The lovely and talented Mary Katharine Ham links to a collection of gigantic assholes ostensibly trying to help people stop smoking, but only end up looking like gigantic assholes. As I've said before, I hate smoking. The smell disgusts me and the smoke burns my throat and makes my eyes water. Also, I haven't really enjoyed watching friends and relatives suffer from cancer and emphysema. However, this is supposedly a free society and people can make their own choices about whether or not they want to smoke. I post a link every year for the Great American Smokeout to nudge people who might want to quit because I think that it could prove helpful to some people. You know what I don't think is helpful? Crap like this:

Feel free to politely complain to the ASHoles.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 09:03 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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32 years ago, this nation was forced to choose between Howdy Doody and the liberal wing of the GOP. Faced with the rock and the hard place, many in the nation went a different route altogether, supporting the longshot candidacy of a short, cigar chomping, no nonsense sort of a guy. Okay, maybe "guy" is stretching the truth a bit. It's time for the All Night Party candidate to get down again.

For you poor children too young to remember the campaign, but not old enough to have forgotten this abomination, I offer this little link as backstory to the whole thing. more...

Posted by: Physics Geek at 08:20 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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The Instamonster links to a Pop Sci article on the wave of new nuclear power plant applications. Excerpt:

The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) just offered its annual outlook for the future of nuclear power, and it’s optimistic—partly of necessity. Today’s 104 nuclear power plants generate about 20 percent of electricity in the United States. Due to rising energy demand and aging infrastructure, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission predicts that industry will need to build 50 new reactors to continue producing the same proportion of the country’s power over the next 30 years.

Most of these plants have gotten past the glint-in-the-eye stage: Thirty-one reactors, representing 17 power companies and consortia, are somewhere in the application process—though NEI predicts only four to eight of those will be in commercial operation by 2016.

I'm intimately aware of the details of at least one of those applications.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 04:41 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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...at the magnitude of geekery on display in this task: How To Install and Boot 145 Operating Systems In a PC.

Look, just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should. On the other hand: Dude.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 02:46 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Being rich and famous does have its perks. Check out Mrs. Jeff Gordon below the fold.
more...

Posted by: Physics Geek at 09:58 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Thank you for your patience. For the record, I finished all of my training and passed all of my tests. I've always been pretty good at school, but covering 600 pages of new material every two days got to be a bit grueling; I'm glad that it's over.

In completely unrelated news, Duke and Carolina square off next weekend for what will likely be the #1 seed in the ACC tournament. VCU won its regular season title again and now heads to the CAA tourney needing, most likely, the tournament title to receive an NCAA bid. Right now, people are projecting VCU as an 8 or 9 seed, which puts them on track to face off against a #1 in the second round. Again. Guess who might be waiting for a rematch? Yeah, there's a better than average chance that Duke might receive a #1 this year. I'll bet that the team is itching for another shot at VCU. Then again, this VCU team might be better than last year's, so it would be a very interesting game.

In case you haven't figured it out, I love college basketball. March Madness is my favorite sports event of the year. I can hardly wait.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 05:05 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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