Withlemon

Just a thought of pure randomness to get you close to my world..

So I was thinking the other day about random things like, "how fast IS the speed of light?" and "Wouldn't time travel be awesome".

My mind then mushed these two thoughts together and came up with this fine little nugget.

Suppose you could travel faster than the speed of light. Suppose you saw a planet that was 1 light year away that could support life. You think "Man that would be cool to see" So you invent a way of travel that goes 1 light year in 360 days. (There's a reason I picked 360 days, just hold on to yourself a second). So you develop this way of travel in a year (it's possible right...) A couple of days before you plan to leave you buy some necessary equipment from Wal-Mart (because they have everything), like food, water, toiletries, and a NASA grade, pocket sized telescope. After your trip to Wal-Mart you spend 4 days outside arranging a large formation out of very large rocks. So you arrange these rocks to say "Good Bye World!" (The span from the letter G to the letter D would be about half a mile or so).

Confused? Good! Know where I'm going with this. get out of my head, this is my fantasy!

Sooooo now that you have made your pre-trip arrangements you load your "Light-speed +" vehicle, which I'm sure resembles 1985 Ford Escort, rust and all, because, damn! those thing do not quit working.

So with enough food to last the rest of your life, which may be short, due to the cosmic radiation you have forgotten to take into account, I'm sure you'll melt roughly 2.5 weeks after arriving as said planet, and your pocket sized NASA peeper, you jump in your rusted out American made Ford Escort Light-Speed + LE (Luxury Edition) and blast off.

After a year 360 days of travel you arrive at your destination planet. (No! I don't know how you peed or shat along the way, and I'm sure your legs have atrophy, but let's just keep this going shall we?) You arrive, you stretch out your jell-o like legs and start to setup some sort of base camp. Maybe you were towing a pop-up camper behind the FELSLE (Ford Escort Light Speed + LE) You pop up your camper, sleep for a day and then jump out of bed. Now, with your pocket sized NASA peeper you search the sky for your old home planet, Earth. After half a day of searching you find it, zooming WAY WAY WAY in.....

You can now see yourself setting up a bunch of rocks in the formation to say, Good Bye World!.

Maybe you don't get it, maybe you do, but DAMN that would be freaky and cool.

I'm off to find myself a Ford Escort.....

Oh by the way, the speed of light is 186,000 mi/sec

There are many times when I’m proud to say I’m from the Midwest. We are known for our strong work ethic, hardiness,being friendly and our ability to consume more than our own weight in alcohol and still drive home. (No one really NEEDED those park benches did they?)

The other night the wifey and I were at a pretty formal dinner for a local non-profit that I’m involved in. As we were sitting there making small talk, we came to find out that a couple at the table had just move here from the south. As soon as I heard this, I smiled to myself thinking they were about to figure our what the word “winter” means. They were talking about how cold it was that day. It may have been chilly, but not cold, we’re talking right around 30 degrees. Everyone else at the table laughed in unison. I was just waiting for someone else to say it, and sure enough, the midwestern pride shone though.
“You haven’t seen anything yet, most of us don’t even have our winter coats out yet” some guy says.

Ahh yes, we love to brag about miserable it can be in the place we live. We wear it like a badge of honor, “I’ve withstood this weather for X amount of years and now I’ll watch you as you suffer.”

Why do we do this? Are we really mean spirited folks deep down, or do we just want to feel better or tougher than these southern folks? I’m not sure really. Maybe we dislike the cold that much and it feels better to watch other people dislike it.

This one common factor can bring almost any midwesterners (midwesternites?) together. We're like a frosty the snowman fraternity, and the only way to get in is to bear a couple of winters here.

In any case, winter is coming and once again I do not look forward to the snow or cold, the only reason I see a purpose for either is to make the spring seem that much better.

"A Sicilian judge ruled earlier this year that blogging, under Italian law, is the same as publishing an unregistered newspaper. In Italy, publishing an unregistered newspaper is a crime of "stampa clandestina," and is punishable by large fines and/or jail. And so down went the first blogger. He was noticed because he wrote unkind things about the Italian government. A horrible legal precedent and basis for the ruling.

But by registering a blog, the blog would then be subject to all laws governing newspaper publishing which means the blogger could no longer freely write his or her thoughts. And so it would no longer be a blog. And especially there would be no right to criticize the government.

Since the ruling, another blogger has been taken down. Apparently there are those in the Italian government who have decided to run with this opportunity.

The judge, not understanding a thing about the Internet, but still given authority over it, unintentionally, with the stroke of a pen, took down the right of free speech in Italy and empowered the government to gag its citizens. A demonstration of the awesome power of ignorance.

Good thing our US leaders, in charge of regulating technology, like Senator Ted "the tubes to nowhere" Stevens, have complete competence in, and understanding of, what they regulate."

Original story here.

I work in at a fairly large local medical business doing IT support. I do end user support as well as network, and roll out support. My job pays ok money, and for the most part I enjoy it. I like working with (most) people. That being said:

A couple of days ago, I arrive at work and have a message on my phone saying that a user can not log on to one of the medical applications. I call them and tell them I'll be right up. (Up because I guess IT people never need to see the sun, and we like cold, windowless, basements with all the other unimportant folks)

When I arrive the user has the PC at the login screen for Windows. I ask her to get to the program that she is having problems with. She logs on the the PC and opens the application. She tries her username and password, and it fails. At this point I log into the application and have her create a new password. I log off the PC and tell her to log back in. At the Windows login screen she puts in her username and password and logs in, fires up the application, and gets a username/password error. She tries it 2 more times and gets locked out. I think to myself, Really? She JUST made the new password and had to type it twice to verify it. So I log her out of the PC and I log back in to reset her password, again. This time I have her tell me the password so I can enter it. That being done I log out of the PC and ask her to log in. She puts her username in, but puts no password in and hits enter. She gets an error. I ask her to put her username AND password in. She says "the one I just made (for the other program)?"
I say "No, the one for Windows."
"But I don't have one for Windows, just my username"
"Um, yes, you have a password for Windows" (I just saw her put it in two times before)
"No, I just put my username in and hit enter"
(trying to stay calm....)"I just saw you enter the password two times before"
"No, I don't have a password"
(finding my Zen place)"put in the password that you use everyday to log into the PC. The very first password you use"
"You mean the one I just made?"

At this point I was without words. This person was going crazy! This person is allowed to work with patients, but has forgotten the password she used 2 minutes ago? Clearly she was a patient that had escaped from the mental health floor and is impersonating a medical staff member. At this point I think my frustration and lack of patients had shown through. There were a couple of people who stepped in to try to knock some common fricken knowledge into this lady. I stepped back to watch what I thought would be a three ring circus act. The lady that had stepped in asked the crazy one for a list of her passwords and what applications they were for. (secure, I know. Why not just email everyone in the department you family tree, SSN, birthdate, and telephone number, and offer them your house, car, and the ogre of a man that decided it would be a great to hit you over the head with a club and drag you back to his cave by your hair so he can marry you, husband?) She gave them up freely, hell, if she would have been any louder, you would have needed ear plugs. Of course she gave every password except the one we needed. Finally, some one else asked her if what her main password was.
"Oh, that one! I didn't know you wanted the computer password"

I just turned and walked away.
I never found out if she was an escapee from the mental ward but if she's every my medical personal, I'll do the procedure myself!