9294 – Memorial Day – Monday

Thank you to all the people that worked so hard to make my life as free as it is.




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pictures – ATW man salutes our fallen heroes, and I complain about the heat. (Not nearly as hot as it was in other locales, so I hear!)

Slept well on the new bed – I wasn’t feeling so hot earlier, but a nap helped my back and headache quite a bit. Still a little nauseated, but not too terrible.

We had the in-laws over again and made more franks and beans for dinner, and this time, the bonfire and s’mores were a reality. Added bonus was blowing bubbles.

Opted out of the new town trolley to Pete Green’s – The route is cute, and could be a lot of fun – two bits to ride can’t be beat. I wouldn’t mind just taking it for a little day-tour out and about where BHK and I can relax and take in the scenery. I suspect that the trolley’s primary use will be for drinkers getting home safe… I’m all for it if it keeps the drunkies from behind the wheel.

I want to pick up a bike – the in-laws cycled up the beach for breakfast this morning, and I thought it sounded like a fun way to ge tout of the house for a bit.



I still haven’t decided what new e-books to put on the PDA – maybe I’ll take a breather and stick to pulp-books for a bit.



1 year ago – info about 20714, shaved ice man and diabetes, bake sale!, things going smoothly, satori quote

2 years ago – 2nd life upgrade, mm pickup issues, 26 letters about me a-d, wilma buiding, poo-poo ice, c-64 emu, super chicken, robot caveman

3 years ago – slack, WEP cracking in 10 min, forget me not panties, sithy meme, wiktrivia, Nosferatu download, writing assignment, how to fake fingerprints, sat maps make me think of people as ants

4 years ago – put motion detection on newtcam, last done meme, life on venus, AFMBE – Zombie Smackdown, FL Drugs, hummus

5 years ago – Memorial Day, freaky wind, There, superhero factoid, castrati, Skeletor and Gang, Chipotle, Joan Cusack crush

6 years ago – Gargoyle, [info]menstrualhut troll, comparison poll, memory from DC (my evil twin), yeti @ home, monster’s inc good

7 years ago – monad of John Dee, Morikami, Shrek good, Pearl Harbor bad, lj-death hoax, icky stuff, good stuff, o Mousewheel event, flash ponderings

8 years ago – subject lines, Hunter thinks that my first icon looks like I’m in the phantom zone, age difference, I have done all but the car on that list, 125 things about meGeotargetVisitor Map


9293 – Sunday

0525081242.jpgLarry and I picked up the bed this morning – BHK and I napped a bit today. Feels good so far, but it is surprisingly high – maybe 6 (likely more) inches taller than the old one.

Picture, left – Larry, scrunched down a bit to magnify the “princess and the pea effect”.

Post-nap, the gang did lots of yardwork – my blueberry plant is in the ground now, as are BHK’s roses… and Chris’s tomato plants.

Closed out the day grilling hot dogs for the family – in-laws brought beans, cole slaw and buns… nice Sunny day today. We passed on the bonfire and s’mores – we were too full of dinner to move.

Instead, we watched some recorded top gear and hung out for a bit… bedtime again soon.



Current read – Gateway by Fred Pohl. Not bad thus far – got it free from the library bookmobile about a year ago… grabbed at random from queue when I realized that I’v epolished off all the ebooks on my PDA – will reload soon, but holding an actual tree-made book is nice. Funny that the paperback is older than Adam – Heck, printed in 1980 – it’s 28 years old. 1980 doesn’t seem that long ago, but I was 11 at the time.



1 year ago – lime-vanilla candles, beehive / blueberry / raspberry thoughts, music to keep an eye on, earache, plato quote, zefrank interview

2 years ago – apollo’s b’day, ask a ninja, atom ant, orange monkey hanger, godzilla mp3, singing fountain

3 years ago – bro stuff, lazy vibe, xanga murder, 3-d x-rays, sex offenders sans Viagra, church basement

4 years ago – messing with hello for pictures, blogspot for galleries, walkabout pics, How I feel about LJ politics, talked to a shoe-shine hobo, the pit, evil spirits. Got my wish for Doom Patrol on Teen Titans!

5 years ago – newtcam, lunch w/danny Teacher of the year!), Thracian Temple found, search test

6 years ago – talking with my bro about doing work as extras, played ps2, saw a raccoon, lj poetry (I miss that link.) , Apollo’s Birthday (Speaking of scrying), laundry day

7 years ago – doppelganger, Civet in perfume, Happy-Lucky Chinese Restaurant Game, Sea Monkey Update, project Gutenberg (read Two years in the forbidden city), crap about font usage, pee-banners, caption?

8 years ago – Outings solution, Newt a little sickGeotargetVisitor Map

9292 – Saturday

It’s the Weekend!!!

monkeybubbles



NASA is bracing for “seven minutes of terror,” when an unmanned craft landing on Mars may wake a dormant robot army that could rise up to invade and crush our civilization… oh, wait. They’re saying the space ship might tip over. That’s all.



Spent most of the day shopping for a new couch and a new bed – found the bed we wanted at a decent price – we pick it up tomorrow, and our old bed goes to the blue house for storage. We have a new Queen Size pillow top marshmallow (but firm) – feels good at the store – can’t wait to try it at home.



Gaming in my brain –

Next game I want to pick up is Hive. (with the mosquito ) I like the insect theme and bakelite tiles a lot – I’ll have to see if Aardvark can order it for us.

Unlike the US government, Hasbro lets you print out your own Monopoly money. There are PDFs for 1,5,10,20,50,100, and 500 dollar bills.

Good for any money-handling game, really. Witch Trial comes immediately to my mind. (which uses our monopoly money more than monopoly does)



From New Scientist Tech: (or, a better use of a Newt/Pye cam?)

To try and develop a more sophisticated model, the team recorded the responses of 49 individual neurons in a part of a cat’s brain called the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN). The LGN receives and processes visual information from the retina, via the optic nerve, before sending it on to the cerebral cortex.


The data made it possible to build a software model of the LGN that can approximate how the neurons would respond to real scenes. The model was tested against scenes recorded from a “catcam” camera attached to a cat’s head.


“We chose the catcam because it was the most natural stimulus we could think of, the closest to what a cat would see when walking around,” Matteo Carandini told New Scientist. Because the catcam footage lacked elements moving independently from the rest of the scene, the researchers also used a scene from Disney’s animated film Tarzan.


The model’s predictions proved to be 80% accurate when shown artificial scenes, but this figure fell to 60% with the natural scenes or the Tarzan movie.


The ultimate goal of the research, still years distant, is to develop an implant that uses visual data to directly stimulate the LGN of blind people whose optic nerve or retina has degenerated from lack of use.


“For these people, a prosthesis in the eye doesn’t help,” Carandini explains. Only people who have recently become blind can benefit from such implants – currently being tested in humans – that stimulate the retina or optic nerve


Work on monkeys last year showed it is possible to stimulate the LGN using electrodes to alter their vision, something previously thought impossible. Software models like that developed by Carandini and colleagues would be vital for an implant to stimulate the right neurons to create a mental impression of vision.



1 year ago – birth control, thursday, Catching up with TD, good stuff, gp and kat vanishment

2 years ago – man-bear, joker laughs, day off, but on call, if meme

3 years ago – Simple short film expressing life and death, first auto-post, bears, MP calls me, zombies, rapture, flip top box, cannibal, birthday meme, RIP Thurl Ravenscroft, 6 questions meme

4 years ago – robo-scotto, LLAP-Goch, arms, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Fire Cracker Labels, freaky man-made island, bro

5 years ago – yale bombing, kiwano, doodle fizzles, D & I in There

6 years ago – dead picture trail links, bad dreams, re: pus jars, long weekend, train and bus smells, wondering what sci-fi geeks will watch with Buffy and x-files gone. Hm… I guess smallville is it? I don’t watch much regular TV, ikkyu poem, ARQuake.

7 years ago – blue rosebuds, gnomon, Herman the human mole, word association, evil news, scottsquatch returns, jelly jack, Joel gorilla

8 years ago – my first user icon – ,Heather outs Alex as a cheater and a bisexual (remember kids, post something publicly on the net, and the world can see it, even people you know.)

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Writer’s Block: Lame jobs (9358-predated)

I’ve had a lot of jobs that had rough aspects to ’em.

Hardest physical work – Roofing. Back-breaking gig of spreading sticky tar with a mop over a flat, reflective roof in Florida’s summer sun was probably the most difficult physical labor in my life. I surely couldn’t do it these days. Additionally, half of the crew I worked with was drunk, half were surly and half didn’t speak English to me. (those halves were not exclusive of one another, math nerds.). Who the heck drinks alcohol all day in the sun? Why be mean to people that are trying to get by? I can understand not speaking the language – but working with someone that doesn’t have a common tongue can be a challenge for me – I like conversation, at least every here and there.

But… I don’t think that was my worst job.

I’ve had a couple of jobs where my boss was abusive. The chief of one marketing company I worked at had some very serious mental problems. Off the top of my head, he – threw a mug at the head of his pregnant daughter-in-law, bullied his employees – including, but not limited to: yelling at the top of his lungs / threats of physical violence / calling the sheriff on folks that he hired as cheap labor – who were illegal aliens. (that’s how he got out of paying them any benefits).

That said, before I left that workplace – it was comical to see people stand up to him. He was such a classic and stereotypical bully that he didn’t know how to react when someone didn’t react in a cowed fashion.

He called a dock worker out to fight, and the dock worker agreed… asked him to step outside. Bad boss responded by calling the police, claiming that the dock worker threatened him. When the big boss asked for witnesses, the entire staff refused to bear witness for him – told the truth, in that he’d called the guy out. The cops still escorted the worker off the property, but it made the big boss look like a complete feeb – and it crushed his bully-boy spirit for a few days.

Later on, he was tried, and for the most part, found guilty for all sorts of charges hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe into the millions owed to clients, employees and the irs – for details there’s good ol’ public records

for both palm beach county see here – (see especially tax evasion) – and broward county (contract indebtedness for the most part.)

The thing was.. if you removed that crooked and cruel boss-guy from the equation, it was a really good gig. My immediate leader was a good friend, and despite his being the nephew of the owner, was about as good a head honcho as I’ve ever seen. Strong work ethic, good with people, and able to take care of business. He’s now working in Guantanamo Bay… and I suspect that he’s a heck of a lot happier!

Either way, I have long since moved to greener pastures, and I know I’m better off as a result.