This ad appeared in the London Metro free commuter newspaper on July 22nd. Uploader megpickard noted that it was “unbelievably crass.” Not only that, but it’s not big enough to hold all the “High rise ‘workers’ special’ smoke hoods” left over from 9/11. Plus, it’s way too small to hold a roll of duct tape, which not only seals windows and doors against smoke, gas, radioactive dust and biotoxins, but doubles as a handy restraint system for “violent extremists” whose plastic food containers full of explosives fail to explode. Darn those former terrorists and their faulty DIY bombs! Meanwhile, the…

This photo has been making the rounds via email and weblog and Flickr; Annie Mole and others are pretty sure it’s Photoshopped, but agree that if so it’s a great job. Of course, it might have been the work of a humorously disgruntled commuter on their way to a meeting, armed with a blue whiteboard marker. There are a couple of versions of it on Flickr, and one may be removed, so I hope I’ve linked to the one that survives. I suppose there will now be a run on commuter notices with amusing notices, since the fad for Photoshopped…

Somewhere out there, Scotty is smiling, because clearly Discovery’s engines can take it very well. I’m very happy about this morning’s successful launch – I missed seeing it live, but watched a replay via BBC News. Now if we can get on with things and do the science, and make this return to space count for something, that would be a very good thing. I know a lot of people wonder why we spend a lot of money on space; I sometimes wonder why we don’t spend more. You can’t always put a dollar value on scientific exploration, and the…

‘Apologies are not enough’ Originally uploaded by julespics. This just went up on the Flickr “London bomb blast” pool. Sad, but true (and disturbingly funny).

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Several killed in Egyptian blasts Shit, here we go again… apparently the entire world is heading into “flap mode.” This has just happened, so there’s very little information as yet. The Sharm el Sheikh/Naama Bay is a popular resort destination. One local described the blast in the Old Market area, saying “I saw the fire in the sky.” I wonder if this has anything to do with the anti-terrorism fatwa issued by British Islamic leaders? Probably not.

My problems don’t amount to much compared to yesterday’s events. But yesterday was a right crappy day. “Thursdays. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.” Lunch was crap. I went out to Burger King, waited a really long time in the drive through, waited some more, finally ordered my Whopper Value Meal (with Iced Tea), waited some more to pay for it, got to the food window and was handed a suspiciously light bag. Drove back to the office to listen to the radio in the car, and discovered that I had some kind of chicken tenders meal, with…

So the big question about Bush’s address on Iraq tomorrow night is whether he will come to the podium equipped with a speech that addresses the mounting concerns of the American people — or whether he will simply roll out a repackaging of the talking points that contributed to the disconnect in the first place. What is “audio-animatronic?” See? That was an easy one. Fortunately, the Resident is a Pod People. So he never lacks for tunes… or text.

My husband David let me know that he’s had another interview request from an industry magazine (he’s got fairly high visibility in his admittedly specialized field) and so he’ll be seeing his name in print again sometime in the next few months. They’re interested in talking to him about his blog, which occasionally touches on his professional interests and on the computing community discussion lists and archives he hosts, moderates, and generally rides herd on. My hubby, the go-to guy: I’m so proud, even though the interviews end up in obscure technical magazines you’ve never heard of. His parents love…

BotGdn18apr013 Original upload: GinnyRED57. Okay, there was actually something wrong with my main index template, which I tracked down to a bad “div clearer” format that stupid IE handled incorrectly and smart Firefox handled correctly, meaning that the page looked fine in IE and like warmed over dogs-dinner in Firefox. This was forcing the top blog entry to streeeeeetch to the bottom of both columns before the next post could display. Dumb. Me. Okay, now try again with Flickr…oh, and this photo was taken at the Botanic Garden this year.