Monthly archive for June2014 - page 5

…that is, How Do You Get a Train Moving?  Interesting article at wired.com if you need to know the physics involved.  The answer?  Back up first.  Click the link to see why.  Hint: there is a reason why the couplings between cars have some space between them.  I was going to say some “slop” but…wait…I guess I said it anyway.

Of course, this would be an exception

What I’d like to know is: How do you stop a (bullet) train?  Or more precisely, how do you kill a (bullet) train?  Because we got one needs killin’. In My Opinion.

Cross Posted at Men Out Of Work Blog

Obviously, it’s just a bunch of machines, right?  I mean, what else could it be?  Here’s an article at Wired.com with some pictures of the inside of a large data center in Spain and…yep.  A bunch of machines.  I feel kind of ripped off.  Like the feeling I have when I realize the jet packs and flying cars I so looked forward to when I was a child not only don’t exist, but probably won’t in my lifetime.  Rrripped off.

Of course, I suppose a bunch of machines and wires is better than what might be in store for us if the movies are any predictor of the future.  These hollywood machines run the gamut from murder and mayhem to simple senility and incompetence.  Kind of like me on a Monday.  Let’s look at a few shall we? *Mike levels the .38 and pulls the hammer back*

There’s HAL 9000, the red-eyed murdering monster that knows better than you from 2001: A Space Odyssey.  

2001!!  Were they wrong!  In 2001 I had a Packard Bell PC with a 500MB hard drive and a dot matrix printer.  I could easily have kicked it’s ass.  But I digress…In Rollerball we have the less malevolent but rather disorganized and forgetful Computer Zero, where the Corporations that rule the world of the future have hoarded All The Information:

Yeah..try calling Tech Support when that thing springs a leak.  More recently from I, Robot we have VIKI, another violence prone misunderstood do-gooder who (which? that? whom?  Never mind) could be much more efficient if there weren’t so many bothersome humans around:

Probably just angry since she isn’t taken seriously because she’s been given a female name.  *Mike sets the .38 down on the desk*  So I guess we are safe..for now.  But you have been warned!  For in the future…Xbox Kinect plays YOU!

It’s a fact.  The Washington Post says so in the article Female Named Hurricanes Kill More that Male Hurricanes Because People Don’t Respect Them, Study Finds.  A study has found it to be so. Enraged at the disrespect shown them, even in the face of their multitasking superiority over their weaker, less inteligent male counterparts they have launched a campaign of death and destruction unlike any previously experienced by humankind aimed at garnering them the respect they so deserve, the respect they are entitled to.  That’s what the study probably said…I didn’t read it.  I don’t have time, I got a lot on my plate – these cat videos aren’t going to watch themselves.

The deadly practice of naming inanimate things after women has a long and …well a long history, and the results are sometimes beneficial in the long run.  The most recent example was during WWII when the allies came up with a secret plan to increase the effectiveness of bombing raids against the axis powers by naming bombers after women – girlfriends, wives, or just sexy babes in general.  It was believed that the enemy would not take thusly named aircraft seriously, and this disrespect would greatly increase the damage and casualties inflicted.  And as we now know, “Operation Sexism Gambit” helped turn the tide.

As we face greater and greater crises in the world today I look to our leaders to once again harness this awesome power of The Rage Of Disrepected Female Named Inanimate Things (TRODFNIT) and use it unsparingly to rid the globe of the scourges of inequality, perceived inequality, hallucinatory disrespect, and unfairness *sob*.  After all, Hell hath no fury like some inanimate thing named after a woman scorned.

Having been at this for  a few months now, and looking back at the blog as a whole, I am thinking a few things over.  One decision I am grappling with is whether I want to conitnue posting political content here.  I do follow politics and have strong opinions.  And the stronger my opinion, the stronger my impulse to write about it.  Therein lies the rub – I don’t want to chase any potential readers away with stringent political commentary.  It’s not you, it’s me.  While I’m not ashamed of my opinions, I just want people to feel welcome here regardless of politcal stripe, and though I always assumed politics would be one of the subjects written about here, I did not intend this to be an overtly political blog.  I’d really like to keep the atmosphere light around here.  I’m open to hearing about it.