Neutral Universe Theory
Behold my latest creation: Neutral Universe Theory. Or, as I like to call it, NUT.
I scientifically debated calling it Negativity Universe Theory. It would have been just as nutty. But, in the end, the word “negativity” implies a point of view and I don’t think the Universe really gives that much of a shit. Besides, like I’ve always said, recognizing that things are the way they are isn’t negative at all. It’s known as “reality.” A little place you should visit sometime.
So what’s in the Universe? Matter and energy. Like Carl Sagan said, we’re made of the same “stuff” as stars. Hand in hand with this is the Law of the Conservation of Energy which states “the total energy of an isolated system cannot change – it is said to be conserved over time.”
Therefore, the stuff in the Universe is a zero sum game. Nothing is created or destroyed. It just gets reorganized.
What else can be found in the Universe? Besides matter and energy? A core component of NUT is the belief in life and all that goes with it. Things like emotion, thought, and pain. “I hurts, therefore I exist. Sometimes I just hurts.” This is the realm of all that is not energy and is not matter. It’s something else.
Continue reading →
Survivor: Abyss Island – Day 33 Reward Challenge
Our camera ated the video.
Abyss Island: S1E11 – They’re Gonna Put Me In The Movies / A Night To Dismember
Last night was a heady time on Abyss Island. Lots of comings and goings and what nots and so forths. It was almost too much for a lonely rice-eating bean-eating castaway to deal with. Almost.
It was Day 33 of 39 of my exile from deliciousness. The agenda for the evening included a reward challenge and then watching some weenies on TV try to duplicate my greatness. Ha!
Dinner consisted of, you guess it, a serving a plain white rice. I was out of beans. (They got replenished this morning and the crock pot is crocking them.)
Tree mail hinted at the promise of a reward:
Keep your eye on the ball
Try not to fall
Keep your balance true
And you’ll be A-mazed when you’re thru
Hmm. Sounds like one of those marble labyrinth thingies. Finally! A nice relaxing challenge.
Never underestimate the viciousness of the host.
Continue reading →
Survivor: Abyss Island – Day 30 Immunity Challenge
Cabazon. It’s what’s for dinner.
Abyss Island: S1E10 – Down To The Wire
Always a guessing game on Survivor it is, hmmm? And apparently talking like Yoda helps me deal with the stress. No, I’m not losing it. Not at all. But when my baby tells me, “I’ll blow your planet up,” I don’t take any chances. Usually she means it. With host, one does not mess.
It’s early in the morning on Day 31 (out of 39) as I write this recap post. Only eight more days to the big finale. There was supposed to be an immunity challenge on Day 29 but it never happened. Tree mail on Saturday never came. What did the Survivor gods have in store?
Friday – Gone Fishin’
Per the official rules, I have to cook my own food. Provided for me is an all-you-can-eat supply of red kidney beans and plain white rice. This has been the staple of my existence for an entire month. I’m also expected to eat three servings of fruit per day.
Since arriving on the island I’ve opened a coconut with an ordinary hammer (MacGyver-style), learned how to break down a pineapple and can expertly skin a kiwi. It’s amazing how blandness in your diet suddenly makes you receptive to learning that which you avoided all your life. “Sure, I’ll eat your pineapple, but only if I don’t have to do any of the slicing myself.” On the island you can’t live like that.
During the second reward challenge I won a fishing net. Normally I bend over and squat a bit and use the net to simulate the game of tennis. Whoosh! Uhhh!!! Whoosh! Uhhh!!!
Sometimes, though, if I put the net in the sink, I can fish up a real lunker.
Continue reading →
The feng shui desktop
You may not know it, but your computer desktop can say a lot about you. And it goes a lot deeper than merely selecting a wallpaper image.
Welcome to the world of the feng shui desktop.
Note: A lot of people struggle with correct pronunciation. Most properly it is f-EE-ng. That’s the same hard “E” sound as found in “week.”
The feng shui desktop should remain uncluttered. If you have a desktop full of icons you are most likely receiving negative qi. (Also known as your lifeforce or energy flow.) That is not good.
For beginners, it is recommended there be no icons at all. Later, as the feng shui desktop is more fully understood, a limited amount of icons can be added, but always in pairs. An odd number of icons is not advised.
Obviously not all elements of feng shui can apply to something like a computer desktop. The trick is to use careful thought and apply balance and principles that make sense and work for you. Be creative and open-minded.
Balance is an important element of feng shui. For example, if you have an icon in the top-left, you might also place an icon in the top-right to maintain symmetry. Or, you might consider the lower-right (advanced). With each added pair of icons (but not too many) you build on and maintain the balance.
If you can think of ways to introduce polarity or a “yin-yang” duality that will increase you qi. I still struggle with this component. Seek out opposites that complement each other.
Someone walked by my workstation the other day and commented on my desktop. “[Your computer desktop] is always so elegant and beautiful,” they said. I was warmed by the thought and felt my qi increase.
This may all sound confusing at first, but I feel if you put careful thought into what your desktop is doing and make considered improvements, you are bound to increase the benefits to your qi.
And yes, the wallpaper itself can become a component.
Be auspicious!
The Camping Incident
When we last left our intrepid explorer, he was lugging an amazing distance all of the potable water to camp for four days and three nights. (See post Let’s Go Camping.) We now resume with events leading up to The Incident.
When I camp I go all animal and surprise those who know me. Those who think I’ll somehow wither in the great outdoors. I get all the water, gather wood, and start fires.
True, on that first night, I was extremely careful about where I went pee. I scouted out secluded locations and carefully checked for anyone who might be in the vicinity. (We were camped right by the trail that runs along the creek.) By the next day, however, the animal had kicked in and I went whenever and wherever the urge hit. I’d wave at people as they walked by. Continue reading →
My nine-pound hammers
This is my scheduled Tuesday post, but as I sit here and write this, it is still Monday morning before work. It’s a special period of time I like to call The Dark Time. I just woke up and before I know it, lickity split, I’ll be back in the shit hole.
The act of going to work has a physical and emotional impact on me. The closer it gets to 9am the more ill I feel. And on Mondays this effect is especially pronounced.
Because I love my job so much I thought this would be a good time to share a couple of videos about work.
As we all know, those of us who work full time have to face certain realities. The first is that in a typical week, “work” is the single most important aspect of our existence based on the amount of time. As far as hours are concerned, work is rivaled only by sleep. If you think about your week as a pie chart, things like spouses and family are inconsequential slices compared to work and sleep. And one of the smallest slivers that can be found in that pie? Time spent doing things we enjoy and voluntarily get to do. In other words, the time we spend doing what we choose to do. For most of us, that’s the smallest part of the whole damn week.
So it is important to step back and evaluate our existence from a different perspective. How is work working out for us? Is it meeting our needs? Or only those of the boss?
It’s a surprising idea to think that we can take more ownership of our work experience and proactively make it better for us. This idea is explored in the first video.
In the second video, some important questions are raised. Why is it required for employees to go to places called offices which are actually obstacles to work getting done? How is it possible to get more work done? And who and what gets in the way?
So, the theme of this Monday morning post is fittingly: Work. It’s what’s for dinner. (Or something like that.)
https://ted.com/talks/view/id/1069
https://ted.com/talks/view/id/1014
The pursuit of a position in the profession of plane procedures
The most modern facility we've got. Credit: Wikipedia.
Pompous pricks! (Clarification: I’m not talking about the controllers here.)
How y’all feeling about the “friendly” skies right about now? There have only been six or seven incidents of air traffic controllers found sleeping and/or unresponsive on the job this year so far.
It turns out that some controllers are sleepy. And that they sometimes have to work night shifts all by themselves.
It also turns out that current rules require only eight hours of time off between shifts.
Wikipedia says:
A typical work week for a controller is an 8 hour day, 5 days per week.
So, how in the name of Zeus’ butthole do you get to any scenario where you need employees to work shifts only eight hours apart?
Unless it is a veritable emergency, there are only two possibilities. Employees doing dumb ass shift trades and managers incompetence. And the former is subject to manager approval and also an example of incompetence.
As an aside, in my experience, companies just love to treat the word “emergency” as a euphemism for gross incompetence. “What? We failed to schedule enough employees for this shift? What? We incorrectly predicted workload? Fine. This is now an ’emergency’ and we can chuck all the safety rules out the window. It’s ‘mandatory’ time, baby. Do what we say or you’re fired.”
Yes, I actually worked somewhere like that. Fucking dumb asses.
Sorry. I strayed off topic. It is being reported in the media that “some scientists” say that “carefully controlled naps” would help address controller fatigue on the job.
Ray LaHood. Credit: Wikipedia.
Cue the Secretary of Transportation, Republican Ray LaHood. He’s now being quoted all over the media as saying, “On my watch, controllers will not be paid to take naps.”
That sounds nice and hard ass. And it makes a nice sound bite, too.
Of course, that also disregards the input of said “some scientists.”
So what new anti-fatigue rules we will see? The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has announced this whopping change. Controllers will now be given nine hours between shifts instead of eight.
Controllers will also be prohibited from switching shifts that would result in less than nine hours between shifts.
You’re shitting me, right? That is the solution? Is this some sort of dumb ass joke?
LaHood’s quote, in more context:
On my watch, controllers will not be paid to take naps. We want to make sure they’re well rested. We want to make (sure) that in the workplace there’s the ability for them to do their job, but we’re not going to pay controllers to be napping. We’re not going to do that.
I’ll bet that “some scientists” are feeling disappointed their input was disregarded.
I might be missing the point, but what the fuck is the difference between eight and nine hours between shifts? Is that going to magically solve this problem?
In addition, FAA “managers” will now working more late-night and early-morning shifts to monitor controllers when they are most likely to be fatigued. What? They didn’t already do this? These poor managers are going to have to give up their banker’s hours? Bloody hell!
So, here’s the deal. I have a solution. It might not be favorite of these so-called “managers” who make the big bucks to make dumb ass decisions, but I’m pretty sure it will work.
Give employees a schedule that doesn’t require them to have only eight (or nine) hours between their fucking shifts.
Try that on for size, LaHood and the FAA.
I’m no scientist, but my theories show that, in general, this will result in controllers being less fatigued.
Call this one a freebie, FAA. I won’t even charge my normal consulting fee.
I used to work for a shithole of a company that would do things like this. (I plan to write about this company much more. There are lots of stories.) Employees were treated like pieces of equipment. Employees were batteries to be used and then discarded. (And this was decades before The Matrix.)
It was routine to be scheduled for a #2 shift followed by a #1 shift. It happened almost every single week. A #2 shift, or the “swing” shift could end anywhere from 11pm to 1am. A #1 shift, or the “day” shift, started bright and early at 6am.
Let’s do the math. That’s five to seven hours between work shifts. And it was just a matter of routine. They didn’t even bother to declare an “emergency.” That’s just the way it was. And these employees worked around loud, heavy machinery, with forklifts zipping around the room often passing within a couple feet of clearance. Fatigue much? Tough shit.
The other thing they did was alternate shift by work week. One week you’d have #2 shifts and the next you’d have #1’s. This wreaked havoc on me. It made me physically ill and I had an extremely hard time getting my sleep.
Don’t forget you’ve got to commute between shifts, too. If you leave only 30 minutes away that’s an hour shot to hell. And, speaking from my experience, I couldn’t just walk in the door, hit the bed, and fall fast asleep. It didn’t work like that. I’d be “wired” after a work shift and would need like an hour to wind down. And the more I knew I needed my sleep, the less I’d actually get.
It was a fucking travesty of justice.
To be fair, most situations that call for only one controller in a tower are on the mid-shift where there is very little air traffic, so the danger is low. Similarly, aircraft land at airports with no control towers at all every single day. So it is generally safe but that’s not the point.
Either way, whether you are a lone ranger air-traffic controller working the night shift by yourself or a lowly grunt working in a production department, you deserve a humane work schedule. There is no reason to allow rules that provide only a minimum of eight or nine hours between work shifts.
TED: Ideas Worth Sharing
“Work-life balance, says Nigel Marsh, is too important to be left in the hands of your employer. At TEDxSydney, Marsh lays out an ideal day balanced between family time, personal time and productivity — and offers some stirring encouragement to make it happen.”
This is my “P” post for the April 2011 “A to Z Blogging Challenge.”
Shouts from the Abyss 
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