Happy New Year

Today is the first day of 2016 and it finds the Turners doing very well. Twenty-fifteen was a very good year for us with plenty of notable events, some sad but most happy. I will be posting my usual highlights over the next few days in an effort to capture the moment.

Astute readers might also notice that I am testing out new WordPress themes for MarkTurner dot Net. Your reader experience might change a bit here and there but the content and links will remain the same. If you like or don’t like a particular theme choice, please let me know in a comment.

At the time of this writing I am using the Gateway theme.

15 for ’15: Counting down to Top 5 online

A friend alerted me to this tweet that the News & Observer sent out this afternoon, prominently featuring Hallie:

Hallie represents tenacity in the N&O top stories list.

Hallie represents tenacity in the N&O top stories list.

It turns out her lawsuit story was the second most-read story on the N&O website. Pretty stunning, especially coming so late in the year.

We’re all still a bit surprised that Hallie’s activism has gotten as much attention as it has. If it helps change minds and get the state moving in the proper direction again this would be enough.
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Craftsmen restore old train cars in Madison for luxury travel on nation’s rails : News

A great story about a St. Louis company restoring old railcars for private use. I’ve always wanted my own railcar (called “private varnish” in the railroad vernacular).

It’s a different story inside the tidy workshops nearby, where skilled craftsmen meticulously restore old rail cars for private owners, from wealthy railroad enthusiasts to excursion lines. An occasional specialty job for major railroads helps pay the bills.

“Some people think we’re just a scrap yard,” said Roger Verbeeren, president of Gateway Rail Services. “Truth is, we don’t scrap anything.”

Since 2000, Gateway has operated on part of a former Union Pacific yard next to Illinois Route 203 near the heart of this old railroad town. The company has about 140 old passenger and baggage cars, a few from the 1920s, on its 10 tracks. Many are salvage from Amtrak, the nation’s passenger service since 1971.

Source: Craftsmen restore old train cars in Madison for luxury travel on nation’s rails : News

Septoplasty at 5 hours, so far so good!

Well, five hours after sinus surgery I’m pleased to say the most annoying thing at this point is my dry throat from all the breathing though my mouth. My nose is still bleeding but that seems to be tapering off. The Percocet is working, I’ve got a humidifier cranked and a small hill of pillows to keep my head up tonight. I’m moving around normally, thinking clearly, and looking forward tonight to digging into the excellent bio of the Wright Brothers, The Bishop’s Sons. Very happy with how things are going so far!

The surgery began about 30 minutes past schedule due to the previous patient being a little long in shaking off his or her anesthesia but once they got me in it all happened so quickly. I will blog more about the process as I’ve been recording some thoughts as I go but for now I need to get some rest.

U.S. predicts zero job growth for electrical engineers | Computerworld

This doesn’t surprise me. Electronics has been transformed into whole computers on chips, while computers themselves have become capable of supporting nearly unlimited creativity. Today anyone can perform on a smartphone what was once considered miraculous work, without knowing anything about circuitry or how to solder. Software is the new electrical engineering.

Two occupations long associated with innovation — electrical and electronics engineering — has stopped growing, according to the U.S. government.T

he Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), in an update of its occupational outlook released Friday, said that the number of people employed as electrical and electronics engineers is now at 316,000, and will remain mostly unchanged for the next decade.

Source: U.S. predicts zero job growth for electrical engineers | Computerworld

Apple CEO Tim Cook DID NOT say Americans Are Talentless And Taxes Are Dumb (VIDEO) – EgbertoWillies.com

Why do Tim Cook and Apple hate America? Cook obviously misses the connection that the taxes Apple should be paying would go towards better educating and training American workers. Apple’s habit of offshoring its massive profits is just one of many reasons I am not an Apple fanboy.

The reality is, Tim Cooks statements in the whole interview are worse than the article implies. He shows a tone deafness to what is really creating our economic problems, income and wealth disparity and more. His company plays a huge part in creating and continuing the problem.

Tim Cook is a plutocrat and an extractor of resources from America even as he refuses to employ massively here, or give back. Worse is his statement. He shows a lack of understanding of real economics most CEOs fail to realize.

The educational system fails because of corporations like his unwilling to be taxed so that said taxes can be reinvested into educating Americans, rebuilding infrastructure, and just giving Americans a living wage. Those Chinese acquired those skills from both investments by corporations who want cheap labor and a country that accepts it. Tim Cook’s company, Apple, and companies like his keep America’s government and structures underfunded even as they profit massively from our markets and the defense our powerful military provides them implicitly.

Source: Apple CEO Tim Cook DID NOT say Americans Are Talentless And Taxes Are Dumb (VIDEO) – EgbertoWillies.com

The North Carolina town that’s scared of solar panels, revisited – Vox

Vox’s David Roberts takes an excellent closer look at Woodland’s solar vote.

On December 8, a modest local newspaper, the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald, published a story that ended up going viral, bouncing from Reddit to more than 220 other sites. It caused such buzz that even Snopes checked it out.

The story was about a town council meeting in Woodland, a North Carolina town with just over 800 residents. The council was considering whether to make a zoning change to a piece of land just outside town, to allow a solar farm to be built there. It would have been the fourth solar farm permitted around the town.

Source: The North Carolina town that’s scared of solar panels, revisited – Vox

Fact-checking Sanders’ claim that U.S. spends 3 times per capita what the U.K. spends on health care | PolitiFact

“Why is it that we spend almost three times per capita as to what they spend in the U.K. — 50 percent more than what they pay in France?” Sanders asked. “The insurance companies, the drug companies are bribing the United States Congress. We need to pass a Medicare-for-all single-payer system.”

Source: Fact-checking Sanders’ claim that U.S. spends 3 times per capita what the U.K. spends on health care | PolitiFact

How one ancestor helped turn our brown eyes blue

Everyone with blue eyes alive today – from Angelina Jolie to Wayne Rooney – can trace their ancestry back to one person who probably lived about 10,000 years ago in the Black Sea region, a study has found.

Scientists studying the genetics of eye colour have discovered that more than 99.5 per cent of blue-eyed people who volunteered to have their DNA analysed have the same tiny mutation in the gene that determines the colour of the iris.

This indicates that the mutation originated in just one person who became the ancestor of all subsequent people in the world with blue eyes, according to a study by Professor Hans Eiberg and colleagues at the University of Copenhagen.

Source: How one ancestor helped turn our brown eyes blue | Science | News | The Independent

Woodland gets hammered over public solar opposition

A story that ran last week in the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald reported that the town of Woodland, NC voted against a rezoning request for a solar farm after citizens opposed to the farm were concerned the solar farm would suck all the energy from the sun. Wrote News-Herald reporter Keith Hoggard:

Bobby Mann said he watched communities dry up when I-95 came along and warned that would happen to Woodland because of the solar farms.

“You’re killing your town,” he said. “All the young people are going to move out.”

He said the solar farms would suck up all the energy from the sun and businesses would not come to Woodland.

Jane Mann (Bobby Mann’s wife), also weighed in:

Jane Mann said she is a local native and is concerned about the natural vegetation that makes the community beautiful.

She is a retired Northampton science teacher and is concerned that photosynthesis, which depends upon sunlight, would not happen and would keep the vegetation from growing. She said she has observed areas near solar panels where vegetation is brown and dead because it did not receive enough sunlight.

She also questioned the high number of cancer deaths in the area, saying no one could tell her that solar panels didn’t cause cancer.

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