Oorgh

Well, I'm sorta awake. I didn't feel sleepy until almost 3:00 am last night, and optimistically set my alarm for 10:00 am. I then methodically hit the snooze button every 9 minutes thereafter until 1:00 pm. Two large cups of coffee later, and I'm just now coherent enough to think that I need a shower, some breakfast, and LOTS MORE COFFEE. And something for a headache.

Old News: Dyson Sphere Revisited

I was googling for some old articles that I had long ago posted to usenet, and it occurred to me that some of the ones that I find more interesting could be reposted here. So, here's a debate I started on a variational design for a dyson sphere:

( Its long! )

Old News: Hacking Too Long

Here's my old entry in the longest running newsnet thread ever: "You know you've been hacking too long when..." Its a true story from the early days of Strategy First:

You know, I always wondered if I wasn't a real hacker, since none of the hacking-too-long incidences had ever happened to me. Well, now one has. Last evening, while cleaning up my desk, waiting for one stage of a large make to finish, I managed to stab myself under my thumbnail on a sharp piece of sheet metal. The sheet metal is an integral part of my desk, and was most likely put there to serve exactly the purpose it was serviing, ie. maiming me. Anyway, in intense pain, and with blood spurting out of my thumb, I started to make a dash for the bathroom, to find something to bind my wounds with. After a few steps I stopped, went back and hit RETURN on my terminal, so that the next stage of the make could progress while I was bleeding to death in the bathroom. Its a bad sign folks, even when in pain, I do my best to multitask...

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||    BUNGEE SIDEWAYS!                              o   )))
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|P~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\_  \\\      __ -_
||    stirling@ozrout.uucp                                 ((( (_)T(_)

Old News: That Kermit Look

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban,alt.romance

jstahlhu@athena.mit.edu (Julie Kozaczka Stahlhut) writes
>Most of the department stores I've shopped in, including some upscale ones,
>have TERRIBLE lighting in the dressing rooms -- sort of a greenish
>fluorescent tone which makes all the clothes look awful.
>
>I have sorta greenish half-Mediterranean skin anyway, so it's really
>irritating to me to try on an expensive suit or party dress and look
>in the mirror and mistake myself for Kermit the Frog.

This brings back a memorable moment from my High School Prom. During one slow dance with a moderately pretty girl, the lighting folks decided to change over to all-green lighting. I suddenly found myself dancing with a veritable Kermit. Now the funny thing was, I always thought that she was pretty, but with green skin she was absolutely stunning. I spent the rest of the dance trying to figure out how to tell her that I thought the green lighting did amazing things for her, without getting her upset. I had this feeling that if I simply told her she should dye her face green, I'd get a rather curt answer. I never did tell her. And as far as I know, she's never dyed her face green.

What does this have to do with A.F.U? I dunno.

Stirling "Relevant" Westrup

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As I recall, she was an asian girl and her name was Wen-i something. Maybe Wen-i Lin? I didn't know her terribly well, but I had noticed she had a temper which could be set off by what I considered to be the most minor of things.