Quote of the unspecified temporal interval
The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depend on himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily.
PLATO
You can use your engineering knowledge for most nefarious purposes. -Prof. PK
The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depend on himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily.
I just found the ultimate guide to household products for the single male!
Certain items in your house practically scream “toss me” when their prime has passed. That mysterious extra white layer on the Cheddar? A sure sign it needs to be put out of its misery. Chunky milk? Down the drain it goes.
But what about that jar of olives or Maraschino cherries that has resided in your refrigerator since before the birth of your kindergartner? Or the innumerable nonedibles lurking deep within your cabinets and closets: stockpiled shampoo and toothpaste, seldom-used silver polish? How do you know when their primes have passed?
I rather suspected that something like this would happen eventually. Large scale socialized medicine has finally reached a point where people are asking for privatization again. Not surprisingly, this story comes from Canada.
The doctor who took the Quebec government to the Supreme Court of Canada, causing it to change its policy on wait times and private health insurance, wants to see more privatization.
In his Supreme Court case, Dr. Jacques Chaoulli argued "patients will continue to suffer and die" because of waiting lists.
Great news everyone! All the nursery rimes that you learned as a child are being re-written. Don't believe it? Check out Bah, Bah, Rainbow Sheep and see what you think.
Teachers at nursery schools in Oxfordshire, England, have asked children to change the words of "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" to "Baa, Baa, Rainbow Sheep" to avoid the possibility of offending anyone.
Patriotism is easy to understand in America; it means looking out for yourself by looking out for your country.
Maybe it's because spring is approaching, but I haven't had much desire to mess around with blogger lately. I'm not quitting entirely, but I think I'm going back to the once or twice weekly routine that I used to have.
Found here, originally from here
Go check it out, but I don't want to hear anyone cracking yolks about this one.
(Either there aren't as many opportunities for good puns, or I've fried my brain looking for them. Of course people always said that I would've been a good egg if I weren't a little cracked.)
"She was medium sized and slender, but with a graceful athletic build and beautiful blonde hair of about the same color of the very highest grade of light cylinder oil."
...I'd like to pass along a story a friend shared with me some time ago, a gun show story that makes me smile every time I remember it. The details of the setup are a bit fuzzy, as I'd only heard it once.
It came to pass at a show out in Virginia, the one near the Dulles airport, perhaps a year after 9/11. Apparently, there was some sort of emergency at the airport that called for the evacuation of the gunshow. A voice came on over the PA, announcing the situation.
My friend tells me that the hall grew quiet, as people listened. In that silence, just about everyone in the show simultaneously arrived at the same decision, and for the next 30 seconds, all you heard was the kerplopple of steel on kydex and leather, the snips of zipties coming off, and the glorious ka shink! of a thousand people simultaneously racking rounds into chambers.
It was, my friend assured me, the coolest thing he has ever heard.
It was followed by another moment of silent appreciation, as everyone let what they'd just heard, what they'd just been a part of, sink in. And then, everyone simply made their way towards the exit, in no particular hurry.
That, my friends, is the music of America. It is the sound of a people, of every race, color and creed who are simply determined to be ready, come what may, soberly determined that no evil shall stand in their presence.
It is the sound of my brothers, my tribe and my nation.
I love you all for it.
...and lonesome through a starlit sky.
If you've been reading this blog for very long you probably figured out from the plane in the picture above that I'm not in Chicago anymore. I'm a little further east of that, but will be returning very soon.
The previous post reminded me of this quote.
I was reading through some of Kim du Toit's posts the other day when I came across something disturbing. Apparently some politicians have decided that forcing people to register machetes is vital for public safety. That's right, people are no longer trusted to keep big knives unless they are registered with the government.
Here's a story from the 'what would you expect from Chicago' department.
CHICAGO -- Mayra Ramirez thinks driver's ed is a waste of time. And in her case, it is. She's blind. But the 16-year-old and dozens of other visually-impaired sophomores are required to pass a written rules-of-the-road exam to graduate from Chicago schools.Don't you just love it when the people are so strict about rules they can't even use common sense.
This just in: Police have become aware of a disturbing series of crimes in Florida!
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- Two high school students were arrested on burglary and theft charges after allegedly stealing hundreds of cookies from the school's kitchen.The teens in question have been arrested, but police suspect there may be more here than meets the eye. Some say there may be a yet unidentified ringleader behind these robberies.
About 300 cookies, which cost 75 cents each, had been stolen from the kitchen over several days so surveillance cameras were set up. The cameras allegedly caught the two ninth-graders carrying garbage bags. They were then identified by a coach, The Stuart News said Friday.
It's official, the iPod is now a part of mainstream culture. His Holiness now has one!
Here's a little story with an important lesson.
My posts lately have been a little lame, so I figured I needed to gather up a little interesting info this evening.
Scientists have produced superheated gas exceeding temperatures of 2 billion degrees Kelvin, or 3.6 billion degrees Fahrenheit.
This is hotter than the interior of our Sun, which is about 15 million degrees Kelvin, and also hotter than any previous temperature ever achieved on Earth, they say.
They don't know how they did it.
For something which they don't understand and was, in a sense, sort of a goof, this could turn out to be really big news. Read on.
One thing that puzzles scientists is that the high temperature was achieved after the plasma's ions should have been losing energy and cooling. Also, when the high temperature was achieved, the Z machine was releasing more energy than was originally put in, something that usually occurs only in nuclear reactions.So they may have discovered a rather amazing energy source. Let's just hope they don't burn down the lab before they figure this out.
About 4,000 students who took the main SAT college entrance exam last October received incorrectly low scores because of problems with the scanning of their answer sheets.How bad was it?
Great! Glad this kind of thing didn't happen when I was applying at the University of Illinois.Admissions officials, however, said Tuesday some students had been affected by as much as 130 points forcing schools to scramble to re-evaluate candidates at a time when many are trying to make final decisions.
I haven't posted anything particularly nerdy lately, so here's a fun little link
A Cyprus court jailed Pakistani national Fazal Ur Rehman for eight months for forgery after police spotted spelling mistakes on stamps on an Afghan passport he was carrying -- otherwise it was a near-perfect copy.
Labels: coffee
This just in from the Illinois Department of Transportation.
“Drivers of passenger vehicles should avoid the Dan Ryan entirely,” said IDOT Secretary Tim Martin. While many motorists will use public transportation or IDOT-designated alternate routes, truckers will be urged to stay on the expressway because their vehicles are too heavy for local streets. “Our message is ‘Cars Off, Trucks On,” said Martin.Work is set to begin at the end of this month or beginning of next depending on weather. Looks like I'll be taking 55 downtown from now on.
I guess now that photoshop is so popular, nobody is safe anymore, including the police.
Some people are saying that there's a hidden image in the Cleveland police logo on the side of their cars.A recent newspaper article did some editing, taking away bordering and edging on an image of the logo -- and the result was the image of a pig.
"The attitude of people associating guns with nothing but crime, that is what has to be changed. I grew up at a time when people were not afraid of people with firearms."
Here's a little bit of insane engineering for you. I know that VW likes to brag about their turbocharged engines, but I'm pretty sure this thing is a bit faster than a stock VW.