h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It may have been in cross promotion for his second book.

On an entirely different vein, here's a link to a very informative PDF regarding modern Russian informational warfare.

http://infowar.cepa.org/files/?id_plik=1896

[NOTE: Not a link to anything related to Alex Jones ]

Before I forget (again), Monday morning I awoke from a dream and an aspect of this dream was truly disturbing.


The dream itself was incoherent and irrelevant, as all dreams are, but in the world of this dream, the American citizenry were even more obsessed with lotteries and scratch-offs than in reality (barely), and we were just a bit further along the path to our Idiocratic future. Automatic store tellers were more ubiquitous than they are now, so I'd estimate this dream setting to be only within the next couple of years into our future.

Here's the thing that stood out. In this near future, the automatic tellers don't give out LOOSE change. Rather change is given out packaged in BLISTER PACKS!

In my dream, you would receive a few loose bills and maybe a couple of blister packs, each with two rows of circular cells for individual coins of various denominations. These were roughly 20-25 coins long by 2 coins wide. Single blister packs usually contained some even total; $1, $2, $5 that could then be "spent" just like their corresponding bills. Partial change amounts were still dispensed in the same blister packs. The key is that a bar code and total were printed on the cardboard part of the blister pack.

The concept in my dream was such that the citizenry were so vacuous they couldn't even be bothered to count their change while trading in scratch-off tickets and buying bottled "Smart Water". We also couldn't be bothered to just discontinue minting superfluous coins like pennies and nickels. Automation and excessive packaging just expanded to accommodate us.



The Idiocracy is coming, and I will not be surprised to find these blister packs in our near future.

I hope you patented and trademarked this before you posted.

It is such a plausible thing, isn't it.

That said, by posting it here, I've protected to some extent as "prior art".

I'm considering names for my future photography business. The default is the dull [firstname][lastname]photography standard, in this case, Rob Ingram Photography. Of course, the best domain names for that are unavailable.

While I was taking a walk this morning, noticing my diplopia fade in and out, the name Mad Eye Photography occurs to me. Of course, when I get back to my desk and look it up, I find a fellow (with a glass eye) already has a business under that name. But he's in Sydney! And I can easily work around his URL. (He places a dash between "eye" and "photography".)

I could also get Wandering-eye.com and .photography which is also appealing to me.

Anyone got any reactions or thoughts about such business names?

If I were you (and of course I am not ) I might consider something that reflects of your work of the last few decades, Stellar, Galactic, Out of this World Photography, or the like. If a potential customer asks you about the name you could tell them some amazing stories. Of course you would also have to make sure no one else is using it.

Just a thought.

F S

Well, to be honest, my work of the last 20 years has been dead boring.

But, I could probably think of some arcane reference to the space program or astronomy.

When I first started working out here, all our workstations had names like Enceladus, Iapetus, Hyperion, &c. But this was the doing of our IT guy, not NASA standard procedure.

As I was looking through a list of new laws enacted by the Texas Legislature, most going into effect on the 1st of September, 2017, the last on on the list (amongst the obligatory declarations of silly things like Train Safety Awareness Month, Fallen Law Enforcement Officer Day, and proclamations declaring city of Rockwall as the official “Live Music Capital of North Texas”, Dripping Springs as the official “Wedding Capital of Texas”, and (seriously) Spurger as the “Knife Capital of Texas”) was House Concurrent Resolution 145 officially congratulating Gregory D. Watson on having the overall course grade for his 1982 University of Texas American government class elevated from a C to an A after a wait of 35 years.

As silly and inconsequential as that may sound, it's actually quite interesting. Gregory Watson's paper resulted in the 27th Amendment to the US Constitution being ratified in 1992, restricting congress from enacting pay increases that would effect the current session. Now any pay increases take effect for the following session.


http://constitutioncenter.org/blog/how-a-c-grade-college-term-paper-led-to-a-constitutional-amendment



Here's a full list of the new laws passed by the 2017 session of the Texas Legislature. http://www.jrlawfirm.com/blog/new-texas-laws-2017/

Did I ever share pics of my 42 tattoo?

I loved it but I could see a few small spots that needed filled in. A few years ago I tried getting it fixed and tthe h2g2 logo added in light blue. I didn't think the "artist" would add the black outline turning it into a captcha.



http://imgur.com/gallery/N4zVy

Does it make me a geezer if I find this in rather poor taste. Linked is an advertising spot running for a furniture store chain. It's an advert for kids' and teens' furniture, featuring kids and teens singing a variation of the Black Eyed Peas' song "My Humps". If you're not familiar with this staple of the pole dancing set, it's the tale of a young woman opining on how men spend all their money on her because of her notable assets, particularly her "hump" and her "lovely lady lumps".

http://youtu.be/d5iljWFGImw

I could say more, but...



Depression SUCKS!

DST... why is it still a thing?

http://youtu.be/br0NW9ufUUw

Here's an odd thing.

Peter Serafinowicz felt that something was missing from the Beatles' "A Day in the Life". Specifically, he felt the Paul McCartney part in the middle was too short, that it was just a Start of the Day in the Life... So, he took to the video game Rock Band: The Beatles and filled out a roughly 13 minute version he called "A Full Day in the Life" where he wakes up and falls out of bed, drags a comb across his head, makes it to work, late, chats up a coworker named Jean, takes her to lunch at a French restaurant, brushes off her advances causing Jean to storm out, pays his bill and chases after her, loses her, stops of in the Dog & Bull, has a pint, gets lost, takes a bus back to Saville Row (across the street) goes back into work, &c...

Have a listen here:
http://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByUABd3jA8rKc2Rua0JOcEhpNE0/view

So, in an effort to cut some of my medical costs, I recently switched from using Androgel daily to twice monthly injections of testosterone.

I wasn't billed as I've met my out of pocket cap, so I went online to look at the claim details.


So, the Androgel was running $3700 for 90 days. The injections will run $12/90 days, including needles.


I wish I'd known that 10 years ago.

Vote for Bernie. Or anyone else who advocates for a national health service.

Today I'm trying to decide between Lupe Valdez and Andrew White.


This one snuck up on me. I usually vote early, but I only saw last night that today is the official election day for the run off.

The governor's race is the only one on my ballot. I don't expect a high turnout.

Runoff elections always get the worst turnout in a state where turnout isn't high to begin with. I'd completely forgotten about it, or rather, I wasn't aware because I don't listen to KUT much any more. I'm tired of all the political stories, and I'm particularly tired of hearing President Fake's voice. I was getting angry before I went to work, I was getting angrier on my way to work (because Cap Metro are such a bunch of muppets), work makes me angry anyway, then I was repeating the process on the way home.

I hear Lupe Valdez got 52% of the vote.

Not only was it a low turnout, it was the lowest turnout in nearly a century for the democratic runoff. 4 western rural counties had NO voters at all since there was only a democratic runoff for governor on their ballot (like mine).