The Right Coast

BBC News - Tests show fastest way to board passenger planesTom Smith

The best method has been the subject of study for years but now various approaches have been put to the test.

Boarding those in window seats first followed by middle and aisle seats results in a 40% gain in efficiency.

However, an approach called the Steffen method, alternating rows in the window-middle-aisle strategy, nearly doubles boarding speed.

via www.bbc.co.uk

I wonder if Steffen could have patented his boarding approach as a business method. It may be too late now. But if he had, he might have become a very rich fellow.

The Volokh Conspiracy » The Tenth Amendment and Sovereignty

Kendall is correct. Anyone, tea partier or not, who claims that the states retain full “sovereignty” after 1789 doesn’t know what he is talking about.

Kendall’s next sentence, however, doesn’t follow at all: “The Tenth Amendment does not give tea partiers, or anyone else, a constitutional basis for rolling back critical laws that protect Americans’ health, safety, and retirement security.”

via volokh.com

A Plan To Place An Asteroid In Earth Orbit - Technology ReviewTom Smith

Most of the discussion about near Earth asteroids focuses on whether they represent a threat to Earth and what to do take if they turn out to be heading our way.

But today, Hexi Baoyin and pals at Tsinghua University in Beijing offer a different take. The question they ask is how to place an asteroid in orbit around the Earth.

via www.technologyreview.com

Sounds a mite risky.

Comment policy tightened yet again Tom Smith

Well, requiring authentication may has reduced the comment spam somewhat but only a little.  We have some human (I use the term in its broad, literal meaning) coming in and posting 50 comments per visit.  So I am going to try requiring commentors to sign in from a valid typepad or other account.  I hope this won't be too much of an inconvenience for regular commentors.  This means comments are no longer anonymous or as anonymous as before.  We'll see if that slows down the spammers.

RealClearPolitics - Perry, by the BookTom Smith

Perry's 2010 tea party-steeped manifesto, "Fed Up!," makes George Bush look like George McGovern.

via www.realclearpolitics.com

I wonder if Perry could get elected?

Being Obama | The Weekly Standard

Bill Clinton’s vanity was that he wished he could have been at the center of a world historical event. Barack Obama’s vanity is that he believes he is a world historical event. And the greatness of his being dwarfs any necessity to establish greatness through action. That’s why, despite his passivity as president, we’re likely to see a much more vigorous Obama in the coming months as he switches from governing to campaigning. However ambivalent he may be about leading the country, arguing for the indispensability of Barack Obama is the one project that has always commanded his full attention.

via www.weeklystandard.com

People just don't appreciate the value of a dollar Tom Smith

Me too.  For $100K I'm pretty sure I could endure waterboarding let alone these modest discomforts. I'd be willing to take a few punches as well.  Nothing to do with fingers or fingernails though.  Or having to watch the complete speeches of Justice Blackmun.

The Debate about Heritability of General Intelligence Radically Narrows « The Enterprise Blog

But the bottom line of the article is reasonably simple. Using nothing but genetic information, the team of researchers was able to establish that the narrow heritability of crystallized intelligence (the kind that can be more easily affected by education) is at least 40 percent. The narrow heritability of fluid intelligence (the kind that involves pure problem-solving ability, independently of acquired knowledge) is at least 51 percent. Note the at least. The study’s authors explicitly state that these estimates are lower bounds.

via blog.american.com

Chocolate cuts heart disease risk by a third?!Tom Smith

This really sounds too good to be true, but I am all over it.  Sounds like Starbucks just made some more money outta me.

America’s Secret Libya War: U.S. Spent $1 Billion on Covert Ops Helping NATO - The Daily Beast

But behind the scenes, the U.S. military played an indispensable role in the Libya campaign, deploying far more forces than the administration chose to advertise.

via www.thedailybeast.com