Geeze, the Internet is a time waster.
November 17, 2009
November 15, 2009
Thirty Years
Thanks to my brother Ross (the keeper of the family calendar, I guess), I know that 30 years ago today our family arrived in Texas. We moved into a house in Plano and my brothers and I picked out our rooms. Pretty amazing that it’s been three decades.
November 14, 2009
November 13, 2009
1549
A riveting computer recreation of Cactus flight 1549′s Hudson River ditch last year. After watching this I was impressed again with the Captain and FO’s professionalism and calm in a very stressful situation. Calm under pressure.
Finally, Information You Can Use
What Would Happen if I Ate a Teaspoonful of White Dwarf Star?
“Everything about it would be bad,” says Mark Hammergren, an astronomer at Adler Planetarium in Chicago, beginning with your attempt to scoop it up. Despite the fact that white dwarfs are fairly common throughout the universe, the nearest is 8.6 light-years away. Let’s assume, though, that you’ve spent 8.6 years in your light-speed car and that the radiation and heat emanating from the star didn’t kill you on your approach. White dwarfs are extremely dense stars, and their surface gravity is about 100,000 times as strong as Earth’s. “You’d have to get your sample—which would be very hard to carve out—without falling onto the star and getting flattened into a plasma,” Hammergren says. “And even then, the high pressure would cause the hydrogen atoms in your body to fuse into helium.”
read the whole thing.
November 12, 2009
November 11, 2009
Happy Veterans Day
Thank you to all active and retired soldiers. We appreciate your sacrifices.
Off Armageddon Reef
Just finished Off Armageddon Reef by David Weber. 10% advanced science fiction living in a story that is 70% Horatio Hornblower and 30% Swords and Sorcery. I know that adds up to more than 100%, but this book is just that good. Thanks to Scott for the recommendation.
November 9, 2009
Letter to Toyota
Dear Toyota,
I purchased my brand new 2009 Tacoma at the beginning of August from Round Rock Toyota in Round Rock Texas. Seven miles from the lot, the radio failed. I returned immediately and was told that those radios had problems and “about a quarter of them fail”- this in spite of the salesman’s assurance that Toyotas were some of the most dependable trucks on the road- it was a nice sales line, but reality reared its head ironically fast. I turned around and drove back to Round Rock Toyota where the service manager informed me that the dealership would repair it, but that there was a four week backlog on the radios. I reluctantly gave him my name and he told me that they would call me when the part came in.
Four weeks later I had to return to the dealership for a non-related repair (TSB) and I asked about the status of the new radio. After doing some research, the service person told me that the radios were now FIVE weeks backordered and it would be even longer (keep in mind that I had already waited four weeks). The service manager could find no record of my pending radio repair in the computer system. He reentered my information and assured me that I would be getting a working radio in as soon as the new ones came in (I had now owned the new Tacoma for a month without a working radio).
Fast forward to early November and I still have not heard from Round Rock Toyota about getting the radio fixed. I have given up hope that the dealership and service department are truly capable of getting in contact with their customers. Their behavior indicates that they have little interest in establishing a long term customer relationship with anything short of high margin maintenance items. In fact, the only contact I have had from Round Rock Toyota has been when they have called or emailed me to ask if I have filled out the post-sale evaluation (“with high marks, please”). In the three months since I purchased my truck, they have not called me once to inform me of the status of the repair for a radio that broke seven miles off the lot.
In regards to that post sale evaluation they have asked me to fill out, I’ll be getting to it shortly- they probably won’t like it.
Sincerely,
Jason Young
Moral: if you need a new Toyota, avoid Round Rock Toyota.
*UPDATE* I’ve contacted RR Toyota twice via email and have heard nothing back from them.
*UPDATE* Yesterday the shop called me and informed me that the radio has left California “just a couple days ago”. Funny, the timing…
*UPDATE* I went into the Toyota dealership and they replaced my radio. It’s been over thee months since the initial complaint, and it took a letter to Toyota itself, as well as one directly to the dealership (this post) to get satisfaction. In the end, the job was done and it works (so far), but it wasn’t worth the hassle of pestering them for so long. I just hope nothing major goes wrong with it. Would I buy from Round Rock/Classic Toyota again? Not on your life, and you shouldn’t either.
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November 6, 2009
Bird Bomber
A piece of a baguette dropped by a passing bird caused a shutdown at the CERN Large Hadron Collider.
The bird dropped some bread on a section of outdoor machinery, eventually leading to significant over heating in parts of the accelerator. The LHC was not operational at the time of the incident, but the spike produced so much heat that had the beam been on, automatic failsafes would have shut down the machine.