Apple, FIX YOUR SHIT!
A Skeptical Look at the Possibility of Life on Other Planets
From Skeptic Ink:
There were several interesting articles and images that all gave me the inspiration for this post. So, let’s talk about the idea of life in our universe beyond our solar system.
The first question to think about is how many other planets are there. The answer is lots. No, “lots” doesn’t even begin to cover it. I got this image from NASA (click the image to the source… it’s big).
Phil Plait, over at Bad Astronomy did a calculation to determine just how many galaxies Hubble could see. Note that isn’t all the galaxies in the universe, just the ones the Hubble Space Telescope could potentially see.
First he calculated how many galaxies were in a small piece of the above image. It’s about 50. That piece was 1/100 of the actual image. So, the image above contains about 5,000 galaxies.
Then he found out that the image is 10 square arcminutes. The entire sky is about 150 million square arcminutes, which means that there are about 15,000,000 pieces of sky the same size as the above image. At roughly 5,000 galaxies per, we get a total of 75,000,000,000 galaxies. That’s 75 billion visible galaxies with the Hubble.
The Milky Way has about 100 billion stars (though some estimates approach 400 billion). If we assume that an average galaxy has 100 billion stars, which is fairly safe, then we get 100 billion * 75 billion stars in the universe.
That is 7,500,000,000,000,000,000,000 or 7.7×1021 stars.
How many could potentially support life? Well, a lot depends on A) how you define life and B) what conditions we consider for that life.
Right now, we know of only one planet that unambiguously has life. There is significant potential for life elsewhere in our solar system. Though it would likely be limited to the bacteria level or extraterrestrial equivalent. Still, if we find life on Europa, Titan, Enceladus, or even Mars, then the options for life on extrasolar planets just got even better.
But let’s talk about that life on other planets. How would life appear?
Well, that’s an entire topic of research called Origins of Life (OOL). The results are very impressive so far. There are multiple ways to get the basic organic compounds needed for life, without life needing to be present. One of the main sticking points has been ribose sugars, the main component in the backbone of DNA and RNA. Some new research suggests that is much less of a sticking point than previously thought.
Cornelia Meinert (Meinert 2016) and her team discovered that a relatively simple reaction, catalyzed by ultraviolet light, forms ribose and a variety of other sugars… in space.
Ice is common in space, we regularly track large balls of space ice and even landed on one of them. So, that’s water. Another needed component is ammonia, which seems to be common in space as well. Finally, we need a source of carbon and that comes from methanol (methyl alcohol). Which is, you guessed it, common in deep space. These are all inorganic sources of these materials, no life required.
The idea behind the paper is that a planetary nebula, that is a pre-solar system, has all these materials much more scattered than in a solar system with planets. There’s a lot of supporting evidence for this in our own solar system.
In our solar system, excluding the sun, Jupiter has 3 times the mass of every other planet combined. It has methane, ammonia (including ammonia ice), even benzene rings (link to Voyager probe results). So, in a pre-planetary nebula, all of these compounds would be present.
Much like the famous Miller-Urey experiment, the researchers took these compounds, exposed them to near space temperatures (78 Kelvin, which is -319 F), hit them with UV light, then warmed them up. The result was 56 unique compounds (not including the isomers of those compounds), most of which, we would think required life to manufacture.
The question then becomes, how did the material formed in space get to Earth. That’s where theLate-Heavy Bombardment comes in. The hypothesis is that between 4.1 and 3.8 billion years ago, the inner planets underwent a very heavy period of asteroid and comet impacts. The suggested impacts are stunning. By extrapolating lunar impacts to Earth, the estimate is over 20,000 impacts large enough to form a 20 kilometer diameter crater. As an example, Meteor Crater in Arizona is just over 1 kilometer in diameter.
Larger impacts would also have happened, including multiple impacts resulting in 5,000 kilometer craters.
This is in addition to other research about the common origin of RNA, lipids, and proteins.
The point is, we find these compounds all over the universe. And the universe is truly immense. It is the height of arrogance to assume that life only exists on Earth and that humans are the only intelligent species in the universe.
Now, a discussion about whether we would ever find that other life is a totally different prospect. But even with one planet per galaxy with life, that’s 75 billion planets with life in our universe.
My First Camera
It originally belonged to my mom. She gave it to me—or should I say she allowed me to start using it when I was 13 years old. It used large format 620 film, something that was becoming harder and harder to find even back then, but which had the potential for producing some amazing photos—even if you were limited to a maximum of 8 shots per roll. But I didn’t know or care anything about that. I was just beginning to get into astronomy at the time, and what fascinated me the most about this camera was the fact that you could leave the shutter open indefinitely, allowing you to create photos of star trails. Of course, it involved a lot of trial and error and I never really did succeed in getting the effect I wanted from those pictures, but it planted the seed that was to grow into a lifelong love of photography.
I still have the camera, even though it hasn’t been used for at least thirty years. It was supplanted by a Pentax 35mm in the 1980s and that was replaced when I went digital about ten years ago. I’d imagine I could get some nice coin for it now, but I can’t seem to part with it—not just because it belonged to my mom, but also because it has so many good memories attached.
Requiēscat In Pāce
THIS.
I Am Incorrigible
Doing My Own Small Part
Experience has taught me that working with out-of-state recruiters is a complete waste of my time and resources. They don’t know the area, they don’t know the commute, and—for a increasingly large number of them—they don’t know how to speak English. I don’t have a problem working with people for whom English is not their primary language, but when you’re in a public-facing profession and people can’t understand a single thing you’re saying, perhaps you need to rethink your career choice.
Normally I just respond to their emails with a polite, “I do not work with out-of-state recruiters. Please do not contact me again,” and that’s the end of it. A few don’t take the hint and respond with “WHY NOT?” and at that point my civility goes out the door with a response of “What part of DO NOT CONTACT do you not understand?” The domains of mail coming from repeat offenders are finally routed at the server immediately into the trash and I never even see them.
I never answer calls from unrecognized numbers on my phone, forcing them to go to voice mail. So after these recruiters have left their rambling, unintelligible messages, the phone numbers get added to my blocked “Out of State Recruiters” contacts entry. BOOM.
Anyway…
For some reason today, I’ve been emailed by a dozen or so recruiters all based in North Carolina—all for the same job opening and half coming from the same damned company. (This is another ongoing irritation in working with recruiters; none of them in the same office ever seem to speak to each other.) This has afforded me the opportunity to respond in a more specific, non-generic fashion and be political at the same time; they don’t need to know that I wouldn’t work with them in any case, but I wrote back and told them that I would not do business with any company based in North Carolina because of HB2, and I suggested they pass that onto their employer.
OH. MY. GOD.
I could’ve written this myself.
Dear Apple,
It’s me, your biggest fan, Ben. Technically we have’t met, although I’ve been to your Genius Bar a few dozen times. I also stood outside the Moscone Center eating a burrito during WWDC once, so maybe you saw me then.
Anyway, in case you’re wondering who really I am, I’m that guy who won’t shut up about you, who preaches about you to his friends non-stop, so much so that they swear I work for you (but I don’t). Who meticulously sells off each old Apple device so as to subsidize each new one, losing money every time. I’m the guy who has owned every iPhone, every iPad, every Macbook. Who bought a freaking car just to experiment with CarPlay (and what a bad decision that was). If my complex lifestyle doesn’t fit the minimal design of one of your stock apps, I try rearranging my lifestyle, convinced that there is wisdom in Apple’s simplicity. I’m that rare specimen—or perhaps not so rare anymore—who believes in the marriage of art and science, who has faith in the magic of technology. Oh, and I’ve spent a quarter of a million dollars on Apple products since 2005.
In other words, Apple, I’m not just a fanboy. I am the fanboy. Which is why it kills me to admit that, as of this moment, you are seriously starting to piss me off. I’ll explain why, but before I do, hear me out.
I came to you in my darkest hour. A freshman in college in 2005, my clunky IBM laptop had just been stolen, and I needed a new computer. Rather than buy the same computer again–minus all my photos, software, and journal entries, which were gone forever–I decided to convert this crappy ordeal into a fun learning experience, so I bought a Macbook Pro instead. It was my very first Apple computer, and the first Macbook Pro model you made.
But that Macbook–that sweet, cherubic Macbook–changed everything forever. All of a sudden, there were no error messages, no popups, no annoying warnings or scary alerts. I literally had no idea what to do with all the free time I saved as a result of not fixing things. Occasionally, I’d be using my Apple computer and just burst into spontaneous laughter out of sheer joy at not having to troubleshoot yet another ungodly error. Your customer service was “uh-mazing” said my Mac friends, but I had no way of knowing because I never had a single problem with anything.
At first it was weird: what did all these buttons do, and where were all the other buttons? Also, what the hell was a Finder? But pretty soon, something changed: I fell madly, head-over-heels in love with this machine.
In fact, it was more than that: it was like discovering that I had been in an abusive relationship with Microsoft and PCs for the better part of two decades, and you, Apple, were my salvation. You see, the thing I had always loved about PCs was that whenever something went wrong (which was generally about once every 30 seconds) I knew how to fix it. I was the troubleshooting king. I prided myself on knowing what every error message meant and how to get around it. With enough Googling, the right workaround, and some perspiration, I could solve any PC problem.
In other words, it just worked.
Flash forward to 2015. A decade later, things are still looking promising for Apple. Despite the loss of Steve Jobs, you guys are the most valuable company on earth. Hell, you’re worth twice as much as the next-richest company, Exxon Mobil. iPhones are literally more valuable than oil shooting out of the ground.
But Apple, despite your incredible success, I have noticed an unsettling increase in bullshit that I have to deal with as a user of your products. What first began as a trickle has become a veritable flood. Just yesterday, I counted twenty-two errors across four devices, some of which (according to your support forums) have been known problems for three years.
Twenty-two. That’s way more than zero, which is how many problems I had with my Apple devices as recently as a few years ago.
A lot of this has to do with cloud services. When I bought my first Macbook Pro in 2005, people still did many things offline. We stored music on our hard drives, had Netflix send us movies in the mail (Jesus Christ), and occasionally even bought software at the store. I still remember driving to Best Buy to purchase Microsoft Office like a nincompoop, which for many today is a non-issue. In that environment, Apple was king. You made dynamite software…
But the days of software are waning. Now, the average tech user is probably connected to the Internet 24/7. As a result, cloud services have become far more important than traditional software.
And Apple, let’s be real: you are terrible at the cloud. Even to say that is such a ridiculous understatement that it would be like saying “zombies are mammals.” I mean, yes, they are, but that doesn’t cover the half of it. It seems as if every time I try to use any cloud-related service of yours, whether it’s Siri or the new Photos app or just plain Pages, something goes wrong. Siri has a stroke, Photos hasn’t uploaded the photo I took 10 minutes ago, and Pages can’t save my document to iCloud. Imagine that: not being able to save a fucking document. What is this, the Paleolithic Era?
The saddest part of this is that unlike me, many people have taken forever to switch to Apple, which means they are only just now switching from the error-filled PC world to the error-filled Apple world, and they won’t even notice the difference. They’re prone to abuse by their evil tech overlords. But I know better, and so do others. There was a time when Apple products were unlike anything else on the planet. They were simple, elegant, and they just worked.
Now, they just don’t. Hence the existence of this website, which serves as a testament to all the awful crap Apple users have to deal with nowadays.
For instance! Apple Music is an utter travesty, full of cumbersome UI, cloud syncing issues (surprise), bugs that will eat half your music library, and the list goes on. iTunes on the Mac is a loose and baggy monster full of random crap that no one needs, making it impossible to do the simplest thing such as–gasp–play a song. iMessage is barebones to the extreme and unintuitive to use, with 90% of people I know having no clue how to set it up across multiple devices and email addresses (it’s not hard, but it’s not obvious either). Apple’s Mail app is atrocious on both the iPhone and the Mac, with limited functionality and constant account verification problems. The new Photos app syncs poorly or not at all, and it’s utterly dumb compared to Google’s Photos app, which does magical things like allow you to search for objects and people automatically. Siri is Siri. Apple Maps is cow dung. CarPlay, which I have in my car, is a buggy piece of trash that infuriates me on a daily basis.
Now, Apple, I want to make something clear: I’m very good with computers. Despite all these stupid glitches and questionable product decisions, I make it work. I’m getting better and better at troubleshooting Apple problems and bending finicky products to my will.
But here’s the thing: I shouldn’t have to. That’s the world I left to join you, Apple. That’s the crap I abandoned ten years ago when I decided never to buy another PC. Is that really where we’re at now? Did we really trade Cheech for Chong?
(More)
Seems About Right…
The Island of Misfit Toys
Or, as I like to call it, “Tech of Yesteryear: Stuff I’ve Owned.”
My first calculator, a Texas Instruments SR-10. Four functions plus square root, square and inverse!—$89 in 1974. I needed it for Chem/Physics.
My first 10-speed bike, a Schwinn Continental—$105 in 1972
My first (and only) typewriter, an Olympia Report Electric SKE—price and date forgotten (1974?). Sold in a fit of perceived poverty in 1990.
My first hi-fi turntable, a Philips GA-212—$200 in 1973. I had to have this particular one because it was touch control! Little did I know that when the bulbs under the touch controls burnt out, the controls stopped working altogether, necessitating a costly trip to a repair shop. It wasn’t like you could just go online and order replacements.
My first awesome, truly high-tech hi-fi turntable, a Technics SL-1300Mk2—$500 in 1978. I took out a personal loan for this one. Of course it died within months of being paid for and then sat in a repair facility for months because the particular integrated circuit that had failed was on indefinite backorder. (Such is the life of an early adopter.) I finally retrieved it from the shop and shipped it back to Panasonic for repair. It was returned, and UPS left it with the neighbors’ unattended children, where they proceeded to destroy it. UPS and Panasonic wrote it off as “destroyed in shipment” and sent me refurbished unit. But it was never the same, so I sold it in 1980.
I replaced it in 2000 or thereabouts with a near-mint unit that came in the original packaging. The arm lift mechanism on this model was a notoriously bad design that self-destructed after about 5 years of use, so I had it professionally repaired by a friend back east (now, sadly deceased) and it’s worked beautifully ever since.
My first digital watch, a Novus—price unknown (but it wasn’t cheap) in 1976. It was a high school graduation present from my parents. Like all digital watches of the time, you had to hold down the button to make it illuminate and show you the time. It died sometime in the early 80s.
My first hi-fi amplifier, a Sony TA-5650—$550 in 1976. I bought it for myself with money I received for my high school graduation. Another piece of cutting edge tech that wasn’t quite ready for prime time, the 5650 had the very annoying habit of self-destructing every six months or so, necessitating a visit to the repair shop to have some diodes replaced (to the tune of $75 a trip—quite a bit of money for the time). After the second or third time it happened, I decided to replace it, but nothing came close to the sweet, sweet sound the V-FETs produced, so I kept getting it fixed.
The last time it died, sometime in 1986, I replaced it with a rock-solid Yamaha amp and kissed it goodbye, leaving it in the laundry room of the apartment complex I was living in at the time. I did that because I just couldn’t bear to toss it in the dumpster.
My first computer, a Commodore VIC-20—$200 in 1981. It hooked up to a television, and since Dennis (my first partner) and I couldn’t afford to buy the external cassette drive to save the programs we spent hours meticulously typing in BASIC, it was an ongoing lesson in frustration. But it did light a spark that eventually culminated in my current career.
My first hi-fi cassette deck, a Sony TCK-555—$370 in 1984. I waited a long, long time to finally get a good cassette deck for my system. Little did I know that in only two short years they would start marching toward the graveyard of history. It was a good—not great—deck, but it served me for several years before being replaced.
My first new car, a 1984 Toyota Corolla SR-5—$11,000 in 1984. Damn, I loved this car. I sold Dorothy in 1989 after deciding that owning a car in San Francisco was more trouble that it was worth. It was also reaching the point that it was needing some expensive repairs and I had no way of paying for them, so I had to say goodbye. It’s the one vehicle that still shows up regularly in my dreams, never having been sold, but merely put into storage all these years…
My first CD player, a Yamaha D-400—$360 in 1985. As I recall I blew my whole tax refund on this. I had wanted to get a Technics SL-P2 but it had been discontinued and I didn’t like anything in the Technics lineup that replaced it. I should’ve done more shopping before jumping on this one, however. It sounded fantastic, but it could only display the track number or the time, but not both. Seriously, Yamaha? I replaced it in 1990.
My first portable CD player, a Sony D100 Discman—$400 in 1987. This was Sony’s second-generation portable, and I loved this bit of tech. The only reason I eventually got rid of it was the headphone jack kept coming unsoldered from the main circuit board (one day after the warranty expired, typical of Sony products). It was an easy-enough fix to do myself, but I finally just got tired of dealing with it.
My first 35mm camera, the Pentax ME Super. I got this from my second partner in exchange for some money he owed me. I adored this camera. I won’t say my ratio of good photos to bad was excellent, but I remember it being decidedly better than all my subsequent years of digital. In my rush to go digital, I sold it to buy a new camera. WORST. DECISION. EVER.
My first digital camera, the Canon A10—$125 (steeply discounted) in 2003. It ate batteries which severely limited its usefulness, picture quality was so-so, and it was a pain in the ass to actually get the photos off of it. I was so relieved when I finally got the funds together to replace it.
This was the camera I replaced the A10 with, a Panasonic DMC-FZ7. This camera went everywhere with me (including a road trip to Yellowstone), and together we got some stunning shots. After a couple years, however, I tired of the all purple fringing showing up around bright areas in the photos and after replacing it with a Sony, sold it on eBay.
Escape
Clear 40 minutes from your calendar, plug in your headphones, put your feet up, close your eyes, and let your mind wander…
About 10 minutes into this, I’m 20 again, skimming over endless dunes in my landspeeder.
More Timely Than Ever
Reposted from 3 years ago:
This Isn’t Going Away, North Carolina
There you sit this morning North Carolina, all smug and self-satisfied in your hate, no doubt believing in your little heart-of-hearts that it was God’s will that you mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging assholes enshrined discrimination in your state law. But I’ve got news for you: you were on the wrong side of history when you outlawed interracial marriage, and you’re on the wrong side of history AGAIN.
The more I think about this, the more livid I become. I’m not sure why, because other states have passed similar laws. Maybe it’s because your state—whose motto should now be changed from “FIRST IN FLIGHT” to “FIRST IN HATE”—was a necessary tipping point to open eyes and get the masses’ blood boiling.
And despite your unwavering belief that you’re doing the Lord’s work (who NEVER said a word about homosexuality, by the way) I have a feeling, that this is going to come back and bite you in your shriveled, black, hate-filled hearts. More than 50% of Americans polled are now in favor of marriage equality. Major corporations, sensing the tide of public opinion, are increasingly coming on board and providing the same benefits to same-sex partners as they do to the rest of their married employees.
Your vote was a slap in the face to that, and I sincerely hope that every GLBT person and their supporters (including businesses) leave your state and let it free-fall back into the middle ages. Have you not seen what happened in Georgia with their stance against so-called “illegal” (i.e. brown-skinned) migrant workers? Crops are rotting in the fields. North Carolina deserves no less.
I spotted this in the comments section at Joe.My.God. this morning, and I couldn’t have said it better.
NORTH CAROLINA
HATES
FAGS
We get it…you hate us…you really, really hate us.
Which, of course, is what all these “protect marriage” amendments are about. You’re not protecting anything, you’re just preventing a small group of people that you hate from entering into your “exclusive” marriage club lest we sully it (GOD FORBID…we should swim in your pool…you’d have to drain it). Now, if y’all really had the courage of your convictions you’d make homosexuality itself in North Carolina a crime, punishable by death just like it says in the Bible (let’s run that up the flag pole and see how it flies…I bet it would pass or come damn close). But, of course, you don’t have that kind of courage because y’all are nothing but a bunch of bullies and cowards, as your state’s racist history would attest.
A Long Time Ago, In A Galaxy Far, Far Away…
Gratuitous
Wish List
My birthday’s coming up in about six weeks in case anyone’s interested…
We Are The Aliens
Stop and think about that for a minute. We are the aliens to any other planetary civilizations in our glittering night skies. Keeping that in mind, is our behavior toward our fellow human beings really something we’d like to be projecting outward to potential galactic neighbors?
Human beings are killing each other over skin color and god myths, and have been for most of our history. God myths! Is it any wonder we haven’t heard from anyone out there? If we can’t even accept each other’s differences, how the hell would anyone who might be listening in and aware of our existence—no doubt beings far different than us—expect to be welcomed here with open arms? Is our brutality toward each other really the first impression we want to put forward?
Unfortunately it’s too late to change that. As the old axiom goes, “You’re never given a second chance to make a first impression,” and our planet’s first impression consisted of Nazi Propaganda…
I’m sure—based on statistical probability alone—that the universe is teeming with what we would immediately recognize as intelligent life. But based on the radio and television signals that have spread out from our planet to a radius of eighty light years or so, I’m not surprised in the least that we haven’t heard a word back from anyone—much less had the proverbial flying saucer land on the White House lawn. I mean, would you want to make contact with a group of beings who have so little respect for their fellow creatures or their planet that it borders on insanity?
For all we know, there are galactic marker buoys surrounding our solar system warning potential visitors to avoid the third planet at all cost.
The older I get, the more convinced I am that human beings, despite all our science and technological innovations over the past five hundred years or so are aware of only a very, very small part of what is actually going on in this thing we label reality. Further, I also believe that at this stage in our evolution, if we were shown what truly lies behind the proverbial curtain, the our species would suffer a collective psychotic break…
Yes, I’m Reposting Stuff
Deal with it.
Best. Ginger. Beard. Evah.
Dear Theists…
Something I Posted 18 July 2012
Eye Opening
Working in the “public sector” for the first time in my life has been an eye-opening experience.
Shortly after arriving in Phoenix last July, I had the opportunity to interview with this agency for a desktop support position. They were beginning the process of rolling out Windows 10 to around 1500 users and while I would not be the one doing the actual deployments, I would be doing post-deployment cleanup work. While I didn’t yet have any direct Windows 10 experience, it was still one of those interviews where you walk away thinking you’ve aced it and expected to receive an offer by the time you got home, but nothing ever came of it. “They decided to go with a different candidate, but you were their second choice.”
Second choice does not pay the bills.
A couple months later the same recruiter sent me back to interview with the same agency (and same people within the agency) for a Service Desk position, supporting the increase in calls that were anticipated once the Windows 10 project was in full swing. (It still hadn’t started.) I felt this interview hadn’t gone as well as the previous one, so it was no surprise when the recruiter called a few days later to say they’d chosen someone else. That was fine; I really had no desire to work on a Help Desk anyway—much preferring to be hands-on with my users. That is, after all, how you form bonds with your customers and oftentimes come out of it with lifelong friends.
You can imagine my surprise when I got a call from this same recruiter shortly after the first of the year, asking if I’d like to interview with this agency again, this time for an “Imaging Specialist” position. It was for substantially less money than the other two positions and my initial thought was, “Oh hell no!” but since my unemployment benefits from Colorado were about three weeks away running out completely I said, “Sure. Why not? Maybe the third time’s the charm.”
As I reported back in January, after one of the most disastrous interviews I’ve had since being back in Phoenix, they hired me.
And what exactly does an “Imaging Specialist” do? In the simplest terms, they load software images (snapshots of entire systems with everything preconfigured) onto PCs. This is a relatively quick way of loading the OS and various applications onto the computers without actually having to run through the manual install process each time.
This position wasn’t for something new they had in the works. It was for the same huge project that the agency initially told me about back in July that still hadn’t gotten off the ground. They had originally contracted with an outside firm to supply the hardware and apply the agency’s custom software images to the machines. But during the six months that transpired from my initial interview and the time I came on board in February, said company had succeeded in deploying approximately one dozen of the fifteen hundred machines.
Needless to say their contract was terminated, and the entire process was brought in-house.
Unfortunately, the in-house crew that was hastily assembled from former Service Desk staff had only one person on board who had any experience with the Microsoft Deployment Tool. (The application that was used for building and deploying these software images.) Perhaps anticipating the shit storm approaching, he hastily gave my boss approximately eight hours of training before transferring his ass to a different department.
Adding insult to injury, the software images that the initial outside company built for the agency didn’t work; forcing them to hire a consultant from Dell to come in and fix things.
Needless to say, it’s been an interesting couple months. My boss (who is new to a managerial position on top of all this) has been trying to train our Team Lead the voodoo of MDT so we can use it to reimage the older hardware in our inventory while working with the Dell consultant and the application developers to ensure that those images also work properly on all hardware platforms.
When you add an extra level of bureaucratic bullshit to the mix (the process for tracking equipment at this agency is positively labyrinthine), I can only sit back and laugh at the absurdity of it all sometimes.
As I’ve written before, this has given me a whole new appreciation for what the Enterprise Desktop Management team at DISH does so flawlessly on a daily basis.
I’m happy to report now however that all the kinks seem to have been worked out. The Dell consultant has gone home and we’re ready to actually begin the project I was hired on for; that is, loading the software images on those 1500 machines so the techs can deploy them.
(My boss has also been so impressed with what I’ve been doing on a day to day basis that he’s lobbying his supervisor to hire me full time. I’m fine with this, as I like the people I work with, the commute is a breeze, and it would also come with a substantial increase in pay—close to what I was making before we moved to Denver.)
A Guide to Christian Clichés and Phrases
Stolen many years ago from Unreasonable Faith and always worth reposting, especially when I’m feeling especially snarky:
“Save sex for marriage.”
Translation: “If I can’t have consequence-free sex, neither can you.”
Acceptable Response: “I pledge myself! Give me a promise ring!”
Unacceptable Response: “So how did that work out for you?” Or, “Where exactly does the Bible say that?”
“All you need to do to go to heaven is ask Jesus into your heart.”
Translation: “You’re going to burn in hell if you don’t say this prayer, little boy.”
Acceptable Response: “Dear Jesus, thank you for coming into my heart and saving me…”
Unacceptable Response: “Dear Jesus, where in the Bible do you tell us to ask you into our hearts? That seems kind weird. And why did the ancient world think the heart was the kidney? Hello? Can you hear me? I guess this is just a one-way intercom. How can I know if you’re still around if you don’t say anything back? Okay, if you’re really there, appear to me right now in person like you did to Paul.” Or, “What exactly does Jesus do in my blood-pumping organ?”
“Amen”
Translation: “Say ‘amen’ back to me!”
Acceptable Response: “Amen” or “Preach it!” combined with vigorous head nodding.
Unacceptable Response: “No!” Or, “Hmm…. That doesn’t sound right.”
“What can I pray for you about?”
Translation: “Any juicy tidbits about your life I can spread through the prayer gossip grapevine?”
Acceptable Response: “Thanks for asking. You’re so kind. My wife is having an affair, my brother is a drunk, and my dog can’t control his sexual desires.”
Unacceptable Response: “Have you ever kept a prayer journal to see if you get more unanswered prayers than answered ones, or if your unasked prayers get answered just as much?”
“I’m not a racist, but…”
Translation: “I’m a racist asshole who attends an all-white church and is uncomfortable around most black people. I love racist jokes and am about to tell you a good one.”
Acceptable Response: Laugher followed by telling a slightly more racist joke.
Unacceptable Response: “You’re a hypocritical racist asshole.”
“God is in control.”
Translation: “I only believe this about overwhelming situations. The rest of the time, I believe things are up to us and I act that way.”
Acceptable Response: “Amen.” Sometimes followed by an anecdote about some unexplained or coincidental experience that you attribute to God.
Unacceptable Response: “If God’s in control, then relax and don’t do anything about it! In fact, you don’t have to do anything at all ever, right? But that’s not right, and people still have to do everything, so what does it mean for God to be in control and why does it matter?”
“I believe this because the Bible says so.”
Translation: “I have no clue about the history of that big book I’m in love with, and I don’t care either, because it’s God’s Word, and if God said it, it must be true.”
Acceptable Response: “Amen.”
Unacceptable Response: “It also says to kill homosexuals.” They might heartily agree to that one, which in case the unacceptable response becomes, “It also says to kill your children when they talk back. Have your children ever talked back?” Or, “Explain to me the authorship and transmission of the Bible, and why you think it’s God’s Word.” Or especially, “Jesus said to give anything to those who ask of you – and not only to give what they ask, but more. So please give me your wallet and your car.”
“What’s God doing in your life?”
Translation: “I’m getting ready to judge you.”
Acceptable Response: “I’m conquering pride and lust!” Or, “Oh, Jesus, Jesus, I love Jesus my beautiful King and Savior!”
Unacceptable Response: “God’s been teaching me about how much evidence there is for evolution.”
“Hate the sin, love the sinner.”
Translation: “I’m a flaming fundamentalist.”
Acceptable Response: “Amen.”
Unacceptable Response: “That’s a relief, because I’m a homosexual transvestite in an interracial relationship.”
“We’re in the end times.”
Translation: “My pastor said we’re living in the end times.”
Acceptable Response: “God will punish America for our sins!” Or, “America isn’t mentioned in the Bible because we’re going to crumble soon!”
Unacceptable Response: “Did you know that out of the millions of times Christians have claimed this throughout history, they’ve always been wrong?” Or, “If you’re so confident, I’m sure you’ll be confident in putting some significant money towards a bet on that.”
“He is risen!”
Translation: “It’s Easter! Let’s eat!”
Acceptable Response: “He is risen indeed!”
Unacceptable Response: “Where? I don’t see him.” Or, “Do you have any evidence for that statement?” Or especially, “Like yeast?”
“Jesus loves you.”
Translation: “Jesus does, but I don’t.”
Acceptable Response: “Amen.”
Unacceptable Response: “If that were true, why doesn’t he tell me himself?”
“Do you know where you’re going to go after you die?”
Translation: “This is the question they told me to ask in my evangelism class.”
Acceptable Response: “To heaven to see my sweet, precious Savior!”
Unacceptable Response: “How can you know that before you’re actually dead?”
“What would you say if you stood before God after you die?”
Translation: “I’ve got you now, sinner!”
Acceptable Response: “Please forgive me! I was so fracking stupid! How blind of me not to see you in everything you created!”
Possibly Acceptable Response: “Oops.”
Unacceptable Response: “If you wanted me to believe in you, why didn’t you show some kind of evidence? Why create everything through the painful process of evolution? Why did you let your creation suffer through hunger, neglect, disease, and war? Why incarnate yourself and then commit deicide/suicide? Why were you so bloodthirsty in the early years? If you’re God, you’re not a very good one.” Or, “Which one?”
“Thank you Jesus!”
Translation: “It’s easier to thank Jesus than the people who deserve it.”
Acceptable Response: “Amen!”
Unacceptable Response: “I’m not Jesus.” Or, “You’re welcome.”
“Have you found Jesus?”
Translation: “Are you also a Jesus-lover, or must I convert you?”
Acceptable Response: “I’ve been walking with the Lord since I was two years old, Praise Gawd!”
Unacceptable Response: “I didn’t know he was missing.”
“I’ll pray for you”
Translation: “This conversation is over. My mind exploded.” Or, “I refuse to believe you won this argument.”
Acceptable Response: “Thanks, you’re so kind.”
Unacceptable Response: ”Instead of praying, why don’t you read a non-Christian book?” Or, “I’ll think for you.” Or especially, “Liar.”
Sunday Sermon
We Were All Young And Pretty Once
But then life happened.
Accurate
Preach!
Happy Record Store Day!
Mirror Mirror On The Wall (NSFW)
Our Sammy
Technics SL-1300Mk2 Service
I’m reposting this from my old blog, because I just found it on the WayBack Machine and had believed it was lost forever. I know my friend John is going to have some choice words for me for putting this out there again (like he did 8 years ago) because people will fuck things up if they attempt this on their own and aren’t very careful, but since he’s not repairing these tables anymore they won’t end up on his bench. Still…proceed AYOR.
Fully 99% of my usual readers can skip this whole post. It’s some serious geek shit and I’m posting it for those who happen to be looking for this info through Google or whatever.
A few days ago my buddy John sent me a new Shure V15 type IV cartridge for my turntable. Back in the day, this was the holy grail of many audiophiles, and while I’d never owned one myself, he assured me it would sound better than my current cartridge. It was his way of saying thanks for not bidding against him on an eBay auction for a particular piece of equipment that he knew I had my sights on.
Anyhow, the sound is beyond my wildest expectations, and even though it’s a long-discontinued item and I may never be able to find a replacement stylus for it when the time comes, I’m going to enjoy the hell out of it until then because it has reminded me that yes Virginia, vinyl does sound better than CD.
This sudden renewed appreciation for analog also prompted me to get off my sorry ass this morning and attend to some much needed—and horribly overdue—maintenance on my turntable.
Back in the late 70s when Technics introduced the first Mk2 line of turntables, they were in many respects the state of the art. The 1300Mk2, which in 1977 sold for $500 ($1800 in today’s dollars), was a beautiful piece of engineering—although not without some inherent design flaws that have reared their ugly heads as these tables have aged.
(To be perfectly fair, I’m sure the designers at Panasonic never thought about these issues, finding it ludicrous at the time to even think that these tables would still be in use thirty years after their introduction.)
First and foremost is the notorious arm lift problem. In most basic terms, Panasonic used a piece of plastic that was too thin, putting it in a location where it was continually subjected to intense stress. Needless to say, as the years wore on and the plastic lost its elasticity, the part eventually snapped. A replacement is naturally now unobtainable, but my friend Joel came up with a very creative—and lasting fix. (Thankfully he passed this knowledge onto his assistants before he died.)
If you’re ever looking to buy a 1300Mk2 or 1400Mk2 off eBay and the seller claims everything works just fine, don’t believe a word of it. If Joel or his successors haven’t fixed them, I guarantee they’re broken.
Two other common problems with tables of this vintage are that the lubricants used in various locations within the mechanism have dried out and have become sticky. This manifests as wonky buttons and the start/stop feature not working.
While fixing the arm lift problem isn’t something that should be attempted by anyone other than the good folks at The Turntable Factory (it’s buried deep within the mechanism and even I am scared to venture that far into the workings—although I have and understand the mechanics of it), if you’re comfortable with a few small tools, have a good eye and a bit of patience, it is possible for you to address the other problems.
The arm lift on my Mk2 was—naturally—repaired by Joel years ago, and I cleaned the dried goop off the the control buttons a while back, but for some reason I never addressed the solenoid spring issue and lately the start/stop has quit working.
Inspired by the new cartridge, here’s my How-To on fixing the start/stop issue:
You will need:
・a flat surface to work on
・good light
・a philips head screwdriver
・needle nose pliers
・a towel
・something to hold a bunch of small screws
・rubbing alcohol and q-tips
Estimated time to complete: Approximately one hour. Longer if you’ve never torn one of these apart before.
Step 1
Disconnect the turntable from your receiver or amplifier and put it in your workspace.
Step 2
Open the dust cover and remove the cartridge, tonearm counterweight, slipmat and turntable platter. Make sure the manual arm lift lever is in the down position, and lock the tonearm down. Remove the six black screws holding the cover plate in place. Put the screws in a safe place.
Remove the cover plate and put it aside.
Step 3
Carefully disconnect the five electrical connectors from the circuit board and motor beneath the cover plate. They all just pull straight off, but the one at the very back under the chassis and the small clear plastic connector immediately in front of it have a clip that holds them in place. If no one has ever worked on the table before, there may be a small plastic cable tie organizing the wires. You can safely discard this after removing it.
Step 4
Place a folded towel on your work surface. With the turntable dust cover still in place, carefully flip the entire assembly upside down so that the dustcover is resting on the towel. Using a philips head screwdriver, remove the seven screws holding the bottom trim/foot panel in place and put them in a safe place.
Remove the bottom trim/foot panel. Remove the four screws holding the floating subchassis in place.
Step 5
Holding the black subchassis in place, carefully flip the entire assembly back upright. Raise the dust cover, unlock the tonearm and raise the manual lift lever. Swing the tonearm toward the center.
CAREFULLY lift the chassis (with the dust cover still attached) upward, taking care not to catch it on the tonearm. Set it aside.
Lower the manual arm lift lever and move the tonearm back to its rest position, locking it down.
Step 6
CAREFULLY turn the subchassis assembly upside down and place it on the towel. Remove the 8 screws that are marked in the photo below. Keep these separate, as they are not interchangeable and need to go back in their original locations.
Lift up the black subchassis panel. Put this aside.
Identify the two solenoid locations on the bottom of the tonearm mechanism assembly.
Step 7
To remove Solenoid #1, gently hold back the three retaining clips with a finger and lift the assembly out of the retaining bracket. DO NOT FORCE anything, as the plastic has become brittle with age and if it breaks, you’re going to be royally fucked. (This is where the patience part comes in.)
In my particular case, the felt pad attached to the flapper panel on the solenoid assembly was sticking against the white plastic bumper. This may or may not be present in all cases, but if so, dip a q-tip in rubbing alcohol and give the plastic part a good swapping to remove any residue
If you’ve removed the flapper, slide it back in place, first hooking the clip on the one edge into the spring and then slipping the two notches back in place on the solenoid.
If there is any dried lubricant on the spring (in my case there wasn’t), clean it off with a q-tip dipped in rubbing alcohol.
Gently push the solenoid assembly back in place until it snaps into place. Verify that the flapper moves freely by pushing it with your finger toward the large white gear.
Step 8
Solenoid #2 is the sucker that causes all of the start/stop problems, and as you can see from the photo, mine was covered with goop.
Before removing this solenoid, you’ll need to remove the control arm that it is attached to. CAREFULLY pull back the retaining clip and lift off the control arm.
CAREFULLY pull back the three clips enough to release the the solenoid assembly and pull it out. This one may put up a little more of a fight than the other one. Be gentle.
Carefully remove the flapper assembly by turning it at a slight angle so that it slips out of the retaining clips on the solenoid. Unhook the flapper clip from the solenoid spring.
A gummed up solenoid spring is an unhappy solenoid spring.
With a q-tip dipped in rubbing alcohol, clean the lubricant off the spring and the plastic parts.
You may need to pull the spring to extend it a bit to make sure the alcohol gets in everywhere (a pair of needle-nose pliers is good for this) to get all the goop off. WHY Panasonic chose to lubricate this is quite beyond me. It’s not needed!
Reattach the flapper assembly by first clipping the end into the spring and then turning it at a slight angle so that it rests within the retaining clips on the solenoid assembly.
Push the solenoid back into the retaining clips until it snaps into place. Make sure the spring and flapper aren’t caught on anything.
Reattach the swing arm by pushing it back into place until it clicks, taking care that the solenoid flapper meshes with the end of the arm properly.
A clean solenoid spring is a happy solenoid spring!
Step 9
Reattach the black subchassis, taking care to align the tonearm mechanism properly and making sure that the proper screws are all returned to their proper locations. When that’s completed, turn the assembly back right side up.
Release the tonearm lock. Raise the arm lift lever. Swing the arm toward the center.
GENTLY lower the chassis and dustcover assembly back onto the floating suspension, taking care to clear the tonearm. If it’s in the proper location, you’ll know it because the tonearm base will be perfectly lined up in the round cutout on the chassis. If not, raise it slightly and move it a bit until it seats properly.
Swing the tonearm back to its rest position and lower the arm lift mechanism.
Lock the tonearm down.
Step 10
Now’s the tricky part. With one hand firmly underneath the turntable on the subchassis and one on the center of the dustcover, turn the entire assembly upside down.
Reattach the subchassis to the main chassis using the four screws that were removed earlier.
Reattach the bottom trim/foot panel using the 7 screws removed earlier.
Turn the entire turntable right side up.
Reattach the electrical connections, making sure that the two clear plastic connector clips at the rear snap into place.
Replace the cover panel, taking care that it’s not pinching any of the wiring underneath. Reattach using the six black screws removed earlier.
Replace the turntable platter and slipmat. Reattach the tonearm counterweight and cartridge, balance arm, and set tracking force.
Plug back into your receiver, power up, and enjoy some vinyl!
Monday
