Downside Of Losing Weight

I have lost almost ten pounds since I started seriously trying to lose weight about six weeks ago. I started at about 212-215, and am now at 202-205. I'm looking forward to breaking through 200 soon. I haven't been below 200 in almost 15 years. I'm not on any particular diet or anything, just trying to eat a bit less and a bit healthier, and be a bit more active. Most importantly is that I have gotten rid of all cokes.

Mrs. Astro is also losing weight, through a program called Slim4Life, and it's working much faster for her.

The downside? My dang pants don't fit any more! I don't want to go out and buy new ones yet because part of me thinks I'll go back up, and the other part doesn't want to spend the money. But I will have to do it soon. I've been in size 38 pants for a long time now, and I'm going to have to take the leap of faith that I can buy size 36 and have them fit.

The upside? Not developing diabetes or heart disease and dying at a young age. I got checked up earlier this year and I'm fine on everything except my triglycerides, and my good cholesterol is too low and the bad is too high, though the total is good. I've got four kids to raise and I really do want to be a Granddad one day so I've got to stay around for all of that.

Go get yourself a physical, if you haven't done so lately.

Where Are They Now?

In the past week, we have seen three very different celebrities shuffle off this mortal coil. Two of them were not unexpected: Ed McMahon was elderly and in poor health, while Farrah Fawcett had been fighting cancer for quite a while. The sudden and more tragic death was that of Michael Jackson, who despite his weird behaviors and accusations of child abuse, was loved by millions the world over for his musical talent, which earned him the title "King of Pop".

Now, as often happens when folks of such high profile pass away, you will see speculation among Christian circles as to whether or not the person in question would actually end up in Heaven or not. These deaths are, sadly, no different. I have seen comments online saying that neither Jackson nor Fawcett are "actually resting in peace".

I'm sorry, but it's this kind of comment that gives Christians a bad name to the non-Christian world. To be so judgemental about someone who just passed away, someone whose family is in the depths of their grief, is just terrible. I don't care if it's true or not or whether I agree or not. You just don't say crap like this!

As for Michael Jackson, there's no telling where he ended up. The guy was involved in so many different religions in his time, from Jehovah's Witnesses to Islam to Scientology through ex-wife Lisa Marie Presley, to who knows what? It's possible that he converted to Christianity before his death, but highly unlikely. But nevertheless, none of us will know because that's between him and God.

As for Ed McMahon or Farrah Fawcett, we don't know what their status was either, and we won't know.

Please, my fellow Christians, keep these kind of comments and speculation to yourselves.

Post from my iPhone

Yep, I have signed up for iPhone service. It's pretty neat, but typing this post is slightly annoying with this little graphical keyboard.

How I'm Learning to Stop Worrying And Love Aerospace

As my regular visitors know, I have expressed major disappointment with the way my career has been heading, and regret that I chose this line of work. Why couldn't I have been interested in learning something more lucrative, I've said. Why couldn't I have gone to business school or be an entrepreneur or anything other than a cubicle dwelling Dilbert?

Well, thanks to Facebook, I have found some very old friends from when I was very young, and this has brought back lots of good memories of my childhood. What it has also done is made me realize that I have been fixated on space from a very, very early age. I might regret this in part now, but I have to admit that this fixation is very real to me and is still with me to this day. I cannot imagine doing anything else; any other job seems to me to be nothing. I could do many other jobs, but they wouldn't mean anything to me more than a paycheck.

There has to be a reason God made me this way, and He gave me the gifts needed to be very good at what I do. I just need to accept this and try to move forward as best as I can.

I could sure use some more frakking money, though.

Pointless Project or The Future?

Our friend Bill left a link to this article from John Derbyshire at National Review: End of an Extravaganza

Yes, there is definitely a parallel between manned spaceflight and the expeditions of Zheng He. Just think, the Chinese could have been the ones to colonize and settle all over the old world instead of the Europeans. There are some who say that the Chinese even made it to the west coast of North America back then, too. But, they didn't.

So why did the Europeans succeed when the Chinese didn't? Mr. Derbyshire says that they didn't bother to establish any colonies, open any trade routes, or put together any alliances with anyone. They just sent out their ships and then brought them back, so there was no profit from any of it. In this way, manned spaceflight, especially the NASA version of it, is exactly the same: there is no profit from their activities, there are just billions after billions spent to keep legions of engineers and scientists gainfully employed.

Is manned spaceflight pointless, as Derbyshire concludes, or will it lead us into The Future? Derbyshire himself mentions that we may soon see private companies going into space and making profits, so perhaps his conclusion is premature. Yes, NASA is pointless, but manned spaceflight is not. (good grief, I could tell you how much of what NASA and her contractors do is pointless, believe me)

Now, how do we make more profit from manned spaceflight? I don't know, but there are the Bransons, Musks, Bezos', and Carmacks out there trying to figure it out.

Possibly a Good Idea

US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive - Telegraph

This is very interesting. From time to time, I wonder what might be done along these lines, and usually come to the conclusion that decaying parts of cities would be difficult to deal with because someone owns the land and lives on it. You can't force them off just because their property is crappy and you want to tear it all down. Now, the situation in Flint is different, because the people have left for the most part. So what at first seemed crazy to me seems now to perhaps be a good idea.

What I usually think about though is parts of cities that are old and run down, but still have people living in them. Would it be possible to buy up all the old, run down properties, tear them all down, and then redevelop the whole area? Yes, but it would be prohibitively expensive to buy up the existing properties. Plus, don't people have a right to live in crappy, run-down parts of town?

Eccentric Links

OK, last night I dug up my old list of "eccentric" links and added them to my webpage here. Many of them were listed on "Eccentric Anomaly" before I deleted it recently, and after thinking about it for a while, I decided to resurrect the list here. As you may know, "eccentric anomaly" as a heading (or former blog title) plays off the theme of using the names of orbital elements that I started with "True Anomaly". In this context, "eccentric" refers to all the crazy stuff I have found over time on the internet, from government conspiracies to UFOs to Biblical prophecy analysis. I find reading this stuff highly entertaining. The time and effort that people put into creating these websites is something else.

Any ideas for a list of "mean anomaly" links? Does Simon Cowell have a website? Perez Hilton? Keith Olberman?

Embitterment and Entitlement

Dr. Sowell has an excellent article about the Sotomayor nomination to the Supreme Court at National Review: Equal Rights or Special Rights? While reading it, I was struck by the following:

What does it say about her qualifications to be on the Supreme Court when her supporters’ biggest talking points are that she had to struggle to rise in the world?

Bonnie and Clyde had to struggle. Al Capone had to struggle. The only president of the United States who was forced to resign for his misdeeds — Richard Nixon — had to struggle. For that matter, Adolf Hitler had to struggle. There is no evidence that struggle automatically makes you a better person.

Sometimes, instead of making you appreciative of a society in which someone born at the bottom can rise to the top, it leaves you embittered that you had to spend years struggling, and resentful of those who were born into circumstances where the easy way to the top was open to them.

Yes!

That last sentence is where I find myself a lot of the time lately. Why have I had things so hard when others have had things so easy? Why did I have to go through a flood eight years ago which devastated my personal finances when others did not? Why did I have to work and scrimp and save to pay for college when all those rich SOBs in the frats had their rich daddies pay for everything?

And then to boil it down a bit further: Why, when I have done everything "right" and followed all the rules along the way by working hard to make high grades in school and then in college and then as an engineer, can I not get ahead, can I not get into a better job, can I not get a higher salary, etc, etc, etc?

It's enough to make you just want to see all those rich SOBs that had everything come so easy to them get screwed, even if it screws your life up in the process.

And that, my friends, is one of the main secrets to Obama and the Democrats' success with their agenda. Yes, they are destroying the economy, but enough people don't care about that because the government is making those rich SOBs HURT.

Fortunately, I do not personally think with my heart, but with my head. I realize that if the rich SOBs aren't allowed the freedom to pursue their goals and be rich SOBs, that I and everyone else in the middle class or lower class do not have any freedom either. We all need jobs, and we usually get them from some rich SOB or another. And even the government won't be able to employ anyone if they don't have any rich SOBs to tax.

I also realize that for the most part, the rich SOBs got that way because they also worked hard, followed the rules, did everything "right" and it eventually paid off for them. Former GM CEO Rick Waggoner was one of those.

Maybe someday it might pay off for me as well, but not in Obama's America.

UPDATE:
A related short note from Dr. Hanson: Is It Going to Be Race and Resentment — All the Time?

Yes, as opposed to the simple resentment felt by most of us out here in the lower classes, Dr. Hanson. I guess being "of color" gives a certain bitter flavor to your resentment.

Good Lord, PLEASE let us be able to get rid of this horrible President in 2012.

?Que Tal Ustedes?

Still around; sorry for not posting anything in the last few days.

Coming To An Employer Near You

Google Searches for Staffing Answers

Concerned a brain drain could hurt its long-term ability to compete, Google Inc. is tackling the problem with its typical tool: an algorithm.

The Internet search giant recently began crunching data from employee reviews and promotion and pay histories in a mathematical formula Google says can identify which of its 20,000 employees are most likely to quit.

Google officials are reluctant to share details of the formula, which is still being tested. The inputs include information from surveys and peer reviews, and Google says the algorithm already has identified employees who felt underused, a key complaint among those who contemplate leaving.

Yeah, this is just what we need.

Right now, they say that this algorithm is supposed to help them hold on to valued employees. But how long will it take them to determine which employees they DON'T want to retain? You're unhappy working for us? Well, our algorithm shows that you suck anyway, so don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.

This will turn your career into the same sort of exercise that college football has become under the BCS. I'm sorry, you fell one thousandth of a point behind the next guy for promotion, because your contribution wasn't as valuable, so you don't get the raise or promotion.

Wonder if this algorithm contains a "screwed-over quotient"?

Your Mother Was A Lemur-Monkey

Scientists Unveil Missing Link In Evolution

Well, it's quite a leap of faith to say that this one little fossil is "The Missing Link" that all the scientists have been looking for all these years. But this is interesting nevertheless.

STS-125 Mission to Hubble

You can follow the mission at Spaceflight Now, which is an excellent site for all sorts of news regarding spaceflight. If you haven't gone there before, you ought to.

There sure seems to be a lot of drama associated with this mission. I don't know if that's good or bad. Maybe it's just PR on NASA's part to make the public get behind the Orion/Ares program, and/or sell the new administration on the whole thing. "Oooh, the Shuttle's in danger, it could hit space debris! Oooh, we have a backup Rescue Shuttle ready to go just in case!"

Well, whatever, it's no more dangerous than any other Shuttle mission has been. That is to say, they are all very dangerous. The Shuttle is the most complex system ever built, and it's a testament to all the engineers involved that they have gotten it to fly with a ~98% success rate.

Of course, just flying around in LEO sucks. Let's get on with more interesting stuff like Lunar and Mars missions, and maybe some asteroids or something. We've got to find a way to make space pay for itself, and that means exploiting resources.

Review: Star Trek

YouTube - Star Trek - Official Trailer 3 [HD]

The new Star Trek movie is, in a word, awesome.

That said, I can see why long time Trekkers and Trekkies might totally hate it. Why? Because it totally reboots the story. The entire universe they know in such minute detail is gone. Well, I suppose the "Enterprise" storyline with Capt. Archer and his crew is still valid.

Now, I'm not going to give spoilers here. But while I can see scorn being heaped upon the producers of this movie for the way in which the story was rebooted, I have to remind everyone that Star Trek brought it on themselves. There are so many episodes of all the various series involving time loops and alternate universes that I can't count them all. I'm sure someone has.

So, how to restart and update a franchise using the old characters with new actors? You make a movie like this. And if it makes enough money, which I'm fairly sure it should, there will be more movies with this crew telling a whole new Star Trek story.

Oh, by the way, I have to get off my chest the TOTAL disregard for anything resembling actual physics in the space sequences or in how the bad guys' ship worked. And how so many things didn't make a lot of sense... But then again I am an aerospace engineer and this sort of thing bothers me in all science fiction. The closest I have seen to making this stuff right has been Babylon 5 and the Stargate shows.

Viruses Suck

Man, I am having the hardest time getting rid of a virus called "Vundo" on our laptop. First, it started popping up windows saying that the PC was infected and wanting you to click on their bogus website to buy their bogus anti-spyware program. So I run my anti-virus and Windows Defender against it, but while it deletes a bunch of registry entries and stuff, there is one little DLL left which reinstalls the whole thing on restart.

Why do the people that write this virus crap do it?

Yeah, I know, why ask why? They do it to be cool and fun and smarter-than-you.

Well, you won't beat me, you jerks.

There May Be Hope Yet

Aerospace Engineering Searches for New Talent

Hope for me to earn higher salaries in the future, that is. If the market works as it should, then engineers with experience will be in demand and thus should be paid higher salaries. However, I have been reading this stuff for years so I believe it's a long process. I do know that when I started in the mid-90's, I made around $30K a year, and that nowadays new engineers with a B.S. start out in the $55-60K range.

Could another doubling of that happen? Only with hyper-inflation, I suppose.

Republicans Are Losers

First we have this:
Specter hints Kemp died of GOP agenda

Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Democrat, said part of the reason that he left the Republican Party last week was disillusionment with its health-care priorities, and suggested that had the Republicans taken a more moderate track, Jack Kemp may have won his battle with cancer.
...
Mr. Specter continued: "If we had pursued what President Nixon declared in 1970 as the war on cancer, we would have cured many strains. I think Jack Kemp would be alive today. And that research has saved or prolonged many lives, including mine."

Good riddance, Mr. Specter. What an ass, using Mr. Kemp's death for a political comment like this. I guess he believes that if John Kerry had been elected in 2004, Christopher Reeve would have been cured. Michael J. Fox as well, I'm sure. Does he REALLY believe that Republicans don't want to fund cancer research? Or that they have kept cancer researchers from doing their work? Please!

Then we have this:
Jeb Bush, GOP: Time to leave Reagan behind

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said Saturday that it's time for the Republican Party to give up its "nostalgia" for the heyday of the Reagan era and look forward, even if it means stealing the winning strategy deployed by Democrats in the 2008 election.
"You can't beat something with nothing, and the other side has something. I don't like it, but they have it, and we have to be respectful and mindful of that," Mr. Bush said.
The former president's brother, often mentioned as a potential candidate in 2012, said President Obama's message of hope and change during the 2008 campaign clearly resonated with Americans.
"So our ideas need to be forward looking and relevant. I felt like there was a lot of nostalgia and the good old days in the [Republican] messaging. I mean, it's great, but it doesn't draw people toward your cause," Mr. Bush said.
"From the conservative side, it's time for us to listen first, to learn a little bit, to upgrade our message a little bit, to not be nostalgic about the past because, you know, things do ebb and flow."

What a TOTAL CROCK OF $^*%!

Well, he's partially right. You can't beat Socialism (something) with Socialism Light (nothing).

Republicans lost their control of the government NOT because they "moved to the right" but because they MOVED TO THE LEFT!!! They forgot why they were put in Washington in the first place, and that was to pursue Conservative ideas for how government should be run. When they started acting like Democrats, their base left them, and let the Democrats win.

Time to leave REAGAN behind?

IT'S TIME TO LEAVE THIS BUNCH OF REPUBLICANS BEHIND!

The Democrats never abandon the principles of FDR or LBJ or whoever their role models are, why should Republicans? Reagan's ideas weren't just valid for the 1980's, they were valid for all time. It's the same debate between Left and Right that has existed since those terms were coined: More Government and Less Freedom versus Less Government and More Freedom.

For too long, Conservatives and Republicans have allowed their political enemies on the Left, both politicians and the media, to define them to the electorate. Those enemies have succeeded in the last few years at painting Conservatives as every possible bad thing under the Sun.

Well, I'm sick and tired of it.

Republican Party, you had better listen to YOUR SIDE and not the ENEMY'S SIDE! If you continue to do what you're doing, you will never win back the votes of Conservatives and you will never win back any power anywhere.

QuickMBA

QuickMBA is a site I just found after searching for "Porter's five forces". I had found a job posting for a systems engineering position that mentioned that, and I had no idea what that was. Anyway, this QuickMBA site is pretty cool. It gives an overview of all the topics that an MBA would cover and some suggested reading for each topic. So I may not be able to get an MBA, but I can study some of the stuff if I want to.

Upgrade, Yeah Right

OK, I'm trying to put the Haloscan comments in here just like they say but they're not working.

I may go back to the old template. Come back later to see.

UPDATE:
Yep, I could not get stupid old Haloscan to work on new Blogger so we're back to the old template and Haloscan.

UPDATE 2:
OK, so I decided to try out one of the other templates. I kind of like the starry background, and I kind of don't. I sort of liked my Eccentric Anomaly color scheme better, and this is that scheme with a few changes. I ought to add an EA set of links to the right.

Well, what do y'all think?

WWLVMD?

Earlier today, I asked a question over at Vox's blog:

What, specifically, would Austrian economists do to fix the economy if they were in control of the White House and Congress now instead of the fools we have?

Vox responded:

Not much except refrain from making things worse. Cut spending, reduce taxes, create a budget surplus and raise interest rates. And, of course, permit the insolvent companies to go bankrupt, no matter how big. The economy would be in a harsh tailspin for 12-24 months, then resume growing.

As it stands, we could lose three decades. Japan's already lost two, and we're looking at a larger scale bust than they had.

The context of my original question was that I was presented with it in a brief discussion with a liberal Keynesian. He said that the Austrians were not credible because they didn't have a plan to "do anything". "All the Austrians want to do is go back to the gold standard," he said. He insisted that the government had to "do something" (along Keynesian lines) and that this was a good thing, because he believes that the government does good things.

This is, of course, crap. The mindset of this guy and of those running things in Washington is that they can't just sit there and let things run their course. They have to "do something" to try to fix it. Now, when Vox had everyone read Rothbard's "America's Great Depression", I did not read the whole thing, but I did read the beginning and skimmed through the rest. It is apparent to me that the Depression was caused by all the government action by Hoover and FDR, and all we're doing now with Bush and Obama is more of the same. We learned nothing from the 30's, despite having decades for our "elites" to study it as they claim to have done.

Perspective

OK, I'm a bit better now. We had a good weekend, and we -might- have a new church, though I'm not definite about it yet. Most of the churches we have been visiting have been wrong in one way or another. It amazes me how many churches don't have adult Sunday school classes! I guess the adults figure they don't need it, and they only need to go to worship service? Yeah, OK.

This church had a guest speaker yesterday who is nationally known. I won't say who, or you'd be able to know what church I'm talking about. This man had a lot of crap happen to him, and he definitely didn't deserve it. God helped him through it, and while it took a long time, he's fine now. His story made me think that my problems are nothing compared to what he went through. I don't know why God makes some people go through a bunch of crap and others have a wonderful life all around. That's just the way it is.

Well, back to work.