Blogsplosion

Three posts in one day? Is this the first sign of the Apocalypse?

I would like to offer my unofficial congratulations to all involved in the Mars Rovers project. Both have now been on Mars for over 1000 Mars-days. This is approximately 1025 Earth-days. They are still going, and now that the Martian Winter is waning, it is quite possible that they will last another 300 days or more, barring mechanical failure. The pictures of Victoria Crater are inspiring. (See sidebar link.) It just boggles my mind to comprehend the engineering effort that went in to making this happen, and making it happen so well. The only problem is that this may now be used as the new benchmark of success in the media, and subsequent missions (e.g. MSL rover in 2009/2010), even if surpassing their design lifetimes, could still be considered by some to be failures.

By the way, now that the rovers have lived to see the arrival of MRO, is it possible that they will still be there when Phoenix lands? That would be incredible, but I wouldn't bet against it.

Side Note: I found it hilarious that there was a S(ol)1K bug in the image viewing webpages. Because 1000 comes alphabetically before 999, you had to scroll down to the bottom to see the most recent images! This was quickly fixed, but amusing still.

Rules are for tight-wads.

Maybe you've seen this "offbeat" article.

Essentially, a bunch of ignoramuses complained that a wreath which is in the shape of a peace sign (the circle, not the fingers) and hung on the outside of a house was a protest of the Iraq war (possible, as a stretch), and/or (get this) "a symbol of Satan." Now, even a pentagram is not inherently "a symbol of Satan," but I can only assume that those people thought that that's what the peace sign was. As bad as this may seem, it is worse.

The president of this particular Homeowner's Association "ordered the committee to require [the offender] to remove the wreath," but the committee let saner minds prevail and "refused after concluding that it was merely a seasonal symbol that didn't say anything." Subsequently, "[the president] fired all five committee members."

Fortunately for this particular homeowner, because of the national media attention and subsequent pressure from anyone with the ability to reason, the three-member "board" (whether a different committee or the newly replaced committee) withdrew its request. But every case like this cannot get national attention, and there must be many more where this one came from. The solution is actually quite simple: don't put up with bullshit rules. I will never live in a "community" which imposes any rules in addition to the local, state, and federal laws (renting is of course a different case). I hope that you, readers (2? 3?), will make similar pledges. If no one bought houses in such communities, they wouldn't exist!

To whom that stole my mouse.

I. Will. Keel. Yous.

(Disclaimer: I don't know if the title is grammatically correct or not. It's 4th-and-inches and I'm punting.)

Yesterday I moved my computer back up to my old desk (the desk has not been occupied by anyone else in the meantime), but I did not set it up; I just dumped the stuff and left. This morning I came to dust and clean the desk and set up the computer, and when it came time to plug in the mouse, lo! The mouse was nowhere! No mouse was there! I searched every drawer and facet of both my new (old) desk and my interim desk, which I had just cleaned off yesterday, but the mouse was still nowhere! I don't specifically remember putting the mouse down anywhere, but I can't imagine where I would have put it, if not at either desk. I didn't bring it home with me. Therefore, the only logical conclusion is that SOME STICKY-FINGERED FELLOW GRAD STUDENT LIFTED IT IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT. The thing is, this room has a code to enter, so with great probability the thief is a denizen of this same office. So I think the most sensical course of action is to defecate on each desk until the guilty person returns my mouse. I will report on the success or failure of this stratagem.

But in the meantime, I have more to complain about. I borrowed a temporary mouse so that I could actually use the computer, but when I booted up, lo! The network was nowhere! There was no network anywhere! I could not even connect to the local domain, so I suspect that the connection is bad at my desk (I don't know why they would have disconnected the connection at this particular location, though). Fortunately, I have a wireless antenna, so all was not lost, and here I sit now, posting on Blogger through the aether. I guess I have to go to OIT and poop on their desk, too.

Jon Lovitz or Jared?

Which person is more likely to cause me to never eat at Subway again?