The man.

So I officially had another run in with "the law" today. It was super silly. These security guards at the mall (stinkin' rent-a-cops, heh) harrassed us for handing out movie tickets... TO PEOPLE THAT WE WERE MEETING THERE. Apparently they thought we were some form of soliciter. It was really odd, because after we explained ourselves and what we were doing there, THEY KEPT HARRASSING US. Idiots. They even got a third guard involved at one point. It was rediculous. We weren't doing anything wrong, and we were less than fifteen feet from an ACTUAL disturbance. They had these little three year olds running around causing havok. Now the only reason them harrassing us is so bad is that we've been doing this exact thing for about a year or more. More than that, the last time we did it, we had little kids shooting nerf darts fifty feet into the air and then at each other. Yep, we're the disturbance, us standing here, talking with our friends, well within our rights, and handing out previously acquired materials. I wonder if they get in a huff if you give your cell phone out? Or the number? Talk about soliciting...

Anyways. The comment was made that I hadn't spoken of the shuttle launch (which at that time was still forthcoming), but which at this time is old news. Here's why: IT'S BEEN POST PONED FOR THREE MONTHS. At least. I love what NASA meant to the US and the world as much as the next guy, maybe even more, but even I have a limit on how long I want to sit waiting to be jilted again. Unfortunately, they haven't proven to me that they can do the job again. I wanted to see them return to flight more than the next guy, I guarantee it (unless the next guy is one of the astronauts), but give me a break. Two YEARS worth of fixing their problems AND THEN three months of scrapping the mission and it's like they sent it up in frustration. I can see that there's a certain amount of difficulties, this is no small feat, but if you're not ready to go, don't get my hopes up. I'd still love to see NASA get back to where it was, where it should be and should have always been, but don't tease me with it. So I vowed not to talk about it, or read anything about it, until it happened. And now it has. And now the same problems are cropping up (possibly even damage to the shuttle itself) as those that downed the last one. Are they stupid? After 30 years it just seems like they gave up. They changed the sensor twice and it didn't work. Something tells me that should have come up BEFORE the shuttle was on the pad... It's like they want this one to end horribly too, but they don't want everyone else to know it, like they're tired of them going up and having to deal with it or something.

Obviously I'm being very negative with that, but they haven't done anything to impress me lately, not that they have to, but why should I give them credit for this sort of thing? NASA is as close to a living hero that I have, probably, they contribute more than any other agency EVER. And they are totally dropping the shuttle program. Why? It's idiocy. And really frustrating watching someone through away the thing that I've planned my life around. Like you should plan your life to be a cop or a doctor to see those get done away with. They are all important.

Grr...

Other then that I just wanted to inform you that Time remains a construct and not anything that applies to the laws of physics (I take severe issue with the theories of "space/time" because time is a measured construct of our own society. It might have properties that can be examined, but all of that is arbitrarily determined by humanity.) So they are lengthening the year of 2005 to make their clocks sinc up with the Earth's rotation. It just seems to me to be a case of "fudging" it. Except by the "experts". Like they said it would be one number, and the one they got was only off by one second, so what's wrong with fudging it? I'll let your chemistry teacher explain that to you if you don't know. But the skinny of it is that you NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVAR! make up data in science. It'd be great if they screwed up the first time and were fixing it, but if the clocks were off (meaning the atomic clocks) it's stupid to "fudge" them by even a second (especially when they are precise to milliseconds at worst).

So the article.

I suppose I will stop now, aside from running out of steam, it is apparent to me that my fatigued state puts me into a soap box about science. Buggers. I seem to be really grumpy about it, too.

Or maybe it's just me. Au revoir.