Neil Armstrong had an amazing quote that I read yesterday in his NPR obit from a February 2000 appearance, apparently he didn't do a lot of public appearances: "I am, and ever will be, a white socks, pocket protector, nerdy engineer, and I take a substantial amount of pride in the accomplishments of my profession." He was definitely one of the great American heroes.

Not shaking hands is a difficult social habit to break. Three years ago I was diagnosed with CVID, my body does not make immuneglobin, which accounts for most disease resistance, so I can definitely appreciate that. I went from full-time to part-time employment because of the number of people who come to work sick, I just couldn't afford both the time and the risk of the additional exposure. Have a great time, Wil, I wish I could be there.

Yeah, I feel your pain, it might not get much over 70f today here. LA9KFHIP (Living At 9000' Hath Its Privileges). But to atone for our sins, we'll be going to Phoenix next week. But since I was born there, I handle it somewhat better than my wife. Speaking of which, I bought her a tee that says 'The sun is trying to kill me', which is appropriate as she's a vampireastronomer.

I'm not very happy with D3 right now. I was in the beta, also the D2 expansion beta, and they have a problem with Mac clients since Sunday and I can't play more than 3-5 minutes without getting booted, so it's pretty much impossible to complete anything with the level resetting every time I'm kicked off the system. I'm sure they'll get it straightened out soon. With the previous game we had what we called Diablo ][uesdays, lots of fun, and it looks like a lot of my friends are picking it up so we'll be resurrecting it.

Bummer, dude! I lost a fairly new 32 gig iPod Touch the same way coming back from Bethesda. At least with my iPhone I can use the Find My Phone and brick it if I have to.

The technique is known as doing a ROT-13, twice. All posts on Slashdot use this technique.

Except the Apollo computers the crew on the flight knew exactly how to debug and fix their computers if something went wrong. I don't think we can say the same things about modern smartphones. BTW, there are emulators of the Apollo flight computers if you're a glutton for punishment.

I've been making my living working with computers since the early 80's, and my mom asked me probably 20 years ago what I thought computers would be like in the future. I stand by my original answer: 'smaller, faster, and less expensive. Aside from that, I have no idea.'

I don't mind Flash video in that I can choose not to watch them. I REALLY hate Flash site navigation! The best restaurant in Southern NM (and it's excellent by any standard) has Flash-only, they don't have an HTML fallback, so if you view it on an iOS device it looks like the site is crashed.

Last night my wife asked me what the date was, I replied 'Friday the 13th, for another 45 minutes.' Her reply: 'So that's the 14th UTC.' Astronomers frequently work both local and UTC dates and times.

About 25 years ago my original gaming group and still a bunch of friends were working at the Flying Buffalo game company, makers of Nuclear War and Tunnels & Trolls. I occasionally hosted movie days/nights, and a couple of Saturdays became impressively large when like a dozen+ people showed. We decided those were WayneCons. Fast forward to six years ago and I've moved to New Mexico after getting married, and I've pretty much stopped gaming. My wife and I occasionally play two-player board/card games, but not often. Haven't been motivated to try to form another group. The only time we'd get to play RPG's is on our occasional trips to Phoenix and those groups became somewhat tenuous. Both the Phoenix and Tucson game conventions died this year, so I decided to host a small game convention, WayneCon 3. Rented the clubhouse at the condos that I used to live at, had nine people show up last night, and had a blast. Two more days, and I'm running Lady Blackbird and Fortune's Fool, one friend running Dresden, and we might get some Star Wars D6 in. I'll probably be out of pocket $75-100 on the clubhouse rental as not as many people showed up as I'd like, I need 15 people to break even on the rental, but I don't care. I'm having fun with friends, hurling dice, and life is good.

I drove more than 500 miles yesterday, didn't get enough sleep last night, and I definitely am unable to process meta visual statements right now, so may I join your club?

Had a nasty papercut last week, didn't realize how nasty it was until my wife and I went out for dinner and I squeezed lemon into my tea. The best solution for the Kardashians was shown in Southpark's The Story of Scrotty McBoogerballs. That, or as I do, totally ignore them.

I finally convinced my wife that hot Mexican food is a good treatment for colds/sinusitis. Conveniently, living in Southern New Mexico, this is available. Every time I get a cold, which was moderately often before I was diagnosed with not having an immune system, I head down the mountain for some heat. She finally tried it not too long ago when she had a cold and was quite pleased with the nasally-purging effects. Myself, I'd go with adobo sauce and a small amount of chipotle.

One of these days I'll get to see the third Wil TBBT ep.

He will certainly be missed. He changed the world for the better, that's for sure. The obit that I read on NPR talked about how he put the tools for content creation in to everyone's hands, definitely true. I just hope Apple can maintain their trajectory with him gone.

Love that you're there, HATE that they haven't repeated your previous appearance! Guess I'm going to have to break down and start buying the DVD season collections.

There's an iOS app called BJCP Styles that specifies the characteristics/criteria that beer competition judges use, I thought that you might find it handy. I believe I read that you have an iPad?

I can't even be tested for EBV: no antibody test works for me. Though I have to say that my borrowed immune system works fairly well, though it rules out most common tests. After 4 pneumonias in 5 months in 2009, I deserved my infused immunity, though the process sucks.

Galactus may be all-powerful, but I think Dr. Manhattan could snuff him without a second thought. Galactus may eat planets and be amazingly tough, but Doc controls fundamental atomic forces. I think it'd be game over for Galactus.

My wife and I (I love saying that after 6 years!) have loved Eureka since it started and have really enjoyed your character. Very sorry to see them leave. And gratz on getting to ride a recumbent, we see a few of them around here now and then.

Happy anniversary, sir. Coincidentally (OR IS IT?!), it's also Sluggy Freelance's anniv, and it shall henceforth be the -10 anniversary of Commander Taco leaving Slashdot. Myself, I started blogging about 8 years ago, 7 years on LJ this last April.

Sadly, there shall never be a shortage of rectal haberdashers. I saw Majel Barret-Roddenberry at SDCC one year, sitting by herself at a table, either reading or pre-signing photos, I don't remember. It was early Thursday morning. As much as I appreciated her, I decided to leave her alone and let her enjoy what little peace and sanity was being afforded her.

And you've perfectly described why I won't attend SDCC anymore, just too damn crowded. I went to the original location for a few years, and the (then) new convention center for several years, but stopped going 8-10 years ago. Sounds like a blast, regardless. Oh: RinCon in Tucson is no more, sadly. Who knows if something will take it's place.

Every four weeks I get medicine shipped to me UPS from El Paso to Cloudcroft, about 100 miles N. Since it's expressed, it goes from El Paso to Albuquerque back down to Alamogordo, THEN up the mountain to Cloudcroft. Whereas I KNOW they have UPS trucks going north from El Paso, they could easily drop it off at the Alamogordo depot quite easily. My worst case was there was a late delivery that went El Paso -> Abq -> Ontario, California -> Phoenix -> Abq -> Alamogordo -> Me. The problem is that my former med had to be packed with cold bricks, so when it's traveling a lot in the summer I get extra paranoid that a $5-10,000 box of meds might be unusable by the time it gets to me.