Assorted Ramblings, Silliness, Video

Googling the Moon

This is kind of cool. Google, in association with the X-Prize foundation, is sponsoring a $20-million prize for the first funded team to land a robotic rover on the moon. (There’s also a $5-million prize for the second team and another $5-million for meeting various bonus objectives.)
Actually, this is very cool. It’s a return to the Moon. They’ve even established some goals — finding water ice in the permanently shadowed craters on the poles, having a probe survive the lunar night (equivalent to two weeks of “brutal cold”), and finding the artifacts left behind by the previous lunar missions.
To promote the contest, the Google X-Prize has put together a very inspirational video.

I’d love to see this succeed. Getting back to the Moon is the first step toward exploration of other planets.
But one thing troubles me. Google makes nearly all of its money from advertising, and I’m suddenly reminded of D.D. Harriman pointing out that because it’s visible from everywhere on earth, The Moon would be a great place to put a billboard…

Silliness

Ramping Up

Dad fixed the ramp going into his tool shed this past week. In its previous incarnation, the ramp was a sheet of plywood attached to a framework of 2x4s. The general consensus was that the ramp was probably sturdier than the actual shed.

I’m not entirely sure when the ramp first came into being. I think Steve had some role in it, and I’m certain he was the one responsible for attaching it to the shed. The ramp is essentially a 6×6 platform, resting at an angle. At the bottom, the ramp has, over time, settled into the ground so that wheelbarrows, lawnmowers and the like can easily roll on and off. At the top, Steve attached the ramp to the base of the shed with a handful of nails. After a single summer, the nails pulled loose from the base of the shed, leaving about a foot of difference between the top of the ramp and the bottom of the shed.

This has proved to be something of an obstacle for rolling wheelbarrows, lawnmowers and the like from the top of the ramp into the shed. It had been like that for several years.

Now that the ramp has been repaired, Dad’s commented that he somewhat misses having a level platform there. It was useful for changing the oil in the lawnmower and such, but he philosophically shrugs his shoulders and says, “That is the way it goes.”

I don’t think the problem is simply “That is the way it goes.” I think he repaired it wrong.

What I have in mind would be to replace the wooden structure with a steel plate such as the ones they use to temporarily cover deep holes in the street until they finish doing whatever caused them to dig up the street. Instead of just attaching the plate to the front of the shed though, a hydraulic lift goes under it at the shed end. At the other end there needs to be a track of some sort so the plate can move back and forth freely. That way Dad would have the flat platform he’s used to. And when he wants a ramp, all he has to do is flip a switch (I assume he’d go for the powered lift instead of the hand-cranked one) and voila, the platform turns into a ramp!

That would be the best of both worlds! 🙂

Fandom

Eight Years Later

Many thanks to The Cowgirl Coder who reminded me that Thursday marked the eighth anniversary of the day The Moon was blasted out of its orbit.

The breakaway happened on September 13, 1999. That was a Sunday. The day before, I held a going away party for the moon. We watched “Breakaway,” the pilot episode of Space: 1999, and when the show got to the part where the explosions started, everyone spontaneously started waving goodbye. 🙂

I’ve been watching the show on DVD thanks to Netflix. The first season was pretty bad. (Koenig’s solution to everything was to either yell at it, or shoot it and then insist that humans weren’t barbarians.) The second season was better, but that’s not saying much. I hadn’t realized it, but Maya was saving the moon long before Wesley got started saving the Enterprise.

And so many questions remain. What happened to Paul and Victor? What ever happened to all of Main Mission? When did Computer become a proper noun? (It was never “the computer” it was always referred to as “Computer.”) Where did they get the new clothes for Season 2? And just how many times did Eagle 1 get blown up anyhow?

Production values, OK. Writing and continuity, ugh.

Rants, Silliness

Google Destroys the World!

1 Comment

Good Grief! It turns out that Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt are in cahoots with Steve Jobs in the plot to destroy the Earth!

After reading today’s UF, I did some quick searching and soon found out about the Flight Simulator embedded in Google Earth. That sounded like a pretty cool little easter egg, so I decided to check it out. It turns out that this particular egg requires you to have the most recent version of Google Earth. No worries, I’ve used Google Earth before and think it’s kind of cool.

At the start of the installation process the first thing you have to do (of course) is agree to a software license. Most of it’s the usual stuff about there being no warranty, respecting intellectual property rights, and so on. And then about three-quarters of the way through, right after the bit about the program being export-controlled, I ran across some rather chillingly familiar (and unnecessarily capitalized) text…

NONE OF THE SOFTWARE IS INTENDED FOR USE IN THE OPERATION OF NUCLEAR FACILITIES, LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS, EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS, AIRCRAFT NAVIGATION OR COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEMS, OR ANY OTHER SUCH ACTIVITIES IN WHICH CASE THE FAILURE OF THE SOFTWARE COULD LEAD TO DEATH, PERSONAL INJURY, OR SEVERE PHYSICAL OR ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE.

OK, I sort of understand why they don’t want you using it in emergency communications (picture an ambulance crew trying to find their way to a heart attack victim using this stuff and not being able to get the imagery fast enough). I haven’t figured out yet how someone’s going to use a map to control a nuclear reactor, but it can’t be much harder than controlling a reactor via the iTunes software.

Much like the iTunes license, this one is also made hard to read. The bit where you agree not to use Google Earth to control a nuclear reactor is on the 20th screen out of 29. By hiding it this way, Google is assuring that you won’t read that bit and therefore won’t know that you’re not supposed to use the software in that manner. They’re awfully clever like that.

There is one ray of hope though. Google may have outsmarted themselves. In the same paragraph where you agree that you won’t use Google Earth to control a nuclear reactor, you also agree that you won’t use it for “Aircraft Navigation or Communications systems.” And like I said at the beginning, Google Earth includes a flight simulator.

Pointless Posts, Silliness

The Alternate Universe Lost and Found

4 Comments

Listening to Tom Smith’s “Alternate Universe Lost and Found” just now, it occurred to me that the idea of a Lost and Found like that ought to be a rich source of short story ideas. (As the song points out, it’s more than just socks that slip away between dimensions.) So always looking for something new to read, I went onto Google and typed in, “alternate universe lost and found”.
At first glance, the first search result seemed a bit surreal. But then again, when compared to the idea of an interdimensional lost and found, this “found” ad seems downright normal…

LOOSE PONY FOUND IN MARSDEN PARK AREA

How do you lose a pony?!

Silliness

Making Things Happen

I found out about three weeks ago that Michaele and Jeremy were expecting a second child about now. It’s been a while since I last saw Michaele, so this definitely took me by surprise. (After all, if you go around randomly asking people, “Oh, by the way, is your wife pregnant?” the best you can hope for is some very strange looks.)

Not having heard any updates, last night I dropped a line to a mutual friend asking if she’d heard any news. Lynn wrote back this morning with a birth announcement. The baby was born about eight hours after I asked if there was any news.

Clearly I need to ask my boss if there’s any news about me getting a raise!

Mischief, Rants, Silliness

The Curse Stops Here!

Congratulations!

You’ve just done the karmic equivalent of winning the lottery! Because you’ve found this page, you are now free from forwarding chain emails ever again! Want to rekindle a lost love? Just contact your old flame and if it was meant to be, it will be! Fame and fortune? If it was meant to be yours, it will be!

And all of this good fortune will occur without you ever again suffering the humiliation of friends or family members asking you to “Please stop forwarding me this crap!”

How does it work? It’s simple, any time you get an email urging you to “Forward this to everyone you know!” instead of sending it along, just click the “delete” button instead. You’ll instantly receive all the good luck you would have received anyhow! It’s that simple!

Of course, there’s a catch to this. Now that you’ve read this page, you must never, ever forward another chain letter. If you forward a chain letter after reading this page, you may very well find that your friends and family members think you foolish. And all the bad luck threatened by every chain letter you’ve ever forwarded may come back to you tenfold!

Sure, it’s quite possible that this is complete hogwash. But do you really want to risk it?

(Permission is hereby granted for you to copy this post to any blog you maintain. Please consider including a link to this page at:  http://dactylmanor.org/blair/zero/2007/09/04/the-curse-stops-here/.)

Rants, Silliness

License to Mock

5 Comments

When it comes to the end of the world, some folks assume it’s going to be brought about by a group of mad scientists. Another theory is that lawyers will destroy it. The lawyers will almost certainly be involved, but it wouldn’t be fair to put the full blame on them either. No, the end of the world will be the responsibility of Apple Computers CEO Steve Jobs.

A few days ago I decided to make one of my rare online music purchases. Most of the music I acquire online is made available for free by independent artists such as Tom Smith or the various members of the Funny Music Project. Other music purchases tend to be actual CDs so I can play them wherever I want to. But sometimes I only want one or two songs, and that’s when I use iTunes.

It’s not that I’m particularly fond of iTunes, quite the opposite really. I don’t own an iPod and getting the songs to play in the car or on anything other than my PC involves jumping through a number of hoops. (So far, Apple hasn’t taken me up on my quite generous offer to evaluate an iPhone.) But all the other online music stores also seem to be tied to a particular device and early on at least, Apple seemed to have the largest selection of songs. (Though they still don’t have The Beatles.)

It’s been a while since the last time I bought anything through iTunes and the version of the software on my computer is kind of dated. It plays the music just fine which is what I’m most concerned with, but to actually go and buy a song, Apple requires you to have the most recent version of the software.

So I downloaded the latest version of the iTunes software and set out to install it. Unsurprisingly, when you install the new version, you have to agree to the latest version of Apple’s software license agreement. This is a key element in Steve Jobs’ plans for destroying the world.

Apple makes it very easy for you to agree to their license terms. Or at least, they make it a heck of a lot easier to just click the “I accept the terms in the license agreement” than it is to actually read it. To keep you from being overwhelmed by its length, the license is “conveniently” displayed in a little window that’s less than two inches high and less than five inches wide. Only 12 lines of text are visible at a time and reading the license in its entirety requires you to hit the “Page Down” key a total of 35 times. They also don’t point out that when you accept the license, you agree to everything in there. Every last bit of it.

You really should read the iTunes license agreement. About four pages down, under the “Permitted License Uses and Restrictions” heading, you acknowledge that “THE APPLE SOFTWARE IS NOT INTENDED FOR USE IN THE OPERATION OF NUCLEAR FACILITIES, AIRCRAFT NAVIGATION OR COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEMS, LIFE SUPPORT MACHINES OR OTHER EQUIPMENT IN WHICH THE FAILURE OF THE APPLE SOFTWARE COULD LEAD TO DEATH, PERSONAL INJURY, OR SEVERE PHYSICAL OR ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE.” (The capitalization is Apple’s, not mine.)

With a little effort I can imagine the sort of Rube Goldberg contraption that would allow iTunes to be used in controlling a nuclear reactor. Something where a rise in the reactor’s core temperature trips a heat sensor which activates the speaker attached to a PC running iTunes. The iTunes computer is playing Barry Manilow’s Mandy at top volume. This wakes the baby who starts crying and startles the squirrel which pulls the string attached to the switch that turns the reactor’s cooling system back on.

So that’s how you can use iTunes to control a nuclear reactor. Using iTunes in air traffic control, etc. is left as an exercise for the student. But here’s the thing, because you agreed to the iTunes license agreement, you’re not allowed to use it that way.

Hit the “Page Down” key another 15 times and under the “Export Control” heading, you’ll find another forbidden use for the iTunes software. Now you’re agreeing (this time without unneeded capitalization) that you won’t use iTunes for “…the development, design, manufacture or production of missiles, or nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.” It seems to me that if you use the iTunes software to control a nuclear reactor, then whether you know it or not, you’ve already used iTunes to develop a nuclear weapon. (Suppose for example the squirrel chews through the string and isn’t around when baby starts crying? Or what if the baby’s taking a lunch break?)

By making the license agreement so lengthy and giving you such a small display to read it on, Apple pretty much assures that most people won’t read it. And if they don’t read the license, they won’t know that they’ve agreed to not use iTunes to control their nuclear reactors.

And that’s how Steve Jobs is going to destroy the world.

Rants

Gee, Thanks

2 Comments

Someone I thought was a friend sent me another of those stupid chain letters with the supposedly inspirational poems. Those things are annoying enough, but this was one of the threatening ones. Along with the inspirational stuff, the chain letter promises good fortune if you forward it to your friends. But if you don’t forward it, the letter goes on to say something bad will happen to you.

It’s not the first time someone’s sent me one of these, and it probably won’t be the last, but it does raises a question: If I’m a friend, why would you send me a threatening email? And if I’m not a friend, why are you sending me email in the first place?

What really bothers me though is the note he added at the beginning of the email. It says that he hates getting these emails too. Apparently he discarded it, but a few minutes later he nearly wrecked his car. Rather than take any chances, he decided to forward it to a group of friends.

So the outcome is that in his mind, he’s no longer in danger. I guess that means the rest of us are all in danger instead.

What a pal.