I saw this linked over at Knock Knock, and i thought it was very cute. Take a look-see.

NOTE: Firefox doesn’t seem to like this much. I’m workin’ on it.

If the player doesn’t work, you can open the link by clicking below:

Bookmark this post to:

This is an essay that I published on another blog some time ago. I am reproducing it here because I like it.

What is Science !?

First of all, Science! is not the same as science. Science! is the study and knowledge of all things scientific, quasiscientific, or pseudoscientific. Anything that is obscure, incoherent, or improbable is made clear by the purveyor of Science! (also known as the Scientist!). The Scientist! has access to knowledge that even scientists do not have access to. They are truly the masters of all that is True and Scientific!

There are 3 characteristics of the practitioner of Science!

1. They always work alone. Scientists usually have teams of other scientists and technicians working with them. The Scientist!, on the other hand, works alone, in their own, small, often home-built, laboratory. The laboratory will be filled with various whirring, clicking, blinking, or bubbling pieces of lab equipment which appear to have no purpose since the Scientist! never touches them.
2. They work fast. In real science, scientists develop theories, test their theories, and then modify or abandon the theories as the evidence evolves. The process often takes years, if not a lifetime. In Science! the Scientist! gets his or her answer in a matter of days (or hours, or weeks, or minutes, depending on what timeframe is most dramatic). Usually, the Scientist! gets a bright idea, runs to the lab to test the theory, and then comes back with an unexpected, but clearly genius, answer to the mystery/problem/question in record time.
3. They are always right. Everyone else is always wrong. In real science, peer review is a critical part of the scientific process. In Science! peer review is not only unessecary, but is detrimental. Mainstream scientists never accept what the Scientist! has to say until events prove them to be soundly (and often, fatally) wrong.

Television, movies, and literature are full of practitioners of Science! One of the best example is the Professor in the TV Series “Gilligan’s Isle.” Does anyone know what he was a professor of? That’s right! He was a Professor of Science! The professor understood everything from primative cultures, to weather phenomena, to electromechanics, to astronomy. A master of Science!, he could do almost anything (except patch a hole in a boat).

Science! has evolved over time. In the 50’s and 60’s, the Scientist! was a non-specialist (and usually male). Science! gave him mastery over every possible field of study (much like the professor in “Gilligan’s Isle”). In modern times, the Scientist! is more likely to be a specialist, to acknowledge that, in the real world, most scientists are specialists. What they get wrong, however, undermines the one thing they tried to get right. For example, in the TV show Stargate SG-1. The character of Sam Carter is a Scientist! specializing in physics, while Daniel Jackson is a Scientist! specializing in archaeology. They both (especially Sam) have the attributes of the Scientist!, however. 1) They work alone, 2) they solve the mysteries of the universe in a few hours or days, and 3) most of the other scientists (when they show up with a theory) are wrong.

Another example of a modern Scientist! is the protagonist, Robert Langdon, in The DaVinci Code. Although Langdon deviates slightly from the typical Scientist! (the typical Scientist! is alone in his beliefs, but Langdon actually has the support of many of his peers), in other ways he is the same. He manages to solve the great mystery in the course of an evening, and there is never, at any time, a question that he may actually be WRONG in his beliefs.

And so, this is Science!. It is a product of movies, television, and literature, and it is real, in the sense that perception is reality. People think that all real science is done by lone geniuses who try to buck the system that keeps them down. If you ask most people, they will probably say that we would have flying cars and robots by now if it weren’t for the scientific community hobbling the handful of geniuses in their midst. It is this mindset that has led to the proliferation of pseudoscience, and theories such as Intelligent Design. The best defense against the growing misconception of what science is and what scientists do, is education. We need to teach our children, and our adults, that Hollywood is Hollywood, and that a Hollywood Scientist! has as much basis in reality as a Hollywood action hero.

Bookmark this post to:

Saturday, 9:47 am.

At Work.

I thought I had left behind this “working on the weekend” stuff when I left my last retail job - I worked at Pitchfork Records from ‘92 to ‘94. Anyone remember Pitchfork Records?

At any rate. . .

Occasionally, my job requires me to work off hours for various reasons. Today, I have to run a test on an ink that a customer complained about. This requires me to purge all of the ink out of our lab machine and put the “problem ink” into the machine so I can print test it. This process takes a few hours. Since this particular lab machine gets heavy use by my team of print specialists, I wasn’t able to do this during the week. Hence, I am here on a weekend when nobody is around.

A close-up of the printhead being purged

Since I’m on salary, I don’t get any overtime for, so I usually take some comp time for myself (its good to be the boss!). So, I exchanged a Friday afternoon for a Saturday morning.

It isn’t so bad. Most of the time is waiting for the machine to finish purging, so I am able to catch up on some emails and other minor things, and I even have some time to screw around on the ‘Net - like i’m doing now.

Overview of the print machine

Its not so bad. Just need a cup of coffee, sneak out for an occasional pipe, and I’m good to go. Its almost 10:30 now, and this is taking a bit longer than I anticipated. I hope I can get out of here by 2. grrr. . .

UPDATE: Okay, 5 pm and I’m back. I left for awhile while I was waiting for the machine to purge the second time. Its such a time-consuming process. I’m probably back here for another hour while I finish the ink changeover, make my sample prints, and get everything together for Monday. Blah, a whole Saturday shot.

Bookmark this post to:

Luckily enough, WordPress has a fairly efficient spam-filtering tool for comments. It catches all spam and places it in a special “holding cell” until I can review it. It has never accidentally put a legitimate comment into the holding cell.

Now, here is what I don’t get. This is a typical spam comment:

Great blog. It’s nice to be here! Bad, Bad, Red nothing comparative to Bad: http://www.euronews.net/ , when Round is Soldier it will Rape Stake Central Pair Rape or not , Girl will Slot unconditionally Green Chair Create or not

What’s with all the nonsense phrases? The automated program that posts these is obviously capable of generating clear English phrases - look at the first and second phrases. Why not extend this to the rest of the post? Why fill it in with random words?

Well, I’ve always believed that when Life gives you lemons, you should squirt lemon juice into Life’s eye and make it cry.

So, here we have the first installment of (drumroll. . .)

SPAM HAIKU
Taken from actual spam messages received in my comments

Mistery of the Cosmos
when Cosmos is Mistery
it will Win Soldier
Increase Chips is very good

Soldier Rape
when Round is Soldier it will Rape
Rape or not , Girl will
Slot unconditionally

UPDATE (28-Jan-06): Haiku is the simplest form of poetry imaginable. Anyone who can count syllables can make a free-form Haiku. Its fairly impossible to screw up — unless you are TJ.
Yes, for those who were paying attention, you will note that my Haiku have a syllable count of 7, 5, 7 instead of the actual 5, 7, 5. Next, I will try my hand at iambic pentameter spam. . . doh!

Bookmark this post to:

I suppose everyone has their own “crazy neighbor” stories. I have decided, however, that my neighbor is truly, off-his-nut, crazy.

We just moved in to our new place last November, and during the house-building process, we got to know the people who would be living on either side of our new house. There was Becky on one side and “the Old Guy” on the other. I know, I shouldn’t say “old guy” but thats what all the kids call him, and I’m afraid it stuck, since I can’t remember his real name. Both Becky and the Old Guy seemed very nice and pleasant, and we were happy that they were our neighbors.

Trouble came after we moved in. The Old Guy has a driveway that is 2-cars wide. On one side, he had set up four orange cones. Well, one day, Aaron had a friend over, and, kids being kids, the friend picked up one of the cones and started using it as a megaphone (what kid can resist using an orange cone as a megaphone?). Well, the Old Guy came out and said something like “Hey, yer stealin’ my cones! Try that again, and I’ll kick your ass you little shit!”

I was a bit shocked by the vehemence that he directed at Aaron’s friend, but I always give people the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was just having a bad day. Maybe he just didn’t like kids. Maybe he lost a lot of cones to kids in his life. I don’t know.

A few weeks later, after his cones got knocked over a few times (not by my kids, I don’t think) he removed the cones and set up a long wooden bar across half of his driveway, mounted on top of two five-gallon pails. Curiously, I asked our other neighbor, Becky, what was up with the Old Guy blocking off half of his driveway. She said “He doesn’t like people parking in his driveway.”

Quirky? Sure. But not exactly crazy. . . not yet. . .

A couple of days ago, we had a utility truck parked in front of our driveway, blocking off all exits or entrances. A friend of ours came by to drop off his son so Aaron could play with him. With no place to park, he parked in front of the Old Guy’s driveway. Well, not really parking, he was just dropping off his son, and left his car so he could help carry his stuff into our house. The Old Guy, who was out snow-blowing someone else’s driveway, came stomping over.

“You can’t park there!” He hollared out.

Our friend replied, “Oh, I was just dropping my son off. Sorry, I didn’t mean to block your driveway.”

“If you park there again,” the Old Guy said, “You’re gonna drive away with a couple of flat tires!”

The next day, the Old Guy no longer had half of his driveway blocked off. He had the WHOLE DRIVEWAY blocked off. A wooden barrier extending from one end of his driveway to the other blocked the path of any car that would park there. In order to leave, he has to move the barrier out of the way so he can get his car out.

Fast-forward to this Spring. Barbed wire stretches across the length of the Old Guy’s driveway. He sits outside in a rocking chair, a shotgun cradled in his arm. Occasionally he shouts out “Ye best stay outta my driveway, ye little shits!” to nobody in particular. He sits. He watches. His driveway is finally safe.

Oy!

Bookmark this post to:

What a mess!

At lunchtime today, 3 guys showed up to fix the water main right in front of our house. The leak was identified last Friday by the park manager — he showed me where the water was bubbling up from under the ground. He asked if we had noticed any drop in water pressure. I said “no.” He said “Well, its going to get better.”

So, today at lunchtime, three workers show up with a back-hoe and say that they are here to fix the water leak. I say “Great, have at it. I’m heading back to work.” My wife was home, so I figured that if they had any questions or problems, they could ask her.

Later that day, I had to pick up Amber from school, since she stayed after. Cindy couldn’t go because she was running her daycare and had 2 little ones at the house. So, I left work around 2:30, picked up Amber, and brought her home. When I got there, I found a HUGE hole in the front left corner of our yard. It was about 5′ deep and 8′ x 10′ wide.

The back-hoe was sitting idle. There was no sign of the three workers.

I went inside and looked at my exhasperated wife. “We have no water. The guys had to leave to get a ‘part’,” She said.

“A part? What kind of part?” I said

“They didn’t say.”

It must have been one huge part to require all three of them to get it. I shook my head, and headed back to work.

Bookmark this post to:

Geh. . . I hate trying to come up with a title for these things. . . “In-House gaming”? WTF?

Anyway. . .

Back when we lived on Rule Street, we had this great multi-use game table that we kept in the upstairs den. We bought it for the kids for Christmas 2004, but we never really had a great place to put it until we made room for it. The game table was magic — We went from a family of computer and video game junkies to a group of interacting, family folks. Many evenings were spent playing fooz-ball, pool, ping-pong, and air hockey. This simple, silly little thing really brought our family together.

When we moved, we put everything, including the game table into storage, and we had to live in a motel for 2 months while we waited for our new house to be completed. Living in the motel was great, though. We were living practically on top of each other (2 parents, a 15 year old girl, and a 13 year-old boy), but the lack of privacy was made up for by the closeness of the family. We watched TV together, went for walks together, and played games together. Everything was packed away, so we had to rely on each other for entertainment.

We finally moved into our new home in November of last year. It was an exciting time, and we enjoyed unpacking and finding places for everything.

Well. . . almost everything.

Anyway, once we got settled in, we had the holidays to contend with, which is always a stressful, but fun time. Afterwards, we started settling in to our old routine. I mean, our old routine — the one where Aaron would go into his room to play his playstation, Amber would watch TV, Cindy would play computer and watch TV, and I would play on the computer. In other words, we drifted apart once again.

So, the wife and I decided to bring the magic back into our home. We didn’t really have a place for the game table, and I had even considered selling it or giving it away. Cindy reminded me that we didn’t have a place for it in the old house either until we made a place for it. She was right, so we made a place for our magic game table.

Now we are breaking out of the old, bad, habits once again. The game table is irresistable. More irresistable than the TV. More irresistable than the computer or the playstation. We have started playing together as a family once again.

Its such a simple thing, but if it brings us closer together, then who am I to argue against the illogic of it. Now excuse me, I need to practice. Amber is the fooz-ball queen, and I need to beat her.

Bookmark this post to:

Thanks to Kathleen over at Unsettled for the link!

Bookmark this post to:

I’m as happy as a mollusc!

There is a little Newsstand in the center of town on Main Street. I was talking to the proprietor last week after wandering in there looking for some decent pipe tobacco. Currently, there is no place within 75 miles of town to get any decent tobacco, pipes, or anything pipe-smoking related. Even this little shop, which has the best selection around, is very limited in its inventory.

However, the guy who owns the newsstand said that he was transforming his little store into a smoke shop. He told me he was going to slowly start getting in a greater variety of cigars (which I don’t care about) and pipe tobaccos.

That was last week. Today, I wandered into the shop after work, and . . . Behold!. . . a new selection of Dunhill tobaccos. They had Elizabethan Mixture, Early Morning Smoke, Apertif, Nightcap, and Three Year Matured Virginia.

As you can see from the picture, I purchased a tin of Three Year Matured. I was in my truck at the time, and, since it was after work, I was about a quarter of the way through a nice pipeful of tobacco. I was so excited about the new tobacco, though, that I did a pipe-smoking-no-no. . . I emptied out my partially smoked pipe, and loaded it with the new stuff.

The taste was subtle and earthy. It had that rich virginia tobacco taste, well-mellowed with age Someone who was used to smoking aromatics (vanilla, cherry, etc) may have found the flavor bland, but I found it delightful and clean. Overall, a fine, subtly-complex tobacco treat.

Bookmark this post to:

I’ve added some new pictures to my photo album. You can view them on my Photo Album Site.

Fog hugs a river in Winchester, NH

Aaron (left) and his friend, Brady, goofing off in the bleachers

Bookmark this post to: