Tag Archives: technology

Are you a Venusian or Venetian by trade? Surely not Vitruvian!

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Yesterday, as a temporary volunteer to help the Von Braun Astronomical Society promote the joy of observing the cosmos (in this case, seeing the silhouette of the transit of Venus across the surface of our local star), I observed us.

By the hundreds.

Young, single men and women.  Families.  Divorcees.  Single moms.  Weekend dads.  Widow(er)s.

Dressed in business clothes and casual summer attire.

Using solar filtered, paper framed glasses to look at the tiny orange ball heating the air and ground around us, squinting to see the even tinier black dot traversing the surface.

Thank goodness we had telescopes a-plenty and a video broadcast to the nearby big screen TV to share larger images of the planetary alignment.  A tabletop sun magnifier that showed sunspots on a piece of paper.

Jeff, Debbie and other VBAS volunteers were wonderful.  The teacher who dropped off 50 paper solar glasses we thank, too.  The folks at the Davidson Center on the grounds of the US Space & Rocket Center performed their usual duties flawlessly.

Hopefully, a few young people were inspired to pursue a career in science, technology, engineering and/or math, applying future skills one day in areas as diverse as sewer/chemical remediation and planetary exploration.

I hope it inspires someone to create a kid-safe high-powered telescope because telling children, “No!  Don’t touch the telescope!,” “Don’t lean on the table!,” and “Don’t point those binoculars at the Sun!” probably turned some children off from the fun of looking at stars, galaxies and planets at night rather than grabbing their easily-acceptable, childproof video gaming equipment.

A nod to local news broadcast crews for their remote setups to help promote the Venus transit event.  Without your interest and time on the air, many not have known what was going on — education is a culturewide participatory subject.

Have you received a call from 600-233-1234?

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Telephones — landline, mobile — are useful means of getting/receiving information.

Received a call from 600-233-1234, performed a quick Internet search and found the following interesting tidbits.  Useful?  You make the call:

27 Jan 2012
This telephone number is associated with http://www.creditcardsupport.net

Whois results indicate creditcardsupport.net was registered in Pakistan by the administrator of this email address: faraz@pakcct.com

Whois results for http://pakcct.com returned this information:
Administrative Contact:
Ali, Murad murad@dialer4rent.com
EDT Systems INC
3604 Flagstone Dr
Carrollton, Texas 75007
United States
(972) 394-1165 Fax — (972) 394-9128

The pakcct.com website also indicates that it was designed and operated by Umair Ali and links to his personal website: http://umairali.com

Whois results for http://umairali.com/ returned this information:
Administrative Contact:
Plasticwala, Murad murad@dialer4rent.com
EDT Systems INC
3604 Flagstone Dr
Carrollton, Texas 75007
United States
(972) 394-1165 Fax — (972) 394-9128

*Note: Same address

Umair Ali has listed his personal phone number on his website: (469) 892-8637. This phone number is a google voice account which links to his carrier phone number (New Cingular Wireless Pcs) which is (214) 738-6247.

*Note: The caller from 403-255-8807 had previously identified himself as ‘Umair’

We called (214) 738-6247 and the individual that answered the phone was the same caller that tried to steal our credit card information and while panicking accidentally divulged information regarding another scam involving some type of tickets.

*All this information is available publicly*

Do not combine “6,” “four”, “nineteen,”eighty,” and “9” together in one sentence

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With only 13,850 days to go until the next major milestone is reached (there, of course, are bonuses should we complete any of the many minor assignments for the milestone ahead of time), let us look at the theories of the day and ponder their implications…

In previous decades, we could ruin the reputation of guns-for-hire or “secret agents” by outing them — exposing their homosexual trysts/relationships through a mass media leak.

Times have changed.

It takes more than outing a spy to turn the spy into a criminal.

These days, we have to claim the operative is a cannibal.

Hey, go with the flow.  If zombie films and zombie apocalypse shows on the tellie are popular, then take advantage of the zeitgeist and make spies zombies amongst us.

That’s why we turned a “Canadian” agent into a flesh-carving and eating zombie.

It would have been a lot easier to send photos of him with his Chinese boyfriend, a double agent himself, to a television talking head but *YAWN* the producers would have said, “So what?,” and parked the pics in the morgue.

Instead, hire a body-double, stage an Internet viral video or two, send a few body parts to government offices and next thing you know you’ve turned a useless rogue agent into a grotesque mockery of a good cover story of a porn star trying to infiltrate the snuff film industry.

Thing is, we in the government are a little short of cash right now.  Anyone want to buy the film rights to this soon-to-be blockbuster quadrilogy that makes the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo look like a baby’s bedtime story?

James Bond may like fisticuffs but our new fictional psychopathic agent will do whatever it takes, including consuming his victims, to serve Queen and Country.

“O Canada, we stand on guard, we stand on guard for thee…”

Meanwhile, in a test of the possible terrorist spread of tropical disease (Chagas, etc.), we released genetically-modified bedbugs into luggage traveling through busy airports — Denver, Munich, Beijing, and Moscow (we tried London but their security is locked down tight ahead of the Queen’s rainy reign anniversary and the 2012 Olympics).

We tracked the bugs, which are invisible, pure black boxes, under UV and infrared light, only visible through the radiation detectors installed in popular mobile phones, to see how reasonable to believe such a terrorist threat could be.

Strangely enough, we’ve caused a quiet epidemic of dandruff.

Ahh…the unintended effects of a fielded theoretical experiment.

We don’t dare tell you what happened to the irradiated fibers we placed in bus and train seats last year…

Taking a break from blogging this week

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I want to contemplate the universe silently, listen to the sounds of our planet, and investigate the possibilities of “broken heart” syndrome (the feeling of uselessness that job loss and lessening family responsibilities may have played in my father’s untimely death).

I’ll be back next week sometime.

Congrats to SpaceX on completing the ISS resupply mission successfully.  Won’t be long before they can transport people into orbital vehicles, eh, Mr. Bigelow?

Blog correction: thanks to a reader for pointing out that it wasn’t an Armitron, it was a Casio watch I once owned that squeaked several musical phrases as alarms.

Will keep viewing the dozens of blogs I follow to see how Earth influences our species’ actions in cyberspace.

Junior Achievement

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Without a doubt, melancholy will rule the day in waves, small and large.

The storyline does not wait.

Deadlines take on a new meaning but do not change.

Today is a transition day, where family members act like archaeologists piecing together the specifics of a person’s life preserved in cryptic notes, printed emails, neighbourly comments, and sympathy cards.

Where news of the world fills headlines without fail.

Singular.  Plural.  Pluralities.  Moralities.  Light ties.  Bright skies.

First edition hardback books increasing in value.

Walls covered with family photos.

Satellites spinning overhead.

Solar system settlement plans settling down.

Pop singers buried with melodies and harmonies echoing in solemn chambers.

Time to pick up the flag and carry it on, honouring my father and those who established subplots that crisscross unnoticeably.

We’ll update the signposts.

The Committee will reconvene, because committees have a joie de vivre of their own, wanting to multiply indefinitely.

You might ask, “What is next?”

For instance, how do we jail law offenders in this instant while planting seeds to prevent people from becoming law offenders in the next instant?

Who is looking at the numbers, asking why a person intentionally commits a crime and wondering how to make that person a positive influence on others before becoming an ex-convict for life?

Would mentoring that person at a younger age have prevented criminal tendencies?  Does mass media have a role to play in playing down the glamour and [in]convenience of a life of crime?

Is crime a universal trait of our species just like a fox will steal a chicken from the hen house or a cow will get its head stuck in a barbed-wire fence trying to reach blades of grass just out of reach?  Is a caterpillar’s camouflage a crime against nature?

When are property rights a hindrance, an enabler of criminal activity?  When should laws be broken or rewritten?  What is the definition of a person and thus a person’s “natural” rights?

Old thought patterns give way to new design pathways for us to put in place, setting examples to follow rather than punishments to pass out in the quest for expanding our knowledge and exploration of the universe.

A privately/publicly funded spacecraft approaches the International Space Station, a tiny step in the establishment of our species as extraterrestrial beings.

People perceive that a blind activist is traded for the sale of a movie theatre chain.

It’s time to give you the future in words and actions, not perceptions.

Time to influence youth to set goals that seem impossible today, yet readily achievable tomorrow.

Facts, rather than promises, will fill tomorrow’s headlines.

Once Upon a Time in a Warehouse…

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Ever watched a fire scatter homeless people?

Are there days of the week that homeless people make more money telling their stories and asking people to help them out?

What about the 24-hour period that some call Sunday?

The dilemma of managing a storyline 1000 years into your future is remembering the ambiance, the daily tricks of the trade, the parts of your society not bothered with car bombs, assassinations, sky drone monitoring or global warming.

Your planet seems so small in retrospect.

However, telling you about interplanetary transportation issues or galactic survey crews is like telling the founders of Angkor Wat about the printing press or steam-powered locomotives — you’d understand the concept of progress but not necessarily the technological details.

So it is with a random warehouse fire like this:

Typically, you’d get reports that galactic travel machines were burned to hide the evidence of a time twist, or that mobsters were settling a old score.

No doubt, you’ll hear that homeless military veterans were lighting up a big handrolled tobacco cigar and set trash on fire by accident.

Eyewitness reports will appear that show homeless people WERE in larger numbers in the Tri-Cities on the day of the fire.

However, there’s more to the story than meets the eye.

Look carefully:

Can you tell the difference between that photo and the following two:

No?

Let’s try it again.  Look at this photo and see if you can solve the mystery:

You may have to perform an analysis of the chlorophyll concentration, as well as figure out why a mother would pull her two small children out of a safe vehicle to walk toward a raging fire.

Getting warmer?

I thought so.  In 1000 years, we’ll use the space where the warehouse burned for a massive experiment of species overpopulation in absence of balancing predators.

We’ll demonstrate that the excess capacity of enclosed environments — office space, hotel rooms, concert halls, church school rooms, restaurants and public/private classrooms — was put to use toward housing the homeless and turning them into productive members of the Earth-based space travel preparation programs.

I need all seven billion of us to accomplish upcoming goals.

Every milestone is critical and even the tiniest talent, from designing hospital gowns for the prevention of the spread of Klebsiella pneumoniae, to losing $2 Billion, to begging for money on the street, is important.

We’ll keep you posted.

Thanks to Doug/Deanna at Walmart; Donna, Martha, Ronnie, Debbie and more at MHVAMC; Cootie Brown’s; Oh Henry’s; Pal’s; Col. Hts. Pres. Ch. participants; Valero; Mapco; Demetrice at Cupboard BP; Pete at the Chophouse; Home Depot; Rogersville Produce Market; to be continued…

Take it from a motorcycle driver

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Have you driven down the road and noticed a change in the style of guardrail protecting you from leaving the roadway in case you lose control of your vehicle?

Let’s put the Law of Unintended Consequences to use today.

Take the cable barrier, for instance:

Let’s say you lose control of your vehicle and cause either yourself as a motorcycle driver or another person steering their iron horse to veer off the road and smash into a cables strung out to protect you.

In secondary school, a classmate was decapitated when he lost control of his motorcycle and his helmet was caught on the rim of a steel beam guardrail.

These days, if fate puts you in the hands of a cable guardrail, you may not lose your head but get limbs mangled and sliced off.

The choice is yours.

Hey, be careful out there!

I am going to walk outside and enjoy the sweet serenade of the Brood I cicada cycle, their flight paths less likely to put them in harm’s way of cable guardrails.  Maybe a few car grilles, instead.

Will catch up on thank-yous later this weekend.

Near Earth Orbit

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Trying to be sarcastic about sarcoidosis or small cell cancer doesn’t go over well with family facing my father’s deteriorating health condition.

Instead, I follow the advice, relayed, of looking up terminology and longterm acute care services through popular search engine technology.

My mother’s health, viewed closely by my sister, is at stake.

Sigh…

One whole thousand years from now, the details of this day are lost to modern memory, despite mass media portrayal of ubiquitous surveillance fighting against sousveillance.

I wonder how many people are unaware of factual existence not supported by fantasies, dreams, delusions and skewed beliefs.

Can we see without labeling?

Can we live in the moment without overlaying illusions?

How do we remove the “we” to be the [super]sets of states of energy that constantly interact?

And, in so doing, how do I help [to] direct medically-trained professionals toward resolving rather than speculating about [the root cause(s) of] the set of issues dogging my father on a daily basis?

All in an effort to clear my thoughts to focus on life decades and centuries from now through data-driven projections of fluctuating trends recorded in a blog/storyline?

First Rule of STEM School: Never, ever, extract or extend the results of conjecture and/or analysis toward infinity.  Safely assume trends are at cross-purposes and will either reach equilibrium or pull one another apart.  Or both.  Or neither.  All at the same time.

The “House” Effect: Or, how the CSI effects affected aftereffects

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While the Subcommittee on the Organisation of Offworld Committee-Forming Avoidance convenes its annual bimonthly meeting to finalise plans for colonisation anarchy policies and procedures, the monetary policy to end the dependence on Fiat and Dodge taxes is in its final stages of incompletion.

That’s the message I’m supposed to send today.

Sitting here in my virtual cyberself, a suit of robotic clothing that simulates my former self (the original set of states of energy long since spoiled after exceeding its expiration date), the residents of the local council estates gives me a round of applause and then a standing ovation for handing them the best performance of the “House” effect.

You know the drill, of course.

Whether one should credit the writers or acting ensemble, with special emphasis on the influence of Hugh “Huge Ego” Laurie, or thank the producers/directors, is a matter of debate long since exhausted.

A mix of dyspepsia and dystopia, cooked to a boil, cooled with a few frozen pieces of Holmesian analysis and served next to a side dish of considerably half-baked humour.  At room “temeprature.”

Garnish with kale, not iceberg lettuce, for the aftereffect is enlightening nutritious, not Titanic, in nature.  Or, at least, shocking in worst case presentational sentimental presentments.

Thanks to the behind-the-scenes folks at the PatriotStore, PatriotCafe, and construction workers wearing creatively stickered helmets at MHVAMC; Nina, Sharon and Geno; Brynn; Dr. Coffey; Danielle; Randy at German Motors; Olympus Exera equipment; evidence-based medicine; and more later…

Congrats to Chestney on the birth of her child, Shannon Elizabeth, 8 lb 7 oz, 21-in long.