It’s 2015. You’re old.

It’s 2015, you’re getting old now:

The 21st century seems like it just started, but we’re already half way to 2030.

Remember 1995? The way we thought of the 60s then is how someone who today is the age you were then thinks of the 80s. The way you thought of the 70s then is exactly how far in the past the 90s are today.

How about 1980? It’s closer to FDR, Churchill and Hitler fighting each other than it is to 2015.

The perspectives given by classic movies hurts just that little bit more than you’d expect, along the lines of XKCD’s movie age chart (which is now 4 years old).

What’s behind ISIS?

Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) asks: what is behind ISIS?

The ISIS story doesn’t pass my B.S. filter because it violates common sense that such a competent fighting force could suddenly emerge and bitch-slap professionally trained (or even poorly trained) military forces with such consistency. I have worked in large organizations and I know that the logistics involved – the planning, training, and resupplying are huge challenges even for organized armies. Did ISIS really figure out all of that while their communications are presumably monitored by the enemy?

Well if that ain’t just some delicious conspiracy. It’s one of those “that’s crazy, but… it might just work.”

The Aurora

I knew the aurora was beautiful, and it was kinda always on the bucket list, but this video makes me want to move it way, way up the list. Majestic.

Count to ten

Where conspiracy theories cross poor interface design:

This was the “bad old days” of computers and the only way to reset her station was from my central console. On this day, I highlighted her workstation and hit the F6 key to reset.  But my screen went temporarily black and then seemed to be starting again.  I realized that I had mistakenly hit F7 and reset all the workstations in the embassy.   This realization didn’t bother me much, because no one except the Agriculture section secretary was usually on the computer system this early in the morning.

It was only weeks later that I began to comprehend the effects of this single keystroke mistake.

F6, restart one workstation, F7, restart all, and the implications multiply. This is a perfect butterfly effect example.