Drive very, very carefully in Wyoming, if at all. Apparently exceeding the speed limit by more than 5 (!) MPH can bring up to 20 (!!!!!) days in prison.
And this isn’t a technicality or an obsolete law on the books. I found this out after an Ask MetaFilter question by someone whose friend was given three days in prison for speeding.
From the first two pages of today’s Nashua [NH] Telegraph:
Also, is there any crime that isn’t committed on Craigslist? Browse around enough and you’ll find flagrant prostitution and drug sales. (You’ll also periodically see people arrested for this stuff in the newspaper… I’d love to work in a police department’s “Craiglist Division,” which might just be a full-time job.) Apparently you now have babysitting-outsourcers.
This comic was pretty funny, and the age/2 + 7 formula got tossed around a lot by my roommates.
Of course, it gives us the minimum age one can date without being creepy. At 22, it’s [(22/2) + 7], or 18. (I, however, maintain that this discrepancy would, in fact, be creepy.)
But what about the upper age limit? The formula itself is silent on this, but we can easily do some substitution to make it work. If the minimum acceptable age (“M”) is your own age (“A”) divided by two, plus 7, we get:
M = A/2 + 7
We typically solve for M, knowing A. However, the oldest person I could date would have my A as their M, e.g.:
22 = A/2 + 7
With this realization, it’s a simple Algebra 1 question. Subtract 7 from both sides and then multiply by two.
Thus, the maximum age one can date is 2(a-7), where a is your age. For me, it’d be 2(22-7), or 30.
What interests me, though, is that this means I’m allowed to go back four years, but forward eight, within the margin of creepiness.
I built a spreadsheet for people aged 1 to 100 showing this and various other statistics. It’s online here as an HTML document. A few interesting trends emerge that aren’t intuitively obvious working with just the formulas:
Rusty and I were just talking about the recent decision by the Democratic party and how we’re going to count delegates from the two states, which has left both sides somewhat unhappy.
But then we kind of realized that no one is talking about the real issues? I don’t particularly care how we seat delegates. The whole system sucks, and I hope after 2008 is over we can overhaul the way the DNC works. And I kind of had an epiphany: I feel like I’m trapped in this country, a faded emblem that used to be a beacon of prosperity and freedom.
Let’s talk about some things that actually matter.
The thing is, I really love this country. But all around me I see signs of our great nation crumbling. At times I almost feel trapped. Can we please stop focusing on the things Republicans and Democrats disagree on, and instead work on getting things done? We all love America, want our troops to be cared for, want our schools to be the best, want to get treated in hospitals, and want our economy to thrive. Working with two parties seems to keep us from ever getting anything done, because all we can ever do is disagree. But why does it have to be that way? We all want the same things deep down. Can’t we take our different viewpoints and use them to our advantage, crafting solutions that appease both of us?
…I’d try to arrange a meeting of all the major candidates, in front of the media, where we all pledge to stop this crap. (Obama himself commented that he knew Hillary meant nothing negative, but that after such intense campaigning, he knew exactly what it was like to slip up and say something that sounds really bad but wasn’t what you meant.)
News sites keep adding comment sections, but for some reason draw users who post comments more absurd than those on Youtube. Take this article as an example, about how a decorated military nurse was discharged after commanding officers found out she was a lesbian. The court ruled that they couldn’t dismiss her solely for her sexual orientation.
Comments include things like:
Remember when homosexuals used to just want to be left alone to do their thing in their own bedrooms?
Now they are attempting to overturn society with their desperate craving for mainline acceptance of their proclivities.
And someone going on about eternal damnation. And, as usual, there’s not just hate for some group, but there’s also a complete lack of coherent points:
Homosexuality is still not as main steam as they want us to believe it is. You can”t even watch a television program these days that doesn”t have a gay character in it.
Don’t those two sentences contradict each other?
The thing is… This is a pretty calm discussion. No one has blamed Bush yet, no one has invoked Nazi references, no one has talked about a vast liberal conspiracy, and no one has attacked any of the three major Presidential candidates. This one only makes me cringe a little at the pathetic course of the discussion, not fear for the future of America. Besides, what motivates people to go on news websites to rant about their opinions?
…That’s what blogs are for.
You know those times when you decide to let yourself surf aimlessly? And an hour later, you have absolutely no idea how you got to where you did?
I found the K0S Strange Antenna Contest page from 2003, where some ham radio operators started using, well, strange things as antennas. Who’d think that a ladder works well? (No no, not ladder line, but an actual ladder.) In fact, after working some people off of a ladder, they got an even better idea, and stood several ladders up, using them to support a pair of extension ladders laid horizontally, forming a ladder dipole, with impressive results. Sadly, they report that combining two shopping carts to make a dipole did not get them any contacts, nor did a basketball hoop.
This has me wondering what else would work… An aluminum chain link fence? A railing? Train tracks? Power lines? (Kidding on that one. Please do not try to attach anything to power lines.) Curtain rods? A couple of cars? A section of guardrail? A metal lamppost?
I poked around the site some more, to see if they did it in subsequent years. And they did. 2004, for example, saw my joke about using two cars come to fruition. (Okay, so they beat me to it by four years.) 2005 saw someone use a bronze statue, and, the next year, he was at it again with railroad tracks, albeit not full ones, but some sort of art exhibit / monument. (Aside: I’m pretty certain that trying to hook up a bunch of wires to train tracks may arouse a bit of suspicion by the police?) 2006 also saw a pair of exercise machines being used, with a comment about how they weren’t very effective, but the apt comment, “On the other hand, we did in fact make two contacts with a pair of exercise machines standing only a few inches above the earth!” And, confusing everything I know about antennas, someone used a tree. And a football stadium (which includes a commentary about how the university police were initially slightly suspicious about someone getting out of their car and hooking wires up to the stadium for some reason). 2007 saw a bridge as an antenna.
And 2008? Well, see, here’s the best thing. The 2008 Challenge is this weekend!
Of course, as a Technician-class license, I don’t have many HF privileges… The Technician license was (before all license classes saw it eliminated) the only class that didn’t require a Morse code exam, so it’s somewhat ironic that almost all of the new HF privileges Techs were given are in the CW portions of various bands. I do get 28.3-28.5 MHz now, allowing SSB on HF…
Time to hit the books, I think. (I think mine–and that one–might be outdated, actually. Looks like the question pool got revised in 2007.) There are always sample exams online, and the feedback can be helpful. Study a bit and take an exam a day, and then review your answers. (Theoretically, actually, you could just learn the answers to each question without understanding the concepts, though that’s really missing the spirit and point of ham radio.)
I don’t know why, but I find these absolutely hilarious. Since I haven’t given it out in a while, this guy gets HERO OF THE DAY.
I frankly don’t use AIM that much these days, but will often sign on and think, “Wow, lots of people are on tonight!” or, “Wow, almost no one is on tonight!” So I just wanted to list my thought process after noticing this:
Is there anything that can’t be graphed? Or made into a shell script?
Can you guess the state?
Okay, so the link gives it away. But this wasn’t really meant to stump people anyway.