soapbox

(Note: this is a pretty dull post, but would be way more interesting if I’d had a phone with a decent-quality camera. Sorry y’all.)

Yesterday we took a trip to the County Clerk’s office to get a marriage license, our second attempt after encountering an out-the-door-and-down-two-blocks line a couple weeks ago. This time, armed with an appointment, we were more/mostly successful.

Really, the whole thing was simultaneously both easy and frustrating. The DMV parallels were obvious in terms of long lines and lots of people just hanging out, filling out paperwork then waiting in another line, etc – except that it was a much more positive and more cheerful kind of clientele. Almost half of the couples there looked to be getting married on-site, including several girls/women/brides in pretty fancy-looking dresses and an entertaining mish-mash of suits, sport jackets, one tux, one blue-on-white pimp-stripe suit with blinged-out baseball cap, and a cute little 2-year-old in a tux with light-up LA Gear sneakers. Had we not had an appointment I suspect the entire process would have taken all afternoon – as it was, we were in-and-out in a little less than an hour.

Without getting too much into the politics of marriage and how they shouldn’t be mixed, it’s a weird experience. Cali does not require a blood test, nor is CA residency a requirement; you just have to show some kind of ID and list your parents and their state of birth. K had been planning to add one of my last names to her middle name, but apparently that’s not allowed – you can change/add something to your last name, or replace your middle name with a last name of your spouse, but apparently that’s it? dumb, I say, but oh well.

The parties may choose any of the
following middle or last names as the name they wish to be known as after marriage [FC § 306.5(b)(2)]:

♦ Current last name of the other spouse
♦ Last name of either spouse given at birth
♦ A name combining into a single last name all or a segment of the current last name or last name of either
spouse given at birth
♦ A hyphenated combination of last names

Here’s a nifty little techno-trick to re-write what roadside signs say.

Looks like they’re designed to be really high security since you can reset the passwords with a key combination.

I-Hacked.com Taking Advantage Of Technology – Inside Programmable Road Signs.

This is pretty darn cool (literally) and I want one.  It works by utilizing a solid substance that “turns into a liquid” as it cools, and even while in a liquid state, the Thermapak will continue to cool the unit, and when the computer is not being used, the substance turns solid again.

I’m curious about the length of time that it can be used in one sitting, and I wonder how good a conductor it is once totally liquid – how does it keep cooling the laptop if the phase change is complete? I could read about it, but I’m too lazy so I’ll just link to their “about” page.

EDIT:
I have to say, I’m pretty skeptical about this paragraph:

When a laptop cooler featuring HeatShift Technology™ is placed under any notebook computer, the crystals inside are in a solid state. As the underside of the laptop begins to warm up, this heat is transferred to the HeatShift Technology™ device. This transferral of heat gradually changes the PCM crystals into a liquid. ThermaPAK’s pad grooves channel air under the laptop, and use the second law of thermodynamics (which states that heat will tend to flow from hot areas to cold ones to reach equilibrium) to draw heat from the laptop. Our lab results, as well as those of independent reviewers, have seen temperature decreases of up to 6°C (11°F). After the laptop begins to cool, the HeatShift Technology™ device changes back to a solid crystal – ready for the next use.

Wait, what? don’t go quoting the second law of thermodynamics on us in the context of “the pad’s grooves channel air under the laptop, and use the second law to draw heat from the laptop… independent lab tests have seen a temperature decrease of up to SIX DEGREES CELCIUS.” Lame. If I’m going to spend $30 on a laptop cooler I want more than six degrees of separation of cooling power. If I want a nifty little pad to keep my lap cool while typing my next blogpost, then fine.

US Air just lists my name as Nathaniel Nathaniel in my frequent flier account.
(more…)

So, the Apple keynote, while introducing slick new versions of iWork and iLife, and announcing the tiered pricing and DRM-free iTunes songs, featured no Steve, and was a disappointment to many – including AAPL stockholders.

Long-time Apple fans, however, should not have been surprised when the “one more thing” was announced the next day: the MacBook Wheel!  Combining the best features of their award-winning iPod line with the ease of use and stability of Mac OSX, this is an impressive of innovation and engineering.  Just watch the movie: Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop. Pretty slick!

This, of course, is where AAS meetings get interesting.

Andrea and I gathered together a random group of people, including one girl who I’m pretty sure was the tallest woman at the conference. (Note: still not taller than me, although astronomers have a very very strange height distribution. It’s like being in the Netherlands.) Dinner was tasty, but nothing to write much about, just a faux-Irish American place. My general plan was to create some new friends so I’d have someone to talk to at the party rather than being bored and alone.

Then Andrea bailed on me.

And the tall girl asked if they were going to card at the door since she was only 20. (Note: YIKES!)

So, that left two people from UC Davis and one of my friends from NMSU that I was going to meet up with.

Yadda yadda yadda, people going to hotels to change, things taking longer than expected, we get to the party… the drink special is a Galileo and seems to have no redeeming characteristics other than being strong. I decide to start my drinking slightly later. Since we were late, that puts me a good three drinks behind everyone else.

The good stuff starts below.
(more…)