Took these two screenshots while watching the webcast of a space launch:
So far the launch is going about as well as their webcast :P
Okay so a while ago I noticed that a car in the parking lot had a blue plate. For those not from Michigan (do any of those actually read this blog?) up until January 2007 the basic license plate was blue with white letters. Like this:
Now for some reason (ie. money) starting in 2007, anyone with a blue plate was given a new plate that is white with blue letters and looks really gay. I believe people re-registering early for January 2007 was the last group allowed to keep their old plates. So by the end of January 2008, no blue plates should be left. (With the exception of permanent plates for trailers and stuff)
So this car with a blue plate that expired in August 2007 was a curiosity. I didn't remember when it showed up, but after thinking about it a while I realized it hadn't moved in a long time either. I remember it being there all winter because it and my car always had huge piles of snow around them. I never used my car during the day when they plowed and always took the same spot when I did use my car.
So I notice a white pickup truck has parked directly behind that car and an official looking person was walking around while on the phone. When he got back in his truck and closed the door I could read the name of the company that owned my apartment complex on the door. He drove to the end of the parking lot, stayed down there for a bit (IIRC there is another car down there with a current registration sticker illegally stuck onto a blue vanity plate) and then drove back. Got out of his truck again, and wrote down some stuff while walking around the car. I assume he copied down the VIN and license plate numbers.
I'm now waiting for them to finally tow this car out of the lot. The complex has all our plate numbers and can easily determine if its one of our vehicles. I'm assuming they are gonna run a check on the VIN just to make sure its not a tenant's before towing it. Its a violation of the lease to park a vehicle in the parking lot lacks a current registration or is not highway driveable. They are pretty lax about rules, if its a tenant's car they will probably just tell him to hurry up and get a new registration. I bet its abandoned here though.
Is it me or does the rear seem a bit low? Are there bonus points if the cops show up and find bodies?
If you think I spent too much work on this post, you have to remember I'm trying not to go ballistic about another thing that happened today. Although if everyone wants a rant on that I'd be happy to oblige.
Also, see the puppy poop bag dispenser and trash can? Yeah the owners of the complex are awesome about having dogs. I'll have one RSN.
I figured I should post this since its related to the domain name I chose. The radioactive boy scount did it again.
This was written as part of the Blog Like Its The End Of The World day. The events described in it are all fictional.
Sketchy reports are claiming that zombies (for lack of a better term) are showing up all over the world. I'm documenting what I know on my other blog since this one depends on the local power grid and cable system. There isn't much information on it yet, the major news organizations seem to be oblivous to it. Is this government censorship or are they afraid of the panic that telling the truth might cause?
My sister sent me this, not sure of the original source. The only thing it is missing is that no one has blamed the homosexuals for bringing down the wrath of God.
Weather "happens"...
Up here in the " Mile-High City", we just recovered from a historic event, some even say a "Weather Event" of "Biblical Proportions." It arrived in the form of a blizzard containing up to 44" inches of snow, winds to 90 MPH and greater, broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of communities, and cut power to tens of thousands.
FYI:
George Bush did not come.
FEMA did nothing.
No one howled for the government.
No one blamed the government.
No one even uttered an expletive on TV.
Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did not visit.
Our Mayor did not blame Mr. Bush or anyone else.
Our Governor did not blame Mr. Bush or anyone else, either.
CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX or NBC did not visit - or report on this category 5
snowstorm.
Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards.
No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House.
No one looted.
Nobody - And I mean Nobody ...demanded the government do something.
Nobody expected the government to do anything, either.
No Larry King, no Shepard Smith, no Oprah, no Chris Matthews and no Al
Sharpton or Jesse Jackson.
No Sean Penn, no Barbara Striesand... without fanfare... simply no
Hollywood types to be found.
Nope, we just melted the snow for water.
Caravans of SUVs were sent to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars.
ALL truck drivers hauled people out of snow banks and didn't ask for a
penny.
Local restaurants prepared food for police and fire departments to deliver to snowbound families, elderly, and anyone else in need.
Families took in stranded people, typically, total strangers.
We fired up wood stoves, broke out kerosene, propane, or Coleman lanterns.
Fire wood was distributed to those that needed it.
We put on extra layers of clothes because up here, it is "Work or die".
We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a mess... created by a government sponsored welfare program that trades votes for 'sittin at home' checks.
Even though a Category "5" blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early in the season, we know it can happen; and how to deal with it ourselves.
In my travels, I've noticed that once above 48 degrees North Latitude, 90% of the world's social problems evaporate. It does seem that way, at least to me.
There may be a message inside this message... "The world does NOT owe you a living!" Any part of this you don't understand?
4043 ? 00:00:10 screen
4052 pts/16 00:00:00 \_ vim
4057 pts/17 00:00:00 \_ vim
4062 pts/18 00:00:00 \_ vim
4067 pts/19 00:00:00 \_ vim
4072 pts/20 00:00:26 \_ vim
4077 pts/21 00:00:01 \_ vim
4082 pts/22 00:00:00 \_ vim
4087 pts/23 00:00:01 \_ vim
4092 pts/24 00:00:00 \_ vim
4140 pts/25 00:00:00 \_ bash
4915 pts/15 00:00:00 \_ bash
4919 pts/26 00:00:00 \_ vim
So thats were all my PTYs went!
We had our first day of liquid snow today...
In most areas spring is a beautiful time, in Houghton it is ugly. All the dirt that was collected into the snow piles is laying where the snow used to be.
Got some physical spam in the mail today. This scam has apparently been going strong since 1997. The name printed on the cards was changed around 2003 from NDI Redemption Center to the current NDI University Awards Center.
Front of the card
Back of the card
Note that the side with the mailing labels has two of them. The one beneath the one with my address is somewhere at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, GA, 30332. The card itself was mailed from Kingsford, MI which is south of Houghton somewhere near the Wisconsin border.
If anyone knows how to trace 1-800 numbers or P.O. Boxes please leave a comment. I want to have some fun with this.
Here is a really good blonde joke.
The Kansas State Board of Education has voted in favor of teaching alternative theories to evolution in science class. They did this primarily to require the teaching of something called Intelligent Design. The basis of which is that life is so complex that some higher power must have been involved (see Ockham's Razor).
I am in full support of the Kansas State Board of Education, everyone knows that we are the descendents of Ark B and the higher power is the Great Circling Poets of Arium.
Texas just passed an anti-gay constitutional amendment with some entertaining wording. The relevant part of which is below:
Sec. 32. (a) Marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman.
(b) This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't marriage "identical or similar to marriage"? Some lawmakers need to go retake introduction to logic.
Two gun locks chained together make a good bike lock. Better yet the police department gives them away for free!
This is what I know:
* Helicopter rescue operations have been called off because people are shooting at the rescue helicopters.
* The NOPD is essentially disbanded. There is no more command and control structure in place.
* The Superdome is on fire.
* FEMA is having trouble with dealing with the scale of the operation at hand.
* The National Guard is sending an additional 15,000 troops to secure the city (thats the size of a light infantry division BTW)
If you ask me, that first problem can be solved with a few escorts.
<a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/">Some people</a> at an ISP down in New Orleans rode out Katrina and are staying in the city despite the evacuation order. Their blog is an interesting account of the chaos in the city right now. They also have a webcam that is acting a bit like a yo-yo.
So I walked out of the computer lab and as I round the corner of the hallway I see a half-dozen guys wearing camo and holding submachine guns (H&K MP5s for the curious). After about 10 seconds of me just standing there staring, one of them notices me and says, "Oh hi there. We're the Wyoming SWAT team, just doing some training." This does explain why I heard voices coming from the stairwell discussing door breaching.
The Discovery (side note: calling it a space shuttle is technically incorrect here) has two strips of the filler between the tiles of the heat shield extending out from the surface of the tiles. NASA is currently debating whether or not these small strips could upset the flow of plasma around the Orbiter as it re-enters the atmosphere enough to cause the destruction of the Orbiter. This is not the first time this has happened, but it has never been observed to this degree so far forward on the Orbiter. No astronaut has ever before preformed a spacewalk to the lower surface of the Orbiter and the remote manipulator arm cannot reach this area. This spacewalk is not without hazards, but those are less risky than ignoring the exposed gap filler.
If this Orbiter fails to return to Earth the Space Shuttle program will be ended permanently. The ISS, NASA, and even manned spaceflight will all be in peril. Even if the Discovery returns to Earth, those are all in jeopardy. As it stands, NASA does not currently have a manned launch capability. Developement of a new vehicle would take 5 years, including the retooling of the launch facilities.
I think this goes to show that war drives technology. Within 25 years of sending the first man into space we set foot on the moon. In the 30 years since we left the moon we really haven't done much with our launch capabilities. Everyone always says, why go to Mars when probes can tell us what we need. The thing is that the trip itself pays out in technology more than the destination. You can thank the Apollo Space Program for shrinking computers. They needed to fit an entire flight computer into that capsule. If we go to Mars we will need a near self-sustaining environment for the astronauts. This could pay back in many ways here on Earth.
We can either let the Space Shuttle be a hinder to our spaceflight or take the need for a new launch vehicle to push out even farther in our solar system. We could have a man on Mars or a colony on the moon in my lifetime if we try. I'd also be the first in line despite the risks. Sometimes I wonder if the setbacks of NASA are going to result in spaceflight becoming a private, rather than a public, endeavor. The suborbital flights of SpaceShipOne are child's play compared to orbit, but its a step in the right direction.
Ad Astra Per Aspera.
After the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Hot Coffee outrage story broke on /. I jokingly suggested that they should really be targetting Maxis for the Nude Sims patch. This patch, like Hot Coffee, merely enables content already contained, but unplayable, in the game. Well it seems like someone took the bait. I figure I'm on a roll, so why stop with the Sims?
The most widely recognized magazine in the world regularly publishes nude pictures of people. This magazine is stocked by most public libraries and school libraries. The August issue contains nudity on a two-page spread. What magazine you ask? None other than National Geographic, check the August 2005 ZipUSA section for the most recent examples.
So acceptable content for a respected magazine results in The Sims getting reclassified as Adults Only? Maybe we should be checking IDs and marking National Geographic as Adults Only. Please, think of the children! Oh wait, NGM doing it is 'tasteful'.
![[setec astronomy]](/graphics/sa/sa.png){kind=small}
