by ·5 Comments

Warning:  The two statements below were based on my immediate reactions to the crowds of cheering fans for various candidates in the 2008 elections.  By no means is this an indictment of the majority of my readership who spent the quality time to make a decision based on an understanding of pertinent issues and a proper gauging of character.  When next November comes, I hope to eat my words, but as I’ve said before, I enjoy being a pessimist.  I’m either right or pleasantly surprised.

Subtle Disdain or First-Time Voters:

Congratulations, you voted.   I’m fine that you that when you pulled that level you were expecting a cloud of flying kittens that pooped daisies to appear to reward you for having made a decision for the candidate able to make “tough choices”.  I’m fine that you’ve spent 20 minutes of time to make a poorly informed decision for candidates whose platforms you understand as well as the importance of gauge symmetry in particle physics.  Really, as someone who votes in primaries and sits on his township’s environmental board and whose endlessly debated the difference between Type II and Type IIA drainage plans I’m glad your eventual decision went down to who gave you “hope” or “seemed like a stronger leader”.

I’m fine that you voted for who supported policies that aren’t within the powers of their office. Your president still can’t ban gay marriage, control budgets, or sign treaties.  Your senator still can’t overthrow the FCC, change the National Park Service or change your state’s sales tax.  Your local representative still can’t institute national health care, or end the War in Iraq.  I’m fine that you didn’t know that.

I’m fine that you voted on the ballot initiative based entirely on what was written in the 2″x4″ box describing the measure or missed it entirely not realizing that there’s more than one avenue of legislative action.

I’m fine that after hitting the button for your preferred presidential candidate you froze in fear upon seeing the six other offices up for election and that you showed your true level of preparation by selecting people from your party or the person whose name you’d heard most.

Really, I’m fine with that.  Statistics informs be that your ignorance combined with poorly designed user interfaces on voting machines means that your vote was canceled out by other slack-jawed yokels thunderstruck by the difficulty of operating technology that’s fault-tested by toddlers.  The real winner in the 2008, as always, was the normal distribution.

Not Subtle Disdain For First-Timers:

It’s great that 138 million or so people voted, really I’m thrilled for them.  Never mind that the vast majority lived in states that were as political conservative as the arch-angel Gabriel or consider the sex-drive of Cirque De Soleil quaint and their vote’s importance bordered on neutrino-like importance, I’m glad these neophyte political quidam could think of themselves as useful.

My vengeance against these panglosian plebiscites will come next November, when the only thing to vote for will be freeholders, DA’s, auditor generals and if you live in Pennsylvania which elects everything, County Coroner.  The turnout will hit a stunning 12% and again my vote will wield disproportional influence over the unwashed masses ignorant of the true power held by a prothonotary over the District Justice and how County Commissioners sacrifice cats to summon Ialbadoth, Minion of the Lord of Greater Darkness.  When the ichor-stained swatch of ballots hewn from hellstone consume the upstart touchscreen voting booths, Americans will again known the despair of democracy and the dread and loathing induced by an election day on an odd-numbered year.  Feel my wrath.

Thoughts?

by ·0 Comments

I was asked to run a session on teach Cub Scouts Science and one of the points I try to drive home was that most kids have some sort of “Wow” moment.  Mine were viewing the rings of Saturn on a camping trip and learning about some absoludicrously old rocks in Canada.  I use the pillars of creation in the Eagle Nebula and some very small pictures.

I quickly determined that I had a lot of work to do after the following:

  • One person asked if a magnetized quarter would still work (I’m not sure how they were planning to magnetize it)
  • Someone declared that a jet engine and a flying hoop operated on the same principle
  • Someone kept referring to how she was going to have her kids “make science” which sounds like a euphemism biologists use
  • After deploying a water bottle rocket someone asked if a foot pump would work instead of a bicycle pump and if one could use another fluid besides water which begs yet more questions

One fellow seemed to be bent on oneupsmanship and rattled off 6 activities he’d done with his Scouts asking after each “have you tried that?”  To all 6 boring milquetoast ideas that Mr. Wizard couldn’t make fun, yes.  I felt like a bit of a dick and thought I should go into blackface and thank massa for showerin’ learning on me. Luckily most of these folk will be dead by the time I enter science advocacy 45 years from now.  If only I could stop their children.

by ·0 Comments

The Office 2007 interface has been much maligned despite what I think is its GUI splendor.  Despite having some installation problems, I’ve come to love the way the ribbon interface rewards exploration and cuts click-paths from 1-7 clicks to 2-3.  At the lodge executive board meeting, the uphill battle faced by UI designers hit home as I was trying to help someone change some things about the lodge minutes.  He’s a normally sharp kid but apparently had been enraptured by the hatred of the ribbon.

Him: How do I change the margins this way?  Everything’s so hard.
Me: Click over a tab.
Him: What tab?
Me: See that thing at the top.
Him: Yeah.
Me: Where there’s a bunch in a row that correspond to large categories of document modification.
Him: Yeah.
Me: Where if you hit tab you move over one.
Him: Yeah.
Me: That’s a tab.
Him: Oh.  Okay.  So how do I change the margins in this “print tab” (he actually used air quotes)
Me: Click margin.  And pick the one you want, you can even preview what it’ll look like by doing a mouse-over.
Him: Oh.  Why didn’t I know this before.
Me: Fear.  Fear of the unknown, fear of the new.  Embrace it, and you shall become an Office Ninja.
Him: One day, Terry.  One day.

by ·3 Comments

I’ve come to end of my scanning work with a drawer full of drawings marked “various”.  I was told to name the drawings based on there content.  Easy enough for drawings like demolition plans, planting plans, process outlines and primitive dies, but what about the drawing of smoke stacks, exhaust towers, and cooling pipes coming out of the top of a reactor that I found after having named stuff for 10 hours?  “Tall things”.  I pray nightly that no one ever needs to find the a drawing for that vertical heating column.

by ·0 Comments

I purchased a bunch of drinks today and stated I didn’t need a bag as I was trying to prevent waste.  The cashier said she wished more people did that and then put 10 self-adhesive 1.5″ x 3″ “PAID” stickers on each of the 10 bottles of 20 oz Fuze I had purchased, nicely cancelling out any environmental gain.  I guess I need re-useable stickers.

by ·3 Comments

Day 1
Coworker: You have a stain on your shirt.
Me: Yeah, baja chalupa, always gets me.

Day 2
Coworker: Did you change your shirt?  There’s a stain on it again.
Me: Yeah, baja chalupa strikes again.

Day 3
Coworker: No stains.  Did you find a way to navigate the baja chalupa?
Me: It was cold today, the stain’s on my jacket.

by ·0 Comments

A large clump of cubes have recently been populated with marketing folk and they simply haven’t learned the proper rules of scavenging and post-meeting food theft etiquette.  Once you’ve finished a meeting, it is not proper form to come back with a f#$%ing shopping bag to take extra sodas and bags of chips, it is not ok to have someone wait in the room between trips to ward off people from other departments from taking anything and finally it is unacceptable, no childishing, to take forks and plates.  I can see hording sodas, but plates?  They are literally available at all times in the cafeteria along with condiment packets and ice.  Also, perishables should only be taken up to what one can consume in a day.  Excess should be put in a common area.  Extra ranch turkey bacon wraps in the garbage indicate carelessness, and these aren’t the kind of people that can be entrusted with maximizing shareholder value.  A kind of comity exists between departments on rules for raiding and counter-raiding the spoils of meetings and these vagabonds risk initiating a war they may not be ready to win.

by ·0 Comments

I drove into work today at 10:30 in the midst of a snow storm.  I crawled through the Pennsylvania half of my trip that usually takes 24 minutes in 68 and by the time I crested the Scudders Falls bridge my car had a two in layer of ice on it.  Entering Jersey, the hatred and loathing of the native folk must have heated the air as snow had turned to rain.  I enter my work parking lot as the only vehicle bespeckled with snow.  Visitors were stunned, padestrians awestruck by the visage of wintery hoarfrost sent like a timetraveler to show what was to come.

Come darkest winter, I will strap palm leaves to my car and drive with a wreath in my hair to be met as Freya, God of Spring.

by ·0 Comments

To all those who’ve had bacon prepared by me prior to today: I’m sorry.  I sometimes prepare bacon by baking it at 400°F but as I began preparing breakfasts that otherwise required baking I had to move away from that.  I moved to pan frying I kept the surface at 375° and chronically overcooked it.  Today I prepared 3 lbs of it at 325° with no noticable problems.  I promise to do so from now on, and not insult you with burnt bacon.