enthalpy

Monday, July 31, 2006


Crap! Suddenly, I need to go to Lubbock to get a new hat.
The process begins when the haberdasher measures and makes a mold of a client's head. The hatter then fits a piece of raw beaver felt, stretched into a general hatlike shape, around the mold and around a crown mold picked out by the client. The felt is then steamed to add flexibility, and shaped around the molds using a machine called a crown iron.

And that's just the basics. Each hat is a unique piece of art, Conklin said, so the process is never the same twice.
How often do you get a chance to wear a work of art?

Damn you, JFK!!



Meet the Marfreless couch bar. It's in trouble. It's so freakin' cool, man, no one's heard of it. Imagine that?
Tucked discreetly behind the theater building, its entrance unmarked, lurks the Marfreless couch bar, whose regulars fear losing their unique refuge to the wrecking ball.

"Even if the bar is still here, I don't think people will enjoy going to a bookstore before a movie. I think people will prefer going to a bar where they can have a world-class martini," Pekmezaris said.

The bar, dimly lit, has an upstairs floor filled with love seats where couples can be somewhat intimate.

"It's a different than your average bar," said Tracey Florio. "You can come here with friends and not worry about dealing with loud people or being picked up."

"But," she adds, "you can still pick up people."
To those over 40, "pick up" means "fuck."



Passengers? On an Amtrak train? What the hell?
Passengers told Beaumont TV station KFDM that they could feel a bump when the train derailed at about 20 miles-per-hour. The train stayed upright when it left the tracks.

The passengers helped remove their luggage from the cargo carts and then waited for buses to take them to their final destination.
Amtrak: Costs as much as a plane, takes 10 times as long. Thank you, American Tax Payer!

Amtrak: We waste your money so you don't get to!



Sunday, July 30, 2006


What happens when the beach runs into your beach house? Do you have to move, or does the state move your house for you? You start by suing.
The Pacific Legal Foundation filed the lawsuit Thursday on behalf of Severance challenging the Open Beaches Act's provisions in Houston U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt's court.

The lawsuit maintains the Act's provisions for forcing the removal of homes from beach areas violates constitutional provisions against the government taking of private property without just compensation. Foundation attorney J. David Breeman said Thursday that the lawsuit seeks no damages but a judgment preventing Texas from enforcing the Open Beaches Act. No date for a hearing in the case has been set.

Severance's homes are on a list of 107 the Texas General Land Office wants moved, asserting that their location seaward of the natural vegetation line obstructs public access to the beach. Under the act, people whose homes end up seaward of the vegetation line must move them or forfeit them, the state maintains.
Interesting. Because the beach moved, these homes are no longer in compliance with the open beach law. Considering the supreme court's ruling on eminent domain last year, I don't think the houses stand a chance.



Interesting article on the current problems with Airbus, even if it does devolve into psycho-babble towards the end.
Now Airbus’s woes are being held up as proof that it is, in the words of one columnist, “a textbook example of how not to run a commercial enterprise.” The Wall Street Journal explained that Airbus was failing because of its “politicized management,” while the Times suggested that Airbus had to decide whether it was a company or a European “employment project.”

Because we underestimate how much variation can be caused simply by luck, we see patterns where none exist
Well, no. Providing customers with what they want cheaper than the other guy has nothing to do with luck. Guessing what they want is, luck, but there's plenty of evidence that shows that people would rather get in a mid-sized airliner than a super-jumbo that holds 550 people. That's just stupid.



I can't imagine how a religion devoted to celibacy is on the verge of extinction.
These are the last Shakers, living in the world's last active Shaker community, which has survived for 223 years in this idyllic and isolated hilltop village 35 miles northwest of Portland. Here, the four faithful live a life of ascetic simplicity and abide by the three C's: celibacy, confession of sin, and communalism. "The real misconception about the Shakers is that we're all dead," says one of the four, Brother Arnold Hadd, only half-jokingly.

Because they are celibate, the Shakers rely on converts to keep their community going and say they receive up to 70 inquiries a year. To those interested, they send out literature and correspondence. Many inquirers are attracted to the romantic notion of the simple life espoused in chic, urban publications like Martha Stewart Living and Real Simple. "We're looking for people . . . who feel that they are being called by God to a higher life," Hadd says. "Most of these people we never hear back from."
That's a real hard sell in today's instant gratification society we live in.



Saturday, July 29, 2006


When it comes to designing, building, and testing spacecraft that will fly human beings off of this planet, who really have the expertise to make it happen? The Government Accountability Office, of course!
In its rush to build a spacecraft to replace the shuttle, NASA is headed for billions of dollars in cost overruns and launch delays that could jeopardize America's return to the moon, congressional investigators say.

If NASA won't slow down and get a better handle on whether it can afford the massive space exploration plan that President Bush ordered, Congress should consider reining in the program's budget, the Government Accountability Office recommends in a report released Wednesday.
Of course there needs to be accountability with NASA's budget, but the GAO recommending the money get throttled by congress? And that's going to improve safety? How, exactly?



Go vegan to control diabetes.
They lowered their cholesterol more and ended up with better kidney function, according to the report published in Diabetes Care, a journal published by the American Diabetes Association.
Daily insulin injections, or eating twigs and berries all day, every day. Hmmm, that's a tough one.



This is embarrassing, and I should be embarrassed posting it, but it's just too damn funny. Kid yells at computer while gaming. Yeah, it sounds simple, and it is, but for some reason I couldn't stop laughing.

stop cutting the Ritalin in half and go ahead and take the whole dose.



Thursday, July 27, 2006


San Antonio, y'all. Time to get your freak on.
In the midst of attempts to crack down on raunchy and rowdy behavior during traditional summertime tubing river trips through this city, a San Antonio topless club is planning a tubing excursion featuring strippers.

Trey Maddox, a manager at Palace Men's Club, said Sunday's excursion _ during which men can pay $25 to join the strippers _ isn't meant to fly in the face of the city's new rules.

"We're not hookers, dope dealers or Mafia thugs," he said, noting that the strippers will be appropriately dressed. "We're just coming to have a good time."
Like guys on this trip will drink, pee, or curse more in/on the river than your average tuber. There are several hilarious aspects about this. First off, strippers don't look good in daylight. Why do you think it's dark in there? They're not pretty: that's why they're naked to compensate. Secondly, every time I've tubed the Guadalupe, it's taken several hours. Who the hell would want to spend that kind of time with a stripper? There is a finite number of times she can tell you about her boyfriend beating her, her son's 2nd grade teacher, or her coke dealer. Sometimes she just needs to leave, and to extrapolate Chris Rock's brilliance about the champagne room, there is none on an inner tube, either. But this story hasn't gone full bore crazy yet. City Councilman, bring it home:
"I'm really disappointed that this is going to occur on Sunday when people should be in church," he said. "I hope they behave themselves and keep their clothes on, but I'm not sure they will because strippers are trained to take off their clothes."
Oh good lord, you're not that stupid, are you? Men are paying money to float down a river under the guise that they'll see some woman's naked boobie in public and your biggest qualm is that it is going to take place on a Sunday? So if this were Tuesday afternoon, it would be OK? What an idiot.

San Antonio, you're on notice.



Obviously, I like cats, but this is a horribly ironic way to go:
Sunday night, Jeane Miller, 64, was looking for one of her cats, Harley, around 10 p.m. when she got tangled in a thorn bush, lost her balance and fell about eight feet into the Palo Duro Creek behind her home at 29 Village Drive in Canyon.

Though there wasn't much water in the creek, Miller likely hit her head during the fall and was unable to pull herself out and drowned, said Bobby Griffin, chief of police in Canyon.

After a lengthy search, Canyon firefighters pulled Miller out of the creek at about 2 a.m. Monday. She was confirmed dead at the scene, said Griffin.
How tragic. I could make a lot of bad jokes, but I won't. RIP, Jeane.



Wednesday, July 26, 2006


Forget hackers, banks are incompetent enough to fuck up their own shit.
Two of the nation's banks struggled on Tuesday to repair glitches at their Web sites that had prevented customers from fully accessing their accounts for as long as two days.

Emigrant Direct, a bank recently written up in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times for offering high-paying savings accounts, saw a malfunction block customers from entering the site for long stretches over a two-day period, according to a bank employee and customers who posted complaints at an Internet message board. A note placed on Emigrantdirect.com apologized for the intermittent outages.
A bank apologizing for this?!? That's so 20th century. Anyone with a brain would just take their money from emigrant to Citibank for their 5% deal. Are they any better? They can't be worse. When you're an "online" bank and your website is down, you've ceased to be a bank. You're a common thief. But for the blatantly obvious:
Online banking is one of those service sectors where site operators have to get it right, analysts have said. A hobbled Web site can undermine consumers' confidence in a financial institution, especially because many people just now making the switch to online banking fear that hackers or a system mishap could lead to losses.
How horribly understated. When a hobbled website is the only way a consumer can access money to pay this month's mortgage, power, and grocery bill, that transcends "losses." That leads to abandonment, and rightfully so.

You had a good run, EmigrantDirect.com, but you got caught fuckin' your own dog.



Tuesday, July 25, 2006


Looks like Ken Jennings might have as sense of humor after all.
"I know, I know, the old folks love him," Jennings writes in a recent posting, titled "Dear Jeopardy!" on his Web site.

"Nobody knows he died in that fiery truck crash a few years back and was immediately replaced with the Trebektron 4000 (I see your engineers still can't get the mustache right, by the way)."
If he wants to make fun of Alex, he's way behind SNL. But then there's this:
"We regret the insinuation that Mr. Alex Trebek is a robot, and has been since 2004. Mr. Trebek's robotic frame does still contain some organic parts, many harvested from patriotic Canadian schoolchildren, so this technically makes him a 'cyborg,' not a 'robot.' "
Come on, Alex, take a freakin' joke. That one's almost funny.



Maybe it's just me, but does this look a lot like Otto from Airplane!
He fits in a car's glove box, appears at a flick of a switch and when a woman has finished using him, she can just pull the plug and he deflates.

He's the "Buddy on Demand," a blow-up man launched on Tuesday with the aim of making solo female motorists feel less nervous about driving at night.

According to research by the inflatable friend's creator, insurer Sheilas' Wheels, 82 percent of women feel safer with someone sitting in the car beside them and nearly a half don't like driving alone in the dark.

"We're not saying that an inflatable man is the only answer but we do hope it will give women extra confidence and make journeys in the dark less fearful," said Jacky Brown, the spokeswoman for Sheilas' Wheels.
Finally, blow up dolls aren't just for men. Also, I wonder if women have to use the manual inflation nozzle that's located at the beltline?



Sunday, July 23, 2006

Monday, July 17, 2006


Things to do in space when you get bored.
1. Who can toss the laptop the furthest down the station before it bounces off the wall (of course, we would appreciate it if you use Station assets for this one).

2. Arm wrestling: Big [robot] arm vs. little arm, David and Goliath II, the battle begins.

3. Boom toss - toss the [robot arm inspection] boom between arms (just don't tell the Canadians if you lose it).

4. Take all the CWCs [water transfer bags] into the Crew Lock, close the hatch, empty the CWCs and go for a swim (PBAs might be needed).

5. Lawn darts (if you need a target, remember that's an Aggie compatible task).

6. Marco polo (the whole fish-out-of water thing would need to be tweaked though).

7. We could up-link a few appropriate computer games for you if you like - Asteroids, Space Invaders, or Star Wars' Wing Commander.

And last but not least, here's a haiku from our GC,

Day of Freedom Launch
Leonardo and Spacewalks
Crew now Chillaxin'
I can't imagine ever getting tired of just looking out the window, but I do believe that's the first time I've ever seen the word chillaxin' uplinked in an execute package.



Sunday, July 16, 2006


Bizarre statues from around the world. [via]



For some reason, I think these are really funny this morning. Especially:


But considering where I've been all week, nothing can top my all time favourite.




Tuesday, July 11, 2006


Another great video, this time from the starboard SRB, looking aft.



Monday, July 10, 2006


Someone a lot smarter than me once said, "That government is best which governs least." I know the Republic died over a hundred years ago and it's looking like were even in the waning years of the empire, but there's still one lone voice in congress. A pillar of reason in a sea of money and vote whores, yelling STOP!
Republican Ron Paul missed out on the 19th century, but he admires it from afar. He speaks lovingly of the good old days before things like Social Security and Medicaid existed, before the federal government outlawed drugs like heroin.
Hey Wa-Po. Shut your fucking pie-hole. You know exactly where this is going. They're going to try to paint Dr. Ron Paul as a kook because he thinks Social Security is broke, FEMA is as useless as tits on a boar hog and the Department of Education doesn't know why we get the day of on the 4th of July. Yeah, real revolutionary ideas.

There are two basic principles that make Paul an exception and not the norm. First off, members of congress are looking out for their districts and states. Throw a dart at any seat in either house of congress, preferable when someone is sitting in it, and you'll undoubtedly hit someone whose desire to draw federal funds to their home district takes a back seat only to their desire to get re-elected, so they can do it all again for two or six more years. The second problem is that the majority of people in this country today, on both sides of the aisle, think there is no problem that can't be solved with enough federal funding. Or even better, another federal agency. To a true conservative like Paul, government is the problem, not the solution:
For instance, the federal government banning drugs like heroin doesn't work for the same reasons Prohibition didn't. The IRS doesn't need to exist for the same reasons it didn't exist before.

"We had a good run from 1776 to 1913," he says, referring to the years before the modern income tax. "We didn't have it; we did pretty well."

As for Social Security, "we didn't have it until 1935," Paul says. "I mean, do you read stories about how many people were laying in the streets and dying and didn't have medical treatment? . . . Prices were low and the country was productive and families took care of themselves and churches built hospitals and there was no starvation."
How can you argue with that? We seceded from Great Britain for being taxes at a much lower rate than we're paying now. Who can afford to support charities when the government gets 50% of your earnings? Besides, the government will take care of everything, right?

It's truly tragic that Paul is the last of his kind: Someone that's going to stand up for his beliefs in the face of his party. It's obvious that the Republicans hate him more than the Democrats do, as his district was gerrymandered to included some of the poorest (read: welfare recipients) parts of the Texas Gulf Coast, so he probably won't survive the next election, but I'll miss him. The country will miss him more because he's the last of his kind. But apparently my viewpoint isn't shared by everyone in his district:
"He's certainly the taxpayer's friend if the taxpayer doesn't want to get anything done," says John W. Hancock Jr., a rice farmer and banker in El Campo. "All he does is go to Washington and write articles and vote no."
Ask yourself, John Hancock (ha!), what do you want from your congressman? If you would you like to see your tax burden go down to 2%? Vote for 534 more Ron Pauls.



Hey zebra, lions wake up hungry, too.



Suck it, commies.
However, the order figures reported on Monday reflect the growing difficulties being faced by Airbus in the most lucrative segments of the market for wide-bodied long-haul jets, where Airbus secured only 21 new orders compared with 96 for its A320 family of single aisle aircraft.

By contrast arch-rival Boeing announced a jump in gross orders from 439 to 487 in the first six months. It won 96 orders for wide-bodied jets led by its highly successful 787 Dreamliner programme, to which Airbus has been struggling for more than a year to develop a response with its A350.

The Boeing 787, which is first due to enter commercial service in 2008, and the much longer established Boeing 777, have been winning the lion's share of orders for wide-bodied long-haul aircraft placed during the last 18 months.
If it ain't Boeing, I ain't going.



Sunday, July 09, 2006


Penalty kick? Are you freakin' shitin' me? The biggest sports trophy in "the world" is decided by a penalty kick? What a waste. But there is an upside to all of this Socialist madness. With the World Cup concluding, we are now starting the longest time before the next World Cup, when Americans have to pretend to be interested in soccer.



Lakes? In Texas? Political wrangling? You're making this up.
Decades of political infighting, lawsuits and questionable planning have culminated in a West Texas reservoir that, so far, has been little more than a $70 million fishing hole.

But the reservoir, planned since the early 1970s as a future source of drinking water, appeared to become unneeded when Lubbock and 10 other cities recently secured more than a century's worth of Panhandle groundwater.

Yet Lubbock, signaling how precious water is on semiarid plains, is considering beginning construction soon of a pipeline from the lake, even though the cost of moving the water 65 miles and 1,000 feet uphill is among its most expensive supply options and would dwarf the price of the reservoir itself.
West Texas. Water. Don't think this issue is going to go away anytime soon.



Don't flush stuff down the toilet you're not supposed to. Your plumber will always know.
Fossum’s enthusiasm was audible, despite the gentle rebuke flight controllers relayed from mission managers regarding proper use of the shuttle commode, or in NASA-speak, the waste collection system. [WCS]

“Just as an example of how closely Big Brother watches, we would like to remind you that remaining fluid in drink bags should not be poured down the WCS but stowed in Wet Trash (yes, they can tell),” the message read. “There is a concern that the additives may react with the oxone in the WCS to form precipitates, which may cause blockages in the waste lines.”
You can't run down to the Home Despot and rent a power-snake to flush your potty while on-orbit.



Looks like a little bit of shading on the forward starboard radiator panel from the Ku band antenna: [click on pict for STS-121 images]



Also, this is a spactaular video of the orbiter, taken from the SRBs right after separation. This isn't CGI from some crappy Jerry Bruckheimer movie. This is what some people did with their 4th of July.




Friday, July 07, 2006


Collateral damage in the war on drugs leads to the quote of the year:
I didn't think this could happen in America.
Wake up, people. I especially like the guy currently incarcerated in Florida's Penal system for "trafficking." Turns out, the State of Florida now gives him more pain drugs for his existing condition than he was actually arrested for in the first place.

Sickening.



This Coke v. Pepsi thing is the weirdest thing I've read in a while. Girl Scout cookie boxes? Really?
Coke officials confirmed the documents were tightly held trade secrets, he said. "Dirk" then requested $10,000 for the initial papers, accompanied by a letter promising to provide further documents on request, Nahmias said.

"I can even provide actual products and packaging of certain products, that no eye has seen, outside of maybe five top execs," the letter states.

"I need to know today, if I have a serious partner or not. If the good faith money is in my account by Monday, that will be an indication of your seriousness."

"Dirk" provided other documents to the FBI for $5,000 and agreed to take $75,000 for a highly confidential product sample from a new Coca-Cola project.
Why is this kind of corporate espionage more interesting than our government lying to us to excuse a fake, made up war? Oh yeah, because the Cola wars have no casualties. Except for these dumbasses:
On June 16, an FBI undercover agent met with Dimson at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Dimson handed over a bag containing documents marked "highly confidential" and a glass bottle with a white label containing a liquid product sample, Nahmias said.

The undercover agent paid Dimson $30,000 in $100 and $50 bills stuffed in a Girl Scout cookie box, he said. The agent also agreed to pay another $45,000 after successful testing of the product sample, he said.
I want $100,000 and a box of Thin Mints. No, don't put the money in a Thin Mint box, I want a box of Thin Mints, bitch!

What the perennially number two Pepsi realizes is how much their creditability has increased in this matter.
A Pepsi spokesman said the company was glad to help.

"We did what any responsible company would do," the spokesman said.

"Competition can be fierce, but it must also be fair and legal."
All I can say is it's a good thing the FBI got to these clowns before Coke did. Otherwise, they'd be sleeping with the fishes.



Yay! Another day on-orbit is always a good thing.
Also Friday, NASA managers announced that Discovery has enough fuel to stay up for a 13th day to squeeze in a third spacewalk for Sellers and Fossum on July 12.

In that bonus spacewalk, Sellers and Fossum will practice shuttle thermal repairs and perhaps conduct a real fix by yanking out spare gap filler between heat-shield tiles just below the shuttle's nose.
Let's do this thing!



Thursday, July 06, 2006


Bird crap. The stuff that binds.
But some other birds may have gotten the last laugh. Camera images revealed whitish spots on the reinforced carbon-carbon panels of the shuttle's right wing. Ceccacci said he and space station flight director Rick LaBrode saw the same spots three weeks ago during a tour of the launch pad and that the spots resembled bird droppings from their vantage of about five to 10 feet away.
Maybe they're just taking their revenge for this.



Tuesday, July 04, 2006


Finally!
Discovery, carrying seven astronauts, lifted off from the seaside launch site at 2:38 p.m. EDT (1838 GMT) and soared into sunny skies, jettisoning its booster rockets about 2 and a half minutes into the flight. It reached orbit safely about 9 minutes after launch.





Sunday, July 02, 2006


Fox News. Fair and Balanced, as long as the President says so.
On June 29, several Fox News media figures suggested that the U.S. government should "put up the Office of Censorship" to screen news reports to determine whether they "hurt the country" or are of "news value," in the wake of a New York Times article disclosing a Treasury Department program designed to monitor international financial transactions.
Holy crap. I wish I were making up something this absurd.



Get rid of the penny.
For the first time, the U.S. Mint has said pennies are costing more than 1 cent to make this year, thanks to higher metal prices. "The penny is going to disappear soon unless something changes in the economics of commodities," says Robert Hoge, an expert on North American coins at The American Numismatic Society.

That very idea of spending 1.2 cents to put 1 cent into play strikes many people as "faintly ridiculous," says Jeff Gore, of Elkton, Md., founder of a little group called Citizens for Retiring the Penny.
The problem is every cash drawer in the country is set up to handle the coinage we currently use, so you can't introduce anything new till you get rid of something. Which has made me wonder in the past why no one at the mint wants to implement any change. Oh yeah, they make a shit load of money from idiots that think a quarter with their state on it is somehow collectable.
It costs the Mint less than five cents for each 25-cent piece it produces. So in a process called seigniorage, the government makes money whenever someone "buys" a coin then chooses not to spend it.

The Treasury estimates that it has earned about $5 billion in seigniorage profits from the quarters so far.
That's a lot of quarters sitting in the bottom of an ashtray.



What the hell are you still doing here?


Launch officials said they would try again Tuesday, on the Fourth of July, after giving the work force a day of rest and a chance to replenish the shuttle's on-board fuel. The weather was expected to improve by Tuesday, although rain was still in the forecast.

"We've concluded that we're not going to have a chance to launch today," launch director Mike Leinbach announced to his team.

Replying from the cockpit, shuttle commander Steven Lindsey said: "Looking out the window it doesn't look good today, and we think that's a great plan."

He noted that July Fourth would be "a good day to launch."
An even better day to launch? Yesterday.



Saturday, July 01, 2006


Jehovah's Witnesses conference in Amarillo this weekend.
The District Convention of Jehovah's Witnesses kicked off Friday at the Amarillo Civic Center. The first day of the convention had more then 4,400 in attendance. Keynote speaker Case Duggan discussed "Everlasting Deliverance" in his address Friday.
The Amway salesmen convention has been postponed until next week due to lack of interest.



Just in time for summer, America's oldest nuclear bomb gets a makeover.
The Pantex Plant has delivered its first fully modernized B61 nuclear bomb, part of a six-year program to extend the service life of the oldest weapon in the U.S. atomic stockpile, National Nuclear Security Administration officials announced Friday.

The overall project, part of NNSA's Life Extension Program, will extend the service lives of the B61 mod-7 and the B61 Mod 11, a nuclear bunker buster, by at least 20 years.
Iran, call your office.



Who says religion isn't out to scare people? The scariest freakin' church in the world.



Scrub:
Looming storm clouds delayed the launch of the space shuttle Saturday afternoon. NASA said it will try again Sunday.

Discovery and its seven-member crew were scheduled to lift off from Kennedy Space Center at 3:49 p.m. ET. Sunday's liftoff is scheduled for 3:26 p.m. ET. They can keep trying until July 19.

Thunderstorms and heavy clouds had weather forecasters concerned enough they gave Discovery a "no go" for launch at 3:41 p.m.

"Steve, sorry to break your string. We're not going to make it today," mission control told STS-121 Commander Steve Lindsey.
Go-fever is hard to get around, but towering cumulonimbus clouds, 20 miles away? Come on, light the sucker!



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