Atomic Fungus

The observer principle turns out to be true: "Reality does not exist if you are not looking at it."

It's 6:30 AM and I'm only up because I woke up needing to take a leak and have a snack. At this point my brain is capable of understanding that there are implications of this, but not what they are; nor can I articulate anything much more complicated than ME LIKE OREOS, so I think I'll leave that part for a later time.

* * *

This is a great idea: let's pay people not to commit crimes!

That's fine. Where do I sign up? I'll gladly take money from the government not to commit crimes. I mean, hell, I wasn't planning to commit any crimes in the first place, but if they're going to pay people not to commit crimes why can't I get some of that action?

* * *

Coming soon to a country near you! China's medical system is, naturally, socialist, and it spends about 80% of its budget on 8.5 million government workers. That's 8.5 million people out of 1,390 million people.

80% of its healthcare budget is spent on 0.6% of its population. Isn't it marvelous how well China cares for its people? It's a shining example of how fair and egalitarian and nice marxism is!

* * *

ME LIKE OREOS...I think I'd better go back to bed.

That job I interviewed for--well, after four weeks of hearing nothing I was pretty sure I wouldn't be getting the job, yet it's still bitter disappointment now that they finally got around to telling me they hired someone else.

It would have solved so many problems, too. *sigh*

* * *

Regardless of whether he's an idiot, an asshole, or both, I doubt he'll be flying jets for the Air Force any longer.

There are a few very basic rules about flying that you must observe, because they are for everyone's safety. One of those rules is that you must maintain five hundred feet of clearance from anything when flying in a rural area. If there is, for example, a series of wire poles, you must stay 500' away from them in any direction. If there's a high tension tower, you're 500' from its top, or you're violating FAA regulations. The reason for this is obvious. The wires he hit were sixty five feet off the ground.

The other rule is that below a certain altitude your airspeed must be below a certain figure subject to the performance envelope of your aircraft. Obviously if your Vs is 300 knots you're not going to be able to fly below that speed, but as long as you can remain safely in the air your speed must be below about 250 knots.

Reason: there are many light aircraft which can't go faster than 100 knots, and human reaction time is sorely limited. Light aircraft tend to remain at lower altitudes for a variety of reasons, and light aircraft tend to be much slower than anything with a jet engine in it. (There are plenty of light aircraft which are also high performance--aerobatic planes come to mind--but they too must obey the speed limit.) If you're hotdogging along at 500 knots and there happens to be a Piper Cub in your way, you'll ram into the thing before you know it's there, and then you're all dead.

"Why weren't the wires marked?"

There used to be an airport out on route 50, between Steunkel Road and the now-defunct strip mall at Sauk Trail. When we'd go out to Venture or Gee Lumber, I'd see the big orange spheres on one section of the ICG's commuter line, and ask my parents why those were there. They didn't know.

...they were line markers put there to alert aviators taking off or landing at the airport that there were wires there. You see, you put line markers on approaches to runways because airplanes are likely to be operating low enough that the wires are a collision hazard. What don't you do?

You don't mark every damned wire in case some damned fool who ought to know better is out hotdogging it in a borrowed jet. BECAUSE PILOTS ARE SUPPOSED TO OTHERWISE MAINTAIN A FIVE HUNDRED FOOT CLEARANCE.

If you ever have a chance to get a gander at an aircraft navigation sectional map, you'll see that they contain very accurate information about the locations of wires and towers, and they come with an expiration date. The pilot is expected to maintain an inventory of up-to-date sectional maps of places he is likely to fly; that's why you see airline pilots carrying around that blocky black case (or used to; maybe they're all on iPads now). This is the case because a pilot is responsible for his own navigation, and is expected to know something about where he's flying, or at least to have handy the map showing him THERE ARE WIRES HERE, DUMBASS.

In all cases--in every last damned case--it is the pilot's responsibility to ensure he is staying clear of obstacles and other aircraft. If he flies too close to the ground, too fast, clips a set of power lines and causes a multi-car wreck that easily could have killed someonly, it is his fault and he needs not to be flying any longer. Period.

* * *

NOAA is just making shit up now. The data used to support their newest assertion that man-made global warmentating is going on comes from the temperature of seawater...taken by measuring the temperature of water inside ships' cooling water intakes.

At the link Karl Denninger explains the problem with that--the temperature of water inside the ship's cooling system is likely to be higher than the actual temperature of the ocean--but like me he's completely unsurprised at the deception.

It is certainly, however, not science.

* * *

Well, it's now 3 PM, and the grass beckons. Actually it doesn't beckon so much as wave a big green sign saying THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE HERE ARE LAZY. I guess I'd better get after it.

I suppose I should have said, at the end of the last post:

...the grass beckons. Actually it doesn't beckon so much as wave a big green sign--however apocryphal--saying THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE HERE ARE LAZY. I guess I'd better get after it.

Of course the people living here are not lazy; it's just that I can't cut the grass when it's soaking wet and it's rained nearly every day out of the last week, and today is the first day I've had off in a week.

In the process of getting the grass cut I managed to get something in my eye, and it not only scratched the conjunctiva enough to leave a bloody spot but has also caused swelling. That's after I stopped cutting the grass and flushed that eye out with clean water, too. Argh etc. Anyway it looks a hell of a lot worse than it is (according to what I've seen online) so I'm going to tough it out and only go see a doc if it's not better tomorrow.

...of course if I start having any pain or any other symptoms other than the swelling I'm going to get attention immediately. Right now there is only some minor residual discomfort from whatever caused the injury, and from the swelling, so I'm not terribly worried.

Still, what a pisser.

Since the only really useful thing we could do with that $50 gift card was to buy pet supplies, the other day I gave it to Mrs. Fungus and told her to use it however she pleased. She ordered about $47 worth of stuff from 1800PET-whatever-it-was, and it arrived today: twelve cans of cat food, a 10-lb bag of dry food, and a moderate size bottle of catnip. $50 for perhaps two weeks' worth of cat food. WTF.

...everything on the pet site is way overpriced, so when they give you their "generous" 20% or 30% discount you're still paying a hell of a lot more for your pet supplies than you would from someplace like PetSmart. But hey! Today's delivery came with a $100 wine voucher from nakedwines.com, and the fine print says you only have to spend $160 at their site to get it. That'd be great if we drank wine! Also, we got a $40 discount card for our "first HelloFresh box", whatever the hell that is, but the fine print says it doesn't apply to "one-off boxes". Just what we need, produce delivered by UPS! Of course that will be more fresh and less expensive than the stuff I get from the supermarket two miles from home!

*rolleyes*

Of course, if you're getting $40 off the thing--which, judging by the text is the stuff for one meal--what is the regular cost? And as a lark Mrs. Fungus went to the wine site and it turns out there's a waiting list to get the $100 off.

Are there people who actually do that? Buy stuff that costs more than retail solely so they don't have to go buy it? How do they have enough money to do that kind of thing? Are there enough people out there who can do that to support these kinds of sites? Is there some kind of magic pet I don't know about that shits $100 bills?

WTF.