Focussed On The Future

I thought this was well done.

theviking10 posted the following image to reddit and asked what caused the curving lines:



The top-rated response, from eagleapex, was this:

When new lines
hit your eye
from two screens
when they ply
…That's a moiré.

which is taken from this Craig Swanson post.

The followup comment, from zenon, was:

When the lines
on the screen
make more lines
in between
…That's a moiré.

How can I have spent all these years on the internet and never heard of zombo.com before?

Your zodiacal sign is determined by which constellation the sun was in when you were born. Unfortunately, due to the earth's wobble, the exact date on which the sun appears in a given constellation changes over time and has changed considerably since the Babylonians set up the current system of 12 signs, thousands of years ago. The net result is that many of us have been using the wrong sign all these years. For example, I was born on March 3. That used to fall into the range of dates for Pisces but has now been corrected to be Aquarius.

So it turns out that I'm not really dreamy, erratic, creative, romantic, compassionate, elusive, imaginative, sensitive and kind after all. I'll have to get used to being original, idealistic, rebellious, independent, inventive, open minded and honest instead.

Like most kids (in Canada, at any rate) I got a weekly allowance. Initially it was a couple of bucks a week but at some point Mom decided to just give my brother and I the monthly Child Benefit from the Federal government, which I believe was $20 per child at that time, on the condition that we were henceforth responsible for purchasing our own school supplies.

In those days fifty cents could buy you a soda and candy bar so 20 bucks was a significant chunk of change for a kid and I ended up saving a lot of mine. At some point my savings passed the magical $100 mark - which seemed like a small fortune to me - and I began to dream of what I would buy with all that money.

Those dreams took on more solid form with the release of that year's Sears Christmas Catalog. As usual I pored over the toy section of the catalog first and while many delights leapt to my eyes, none exhibited a strong enough pull to extract my hard-won savings from the bank vault in which they sat. Besides, for a mere toy there was always a good chance that I could wind up getting it for free, as a Christmas present.

It was in the business section of the catalog, while looking at typewriters, that my dreams became desire. There I saw a wondrous marvel of modern technology: an electric calculator. On the off chance that there is anyone under the age of 30 reading this, I should be specific here. I'm talking about an electro-mechanical calculator. A device which uses electric power to drive motors and gears to make mathematical calculations and print the result on a roll of paper tape.

To be sure, electric adding machines and cash registers had been around for as long as I could remember, but this sleek little beauty could do multiplication and division, too! And unlike those previous behemoths she could be had for the low, low price of just $179.99 (taxes not included).

Of course $179.99 was greater than $100, so I had more saving to do. In the meantime I'd take the catalog into my bedroom and gaze longingly at the calculator's full-colour picture, in much the same way that I imagine other boys were gazing at the lingerie models. Which is not to say that I didn't take a peek at the lingerie section, too, but come on, how can that compare to a machine which does multiplication and division?

I don't recall that I ever went to the Sears store and fondled the object of my affection. Indeed, I don't ever recall that it even occurred to me to do so. It's probably just as well, though, as I might have been arrested for public indecency.

At some point my bank account reached the long-awaited $179.99 (plus taxes). At last the calculator could be mine! But I hesitated. I still lusted after her, but did I really want to blow my entire wad on her? What was I really going to do with her? Oh sure, she would be a great help with arithmetic, but arithmetic was easy. We were already into basic algebra in school and what good would she be with that? What if I used her to calculate a few sums and then got bored with her?

So I waited and pondered and slowly the dream faded away, to be replaced by new ones.

Today I sit at a desk, surrounded by computers. 18 processor cores, each more than a billion times as powerful as that old calculator, await my bidding.

But I still remember that first boyhood crush fondly.

When I make a corned beef/pastrami/smoked meat sandwich, I toast the bread and heat up the meat slices on a plate in the microwave.

Depending upon how thin the meat has been sliced it can take a few extra seconds to pull the slices apart and place them on the plate before getting them into the microwave. And the time it takes to toast the bread can vary depending upon ambient temperature and whether the toaster was recently used. As a result of all this variability, either the toast pops before the meat has finished heating or vice versa.

Just now, for the first time ever, the toast popped just as I was opening the door of the microwave to remove the meat. I have to admit to disappointment that the blessed event was not accompanied by a heavenly chorus, and high-fiving myself turned out to be just as unsatisfying as you might imagine, but it's one more item crossed off my list of Things To Experience In My Life.

Next up: actually watching paint dry rather than just using it as a simile.

I went to the grocery store today to pick up milk and fixings for a soup recipe that I want to try out. When I got to the store I went to step on the parking brake only to find that it was already set: I'd forgotten to take it off and had driven to the store with it on the entire way. Couldn't have been on very firmly, though, as I didn't even notice the drag.

When I got out of the truck I discovered that I'd left door on the cap open, too.

Shaking my head in disbelief, I closed the cap and headed into the store. Then headed right back out again because I'd forgotten to pick up a cart.

Inside the store I searched up and down the produce aisles for escarole, but couldn't find any. It was too late to try another store so I figured I'd have to try again elsewhere tomorrow.

In the middle of the store I paused to check my list and found that I'd forgotten to pick up parsnips and garlic while I was in the produce department. So after I'd finished cruising the aisles for my other items I headed back to the other end of the store for the parsnips. While picking those up I spotted the escarole which had so thoroughly eluded me previously. Pleased, I grabbed a head and wheeled my cart toward the checkout. Just before getting there I paused for one last check of my list only to discover that I still hadn't picked up any garlic. So back to the produce department I went.

While I was there I spotted some fresh cherries. At $5 per pound they were pricey, but I wanted a treat to reward myself for all the cooking I'd been doing of late and I figured the cherries would be a healthier choice than ice cream. So I grabbed two bags.

At the checkout the cashier tossed the cherries on the scale and warned me that I had $23 worth. Yes, Dean, $5 per pound is not the same thing as $5 per bag, and those bags were fairly hefty. D'oh! I put one bag back and managed to make it through the checkout without further incident.

When I got back home I went to put the two dozen eggs I'd bought in the fridge and found that the dozen I'd bought just two days earlier were still there. I'd completely forgotten about them. I guess it will be omelettes for breakfast for the rest the week.

Right now I've got another chicken roasting in the oven. Given how out of it I seem to be this evening, I wonder what I screwed up?

I wanted to take a sharp corner off our mailbox as I'd scraped myself on it a couple of times.

"Sweetie, the tin snips are not on the pegboard. Do you know where they are?"

"Hmm. No, I don't, but there's a grinder just outside, use that."

"I don't think that grinder works any more."

"Why not?"

"It was sitting in the rain for several months. It's probably rusted inside."

A look of doubt crossed the paramour's features. Zie got up, went outside, picked up the grinder, plugged it in, flicked the switch. It screamed to life.

"Hmm. I guess we got lucky on that one. But look at the rust on the heat gun. It's likely shot."

Moments later the heat gun was spitting forth a burning jet of hot air.

"Okay, okay. But what about the tin snips?" I said, scrambling desperately back toward the moral high ground. "That grinder is going to take forever to grind a few millimeters off of thick sheet steel."

"It'll be be fine and I don't feel like looking for the snips right now."

Grudgingly, I plugged the grinder back in and applied it to the mailbox. In less than a second the sharp corner was gone. It took a couple more seconds to get it smoothly rounded.

*sigh*

It's not like I wanted the tools to be broken. It would just be nice to be right once in a while. And I still don't know where those damned tin snips are.

Buttered raisin toast and Medjool dates.

Did you know that Medjool dates are 66% sugar? (Excluding the pit.)

Should I be concerned that my BMI and IQ are converging?

The temperature hit 29 today. Fortunately the humidity was low so it only felt like 28. Still, by the end of the day I was feeling pretty sweaty and it was nice to climb out of the shower a few minutes ago and feel clean again.

But I'm not really clean, am I? Scrub as I might there are doubtless still microscopic specks of dirt beneath my nails. There are probably pores on my skin which still harbour a few molecules of oil and sweat. Even if I give a pass to intestinal flora and the beneficial microbes which colonizes my body, in and out, there are almost certainly some bad microbes, here and there, which have managed to survive the deluge, the onslaught of soap and scrub brush.

It's tempting to say that being truly clean is impossible, but I stop short of that. Perhaps it is possible, through the use of high-intensity radiation, anti-microbial drugs and clean room technology for one to achieve true cleanliness. So while cleanliness may not be impossible, it is next to impossible.

Putting that algabraically, we get the following equation:

(1) cleanliness = next to impossible

Now I'm sure that most of you are familiar with the old adage that cleanliness is next to godliness. That gives us a second equation:

(2) cleanliness = next to godliness

Substituting equation (2) into equation (1), we get the following:

(3) next to godliness = next to impossible

Cancelling common terms on each side of the equation brings us to the final truth:

(4) next to godliness = next to impossible
(5) godliness = impossible

So godliness is impossible. Since godliness is, by definition, an attribute which God must have, it follows that God is impossible. Q.E.D.

It's amazing how much a shower can help bring clarity of thought.