlottesville’s Emancipation Park. While the ACLU wasn’t responsible for the fatal violence that ensued, the entire organization was convulsed in the fallout. One ACLU of Virginia board member resigned in protest. In a historic gesture...

I'm back home, and I've shoved all the Scotland photos out of the way so I could post this: I didn't notice until I processed the photos from my 7D, but there are two solar storms visible: one at about 3 o'clock and the other, fainter one at about 1 o'clock. We're already looking into a vacation in Chile in the summer of 2019...

I'm in Wildwood, Mo., where I saw my first total eclipse of the sun. It was well worth the trip. I'll have at least one photo when I'm back home tomorrow. (We stayed an extra day because of traffic.)

...the United States launched a space probe that is now one of the three fastest-moving and farthest human-made objects in the universe. Voyager 2 lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 9:29 CDT on 20 August 1977. As of today it's about 115 AUs (1.72×1010 km) from Earth, moving about 15.4 km/s or 55,000 km/h away from the sun. It's still alive. NASA expects the probe to continue transmitting from interstellar space for at least another 7 years, by which time it may be able to sample the...

I'm heading to Missouri tomorrow to get into position for Monday's eclipse. Since Springfield is on the way, I spent the day at the Illinois State Fair. Again. So, naturally, we had to make a pilgrimage to the butter cow: No idea what we're doing tomorrow, but Monday we'll be standing in a parking lot with our eclipse glasses on. And sweating. It's warm out there.

Example of why, from last Saturday:

Via Mother Jones, the Southern Poverty Law Center has published a report that examines the statues to Confederate heroes of the sort that sparked last weekend's violence in Charlottesville, Va. It should surprise no one with a modicum of historical knowledge that they went up during periods of exceptional violence against African-Americans: [T]he argument that the Confederate flag and other displays represent “heritage, not hate” ignores the near-universal heritage of African Americans whose ancestors...

I've watched Scott Adams defend President Trump for years now, and I'm always fascinated by his ability to accuse people who disagree with him of any number of mental deficiencies. I am surprised that it took until today for him to pipe up about Trump's latest self-inflicted wound, but not by how he approached it. In today's post, Adams continues his longstanding argument that, when it comes to Trump, we're experiencing a "mass hysteria bubble." How does he know? Because lots of people disagree with...