It seems to me that it’s time to face facts: This Country Needs a Presidental Candidate.
The Democratic Party has done a tremendous job of shooting itself in the foot over the past year. Between the endless posturing over Michigan and Florida and the choice of candidates going to the superdelegates instead of the voters (Quite ironic that it’s called the “Democratic” Party, huh?), it’s not hard to imagine the voters defecting en masse.
Of course, the Republican side isn’t any better. I do somewhat like McCain’s willingness to compromise — most members of both parties seem to have decided that winning arguments without concession to other opinions is the only way to go — but between the awful state of the economy, the endless war, the wholesale erosion of individual rights in favor of business interests and still more endless posturing, well, I just have a hard time trusting the Republican party either.
If there was ever a time for a third-party candidate, this is it! I first mentioned this candidate two years ago, and the reasons for choosing him are as valid now as then:
He stands for:
People
Freedom
Democracy
and stuff
(Just try getting any of the other candidates to admit to that last one!)
Still not convinced? Check out his campaign video!
So remember: Vote Early, Vote Often and Vote Beeblebrox!
I first heard the story of the “heavily armed” Kangaroos back in 1999 and although it sounds somewhat apocryphal, it’s still quite entertaining. Going through some old emails last night, I ran across it again:
The reuse of some object-oriented code had caused tactical headaches for Australia’s armed forces. As virtual reality simulators assume larger roles in helicopter combat training, programmers have gone to great lengths to increase the realism of their scenarios, including detailed landscapes and — in the case of the Northern Territory’s Operation Phoenix — herds of kangaroos (since disturbed animals might well give away a helicopter’s position).
The head of the Defence Science & Technology Organization’s Land Operations/Simulation division reportedly instructed developers to model the local marsupials’ movements and reactions to helicopters. Being efficient programmers, they just re-appropriated some code originally used to model infantry detachment reactions under the same stimuli, changed the mapped icon from a soldier to a kangaroo, and increased the figures’ speed of movement.
Eager to demonstrate their flying skills for some visiting American pilots, the hotshot Aussies “buzzed” the virtual kangaroos in low flight during a simulation. The kangaroos scattered, as predicted, and the visiting Americans nodded appreciatively….then did a double-take as the kangaroos reappeared from behind a hill and launched a barrage of Stinger missiles at the helpless helicopter. (Apparently the programmers had forgotten to remove THAT part of the infantry coding.)
The lesson? Objects are defined with certain attributes, and any new object defined in terms of an old one inherits all the attributes. The embarrassed programmers had learned to be careful when reusing object-oriented code, and the Yanks left with a newfound respect for Australian wildlife.
Simulator supervisors report that pilots from that point onward have strictly avoided kangaroos, just as they were meant to.
Over time, I’ve learned more often than not, any story you find online which sounds that good is more than likely bogus. The story about the guy who attached solid rocket boosters to his Chevy Impala is one such example. It’s a fantastic story, but it’s complete bunk.
So after coming across the Kangaroo story again last night, I decided to check whether it was real. By the time I first ran across it, many of the details had been greatly exaggerated. But to my surprise, it turns out that the underlying story is true!
Doing some more digging, I found a first hand version of the story. Even without the embellishments, it’s still a good laugh.
And the official word from Australia is that (as of eight years ago anyhow) the Kangaroos are no longer armed.
In honor of Saint Patrick’s Day, here’s a pair of leprechauns from Saturday’s St. Patrick’s Parade. That’s Leprechaun-Claire on the left and Leprechaun-Ron at the right.
And now, Leprechaun-Claire will demonstrate how to retrieve helium balloons which have drifted up to a high ceiling.
It should be quite plain to all that this is not a brown coat. It is in fact a brown shirt.
Oversights such as this undoubtedly contributed to the Alliance victory.
I tend to forget about this every year until someone reminds me, so before I forget for another year… Happy Pi Day
If I were a little more on the ball, I would have posted this at 1:59:26 Thanks to Z. for reminding me this year.
A discussion at work today turned to how my most recent project (currently in testing) may be the first one moved to dotNet v3.5 as a pilot for the 2008 versions of Visual Studio, SQL Server and Windows Server. Once we find out what it takes to move a simple project to the new platform, we’ll start looking at moving the more complex systems over.
One of the new technologies being considered is LINQ. None of us have any hands-on experience with it yet, but this conversation led us to realize there are three distinct phases all projects go through when adopting a new technology:
Refactor the entire system to heavily overuse the new technology, especially in manners where it was never intended to be used and/or is completely ill-suited.
Refactor the system again in attempt to remedy the problems caused by the previous refactoring.
Refactor the system with the next hot technology.
The planning to assure that this will be the time you finally break out of that cycle is spread across all three phases.
A few years ago, I discovered that several pages on MySpace were using images from the Shore Leave site as backgrounds. And then, every so often, someone would go and put one of the photos into a comment on a message board. But rather than copying the photos, they were loading them directly from the web site.
At the time, I talked with one of the con chairs and we decided that rather than “blocking” the images, we’d make some lemonade from the situation. Nowadays, if you view any of the archived photos on the site, you’ll discover that they have the site’s address embedded in them. (In effect, every time someone links to an image, they end up giving Shore Leave some free advertising.)
Looking at the server logs last night, I discovered Shore Leave had been getting a significant amount of traffic from Fark.com (the amount of traffic coming in via Fark in the previous 14 hours was about 4-5 times as much as what came in from from Google, Yahoo, and everyone else combined in the preceding 48). It turned out Fark was running a thread about a would-be robber who was armed with a spork. The fifth response in the thread included a photo of a very familiar convention hallway.
I’m taking the view that all those people (more than 1,000 as of 24 hours ago) seeing the archived photo of Spork Man is a wonderful way to get publicity at very little cost. And to keep myself amused, I’ve lightly edited the photo to say hello.
And who knows? Perhaps Slashdot will provide the next link! 🙂
I went to a party at a friend’s house last night. It was a good social time, far from boring, with plenty of other friends there. But despite having fun, I was feeling worn out and somehow fell asleep on the couch. When I woke up, it was already morning and from a quick look out the window, I guessed it was already 8:00 or 9:00.
Then the alarm went off and I woke up again. It was a little after 6:00 am.
So apparently I’ve started having dreams about getting more sleep. Perhaps I need to start going to bed earlier?
There’s going to be a lunar eclipse tonight and according to the folks on the radio, it should be visible from the DC area.
Therefore, based on the past 10 years worth of evidence that it’s impossible to have interesting astronomical phenomenon visible from the DC area without accompanying heavy cloud cover, I hereby predict that heavy cloud cover will roll in about 15 minutes before the eclipse starts and won’t dissipate until at least 15 minutes after the show ends.
Of course, the fact that this prediction has been made means that the moon will be visible after all. But because there’s an interesting astronomical phenomenon taking place, it can’t be visible and the heavy clouds will roll in anyhow.
Therefore, tonight’s stargazing will feature a spectacular meteor show as the moon, torn asunder by these conflicting forces, spontaneously explodes! This once-in-a-planetary-lifetime event will be viewed by millions of people across the Americas, causing feelings of awe at the wonders of creation, eventually leading to a great spiritual awakening and worldwide peace and well-being.
It’s a pity we won’t be able to see it because of the clouds. Updated at 8:50pm: As predicted, the night sky has been obscured by clouds. No word on whether the moon has exploded yet. Updated at 10:30pm: Wylie and I just returned from our evening walk. No sign of the moon exploding yet, but the clouds have disappeared and the moon is visible. When we got back in a few minutes ago, the moon had turned a reddish-brown. I don’t know whether we’ll get any closer to it disappearing into shadow, but I’ll be going out to take a look now and then.
As for the cloudy part of my forecast… well hey, if Doug Hill can get a few wrong, so can I. 🙂 Updated at 11:05pm: Wow! That’s really neat to see! The moon is nearly invisible against the sky except for a small crescent of white.
