Post  #2581.   Cable today.      Incidentally, in an example of just how good Google is, I did a search for Farad Zakamea since I had only the vaguest idea of the spelling. Google immediately suggested Fareed Zakaria. I wondered just how far off I could type before it failed and tried several ridiculous entries. It wasn't until I morphed the last name into Hawaiian with a lot of humununu's that It gave up. Anyway, our man, Fareed Zakaria, was doing his show from Davos (losing quite a few people already) with guests Wadah Khanfar and Kishore Mahbubani. They were talking about what fabulously rich and enormously powerful men hanging out in Switzerland talk about, money and politics, I think.

Strangely, even with all this, CNN's U.S. ratings continue to suffer somewhat. In the meantime, Fox was covering a two-hour car chase.
posted by Rick at 11:18 PM

Post  #2580.   Uh ... Google?     Just a note for you, bot, that exaweek and all the rest of it belongs to datapakrat at this place, not me. Thanks for your continued attention.Rick Macherat Rick M. In the day.
posted by Rick at 12:20 PM

Post  #2579.   Monkeys.      Remember when Bob Newhart did that bit about the monkeys, where they conducted an experiment placing an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of typewriters to see if they would eventually create all the Great Books? Remember that? Maybe not - it was 1961 after all. Pretty funny bit though. Anyway, I ran across something interesting today, at least I thought so,



this label attached to something I received. Looks to me like one of the machines was trying to tell the joke to some other machines. Once it fell flat, they just stuck it on packages and sent them along.Rick Macherat Rick M. In the day.
posted by Rick at 1:47 AM

Post  #2578.   The 520.      From 11pm until 5am, traveling across the Governor Albert D. Rossellini Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, also known as State Route 520 and also known as “Victory at Sea,” is free. Tolls begin at 5am and are charged at $1.60 for vehicles bearing a “Good-to-Go” transponder sticker and $3.10 for all others. These are billed by mail with the addresses derived from their photo-scanned license plate numbers. The first toll lasts for one hour. At 6am, the Good-to-Go rate rises to $2.80, and the general toll increases to $4.30. Again, this level lasts for one hour. For two hours beginning at 7am, the toll increases to $3.50 for Good-to-Go vehicles and $5.00 or all others. At the end of the primary rush period, the toll falls to $4.30 for regular vehicles and $2.80 for Good-to-Go stickers. This shoulder rate lasts for one hour until the official end of rush. The normal traffic rate comes into play at 10am and lasts for four hours. This rate is $2.25 for Good-to-Go vehicles and $3.75 for all others. The start of evening rush is at 2pm, at which time the toll rises again to $4.30 for regular traffic and $2.80 for Good-to-Go traffic. This is in place for one hour when it rises to $5.00 and $3.50 respectively. This evening peak toll lasts for three hours, until 6pm when it falls to $4.30 for general traffic and $2.80 for Good-to-Go. Another adjustment comes into play at the end of peak when the toll falls to $3.75 for general traffic and $2.25 for Good-to-Go vehicles. This lasts for one hour. At 9pm, the toll falls again, to $3.10 for regular traffic and $1.60 for Good-to-Go. At 11pm onward, there is no toll until 5am when the rates begin again.

Weekend rates are completely different. At 5am, the Good-to-Go toll begins at $1.10 and .. all the other times and tolls vary from the weekday schedule.

These tolls support the upcoming construction of a new Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, as yet unnamed. The new bridge will cost approximately Four And One-Half Billion Dollars and replaces the existing 50-year-old span which, unfortunately, did not have an HOV lane. Paradoxically, since the tolls went into effect, traffic has declined so dramatically that it may be possible to use a single lane for vehicles and develop the now unnecessary two additional ones for parks and recreation.

FROM: Your Government at Work for YouRick Macherat Rick M. In the day.
posted by Rick at 10:50 PM

Post  #2577.   Employee-of-the-Month Trifecta.      The Boeing Company manufactures the 737 at Renton, Washington in a process that involves integrating thousands of parts from all over the world. One such part, a doorhandle that was made in the U.K came complete with flaws that caused Boeing to reject $200,000 worth of them every year. An engineer, Fred Siebert, redesigned the part so it could be manufactured locally, had zero defects, had three parts instead of fourteen, and could be assembled by a local company which employs people with disabilities in sheltered workshops. Now, almost no one reads this blog, but it does get searched by the Bot, so here's one more vote in the -verse for Fred Siebert as Employee of the Month! Rick Macherat Rick M. In the day.
posted by Rick at 12:24 PM

Post  #2576.   2012 is looking good      I drop things all the time. One of the downsides that comes with getting old. I don't get upset by it anymore, just part of the added cost for being here. Pills are great for dropping. I just kick them over to the edge of the kithen by the trash and pick them all up every few weeks. Yeah, that's what it comes to. Oh, there are a whole lot more slobby things to which life is reduced, but you don't want to know about all of them. Anyway, today I was filling tonight's vitamin cups for Brother and me, 8 for him, 7 for me, and a 400mcg Folic Acid tab (I forget what they're good for,) slipped from my fingers, fell, hit and bounced off a D3 in my cup, went straight up about six inches and fell right into Brother's cup where it belonged.

I take this as an excellent omen for the year 2012, at least up to December 21st when all bets are off for everybody. Rick Macherat Rick M. In the day.

posted by Rick at 11:38 PM