Too Cute

Big Bang Theory flash mob dance number

Steven Spielberg's Lincoln

This week's movie was "Lincoln" the Spielberg epic, with Daniel Day-Lewis.

I liked it.

But I should disclose that I'm a huge Lincoln buff. One of my all-time favorite books is Gore Vidal's historical novel "Lincoln". And I read, and enjoyed, Doris Kearns Goodwin's "Team of Rivals" soon after it was published.

So I came to this movie with a lot of expectations, and I wasn't disappointed.

Baseball is more popular than football.

Just watching a report on TV about the increasing problem of extreme injuries in the sport of US Football.

At one point they referred to football in a way that is very common: "the most popular sport in the US."

I've always had a problem with this claim, let me tell you why.

Disclaimer: This is a quick and dirty analysis of numbers I quickly dug up on the net. The data might benefit from fine-tuning, but I believe the underlying conclusion has validity.

Let's start with football.

There are 32 teams in the NFL. Each team plays 8 home games. According to wikipedia the average stadium size is about 70,000. If we assume that every game is a sellout then football sells almost 18 million tickets in a season (17,920,000).

Baseball.

There are 30 teams. They each play 81 home games. The average ballpark seats 43,000. Again assuming sellouts then baseball sells over 104 million tickets in a season (104,490,000).

That makes baseball almost 6 times as popular as football.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_stadiums>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_National_Football_League_stadiums>

Now I realize most baseball teams don't sellout their parks. I'm thinking that maybe some football teams don't either. So what kind of numbers can we find for this.

According to ESPN's 2012 attendance numbers. Football averaged 96% turnout. Baseball averaged 72%.

<http://espn.go.com/nfl/attendance>

<http://espn.go.com/mlb/attendance>

Do the math and that makes football's tickets sold 17,167,360, compared to baseball's 74,710,350. That makes baseball over 4 times as popular as football.

OK so this is a pretty quick-and-dirty analysis. And if it was close I'd wonder what a more diligent comparison might show.

But it's not even close. Baseball is the most popular sport in America.

Cool or Creepy? You decide.

Modern farming not so good.

Here's an opinion piece about a govt study that shows that modern farming methods are not good for us, and not even cost effective.

src: NYT

IT’S becoming clear that we can grow all the food we need, and profitably, with far fewer chemicals. And I’m not talking about imposing some utopian vision of small organic farms on the world. Conventional agriculture can shed much of its chemical use — if it wants to.

This was hammered home once again in what may be the most important agricultural study this year, although it has been largely ignored by the media, two of the leading science journals and even one of the study’s sponsors, the often hapless Department of Agriculture.

Read the whole opinion piece.

I originally found this through one of my most favorite bloggers, Lloyd Kahn.

Notes on James Bond, Skyfall (no spoilers)

Went to the 11:30 am showing of Skyfall yesterday (opening day in the US). Here are a few thoughts. No spoilers here.

I haven't been to many James Bond movies recently so what do I know, but...

I like the Adele theme. I've been hearing it on the radio, and liked it there. And it works well in the title sequence too.

I also liked the incidental music throughout the movie. The Bond riff, and bits from the Adele theme kept fading in, and nicely underscored the emotion of the scenes.

I've never been a big fan of Daniel Craig as Bond, but I liked him much more in this one. I think seeing more of his vulnerability and backstory helped a lot.

They did a real nice job of mixing modern Bond with vintage Bond.

I don't hate the new Q, but I don't think he comes close to the wonderfulness of past incarnations.

Stating the obvious, but Dame Judi Dench is an awesome M. A real bad-ass grandma.

I won't go so far as to say the movie ever dragged, but I felt that at 2 hours 23 minutes, it was maybe 20-30 mins too long. Cutting one action sequence, or trimming them all by a few mins, might have helped.

Two thumbs up. If you like this kind of movie, then you'll be happy.

Jack Interviewed by Airspeed's Steve Tupper

Way back in May Steve Tupper, of the Airspeed blog and AcroCamp, got me on the phone, and we talked for almost two hours. I've listened just now to what I said, and it doesn't horrify me.

From Steve's shownotes of the interview:

On UCAP, Jack spends much of his time eliciting reactions from co-hosts Jeb Burnside and Dave Higdon and directing the conversation.  I had always wondered what it might be like to give Jack a free hand to talk about stuff as a featured guest.  It’s not that Jeb or Dave crimp his style by any means.  They don’t.  But solo solo Jack is a different thing from UCAP Jack and I wanted to explore that.  So I called him up earlier this year and he agreed to jump on Skype and hold forth for an hour or two. 

During the conversation, we talked about Jack’s flight training, airports, the pilot population, the aviation podsphere, and lots of other topics.  There’s something in this episode for everyone.

Direct link to the episode's audio (mp3).  Or better yet subscribe to Airspeed.

President Obama's final 2012 campaign speech in Iowa

While we're all sitting around waiting for the results to start coming in, here's President's Obama's final campaign speech from last night in Iowa. Good stuff.

(Jump ahead to about 12:10 for the beginning of the President's talk. Or jump even further, to 30:30, to hear Obama's remarkable "Fired Up!" story.)

Could Christie Restore the GOP?

I'm a big fan of Dave Winer as a tech visionary, but I don't usually think of him in terms of political thought. But this idea is intriguing.

My wish if Obama wins tomorrow is that he start building a cross-party coalition with his new buds Chris Christie and Bill Clinton. Go to a Jets game maybe. Ask Christie which Repubs are fun to party with.

The idea is that Governor Christie -- who's shown that he's a real Republican, but not one who's afraid to tell truth to foolishness -- might be the guy who can bring the adult Republicans in from the cold.

It's encouraging to think that Christie might be able to gather other sane Republicans together into the beginnings of a new faction of the GOP that will maintain its basic values, but is willing to work with others.

Ballot scanner momentarily jammed at my polling place.

Prob not a big deal, but for the record...

While I was at my polling place this morning, here in Nottingham NH, the ballot scanner was jammed for a few minutes, and they were collecting ballots for later scanning.

I asked to wait until it was unjammed, which it was within a few minutes, and I then put my ballot into the scanner slot.

Just for the record.

Flying with Friends

Here's a mini-essay I posted as a comment to a post on the facebook:

A couple thoughts on this. Although TV and other "modern" conveniences have had an impact, I am convinced that humans are, and always have been, social creatures. Given the proper circumstances we crave company. We naturally form into groups, and families (of all sorts), and clubs.

One remarkable result of the online "social media" movement is how much it has resulted in people who interact online also searching for opportunities to gather face to face. See the plethora of meetups and tweetups and just plain getting together for a beer.

And pilots are no exception to this. We love getting together for pancakes, or fly-ins, or just to hangar-fly over a cup of coffee.

A couple Saturdays ago I spent the day at an event of a regional soaring club. This was not simply a flying club, but a club made up of other clubs. They had gathered way up north here in NH to spend a week flying together in some unique conditions.

What I saw in them is that the special circumstances of soaring (it's very hard to do alone) gave them the little push they needed to be a vibrant group of flying friends.

There's a lesson to be learned there. To expand and strengthen the nation's flying clubs we must not only emphasize the financial benefits, we must learn how to make them a better way for us to fly with friends. To learn together. To share our passion.

Because bowling with friends is way more fun than bowling alone.

Lucky

Just outside again, looking for a pic to post here. Really couldn't find any dramatic images here at Lookout Point. Just a lot of small-medium branches down. All-in-all we were pretty lucky.

Initial look around

Just out surveying our property. No real damage. Lots of branches down, but not really even very much of that (*). 

Two observations: First, it's weirdly warm out. Like 60F, and the sun us just up, so it's probably gonna go up further. 

Second, I don't think we've yet seen the the bulk of the rain that we're gonna get from this system. The Dollof Dam gauges haven't updated since yesterday aftern

oon, but the Manchester Airport weather station is saying we got only 1.5 inches since the start of the storm. I think there's more rain coming.

(*) I've thought for a long time that the 1-2 big windstorms that we've gotten each year for the past 4-5 years have brought down all the weak branches. I'm surprised that there's anything left to be brought down.

(Originally posted by me on the facebook)

Still here.

Good morning. Still here. 

Power went out here at Lookout Point around 845 last night. I lit a couple candles and crawled into bed for a long winter's nap. 

Wind had dramatically quieted by 1100.  I happened to be awake at 330 when pwr returned. 

From what I've been reading, my two outages, totaling 9 hrs, makes me one of the lucky ones. When it gets light I'll head out and survey the wind damage. #sandy 

(Originally posted by me on the facebook)

Couple more Sandy status updates.

7:30 -- Intellicast.com is forecasting that the wind speeds will peak after 8pm tonight, then fade throughout the night. (the facebook)

8:21 pm -- Maybe just wishful thinking, but the wind seems to be subsiding here at Lookout Point. Gusts further apart, weaker, and shorter#sandy (twitter)

Dark and stormy night

Just outside investigating a big thunk on the roof. Branch fell. It's really wild out there. Wind blowing about as hard as I've ever seen it. A little spooky. "It was a dark and stormy night" (the facebook)

Collected status posts during Sandy.

12:30 pm -- Here we go. Power is out here at Lookout Point #sandy #nhec (the facebook)


1:59 pm -- I've now become a refugee at my sister's place in epping nh. #sandy But the power could go her at any moment. (twitter)

2:12 pm -- Well there we go. Five mins after arriving the power is now out at my sister's. #theendofcivilizationasweknowit (twitter)
5:13 pm -- Heard that pwr was back so Ive returned to Lookout Pt. If my days trajectory continues pwr  will now return at my sisters & go back out here (twitter)
6:19 pm -- Totally dark now at Lookout Point. So I can no longer see the effect of the wind, but it's howling louder than ever. #sandy (twitter)

6:31 pm -- Lights flickering ominously here at Lookout Point. This could be it. #sandy (the facebook) (twitter)

Joss Whedon On Romney

I think he's on to something here.



(Originally shared by me on the facebook.)

President Obama talks about his childhood with The Donald

On the Tonight Show: the president's explanation about why Donald Trump is so hard on him. Awesome.

 

I found this on talkingpointsmemo.com