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Monthly Archives: November 2010

A winter wonderland.

Slight dusting of snow, not that bad.

Oh, it’s snowing!

So, it started to snow. Not to bad just a dusting. Still had power, heat, lights. Just another Autumn day.

Snow falling and dog playing.

All hell breaks loose, but the dog seems to enjoy it!

Then it really started to snow, cars slamming into each other everywhere. Roads closed and the freeway moving at 2 miles per hour. There was a 20 car pile up not 15 minutes after I left work! Kids walking home from the main road and the daughter had to abandon her car for fear of the rather steep hill we live on. The dog certainly seemed to enjoy it though.

Snow covered lawn and street.

Now just silence

No power, no heat, no street! Still I have 300 lbs of concrete in the back of the SUV and the Four Wheel Drive engaged. Looks like I’ll be moving Thanksgiving dinner over to my sons apartment across the water.

;-)

Stay warm out there! This is me, in the dark and posting from work .

 

Posted by on November 23, 2010 in Uncategorized

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The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke

A short story by the world renowned author: Arthur C. Clarke

As described by Wikipedia

This short story tells of a Tibetan lamasery whose monks seek to list all of the names of God, since they believe the Universe was created in order to note all the names of God and once this naming is completed, God will bring the Universe to an end. Three centuries ago, the monks created an alphabet in which, they calculated, they could encode all the possible names of God, numbering about nine billion and each having no more than nine characters, in their alphabet. Writing the names out by hand, as they had been doing, even after eliminating various nonsense combination’s, would take another fifteen thousand years; the monks wish to use modern technology in order to finish this task more quickly.

They rent a computer capable of printing all the possible permutations, and they hire two Westerners to install and program the machine. The computer operators are skeptical but play along with the monks.

The operators engage the computer. After three months, as the job nears completion, they fear that the monks will blame the computer, and by extension its operators, when nothing happens. The Westerners delay the operation of the computer so that it will complete its final print run just after their scheduled departure. After their successful departure on ponies, they pause on the mountain path on their way back to the airfield, where a plane is waiting to take them back to civilization. Under a clear starlit night sky they estimate that it must be just about the time that the monks are pasting the final printed names into their holy books. They notice that “overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.”

 

Posted by on November 17, 2010 in Uncategorized

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I spend alot of time on the web, shocking I know.

I thought it might interest some of you to glimpse the strange and sometimes terrifying places my daily wanders take me.

So I created a new category and this will beĀ  the place I post such things.

 

Posted by on November 12, 2010 in Uncategorized

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