Old Man Posted June 9, 2015 Report Share Posted June 9, 2015 That is a good deal. But couldn't she have gone somewhere with a decent astronomy department? Bazza 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted June 9, 2015 Report Share Posted June 9, 2015 Any idea yet about what she wants to major in? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted June 9, 2015 Report Share Posted June 9, 2015 She seems not to be terribly interested in math or physics, but the life sciences are a possibility at this point. I am not pushing anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted June 9, 2015 Report Share Posted June 9, 2015 Hey...maybe the liberal arts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted June 9, 2015 Report Share Posted June 9, 2015 Fine arts is not out of the question at this time, but then, nothing is out of the question at this time. You can't tell what an 18-year-old is going to end up doing. They can't really tell, and you cannot force them with any hope of success (in any sense of the term success). I have told this story illustrating that point, and the story is true, to groups of incoming students' parents at more than one university. When we graduated from high school, I was determined to go into astronomy (which I did). My best friend was similarly set on drama tech: set and lighting design and construction, etc. We went to the same university and were roommates for a while (until he got a girlfriend and a single room, but that's a different story). Anyway, he set out on his degree program and worked industriously away at his drama tech. But he had to take distribution requirements as well, and dabbled in various other things, and his attention wavered, and eventually he ended up graduating in something else entirely. He's now a professor of chemical engineering in a major state university in the southwestern US. He still does theatre, but it's a hobby, not a profession. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted June 9, 2015 Report Share Posted June 9, 2015 Is that a vocation or an avocation, then? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrankL Posted June 11, 2015 Report Share Posted June 11, 2015 Yesterday was an awful day. Today has been much better. The programming task that refused to work yesterday was completed today (with some help). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted June 11, 2015 Report Share Posted June 11, 2015 It's a good feeling when you finally get some contraption to work the way it's supposed to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
death tribble Posted June 15, 2015 Report Share Posted June 15, 2015 It is nice to see Narratio posting again Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted June 15, 2015 Report Share Posted June 15, 2015 We like. Even if he's mean to the French. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrankL Posted June 19, 2015 Report Share Posted June 19, 2015 Tonight or tomorrow, I will be uploading a short story to Amazon. I just need to write the blurb and keywords. This is the cover which I made myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted June 19, 2015 Report Share Posted June 19, 2015 V8 or straight 8? Congrats, in either case. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrankL Posted June 20, 2015 Report Share Posted June 20, 2015 It's a 1951 straight 8. The story is in review and should be live tomorrow. I'll post a link then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrankL Posted June 20, 2015 Report Share Posted June 20, 2015 And "The Buick Eight" is live! Note: Even if you are doing a Twilight Zone style story, don't use "Twilight" in the keywords. Too many results, and the Amazon bot will bounce you and say try again. Special through the end of Monday night (at least). The first story in the companion series to the Pawn Shop is available for free! Get "Crazy Moon" here. Please download, read, and review! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted June 23, 2015 Report Share Posted June 23, 2015 Nice happy: When you finally get a chance to release that burden you've carried for so long. Two full days have forged and tempered a mighty column that is painful to release, but leaves no trace of its passing. It is so rigid that afterward it remains upright, a monument to the internal power of its creator. It's so strong that it resists the rushing waters that are meant to carry it away, and only with prolonged and repeated flooding does it finally succumb to its glorious last journey. Godspeed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
death tribble Posted June 24, 2015 Report Share Posted June 24, 2015 Those of you who are observant will have noticed a distinct lack of my presence for the last week. Those of you with powerful powers of recollection will have twigged that this is the time of year that my mother is in the capital for a week. So I have been pushing her around in a wheelchair. We went onto the river as it was one of the things that she wanted to do and travelled from Parliament to Tower Bridge and back. One of the added bonuses of this was locating and seeing the memorial to the Battle of Britain pilots which is on the riverbank. Had a nice meal close to Waterloo station and visted the Anchor pub which has been on the site for over 400 years. Got a good view of Victoria street as I pushed her in the chair all the way from the station past Westminster Abbey and Parliament. We visited two of the biggest and most expensive stores in London, Harrods and Selfridges. This allowed for the purchase of Turkish delight, gluten free chocolate and candy. The latter got a return visit to allow for a lunch in the restaurant on the 5th floor (sixth to the Americans) which has a nice view over the skyline. Victoria station had an pop up ice cream shop which allowed for ice cream to be bought and consumed. The Taste of London ran on Saturday and we went there to have food and drink like octopus. As my mother had a VIP ticket she got a free glass of champagne and easier access to toilet facilities. It also allowed me to park her in one place and go backwards and forwards to get food and drink. Went to Kent to see my cousin on the Sunday and saw the Shard up close. It is huge. My cousin and family were the recipients of the gluten free chocolate and candy. They have a birds nest under the eaves where you can see baby housemartins which was nice. My mother expressed a desire to see the Queen's greengrocers Fortnum and Mason so we went there and got some small goodies. All in all it was a nice trip with just a little bit of rain. Bazza, Cancer and tkdguy 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted June 24, 2015 Report Share Posted June 24, 2015 Cherish these times. My own mother passed away last summer on Hiroshima Day (though she had been incapable of communication for about three weeks by then). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted June 26, 2015 Report Share Posted June 26, 2015 MWA-HA-HA! Der alte Furz still has it!! Loaded a bunch of raw data from a flash drive onto a ten-year-old linux box; created my user id on that box; and got IRAF started and running for my new id there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted June 26, 2015 Report Share Posted June 26, 2015 Is that the same IRAF I was running at IFA back in the early nineties? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted June 26, 2015 Report Share Posted June 26, 2015 Almost certainly. When they gutted NOAO/Tucson, IRAF got frozen, probably forever, until the community replaces it completely with a python tool that does everything but be backwards compatible with VAX/VMS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted June 26, 2015 Report Share Posted June 26, 2015 I'm not sure if that should make me happy or sad. IRAF was a pretty good piece of kit, but you'd think it could have been improved upon by now. On the other hand it has to be way faster than it was back in the day. I used to kick off some IRAF processing scripts and go to lunch... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted June 26, 2015 Report Share Posted June 26, 2015 It still has the new-user issues it always had: the "mkiraf" command is something you type exactly once, and if your options are set wrong (and you're alone) you will never, ever figure out what happened. This is a pretty common thing now that everyone's laptop is more powerful than the big Vaxclusters back circa 1990, since those people don't have a sysadmin who has already learned where all the land mines are and can recover troubles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted June 26, 2015 Report Share Posted June 26, 2015 Crom! Compilers and libraries are totally different today, too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burrito Boy Posted June 26, 2015 Report Share Posted June 26, 2015 Having a yard sale at a friend's house. He just gave me a Frazetta Princess of Mars puzzle. For free!!! tkdguy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
death tribble Posted June 30, 2015 Report Share Posted June 30, 2015 Mother is back from the hospital and we went shopping. Had lunch at Devil's Point which was a bacon butty with chips followed by an ice cream and watched a Royal Navy ship go up to Drake's Island and back. Bliss ! Enforcer84, tkdguy, Bazza and 1 other 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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