Daily Report
It's been a cool, windy day here at Adams Pond. It's 75 degrees, and the promise of severe thunderstorms with hail and possible tornadoes lies just a few hours in the future. The weather radar doesn't show anything close yet, but the predictive radar shows strong storms coming through our area around 5 or 6 PM (Central Time). We can always use rain, but hail and tornadoes need to visit unpopulated deserts somewhere.
Sandy was up most of the night dealing with ATT over router problems where she works. They kept promising someone would be at the building soon, yet soon never arrived. They do VOIP for calls coming into the company, and that means their customers (old, new, and potential) can't call them. She had her call center folks work from home today so they could alleviate that problem. I think she only got a few hours' sleep during the night, and when she got through to ATT again this morning, she was definitely not a happy camper. Hopefully things will get fixed, and hopefully she can take off work early and get home.
And those storms better play nice, or she'll really get mad.
May the 4th
Today is Star Wars Day.
I remember the furor that occurred back in May 1977 when the first Star Wars movie came out. That was before they started numbering them and giving new titles and doing prequels that didn't really capture the energy of the originals (my opinion). I stood in line for over an hour, but I lived in a fairly small town at the time, so the entire population could have been there and I wouldn't have noticed a difference. Then that first burst of music combined with the title appearing and receding from view followed by the bad guys shooting at the good guys and the really bad guy (wearing black, of course) showed up, and then...and then...well, you know the story. Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, C3PO and R2D2, Obiwan Kenobi, the Force, and "that's not a moon" followed by "I've got a bad feeling about this."
Yes. I saw the movie quite a few times. Today is Star Wars Day.
May the Forth be with you.
Can You Spell Bribe?
News has just come out that Clarence Thomas has a child he's been raising as his son, and that "son" has been going to expensive private schools. His billionaire friend has been paying a minimum of $6000 a month for all of this. Calculations I've seen total over $150,000 in potential payments made for this child. I'm not blaming the "son" for all of this, of course. I do blame Clarence Thomas as well as the system that ignored his unethical behavior. The Republicans have been supporting all of his previous "benefits," and that's partially because they've eaten of that same forbidden fruit.
So, when is a bribe not a bribe?
Evidently when you're a Supreme Court Judge or a member of Congress.
The solution to all of this is for us to "unelect" these criminals when election day arrives. As long as they have power, they're going to get all their wagons in a circle and shoot at us with budget reductions and more illegal activities. The GOP has effectively become a criminal enterprise.
Is Your Phone an Open Line to Alien Civilizations?
The cat may already be out of the bag, but are we releasing an entire herd of cats on the universe? That idea relates to the reality that we began broadcasting our presence in the universe the moment radio went on the air. The first jokes of Jack Benny are spreading the news and will continue spreading the news that we're here until the universe drowns them out. But never fear, every time you talk on your cell phone, you're broadcasting our presence.
"The Earth is already anomalously bright in the radio part of the spectrum; if the trend continues, we could become readily detectable by any advanced civilization with the right technology," Mike Garrett, the director of Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at The University of Manchester, said in a statement. He's talking about leaking signals from cell-phone towers.
Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing remains to be seen. I guess it depends on who's listening.
We're listening as well, and as our technology improves, so does our ability to hear any alien civilizations that are out there broadcasting just like we are. Fortunately for them, we're a long ways from being able to pay them a visit.
That's enough for now.
Take care. Be safe.
cma
No comments:
Post a Comment