The Threadless Nut

In case you aren’t aware, there is a lunar eclipse this evening. Neat.

Coincidentally (?) there is also an errant satellite that will be shot down during the aforementioned eclipse. Also neat.

I see this going one of 2 ways, either completely uneventfully, or horribly, horribly, wrong.

The former option probably doesn’t require much exposition. Missile, Satellite, Boom. It’s the latter, and far more interesting option that is not quite obvious, so I’ll lay it out for you.

Some aspect of the eclipse will cause the missile to fail to impact the target. It may be that the alignment of the Earth, Sun and Moon causes a slight change in the gravitational field of the Earth that messes up the guidance system, or maybe just a rather important Navy officer gets distracted by the spectacle, not important which. This error causes the missile to continue traveling through space until it finally strikes our poor, defenseless Moon. The resulting explosion is enough to fracture the little planetoid into several chunks. As the eclipse subsides it reveals the shattered Moon to the horrified population of the earth.

Over the course of the next few months, the orbit of our own planet around the Sun is affected by this change. The Earth’s path becomes more elliptical bringing us both closer and farther away from the Sun at the extremes. The result is stifling summer temperatures and brutal winter conditions. Over time, the climate degrades further and further and we are periodically peppered by the smaller chunks of debris from the moon.

Eventually, the increased radiation from the close proximity to the Sun mutates those who spend too much time outside into bloodthirsty zombies (there are always zombies). The population dwindles as more of us become, or are consumed by, these zombies, and the environment becomes increasingly toxic.

Finally, despite the efforts of a plucky oil drilling crew, the largest pieces of the moon come crashing into the Earth, instantly wiping out huge chunks of the remaining populace. This event pushes our orbit even farther out of alignment resulting in complete, yet spectacular, destruction as we collide with Jupiter.

I’m sure everything will be fine, but would it really hurt to just push the missile launch off until tomorrow?

The other day, out of nowhere (which is where most things actually come from), Declan fires this at me:

Dad? Do you get a new computer when you die?

That got me wondering, assuming that there is some sort of afterlife, is there even a need for computers? What about the Internet? Does some sort of perfect awareness of all things make it unnecessary?

If there an internet there, what’s on it? Is there a huge iTunes Music Store where everything is free and without DRM? Is there any porn? Can you get spyware on your PC? Is there a fallen angel that just needs my account number to transfer his vast wealth, paying me a “modest” fee in the process?

Are the PCs any better than what we have here? Do they crash randomly and require reboots to stay running? How often do you have to upgrade, if at all? Is there a Blue Screen of …. umm… Death? Can you get Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?

All tough questions which will likely never be answered. All those near death and death returnees talk about is the white light and their deceased relatives welcoming them. Not one of them noticed the really important things, like were they Macs or PCs? (Though I know they’re Linux boxes)

So, the subject line of this one is only semi-sarcastic. Yes I am capable of that, I’m even capable of not being sarcastic at all, it just doesn’t happen much.

Hybrid cars have a lot of whiz-bang neato-ness that certainly appeals to my inner geek. Every time we go to lunch in one of the many Priuses (Priusii, Priiii?) that are reproducing in the parking lot (yes, I’m completely convinced that if you leave 2 of them parked next to each other for more than 6 hours, they spawn another one) we all like to look at the cool display that shows where the motive force of the vehicle is coming from, or how much gas we are not using, or how many baby seals we have saved on this trip.

However, many of you (ok, several….well, that guy over there) have heard me voice disappointment in the fuel consumption that they have produced in the real world. When word of hybrids came out a while ago, I was hoping to see MPG figures in the 70s, but it looks like they are pretty firmly set in the 40s. Of course, that’s great and all, using less gas is a Good Thing ™ and there are some aspects of it that you can’t put a price on.

That fact in mind, here’s what the price is: Cars.com study on overall costs. Of course, this study may be completely bogus and flawed, but the gist is that it costs several thousand dollars more over the lifetime (defined as 8 years at 15k miles per and $3 per gallon) of the vehicle to own a hybrid.

If you’re perfectly happy paying that premium to know that you’re using less fuel, or for any reason, that’s great. As that fish with the newspapers says in a a Spongebob toon “Take it, friends. Arm yourselves with knowledge.” Yes, I’ve accepted the fact that everything in life can somehow be related to Spongebob.

it’s a bird…

it’s a plane…

it’s a … Civic?

So apparently Honda is branching out into the aviation industry. They’ve got a pretty neat looking little jet.

Finally, something to trade the CR-V in on.

Check out more at HondaJet.

Ok, I understand that technology is helping us in all sorts of ways, but this is a case of engineers gone wild.

The Smart Pressure ™ tire gauge

Ok, this is a tire gauge, a digital tire gauge, so far I’m fine with that. Then we add the ability to enter in your target pressure. It will display your target pressure next to the actual pressure. So, this seems pretty unnecessary, but I suppose it’s still ok. You don’t have to remember what pressure you’re going for, and I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt that it remembers this setting between pressure setting sessions, so you don’t have to go look anything up.

Here’s where it gets out of hand. So we’ve got a pressure gauge that displays 2 numbers next to each other. You think that would be enough, you could look at the 2 numbers, determine if pressure needs to go up or down, and adjust accordingly. No, apparantly that is not enough, this thing needs to change colors to tell you what to do. Of course, now you have to remember that green means add air, red means dump air, and blue means go have a coffee, but I suppose that’s easier than figuring out that 30 is less than 32.