Making the Switch

I know I’ve spoken a lot lately about going open-source. You probably remember my award-winning column called Open-Source My Life, because you remember how it made your skin all bumpy with chills when you realized you could liberate yourself from the oppressive hand of the big boys. I know you also have probably been sitting there hitting F5 every several minutes for the last few weeks, hoping a new column would show up on the site. I know, I know. And I’m sorry. As it turns out, I have learned lately that Haycomet is a lazy writer. She drags butt around the office and almost never writes anything. I see her standing in office doorways and at cube openings, coffee in hand, just talking to all the other SpaceBrew employees.

It’s okay though. There are still plenty in the archives for you to check out. (out which you can check? meh) So anyway, I have one more column to write about going open-source, and I’d like for you to read it. I promise you won’t be bored by it, and it won’t be two thousand words, and you might actually learn something. And it may change your life. The column, not the topic. So read on, my laconic friends.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:science
  • Reading time:8 mins read

The The Bacon Paradox

Have you ever heard of the Bacon Paradox? Actually, I think the The is capitalized, so it would technically read, The Bacon Paradox. And since the The is capitalized and part of the title, it would be appropriate in its proper noun sense to refer to it as the The Bacon Paradox. In which case, you should then go ahead and capitalize the first the, e.g. The The Bacon Paradox. You obviously then add another the, it becomes capitalized, and so on, ad nauseum.

Yeah. Sort of like the TTR report, in which the acronym formally stands for “The TTR Report”. Figure that one out.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:science
  • Reading time:5 mins read

SpaceBrew Review: District 9

I finally watched District 9 a couple of weeks ago. It was nothing like I thought it would be. When I originally dropped it in my queue I was only vaguely aware of the plot. Here’s the plot summary from IMDB:

In 1982, a massive star ship bearing a bedraggled alien population, nicknamed “The Prawns,” appeared over Johannesburg, South Africa. Twenty-eight years later, the initial welcome by the human population has faded. The refugee camp where the aliens were located has deteriorated into a militarized ghetto called District 9, where they are confined and exploited in squalor. In 2010, the munitions corporation, Multi-National United, is contracted to forcibly evict the population with operative Wikus van der Merwe in charge. In this operation, Wikus is exposed to a strange alien chemical and must rely on the help of his only two new ‘Prawn’ friends.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:review
  • Reading time:3 mins read

Fleas Flee, Please

Not too long ago, I had a dog named Daisy. Or Dixie. Something like that. You see, I’ve never really connected with her. Because see, she’s never allowed me to. She’s so scared of men that she wouldn’t come to me. Every time I would approach her, she would make a rather large puddle of this dark yellow liquid. I’m not sure what all that is about. But I couldn’t have a relationship with this dog like most people have with their dogs. You know, like petting it and saying, “Come here, Butch!” and have him actually come see you. So I’ve never connected with her, and thus – I don’t really remember her name.

Regardlessly, she brought some of her friends in a few weeks ago. And now they’ve taken over. Fleas. I hate them. I hate them worse than I hate golf. Thousands of them. You couldn’t walk through the grass to the back door without having them hop onto your legs and start biting. The little cocksuckers.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:diaryrant
  • Reading time:3 mins read

Help Me Fix My Time Machine

I was working in the hangar this morning, trying to get my temporal matrix delineator running again. Something is wrong with the flux bank. It’s getting ridiculously complex though, and I’ve downloaded every manual I can find for it. Something has burned through one of the wires on the fonga assembly, and now the stupid thing smokes whenever I engage the cryostat.

So long story short, I replaced the two bad nodes on the flux bank and rewired the cryofuse with an Atometer 4000 Barker Plug. You know, one of those platinum-plated bad boys? Yeah. No shit. It set me back about two grand. This shit ain’t cheap like it used to be. Anyway, after I got those replaced, my camber light started blinking. NOW WHAT?!? Ha! Good lord, if it’s not one thing it’s another, right? So I removed the camber coil box, and guess what I found. Seriously. Look at this picture:

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:science
  • Reading time:3 mins read