Month: May 2002

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Mmmm, nucular ..

The spirit of adventure is alive and well in me. Today instead of just eating my Atkins bar, I decided to nuke it in a microwave for 15 seconds. Well, it became much more edible!
Guess I was not the first one to figure this out.

Speaking about nucular. One of my favorite magazines, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, had a very funny article about mispronunciation of “nuclear”. Homer Simpson is not the only offender in this matter. Eisenhower , Reagan, Bush-I usually said something like “NOO-kyoo-lur”, “NU-kyuh-ler” or “NU-cu-lar”. Carter, in a class of his own, liked to reminisce about being a “nu-KEE-ar engineer” (I wonder, was he the only engineer among American presidents?)

One of my favorite FIDO origin lines from was “I put instant coffee in the microwave oven and almost went back in time.” I don’t advise it, even for time traveling :)

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Mom, I wanna be an astronaut

According to How To Become an Astronaut FAQ I need to do the following:

  • If you aren’t a US citizen, become one; that is a must. — Check
  • Forget computer programming entirely; it will be done from the ground for the foreseeable future. — — Wait a minute. Forgetting, forgetting, OK, done.
  • Practice public speaking, and be conservative and conformist in appearance and actions; — Does Live Journal Count?
  • Get a Ph.D —Nah, too lazy.
  • Be in good physical condition, with good eyesight. — Mmmm, that’s tough
  • The image you want is squeaky-clean workaholic yuppie. — Yuppies in Space, now that’s interesting

But I am applying anyway, even if just to get a rejection letter.

Maybe I am never going to get to use a space toilet, but I am buying these for long fishing trips.

Now, this is disturbing.

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Enema of the State

I am a caffeine aficionado. I mostly take it in form of espresso, but I don’t mind getting my daily allowance from regular coffee, soft drinks and/or caffeine tablets. I’ve been known to spike tea with caffeine. But recently I learned about two other methods which are probably taking it too far:

  • As it is well known, chemicals are absorbed very rapidly through the colon. I hear of coffee enemas being taken by celebrities like Janet Jackson. Treat depression, my ass. Huh, that actually makes sense :)
  • Caffeinated soap. I am actually thinking about trying this one. I am just not sure that it actually delivers 250 mg per shower and does not just contain that much.
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The Legend of Mavis Beacon

I was thinking of what typing software to get for my wife’s parents. I learned typing with “Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing”. Looks like I’ve become much more inquisitive since then, because the question of “Who the hell is/was Mavis?” immediately came into my mind.

The history section of mavisbeacon.com was suspiciously “under construction”, so I started my search elsewhere.

Here is some great useless information that I dug up:

  • She does not age, but her hair style and skin color changes in different software versions.

  • She might fight terrorism.
  • This post is way off base, Captn Crunch is very, very real.
  • She has a competitor, one Mavis Bacon.
  • Mavis Bacon can perform feats of space management.
  • Seems like this New York Times article solved the problem, but I am too lazy to go through their payment screens.

So she was not real after all…

By the way, does anyone know of a program that would check grammar an punctuation as well as spelling?

Damn, it’s almost 3:30 AM.

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When morons write about technology

There was an article in free newspaper called “Brooklyn!” (very creative, putting an exclamation mark into the name) about some school kids who participated in a robot building competition.

I bet those kids did not explain to the reporter what red boxing really is :) Uh, and the box that really brought some prominence to some kids was blue (One Steve made them, the other Steve sold them).

Boxes also come in all colors of the rainbow.

By the way, I really hate those robot competitions, like Robot Wars. They are nothing but glorified RC cars. If there was a competition of autonomos robots, that would be a bit more interesting, but probably also not watchable.

Junkyard Wars, on the other hand, is a great show. The original British version was even better.

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Untitled

There are definitely a few portals to Hell located somewhere in New York City Subway.

How would you like to get there — by local, express, or would you rather go to the yard?

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Ooooh, horsies

Interesting fact about NYPD horses from http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/transportation/horses.html :
“Most horses are now named after deceased members of the NYPD, although some have names that commemorate their donors.”

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Another lunch break well spent

Our own Brooklyn bred half-assed Houdini, David Blaine, is doing a 36 hour stand in on a column in Bryant Park.


I’ve got the exposure wrong, but Canon’s stitch assist mode is working nicely.

He’s got a cathether for peeing, some water and a cell phone. He is going to jump onto some cardboard boxes in about an hour. Notice the camera array on the boottom — that’s for Matrix-style effect. All you need for that is just a bunch of 35mm cameras firing at the same moment, which gives you a 180 degree view of a frozen in time object.