Canada's new Toyota plant

: >: > "Joe" wrote : >: >: : >: >: You want waste? One word: Iraq. Both lives and money are being : >: >: thrown away. : >: >

: >: > We heard you the first time. : >: : >: Good. It can't be said enough. : >

: > You are quite a character : : LOL! And you're not?

Oh no.. not ME!

"David Schierholz" wrote

You are my hero this week.

Kate

"Michael Johnson, PE" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:

capability

cannot

possibility

LOL! Nah, just the 'Frontline' show I saw on PBS.

Good. I thought I was going to have to work the line "What's the frequency, Kenneth?" into my next post.

"Michael Johnson, PE" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:

Now _there's_ a neat reference. And you did seem to work it in... ;)

"Michael Johnson, PE" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:

Yes, what the hell were you doing up in the middle of the night posting here?!? I thought you actually worked for a living!

Anyway, we can beat this to a pulp and lose a lot of sleep doing it. We both have some good points, and it's a decent debate. Let's hijack another thread another time and continue at that point if you don't mind. It's been a long day and I'm just here for pure entertainment tonight... :)

I work out of the basement of the house. When I get into a project I find my sleep schedule gets all screwed up. I work late then have to unwind before I can sleep and then sleep late in the morning. After a week or two of this I'm all screwed up. The good thing is it doesn't matter when I work just that I work 8-12 hours a day. :)

I'm with you. I doubt anyone has read our last few posts anyway. Could it have been THAT boring?!?!

"Michael Johnson, PE" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:

Yes, I knew you had a 10-second commute and a bizarre work schedule. So do you actually get dressed for work, or do you end up taking a shower at like 4pm for lunch?

I work home Mondays and Fridays. Gave my boss the sob story of my 3- hour commute per day down to Miami and back, not to mention 14mpg in the torquemonster. She asked me if I could deal with two days from home and I instantly said no problem.

Well, I know Kate read a few of my comments from the other day... ;)

Hell, of course we're boring - we're both over 40.

I usually try to get up by 8:30am (if I work late then I sleep later) and head downstairs and grab a jumbo cup of coffee. My wife leaves by

Telecommuting is nice. My wife did it 1-2 days a week before she was promoted and lost the perk. It was strange having both of us working from the house on her "home" days. It saves money to work from home but getting an extra 3 hours a day would be the real benefit for me.

I believe you but I have to say that I don't FEEL that I'm boring.

"Michael Johnson, PE" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:

I take it you don't have kids or pets roaming around. If I left a laptop on the coffee table, it'd have food, spilled gatorade, paw prints all over it, and it'd be upside down on the floor in about a dozen pieces.

I do iced coffee out of my thermos I keep in the fridge. Two's usually enough; any more and I'm too wired.

Unless I'm in the office, I don't do phone. E-mail has to suffice. We're also hooked into one of those chat things for the company.

I could never work with the TV or radio on. However, my desk is right next to the sliding glass doors in the living room. I have a panoramic view of our porch with the fish/turtle pond, and the back yard with the "canal" behind it. The canal rarely has water, but it's been pretty full for almost a month now because of the rain and storms.

Hell, I'm not afraid to wander outside even right out of bed. Even dogs scatter when they see me.

When I'm home, I usually start anywhere between 6:30 and 8:30 depending on when I get up. During the summer, my wife's home (teacher) so we get up later. But during school, we're usually up at

Right! We're the most interesting people on the planet... ;)

Joe wrote: > "Michael Johnson, PE" wrote in > news: snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com: > >

We have a few cats and a dog but they never bother anything. The dog can't even jump on the coffee table so most things are safe around here.

Isn't that the whole point? ;)

I can't function without a phone. Sometimes I don;t answer it in order to get things done.

I guess it goes back to my college days when I studied under all kinds of circumstances. If I could study while drinking beer and doing some light partying then a little TV is nothing.

If I didn't impose that little bit of discipline then I may never shower. :)

Try doing that for years on end. It really messes with your sense of time when you're dislocated from the day to day routines of punching a time clock. Whether I work all day or all night, it doesn't matter much. The time shifting just creeps up on you after awhile.

Well that takes the pressure off of us. Neither one of us is too demanding when it comes to being entertained. For proof just look at this thread. ;)

Depends on your needs. Try taking a Mustang down a rut infested, muddy road or across a creek where the water is over the hood. In those circumstances the extra $80,000 for the Hummer might be a bargain, even at twice the price.

Not much of a comparison. Space Ship One just barely gets into space for a few seconds and doesn't even circle the planet once. Tell them to take a 60,000lb payload into orbit and their cost will also go into orbit.

There are probably better technologies available but planning a reusable ship that achieves low and high earth orbit takes time and you have to use the best available technology when you start designing. Trying integrate new technology after the fact, many times, is just not practical or nothing would ever be accomplished. For an example, look at the space probes that are sent out. They have much lower technology when they reach their destination than the present day but when they were designed and built it was much more current.

The shuttle was built on technology that has been tried and tested. The trouble is that NASA hasn't had the funds to continue operating the shuttles and at the same time develop newer and improved technologies for the next generation space ships. We are expecting an awful lot from them for the money they are budgeted.

"Michael Johnson, PE" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

I wish! This place is a zoo gone wild.

Yeah, but when it looks like I have Parkinson's, then it's time to cut back a bit... ;)

I hate phones. If I never used one again it wouldn't be too soon. Hell, I even hate computers even though they're my bread and butter...

When I first got into programming, the boss would take us out for lunch and we'd blow doobs on the way back to the office. We wrote the _best_ software on the planet in the afternoons... ;)

Yeah, I have to go in when I get too itchy and greasy even for me to stand. That usually happens by around 3pm or so.

Ah, that's something I'm looking forward to. :)

I see what you mean. Talk about going off the deep end... But it's always a pleasure.

So what do you think about this CIA leak stuff? This morning I read that it now involves Cheney's aide or something.

I haven't followed it too closely. It looks to me like a big game of gotcha by both sides. Also, I think the press is stretching it out because there's nothing better to report. I don't think Rove broke the law and I've read where her cover was blown way before he talked to anyone in the press. It apparently was common knowledge that shew worked for the CIA. Plus her husband campaigned for Kerry and thought he might get a Cabinet or high level government position if he won so, IMO, his motives are suspect.

Rove has driven a stake into the Democrat's heart in the 2000, 2002 and

Repubs and Dems are always looking for a way to sling mud at each other and I think this is just the latest installment. It seems that most all the talking heads think this won't amount to much and don't think Rove broke any laws. Then again I'm sure many thought the same after the Watergate break-in. :)

If NASA in it's infinite political stupidity had gone with the Orion project instead of Apollo, we'd have had manned visits to all the planets by now and we'd be on our way to the nearest STARS. Instead, we have a Shuttle that is impressive but vastly expensive to fly and limited to Earth orbit, and a disgusting waste of money called the ISS, which was designed to give Russian nuclear scientists jobs (after the fall of the Soviet Union) so they wouldn't run off an build atom bombs for Arabs. That dog-s--- $180b ISS is the WORST boondoggle NASA ever came up with.

-Rich

Well, hind sight is always 20-20 but I seriously doubt we would be visiting the planets under any scenario by now. We don't have the technology to sustain human life in space for years on end with much reliability. I believe we will make interplanetary trips but not until

As for the ISS being a waste I really don't think so. Having humans in space increases our understanding of the challenges involved in such endeavors and allows us to design and test solutions to problems. If we assume you are right about keeping the Russians busy, then I think $180 billion is cheap compared to the cost of a terrorist getting a nuke from a Russian scientist and detonating it in the middle of Manhattan or Washington, DC.

I agree that NASA has made mistakes but they also have had many, many more successes than failures. There are very, very few of us could who could have done any better than they have and my guess is that if you, or I, were in charge of things they would be a hell of a lot worse. ;)

None of this, the ISS would be needed if they'd built Orion. The ship would have been hugely heavy and thus would shield occupants from radiation, it could have lofted 2000 TONS of supplies in one shot. It could have stayed outside of Earth's influence literally for years without re-supply, just like some nuclear subs can go for months undersea. And the idea of "hindsite" being needed in the case of ISS is silly. They plan missions 10 years prior to launches, they know exactly what their purpose is, why is the ISS such a "surprise?"

"Michael Johnson, PE" wrote in news:r4-dnWRPO76I snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

LOL!

I heard he's supposed to be on TV tonight to make some kind of announcement.

From what I've heard and read about Rove, he's nothing short of brilliant. Apparently, he's been setting up Bush's presidency since he was governor back in Texas.

That's pretty much what I'm thinking as well. More of the SOS...

Nuclear propulsion is DOA. The public would never have supported it. They have seen too many rockets explode either on the launch pad or on its way to orbit. Now tell them that the rocket being launched has a fission reaction going on inside it and see what they say or that there is one in orbit waiting to be fired up. Besides, just having propulsion does not solve the biggest problems for interplanetary travel. It's the part about keeping the humans alive for years in space that is the hard part.

What's a surprise about it? It is there and being used. You don't think they used knowledge learned from the Russian and the US space programs to build it? NASA (as does most everyone else) builds off of past experiences to take the next step forward. Do you really expect them to go from a space station to a manned trip to Mars in a decade? It is not going to happen.