it's true - michael phelps is dope

feel-bad photo of the day award...

it's your typical superbowl sunday at the whitehouse

yes, it's business as usual at the whitehouse...

five of the 15 lawmakers invited to join obama are from pennsylvania, and two are from arizona. there are four senators and 11 representatives. the group includes 11 democrats and four republicans.






kurt warner - always praying to god and giving thanks when he wins, but whenever he fucks up, he's like a teenager who can't get laid.

biden is also hosting a Superbowl party at the naval observatory.

if arizona wins, flat eric says he will go without beer for a whole week...

spot the wanker...

a few photos from inauguration day

to those we knew and those we didn't.

what a great day.























flat eric seemed to be having a good time...

cheers to this family that drove up from north carolina and slept in their freezing cold car overnight, just so that they & their children could witness this historic occasion.

brilliant!

a new beginning...

and the best photo from the international motorcycle show goes to:

a real hero, and one that isn't in the US military (although he used to be)

wow. there actually is some good news.

this pilot, his co-pilot, and the crew of the airbus that landed on/in the hudson really deserve special recognition from the city of new york.

of course, Al-Qaeda are now looking into how to go about training flocks of geese into suicide birds...

"i'm not bad, i'm just drawn that way..."

the definition of cognitive disonance:

steve jobs' health, and apple's ability (the most image conscious company in the world) to send a clear message to its consumers and those that invest in the company.

the absudity of humanity in the 21st century

what is it about us humans that makes us so special/different from every other living entity on planet earth?

we seem capable of achieving incredible things:

intensive care units and the people, knowledge, and technology that today can save a human life.

touch-screen cell phones!, with streaming video, and the internet? - i watched star trek as a kid, and i'm pretty sure i didn't spot a single one.

and then of course, the same old shit: we are just seemingly incapable of not killing each other, because we hold different views.

global warming? - fuck global warming. if the human species wants to survive, we'd first better start to learn how to get along.

in case anyone hasn't noticed, we don't have anywhere else to go...planet earth is our ONLY HOME, for the foreseeable future.

...thanks, israel, for making the start of 2009 so fucking different.
you really are a bunch of cunts who, along with your enemies deserve to wipe each other out.

after all, isn't that exactly what you've both been doing since i was a kid, growing up, going to school, and watching star trek?

1,000 palestinians dead. and the west just wags it's flaccid finger in response.

the peace process is just too fucking predictable.

who the fuck believes there will ever be peace in the middle east?

cheers, god.

because if he exists, then he's biggest cunt of all time.

and for for all you christians, i'll tell him so if i ever get the chance (conveniently, when i'm dead, of course...)

but somehow, i rather doubt that.

image of the day goes to:

international motorcycle show

https://buytickets.motorcycleshows.com/tickets.aspx?sh=533

we're going today.

International Dark Sky Association

it's 400 years since galileo first turned a telescope to the night sky and changed science forever.

sadly, most of us living in light-polluted cities never get to see what's up above because of wasted energy continually pumped into the night sky.

you can do something.

join:

http://www.change.org/the_international_dark-sky_association_inc

http://www.darksky.org/mc/page.do

i will post a change.org invitation shortly

a bigger & faster galaxy - and it's ours.

from sky & telescope:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/home/37151649.html

The team finds that the galaxy's rotation rate is 270 kilometers per second (600,000 miles per hour). This is 15 percent faster than previously thought. And that in turn means the Milky Way is more massive than previously believed. In fact, it puts our galaxy on equal footing with our nearest large neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy (M31).

Because Andromeda has more stars than the Milky Way, astronomers have generally assumed that it was about 50 percent more massive. But this new result agrees with a study published two years ago by Mark Wilkinson (Cambridge University, England) and his colleagues. By studying the motions of satellite dwarf galaxies and globular clusters, they found that the Milky Way is at least as massive, and maybe more so, than Andromeda.

“We should no longer think of the Milky Way as the little sister of the Local Group of galaxies,” says Reid. “The two galaxies are basically fraternal twins — equal in mass.”

and we are all moving at 600,000 miles per hour...

2009: a new year of technical frustration begins...

Welcome to QuickBooks Sales Chat. You are now chatting with 'Madel'. I'll be your QuickBooks Business Consultant. How can I help you today?

Madel: Hi. Thank you for chatting with us today! May I have your name please?

you: i am a bookkeeper and run QB Pro 2007. i have a new client who runs QB mac 2006 (i think). he has joined with a company who runs QB Pro 2008. what version of QB will he need in order to access 2008 files on a mac?

Madel: I'll be happy to assists you with your concern!

Madel: You can access the 2008 file to QuickBooks 2009, however the Windows users need to have the same version of Mac to be able to access the files.

you: so he can access the existing 2008 QB pro (windows) files on his mac by buying 2 versions?

Madel: Yes that is correct!

you: what a rip off!

you: existing quickbooks customers now not only have to deal with your pointless yearly upgrades, but amazingly have to buy 2 more versions!

Madel: I do understand how you feel, if you really want to open the files into 2 different platforms then you really need to have 2 versions.

you: i doubt very much that you have purchased quickbooks for clients and had to go and tell them they have to upgrade...

you: why no mac version for 2008?

Madel: Our Product Development Team spend 2 years in giving a newer and better QuickBooks for Mac platform, that is the reason why we do not have Mac 2008.

you: newer & better is relative. certainly not from my & my client's perspective.

Madel: Would there be any other questions for me that I may answer for today?

you: to open a company file (a company having purchased 2008 pro) my new client now has to buy 2 more versions?

Madel: Will your client be staying on Mac platform or windows?

you: er...he's a mac user. why do you think i am writing this?

Madel: I will be right with you.

you: this is an impressive exchange...

Madel: Just want to clarify things so I can provide you your options.

you: my options look like buying 2 more of your products. yes?

Madel: Yes, if you want to be able to access 2008 files on a Mac.

you: so what other options are you talking about?

Madel: You can stay with Windows by just using one software.

you: he's Mac user!

you: i shall post this exchange on my blog.

motorsport also suffers in global downturn

suzuki announces that they are to quit the World Rally Championship,













honda will not compete in F1 in 2009,

















subaru also confirmed they were to end their 20-year involvement in the sport immediately.















and kawasaki are set to pull out of motogp.

Vote for a reduction in light pollution and save energy

planets put on a show

"god is great..."

he's so great, that he watches and does nothing, as his little thought experiment continues the same old game.

clearly, a higher being.

...and a merry christmas from the stock market...

merry christmas - unless you're santa, of course

A Scientific Analysis of Santa

According to a number of references, the world's current population stands at something just over 6 billion.

For this analysis assume only Christians believe in Santa and he, therefore, only visits Christian households on Christmas Eve. Several census and survey reports put Christianity at about 33% of the world's population, or roughly 2 billion people.

Figuring 4.5 people per household, there are approximately 445 million Christian households distributed around the globe. Thanks to different time zones and the earth's rotation, traveling east to west Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with.

With 31 hours to visit 445 million homes, Santa must visit 3,987 homes per second. So for each Christian household with good children, Santa has about 2/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, back into the sleigh, and move on to the next house.

Assuming that each of these 445 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about 0.17 miles per household, or a total trip of about 75.5 million miles. This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, or 3000 times the speed of sound.

For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a pokey 27.4 miles per second; a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour. The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium size Lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa who is invariably described as overweight.

On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" could pull ten times the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine reindeer. No, we need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload-not even counting the weight of the sleigh-to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison, this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.

353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance, which will heat the reindeer, sleigh, gifts and Santa in the same fashion as a spacecraft reentering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will each absorb 14.3 QUINTRILLION joules of energy.per second! In short, they will burst into flame instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them to the same fate. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths (0.00426) of a second.

Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500 times gravity. A 250 pound Santa, which seems ludicrously slim, would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,375,000 pounds of force per square inch just before, like his reindeer, he too is vaporized.

In conclusion, if Santa ever did deliver presents on Christmas, he's now dead.

Happy Birthday Earthrise

40 years ago, humans saw the first earthrise.

sadly, this breathtaking view of the isolation in space of our home planet has not reduced our capacity to kill each other, eradicate poverty and easily preventable diseases.

nor has our new view of the world we live in lessened our ability to treat this planet like we have somewhere else to go...

perhaps we need to see another snaphot, but this time when the polar ice caps have melted...

steelers at tennessee

go steelers!

Sears

been to sears lately?

had to go to the one in falls church, VA to pick up something i ordered over the 'phone, and it took over half an hour to not recognise my gmail print out confirmation number, the credit card used in the transaction, or even to acknowledge i was even in their system.

the merchandise pick-up area was staffed by a machine that spat out instructions too loud, but failed to provide a working system, a screen that told me my order was completed in 3:53 secs despite us being there for 45 mins, and lobotomized employees.

sears, rearranged reads Arses...

much more appropriate.

Earth enjoys full moon close-up

the biggest and brightest full moon since 1993.

see:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7779294.stm

Republicans try to kill the Unions...

WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday night abandoned efforts to fashion a government rescue of the American automobile industry, as Senate Republicans refused to support a bill endorsed by the White House and Congressional Democrats.

it's somewhat strange that we didn't hear anything from them with regard to wage & other concessions from Wall St. when they voted to approve a wide-sweeping financial bailout of the nation's banks and investment houses to the tune of $700 billion.

i like the way that they're blaming the UAW for their vote against the bill. i didn't know that the UAW had a vote in the senate.

.. of course, we'll have to wait and see if george bush met with any republican members of congress letting them know he would support use of the TARP money, in order to allow the republicans to publicly stick it to the UAW, vote against the measure, all the while knowing that a bailout would be approved without them having to vote for it.

i mean, it seems crazy to apply any Troubled Asset Relief Program money to manufacturing industry.

shouldn't it only be available to Wall St.?

or am i just cynical?

wall st. is under there somewhere.

Black hole confirmed in Milky Way

see:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7774287.stm

here's an image took a while back - not quite the same as an orbiting space telescope...

"team nutty" reaches 1/2 million milestone

climateprediction.net current credits: 500,877.24

USA Rank: 129

World Rank:547

http://boincstats.com/stats/team_graph.php?pr=cpdn&id=5497

John.C.Flood, Inc.

i just want to say a big "thankyou" to John.C.Flood, Inc. for arranging to come out between 1pm-5pm, and the 'phone call i received at 4:58pm letting me know they were running late (this was after we 'phoned them just before around 3:45pm and were told we were their next job)

my response was to tell the caller that unless someone showed up at my door in the next two minutes, i was canceling the job and would find someone else.

when it comes to contractors, you DO NOT have to take it up the 'ain.

speaking of which, gives me plenty of time to read 'joe the plumber's next great literary work...

it includes advice on 15 mins of fame, fashion, not paying your taxes, and lying.

perhaps they should change the title to encourage readership among all the far-right republicans...something along the lines of:

Cunt, I am

Oprah Winfrey Says She Now Weighs 200 Pounds

bugger me! (metaphorically speaking)

even nutty (not a large woman) weighs less than that.

don't bother reading the book.

it just tells you to eat, eat, don't exercise, try & look fabulous so more people you don't know can love you more, eat, eat, eat...

...and don't forget to eat and not exercise.

America leads the world...

click on:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7767192.stm

well, you'll have to do this, you'll have to do that, and i'm not happy about all....."

sure, Detroit's Automakers deserve to die, but the truth is the country can't afford to let them.

what is less clear is exactly why congress is grilling all these CEO's without mercy, making them beg, when they just handed out vastly bigger sums of taxpayer cash to the financial industry (without any concessions or talk about business models).

i didn't hear much about what citigroup had to give up for its $45 billion it has received from the government...

or as the Citi ad says:

the moon, venus & jupiter dazzle in the sky

anyone looking up at the night sky yesterday managed to see a rare conjunction of the moon, venus, & jupiter.

venus is the brighter of the two points of light (jupiter is hugely bigger, but venus is close to the sun).

for those who missed it, you'll get another chance to see it in 2013.

although the three objects appear close together, appearances in astronomy are deceiving.

the Moon is only 252,000 miles away, less far than you may have driven in your lifetime.

right now Venus is 370 times farther away, at 94 million miles. and Jupiter, at 540 million miles, is nearly six times farther than Venus.