by ·0 Comments

Making cookies follows a repeating cycle once the batter is made.  For peanut butter cookies, after each tray does 7 minutes 30 seconds on each of rack A and C in the oven, they’re left out to cool for 9 minutes before being transferred to a cooling rack where upon the baking sheets are repopulated with dough and put in the oven.  I ordered a second set of baking sheets and silicone mats thinking this would reduce my total baking time, instead I chose to double the batch.  The double batch doesn’t quite fit in my stand mixer so I’m getting a 6 qt mixer which appears like it won’t quite fit in my appliance rack.  A larger rack would require me to either move it find a new home for my crockpot.

It all starts small; this is why the national debt is topping $14 thousand thousand million.

by ·0 Comments

I don’t program, at best I script and I’ve made a reasonable career of this when called for by any of my jobs.  This Rube Goldberg-esque methodology is not helpful when learning to program with a capital “p”.   “Programming” seems to involve things like having “data flows” and in some case interaction with these dreaded “objects” I have heard so much about.  Whenever I create a new class I feel like I have a new structure that has to be bargained with, that is holding my data-children hostage that only through an intricate set of calls and handshakes may I actually see them.  This is the way “programmers” do things, and people far smarter than I have ordained this the way of the world.

I created my first “Hello, World” program in my target framework and have gone so far as to change both the point size and font of the text.  This isn’t even crawling, this isn’t even breathing.  This is the programming equivalent of the moment of silence where the baby is alive but has yet to be slapped into cognizances by the doctor.  Then the pain begins, and I get to become some sort of journeyman bit-wielder who will spend the next years hating pound signs and import calls but will miss them (dearly) when removed from that element.  I never felt this way about chemistry, as I considered each compound, extract, and experiment to be a friend.  The calcified laws of nature were perfectly content to merely repeat their one line of “a 10°C translates to a doubling of the rate of reaction” until you realized this truth and its manifold implications.  Programming has yet to introduce me to those friends with their quirks (crystallized iodine compounds make wonderful party tricks) and qualities (acetylene and chlorine react as gases to produce a color that I can only describe as “bright”) and I wonder if this happens in programming.  If it does not, I will petition for a change to the second word in “computer science”.

by ·0 Comments

I want to start and join some odd Facebook groups so I can send invites to my enemies:

“Terry Robinson thinks you’d like to become a fan of Not Amounting to Anything/Sodomizing Melons/Decaffeinated Goat Fucking/Treating Cats Like People/Dick Punching/Snoring At Weddings”

Just a thought.

by ·3 Comments

I’m watching my coworker nearly attack the large, Soviet-style printer to the left of me.  The thing jams like Dizzy Gillespie and no longer faxes.  A coworker commented that this was caused by increased complication of modern gadgets and that he wanted a phone that just made calls and printer that just printed.  Being a child of the 80s and growing up with surly printers like the HP LaserJet II that would only print under a waxing moon or certain tidal periods, I have no problem making the device function.   It is like a child that’s a picky eater and won’t take a ream of paper if the top sheet is off-kilter or toner cartridge isn’t seated just right.  The noise of a properly inserted toner cartridge is that of loading a Thompson submachine gun with a drum of 50 caliber dum-dums.  In the modern office environment is unmistakable.

So my older coworkers are a lost causee, my peers are versed in the ways of hardware-fu but what of our coworkers’ children?  Having grown up in the age of functional printing knowing neither mimeograph nor tempermental laser printers we need to give them the tools to succeed with the next generation of grumpy technologies.  I propose the Fisher-Price My First Printer.  It’ll be large and plastic with easy to identify trays and cartridges with a display that simply shows a happy face everything’s ok and a sad face if something’s jammed or otherwise out of order and will play happy music with bursts of bright light when a printer problem is properly fixed.  Best of all, there’ll be a “at least you tried” feature where the device will provide audible instructions if the operator isn’t able to solve something quickly to avoid early frustration.  Wouldn’t it be great, going up to a printer, having it jam and that experience bringing up memories of a joyful childhood.  That’s the world I want my kids to live in.

by ·6 Comments

My credit rating jumped 40 points from last month to this month.  I think someone stole my identity and started making prudent saving decisions.

I picture some sort of counterpoint to organized crime that steals passwords and sets spending limits on teenagers or alerts people when their interest rate changes.

by ·0 Comments

I’ve been reading up on modern physics since camp ended to try and get back into the swing things.  After finally figuring out math of Hawking Radiation and how holographic information theory works i broached books with fewer pictures and more equations.

I got most of these texts from the library and as the difficulty level increased the page on which the previous reader left their bookmark decreased.  Each one of these passes left me giddy and reinvigorated and probably helped me finish in a few cases.

I imagine I’m not the only person who gets this feeling of triumph from beating someone else at reading.  I think we should sprinkle fake bookmarks through children’s books as a way to encourage reading and through more advanced works to reward adults for finishing legitimate literature.

by ·3 Comments

I purchased a few cans of dusting agent to, well dust and thought to use the remains of the can in an attempt to add effervescence back into my then flat Diet Mountain Dew.  I grabbed a paper towel to wipe the soda from screen after spitting out one of the foulest fluids I’ve ever tasted (beats both windshield washer fluid and fake stool).  Then I look to see on the can:  “For the safety of your children, a strong bittering agent has been added to this product to stop inhalant abuse.  www.inhalants.org”.  Once again, kids abusing the kindness of companies has destroyed another one of amazing ideas.  One day I’ll finish my cocaine-powered flashlight.

by ·3 Comments

I had an idea for a banner in front of the Science Center.

“OSR Science: The only place in Scouting you can talk about torquing Uranus without violating youth protection”

-Ed.  with should be without, fixed.

by ·0 Comments

“Due to global warming all pictures of the sun in requirements for Soil and Water Conservation must be drawn with an angry face rather than a happy face”

“Stabbing yourself in woodcarving will no longer be accepted for the wound dressing requirement of First Aid merit badge”

I still want to do the byproduct of combined merit badges.  Public Speaking + Rock Climbing with a podium scaling a wall is still my favorite.  Archery + Fishing or Shotgun Shooting with Fishing with a cod or herring in the trap thrower is probably #2.