Thursday, January 28, 2010

The State of the Obama Speech - 1/27/2010

I I I I I I I I I I
I I I I I I I I I I
I I I I I I I I I I
I I I I I I I I I I
I I I I I I I I I I
I I I I I I I I I I
I I I I I I I I I I
I I I I I I I I I I
I I I I I I I I I I
I I I I I I

Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me


To put it in perspective, here is the wonderful word count program Wordle's relative word count. The program normally ignores pronouns and articles, but in this case he wanted us to see just how the word I fit in, so someone substituted the word hedgehog for every instance of the word I.
Wordle: state of the union 2010

Monday, January 11, 2010

How Much Is A Trillion?

One million seconds is 12 days.
One trillion seconds is 32,000 years.

An Awww! Moment

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Good Luck? Good Grief.

On my way out the door to a special overtime job yesterday evening, my supervisor wished me "Good luck". It was casually said, a greeting really. But it struck me odd. I am good at what I do - and it isn't luck.
"Good grief", I replied, "or good skill or good job. Good God. Good night. Or even Good riddance; but not good luck."
Little of our lot in life is really luck. Most, good or bad, is the result of our decisions and our actions. Little of our adversity is luck either - most of it is the result of the self-serving actions of other men - most recently the Government providing impediments to our good actions in the named of the so-called "Public Good" which is neither truly benefiting all mankind equally nor good for us as a people.
But one thing it is not ... is Luck.

Good Day.

Friday, January 1, 2010

The Pollution Al Gore Never Talks About


Tank 7120
Originally uploaded by luxomni
I really should explain that what you are seeing is steam (not smoke and fire) when we are just barely out of a fog.
It is reflecting the High Pressure Sodium light. HPS is getting to be a pollution - it is everywhere. Look around at night little patches of red-orange everywhere. See the orange glow of cities.

I don't remember the first time I saw High Pressure Sodium light. I do remember the first time I saw low pressure sodium (which is even redder). That was in 1967 lighting a parkway in Dallas, TX. It looked so strange - especially from the air. This red strip through town.

By 1967, mercury vapor had been around for a while, but even then most street lighting was incandescent. When you did see a mercury vapor light, it was unique and people took notice. High Pressure Sodium street lighting began three years later, in 1970. In the following 40 years it became omnipresent. No one notices any longer even though there are bright orange skyglows over every city and town in the nation - perhaps the world.

Perhaps over the generations we will evolve to adapt to HPS, but to this generation, orange just does not seem to be the way the night should be.