SETI@Home

Some years ago I started devoting idle computer time to SETI@Home, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, in the hope that one day we might get to see some Cardassians instead of Kardashians. The project uses computers around the world to do analysis on radio signals collected from space to see if there are detectable patterns that might indicate alien intelligence. It looks like they've got the data they need for now and will be hibernating the project. We may have to redirect resources to search for intelligent life in the White House.
Interestingly, about half of my 'credits', the work units completed, have been done on my current primary laptop. I've run through probably 5 or 6 computers since I first joined the project but in keeping with the regular increases in compute power, the current machine that I bought on sale and is literally held together with duct tape (there's a small crack in the plastic shell around the screen) still has that much more juice than what came before.
I mention that, because it wasn't all too long ago that the computer who put Americans into space was a black lady who was better at math than anything you can do, ever.
So as we stick it out in COVID-19 lockdown, hold classes online, 'Netflix and Socially Distance' and otherwise rely on technology to continue day-to-day while avoid human contact (thanks Pornhub!) take a moment to appreciate that these improvements in capability were possible because we cooperated with each other.
This wasn't just one Tony Stark genius who created magic, it was groups of people working on design, groups of people working on production, groups of people working on shipping and logistics, groups of people working in sales and distribution and even more groups of people who feed, house, cloth and care for all of those other fools. We accomplish when we work together instead to accomplish when working together rather than giving in to our individual demons and selfish objectives.
Oh, also, stop fucking reading 'news' that pop up on your goddamn Facebook feed.
In the meantime, I've redirected my computers to devote their idle cycles to projects designed to model the folding of proteins in the hope of finding cancer treatments and on mapping asteroids. Take care SETI@Home folks. So long an thanks for all the fish.
https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=85267

Home Gym

It’s good to have a home gym while stuck in lockdown. I have a set of weights ranging from 12 oz. cans to 2-liter bottles and my primary piece of equipment is a couch. Unfortunately I have to share it with the offspring and I don’t think he wipes it down when he’s done using it. There’s always that one asshole in the gym...

Optimism

Look on the positive side, you can’t have school shootings when they close all the schools.

On Tara Reid, Terminators and Asteroids

If nothing else, you kind of have to appreciate how boring this apocalypse is. No space aliens, no Skynet, no Tara Reid with a chainsaw blowing up flying sharks, no Bruce Willis having to sacrifice himself to a space rock, no thermonuclear explosions, nothing in the weather on the scale of a Geostorm, no zombies (yet). Just a limited supply of TP and being told not to interact with a bunch of assholes I didn’t want to talk to anyway. Who knew the apocalypse could be so boring?

1987

Mike Pence makes me think that the 1987 movie Mannequin was based on much less funny real-life events. Like if Ken Burns was a depressed meth addict.
This cannot possibly be an original thought.