I had to do that.

I'm sorry.

It was a lapse of judgment.

Can't say it won't happen again.


And for those who aren't familiar with US children's literature - Wiki-link

http://entertainment.slashdot.org/entertainment/08/08/07/1811259.shtml


Bwaa-ha-ha-ha!

Told ya so.

Somehow it's becoming unpatriotic for us older folks to retire when we can. Says so here -
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/RetirementandWills/RetireEarly/IsRetiringEarlyUnpatriotic.aspx

You know, I'm getting damned tired of everyone ragging on the baby boomers. We did our bit, we followed the rules and now it's time to get the rewards... but the crying baby wankers don't want the old pros to leave them with the job of making it all work. Even though they've back stabbed us, stomped on us and pulled us down to get to the top. Pakleds. All of 'em.

I get a big giggle out of all the scrambling going on by companies trying to retain their older workers, once they realize the youngsters will probably quit rather than take over the old duffer's work. I sometimes wonder how desperate things will get. I mean, throwing money at us won't work, for we may be dead before we can spend it. We want to enjoy our last years, doing the things we planned for. And not keeping juniors' precious company going.

Hypothetical question (for now) - If there was one person who knew how to make our defense systems work and he decided to quit, would you let him? Same question for our economic systems. How about the Internet? Explain to me how the USA isn't becoming a nation of Pakleds? If it all broke down, who could put it all back together again?

I'm repeating myself... and I'll keep doing it every time I see something like this go to press.

I'd sorta skipped GPF the last few months. Dunno why, I guess I'd pushed it's bookmark too far down in my toons folder. Looks like I've been missing some fun. Click below to start at the beginning of -

Just read a rehash of the Fermi Paradox and had to smile. The Drake Equation is fine, as far as it goes, but leaves out some factors and wildly over-estimates others.


Here's my approach -

Age of universe - about 13.5 billion years.

Time that we've had galactic noise limited sensitive receivers - 40 years. Or about 0.0000003% of the age of the universe.

Time that ET's civilization was sending out strong radio signals - maybe 200 years, assuming they have a technology advancement time 'clock' similar to ours. Or about 0.0000015% of the age of the universe. (Technology advancements on earth are currently eliminating the need for high power 'broadcast' transmitters. Eventually we'll be using coax cable, fiber optic or very low power direct satellite broadcasting beamed to earth's surface and not out into space, just to save power).

Possible radio 'overlap' time of ET and us - 200 years plus and minus 40 years. Or 240 years, best case. So that's 0.0000018% chance we'll be able to hear what they send just due to technology development time considerations. For just one civilization and assuming we know what direction to point the antenna for the entire 40 years we've had sensitive receivers.

Ok, now on to how powerful the total signals they might transmit - Hmm.. difficult to say since no one has ever made an omnidirectional antenna. On earth, all TV and FM broadcast signals are sent through directional antennas aimed at just below the horizon. So as the earth turns the signals from each antenna sweep across the sky. I'll have to assume the same would happen on ET's planet. So at any one time the maximum signal would be coming from a ring around the horizon edge. And that means relatively few of the signals would be coming our way at any given time. So for a planet with 10000 high power broadcast transmitters, we could expect about (SWAG here) maybe 100 that are sending out our way at any one time. We currently use about 1 megawatt effective radiated power per TV transmitter (varies wildly but this is within a half order of magnitude of the range) so that would be about 100 megawatts on average being sent our direction.

Sounds like a strong signal, eh? Well at 4.3 lightyears (Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to earth) it's damn faint. That inverse square law is a bitch. The signal, by the time it gets here, would be about 6 pico-pico watts per square meter (that's a decimal point with 23 zeros after it and then a 6). Galactic noise is about 0.04 picowatts per square meter in a 1 GHz bandwidth (approximately the same bandwidth we can expect all of ET's broadcast signals to use), or about 667,000,000 times stronger than Alpha Centauri's signal.

So, if ET is out there, we'll have to wait until he decides to say howdy, or we go knocking on his door. Won't do any good to try to tune in his version of I Love Lucy.



(Post edited to fix a big math error. 4e-14/6e-24 != 667 {sigh})

My son recently posted to the family bulletin board I run that with all the news interest about the solar eclipse over Siberia, Mongolia and China, that maybe the USA would be hosting one in the future. And he found out we are. On August 21, 2017, about noon-ish. And that's not super far ahead, but considerably further than I'd been giving any thought to. Really hadn't thought I'd be around that long to tell the truth, but this summer I've been feeling like I'm going back in time, health wise. I've remarked to JJ that I feel like I did five years ago and with the extra exercise, I'm pushing that back further and further all the time.

That's the sneaky thing about IDCM when it comes on slowly. It feels like premature aging. Energy slowly fades as does interest in the world. But now that things are reversing, I find myself planning ahead again. I like it.

Anyway, my son recommended the family gather from it's scattering just to view the total eclipse together. Preferably at a well located state park. I put on my GPS hat and did a little plotting. Van Meter state park is well located, about 4 miles off the totallity track which is 70 miles wide.

Map -

Click HERE to test your internet service provider's DNS for an important patch. If it fails, call your ISP and bitch a fit on their laggard asses.

Why? - The hackers can make an unpatched DNS point your browser at spoofed webpages for URLs like google.com or anything they chose. Including your bank's website. Remember all that spam warning you your bank account details needed 'verifying' or else it would be closed? Yeah. That's the sort of thing they can pull off with an unpatched DNS. Or just intercept your account logon details when you try to access your bank account.

More - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/31/dns_cache_poisoning_goes_wild/


FWIW, my RoadRunner DNS wasn't patched two weeks ago. Now it is. Yay. I guess.

Again! Again!


Because it was so much fun.

---

Took this pic in 1992 in Zion National Park. I recently found the prints and scanned them into digital form. I still remember the place. It was a hot, hot day and the trail ran alongside the canyon face, next to the Virgin River. I rounded a corner and there was this cool, green gloom with water trickling down the red sandstone cliff face and all these flowers blooming. I could understand why the early Mormon settlers called the place Zion.

Google had a commemorative graphic for her birthday today.

Whilst rummaging around wikipedia and elsewhere looking for more info on her, I came across a scanned pic of her first book's cover, The Tale of Peter Rabbit. The book must have seen some hard times for it looked very scuffed and dirty. So I loaded the pic into PSP and set about cleaning.

( The before and after )

Just read this article about northern lights and just about blew a gasket.

There is no such thing as 'magnetic field lines'. Get it? It's just a field. No lines. Ever. You can't count 'em. You can't measure them. You can't even come up with an equation for them.

So why do they keep getting used in articles? Is this part of the dumbing down of the world the scientists hope to achieve?

To the reporters of the world -

There are no mother-farking magnetic field lines!!!

Oil prices look to be heading down again. I suppose China is cutting back on their buying now that what they've needed to build up for the Olympics has either arrived or is on the way. The speculators ought to be bailing out left and right now and as usual the last man will be left holding the bag. I wonder what will cause the next blip? Israel bombing the shit out of Iran? Or our troops moving to Afghanistan and then across the border into Pakistan.

Other stuff - JJ is in Washington DC this week. So I've been doing little. Walking to the library in the mornings sounds like fun. I did that yesterday, in 90F and 85% RH, to return Whisper of the Heart DVD and pick up Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind manga book (Perfect Collection #1), in english. Wanted see what Myazaki's drawings were like. The story is a little weird compared to Whisper of the Heart. The new walking shoes worked pretty good. No blisters, but they did shift my weight enough that I felt the new strain in my hips and thighs. I'll try them again today, returning Nausicaä and picking up the Lupin the III - The castle of Cagliostro DVD. Hope it's as good as Whisper of the Heart.

Did a little shopping yesterday. Scored a $5.99 13th Warrior DVD at BestBuy, also got a $20 circular polarizing filter for the 20D. I plan to use that today. Then went to Office Depot to get an electric pencil eraser, $11.95.

Today I need to grocery shop... and look for a cheap weed whip, the beggars are threatening to take over again.

My WeedEater(R) died and the nasty bastards who designed the thing obviously planned for this to happen, just to force people to buy a new one after five years. See, the plastic fuel lines self-destructed and they're really not replaceable since they're an integral part of the fuel tank. I did try, but the results were pitiful. Finding the proper diameter plastic lines wasn't possible, and even if I had I doubt I could have installed them in the tank since they just go through very snug holes. Pushing a flexible hose through the tiny, snug openings wouldn't work. The only way would be to somehow reach a pair of needle nose pliers through the gas tank's refill opening, around a 90 degree bend and through the fuel line holes to grab and pull them through. The line I did find was about the right size for one hole but much too big for the other, so I drilled out the holes and pushed the lines through, then trimmed the lengths for proper operation. But there's a small gap between the lines and hole walls. And gas leaks out. I don't think it's a good idea to be carrying around a hot, running engine with gas leaking all over it. So, I have an ex-WeedEater, as in the Python Dead Parrot sketch. I think an old fashioned weed whip will work just fine. And I'll save the planet from gas fumes. And get lots of healthy exercise. It's a win-win-win situation. And the WeedEater folks lose. I like this.

I also have a reel type push lawnmower I think I'll drag out of the shed. No motor, just me huffing and puffing on the handles. It does mow fine, but it won't cut anything a couple of inches higher than it's normal cut height due to bad design. So if I use the thing I have to use it every couple of days. More if the rains come. But no fumes and little noise. And lots of healthy exercise. I think I'm going to get very sick of that last phrase.

After the big blood tests results came back last week, I saw my main cardiologist. Most everything was good, except triglycerides and blood glucose. Now I've got an appointment to see a dietitian next month. Never, ever been to one so I don't know what to expect. I'm hoping it'll be something simple, like don't eat so much, and not a big talk about this-and-that recipes that take forever to make, use every cooking utensil I have, then take weird-assed ingredients I have to search high and low for and still have none of the things I like in them. Maybe if I get lots of healthy exercise(tm) I won't need to make major changes in my diet. I can dream, can't I?

Oh, on the cardiology front, while I was at the office I asked if the pacemaker lead voltages could be re-adjusted since I was having lots and lots of diaphragm pulsing troubles again. Took a lot of fiddling to make things better while not losing the heart pacing. Finally we had to settle for a compromise. And I'll take it. So much better now. That's why I've been able to walk so much lately. The diaphragm troubles were giving me a constant pain in the side whenever I walked or stood up, plus bouts of nausea. It was like having high speed hiccups, but only on my left side. After 15 minutes of hiccups at 70 to 80 per minute I was ready to collapse. This is much better.

And I find I'm taking much more interest in things again. The allergies have backed off too. I dunno if the exercise has anything to do with this, but I'll say it does. 'Assume the virtue though you have it not', eh?

While PernMUSH has been offline, I occasionally check onto TooMush to see what the NC gang is doing and chat some with the denizens. Got nostalgic a little last night. Mostly about some old job historical events. Sometime I'll have to start jotting those things down, when I remember them. Might make good reading... and I think the statutes of limitations will protect me.


One last thing. Yellowstone! - put this in Windows Media Player to see Old Faithful in real time.

mms://a293.l2717654292.c27176.g.lm.akamaistream.net/D/293/27176/v0001/reflector:54292

http://xkcd.com/ is a hoot. :)


In other nooz, I walked to the library this morning. Returned Tamora Pierce's 'Wlid Magic' and picked up Whisper of the Heart DVD (by Hayao Miyazaki).
Health stats:
Starting vitals - 129/78 @ 60
Stopping vitals -121/65 @ 77
After 10 min rest vitals - 104/52 @ 61

I guess this is good?

Feeling very curmudgeonly today. Probably not fit for human contact.

( Peeves on my mind today - )

Please, when creating webpages, leave out the JavaScript, CSS and Shockwave stuff, ok?

They don't bring much to the party and cost both me and your ISP a lot of bandwidth while making a mess of my browsing experience.

Specific complaints:

Javascript - uses up a lot of CPU time, page loading time and takes over my control of my browser. I've had some .js files load from websites that weigh in at over 500kB and then stalled my browser (Firefox), took over my mouse buttons and jammed shockwave noise and video in my face. Then there's the javascript cross-site scripting attacks the skimmers and scammers love. In self defense I installed the NoScript extension and block all .js unless I trust a site not to abuse me or I think the risk of using the site's js are less than the potential rewards of letting the shit do it's thing.

CSS - Makes the page files big and really delays the final page presentation on my screen. I get really sick of the way a css using page has parts that zip and zoom about as they load, making me chase links around while slower loading parts take their time to arrive. Unlike straight html's solid and fast boom, there's the all the text and the pictures come along afterward.

SWF - Again, takes over my browser, often stalling it out, tries to leave information on my PC, turn on my microphone and/or webcam, and causes memory starvation. Not to mention blaring sound and video while parts of the page are still loading. Again for protection I've loaded Flashblock to get some control of my browser back. Plus gone to Adobe's webstie to configure my shockwave add-on so that it can't store info on my PC, turn on anything or gather info about me. I have no idea if Adobe can be trusted. I mean they are a major corp and there is always an adversarial relationship between an individual and any business.

Taken at Missouri Town 1855 today. Click for more.




Sorry for the 640 pixel width pix, but if I posted full size (3504x2336) my poor RoadRunner upload speed would take forever to send the 5MB+ size files. So much detail gets lost when I shrink.

I just read http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9982251-7.html?tag=nefd.riv and had to laugh. I use a $12.88 TracFone and pay about $0.13 a minute for calls and $0.04 for texts. I've only bought two airtime cards since December, one for $20 (120 minutes) and the other for $25 (240 minutes) and still have over 220 minutes left. Battery charge lasts about five days too.

JJ has had Sprint for the last eight years and her monthly costs are just unreal. She's thinking about a TracFone too, as soon as her contract expires.

I've found the audio quality and path delay about the same as Sprint. So, why are people paying so much just to be in vogue?