"Turning sewage into drinking water gains appeal as drought lingers."

California gets ready for "indirect potable reuse."

Instead of flushing hundreds of billions of gallons of treated sewage into the Pacific Ocean each year, as they do now, coastal cites can capture that effluent, clean it and convert it to drinking water.

"That water is discharged into the ocean and lost forever," said Tim Quinn, executive director of the Assn. of California Water Agencies. "Yet it's probably the single largest source of water supply for California over the next quarter-century."...

"You know, toilet to tap might be the only answer at this point," said Van Nuys activist Donald Schultz. "I don't support it, but we're running out of options. In fact, we may have already run out of options."

Extruding curbing.

They're making great progress on our street reconstruction with this wonderful machine that extrudes the concrete curb fully formed...



Just a little touching up is needed...



With hand-made carve-outs for the driveway...



Meade took video from the other side of the street:

"Creepy Ads Use Litterbugs� DNA to Shame Them Publicly."

In Hong Kong.

"NASA radar detects heartbeats under rubble, saves four men in Nepal."

"Using technology developed to find aliens, it�s saving lives on Earth."

"One of the joys of being working class is that you get to bypass that traumatic bottle/half-bottle/wine the next day dilemma."

"Box wine just keeps on giving. I imbibe my cardBordeaux while doing counted cross stitch. I figure as long as I can still count, I've not gone over-bordeaux."

Comment on a Wall Street Journal article titled "Drinking Alone: A Bad Idea or a Toast to Oneself? Is imbibing solo pathetic? Antisocial? A sign of �a problem�? Lettie Teague talks to some experts, tips her glass to all the wine drinkers who decline to drink alone and concludes: nope." That title fails to include Teague's main concern: A full bottle of wine is too much for one person to drink, and opened wine supposedly gets significantly worse by the next day.

One friend, a middle-aged single male, will open (almost) any wine in his cellar for friends but not a single bottle for just himself. An unshared bottle is a waste of money, he said, likening the act to buying �an entire ham� when he just wanted a sandwich....

As for the notion that an open bottle isn�t quite as good on day two or three, I�ve found this to be both true and false. Many wines will flatten, and the fruit may fade, after the bottle has been opened. But some wines�reds that are big and tannic and/or young�get softer and more accessible with a bit of time and air....

I always drink wine with dinner, even if I�m dining alone.... And I don�t necessarily drink something cheap just because I�m dining alone. I�ll open a good bottle as readily for myself as I would for anyone else. A good wine is likely to be better than a cheap wine on the second day anyway....

Teague considers the alternative of buying half bottles but never mentions box wine. "Cardbordeaux," by the way, it old slang. I'd never heard it before, but the Urban Dictionary definition goes back almost 10 years. It's replete with "Simpsons" jokes about a woman who drinks too much. A working-class woman. And that's a hint of how the culture has prevented the better technology from reaching higher-class women like Lettie Teague, women who will spend a lot of money on wine but only want one glass a day. The method of effectively delivering less got associated with drinking more, with lame jokes like Ralph Wiggum saying "You look like my Mommy after her box of wine." That's like something dispensed from a box labeled "Jokes."

"The most important invention is the washing machine. Any other technology comes second."

Said the 95-year-old German woman, who lived through the Nazi era and is doing an ask-me-anything on Reddit today.

And somebody says "So that TED talk was right after all!" and links to:

What was the greatest invention of the industrial revolution? Hans Rosling makes the case for the washing machine.... Rosling shows us the magic that pops up when economic growth and electricity turn a boring wash day into an intellectual day of reading.

That made me think about the description of wash day in "The Path to Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson I":
Click for more �

"In what might be the ultimate insult in technology circles, Ms. Hermle also said Ms. Pao was not a 'thought leader,'..."

"... which is Silicon Valley jargon for someone who can tell a room of their peers and superiors things they did not know and make them appreciate it."

From the NYT article "At Kleiner Discrimination Trial, a Battle Between Legal Powerhouses." This is a lawsuit for $16 million over the firing of a female who claims that "Men were judged by one standard and women by another."

The trial has garnered widespread attention because, whatever the truth of what happened to [Ellen] Pao, it is undeniable that women have a minimal presence in venture capital.

"I have been defamed, my reputation besmirched. I have been sexually harassed and verbally abused... am about ready to hire a lawyer."

Wrote the professor who saw what her students were writing about her in Yik Yak, quoted in a NYT article about an app that displays anonymous comments.

I think this is the kind of thing professors should simply ignore. There's meaningless, mindless chatter out there. Getting mad or hurt about it is pointless. It's like worrying about every last thought that might be rattling about in the students' head. Chalk it up to freedom and move on. Teach better classes. Count yourself lucky to be a professor in the first place. Take advantage of the opportunity to grow a thicker skin. It's quite useful!

"Fridge caught sending spam emails in botnet attack."

"Fridge caught sending spam emails in botnet attack."

Via "My toaster hates you."