Mercurial.

The spacecraft is feeding back all kinds of great data and the instruments are working nicely. I didn’t see Cruel Wife very much that year of working at the UofM so it is a very pleasant payoff to see the instrument working so darned well… You. Have. No.  Idea. … how tickled I am that [...]

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There, did you see that just now? THAT is what I’ve been watching for…

There’s the power grab I’ve been watching for. “I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won’t hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover.”  – North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue in her overt bid to overthrow [...]

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Wax on, wax off.

Update:  Hmmm.  So UARS didn’t come down yet.  Ha!  Ha, Mitchell!  Just goes to show you that when you start taking about physics it’s never “as easy as all that”. I continue to be less than concerned. **** Been a hell of a week in LemurHouse. All the same reasons with a few really scary [...]

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UARS Update

Update: Oh for God’s sake will you pansies grow up already? Young adults are the recession’s lost generation. In record numbers, they’re struggling to find work, shunning long-distance moves to live with mom and dad, delaying marriage and raising kids out of wedlock, if they’re becoming parents at all. The unemployment rate for them is [...]

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Then things got really strange.

Anyone who comes here, perhaps as many as tens of people know that I’ve got this chronic pain thing going on. After about 30 days of it you are ready to try a good deal many things.  It’s been 4-1/2 years and that hasn’t changed one bit.  I’d scoff goat glands or snort battery acid [...]

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Not until they’ve destroyed society…

Come on, now.  Grope, publicly demean, humiliate, inconvenience… US Customs can do whatever they want, really, because there’s no real oversight, but taking a man’s Vegemite?  For Pete’s sake… really? I like Marmite, no one in my family likes it, and I’m told it is similar (and I’m sure I’ll get nastygrams from outraged Australians) [...]

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Odds are…

A guy I’ve worked with for more than a decade had a huge hand in one of the instruments on UARS – well, pretty much it is his baby.  What is amazing is that the instrument worked for something like 14 years. So, 20 years after going up, it’s being borne out (once again) that [...]

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Lux sux.

Update:  More night photography.  Obviously I need a filter (an expensive one with lots of features, maybe two or three really nice top-notch jobbies just to be safe) for that lens flare but I liked the clouds. Update 2:  Cropped, per Nicole’s suggestion.   **** I have been hunting high and low for some alternative [...]

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Night shooting.

Funny, but following on the heels of my Words without equivalents post, aliceaitch over at DPUD passed on the following link, enough to make a father quiver. 50 Rules for Dads of Daughters.  Hats off to Michael Mitchell, the author.  Damn that saccharine-ey sweet list.   Does it have to be right? #7 seems appropriate.  #47 [...]

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Words without equivalents.

A friend of mine who no longer works with me sent a link to words that have no English equivalent. One that isn’t in the very top but is my favorite: Nervio:  A feeling of such intense affection that one trembles or grits his teeth with restraint so as not to harm the object of [...]

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Fads

Yes, I could say something about 9/11.  But there’s nothing I can say that isn’t already said many times over.   We were all angered and heartbroken.  I think many of us had thoughts of firebombing and cobalt-salting the middle east.  Scorched earth policies went through my head and to hell with anyone who said “Oh, [...]

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Never thought of this, did you?

Me neither. Japanese lamp fighting.  Really. Yup. ***crickets chirp*** I found it because I was looking at low voltage lighting and rice paper to make a japanese-style bedside lamp and “japanese lamp fighting” and “japanese lamp furniture” are veeeeery similar.  I require very little light to read by and I try to be courteous of [...]

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Enter the Contest and Win!

A blogger I have come to respect, The Curtal Friar, got us into a pickle by coming up with a pretty darned good composite offensive name for a video game that should be made (and would be if I were king) along the lines of Tea Party Zombies Must Die (but in stark contrast to [...]

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