BoomFlag

We went to visit our friend Vickie yesterday, and it’s a good half-hour drive each way. There are, of course, quite a few stoplights betwixt here and there, and Alex and Kyra derive great fun from using their astounding mental abilities to control the lights.

Basically, they sit in the back seat and chant in order to make the lights green and allow us to avoid stopping all the time. So every time we approach a light, we hear two voices behind us:

“Turn… GREEN!”
“Turn… GREEN!”
“Turn… GREEN!”
“Turn… GREEN!”

Then, if the light turns green, they cheer. If the light is already green, the chant is different:

“Stay… GREEN!”
“Stay… GREEN!”

Ad infinitum.

The worst part is probably when we were going down Highway 287, which has long stretches without stoplights but since it’s flat and straight, you can see the light far ahead. Thus the kids could see it a good minute or so before we actually arrived at the intersection, and we were treated to a lengthy display of mental prowess:

“Turn… GREEN!”
“Turn… GREEN!”
“Turn… GREEN!”
“Turn… GREEN!”
“Turn… GREEN!”
“Turn… GREEN!”
“Turn… GREEN!”
“Turn… GREEN!”
“Turn… GREEN!”
“Turn… GREEN!”
“Turn… GREEN!”
“Turn… GREEN!”
(cheer)

Thank goodness they were on the alert, or we might still be sitting at red lights.

So it looks like the music industry will be (finally) mailing out checks to anyone who was part of the class-action lawsuit against them regarding price-fixing of CD’s.

The checks will all be for $13.86, and I’m sure I’ll be going to the mailbox several times a day to grab it when it shows. Interestingly enough, I doubt $13.86 is enough money to buy a single decent CD…

For my birthday I received what could only be described as a unique gift. It’s a “binary clock” that shows the time with LEDs arranged in columns of binary numbers. One reads the six columns from left to right to produce the digits in the hour, minute, and second.

The little instruction manual claims that “with a few minutes of practice” you can read the binary clock as well as a standard one. Laralee and I plugged it in and stared at it for a few minutes, mesmerized by the changing lights, but I can’t honestly say we came away from the exercise with the ability to tell time in binary.

We did, however, discuss what time it would be when the most LEDs were on. We couldn’t figure out when that would happen, although it’s clear that seven is an important component of that time since it requires three LEDs. There were also discussions of what times would produce interesting patterns like pyramids or checkerboards.

Definitely a clock for geeks.

Kyra got a haircut, and she thinks she looks terribly cute with the new style.

(She’s right, of course.)

“So, if I just hit this deletey thing, it’ll all go away, right?”

Many news sources are reporting today about the paper released by a group of sixty scientists (twenty of whom have a Nobel Prize in their living room) condemning the Bush administration’s treatment of scientific research.

Specifically, they claim the administration has “deliberately and systematically distorted scientific fact in the service of policy goals” with regard to research on the environment, medicine, nuclear weaponry, and so on. They further contend that reports unfavorable to the administration policies were censored or discarded, that advisory committees were loaded with unqualified political appointees, and that the administration refused to seek independent confirmation of reports in line with their agenda.

Personally this comes as no great surprise, and only sharpens my feeling that Bush and his cronies are the worst thing this country needs right now. Of course other administrations have done similar things– suppressing information that happens to be contradictory to their policies or direction. But according to this report, our current administration has gone far beyond the “usual” levels and continues to subvert scientific progress when it feels threatened.

It’s already clear the administration distorted intelligence reports regarding Iraq in order to accomplish its agenda, so in a way this seems like “par for the course”… if it doesn’t agree with you, shut it down. When you’re at the top of the government totem pole, you have the power to do exactly that.

Where does it end? Is there no limit to the authority of Bush and his cronies? Can they hide, doctor, or otherwise discard anything that stands in their way?

Sigh.

Happy birthday to me!

Follow-up to the Poser Question:

Chancellor the Wise has pointed out to me that cylindrical tanker cars have more structural strength than rectangular boxcar shapes. I suppose efficiency of structure is more important than efficiency of volume, at least in this case…

Today’s Poser Question is this:

Why are tanker cars on trains, and tanker trucks, cylindrical? This shape is certainly less space-efficient than a box… why not use a boxcar-like shape instead, which would hold more liquid?

Taken from a funny (in a satirical sort of way) “anti-valentine’s day” site…