Perfect Phone For Your Enemies

Big props to Staples for taking back my POS Panasonic TG-9333 DECT phone. Speaking as an engineer, this phone is an embarrassment to the designer, quality control and management of Panasonic. I recommend the responsible party do the honorable thing and kill themselves. Or, I would also accept forcing them to use this as their only phone for 5 years.

No. That's too harsh.

2 years.

This apartment building was built using the same principles.

Please Please Kill Me Now

I've recently invented a new form of music; violently alternative Islamic rock. To share this joy with all infidels, I am changing my name to Simon Le Bomb and starting a band, Quran Quran.

The first single will be: Is There Something I Should Blow (Up)?

And, of course, we will use the same pyrotechs that Great White used.

January Is For Banana Hammocks

I've just started combing through this site. Some of the videos are hilarious, like this one from the first No Pants! Subway Ride. Notice the name of the book the woman is reading.

No Pants (2002) from ImprovEverywhere on Vimeo.

Sir, How Many Face Lifts Have You Had?

There is a joke about the perfect woman, who is 4 ft. tall, has no teeth and a flat head (to put your beer on).

There is a similar joke about the ideal man and it goes something like this.

White Is The New Black

According to News.com, Jack Steinberger thinks wind energy is a waste of time compared to solar energy. His credentials for such a statement? He won a Nobel Prize in something other than solar/wind energy, he's a director at CERN of something other than solar/wind energy. Overall, he's a smart, old guy. If you think that qualifies him, you are probably not a smart, old guy.

The article got me thinking. Is solar energy really a good idea from the perspective of preventing/reducing global climate change? Let me play devil's advocate.

Let's say we're going to cover a part of the desert with cheap solar panels that are 10% efficient. Let's also assume they absorb 90% of the light that hits them. So, of the 100% of light that hits them, 10% becomes electicity which eventually turns into heat (in the powerlines, in a motor, in a lightbulb, etc.), 10% is reflected back up and 80% is absorbed by the panel and becomes heat right away.

The other possibility is that the light hits the desert. In this case how much light is reflected and how much absorbed? I don't know. 60/40? 70/30? Let's say 60% reflected about a third of which would be directly radiated to space NOT HEATING THE EARTH.

So, is it really a good idea to cover the desert with solar cells? Are people considering the lack of reflection in their analysis? Maybe we should be covering the ocean with solar cells. And I'll just note that all the big windmills I've seen are a nice reflective white.

If only Scott Adams would read this post. He'd understand my point.

By the way, my qualifications are that I'm a smart, middle-aged guy.

Cyrillic Silliness

One of the most interesting things about Russia are the signs of familiar companies in Cyrillic. Here are a few:





If you can't figure them out, let me know in the comments.