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The Puzzle for Charity Prize Pool is up to $27.75 (and the corkboard).

It’s been a while since the last hint, so here we are:

Hint #2 [Posted 012808 1830EST] : The words and designs on the corks don’t mean anything… they are just decorative.

Some of you may be thinking “Ahh… another hint has finally been posted.  He must have found time to work on Puzzle 05 (the Chalice).”  No.  Not a bit has been done in a couple of weeks, actually.  I mean, the encoding has been decided upon, but the cup is still half-made.  Well, less than half.  I’d better get moving…  Maybe if I spent less time trying to figure out Khan’s Con’s at the PuzzleMonster site I would make more progress. 

Click on the image to go to the current puzzle, see the old puzzles, etc.  Good Luck!

Remember, failure to donate to this site makes a puppy cry…

Wow.  What a beating.

Not too much more to say about last week’s performance, other than On Tuesday he was actually up 5%.  The fraud charges against WCG and KRY’s tax problem with the Venezuelan government obliterated those gains and as of close of market on Friday he was down nearly 15%.

As you can see, Hunter and the Dow swapped places once again as they continue on their do-si-do death spiral.

The problem I have with all of this is that Hunter’s advisor (dad) is really kicking butt in both Wall Street Survivor (sitting around place 180) and StockQuest (up $150k for the year) , but this portfolio is really, really terrible.  Why?  He seems to think it is because I only allow Hunter to trade on the weekend instead of whenever he feels like it.  Ok, fine.  I actually agree that might be a problem.  We will keep going with this set of rules, though, until -20% or 4 months has been reached.

You can see Hunter’s virtual portfolio by clicking on the graph.

  U.S. Spy Satellite to Fall Out of the Sky

Ok… you have probably heard about this already but the AP article and those derived from it are pretty skimpy on details.  For instance, you find out:

• A U.S. spy satellite is going to plummet to Earth, probably in late February or early March.
• It weighs about 10 tons, and is the size of a small bus.
• The location of the impact cannot be controlled.
• Other governments have been alerted.

And that’s about it.  Digging around a little bit on the Internet, though, aside from the usual nonsensical ramblings of the tinfoil hat variety, there appears to at least some other info out there:

• The satellite may be designated USA-193, but maybe not. [Source]
• If so, it is in a circular, low Earth orbit at an inclination of about 60 degrees (constrained to 60N and 60S latitudes) [Source]
• 71% of the world is covered in water.  Anything randomly falling from space has a 29% chance of hitting land.
• The distribution of land on Earth is not uniform [Source], so, after doing some back-of-the-envelope math, the likelihood of a land strike for USA-193 falls to about 22%, with the highest probability land impact occurring between 30N and 50N.

So, what are the odds of orbital debris hitting a person?  About 1 in a trillion, according to the Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies.  They also say that larger objects will slow from orbital velocities (18,000 mph) to less than 200 mph at impact.

So calm down, please.  Although it could be a pretty spectacular light show for many thousands of people (even those with daytime skies), no harm should come of it.  Of course, you can expect the press to trade in the “one-in-a-trillion” factoid for the far more interesting and panic-mongering one about Skylab hitting that Australian farmer’s cow.  Oh, yeah… they’ll also be putting off potential “treasure hunters” by warning about the dangers of hydrazine…

Our Scooba 5800 died recently.  No amount of cleaning or messing around with it would prevent the pump from failing immediately upon startup.  Those of you who have read my Roomba, Scooba, and Dirtdog post know that one of the major draws for buying this (and getting the apparently useless Sears extended warranty)  was the fact we were assured repeatedly that we could take it back for an upgraded model in case this one failed.

But when we took it back to Sears the appliance lady refused to get past her “we ain’t carry that model anymore” mantra.  I guess we should have known better… Good thing iRobot has awesome customer support.  I am sure they will help us out…

To compound that issue, my monitor died this morning.  It was a tiny old Dell and pretty old, and it was “borrowed” from my wife’s computer after my previous monitor gave up the ghost.  I’m starting to think my video card is killing them…  So now I have a 22” Gateway. Good price. HDMI inputs and everything.  Pretty sweet.  We will see how long it lasts.

Appliance deaths come in clusters around here.  It’s probably caused by buying them all pretty much simultaneously, like when you move into a new place. The next things to fail here, if I had to guess, would be the washing machine and the microwave.

The washing machine has, like, no bearings left and shimmies about 6 inches away from the wall per washing cycle.  The microwave turntable turns intermittently and randomly, occasionally jolting liquids out of their containers with the din that, according to Agmorion (a reader and friend), “sounds like I’m torturing a hamster in there”.

Look, I just like to run things to failure, OK?  I’m not trying to act like some stubborn grandpa that, despite the pleas of friends, neighbors, and the car inspection guy, tries to use a coat hanger and the top of a tuna fish can to get “a few hundert more miles out uh the ol’ Buick”.  I mean it.  I own an Xbox 360 and everything… 

As God as my witness, I will not attempt to repair the $200, seven-year-old washing machine regardless of the goading from my father-in-law.  I can hear it now: “All you gotta do is dismantle the thing completely, buy new bearings from Steve’s Hardware, Bearings, and Ripoffs on Third Street, install the new ones, and reassemble it.  Shouldn’t take you more than a couple of weeks or set you back more than $175 in parts”.  Forget it, dad.

And only those blessed with the mindset of “what I don’t know won’t give me second degree surface burns over a majority of my face and torso” would attempt to fix the microwave.  It’s a microwave, people.  I think they come in six-packs now for $25 or so at Wal-Mart.

I will get a new microwave and a new washing machine - quite possibly within hours of their eventual near-simultaneous deaths – when the time comes.  It’ll be fine.

Review by jimmydunes

I don’t usually find myself looking too closely at a flashlight, but as a camper and hiker the idea of a light source that does not require batteries is very appealing, and I was pretty excited when offered the chance to review one.

Now, my criteria for a backup emergency light is very simple… make it cheap and make it lightweight. This device fits the bill nicely. The packaging is simple and the box makes no promises other than the device is inside. There aren’t any instructions or specs inside the box.

The first thing you notice after taking it out of the box is the Art Deco design.  The body is mostly molded plastic but the side grips, crank grip, and button cover are made of a comfortable-to-hold rubber.

To be perfectly honest, there’s not much to say about this thing’s construction, but I’ll assume right off the bat that it is not water/weather proof. 

It comes with a 3V battery inside and will run for quite a while right out of the box.  I let the battery (silver circular object in photo) die completely in order to test the generator.  The cranking action is smooth and 30 seconds of turning can power the bluish-white LEDs brightly for longer than I cared to watch it.

It’s pretty much perfect for the price. I plan to keep one of these in my backpack as well as in my nightstand and truck. 

You can get these at Target stores for $5.  Can’t seem to find them at their website, though, so you’re gonna have to go there to get one.

 Sailing Ships Making a Comeback, It Seems  

The MS Beluga Skysails is currently underway from Germany to Venezuela.  What makes this ship different from other diesel powered cargo ships is the addition of a giant (1700 sq. ft.) parasail attached to the bow of the vessel.

When the sail is unfurled and is floating about 600 feet above the waterline it can provide enough pull to save the ship between 10 and 35% on its fuel costs (depending where you look), assuming nominal winds.

What are nominal winds?  Well, the SkySails site (one I could get to, anyway) claims 25 knots at a true wind direction of 130 degrees on fairly calm seas.  They also claim that you get 1 kW of usable power per square meter of sail.  The largest they sell is a 5000 square meter, 5 megawatt (?!) unit.  That’s about one and a quarter acres, ladies and gentlemen. 

Did you know worldwide shipping creates more CO2 than worldwide air travel?  I had no idea…

 Spacecraft Discovers Interplanetary Copyright Laws

The largest copyright symbol in the Solar System was discovered January 20th during a flyby of the planet Mercury by the MESSENGER spacecraft.

Temple priests have already sent out thousands of Cease and Desist letters in the name of the retired Roman god to companies using his name and likeness for monetary gain.

Not only do businesses such as Ford (maker of the Mercury Grand Marquis) and FTD Flowers (winged god logo) stand to suffer massive disruptions due to re-branding, the US Federal Government is also scrambling to enact a massive recall of all U.S. dimes made between the years of 1916 and 1945.

Ok… it’s actually a picture of a collapsed magma chamber within a crater.  For other space images (like the Mars Face) that look like stuff, go here.

 World Stock Markets Nosedive Monday

The market was shut down in the U.S. today for MLK day.

Probably a good thing since the various world markets dropped between 5.5% and 7.2% “amid investor pessimism over the U.S. government’s stimulus plan to prevent a recession”.

Those percentages might seem small, but if the Dow were to drop that much tomorrow we would see the market down between 670 and 870 points.  Wouldn’t they shut down the market to prevent a panic?  Not necessarily.  Here are the rules for a “circuit breaker” market shutdown (taken from About.com):

• The market will halt trading for an hour if the Dow drops 10% before 2 pm.
• Trading will halt for two hours if there is a 20% drop in the Dow before 2 pm.
• If the Dow drops 30%, trading is halted for the day.
• Significant events, such as the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001 may be cause for not opening the markets at all or closing them early to prevent a panic.

10%.  Wow.  I have no real feelings on what is going to happen this week.  I am usually pretty wrong about my market guesses, but I guess it couldn’t hurt to practice waiting in bread lines and farming dust.

Once again, six-year-old Hunter is beating the Dow.

Actually, he had a monster couple of days at the beginning of the week and was actually positive by 5% at one time while the Dow was -5%!

The rest of the week was a disappointment for his virtual portfolio, ending up slightly worse than last week.  Although he is doing significantly better than the Dow at this point, he is doing significantly worse than just burying money in an old coffee can in the back yard.

FYI: The Dow has dropped over 1500 points over the past 6 weeks.

You can get to his portfolio by clicking on the graph.

I woke up this morning to find my computer had shut down from thermal overload.  It seems to be operating fine for now, but if I don’t post for a while or update the Prize Pool for the Puzzle for Charity, you will know what happened.

 Roaches + Radiation = Bigger, Faster, Tougher Roaches

The grand Russian tradition of torturing animals in space took a terrifying turn recently. 

Apparently exposure to cosmic rays in space make these little critters grow faster and more lively.  Nice.  Article quote:

“What is more, we have found out that the creatures… run faster than ordinary cockroaches, and are much more energetic and resilient,” Dmitry Atyakshin said.

Have we learned nothing from movies such as Peter Graves’ magnum opus The Beginning of the End?  It’s probably ok… as long as Peter Parker doesn’t get into low earth orbit somehow…

Grandmaster Robert Fischer Dead at 64

Bobby Fischer passed away January 17th in Iceland after a hospital stay.

What can be said about him that already hasn’t been said?  It’s too bad he had to end an otherwise brilliantly studded life by becoming increasingly bitter, racist, and paranoid as his final years wore on.

His contribution to the chess world will be missed.

The other stuff – eh, not so much.

Puzzle Monster has reviewed the Puzzle for Charity portion of this site!  You can see the review here.

Puzzle Monster has a huge variety of puzzles of all difficulty levels.  Very well done and constantly updated.  This one set of puzzles (called “Khan’s Cons”)  has been kicking my butt for a couple of weeks now… I feel like I have been at the edge of discovery for the entire time I have been looking at it, and I have tried some crazy, crazy stuff…  Arrgh!  Check it out!

Anyway, the Puzzle for Charity is up to $25.00 (and the corkboard)… Check it out - the link is in the sidebar on the right.  Good Luck!

Well, lookee, here!  Hunter’s virtual portfolio is once again beating the Dow!

I should have posted this yesterday but I was busy beta testing some software for Agmorion.  The beta testing is also why I didn’t get to working more on Puzzle 05.  That’s my excuse.  Blame Agmorion.

Speaking of puzzles, the Prize Pool for Puzzle 04 is now at $24.50 (and the corkboard, of course).  What puzzle, you ask?  It’s in the sidebar on the right.  Good Luck!

Anyway, not only was Hunter beating the Dow as of the closing bell Friday, he had a monster day today as well!   He is up 2.86% since Dec. 12, while the Dow is down 6.22% over the same period.  You can check out the portfolio by clicking on the chart.

Good job, little dude!

 Snow in Baghdad

Apparently this is the first recorded snow in about 90 years.

Hmmm…You’d think I would have more to say about that, but I don’t.  Completely drawing a blank here…

But others out there (check out various news blogs: NYT, etc.) are spouting global warming based drivel like “I betcha Al Gore will conveniently ignore this” (yuk yuk yuk) and some are saying “It is a sign of the coming Apocalypse” (insert loony calliope music here).

And, no, the snow did not stick.