11.21.2006

Do Not Look Into Laser With Remaining Good Eye

So went a sign posted on someone's door at the U of O. I can't recall who, but he was obviously a laser jock of some kind. I was going to write "laser jockey," but that phrase seemed too silly. I imagined a small man, colorfully dressed, applying a crop to the side of a big ol' Spectra-Physics Argon ion laser.

I've gotten a laser beam or two in the eye, but never anything serious. I recently built a little experimental setup wherein I used a Helium-Neon laser (that's just a little tube of He and Ne gas with some cool excitation and mirrors around the tube) to line everything up. I noticed that my wedding ring is extremely, extremely, reflective. So much so that if I use any high power lasers, you bet I'll be covering that thing up for the duration of the work!

11.19.2006

Dave Barry says it so much better

Click here to read Dave Barry's Blub Story.

11.17.2006

Help a brutha out

As you know, I sold my soul to get a paycheck from Blockbuster. I understand that Tom and Susan are Netflix subscribers. This makes us enemies. This can be prevented, however, by activiating a two-week free trail with Blockbuster Total Access, and entering my store code, 41114B, so our store can get a credit for it. You can cancel it after a week (you have to have it a least a day for the activation to process). Pleeease, our store sucks and we need more activations.

11.10.2006

Edit That Paper!

Now, can it be obtained online?

CLARIFYING UPDATE: Meg is now the editor for the Rogue Community College paper (Redwood Campus)... it wasn't a command to undisclosed persons, or anything.

11.08.2006

Just When You Thought it Was Safe to Go Back to the Outhouse

According to the Wikipedia, during the first four decades of the twentieth century, 90% of Black Widow (Latrodectus Whicheverus) bites reported in the United States were to male genitalia. Gah!

That's what happens when we lose our biblical roots and try man-on-spider sex. Were Rick Santorum still a senator, I'm certain he'd be glad to bloviate about how those Widow-bites were purely the consequencves of gay marriage.

11.07.2006

I Prefer Pi

In the Bible, (1 Kings 7:23), we find that the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter is 3. A traditional estimate (possibly, though probably not) due to Archimedes, gives Pi as 22/7. An old Chinese estimate gives Pi as 355⁄113. Just letting you know.