CalvinDude.com

So today after work, I stopped by the store on the way home. In the deli there was a fresh baked selection of mozzarella sticks, straight out of the oven. So I decided to buy some, and said to the clerk at the counter: “I’ll take a dozen of the mozzarella sticks.”

To which she replied: “How many are in a dozen?”

And she was serious. This woman was about twenty-two, twenty-three years old. She worked in a deli. You know, right next to the bakery that sells a dozen donuts, or two-dozen of those plastic-coated chocolate Donettes that stick to your teeth for, come to think of it, dozens of hours! And right down the row from there sat a case that sold…you guessed it!…eggs by the dozen.

But she honestly did not know how many items were in a dozen. Makes me glad I didn’t ask for a baker’s dozen. On the other hand, now I know how Obama got elected with such a stupid, empty phrase as “We are the hope we’ve been changing for audacity.”

Or something similar.

Close to a verbatim conversation I just had. I’m the second person to speak.

“I’m looking for batch 2471, and it’s not in balancing.”

“What’s wrong with batch 2471?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then why do you need to click it?”

“I have to look at it to see what was wrong with it.”

“Okay. Did you check amount entry? There were batches in there to do.”

“But it’s not in balancing.”

“Items go to amount entry before they go to balancing.”

“Oh, so I should check in browser?”

“No, you should check in amount entry. Click on amount entry.”

“But I want to go to browser.”

“You don’t need to go to browser. Click on amount entry.”

“Where?”

“On the menu. No, click amount entry. Amount entry.”

“Oh, you mean amount entry!”

“Yes, click on that.”

“Okay.”

“See, there it is. Batch 2471. Just do that one and it’ll put it into balancing for you.”

“So I look for my sequence number?”

“No, you have to do amount entry on it to get it into balancing.”

“But I need to look at this sequence number.”

“No, you have to do amount entry first. Put in the amount.”

“But I don’t know the amount.”

“It’s right there in front of you on the screen! Just type it in.”

“Oh, you mean for that item!”

“Yes! You’re doing amount entry now.”

“Okay.”

The batch gets amount keyed….

I say: “Good, it’s done so now it’ll be in balancing.”

“So I go to browser?”

“No! You go to balancing now.”

“Oh, balancing! Okay. Now I need to fix this sequence number.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“I don’t know. I have to look at it.”

Sadly, this went on for another couple of minutes. I kept looking at my coworker who was in another cubical snickering over the whole thing and all I could do is shrug. I mean, seriously, how do you fix stupid?

In any case, reminds me of a certain passage in Public Transit, which was written before we hired this person; ergo, I am a prophet. The passage:

“Speaking of that, did you get the memo that we’re changing box A and box C to box D now?”

“What?”

“You’ll need to go through the database and correct those,” Patterson said, motioning to the pile of 2053 forms Steve had already completed.

“But didn’t we just change from box B to box A or C just last month?”

“Yes, but now we’ve got box D. So change box A and C to box D.”

“What about box B?”

Patterson scratched his chin. “Those still get changed to box A or C, depending.”

“Depending on what?”

“Which one they’re supposed to be.”

Then later….

“Hey, did you finish doing all those box A or C to box D conversions that I asked you to do?”

“Yes, just before lunch.”

“Great! Listen, we’re getting rid of box D now. I need you to change them all back to box B.”

Steve’s mouth dropped open. “What?”

“Yeah, it was a typographical error. That Melinda! She sure can make good coffee, but she can’t type to save her life.”

Steve didn’t bother to point out that Melinda made coffee so weak it made sweetened iced tea feel proud.

“Anyway, she transcribed the meeting minutes wrong. She thought that they said we were changing things to box D, but it was really box B. We don’t even have a box D! How funny is that?”

Steve glared. “You’re telling me I wasted my entire morning doing changes that I now have to undo?”

Patterson pretended not to hear. Or maybe he cared so little he didn’t even have to pretend.

Ever find that you can’t parody something because someone, somewhere, will think it’s a brilliant idea?

Recently, I read an article about solar energy. Unfortunately, I don’t remember where I read it. I think it was Reader’s Digest. In any case, the claim of the article was that the sun gives us more than enough energy every single day to supply all the energy needs of the entire United States by solar power alone, if there was just some way to harness all this energy!

Now while that sounds impressive, I happen to know a bit of physics. And so I went down a different path.

First, let’s see how much energy consumption there is in the United States. According to Wiki (so it must be true—don’t laugh), the United States used 100 qaudrillion BTUs (105 exajoules, or 29000 TWh) in 2005. We’ll go with that for fun, using the 105 exajoules because that’ll be easier to convert later on.

Now we need to know how many joules are in an exajoule. Thankfully, if you Google “How many joules are in an exajoule” a nifty formula pops up saying 1 exajoule = 1.0 x 10¹⁸ joules. So, we’re looking at 105,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules, or 1.05 x 10²⁰ joules, for an entire year.

If we divide that by 365, we get 2.88 x 10¹⁷ joules per day.

Divide it by 86,400 seconds in a day (60 seconds per minute x 60 minutes per hour x 24 hours per day), and we get: 3.32 x 10¹² joules per second.

Now for the point I am attempting to make! Y’all remember that Einstein feller, right? E = mc² and all? Well, it just so happens that we have our Energy above (3.32 x 10¹² joules) and we have the speed of light (3 x 10⁸ m/s), so now we can just plug those numbers in and solve for the mass.

Namely:

E = mc²
E/c² = m

So we can plug in the numbers. BTW, I should note that a joule is defined as 1 kg x m²/s², so we have:

(3.32 x 10¹² kg x m²/s²) / (3 x 10⁸ m/s)²

(3.32 x 10¹² kg x m²/s²) / (9 x 10¹⁶ m²/s²)

= 3.69 x 10^-5 kg (note the m²/s² cancel each other out, leaving us with the mass unit, which is what we want.

This means that less than a gram (in fact, 0.0369 grams) of atoms can provide all the energy the United States uses in a second. So let’s multiply that by our 86,400 seconds, and our 365 days and we get: 1200 kg/year. A kilogram is 2.2 pounds, so we’re talking about 2640 pounds.

In other words, just over a ton of atoms has all the energy that we need to run the entire United States for a year. Given that the Earth has a mass of approximately 5.9742 x 10²⁴ kilograms, we have enough energy just in the Earth to last for 4.98 x 10 ²⁴ years. Or: 4,980,000,000,000,000,000,000 years. That’s nearly 5 million trillion years, at current consumption rates.

The problem with this method is, of course, the same problem as with solar power. It’s one thing to say, “The energy is there.” It’s another thing completely to say, “We can harness this energy and use it.”

So when Bush misspeaks, it’s proof he’s just stupid Chimpy McBushitler. But when the Omighty One misspeaks, why, it just “shows politicians are human, too.”

Which is a relief. Since now we know he’s not, you know, t3h m35514h and all.

The Omighty One has struck again. As anyone who has had overseas experience, even if indirectly (i.e., me, having parents overseas), knows, American formatted DVDs do not work in most foreign countries. Well, not LEGALLY anyway.

So now the truth comes out that the “thoughtful” gift that Obasm gave Gordon Brown, our ally who’s “no better than the 190 other countries out there” of 25 DVDs…don’t play in England.

About now I’m thinking, Thank God we didn’t get that stupid Sarah Palin elected! Can you imagine the embarrassment SHE would have been, if the super-smart-never-wrong-infallibly-Barry can’t get this right! Send the Russians a “reset” button with the wrong Russian word on it; give Gordon Brown DVDs that don’t play; misprint the president of Brazil’s name…hey, and this isn’t even counting the unconstitutional crap that Congress keeps passing…all in under 60 days!

BTW, the source for the DVDs not working in the UK. Notice it’s a UK paper?

Perhaps because the MSM is too busy trying to help OWTFAID pick his NCAA teams to focus on things like, you know, international relations and stuff.

For what it’s worth, I’ve thought for a long time that Barry’s make-up gift to Gordon Brown should be him sending our original Constitution over to England, along with a note saying: “You might as well keep this as we’re not going to need it anymore. Perhaps you can find a space for it in the museum next to the Magnum Carter.”

Yes, being one of the few Protestants left who actually knows what he’s protesting, I needs be must bid ye all a Happy William of Orange Day today!

President Um is at it again. Yes, the Teleprompter Jesus is doing something that I never thought would ever be possible: make Jimmy Carter look competent.

Before the latest, let’s go back a ways. (And it’s far more difficult than you’d think given Obasm’s two month reign.)

Remember when O did his famous “Let’s pull a brigade out of Iraq” thing? You know, waaaaay back on February 17?

IN his first major military move, President Barack Obama has approved the deployment of 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan, saying they were needed “to stabilise a deteriorating situation”.

(Source)

In other words, the O-man sent 17,000 troops who had been studying Arabic for ten months to Afghanistan where approximately 0% of the population speaks Arabic, because it was important to get the troops out of Iraq and into Afghanistan where they were needed…

Except:

ABC News has also learned that Gen. Odierno [in Iraq] will receive a Stryker Brigade to replace the one diverted to Afghanistan just a week ago. That means that he will continue to maintain the current level of two Stryker brigades in Iraq.

(Source)

Yes, you read that right! President OWTFAID moved a brigade of specially trained for Iraq soldiers to Afghanistan to replace them with an untrained for Iraq brigade, all while trying to get as much credit as possible in the polls for “downsizing” the number of troops in Iraq.

Well, he’s at it again! Check out this headline:

Obama Signs Law Banning Federal Embryo Research Two Days After Signing Executive Order to OK It

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that he’s re-banned Federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, but why unban it in the first place? Oh yeah…for the polls.

I think I’m having a mystic vision. A black Jimmy Carter at a podium, saying:

My fellow citizens. For over eight years, we have been tyrannized with fear. Fear spread by people who said the sky was falling.

But now we can have change. Change you can believe in.

No more do you have to fear what may fall from the clear, blue sky. For too long we’ve been oppressed by the blue sky.

Today I have signed an Executive Order banning the color blue. From now on, the skies will be cerulean.

But I fear this is not all we must address. No, for now we see businesses fall into the red. This is obviously a ploy from the incompetent previous administration, who was always red on electoral maps. It is no great surprise that they have caused this problem, and left it for me to fix.

You voted for change, and now you will have it. No longer will banks go into the red, for I have signed another Executive Order banning the color red. From now on, we will only deal with things that are crimson. In so doing, I have repealed the previous Executive Order I signed thirty seconds ago and reinstated the color blue, since that is the color of Democrats on the electoral map.

We are the ones we have been waiting for. Thank you.

Something tells me my mystic vision isn’t all that mystic.

There’s currently a bit of Global Warming falling from the sky and piling up outside. Yesterday it was in the 60s, today it’s snowing. Welcome to Colorado, home of the bi-polar weather.

Oh well.

Yesterday I discovered another one of these “myths” that are going about, similar to the one about how we should freak out and panic because the stock market is going down right now. The other thing I discovered is the myth that insurance is always a good thing.

Now I’ll state up front that most of the time it is a good thing. However, not always. And I’m not just talking about the forms you have to fill out and all that “fun” stuff. Instead, I’m talking about actual price.

See, I recently transferred a prescription that I normally got filled at one pharmacy to another one that’s closer to where I live so it’s more convenient for me. Unfortunately, the day I asked for the transfer I realized I had left my insurance card at home. Since I still had a few days left on my old prescription, I just said I’d come back and pick it up later.

And yesterday’s when I did pick it up. Since I didn’t originally have my insurance with me, they filled the prescription the way that my doctor had prescribed it: three month’s worth. But once I got my insurance there, they looked at it and said, “Your insurance will only cover thirty days at a time.” Which I already knew, because at the old place I always had to go every month.

Then came the fun part. “If you put it on insurance, it’ll be $10 per month for three months. Which is $30. If you don’t put it on insurance, you get all three months right now, and the total price is $29.85.”

In other words, my insurance costs me $0.15 and two extra trips. So I paid for it without using my insurance and got all 90 days right there. The guys who filled it were also happy because they didn’t have to take out the 60 “extra” pills that my insurance wouldn’t have paid for at that time so I could immediately pick up my prescription right then.

Now this obviously wouldn’t turn out the same if I wasn’t getting a generic prescription in the first place. For instance, one of my friends has to take medication that cost $120 a month, and without insurance he’d have to pay for the whole thing out of pocket. So not all insurance is bad.

On the other hand, this left-wing notion that we have to insure everyone on Earth or else t3h d00m!!11!!1 is just a bunch of B.S. A) Not everyone needs medication right now anyway and, B) not everyone who needs medication needs expensive medication.

Now I don’t mind giving people the option to get insurance. But when you do what, for instance, Massachusetts has done, where it is against the law to not have insurance, then you’re taking away people’s freedom for no good reason (well, other than to make liberals feel good). It’s one thing to provide a service; it’s another thing to force the service.

And this brings me to the final point. As I walked home yesterday, I thought both of the medication and the stock market scenario that I wrote about last night, and I thought about how the government is trying to control all aspects of our lives as much as possible. And it hit me:

Conservatives are the true rebels.

Think about it for a moment. Imagine a teenaged son wearing his leather jacket, Mohawk haircut, anarchy sign tattooed on his arm, telling his parents, “I’m going to spend my allowance on whatever music I want to!” Such a person is a rebel, right?

Now consider the Conservative who stands with his rifle in hand, copy of the Constitution in his back pocket, tax dollars in hand, telling his government, “I’m going to spend my own money on whatever I want to!” Such a person is a rebel, right?

Because you see, the government we currently have is neo-Socialistic, and it wants to become your parent. But at some point, there has to be a rebelling against your parents when you grow up and reach maturity. If you never rebelled and became your own person, why we have saying for that! You’re being strangled by your mother’s apron strings.

Yet the government wants to be your mother, to strangle you with her apron strings. “I want to take the risk to invest in a company knowing that I may lose money, but I could also gain a lot.” “No, we can’t let you do that. It’s too risky. You must instead buy government bonds.” “But those suck.” “Doesn’t matter, we’re going to nationalize all these businesses so you don’t have to worry about the risk.” “But then I get no reward.” “True. But think about your brother. Do you want to be better than he is?” “What, Fred? He never cleans his room and mooches off you every day! Darn right I want to be better than him.” “But Fred always stays home like a good boy. I never have to worry about him.” “That’s ‘cuz Fred is a pathetic mama’s boy who gets beat up by the bullies at school.”

See what I mean? Conservatives are the true punks, the true rebels. So, all you liberals out there, how does it feel to wake up and realize you’re the man?

So true…

Our economy is currently in a sad state. It may, therefore, be somewhat of a surprise for some readers to see that I’m not at all tempted to stop the deductions from my paycheck that go to my 401(k). Several of my coworkers have already done so, and this is a tragic mistake, which I can illustrate below. Bear in mind, of course, that there are no guarantees in the stock market, and nothing you read here should constitute anything approaching professional advice. This is just my take on the situation as I see it from a mathematical point of view.

Suppose that you buy $100 worth of shares from a diversified fund every month. For the sake of ease of math, let’s suppose that the stock begins where $1 buys one share. Obviously, if you bought $100 of shares, you’d have 100 shares.

After the first month, the value of the shares drop to $0.75 per share. $100 now buys 133 1/3 shares. You can see that because:

1 share = $0.75, or s = 3/4(d)

So d = 4/3(s)

100d = 100(4/3)(s)
100d = (400/3)(s)
100d = (133 1/3)(s)

Now let’s put that together. After two months, you’ll have spent $200 (because you’re always spending $100 per month). You now have 100 shares for the first month, and 133 1/3 shares for the second month. That gives you 233 1/3 shares total. Which, at $0.75 per share, is worth $175.00. This means that so far your investment has lost $25 dollars.

The next month, the value drops to $0.50. Now you can buy 200 shares for $100. You’ve spent $300 to get 433 1/3 shares valued at $0.50 per share, which means you’ve spent $300 to get $216.67.

Now I know what you’re thinking. This is insane! You’re losing money! And so far that’s true. But what if the next month, the price goes back up to $0.75 per share? This means that once again you buy 133 1/3 shares. Now you’ve spent $400, and you’ve got 566 2/3 shares.

566 2/3 shares at 3/4 dollar per share is how much money?

(566 2/3) x 3/4 = ?

1700/3 x 3/4 = ?

5100/12 = …… 425.

That’s right. You’ve spent $400, but your shares are worth $425. You’ve made $25. And guess what? Your share values are still under what they were when you started investing! In fact, if you buy $100 the next month and it returns to the $1.00 per share value, you’ve got 666 2/3 shares valued at $1 per share, so you’ve got $666.67 while only spending $500. You’ve made $166.67.

That’s why I’m not panicking. Each month, money is being taken from my paycheck to buy more shares, shares that are currently very, very cheap. The market does NOT have to return to the value it was last August when I started losing money in order for me to make lots of money in my 401(k). Because I’m getting cheaper shares, I have more of them, so even a little increase will help me a lot.

Now obviously it would be best if you could avoid buying stock the first few months when it goes down, and then buy it only when the market goes back up. However, the real world doesn’t work that simplistically. You cannot tell what the market will do in advance—if you could, everyone would be rich. Instead, what you can do is know that the market will always recover at some point. You can bank on that. The only way you’ll lose value forever is if your shares never recover at all (which is why you should diversify lest you have all your investments in one company that does go belly up and you lose everything).

We’ve lost roughly ten years worth of stock market value these past few months. It may drop a little more even yet; however I personally think that there’s already overselling and if President Um would just leave the economy alone it’ll recover shortly. I also do not think it’ll take a full ten years to get back to where we were last August. But even if it did, the fact that I’m buying cheap stock right now means I don’t need the market to regain all that value before I start making more money than I’ve invested.

Naturally that doesn’t help folks like my parents who are approaching retirement age, nor does it help my grandparents who are retired and are not buying new stock right now. Their value will remain tied exactly to the stock market value because they are not buying cheaper shares, like I am. So for folks nearing retirement, it may be wise to pull out of the 401(k) before you lose too much. But for anyone who’s at least 10 years out, I don’t think you have much cause for panic at this point.