Into the Void

Thought for the day:

“Actually, it seems to me the life of a middle aged male is a race between hair falling out of its own accord and getting ripped out over stress and irritation. Women have it harder—they have to rip it all out.”
– John Walker, founder of Autodesk in The Hacker’s Diet, Electronic Edition, 1993.

I thought you all might enjoy the picture I took last weekend. It’s a squid christmas light display. Click the picture for the full-sized picture.

Ocean City, MD has this huge display of different sea-themed Christmas decorations in a parking lot at the south end of the island. The squid - okay, well, it’s probably an octopus - is taller than I am, maybe 8 or 10 ft tall. There are about 30 of these things around the parking lot. Which is really odd because the parking lot is closed for the season. The whole town is closed for the season. There’s just dark motels and these things.

Squid.us has Cephalopodmas images. Check it out.

Technorati: squid octopus christmas+decorations Ocean+City+MD cephalopod cephalopodmas

NORAD tracks Santa 2007

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) is a joint U.S.-Canada military organization based at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado. With help from our neighbor to the North, NORAD systems scan the skies for Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) flying over the poles with deadly gifts from our friends in the USSR (Ob Russky: CCCP).

The goal of NORAD is to warn us in time for us to take cover. We might get 15 minutes warning. “With enough shovels…”

To accomplish the aerospace warning mission, the commander of NORAD provides an integrated tactical warning and attack assessment to the governments of Canada and the United States. To accomplish the aerospace control mission, NORAD uses a network of satellites, ground-based radar, airborne radar and fighters to detect, intercept and, if necessary, engage any air-breathing threat to North America. As a part of its aerospace control mission, NORAD assists in the detection and monitoring of aircraft suspected of illegal drug trafficking. This information is passed to civilian law enforcement agencies to help combat the flow of illegal drugs into North America. The command is currently developing a concept for implementing the new maritime warning mission.

Uh, “air-breathing?” What does that mean? They can’t protect us from flying fish?

Anyway, as vigilent as the fine people in NORAD are in protecting us from Cold War nuclear incidents, any unidentified aircraft will be assumed to be hostile and shot down.

Artist’s rendering of NORAD engaging Santa during his Christmas night rounds with toys for all the good boys and girls. Click the thumbnail picture above to download a larger image for your desktop.

Santa’s annual trip is a logistical nightmare for the folks at NORAD. His sleigh has no transponder. The only light is Rudoph’s nose. NORAD has responded with a special-purpose, one-night-a-year Santa Tracker. Santa-Cam images will be available at the site linked above on Christmas Eve.

As long as NORAD knows where Santa is at any time, there will be no mistakes.

Thanks to Max for the excellent artist’s representation.

moar lolcatz

Spoofcard.com

Oh, this is a fun site. What Spoofcard.com does is allow you to block your telephone Caller ID and disguise your voice. Apparently they offer a service for folks who like to play practical jokes on their cellphones.

No, not really. Where this would come in handy is if you want to display your company phone number when making business calls from your personal phone. You can record the calls and play them back from spoofcard.com’s web control panel. Very nice!

If you aren’t into putting together a 555 timer and a comparator for a barebones audio distortion circuit Spoofcard.com could be a lot of fun.

Technorati: American+Gothic Grant+Wood WASP

– Photo from the Squid blog, capped by Leslie.

Technorati: squid lolcat calamari cute cephalopods

update: another lolsquid on the Science Notes blog.

State senator sues God - Peculiar Postings - MSNBC.com

Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers has had it up to here with the terroristic threats God makes against His creations, not to mention 5000-plus years of floods, famine, plague and pestilence.

Since God is everywhere, He can be sued in Douglas County, Nebraska for the untold psychological damage His irrational actions have done to Senator Chambers’ constituents. Chambers is seeking a permanent injunction forbidding God to engage in further terroristic activities.

A little dark humor from Tom’s Jokes Collection.

Technorati: dark+humor suicide+hotline suicide

Screen capture of Meow Mix Sweepstakes error message.

They could give me time to get out to the kitchen for the UPC code plus feed whatever animals got in the way as I tried to get back to the computer with it.

Sheesh.

Technorati: cats cat+food