oceanghost

I was shocked to see a 2L bottle of Dr Pepper that cost $3. I'm not going to be drinking it anymore out of principle.

The really insulting thing about McDonald's is the service is bad and the food is worse than it ever was. The last time I went in So Cal, we waited 5 mins to order (there was no line-- just no attendant). Ordered, my daughter got the pancakes. 10 mins later when the order came up there were no straws, napkins, or syrup. My daughter asked me to get some syrup, another 5-min wait. She knocked over her drink (no straw, she's little and clumsy) and absolutely nobody that worked there noticed. I tried to clean it up with napkins, but it was clear it was just too much liquid for that to be effective.

I waited another 10 mins and told the guy at the counter what happened, I even said, "If you can get me a mop I'll clean it myself." He assured me that wouldn't be necessary.

I went back to my table, ate my sad mcmuffin-- which was dry and weird and the “cheese” doesn't melt anymore. And they forgot the hash brown which was now worth $4, apparently, but I wasn't going to wait again.

When I left, absolutely nobody had cleaned the floor and I was terrified someone would slip, but it wasn't my problem anymore.

Last time I will ever go to McDonalds. They ruined Chipotle too.

I have never heard of this with regards to PTSD, I will investigate. Thank you!

I hesitate to write this, but PTSD is a bit more complex than that.

In some cases there's damage to the hippocampus, which doesn't get better. I've had 40 years to make peace with the crappy accident I was in. But the things like an exaggerated startle reflex, an aversion to chaotic or unplanned sounds and other triggers remain. I always carry a pair of noise-cancelling headphones if I think I might need to be in a noisy environment.

I admit my memory on the subject is imperfect. :-)

I bought half a dozen of these from Radioshack they were more or less giving them away after the fall.

There were lots of library apps that sprung up where you could scan your DVDs barcodes, or CDs etc.

I can't remember what hair brained idea I had for it.

So the folks who own all the stocks want the government to bid up their assets?

Yup. Use one every day for Fusion360 and Blender.

Despite the rosey memories, it encoded the audio in ATRAC. I don't want a lossy audio format in my life.

I might be able to dig up pictures but they'd be of the iPhone 3G variety.

I've been to the Keck (back 15 years or so ago). It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience seeing that telescope which was in so many PBS specials (the astronomers comes to mind)… but I couldn't help but feel we took our lives in our hands.

As a Californian, I was not prepared for the bitter cold at that elevation. We drove up in an old suburban--the roads were treacherous. If the car had broken down, or we'd gotten delayed past sundown, we would have simply died up there.

I don't know if it is still there, but there was a gift shop at the base of the mountain that you were advised to stop at for 20-minutes to acclimate to the pressure.

When we got to the telescope, it was essentially self-serve. There were a couple of exhibits, and we were able to see the telescope itself, but there wasn't anyone up there as near as I could tell.

It doesn't surprise me that it’s closed.

I had a similar experience in the 5th grade. We had a creative writing assignment (write x many pages), and I wrote a short story about "space spiders" that spun giant webs between planets and moons to catch something. I can't recall.

The only thing more mundane and unimaginative than that two pages was my teacher, who accused me of plagiarizing it.

I don't speak Armenian, but I dated an Armenian woman once, and she told me they have words for familial relationships that we didn't really have concepts for in English.

I worked for a lab that did IR research 20 years ago, so I don't know if this is still the case. But at the time, the IR sensors were made with a rare mineral only available in a remote region of Russia.

At the time (late 90s) I bought (on behalf of my employer) a FLIR camera that had a 512x512 sensor for $70k. I remember the cheapest camera we could find was 15k, it had almost no optics and the sensor was noisy as all get out.

I have a thermal inspection workstation (FLIR) that cost about $2700 and has a 320x240 sensor.

So there really has been a cost reduction. It's just more linear than exponential. A few years back, I got a camera for a friend which had a 90x90 sensor, and I think it cost $165 if memory serves. When I worked at that lab, it was inconceivable that a normal person would ever own an IR camera. They were the exclusive domain of researchers, large corporations, and law enforcement. I have 5 or so.

Also, the average person doesn't understand the electromagnetic spectrum, or concepts like emissivity or reflection. They think they're seeing an accurate temperature from their device, not understanding that every material they measure has its own k value.

** BTW: I tried to research this mineral/element and could not find any documentation on it. If you happen to know its name, or if I'm completely off base and its not used anymore, I'd love to know about it.