From Cassini Orbiter Engineering Subsystems:
Cabling subsystem:
I wonder if any of the engineers who worked on Cassini/Huygens wrote memoirs. I bet it would be fascinating reading.
Blog
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Can This Thing Get HBO?
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eBay Rocks!
eBayer zx321 is in a business of selling fishing reels and miniature replicas of them. And she takes care to take good pictures to show off the goods:
If fishing is not your thing, she has something else for you. Check out that stylish frame.
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WMW: World Wide Pants
I am down to only one pair of good, wearable pants. I need some good pants, dammit. I want to buy them in bulk. And I want them to be the Best. Pants. Ever.™ They’ve got to feel good and look good. Well, not this kind of good. But still.
Warren Buffett doesn’t like shopping for clothing either. He is kind of cheap, but buys $1500 Italian-made Zegna suits off the rack in bulk. Probably because he likes the fit. I want some similar kind of pant buying strategery.
Maybe I’ll even get them custom made. At some point Levis wanted to make custom jeans, and I remember sitting in a meeting at iXL where it was announced that my team would probably be doing a website for those jeans. But the whole concept didn’t take off.
What I need is regular pants, not jeans. I remember reading in Cryptonomicon about the fact that well tailored suit is much more pleasant to wear than any kind of casual wear. And I totally agree with that. So maybe I should get some dress pants custom made.
But I also don’t want to spend more than $40 – $70 per pair, so maybe custom is not an option.
So here’s the WMW question: What is The. Best. Pair of Men’s Pants. Ever.™ in your opinion?
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Michael and Friends
The number of ljusers who added me to their friends list has reached 100. There are probably some more people who read me through “friends of friends” newsfeeds and non-lj aggregators (I think I saw a poll answer from
and somewhere). And I bet there are some inactive ljusers who still have me added. Nevertheless, it’s a nice round number. Woohooo! I think the number of friends would be much larger for me if I automatically added those, who added me. That is probably true in real life as well. I should know – I am down to only two close friends who keep in touch with me right now. One of them is my dentist ( a childhood friend). In fact, I am typing this on my laptop while in his waiting room. The rest don’t call me unless I call them, lost contact with me altogether or got married to people I can’t stand and became too much like them. None of my real life friends (except my wife) read my journal.
In any case, now that there are more people reading me, I am going to try to use them as information resource. I could do that on Usenet but posting to Usenet is a pain in the ass for a variety of reasons. Google answers costs money (although I think about trying that). So I in addition to wildly informative and awesome WML (What Michael Learned) type posts I am adding a mildly annoying WMW (What Michael Wants (to know)) category. Stay tuned.
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Meanwhile on Planet eBay …
UNIVAC III Computer (In Storage since 1975)
They look sad, don’t they? -
Senor Developer
My job title is Senior Web Developer or something to that effect. On of my managers at iXL joked that it’s really just a typo on my business card, and it should say Señor Developer. Har har.
In any case, I think I found a perfect food commensurate with my station:
This kind of reminded me about a story somebody told me about a graphics designer that worked at iXL. This designer dude liked to get really into his “creative process”. When somebody wanted to talk to him, he would ignore that person or try to chase that person away from his octapod. You see – he was CREAAATING! He was very creative all right. At one point he was working on a website for Lucent. And he spent a lot of time creating logo images. Boy, was he pissed when the client was very unhappy with the result. On his version of the logo “Lucent” became “Lucentè”. Lucent-ey. But he still could not understand why that was wrong.
By the way, I’ve heard some disgruntled programmers refer to the red circle on the logo as
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The Good Shrub
A new book in my collection: “Modern Arms and Free Men” by Vannevar Bush. Just 30 bucks on abebooks.com . And it’s signed!
Interestingly enough, Vannevar Bush is a relative of the presidential Bushes (I think he was a cousin of Prescott Bush).
Ha ha. I didn’t know about the term “vannevar”.
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Did I Mention that Purple is the Official Brooklyn College Color?
I wrote about Monk parakeets before.
Well, it looks like the Brooklyn College Environmental Education Science Masters Program. members are involved in some cutting edge research:
“On the athletic field we saw 5 birds perched on the lamp post on the right side. They were flying back and forth. While we watched their flight we viewed one of the birds relieving themselves. We approached the ramp and examined the droppings. We counted 11 droppings and saw a distinct color change in its appearance. This change was not the same as what we had previously viewed, it was purple in color.”
“On East 23 and Avenue J we saw three birds eating acorns and making a lot of noise. “
This reminded me:
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Brooklyn College Pictures
I had to wake up early today to get to the speech class that is held at the ungodly hour of 9 AM. On Sunday. Sadists. It was raining. Brooklyn streets were foggy and smelled of jasmine tea for some reason. Ok, I did have jasmine tea yesterday, but I could not smell any on myself. The fog definitely smelled of jasmine tea. And sea.
I’ve had some espresso at Michael’s bakery on R and Nostrand and took a bus to Brooklyn College. Some pictures had to be taken.
A Jellyfish From Outer Space or a Manhole Cover? You Decide.
Brooklyn College officials like to spend money on infrastructure. About six years ago, I remember, they purchased these really expensive, but nice ashtrays.
The ashtrays came with these garbage urns. This is Brooklyn College La Guardia tower reflecting in the top of such an urn. Note the uglorific purple color. That’s the official school color. Maybe, some time in this century, I’ll get to wear a robe of that color.
The cupola of the nearby Midwood High School.
Even the storm drains are pretty.
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Financial Experts
It’s a great paper. For me to poop on!
