SRHuston Dot Net

Since we’re moving soon (more later), I’m moving my web services off to a dedicated hosting company. Not sure what kind of broadband we’ll get, and if it will be a static IP, plus there’s other things I can do with this that I just don’t feel like doing at home anymore. When you spend a number of hours each day administering machines, you don’t want to do it when you get home – especially when that machine also serves as your firewall and gateway, so taking it down for an upgrade means you’ve got no Intarweb.

Also upgrading to WordPress at the same time, and I’ve imported all the old articles. Will have to go back and edit a few to fix up the links, so bear with me for a bit.

EDIT 2006/06/20 1240: I’ve fixed all the links I think – if you find a broken one then let me know.

Went to the Great Big Food Show this weekend, and saw lots of neat stuff. Sampled some wares and a good time was had by all. One of the gadgets that Steph had seen before (from Soda Club) I got to see in action, and we ended up getting one. What the hell, with the amount of soda we both drink, this could be better for us and cheaper in the long run – plus it just looks neat. Picked up Alton Brown‘s new book “I’m Just Here For More Food”, saw a live show that he did there (which was on how different methods can make the same ingredients into two completely different things, in this case egg nog vs. ice cream, and how both are all about bubbles), and then met him in person. Got our book autographed and a picture too! Okay, you want proof?

Here is Steph and I with Alton.

Here’s one of Leigh

And here’s one of Keith.
I’ve a feeling that the last shot is a little off because when Alton turned around for the photo, he smiled for a second and then exclaimed, “Wait a minute… that’s the same camera as the last two! What, are you all in some kind of commune or something?” Definitely neat, he was good natured about the whole thing, and one of the most approachable people I’ve met. While some of the celebs there were sitting happily behind a desk and signing books away, Alton refused to get “behind” the desk, instead shaking everyone’s hand, signing whatever they wanted (one girl I saw had brought a picture of the two of them from another event, and he signed that for her), and happy to get a photo with everyone. Definitely the kind of person that, if you met him in a bar somewhere and offered to buy him a drink, he’d not only say thanks but would actually talk with you instead of run in the other direction.

[Note – there’s a lot of other stuff I’d been meaning to put here before now, mostly a rehash of things of late. But this particular item pissed me off enough to just put this here instead.]

So we recently had a physics lesson about inertia, and how a moving vehicle cannot stop within 30 feet just because you stepped out in front of it into a crosswalk. Now, it’s time for another one.

We’ll start with the basics. A standard vehicle, manufactured since 1988, is likely capable of speeds up to around 80-90 miles per hour (MPH). Now, some vehicles are more “performance oriented” and capable of speeds higher than that, and others still have been tweaked and tuned to get upwards of 150MPH and more for specialized operations such as racing. That’s pretty fast. 150MPH means you could traverse from the northern tip of New Jersey to the southern tip in about two hours (not accounting for our lovely traffic and highway systems, of course). You could get from Philadelphia to Atlantic City in about 25 minutes. Not bad at all, if you ask me.

Now, for the next part. The speed of light in a vacuum is 670.76 MILLION miles per hour. So it would take the aforementioned car one hour to travel 150 miles, while light could make the trip in about .0008 seconds. That’s 800 microseconds. It took me longer to type this period from the time my brain told my finger to do it: . That’s really fast, and even better than the previous 150MPH.

Now, what is the point of this lesson? Very simple. Light is basically electromagnetic waves. Now waves can be slowed down by other factors, such as the medium through which they travel (note the speed above is light “in a vacuum” – through the atmosphere is slightly slower, and through things like glass and water is slower yet). Radio waves are also in the electromagnetic spectrum, and follow similar rules. This means that, if you try to cut someone off by lagging behind them at a traffic light, and as the light turns green swerve around them into the left-turn-only lane, and fail to pass them, and then proceed to tailgate, swerve, narrowly avoid hitting them, try two times on a winding road to pass in a no-passing zone, and finally pass them anyway on another stretch of road where you continue on to pass 4 other cars (all in a no-passing zone) and almost cause 3 accidents in doing so, your car’s speed still won’t match the speed at which I can relay to the local 911 dispatch that you’re driving like a #&^(ING MORON, tell them your license plate, and watch the kind officer pulling you over about a mile down the road as I stop behind you to relay my witness account to him.

In short, you may be able to outrun me and my car, but you can’t outrun radio waves. Dipshit.

Okay, so I’m going to sink slightly and post a rant. Not that me ranting is sinking from my normal self, but because I’m doing it here and most personal websites like this seem to only be an endless torrent of worthless verbiage, a diatribe that seeks to prove how everyone else in the world but the author is incorrect… okay, I feel better. Now the real rant :>

Crosswalks. Not so much the crosswalk itself, but the people in them. Now, the law states that vehicles must yield the right-of-way to pedestrians in the crosswalk. I’m fine with that. See how it’s written? “yield the right-of-way to pedestrians IN the crosswalk”. That’s wonderful. If someone is in the process of crossing the street, you should let them. Sure! No problem.

This does NOT mean that if someone walks up to a crosswalk you should slam on your brakes to let them go by. They’re not in the crosswalk, they’re approaching it. Maybe they’re just stopping to get their bearings and going to turn the other way, you don’t know. Either way, there’s no freakin’ reason on this planet to stop for someone standing at a freakin’ curb. When the traffic is clear, they will step out into the crosswalk, assuming that’s where they actually want to go, and they’ll cross the street. At that point, oncoming traffic should stop to let them cross. Not just because they’re standing at the curb. Or for that matter stepped off the curb and standing right next to it.

Okay, next point. This one isn’t necessarily a state or federal law, more of a law of freakin’ physics. A vehicle travelling at 40MPH, and weighing approximately 2500 pounds CAN NOT STOP just because you stepped out in front of it. No point in giving dirty looks to the driver because you walked in front of him when he’s only 30 feet away from said crosswalk, ’cause the brakes are only going to do so much before the front fender gets to do its own dirty work. Is there a crosswalk there? You bet there is. Does that crosswalk mean you can jump out into it and expect the freakin’ world to stop because you’re crossing the street and too damned busy, important or just plan STUPID to look both ways and make sure there’s no oncoming traffic first? Survey says… NO!

Last one, and then I’m done for this rant. When approaching an intersection on foot, and said intersection has a Walk/Don’t Walk sign (for the stupidity enhanced, many are now a walking dude vs a red hand held up in a “STOP!” like way), don’t just look at how the cars are going currently and cross the street if it says Don’t Walk. Why? Because unless you’ve taken the moment or two to see what the traffic signal situation is, and especially unless you know what the signal pattern is, you don’t know when the next light is going to turn green. Ya know, they make those little buttons that say “Push here to cross street” for a reason, it’s so you can push the button and the little hand will turn into a little walkin’ dude when it’s safe to go. How many times does it happen that I’m about to move forward in my truck, because my light is now green, only to see that someone is now standing directly in front of it because they’re not paying attention to the traffic signals, or they just stepped out into the intersection as it’s turning green? Too many to count, though I’d definitely use more fingers to count those incidents than I usually use to wave to the idiot pedestrians.

Okay, I lied, one more. When you do cross the street, and you do see that traffic is coming (it happens sometimes even when you’re paying attention, I’ll give you that)… or some kind soul has stopped to let you cross in front of them… HUSTLE! No, not the dance, move your damned ass across that street. Don’t mosey, meander, saunter, swagger or shuffle. MOVE IT! If you’ve got two good legs that can get you from point A to point B without needing a car, then they’re good enough to put a little spring into your step as you cross the street, so the kind soul who is currently refraining from leaving a “raeydooG” tattoo on your backside doesn’t have to wait so long that he needs another shave just to continue on his way. This should especially be the case if you are the freakin’ idiot that walked into the intersection without first looking carefully at what’s going on and now have a 1.25 ton vehicle bearing down on your current position.

That’s it, I need a brush guard for the Sport Trac.

Goodbye huston the Demigod…

You went to your reward with 5153550 points,
The Eye of the Aethiopica (worth 4000 zorkmids and 10000 points)
The Candelabrum of Invocation (worth 5000 zorkmids and 12500 points)
The Bell of Opening (worth 5000 zorkmids and 12500 points)
The Book of the Dead (worth 10000 zorkmids and 25000 points)
1 diamond (worth 4000 zorkmids)
1 amulet of reflection (worth 150 zorkmids)
and 19718 pieces of gold, after 73277 moves.
You were level 30 with a maximum of 408 hit points when you ascended.