2014-06-15

So maybe I can just turn this into a journal:

Watched the finale of Warehouse 13 today, and it ended just before the actual end of the program! ARRRRGH!

But then I realized I could probably find it online. Sure enough, at ScyFy.com, I could hav watched the entire episode, and got to confirm that there was only a few seconds left, as I'd expected.

That was Cool.


I also realized that that was the first time I turned on my TV once in over a week!

I went into the Series Manager, and deleted all the old series. Which left only CSI, Mythbusters, and Agents of Shield. (I gave up NCSI this season...the loss of Ziva at least nipped the budding romance between her and Anthony, but also removed my interest in the show.)

I'm seriously beginning to think about cutting cable completely, and getting my shows online.

Russia's making noises about pulling out of the ISS partnership by 2020. NASA has NO man-capable vehicle even on the books. Private enterprise is still a ways away from regular orbital flights.

I now expect to see the end of the ISS project in my own lifetime.

THIS is why a species with the competitive spirit to get into space doesn't go any farther. They can't cooperate long enough to get off the planet permanently.

More Time Travel

Use a time machine to go back thirty seconds and stop yourself from using the time machine. Bam! Single-generation Grandfather Paradox!

Story 1: Energy/Mass conservation violation destroys the universe. Boring.

Story 2: Energy/Mass conservation destroys the machine and everything around it. News reports your death in the explosion, and everything goes on unchanged.

Story 3: Both 'you's are destroyed, but the machine's fine. Everything goes on unchanged. (Technicians looking at mangled remains: "John said he was going to see what happens if he went back and prevented himself from going back." "Yeah. Let's be sure not to do that.")

Story 4 (and MY answer to the paradox): Just before you enter the time machine, another you steps out and stops you. "Why'd you stop me?" "I wanted to see what would happen." "But that's what I was going to do!" "Well, here we are. Now what?" (The very act of going back in time creates a new timeline that includes the traveler's appearance. The traveler vanishes from the original timeline, never to return. A similar traveler from another timeline may or may not appear in the original one, but only if he doesn't interfere with the original traveler's plans, or it's another divergent timeline.)

Story 5: The original you vanishes the instant the traveling you arrives. Still a new timeline.
"That's odd. I was going to enter the machine, but now I'm here, coming out of it." (Conservation of mass/energy destroys the original you the instant the traveling you arrives.)

Note: If there is only one reality/timeline/universe, time travel is impossible due to violation of conservation of mass/energy.

Similarly, even with multiple timelines, a traveler must arrive at the same one leaves, to preserve the mass/energy total.

Travel into the past adds matter to the past. How is that affected by Energy/Mass Conservation? Establishing the field that projects the matter into the past requires energy equal to the mass? Once established, the field is stable, and shutting it off returns the traveler? Or is it a one-way trip until an equal amount of energy is expended to remove the matter from the past?

Nature sems to violate Consrvation all the time on the quantum scale, for short periods. Perhaps the time travel field allows temporary violation on a macro scale? Field must be collapsed in a controlled fashion. Uncontrolled collapse releases all the energy at once -- the traveler is yanked back to the present, and is now at ground zero of the release. This is considered a Bad Thing.

The traveler experiences the travel while the field is being established? And again while it's collapsing.

The Billiards Paradox

I just read an interesting restatement of the Grandfather Paradox:

Imagine a pool table with a wormhole on it. The wormhole loops through time and space such that if you shoot a billiard ball into one end, it comes out the other end a second or so BEFORE it enters. So you'd see it emerge before it enters, and for a second or two, there are two of the same ball on the table. (We're ignoring whether this violates conservation of mass/energy.)

Now imagine aiming the ball at the wormhole so that when it comes out of the wormhole, it hits the version of itself rolling towards the wormhole, and deflects that one so it never enters the wormhole! Which means it doesn't come out of the wormhole, so it isn't deflected, so it does enter the wormhole, and it does deflect itself...and so on.


Yes, that's the kind of thing I find interesting.

Lesser Known Knights of the Round Table

Lesser known knights of the round table:

The one who drank too much: Sir Ohsis

The one who ate only meat: Sir Loin

The one who was always trying to please everyone: Sir Vial

The one who was always talking: Sir Rocco

The one with chronic dry skin: Sir Haira

The sweet one: Sir Up

The one with more than he needed: Sir Plus

The one who always wanted more: Sir Charge

The one who was always to stand in for others: Sir Rogate

The really strange-looking one: Sir Real

The one who watches everyone: Sir Veillance

The one who was afraid of actually fighting anyone: Sir Render

The mellow, laid-back one: Sir Furdude

And the sullen, angy one: Sir Lee

Grrrr

There are few things worse than having to wipe piss off a toilet seat before you can sit down.

One of them is realizing you didn't look closely enough before you sat down.

Guys are pigs.

And yes, I'm a guy. What's your point?

Reading

I've been an avid reader all my life. I don't even remember learning to read, I learned so young (my parents taught me to read before I even started school). I don't remember reading the "See Spot Run" type of books at all.

The first books I remember reading were the Lensman books by E.E.Smith, followed by "anything I could reach standing on the floor" (Mom kept the child-rearing books on the top shelf). Reading has always been my primary form of entertainment, almost exclusively science fiction.

And I read a lot. My reading speed on entertainment material is about 600wpm and I would have guessed that I read an average of 20-30 books a year. But this year, I've been tracking my reading on Goodreads. And I'm currently at 110 books this year! That's 15 books a month! And that doesn't even count short stories, or the nine that I gave up on and didn't finish!

I never had a grasp before on just how much I read. Wow.

Reading in the tub

I like to sweat out a cold by soaking in a VERY hot bath for an hour or more at the first symptoms. I find that knocks it down to one or two days, tops.

And, of course, I like to read while I'm in there. Probably not a surprise to anyone who knows me. I've done it for many, many years, and only dropped a book into the water once.

But I do my reading on electronic devices these days, and dropping one of those in the water even once is not acceptable.

So I was thrilled to discover that my tablet works just fine sealed inside a zipper freezer bag. Now I don't have to find a hardcopy in my collection to read the next time a cold virus tickles my throat.

marco, no polo

The kids in the complex were playing "Marco, Polo!" in the pool this afternoon.

At one point, I heard, "Marco!...Marco!...MARCO!...Where the hell is everyone?"

Seems the rest had quietly left the pool and were hiding behind the bushes.


Now that's funny!

It's ALIVE!

CLEAR!

CLUNK!

We have a pulse! I think...yes...okay, back off, it's stirring. Let's see if it survives any longer this time.

So, after two years, I feel like posting to this thing again. No promises how often I'll post, but we'll see.

DST atomic clock

I have one of those atomic clocks, that are supposed to update automatically. For the several years now that I've had it, it never caught the Daylight Saving Time time change. I let it go once, and it corrected itself Monday night.

I did some research, and learned that it checks itself at midnight. Which, of course, misses the DST change, because that happens at 2am.

Then, yesterday, I got up and it had reset itself properly.

WTF? Did they somehow distribute an update through the time signal? (Seems impossible.) Was my research that said it updated at midnight wrong? (Seems much more likely.) But if so, why didn't it ever update automatically for the 5+ years I've had it?!

I thought technology was supposed to make our lives easier, not more puzzling.

Look up your name on Urban Dictionary

Of course, it is Urban Dictionary, so be prepared for something horrible.

I ran across the idea in another blog: Look up your name in Urban Dictionary -- if you dare!

I did, and got this. I swear this is what came up first, but you're going to have to take my word for it, since I ain't putting my real name in a public blog. :) Fortunately, yes, I'm a guy.

1. [my first name]

    A man who is quite simply perfect.

Yeah. I can live with that.

Winter Driving

I've lived in San Diego since I was seven. But I spent a year in Salt Lake city in 79-80, working as a copy machine repair tech. During the winter I got all the snow driving experience I ever wanted.

Some of it was fun, like learning how to break the back tires loose as I rounded a corner and slide just far enough to leave me on the new direction. But when I did with my wife in the car, her reaction was, "Cute. Don't ever do it again with me in the car." Yeah, she knew I was doing it for fun, she just didn't appreciate it. And of course I was only doing it deliberately when there was no immediate other traffic that I could hit if I slid too far.

But my most memorable experience was a call that took me up to Park City, a ski town north of Salt Lake. I got up there and was driving up the main drag towards the address of the call when I came to a fairly steep hill. The last snowfall had been a couple of days earlier, and when I saw the blanket of clean, unmarked snow on that entire hill, I said to myself, "Man, if the locals won't drive it, ain't no way I am," and went around.

The great toilet seat debate

I have only one thing to say about it:

Isn't it better to find it up, and know it was lifted, than to find it down, and not be sure?



Me, I put the seat and the lid down before I flush. Do a search on "toilet plume" and you may just start doing the same. Mythbusters found E. Coli on toothbrushes several feet from the toilet when they tested it.

Thrift Stores and Games

I love haunting thrift stores for games. This morning I got a full complete set of Rummikub and the regular version of Scrabble for $6.

I've played Rummikub several times now and like it a lot, and I wanted a regular Scrabble set for taking to game sessions. My deluxe turntable edition is a bit awkward to carry.

I've also gotten Pictionary, Taboo, Catch Phrase, both versions of Balderdash, What's Yours Like?, Outburst II, Fact or Crap and Tribond, all from Thrift Stores, and all in fair to good condition. Occasionally parts are missing, but are usually easy to replace or work around.

If you're not locked into "I gotta have it brand new", thrift stores are a great place to find games.

You're Not There

You're Not There

Sometimes when I wake up, I reach for you beside me.

But you're not there.

Sometimes when I come home from work, I look for you as I open the door.

But you're not there.

Sometimes when I go the movies, I look for you, to ask what you want to drink.

But you're not there.

Sometimes I read a joke, and turn to tell you, to hear your laugh.

But you're not there.

When I go to bed, I look for you.

But you're not there.

I came home from work that day, and called out to you.

You didn't answer.

I opened the bedroom door, and saw you laying there.

You didn't move.

I saw your book, the glass of water, our cat beside you.

And I feared.

Then I saw the portable grill, the charcoal burnt to ash.

And I knew…

You weren't there.

The end of US manned spaceflight

is currently scheduled for November. Here's a bit of fiction to commemorate this historic occasion:

* * * * *


In 2058 the first manned mission to Mars ended in tragedy when the lightsail failed to deploy for the return trip to Earth. Attempts to free it failed, and damaged it beyond repair, stranding the 6 "Arenauts" in orbit around Mars. With no way to return to the surface or to Earth, each sent a final message home, then they bled off the cabin pressure, choosing the relatively gentle death of hypoxia over dehydration, starvation, or hypothermia . Citing the costs and dangers of interplanetary travel, further missions to Mars were canceled.

In 2069, funding for the second International Space Station was eliminated due to "excessive costs with no tangible return", and it was deorbited in 2071. Plans for ISS III never even got into the actual design stage.

Unmanned launchers had replaced manned vehicles for putting satellites in orbit back in the 2010s, and tele-operated robots soon replaced astronauts for satellite repair and retrieval.

By 2080, the era of manned spaceflight was over. Dwindling resources and increasing population pressure prevented Man from ever returning to space.

Almost a thousand years later, a disturbance outside the orbit of Neptune went undetected. No tracking station still operated to detect the burst of energy, and none of the great telescopes remained operational to track the giant object that fell inward past the outer planets. With careful use of gravity slingshotting and an immense lightsail, it orbited each of the inner planets in turn.

Some of the people living a feudal existence on the third planet noted a strange star that shifted across the heavens, and were enthralled by this promise of a new beginning, or terrified by this omen of disaster.

The probe orbited each rocky planet in turn, then worked its way back out to the outer system. Once it was far enough from the sun's mass, it folded the lightsail and transited back to highspace, that strange realm where neither Einstein nor Newton held sway, and transmitted its report to its builders, a quarter of the way around the galactic disk:

System 430307 survey completed. Third planet has intelligent life, formerly of a high technological level but now decayed to natural energy only. No distinguishing characteristics. Survey team not recommended. Awaiting instructions.

The reply came a few seconds later:

Report received. Recommendation filed. Continue to next system.

Return of the Coolth

After a month without Air Conditioning, I finally have it again. In the town I live in, A/C is not a luxury.

It's so nice to see the indoor temp actually below 85 during the day again.

I gonna go not sweat for a while.

Simple Pleasures

When you live alone, you learn to appreciate some of the simpler pleasures in life:

The first sip of a perfect cup of coffee.

A single piece of quality chocolate, melting slowly on the tongue.
The purring of a cat.

A row of half-a-dozen freshly ironed shirts all hanging on the clothes rod.
 
Cool water after an unpleasant, sweaty task.

Sometimes

Sometimes I wake and expect to see you laying next to me.

Sometimes I hear you moving around in another room.

Sometimes I hear your voice just before I fall asleep.

You left this world two years ago.

But sometimes, you haven't left at all.