5 Thoughts for March 11, 2015

Still keeping it to five.

1. Space: This coming Thursday evening is setting up for a potentially good aurora show, and with the burst of M-class flares in recent days, it seems like the opportunity for a good show will last for several days.
2. Economics: For several weeks, the Euro remained stable against the US Dollar at about $1.12 to €1, until it wasn't. Now, it's at about $1.07 to €1 and falling. Perhaps they will reach parity sooner than I predicted (summer)? Seeing as Greece and Eurozone deflation continue to dog the EU, I remain assured that the USD and Euro will reach parity.
3. Football: Seattle made a blockbuster deal to trade center Max Unger and their 2015 1st round pick (31st overall) for New Orleans's tight end Jimmy Graham and a 2015 4th round pick (prelim 109th overall). That's a huge deal that pretty much solves Seattle's receiver needs, but I'd still love to see Seattle grab the speedster, George Farmer, in a late round or in free agency.
4. Technology: The bigger deal of Apple's announcements, was the new Mac Book, because it made some significant tradeoffs. To get it thinner, the Mac Book discarded the glowing logo on the backside and eschewed multiple ports (including a charging port) for a single USB-C port. The downside is, you will never be able to charge it while connecting it to other devices, and if you want to use multiple devices at the same time, you will need a fat dongle.
5. Politics: I was midway through a separate write up on the Hillary Clinton email issue, when I decided that it was not worth it. The people who are critical of what she has done, have demonstrated naivete on government records, email records in general, and campaign laws. I can sum up the reasoning: Firewalls between private and government emails using a single device. Were she using a gov't phone, she could not use it for campaign-related communications, and using it for private emails would jeopardize them to FOIA requests and permanent records. No amount of logic will change the minds of people who insist that what happened was both nefarious and illegal.