Spotted this one adorning a mini-SUV in Irvine:
Bet you ten years ago this wouldn’t have made it past the DMV.
Category: Highlights
Unfriendly Job Posting
I don’t remember when, where, or how long ago this was—or even which of us saw it—but I found it while cleaning the piles of junk off my desk this afternoon.
I mean, what’s not to like about this position? You get to work half to death for a “nasty boss”—he’ll even kick you around! Such thoughtful consideration, especially to tell you about it up front!
Manual off-topic
I picked up a new mouse to use at work yesterday, mainly because I wanted a scroll wheel that actually turned. (The old one was jammed.) I figured I’d go optical as well, since I much prefer optical mice. I ended up getting a basic $15 Microsoft mouse, though I would have gone for a more expensive Logitech if I were getting one for home.
When I plugged it in this morning, I was surprised to find that it skipped all over the place. Not constantly, as if the KVM had gotten its signal mixed up, but enough that it would be a real pain to use. (Oddly, it worked more smoothly on my Linux box than the Windows box. I have no idea why.)
So I pulled out the manual, looking for a troubleshooting section. Something like “If your mouse skips, it may be caused by XYZ.” Nothing. The contents were:
- One page on how to plug it in
- One page on which button does what.
- One page on cleaning instructions (half of which was for ball mice).
- Five pages on ergonomics and how to arrange your chair, desk, monitor, keyboard and mouse to avoid eyestrain, carpal tunnel syndrome, etc.
- One page titled “Be Healthy,” advising you to eat a balanced diet, get plenty of rest and exercise, see your doctor on a regular basis, etc.
- The usual radio interference and legal information. And another health warning about RSI.
Useful information to be sure, but not quite what I was looking for.
As it turns out, I just tossed away my mouse pad and tried the mouse directly on the desk. It works like a charm now. I guess the pad was too reflective or something.
Billion-year-old Nuclear Reactors
From the Astronomy Picture of the Day, it’s the remnants of a two-billion-year-old nuclear reactor discovered in 1972 in a mine in Oklo, Gabon.
Apparently in the old days there was enough uranium-235 in the Earth’s crust that, under the right conditions, nuclear fission could occur naturally. Over time the fuel was used up, and now uranium deposits are mostly 238U, so we don’t need to worry about any new nuclear reactors popping up without our help.
What’s really odd is that this reactor produced plutonium naturally. There’s still some there. Most periodic tables I’ve seen label plutonium as a synthetic element, so the idea of natural plutonium takes some getting used to.
Kind of like the idea of a natural nuclear reactor.
Sticker series: Visualize…
I’m sure you’ve seen the bumper stickers that read:
Visualize World Peace
and the parodies that read:
Visualize Whirled Peas
…but we saw a new one this morning:
Visualize Grilled Cheese
Proto-Autobots
I found this ad from 1972 while looking through old comic books. At first I just found it interesting in a proto-Transformers sort of way, but then I looked more closely at it:
It actually uses the phrasing, “more (car) than meets the eye!”
A little scripting humor
After updating some links, the following dialogue occurred to me:
Sallah: Indy, why does the web… move?
Indiana: Give me the URL.
(The location looks like a Python script)
Indiana: Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?
Sallah. ASP. Very dangerous. You go first.
(Actually, I have to credit Katie for the Python reference. The first and last lines just popped into my head, though.)