Whoa!!
A 100-foot asteroid will just miss the Earth Thursday night. Any time a rock comes close enough to pass between the Earth and the Moon, it’s a close call. Fortunately, this one will miss. But there’s no shortage of Doomsday Rocks flying around out there.

I’m wondering if I can get a newsfeed for the Near Earth Orbit mailing lists, or some other sort of heads-up. I’d like to know when I’m spending my last few minutes alive. 🙂

I found out about this one from Fark. Funny how when the real rock comes a-callin’, I’ll likely find out about it from Fark.

Oh no. There goes any productivity I’d hope to accomplish today. It’s the first day of the NCAA Tournament. Non-stop college basketball for days on end.

Spring really is my favorite time of year! Heh.

Yesterday, I was in the neighborhood of HAHT Software’s old building on Six Forks Road, so I decided to pop in to see who was there now. The old building sits at the Six Forks intersection of the Beltline. I drove up to the building, parked the car, and bounded up the familiar steps. A turn to the left brought me to the elevator, and I instinctively pressed 3.

The doors opened to a familiar sight: the third floor hallway. Doors were open and the lights were off, indicating the space hadn’t been rented. It seemed safe to wander through, so I did.

Minutes later, I was standing in the middle of my old office, now devoid of all furnishings. The wall where I had my bullet-riddled poster of Bill Gates was still there. I pictured my desk along the wall where it used to be.

Also walked through the other offices, still very much left untouched. In fact, there were lots of things still hanging around from the earlier HAHT days. It looked like HAHT had just moved out the past weekend, and yet its been five years since HAHT moved to the Newton Technology Center (formerly Charter Hospital) on Newton Road.

Kind of bizarre finding a five-year-old time capsule of your former work life, but interesting, too.

From the Interesting People list. The BBC’s Channel Four is running ads which would be immediately banned by the FCC. Numerous celebrities are asked their favorite swear words and speak them on camera.

They’re just words, but it highlights the difference between America, which supposedly values freedom of speech, and countries that actually do value free speech.

A local copy of the Shockwave Flash clip is here. The original link is here.

Warning: Not Safe For Work! Without headphones, at least.
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The squirrels have upped the ante in the war of control of the bird feeders. Yesterday, they destroyed my home bird feeder, chewing through three separate plastic straps to topple the already-plundered feeder. I whistled to myself when I saw those three straps on the ground next to the upside-down feeder, still hanging by its sole remaining strap.

The news from the work front isn’t much better. I drove up to see my feeder in its now-familiar place on the ground, only this time there was one suction cup still hanging from the window. It seems a heavy (or desperate) squirrel ripped the cup right off of its screw. Bastards!

Now I’m watching a constant stream of birds show up for a meal that isn’t available. They’ve been betrayed by the squirrels.

I’ve got to figure out some better countermeasures or the terrorists, er … the squirrels will win.

I’ve been quite impressed with my brother Jeff‘s BCS (Blog Championship Series) page. Way to go, Jeff, for once again furthering the art of blogging!

Today is Saint Patrick’s Day. My parents and grandparent, aunts and uncles are all in Ireland right now, enjoying a proper St. Patrick’s Day. I haven’t heard from them and it’s bumming me out. I’d love to be able to follow along with their adventures.

It’s cloudy and wet here, so it’s as if Ireland has come to me today.

From the Cold War Dirty Tricks Department: The Washington Post carried a story two weeks ago of how the CIA planted bugs in software bound for the Soviet Union which caused the detonation of the Trans-Siberian natural gas pipeline in 1982.

“In order to disrupt the Soviet gas supply, its hard currency earnings from the West, and the internal Russian economy, the pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines, and valves was programmed to go haywire, after a decent interval, to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to pipeline joints and welds,” Reed writes.

“The result was the most monumental nonnuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space,” he recalls, adding that US satellites picked up the explosion. Reed said in an interview that the blast occurred in the summer of 1982.

Sadly, the CIA project has become obsolete, now that the same thing can be accomplished with the “Commercial-Off-The-Shelf” software known as Microsoft Windows.

I’m scheduled to have my laparoscopic nissen fundoplication surgery next Thursday at UNC Hospitals (I was never good at fundoplication in math class). The surgery should fix my reflux issues once and for all, of which I’ve been dealing for almost ten years. No more drugs, yay!

I plan to take the following Friday off and be back to work (or at least working from home) after a weekend of rest. That’s why the laparoscopic part is so cool: tiny incisions make for a quick recovery.

Only drawback is I can’t eat steak for about a month. Your blog wants steak. 🙂

Having just discussed this in the office, it seems that some of my coworkers may have similar problems. It seems this stuff is much more common than I realized.