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A fun day was had by all - 29 April 2007
Apr. 29th, 2007 11:55 pmToday was a good day - got to get up, go out to breakfast, go bowling (a 92/124 pairing - which is okay, but I must be really rusty.), go to the arcade, and then play significant quantities of Disgaea. All in all, a very good day. As it turns out, the gift card that I received for bowling is a rechargeable type, so if I should run across an alley in my future travails that has the same program type, I can put money back on my bowling card. (For whatever reason it may be - possibly to give it to someone else?)
It being Sunday, there is a lighter sequence of links than usual - either not much to catch my attention, or DRT’s format change is fairly permanent, and I don’t get as much of a run off the Cabal. Could just be a slow day, though.
Anyway, New Scientist has an article that wonders whether some, if not all, of the things we detect as black holes might instead be wormholes to other universes. At current technology, though, it’s not possible to test the big ones, so that experiment that succeeded would have to create a much smaller black/wormhole to send objects through and see if they emerged from the other side or came out the same end. Is this super science fiction speculation, or would it be possible to generate and test the idea of wormholes?
In other science stuff, the European Space Agency is conducting a simulated mission to Mars exercise, putting a crew of six into isolation for five hundred days. In close quarters for that long, will the travelers go stir-crazy? We’ll find out. It’ll probably be a good test of sanity on both ends of the experiments.
Visual gags, arts, and stuff to look at - let’s start with CrimeBoss - collecting crime comic books of the 1940s and 1950s. Covers are up and can be looked at - some of them probably give you a good idea of the writing inside, I’d bet. Needing no words attached are Jacek Yerka's paintings, which remind me of Escher’s works and have a very non-real (surreal?) quality to them. Much fun to look at. Next, playing fetch in much earlier times. Of course, there is that whole historical inaccuracy thing going on in the painting, but the image itself is pretty. Last for this segment is something that combines several of my likes together - comics, baseball, and trombones. I wish I had that kind of accuracy.
Working from visual to words, spoken or written, there’s the Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form, for when that definition has to have a rhyming pattern. I wonder if the limericks also serve as mnemonics. Another poem sure to stay in your brains is Evil Hamsters. Go read it yourself. If you’re pressed for time, though, Ficlets gives you bite-size story bits, and then lets you add on your own bits to the beginning or end of any other ficlet. Collaboration in small amounts.
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bradhicks has commentary about how stories of trying to live solely on the food stamp allowances may be slightly exaggerated. Not to say that having a social net isn’t a great thing, but you have to work kind of hard, and turn down basically every offer of help you get, from family, friends, and churches to go hungry on the food stamp allowance. People behaving in an intelligent manner, marshaling their resources, collaborating, getting and giving help, can make meals meet. What he’d like to see, though, is to have food stamps also be able to purchase hygiene items. Like soaps and toilet paper. You can see why this would be a good idea to do.
The following section talks about nude women and building the business of being a successful Internet pr0n producer and marketer. It may, therefore me considered unsafe for work. Those wishing to skip this paragraph should do so now. First on the list in this segment is a politician promises jobs in her billboards - while she's not wearing any clothing. All the parts that would get blurred are covered in the article I link to - and probably in the campaign posters as well. Still, I’ll bet a lot more people pay attention to this election. Second part of this is The New York Times covering the rise and continuance of Kink.com, the corporation behind several web sites that cater to the BDSM lifestyle. The article takes a small look at the way that Internet porn has changed from earlier years (yes, if you aren’t already, you may sing the relevant piece of music from Avenue Q), and finishes with the recent purchase of an old National Guard armory by the company and their plans to convert the whole thing into office space, dungeon space, and filming space.
Moving out of the potentially unsafe for work material, take a look at the largest production pick-up truck to date. Going from large to small, it appears that the city of Charleston, South Carolina, is not permitting motorocycles to use the city's gated parking lots. The policy appeared because the gates were not always detecting motorcyclists and so were coming down at the wrong time. Rather than fix the gates, the city’s solution is to prevent motorcycles from using the parking lots.
For those that have seen the Cowboy Bebop movie, keep the relevant scene in mind as you read the following: Tanker Truck explosion melts 250 foot section of I-580. Makes a bit more sense now why certain roads have “Hazardous materials must use exit/highway X” - that kind of explosion, even by accident, in a metropolitan area would be disastrous.
Sneaking a small bit of politics into an otherwise nonpartisan entry (I think...), we have a trifecta of ThinkProgress, all about Condolezza Rice. First, she claims she didn't know why her underlings were recommending a strike in Afghanistan two months before the 11 September attacks (answer: bin Laden), continues to claim that the U.N. Inspectors thought Saddam Hussein had WMD (they didn’t, and he didn’t), and some creative definitions of what an "immanent" thing actually is. So, there’s a denial, a lie, and a flub. Sounds like the George W. Bush hat trick, to me.
The New York Times has a parenting column about the kids who are young, gifted, and not getting into Harvard. The gist of the article, though, as I see it, is that while there are going to be a lot of kids who don’t get into Harvard, they’re going to do great things anyway. They’re still bright, motivated, and college-ready people. They’re just not getting into Harvard, that’s all. They’ll turn out okay. (I did, even after being put through the wringer of graduate schooling.)
So, I think I’ll be going to bed. It’s nice being free - catching up on all the things you put aside because of work definitely helps. Err, I’m looking for a job all the time, of course, and I won’t be satisfied until I have one in hand. (Which is a true statement - I do want one in hand, and I have to keep looking for it. But that doesn’t mean I’m not taking some time out to enjoy things, especially when I’m in the holding pattern of “Well, will they interview me? Or won’t they? Will I even know if they decided not to interview me?” As I told someone else, “Limbo sucks.” Under the new management, it’s a brighter, more active place, but it’s still not somewhere you want to be for a long time.
It being Sunday, there is a lighter sequence of links than usual - either not much to catch my attention, or DRT’s format change is fairly permanent, and I don’t get as much of a run off the Cabal. Could just be a slow day, though.
Anyway, New Scientist has an article that wonders whether some, if not all, of the things we detect as black holes might instead be wormholes to other universes. At current technology, though, it’s not possible to test the big ones, so that experiment that succeeded would have to create a much smaller black/wormhole to send objects through and see if they emerged from the other side or came out the same end. Is this super science fiction speculation, or would it be possible to generate and test the idea of wormholes?
In other science stuff, the European Space Agency is conducting a simulated mission to Mars exercise, putting a crew of six into isolation for five hundred days. In close quarters for that long, will the travelers go stir-crazy? We’ll find out. It’ll probably be a good test of sanity on both ends of the experiments.
Visual gags, arts, and stuff to look at - let’s start with CrimeBoss - collecting crime comic books of the 1940s and 1950s. Covers are up and can be looked at - some of them probably give you a good idea of the writing inside, I’d bet. Needing no words attached are Jacek Yerka's paintings, which remind me of Escher’s works and have a very non-real (surreal?) quality to them. Much fun to look at. Next, playing fetch in much earlier times. Of course, there is that whole historical inaccuracy thing going on in the painting, but the image itself is pretty. Last for this segment is something that combines several of my likes together - comics, baseball, and trombones. I wish I had that kind of accuracy.
Working from visual to words, spoken or written, there’s the Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form, for when that definition has to have a rhyming pattern. I wonder if the limericks also serve as mnemonics. Another poem sure to stay in your brains is Evil Hamsters. Go read it yourself. If you’re pressed for time, though, Ficlets gives you bite-size story bits, and then lets you add on your own bits to the beginning or end of any other ficlet. Collaboration in small amounts.
bradhicks has commentary about how stories of trying to live solely on the food stamp allowances may be slightly exaggerated. Not to say that having a social net isn’t a great thing, but you have to work kind of hard, and turn down basically every offer of help you get, from family, friends, and churches to go hungry on the food stamp allowance. People behaving in an intelligent manner, marshaling their resources, collaborating, getting and giving help, can make meals meet. What he’d like to see, though, is to have food stamps also be able to purchase hygiene items. Like soaps and toilet paper. You can see why this would be a good idea to do. The following section talks about nude women and building the business of being a successful Internet pr0n producer and marketer. It may, therefore me considered unsafe for work. Those wishing to skip this paragraph should do so now. First on the list in this segment is a politician promises jobs in her billboards - while she's not wearing any clothing. All the parts that would get blurred are covered in the article I link to - and probably in the campaign posters as well. Still, I’ll bet a lot more people pay attention to this election. Second part of this is The New York Times covering the rise and continuance of Kink.com, the corporation behind several web sites that cater to the BDSM lifestyle. The article takes a small look at the way that Internet porn has changed from earlier years (yes, if you aren’t already, you may sing the relevant piece of music from Avenue Q), and finishes with the recent purchase of an old National Guard armory by the company and their plans to convert the whole thing into office space, dungeon space, and filming space.
Moving out of the potentially unsafe for work material, take a look at the largest production pick-up truck to date. Going from large to small, it appears that the city of Charleston, South Carolina, is not permitting motorocycles to use the city's gated parking lots. The policy appeared because the gates were not always detecting motorcyclists and so were coming down at the wrong time. Rather than fix the gates, the city’s solution is to prevent motorcycles from using the parking lots.
For those that have seen the Cowboy Bebop movie, keep the relevant scene in mind as you read the following: Tanker Truck explosion melts 250 foot section of I-580. Makes a bit more sense now why certain roads have “Hazardous materials must use exit/highway X” - that kind of explosion, even by accident, in a metropolitan area would be disastrous.
Sneaking a small bit of politics into an otherwise nonpartisan entry (I think...), we have a trifecta of ThinkProgress, all about Condolezza Rice. First, she claims she didn't know why her underlings were recommending a strike in Afghanistan two months before the 11 September attacks (answer: bin Laden), continues to claim that the U.N. Inspectors thought Saddam Hussein had WMD (they didn’t, and he didn’t), and some creative definitions of what an "immanent" thing actually is. So, there’s a denial, a lie, and a flub. Sounds like the George W. Bush hat trick, to me.
The New York Times has a parenting column about the kids who are young, gifted, and not getting into Harvard. The gist of the article, though, as I see it, is that while there are going to be a lot of kids who don’t get into Harvard, they’re going to do great things anyway. They’re still bright, motivated, and college-ready people. They’re just not getting into Harvard, that’s all. They’ll turn out okay. (I did, even after being put through the wringer of graduate schooling.)
So, I think I’ll be going to bed. It’s nice being free - catching up on all the things you put aside because of work definitely helps. Err, I’m looking for a job all the time, of course, and I won’t be satisfied until I have one in hand. (Which is a true statement - I do want one in hand, and I have to keep looking for it. But that doesn’t mean I’m not taking some time out to enjoy things, especially when I’m in the holding pattern of “Well, will they interview me? Or won’t they? Will I even know if they decided not to interview me?” As I told someone else, “Limbo sucks.” Under the new management, it’s a brighter, more active place, but it’s still not somewhere you want to be for a long time.
