Category: WTF?

Posted on

Security Theater

My present place of employment has two entrances: one for full-time employees and one for the public (and contractors). The main (public) entrance requires that everyone pass through a metal detector and have their belongings x-rayed. The employee entrance does not. (In fact there's also an employee bypass at the main entrance.)

If you're a contract employee like I am and arrive before 8, however, you are allowed to enter the building using the employee entrance because the main entrance isn't staffed until then. Since I typically get to work around 7:15, I am allowed to use the employee entrance and enter the building like a real boy. On those rare instances when I arrive after 8 however, I automatically become a potential terrorist and am forced in the front door, where I must pass through the metal detector and have my bag scanned.

So this means anyone can bring a weapon into the building before 8 am (or if they're a full-time employee any time of the day or night), but apparently not afterward? Am I crazy, or is this profoundly, mind-numbingly stupid?

I feel safer, don't you?

And in case you're wondering, anyone can leave through that entrance…

Posted on

Wrap Your Mind Around That

The infinite world theory says infinite worlds with infinitely different realities exist. In order for this to be true, this theory must be true in every reality. However, since any reality can exist, there's at least one reality where it isn't true, therefore no other universe exists except it.

Posted on

Back to Work…or NOT!

I woke up today with the intention of writing a quick post on how the employment gods had finally smiled upon me and that I'd be returning to work on Monday for a 2-month gig that paid nearly twice my usual salary. As part of a team of 8 technicians, I'd be enrolling clinicians in a single-sign-on software solution across one of the larger hospital systems in Phoenix.

Earlier this week I'd gone through the initial orientation webinar, and just this morning I completed the online training. I was looking forward to meeting my new teammates and getting back to work after nearly six weeks of unemployment.

And then a call came this afternoon from the recruiter at the agency I was working with on this.

"Do you want the good news or the bad news?"

"Just give it to me."

"I hate to deliver this news, but Cerner has convinced [name of hospital system] that they could install their own product for less money and to terminate the contract with [software provider]."

"This never happens. But…[software provider] is going to pay all of you for 72 hours work since you already started the process."

I knew this gig was too good to be true, but at the same time, 72 hours at the previously agreed-upon rate is nearly an entire month's salary at my previous job, so while it won't allow me to completely pay off my credit cards like I'd be able to do at the expected full 256 hours over the course of this gig, it will at least allow me to get caught up on everything else. All that remains is for them to determine if it will be dispersed as a simple single severance or as one or more regular paychecks. I'll know more Monday.

Curiously, I'm laughing at this. It's one of those instances when the universe it has a wicked sense of humor and I can't help feeling all this is happening for a positive reason. I can almost hear the gears turning.

In other employment news, my friend Cindy and her husband Matt—for whom I've been doing freelance Mac support over the years—have decided they need a website for Matt's business. When I first heard of this months ago I pushed this task off on Cindy's nephew because I honestly didn't have the skillset to set up a full e-commerce website, but in the interim I learned all they wanted was a basic site to advertise the business and show off Matt's work. That I could do—in WordPress, no less—so about a week ago since there'd been no progress on that front, I suggested that I take over the task since the nephew hadn't done anything beyond registering the domain, securing a host, and throwing up a basic landing page.

They agreed wholeheartedly, so I've started building the new site. They also want me to some business cards so they can hand them out to their friends…

 

Posted on

WTF?


A new photo of the alleged "iPhone 8" engineering validation test codenamed "Ferrari" has been published on social media, with the image showing the locations of the charging coil, the stacked main board, and a void for where the L-shaped battery goes.

I'm long past the point where my entire existence revolves around the next iPhone rumor to hit the newsfeed—especially since they start appearing the moment after any particular current iPhone model is released. Yes, I own one, but for me it's just a phone. I appreciate its technology and while as recently as ten years ago I didn't even own a mobile, today I can't imagine leaving the house without it.

That being said, what struck me about this latest "leaked" image is that FoxConn—one of the biggest, most sophisticated electronics manufacturers on the planet—is still using Windows XP?!?

Posted on

Staring Us In The Face?

Okay, bear with me on this one.

The other day I had a whole lot of down time at work, so I fired up Google Earth and started looking around. I will admit that prior to this I had been on some NASA or JPL site looking at Pluto or Mars and the obviously catastrophic geological history of both those planets, noting in particular how it seems that something large collided with Pluto at some point in its history.

As the globe in Google Earth was rotating into view, there it was; something I'd looked at a hundred times but never really saw: what looked a humungous, heavily eroded impact crater encompassing northeast Arizona, southeast Utah, northwest New Mexico, and the southeast corner of Colorado.

Okay, so I'm sure that geologists will tell me it's nothing and that if something that big ever hit the earth it would not just be an extinction level event, but a planet-r/ending one as well, but look at how the mountain ranges seem to form a ring around the valley. That area was also extremely active volcanically at one time (not surprising if something big hit—or skimmed off the planet), so my community-college level of understanding of geology kicked in and made a connection that undoubtedly isn't there.

The basin—if it is a basin—is not perfectly circular, so if it's the result of an object coming in in, it came in at an angle, and that's why I'm suggesting it wasn't so much as an impact but a mere grazing.

Yeah, I'm know instinctively that it's nothing beyond fodder for my imagination, and I come off sounding like one of those guys who see broken pottery, machinery and tiny humans on the photos beamed back from the Mars rovers, but I have no plans to make any 30 minute videos to back up my proposition. That being said, it's still fun to contemplate, since there is still so much we don't know about the history of our planet and our universe…

Plus it gets my mind off politics for a while, and today I can really use some "intellectual" escapism.

Posted on

What. The. Fuck.

From RawStory:

An enraged Waffle House customer shot and killed a waitress early Friday who asked him not to smoke.

Police said Johnny Mount was eating about 1 a.m. at the restaurant in Biloxi, Mississippi, when he lit a cigarette, reported WLOX-TV.

A waitress asked the 45-year-old Mount to put out the cigarette or smoke outside, and he began arguing with her.

Police said Mount then pulled out a 9 mm handgun he had concealed under his shirt and shot the 52-year-old waitress in the head.

She was taken to a nearby hospital but died from her wounds.

Mount was arrested as he tried to leave the restaurant and has been charged with first-degree murder.

He remains held on $2 million bond.

Posted on

Down the Rabbit Hole

If you ever have several hours to waste and don't mind peering into one of darker recesses of the internet (or at least out of control pareidolia) head on over to YouTube, type in Mars anomalies (or for that matter, Moon anomalies) and in the immortal words of Bette Davis, "Fasten your seat belts. It's going to be a bumpy night."

Okay, I will admit that I love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next guy*, and I fully believe that NASA and our government are withholding knowledge of a whole lot of what is actually "out there" with good (or at least misguided) intentions, but on the other hand, I don't see birds, animals, insects, tiny little people, toppled statues of kings, masks, and carefully fashioned blocks of stone in every damn photo sent back from our various Mars rovers.

I would admit that yes—conservatively—5 to 10 percent of what these kids-living-in-their-mom's-basements are finding is unexplainable, and many of the things they're seeing are just on the edge of camera resolution and can therefore be interpreted as pretty much anything, but that five to ten percent of those images are undeniably fascinating.

In addition, there are many, many images where quite unmistakable (and poorly executed, I might add) image manipulation has occurred with the original NASA files. Obvious blurring is one thing—and can be attributed to data loss during transmission back to Earth—but when sloppy cut-and-paste duplication has occurred (a series of three identical rock outcroppings in one image come to mind) you have to ask why?

 

*I do, however, fully believe we went to the Moon and consider myself lucky that as a child I was witness to that incredible bit of history being made.

 

Posted on

Wut?

Speaking of NASA…

Okay NASA, what the fuck is that thing in the lower right corner of this photo from Mars Curiosity?

"It's a twig." LIFE

"It's an insect leg." LIFE

"It's a piece of dangling wire insulation from the rover." NO LIFE ON MARS. NOPE. NEVER HAS BEEN. MAYBE SOME WATER ONCE, BUT NOT NOW. WE WON'T HAVE A DEFINITIVE ANSWER UNLESS YOU FUND ANOTHER PROBE. AND ONE AFTER THAT. AND ANOTHER ONE AFTER THAT. BECAUSE IF WE ANNOUNCED LIFE ON MARS, SOCIETY WOULD COLLAPSE!

Any guesses which explanation they'll provide—assume they even address it?

Original NASA image here.

And while we're on the subject of things that need to be addressed, WTF is this? 

"OH, IT'S JUST A TRICK OF LIGHT AND SHADOW."

Original NASA image here.

Um…yeah. Something that looks totally out of place, is a completely different color and shape than the surrounding rock, and for all intents looks organic. Whatever, NASA. Whatever.

 

Posted on

What Does It Mean?

Last night I dreamt that I met George Takei and Elton John (although not at the same time). I think William Shatner was also there for a moment, but only making bitchy comments toward George.

Elton was working as a waiter in a restaurant to raise money for some charity. He gave me his phone number and told me to call him to talk about music.

Posted on

Do You Live in a Blast Zone?

Wow. Just wow.

I stumbled across this today and while I normally don't reblog stuff word-for-word, this bears repeating.

Did you know there are more than 25 million people at risk due to unsafe tanker cars carrying highly-flammable oil on railways near homes and schools? It's time to get these dangerous cars off the tracks and protect our communities!

Find out if you are in the oil train Blast Zone here and sign the petition demanding that Congress stand up to Big Oil (yeah, I know…fat chance that will ever happen) and get unsafe oil cars off the rails.