dream a little fragment on a friday

Fragments from the far side flow freely onto the blog today.

Enjoy more fragment postings over at Mrs. 4444's blog.  Her blog comes to us from the far side of the north woods.

Big space science event from the far side this week. The European Space Agency’s 10 year project flew a washing machine four billion miles through our solar system to land on a rubber duck. After landing it was reported that a large amount of bouncing occurred. Balancing the load in your top loading washer is an important step to avoid a bouncing machine.

Well ok, it was a space probe landing on a comet. The far side of a comet is definitely far out there. The space probe/lander has been compared to a washing machine and the comet is shaped like a rubber duck. How interesting that there are rubber duck shaped comets.

The science and engineering involved in a 10 year comet chase is amazing. Who knows, it might pay off in the future if we need to deflect one headed for earth.

Sure looks like a comet to me

Are there talents you wish you had? A dream of mine is playing an instrument (the musical type, not like a caliper instrument). When I tried really hard and practiced I was able to get most of twinkle twinkle little star out of our old piano. After a month of not playing it, I completely forgot the key sequence. Oh those multiple keys for songs with cords - forget it. How do the brains of those people can play a tune after just listening to it work?

Sock it to me, sock it to me. Wow that’s an old phrase. I enjoyed that crazy TV show. What’s not to like about a show with “laugh” in its title? I thought heaven was missing an angel when I watched Goldie Hawn dance and goof around on that show.

there was good show about beavers on PBS this week

(another billion fragment) When Warren Buffett (you know that ultra-rich guy) goes out to buy some batteries, he really buys big. He bought the whole store/company. His company will trade $4.7 billion in stock for all that comes under that Duracell copper top. I wonder what the energizer bunny thinks of this.

Sweet dreams til sunbeams find you.
Sweet dreams that leave all worries far behind you.
But in your dreams whatever they be
write a little comment for me.

From the far side of my thoughts, I made a connection between the Philae probe lingering on a comet and a hit song by The Mamas & The Papas.  Stars fading but am I still lingering on?   Enjoy:

more broken news from Lisleman

I have not set up the Lisleman TV tray news desk for a few months.  This year, stories of a flood and a lady with massive parking tickets were reported.  The Lisleman news desk is not consistent nor reliable.  The Lisleman news feed fails to feed even a tiny bird's appetite.  However, you can depend on the news reports being biased and aged with a sprinkle of wild speculation.

my news troll

You know those news reports that have your hair standing on end?  This is not a story like that.  I wish I had stories like that because I probably would attract more readers (oh you have made this far so you can read right?  you are not here because of a troll doll fetish).

This story has a twist.

Who remembers Chubby Checker?  Here's a hint he is the twist part of the story.

A judge (da judge? as in here come da ...) has ruled that 71 year-old Chubby Checker can sue Hewlett Packer (HP) over a genital-measuring app.  Personally, I would not want to be over any genital related app.

There a few bits of news to be found here.

• Chubby Checker is alive
• Chubby Checker was smart enough to trademark his stage name
• there is a market for genital related apps
• Anthony Weiner does not appear to be involved
• why did Mr. Weiner miss his chance on this app?
• why would you need an app to measure something in your pants?
• does the app keep the user's private parts numbers private? 

I am certainly no expert since I don't even own a smartphone.  Hopefully what's in HP's pocket will be revealed in court and the twister's name will be restored.

Before my TV tray falls over which would a dramatic way to end the news cast if I were to record one, I want to alert you the latest addition to Google Streetview - mountain tops!

Very cool with a 360 view from on high.  This link should take you to the "streetview" of the Aconcagua summit, Argentina.

is there a typo hall of fame

I've seen sites focused on auto-correct mistakes. I really can't blame my typos on technology. I've perfected my typos through bad spelling and thinking ahead too much while typing. Then there's the I changed a part of the sentence but didn't bother to read how my change affected the grammar of the sentence.

Does my idea of a proofreading service called "C. F. Eyecare" stand a chance?

Someone in the marketing world has recently paid attention to typos, specifically, typos on search terms. Typos have become the core of an ad campaign. Snickers (Mars Inc.) has purchased around 25,000 misspelled search terms for this ad campaign.

BG (before google), who could have imagined that typos would have value to anyone?

I'm not sure how to work it but I would love to sell a bunch of typos.





another circus 

google laughs even before they head for the bank

Certainly all my hip followers know about google Glass.  

Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google

Remembering how hip it was to wear a bluetooth earpiece a few years ago, I can imagine people want to strut around with Glass on their face.

How long before we have the first Glass wearer accident? Is there a klutz test before you can wear them? What about a pervert walking the streets watching porn? Oh wait, that already happens with smartphones.
 
One Seattle bar jump out front of the news and got free PR when they posted on their company FB page:

“The 5 Point is the first Seattle business to ban in advance Google Glasses. And ass kickings will be encouraged for violators.” (story link)

The Verge web site cranked up the fun with a photoshop contest displaying Google Glass.

What will they think of next? Don’t worry we have google shoes around the corner.

all ads should be

this creative!

I found this on G+ a few weeks ago.  It's about Google's fiber optic project in Kansas City.

I was fun to watch and listen to.  The modem sounds at the beginning bring back many memories of slower bytes.

another circus 

Fun G+ page story

Recently I discovered a fun G+ page called “Blast From The Past”.

If you are not on G+ yet, you should be because all the cool kids hang out there and you have shown you’re cool because you are reading this blog. 

Every Thursday this page collects old vintage pictures other G+ members send to it. Actually you just post a picture and add link references to their page. There are instructions on their page. If you like old pictures, you’ll love it. 

My first go at this was last Thursday. A surprising thing happened to my entry. Here’s my entry. 

Brother and I dressed up for Easter back in ancient times (I had to scan the picture because digital had not even been thought of yet).

Not even an hour passes and I see this picture go up on G+.

I don’t know this person but he references me in his post and we comment back and forth about the pictures. He also had that toy monkey. It looks like a reminiscing monkey wanting to play. 

An interesting event that would not have been possible back when that picture was taken and that monkey was still being tossed around. 

For other posting of pictures visit Unknown Mami’s SIMC page today.

faithful furry friday fragments

I have written many FF posts since I got hooked on Mrs. 4444’s meme. Typically I would start off with (IMHO) a funny line or two about her blog or maybe her cold northern midwest location. Today I start with a small tribute to Cooper. 

This past week the 4444’s family dog Cooper passed on. I only met their fun loving dog through her blog and youtube clips. This one is my favorite clip and Cooper thanks for giving me a laugh. I wish I could throw you a bone.

Holy google maps! 

I noticed a story of a mansion being listed this week for $2.7 million. But it wasn’t the money (maybe I could play rich one day and tour the home?) but its location and unique in-ground pool that attracted me to the story. The Chicago suburb, Hinsdale is not that big so I went to google maps to find the Batman pool. You can find it too but to speed your search along I’ll embed a map of it below. Anyone for a Batman themed pool party? (zoom in to see it better)



View cool pool 2 in a larger map

Random factoid fragment - there exists a massive pancake-shaped cloud of dust in our galaxy. It’s called the zodiacal cloud which sounds cool to me. A piece of it resides under my bed.

I don’t tempt fate with this now, but do you remember leaning back on your chair’s back legs as a way to impress others? 

When you lean too far and fall you instantly become the biggest fool. There must be a lesson in that somewhere.

He smelled like sweat-dried gym shoes 

with hint of mint. 

Could that be the start of a character description? I don’t even remember what I was reading when I jotted down this description. Now I’m not sure what to do with it. Maybe it’s a reminder to buy some new walking shoes and change my socks. Anyone for a mint?

(proofreading provided by C. F. Eyecare)

fragrant fragments

If I were to develop a line of fragrances (don’t all celebrities do that?) I would call it “Confusion”. Really what does Paris Hilton know that I don’t know? She probably knows many many influential people so that helps. But my “Confusion” perfume would give a woman the scent to throw off the hounds.

flagrant - fragrant - one letter can make a big difference. A flagrant fragrant air was left under the bedsheets. (good start for my mystery novel?)

Does it smell like Friday?

Oh, it’s Friday in about half the world now so I have started my Friday Fragments (FF). Ya know, Mrs. 4444 does a good hosting of der Friday Fragments, ya know. Check her blog for a full Friday filling of fragments.

Men vs. Women - On “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” they were joking about the recent media story of that “happy to see ya” congressman’s underwear photo. This story shows a difference between men and women.

If a guy got a topless picture the buddies that he shared it with would not care who the person was. They would just admire the beauty of it. It seemed everyone wanted to know who was under the underwear in this sexting congressman’s picture. (I did a post about this story earlier in the week)

If I decided to run for an elected office would that require a twitter account? Nothing against twitter or tweets but I just don’t care to join yet another thing that has marginal benefit. Also, I don’t have any crotch shots to share.

Oh did you notice the google logos above?

Those logos are so creative.  Did you know they sometimes animate them?

Today they offered a gadget type of logo.  Today's interactive guitar version their logo celebrates Les Paul's birthday.  He was a top guitarist.  My wife and I did enjoy another great guitarist, Chet Atkins, years ago.

Here's my goofy playing around with the gadget - whatever.

Someone at PC magazine figured out how to play a Beatle song on it.

another circus 

foo foo friday

It’s bunny season and I’m sure many of you know about bunny foo foo. I was looking up a little more on “foo foo” and landed of course on the wikipedia page covering little bunny foo foo. Isn’t that amazing? A wikipedia page on little bunny foo foo.

Maybe you grew up with encyclopedias being available on CD’s. I remember (still have it) the Microsoft Encarta set of CDs. At the time I thought wow this is the future. I’m not going to check but I bet they didn’t cover bunny foo foo.

Is foo foo derived from foofaraw?

When I was in school we had to search through volumes of actual heavy books for research on term papers. Oh and then we had to walk barefoot through deep snow, followed by burning coals after which we were scolded for not dressing properly. And then chop wood …. Ok enough old man, kids today have it much tougher. They can be bullied by a tweet.

On the topic of research, I got a call this week regarding my oldest grandson’s school project. He needs to report on his heritage and ancestors.

My mother was an immigrant from Slovenia. She arrived as a six year old child. My wife and I were fortunate a few years ago to visit her village and see her birth house. We met some distant relatives. So I put some information together along with some pictures and emailed (digitally transmitted miles away - amazing technology) it to my daughter.

My mom arrived with my grandmother and their timing was not so great. They arrived in New York City along with the stock market crash of 1929. I know the major events of her story but I wish I could interview her today and ask even more questions.  My mom never made it back to her childhood village.

Another aspect of her story didn’t come together for me until just this week while putting together the information. My grandfather had come over to the states years before and had found steady work and got his US citizenship. After establishing a home here he sent for his wife and daughter.

The new realization for me - my mother not only was coming to a strange land with a strange language, she was meeting her father for the first time since she was a baby. Pretty much meeting him the first time at the age of six.

I found an old Apple ad from 1984. It was for the Apple IIc. This state of the art machine came with 128K of internal memory. Without getting into the various types of memory and all that, just think that your typical tiny 4G memory card in your camera is over 30,000 times larger than 128K. Also, the ad bragged about the 16 (yes sixteen) colors that “can bring a presentation to life”. Today’s screens have millions of shades of color.

Here’s an old ad for the Digital PDP-11 computer. That company doesn’t exist anymore.

(oh here is another back-when-I-was-young difference - women had to wear really short outfits to work and iron their hair.)

Recently, I have created a few more clips and updated my “Playing Around” page. Please click over and take a look.

This week I was surprised by a package addressed to me. Here’s a picture of the surprise I received from Google.

I suspect Mrs. 4444 could tell stories (she has posted some) about the technology impact in her school. But I know she has plenty of Friday Fragments to share, so don’t foo foo around and click her badge/button below.

Havana summer Santa

Confusing title? Yeah, read on you’ll understand.

Not only does Google run this great blogger service (hey you wordpress bloggers don’t start a fight with me) it occasionally provides me blog post material.

Google voice provided us a few laughs this weekend.

If you don’t know about Google voice you should check it out. I “connected” it with my cellphone. There is really no connecting other than signing up (free) and assigning your phone numbers to be used. So the way I use it is having my cellphone voicemail sent to Google voice. Two things happen - I get an email with the recorded message and I get text messages containing the results of their voice-to-text translation. The second part is where the fun begins.

Here are two text messages I enjoyed from last weekend. See if you can figure out what the message actually is.

Hi Mel is Pat. We're bringing back coffee drinkers and Mary Pat would like you to break that make coffee in it the coffee pot and then put it in the ground to make another possible so anyway. Call me if you get this message.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hi it's me. I'm asking that you starts ticking on the without a refrigerator out of the garage. There is a pain in the garage the recycling bin. And it's room temperature and take the top South, and we'll start and stop off. Actually, potato saying about the Charlie she's going to have a now at 360 and we'll worry about getting restless of done And if you were somewhat use of the pan and to the Havana summer so I actually have some of the last things we could do so. My phone is dead So I will talk to him when we get the car We're gonna be taking off in about 5 minutes okay I don't know how long it takes about what a white out of here. Bye.

I had no idea who these people were without looking at the phone number.

I don’t get late night messages from bars, I can only imagine how the slurred words would be translated into text.

Oh the “Santa” part of the title - Well if you check out Google voice during this holiday season you’ll find a special offer. Calls from Santa. It’s fun and free.

yabba-dabba-doo

WILMA!!

Help we turned 50.

Did you see the google logo today?

Breaking News - (Bedrock) Fred and Wilma have outlived the average lifespan of a caveman.

I suspect 50 is probably twice the typical lifespan, but then I don’t know any cavemen to ask. Oh wait, my neighbor he appears to be a caveman at times, I could ask him.

Oh the Flintstones memories come flashing back (no not a sixties flashback). Back there in Bedrock when men were men, like Fred. Back when Barney was Fred’s best buddy not a high fashion New York luxury store (yeah I know that’s Barney with an “s”).

Here’s an example of great messages these guys provided me in my youth.

Could you imagine even a print ad like that carcinogen commercial today?

Oh maybe you were more of a Marlboro man.

I missed this funny insurance commercial but with the magic of youtube here it is for your enjoyment.
(just think instead of smoking Winstons, Fred and Barney could be watching youtube clips)

non-edible friday fragments

Do they really have to tell us that things are non-edible?  

How do they decide which things to tell us about? Warning these car keys are non-edible.

Thanks to Mrs. 4444 ( 4444 Escher is an asteroid named after M.C. Escher but I doubt Mrs. 4444 knew that when she assigned herself a number)  I have a great way to share some non-edible thoughts with you.

Do you have odd questions randomly pop into you head?

For example, once as I struggled to finish my commute to work.  I looked at the buildup of traffic going the opposite way and wonder where is everyone going.  I’ll never know the answer but I’m glad they weren’t all going the my way.

More useless ideas sprouting into my brain garden (still needs weeding):

• Buying cold beer on ebay.
• The popular vampire thing could mean that leaches and mosquitoes get more respect.  They are more common that vampires and suck blood.
• Remember all those time capsules that were popular back in the 1960’s and 70’s?  Yeah, I forgot if I buried one too.

I really enjoy the Google doodles on their search page (I’m easily pleased).  Did you know they have different ones for various countries?   

Check out their doodle page (don’t you wish you had a doodle page?)

I clicked on the Wizard of Oz doodle just the other day and learned an odd piece of trivia - the movie’s first showing was in Oconomowoc, Wis. at the Strand Theatre.

Hmm - maybe everyone is driving to Oconomowoc to see a premiere showing.  Sometimes it all comes together for me.

Google launches boomer phone

Google (which hosts this blogger service) launched a new phone this week.

It's going to be huge.

Because it is huge.

I think it is targeted at the boomer generation which by now is needing more and more large print for reading.

As you can clearly see this smartphone will be easy to read but -

how many little old ladies would be able to carry it?

Maybe it's for the group still driving those big SUVs.

(thanks to Digital Daily for alerting me to this story and the photo)

bar hopping by google

This type of bar hopping is inexpensive and won't give you a hangover. The bar code patent had its 57th anniversary today and google celebrated by changing their logo on the search page to a bar code.  
I've posted about some google's logo changes before.  They seem to pick some odd things and often geeky things to commemorate.

Google's logo for the space race 

Google's logo for NASA birthday  


So getting into the bar code theme, I went over to a free bar code generator site and made the above bar code.  Now I have a bar code for "few clowns short".  Of course, I'm still unsure of what use this bar code could provide me.  Maybe I should use it on all my comments?
Did you know some smartphones (camera equipped ones) can read bar codes?  Bar codes are here to stay.
Maybe they should bar code bars.  As you bar hop you could keep track of where you've been.

interesting walk

Next year I'm not missing this special "World" day that I just missed. Last week, actually June 19, was World Sauntering Day. W.T. Rabe, created the "holiday" in the 70's at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Michigan. (side note - Mackinac Island is the perfect place to saunter because motorized vehicles are banned there. I've sauntered around their fudge shops years ago.)

Sauntering - I should tell people that's what I doing when my bum left heel acts up and I hobble along sorta strange.

I'm not a runner. Never was never will be.

I dreaded track time in high school. It made no sense to run around the same oval again and again. My last serious running was in Air Force training. Hiking is good. The view changes.

But the more I think about it --

I could be a saunterer. Are there saunter clubs?

Interested in sauntering around? Don't want to get lost?

Google is working on some help right now. You probably know of Google Maps and their Street View option. Now Google's Street View is expanding onto the footpath. They are starting with college campuses and footpaths in the UK.

(AP Photo/Mark Stehle)

So many uses/apps for google maps - one's imagination couldn't come close to thinking them up. Over in New York they are using google maps to track maple syrup smells. It's a big mystery I guess.

Next thing will be google suggested sauntering routes!

More links on Sauntering Day -- link 1 link 2

smoking google maps

Last fall I posted that Google's streetview found my house.

Like most people, I wondered if anything embarrassing was in the picture, such as me bending over while putting down the garbage, or raking leaves.

Well at least my house was NOT on fire!!!

I grabbed this screenshot off of a Sherwood Arkansas streetview. I discovered this from the write-up at the Telegraph (UK). There are more pics there.

Well I also learned that the Sherwood fire department has plenty of hose.

thanks google

Thanks to google's decoration of their search page logo, I found out that NASA is 50 years old today.

I suspect most of you have seen the decorated google logos before. Halloween is a day they regularly change it, as are many other holidays. I assume they must have a group that reviews upcoming anniversaries for selecting their next logo change. That would be a fun review. I imagine they come across some strange ones. I wonder if they take requests.

Google found my house

2007-10-09

Well when I read that Google Maps released street pictures of Chicagoland today, I just had to look. They covered much of Naperville and they got my house. It was done on a rainy afternoon this past summer. I imagine if enough people looked at various cars, people, and stages of construction that were caught on camera, the date could be pinned down.

I don't mind. It's a public street and I have a relative who still has problems finding our place so maybe this will help. Of course he would need to find Google Maps.

did you notice

OK - space - google
Two subjects that interest me.
I really like it when Google creates special logo's to mark historic days.

Well, the space race started 50 years ago today. I thought the write-up in USA Today (the web site - I assume the hard copy had the same) was good. The article points out the difference now in attitude of Americans about the space race compared to then. If you don't know already, the big push for reaching the moon was political and "Cold War" related.

Today the "Cold War" has been replaced by a terrorist war. I don't imagine any terrorist group would have or want any plans to say land a man on Mars. So today we have a very different world situation. You know China has a space program and I wonder if they were to land man on Mars before us, would we feel that we blew it?

I wonder how many people make the connection between Sputnik and the current widely used GPS system.

The special web pages over at Nasa are worth a look too.