Unsung Heroes of the Electronics Industry Part 3

John Sellers

John is a wireless signal optimization engineer for a major wireless phone service provider in the United States. He is considered a specialist in finding the perfect ratio of power input to signal output for cell phone towers to enhance coverage in rural areas. This allows his company to add an extra pixel of coverage on their marketing and advertising maps without having to spend additional money building more cell towers. If you've ever wondered why when standing in your back yard your phone shows two solid bars of coverage yet you still can't make a phone call you can thank John.

Unsung Heroes of the Electronics Industry Part 2

Kim Choi

Kim is a research and development focus coordinator for a consortium of electronics manufacturers in Seoul, South Korea. Her primary role is to ensure that a remote control that ships with gadget A won't interfere with gadget B. One of her other roles is to ensure that across the entire electronics industry no universal remote is ever manufactured that will work with more than two of your gadgets. Every time you curse the fact that you need to have four different remotes for your TV, DVD player, Tivo and digital cable box you can thank Kim.

Unsung Heroes of the Electronics Industry Part 1

Chen Lin

Chen works in a laptop assembly plant in the Gansu province of China. His job is to secure laptop access doors to their frames using nearly microscopic screws. Previously Chen could tighten screws on 200 laptops per 12 hour shift. In an effort to boost productivity Chen's line foreman generously supplied him with a high-speed electric screwdriver. Now Chen can complete 300 laptops per shift and in the process strip every single microscopic screw. If you've every had to Dremel the head of a screw just to upgrade your memory and later found out doing so voided your warranty you can thank Chen.

I see a world....

So you may have noticed a lot of folks have gone a little gun crazy since Obama took office. Or possibly you don't know any gun owning folks or even lurk in forums where gun ownership comes up occasionally. I'm not going to go into the stupidity of the self fulfilling prophecy of how the gun buying panic led to shortages that ended up being self assuring vindication of some peoples paranoia that Obama was going to personally come to their house and take their guns. Full disclosure here, I don't own any guns, not that I'm afraid of them or lack experience with them, I just don't see the need for them. The only time I can think of needing one was when my house was robbed. But I wasn't home then and more than likely they would have stolen my gun along with everything else they took. Now, my stand on gun control has always been summed up as a pretty simple mantra “Be responsible, enjoy your guns, and don't shoot anyone who's not shooting at you.” I always follow that mantra with “But if you accidentally shoot someone innocent, fuck you, you're a murderer. Have fun in jail.”
But I'm not immune to concept of personal firearms being a deterrent to crime. I think it's something we should all consider, if for nothing else at least as an exercise in open mindedness. And I'm especially looking at those of us on the left who typically take a zero tolerance approach to gun ownership. Yeah, you. Pay attention. Zero tolerance is almost never a good idea, unless you think perpetual conflict is an acceptable norm.
So here's my compromise, gun ownership and use should be limited to the most vulnerable members of our society, senior citizens. Hang on, hear me out now. I can already see that both sides are hyperventilating and foaming at the mouth. Under my compromise when you turn 65 you can go down to your local post office and fill out a “Senior Armament” application. All that's necessary is knowing your own name and address and being able to hold a pen. After the prerequisite one hour waiting period you'll be issued your own personal protection kit. This kit will include one American made semi automatic handgun (you can choose Colt or S&W), holster (you can choose hip, shoulder or ankle), one clip of ammo, and a pamphlet on proper use and maintenance of your weapon.
Now here's where you're going to need to stick with me, because those of you on the right are probably already a little suspect because I'm asking you to effectively register a weapon which I know you guys think is step one, just before being herded into concentration camps. And lefties, I see you twitching in the corner over there. Remember, just having a gun doesn't constitute conspiracy to commit murder. Are we all ok? Keeping it together? Good. Because here's where my plan goes from mere compromise to completely brilliant.
Along with your personal protection kit you also get a Capital Prosecution Waiver (CPW). This entitles you to kill someone with no repercussions. Stopping at a yield sign: bang, dead. Didn't extend the courtesy of holding the door for someone: bang, dead. 25 items in the 10 items or less checkout: bang, dead. In fact, you don't even have to give a reason, you just need to stick around and take responsibility for the killing (so the police don't waste time searching for a murderer). When the police arrive you just show them your CPW card, they'll punch it, indicating you've committed your homicide for the year. Oh, did I forget to mention that part? Yeah, you only get to kill one person per year. It resets annually so you can't save them up and go on a 75th birthday killing spree. You can't sell it or otherwise relinquish ownership of it. Use it or lose it. Also, if the person you shoot doesn't die you don't get your card punched. So if after you unload a clip on that punk with the ridiculously loud bass in his car, if he ends up making it, you're free to visit him in intensive care and finish him off. Or you can just drop by and show him that your card hasn't been punched and ask him to kindly turn his stereo down.
Now, getting your card punched doesn't mean you lose your gun. Even without a valid CPW card you're free to flash your gun for whatever reason you like. You can even shoot someone, you just can't kill them. Killing someone without a valid CWP card is murder and you'll be treated like any other non senior citizen who kills someone.
See, the Toolbag Senior Armament Act of 2011 (I plan to begin lobbying in 2010) will allow senior citizens more respect and freedom than they've ever had before. If you don't feel like waiting for the bus walk up to someone at a stop light and flash your CPW card, chances are they'll give you a ride to wherever you're going. If customer services is giving you a hard time about returning that toaster that's a day out of warranty just flash your CPW card, they'll refund it as fast as they can open the register.
I see a bright future for America under the TSAA. I see young people nervously offering to wash the cars and mow the lawns of the elderly just to stay on their good side. I see a world where the elderly, the frail and the infirm no longer need to ask for basic courtesy and respect, they'll demand it and they'll receive it.

-toolbag jones

The Morning After the After Party V

I was in no condition at all to ponder something this heavy. The locusts in my head took this opportunity to crank it back up to 11. I don't want to say my mind was “racing” with thoughts, because that probably would've made me throw up. Let's just say there was a lot of stuff going through my mind, “competitively driving” if you will. But not really “racing”. Each reason I could come up with for this had serious flaws that were hard to ignore. Forgotten Brother Theory: I had a brother about my age, mom killed him in front of me, the trauma of the murder made me suppress the whole thing, mom found the picture and 'shopped my dead brother out of it. No, that doesn't work. My childhood was seriously fucked up and the murder of a family member would actually be a positive change that would make me feel more normal. It definitely wouldn't be enough to trigger memory suppression. Forgotten Daddy Theory: my parents didn't get divorced when I was very young, my father was around until I was in my teens, my mother killed him in front of me, the trauma of the mur- wait, that's basically the same as the last theory. We'll rule that one out and just call it the Forgotten Family Member Theory. Come to think of it, that's the basic plot of 25% of Lifetime Television's programming.

The Morning After the After Party IV

Behind us is a wrought iron fence with a patter of little spires on it every foot or so. Odd, in the space right between us this pattern is kind of off. I can't say I've ever looked at this photo so closely and now that I do it appears that the sky is a slightly lighter shade of blue behind me. Even weirder, there's a distinct line that runs down the middle of the photo right between us. The locust noises in my head were down to around volume level 8 by this point. So although they were still pretty distracting it took me a minute to realize what I was happening. My mother had taken two photos, old school photoshopped them (scissors) and then put them in a frame and gave them to me as a gift. What the fuck? Why would she do that?

The Morning After the After Party III

I looked around trying to figure out where the closest one was so I could mash him and then hold up his carcass and scream “SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU MAKE LOCUST NOISES IN MY BEDROOM?!?!?” Then it became apparent that the locusts were in my head and after a little thought I realized my ears were ringing. Remember that 18 wheeler with all the spikes on it from Mad Max? It sounded like someone was driving that thing through a wind chime factory. I noticed that if I stood perfectly still the ringing got turned down just a little bit, like from 11 to 10. So, with a comfortable volume 10 ringing in my head I held perfectly still and stared at a picture on the wall. It was a frame that held several photos of me as a child up through my teenage years. My mother had given it to me a few years ago. One frame has a picture of me when I was about seven, wearing a Redskins sweater while opening a Christmas present that's half out of the shot. They look like a bulk pack of socks but it's hard to tell. Actually, I look really excited in the picture so it's probably not socks. I mean, I was a weird kid but I wasn't so weird that bulk pack socks were the highlight of my Christmas. The next photo is of my mother and myself when I was about 12. She's wearing dark sunglasses and an 80's high collared cotton shirt. I'm just slightly more in the foreground with my head turned to the right a bit and squinting ever so slightly into the camera. While I was admiring the kickass Steve Perry mullet my 12 year old ass was sportin' I started to wonder where this picture was taken.

The Morning After the After Party II

I dragged myself out of bed, quite literally, I rolled over and flailed my arms off the side of the bed until I felt something stable that I could use to pull myself out of bed. It was the dresser, actually just one of the drawers and all it really did was give the illusion of me pulling myself out of bed. The sound of the drawer hitting the popping out of the dresser and the jolt of the drawer falling and hitting the carpet was confirmation that I hadn't actually moved anywhere. But as a tactical simulation of getting out of bed it convinced me that it was indeed possible and there was little chance that I would actually die doing it. So to start I leaned the top half of my body out of bed and put both palms on the floor and let all the blood rush to my head. I remember thinking that this position is probably a yoga pose. Coincidentally it's also the pose I use when I'm puking out of bed into a bucket. The thought of having been unknowingly doing yoga for the last 20 years made me laugh to myself, which wasn't too bright considering half my digestive system was completely upside down and most of my blood was now pooling in my head. To avoid throwing up onto the carpet (and the clothes that had spilled out of the dresser drawer and my shoes/pants/shirt that were still next to the bed from last night) I pulled myself back up onto the bed rather quickly. The sensation of one minute having all your blood in your head and the next having no blood in your head was quite interesting. Good thing I was already laying down because I have no idea how long I was out. I decided to treat it like a band-aid, just pull, get it over with. I leapt to my feet and steadied myself on the wall next to the bed. That's when I became aware of the swarm of locusts in the room making that shrill noise that locusts make.

The Morning After the After Party

I woke up this morning groggy, in pain, and still quite sleepy.  Part of this state was caused by the ridiculously long wait for the metro last night.  At the line changes we had to wait 15 minutes for the schedule sign to update...which then told us the next train was in 15 minutes. It did this three or four times.  Another aspect of last night that might also have been responsible for my sloth-like state was finding that the hosts of the wedding reception we attended were gracious enough to have an open bar stocked with one of my favorite wines.  You tend to drink more when the only effort necessary for a refill is to point to an empty glass and three people being paid to pour you drinks spring into action. Well, to be fair I'm not going to blame this on my favorite wine entirely. The gin and tonics at the after-party probably had a hand in it as well. Actually, the entire night was an exercise in overindulgence. Think about it, we had an after-party for an event (the reception) that is itself an after-party for another event (the wedding). So really, I shouldn't be surprised that I feel like I spent the evening spinning around in a cement mixer with nothing but a half a dozen bowling balls to keep me warm.