Found photos

You can use your engineering knowledge for most nefarious purposes. -Prof. PK
It's monday morning, which means it's time for the coffee prayer
Caffeine is my shepherd; I shall not doze.
It maketh me to wake in green pastures:
It leadeth me beyond the sleeping masses.
It restoreth my buzz:
It leadeth me in the paths of consciousness for its name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of addiction,
I will fear no Equal (tm):
For thou art with me; thy cream and thy sugar they comfort me.
Thou preparest a carafe before me in the presence of Juan Valdez:
Thou annointest my day with pep; my mug runneth over.
Surely richness and taste shall follow me all the days of my life: and
I will dwell in the House of Maxwell for ever.
AMEN!!
I just did a little mental check of what some of my friends are doing. Yi is off at law school, I seem to recall Erin working on law school apps, and I just noted that Megan finished her law school applications. So I think it's time for me to post a little law related humor (a small thank-you for the engineer jokes and the plethora of viola jokes Megan has sent me)
TOP TEN THINGS THAT SOUND DIRTY IN LAW BUT AREN'T:
10. Have you looked through his briefs?
9. He is one hard judge!
8. Counselor, let's do it in chambers.
7. Her attorney withdrew at the last minute.
6. Is it a penal offense?
5. Better leave the handcuffs on.
4. For $200 an hour, she better be good!
3. Can you get him to drop his suit?
2. The judge gave her the stiffest one he could.
1. Think you can get me off?
I stole the idea from somewhere, but had some fun with this to put it together.
This trip is almost over so here's a quick recap.
"Weather at our destination is 50 degrees with some broken clouds, but they'll try to get them fixed before we arrive. Thank you and remember, nobody loves you or your money more that Southwest Airlines"
It now appears that I'm working the night shift, after working over half of the day shift. It's a shame there's not more skilled labor out there or that union regulations create such restrictions on our work patterns (and I'm not anti-union by any means.) But that's not the way things are so I'm chugging coffee and driving back to the plant.
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
-From Henry V by W Shakespeare
What do you call a county that lacks a modern telecommunications system? "Technologically backward"
Every man is proud of what he does well; and no man is proud of what he does not do well. With the former, his heart is in his work; and he will do twice as much of it with less fatigue. The latter performs a little imperfectly, looks at it in disgust, turns from it, and imagines himself exceedingly tired. The little he has done, comes to nothing, for want of finishing."
An "expert" is someone from out of town carrying a clipboard. That's an expression I've used from time to time, but didn't always appreciate. I've always known that if you carried a clipboard or stack of papers and dressed appropriatly it was possible to pass as someone "official" and fool most people into thinking you're someone you're not. In fact I have been mistaken for teaching assistants or even professors when I didn't intend to give that impression.
There are four engineers traveling in a car: a mechanical engineer, a chemical engineer, an electrical engineer and a computer engineer. The car breaks down.
"Sounds to me as if the pistons have seized. We'll have to strip down the engine before we can get the car working again" says the mechanical engineer.
"Well, it sounded to me as if the fuel might be contaminated. I think we should purge the fuel system" says the chemical engineer.
"I thought it might be a timing problem or maybe a faulty plug lead" says the electrical engineer.
They all turn to the computer engineer who has said nothing and ask: "Well, what do you think ?"
"Ummm - I think we should close the windows, get out of the car and then get back in and open the windows again".
I really haven't done much model railroading lately and I'm really beginning to miss it. (You can tell because I start staring off into space when I hear a whistle or air horn.) But I think that's going to change after this week. The photo gallery over at Peter's Rail Pages really has me fired up to start working again. His attention to detail and realistic citiscapes are pretty incredible. Go have a look!
Well folks, I've made the drive back from Dayton. More posts to follow (in the morning, not tonight) Among them, tales from the road, experiences of a traveling engineer, and possibly a review of the Pontiac G6 (the rental car on my trip)
Strict gun control is an absolute necessity. Without it you just can't hit what you're aiming at.
I've been saying for a couple of years now that Champaign-Urbana was prime territory for an up-scale microbrewery. Only problem is, it looks like these two beat me to the punch. Who knows though, there's always a market for good beer somewhere. Maybe there will still be a stainless steel plumber's nightmare in my future. One way or the other, I can appreciate a good beer no matter who makes it.
I really want one of these! (pop-up warning) How often do you find a car that folds up and fits in the trunk of another car?
G'morning folks! I'm back in a good mood and (it would appear) good health, so here's a double shot of caffinated humor to start the day.
As a follow up to yesterday's post on privacy, maybe I should point out that the printed medium isn't exactly untraceable either. Lots of printers are now using a system that marks each document with the time of printing and the printer serial number. It's nearly invisible to the naked eye, but even so, it's not impossible to trace or decipher.
A long time ago I ceased to be surprised by the number of tricks that can be used to gather information about people over the net. For instance, this page has a hit counter on it. It doesn't display anything, it just lets me know how many people view my page. But there's more. It also tracks the IP addresses of everyone who visits the page. Each IP address can be traced to an ISP and, in most cases, a particular city or area. As an example. This came from the folks at Statcounter who host some hit tracking software.
"If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; be kind anyway."
I was browing threw old hack a day pages and found an interesting link to the PEST project. I'm really not too crazy about pellet guns, butI have to say, this is probably as close to a machine gun as I would ever get, and it looks like it would be really fun!
First the good news. I am still gainfully employed and it appears that my job is indeed safe.
The shifts of Fortune test the reliability of friends.
Once in a while I see something that just makes me do a double take. This time it's Livio De Marchi. Look at the galleries on his website and you'll see some really incredible carvings. There's too much to describe, but here's a teaser.
Does anyone remember the "Robosapien" toys that were supposed to be a really hot item last year? Well this could be even hotter! The always ingenous (and probably bored) community of hackers out there has found a way to turn the robosapien into a potential weapon, fourth of july display, and a REALLY fun toy that would surely be banned for safety reasons.
I really can't envision any practical use for this, but I have been wrong before. Apparently a "Wallace and Grommet" inspired invention now allows you to turn on a tea kettle by sending an SMS message!
"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good."
Tell me, Mr Hoover, what are your interests?
Hope nobody minds the changes to the sidebar. I've been using this as my start page so the weather window is handy for me. Of course the profile thing is mostly a lark. I've been trying not to post a lot of personal details here, but since I've already posted pictures of myself, and folks have been using my real name in the comments, I guess it doesn't matter.
Non-gun-geeks might as well skip this post
"One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on. And when you do find somebody, it's remarkable how often his picture turns up on your driver's license."
Visiting everyone back at the University of Illinois reminded me exactly why I was so glad to graduate. Mainly, HOMEWORK!! Sadly a student's work is never really done, even after class there's plenty of work to be done, whereas I now have free time (to do stuff like this) after I'm out of the office.
From Matt at IOT (Illini On Target)
I don't say it often enough, but my friends are really awesome!