technology

The Day the World Didn’t End

Space Says:

So what do we do now that the world didn’t end when it was supposed to? Well, I imagine a lot of people will be saying the same thing when December 13, 2012 rolls around. They’ll throw up their hands and say, “Uh, what do we do now? Yesterday was supposed to be it!” And what’s funny is I know some actual people who were preparing themselves for the world to end the other day, when they turned on the large collider. It was thought that it would create some black holes, you know. And the scientists said, “Yeah, well it could, but we’ll be able to manage them.”

Really.

So you have experience with black holes then? You’ve managed them before? You can somehow keep them from sucking in whatever you’re trying to control them with? Uh huh. Just push it into the trash can? Or wait, do you use another black hole to eat up the one that’s causing problems? How, exactly, tell me please, do you plan to control these black holes that might abound? Well, anyway, I’ve gotten off point. There was a lot of fear that the world would end when they switched this thing on. People were even protesting, trying to get the project shut down so it wouldn’t evaporate our world as we know it. Well they didn’t succeed. The thing is now running. And the world, so far as I know, is still here.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:science
  • Reading time:4 mins read

SpaceBrew Goes Mobile

I know you're all wondering why there was no column posted this morning. Well, so am I. Actually, I didn't have anything prepared because most of the writers are slacking or on vacation or just don't care about their jobs anymore. We're about to do some major housecleaning here, folks. Let this be a warning to you SpaceBrew writers whose accounts have gone stale! Lay-offs are imminent! Anyway, the reason I didn't post was because I lay there last night thinking about my lovely readership, which has grown quite strong here of late. And I realize a lot more people are browsing the site on a mobile device these days. And since I care about each and every one of you, I decided I would spend the morning designing an alternate theme for the mobile browsers of the world. I even made it easy for you all. You don't have…

  • Post author:
  • Post category:news
  • Reading time:2 mins read

Some things just weren’t meant to be.

You all know how badly I want the new iPhone. Well, I have in fact already ordered one and paid for it. Now I wasn’t like some of those fools who went and stood in line for seven days to get one of the first releases of the 3G. I waited a couple of months and then mosied into the AT&T store because I needed a phone. Might as well get the iPhone. It’s been out for a couple of months now, so there shouldn’t be a big wait or anything. So what this should tell you is that I’m a patient guy. When a new electronic device comes out, I don’t rush out and get it right away. I wait until the excitement dies off.

Then I rush out and get one.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:rant
  • Reading time:7 mins read

And then we camped…

So let me tell you about our camping trip last weekend. It was hotter than a fresh pile of jalapeno-stuffed dog shit. We had fans in our tent, too. I also had a window unit air conditioner. I had it sitting on a TV tray, which was nice. Except that somewhere in the middle of the night, the cat ran into the TV tray, and the whole thing toppled over, crushing her. Rest in peace, Peachez. Damn, I’ll miss that cat.

There’s – well, there’s really not much to talk about. I mean, we camped out. That was about it. We didn’t really sit around drinking beer or anything. I mean, it was just a camping trip. Anyway, I told you I would tell you about it, so there you have it. Now you want to hear something real exciting? Read on, dear friends. Read on.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:diary
  • Reading time:4 mins read

White Van Specials

You ever get accosted in a gas station parking lot by one of these gangs in a white van, trying to sell you speakers for cheap? I have. Probably four or five times in my life. I’m always amazed at how this person’s story is so similar to the last person’s I heard. “Oh yeah the guy at the warehouse accidentally gave us a couple of extra speakers and if I don’t sell them, then the guy I’m delivering to will take them for himself and sell them. I just need some extra cash man!” Uh huh.

I’m also always amazed at how rude and persistent these people are. And how when I tell them to go screw themselves they start cussing me out. Well let me back up – I don’t tell them to literally go screw themselves. I say, “No thanks, I have a pretty good set of Klipsch 8.1 surround sound speakers in my theater at home. They cost way more than the speakers you’re selling, and are probably better, therefore.” Then they say, “Well you suck and don’t know a good deal when you see one!” And I say, “Uh, yes I do. Which is why I’m going to have to pass on this one.” Then they get mad and start cussing me out. Then I tell them to go screw themselves.

(more…)

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

How I Plan to Solve the Global Warming Crisis

Global Warming is an issue I don’t take very lightly. I take it extremely seriously. I have, therefore, been working on developing some hard-hitting plans to help our great planet get out of this catastrophe. Some of my solutions may sound silly out of context, but in reality, I think they would really work. Like for instance, since you never hear people complaining about living in Hawaii, I figured we could move a couple of the continents (or build a new one out of dirt from the Sahara desert by dumping it into the ocean near Hawaii) down to around that area. See? That shit is genius. And it solves three problems at once. Number one, it makes a normally cold place like Antarctica really warm and beautiful. Number two, it helps with over-population. Because right now no one wants to live there except people of Eskimo descent. But a lot more people could move down there into that great big space if it was right on the equator. It’s like putting plywood in your attic so you can start using it as a room. And number three, well… Actually I don’t have a third reason. But I bet you can come up with one.

(more…)

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

The Incredible Shrinking Medium

I’m always amazed at how far we’ve come in the last hundred years with technology. It’s crazy that only a hundred years ago we had just invented the telephone, and now we have cellular shit, that doesn’t physically connect to anything, that can send pictures and texts and porn instantly to anyone else with a cell phone. Through the air. I still have trouble understanding how an analog phone worked, transferring voices across a wire. But here we’re sending that stuff through the air. And it’s digital. What?

But I really came to talk about media formats today. Well, cameras would be one qualifier: we used to use photo plates in our cameras. And film. Remember film? Ha! Now we use memory sticks and whatnot. And the idea is apparently to make them as small as possible. Seriously, give it a rest, people. My phone has a one-gig micro SD card in it. It’s smaller than my pinky fingernail. But it holds a gig worth of pictures and music. And porn. What the helling hell.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:science
  • Reading time:4 mins read

Eradicate the Crickets

You know what’s worse than lying there, not being able to fall asleep – when you should damn well be tired enough? Lying there, not being able to sleep – when you should damn well be tired enough – but you can’t because of a stupid effing cricket. Clearly it’s in the laundry room, which backs up to our master bedroom. But every time I open the door to look for his little ass, he shuts up.

So you end up sitting there in the dark, flashlight in hand, waiting for him to speak up. Sitting on the cold tile floor, waiting like a ninja. Or, ooh-ooh a Green Beret! And he never chirps again. I know he must be under the dryer, but I don’t even want to go into how much of an anathema that is. There’s no room in my laundry room to move the dryer unless I disconnect the washer and move it out first. So I have to live with the chirping?

(more…)

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

I just joined the Darwin Awards.

We used to do crazy shit when we were adolescents. Seriously. My mother used to shout at me for jumping off the roof into the pool. Man, if she had seen some of the really crazy shit I was doing, she would have begged me to keep jumping. My girlfriend pulled up beside us on the highway one night, honking and flashing her lights. It was dark, there was no one else on the highway, but my pickup was very recognizable. The graffiti-style paint job was distinct. So she pulled up and rolled down her passenger window, waving at me and shouting something incoherent. Well, I’ll just get my buddy to take over driving!

So my buddy slides behind the wheel and I hop over to the passenger side, crawl out my window and into the bed of the truck (while we’re still moving). Then I did the whole acrobatic stretch between the two vehicles and slipped down through her window and into the seat. I guess I could have just waited, since we were going the same place, and both arrived some three minutes later. I missed her though, you know?

(more…)

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

Not a Happy Customer

If there’s one thing I hate more than slamming my finger in a rusty door, or stepping on a squeaky nail, it’s got to be incompetence in customer service. When I’m in a store inquiring about a product, your sales staff should know the answers to all my questions. Whatever happened to training the employees on the merchandise they are selling? When I worked in the Wal Mart Photo Lab, I took time every day to stand there reading the boxes of all the cameras. I learned what the best features were on every one of them, and was able to effectively compare and discuss intelligibly the best options for the customer. So if I go into Best Buy or Circuit City, why can I not expect someone working in the television department to do the same thing?

There’s nothing I hate more than asking someone a very specific question and having them look at the damn tag. Dude, I can do that myself. And already have. For instance, yesterday, I was in Micro Center, picking up an IDE/SATA I/O controller board for my home PC. I’ve troubleshot the problem down and determined that the root cause must be a bad IDE controller on my mother board. And since the computer I built is around three years old now, it’s a little outdated. It’s still a bad ass machine. I have a Pentium 4, and a good amount of RAM. But you know how quickly technology upgrades and supersedes itself. So my point is that it’s hard to find a socket 775 mother board that still supports the type of memory sticks I have. DDR2 is the new thing.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:rant
  • Reading time:6 mins read