A couple in their nineties are both having problems remembering things. During a check-up, the doctor tells them that they're physically okay, but they might want to start writing things down to help them remember.Nineties? Hmmm...
Later that night, while watching TV, the old man gets up from his chair. 'Want anything while I'm in the kitchen?' he asks.
'Will you get me a bowl of ice cream?'
'Sure.'
'Don't you think you should write it down so you can remember it?' she asks.
'No, I can remember it.'
'Well, I'd like some strawberries on top, too. Maybe you should write it down, so as not to forget it?'
He says, 'I can remember that. You want a bowl of ice cream with strawberries.'
'I'd also like whipped cream. I'm certain you'll forget that, write it down?' she asks.
Irritated, he says, 'I don't need to write it down, I can remember it! Ice cream with strawberries and whipped cream - I got it, for goodness sake!'
Then he toddles into the kitchen. After about 20 minutes, the old man returns from the kitchen and hands his wife a plate of bacon and eggs. She stares at the plate for a moment.
'Where's my toast?'
Monday, April 15, 2013
Where's My Toast?
Via my brother Mark:
Binary Instrumentation...
A software library published by Intel, free for non-commercial use, with lots of source code examples...
Thirty Meter Telescope...
Not so very long ago, the largest telescope in the world was the Hale Telescope, here in San Diego on Mt. Palomar. That telescope is still in operation, 200" in diameter – a light-collecting area of about 20 square meters. The Thirty Meter Telescope is 30 meters in diameter, giving it a light-collecting area of about 707 square meters – over 35 times bigger than the Hale Telescope.
Awesome!
Tax Day...
I'm angry.
You should be angry too, if you're an American.
If you've been even moderately successful in your career, today is the day when your federal government, and most state governments, forcibly steal a large fraction of your income.
Through the trick of employer withholding, the governments manage to fool most people most of the time; they scarcely notice the taxes they pay. That's a real shame (though it was very clever politics). I'm certain that if people had to write a check today for the entire amount of their taxes due, they'd be paying considerably more attention to this miserable day.
Then, too, if the politicians (being clever again, dang it!) had made Tax Day October 15th instead of April 15th (making it just before Election Day), I'm sure our taxes wouldn't be so high.
But here we are, handing over chunks of our income again.
You'll have to pardon me today, because I am having trouble seeing things straight. My normally clear vision is being clouded by hallucinations of free-spending politicians being strung up like beans – and cheering crowds watching...
But the reality is...that I'll be avoiding jail by handing over way too much of my income to a bunch of incompetents in Washington and Sacremento.
So I'm angry.
And you should be angry, too.
You should be angry too, if you're an American.
If you've been even moderately successful in your career, today is the day when your federal government, and most state governments, forcibly steal a large fraction of your income.
Through the trick of employer withholding, the governments manage to fool most people most of the time; they scarcely notice the taxes they pay. That's a real shame (though it was very clever politics). I'm certain that if people had to write a check today for the entire amount of their taxes due, they'd be paying considerably more attention to this miserable day.
Then, too, if the politicians (being clever again, dang it!) had made Tax Day October 15th instead of April 15th (making it just before Election Day), I'm sure our taxes wouldn't be so high.
But here we are, handing over chunks of our income again.
You'll have to pardon me today, because I am having trouble seeing things straight. My normally clear vision is being clouded by hallucinations of free-spending politicians being strung up like beans – and cheering crowds watching...
But the reality is...that I'll be avoiding jail by handing over way too much of my income to a bunch of incompetents in Washington and Sacremento.
So I'm angry.
And you should be angry, too.
Sunday, April 14, 2013
World's Shortest Books...
A great collection of titles, via my mom:
MY BLACK GIRLFRIENDS
By Tiger Woods
dedicated in memory to Wilt Chamberlain
___________________________________________
THINGS I LOVE ABOUT MY COUNTRY
By Jane Fonda & Cindy Sheehan
Illustrated by Michael Moore
Foreword by George Soros
________________________________________
MY CHRISTIAN ACCOMPLISHMENTS
& HOW I HELPED AFTER KATRINA
By Rev Jesse Jackson & Rev Al Sharpton
______________________________________
THINGS I LOVE ABOUT BILL
By Hillary Clinton
_________________
Sequel: THINGS I LOVE ABOUT HILLARY
By Bill Clinton
_________________
THINGS I CANNOT AFFORD
By Bill Gates
____________________________________
THINGS I WOULD NOT DO FOR MONEY
By Dennis Rodman
_________________________________
THINGS WE KNOW TO BE TRUE
By Al Gore & John Kerry
_____________________________________
GUIDE TO THE PACIFIC
By Amelia Earhart
____________________________________
HOW TO LIVE LIFE TO THE FULLEST
By Dr. Jack Kevorkian
__________________________________
TO ALL THE MEN WE HAVE LOVED BEFORE
By Ellen de Generes & Rosie O'Donnell
__________________
GUIDE TO DATING ETIQUETTE
By Mike Tyson
__________________________________
THE AMISH PHONE DIRECTORY
_______________________________________
MY PLAN TO FIND THE REAL KILLERS
By O. J. Simpson & Casey Anthony
_________________________________________
HOW TO DRINK & DRIVE SAFELY
By Ted Kennedy
_________
MY BOOK OF MORALS
By Bill Clinton
With introduction by
The Rev. Jesse Jackson
and forward by
Tiger Woods with John Edwards
____________________________________________________
HOW TO WIN A SUPERBOWL
BY THE MINNESOTA VIKINGS
___________________________________________________
Just added:
MY COMPLETE KNOWLEDGE OF MILITARY STRATEGY
By Nancy Pelosi
________________________________________________________
And the shortest book of them all:
THINGS I DID TO DESERVE THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
by Barack Obama
Sometimes That Handgun Comes In Mighty Handy...
This fellow had something that is practically unobtainable here in San Diego: a concealed carry permit. He used that to do some takin' care of business:
The Battery Problem...
The phrase “the battery problem” is shorthand jargon for a problem well-understood by those designing renewable energy systems (especially wind or solar). The problem is that people need power when these renewable sources aren't available. You aren't going to get a lot of solar power at night; this is the most obvious case.
The problem is slightly subtler than that, though. If you look at solar power alone for just a moment, it turns out that you have to account for a lot more than just nighttime. There is less solar power available in bad weather (like a snowstorm) than in good weather. There is less solar power available in the morning and the evening than there is at noon (this is true even for systems that orient themselves to point toward the sun).
For all these situations, what's needed is a way to store power when it is plentiful, for use when it is not. The conventional answer for this storage is a battery, specifically a lead-acid battery very similar to what is in your car. This battery was invented over 100 years ago, and nobody has ever come up with anything that beat its cost vs. storage capacity. But lead-acid batteries are far from ideal; in fact, in many ways they are simply awful. If you've ever carried one of these beasts, you know they are full of environmentally-unfriendly lead. And then there's the nasty acid. Lead-acid batteries used in the way that renewable energy systems need to use them (deep-discharge cycling) wear out quickly, typically in three to five years – at which point they must be replaced. That's an expensive proposition!
Hence the shorthand “the battery problem”. Renewable energy is always going to be of limited value until someone solves the battery problem by inventing a way to store electrical energy that is cheaper, more reliable, and more environmentally friendly than lead-acid batteries.
Here's a Kickstarter project that's taking a stab at the battery problem, using another very old technique (mechanical flywheels) with some very modern twists. Their own claims are for relatively modest improvement over the cost of lead-acid batteries, but with much higher reliability and vastly better environmental friendliness. It's not a quantum leap, but it sure looks like an improvement. They claim to be essentially finished with development other than the need for a better magnetic bearing, which is why they went to Kickstarter for some funding (a very modest amount, actually). I don't know enough about the details of what they need to accomplish to be able to even think about their chances of success...but I wish them well. It's a clever idea, and certainly we could use something better than those danged batteries!
More info (and explanatory videos) here, here, and here:
The problem is slightly subtler than that, though. If you look at solar power alone for just a moment, it turns out that you have to account for a lot more than just nighttime. There is less solar power available in bad weather (like a snowstorm) than in good weather. There is less solar power available in the morning and the evening than there is at noon (this is true even for systems that orient themselves to point toward the sun).
For all these situations, what's needed is a way to store power when it is plentiful, for use when it is not. The conventional answer for this storage is a battery, specifically a lead-acid battery very similar to what is in your car. This battery was invented over 100 years ago, and nobody has ever come up with anything that beat its cost vs. storage capacity. But lead-acid batteries are far from ideal; in fact, in many ways they are simply awful. If you've ever carried one of these beasts, you know they are full of environmentally-unfriendly lead. And then there's the nasty acid. Lead-acid batteries used in the way that renewable energy systems need to use them (deep-discharge cycling) wear out quickly, typically in three to five years – at which point they must be replaced. That's an expensive proposition!
Hence the shorthand “the battery problem”. Renewable energy is always going to be of limited value until someone solves the battery problem by inventing a way to store electrical energy that is cheaper, more reliable, and more environmentally friendly than lead-acid batteries.
Here's a Kickstarter project that's taking a stab at the battery problem, using another very old technique (mechanical flywheels) with some very modern twists. Their own claims are for relatively modest improvement over the cost of lead-acid batteries, but with much higher reliability and vastly better environmental friendliness. It's not a quantum leap, but it sure looks like an improvement. They claim to be essentially finished with development other than the need for a better magnetic bearing, which is why they went to Kickstarter for some funding (a very modest amount, actually). I don't know enough about the details of what they need to accomplish to be able to even think about their chances of success...but I wish them well. It's a clever idea, and certainly we could use something better than those danged batteries!
More info (and explanatory videos) here, here, and here:
Saturday, April 13, 2013
FJ Cruiser: Disassembly...
A couple days ago I finished the work I needed to do under the FJ's headliner, and I've now got a lot of it put back together. The interior panels are still removed in the rear of the FJ, as I still have more to do back there – but the front of it is all back together now. Debbie is greatly relieved :)
At her urging, just before buttoning the FJ back up I took some photos. I also made a little video giving a tour of the disassembled beast:
At her urging, just before buttoning the FJ back up I took some photos. I also made a little video giving a tour of the disassembled beast:
 |
| The rear deck is my workbench... |
 |
| Note the side "curtain" airbag (the big horizontal white thing that looks like a hose), and the "detonator" for it (the silver cylinder just above the airbag itself)... |
 |
| Passenger side, rear - side curtain airbag again... |
 |
| Rear door, which for some reason particularly concerned Debbie. Note the rubber boot from hell on the lower right side of door; it took an hour or so to route the antenna wire through that... |
 |
| Once all the plastic was off, I was amazed at the sheer quantity of wiring in the car. I'd think the car makers would be working hard on using networking to simplify this... |
 |
| The cables lying about were formerly above the headliner (and now are once again!)... |
 |
| Passenger side. Note the wooden block for the CB bracket to be mounted to. The side airbag detonator is visible just above the headrest. Those things worried me - they look like bombs! |
Exploding Toilet...
Very funny story, at least allegedly true, about an exploding toilet on a cargo flight. An excerpt:
He turns and looks at the toilet. But it has, for all practical purposes, disappeared. Where it once rested he now finds what can best be described only as a vision. In place of the commode roars a fluorescent blue waterfall — a huge, heaving cascade of toilet fluid thrust waist-high into the air and splashing into all four corners of the lavatory. Pouring from the top of this volcano, like smoke out of a factory chimney, is a rapidly spreading pall of what looks like steam.Read the whole thing here...
Two Sleeps Each Night?
This is a very strange notion: that before the widespread use of artificial light at night (think light bulb), people normally went to sleep shortly after sundown, woke up in the middle of the night, stayed awake for an hour or two, then went back to sleep again until the sun came up. With the advent of artificial light, we started staying up until much later, and then sleeping just once, all the way through the night. Then you have to wonder what effect this modern single sleep is having on us.
My readers who know me well will know that I normally go to sleep shortly after sundown; I've been doing this for a long time. Something I've noticed the past few years is that I often wake up around midnight or one in the morning, and I get up typically around 3 or 4 am. Now I'm wondering if I should get up and do something for an hour or two, then go back to bed. I think I may try this a time or two, and see how it feels...
My readers who know me well will know that I normally go to sleep shortly after sundown; I've been doing this for a long time. Something I've noticed the past few years is that I often wake up around midnight or one in the morning, and I get up typically around 3 or 4 am. Now I'm wondering if I should get up and do something for an hour or two, then go back to bed. I think I may try this a time or two, and see how it feels...
Friday, April 12, 2013
Quote of the Day...
Rachel Lucas, on the Kermit Gosnell horrorshow and the lamestream media's non-coverage of it:
What good is free speech if the only thing you'll talk about is the Progressively-correct narrative?
They have no agenda and they are nonpartisan. That’s why they’ll spend several news cycles talking about Ann Romney’s horses but not a single front-page article on the murder trials concerning a grotesque fetus-abattoir in Pennsylvania.Read her whole rant.
What good is free speech if the only thing you'll talk about is the Progressively-correct narrative?
Programmer Jokes...
From StackOverflow. Some of these are wonderful! Some you really need to be a programmer to understand...
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Reality Bites, Doesn't It, Al?
This one (via my mom) had Debbie and I laughing this morning...
When you've lost Bono, Al, you've pretty much lost them all...
Friends in England told me that this past winter – one of the coldest and snowiest there in many years – Al Gore was in London giving a speech right when the peak snowfall struck. The famous dry English wit was then in full display – the “Gore Effect” (wherein if one wants cold weather, one simply books a speech by The Al) took England by storm...
When you've lost Bono, Al, you've pretty much lost them all...
Friends in England told me that this past winter – one of the coldest and snowiest there in many years – Al Gore was in London giving a speech right when the peak snowfall struck. The famous dry English wit was then in full display – the “Gore Effect” (wherein if one wants cold weather, one simply books a speech by The Al) took England by storm...
Animal Funnies...
Via my mom. In a household with four dogs and eight cats, you can bet that lots of these resonated with us!
On Aging...
Via my lovely bride, whose friend (?) sent these to her:
Just before the funeral services, the undertaker came up to the very elderly widow and asked, 'How old was your husband?'
'98,' she replied. 'Two years older than me.'
'So you're 96,' the undertaker commented.
She responded, 'Hardly worth going home, is it?
Reporters interviewing a 104-year-old woman: 'And what do you think is the best thing about being 104?' the reporter asked. She simply replied, 'No peer pressure.'
The nice thing about being senile is you can hide your own Easter eggs and have fun finding them.
I've sure gotten old! I've had two bypass surgeries, a hip replacement, new knees, fought prostate cancer and diabetes. I'm half blind, can't hear anything quieter than a jet engine, take 40 different medications that make me dizzy, winded, and subject to blackouts. Have bouts with dementia. Have poor circulation; hardly feel my hands and feet anymore. Can't remember if I'm 85 or 92. Have lost all my friends. But, thank God, I still have my driver's license.
I feel like my body has gotten totally out of shape, so I got my doctor's permission to join a fitness club and start exercising. I decided to take an aerobics class for seniors. I bent, twisted, gyrated, jumped up and down, and perspired for an hour But, by the time I got my leotards on, the class was over.
An elderly woman decided to prepare her will and told her preacher she had two final requests. First, she wanted to be cremated, and second, she wanted her ashes scattered over Wal-Mart.
'Wal-Mart?' the preacher exclaimed. 'Why Wal-Mart?'
'Then I'll be sure my daughters visit me twice a week'
My memory's not as sharp as it used to be. Also, my memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
Know how to prevent sagging? Just eat till the wrinkles fill out.
It's scary when you start making the same noises as your coffee maker.
These days about half the stuff in my shopping cart says, 'For fast relief.'
THE SENILITY PRAYER: Grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference.
Oh, Jeez, Don't Do This to Me!
This would seriously scare me, maybe to the heart-attack-is-imminent level:
But it's kind of fun watching it happen to someone else!
But it's kind of fun watching it happen to someone else!
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