Picoftheweek

Picoftheweek
Waaaaaaaay too many to count...

My Statement

"Let me emphatically say that I am not anti-Facebook (Fleecebook), anti-smart phone, anti-Microsoft, anti-Apple, anti-Google or anti-Internet. I do believe, though, that the consumer is being ripped off of his privacy, identity and purchase history. We are being herded into a Facebook corner where what we "Like" and where we go physically and on the net will be scrutinized and sold numerous times to actually corrode and erode our culture while tempting us only with convenience, high tech and flashing video screens. The unsuspecting consumers need to be aware..." - Gary Lapman

Quote of Note

“If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.”-W.C. Fields

"For the strength of the Wolf is in the Pack, and the strength of the Pack is in the Wolf." - Rudyard Kipling

"Common sense is not so common. " -Voltaire

“Fame is vapor, popularity an accident, riches take wing, but only character endures.” - Matthew McConaughey

"In order to keep a true perspective of one's importance, everyone should have a dog that will worship him and a cat that will ignore him"

"Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason" - Jerry Seinfeld

"Fleecebook is free, you (and your identity) is the product!" - Gary Lapman


"Christmas is a necessity. There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we're here for something else besides ourselves." - Eric Sevareid

"'Smart' phones are only smart for the cell phone providers!" - Gary Lapman

"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." -- Charles Babbage (1791-1871)

“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT'S relativity.” -Albert Einstein

"Technology creates the illusion of companionship without the intimacy of friendship." - unknown

"No worry, there's an app for that..." - Gary Lapman

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Fifth Try is a Go...




Went to see the launch of a Delta rocket last evening (from VAFB).  This was the fifth attempt at a one second window to put an Italian satellite over the Mediterranean. The horizon became very bright for about twenty seconds and then a very bright pinpoint of light took off into space.  The picture on the left is a three and a half minute exposure.


Tonight we are going to dinner with friends at a cool restaurant to further celebrate our anniversary.  It has been threatening rain all day but the prediction says perhaps late tonight.  All of a sudden, it has became sunny and hot.  It is very difficult to predict the weather lately, as one minute it is Fall and the next, Summer.






Manure... An interesting fact
In the 16th and 17th centuries, everything had to be transported 

by ship and it was also before the invention of commercial fertilizers, 
so large shipments of manure were quite 

common.




It was 

shipped dry, because in dry form it weighed a lot less than when wet, 

but once water (at sea) hit it, not only did it become heavier, but the 

process of fermentation began again, of which a by product is methane 

gas of course.

As the stuff was stored below decks in bundles you can 

see what could (and did) happen. 

Methane began to build up below 

decks and the first time someone came below at night with a lantern, 

BOOOOM!


 

Several 

ships were destroyed in this manner
before it was determined just what 

was happening.

After 

that, the bundles of manure were always stamped with the instruction ' 

Stow high in transit ' on them, which meant for the sailors to stow it 

high enough off the lower decks so that any water that came into the 

hold would not touch this volatile cargo and start the production of 

methane.

Thus 

evolved the term ' S.H.I.T. ' (Stow High In Transit) which has come 

down through the centuries and is in use to this very day. 




You 

probably did not know the true history of this word. 


Neither did I.



I had always thought it was a golf term. 



Sarah was reading a newspaper, while her husband was engrossed in a magazine. Suddenly, she burst out laughing. "Listen to this," she said. "There's a classified ad here where a guy is offering to swap his wife for a season ticket to the stadium."
"Hmmm," her husband said, not looking up from his magazine.
Teasing him, Sarah said, "Would you swap me for a season ticket?"
"Absolutely not," he said.
"How sweet," Sarah said. "Tell me why not."
"Season's more than half over," he said.