FX

Way to harsh my buzz dude. A guy's car breaks down way out in the country, and he goes to a nearby farmhouse for help. They phone the nearest garage for him, then insist that he join them for dinner while they wait for the mechanic to arrive. The meal's delicious, but their visitor can't help noticing a pig wandering the house like it was the family's pet dog. Even stranger, the pig has a wooden leg. Sitting down with the farmer in front of the fire after dinner, the guy finally just has to ask: what's with the pig? The farmer settles back and says: "Well, it's quite a story. A couple of years back, a smouldering log fell out of the grate here in the middle of the night, and it set the whole house on fire. My wife and I were asleep, so we didn't know anything about it, but that pig smelt smoke from way out in the yard, crashed through the window there and dragged our baby out through the flames by grabbing his romper suit in its teeth. "Then it ran back through, the flames again, squealed at the foot of our bed till it woke us up, and led us both to safety through the burning house. My wife and I passed out from the smoke, but he stayed by our baby all night, fought off a bunch of wolves and revived us come morning by dragging a bucket of water back from the old well and spilling it on our faces. Saved all our lives." The visitor is stunned. "That's amazing," he says. "And I suppose the pig lost its leg as a result of his injuries that night?" "Nope," said the farmer, sucking his pipe. "Didn't get a scratch. But you don't eat a pig like that all at once ..."

They get a lot worse.

Two scientists walk into a bar. The first scientist says ‘I’ll have a glass of H2O” The second scientist says ‘I’ll have a glass of water too. Wh… why did you say H2O? Like, I know it’s the chemical formula for water and all, but it’s the end of the day and there’s really no need to intentionally over-complicate things like that in a situation outside of work” The first scientist stares at his drink, angry that his assassination plan has failed.

The internet became available for my use in 1986, through the University I worked for. A VAX terminal, orange text. Maddening to use. Mostly email. There was also dial up BBS, which was in looking back, quite horrible, but at the time seemed cool. It also led to a real world conflict spillover for a buddy of mine, over of all things, an argument on an Amiga based BBS. We're talking actual physical violence and lawsuits over comments on a message board. That you had to reach by dialing to it. Oh good times, good times. I saw the Mosiac www in '93 through a supergeek friend of mine. He knew about before anybody else I knew. I can still recall the awesomeness of seeing a picture and text on the same page. I was like, "Oh man! How do you do that?". When he showed me how to view the code and how easy it was, it was on. Still is. Internets. They is awesome. Tried to find an image of what the old VAX looked like. It was something like this. Except orange text. Making pictures out of text was all the rage. Then printing them out on a dot matrix printer. Oh man I feel so friggin old now. For clarity, I hated the VAX. There was like one terminal for 16 people to share. And "the internet" was pretty much email to other Universities.

Hello strangers. Odd internet people reading this post. Maybe some normal people too. Hope springs eternal. I often avoid the intro thread, jumping head first into whatever topic was interesting enough to Google my way into a forum, and in advance, I have prepared a bio and all kinds of fun stuff for the interested who click on my user name, wanting to check me out, going " who is this new person?", and having close to 25 years of internet experience, I know a few things about being the n00b, as well as being the regular. Not this time. I'm getting lazy I think, or perhaps I just don't care anymore. For those who have little interest in newcomers, this would be a good time to stop reading this post. There will be no big reward. No seriously, go look at something interesting. This is going downhill from here. I popped into the chat a couple of times, testing the waters. The hostility level was acceptable. Oh, and just to put your mind at ease, I am certainly and with out a doubt not anybody who has ever posted here before, not a puppet, not a sock, not some old enemy returned. I might be a new enemy, but I am sure I never joined this board before. I can't really remember how I even found it now. But I did and signed up, because that's just what I do, I see something and I sign up. Sometimes I never even post. I've been a member of slashdot for over ten years, and I posted once. I keep thinking I am supposed to do something here. Oh right, introduction. Hate them. Intros. Both because it requires effort, typing and all that, but even more so, because I often feel like it's when you go to a 'meeting' and they go around the room and have everyone introduce themselves. The people who are ALWAYS at the meeting, who all know each other, they don't want you to really introduce yourself, they want you to say, "Hi my name is Dave and I am addict", or "alcoholic", or whatever label the group is going to slap onto you, because you are there. And then they want you to shut the hell up. If you actually start introducing yourself, talking about why you are there, what's the problem, you know, who you ARE, they tell you to shut up. Nice. That is so welcoming, isn't it? Poor sod finally drags his sick self to a meeting, and the first thing you know, you are told to shut up. But 'keep coming back' and all that. So I figure anyone who is reading the intro thread and actually wants to know something will check me out, everybody else will just ignore me. Hence the bio thing. Saves time, doesn't annoy people. It's all good. I should have done it. Oh well, I blame this horrible weather at the moment. Unbelievable cold and snow. Sucks big time. (pause) What I really want to do is start a thread. An awesome thread. The kind that makes interested people go, "Wow, I did not know that! Thanks FX! You are cool", that's what i want to do. I've done it before. It's won't even be a new thread for me, it has already happened before, but I can tell from my reading here it would be a good thread here. An excellent thread even. How cool is that? And THAT would be a much better intro than this post, which I did tell you was going to not be all that great. Which brings up the obvious question, why are you still reading it? Haha, I hope that is as funny to you as it is to me. Oh that's a real important point. I often amuse myself. And if I think it's funny, then that is a good thing. If you hate it, well, I simply don't care that much. You must not have a sense of humor. So there. Haha, I win. No really, now your rage makes me laugh even more. Obviously the internet is a grand source of amusement for somebody who is actually that funny. Like me. I'm hilarious. Oh not to you maybe, but to me, and that is the important thing when posting. That you are amused. The best I can hope for others is that they get some small measure of knowledge, if not about themselves, at least about science. And science is awesome. it's more awesome than anything, because it is at it's small dark heart, about knowing what actually IS, what is happening, in the real world. And the world is awesome. The Universe is so big and awesome, it's more awesome than anything. You know this is true. OK maybe some don't know this, but I WANT you to know it. That makes me happy. Oh, and when you see a word like THIS, all caps, it's for emphasis. It's faster than color, bolding, italics or any of those fancy text tricks we can use. It also can make you look a bit nuts of course. This would not be that far from the truth at times. (the following said in a facetious and funny Russian accent) Haha, that is joke, now you laugh. OK we are reaching the point of mendacious or tedious long windedness, so lets wrap this up. Haha, spellchecker doesn't think windedness is a word. Stupid spellchecker. Always thinking it's so smart. Red squiggly lines, suggesting I made a mistake. Well, let me tell you spellchecker, I can just add that as a word and now what are you going to do? Huh? Huh? You want a piece of me? Huh? So here is what got me interested enough to post this long intro, this topic --> http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/53309-tides/ Something I know a little about. Good stuff. The tides. Oh this is going to be so awesome. And fun. It has to be fun, or what's the point? I'm doing this because i LIKE it, nobody is forcing me to do it, nor will anyone force you to read it. As it should be. So, ask me anything. I won't lie, ever. I may refuse to answer, or ignore you if you seem like an idiot, but I am all about reality, not deception. Reality is good. Reality, truth, what actually IS, always is beautiful. Lies are always ugly. Unless it's a white lie, they are OK, because really, nobody wants to know the whole truth when it is about them. But when it's about our world, our Universe, let truth shine, let knowledge prosper, let idiots be exposed, and lets have some fun with science. It's a big Universe, and according to many, it's getting bigger all the time. So hello there, how are ya? If you skipped to the end (good move), I am an educated science based male American who enjoys the heck out of internet. I have a wicked sense of humor, which most won't ever grasp, and if you can stump me or show me where I am wrong, I will respect you and even if I can't stand you, will enjoy your posts. A lot. If you are annoying, a timewaster or avoid the give and take of intellectual discourse, I will ignore you. Everybody else, well, nice to meet ya. Hope you are doing well. Seriously. I always try to assume good intent. I could go on. And on and on and on, but we all know that isn't a good thing. The end