Tuesday - January 18, 2005

What Does The Future Hold?

Have you ever sat back and thought to yourself, “My parents have been on this planet X number of years.  What great things have taken place in their lifetime and how has life changed?”

I think of my father.  Where he was born is important as they had little exposure to motor vehicles.  So from birth he’s basically gone from horse and buggy to incredibly intelligent, safe and efficient cars; airplane travel that allows spanning the continent in mere hours and soon---space travel.  He’s seen landings on the moon; incredible universe discoveries via space telescopes; the atomic bomb; TVs (from B&W to plasma); radio (AM to FM); computers (let’s not even go there); internet; medical miracles; intelligent homes that respond to voice commands; etc. etc. etc.

So what will be saying 20 years from now?  Where will we be?  What will be “discovered” or become so common we do not even give it any thought?

Here are a couple of things to start with.

Spray on power cells. Imagine the ability to spray this stuff on clothing and plugging your cell phone or laptop into your suit coat?  Will we truly be “wired beings” in the future?

Or how about nanotechnology imbedded into your clothes to allow them to generate light or give you quick access to locations other stand in lines for?

Taking that step further, Philips has developed:

“a line of underwear, bras and accessories containing tiny electronic devices that monitor heart rates, body temperature, insulin levels and other parameters. When some measure goes awry—think heart attacks or strokes—your boxer shorts call an ambulance.”

That may be taking the concept of “being wired” a bit too far, eh?

So, any more ideas of what you’d like to see?

Posted by Ranting Right Wing Howler     on 01/18/2005 at 06:03 AM   
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   Monday - January 10, 2005

Science In A Redneck Version Of “Watch This!”

This could be interesting. Scientists are launching a probe this week that is expected to impact with a meteor on the 4th of July.

Supposedly it’s impact effects will be visible on Earth.

What troubles me is NASA’s comment which:

“stresses that there is no risk of the comet being diverted on to a collision course with Earth as its orbit brings it no closer than 50 million miles away and the impact will not change this by more than 330 ft..  This is the astronomical equivalent of a mosquito running into a 767 airliner. It simply will not appreciably modify the comet’s orbital path.  Comet Tempel 1 poses no threat to the Earth now or in the foreseeable future.”

Remember the famous last words from every single redneck who has made it into Darwin’s Hall of Fame?  It’s “WATCH THIS!!” and then they died in a blaze of glory.  I’ll be watching for it, though.

Posted by Ranting Right Wing Howler     on 01/10/2005 at 07:04 AM   
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   Tuesday - January 04, 2005

Married Women Are Dumb?

I don’t know about you but when I read this article, that was the conclusion I came to.

Men who are intelligent tend to marry while women who are intelligent tend not to.

That means a couple of things.  Women who are married are stupid and men are are single are so stupid they can’t find stupider d\females to marry.  (divorce does not count!) Or it could mean smart women are single and choosy and dumb men are single because they are dumb.

Sooooo.... anyone want to start a dating service on that premise?

But check out the last paragraph:

“in America there is one higher IQ group that has a higher fertility rate: Higher income Republicans have more children than lower income Republicans and various groups of Democrats.”

We’ll cleanse those pesky dummycraps out of the gene pool soon if we keep this up!

Posted by Ranting Right Wing Howler     on 01/04/2005 at 07:03 AM   
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   Monday - January 03, 2005

I Agree With The Town On This

A woman wants to open a home business in her neighborhood.  The city council says, ‘NO!”

She is fighting City Hall attempting to buttress her argument for the license by saying massage houses or dermatology businesses are currently allowed in residential areas.

Why am I in support of City Hall?  Becasue if I lived in that neighborhood I would not want to see signs saying, “get you colon flushed here!” or something to that effect.  Plus it would be a bit unsettling watching the folks parading in and out of her home after having gotten the hydro roto-rooter performed on them.  Visions of:

“Hey, there’s the mayor!”

“Look at that, the School Superintendent has been here every day for the past month!”

“Grandma?!?!?!”

Call me weird.  Call me wacky.  But I draw the line at that one.

Posted by Ranting Right Wing Howler     on 01/03/2005 at 07:28 AM   
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   Wednesday - December 29, 2004

Another Mis-Reported News Story

OK, these forons in the news media have finally encroached into my turf. For days now, I’ve heard how there is no warning system around the US to give us advance notice of undersea earthquakes or approaching tsunamis. Some newscasters have grudgingly admitted that there is a small system in the Pacific to warn of tsunamis on the West Coast.

There is a complex system of thousands of data buoys all around the US, in the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Gulf Of Mexico and it is linked in with data buoys off the coast of Europe operated by our friends, the Brits. The system is operated and monitored by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and managed by the National Data Buoy Center at the NASA Stennis Space Center in southen Mississippi. That’s where NASA builds and tests the engines for the Space Shuttle too.

How does the system work? These buoys are either floating or anchored in position. On board are countless measuring devices which monitor all manner of meteorlogical information, including wave height (hint, hint). These buoys communicate through a satellite uplink directly bouncing this information off of several NOAA-operated satellites down to a huge satellite farm at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. The signal data is cleansed and sent down a wide pipe to the NDBC Center, where it is stored in real-time databases for instant analysis by quality specialists. The database is HUGE and is constantly updated by the stream of real-time data. What is done with this data? It is published on the NDBC web site and is also available by phone link to a voice report of conditions anywhere along our coast. The US Navy, the Coast Guard and nearly all commercial fishermen know of this system and take advantage of it daily.

How do I know all this? For two and a half years I was database administrator for this system. It was my responsibility to keep the data flowing in and out to the analysts and to the web sites and dial-up lines. On several occasions, I had to “camp out” in my office there during hurricane alerts to make sure the data kept flowing (where the hell do you think the Weather Channel gets its information from?). FYI, the NASA Stennis Space Center is just down the road from Keesler AFB where the hurricane hunters fly out of.

So there you have it. Go visit the NDBC web site. There is a lot of good information there about coastal conditions all around the US. Tell ‘em Allan sent ya!

Posted by The Skipper     on 12/29/2004 at 05:36 PM   
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