No, that’s not really a picture of the wings of a Giant Space Bat, taking aim on where his first bite will be. It’s a “selfie”(1) taken by the Planetary Society’s crowd-funded pure research space craft: Light Sail 2. Read more…
There’s a hotdog stand (they sell many things, but “hot dog stand” is descriptive) in my town, right on the main drag (it’s a small town). It’s one of those trailer/building things, could be hooked up to a truck and Read more…
I found this online, from a former Microsoft Employee. I think it explains a lot of things, except for why, under these circumstances, Microsoft’s stock value keeps going up (at a rate faster than inflation, that is). Truly, this isn’t Read more…
“Don’t just teach your children to read… teach them to question everything that they read… teach them to question everything.” – George Carlin (Great American Philosopher, aka, Read more…
So you get a check in the mail. Most of the time you can tell it’s a check without even opening it up. So can any one else looking at it. Is this not a most serious security violation? The Read more…
I saw a package, frozen something-or-other by some company-or-other, that actually said, “caution: this product may be hot after heating.” There are just so many things wrong with that statement… “May be?” May be hot after heating? Does it have some super Read more…
The number of times in a week (or even in a day) I have to click on somebody’s legal disclaimer, end user agreement, “we use cookies” announcement [by the way, all websites use cookies, and they are absolutely harmless. Deal with Read more…
Dear Microsoft: Please stop trying to improve things. You don’t do it very well. Sincerely; A very frustrated Long Time User of Windows and Olden School Programmer & Software Designer. (So there) P.S. you see, the problem is that Read more…
Looks like Mars is positively a-swim. (Sort of.) Take a look here(1) if you haven’t heard to news. Well… okay. Not “a-swim” not when compared to its closest neighbor (us) whose surface area is 70% free-standing water, not merely a (probably) Read more…
Just a quick thought: if, after a political debate, the pundits have to debate who won, then no one won. Possibly it means that none of them are fit for office. More likely it just means none of them are Read more…
I was 8 years old, more or less, when TV advertisers started to seem suspicious to me. I’d ask around, ask some questions of the adults and those who didn’t say something like “you ask too many questions” or “aren’t Read more…
This is the other half of what is really a two-part posting, first questioning the modern “conservative” movement, now performing similar surgery on the so-called “liberals.” First, a definition: liberal: per the Oxford English Dictionary(1) 1. open to new behavior Read more…
The last few years (ok, the last 30) it’s become increasingly hard for me to put the traditional definition of “conservative” together with the actions of those who now call themselves conservatives. The American Republican party (which is generally considered Read more…
I’ve been watching words I use everyday (more or less) gradually fall out of use during my life. This is fine; that’s how languages are. I’ve also watched the typical vocabulary go down over the same time span. Walter Cronkite Read more…
With all respect to the Ginsu Knife (has been out of production for some time now) I tend to use the phrase “Ginsu knife advertising” to refer to a particular category of come-on that I put on the “to be Read more…
There’s an ad for ADHD(1) where a young person is caught just staring blankly out the window. The ad says, or implies, this is a serious mental disorder. Bull! It’s called day dreaming and it’s a very, very important part Read more…
You may or may not remember (or otherwise know) that one of the the first American Space Shuttles(1) to fly was the Enterprise. This was supposed to be a candy thrown to the Star Trek fans of the time. Problem Read more…
So, we had a serious blanket of smoke here, due to some fires (quite a few, actually) and a freak wind from the North East. I mean serious smoke. At 1:30 in the afternoon it was nearly pitch black outside, Read more…
Let’s face facts, folks: there is no science behind Star Trek. It’s Science Fantasy(1), not Science Fiction. Looking for the science behind it is like looking for the science behind Lord of the Rings. There isn’t any, but there doesn’t need Read more…
I think I was 12 years old the first time it dawned on me what “kills 99.9% of all germs means.” I was spraying a can of “disinfectant” around, per my mom’s instructions, because the basement had flooded, flood handled Read more…