Kristy's Blog

Geeky Financial Observations along the Digital Highway

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Entries Tagged as 'Thoughts'

Why Facebook is so Important

July 8th, 2009 · 1 Comment

It’s all about ambient intimacy, and it’s a good thing in today’s busy world.

Ambient intimacy is about being able to keep in touch with people with a level of regularity and intimacy that you wouldn’t usually have access to, because time and space conspire to make it impossible.

It makes us feel closer to people we care for but in whose lives we’re not able to participate as closely as we’d like. Knowing these details creates intimacy. (It also saves a lot of time when you finally do get to catchup with these people in real life!) It’s not so much about meaning, it’s just about being in touch.

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Tags: Every day life · Thoughts

Maybe There is a God

June 24th, 2009 · No Comments

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Tags: Thoughts

Quite an Interesting History Lesson

May 9th, 2009 · No Comments

Railroad tracks. This is fascinating.

Be sure to read the final paragraph after reading all that comes before; your understanding of the conclusion will depend on the earlier part of the content.

Railroads

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That’s an exceedingly odd number.

Why was that gauge used? Because that’s the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US railroads.

Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that’s the gauge they used.

Why did ‘they’ use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that’s the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels… Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a specification/procedure/process and wonder ‘What horse’s ass came up with it?’ you may be exactly right. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses (Two horse’s asses). Now, the twist to the story:

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRB’s. The SRB’s are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRB’s would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRB’s h ad to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRB’s had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses’ behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world’s most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse’s ass. And you thought being a horse’s ass wasn’t important? Ancient horse’s asses control almost everything… and CURRENT Horse’s Asses are controlling everything else…

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Tags: Thoughts

Updated Superbowl Picks

January 7th, 2009 · No Comments

Ravens and Titans: Titans
Steelers and Chargers: Steelers

Phillies vs. Giants: Giants
Panthers vs. Cardinals: Cardinals

Titans vs. Steelers: Titans
Cardinals vs. Giants: Giants

Titans vs. Giants: Giants
Score total: 31

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Tags: Thoughts

Superbowl predictions

December 31st, 2008 · No Comments

For easy reference….

Chargers vs. Colts: Colts.
Colts vs. Titans: Titans

Ravens vs. Dolphins: Ravens
Ravens vs. Steelers: Steelers

Steelers vs. Titans: Titans

Cardinals vs. Falcons: Cardinals
Cardinals vs. Giants: Giants

Vikings vs. Eagles: Vikings
Vikings vs. Panthers: Panthers

Giants vs. Panthers: Giants

Giants vs. Titans: Titans
Point total: 36

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Tags: Thoughts

There’s a lot you can do on a 12-hour drive

December 23rd, 2008 · No Comments

Drove from Phoenix to my sister’s house in Denver yesteray, and it was anything but boring. Technology is a wonderful thing. Here’s all the things I did:

  1. Continued rating every song on my iPod (2700) of them. You listen to them and rate them from 1-5. Easy, and it helps you to create playlists. “My Top Rated” playlist was getting a little old with only 467 songs. Most of my songs are unrated.
  2. Did some thinking about my life and where I’m going. This is actually the perfect thing to do when you have a lot of time on your hands and you are kind of stuck not being able to walk, run, move or use your hands much. I made a mental list of improvements to help myself and other people around me.
  3. One of my goals for the past month has been to stop hanging on to ridiculous anger towards people in my past who really don’t deserve it. I mean, it is not helping me and they are not even aware of it. I knew I would be over it when I would happily forgive someone with my whole heart. But this is a choice – and I decided to jump off the cliff and do it. It felt wonderful.
  4. Clear out email via my phone. Yeah, I know it isn’t safe, but you have 12 hours and you don’t have to do anything too quickly.

  5. Send text messages to my sister letting her know where I am. Yes, another unsafe activity.
  6. Send text messages to other people and wish them Merry Christmas. I don’t believe in the Happy Holidays thing. I’m not even religious, and I love Christmas. To me, it’s not a religious holiday, as commercial as it is. I wouldn’t be offended if some one said Happy Hanuka so whatever.
  7. Enjoy the scenery. Some nice stuff along with the boring stuff.

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Tags: Every day life · Thoughts

Have a New Movie Coming Out? Get all Warm and Fuzzy.

December 15th, 2008 · No Comments

Tom Cruise says he was “arrogant” in TV interview with Matt Lauer in 2005. Well, duh. Now that studios have mega bucks riding on Cruise’s new movie, Valkyrie, they’re trying to “soften” up his image. The cover of People Magazine this week is Tom Cruise: “The truth about my family”. I wonder what truth the movie studios are trying to spin now. It most certainly isn’t the truth.

The film is pretty pricey and UA has a lot riding on it. Per Wikipedia, “Since United Artists reported that the film cost $75 million to make and that $60 million would be spent on marketing, the studio faces high financial stakes. The film also tests the determination of its distributor Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and the mettle of Cruise as a superstar.”

Tom, I’m not buying it.

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Tags: Thoughts

My Christmas Resolutions

December 7th, 2008 · No Comments

Why wait until the New Year?

Anyway:

1. Forgive everyone.
2. Not judge anyone – what good does it do you? Accept everyone for who they are.
3. Don’t contradict anyone
4. Don’t argue.

Exceptions to 3 & 4:

a. If someone is about to get hurt
b. Racial slurs
c. If someone is walking over me.

I hope I can do this through Feb 1. That’s my plan.

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Tags: Thoughts

On Bias of TV/Cable News

December 3rd, 2008 · No Comments

OK, so Fox is the least biased? It’s my opinion that all TV news should be avoided – it is ALL biased. There are so many ways to influence how the viewer absorbs the news: the inflection in tone of the newscaster, the background music, the lead-in story, the ticker-tape of news at the bottom, the video used, the background graphics.

It’s also funny how TV/cable news brings up so many trivial stories that I never hear about because I am only reading. People are so aghast that I’ve not heard about Sarah Palin being interviewed in front of a turkey slaughter. I mean REALLY, who cares. Is that really NEWS? Or that Deepak Chopra is now some kind of authority on the India bombings because he’s Indian?

Not that my news absorption style is better than anyone else’s, but I just read the basic generic news stories coming off the AP/UP wire. There is really no bias, just a paragraph of what happened and when. No analysis of the event. It’s left to my own conclusions.

I’m probably one of the few people who never turned on the TV to learn what happened during the invasion of Iraq. I can’t stand the way the newscasters suddenly turn to each other and say, “What do you think?” when they are stuck for content. I mean who cares what the newscasters think of current events? Or the writers of the show? I certainly don’t.

👿

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Tags: Thoughts

On Death and Dying

December 2nd, 2008 · No Comments

It’s pretty crazy that hours or even moments before someone who is terminally ill or wounded dies, they are alert, walking, talking and just being THERE. I always thought you slide gradually into the great beyond, but that’s not the case. Which makes it all the more scary. I guess you just never know how long you have, period.

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Tags: Thoughts