Almost Too Sad To Be Believed

These two diaries from DailyKos detail some of the reasons why Africa is having such a hard time becoming "civilized". And it comes down to: because we want it that way.

What's the Matter With Africa?
Darwin's Nightmare

This is a great read if you're interested in "Guns, Germs, and Steel" kind of stuff.

Elevator Into Space, Going Up...

According to this article, the LiftPort Group wants to create a space elevator by 2018. They recently tested a cable a mile long, although the robot climbers didn't make it very far.

The idea behind a space elevator is simple in theory and complex in practice. Basically, you anchor a cable to the ground on one end, put a heavy weight on the other end, and fling the end with the weight into space. If the cable is the right length, the weight will be sitting right at the correct height to be in geosynchronous orbit, meaning that even though the Earth spins on it's axis, the weighted end of the rope will stay stationary relative to the spot on the ground it's anchored to. However, the centripugal (sp?) force of the Earths spinning will keep the rope pulled tight, as it's constantly trying to fly off into space. From there, you can build robot climbers to climb from the ground up into space to deliver payloads.

The hard part is building a cable strong enough to support it's own weight. To do this, it needs to be extremely thin, and we don't have the technology to do that yet (although there are some promising starts). The second challenge is to build the climbers, but I think that's probably the easier of the two main challenges.

In any case, the ultimate goal is to lower the cost and risk of delivering goods into space. Rockets can (and do) explode and they're expensive since they're not reusable.

2018 seems a bit optimistic to me, though. I'm still waiting for my flying cars!

This is Awesome

From Anandtech, a look inside the warehouse of Newegg.com. Like many computer techies, I buy almost all of my computer stuff from Newegg because they have great prices, a great selection, and get it to me FAST. This articles goes into the HOW part of the operation -- how they manage to put your order together and get it shipped out of the warehouse so quickly. Not surprisingly, there is a lot of automation, and even a packing-peanut gun! Definitely worth a read, and has lots of pics to boot.

Hey, F U Buddy!

According to this Wired article, people correctly interpreted the tone of an email only 50% of the time. In other words, no better than guessing.

That falls right in line with my assertion that email is a completely toneless medium, and as such, one has to be extremely careful when employing sarcasm. It also helps explain the huge proliferation of emoticons -- I love em, and use em like pepper. :)

My Co-workers are Incompetant, (aka. HAHAHAHAHA!!!)

Last Thursday and Friday, we had a training class here at work, in the computer area near the bathrooms. We have a bunch of computers set up there, along with a projector, so an instructor can teach people how to use our software. We do this about once every other month, bringing a batch of 10-12 people in to learn the program.

We have a big fridge in the employee breakroom (which is also doubling as the filing cabinet room, the server rack room, and the spare junk room). However, this fridge is kind of inconvenient to get to (see aforementioned note about spare junk room), and besides, the big fridge smells like old mold. Gross! Someone really needs to give it a serious baking soda bath. Or throw it out. But that's beside the point.

In any case, since the main fridge is inconvenient, they decide to purchase a mini-fridge they could keep sitting on the counter in the kitchenette, and stock it with soda for the people doing the training program. I was curious about it (it just appearing one day with no note or email), so I opened the fridge door, saw it PACKED full of soda, and knowing that my workplace is WAY too cheap to ever buy canned soda for it's employees outside of the occasional 2 liter to go along with a cheap pizza lunch to celebrate a coworkers birthday, I figured it was for the people undergoing training.

That was last week. I came in to work this morning, walking right past it, and it didn't catch my eye. Small. Fridge. Boring. Ignore. I. Am. A. Zombie. Today one of my coworkers who I get along with well comes into my cube and says "have you seen the new fridge?". I was like "yeah, how could I have missed it?". I figured it was an obvious lead in to something else. He says "have you seen it today though?". I said not really. He said "go look". So I went down the hallway, into the kitchenette, and didn't see anything special about it.

Looked the same as last week, as far as I could tell. So I figured maybe it was something to do with the inside?

I grabbed the handle, pulled slowly, and opened the door... and it was like a multicolored, frozen wonderland inside. There was frozen soda mush EVERYWHERE. On the inside of the door. On the bottom. On the walls. On the ceiling. On the shelves. Everywhere. It was a complete and utter mess!

Apparently whomever put the sodas in set the thermostat just a little too cold. As soon as training ended (Friday) and people stopped opened the fridge door on a regular basis over the weekend, every single can of soda in the fridge FROZE, and subsequently exploded, spawing half-frozen liquid all over the inside of the fridge.

Hahaha!

I am so glad I'm not the one who's going to have to clean that up...

Paging Dr. Frued