More Junkmail from Bob!
Wednesday, December 06, 2000
Important Stuff.
Fred, Al, and Gdubbya
Fred is the head of the Association of Trial Lawyers. He's also a top democratic contributor from Texas. He says the worst thing the vice president could do now is to bow out of the race. "There's too much at stake," Fred says. I assume he is referring to the millions of dollars in legal fees that hundreds of lawyers have been bringing in over the past month in Florida. Who's paying for that, anyway? I hope it's not me.
While things in Florida are distracting us, independent Counsel Robert Ray is trying to interview Monica Lewinsky. Yep, he's still investigating President Clinton. Lawrence Walsh gave up and retired, and Robert Ray took over. He's hoping to prosecute President Clinton when he's not President.
Bush stepped out of the governor's mansion in Austin this morning and asked if the election was over yet, same as about half the country. Jesse Ventura walked outside the governor's mansion in St. Paul yesterday and said, "Alright! The watch party goes on!" He also said it was cold.
Bush decided to start hiring people. That's a bad sign. I think there are already plenty of government employees. But if you'd like to join them, click here.
Last week Canada had an election. They counted their votes in 4 hours.
An Endeavor
The newest space shuttle Endeavor is flying around the earth again. It's docked at the Space Station Alpha, which was renamed from the International Space Station. I think Alpha is a much better name.
The shuttle crew set up a solar cell on the space station. Well, it was actually several solar cells. About 33,000, in fact. Each one is around 3 inches square. The two big wings of solar cells are about 155 x 38 feet, or .23 by .058 furlongs. Altogether they produce about 400 or 450 amps of 140vdc electricity, at least when the sun is shining. That's quite a bit of electricity -- a lot more than I use in my house.
It's thought that the space station uses direct current for electricity generation in deference to Thomas Edison, who was known to demonstrate the dangers of alternating current by electrocuting dogs in Central Park.
The space station is turning out pretty neat. Here's what it will look like when the Edeavor's crew is done:
Pictures of Today -- Mars
The Pictures of Today are from Mars, a large ball just beyond Space Station Alpha.
Unfortunately, I didn't take them. The Mars Global Surveyor did. It looks like there used to be liquid water on Mars. It makes you wonder (or at least it makes me wonder) if there used to be bacteria or some form of life in that water. Here's some info on the Mars Global Surveyor:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/
I noticed that the Mars Global Surveyor is being managed by Malin Space Science Systems, a non-government company. The Space Station is being contracted to Boeing.
Don't Let the Web Bugs Bite
Some people are getting more wound up about web bugs. (See July 3 Junkmail.) I don't like them, but I think it's Microsoft who's at fault, not the bulk emailers. Microsoft should enable their email software to automatically access the internet without the user's knowledge.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/22/technology/22NET.html
No, there are no web bugs in Junkmail.
Amazon's Defoliation
Amazon.com's web site crashed today and was down for 30 or 45 minutes. That's a big deal for them, and it cost them some money, some holiday sales, and some good will. The problem? They said they ran two programs that were incompatible with one another. Oops.
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,40543,00.html
Midair
Last month an F16 collided with a Cessna 172 in Florida. The Cessna driver was killed, and F16 pilot ejected before his plane crashed. There was very little real information about it in the news reports, but the NTSB preliminary report is pretty good. And the accident was pretty scary.
http://www.ntsb.gov/Aviation/MIA/01A028A.htm
Al Gore is reportedly upset because a Florida lawyer is frittering away his time suing the FAA and the Air Force instead of battling over the election.
Contrast.
March 5, 2000: 
May 5, 2000: 
November 9, 2000: 
Yeah, I know. The tree is dead. I also realize that two of these are Junkmail reruns. You get what you pay for, after all...
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I'm Bob Webster and I can generally be found at bob@xpda.com. Feel free to send me any comments, questions, suggestions, or cash.
